 Our juror over the. And so. Kathy mentioned that she was having some humidity issues too. I've been doing a lot of this all day like, like, oh my God. And that does not help it stay contained. Hello, everyone. Happy Thursday. It is March 7th, 731. And we are going to call this meeting of the same number. It is 511. It is at 411. 411. It is in the BOL two or fairer. I'm going to go ahead and start off by checking in to make sure everyone can hear me and then we can hear you. So we are going to start with Councilor Ryan. Present. Nice to see you. Lynne Greece, present councilor ette. Present. And we have heard Athena. Who is our clerk of the council who is gracing us with her I'm not going to make any comments about the lightness or heaviness of our agenda, but we're going to get started here on our agenda for the day. We're going to start with seeing if we have any attendees and we do not. So I would open for public comment, but we have no attendees so public comment has been called. Pat will not be joining us today so she should be noted as absent. She let me know ahead of time. One thing that I wanted to quickly note as an announcement before jumping in, it's not on the agenda so we're not going to discuss it but I did put a work tentative work plan in your packet for today if folks want to review it. We'll be directly with any questions and we'll put it on the agenda for next time so we can discuss it. If I'm not mistaken though I don't think we should talk about it today since it wasn't on the agenda. And again, it's just a tentative document things may shift but this kind of gives you an idea of where we're going where I'm intending us to go. And there are a couple things that aren't on there like interview dates etc because we haven't established those yet but you know that they will be on there at some point. So just let me know if you have any questions, email me directly, not the full committee. All right, with that said, quick deep breath as we go in here, we don't have anything that should be wildly chatty tonight but I would like to remind folks that we are going to be using the raise hand function, as we go through. And we're going to I'm going to be getting a bit more vigilant about the order in which we speak and making sure that we are speaking when called upon I recommend counselors if you have thoughts as other folks are speaking. Write them down so you don't forget them but we will be going in order so that we don't speak over each other because that gets very confusing, especially when you're watching these meetings back, or if you're listening to them without seeing the video. George and I sound very similar so it's it's easy to get confused. All right. Without further ado, we are going to move to the child abuse and prevention awareness month proclamation I have it, and I'm happy to pull it up in less land you have strong would you like to do it. I'm more than glad to. Okay, sure. Go for it. Thank you. I just want to thank Marlene was anti who has brought us this as the community sponsored community sponsor for a while now which actually leads me to my first edit land which should that say community sponsor resident sponsor community. Okay. All right, let's go through line by line any questions about the title. Great. Questions about council sponsor or resident sponsor. Yes, council Ryan. I just want to take punctuation away from the council sponsors line. Yep. Take away the semicolon. Thank you. I'm trying to find the version I can edit. Oh, I have one line. Oh, it's in your point. Did you want me to just do it? Sure. All right. Oh, I can I have the SharePoint. No, I can do the SharePoint. I'm sorry. No, you're fine. My computer is in night mode and I, even though I took my computer out of night mode, Microsoft Word is still in night mode. So everything's like black with white writing, which I find really annoying and hard to read. Okay. I'll be with you in just a moment. No worries. I took it down right. No, if you could, that'd be great. Just because public yet. The caps. Thank you. Okay, we are. Oh, now it's down. I'm going to. All right, so we have on the screen. Yep, it is on the screen and we've taken away the semicolon from line one and changed the word resident to the word community. Okay. So, whereas April was first declared child abuse awareness and prevention month by presidential proclamation in 1985. And no issues. Okay. Whereas the month of April is devoted to celebrating activities to transform communities into places that care about families and children and. Yes, that was a bit confusing for me. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us why. If you don't mind. I simply couldn't understand what it means but more importantly, transforming communities into places that care about families and. Children. Maybe if we spoke about caring communities, the trans transforming, I think it's where I had one of the issues. I agree. I, it's stuck for me a little bit too. I wasn't sure if it was a problem or not. Again, remind remembering. I think I'll defer to Lynn who's one of the sponsors here if she thinks that this is a clarity question. For me, it seems to insinuate that the communities do not currently care about places that care about families and children. So I think celebrating activities, which continually develop communities, not so quite right. Which support community development of caring about families and. So I had whereas the month of April is devoted to celebrating activities in the community that highlight how to care for families and children. I missed the last part. Which highlight how to care for families and children. Yes. How do you feel about a shift saying that highlight communities. What about that. Getting rid of what's highlighted. That leaves two communities. Yeah, that's confusing. That highlight care about families and children does that work care for families and children. Wait, sorry, we've made it so much worse. Not worse just more confusing, because the idea here, the original sentence is trying to say we are celebrating activities that help communities care more about families and children is that correct. Is that the intention. Yeah. So they're not highlighting the communities they're highlighting the activities within the communities. So, celebrating activities, which highlight communities that care about families and children. I don't want to change. I want to make sure we're not changing the meeting counselor meaning counselor. I think we will have to pick one of the verbs to use either highlight or celebrate. Okay. Does that work. So I think that the general idea of April is devoted to celebrating activities that highlight communities that care about that care about families and children. I think my question is for you and is, is that what it does that's fine. I remember I have to go back to see what the original one was counselor. Does that make sense to you. I don't think we got rid of the verb. Councilor Ryan. Yeah, now it puts. That statement. It's not so much about the communities as it is the, the activities. So they're trying to draw attention to certain activities that aren't going to take place that they hope will be transformative or they hope will what increase or improve or. Okay, so thank you counselor and that helped clarify my thinking. Kim we should. I'm actually not going to look at the screen for a second I'm looking at the old version. The month of April is devoted to celebrating activities. Which support community development about families and children. I'm not going to go backwards. I'm open to edits I'm trying to get it back we've I think we've lost the original intention of the sentence I think counselor Ryan is right. Council Ryan your hand is up did you have a thought. Our initial issue was with the word transform. The initial sentence was the month of April is devoted to celebrating activities to transform communities into places that care about families and children. How about the month of April is devoted to activities that celebrate communities that care about families and children. Okay. Can we see that. No. Y'all said short meeting and we're going to spend an hour on the sentence. We have. Whereas the month of April is devoted to activities that celebrate communities that care about families and children. Council Ryan. I took counselor at his original point to be that the way it is written currently and the way it's currently been edited. Seems to suggest that some communities don't actually care about families and children. And I don't think that's the intent of the authors. I think they simply want to I mean I assume that that's not their intent. And so I think we want to stay away from language that. That sort of tries to divide the world into those communities that care about children. And families and those communities that don't I think the assumption is that. All communities care about children and families. And so I don't think we want to go down that road. I personally, I. Doesn't seem like I think that was the intent of the sponsors. And I thought that was counselor at this main point. I agree. Do you feel that this current iteration is still saying that. Because I have a thought. It seems to suggest that it seems to suggest that basically their communities that. You know, care about families and children and their communities that don't. And we are here mentioning or saying that. The month of April is devoted to activities that celebrate. Those communities are celebrate communities. Right. So I just think. The rhetoric here is a bit sort of. Broad and some. I hate to say empty, but somewhat platitudinous. And I think counselor just put his finger on that problem. I think we're struggling to find language that. Makes the main point, which is they're going to things are going to happen in April. That we want to draw people's attention to. Can we say. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you done? Yeah. Yeah. Could we say. That celebrate community care for families and children. Cause we mean care within a community. Any community. Not passing a judgment. Would that clarify it? And then I'd say four instead of about, yeah. So the sentence would read, whereas the month of April is devoted to activities that celebrate community care for families and children. Do we have any objection? Okay. Any objection should be accompanied by suggestions for change. So I'm not seeing any, I think Lynn, you need a Y at the end of community. I think that's still. Got it. There's so many strike-throughs. I know. Thank you. Let me move it here. Oh, I see it. Yeah. Okay. Oh, no. Oh, it's fine. It'll get there when we fix it. All right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Whereas child abuse prevention is a community responsibility and finding solutions depends on involvement among all people. And. Yep. Councilor Ate. Can you hear us? Child abuse prevention is. Acting as a subject. And if that is the case, that's the right word. Okay. And that's the right word. Yeah. So it's fine. And that's the right word. And I don't have a right to attach to it. Yep. You're right. Finding solutions to child abuse. I should say. That was a good one. Finding solutions to child abuse when after it. Yep. Okay. Sorry. No, no, no, don't apologize. Please. Let me see how it relates here. would be the entire world or just Amherst? I think that they mean everyone in any community. I think if we say in Amherst, it's facts like Amherst is gonna fix this in the entire world. I think they mean in a community. That's my interpretation, but I'm open to push back. Councilor Ryan. I mean, we could at this to death and I know we don't wanna do that, but you could say it depends on involvement of the entire community. I actually like that more to be honest. I think it rounds it out better. Could you tell me again what that says? Yes. In the last line, instead of amongst all people. Councilor Ryan, would you like to repeat that? It depends on involvement and then of the entire community and strike among all people. Thank you. Okay. All set? Okay. Whereas communities must make every effort to promote programs that benefit children and their families. That's pretty clear. Councilor Ryan, it's your hand up for this one. Okay. Whereas effective child abuse prevention programs succeed because of partnerships among agencies, schools, religious organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the business community and... Councilor Arte? Among would imply a choice within a group. So between maybe better if they're speaking about the connection between agencies, schools, is religious organizations. Whereas child, oh sorry, was that it? Anything else? Okay. Whereas child abuse awareness and prevention month is about connecting all of the above so that solutions to child abuse may be achieved. Okay. Now therefore be it resolved the Immers Town Council declares the month of April to be child abuse. Oh, Lynn, did you... Oh, sorry, I saw hands go up as I was reading. Councilor Arte? Okay. Yeah. Actionable. All of the above so that solutions to child abuse may be achieved. Are you saying you don't think it's actionable? No, I don't. It's not that I disagree with you. I just, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be actionable. I get what you're saying. Councilor Ryan, do you have a well-formed or I thought on this? No, I just have, I don't quite see the issue. I'm looking at our definitions. The measure is found actionable if it does not conflict with Massachusetts General Law, the Amherst Home Rule Charter, or any other law or bylaw or resolution applicable to the town of Amherst. So I think actionability is pretty narrow and pretty limited. So I would, I don't think this is a problem of actionability. It may again be a function of rhetoric or a function of, you know, I don't see it as an actionability issue, given our definition of actionability. Thank you for that reminder. Councilor Arte? In that sense, I would agree. But I think the point of this section is that the month is about connecting the different communities in a way that we will be able to protect children and support families in that protection. Having something in that sense would discard solutions because yet I am tripping on solutions. I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to change. I think what Councilor Arte is saying is that the word solutions is what's throwing him. And then, and I may ask remembering our charge, it's not that I don't agree with you. I think as we think about this, let's make sure we're within our scope. On this, I'm not, I don't know that we're not necessarily, but I'm open. Councilor Ryan? Yeah, is the objection that I want to clarity or consistency? I just, actionability doesn't seem to apply. This seems clear whether it's actually achievable in the real world. I guess I'm asking Councilor Arte whether he's concerned as this isn't something that's feasible or possible in the real world, that this is pie in the sky or whatever, or is it actually a matter of just English language clarity? It's not an issue of actionability according to our definition. And it seems fairly clear in what it's saying. So I guess my question for Councilor Arte is whether he just thinks this is not realizable. It's really an issue of whether this is possible. Councilor Arte? I defer on actionability as I mentioned. Pie in the sky is necessarily bad. So I think I'll defer to everyone else on this one. I agree that it's vague. I don't think that it's something that we are as non-sponsors of this in the position to clarify. I think that's where I'm getting stuck is like, I agree with you, I'd like this to be more thorough, but I don't think that we are the body to do that. And I don't think that we should reject it based on that, but again, that's my opinion. Councilor Ryan? Yeah, I think we should be very careful about any changes we make, especially if the sponsor is not present. And we should hence take a very narrow view of what we do. If something is clearly unclear, we agree it's not clear, we need to try and fix that. If it does, I have an issue of actionability, we have to deal with that. And if there's an issue of consistency, other than that, even though we may not, maybe I find the rhetoric at times a bit, we just don't want to mess with it, especially if the sponsors are not here. Agreed, thank you, Councilor Ryan. And thank you, Councilor Atte. I mean, we do have one sponsor here. Yeah, thank you, yes. She may be reluctant to say. The only thing I would say is we could say this could be maybe advanced instead of achieved. How's that? Councilor Atte, does that help clarify or help specify? Thank you, Lee. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, now therefore be it resolved that the Amherst Town, who are we? Be it resolved that the Amherst Town Council declares the month of April to be Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month, and further recognize this proclamation by raising the child abuse prevention flag from April 1st, 2024 to April 30th, 2024 to help cultivate awareness for all residents of Amherst. We could get rid of one in 2024. No, I think we typically have the years in there, don't we? We do, but you could get rid of one of them. Oh, I don't feel strongly about it, but if you do, that's fine. Does anyone else? Councilor Ryan, do you have any? Yeah, there's just a few, again, small things. I would take the comma in the very first clause, be it resolved that the Amherst Town Council declares the month of April, I would take the comma away. Okay. Doesn't seem to belong there. And in the next line, recognize should be recognizes. So there should be an S. And I don't know how people feel about the, again, it's a very minor matter, but that first clause is quite long, so you might put a comma after month. That is, I think, really not that important, but... I personally, is that technically an Oxford comma? I love an Oxford comma. I will always... Let's get the long list. You know, I just count any comma after an and as an Oxford comma. I make it a perfect clause. All right. No, I actually agree with you. It does help break it up, but it's not a big deal. Yeah. Okay. Only question I have, Lynn, is, and this is sort of a technical question, with the renovation, sometimes we specify where the flag is going to be raised and sometimes we don't. Does that... Yeah. The renovation is kind of... Yeah. Made that a little Puhui. This means it'll be probably on the front of the building where we've been putting the other flags recently and actually it gets put up before the actual event. So do we need to specify the location though? No. Okay. That's a good thing to tap into as we look at our clarity. I mean, our consistency. Sometimes we do it, sometimes we don't. It's not a big deal, but if we don't have to do it for one, you know, let's just be consistent about it. All right. I move that GOL find the child abuse prevention awareness month proclamation clear, consistent and actionable as edited. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. And I will call the vote. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Councillor Griezmann. Aye. I am an aye and Councillor Ate. Aye. And Pat is absent. That is four in favor, none opposed, one absent. I had started my little list to track and I lost it. There we go. All right. Four, zero. Thank you, Lynn, for marking that up. We are going to move on to, Lynn, whenever you are ready to stop. Yeah, I know. I know, you know. Okay. I need to check something. I thought I was using a headset. Oh, is your family listening to GOL? That's such a fun Thursday evening. All right. So next up on our agenda, we have the non-voting finance committee member appointment recommendation to town council. Y'all, we are on several weeks of this. We have not gotten any new caps for this position, as you know, from your emails, because you get them when they come through. So we have not gotten any new caps for this. We still have two applicants for one space. In the past weeks, we have not found this pool to be sufficient at this size. Lynn, is your hand up? Maybe we only have two based on when we receive certain things. You're right. And I have reached out to everyone else as well. Including the one that submitted earlier in January and she's not gotten that. I can reach out to them again, if you would like. Yeah, I'm happy to do that. Councilor Ryan. I know we all want to move on. I'm not moving as to proceed, but I think since there's been no change, we just, I don't see how we can declare the pool sufficient with only two applicants. I agree. I don't think we can say it's not sufficient one week in the next week, because we're impatient, decided suddenly as, I don't think that that's fair. Okay, thank you. So we are not finding this sufficient. Yes, Councilor Ryan. Can we, I just can remember, can we talk still about selection guidance? Can we at least make some progress there? Is that what you were talking about? We can talk about selection guidance. We cannot establish the interview questions until we can't vote on them until we have determined the pool sufficient and until we've determined the interview date, that's the trigger for it, because that's sort of what sets the deadline. But we can discuss the selection guidance for finance committee. This is, I did run this by Bob Hegner, who is the chair of the finance committee and he did not have any changes to it. And I sought feedback from the council and did not receive questions about, or any suggestions from folks regarding this particular finance committee selection guidance. So this was in your packets a while back and I can pull it up here if folks would like. Stand by. So this is selection guidance and we'll make sure it's placed in the packet for tonight too, just in case. This is based on the selection guidance from prior years. I keep kind of scrolling as we go. Tell me if I'm going too fast. So we really have these three as qualifications plus this as a addendum to that. Councillor Ryan. I don't have any suggestions for changes. I guess I'd just like to make the point that's been I'm sure made before that this body is somewhat unusual in that it has non-voting resident members and the reason it has non-resident voting members is that it's the finance committee and the belief was that counselors in and of themselves are elected for many reasons, but they're usually not chosen for their knowledge or background or expertise in financial matters. And so I think that this body is looking for people with that kind of experience and background to supplement and assist the five counselors or other voting members, some of whom over time, I'm sure have acquired a fair degree of knowledge and expertise in municipal finance, but that body changes every year and potentially. So it's just, it's not a comment on the document. I think it's fine the way it is, but just a reminder at least from my perspective of the importance of the three that are listed here specifically and why they're there, why this is a particularly unusual body, at least in my view, different from other bodies that other council committees that we or other council committees have to make decisions on. So George, I think that's a really good point and it's helpful context. One of the things that's crossing my mind is I've heard, I actually haven't heard it described the way that you just described it, which I think is a really helpful way of describing it. The other way that I've heard people describe this role is it's a really great way for someone to learn, which is not necessarily the same thing as what you're saying, right? It could be, there's still probably a lot of learning, but I think it's a really interesting approach of kind of one side and the other of this is a great place for someone to kind of onboard into municipal finance and local government versus this is a place for someone to come advise people who already has some expertise in finance of some sort, whether it's municipal or otherwise. And I think one of the things to consider for us right now is that we are selecting a third resident non-voting member and we have two currently serving out terms who have been there for a while and so have expertise. And so I'm not actually advocating one way or the other, but I do think it's interesting to consider and I'm curious if this committee thinks we should land firmly on whether we're looking for someone with experience, which is sort of what this selection guidance dictates versus whether we're looking for someone who's eager to build and doesn't necessarily have those skills. Oh, did I cross the line, Athena? Athena, or I'm gonna call on Athena before I land unless Athena asked me not to. I'm not always raising my hand to bust you. I know, I always assume though, sorry. I'm really not. The way the second bullet reads right now is training experience and da da da da or interest in municipal finance. It doesn't have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be experience if it's an interest in person. I also wanted to know that, and I have to reread the policy on making recommendations to multiple member bodies every time this comes up because I get mixed up every time, but the committee could vote the selection guidance today. You just can't move on to interview questions before you vote on the selection guidance. That's what we, I think that's what we established last meeting and we can't vote on the interview questions until we've established the interview date. I think that that's, I think we could maybe talk about that. Okay, anyway, but we could, we can move on this one. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah, you can move on this one. Awesome, thank you. Lynn. Lynn is always fine. First of all, I really appreciate George's perspective. The other thing, one other thing to point out is this is the only committee that the charter speaks to it all, number one. And it's also the only committee therefore that the charter recognizes that if the council wanted to, we could have added and we did want to. We found it's been a great addition that we could add non-voting members. But let me just reflect on an example and I'll use two different, or actually two or three. One of our members who now sits on the council had an amazing background in finance but had no public finance background. So he learned a lot, at least not from the perspective of local government. Another one basically had run towns so had enormous perspective. And another one came at it from knowing a lot about schools but that was about the only piece of finance. So I think it varies. And we have been very fortunate thus far that in the council there have been some people who understand public finance but let's just give us a perspective. I do believe it's a great place to bring people in with the possibility that eventually they may even run for council as we had two people this year. So finance committee. Thank you. Yeah, I withdraw my concern. It's still slightly there because I think we've emphasized the financial background a lot but I don't think that's inappropriate. I think that it's fair and I'm not actually proposing changing it. And I feel that my concerns are covered by that experience slash interest because I think it also depends on the composition of the body and yeah. Councilor Ryan. So I'm prepared to make a motion unless there's anything further. I'm sorry. Oh sorry, I just said amazing. I apologize, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Yeah, I just, I'm prepared to make a motion that we accept the selection guidance for non-voting members of the finance committee as presented to us in the document. Second. Excellent. Thank you, Councilor Ryan. I'm gonna call the vote. Let's start with Councilor Atte. Ryan. Lynn. Aye. I am an aye. Councilor Ryan. Aye. All right. And Pat is absent. We have selection guidance. Thank you all so much for that. So same pushes before, please, please, please. I think based on our conversation tonight maybe this gives you an idea of someone you may ask to consider applying for this role. They do not need to be an expert in municipal finance, but if they're excited, this might be a great way to learn. Please reach out to folks and I'm going to stop sharing and encourage them to apply. So we will revisit this again. I believe, Athena, were you able to pull up the policy? I didn't pull it up in the background. I did pull it up in the background. Can we talk about interview questions? It says prior to soliciting statements of interest developing interview questions or holding interviews, the recommending committee shall by majority vote adopt selection guidance. So I think now you can develop interview questions. Okay. We will not. Okay, let's talk about those. So, stand by. Interview questions. All right. The most recent version. So folks have that selection criteria in mind. And again, that is in SharePoint and we'll make sure that it's posted in the packet for this meeting as well. These are the... Hang on, I'm just gonna... I'm always scared of editing an old doc in SharePoint and somehow like permanently messing up an official file. So I'm just copying it over before I do that. Stand by. But this is also what then gets me in trouble when I go to the council and confidently say I have six questions and the council's like, there are five here, what are you doing? Because I've made a copy of the document. All right. So... Ready to talk interview questions? I'm vamping while I paste this. Councilor Ryan, do you have a question? Oh, you're muted. I'm ready when you're ready. And I do have some questions about the current list of interview questions. All right, let me pull it up so I can, so we can all look at it together. Thank you. I appreciate your preparation. All right. Joel, interview questions. So these are the ones used in the prior time. So Councilor Ryan, what do you... Well, this is really up to you as chair. It might make sense for us to just go through them one through eight. My questions relate to questions five and six. I don't know if people wanna go right to them if they wanna start and just go systematically. I don't have any issues with one through four. And I have questions about five and six. Let's go systematically, but we can always jump back if need be. So are there any concerns with question one, based on the selection guidance, what do you feel you bring to the finance committee that can make it successful? Please include any experience you have with finance in general or the town's finance committee. Okay. Question two, what is your understanding of the role of the finance committee? I actually, I'm doing my little raise hand. I have to click seven times to do it when I'm sharing screen. So my hand raise is, we've been picking on this question in pretty much any scenario recently where we've had a interview. And I'm gonna pick on it here because I think that this is a question that there's a correct answer to, right? You read the definition of the role of the finance committee. And so I don't understand the purpose of this other than to see, and I'm happy to be wrong. I don't, it's not a hill I care to die on, but it did stand out to me. Councilor Ryan. I think you put your finger on it. I think that is the purpose of this question to find out without boldly asking, have they done their homework? Have they made any effort to understand what this committee does and how it functions? And so we're curious to see what their answer is because it will tell us something we hope about whether they are serious and whether they've actually done the most minimum amount of preparation. Now I assume most candidates do, but that's just, it's a way of, I think determining that. It's, I agree with you, it's kind of obvious what the answer should be, but I think sometimes you'd be surprised that when that doesn't always happen. So that's, I think how I say it. I am no longer surprised that I will be surprised. I, that's, I expected at this point, Lynn. I think it's also an opportunity for a conversation where frankly you might dispel some people's false impressions about what it is. Okay. Third question, similar. I had a similar concern about it. I actually think this one more so. I, based on our earlier conversation. So the question is, what is your understanding of your role as a non-voting member? Based on George's very clear explanation of the role of a non-voting member, I don't think I would have answered this well in an interview, but I, again, I'm not sure. For me, as I look at this, we have eight questions. If for some reason we had a rush of candidates in the next week and we had, don't laugh at me, Lynn. And we had, you know, 12 and we needed to cut a question. I would say this is the not the most necessary question, but I don't have a problem with it if folks like it there for the same reason as the one before. Councillor Ryan. So there was a famous adage in the, in the profession of lawyers that you never ask a question to which you don't already know what the answer is. And I actually agree with you here and maybe other members of the committee can help me and you. I'm not really quite sure what the answer to this question is other than we don't get to vote. So, you know, anyone could someone tell me, you know, when we ask this question, kind of what we're looking for is I have a pretty good idea what we're looking for in number two. I'm not quite sure what we're looking for in three. And if I can get clarity on that, then I'd say leave it in, but at the moment I'm kind of leaning in honest direction. Councillor Ate. I think this question is an opportunity for the, what I say candidates is that the appropriate term. Applicants, candidates, either one. Applicants, okay, yeah. But the applicants to explain their philosophy, you know, because it's possible that one could see the non-voting member as someone who stays back and observes or who actually leans forward because they have some kind of expertise. I would imagine that if we polled different municipalities, they would have different perspectives on what they want non-voting members to do. And so this is just an opportunity to demonstrate your philosophy. All right. Not hearing any passion, please take it out. I will leave it in. Councillor Ryan. Not a passion, please take it out. I think Councillor Ate's gotten me a little bit closer to leaving it in, but maybe when we get to five and six, we might revisit it and see if it has something unique that five and six don't speak to. But for the moment, let's leave it there. We'll see what happens. And I also will remind the committee that we are not taking a vote on these tonight. And so we can always, once we know how many candidates we have, decide whether or not we want to cut back or add 17 more. Okay, thank you. Tell us about an experience you have had collaborating with a group, particularly where opinions were in conflict or the decision was controversial. Any concerns with this question? Okay. Please describe the considerations and objectives you'll use for considering financial matters and the budget when making recommendations to the council. Councillor Ryan, was this, okay, I was going to say. Yeah. I'm just open to somebody telling me what this means and also what it's getting at. Considerations and objectives. I don't know if there's somebody to help me here. Lynn? Yeah. The kinds of things I'm looking for here is to understand what the budget parameters are to understand what we can afford and can't afford and to be realistic about that. So that you don't end up with people on the committee who basically, you know, they want to blue sky everything and they, we can't afford it. So there's, it brings, it's a call to be realistic. I actually did interesting, well, I think it's interesting but interestingly I had a different interpretation of this where I don't disagree, Lynn. I think that that's a, I think that's a really valid response to it. When I read this and I think about how I would answer it if I were a candidate, I think about, you know, applying a climate lens or a racial equity lens, right? And looking at decisions through that, like those are the considerations that I have or I would have when making, when looking at the budget. I agree with Lynn's points as well. But I think that it's, what is the context by which you frame the decisions you make? Like what do you think about as you look at this? The other part of this would be the goals of the council, right? As that we've established. Councilor Ryan. Good. So that sounds somewhat pinned back up to three. We're trying to get out in a sense of their philosophy or their general outlook when approaching budget matters and so forth. So again, we'll come back to this, but I wonder if this doesn't really take the place of three. But I hear you and I can see why this actually could play helpful. I mean, basically these questions are helping us to evaluate candidates and distinguish them and to pick that candidate that we think would be best suited for the job and also given the current composition of the finance committee. So I think this helps me see, okay, this is getting out there sort of general philosophy and an approach to this matter. And that obviously is important and we need to hear what they think. So good. So I think that the, I have two thoughts. So the first is when I read question three, I actually look back at what folks were saying before about the role of a non-voting member as a learner or as an advisor or something like that versus a personal philosophy. And I see question five as getting more at the what factors are you bringing to the table that you use in your consideration. So I do see them as different and both valuable in that way. I also think something has come up a couple of times that is making me want to possibly revisit. No, we can't, we voted it. Well, maybe we can amend it. But we are supposed to be basing our decisions off of the selection guidance we set. That is what's fair, right? We can't say this is our selection guidance and then use an arbitrary measure in our head. If we are using the composition of the current finance committee as a marker when selecting a new member of the finance committee that needs to be in our selection guidance and we need to amend it as such. Otherwise I don't necessarily think that it's fair for us to take it fully into account in that way. I must have said something fun because everyone's hands are up. Councillor Ate. So I agree with you there is a difference between three and five. My understanding of three is there is a team already there and you're being called to join the team. How are you going to approach this team that you're being called to? What is your role? While five is, what are you going to do? And that is slightly different. If need be, I think five could expand on what is in three and so we could drop three if that ends up being needed. But they are different. How do you work in a group where you aren't going to vote in the group? It's just about voting. As compared with what is your thinking process to arrive at a decision within the group? Councillor Ryan. I think that's helpful to me and I do see the distinction. I think it's there in black and white and I appreciate the comments you all have been making. So I see this between three and five and I think that's a good one. I want to come back to your suggestion one of that we don't have the energy to change your selection guns. And like particularly on them. Hang on, George. Is George, oh, there he's gone. Okay. Is he back? George, we lost you for a minute. I'm not sure if you're back. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, you're fine. Could you repeat your point? I think we just, I heard the first part. It was the second part of it. I think the selection guidance you're looking for is actually in the selection guidance. You think so? Okay. All right. I will revisit to double check that. Okay. Lynn. One thing to be reminded of. Finance committee people get appointed every year and so we can't just look at the composition of the existing finance committee because members serve longer. Great point. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Done with five. Okay. Number six. What is your approach to incorporating public input into your decision-making? Councillor Ryan. It's been very helpful having you all weigh in here. And I mean that sincerely. But again, I kind of throw out my hands and say, what is the point of this? What's it looking for? We're elected officials. And hence we are very sensitive to our role as representing our constituents and to their opinions and views. These are appointed people, officials. And so I'm not quite sure what this is. What's this getting at? What's it trying to, what would it tell us? Whatever the answer is, what are we trying to get from this to help us choose candidates, choose someone? So my recollection of this question being added to this criteria, these interview questions, and I think they were also, it was also discussed at CRC when they were talking about applicants for planning or for, I don't know, ZBA, whatever. What they were talking about was, or the answer they're seeking is, are you just listening to the voices that are the loudest or how are you incorporating the voices you hear? That's my understanding of what this question was trying to get at is how are you listening to all voices and not privileging some over others? Basically, it's like, how are you, what's your approach to incorporating public input? Is it, I hear it in my email and so I automatically make it my decision, which isn't, I don't think anybody does that. Yeah. Go ahead, I'm done. Well, no, that's my thought is that there's the answer is so obvious here. I mean, in some places, an obvious answer is there to see if people have done their homework, to see if they're taking this seriously, just to get a sense of their approach to this whole process. This one is like, no one's gonna say, well, I'm just gonna do whatever the largest number of people say. So I really don't see the point, but if you wanna take a question out, this is the one I would take out. Unless someone can convince me that it's gonna give us some insight to be valuable and if it is, then we keep it in. I think the others do give us insights and I have a clear understanding of some of the ones I was a little bit puzzled about, but this one I need help with because I really don't see other than the obvious answer. Of course, I'll listen to everybody and I'll weigh it carefully. It's like, yeah, right. So what? I think the other thing that folks might say is, are you going to go seek out public input as part of your process? Councillor Ate. Thank you. I think it was good to be that point. What is the responsibility of a non-voting member compared to a voting member? So it's one thing to receive public input, but are you going to seek it out because you imagine it is your responsibility to do so? I think I'm on the same page as George in terms of, it's not my favorite question. I think it's interesting, but more so because I just think it's interesting. I'm not so attached to keeping it in. And if we need to cut questions, I'm okay with that being one of the ones that's on the chopping block, but I also don't feel so strongly that it's not going to lead to something interesting for us to consider. Councillor Ryan. We're not going to make, we're not voting tonight. I understand that we can come back to this, but my strong inclination at the moment would be to make a motion to remove it and then we can decide whether we want to remove it or not, but, and I'm still, maybe over the next two weeks, whatever, people will change my mind or someone will tell me that, no, there's really something important we can learn here. I just don't think, and we also, we don't have many candidates at the moment and it's perhaps likely we won't have many. So the number of questions perhaps doesn't matter all that much. Whereas in some circumstances, for instance, charter commission might matter a great deal given the number of candidates we're going to be facing. So it's not the end of the world for me, but at the moment I would be leaning to removing it. I mean, we also don't need to put two or three or four, however many we get candidates through, you know, 20 questions just because we have the time. I think what I'm going to do, what I'd like to do in the next, before our next meeting is I want to talk to either some folks who were on GOL last time when these interview questions were used or folks who have been on CRC when this particular question has been used and see how helpful it's been for them in making their decisions. I think that's kind of what I need at this point is to know if this has been useful in any way. And if so, I'd like to hear why and I'm happy to be convinced to keep it. And if not, I'm happy to be convinced to take it away. Does that sound okay to folks? Question seven, what else would you like us to know about you that makes you a strong candidate for the finance committee? I like this question, good question. It's pretty much of a standard interview question. Yeah. And eight is pretty much what we're trying to find out is whether they really have the time to serve. Exactly, then there's an obvious answer to that question, but we need to make sure that they know and we want it now. All right. At this point, I think the last four bullets here are really kind of, well, this first one, you'll have up to three minutes to answer each of the questions. I think that feels pretty standard, but also is really determined by the number of applicants we have and the number of time we want to commit to this. So I'm gonna say that let's just not touch that one for now. Questions will be asked by members of the GOL committee. Does anyone have an issue with that part of the guess, Councilor Ryan? Just, again, we can just talk about it now because we have a little bit of time and maybe people don't really care. I'm usually perfectly comfortable having the chair just ask these questions. I don't see any reason for each one of us to go through, but I know, did people have any thoughts on that? You know, do we wanna go in order? I don't think it matters a lot, but we should decide now if we can make a decision. I mean, Pat's not here, so maybe that's premature, but I think the only question is, in terms of just process, do we wanna just ask the chair to ask the questions and leave it at that? It's fine by me. I am fine with that as chair. I mean, I thought you were gonna say Pat's not here. We should make Pat ask all the questions, but... I am fine being the one who asked the questions. If the committee doesn't wanna sit there without speaking for a while, that's, I also understand. So do folks have opinion? George, it sounds like you're saying it's just easier. You're gonna be taking notes, copious. We don't have time. Absolutely, okay. Does that mean I don't have to take notes? Okay. Well, you have to trust us. I will, I do, I do, okay. So, George is saying shift this to be questions. We'll be asked by the chair of GOL. I don't think you have to change it. You never know. I mean, it could be a meeting for some reason you just can't make or we could leave it the way it is. But I just thought for the sake of the committee tonight, just for people that just wanna throw it out there because somebody might say, maybe Pat will say next time we meet, well, I really like it that we each one of us gets to ask a question. And, you know, if that's the case, fine, we'll do that. But I think you can leave it as it is. And, you know, but for this particular body, this particular moment, it seems the consensus is we're happy to let the chair ask the questions. I've made a note to ask this again next time. Kind of like a magic eight ball to ask again later option. I'm not seeing any strong feelings though. Okay. All applicants will answer each question after it is asked in a random order determined by the GOL committee chair. This is fine. My understanding of this question is that I would decide the order of the answers each question. What I want to avoid is the same person having to go first every time. Yes. Yep. And all applicants will answer each question before moving on to, oh, sorry, Councilor Arte. All applicants will answer each question after it's asked in a random order. Will they be answering in a random order or the question when asked in a random order? That's, wait, they will be responding in a random order. Each question, right, because otherwise we would have said all applicants will answer each question in a random order after it is asked. If we are clear on it, do we need to edit it, Lynn? I don't think we need to edit it. Why is everyone laughing at me tonight? All right, now you're just messing with me. Sorry, Lynn, I cut you off. Were you going to say this is adequate? Councilor Arte, is there a proposed edit or do we, are we okay? I think you might just be messing with me. All right, last one. All applicants will answer each question before moving on to the next question. There's no skipping is the point there. Great. And then I will put my information here on an email. All right, so we will come back to this once we have deemed the pool sufficient. And sorry, I'm just going to make this blank. We have not adopted anything as of this point. I will also make this the same font and size because that is hurting my brain and it's not the same font and size. I did not make the original document and I'm no judgment. But that's why. So it's so sensitive, but that's over. I am that sensitive, George. I am sensitive on this, on this specific thing. Okay, make in progress y'all. So are we ready to move on from finance committee? Okay, excellent. I now have too many tabs open officially. All right, charter review committee appointment recommendations to town council. We have had two new CAFs submitted since the last time that we met. I'm speaking slowly because the page is loading so that I can tell you the final number. It does not bring us to the double ratio that we had in our heads. Oop, I'm not going to share my screen because these are not public, but Athena said that she will at some point upload the list, but for right now, numbers wise, just so folks know, we are at load faster, please. Oh my God, 14, is that right? Yes. Yeah, 14, no, 13. Yeah, 13, because the list that we had last time, one person had withdrawn and it wasn't reflected. So we are at 13 applicants for nine spots. Councilor Ryan. So given our stated desire to produce a body that as much as possible represents the whole community in terms of all kinds of criteria that we've specified, I really think we need at least twice than, at least twice the number of applicants before we can proceed. And I think we just have to put it out in community. If people care about this, they need to step forward, but at the moment, without even twice the number, we're going to be challenged to meet a number of our desired criteria. That may be the case in the end no matter what, but so I again reluctantly would say I don't think this is adequately. I am inclined to agree. And I'm curious if folks have any ideas for how we might better encourage folks to engage on this. Because I don't know, I'm not sure what the holdup is for people, obviously. We're not sure if that's what the scope of this committee is, isn't what people thought it would be, or if it's that people are busy and burnt out and don't have time, or I don't know what it is, but I'd like to figure out what we can communicate to people to convey the importance of this group, and that it is doable, that we're not asking for a council level of service, right? That this is a committee that, yes, it will be intensive in many ways, but it's not, I would argue that it doesn't inherently need to be more intensive than most other committee appointments in the town. Lynn? I think your observation, or your observations are spot on. I think when people realized they couldn't change the form of government or make drastic changes in the number of counselors and so forth, you know, all of a sudden it didn't seem so interesting. Okay? I think the other thing is that people see it and they have recollections of the existing charter commission, which was meeting sometimes two and three times a month toward the end, and they say, I just don't have that time. So I think one of the things that's very important with this, and one of the areas that people really can get engaged in is what the charter says about public engagement. And that's really where more input from the public, I think would be useful. But I think we, you know, maybe we should try to get out on another press release through Angela and Athena has her hand up. I think Athena hates that we all just stop talking as soon as she puts her hand up. I do. Sorry. Sorry. I think sometimes, like, I think one time you were like, I'm stopping you because of this. And now ever since then I'm like, oh no. I promise, I'll say point of order if I really need to interrupt you. Otherwise you can wait to call on me. So I feel like this is a little, maybe, I'm a little hesitant to say too much about it, but the charter commissions that we've had easy. You know, the process has been fraught. Even getting to the form of government that we have now has been, it was a tough thing for the town. And I think it's okay to recognize, it may be appropriate to recognize that doing this job is going to be challenging for the members and maybe speaking to folks head on about that and that, you know, what their role is and what kind of support they'll have and so on might help folks feel more comfortable in serving. I would encourage everyone to think about your networks and use those networks to reach out to folks that you think might be interested. I know there's a school of public policy at UMass and I don't know if we've heard from anyone there or if anyone has reached out in that way or through the school community. I mean, I think there are networks out there that we can tap into and I'm not sure what people have done, but also I think that when you do so, talking to people, frankly, about the trouble that the town has had in reaching consensus and kind of thinking through ways that folks can come together on what the committee's work will be and how it will be done and so on. I think it could be useful and maybe dispelling some hesitation for folks. I don't wanna, you know, I think we should be frank about that. Thank you. Councilor Ryan. So I like what Lynn says about the role of public engagement. That's certainly something that I can say to people. That's one thing that, so I guess what are some of the talking points we can use to get people interested or engaged in this? I understand warning them or at least saying to them that we understand this is gonna be, could be challenging, but I don't really, in my head right now, I don't have many categories. So people could help me when I do outreach and I do encourage people to consider this. I can be more coherent and more focused in terms of some things they can actually impact and are important to think about given the things they can't. So what are some things they can't? And I like public engagement and the role of the public in its relationship to the council. That's a good one. Can you give me two or three more that I can use in my own efforts and our own efforts to get people involved? Athena. The way I think about the charter review committee is to some extent a review of the charter as a policy. And I think if you were to talk to somebody in the School of Public Policy at UMass, you could go, this is a way that we're looking at the charter as a policy and how it's been effective and what challenges people have seen and what people would like to change. But that's, you know, it's kind of really an evaluation of the charter's effectiveness. And I think talking about what counselors individually have seen, what their experiences have been and that might help get people thinking about what kind of ways they can reach out to people and talk to them about how they've interacted with government or not and how they could if they haven't and ways that they, you know, get people kind of thinking in that, along those lines. Does that help, George? I think it does. I think I have not stressed as much the evaluative role and the part of the task of this body is to reach out to people and hear what they say about the past five years. And then present that to us in a report and says, here's what we're hearing. Good, that's it. I think, like Lynn said, some people have come in thinking that they could do a thing to the charter. And I, you know, I was anticipating that a little bit and hoping to reframe the committee's work in a way that's like, well, we need to hear from people about what they like and don't like and then figure out what those changes are that make sense rather than coming in, having an idea of what you think should change and just making sure the committee recommends those changes. So I think people who are interested in outreach, people who are interested in policy evaluation, people who are interested in engagement and so on, I think that could be good ways of framing things. Hopefully draw some folks in. Thank you. Lynn? Yeah, let me just mention, even though if the charter committee can't change the form of government, there have been reviews of charters that have led to recommendations that have led to changes, for example, in the number of counselors on a committee, on a council. I think Greenfield did that at one point. There's also been discussion about length of terms, but those require a different change process. But what I also want to mention is that one of the things, you know, this is kind of like starting to give my hand of what I'd like a charter commission to look at. We keep coming up with, well, gee, maybe some of the other committees of the council should have non-voting members, okay? And right now, the only committee mentioned in the charter is finance. No other committees are mentioned. The issue of non-voting members is only therefore to finance. And if we added, even if we didn't name the rest of the committees, but we had left it open, we would want to do that so that the appointment of people to those committees, if they were non-voting, wouldn't be left to the president, because right now that's the way it would happen. You'd want it to be done the way we do finance people. So there's really an opportunity to, to me, that's another civic engagement issue of how can we open up our committees a little bit more? And I think people are gonna wanna debate that, frankly. Some people may not want that. Other people may say, look how successful it's been for finance. I don't wanna get into the debate. I just wanna say that those are the kinds of issues. And I do know that there are people who are keeping a list of issues they want this committee to look at. So I think it's actually, it's gonna have some serious meat on it once it gets going. Lynn, I hope those people are either applying themselves or also have a list of people who are they are asking to apply. Some of them are previous counselors and some of them are seated counselors. There's no limitation on previous counselors being appointed, am I correct? No. Yeah. There's not. So my question, Athena, is in this report, while they're, while they cannot make recommendations to the council that are outside of their purview, are they allowed to make commentary on things outside of their purview for a future charter review, full charter review? It's a little confusing to say full charter review. I know, I don't know the term. Like the, like go back to the state house charter review. Right, because that would be a, the charter commission process where you're changing more than, more than what the charter review committee will allow. They can, there's no limitation on what they can, you know, they can have discussions about the whole charter. They can, you know, talk about how those changes. I was gonna say, could they recommend that a charter commission be reformed? I think we might be jumping too far to conclusions about what they might recommend because I'm not sure that it's worthwhile to get into that too much right now, but sure, I mean, it would be up to residents to file a petition and gather signatures and so on. So the recommendation to the council, I mean, I don't know if it makes sense for the, to recommend the council, you know, encourage people to file a petition for a charter commission, but they can certainly talk about it. Thank you. Lynn. This is really a question to Athena, but it's a question that this is raising and that is, would we have to have a full charter commission or even a partial charter commission, for example, to change the length of terms or the number of councils? Or is that something that the council can discuss and file something? It has to go to the voters, I know that beyond that. Right, I think to change those things in the charter, it would have to go to the voters. I think it would require a charter commission process, but I think you might also be able to file special legislation in ending those parts of the charter. I'd have to look into that to give you a solid answer. I think it would be worth working into that because I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some of that comes up. Yeah, again, look to the, but it's the kind of thing, you know, it's, going back to your question, any committee can always have an outside or purview set of recommendations. That, you know, we weren't allowed to do this, but we really think you should look at X. I don't see anything wrong with that. I hope this is a serious body that actually does do an evaluation. I mean, Athena's staffing the group, I think it'll be, they'll do their job. Besides the fact that we're giving them absolutely one of our finest as the staff. Okay. So I want us to move forward on this. We've talked about selection guidance already. I am hesitant to get into interview questions at this point because we can't vote the selection guidance or I just had it open and I just closed it. I'm hesitant to get into interview questions until we know that when the interviews are gonna be and I don't wanna jump ahead of ourselves here. So I'm going to pitch that we move forward in our agenda. We did discuss selection guidance last time. I do not have any major thoughts after our discussion from last time. I'm also realizing the notes that I took aren't in the packet. They're not a public document, but they were not in the packet and so I can put them in the packet for next time. And I apologize that they were not in there. That was my, that's my bad. Councilor Ryan. Please do that. That was my one request. We need that in order to really have a substantive discussion at whatever point we have it. So thank you. Absolutely. So I'll put that in the packet for next time and remembering that that's not final but that's where our discussion has gotten us thus far. Next time we will talk through same deal but next time it's going to be, it's gonna be different y'all. We're gonna have so many more folks to, we're gonna be blown away. I would like to move on in our agenda unless there's any objections. The way that I keep losing tabs is actually obscene at this point. All right, so seriously. We're going on to town manager evaluation process. Is that right? Am I right in my map here? Okay, great. Thank you. I did the thing where I have my own doc and it's not the formal agenda and I get worried that I missed something. So we are due to look at the review process and timing for the town manager evaluation. This is something that has arisen from, I think a couple of years of folks feeling like this is a process that is not getting us what we need from it and is taking a lot of time, both from individual counselors and then also from the council president to compile and summarize. So we are going to, GOL has been tasked with looking at this process and what I'd like to do today is start to talk about, I have some thoughts to share with you on how I would like to run this process. However, these are not fully formed thoughts and I am presenting them to you as a jumping off point, presenting them to you meaning I'm going to say them out loud. I don't have anything to formally present but I'm very open to ideas as we go. We have to report back to the council on this topic by April 30th. That does not mean that we need to be done with this by April 30th, but we have to, I'd like us to have made some progress so that if we're not done by April 30th, we can at least show that we're spending our time on wonderful things. So my ask of you all is for, where I'd like to start is I'd like us all to familiarize ourselves with the current process. And so Lynn, I may need your help with this. If you can send me your materials that you sent out, I can dig through, but if you have them easily accessible, if you can send me what you typically send to counselors, that would be very helpful. And then because that's a public document, I am allowed to send that to the committee, waiting for any disagreement with me. Okay, it's a public document because the council has been doing this and it's from a prior year. So I will share that as a reference point for folks. And I'd like you to, if you are not familiar with it, please familiarize yourself with it, just read it through. And then what I'd like us to think about today and have a little bit of discussion, I'm just gonna limit us to about 10 minutes of discussion here is what is the purpose of the town manager evaluation? We wanna start this discussion with why, why are we doing this, right? What do we seek to get out of this process? And that's gonna help inform our discussion. Once we've kind of identified our why, identified our problem we're trying to solve for, or not Paul's not a problem, what we're trying to address through a town manager evaluation, then I would like us to look at our current process, look at kind of a stop, start, continue, right? What do we need to stop doing? What might we consider starting doing? And what do we wanna continue doing based on our current process? If we would like to, I also want us to think about looking at other towns. I will pull a list of other towns that have comparable either a council or manager form of government, as well as some select boards who run evaluations of their town administrator or town manager as well, just to kind of benchmark a little bit. I think we have a tendency to create from scratch something that's been done and possibly done well. So those are kind of my beginning phases of gathering information here, familiarize ourselves with our current process. What is it that we're seeking to do? What are other folks doing that might be helpful? And then putting that together to make some recommendations to the council on what this process might look like going forward. All that by April 30th. That means what I'm going to be doing is a bit, and aggressively is not the right word, but decisively divvying some of this up. So as we go through, if we decide to benchmark, I will give folks different towns to look at. We'll look at them based on kind of a common criteria of what are they doing? What did you like about it? What don't you like about it? Pretty simple. And you'll be expected to come back to kind of report out to the group if we deem it like something we should do. Are there any questions about how I'm approaching this or anything that folks have suggestions on? Lynn? Having tried to go after this once before, I just want to say I hope we're successful. But what I really want to say is you can't look at the evaluation without looking at two other events that happen annually that are impacted by the evaluation. One is the setting of goals for the town manager. And the other one is the establishment of the financial guidelines. And those have, the goals could vary. They could be at different times, okay? But the financial guidelines are pretty much November, December. There's not much way to, there's no wiggle room there. So I just want to mention that as we look at this, particularly for Councillor Ate, who's never been through this laborious process in the past. Yeah, right. We need to take into consideration those things. When we tried to look at this in the past, we actually had this calendar and we tried to look at when could we do this? But the one thing you can't really move is the financial guidelines. So what I'm jotting down here is I think, Lynn, I would say that to familiarize folks with the process because we're not looking at details of what's in it, folks need to know the timeline, but they don't necessarily need to go back and read through. I mean, you should always read the goals and the financial guidelines. But what's more important is to know that the evaluation is driven by those goals and the financial guidelines. And then to read through the document, not necessarily reading folks' responses unless you want to, but reading more so how it's structured, what it's getting at. So maybe at our next meeting, I can go through the elements that we presently include using the calendar that I've done before, okay? Meaning the goals, the budget guidelines and the evaluation? No, meaning just the evaluation. What would the elements, but then I can also go through the goal setting and the other. I don't know that that's necessary. That's why I was asking. I was just going to go back. You said, can I send you the thing that basically sets up the evaluation process? And I can. And then at our next meeting, I can go through that. Probably 10 minutes at the most. But, and the reason I think it's important to go through it is because we may say some of the elements that we presently do, we don't really need to do or they need to be done very differently or that kind of thing. The other thing is, if you would like, I can share the instruments we've used in the past, which is where our counselors just feel it's laborious. I mean, it is just laborious. But yeah. I'd like us to just focus on what's currently in place. I think looking back at our past processes might be something that is added in along with other towns. But I think let's just look at our current process. And before, I think that's a great idea for the next meeting, before we go to that, I want us to start with the conversation about the purpose and the why before we even look at our current evaluation. I think we want to ground ourselves in what the reason is, what we're trying to get out of this. There is a charter section on that. Yep, I know. And so we'll start with there, but I think we're going to start with that conversation. And then we will go into the current instrument or current process that we do, including the instrument. So if you can have that prep for the next meeting, that would be great. Okay, so we will go through that. And I'm just making sure I covered my notes. And then we'll figure out what process we want to use moving forward. Again, I'm not wedded to the idea of event working, if that's what makes sense based on where we get tomorrow. Tomorrow, sorry, not tomorrow, next meeting. We'll figure out what makes sense moving forward. I sent out a tentative work plan, but just as a preview, or any other comments on this before we move forward? Okay, I'm excited to get into it. George, I'm sorry. My machine is giving me a hard time raising it. No problem. I'm sorry. That's okay. So next time we will have this on the agenda, we'll begin with the discussion generally about the purpose of the evaluation of the town manager. Correct. And we should look at the relevant charter section to ground us. And then you're going to have Lynn make a presentation about the current process we follow. And then the third piece of this. A discussion on, I'm sorry. I thought that was a question. I apologize. It is a question. The third piece is does, what is our, what is working with our current process in terms of meeting that purpose and that goal? What should we, what is not meeting the purpose that we should consider redoing or cutting, except, yeah. A stop, start, continue. And what's missing? Does that answer your question? Excellent. Okay. I'm going to move on. Item seven, minutes. We've got two sets of minutes. Thank you. We don't have two sets of minutes, do we? I'm not in the pocket. I have them ready. If you want to take a quick look, I can put them up on the screen. I just failed to put them in your pocket and time for the meeting. Did people want to quickly or do you want to wait until next time? Councillor Ryan. Before I interrupted you, you actually were starting to say something about the work plan. And then I asked my question, does that's something you wanted to come back to? I'm going to get to that at the end. I'm just going to talk about preview of coming attractions. Yep. Thank you. Athena, would you prefer that we look at them now or would you prefer we wait? I don't have a problem. Okay. I would rather read through them if it's okay. So can we just put them in the packet for the next meeting? It feels high pressure sometimes to read on the screen. Okay. It's not as bad as typing on the screen, but it's, yeah. All right. So work plans in your packet, just preview of coming attractions. We are waiting to hear regarding the nuisance bylaw that hasn't been to us yet, brought to us yet. Continue moving forward with finance committee and charter committee. I'm realizing in my little document, I wrote commission and I meant committee. Sorry. And then we will continue the work on the review process and timing for the town manager evaluations. Starting in April, we will start work on the legislative process guide. This will be something I'm going to try to get to the committee far in advance because it is a hefty document. So I will likely, it's a public document because TSO had been discussing it, but it will likely be something I send to you sooner rather than later. Please know we will not be discussing it until likely sometime in April, depending on how we get with the town manager evaluation process, but it is something you will have to familiarize yourself with at some point so that we can discuss that and think about what our plan is going forward. That's that, those are the big ticket items for the next couple of months. Any issues that folks see? We've got, we do have other things that are on our TBD list that were in our carryover memo that have just not come to us yet. They are either in other committees or with our legal team. So we're waiting back. It's not that we do not have things to do. We are just dependent on other folks doing their thing first. So that's the plan. With that said, if there are no other comments, I think we are ready to adjourn. Are there any other questions or comments before we move out of here? Okay. Thank you all very much. You are a joy as always. I hope you have a wonderful evening and I will see you at our next meeting which is on the 21st. We even got to laugh tonight, which is good. Lynn has not laughed at a meeting I have chaired. All right. I'll make it. I'm going to start showing up with terrible jokes. All right. Good night, everyone. Have a lovely evening. Good night. Good night. Good night. Thank you.