 All right. So welcome everybody. I want to welcome those who are just joining us to the Thursday Amherst Community Chat. Today we have senior services director of senior services, Mary Beth Ogilewicz and assistant town manager and director of conservation and development. David Zomek joining myself, Brianna and your town manager, Paul Baucherman. So before we launch into questions from the room and those that have been submitted, I want to give Paul Baucherman a chance to give any updates he has. So thanks Brianna and thanks for doing this and thanks to our guests today. They have a lot. They are here mainly because they're addressing the most current things. I hope that they can launch right into what's happening. There's a lot of things happening and they're both at the center of it. So I don't have anything to add to that. Okay, so with that being said, I'd give both David and Mary Beth a chance to introduce themselves for those who do not know them. So David, why don't you start off. Sure. Good afternoon everybody Dave Zomek assistant town manager. I'm happy to be here today with you all and talk about a variety of different town projects. My job is exciting every day chance to work with a number of different departments collaboratively and with the residents and committees and board so when when the time is right here today love to update you on a few projects we're working on. Great, thank you. And Mary Beth if you don't mind introducing yourself and any updates that you might want to share. Good afternoon everyone Mary Beth Ogilevitz here director of senior services. And we have a couple of things that are pressing that are happening. First of all, if you are interested to engage in in person early voting please come down to the bank center. So we are open seven days a week for in person early voting, including on Saturday and Sunday. During the week the hours are eight to 430 this morning when I was here, probably by 745 we've had a line forming outside the door, we've had a really robust response. I think it's really quite unprecedented, but we have a capacity to really safely make sure that you can cast your vote in person should you choose to do so. We have a number of poll workers who are here they're cleaning the area after each person votes. Sorry persons. They're cleaning the cleaning pens and pencils they're cleaning the voting ballot areas, admitting persons one at a time so they really have some wonderful protocols in place. People have remarked uniformly that they feel very safe. So this is a challenge of having it having a live broadcast here so come down in vote and don't forget to come here to the bank center the entrance is through the front door only. And then, more importantly, if you had a chance to read the Gazette today, we have some really exciting news working in cooperation with the Unitarian Universalist Society and Craig's Doors that we were able to announce that we're providing a new location shelter that will be open and available 24 seven for those who are experiencing homelessness. And this has been an incredible endeavor, really led by Kevin noon in who was unable to be with us today but Kevin noon is the executive director at Craig's door and has done a really phenomenal job of reinventing shelter services during coven. He's had to face a number of challenges around safely spacing people, which caused and prompted us to assist him in looking at some other venues. We have been located as many of you are well aware at the first Baptist church for a lengthy period of time, but the site was that footprint was really too small to accommodate the number that we anticipate. So the Unitarian Universalist Society have welcomed Kevin to locate the shelter this season there, and we're very excited. It's going to improve services and a number of ways. I mean, it will be open and available 24 seven so our guests will be able to be housed and have a really safe space for an entire day so it's not going to be just an overnight experience. And with that comes a whole host of, of healthy outcomes that we think will be able to produce for those residents. So the town's been working we've been advocating for resources we've been a partner and an ally around securing public health resources to make sure that it's a safe setting. Everything from testing to working with code enforcement and the fire department emergency management. So we're really hoping that this provides another opportunity and some momentum for some safe, safe location and also some healthy outcomes for the entire community. And we've also heard on that Dave and Mary Beth were the lead for the town on this and just a number of steps and a number of amount of work it takes to get to this meeting with the church meeting with the entire congregation of the church. And again, you know, credit to Kevin new name Craig stores board for pushing this forward, they really have just done incredible work to get to where we are today. And we're happy to have been provided to provide some support along the ways as well. Great. Thank you for that for that update Dave is there anything in that vein that you wanted to add on about that. I think Mary Beth covered it very nicely but yeah it's been a team effort and a collaborative effort and it feels really good. We're not there yet but we are the pieces are coming together for for November one so we're feeling very good about it and as I said on an earlier call this morning all of this is really it's a marathon not a sprint but we are, we're in this together with Greg's doors and lots of partners in the community the you use been fantastic so we just got to keep pushing forward. And so do you think they'll open November November 1 which is a Sunday do you think they'll open on time they'll hit that dark target. I'm very hopeful. I am. We've got a few last things that we're still pinning down but that is certainly the target. They are hiring staff and doing we're all doing what's required to get it to lift off so that is the intention. That's fantastic. I think you know just to, as Paul said this is a multiple people, both inside the town, organic, you know, services as well as Craig's doors, but you know, a lot of credit to inspection services and fire department, you know, these are going to be ready to serve the function that that we're asking them to serve in this case the you use so, you know, the inspection services and fire team will be in there working with Greg's doors to make sure this is a safe, clean, a healthy environment not only to start the season November 1 or very close to that, but throughout the winter and of course Craig's doors will be working with the fire department, the police department to make sure, you know, collectively we all are in a good place. And if I just would add, you know, because I Dave and I did attend the UU congregational meeting, the response of that community was nothing short of spectacular. And I think the, the generosity of spirit and the way in which they're embodying their mission wholeheartedly and and quite unanimously is just something that to me is so representative of Amherst and was part of the reason I wanted to work in a community like this. It was just incredibly inspiring and so I hope that we're going to be able to build on that momentum of these new relationships, certainly bringing along the first Baptist community as well, and acknowledging their long term commitment, but also taking an opportunity to recognize and have an opportunity for new relationships and new ways to challenge ourselves, expand services, be more inclusive and connected within the community. So I just wanted to really call out their representation in this project. Great thank you for adding that Mary Beth I think that's really important for for the community members, especially to hear. I think a quick chance to remind the folks who are attending in the room. We'd love to hear from you live if you have a question you can do so by raising your hand and zoom, or by using the q amp a function and popping your question in there. I do have some questions here that I'm going to pose to our special guests, but feel free to submit your questions all along for the remaining session. So I have this, this person asking that they, they saw some changes happening in downtown. I think they might be referring to some of the lanes being restriped in the lane adjustments. Can one of you talk about the changes and how it relates to the, the grant that was received for those improvements. Sure. I'm happy to start. I may want to chime in as well but yeah it's a great question and again we have been working extremely hard and closely with with our friends and colleagues at the bid in the chamber to try to do everything we can to help downtown businesses be they retail or restaurants. So what people are seeing out here is, is, you know, throughout the last two three months. We have been making adjustments we've been hearing from the business community and trying to make adjustments to help them be more successful in reaching their, their clientele and so we've done things like work with the bid in chamber on getting obviously the areas for them to expand out into the street to have tables to have umbrellas and most recently we added heaters so that they could extend their, their dining season farther into the fall. We did just get a grant from the mass department of transportation to make some additional adjustments and some some different adjustments in our downtown to give more space more space for pedestrians to make sure the pedestrians and diners are safer with wider sidewalks and in more area to move around. So we're trying to make those adjustments as we can before winter sets in. And we're also looking ahead to say, what post pandemic what, what, what can Amherst downtown look like what can we do to be a more welcoming environment where businesses restaurants are even more successful than they have been in the past. So we're really looking at the width of our sidewalk and our bike lanes to make our downtown more walkable, bikeable and safe and and and inviting for people to come downtown so it's, it's been great working with the bid in the chamber we've heard a lot of there's been really good feedback and really good dialogue with our restaurants and with our downtown businesses, it's, it's challenging for them we have to acknowledge that it has been very difficult, and the road ahead is unclear but we want to partner with them as best we can. And so Dave mentioned the heaters and it seems like such a simple thing right go out and go to Home Depot and buy some heaters and put them out and so that people can sit outside. And because Republic because it's procurement because they're it's commercial because there are safety things that were responsible for it was pretty a pretty arduous task and we had people driving out of state and trying to find heaters for our business and they we were successful and it was like just a credit inspection services and fire and everybody who came together to make that happen. And, you know, people say well it's going to get cold so fast and it's like that's true, but we're also looking to the spring. So we want to have all this setup for the spring so when we emerge from the winter doldrums, we want people to be able to have some place to come and attend to have dinner have a drink be outside have our downtown set up to ready to receive people in a safe way. So all this work, you know, people saying you're only doing it for a few weeks but it's really for a much longer period of time. And again as Dave said we're looking for long term like maybe this is something we keep for a long time and that's it's a bed it's a real benefit to the town so I think the grant your division got Dave is like $180,000 to do this so it's not chump change here. So that'll include planters and a number of different pieces of equipment for DPW to help with with downtown. As I said safety for pedestrians and vehicular safety, we've got heaters now in our downtown for those restaurants who wanted them, and then as far as south as Mission Cantina in the south and the harp up north so again we're hoping to get more heaters to really extend the season as Paul said, these are now town property and we will store them over the winter and we hope to bring them out as soon in 2021 as restaurants would like to start serving outdoors. And that includes we'll be putting out probably a little bit later today. I'm working with one of the planners that that works. And Dave's functional area to put out a little bit of an explainer video about some of those elements that were just described, and as well as other things that the grant will will cover so you can look out for that shortly. All right. Rihanna, do you mind I mean I've got a couple of quick updates, you know, that I could fill people in on projects. Absolutely. So yeah, you know, despite the pandemic. We are we are pushing forward on a number of different fronts and I'll only touch on a few things that are happening out there but you know just projects that that are exciting they're new they're their projects that have been in the pipeline for a while. I think most people know that we did the town did open the new playground and spray park at Groff Park. I think it's been a huge success. We, we completed most of that work. The spray park was turned on for about a month. And I think the response we got was very positive hundreds of children and families came down there socially distance and enjoyed that. So we look forward to 21 when we can fully open the spray park in in spring and have it be open for a number of months in 21. So kudos to all the departments that worked on that from planning and DPW was instrumental in bringing that project home. At the same time, we kicked off the plans and construction is underway for a new dog park or the emmer's dog park out on old Belcher town road. And again DPW came through the planning department and other departments and now DPW is is really going to help work with the construction firm to build that two acre dog park. And people if you're traveling out that way toward Belcher town, take a quick detour on old Belcher town road and you will see the construction company working there very soon. They're doing some of the early grading work or protecting some of the wetlands that are adjacent there. And that project will really take shape before the before the snow flies. When will the dog park open do you think Dave. Well, a lot of that will depend on growing grass. Part a good portion of the dog park is is a grass area another part is a piece stone. And we're going to look to DPW to really their expertise. If we can get grass growing this fall wonderful. We'll definitely have to wait through the spring so I would see a leader in 21 opening. The key is you don't want to have that brand new grass get dogs and people out there, and then have to replant and and seed again so we're going to we're going to lean on DPW to help us make that call. The dog park task force is still very engaged they're still raising money. I think they have a meeting coming up in a week or two where we're going to do kind of an update on the project. A lot of folks have asked about Hickory Ridge and the town's plans to acquire Hickory Ridge. Those plans are still moving forward. In fact, I was corresponding with with an attorney on that project this morning and, in fact, we are we are moving forward we hope in the next, you know, a couple of months before the new year before the new year. So we're working with the owner of the property. As most people know there will be a solar development out on that site. So we're coordinating some of the solar elements to the site. We're also making sure that the site comes to the town in the absolute best condition that we require in other words that it is a clean site there are no 21E issues or contamination on the site. So the site needs to come to us with with a number of different conditions and the owner is meeting those conditions as we speak. And then we'll go into in 21 we'll go into a master planning process where we'll bring together community members and committees and boards and really look at what the town wants that property to be in the end. I know I get emails. People stop me on the street. They want to be involved in that project. People talk to me about the health of the Fort River about community gardens about hiking trails about affordable housing. There's a whole suite of ideas that people are, I think are going to come come forward in that process. You know, it's interesting because one of the challenges that Brianna and I have been talking about is how to involve the public during the age of pandemic and she's come up with some creative you want to talk a little bit about bang the table and some of the other things you're looking at thinking about. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking when when Dave was describing that project so we are in the in the process right now implementing a new public participation platform and the it's the company is called bang the table but it will be great name. It is very good. So we will make it specific to Amherst will be an online portal where there will be any number of town initiatives and projects that you can go into follow specifically the progress see the timeline of the entire project and along the way will build in different opportunities for public participation from a very small poll, yes or no to to more involvement so we get that kind of ladder of engagement so people can express their opinion or collaborate in ways that they have time for in ways that they're comfortable with. So we kind of we look at being on a border committee as kind of higher along that ladder but there are a lot of other opportunities for us to build consensus and gain opinions and so probably in the next couple of, I would say a month and a half we might start seeing that take shape and come online. And so I would imagine that the Hickory Ridge project would be a perfect tool to use that and engage with our public so there'll be more to come on that when we're ready to launch it. Explainer videos invitations to join and we'll probably start with some sort of fun lower stakes activity in order to get people signed up and engaged through that platform but we're very excited about it. And I have a graduate student intern who's working with me on that project as well right now so I'm tuned for that it would be a lot of new ways to connect beyond, you know, sending an email or making a public comment we want to make sure that we have a diverse array of ways that people can connect with us. One of the things that offers that you don't have to, you don't have to show up at a certain time at a certain meeting you can it gives you that facility but you can come in at any time. You're feeding the baby at night and you want to check in on what's going on with this project you can check in, you can put in a comment or vote or things like that so, and then all the information for the project is gathered in one location. So, it's something we gotta try see how it works. It's perfect timing for what we need to be doing since we're in the zoom world anyway. And people can, we think it provides more access to folks so I'm really excited about this too. I think we'll hear from a lot of new voices who, who may not be comfortable with the, you know, the traditional format of making public comment or showing up at a meeting we'll get to hear from some of those more reticent voices and give them a way that they feel comfortable with contributing to to our projects so really excited about that we'll probably have to do a whole session on that once it's launched. I did want to mention also Brianna there's been a lot of focus this year with COVID on on kind of outdoor recreation, particularly passive recreation and you know there's there's a lot of reason to to feel optimistic as we move into 21 and hopefully get through the pandemic but you know I did want to give credit our town staff have done a terrific job on our trails up at Puffer spawned. I think the, the work we did up there with with staff from various departments from we pulled staff from from LSEC from the senior center from conservation and from a few other departments here in town hall and they did a terrific job at meeting and greeting and helping people to enjoy Puffer spawn while at the same time being safe with social social distancing and I think, you know, overall, I heard overwhelming support for the, the impact that had the positive impact that had on the Puffer spawned. So I think we'll kind of take that information as we look forward and how to manage the pond and manage the people who love it and use it and want to be there every summer. You know, I think in 2019 we we worked, my staff work collaboratively with DPW to redesign or reimagine the the and make State Street one way and redo the parking and I think that was kind of phase one and we learned a lot about the importance of having a presence there during the 2020 season so I think we'll look to kind of build on that in future years because everybody loves Puffer spawn. Can you talk a little bit about it seems like it's getting shallower and shallower. What's going on there. Yes, it's filling in Paul absolutely yes it is. It's a, it's a natural process for an unnatural pond let's put it that way it's a mill pond so, so it's a it's a built pond, and what happens behind any dam for for a pond that has a water course in it is that sediment naturally comes down sand rock stone come down soil come down the stream and eventually fill in the pond. So we are looking at that we've had some studies done we did some some interesting work with UMass and some of their graduate studios there to take a look at historic depths of Puffer spawn. We know kind of how much the pond is filling in every year and we do need to do something about it. If we want to keep that as a passive recreation area we're going to have to dredge it. We do have a little money set aside through the capital plan from years ago that we really need to get in the permitting pathway to move that project forward. I didn't realize until you told me was that the last time you dredged it you didn't truck the fill away you just put it on a hill next to the pond, and so it made it much more efficient and created a nice little parking area, in addition to the pond on the north side of the pond I think it was right. The north side of the pond is an old gravel pit so in kind of an interesting twist that gravel was mined many years ago by the Puffer family for road projects and home projects throughout the valley. And my predecessor this predates me when we dredged the pond last probably 20 years ago to save money because a lot of a dredging project is the trucking cost. We've got the sediment which is all clean up to the west and everyone calls that kind of the north or northwest beach, the beach on the far side of the pond the smaller beach, and we trucked it right in there and we saved a tremendous amount of money on trucking costs. So that could be an option for our next dredge project up there. I'm going to give note to the conservation staff as as DPW been very busy with all these storms we've gotten this summer we've lost a lot of trees. We've lost a fair number of street trees but I would say, right now we probably have 40 to 50 down trees on trails so anybody who's listening or who sees this. We know where they are we appreciate all your your reports please keep them coming. We've, we've logged in where those trees are it's just going to take a while for my to two person staff to get to all of those trees. Some of them are literally 100 foot white pines, and we try to clear the trail we're not removing a trail out on the conservation area like you would on a public shade tree on the on the common if that went down you have to remove everything. We're trying clear the trail, move things aside so that people can use the trail for hiking biking running dog walking, whatever their purpose, but 40 to 50 trees is a lot and many of them are in very inaccessible places so 40 week and Tyler peas are going to be working through that this winter trying to get those trees removed and clear all those trails. It's a big job. There's some down on the trail behind my house so I'll have to send an email to somebody. I do want to give we're coming up to our time here, which always goes so quickly. Thank you for for any attendees in the room to pop in your question otherwise I'm going to allow a chance for everybody to say what they didn't get to say or any parting words. Mary Beth you want to start. Sure. Number one, come down and vote early in person voting is going on so either drop it at the town hall you can mail it or come and do in person voting were open seven days a week. Two, challenge your views of ageism and how you view older people Friday night there's going to be a fantastic photography exhibit behind the Amherst cinema that we've been working with the local photographer Isabella Delolio, and it's featuring stories and how we view aging and that it is also part of living and vibrancy. The challenge yourself around ageism and then lastly what I would say is we can't do the shelter work without you. So please feel free to contact Craig's doors donate. They need things like socks raises toothpaste as well as financial contributions and we're in this together, what a resilient community looks like we are defining daily so thanks. Dave you sure you're after that. Sure I can really follow that but I didn't know this was the final question know what I would say is I really want to thank town staff for all of their work during 2020 it's not over yet we realize that but they've been doing a terrific job under under challenging and trying times. You know the public for their patients with all of with all of the work we've been doing. We are trying to meet as many of your needs as we possibly can that's our jobs we recognize that. And I think overall from DPW to fire to police to to the clerk's office to accounting to to all of the people we serve out there, as well as, you know, on board just thank everybody for their patience and for sticking it out and and we've got a long way to go. But I think with patience and understanding we will get there as a town so thank you all. Great thank you Dave, Paul. Yeah, my, my, my last one will be Mary best number one which is vote early at the bank center mail in your ballot, you can also just drop off your ballot we have three reserved parking spaces right on the main street side of town hall you can park there for 15 minutes jump out, drop your ballot into the mail into the little box that's right there. That box gets empty multiple times a day by the town clerk's office. So it's it's really easy to do so make sure you do it much better than trying to vote on election day. And we've had a lot of people taking selfies and videos of themselves dropping off the ballot so don't hesitate if you want to if you want to do that please tag us and we'll, we'll share the voting the vote early love. All right, so I want to thank everybody who's joining us and everybody who's watching this. After the fact, we'll put this on our community chat playlist, and we will back be back next Thursday at noon and every Thursday. After that, except for Thanksgiving, we won't be here then. All right, thank you. Thank you all.