 here. All right, pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. All right, and it is 6.37. We'll call the HRC meeting to order. So I think that we should probably do introductions here. So my name is Philip Avila. I am the co-chair of the Human Rights Commission. I will pass it over to Liz Hagood. Good evening. My name is Liz Hagood and today, no, wait a minute, I think September starts my second term on the Human Rights Commission. Ronnie, would you like to go next? Yes. Hi, I'm Ronnie Parker. I've been on the Commission for, I've forgotten now a few months, but it feels like family to me. That's awesome. Tyler? Hey, I'm Tyler. I'm a senior at Emmer's College and I've been on the Commission since sometime in the fall or early winter. Yep, and then I'll go to our staff liaisons and then our new members. So, Pamela. Hi, I'm Pamela Nolan Young. I'm the director of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and our office supports four commissions, the Human Rights Commission, the Disability Access Advisory Commission, the CSSJC and the African Heritage Reparations Assembly. And Jennifer? Hi, everyone. I'm Jennifer Moyston. I'm the assistant director to the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and I've been with the town for about 10 years. So, and the commission for about five or six. And Deborah? I am Deborah Coladney and I just want to say Pamela and Jennifer, I hope you get to come in late on the days that you have to serve at night. And I'm not yet, I haven't got my letter yet, so I'm not yet on the commission. Yes. And then Jacinda, am I saying that right? Correct me if I am wrong, please. It's Jacinta. So yeah. I'm Jacinta Smith. I go to Amherst College. I'm rising junior and I issue her pronouns. Perfect. Thank you everybody for coming. So as you heard, Deborah and Jacinta are our potential newest members are waiting on their letter and then to get sworn in, just like we all did, but we will have that happening. I would imagine in the next, by the next time we meet in July. So let me just pull up the agenda because I am running a little bit crazy today, because I just came from an event from the Survival Center. So first on the agenda is we have welcoming remarks, announcements. Does anybody have any announcements? I've not seen any announcements and we'll go to agenda reviews. So next we'll have public comment and then action and discussion items. We'll have discussion around the nomination of co-chairs, update on events that we've had, update on the Juneteenth event, the camera supportable housing event, update on bylaws, and then in the packet there is a state of the human rates that we will go over and then the reading for Frederick Douglas. Then we'll open back up after that for public comment and member reports. So right now we will open it up to public comment. I don't know that anybody is in the audience. Am I correct with that? All right, so I've not seen anybody in the audience. So it will not be any public comment tonight. So we'll roll right on into the action item. So nomination of co-chairs, I think just again reiterating that I will be leaving in July and so my last meeting with you all will be in July and so discussions around that nomination I think can come at our July meeting. So just putting it in a plug there, anybody that is interested in being a co-chair, I just spoke to Ben. He is not able to join us tonight, but he will be at the July meeting and so he is still looking to be a co-chair, but my position obviously will be up. So just having that out there. Update on events, youth hero awards. That was an amazing event. Does anybody that was there that would like to talk? I love hearing my own voice, but I kind of want to leave some space for others. Go ahead, Ronnie. I was there and it was one of the most, it was the most amazing event I've been to in Amherst and for the new people you should know that I'm new, I haven't lived in Amherst very long year and a half. I have been to a number of events however and I've never seen a group like this. Multi-generational, multi-ethnic, happy people kicking around the ball, playing games, riding on the swing, sitting around and talking, white people, black people. I was by the grill grilling more hamburgers than I think I've ever grilled in my entire life, participating in that whole culture of the grillers and all this banter that was going on there. It was just, I mean it was the model of community building. I was so, so pleased to be part of that and it just, it made me feel proud and happy to be in Amherst, to be a resident of Amherst. It was really an amazing thing and how, you know, Jennifer and Pamela and Phillip put all that together. I just have no idea. I mean it was a big, big thing and it was so, so joyful. I mean I live in downtown Amherst and I love when the students come in because it feels like a diverse place to me but when the students are gone it's a very white part of town. So just to see all of that, it was really nice. I'm sorry to have gone on so long but it was, I thought, wonderful, a wonderful event. So thank you all for the people who did all the work for that, which I wish I had helped with more with but I think my schedule will improve out this summer. Now thank you for sharing and no worries about going on. That's kind of what these updates are about. Anybody else that went to the event would like to speak? Deborah? Really quickly, I know Jennifer that the events are your portfolio and now that I've been to two, I just want to give kudos and bow down to your capacity and leadership. Great job and I also want to say if you haven't done this yet it's really wonderful to serve so I loved being on the food line with Pamela and just giving people food and making seeing how happy they were. It was beautiful to be of service. So I thank you for your praises but it's never just a singular effort. So you know, the guys from the old versus young, Edgar did a great job organizing that basketball portion of it. Like that was really his thing in keeping the tournament structured and yeah and I think that we all, everybody put in their effort and put in some effort towards the event. So that's what happens. You get a great thing when everybody collaborates and works together. It's much better than working, you know, in silos, right? So and I'm hoping that, you know, we can have some more participation because the events are going to get bigger. I think for the basketball youth here awards, I don't know. It seems like it's a good thing to keep it with race Amity Day if we can but I know that race Amity Day always falls on the 11th. So I don't know that they will celebrate it on a weekend or not just because if we hadn't done it together we would have been in competition and neither of the groups necessarily collect a lot of folks. So but when you combine them all you get as Ronnie said the cross generational cross ethnic backgrounds and so that's really what those events are for. So we'll have to reach out to the folks from race Amity Day and see schedule is always hard because we're doing it in between graduation and prom and senior night and so it just gets a little bit hard to schedule it at a convenient time and anything after I think the 15th runs the risk of the students, the high school kids that were trying to give the awards to leaving but at the basketball tournament it was so late that there were so many kids who were college that came back home who were able to participate so that was really nice too. So I'm looking forward to scheduling those events with you guys moving forward. So Jennifer I just need to say that although I appreciate the collaboration part of it those things go through you. So while you are accepting some responsibility and acknowledging other people's part I also want to say that if it doesn't come through you and this is not just this year some folks don't know but as a commissioner and as someone who has watched you go up from the age of what to I see your worth and I acknowledge your worth and it's sometimes hard to acknowledge in ourselves our own worth so I'm acknowledging it for you and open airspace and it recorded thank you very much. Thank you Liz. Yes thank you Liz that's very nice and yes Jen amazing amazing work it's always a fun one definitely. Yeah I think that my takes from it is that if we could keep the tournament happening like let's do that because that we started that last year and that seems to have drawn even a bigger crowd and then the combination of race amity day I think if we can have that I think in a fortunate way it allows for some of our city officials to come since there is a proclamation be made and I mean it is what it is if that's how they come then that's how they come and that's a great way to speak to community and get people involved in that way so I think that to your point though we'd have to reach out to Ash and see if they're up to doing it on a weekend rather than the actual day so and I guess it's a you all not a not a meeting but yeah so that is my main takes away and I just really want to say that we had over correct me if I'm wrong Jennifer 50 youth be recognized in some type of way so that is an amazing thing in itself and yeah it was a really really great event and looking forward to hearing more about those types of events because I will be following you all on facebook and different social media so that's that's good to be good does anybody else have anything to add in about youth here or words I'm just kind of we do need to just give it up to those almost 50 youth because that was amazing and people nominated groups of people and it was the first time that groups of people were nominated so many times so the kids from the graphic were nominated 28 times the kids from posh were nominated like eight or nine times and then we had individuals who were nominated multiple times by different people so it also just shows that there are these rising stars in the community and so hopefully you know the youth hero awards can help encourage more kids to be involved in that way yeah and hopefully who knows maybe once one youth that was attending the event might be joining the hrc pretty soon see what happens it's always a great thing to have high schoolers and younger all right if no one has anything else on that the next update is juneteenth anybody like to speak on juneteenth that was there so so philip may i maybe skip ahead to the bylaws since i'm going to have to jump off the call oh yeah back to yep we can go back to juneteenth that's fine yep let's do an update on bylaws so the bylaws have gone through their final revisions and and i have passed them off to the attorneys so we're just waiting to hear back from them i know that paul had indicated to me that he was hoping to have the town council vote on a number of different bylaw changes in july so it's likely that we'll get some feedback from him and the attorneys but i don't know if that's been if they've established a meeting date for discussion but that's where we are so okay yeah that's really good and just for our newer folks so we we're looking at our bylaws at the beginning of this year and have been kind of working on them ronnie um myself and tyler have kind of been spearheading that project and rewriting and working them with along with panel and jennifer so we are at the stage to where they have gone to the attorney so that's kind of where we are and um that's that is great great news to hear and hopefully maybe there'll be even better news come july but i can't imagine that there won't be a revision here or there knowing knowing attorneys all right so you're co-host and i am going to jump off and go to my class yeah thank you pamela sure hi pamela hi all right so june 10th uh i will take it from there uh we definitely had huge event there as well that was just this sunday um jennifer how many people would you say in and out the entire day yeah i think we hit pretty close to 300 in and out okay yeah it was a little bit different than in years before last year it seemed like we had like 300 350 people all in one shot and then they kind of like dispersed but it seems like people there was a steady flow of people i could see them rushing from north pleasant street to get over to see what was going on so it was pretty good i you know our food vendors ran out of food other than the food trucks because they can just carry most but i know penny ran out by like 430 so and cake free cakeery ran out by about four o'clock too so you know it's a beautiful thing when we can get the business community here particularly the black business community and you know have them sell their items and so the craft vendors did really well and it was just an all-in-all good day yeah it was it was a really well attended day uh we had our co-chair ben um dj in that and it was a pretty cool one um our town council came out as well and yeah there was there was a really great event another great community event and i want to say that with these two events that have happened like a ton of people have come up to me or have texted me or emailed me to be like thank you so much for holding this like this is amazing this is so great like i'm so glad to see the hrc's doing this and then they've kind of i've said oh you know that's the first time i've met my town council or oh that's the first time like i've seen this or i've seen that and so i think that in a way in our mission in our charge of bringing community together and educating people we are really hitting that this year and i just want to say thank you so much for everybody's pardon it because it is quite a group effort i think that it'd be a little crazy if one person had to do this all themselves and jennifer yes i know you don't want to hear it again but thank you for being that leader you you really are great at that and i really do appreciate it like and you know i don't mind being your right hand person there so that is something that i really do appreciate about you you're gonna make me cry because you're leaving and i just like i just i'm just like oh what we're not mentioning that in my presence i'm sorry i know like we nobody really wants to acknowledge that that's something that's really going to happen we'll all be in august meeting like uh where's the newbie to this circle i just want to say that the utero awards event um felt very beautiful and insidery like the people who are participating they were on teams that was like yeah it was oriented towards them right but the juneteenth celebration felt like such an outreach activity and um so many people came and i for one love the opportunity to support local vendors um and black owned businesses and hear amazing music and i i got these earrings there and um yeah it was really a remarkable event and now that i've been uh i promise you i'm going to get as many people as possible next year to come who aren't there yes that'd be great definitely i think one thing too that uh we tried to lift up but i don't know that it got off the ground other than the tablets in um the what the senior centers are where they are the bank center but if next year if you all are thinking about like having some type of timeline or some type of something to have it i think that would be really great to have we try to get that happening this year i don't think that we got it off the ground but yeah i don't mean that's that's what these events are about and that's what i really i think like about them in my time as co-chair is kind of having a space to be like yes let's celebrate culture let's celebrate diversity let's also also educate when we can right like how many people don't know what juneteenth is i have many conversations that day of like what are we celebrating why are we on this town comment and then i would explain oh this is the reason why oh i didn't know that and yeah well look forward to it it's gonna happen every year from here on out like on the town and so it's it's really great to have that anybody else on juneteenth all right liz i'm gonna look to you for this one affordable housing listening session update just happened yesterday so that happened last night at the bangs community center um around six fifteen we were standing there saying oh my god where are the people and then all of a sudden we had like forty something people in the room in like two minutes um we had some spirited hello spirited conversations um about affordable housing or attainable housing um there are notes being taken that are being um typed up and presented to us we are going to be meeting next wednesday um some in zoom and some in person um to try to gather the notes figure out our common themes and then um our plan of i don't want to say attack because that's not a good word but our plan going forward to make a presentation to the town council to do something about the fact that we have too many people that are having issues with housing in the town of amherst and for those of you who are new and don't know what our charge was um there are members of the css jc the human rights commission which was philip and myself along with jennifer and supported by nate um at the town from town hall and also members of the border health and members of the affordable housing trust and we started meeting once a week in talking about some of the issues around housing in amherst whether it was the taxes are too high um not enough co um co um what's the word i don't want to say co housing but affordable housing um people not being able to um afford to live in this town people that work in this town that live in other towns because the rents and or the access and or the taxes are lower and we're trying to put a name and a face on all of that and try to do something about that so that the people that want to be in this town people that own businesses in this town can also live in this town comfortably and affordably so that's the gist of it and if anybody else would like to um i know if we can do that it's not supposed to have more than three people or more than two people on a subcommittee i think but anyway um we will be reporting to you all every time we meet for this group um any of the steps that have been moved forward or any reports that we have um here on out yeah i just echo what lizabeth says it was a really great event really well attended event and we had 40 people in the room we also had over 20 something responses so in essence we've heard from 60 members of our community on affordable housing and so that in itself is really good i was talking to a couple of people on the affordable housing trust and they said that this is the most they've heard from individuals from about affordable housing so i think that this event was a really well attended event and hopefully does a lot to bring awareness of um the night of the event we had questions of like what does affordable housing look like to you uh how are ways that we can improve it in town and what other like options i forget what the exact question was but what other options are there in affordable housing talking and as well as in the groups from talking to the different facilitators of the night like my group um had a lot of unhoused people in my group another group that was there had a large graduate student um population there and then another group had some town people as well in their group like town officials and other governance and then another group just had regular all just you know like residents just people that just had moved in or just got there so i think on the diverse of the diversity of these attendees and voices i feel like we are hearing from a lot of groups and i hope my hope is that town council will hear from us and will really use this as you know like hey this is what p actual residents are saying these are what people that want to live in amherst are saying because that is one of the things that we um had in that listening session was that whether you're a homeowner a renter stay occasionally would like to live in amherst work in amherst any type of way that you would like to basically share space in amherst we want to hear from you and i think that really opened up the door to a lot of um fruitful conversations we have any questions for many members dr adarani i think that's i i felt really sorry to have missed that i'm out of town just so you know um i'm wondering if in this discussion there was any discussion of the other thing that's going on in town about this new proposed bylaw to build duplexes and triplexes and so on did that come up in the discussion i'm just curious and let's go ahead let's absolutely absolutely um there was a lot of discussion i actually had um two town council members and other folks from other entities around housing in my group and um i had to try to keep people on track because some people veered off um and there was some banter going back and forth at some point that i had to kind of shut down um because i wanted people to be able to be heard without um backlash i don't know if that was a good word but there was some challenging moments in my group from people who had differences of opinions about things and so yes that was brought up tiny houses was brought up co-ops were brought up um shared shared communities was brought up um duplexes and triplexes where the owner had to live in one of the units was brought up and rezoning for that to happen was brought up and all of that was brought up yes yeah and i i will say that um to your point rani one of the cosponsors of that measure and bylaw was in attendance of that meeting so so that was definitely uh of conversation right of here from your residents of what actually residents think of this new bylaw and see see what happens from it so again that's it's fruitful conversation because i feel like these measures get made out town council but not hearing from people so having a shared space to kind of as was says kind of duke it out and have opinions and go back and forth it's it's it's beneficial in a way that if you're mindful of each other and respectful of each other you can have that conversation to really move legislation forward in a positive way that impacts residents well i also bring it up because i think that if we want to hear from residents there needs to be a safe space to say what their experience is with their living situations and what issues they're facing it's sort of difficult when you've got some of the strong voices particularly associated with this particular bylaw present as equal part right that's one of the reasons why we offered folks to be able to do written submissions and we made it clear at the beginning that there was every comment was anonymous we did not want anybody's names attached to anything that was said we wanted people to feel free to speak freely and let their voices be heard and the three questions were what does affordable housing mean to you how can we approve housing options in amherst and what should we consider in developing potential solutions to housing challenges in amherst those with three guiding questions however people had other opinions that were also offered while we were having our discussions i think this is a really great process how do we get how does the public get access to what was discussed i know you said it was being written up for your discussion right so we are looking to write a report for everybody that was facilitating that night took notes and so we're going to have a document go around to write it up and then we'll have a final document that will have the summarizations of it and as ula said there will be no like oh this person said that or this population said that it's rather more like our town residents have stated these main themes in affordable housing and what it is and so i think that it's going to be in a public way because it's going to town council so definitely before it goes to town council the committees and commissions will see it and then we'll send it off to town council right anybody else have any other questions no all right we did the update on the bylaw review so next is the state of human rights so the commission for our new members another thing on top of the bylaws and all the events that we are doing another thing that we wanted to do this year was do a state of human rights it's it is also in our charge to give what the human rights commission would perceive the town state of human rights is and so it is going to the town manager and to the town council so i started a draft i worked on a draft with um ronnie pamela and ben as well and jen also and so we kind of read in it and now it's going to be put out if we get a approval vote so jen if you don't mind pulling that up it was in tonight's packet meeting sure um tyler was also in that group oh tyler yes while you're pulling it up i just have to say every time i read that we have no authority it makes my teeth itch i know that we don't have authority we can just report and recommend and suggest but um and some of the issues that come up for folks they don't understand that they want us to do something about it and when we say we did do something about it we read the report we reviewed it we sent it off to the necessary folks we gave advocacy and um suggestions of for follow-up and sometimes that's great and sometimes it seems like it's just not enough now that's that's a fair point i think that that is something that has come out this year is the like realistic procedures of the hrc right and expectations of it and that was a conversation that was happening with famila is that i think that we need to set clear expectations of when you make a complaint kind of what's going to happen because i think the public perceives something else should happen and to your pointless we we are tied up in in a way that we can't do everything that people would want us to do um can i just ask can you guys see the bylaws or the yeah right this is not the this is not it no it's this is something else i took that from what uh philip gave me yes i thought hold on that's what's in your packet it's in the back in the bylaws right now we're doing the human rights review i thought yeah i thought it was the report the statement of the state of human rights you have it in the back that we have got with last year yeah i didn't check the package but you know in terms of the authority one of the things that we can do is call for this uh i don't know what the words were reconciliation meeting or whatever it is it's like a facilitative thing it's very similar to what the zoning board of appeals does and it might help us to talk to steve judge because they actually have used it to help people help neighbors deal with disagreements and come up with solutions and i know that a housing conflict isn't the same as a human rights complaint but we need to take i think there's a lot of potential for influence in that area even though there's no authority as such um we'll have to talk with pamela about it at some point about what our capacities are to actually facilitate that kind of thing maybe deb has some of that experience or skill which i know i don't can i just i'm gonna pull it up again quickly i think that both of those things are combined into one document somehow but um i would say that often there isn't a lot there's i wouldn't underestimate that we don't have the authority to right like that doesn't feel good but what i will say is in the past i've known first we most definitely validate somebody and we do that in a way that's very bipartisan i think it's the word to use like or non uh i think the other term would be Switzerland right like just very neutrally right like we validate the person's what they've experienced what they feel that they've experienced but often i know that there's been times when people have come come in and said you know i felt like i was discriminated against a b or c and when we follow up with a b and c a b and c make the changes that are needed to prevent it from happening again so whether or not that we sit down and have this long negotiation or not like the overall thing is that what needed to happen was like say uh no trespassing no trespassing sign needed to be put somewhere but it wasn't there before and so if it's not there then people should feel like they can go walk wherever but then it was put there right and so that is showing us that while we might not be able to do like this thorough investigation that some people might anticipate that we do have some kind of weight by name of being the town and that people really take that serious around here so i just wanted to add that because i understand the notion of the word it doesn't have any authority sounds like a lot of things but there is some merit to it coming from the town and the human rights commission and the hr director deborah god you're gonna say something i'm delighted to hear that there's been an impact so that's fantastic and maybe there's a way to phrase that to say that one of the roles is to intervene problem solve and intervene and facilitate action without recourse to official kind of i don't know or legal whatever channels um in answer to what ronnie said i am a professional in conflict resolution i've done restorative justice work i've also done mediation and arbitration but i'm also really sensitive to the fact that i am a white person and this is a majority by pock commission as it should be and so um i have that skill set but i'd feel uncomfortable being the person who is doing it if that's if the commission wanted a person to do it right so the way that it's currently set up right now is our da i office would be doing it so pamela and jennifer are the ones kind of spearheading complaints that come through so it's it's more i think ronnie was more saying than correct me from ronnie because i do not want to speak for you that it's it's nice to have you on the commission to then give those legal things that i myself am not an expert on so can i just say one one thing yep the hr second paragraph the hrc acknowledges the town of amherst for the adopted resolution affirming its commitment to instructual racism and achieve racial equity for black residents should that not say by pock residents or no i'm asking uh it's it might be a direct quote from when the town council made it and i believe that was in due to charge void so is it is it in quotations because i'm trying to quote that no it's no it's the second paragraph first two lines but it's it's in do you see me hovering over it yes it's in quotation right all right i i mean we can add in in our own like put parentheses out of the quotations and by pock community i mean that's something that we can definitely add in for that if that's what people would like to do i was just the reason why i highlighted that was that it gives kind of the you said this right you made a a public statement that you're trying to do something let's hold you to what you're trying to do to for the town council ronnie did you have something to say i was just thinking that we should say what they said they didn't say by pock they said black so that's what i would put in the quotes and i don't think we need to give them give i we would like to see it be broader but if they didn't say that then they didn't that's sort of how i feel i don't people like to read it on their own or what they like someone to read it out loud and i'm not nominated myself to read it out loud unless you guys want to sit here for an hour well i've read it and that's the only two things that i had popped up for me so unless you want me to read it or other spelling i mean i i helped write it so i'm good on my end if you could just keep scrolling john are people ready for the next page one thing that i do want to highlight there under we the human rights have celebrated at the bottom end of it i think that it was a great suggestion and i can't remember if it was ronnie or panel at this point done so many different predictions here um is that the dollar amount asking price for it was priced out from this year from june or july of the start of 2022 to 2023 and so that was helped out by jennifer and panel trying to just the cost of everything right like the cost of food the cost of the venue cost of different um performances that we had and so that 23 000 is honestly a realistic of if this town would like to continue these types of events and to not have just donations and especially not to have donations by our bIPOC community so that way our bIPOC community can make money that price tag is a realistic price tag of an investment that needs to be put into place i believe and jennifer correct me if i'm wrong our budget is only 1500 for the entire year the special activities account for the human rights commission is 1500 so we work very hard to fill in the gaps everywhere way under work more way under than what the actual realistic price tag is how do they expect us to continue to put on such events without um shared expenses like um the um youth hero awards was a shared expense um last night's meeting was a shared expense actually it came directly from the housing trust actually but how do they expect us to continue to put on these type of community events with 1500 for one year that makes no sense to me no that is true but i will also say the because we are a municipality there we have lots of red tape so for instance in theory unless you have special legislation we shouldn't be feeding large amounts of community members at like events right because and then tax people are feeling like you're spending our money to feed people like there's this whole process of stuff that has to happen and so i personally feel like one of the best things and i know i brought this up before and i'm going to try and when i come back from vacation to work with the league of women voters on it is and if you guys don't mind of course um is having a friend of the human rights commission because they can fundraise and they don't have the red tape you know um that the town is bounded by because it's a it's a municipality so it's another commissioner board but it's also at the same time is detached and i think it would be very beneficial and i think if we had a very um there's just so many more beneficial things if we had a diverse diverse group of individuals on that um trust then i wouldn't have to run after and find community members that might want to be involved to help me make sure that the proclamation is read or reads in an appropriate way right so there's lots of benefits to having um you know a a friend's group for the HRC outside of just the money and then not every you know it would alleviate a lot of um the work that i do as far as goes with the events right because then i could focus on some more of the um other work that's happening here at the town they do kind of consume me and they go year round so yes yes i'm told and i i mean having that having the funding and luckily um amherst college has been a great partner for some of these events but again to to liz's point i think it does i mean it is what it is right like sure some people might say oh i don't want my tax dollars paying for that i pay taxes and i don't want my certain tax dollars to pay for certain things but it at the end of the day it is what it is to an event like this it makes it to where we have a sense of community in town and that sense of community is so needed at the affordable housing um conversation i think that's one thing that a lot of people were saying it's not like oh i just want to live somewhere where i know my neighbors i want to live somewhere where um i can feel safe sending my kid outside and knowing that i'm not like the only one watching after them 24 seven white having those things as is needed it is but but it's not that people feel like they don't want their tax money to be spent i just want to clarify that it's like state law that we can't do that and so when we have food it's because we've partnered with someone and another entity who can cover the cost of the foods because the town cannot that's its actual state law or it's either you can create you can have it go before special legislation to try and have it accommodated that way but by the time doing all of that i just assumed that uh friends would be just as fast if not faster totally i mean yes like thanks for clarifying and saying that and i think that that is needed but also like right not saying you not saying just commission saying our town council like why also can our town council be like oh like you know we we will run through that right before you all yeah no i mean there's no argument yeah exactly that's what i'm saying the the other thing for me it's not just about feeding it's about some of these folks giving up their time and their energy and their skills and things like that um some of them who are lower income you know some of them who are bipark and struggling that we can't even offer them a little nugget for coming and sharing their talents with us i mean i look at kwanzaa i look at some of the other things that we put on um and the work that philip and victor did around our latinx explosion kendrick park and it was a wonderful event and it would have been nice to be able to you know do something for those folks that gave up their time i look at um med's group you know they're professional people they get paid and they did it for us for free should they of course they should they were born and raised here they live here you know med still works at the schools and all of that stuff but wouldn't it be nice if we could offer them some some kind of honorarium or something for their time and their energy so um even without the food part it's just you know we had some people the drummers and at kwanzaa and you know just ah folks upon folks that did some good stuff so that's all yeah now i think that's totally it uh ronnie has left i just want to make note of that i'm not bringing this under quorum so hopefully she comes back in um jen if you don't mind pulling it up though so then that way we can look at um the second page you're muted jen again it's only been like four years of zoom meetings um i think that i did have it up correctly and right i just had scrolled down too far right exactly is that what happened yeah can you see now yes yes yeah so then i want me to go here yes so this part of the um statement is the kind of like review summary of the complaints that we've heard throughout this year from july to what will be essentially july at the time that it will be going to town manager and town council so i want to take a look there there was some against i know amherst college as well as uh the july 5th incident and jennifer if you scroll down amherst businesses that happened very fast it did happen so fast so um in this um we are trying to keep confidentiality as a priority so that's why it just says two complaints were filed against amherst college in both incidents as the complaints how were received for trespass and then it kind of gives a little a little bit of something but not it doesn't name any people or any offices so that way on both sides of the parties then it is keeping that confidentiality anybody have any comments on that part of it and so the last part then is just our sign off piece of it and so then jennifer is the only thing is juliana's name is not on there juliana is not officially a member anymore as well as some some of these things were happening she was i can reach out to her i just i just don't want to put her on without her permission so i i don't mind reaching out to her and seeing if she would not mind that but that is also why um debra and jisinda i did not put you on here because i you are not officially there on the membership of it so that's like but that's i mean it's not a bad plan i will check to see if there's any red tape there lives and if there's not i can't imagine juliana ejecting so we'll see well yeah i just feel like all the things that were leading up to the those reports that came in that she was a participant on the human rights commission she was able to speak about some of those things and it just seems like anyway yeah no that's that's a good thing to point out thank you for for doing that uh jen if you don't mind getting us back to see each other thank you all righty so uh anybody would like to make oh god runny i just noticed a couple of small things where it says resources they're like xxx so those things need to at the very bottom those things either need to be filled in with websites or deleted right so town managers memo whatever so there's a couple of small things at the very bottom i am uh moving in so as you can see the banana boxes behind me my desk is completely packed up so i have to type it out on my phone here for those notes otherwise i would have had a pen on my desk i looked around really quick for a pen and could not find one so add in links there okay anybody else have anything else other add in links juliana reach out to her all right so officially there has to be some type of motion in a second and then discussion and voting so if anybody would like to make a motion to approve this to go to town council i move to approve you're you're just gonna have to give a little bit more there for gen approve approve the uh human rights state of human rights report of the past year for submission to the town council i second with um necessary corrections all righty so motion on the floor and we have a second any discussion not seen anybody discuss all right then we will move to vote and i'm just going to call you out so you appear on my screen liz yes tyler yes ronnie yes and i am a yes as well already so i will make those necessary corrections before that gets signed off into going to the town council uh and then reason why i didn't call on the newly members just because you're not officially sworn in so that's the reason why i just want to add that in there i'm not trying to actively exclude you have anything that's not my goal all right that is great then next up we have the reading of frederick douglas speech what to the slave is fourth of july so is my understanding and i don't know that i actually participated in this one last year gen about that there is a speech up for frederick douglas has written and that it's kind of do we do it like how we do my like there's tink tink speech where we kind of pass it around and say little paragraphs yep similar to the human rights day is uh the human rights declaration so it's a community reading it's usually well attended crests will sponsor some light snacks and refreshments so we'll um have some chairs out there for folks and hopefully um i guess i should find a rain location just in case right and out there is town common yes god and date time july 5th at 5 p.m i'll be sending the flyer out shortly i'm like all these little things i'm trying to do before right is it true that the town is doing their fireworks and celebration on the first which is a saturday as opposed to the fourth which is why um i would say that from from my understanding it's uh i think a lot of businesses are shorthanded and the fourth of july is a very popular event and you know you have to have hold certain licenses or requirements or whatever and so i think there's a shortage of fireworks and so that was the time that was available for us i would really yeah i think we need to whoever needs to publicize it you may not be the person to speak with gen but last year we missed it because it wasn't on july 4th we were new to town and we had friends over and we were planning to go see the fireworks and we couldn't find the fireworks turned out it had already happened um so you know we didn't um i guess if it's not when people expect it to be it's sort of good to do some publicity i certainly will share that with neighbors and others yes i will um i can send an email out to the folks in charge thanks all right um so going back to fregla's doug douglas speech july 5th 5 30 town common to look like people's availability meets that i will be there for sure i'm seeing debora seeing ronnie lis i'll be there i just clicked off for a second just so i can put it in my calendar sorry tyler had to click back on the um july 4th uh meeting july 5th so it's about july 4th it is happening on july 5th okay so that and the fireworks to both july 5th the fireworks is completely that is your if you would like to go to that you can go to that it is the town is doing it so that is the first is what i'm hearing the event that the hrc is doing with the frederick douglas reading is july 5th and so he originally gave the speech on the 5th that's why we do it on the 5th i just want to say my wife and i moved here july 1st two years ago and the frederick douglas reading was the first public event that we went to when we moved here so that's awesome i'm excited to go again and what time is it going to be at 5 30 on the town common about my five o'clock 5 p.m i can try to be there um i should be able to be there okay yep and just send it yep i'm right outside so there's no heavy lift in this one so it's it's quite refreshing it's actually quite late compared to the last two events it'll be a good good way to get your feet wet in some of the events there and it's at 5 30 you said no five o'clock i said 5 30 and it's five o'clock don't listen to me okay listen to that now i gotta go back in never change that sorry all right and so with that that is the end of our action and discussion items does anybody have anything other topics that the chair did not anticipate 48 hours before we posted so just to give you a little back for i guess whoever's trying to take over co-chair we have to post 48 hours before our meeting and so that's why under action and discussion items anything that gets posted during that time frame that's what we can discuss anything that gets brought up is okay as long as it is then publicized and put in a way that the public can access so that's why we have that little caveat of any other topics so any other topics not seen anybody all right i will go to public comment but i'm not sure there's anybody else in public here nope so then the next one is hrc member reports any member reports that we have to give out i will give one out for uh the other committee that i own part of is the community safety and social justice committee the css jc they are currently having a quorum issue and so if you know anybody that's looking to join css jc if you want to spread the word around for them that would be greatly appreciated on their end um other than that that is the most that i got from my right i think john did you go to the last meeting now all right any other member reports there if i do have one more actually there was another this one is an official one this is uh there's a salsa in the park happening at um kendrick park on friday from give me one second to pull up the flyer from six to seven and so it's this friday uh salsa lessons happening it's with our town's rec department um mass cultural council and amherst cultural council and the dj there is the dj that um also helped out with our latinx heritage months though i told them that i would say that so i'm glad i remembered so if you like to learn some salsa moves um kendrick park this friday night if you can't make it maybe letting a neighbor know letting someone know that'd be great and other than that if there's no any member reports i don't have anything else list no okay you unmute it so i was like i don't know if you're gonna say something i unmute it so i could move to a dismiss yes yes i am going to adjourn us here at seven thirty nine thank you bye from hi everyone nice meeting you just philip you're not leaving i don't care i am not gonna be a co-chair i don't have to try yes i really think ronnie might do it or i was thinking about her if he's gonna stay on he needs to step up i have not seen him i have not i called i called him out on it on my text today i said hey you come into it because i haven't seen you in a couple months he said i'm really sorry i can't make this month i promise i will make next month i'm gonna punch him in the throat but i can't because that assault and i don't want to do that i'm glad the meeting's over did you did you'd like turn off the recording by the way no i didn't of course that's being recorded that's been recorded