 Okay. Let's see. Untimed items. How about the CHD Child Abuse Prevention Proclamation and Flag Raising Request? Ms. Stein, would you like to make that motion? All right. Do you want the proclamation read or just the motion? Just the motion will be fine. I move that the select board proclaim April 2013 as Child Abuse Prevention Month. Erin is not here. How are we going to second our motion? Thank you. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board approve the children's memorial flag be raised. I'm sorry. I move that the select board approve that the children's memorial flag be raised on the town common on April 30th, 2013. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. That is unanimous. That is an annual commemoration of drawing attention to child abuse prevention that happens on the common and they have a nice little ceremony that's associated with that so folks are watching for yet another flag flying in Amherst on that day. That is what that is. Okay. Next untimed items. How about the common vitriller's licenses? I move that the select board approve a common vitriller license for Bassam and Pham doing business as college pizza at 150 Fearing Street Sundays through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Bassam and Pham owner slash manager pending issuance until any slash all outstanding regulations have been satisfied. Need a second. Thank you for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye unanimous. I move that the select board approve a common vitriller license for Pioneer Valley Pizza LLC at 356 College Street Sundays through Saturdays 11 a.m. to 11 30 p.m. Joseph R. Bowman manager for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. It's unanimous. We have three more minutes. Let's see special liquor licenses. I move that the select board amend the special wine malt license approved for UMass Amherst for a reception to be held from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. April 27 2013 at the Fine Arts Center to a 12 30 a.m. closing time Judy Bardwell clerk top of the campus incorporated further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. I move that the select board approve the special wine and malt license for the Springfield JCC for a Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival benefit party to be held in the studio theater of the Amherst Cinema Amity Street Amherst on April 14 2013 from 2 30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Dylan Wiley festival director for the discussion. Miss Berger I just wanted to mention quick that as it says here that's going to be in the studio theater. They're brand new space that's in the little side part. So that's exciting to see them utilizing that. Yes. Thank you for mentioning that. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board approve the special wine and malt license for Eva Fierce for the art salon artist presentation and talk to be held in the Ellic Eric Carl Museum from 6 to 9 p.m. on April 11 2013 Raphael Ellison caterer second for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board approve the special wine and malt license for R and P Lickers for the Spring Jam to be held in the library gardens at Hampshire College from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on April 20 2013 Nathan Day owner slash manager second for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. I move that the select board approve the following special wine and malt licenses for receptions to be held in the locations and dates slash times cited below Judy Bardwell clerk top of the campus incorporated fine arts center April 24 2013 5 to 7 p.m. Eisenberg S O M Adrian April 25 2013 4 to 6 p.m. Engineering lab to atrium April 27 2013 4 to 5 30 p.m. Conti building atrium May 14 15 2013 5 30 to 7 p.m. Conti building atrium May 17 2013 4 to 6 p.m. Second for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Excellent perfect timing and it is now 6 45 which is time for our public hearing on a liquor license application for Hickory Ridge Golf Course. We're calling this public hearing to order at 6 45 p.m. and we have attorney for the applicant here and I'll note for folks that all the materials related to this public hearing are on the select board's web packet and this has been duly noticed and a butters noticed etc. So welcome please introduce yourself for folks at home. I'm attorney Tom Reedy from Bacon Wilson and Amherst Peter McConnell's office here on behalf of the applicant Hickory Ridge Grill LLC of 191 West Pomeroy Lane in Amherst. We're here for a new all alcohol liquor license section 12 restaurant on premise and with me this evening is Bill Rosenblum who is the general manager of the property in the head golf professional as well as the proposed manager of record for the liquor license. The application as I know as I mentioned is for a new annual all alcohol restaurant at 191 West Pomeroy Lane and it's seeking the appointment of Bill Rosenblum as the manager. The notice describes the premises pretty succinctly it's gonna consist of a one-story frame building with dining area and lounge on the main level consisting of approximately 4,720 square feet a finished lower level consisting of approximately 2,703 square feet an open-air cocktail plus patio area consisting of approximately 3,616 square feet and the entire premises of the 18-hole golf course including three structures at the sixth seventh sixth and seventh t-box in the 17th tee and there will also be service on the course with a beverage cart and the liquor storage is in the kitchen in a locked closet so it's it's pretty secure. As far as the corporate structure goes Hickory Ridge Grill is a Massachusetts limited liability company. The principal place of business is at 191 West Pomeroy Lane in Amherst and it was qualified to do business in the state July 16th of 2012. It has two members Jeffrey Fisher and David Wacenda both 50% have 50% interest and the manager of that LLC is Bill Rosenblum. He has no beneficial or financial interest in the license. As I mentioned the premises is as noticed we've also got a floor plan that you'll find in the application packet. What's not in the application packet is from the Amherst GIS map and I've got some if you'd like to take a look. You'll notice that it is all on one side of a public way and therefore the beverage cart will not need to go across any public way and therefore does not need a transportation license. As you're aware there are golf course regulations and guidelines and the licensee if it's granted would follow all of those guidelines. They won't sell until they're licensed obviously. We've spoken with the general counsel of the ABCC and they've okayed our description of the premises. They do have Hickory Ridge Grill has a legal right to occupy. They are the tenants of a lease. Applied golf Hickory is the landlord. It would begin upon the approval of the liquor license. It's a five year term with three five year options at the rate of $2,000 per month and there's no percentage rent so it's not based off the sales of alcohol. The premises are contiguous and appurtenant. There are no public ways at intersect or divide and then so therefore no transportation license is required. The licensee will not allow the patrons to possess or carry on public ways and because there are no public ways no signs are required noticing notifying the public of such and although the private driveway is a private way it's not included in the description up for the liquor license specifically. As far as the impact on the neighborhood I think the board will find a letter from the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce Tony Merulis and I know that it was a positive letter also the chief of police recommended this license move forward you know the the licensee doesn't intend to be a destination for college students it's for golf primarily I know that the liquor license it has the premises has been licensed for years it was foreclosed upon and the foreclosure the license was not pledged and so the previous owner had the license and so transfer was not didn't come to fruition and so that's why we're here on this new license it's a it's a top-notch first-class facility they've got great great little brochures a great scorecard I don't know if anybody's been out there but you know they want to make it their goal not to become that college destination and I don't see why and I know Bill doesn't see why that would happen that it would become a college destination speaking of Bill he's 44 years old from Ludlow United States and Massachusetts resident he's the general manager of Hickory Ridge head golf professional there he has been he's well known and well respected in the area he's been a head golf professional for at least 10 years he also has food and beverage service experience and he's tip certified he understands completely that it's a hundred percent he's a hundred percent responsible and he's there 60 plus hours a week you can go in any time to the clubhouse and see him there and so you know we would we would request that you grant this new annual license and the appointment of thank you very much thank you for very thorough presentation so just so folks know how this will happen we'll start with questions from the select board we'll then go to questions and comments from the public at the end of questions and comments from the public will close the public hearing and then the select board will deliberate on this so starting with questions from the select board a Miss Stein and the Miss Burr I was wondering how the facility differ will differ in appearance if it will differ in appearance from the previous facility out there which we're very familiar with you need to come to the mic actually so because this is being televised thank you since the closing on the facility we opened April 18th last season and I believe that it was purchased in the middle of March but since the closing on the facility the the facility itself in front of the building bushes have been have been removed we've done some mulching the building itself has been repainted there has been repainting on the inside in the lounge area the restaurant area the golf shop has been upgraded with paint and it the facility itself has been cleaned up to where there was it is just a little bit overgrown over time and we put in also I believe a a vinyl fence in front of where the air circulation system is so that it's not visible from the road we're also I believe in the process of putting out getting a logo for the building itself to put on the front of the building a new sign was placed out front to make it known that we are open to the public and just that I do know that when we were last season with the construction in front of Atkins I had many people that would be detoured through Moody Bridge slash West Pomeroy Lane and I had several people come in not even knowing that the facility was there so it's helped us out a little bit plus with a new signage we are putting new signs on our tease to update the facility and give it more of a New England Cape Coddish look so there's being there's a lot that's being done through the management company to upgrade the facility itself on the outside. Thank you very much. Do you have a follow-up? I do. Do you have hours that you serve meals at I take it you serve meals but not liquor at this point at this point right now we're in the process we have a new food and beverage manager who is here this evening and we're in the process of looking to start serving food around April 19th is our target date we're in the process of interviewing staff setting up accounts with vendors or existing vendors at this time also obviously we are not serving food at this point okay I'm sorry I misunderstood thank you that's very good. Before my question following up on what you just said it's my understanding just for people out in the public that even if you weren't serving meals there would be certain food items that would be required to be available for people if there's alcohol on the premises so that's just the usual standard so even before you know depending on how their timing works with ABCC etc but yes we look forward to you being able to say yes and we have meals and you can come here even if you don't like golf. We've been waiting for that for quite some time. So that'll be helpful that this the thing I wanted to ask you about actually follow us up on what Ms. Stein said as well which is that because so many of us are familiar with the facility from before and it's great to hear that you've been able to put some money into freshening things up a little bit the actual floor plan I mean because this isn't a new facility the floor plan itself in terms of how you're doing the service hasn't changed basically and so that part hasn't changed and following on that then if you'd also speak to I just don't recall whether or not we had service on the course previously and how that worked. There has been service on the golf course in the past where we have a beverage cart beverage cart I was an assistant years ago there under the past had professional and there was service at that time also is usually limited to outings or special events but in the nature of giving service to the people on the golf course as well with not necessarily just liquor but obviously water and snacks to keep people hydrated in in the sense of safety it has been operated in the past. Great. Thank you. So it's really just more of the same in many respects. It's more of the same but it's upgraded menu. Questions from the 12 very briefly. I appreciate the comment from Council about not becoming a college destination just in light of recent issues in the town but I have to say since I we all as my colleagues said we all know the place we've met there and I worked down the road from there I've been to meetings there it would never was a college destination so I it's good to make that point but I think we should make clear the public that this is not a likely prospect in any case it never was. Thank you. You mentioned being tips trained yourself or the attorney mentioned you're being tips trained will your staff be tips trained as well. Yes our food and beverage manager it's we were just looking into if the tip certification is transferable from state to state at this point but anyone that's going to serve will be tip certified prior to serving food. And so we've made the point about the college town I mean this is kind of the big concern here obviously not it's not a destination for that but you are aware of the particular challenges that exist in a place like Amherst. Well as I said earlier I was an assistant there for six years I was a member at one point as a college student I'm as I said grew up in South Hadley I know the area very well I know the atmosphere in the town of Amherst with the colleges in the area and it never has ever in the past gotten to that point where it's been anything like that generally if anything within the parameters of the hours of what's the service is going to be generally they're cleared out by probably no later than 11 o'clock as it is but as manager and on the liquor license obviously it's I don't want it to be that way and especially since that it'd be it'd be bringing back something to South Amherst it hasn't been it's been missing for about a year or so. Thank you. Ms. Brewer. Just to mention so when that they are ready to do meals we they don't have a common Vic right now because they wouldn't have any reason to so they would get a common Vitular License Board of Health usual. Thanks. Other questions from Slack board. All right questions or comments from the public if you could come forward if you could just yield the mic to this moment please and identify yourself folks at home. My name is Evelyn Bloom and I'm a and a butter most closely to the parking lot and I consider myself a friend to the golf course I've enjoyed being a neighbor to the golf course. I do want to point out though for planning for the future that it's not uncommon that the parking lot get a little bit rowdy and noisy at night after an event and if there is a way to take into consideration any kind of buffer trees or if anybody can kind of keep an eye on the parking lot and what's going on out out there because the sound travels right across that West Pomeroy Lane and their houses right there. So I just wanted to point that out. You may not even have realized it. I've never called and complained but you know things happen even if they aren't college students and I've heard a lot of little spats over the years. So just wanted to point that out and ask that attention be paid to that. Thank you very much. So that's good information for the applicant to have that's not actually in the purview of the select board that would be in the ZBA or planning board whoever does the permit for the for the property but I'm sure that the applicant is looking to be a good neighbor to a butter so I'm sure they appreciate having that information. Other folks with public comment on this license application. Okay any other questions or comments from the select board. I'll just note that as per events you know there are a lot of student groups fraternities and sororities look to do things in different places. The sophistication of licenses and fake licenses has just improved dramatically over the years. So I hope that you are you are very ready for the fact that you can't just look at these you can't just eyeball these and and expect to be able to identify fake licenses. The campus and community coalition has a retail retail partner subcommittee doesn't meet very much these days but but we can put you in touch with them and if you joined that subcommittee or you just got put on the mailing list you would stay privy to really kind of what best practices are in in that area and as well as different kinds of staff trainings that are available to to partners so that could be very helpful to you. It's when we do meet it's a good opportunity for different retailers to share their own experiences. So everyone kind of knows the state of the challenges of the moment out there. Okay other questions or comments from public or select board before we close public public meeting then we're looking for a motion to close the public meeting at 7.01 and second and seconded all in favor closing public meeting at 7.01 public hearing say aye. Aye. That's unanimous time for deliberation select board license applicant consideration. I support this license for Hickory Ridge. I see no reason not to. So I think that we all recognize that this is a that there has been the same use there in the past. It doesn't represent any significant change. You are well aware of the issues in a college town and we don't think that this represents a particular new threat and it will be also a benefit to the vitality of South Amherst have Hickory Ridge up and running and thriving again with its full consideration. So Miss Stein if you'd like to make the motion. I would. I move that the select board approve the application of an MGL chapter 138 section 12 on premise all alcohol restaurant annual liquor license to Hickory Ridge Grill LLC at 191 West Parmoy Lane on the premises described as a one story frame building with dining area and lounge on main level consisting of approximately 4,720 square feet. Liquor storage on same level finished lower level consisting of approximately 2,703 square feet open air cocktail deck plus patio area consisting of approximately 3,616 square feet entire premises of 18 whole golf course containing three structures located in the vicinity of the sixth T box seventh T box and 17th T box with service on the golf course to be made by beverage cart William Rosenblum manager of record. Is there a second further discussion all in favor say aye aye that is unanimous thank you very much thank you for coming in good luck to you and we look forward to a thriving Hickory Ridge take care okay our we've got stuff to sign yes you can give this to Mr. Sandy thank you very much all right so our seven o'clock item is the sustainability festival and arbor day two things closely related we have sustainability coordinator Stephanie Chickarello here to talk to us about this and department of trees and I can't remember his title Alan snow here to talk to us about this also Miss Chickarello welcome thank you good evening I'm here with my annual request and I apologize because I realized I didn't correct the request from last year I recycle these because we always ask for the same number of parking spaces so it should actually be 21 parking spaces on Bultwood Avenue directly adjacent to the common we need that entire line of parking because we have for one thing a textile drive where we're requesting that residents of the area doesn't have to be just Amherst residents but residents of the area bring any old used clean and dry rags clothing textiles anything that they have blankets sheets they can bring them to the common and actually unload themselves of any unused textiles that they want to get rid of and we'd be happy to take them off their hands so we do have a truck that we will have parked there for residents to drive up and unload that that material and then we also have electric vehicles that will be on display as well so we'll need parking spaces for that and then we basically just need a lot of parking spaces for people to load and unload we try to keep it flowing um and we do have some vendors that will be with us that have difficulty with mobility so we try to keep them give them parking spaces adjacent to the common so that they don't have to go very far very good this time did you explain to me what you're going to do with the fabric I I noticed this ahead of time I'm planning to give you some fabric but I can't imagine I what the use of these torn items would be you'd have to ask the recycling coordinator because all I know is that they receive them I I'm not even sure exactly what they do with them but and it's a better use of putting them in the landfill so um I'm not sure if some of the materials get used to make other materials I'm not really sure what that process is questions or comments about the parking request for sustainability okay make that motion Miss Stein then we'll talk a little bit more about the festival itself sure I move that the select board approved the reservation of 22 meter parking spaces on the west side of boltwood avenue adjacent to the town common between spring street and college street route nine on saturday april 27th 2013 from 6 a.m to 4 p.m for display and vendor parking and we're going to change that to 21 spaces right 21 correct also if we could have the meters bagged on friday april 26th the night before we would greatly appreciate that okay uh I'll second thank you we've been seconded and amended miss burr um if miss dine would fix the motion to show the name of the festival as well we kind of dropped that when we wrote the motion just as a title to approve it for display and vendor parking of something it happens to be under the heading of sustainability all right so let's put that right after she's the one who fixes all the details we can take care of that for the sustainability festival parking on the west side of boltwood put the spread it after spaces maybe yeah we can take you guys can work it out later okay but you'll work it out works for me all right uh further discussion favor say hi hi that's unit so a commercial about the festival so this year we have again over a hundred vendors we've been very fortunate we have a great mix of service providers people have sustainable goods and services craft vendors which is always fun and interesting to see what people do with upcycled materials we have a great lineup of entertainment this year we have someone from australia charlie mcgee who's got a ukulele permaculture band or perhaps he's just playing his ukulele music but it's all environmental and sustainably themed which should be fun and we also have a great demonstration area this year we've expanded upon that last year it was focused a little more on local businesses but this year we wanted to make it more of an educational component to the event so we're really encouraging people to stop by the demonstration area where they can learn about composting they can learn about lasagna bed gardening they can learn why goat girls use goats to control invasive species so there's a great educational component and i also do want to mention the umass permaculture group will also have a demonstration set up that day so there's a lot to learn there as well and it's family friendly there'll be lots of booths and vendors that will have activities for children we have face painting and we have the orbiteron of course our event would never be the same without the orbiteron so um it's going to be a wonderful event this year and we're just hoping that we have good weather indeed so that is saturday april 27th folks can get more information about that on the town website right and uh there's a nice flyer that miss stein mentioned about the textile recycling that talks about all the things that can be accepted and can't be accepted and whatever so uh that's very handy and could i make one more plug for one more event and i'm sorry i know i'm not on the agenda for this but um we have a group called grow food amherst which is having an event here in town hall on thursday april 18th from six to nine p.m. and it's a gardening 101 workshop and we're encouraging 350 amherst residents to sign on and grow food in town it's going to be a fabulous workshop we have a master gardener charlotte vessel who's going to lead a one-hour presentation and then there'll be a q and a session followed by four workstations in the room where people can rotate and learn different aspects of gardening so and that's the first of three events we have stuff happening at the sustainability festival of course and then on may 5th there'll be a permaculture living classroom demonstration and again we'll have more information at grow food amherst which is grow food amherst dot org people can find more information about those events as well terrific thank you very much any questions or comments from miss chickarola all right then it's also arbor day that day so uh we have mr snow we vote on the sustainability so i'm here again to request uh the annual arbor day proclamation from the select port this will be uh part of our 25th year of 26th year of being a tree city usa for the time one of the requirements is to host an arbor day event we're actually hosting two this year we'll be having the arbor day event at the sustainability festival where we hope to have the town bucket truck again we'll have tree planting demonstration and a young tree pruning demonstration how to properly prune a young tree but on the Saturday on the Friday before on the 26th we'll be hosting an arbor day of service as part of the mass arborist association event that takes place on arbor day and we'll be inviting local businesses to participate local tree care businesses and the stalker school of agriculture climbing lab to prune trees on the south amherst common so they'll be volunteering their time to take care of some of our trees and plant some new trees as well on the south amherst common so good events this year and so what date was that one again that was on the 26th the 26th so that's the day before the sustainability yes okay great thank you uh questions or comments for mr snow this time between the proclamation oh i will but i was going to make a comment oh you can do that i'm sorry i was going to say i think this plant a tree planting questions and answer is really terrific i'm very glad to see it um is that posted somewhere online it is thank you that's um on our if you go to the town web page and you go to the public works department um the tree and grounds um division you'll see the reforestation page and there's several documents there for residents they can download a form for permission to plant trees on their property on the setback right and find about the trees and um we contact if you want one of trees okay now i'll read the proclamation whereas in 1872 j sterling morton proposed to the nebraska board of agriculture that a special day be set aside for the plant planting of trees misspelled this unless they mean planning you know which it was um this holiday called arbor day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in nebraska and whereas arbor day is now observed throughout the nation and the world and whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water cut heating and cooling costs moderate the temperature clean the air produce oxygen and provide habitat for wildlife and whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper wood for our homes fuel for our fires and countless other wood products trees in our town increase property values enhance the economic vitality of business areas and beautify our community and whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal and amherst has been recognized as a tree city usa by the national arbor day foundation and desires to continue its tree planting ways now therefore we the select board of the town of amherst do hereby proclaim april 27th 2013 as arbor day in the town of amherst and we urge all citizens to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and to support our town's urban forestry program second thank you uh so i'm in favor of that proclamation say hi hi unanimous so that's lovely it's a nice honor for amherst and uh we are proud to be a tree city usa so tell us more things about the tree planting plans um i would ask amy lane to come up um assistant superintendent of dbw um so we gave you guys a little bit of a summary update of what's going on but since you guys so graciously gave us this um money last year to have such a great tree planting plan we wanted to give you guys a little bit of an update on how that's going so um so so far allen's crew has last summer was really a summer of setting the groundwork getting the equipment that they needed um they planted about 40 trees but really it was a time to look at where we need to be planting trees get everything in motion so that this summer they can really start to make some headway so we've only spent a little bit of the budget um this year he's a lot more aggressive with looking at how many trees so we're hoping to plant 960 trees this summer very aggressive about 500 of these trees have been cited so just to residents that are listening if they see a white circle in their front yard that means that that's a place that we're looking at to plant a tree um so allen and his crew are looking very carefully now at contacting homeowners and um you know making sure that people are aware of what's going on um i believe that if the um if the white circle is literally on their property then we are gonna have to get an agreement from them if it's within the town right of way even if it's in front of their property we'll try to inform them but it's it's on town land so um we may or we don't have to actually get the agreement from them so um certainly if people have questions and they see that white circle in front of their house they should certainly call in and they can talk to us about it um we do want to recognize that mike oaken has done a tremendous job at providing a program that we've been using so that we can use the gis to look at where things are cited and we can be uploading information on the tree um species and that sort of thing um so that's been a tremendous help to us um and so i guess this morning the two interns that we're going to have working with us over the summer have started uh they're both students at the stockbridge school they're both local kids as well um so that's fantastic and um already we've been getting them updated on what we're looking at how to just interpret the information and how to um i guess hit the ground running with planting some trees soon um amherst nursery won the bid to be selling us all the trees so again um we're glad to be promoting a local company so a contract is pending that's in the works but we just did the bid opening for that last week and then in terms of supplies as you can see uh luckily we've been able to keep everything very local so wagner wood is reprocessing our wood chip pile um wisaki farm is uh screening all the material and then the loam is supplied by r.h roberts um so um and this is all in the summary but i think did i hit most of the highlights okay um and then as um as we gave you as well we do have the question and answer answer page if anybody has questions about um how this is going to work or you know what our responsibilities are going to be how we're going to take care of the the trees the first few years um if people are interested certainly there's a form where you can apply and say i think i want a tree in my front yard um can you please evaluate and see if this is an appropriate location um and then again if people have a preference as to what tree we'll certainly take that into consideration but they are employing the um right tree right place um aesthetics there so they'll be making sure that it is the right tree for the location but all this information is on the the website under trees and ground so people should certainly look there for more information wonderful that's very exciting thank you very much questions or comments from the select board well we are just going to look forward to 900 and something new trees this summer then that's this summer 2000 trees total so very exciting incredible that's wonderful thank you very much thank you for uh for informing the public about that i'll bet you'll be getting phone calls about folks who are looking to get on the tree list so thank you thanks all right next item is farmers market parking request and information for the upcoming season we have mr spinetti here to talk to us about this and we received uh your annual request which is in our packets welcome and just identify yourself for folks at home please sure i'm john spinetti i'm president of the yamers farmers market committee i've been with the market all its years and this is our 42nd season wonderful and so you are looking to start again on April 20th April 20th last year the opening day was my best sales day for the whole year hard to believe but people were raring to get out there this year you're going to be opening along with the extravaganja festival so i'm not sure what that's going to be interesting yes all right um so uh during public comment earlier mr brennan talked about some of the progress that has been made in discussions with the agricultural commission and um and the farmers market committee um did you want to talk about some of the changes that are being put into effect yes i would last year you asked what the market could do for the amers farmers and we've actually added four new amers farmers to the membership of the market they include choice farms went worth farms queens greens and j and j farms i think all of these farms will actually be a great addition and i invite all the area people to come to invite us to greet these people at the market the new farms and to to talk with them so they're continuing negotiations going on with local farmers for for additional expansion for the future well yes we've talked to a town manager and said essentially that we will be looking at possible expansion in the future as needed we do have a lot of produce in the market and that was my point i make all along is that we have two to three times the amount of produce that sells at the market and consequently that really you know limits what we want to have of a certain type of produce so supply and demand really does limit what we should do in terms of expansion we try to diversify and we diversified into all areas including dairy of all sorts including cheeses butter uh yogurt uh and that really brings a lot of production in terms of farmland because the dairy farms utilize most of the farmland in terms of per unit farmer and i i think that other areas that we're looking at we're looking at a winery mount wanna run one winery over the hill here on mount wanna road i think that brings diversity to the market we have four people selling meats at the market everything from chicken to turkey to lamb beef even goat meat so effectively we have tried to cover every base within the current footprint of the market i don't think we lack anything in terms of diversity without going into prepared foods which people would not essentially be bringing from their farms being a class a market we limit our market to produce that's produced on the farm that no one can buy and resell at the market so that really does make it a very unique market over the years there are several class a markets in the valley they include the north Hampton Saturday market as well as the Florence market and this really distinguishes our market as one of the best of that type so there there has been continuing concern over the years as you're well aware of the ability for Amherst farmers to um to present there and you and i had had a conversation last year that you said you thought you could accommodate all of the Amherst farmers that wanted to participate yes um so that it seems like that isn't the case that there are still farmers who want to participate who aren't being accommodated to my knowledge okay i mean i could be mistaken but not to my knowledge i i believe we have spoken and it was difficult to find these Amherst farmers we sent representatives of our farmers market committee to these farms to talk with the farmers to see if they would wish to come into the market um if they couldn't find the market it was beyond me so and i haven't heard from anyone else other than the ones i just mentioned okay we opened it up through the uh there's several avenues we took an approach we we have a website we also utilize the agricultural commission's email list to search out farmers we have several representatives from the ag commission present and past they include Jeremy Barker Plotkin who has been a liaison uh Casey uh uh from old friends farm and even uh sunset farm Connie Gillan all these people are in town as farmers and it's been hard for them to find farmers from Amherst who wish to come into the market to either perhaps either too large or not interested in marketing at the farmers market but i i know of no others okay um so this isn't a good venue for us no no i i work all of this stuff out i didn't i didn't intend to yeah no well i like the point needs to be raised because um you are operating on town property uh in the town of Amherst and so there is a need to make sure that Amherst farmers in particular are accommodated there um and there is the ability to expand the market to accommodate those vendors um all of those things need to be looked into because this has been kind of a continuing issue through the year so um i appreciate the conversations are ongoing with the agricultural commission um we encourage those conversations to continue and i hope that uh that people continue to to find progress in all of this going forward because everyone wants a thriving farmers market uh there that's a that's a special market to the town um and uh as such it's uh it will be even more special with more Amherst farmers so um miss stein is our i was just going to support what you were saying as lee is on to the ag commission and i know of one Amherst farmer who felt very shut out even this year so um i i hope that um more progress will be made to be inclusive and i wonder if you've come to the winter market which yes i was a member it's it's really very exciting and lively and i think that i'd like to see that kind of liveliness um there's some i mean i'm not saying the the summer market is is you know bereft of of liveliness because i'm not i like it but um i do think there is a certain charm to the winter's market that i'd like to see through the summer market too but anyway i know i do know one unhappy Amherst farmers so um i hope we can continue to make progress along the lines that Stephanie mentioned okay thank you miss burr it's simply that um i appreciate that you've been doing this for a really long time and you are looking at what makes sense for the farmers who are already there as well as farmers who want to come in because obviously you don't want the balance to be disrupted in some fashion that would not be beneficial to the farmers as well um it just has to be perceived building what other people are saying it has to be perceived as more of an open system than it has been in the past and it sounds like it is being this year with with um some there has been progress in that area because again it's town property we can't have one of the things that's actually most important not only to our farmers but also to our community members as being like this wonderful amherst resource and then people feeling as though there's some sense that it's a closed venue that they you know you have to be a certain person or whatever to get into it so i i appreciate that you're taking that into account and that you're really thinking about that so that we don't have to struggle with this decision on a yearly basis that we that we're hearing back from people that yep they you know they had the opportunity to talk about it and for whatever reason it may or may not have worked out but as long as people have their opportunity to uh do so should be all right so i i think you're hearing pretty strongly that the select board wants it to be more open and inclusive um as you and i discussed last year the uh the select board isn't in the business of limiting competition so i understand you've got competitive issues going on within your market and then the desire to not have redundancy or whatever um but from the select board's perspective what we're doing is giving up um public space not just regular public space but parking space for for all of our other downtown businesses um so it uh it it needs to be able to accommodate amorous farmers as much as amorous farmers need want to be able to be there so um so i do appreciate that the conversations are ongoing what we're hearing from ag com from ag com members is that those conversations keep needing to happen so i hope that i hope that um that that really does continue to make progress mr misanti i would just add in my own uh discussions with ag com representatives and john and other representatives of the farmers market i mean the amorous farmers market is a very important part of the economic vitality of our downtown uh there has been some progress this year you know with the freeing up of some of the existing stalls allowing the four additional amorous farmers to participate in the market we think that's very positive uh step uh and there's been some progress on transparency make having more of the farmers aware of what the various uh rules and regulations and guidelines are for consideration for participation um but that there's some additional work that needs to be done we've we've had some preliminary discussions about governance and about possibly working collaboratively with the market to pursue grant funding to look at whether it's usda rural development or common capital or agency like that looking at long term short term and long term strategies and so yeah i would just underscore how important it is to have that ongoing dialogue be substantive and and with real uh real progress so that we can pursue ways to sustain the market and have it grow and be even more successful than it already is uh anyone else like to comment on this before we make the parking motion okay miss stein i move that the select board approve the closure of that section of spring street within the spring street parking lot each saturday from april 20th 2013 to november 23rd 2013 from 7 a.m to 1 30 p.m for the amorous farmers market our second second thank you we're also set in our ways yes we are uh for the discussion all in favor say hi hi that is unanimous i move that the select board approve the reservation of the first five metered parking spaces on the east side of south pleasant street originating at spring street moving south towards college street on each saturday beginning april 27 2013 to november 23rd 2013 from 7 a.m to 1 30 p.m for the amorous farmers market and on saturday april 20 20th 2013 the reservation of the first five metered parking spaces on the east side of south pleasant street between the main street and the spring street parking lots from 7 a.m to 1 30 p.m second for the discussion miss brune would you please explain that in words again different words that explain why it is that it has to be different on the 20th the opening day and extravaganza parking and i know we haven't done extravaganza parking yet but that's why this is like this so what was the simple answer to why it's like that again because i'm confused i don't know what the special ones are about but clearly it's to accommodate special circumstances on those days so don't sweat it all right it works for me okay good uh further discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous okay thank you we look forward to the market thank you thank you okay next up we have ah yes this is the season town meeting season is beginning and so this is the first of four consecutive select board meetings where we will be taking positions on the town meeting warrant articles we have on our desks tonight a uh an updated warrant the warrant is now um on the select board's web packet for this meeting for folks who are watching at home i'm not sure if it's any place else on the website but if it isn't that probably not because we haven't signed it yet so tomorrow after we sign it it will be on the town meeting warrant page uh as well um the only difference to the warrant from what you had received in your packet on friday is that we're still finishing out the very last details of the wording on the rental regulations bylaw which is article 29 so that is that that is the only difference is that right yeah from friday um so tonight we've got about a dozen-ish articles in front of us we are trying to start with the kind of the easy ones the packet deadline for materials for the first town meeting mailing is today so we wanted to be able to deal with articles after we had the warrant uh the packet materials for them so most packet materials are not yet ready um i will note that we had been planning to have the rental regulations um consideration taking the position on that at the next meeting but because of the packet deadlines uh if that's actually going to be on the 22nd because all the rental regulations materials are going to be in that second mailing which has a deadline of the 23rd so without further ado um we have in our packets a very very helpful explanation of a bunch of the warrant articles that we are doing this evening these are ones that many of us could recite in our sleep for having done this for a very long time um but there are always new town meeting members watching this meeting or folks who are considering getting involved the town meeting so uh so we do try and give a little bit of an explanation for each of these so folks know what we're talking about um but i would direct folks attention to this very helpful memo uh from finance director sandy pooler to mr. msanti and that is the explanation of different articles so to starting at the very beginning we have the reports of boards and committees which we all know is uh is a procedural motion that we have to vote to accept uh to hear we vote to hear the reports of boards and committees that are not submitted in written form and that is technicality we do every time so questions or comments about article one and uh are you going to do an assignment now i mean we don't have an assignment sheet yet we don't have an assignment we'll keep track of them don't worry okay um so would you like to make the motion then i don't want to i would be happy to speak to article one um you want me to read it as a motion i just i just have lost the motion sheet hang on for a minute okay top of the next page yeah i know so i'm just have to through the page i move that the select board recommend to the may 6th 2013 annual town meeting article one reports of boards and committees one second thank you for the discussion i would be happy to speak to it that's fine i'm not going to take it away from you don't take it away from miss stein will speak to it from you um i wonder if the town if it's appropriate for the town manager if he would be willing to let the wonderful staff that we have many of which are liaisons to many many many committees um to remind them that this is an available spot for people who for committees to report out because it often happens that they realize that you know at the last second oh wait that would have been a good idea and it doesn't have to go in the mailing i mean it's nice if they have a handout and they can put it on the floor that night it doesn't have to be in the packet it could be in the packet it's supposed to be ones that aren't available in written form anyway but but people do do it the other way as well so but just to remind people of the availability of it because sometimes they forget okay article two is transfer funds unpaid bills we always need to transfer funds if we have any unpaid bills and if the the recommendation would be to do so um these aren't paid bills from previous years the recommendation would be to do so if we have any and who dismissed this article if we do not questions or comments on article two oh then miss stein i move that the select board recommend to the may 6th 2013 annual town meeting article two transfer of funds unpaid bills and if we could just amend that to be or dismiss or dismiss as necessary okay i would be happy to talk to that one too all right mark what i'm doing is that okay yep sure all right article three is optional tax exemptions this is something that town meeting needs to re-approve every year these are optional tax exemptions that are available to the elderly blind folks veterans and surviving spouses a couple of other categories perhaps it has been adopted by town meeting for many many years it needs to be re-adopted every year to give the additional exemption up to 100 percent of the available exemption and that that tax uh amount is covered by the um by the overlay that is set aside uh every year for the purpose of abatements and exemptions questions comments miss bruce i was just going to mention again for the folks at home that in addition to the warrant which just has the the basic words on it that sounds so delightful um the explanation of many of these articles is also available in the web packet for those of you who don't just know what that automatically means all right that's not usually to make a motion on it i move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article three acceptance of optional tax exemptions second further discussion all in favor say aye aye that's unanimous this time would you like to do the next one i move oh no i'm sorry i oh yeah sure speak to article three sure until somebody speaks up and i'm just gonna sit there all town meeting and let you talk no these are easy i'll leave the hard ones for other people so the next we're gonna we got to talk to this one first so um article four this is actually a new one so this is optional tax workoff exemption for veterans so just like we have the senior tax workoff program uh whereby seniors are able to work a certain number of hours to offset is it one thousand dollars of their taxes um there is a new mass general law that allows for veterans to qualify for the same sort of workoff um this needs to be approved once by town meeting we need to adopt the new state uh law that allows us to do this we would not need to re approve this every year as we did the previous um tax exemption one so this is a new one for town meeting to consider questions or comments about this one miss stein i move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article four acceptance of optional tax workoff exemption for veterans further discussion miss burr the only thing i would ask is that um perhaps it could be mentioned at town meeting that um just as we've talked about the slots for our other workoff programs in the past and okay we so we adjust the number of hours and the number of dollars and if this becomes a popular program that we will be that somebody will say something in the intervening time before the next town meeting so that we're kind of prepared for it but it you know it's brand new to us now it's very exciting and so hopefully it'll get a lot of use but we know i don't like when we're in the position of oh gee we wish we could help you out too but you're just the 75th person and too bad for you so it's just nice when we have a little bit of a heads up knowing about that but i know that it's been very well managed in the other programs as well so you mentioned before the next town meeting um so i just want to emphasize again the town meeting this isn't going to come back to town meeting again if it gets approved right this is true but it would come it could come up if there's this is one of the kind of thing where somebody stands up and says i wasn't able to do it um so just at some point in the process if it becomes an issue is all i ask so just like with the senior tax workoff exactly that has to come to us periodically when the numbers need to be changed exactly the hourly rate that qualifies or the hours so what i should have said was just as we periodically revisit even though town meeting doesn't have to look at it annually it's good for us to be aware when there is a if there is um a challenge brewing so that we can deal with it i think i think um what we expect assuming town meeting supports this you could expect staff and i to come back to the select board sometime soon after town meeting with a formal recommendation about the number of of slots for this new program and then it would make sense prior to next spring giving you an update of how it went yes exactly yeah and similarly that is uh that exemption is paid for through the overlay reserve that set aside one percent to cover exemptions and abatements all right miss steiners i think that motion sure i move that the select board recommend to the may 6th 2013 annual town meeting article 4 acceptance of optional tax workoff exemption for veterans second discussion discussion favor say hi hi that's unanimous next one compensating balances everyone's favorite oh i'm sorry thank you who would like to speak to the new veterans i would this bro see i get one all right all right yeah so now it's compensating balances is the one we do every year even though this has never happened in the history of anyone's memory and i think that mr mcsanty puts it on there just to plague us but anyway this is uh this is uh the um permission that we need to grant to the treasurer uh collector every year to engage in banking relationships for which the town may get a better interest rate in exchange for keeping a certain balance in the in the account so and because if we didn't approve it it could be considered an uh appropriation without a what do you call it appropriate and say it would be considered an expenditure without an appropriation vote and so this gives the fleck flexibility to the treasurer that such a proposal was made to her and she felt it was in the best interests financially to the town to do it this would give her the flexibility to enter into such an agreement oh just i'll be labor this since this article i've never found such an instance yet it's good to have so we're prepared so what exactly would be the expenditure on the town's part i don't understand that so you keep a certain if you meet a certain minimum balance then they're going to give you a better interest rate but you're not expending anything it's the moving of monies into into an account it can be considered an expenditure even though it's not really if you're going to keep putting it on the warrant i'm going to keep asking you annoying questions about it okay i don't need to understand that we just need to approve it miss stein would you like to make the motion i sure would i move that the select board recommend the may 6th annual town meeting article five authorization for compensating balances for the discussion all favor say hi hi that's unanimous who would like to speak to that you would stephanie i will miss brewer all right oh yes i'll say miss stein's favorite okay article 14 is the retirement assessment am i going in the right order right right different sheets of paper here compensating balances oh okay that's my problem all right retirement assessment so uh we are part of the hampshire county retirement system they give us an assessment of what is owed for the pensions for our our retirees through the hampshire county system and this year it is just under four million dollars and this is one of those things that we have to approve so we have to approve it questions or comments miss stein would you like to make a motion i'm just having a little conflict here between yes between what we were handed but i think i understand this memo is misnumbered yeah memo from that it's labeled 14 but it's really 13 and so now i can make the motion i move that the select board recommend to the may 6th 2013 annual town meeting article 13 retirement assessment miss brewer would you like to second yes thank you it's been moved and seconded for the discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous only if i get to do lock up next okay are you so you'll do the retirement yes okay so she's gonna do 13 and she's going to do the next one all right the next one is the regional lock up assessment so uh this is another one that we have to pay to the county because we just have to this uh is the regional lock up which was established of i don't know seven or eight years ago now um and all of the towns in the county that actually send their prisoners to this lock up pay a percentage of its costs my understanding is that our costs are unchanged since this began we pay based on population and for whatever reason they're using our 2005 population so um that was very intriguing but yeah so uh but that's fine for us so that uh that assessment comes to just over 31 000 for fy 14 it's done i move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 14 regional lock up assessment and again our handout is moved and seconded is there for the discussion all in favor say hi hi hi that's unanimous miss brewer has already identified that is one she'd like to speak to her favorites okay gonna write that down okay next up we have the reserve fund this is the finance committee's reserve fund we have for many years except for one year where that we didn't um voted the sum of a hundred thousand dollars to them at one point it was reduced but then they had to increase it anyway um this is money that they have authority over for unexpected budgetary circumstances during the year typically it goes to pay for um overages in snow and ice or overtime public safety is that correct same every year we just do it every year miss stein i move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 17 reserve fund and i would be happy to speak to that unless jim would like to first we need a second second further discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous miss stein would like it mr wall the yields to miss stein on the reserve fund all right next up we have revolving fund reauthorization so this was established last year um when we created the new after school program when we when we changed the structure of the after school program between the schools and lsse and in order to do so that required the establishment of a revolving fund to handle those uh those fees that are paid to it and out of it um so this is something that requires reauthorization every year as we were told about last year when we established it and so this is the technical uh reauthorization of that account questions comments miss burr so this is not the only revolving fund we have but it's the only revolving fund we have that we have to reauthorize every yes correct apparently there are other ones of these um town council was mentioning this the other day when we were talking about them um that this is called this is the lovely mgl designation of 53 e and a half whatever the half might mean as opposed to other revolving funds that we have that are chapter 53 i section 53 d nice solid letter here we have e and a half so this is our only e and a half 53 e and a half revolving fund um okay any other questions or comments about this we think it's been a very successful first year on the after school programming in partnership with lsse and the amherst public schools and i would like to have staff come in and give you an update perhaps with superintendent garak and i at some point before the end of the fiscal year that's a good idea about this program yep thank you good okay the stein would like to make the motion i move that the slack board recommend to the may 6th 2013 annual town meeting article 18 revolving fund reauthorization and i point out the numbering on this is all off all the way through john yeah the memo was written uh when we were working with an earlier draft warrant and we we uh took out one article as no longer needed and changed the numbers of the remaining yeah i just wonder if it should be corrected for posting online i was gonna ask that if we just revise it if that exact thing so we can just say revised renumbering you know just to show that no there's no substantive change but yeah people can reference it because it's so helpful okay we had the motion is there a second second for the discussion all in favor say hi i i'll be happy to speak to it unless i am gonna listen we'll speak to it uh oh i lost track who took the reserve fund finance committee reserve that was miss diane thank you diana she wanted that that's right and now mr okay next up uh so we have one on the memo that's not on our agenda tonight so we're gonna leave that until next time this is uh capital program debt rescission i'm not sure how that ended up on here but just in case anyone would be tuning in specifically to see us take our position on debt rescission we will save that good information good explanation for when we deal with that some other time um so then the next one is article 25 which is social services funding and um we have information in our packets from the town manager about this this is uh what the select board had previously supported as the community development block grant recommendation and transition plan um there is information as i mentioned in the web packet about this mr would you like to summarize that yeah and this is consistent with uh recommendations uh i made in my fy 14 budget recommendations all the way back in january and then that uh we were looking at a highly likely uh reduction if not outright elimination of our cdbg funding with the loss of our status as a mini entitlement community with follow-up conversations with state officials we think our new worst-case scenario is loss of half of our cdbg funding in that scenario the social services portion of the cdbg funding would would be reduced from 180 000 in the current year to 90 000 from cdbg in the upcoming year so the intent of this article is to supplement what we think is the likely cdbg amount of 90 000 with an additional 90 000 funded from town reserves free cash to allow uh level funding of of social service funding for the upcoming year and i've included in your meeting packet that's posted online a copy of my recommendations to the select board dated february eighth that we considered at that meeting when we were about to submit the cdbg application included on that is a summary of recommendations from our cdbg advisory committee who met at length with all the various social services applicants and developed a prioritized list of recommendations for me um and on the back side of that memo is in shaded in blue are my suggested recommendations that were endorsed uh prioritized recommendations that were endorsed by the select board back in february and i would call your attention to the column there it basically uh in the scenario where cdbg money would be cut in half that would leave us with 90 000 recommendation from cdbg advisory or from myself that you endorsed in our application was that the first 90 000 of funding would go toward the emergency shelter craigs door shelter at first baptist church um and then in priority order there's a there's a handful of agencies that would receive the remaining a 90 000 pretty much i mean my recommendation to you that was endorsed was trying to do that in in priority order going down the list thank you and so your whatever available dollars we had and so your recommendation to us was consistent with the select board's uh budget policy guidelines asking making sure that your budget plans were going to keep whole for this year the social services funding uh considering the transition of the uh the cdbg eligibility at that time as we look to the future for a funding plan so this is a recommendation for up to 90 000 dollars to come from reserves as uh as we say often a bridge to a plan because we don't know what the plan will be for the future um so before we take a position on this well actually i'll have questions and comments from the select board to the town manager and then um then i think it makes the most sense to have um miss greeny is here who has a petition article that is looking for a different way of of expending that money so first is there any questions or comments on mr mcanty's recommendation miss brook i just want to clarify because i haven't looked at this again in a while and so if we don't get anything from the state which would be weird but if we didn't get anything which is the position we were in when before we asked for transition funding and an additional app then we would and we won't know this for months yet so what we would then do is if this article passes town meeting we would put that 90 000 all toward craig stores that's my recommendation that would be the recommendation we certainly hope that the worst case scenario with the state is not zero but in fact 90 000 in which case we would then have the 90 000 for craig stores and then for the other agencies that you've listed here is your priorities items two through five which are quite similar but not a number six to get up to a grand total of 180 000 because this says 160 again because we forgot to fix that yeah that math thing and we'd have a grand total of 180 000 right available and then exactly allow us to do the rental assistance monies okay so you'd pull over i'm confused i would take number six on the list okay from from from the non shaded one yes would get us the rest of the way okay we'd go from the white chart over here all the way across because there was no six in green or blue other questions and comments from santi okay so as i said miss greenie has a petition article that as i understand is looking to to change the distribution potentially of those extra funds so i think it makes it makes the most sense to hear her petition her petition recommendation before we take a position on one so miss greenie if you'd like to come forward introduce yourself and tell us about your plan and i'll just note that this information is also in our packet and available on our web packet online and before she does that it's actually which warrant article again it's article 45 okay thank you thank you sure i got my number right thank you very much for uh entertaining our petition article my name is wayling greenie i am the chair of the housing for all citizens group and first of all we want to thank the select board and town manager this year in particular for funding social services given a shortfall that we are anticipating from the cdbg of you know funding cut so that's really something we want to express from our heart to thank you for thinking about the social service projects and um given this fund uh $90,000 that the town manager is proposing is coming from the town's um coffer so we feel um the town meeting uh need to have a say in um what's uh the eligibility's are and uh you know so we feel that um short of having a formal process this year that since we don't have the um social service funding committee anymore or in past years we also had the community development committee which also uh review social service projects that came to the town so in light of the fact that we don't have that committee so our housing for all uh proposed to town meeting to consider um given the funds are from the town not from the cdbg so while we are deliberating what projects to support um the housing for all feel strongly that um we should fund all the uh projects submitted last fall for the cdbg application and the funding for these uh eight projects not including quake's doors shelter given that seems to be very likely be funded by the um reduced cdbg funds so there are remaining eight projects so housing for all would like to encourage um the select board the select board and the town manager and the town meeting to consider um the equitable funding of the other eight projects not uh be funded by the cdbg social service funding and our biggest reason for uh suggesting this is that we want to be mindful asking the select board given that we are no longer uh meaning entitlement eligible as a community that keep your eyes um open in a sense that when we come up with this same problem next year let's have a due process that a process that will address the fact that you know um we are no longer cdbg meaning entitlement eligible so what is the process so this year because we don't have the process so short of saying uh you know let's not fund social service which is not a good idea that let's fund all those projects eight of them have been submitted uh to to to the cdbg uh committee and uh in our opinion that each of these projects play an important role in particular we believe that um given the priorities the town have laid out in the past uh four of them such as the homelessness and the sheltering and the youth development and after school care and the adult education and job training and lastly but not least is for the emergency and preventive uh services all these eight projects submitted they were all mindful submitted with these goals in mind so it's our opinion that um when the town meeting appropriate funds we encourage town meeting to consider funding all these projects understanding it's imperfect but shorter having a formal process to screen to evaluate like what we have been doing in the past we want to ask the town meeting to consider funding all these eight projects submitted last year and one last thing I want to bring it up is that in the past our historical approach has been that um for example in the document submitted to the select board we noticed that um the funds you know appropriate by town meeting in the past has ranged from 66 thousand dollars all the way up to 153 thousand dollars uh since 1992 in these um 20 30 years period and the number of agencies funded during those period when we were funding that amount ranging from the most recent one before we cut the entire human service funding was at least seven agencies and there were times when we fund as many as 17 agencies and this information are all included in the sheet that we supplied to you last Friday so this seems to be the town meetings um tradition to fund as many agencies that's eligible that they are good quality service that serve our town's residents so given the the tradition you know we don't just fund what the cdbg says we can only fund up to five after all this is not a cdbg funding rather it's a town appropriate funds okay so thank you very much for your um entertaining this article um I so appreciate that and uh given it's really tied to the article 25 so I wonder if select board will consider maybe it's more appropriate that for causing for all to make a motion to amend this article rather than waiting until the end that will you know make it difficult for the connectedness of these two articles so would you consider that actually you know we could come and make an amendment on the town meeting floor and we have not met to discuss this possibility but I want to give you a heads up that we might consider to make an amendment when uh the article 25 is being discussed that we will make an amendment to the effect that will cover article 45 okay so you should coordinate that with the moderator before the meeting and and he's the one who can rule on that um okay so uh as miss greenie noted that the community development block grant funds are limited to funding only only five agencies so her proposal because it wouldn't be limited by community development block grants um strictures it could then be divided up into more agencies than that um so questions or comments for miss greenie miss borough um this is going to stray a little bit article 25 you know and article 45 because they're related um one of the things that I hope will be made clear when we present article 25 to town meeting it starts out as a finance committee article but obviously it will be a number of positions associated with it is that article 25 is in no way shape or fashion an intention to return the human services line items to the budget that were previously in the budget we made that very clear in our discussion with the town manager before when we set forth our goals for the year knowing that block grant funding was at risk we specifically asked that he not consider it a simple return to the way we used to do things so I'm a little concerned about what I see as an oversimplification associated with article 45 which is well we don't have an appropriations type group anymore associated with this with the various names that we've used for it over the years human services funding community development committee later becoming the community development block grant advisory committee um the applications were turned in under conditions that they knew that five applicants only would be done I'm not sure how it might change the nature of the applications had they expected to be able to compete for a larger source of money when you know that there are only five agencies that can get funded you as a human service agency might very well decide I'm not going to apply that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have had a very worthy project that were there to be some sort of arbitrator group that they would decide was in fact more important than one of these other eight things because the circumstances were different for block grant application so I think it's unfortunate to just I think it's an oversimplification to approach it this way in terms of the material that's been provided to us I will once again state as I have stated every single time that Ms Greeney has appealed before appeared before us associate with housing for all that I find extremely frustrating that housing for all is never identified as to who these people are that are on the committee and I know you say citizen group but every other group that talks to town meeting either identifies as individuals identifies as the town committee identifies as some group that has identified itself and lists the members of the group you have continuously utterly refused to provide that information and it's not on this piece of paper either so I would strongly suggest that you consider providing that to town meeting especially in light of the fact that you are in fact in charge of one of the agencies that is asking for funding and you in no way mention this anywhere on this paper that you are in fact requesting money for services that you provide personally as well as heading up the very valuable worth that housing for all does I find this a very unfortunate thing that many many new town meeting members would not understand it would not understand the reasoning behind not providing that information Ms. Greeney actually when we submitted the petition we listed on the petition we submitted of the members that the officers it was in our petition we listed when we listed the town meeting doesn't have access to the petition beyond going to the town clerk's office to look for you like to have that we are happy because in the last year when we submitted an article to request for social service funding we listed in our petition you know information sheet for town packet for town meeting packet we listed the officers they are already so that's what we did last year so after several requests yes and I would like to see that done here as well we don't need to belabor that so if you'd like more information about that then we will be happy to provide that information in no way we you know want to keep this as a secret at all it's a public meeting and we post the meeting at the library website every single time when we have the meeting so it's there and when we communicated with the select board we use our citizens for our letterhead it lists the officer's name as well so I believe that we have cooperated with select board too and as far as that the our my agency emmer's community connections is part of the project submitted to the town this article does not specifically address that the town just fund emmer's community connections rather we were just looking at the fact that there were eight projects including emmer's community connections that we are asking the town to consider funding all the projects so I don't believe there's any way or shape that I am in any conflict interest asking advocating for just emmer's community connections so I think it's only you know fair and proper to say that this is in petition for all the agencies not just for my agency and I feel really unfortunate that this statement is made in such a way as if indicating there's some ulterior motive on my my personal part and I really regret hearing this from a public official in such an insulting way I regret to hear this so I'm I don't mean to speak for Miss Brewer but I'm sure she didn't mean to insult you I think it is those of us who are more familiar with the situation it's more trans it's more obvious to us it's not transparent to everyone I think it is a good suggestion to include that note on your information sheet so just so folks are clear housing for all and emmer's community connections are not the same thing that they do share miss greeny in common so it's worth noting and it's it perhaps is worth noting in a more obvious manner and I think that Miss Brewer was trying to we understand the deadline for the town meeting packet submission deadline we are intending to submit is April 24th noontime I think it's the 23rd 23rd it's a Wednesday any hot so we are intending to submit a town meeting information sheet for town meetings purpose so at that time we will make it very clear so I appreciate your pointing out this part that you would like to you know see of course great yeah thank you for your input and suggestion okay so so I think it's perfectly reasonable to give town meeting the opportunity to consider all right you're either going to distribute these via the cdbg formula or you're going to not not needing to be tied to the cdbg formula there's another option so I think it's perfectly reasonable to put that choice in front of town meeting and that's basically what this boils down to personally I it was the it was the select board's intent with the budget policy guidelines to to keep the cdbg process at the social services level as whole as possible for this year so now our cdbg situation has changed but but my inclination personally is to stick with the town managers recommendations which which stay true to the cdbg process which was what we were trying to keep whole for this year and I and and I appreciate what you were saying it's imperfect to without having a different process that dividing it up evenly is is kind of as good as you can do as an alternative distribution option I'm concerned not knowing not having been part of the the whole process of the recommendations as the committee was to divide the money equally that might way just might not be first of all it's it's a different kind of percentage of money to each organization so it changes the value the worth if you will of what they're ending up with in relation to their projects so I think that and I appreciate what you're saying about it being imperfect I think it's sort of imperfect enough that it makes it arbitrary and kind of it takes it away from the what the folks were looking for to fund their projects so so so I I'm personally going to go with the town managers recommendation but but I think it's very reasonable for you to give this alternative to town meeting and we'll see what they decide Mr. Musantio just quickly just want to be clear and Ms. Green is absolutely correct that whatever local monies town monies that are voted for these purposes are not subject to the cdbg rules about how many agencies can be funded in one grant round and things like that so that's a good thing but the basis of my recommendations which were informed by the review of all the requests from the to the cdbg advisory committee they came up with a prioritized list of how they thought the first dollar second dollar third dollar should be spent and in what amounts and so that that was the basis for my recommendation to come up with a prioritized list at the amounts suggested thank you I'll just note that I received a text message almost an hour ago indicating that our meeting is not on television I'm not sure Amherst media if if that is still the case and if it's not too late to fix it but just so you know it's not being broadcast or at least it wasn't as of about 45 minutes ago all right moving right along other questions or comments for the town manager or from Ms. Greeny any public comment on this issue all right um Ms. Stein would you like to make a motion I move that the select board recommend to the May 6 2013 annual town meeting article 25 social services funding for the discussion all in favor say hi hi and that's unanimous so would you like to make a motion on article 45 also so we have a position on that so this is being not recommend just that what you're suggesting yes because you're either supporting one or the other okay I move that the select board not recommend to May 6 2013 annual town meeting article 45 petition equitable distribution of social services funding for the discussion all in favor say hi oh I'm sorry I was just going to say I think the argument that dividing equally is not always fair it's a very telling argument with me there are simply some agencies that need more than others and following up on that I think that's one of the things that the town manager looked at when he looked at the block grant advisory committee's recommendations is he's you know it's a question for example associated with the homeless shelter I mean it needs a big chunk of money or it doesn't function and so it very much so along with what you're saying it can be very difficult to just say well let's just take a piece off of everybody um I was I was actually going to compliment the clever wording of the title because it's actually sounds really good equitable distribution of social services funding okay are we ready to vote all in favor say hi hi so we're voting to not recommend four zero with one right and so if those get combined through their consideration at town meeting with you make a motion to it or whatever we can apply our motion appropriately depending how that gets structured thank you very much for coming thank you very much thank you okay who would like to speak to the social service articles oh you know I'm gonna wrestle you for this yes all right um and then we have the town gown yeah um article 26 uh would uh recommend $30,000 uh from town's uh free cash to fund a I'm calling a town gown strategic study uh this request is an outgrowth of ongoing dialogue uh I've been having with uh the UMass chancellor and his team um and about all kinds of town gown issues uh housing off campus student behavior uh other opportunities for economic development etc and he suggested in one of our recent discussions the notion of jointly pursuing outside consulting where the town on the university would each contribute uh 50 percent of the funds to pursue a study we would look at things like better aligning or understanding the alignments between the university's master plan and the town's master plan looking at how we can have some new perspectives on economic development opportunities how they fit in with the university's growth plans looking at other options to possibly create new housing options our ongoing work to further improve quality of life particularly in the surrounding neighborhoods to the main campus and public safety issues generally in the town so I think it would be a very constructive and helpful substantive uh path for the town and the university to pursue together to chart a more coherent and more well understood course on the part of university community and the wider town community so I think it's a very thoughtful approach and we've asked the chancellor if he would be willing to come and address town meeting on this proposal himself personally and he has indicated his enthusiasm for doing so so I second that and would urge the select board to endorse such an article. Thank you and I'll note that uh it really when you consider that the university is this massive city basically in the middle of our town the idea that we do not have a plan for the future together that we're taking all of these very many steps to deal with kind of ongoing short and long-term problems but but an actual strategic plan for how does how does the town's vision of the future and the university's vision of the future match up and and how do we how do we kind of work this together I think is very important and I think that when he started talking about it became very clear that this is a need my first thought was okay well considering everything maybe the university ought to be paying for this themselves but then I thought actually considering that you want this to be a joint town gown plan you you really need literal buy-in you need the town to be as invested in what this looks like as a what you're looking to be studying and and what you're looking to to find as outcomes you need to be you need to be true partners in that so it doesn't become the university's plan where with the with the town on the side or whatever that it's a true partnership of plan so uh so I urge the select board and tell me need to support it this time I know this is a really naive question John but I'm going to ask it anyway what is the money going to be used for exactly it would be used to engage a consultant who would work with university staff town staff and look at the existing plans and and develop a more shared vision and some specific action steps to achieve that vision uh the the consultant would in many ways act as a facilitator on that dialogue to really finish and really clarify the good work that's been done and see if there can be a more coherent and unified path that we can both articulate to the community going forward thank you Ms. Brewer I'll take public comment in a moment when the select board is done asking questions as a former longtime member and three-year chair of the comprehensive planning committee I am very happy to do anything we can to bring together our plans and their plans because we are us we aren't just us and them I am also incredibly concerned about the amount of resources we have within town to work on yet another study I know we've been rising to a challenge but struggling with the challenge of dealing with the housing studies that are currently undertaken simply because not because people aren't going 120 miles an hour but simply because there just aren't enough people people might say oh there's a lot of planning staff yeah there's not a lot of planning staff and there's a lot to be kept track of associated with studies and so I'm I'm concerned about I'm I'm certainly never going to vote against it for that reason I just want to say to the town manager and the town staff I worry about you and to let us know if there's a way that we can shift something else because I do think this is an incredibly important dialogue to take place I think it's also a substantial amount of money and so we ought to be able to find a way to make some space for it that's financially viable for us as well rather than just kind of somehow setting aside x number more hours out of planning staff's time I am also wanting very much that when this assuming this would pass because I'm sure the chancellor just based on a brief conversation I had with him is going to do a fabulous job at town meeting explaining this um assuming that it passes at town meeting that there will be some dialogue prefer I'm not sure if select board's the right place for it or some place else but there needs to be some place where there's some dialogue about what the request for proposals or what request for quotes or whichever acronym we're using for this particular product might include because it it's definitely important that this is something that is not just we have some planners they have lots of different kinds of planners all the planners talk to each other and tell us all one thing in a public meeting yeah no that's not going to fly there's going to have to be a way that we know that the consultants are engaging some community groups that are gathered in some fashion hopefully creatively by good consultants who know how to facilitate these kind of conversations so the expectations will be very high of this product as opposed to here's another fifteen thousand dollar study this is a big study and this will matter a lot to people and it will be important that people really feel heard and so it's not a whole new master planning process for either of us because we've just been through that but I think it's super important that the university is understands that when it comes down to the particulars we will have a lot of people who want to have input to this other than just show up at a meeting and tell us what you think of our slide presentation and I know we can do better than that and I know but I want to make sure that they don't think that it's as simple as that thank you so I think that that's the point very clearly is that we need to be equally invested in this so that we get to help shape and define what we're looking for here all along and and so you're not partners if you're not truly partners right other questions or comments from select board before I go to the public all right mr O'Connor please come forward well I think the issues that identify yourself a fence O'Connor a precinct one time meeting member summer street I think there's a number of issues that the board does town manager and maybe the chancellor should be prepared to discuss the first is why the existing staff who prepared and work with the master plan even though we did engage consultants we do have a plan they have a plan so and they and we both have staff people who participated in the in the preparations of those plans why it is that our staff people can't do this without outside funding the the second concern that I have is and that I think is going to have to be addressed at town meeting is is the question of the university's decision to admit more students than they can house and create a problem in the housing market for Amherst families not just low-income families but families period going to be on the table because if it's not on the table I don't know that people are going to vote to essentially thirty thousand dollars to help implement the university's plan to turn all the rental housing in Amherst into dormitories and I I say this because one of the recently become notorious landlords who's engaged in a number of rental property and and just residential property purchases expressed to one of the sellers recently that he was in he was buying these a rental unit for another party and I think that we should be concerned about who that other party might be especially since this this gentleman only rents to students I think that this this could promote a discussion unless people are prepared to address the issues that are quite underneath you know not too far underneath the surface this could provide a discussion that rather than being a wonderful opportunity to have the town and the university do something together it might provide a very embarrassing moment for the chancellor and for the town and I I just think that the select board on it really consider if you're not prepared to answer the tough questions that are going to come up about this whether in fact this article might not the study might not be done just by staff people who were thoroughly involved on both with both entities in the master plans and this article be dismissed I think this is this more than any other article on the town meeting for this will give people an opportunity to say things that unless unless we're prepared to have a very frank in the words of diplomacy a very frank discussion in a situation where frankness is not a usual thing I think this article has the potential to create a real embarrassing situation for all parties thank you very much I think obviously housing will be a very big consideration in the study and I mean it's it's about the impacts of of the university on the town and how we grow and and adapt together so I think that all the points that you just made point to the need for the study but it certainly will be an interesting discussion in town meeting and it'll be a it'll be an interesting question for the town do we want to plan together or do we want to simply have the the outcomes of lack of planning on these issues together so um so the the town will decide and uh we'll see um miss keller and please identify yourself janet keller precinct one town meeting member um I would like to concur that how the rfp is drawn is incredibly important and also agree that it's very important that um our towns people business people residents all who are affected um are not only heard but included in a high quality collaboration here and I realize um I'm setting the bar very high when I say that and yet I think it's so important I think we've um I'm hoping that we're seeing that as we do more of that um we we're pleased with the results that we're getting we're seeing that people are working more together and when the when the geese are pointing this way they get to the south a lot faster and easier if you will so um I hope that that will be the case one thing I'd like to say is that a lot of people have been working awfully hard over the time I guess it was February 2009 when the master plan was approved by the planning board and have learned a number of things and if there would be an opportunity to if you will um bring things a little bit up to state say that was then and this is where we were and I'm not talking about pulling the plan apart I'm talking about in those four years what did we learn that's key to um doing um making new collaborative plans with the university and the town and its people um one that more closely addresses our new understandings and I think there are a number of those I'm not going to take your time with them now but um I think those are the I would also like to address and I know people uh perennially have a concern about plans and and my my own experience in some of the projects that I worked on when I was working um for the state of Rhode Island is is sometimes there was capacity in-house although as the years went on and the squeeze got tighter um that was less and less the case but sometimes we just simply did not have that set of skills or that in-depth um experience with that set of data if you will or to um do the kind of study that I think you're going to want to have so I'd like to put in my plug for the value that can come when you bring in top notch outside folks so thank you very much thank you for coming in okay other questions and comments then about this article miss burr I think it is perfectly appropriate for when the chancellor speaks for him to make clear that you know we're not just we the university are not just going to say you're getting three thousand more students deal with it we don't need spend sixty thousand dollars to find that out and so I don't think he has any intention of saying that because what would be the point of having this study then this study is not to gloss over any of their reality their reality is they feel like they need more students because they need more out of state tuition to make the place function better financially um and so the the intent here I I'm very frustrated by the idea that well because there's going to be more demand on Amherst housing why have the study well if we don't have the study we see what we get I mean we have two plans now we actually worked fairly closely together as we developed our master plans and yet we haven't really gotten to a point despite all the work of the campus community coalition and a bunch of different areas we just can't all quite seem to get to a place where we really are feeling comfortable and maybe there's gonna maybe there never will be that for some people and maybe that's just the reality but more people could maybe feel part of things and so I I have hope for this study as being something that could serve that rather than just it is what it is you guys are just going to figure out your rental regulations and your police presence and we'll give you some couple of ambulances and it's done I think by them saying this they're making it clear that that's not what they want to do that they want to be more forward thinking that they want to think about what's everybody else doing beyond what we've already learned from the different research that people are already doing in best practices and that it really is trying to move us forward not just another study that states the obvious because we already have that information and and so there's going to be real physical component to it you know at what what what do the edges of the university look like in relation to the edges of the community is should there be should there be more buffer between them is there a way to make this all more more positive and more more melding or not melding you know what would the word be differentiating or something between them but let's look at let's look at the physical parts of what the what the university means to Amherst as well as the on the ground impacts I mean it's we're all too aware of the issues so this is a this is a very targeted a professional way of trying to look at those and and define what we're looking for for outcomes so any other comments about the outcome Miss Stein would like to make the motion I move that the select board recommend to the May 6 2013 annual town meeting article 26 town gown strategic planning for the discussion I'll in favor say hi hi hi that's unanimous okay we're done with well we need somebody to speak to oh I'm sorry I'd be happy to speak to them I'm just gonna say we're all looking at you that's what I was trying not to pressure you for these things but that would make sense your people I lost okay all right so now we're done with one article for right now um so next week we'll have a whole bunch more and a week after that and the week after that it's just warrant articles all the way up until town meeting now the next item is food truck and lunch cart regulations and this is something that I've given you a couple of updates on previously we have I had presented what were the results of meetings between the chamber director the bid director and myself talking about the different issues involved in food truck regulations and how we might kind of get a hold of this situation before it grows this is a this is a sector I don't know if anyone saw the Boston Globe Sunday magazine this week but uh it was a whole thing devoted to food trucks it's a real burgeoning thing around the country who knows if it will continue to burgeon and amour but we didn't want to be inundated with applications and issues and concerns before we had some kind of a structure in which to think about those so um so a couple months ago we put out the details of that of of what the regs would would address to the select board to the licensees to the public looking for comment um we got some comment we got good response from staff and what we have here is is the beginnings of regulations or not the beginnings of the regulations to start with right now and then to amend as necessary as we see how the regulations work and how the sector potentially develops and amours so I have a cover memo that outlines a couple of key points for you as well as the regulations themselves um let me just look at the cover memo see if I'm missing any key points um I note oh one thing is that uh the regulations use the term lunch cart throughout and that is to keep them consistent with the mass general law that calls them lunch carts um so we call them food trucks but that's just sort of their popular name of the moment it is a lunch a lunch cart license that um that the um town issues thanks to state regulation allowing us to do that the um the license fee is capped at $100 we cannot increase that fee without the state legislative help if we wanted to do that um I noted the part at the bottom about parking we have had a request from one of the food truck vendors to consider meter bags for them their regulations as you know recommend not limiting the time at meters for the food trucks and so I talked to the parking folks about that they were very good with exempting them from the meter time regulations but said that the meter bags would actually be a real problem and I was actually going by a meter today that had a crinkled up bag on it just some random meter with a truck but I'm going we didn't approve he didn't buy this bag so I can see how just having a bunch of meter bags out there is maybe not the best thing so um so I did note that uh if that proved to be a real problem it's possible a request would come to us in the future or we might we might ourselves initiate an idea of some kind of a permit for um for food trucks parking so um but that that's just a that's just a maybe out there in the future I have no idea if that's a good idea or not we would need to vet that but um just indicating that there is the potential to um to continue to find ways to address this if we find that challenges continue town council did review these and approved them had no legal issues with them and approved them as to form and um the only thing that is changed from when you saw the draft of the details was we took out one parking area that we had indicated as as potential possibilities were the driveways uh at Kendrick park the the old driveways um and two things one is uh dpw director indicated a concern about those that it would actually had the potential to block some travel lanes either on the sidewalk or or the bike path um and also it occurred to me that um the Ken Kendrick park isn't actually under our jurisdiction that's the town manager's property to control so um that could be a separate consideration basically these are public way considerations for where the uh food trucks could go so questions or comments from select board about regulations miss thank you um I just one place that we often see them parked is opposite the bank of america is that precluded by these I couldn't quite yes this would move them down it would yeah if they would need to be south of spring street so that's on the main common as opposed to the north common all right and they are not unhappy about that shift in location or have they commented on that um uh miss valley who is the proprietor of that food truck um has not indicated a concern about that um and the other thing that I found amusing was section eight um they couldn't play music of any kind which is all right with me but I was thinking that ice cream carts routinely do um that's that's almost sort of their signature so I was wondering if there had been any comment about that or if state law gives them permission ice cream trucks are actually regulated differently under state law so I kind of left them alone and that's why I put in the in the definition part except as otherwise defined as an ice cream truck there's all kind of weird stuff that goes with them and I did not become an expert in ice cream truck licensing while I did this so I can't explain to you what they're right it just occurred to me then yeah I actually added that on spec as I was working on this because we had some noise issues as you know with one of the one of the cards that was a generator issue but the sounds that come from these are something to consider and um the uh there is actually some kind of a a rule or maybe it has to do with zba permits that um for restaurants and other places downtown they need to get permission if they're going to be amplifying music outside so to have a truck pull up and suddenly start creating a bunch of music when we already have heard a lot of concern from folks that these places don't need to go through the same kind of strict permitting and drb and all of that so to allow them to potentially be very noisy with music or whatever just seemed like something you wanted to nip in the bud at the beginning but if people don't agree with that no I just was curious other questions or comments miss burr what do my notes say from the last time miss okay because I don't remember and I don't have a lens around me why don't you just read that you had asked about was um that we had the question of bathrooms I do you for I did remember bathrooms with the health department so um because we had one um brick and mortar person uh saying that uh indicating that he thought that the uh a food truck person was using their bathroom without permission and so there's I said well I know that they've got to submit some kind of list so I checked with the health director and the health director said that they do require a list of bathrooms with hand sinks that are available to them on their route whatever that means um it does not specify that permission is required so it might just they might they might deal with that on a case by case basis maybe some people get permission from them and some people just indicate where these bathrooms with hand sinks are um because that is a health issue I have no idea if we would have the ability to tweak that so if that continues to be if that is not continues to be if that is indicated as a concern of the select board whether they have permission or not then perhaps miss stein could um take that up with board of health just let them know that we have a concern about it it may um so much of what happens with board of health uh is relying on the state sanitary code that we may or may not be able to make any tweaks to that but if that is a concern of ours then perhaps they could look into whether that is tweakable that was the one that stood out to me of your concerns that you also talked about enforcement um general enforcement with parking by taking away the requirement on timing by by not limiting them to two hours at the meters um that is staff believes that that's easy now for them to to deal with because that that was the main considerations like who knows when they arrived and when they're going to leave and and we had public comment also saying you know come on two hours is just not reasonable to them have these people necessarily set up etc um so uh so considering the places that we agreed for them to park uh agreed meaning uh mr murals mr crow grab a and I as places that um to refresh your memory are places that we thought would help to try and restore or bring or restore vitality to certain areas that are kind of quiet um which also makes them put some in areas that are of less concern often to um business folks so it was kind of striking striking the right balance of all the things that we were looking for um and I was just talking about that why oh so that puts them in parking places that are um less of uh less of a concern for the turnover I mean certainly all spaces downtown are precious and we recognize that but but the more kind of at the limits you put them the less pressure is on those spaces and so the enforcement they thought would work well yes wow you remember two of the things I already sat here and thinking about so they must have been the two most important things actually the third thing that I'm pretty sure isn't on here that I'm not seeing is when there's a problem so for example hours of operation we approve x hours somebody notices man these people are always here three hours before like we wicked early in the morning are they really allowed to do that well they could call the office upstairs and say what hours are these people allowed to operate and they could find out but beyond that what's the complaint process I think we should have a way that we tell people in this reg if some or somehow I remember having this conversation about taxis oh many years before we had taxi regulations and I said when somebody has a problem with a taxi call 1 800 what you know what are they supposed to do we never we didn't do anything with that until we got to the point of riding the regs um so now and it became very clear that we could leave a bunch of that to the police because that you know they're inspecting vehicles it kind of all comes part and parcel together for the police to deal with the taxi um you know if if we if somebody said I don't think so and so wash their lettuce you know obviously the board of health is who would you're not the board of health but the public health director we get involved but if they're just who are people supposed to complain to when they have an issue do we are we assuming that it will just be the select board office and they will parse it out or what are we attempting to do with this suggestions are welcome I mean I think I don't think that's an unreasonable approach I think that would be an easy way to start rather than having a checklist of 15 different possibilities call about this call this person call that person because we have an incredibly capable although changing staff upstairs I'm presuming that they would be okay with that that they would figure out because they're not they're not the kind of staff some other town might have that would say oh I don't know they would figure it out and if they started to see a series of complaints then obviously they could bring that back to the town manager and he could bring it to us yeah I mean the real answer is it would depend right so as the staff to the licensing board you know my office might receive such a complaint and depending upon the nature of the complaint would refer it you know could be the parking could be health could be inspection services could be police for that matter could be inspection services so the answer would be it would depend so I guess I'd just like to see when we publish this then we'll put it up on the website obviously on the select board section there is a there's all the regulations section and then we could put next to it or like when you go to this page somewhere it would say you know concerns complaints whatever call the select board up in the town slash town manager office and until they get start getting inundated and we have to figure out some other way of doing it just so people know okay well that's all well and good but what do I what do I do after that so I could I could add a new section is do you want that in the regulations it's almost like a title you know or like a a parentheses next to it or whatever I mean it seems to me you might want to say you know in the event of non-compliance call and then these are non-compliance these are regulations for the food truck so I'm not sure they're not people would look at them but I could just I could indicate that I think I can do what you're saying so you you could say I guess from the standpoint of the vendor because we'll pass these out to the vendor right so we're because it serves a couple of different purposes they go to the vendor themselves but then they also are on the town website so that people who are uptight about something can go and look at it and see what it says so you could add a sentence that said you know concerns or whatever will be you know sent to the town manager's office for whatever review and and parsing out or obviously that's not the great terminology but something along those lines so that they know too that you know they they might well be hearing from the town manager's office if there's questions about what they're doing all right so so concerns or complaints received by the select board office because they could be received by by consumers they could be received by board of health or the police chief or somebody saying you know what you've got various issues with these with you know food truck acts will be like that's the coordination point yeah so okay so I can add that so yeah I would recommend that that would be a new uh a section either 11 or 12 either before or after the penalties for non-compliance whichever sounds good okay all right other other issues thank you I appreciate that all right public comment mr. O'Connor again incident of Connors precinct one time many members summer street one of the lunch truck um proprietors is a constituent of in precinct one she did call me um she has a child in wildwood school I think she's the lunch truck has journeyed to wildwood school on occasion and uh and also to amherst college so um and I just finished reading the regulations they seem relatively simple and straightforward um I'd I'd express two concerns I would hope that the prohibition against amplified music which would be external to the truck would not be interpreted to prohibit the proprietor from having a radio inside the truck that they could they could use to you know while they were preparing food and serving food and so forth so if that if that were understood something that wouldn't broadcast externally but but it would be somewhat difficult probably for people who are used to working to some music to not be able to have music inside there so it says lunch carts may not play music or use any kind of sound amplification to attract customers so it's to attract customers if you're just if you're listening to the ball game quietly as you're making something right yeah yeah I think that the I think that the so the the other thing I'd say is that I I guess I'm concerned about the limitations on where the the on-street vehicles could park I think that the the sidewalk vehicles have a pretty generous series of locations um and I I think what I'd say is I um some I think some people mean I've actually seen this constituent in operation a couple of times and I think that she has this very like energetic quality that that you know that adds something to the downtown and rather than seeing um downtown customers like a like our our budget a zero-sum game that if somebody gets some part of the budget somebody else doesn't get get it um I think that there is some flexibility to uh to what happens downtown and I think having uh businesses like these lunch the on the sidewalk carts and the lunch trucks that are in the public way are um they would actually bring people into the downtown I mean might increase make the pie larger and I would think that if we view it this way then I think maybe we could look at ways to attracting using the presence of these activities to bring people to the downtown the other thing is my constituent pointed out that she she doesn't just operate in Amherst she goes over and I think having a positive experience in Amherst with somebody who who who travels throughout the region um would make her an uh sort of a goodwill ambassador for the town and I think that I I think that she would make a great ambassador for the town given what she does and the kind of energetic way she interacts with people and I would hope that the town would view her and other lunch truck truck operators in that manner um that that if we are accommodating and respectful and understand that they may actually do something positive for the downtown increase the size of the pie so that um and I also think that when we're um when we're in the process of maybe negotiating with the university about the restrictions that they've placed on some of our businesses in the downtown that we wouldn't want to have an example that we're sort of doing the same thing on a slightly different level so I would urge you to be in the words of um town meeting member from precinct 10 who who in the first debate on um about about the resident alien voted voting he said uh went in doubt be generous thank you very much and I think that's very much the spirit that we tried to work on these and this is uh this is trying to acknowledge the uh all the pluses that these uh these businesses bring to the downtown the uh the vibrancy the sense of you know I wonder who's there now and and it's kind of it creates a a true dynamic because it's a changing situation um they have proven to be very popular with uh the public and we got a lot of good feedback uh early on directly and through the newspaper and whatever from the public about them so we wanted to make sure that they are accommodated as positively as possible um and uh and that that we are taking a welcoming approach to this um again as I indicated we wanted to make sure we had some regulations before we end up having you know 50 you know applications for these or whatever so we have a framework in which to think about these uh as I indicated in the cover memo um having gone through this whole kind of thought exercise of doing this um it made me realize how well first of all we were working essentially without regulation before but um when the thing comes before us there are actually kind of uh certain questions that we should be considering and asking in relation to um what's most appropriate for what spot because these things are they vary a lot um particularly the sidewalk ones they you know it could be it could be you know just like a little push cart thing that you've got with hot dogs or it could be the big free standing halal thing um that's out there um so uh one set it's the the regulations have to sort of accommodate the whole spectrum but a uh a checklist for the select board to consider um I indicated if we can't kind of fit everything onto the new improved license application um a checklist would be a good way to for the select board to say okay oh yeah and you're exactly what size and you know you have you know whatever kind of a footprint and um but just to be more specific about our considerations because before we were just like okay food truck yeah we don't know what to do with that so um this is the beginning it's not the end I'm sure that we will tweak these uh further as uh the situation shows us but I think it feels like a good starting point Ms. Buren the mistake I think actually Mr. Walden stand up before I did oh I think you've covered much so I wanted to say so that's okay oh good now I can be boring again um quickly I really appreciate what you said about the checklist and you're even volunteering to draft it as well based on all your knowledge because one of the things that comes back to me is being a potential point of contention although not yet just something to keep ourselves aware of is the hours of operation situation because of the types of permits that brick and mortar places have to have in order to be open certain late night hours we would not want to just cavalierly perhaps say oh sure whatever hours you want even though to a large degree we want to be able to say whatever hours you want so we might want to just keep ourselves apprised of of how we're doing of how that's turning out so that because we may need to revisit it but at this point my my assumption is not to say okay well do all the abutters have permits to do X Y and Z I don't want to make it that complicated but just looking under section six hours of operation I'm one you know it's not that we're going to write anything different in there at this point I think it's that we need to put on the checklist kind of you know if this was a restaurant or you know the police chief has he has a sense of overall you know this is what these kinds of places are open these hours I just don't want people to get into conflict over something that's inadvertent on our part associated with that and what just seems like a real good idea to a new hot dog operator but something along those lines to be aware of okay miss time um I have two comments one more expansive one more restrictive I think that you might consider actually limiting the number um in some way just as we do with alcohol licenses uh no section 10 has a limitation did I in fact miss it we went right past it it didn't have a little number in parentheses that's okay good I'm glad I do think that perhaps um section three a one is a little bit restrictive um it's it's really I would have liked that to be a little bit more expensive than than um just the west side of tail commons out of spring street for example on the main drag um certainly it was more used on the main drag than than that prior to these so I I do find that a little bit tight I just um you know it used to be that opposite the bank of america there were two parked side by side I mean I've seen that often two of the food um trucks parked side by side so all of a sudden neither of them could be there and I don't think they're really competing with the bank of america in terms of you know food service um okay subway is across the street but I just so there's no parking directly across from bank of america at the entrance to the town hall parking lot right parking spaces are further back than that okay but that general area parking on the north common versus the main common basically yeah so um that's the only thing and then I I mean the rest of it is is fine said I just wonder if you should add a couple more to that section it's my personal opinion okay so we could do this a couple of ways one is we could start with this and see how it goes and add to it as necessary we could change it now um and we certainly could do that my only concern with that is that people wouldn't have been able to react to what that as a proposal so there wouldn't have been any opportunity for comment on that whereas we've had the these out there with the comment potential for however long but if the select board felt strongly that that was a critical problem with them then we could make the change and I don't know if people would complain or not but I guess I'm I guess I'm I've talked myself into being inclined to to not make a change that people didn't have the opportunity to comment on but I I completely agree that we need to be paying attention to where these places where the locations are and how that's working out I mean if the if the truck vendors say to us there's nobody down there you know part of what we're trying to do is make the common be more used like what a wonderful place to sit out and have your lunch but it's actually kind of a hike from any place that you would get your lunch so but maybe if there's a food truck there then now people will start having lunch on the common um but if if the food truck folks don't find that to be the case and they say we're no man's land then we say okay that's not working let's let's tweak it maybe um when these get posted we could say let's try these for six months and have a feedback at the end of that time by by both the vendors and non-vendors to see how it's working okay so these basically go into effect once we approve them um so we'll approve them assuming we're going to approve them tonight as amended with the change that we talked about about complaints etc and uh and we can schedule a feedback and and reconsideration just like a check-in to them what's six months we're in we're in april now that's the fourth month so the tenth month is october so that gives us spring summer and fall that's a nice that's a good chunk of consideration okay so how about i move um that the select board approve the rules regulating the use and operation of lunch carts as presented with um a notice of a re-examination of these in six months time so we should say as revised because we talked about the complaints and concerns section as well you did okay so as revised is there a second second oh i'm sorry for the discussion miss keller uh if you come to the mic you can ask anything you want you've got an item on here um schedule of police response costs we haven't gotten there yet and i know you haven't gotten there so um are you going to get to that and is there a rough idea about when you might get to that midnight it's been a really long night we're doing the best we can okay so i just better plan accordingly right so the the document is online um so it has information on there so i'm not sure if you're looking to just learn what the information is or comment on it do you mean the um schedule of response costs oh that i miss the dollars yeah we have you have the demo yes that's okay no problem that was a very practical answer to my practical question thanks so yeah so we will we will be getting to that topic we will be talking about the document that is on the web packet totally sorry you had to sit around here unnecessarily but we like having company so okay so back to food trek regulation so we do actually finish this up um so we did uh that was looking for the discussion okay all in favor say hi hi hi that was unanimous thank you very much i know that checklist is my next week right six months i have six months yep i'm sorry what and i said you have that checklist done by next week but we'll see i don't think we needed desperately at all it's just part of the package right for when we have another application i'll be sure to have that's right yes exactly okay moving right along fy14 budget discussion mr. muesanti yeah the um a couple things uh Aaron had submitted a list of questions that i just this afternoon sent out an email reply to those so there was a second batch of questions that he submitted that we should have over the next day or day or two for you i did want to um talk a little bit about uh the state situation and uh the ongoing well the debate has begun in earnest on the actual legislation that was uh recommended by the house and senate leadership and their ways and means chairs and transportation chairs that debate has begun uh in full swing as they say in the house uh this afternoon um on a uh really a smaller version of the governor's proposal looking at a total of 500 million dollars per year related to transportation infrastructure and regional transit the governor proposed roughly a billion dollars a year related to transportation uh and so the legislature has begun that debate what we did learn at senator Rosenberg's uh municipal conference in northampton on saturday where a number of cabinet officials were there and a lot of the uh state leadership mass dot secretary davie was there uh the senate transportation chair senator magie administration finance secretary glenn shore spoke to the group it was a very good workshop there was a clear indication from senator rosenberg and senator magie that local road funding is a priority of the legislature going forward and i think that bodes well for at least the first year trying to get to a 300 million dollar a year figure on chapter 90 road money that's a 50 percent increase and that would be worth over 400 000 in additional dollars to the town of amherst for road work if that was to be included in the package uh and ideally over a five-year period they're talking more of a five-year period but the debate is about the adequacy of the 500 million to fund all of the various things including regional transit and some of the other bigger state projects that need to be funded including some 91 work through downtown springfield and projects all over all over the region so we're expecting to get movement on that over the next several days and it's kind of high stakes poker down there at the moment thank you um questions or comments about state situation how that impacts our plans miss burr um wow it's really late it just feels really late um and it's not you know it's only 9 15 but we've been busy when we were advocating for the governor's plan we were advocating for both the transportation and the education side of things um interestingly as you know because you were there but as public may or may not be hearing this um that at stands wonderful municipal conference he didn't have an education section like he often does but we did get to hear secretary matt malone so that was terrific but um education does not seem to be getting a lot of play in terms of funding and so there are in fact people who are actively working against the transportation plan that's being proposed because it doesn't have the education piece in it so as a strategy to approach the education side of things so I would just ask that the town manager keep us surprised as a select board how we can work with our select school committee counterparts etc because you know when we came forward back in early days we said great both both parallel tracks that's terrific um I just don't want us to be working across purposes or at least certainly not without being aware of it so that would be helpful thank you miss fine um I just want to say that one of the things that was appealing about the governor's plan originally was that it was a chance to make the tax system a little bit more progressive but less regressive and unfortunately what the legislature is coming up with is more regressive because it's adding three cents to the gasoline tax which in principle I think is a good idea but it is not a progressive taxation I think it's a good idea because we would like people to drive less um but I don't think that's the way I would have preferred to have our revenues enhanced so um and we did have um the education secretary speak and I thought he was remarkable in many ways um not the least uh or one of the things that was particularly appealing to me was his passion for poor children and wanting to make sure there would be enough money as the governor proposed so that pre kindergarten classes which are clearly an advantage for underprivileged children um would give them a chance so that by third grade they would be capable readers and so on and then he he voiced his support for the educational system all the way through including higher education and I thought he was very amusing to confess to us that he was a registered republican it seemed as if the things he was advocating for were really not what I expected from a registered republican when it comes to education so it was a very nice opportunity to meet him and I just uh I hope he gets to fund some of the very good initiatives he talked about and that all the money doesn't go to transportation thank you other questions or comments about the state budget how it affects our local proposal anything else you'd like to add mr santi about the situation uh no but we'll be seeing a house ways and means budget proposal on april 10th later this week action by the full house by the end of april 10th ways and means okay thank you all right next up we have town managers report several things to punch through uh first an update on traffic calming recommendations you know at uh one of your recent meetings we talked about parking uh and paving plans for the calendar 13 and we had some really uh helpful testimony at at your meeting from residents of blue hills road and Dana street among others um and we had recommendations urging us not to proceed with uh installing uh traffic calming speed homes on one street but not the other because of the worry that that would create the unintended consequences of of uh increasing through traffic on the the other street and possibly create that make that a less safe street which is the opposite of the intention for all this um that was very persuasive to me I followed up with uh staff and with uh those residents I have uh instructed our dpw that in calendar 13 we proceed with the installation of speed humps on both Dana street and blue hills road the Dana street ones would be the permanent asphalt speed humps which were always planned uh on top of the newly paved street but on blue hills which isn't likely to be paved resurface for several more years I've I've instructed dpw to install asphalt speed humps that would be put in at you know during the same period as those on Dana so that those improvements on traffic calming happen uh at the same time um so I think that'll be a very positive thing uh on Lincoln Avenue which is undergoing sewer repair work at the at the moment and which is a precursor to the installment of a base coat and then after that top finish coat I've also instructed dpw to install asphalt speed humps on Lincoln Avenue this year so that we don't have a period go by uh where there are no speed humps which has long been the plan for when that road work gets done what isn't settled yet is whether those speed humps will be temporary asphalt speed humps or the permanent asphalt speed humps and that very much depends on some additional uh uh evaluation that needs to occur about whether it will be possible to install the top coat of asphalt this calendar year on Lincoln or if we have to wait until the spring of 2014 for to ensure all the appropriate settling of the base coat occurs so that when the top coat will last as long as it should last um so I don't know the answer to that but at at minimum there'll be temporary speed humps on Lincoln best cases there'll be permanent speed humps on Lincoln this year but the important thing is that speed humps are happening on Lincoln this year thank you that's very good news questions or comments about that thank you next update we're in the midst of interviewing I have not interviewed finalist candidates yet but that's imminent to fill the administrative assistant position in my office that was uh was held by Debbie Gordon who I've transferred to the fire department beginning this week included in your packet uh copies of the job description of both the assistant to the town manager which is Deborah Roussell's position the administrative assistant and it just gives you more detailed flavor all the various work that the office staff do which is invaluable to me but I know invaluable to the select board and the we're interacting also with all the various town staff and departments uh lots of involvement on constituent work uh primary support and the select board's work particularly on licensing and committee appointments keeping all those applications and databases up to date dealing with applicants for the various licenses all kinds of work on meeting prep for these meetings you know town meeting preparation day-to-day support for the human resources function also in my office and finance director work and all my work that gets done every day so I just wanted to put that in there and give you that flavor fundamentally important work being done now by two full time positions back in the day uh five six years ago there were three positions devoted to this effort and you know my office was one of the cuts that offices that shared in the cuts we had to make across town government when we downsized the staffing levels by about 10 percent so they're doing good work and hope to be able to announce a very capable new hire ASAP questions or comments about that okay great next uh I have a memo in your packet uh related to putting the details together and out there and into action uh beginning this spring we've developed I've worked with police chief Livingstone on developing a schedule of police response costs that could be imposed upon nuisance house violations landlords when we when we reach what's considered an excessive number of such violations in a period of time which is three working with the chief we developed what we think is a reasonable and appropriate schedule of response costs for police response we came up with an hourly rate for patrol officers with a one hour minimum 25 bucks an hour supervisors at a slightly higher rate $29 an hour and then costs related to vehicle wear and tear of about $20 per hour and all those costs are are consistent with other calculations we've done with grants and other things and so we thought it was quite reasonable the mechanism would be working with the call data about how many officers and vehicles etc responded so this will be a guideline that the chief will use and wanted to have that out publicly that was a good constructive criticism that was offered you know last fall when we were considering amendments to the nuisance house bylaw that the existing bylaw called for the imposition of these police response costs on violations of more than three times and we hadn't put that into practice uh over the past couple of years since the nuisance house bylaw was adopted so this has put some meat to the bones on this I think and allows us to proceed so does this like word think that we need any action related to this the this was created by uh as mr santa said the the town manager and the police chief working together determining actual costs um I think that we can just accept them as the the current costs I think that if we were to sort of vote to approve them or whatever then they're kind of enshrined whereas um I think that like all costs it should be you know potentially dynamic responding to what the costs are of the moment or whatever going forward so if we vote on them then they need to change whereas the idea of a schedule that is um that is established and maintained by the town manager and the police chief to meet the needs I think makes the most sense so mr absolutely and and then of course the next step being that were we to ever get to the point of having to assess these costs that then we would get reports that would tell us yes we had to assess the costs but this is just one of the steps in the process from the bylaw to say yep we did this part check we've moved on to the next thing and uh and I I agree with mr santa's point about you know that that we hadn't done this yet it hadn't been done yet um and when we talk about the uh the tools that we bring to these issues we don't have all that many tools really that we can use so here's one that town meeting gave us and we hadn't been using yet so I think it it makes sense to have this now fleshed out as a tool that can be used as appropriate so I'm glad to have those in place mr one quick follow-up to that for the town manager were there to be such a report in the future that said we'd had to assess such costs hopefully they'll just realize no I don't want to pay that um it would be worth knowing just as it would for the other fines that we end up loving if there is some sense from the police chief as we occasionally hear anecdotally from members of the public as to whether or not the people who are assessed these fines actually end up having to pay them once they go and complain about it at court because we certainly had that conversation way back in the day when we talked about how do we make it high enough that it'll be a deterrent but the judge won't just say oh no no that's too high you don't have to pay that and so that we we still feel confident that we're in the right rough area okay other questions or comments about that it's great all right next uh staff recognitions uh first I want to recognize our public safety staff again quick summary of this past weekend you know with the concrete assistance from UMass this is our second weekend of the increased level of public safety support we've had from the university and I again want to thank them for making that commitment to us we had two additional ambulances paid by detail uh funded by the university that had put us in a position where we had a maximum of six ambulances available Thursday Friday Saturday night uh fortunately uh we never had to have all six in use at the same time uh we did have five on the road at some moments um so on Saturday and four on Friday but we were covered basically which is the whole point of this whole effort for the multiple calls if and when and we'll have a similar arrangement in place for the coming weekend on the police side uh we had the help of UMass on some of the joint patrols both the horse patrol and then UMass officers paired up with Amherst officers we did have a more visible presence both town and university police in North Amherst for example and that was helpful particularly during the daytime on Saturday we had the beginnings of a large outdoor party uh midday between two and four hundred people and police uh had an intervention there and that broke up peacefully on Saturday uh so it felt good about the weekend there were 45 summonses or arrests uh which is not an unusually high number uh for this time of year and we thought there was there was an effective deployment so we went looking forward to the continuation of that um let's see in terms of recent and upcoming activity um I also wanted to recognize uh two UMass student groups for their fine work I had the pleasure of speaking briefly uh at the Kendrick Park on Sunday morning the autism speaks you which is a student group uh from UMass put together a fundraiser to raise money uh autism and increase awareness um they had several hundred students had been organized and with some community members gathering pledges for a 5k run uh Sunday morning and was able to speak to the group and really say how proud I was as a fellow as a UMass alum to see this is really what the best of what I think UMass is all about when you see the students trying to be the change on some of this stuff and take the lead I know they they the group had secured pledges of something like $27,000 and it was really a great event and uh UMass football team and the Greek community was heavily represented and Coach Molnar was there and one of the assistants it was just it was great to see um the second group uh the Interfraternity Council group of fraternities on campus organized really as a follow-up to some discussions we had with them a few months back about concrete things they might do to help in their community service and improve relationships with some of the neighborhoods they organized neighborhood cleanup and they intend to do this uh every Sunday morning uh between now and the end of the semester uh they were organized by really by chapter house into groups of up to 20 members with trash bags and they divvied up some of the neighborhoods adjacent to campus uh Fearing Phillips Lincoln Avenue uh Allen some of these streets and basically did a litter patrol and they were out in force on Sunday morning and it makes a difference so I just wanted to say nice work I'll just add I'll add a little bit to that um and so it's in the Interfraternity Council as well as the Pan-Hellenic Council of sororities so um they were both very well represented it was incredibly well organized um there were about uh there were between 120 and 130 Greeks uh fraternity and sorority members out doing this they got there about 11 o'clock they were done by 12 30 they collected more than uh 30 bags or about 30 bags of trash which was a lot more than they were expecting um they brought all their own supplies they took care of everything by themselves um they had really good interactions with neighbors as well as uh the Amherst police came by and talked to them and uh uh Dina students was out there with uh talking to them um and so they were just thrilled about it they were thrilled about what they did they were thrilled about the reaction the um the appreciation that they got even ahead of time but certainly during and after great pictures in the Gazette today which were really nice um and it's just it's a it's a tremendous visual and practical actual um uh really good deed being done by uh university students and uh I just think it was tremendous so I I joined Mr. Musanti and thanking them very much for doing that great and lastly I would just mention one follow-up issue I do plan to come back uh and give you a thorough report uh at one of your upcoming April meetings related to affordable housing issues at Roland Green and the Echo Hill uh apartments as a follow-up of some of the good work that's been done at the staff level and with the housing and sheltering committee uh with tenants etc so you can expect um and I'll just expand on your recent and upcoming a little bit um Mr. Musanti and I have been in a number of meetings with university and representatives over the last couple of weeks um including uh we had a big meeting on the 22nd of March which was where the ambulance and police information was all hammered out and uh that was a really a very productive very strong meeting with um UMass officials and Mr. Musanti and I uh and the fire chief and police chief um we also met with the newly elected uh SGA president and vice president last week this the um the new officers are elected in the spring before uh spring break and then they take office uh at the end of April so we're already kind of establishing those relationships and this is something that happens every year you know reaching out to them getting to know them um and getting making sure all those contacts are made and um they're going to also be meeting with the chief of police as well as folks from the chamber in the bid and just kind of trying to make sure that they get connected to everybody they need to be connected to um we also went to an Interfraternity Council meeting along with health director Julie Federman about a week ago at the Lord Jeff this is uh the the Interfraternity Council meets every Thursday they had this particular meeting downtown um in part to accommodate us try and make it convenient for us to attend uh and and it was great I mean they were very well organized they do all kinds of philanthropic work you wouldn't believe the the stuff that each of them was reporting on doing they had a big presence at the Autism Speaks uh thing that Mr. Nusanti mentioned they also were part of the St. Baldrick's event that happened this weekend they also were out there with uh uh Mr. Zomek and uh I don't actually I don't know if Dave was out there himself or just his crew crews from the the land management folks on Mount Pollux doing cleanup and tree planting and everything so those were the Greeks also um on Saturday so uh all kinds of really really good stuff going on with students right now who really just want to want to be a part want to show that that uh that the students are actually an incredibly positive presence in town and it's really it's really meaningful that they're looking to counter the negative parts of the the very few who cause problems so it's been very very good where many of us are invited to dinner I think all of us are invited many of us are attending a dinner at at Pi Kappa Phi this week on Thursday so that will be very interesting we also went to the spring strategy meeting last week this was held at UMPD this is this is the second year this has happened apparently it used to happen like every year but it hasn't been happening recently but it was restarted last year where Dean of Students Office officials from the town and landlords get together and um and other officials from the university get together and share intelligence on what patrol plans are for the spring what the plans are with the buses what what kind of information anybody's hearing about particular parties that are planned things like that it was uh that was a good uh good bunch of information shared there and there's information about all this in the packets I included the um the press release that the university put out after that strategic planning meeting um and uh there's also so folks at home know um the discipline report the most recent discipline report for um the university for the semester is in our packets as I'm not sure check the web packet there's more information in there than it said we can talk about tonight because it's really late um so it just just emphasizing that there's a whole bunch of stuff going on with the university at like every level all the time with all kinds of people that is all okay anybody else have any questions or comments from Mr. Musanti about anything miss spur you want to tell us oh yes uh and I was going to ask you to give a briefing on the uh all the recommendations from that but uh uh I also participated uh at a forum uh last week down at springfield technical community college sponsored by mass inc uh a transportation forum and uh wore my pvta board chair hat that day talking about uh transportation uh finance and uh focus mostly on uh regional transit and the uh their new report mass sinks new report that directly links uh quality uh frequent uh consistent public transit service as a fundamental component to healthy growing economic vitality particularly in our gateway cities are our larger urban centers and I not unabashedly lumped amorst into that category as a major economic hub of the state with the flagship campus here and the other two colleges um so just making the case for investment and the good news is that both the governor's plan and portions of the legislature's plan are are very responsive to the need to shore up and give adequate funding to regional transit like the pvta and this regional equity uh objective which many of us have is is we think being addressed in the funding formulas for the pvta thank you questions or comments about that I'll note that pvta director uh Mary McGinnis uh complimented mr missy ante's performance at that very highly and uh as every time I see her she talks about how how fortunate that group is to have uh have our towns represented be mr missy ante who's serving as its chair so uh we we are well represented there thanks to him at pvta okay let's see just quickly member reports we've got uh bcg summary points are in your packet I don't think I need to go over them because they're pretty self-explanatory um it's it's kind of a summary of the budget situation that we've already talked about um and everyone's budgets are well approved and in good shape for a town meeting um jcpc do you want to talk are you on me too basically we have to do we reported last time we're basically done and we have a worked out budget and with mc contingency plans to adapt if the race is $60,000 shortfall so thank you uh liaison and representative reports this time okay on march 20th there was personnel board meeting in the morning um they discussed uh the need for comparative study of non-union compensation which um it's very much needed that bradway noted that our system of many steps within a rank is a very old fashioned system and so that we should modernize our system the second part of the meeting that was from 839 from 9 to 10 was the annual meeting with non-union employees um that mr misanti was at and as was i um the two percent cola was announced as i recall um the fact that there would be healthcare premium holiday i think was also mentioned the major complaint is from dpw employees who feel they're falling behind because of the year that they took the zero percent um raise um and uh there was later that day as a matter of fact the kanagasaki sister city event uh welcoming the middle school Japanese children their uh tour leader and um chaperones uh which is always a lot of fun and i went out so both john and i spoke at that meeting and then uh i went out for dinner with the chaperones and uh tour guide and that was also a lot of fun and we have one member of the kanagasaki sister city committee who can actually speak a little bit of japanese so that was a nice interaction to see um what else let's see on march 28th um cpac met to basically approve um the spending that had been decided the previous week but there was one new addition and that is 15 000 to um help the people um who are being uh asked to leave because or or pay much higher rents at the echo village eagle crest property um and they have not had to put down for example um rent deposits at the beginning so they have no money coming back to help them move on to the next location and so this is really a very small amount but it was felt that it would kind of leverage more funds to help with this process with them um and all the other spending has been for cpac has been um for the cpa has been very nicely put online by mary streeter with illustrations you really ought to go and take a look at it anybody who's interested in um how cpac um took care of their funding request this year it's very well spent out there and me uh march 27th was the audit committee um and basically they look to see if the town is in compliance with appropriate auditing practices and basically we really are there's a management letter which deals with a few very small number of complaints and very often they're just things didn't get communicated to town staff so they couldn't react in an appropriate way or they made a a small error which was then remediated so um i was going to talk about why people think there's more money um than there really is which basically has people i have been approached to say that we have a million or two million dollars more than we spend and why don't we spend it and that's really just an accounting thing it's the time with which money moves out of free cash and it has to do with billing and if you want a more coherent explanation of that i will be delighted to give it to you but not until i clarify something that i received in an email which seems to me to be missing a figure so that'll have to be next time okay and so that's um that's part of the the year end summary that we get from mr pooler right every year that talks about the the overages and the underages from each department and how they right how it all works out so and i'm missing one total figure so that's like less than one percent or it's like one point one percent or something of our very small amount that we really have less it's a hundred and fifty thousand but um and that's you know when you consider the overall budget it's a fraction of a fraction of a percent right especially when you consider that the budget is based on projections so you don't know what the money is for sure that you're going to need to spend and what's going to come in so to come in within basically one but there's something about the accounting practice that leads one to believe there's more money left than there really is and that's what i'd like to be able to present to you in a more coherent way okay good but i need another figure to do it all right question or comments from it's time other liaison reports uh just briefly uh historical commission has not met since we last met but they are meeting tomorrow night at which time they will take up the question of article 36 with a proposal that rezoning of those two lots of the intersection of grey street and main street uh the dickinson historic district committee met last monday uh week ago and they formally decided not to exercise their right or first option to undertake the study for north amherst district so they would then request at the select board appointed separate study committee for that purpose and residents had expressed some interest in an earlier request for a committee to study the possibility of a district uh in this as you know in the sunset area that's been the object of rental conversions and student disturbances and so forth and what had happened before that is that the commission had expressed general support for the idea of a study there but there hasn't been a formal request made to select board as you know i think it's partly a question of what what town staff can do also i think you alluded to that with the question of the the umass town gown cooperation uh if we keep producing committees that take staff time and go on for a year or a year and a half uh with 30 meetings that's something to be considered also so i think and i think in general the town staff sense was that it was hard to have multiple things going uh concurrently we might want to think about the best way to move things forward and yet make careful use of staff time so that's maybe taken up in separate meetings that's the basic uh there was a question last time about the north amherst so that's the answer to the question now so are you saying that um they are continuing to chew on that question of staff and and how to best do this or they have not yet sent any request to us or recommendation correct right they have not yet whether they would i don't know but but i think the sense of staff that i got from talking to staff is that there's a little bit of hesitancy about going forward with too much too soon and not being able to devote appropriate attention to it miss burr i'm happy to hear that um they they followed our lead on the diggins and followed our lead on wanting north amherst streets own separate study committee of course that does mean that natemaloy has to go ahead and solicit from the various uh professional organizations as well as our ongoing attempts to recruit people through the caf process so that's great but it's a step in the direction that we said we were going to go into and certainly if you know if anyone would ask me personally i would say that yeah please let's put sunset and everything else on hold until we at least get through this because dickinson has taken this long to really get off the ground in terms of their ability to do that just simply because of the logistics of getting people together and resources so um although it's very fascinating to study all these things i'm just not clear when we would do all these things and it's not like nate's going to just be able to snap his fingers and get the architects and the realtors and everybody else to just give us answers right away either so there's a lot of follow-up involved in these things thank you your questions or comments for mr wall anything else press okay mr um this week the community development block grand advisory committee is meeting to look at what programs have been funded in the past etc so that that's a meeting that's being held the same night that we're going to dinner so i said i'd be late um so that's thursday the 11th for anybody who's interested in looking at the criteria again that they look at and how they follow up on what people said they were going to program and what they actually programmed so that's worth checking out and other items specifically i guess i will just mention regional school district planning we are looking at developing an agreement associated with pre-k to six for three towns not including shootsberry shootsberry still at the table helping us develop this in hopes that in a year or two they would be able to join such an item however they will not be bringing it to a vote in the fall in the same way that the town of amherst would be and will be and the towns of lever and pelham will be we have a ton of work to do between now and june and if you see our wonderful finance committee chair andy steinberg looking stressed out please tell him what good work he's doing because you know town meeting time finance committee region really bad times unfortunately his leadership has been incredibly valuable we can't possibly let him not do it and it's it's definitely been a strain so we are having lots of subcommittee i for example associated with both timeline communications and with governance so if there's anybody out there that strangely enough hasn't heard of this already and is hearing of it for the first time at select board please we have a web page for both the local group and for the regional group and there's lots of information out there and we'll be having lots more meetings so that we can present something to the voters in amherst at an actual election in november completely off-cycle of everything else thank you as you mentioned that i'll just note that call from the town manager did go out to residents today with a reminder about the election tomorrow as well as the two off-cycle elections that are coming out for the senate primary and then the senate election it also talked about deadlines for registering to vote for those elections etc so that was both a a call an email to anyone who subscribes to that and is on the town website now so thank you for doing that i'm so sorry i forgot to recognize that so thank you very much for that i had actually a number of different people approach me about it and so they were extremely grateful that you did that and because it is a lot for people to keep track of particularly the different voter registration deadlines and of course that means a lot of work for our town clerk as well so thank you for that i'll say i'd be for me to record it oh good and i also should just mention briefly that i did go to the veteran session at stands municipal conference met colman the terrific guy really interesting programs the one thing i do want to get copied and send along to us is culik is presenting a couple of bills and i i just have to check with ellen and stand and see if they think oh yeah these are great and then we get our usual free pass on lobbying people like yeah they already agree with us so we don't have to worry about it um to make sure that there's nothing else to it but the idea being that the state would take on instead of reimbursing us for a portion of the veterans benefits that we're required by the commonwealth to provide on a community by community basis and then getting reimbursed eventually that the state would take on the full amount but not change how the actual veteran service officer works because we have such a great veteran service officer steve conner who everyone at the at the meeting loved and kept bringing up oh you have to be part of this with this guy he's great um and so that it was it was a positive to hear again about how terrific our system was and also just the idea because for example some very very small communities are having trouble with when you know when when you have such a small budget if they have four veterans move in and get services and they don't get reimbursed for a year 18 months they're actually looking at an override vote on their town operating budget to cover things like this so it's kind of insane when you think about it because why would it matter what town you're in so um he's got some legislation pending to try smooth that out but again where's the money gonna come from to do it in that fashion just like forward funding of regional transit so okay let's see um my liaison reports i haven't been to housing authority since i don't know when i missed the council on aging meeting the other day conservation commission they're doing excellent work the only thing they need me for is like open meeting um uh law right um what sort of guidance you know conflict of interest stuff or whatever but those meetings are fascinating um budget coordinating group we already talked about campus and community coalition oh i'll remind us all that uh walk this way which i have not heard a report on except just generally that it went well on friday night is this is the campaign to try and encourage students to avoid kind of the neighborhoods just north of just south of the university uh in their travels um going to and from wherever they're going uh in the evenings that was from 10 30 to 230 i understand it went very well friday i did not do that one because we had to be up so early saturday morning for stands conference but i am doing it the next two saturdays so we volunteers needed welcome anybody who wants to do the 10 30 to 230 overnight shift yes that's what i thought but if uh if you uh if you change your mind you know let me know if anybody from the community would like to do it let me know um so yeah that's coming up the next two weekends um safe and healthy safe and healthy is probably going to meet again just to talk about the final results of the um the revisions to the rental bylaw um it's all essentially the same it's like 98% 99% the same as what the recommendation was but um town council and uh even the attorney general town council gave it a good review attorney general gave it a quick review and so some changes needed to be made to to deal with that um slack board is going to deal with that article taking position on that on the 22nd um so uh so we can talk all about those details then i think that is all oh no other things no those are my liaison reports but chairs report covers almost everything except i just want to note two things one for the public uh that in this room in three weeks on april 29th monday at five o'clock we're going to have a coffee hour reception to honor harrison greg for his long service as moderator all are welcome that will be again at five o'clock preceding that night's select board meeting that is our last select board meeting before town meeting so that seemed like a good time to recognize our change in moderator um there will be a uh official gavel passing at that moment and uh so that that should be nice and um please spread the word that the community is is very invited to attend that and express their all of our great appreciation and respect for mr greg and his long service in that role um additionally i'll just remind slack board that we have been invited to a finance committee meeting on april 25th we got an email about this about a week ago this is for an update on the opeb situation we had a new actuarial study and report we have the report but this is the opportunity to ask questions about it um it seemed to make more sense to invite all the boards and committees to a finance committee meeting rather than all of us try and create a new meeting uh at this time of year um so that is thursday the 25th it is in this room at seven o'clock if you can't make it um it is televised so if you have questions uh further questions then by all means you can watch the meeting if you have questions about the report which we have been provided already uh mr pooler's finance director sandy pooler is asking that questions be submitted ahead of time just to increase the likelihood of the opeb actuarial person being able to respond to them so uh that is all um we meet next tuesday because monday is a holiday we're meeting tuesday in this room um for that particular meeting of that particular week we have lately met on wednesday at the police station but instead we're meeting tuesday and in this room so i'll see you all or as many as can be here on tuesday uh at 6 30 the 16th and we have a couple of other untimed items but those are all the things um needed to be reported on does anybody have anything that needed to be reported on that haven't mentioned okay good because it's really late so let's finish up our untimed items okay you ready yes all right i move that the slack board approved the reservation of the first three this is um fakes ravage janza uh the first three metered parking spaces on the east side of south pleasant street going south from the intersection of spring street and six metered parking spaces originating at the fifth meter on the west side of boltwood avenue moving south toward college street from eight a.m to seven p.m and the south side of the spring street parking lot from 1 30 p.m to 7 p.m on saturday april 20th for the umass amherst cannabis reform coalitions extravaganza festival second second further discussion on favor say hi hi hi that's unanimous all right the garden club plant sale i moved at the slack board approved the reservation of 18 meter parking spaces on the south side of the spring street parking lot for the garden garden club of amherst annual plant sale set up on friday may 17th 2013 beginning at 6 30 a.m through no later than 6 p.m second further discussion on favor say hi stop um i just want to know this is their entire thing why does it say plant sale set up that almost sounds like a a pre event it is for the pre event okay so it's not for the sale itself okay that's coming another time i i don't believe they ask for they don't parking for the event only for all the people to bring their all right well anyway then i'm done so it's good so we can vote all right uh all in favor say hi hi all right new taxi driver chauffeur licenses i move that the select board approve a new taxi driver slash chauffeur license for taryn svahey of florins mass may m a rather on behalf of gotto go taxi company for discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous i move that the select board approve a new taxi driver slash chauffeur license for timothy can of north hampton m a on behalf of celebrity cab company for the discussion favor say hi hi that's unanimous okay so we are also going to sign the warrant yes okay the minutes i never got there are no minutes for your review tonight that's a shouldn't be on the motion sheet okay well i decided that they should be and then that they shouldn't be and then i saw these dates on there and i thought i'm not doing any minutes i'm not doing a minute or not okay um so we are signing the warrant that doesn't require a vote but i do want it noted that we are doing that at this meeting we have to sign the warrant as well as the liquor license a couple of other things so don't leave until you've signed things and uh that is all we already said that we're meeting uh tuesday uh oh if mr hayden isn't here how are we ever gonna adjourn uh without objection side of the room has to adjourn without objection this meeting adjourns at 10-03 thank you very much