 Okay, we are now recording and I want to welcome everybody to our community chat for Thursday, November 19. Today we have assistant town manager and director of conservation and development, David Zomek back with us, as well as planning director Christine Brestrup. So welcome to you both. I'm going to kick it over to Paul to start off with any updates he has. Well, thanks, Brianna. And yeah, this is an exciting day for us. We have a big announcement that we've just listened to by the by Governor Baker, for a warning the town a $1.5 million mass works grant and I just like Dave or Chris to talk a little bit about your team working with Public Works put it together and are we're successful in getting this very, very competitive grant so it's really exciting. Chris, do you want to Sure. Yeah, we're very excited to get this $1.5 million grant to work on the intersection of West Street, which is also called 116 and Pomeray Lane. We call it the Pomeray Village Center. Many people are not familiar with it under those terms but it's really a place that's growing. We have Mission Cantina there we have some exciting small businesses El Camolito. And it's really, you know, starting to thrive and there are a lot of problems with the intersection. There's no really good pedestrian access bicycle lanes are not there. There's sidewalks that are there that are in poor condition and they're often backups at the traffic light, especially southbound in the afternoon. So we would really like to kind of improve that intersection to make it more usable for everybody. So we're looking forward to making these improvements. Yeah, I would just add, Paul, that, you know, this is a project that's been, you know, in the works for a number of years. And as you said, it really was a collaborative effort. We heard loud and clear from a lot of people. Businesses in that Village Center from pedestrians from people who use it and use those businesses that we need to make some improvements there. It's been growing. There's there's a number of residential units there as well. I would just add, Paul, that, you know, this is a project that's been, you know, in the works for a number of years. And as you said, it really was a collaborative effort. There's a number of residential units there as well. And that people use it to bicycle and walk and they want better access and they want it to be safe for pedestrians and bicycles, as Chris said, and they want it to be accessible to all of our residents and visitors alike. So this is many years in the making and kudos to the DPW engineering staff and Christine staff and planning for coming together and putting together a successful proposal. These are very competitive grants. So not everybody gets these grants and to get 1.5 million is a really nice number. We're going to embark on a public process now and work with various boards and committees and the town council to move this project forward. I think someone said on the grant award program today that they get over 100 applications and only 36 were awarded this year so that's, you know, about a third of the applications get awarded so I was really pleased because this was a difficult. It was a big effort to get this application together and I'm glad that it was finally successful. A couple questions can, can you define, is there a definition of what village center means from a planning perspective. Well, it's really an area that has people living there as well as commercial and retail and office space it's a place that's kind of a little smaller than the downtown and, you know, but it has essentially all the services that people need you know, there's opportunity to get food you can get gas there. You can get your haircut, you can get really great. Southwestern food. So lots of different things are available there but there are also people who live there in the Pomeray co op and single family houses and it's really, you know, it's it's an area that's been developing when I first moved to Amherst there really wasn't much there at all. But now that it's, it's been developed a little it's there's there's a lot going on there. And this might be more of a question for Dave does this have anything to do with any plans for Hickory Ridge. Yeah, absolutely and in fact we included Hickory Ridge in our grand proposal to the state. So that project continues to move forward. We are kind of working with with the owners of Hickory Ridge and with our town attorney to move toward a closing on Hickory Ridge that I expect will happen in the next, probably 60 to 75 days. We're, we then embark will embark on a really a community engagement process with neighbors with users with businesses that are in the Village Center and various committees and boards to talk about what we'd all as a community like to see out on Hickory Ridge. As we've said all along there will be a strong solar component there. We'll likely about 2025 acres of solar. So that'll be great to have green energy be part of this project. We'll also be looking at, you know, trail access and connectivity to the Village Center that will be improved through this mass works grant so it's very exciting we can, we can begin to build on this mass works grant, the acquisition of Hickory Ridge and private development there. We do know that some of the property owners are interested in developing or redeveloping some of their property. So all of this momentum can build and provide more opportunities for businesses for residential and hopefully for your more affordable housing as well in that Village Center. And I think there's probably a lot of projects you can update us on today but I know this week, both of you, as well as superintendent of public works skillford mooring presented on the North Common project to Council. Was that this Monday. I don't know if everybody's tuned into that meeting but you guys want to talk a little bit about that project. All these dates seem to run together. It's all one big Monday. Every day is Monday. We presented on the North Common several times recently Dave and I we presented to the Historical Commission about two weeks ago and then last week we presented to the Community Preservation Act Commission committee rather. And this Monday we presented to Town Council so we're, we're very excited about the North Common as a as a new project that's really going to bring life to the downtown it's a project that we've been working on. For 2013, we have gotten some CPAC Community Preservation Act money to improve things on the Common but we just need a little bit more to get us over the goal line. We have a plan for for creating new pathways and gathering spaces and adding seating and places where people can have a little picnic or a meeting with somebody and just have a cup of coffee. We'd like to preserve most of the trees that are there. There are some of them that are probably going to have to come down because they're older in decline and and we want to open it up a bit but we really are very excited about the plan that we have and we're going to be working with the Department of Public Works to develop the plan as we move forward and there will also be improvements made to the parking lot just north of the North Common the one that is between the Common and Main Street so that area and the whole area in front of Town Hall, we're hoping to make it more lively and more attractive for people to do things have community events have concerts just stroll through the area and just have it be more welcoming. I think one of the counselors noted counselor Ross noted that when the day the election was called he was downtown is a beautiful day to begin with but the amount of activity that was happening on the North Common, even in its rugged condition but because we put a few picnic tables out there and throughout town, there's so many people out getting takeout from our local restaurants and enjoying the food. And it was just really important to have spaces that you can activate that's engaging and welcoming to people as we emerge from the pandemic economic downturn. It's going to be really important for our downtown for self image in some ways but also for our local businesses. And if I could just piggyback on that to Paul you said a couple of times in meetings that, you know, one thing that in any economy but particularly coming out of this pandemic and the coven economy that we've all been been struggling through is, is the importance of public funding and reinvestment by the town by the state and by the federal government so both the North Common project and, and this new mass works grant that we just got really can spur other creative options from you and that's one of the goals is to say, we're going to put this public money in. What can the private sector do to, to match this money and match us. As we try to recreate, you know, vibrant business downtown vibrant business community downtown and I think the North Common is this central feature. I had also noted it was interesting this summer to watch the picnic tables move they actually move people would pick them up if they wanted son or if they wanted shade and they move they never disappeared. People were very respectful but it really, it really saw a lot of usage this summer. So it was exciting. One of the questions we had as you mentioned a couple of times with some of these projects about spurring, you know, economic activity at these village village centers and downtown. So what else is the town doing to help businesses survive this current economic downturn. I received money from the cares act. I think it was from the federal government through the state. And we have about $140,000 that we're offering to small businesses under a micro grants program that's being administered by Valley Community Development Corporation. So this small businesses to apply for up to $10,000 worth of a grant to help them keep their business afloat and that can be used for a number of different things including paying for staffing and paying for improvements to their physical structure. So we're really excited about this and we hope that people will take advantage of it. It's aimed primarily at low income business owners. And it's called a micro grant because it's, it's also aimed at businesses that have five or fewer people working there including the owner. But we think it's really an opportunity for particularly some of the restaurants but also the other small businesses in downtown to take advantage of this and, and, you know, help them to keep going through this difficult time to emerge next spring or summer in a better place than they are now. Thank you Chris. Do you know if there's a deadline for businesses to get that application in or I think it's a rolling application. Okay, and there is a for any businesses or if you know of a business in town who is eligible to apply we have that information at the bottom of our homepage. So you can choose an announcement section you can click there and get taken to the application information. And there are people available to help businesses to fill out the forms. So you're not all on your own. So that's good news to. And I know I've seen the chamber in the bid offering their assistance and to businesses in any way they can to help them with that application process as well. Anything Dave or Paul wanted to add to that about our local business situation. What I would add is that, you know, we have a great working relationship with the bid and chamber we have weekly meetings with them in fact Paul and I will meet with the, the president of the council and the bid in the chamber staff tomorrow every Friday we meet. And we've been doing that for quite a number of months, and it's an opportunity really to share ideas to exchange information and to. I think a really productive collaborative relationship and dialogue, and we have some ideas that we'd like their help with they have some ideas that they need the town to help them with. And I think we've really been, I wouldn't say challenging each other but I think we've been rising to the collective challenge in the town of, of helping businesses retail restaurants, you know, going back many months to, you know, outdoor dining in our downtown, trying to extend the dining season by with the use of heaters and, and tents and, and, you know, some some really creative things and, and now we're looking to say okay how can we help businesses get through the holiday season as as safely as, as we can, and then look to say how can we open up Amherst again, as soon as the weather permits and kudos to the bid and chamber for looking for creative ways, even looking at winter opportunities what can we do on the move forward safely? under under COVID guidelines and recommendation to get people out to get people to safely come downtown to to have some joy and and some some provide some hope in in the New England winter and we all were we love New England but this is going to be a particularly challenging New England winter for all of us, but how do we find hope and, you know a great example, I think was was all the great work that was done with the Farmer's Market this year. That really brought so many thousands of people over the whole summer together in a safe environment where they could support local businesses, local farmers, feed their families, and also get out and provide a little hope every Saturday, every Saturday morning to have some conversation at a distance, but to do something that we love to do, which is support agriculture in the small New England farm. So I think the Bidden Chamber are looking for ways to do that this winter and then pick that up in the spring. So keep the momentum going. It's a really good point because I've gone to the farmers market I think every weekend and it's not like I buy a lot necessarily, but it becomes sort of a ritual because it's a nice time to spend on the town common. I think having it spread out on the common made a big difference. And what the farmers market manager has said is that the best day that they used to have in 2019 is an average day in 2020 and that they've almost every vendor has exceeded all their sales from prior years. And so it's been for the farmers who are there, it's been a highly successful experience. And I think maybe it's the only game in town, you know, it's like we're looking for places to go that are safe. And I credit the farmers market manager for really working with our inspection services and health people to make sure that it was a safe environment and they set the rules early and they followed them all through the season. So just real credit to them for that. There were other things that we did over the summer to help the businesses survive and we applied for a grant very early and it was probably May or June to the Solomon Foundation. That was a joint effort with the bid and we got $10,000 from them and a lot of the umbrellas that you see downtown that you have seen over the summer were from that grant and it also paid for other improvements to outdoor dining to help make it a little more attractive. And then we applied for a Mass DOT and Mass Department of Transportation grant that also afforded us I think it was $120 something thousand dollars to make improvements to the downtown streetscape so that it would be more welcoming and amenable to outdoor dining. And so that really helped the businesses to be able to survive into the cold weather and the heaters that you see in those outdoor dining spaces, most of them were paid for through that grant and I have to commend the building commissioner who was out there with his facility staff actually putting together the heaters for those restaurants. So that was a really good community joint effort. Yeah, like Holy Spokes, people you don't think about it but every city in town was looking for heaters at the same time. Every city in town was looking for umbrellas at the same time. We were out there with everybody else mixing it up trying to get these things into our towns so our businesses survive and you know our staff went above. They drove. I mean I think the building commissioner drove to Schenectady to buy these things or something. It's just on a weekend just to make sure we our businesses had them. So it's really you know and you think how hard can it be to order some heat you can't just buy these things from Home Depot or Lowe's. You have to get special kinds because it's commercial and fire department has to sign off on them and so it really is a tremendous amount of work from our all of our staff to make this happen and just kudos to everybody there. So working together that made it happen. That's something that I think is a theme over the last how many months has this been. 50 months teamwork at all different levels. So I wanted to mention too that I got in my inbox just today an invitation to the virtual lighting of the merry maple on Friday, December 4th. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? I see they're putting up lights already. Yeah. And it's you know it's going to be virtual. They have a whole program I think that credit credit again to the we have a Dave mentioned this we have really strong we have strong leadership at the bit in the chamber and it's been really good working relationship high level of communication and I'm you know we weren't part of the organization of that and I think they've really pulled together something that's actually pretty interesting and they want people to participate and have your eggnog at home I guess so. We still be warm right. I was just before we leave you know all these great things and the farmers market made me think too of of this kind of covid you know these eight months that we've all lived through and adapted within and it made me think you know what might some of the lessons learned say about the farmers market be you know we had to spread out on the main part of the common we had some different vendors come in but you know it created a different kind of vibrancy in a slightly different part of our downtown so I'll be interested in hopefully we can have some conversations with the leadership of the of the farmers market over the winter to say you know kind of what lessons did they learn what did we learn. You know we've always had it in the spring street lot there are some pluses and minuses to having it on the on the common. We didn't have any other you didn't have the fair this year we didn't have some of the big events that they utilize the common but but it did provide for a whole lot more space for that for the for the farmers market to do their thing so and the Boy Scots will be back right after Thanksgiving with their tree lot at the Kendrick Park and many of the lessons we learned from the farmers market are being applied to create a safe environment for people to shop for trees at Kendrick Park. That's great and we can we should also mention our playground that's going to be built in the spring at Kendrick Park it's about halfway up the park on the west side and it's going to be very exciting it's really well designed the Department of Public Works put the design together with the help of the planning department and there's going to be a lot of nice play equipment and places to sit and it'll be really a beautiful addition to Kendrick Park. And that Chris I think we're on a pretty tight timeline we've got to have that constructed by June 15th or so June 1st okay first yep and that was funded by a grant from the state so with some additional funds from the town so that was also a joint effort of the planning department and the DPW working together. Yeah I think that's going to be a huge hit I mean if if if what we did at Gough Park is any indication a new playground wow I I drove around Gough Park yesterday and it was hopping at about three o'clock in the afternoon and there were people on the playground and obviously the spray park is is turned off until next spring but people on the you know distancing and and doing activities safely but that place has been a buzz since we opened the playground so I'm looking forward to this new playground right in our the heart of our downtown. And I have to say that sometimes people get frustrated with how long it takes to get things done I've been in here in the town hall for I don't know 17 years or so and I remember working on the initial plan for Kendrick Park and it was it was a really long time ago that we started this I think it was 2007 or 2008 and we had ideas about what we wanted to do and we hired a landscape architect to come up with a plan and then didn't have any money and now little by little we're being able to piece piece it together and I'm really excited to see that it's finally happening. Sounds like 2021 and 2022 downtown Amherst or just Amherst in general is going to be looking different and vibrant and it's exciting as a community member at least especially on the playgrounds I've got someone in my house who's very excited about another playground so thank you for that and your daughter too probably yeah her too. That's a great point I mean new playground spray parks playground downtown the dog park will open in 2021 so we've got a lot to look forward to and I think we all need that right now those positives that hopeful outlook that you know we're going to come out of 20 and and we're going to we're going to have challenges no doubt budgetarily and and this pandemic is not over but I think we have to to kind of zero in on and focus in on those positives that we're a community that's moving forward despite the challenges that the world is facing and we will get through this Amherst will and and Massachusetts will. So one of the things I want to make sure that we mentioned is you know one of the things that the governor made noted in his announcement about the Pomeroy village improvements is that the connectivity to two environmental justice neighborhoods and that's that's a the term for people where there are a concentration of low income people and you don't really know it until you look at a map but getting Hickory Ridge and connecting that to Pomeroy village really provides access to a lots of people who live on East Hadley Road that they'll be walking paths that get you very easily to the Pomeroy village business district which in that area is kind of isolated now in terms of access to food and things like that and that's the intent of all this investment of town and state money is to help promote that along with building that the multi-use path along East Hadley Road to help people get to the new playground at Groff Park. So all these things are not just sort of done randomly there's a you know an overall view in mind to help to bring services to people most and to improve our town infrastructure in general. That's a that's a perfect way to tie the discussion back all together Paul so that's a really great point it's all these exciting projects but they do come together in some cohesive vision so important to note so I will say that we are at 1226 we've got about four minutes I'll remind folks who are joining us live if they want to ask any questions feel free to do so raise your hand and zoom or use the Q&A function and I will monitor for those coming in but with that being said if there's any in the last few minutes are there any things that you our special guests want to share that they didn't get asked? I'd like to share that I think that Town of Amherst has a really good staff and that we're all working very hard to make the town you know a good and a better place and I hope that people realize that and yeah and we work really well together so good work. Thank you Chris. Dave anything from you? Oh I would just echo that Chris absolutely and and that goes out also to our boards and committees and the council you know a lot of people I just don't think see how many meetings how many discussions the movement of projects and initiatives through our democratic process is really important and and by and large people are so committed and so passionate about this town and having grown up here sometimes I'm you know I you know I just am overwhelmed with with the commitment there is to make our community better and that's one of the things I always love about Amherst is is we're not complacent we're not we're not comfortable to sit back and say this is as good as it gets want to be better in all of these categories you know so that's what makes that's what you know helps me get up in the morning and get motivated and work with all these great boards and committees and we will have our challenges but by and large everybody rolls up their sleeves and says how can we make Amherst a better place for our all of our residents as well as people who want to come here to study and learn and and work and raise their families so I think that motivates all of us to do better every day. Great thank you Dave and thank you Chris. I want to take a quick opportunity to remind folks that tonight is November 19th there's a budget forum at 6 30 p.m. All that information is on our homepage and on our public meetings calendar and we have another opportunity to tomorrow morning Friday November 20th from 8 to 9 a.m. to have a cup of joe finance edition where you can ask your your finance and budget questions to the town manager to our finance director Sean mangano and to our comptroller am I right with the comptroller okay and our comptroller sonia aldridge so that's a cup of joe tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. Paul any anything you want to know I think this is a great there's a lot but until you start talking about it all at once there's so much happening and we didn't even touch on the things I mean you're presenting a project this afternoon Brianna to the town council and there's many other things are in the pipeline that we didn't even touch on so I think they're you're right there's a lot of stuff and I think after we heard about the mass works grant we said oh gosh now we have to do it and how do we engage the public successfully which again that's a project Brianna has been working on like how do we engage people not just through zoom but other ways where you don't have to be at a certain place at a certain time so that's all really exciting stuff I think we're going to have to put a big section into the state of the town for for the upcoming year as a preview to all these exciting projects so that way we can kind of put it all in one place and and then get really scared about the work that we have to do but okay well I want to thank everyone who joined us and for those who are watching on our YouTube channel and thank you so much Chris and Dave for joining us great job yeah thank you thank you Brianna thank you have a nice day