 This program is brought to you by CableFranchiseVs and generous donations from viewers like you. Hello and welcome to the Amherst Weekly Report from Amherst Media. I'm Claire Healy and you're watching the news from this past week in Amherst, Massachusetts. Some teachers and students in the Amherst Pellum Regional School District may be going back to in-person learning this spring. The Amherst School Committee and Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee are moving forward with a plan to allow educators to voluntarily return to school buildings for in-person instruction this February. The committees will allow as many students as possible to return to school within the guidelines of public health officials. In Tuesday's meeting, the committees voted in favor of the motion. Amherst Representative Carrie Spitzer and Pellum Representative Margaret Stanser were the only two who abstained. Superintendent Michael Morris will manage the return and work with the Amherst Pellum Education Association, School Committee, and student families to safely implement the plan. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump was impeached, becoming the first president to be impeached twice in U.S. history. He was impeached for, quote, incitement of insurrection, and 10 Republicans joined with their Democrat colleagues in the House in voting for the movement. Lawmakers voted 232 to 197 to approve the measure, while surrounded by military troops stationed in the Capitol Building to protect Congress and prepare for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20th. All Massachusetts representatives voted to approve the measure. After the violent siege at the U.S. Capitol, many local officials released statements regarding the event. Amherst Town Manager Paul Backelman and Superintendent of Amherst Regional Schools Michael Morris co-wrote a statement posted on Amherst.gov. In their statement, they assured the people of Amherst that they are, quote, being vigilant at the local level to make sure that no one here imitates the violence we saw in our Capitol. In an email sent to UMass Amherst students, Chancellor Subbaswamy described the siege as, quote, shocking and deeply disturbing. He urged the UMass community to come together and support one another, even if they do so virtually. The community safety working group will be holding a second public forum on Saturday, January 16th at 3 p.m. on Zoom, inviting residents to share statements of experiences with the Amherst police and other public safety services. Statements can be submitted anonymously by emailing staff liaison to the working group, Jennifer Moyston, or filling out their online questionnaire available on the town website. Ocean Vuong, an author who works as an assistant professor at UMass Amherst, gained national recognition and awards for his debut novel on Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. And now we'll be taking yet another step in his impressive career. The book is going to be adapted to film by A24, the same entertainment company that produced Lady Bird, The Disaster Artist, Moonlight, and Vroom. The novel follows the life of a young Vietnamese-American man in Hartford, Connecticut, in the form of a letter from the narrator to his mother. Part poetry, part novel, but all fiction. The book is an intense coming-of-age story that brings you into the life of a young man grappling with family, love, loss, and trauma, and promises to be a gut-wrenchingly powerful film. The town of Amherst established new public newsstand signs in downtown Amherst. Amherst media correspondent Rebecca Duffy reporting. Thanks Claire. Amherst is decked out with new technology that no other town in western Massachusetts has. This is a Sufa sign. It's completely solar-powered and it provides information like the weather and COVID-19 updates. I spoke with Amherst communications manager Brianna Sunrid about why these signs are so important. The Sufa signs project is actually a little bit bigger than the signs. It's three digital displays signs using e-ink technology, as well as three solar-powered charging cores. But a little bit about the signs, the intention for them is to share information updates to the community or visitors or folks who do not have access to either a device or internet. So the signs themselves have an e-ink screen. They have different elements such as transit times, local business offerings, emergency updates, or COVID updates, and also links to our Twitter feed. We did install also three solar-powered charging cores. So any time somebody who needs to charge their device, as long as they have a USB cord, they can connect into these three solar chargers that are placed around downtown Amherst for 24-7 charging. Someone's waiting for a bus or somebody for whatever reason doesn't have another location to charge their device, especially with our public buildings closed. They'll have access to 24-7 charging capability in our downtown area. And this was a CARES Act-funded program because of the nature of the information that we're going to share to the community members or visitors, updated mask mandates and things of that nature. So we were excited to bring this additional tool into our communications. We hope that visitors and community, full-time community members alike will benefit from these signs. I mentioned earlier that the back of the signs has a custom design on it, and right now we've got important public health information and links and phone numbers and QR codes. So we find that if someone's passing through, they'll have quick access to that information to stay up to date. One component of the signs is that we've, working with SUFA, they are going to be trying to prioritize local businesses to share their information and their hours and their changes as part of the signs. So we see some benefits to the local business community, as well as just another touch point for information in our community to get out there above and beyond some of the other existing channels. And one element of the sign that I think has another audience, as well as those using public transit, we're going to try to connect up the PVTA real-time transit schedule so that when people are waiting for a bus at stops that are close to these signs, they'll be able to get up to the minute information. So we're the first community in Western Mass to bring this technology on board, and we've enjoyed working with SUFA, which is a female-owned company that sprung, excuse me, that sprung out of MIT. So we're joining ranks such as Boston and Maldon and much larger communities in the eastern part of the state bringing this technology to their city centers. So we're excited to see how it goes. This is only one of two SUFA signs in downtown Amherst, and a third is expected to be built within the next week. Reporting for Amherst Weekly Report, I'm Rebecca Duffy. Thank you for tuning into the Amherst Weekly Report from Amherst Media. I'm Claire Healy, and we'll see you at the same time next week.