 order at 6.02 p.m. on Thursday, November 12th, 2020. This meeting is being recorded. It will be posted on YouTube, the town's YouTube channel in a week or so. We are meeting virtually pursuant to the governor's emergency orders during this pandemic that prevent us from meeting in person. So before we go any farther, I would like to identify a minute taker. You can actually write as we go, or you can have a look at the tape. So let's see. I think we're going to be asking one of the new members. I'm really not sure I'm ready to be able to focus on two things and take minutes and still do the meeting. I'm sorry. I'm not sure. Okay. Again, it is, Andrew, you're muted, but if you're indicating, I'm going to take that as a yes. I'll say no, no, no. Not in your head. Andy, thank you. You will have the videotape to help you if you missed a certain bit. I will be using it. You just bought a Picasso for $200,000. Anthony? Yes. I feel like your template is extremely helpful just as a baseline to send us to, Andy, I don't know. I don't intervene on that, but I thought it was a good template. I'll send it to you, Andy, and you can use it or not as you see fit. Sounds good. All right. Then I'll take attendance and hope to note if any more members enter. So I'll just call on people's names and positions. So at-large members, Sam McLeod, Sarah Eisinger. Here. Katie Zobel. Here. And Diana Stein. Here. For the housing authority, Dave Williams. Here. For the Conservation Commission, Anna Gauthier. Here. For Planning Board, Andy McDougall. Here. The Historic Commission, Robin Fordham. Here. And I'm Sarah Marshall for the LSSE Commission. One, two, three, four. So we are all here. And I also see Holly Bowser. So welcome, everybody. Again, Andy, we'll take minutes. Thank you very much. I think we move directly into the public hearing. So Anthony can tell us if there are people waiting to speak. I believe there is a three-minute limit to each person's comments, and he'll be the timekeeper. Okay. So we will be going through the proposals in the order that we have them. As Sarah said, we've said a three-minute, mostly strict time limit for comment. This is not a back and forth. You have three minutes to say your piece and there will not be a response in the moment from the committee. I'll have them on screen. And someone has already raised their hand. I'm going to ask you to, okay, I'm going to ask you to lower your hands for now. Thank you. And we're going to go into our first proposal, which is affordable housing, phase three, supportive housing from Amherst Community Connections. Does anyone want to speak on this project? Okay. I'm not seeing anyone who wishes to speak on Amherst Community Connections. Okay. Project, oh, Valley CDC raising hands. Okay. Come on in, Valley CDC. Okay, and go ahead. Sure. Folks may know that Valley is working on a housing development funded, of course, by you folks to house people coming out of homelessness and just wanted to put a shout out to the Amherst Community Connections because it's a really important complement to housing, to have a program like this that can help people get stabilized in affordable housing. There's actually a lot of people who get evicted from subsidized housing. So it's a financial issue, but it's not just a financial issue. So I think a program like this is really important. That's it. Thank you. Could you identify yourself for the minutes? Sure. I'm Laura Baker. I'm the Real Estate Project Manager for Valley Community Development Corporation. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Anyone else want to speak on Amherst Community Connections? Mary Sayer. Moving on to the panel. She's muted. Yep. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Oh, sorry. Mary Sayer North Amherst. I just wanted to be very supportive of this. I think that they've done wonderful work in town to help people in transition. So I'm just giving a pro. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for Amherst Community Connections Supportive Housing Proposal? Okay. Project 2, Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Project Funding. John Hornick. Okay. I'm unmuted now. I will be brief since I honestly don't have much more to say than I did a week ago when I met with you all. I did send a note to Anthony and Sarah, which I assume the rest of you will have received. It was forward. Basically, we went back and tried to do a little closer estimate of what the cost beyond purchasing the property will be. And that estimate came out to $31,500. We are still negotiating on the property. We received a formal response from the seller on the draft purchase and sale agreement that we had sent to them. It's now in the hands of the town attorney who is preparing her response. I can't get into the detail, but I can say that both Dave Zomek and I were optimistic that we would be able to reach a deal. As far as the price is concerned, there's really nothing new again for me to say about that. In the end, it will probably depend primarily on what the appraised evaluation is of the property. And we won't actually initiate a contract with an appraiser, I think until we have a purchase and sale agreement with the seller. At that point, we'll go forward with an analysis for wetlands and for the appraisal and possibly one or two other things that are part of the conditions that need to be met before we would go forward and purchase the property. So that's what I have to add. If anybody has any questions, I guess they're not allowed, so I won't be able to answer them. Thank you all. Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak on the Housing Trust proposal, Valley CDC? Hi again. Can you hear me? Yep. Okay. I wanted to just right up front disclose that we may have a conflict of interest because we could potentially be a developer on a property like this. But whether we are or whether we aren't, I just wanted to echo some of John's written comments about how challenging it is to find properties suitable for affordable housing in Amherst. Having done a lot of looking myself, I know that firsthand. And we just finished doing a market study for the other property that we're working on in Amherst. And, you know, I continue to be struck by just how expensive rents are in Amherst. So just wanted to share that as kind of a backdrop for, you know, again, the kind of ongoing need for affordable housing in Amherst. That's it. Thanks. Thank you. Any other speakers on the Housing Trust proposal? Ginny Hamilton. Am I back now, Anthony? We can hear you. Okay. It just disconnected and reconnected. Yeah, it's got to do. My name is Ginny Hamilton. I am a resident in South Amherst on Middle Street and also spent about two decades working in affordable housing and homelessness work in the greater Boston area. So I come both as a concerned resident with a little bit of policy background knowledge and want to wholeheartedly support this proposal from the Housing Trust. As the Valley CDC staffer said, you know, that's finding land that's appropriate and that's possible is one of the biggest barriers. So not missing this opportunity. And as the taxpayer, I feel like this is one of the best uses of these funds. I know I'm a little bit out of line with this agenda, but I also fully support the supportive services programs for the reasons that were already named, particularly in our current economic crisis. The housing issues are very real and it is far better to keep someone in their stable home than to have them relocate. And since I am in the midst of cooking dinner to get my kid fed, if I can jump ahead and just give wholeheartedly support also to the Jones Library Special Collections program in my mind, these are projects that are exactly the core of the CPA's mission. So I want to jump ahead and raise my hand there, but will not be able to stay on the call. Thank you all really very much for your service and doing the work that you do. Thank you. Okay. Would anyone else like to speak on the Housing Trust? I don't see anyone else on the Housing Trust. So Proposal 3 was withdrawn. So Proposal 4 is the Jones Library Special Collections facility. Terry Johnson. Terry Johnson, are you able to join? Here we go. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. I'm so sorry. Don't worry about it. I'm speaking on behalf of Save Our Library, a grassroots group advocating for prudent renovation of the Jones Library. Although the Jones Special Collections are clearly important and should be preserved, the trustee's request for a million dollars is problematic for several reasons. First, the town has not approved this capital project and it's not clear whether the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the Massachusetts Historic Commission have approved the new schematic designs. These approvals are required. Second, we're concerned that giving the Jones $200,000 a year for five years could prevent other worthy historic preservation grants. Third, the library is already poised to receive $13.8 million for public funding and if CPAC approves this proposal, it may require a bond authorization that would increase our debt burden. Finally, Special Collections is in a fragile state right now. The HVAC system failed last July, leaving many, many significant documents with water damage the fourth leak in as many years. No matter how the town decides to renovate the Jones, the collections will be at risk for another three to four years before any project could be completed. When the Holyoke Public Library couldn't house its Special Collections safely, alternative space was made for them at Holyoke Community College. Surely the trustees can find similar temporary quarters. So in closing, instead of granting the Jones a million dollars for a future project, why not encourage the trustees to request emergency CPA funding now in order to move Special Collections to a safe location? Thank you for considering this solution. Thank you. Who else would like to speak on the Jones Library? Jones Library. Now is your opportunity. You can raise your hand in the panel in the bottom or by right clicking yourself, I think. No one else for Jones? Oh, okay. Moving on then to Proposal Five for the Goodwin Church Restoration. Would anyone like to speak about Goodwin Church? Nobody for Goodwin Church. Oh, here we go. Jessica, Mick Sparrington. There. I support the request to supply funds to restore the Goodwin Church. It's a very modest amount and that they're asking and will have a big impact on the well-being of that building and also on re-establishing it as an important part of our community. Thank you. Thank you. To the person who just put in a Q&A, I meant to answer you in text, but I appear to have not been able to do that. Mill River Valley Project has not come up yet. It's in a couple minutes. Sorry about that. Oh, that was you raising your hand. Would anyone else like to speak on the Goodwin Church? Can I ask a question? Isn't that the wrong amount? Isn't it supposed to be 18,000 now? I think you're right. I think I put in the initial amount and forgot to update it. I'm sorry. Okay, I just want to make sure. Thank you. Several projects have changed. They're asked, I think so. This is not the only change. I hope it's the only one I missed, but I think I got the others. Okay, if there's no one else for Goodwin Church, Mill Project Proposal 6, the Mill River Trail from the District 1 Neighborhood Association. You can go ahead and raise your hand again, person who wanted to speak on that. There we are. Lisa Pierce Boniface. Anthony, can we just make sure that folks identify themselves just in case their names are not the same as what is coming up on the screen? Sure. My name is Lisa Pierce Boniface, and I live in North Amherst, and I am a member of Donna, North District, I'm not sure what it stands for, District of North Amherst. District 1. District 1, thank you. Neighborhood Association. And I want to put my wholehearted support into the Mill River Valley Project. I think it would be a wonderful way for our children, who are students in the local schools, for the university, and for interested historians like ourselves to get to know more about our community, as well as understand the area that we live in when it comes to Indigenous lands, getting a better understanding of what land we're sitting on. And it's my hope that this project will help build up an area identity special to the North Amherst and Cushman area. Thank you for taking my comments. Thank you. Anthony, there was somebody in the chat wanting to express support for the Goodwin Church. I don't know if they wanted to speak or just to type it. Well, if their hand is raised, then they will be in the queue. Next person raising their hand is John Gerber. Yes, thank you. John Gerber, 30-year resident of North Amherst, former member of the CPAC committee, and currently member of Donna. I've been involved in the historic preservation of the farmhouse on North Amherst, and I've got a commitment to working with my students to understand the sense of place. My experience of working with folks is that with students is that if we help them understand the history of the ground, from glaciation to lake Hitchcock to 300 years of farming, they develop what Wendell Berry called a sense of place, which helps us answer the big questions like, who are we? But practically speaking, it also helps them develop a appreciation and respect for the properties, and hopefully some stewardship and care. I think these kinds of things help what would help our neighborhood, as Lisa said, develop a sense of area of who we are, and I want to just encourage support for this project. Thank you. Next person is Barbara. Anthony, can you pull Andrew in? There's an email. I got a text message saying he's not in the meeting. I believe it's Andrew. I'm in, Sam. I sent that right before we started, but sorry about that. Okay, Barbara, go ahead. Barbara, if you can hear us, you can go when you're ready. Okay, Barbara, I'm not hearing anything from you. I'm going, all right, Barbara, I'm going to put you back in the attendees list. Maybe you need to reconnect or something, if you go ahead and raise your hand again if you need to get back in. Sky, aren't Briggs. Hello, can you see me? Yes, we can. Hi, so I'm the person who expressed enthusiasm for the restoration and renovation of the Goodwin Church, and, but I came, it came to this meeting to talk about the historic preservation of the Mill River Trail. And as I thought through what I'd like to say about that, I think you'll see that my reasoning is similar in both cases. My husband and I have lived in the Cushman area of North Amherst for almost 30 years now and are very familiar with that walk down along the Mill River and the cellar holes of what used to be different factories in the, starting in the 18th century. And it's fascinating. We are also both graduates of the UMass Anthropology Department and have done some archaeology on our own. That's a great program. It's a fabulous idea to incorporate UMass students and high school students in this project, looking both for historical archaeology, but also for Native American settlement remains or whatever. The reason I think this project is important and also the projects in the Goodwin Church is that the Cushman area of North Amherst in particular, and I know less about the center of North Amherst itself, was originally founded in part around a kind of a dissident church, a Baptist church. And it was the wrong side of the tracks for a long time. And it was where the coal was taken off the train and taken to the university to heat the university. And it was also the center of industry. So I think that in terms of restoring a sense of diversity and history to the town of Amherst, both the history of the Goodwin Church and the history of industrial production in this town and of different groups who did not get along together in terms of religion. And one of the first acts was often to build a different church a little bit further away. I think that it would be a fabulous, fabulous idea in terms of differentiating the base for why Amherst is an interesting place. It's not all Emily Dickinson. So anyway, those are my thoughts. I am not a member of the donor group, even though I live here. And thank you for hearing me out. Thank you. Oops. Next person is Janet Keller. Thank you for the chance to speak. And my name is Janet Keller. I've lived in North Amherst very happily for the last 11 years. Before that, when I was, I grew up in a Providence mill village and felt like it was a terrific place to grow up and then saw the mill village resources gradually overtaken by some pretty bad infill. We're so lucky to have what we have with this wonderful forest with the mill remains and the remains of the canal in it. And I'm on the district one steering committee. And I just wanted to thank town officials, both the committees and staff for helping us to understand the requirements better and also and we've responded to that by greatly reducing and the budget, but focusing it very tightly on the things that will be needed in preparation for getting the trail up. And so I want to say thank you and we heard you and we're very enthused and excited about going forward with this project. And we've also been made aware of some other money that we can pursue in addition to these funds as well for the overall project. So thank you very much. Thank you. Next we have John Fable. John Fable. Am I here? Can you hear me? Okay. I was knocked off there for a moment, looked like. Yeah, I'm John Fable. I live in North Amherst, a member of district one neighborhood association. I grew up in South Amherst. And I just, at the time, having the landscape change was always fascinating to me. I remember when as a kid going up to swim at Silver Bridge, except that back when it was Silver Bridge and not the bridge that was, that's currently there. And even, and, you know, walking between our home at Public Hill Road and Cushman Store, our daughter, as she's been growing up and talking with her about the cellar holes along the way and where there was a pasture because these trees were much smaller and so on, reading the landscape as it were. But more to the point, how we read our landscapes and become aware of our whole landscape is something that's been a long time interest, active interest of mine. And for example, just one of many projects about 20 something years ago, I initiated a project called the water crossings project. And we developed funding for that. And that was to put signs at every, every location where a road crossed over a watercourse in Amherst, whether it be a stream or a small river or whatever, with the name of that watercourse of that stream. So whether it was Cushman Brook or Money Brook or any of these, just to give a sense of there's something out beyond the roads that we drive our cars on, that there is other networks of land and flows and so on. We used to hold a beach party because we live on the beach, the old beach front of Lake Hitchcock. So, you know, the beach party. So cross spanning all that time. And, you know, also think that our town is more than Emily Dickinson. Speaking of North Amherst, I just discovered that PD Eastman, whose family, his Eastern family that Eastman Brook is named after. Some of you may remember the book Go Dog Go, or the book Are You My Mother? And he's, he grew up in North Amherst. So, anyhow, projects like this that help us connect to our place in however many ways I think have value far above, far above their cost in many layers of ways. So I'm here in support of of the proposal. Okay, thank you. And we have Barbara again. Go ahead, Barbara. You muted yourself. Barbara, when you come on, can you please state your full name? Go ahead, Barbara. Doesn't sound like this is working for you. No, okay. I'm going to put you back in the attendees list. We can try again at the end of the meeting. You are also welcome to send your comments via email to D-E-L-A-N-E-Y-A Delaney A. at amherstma.gov. But I am going to put you back in the attendees list. And if that is it for Mill River, then we will go to our next project, which is North Amherst Library Wall Repairs. Would anyone like to speak on the North Amherst Library? Okay. Proposal nine. Oh, suddenly. Okay. Sorry about that. Ms. Boniface again. Lisa Pierce. Boniface. My name is Lisa Pierce. Boniface. I live on Harris Street. And I've been here for 12 years. And that little library has raised my daughter. And I would do anything to keep it the way it is and support the walls that need to be repaired. It's a gem in our community. It really is. And we should provide all that it needs to keep doing what it's doing. It does some beautiful work in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Janet Keller again. So the library is just an amazing community place. It's truly wondrous to see how many people gather there for so many different activities. And I look forward with great eagerness until we can get back inside those walls. And in the meantime, let's do what we need to do to keep that building intact. Thank you. Thank you. Then we have Mary Sayer. Can you hear me? We can. I'm just thinking that we're, looks like we're going to have a wonderful addition to that library. And I would imagine that this work needs to be done before the addition can be put on. So I highly support this. I too have a family who children learn, actually learn to read at that library summer program because they were having difficulty in the school. So like the other supporters, I would like to do anything that keeps that library going. And it also gives North Amherst a real sense of place. So very important work. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Jessica Nick. We had Jessica Nick Barrington, but she just disappeared. Oh, if you, I guess you lowered your hand. Okay. So in that case, that's it for project eight, project nine, the front and side steps of town hall. Anyone who would like to speak on town hall. For folks typing comments in the Q and A, I don't think these Q and A questions and answers are part of the recording. So if you'd like to be part of the record, I would encourage you to actually raise your hand. Ms. Aren't Briggs again, not at all. Okay. So yes, the North Amherst library is really important to a lot of these families. We also have a lot of young families and often financially challenged for precarious families living in the housing developments up here. And the library was very important to me and my family when my kids were young. But my husband is also a builder and a building inspector. And he says, yes, definitely you have to fix those walls before you get that renovation done. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Let's see. And make gauge. Not sure if you're talking about the library or the steps, but put you on. You can tell us you're in this gauge if you want to unmute. There we go. Very quickly, I'll add my support for the North Amherst Library renovation. Many of us, our kids learn to read there and it's a really important part of our village center. It's the oldest library in town. And I actually don't understand why we can't return books there yet. But hopefully it'll be functioning soon once we get on top of this COVID. Thank you. But it's a treasure that everybody loves. Look at how it looks. Thank you. Thank you. Do you unmute me or do I? That solved itself. Okay, Town Hall front and side steps. Does anyone wish to speak on Town Hall? Roof restoration at the Munson Library, Town Hall, and North Amherst School. Would anyone like to speak about all or part of this project? I'm staying. I'm staying. Just out of staying. I mean, I'll take me out in a bit. So I just wanted to say that at the risk of citing the obvious, nothing can do a building in more thoroughly and more quickly than water getting in through the roof and damaging the entire building. So I enthusiastically support these projects. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for the roof projects? Okay. The North Common Project. Anyone like to speak on the North Common Project? Go ahead and raise your hand. Tony Cunningham. Hi. Thanks for taking my comments. I'm opposed to giving more money to this project. As I said in my email that I sent to the program or to the committee, I feel the project should be achievable within the 950,000 that has already been granted. And I realize some of it's been spent. But it needs to be scaled back to come within that budget. And I oppose granting another half million dollars to this. Thank you. Thank you. And we have Gabrielle Gould. Hello. So I'm Gabrielle Gould and I represent the Business Improvement District. And I just love to speak about basically what we're looking at is the heart of our downtown area. And it has fallen into such disrepair and blight. And it really is, especially in a time of COVID-19, our businesses are suffering so greatly. And as we look to recreating and rebuilding in a post-COVID world, the downtown area is going to be an incredibly important part of that recreation. And creating some beauty in that first place where anybody comes to coming off of Route 9 or coming down from Route 116 is going to be really important. And while I understand that the sum of money seems extraordinary, a lot of that is due to gradients and watershed and things that just take so much more capacity than just looking at something and cutting down trees that are very much no longer alive and actually a danger, as well as just re-grading. There has to be underwater, underground repairs, etc., etc. And I just want to speak to the businesses that we have downtown, their ability to rebuild, and for those that we cannot sustain and maintain throughout this crisis, what it's going to look like to bring businesses back into town and young entrepreneurs. And a big part of that is going to be the beauty of our downtown and the accessibility of municipal places. The common is down 50% in use. That's a staggering number. And a lot of that is to do with the fact that it's just not, it's no longer a beautiful place to sit and be. And we can recreate something that is really stunning. And these funds would make that possible to do within the next year, therefore creating a post-COVID area and beauty to our center that will hopefully bring us economic development that will find a ripple effect through not only our commercial area, but our residential, our community, and our ability to budget in the future on tax basis. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else want to speak on the North Common? No one else for North Common? Okay. Project 12, the lower pavilion at Graf Park. Does anyone wish to speak on Graf Park? Okay. Project 13, the pool repair at Mill River Rec Area. Anyone for Mill River Pool? Okay. That is the end of the list of projects. Anyone who would like to, who maybe came in late, who wants to speak on any project, who hasn't had a chance yet, can raise your hand. I know someone in the Q&A expressed that. Tony Cunningham again. Hi, sorry, I did come in late, so I missed the Jones Library project. But I wanted to express my opposition to granting a million dollars for this project. I think the special collections is a very valuable resource in town and needs funding to protect it. But this project doesn't do that. This project is contingent on the larger project going forward. And you're looking at a few years out. I think we should be looking at immediate funding to move special collections and get it away from the leaky HVAC system. I believe it's, the archives are under a tarp right now, which is not really tolerable for such valuable possessions of our town. So I'm opposed to this project. And I think the Jones trustee should come back with a request for CPA funding for immediate changes and moving of the collection. Thank you. Thank you. And we have Rainmaker Consulting. Sorry, I wasn't able to change my name. It's David Sharken. I live at own 64 Mill Street in North Amherst. And I wanted to support the District One neighborhood association's Mill River Trail and put a pitch in for honoring not only the history and the of the social and economic fabric of North Amherst, but possibly the future of the same way that the river helped us in the past. The river could still with a small of a whirligig right where the dam is could produce enough energy to be sold to produce probably 30 to $40,000 in income every year. So I think we should be looking at the Mill River in its recreation, its history and in the future. Thank you for the time. Thank you. Okay. Would anyone else like to speak on any of the projects heard tonight during the hearing? Jessica Nix-Barrington. It seems to me like all of the low dollar amount projects are of great value to the town and we'd be getting a lot of bang for our bucks should we fund them first and then see how much is left for the larger ticket items. Just a thought. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else? Janet Keller. I just can't pass up the pool and the pavilion because I'm remembering what it meant to me as a kid when I was able to go to my neighborhood pool and if that public facility had not been there, I came from a working class family and the fact that a public facility was there made all the difference in my life. The same goes for the pavilion at Groff Park. It's an invaluable resource for people throughout the town to gather there. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else on any of the projects we heard tonight? I am not seeing anyone else. So I'm going to hand the meeting back to the chair. Okay. Thank you, Anthony. All right. So our next agenda item is to approve outstanding minutes. If enough of us are ready to do that, we now have two sets of minutes. Those of the meeting of October 22nd that Diana took and then minutes of the meeting of October 29th taken by Sarah, I believe. Can I ask how many people are ready, are prepared to discuss or vote on the minutes of October 22nd? Not enough. Okay. Three people. Four, maybe, Anna. Sorry. I just wanted to pull them up to make sure. One, two, and Sarah. No, I'm abstaining. I wasn't at the meeting, so I'll abstain from those. Okay. It looked like there were one, two, three, four people. I was going to abstain too because I wasn't there. I think we would still need at least five people. You know, a vote doesn't, you need a quorum of people present to vote, but if the vote is two to one, then it passes. Oh, okay. Well, all right, then let's do it. Let's start with the minutes of October 22nd. I remind you, we should really only take this time to discuss substantive comments, questions about the accuracy, really, or proper framing of summary of the discussion. If you have punctuation, spelling, formatting, suggestions like that, those should go directly to Anthony. I don't want to take time here. So, does anybody have substantive issues they would like to raise? Please raise your hand and I'll call on you. Andy. I think we need a motion to approve. Before we can, yeah, that's probably right. All right. I'll make that motion. Thank you. Who would second the motion to approve the minutes of October 22nd? Anna, thank you. All right. Thanks for that reminder, Andy. All right. Does anyone have any comment on the minutes of October 22nd? Sam? They're kind of lengthy. I didn't get a chance to really go through them thoroughly. So, even though I was there and they're probably good, I'm not going to vote on it. So, I'll abstain, but I think more time would be beneficial. Oh, let's see. We did get them just today, I think. Is that correct? Yeah. I didn't get it until later this afternoon. Yeah. I also didn't have a lot of time to get, I got about halfway through them, but. All right. Can we table this motion? Is that it? Is that something we can do? Yeah. We have to vote to table this motion. All in favor of tabling this motion to approve the minutes of October 22nd, I say Sarah, David, Sam, Anna, Sarah. All right. That's everybody. Okay. Next week. Diana's trying to say something, but. Oh, unmute yourself, Diana. I just want to say that there was a holiday. They actually got submitted two days ago, but we had a holiday in the middle and that's what happened. And there is one point in minutes that I could not understand from the recording or from the notes that I'd like to talk to Anthony about, but it doesn't need to go on now. Right. Okay. Cause we're not going to talk about them tonight. Yes. And Diana did send them a couple of days ago. Thank you for that. All right. Then can I have a motion to approve the minutes of October 29th? I so move. Thank you. Diana, a second. David, thank you. Okay. Does anyone have comments on these minutes drafted by Sarah Isinger? I think the minutes are fine, but I have some minor things that I'll see. These were not drafted by me. Okay. I wondered why. Who did these? Yeah, it was last week. Sorry. Robin, did you take these? No. Which when? October 29th? I don't think so. And that's something that's missing is. That's why I, oh, Sam, you did them. That needs to be added. Right. Right. Okay. Who is prepared to discuss these minutes tonight? Please raise your hand if you are. One, two, three, four. X. Should I assume that some people are abstain? No. I think everybody was there. Okay. I would like to move forward and get it knocked. Hopefully not have to revisit both of these next week. So does anyone have substantive comments? Seeing none, then I call the question and would all those in favor of approving the minutes pending all the little editing things that are sent to Anthony, please say aye. Raise your hand. All right. Sarah, David, Sam, Diana, Andy, Sarah, did you vote? I'm abstaining. I also was not at that meeting. Okay. Anna, Katie. I'm not prepared to vote. So. Okay. Robin, you're voting aye. Yep. So we have, I believe we have seven ayes, no nays and two abstentions. Okay. Those minutes are approved. Thank you. Okay. Can I just ask when we got the ones from the 29th? I have the 22nd, but I don't have the 22nd. I had to search there. We got them November 5th at 117 p.m. It was a reply. It wasn't a new email. That's from Anthony. Yep, from Anthony. Okay. I apologize. I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to access the packet or where you get this. So I'm very much behind and so I'm just gonna have to abstain from things if I don't say them. Okay. The pat you won't find draft minutes in the packet. I don't believe packet is for public. Since they're not approved, but I don't know. I honestly, I should probably get in the habit of putting the draft minutes in the packets. It would be really great if they were in this, they were in there for this. The 22nd was in there for tonight. Yeah. It's really helpful. I saw the 22nd, but I wasn't there. So I couldn't tell if they were accurate. So I'm just a little confused. I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, yeah. If one, if one is there and they're not all there, then that's Anthony. That is something that might be possible in the future though. Yeah, I should. I should. Can I ask a question? Or might it be possible, Anthony, in your email signature or something, just to always have the zoom link and the like a link to the packet, a link to like just sort of have links to some of our key things because I thought it would be helpful. Yeah. I can, I can do that. I mean, they, the links haven't really changed. The packets are always in the same place and the same, but yeah, I can, I can do that. Okay. I don't mean to create work, but if that could be just in your signature or something to us. No, I do. Anthony, Anthony and myself will work on making sure that they get out in the into packets or onto the internet. I know at one point we were putting draft minutes up and then we were replacing them with approved minutes later and that's maybe something we'll go back to. We'll discuss it. Thank you. Thank you. I also have a, I will, I guess a request regarding how the, the packets are structured. You all, you finance people you think in fiscal years and we do not. So I'm looking for things under 2020 and I should, we need to be looking under 2022, right? Because, all right. So if you could relabel those either fiscal year or parentheses, I don't know, something just put fiscal year and then maybe people have an easier time finding. See if Sonia will let me do that. I will check. Okay. I mean, you know, it didn't take that much extra time, but I think it might be confusing to people why that's the case. So, all right. So the next item on the agenda is to review financials. I don't know who is taking the lead on that or if we need, I mean, I hope everybody got the wonderful news this afternoon from Sonia. Anthony, do you want to pull it up and we could look at it and review it? I'm in the process of pulling it up. Help. I've only seen it briefly today myself. So there was a great image from the CPA Coalition today, which resulted in about an additional $300,000, I believe, being added to what we can send out now. It's absolutely wonderful. Has this been updated? Oh, maybe not. Did she update the budget projection? No, it should be. Okay, so it's on this side. There. Okay. So really the only thing that has changed is our... Can you make it bigger? I'm sorry. I'm not even seeing it. Thank you. Is it the state match line nine? Yeah. Oh, okay. I see it now. Yes. Yeah, you can control this if you want. I just gave you control. I don't even know how to do that, Anthony. So, yes. So this number was updated. Like I said, there was some great news from the state today. They are giving out 28.6% in the first round. The town of Amherst being a 3% community. We'll get second round and third round. They have put out the numbers. There is a link in the email that you all received, which shows the three rounds, and we are now slated to get $470,000. That's an increase of over $300,000, which is approximately $300,000. I don't remember exactly what the number was before. So it's great news, and that's the only thing that has changed in the financials. Sure. Super. Well, I was shocked. I texted her immediately. I was like, wait, did you see this? What are we going to do? There must be something wrong. Mistake. Okay. So now we have essentially here, well, I'm not in control of the cursor, but $1.462 on line 29. Right? That's what we have to work with once we've paid for the debt service, and we also have this $50,000 that we put in reserve. Okay. All right. Anthony, can I share my screen? Sure. This will be new for me. Oh, ramen. Sorry. I'm going back to that. Can we just go back to that? I always get confused about the reserve. So I know there's $50,000 in reserve for historic preservation, and then there's $377,000 budgeted reserve. So does this $1.4 million, is that before the $377,000, which was taken out? Is there an additional $377,000 in reserve on top of the $1.4 million? I guess that's what I'm asking. Is that up? Anyone? Anyone? Is that up above the $377,000? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. So that we voted, so it's taken out in fiscal year 21. I added it all up once just to be sure, and I mean, Holly or Sean, I mean, somebody say if I'm wrong, I think I persuaded myself that that $377,000 is dumped into the FY 22. Yeah, it's into the beginning of balance. Sean, I can't figure out how to raise my hand. But we'll double check, but I believe that $377,000 is in addition to the $1.4,000. That's what it looks like. Yes. So if you wanted to keep a reserve, you could keep a reserve at that $377,000 if you wanted to, and it wouldn't impact the $1.4,000. But that's if you decide you want to do that. Thank you. I believe you are correct. We have to take it out. And then if you vote to use it, we then add it back in. I believe is correct as well. Okay. Thank you. So that's, thank you. Yes. Thanks for asking, Robin. I don't know. Obviously I added wrong, but so that's super. So we have these two extra pots of money we can choose to use. We will have to vote to use them specifically later on. Okay. All right. Can we move on? All right. Let's see if I can share my screen. Oh, dear. Hold on. Hold on. You can be able to hit the button and then choose whatever window you want. Yeah, but I don't see it. So I think I have to first open it. You have to open it first. All right. Now if I can get back to the meeting. All right. Does everybody see a spreadsheet? Yeah. Okay. This is my own work that nobody who, who's, nobody in finance has weighed in on this, but I have, in thinking and listening over the last couple of weeks, I've become a little bit concerned about the, the debt, the debt picture. And I wanted to lay out what I think where all CPA funds are already in on the hook for and what the various asks are this year that we, it's up to us whether we fund them or not, or recommend that they, that that borrowing occur. Because I wanted to see, see how debt service might impact CPA budgets over the next years. And, you know, what? Can you enlarge it, please? Well, it's full on my screen. It's just very small, it's all, it's hard to see it better. Slightly. I mean, that's Sarah. We really can't see the numbers, Sarah. It's just too down at the bottom, there's usually like 100%. You can bump it up. You'll have to scroll, but you can bump it up to like 150% or 200%. And that should give them a little bit. Well, she's in, she's in Google sheets right now. She's not in Excel. Oh, it's not Excel. Up there on your top left, it says 100% on that bar under the word view. Hold on. Under, yeah. So I could, oh, literally under, up to what, 100? 150. 50 and C. Yeah, that's better. All right. I can scroll. All right. So, so I've laid out fiscal years for 10 years or so. And then on the left, we have the different CPA categories. Right. This column is the total owed or potentially owed. The black numbers are, is existing borrowing or borrowing that has been authorized. So for example, these first three lines here are projects that started some years ago. And this one will be, we have one more payment. And then that's done. This one, three more payments. Okay. Valley CDC, that borrowing of $500,000 was authorized, I guess, two years ago. But the money has not yet been borrowed. Once it is borrowed, we have to start paying it back. So I'm just putting in here 10 years at $50,000 a year. All right. We have a request now. So the red is, is proposed, right, to purchase land for $800,000. So $80,000 a year over 10 years. And here's the total each year debt service for that category. Historic preservation, there are no existing borrowings being paid off. But we have two proposals in front of us, special collections for $1 million. And this is what I think I'm just coming to appreciate. Past borrowing authorizations that haven't totally kicked in yet. So there were past appropriations for the North Common. Some of that money has been spent for the designs, the Western Sampson and other things. But if that project goes ahead, presumably the rest of the money will be borrowed and we'll have to pay that back. And I'm assuming somebody's going to jump in and correct me if I'm saying something wrong here. All right. So open space, only two projects currently being paid for. Here's the other half of this year's request for the North Common. One thing, okay, I'll just keep going and then recreation. We're paying off the Groth Park playground and Spray Park. Kendrick Park is just getting going. And here we have the other half of this year's request for the North Common and the other half of past borrowing that may be exercised. Okay. Something that's not in here is suggestions we heard from some of the applicants that they might come back to us next year. Like I think Joan said, they might request another $500,000. I think we heard from Dave Zomek. I'm not sure that to complete, put together their full $1.9 million budget, they might come back again to CPA in a year. Anyway, so this is what I want you to see at the bottom here, total debt service across all categories in any fiscal year, just how large those numbers might be. Now, they're affordable in the sense that, I mean, unless something really changes about the CPA program or the town's real estate valuations, I think we'll always have the money to pay if we were to vote and council approved everything here and the payments were scheduled as I indicate. But you can see that a big fraction of the budget would be consumed by debt payments potentially over in some of the years. So that's not good or bad, but when we only see one year's numbers and we see the debt service for this one year, certainly that's necessary, but especially if we are contemplating recommending new borrowing, I think we should understand what we may be doing to future committees. So that's it. I just wanted to show that. I don't know if my guess is about when repayments might start are accurate or not, obviously shifting things a year or two could change a lot of the annual total. So, yeah, this is very helpful. Thank you. I think it's pretty good, Sarah, to raise the awareness level related to the potential debts. I think it's informative even if the numbers shift and some of them, such as Jones may or may not be 10 years versus five years, I don't know, but thank you for highlighting an area worth considering. Thank you. It's really useful. I did something much smaller, but I hadn't considered that the North Common. I didn't realize that those weren't, I guess the word is encumbered funds, that they were just approved for bonding. So I didn't have them in my chart, but this also assumes that some of the things, a couple of the things here which could conceivably be fully funded if my worksheet is right, but this is super helpful. I hope you return to it. Well, thank you. What it leads me to throw out to Holly and Anthony is, are there any past borrowing authorizations that have not been, we haven't yet borrowed the money? And if something we do this year or next year enables a project to move forward and suddenly all these past authorizations trigger borrowing that hits our budget, I think we should have a full picture of what CPA could potentially be obligated to pay for. So I don't know if there's anything else out there. I don't know if I'm right in my imagining about how these past authorizations would in fact come due. I don't hear anyone objecting, so I guess I would. I wasn't aware of the 2016 and 2018 North Common. So they are usually listed on the bottom of the financial document that we use. So I'd have to take a peek at that again, and I'm having a hard time finding it here at the moment. But Anthony, if you still have it on your desktop or on your laptop, could you just look and see? It usually says we'll begin in, it'll have a zero dollar amount, but it will have a 22 or 23. No, there's nothing listed there. No, we have the SRO on there. That hasn't started yet, but we do not have the previous North Common requests on there. We only have Kendrick because I kind of demanded that it be put there. So I think it would be good practice. It at least lets us know that there's another obligation. It doesn't necessarily help us know when it all might start. Anthony has this. I would just hope this becomes part of the package. Going forward somehow. Well, I do apologize because I always thought that it was on the bottom under the borrowing authorizations or under the debt service that it did say that something was authorized, but it was unsure when it would start. And I guess I didn't realize the North Common was out there as well as completely unstarted borrowing authorization. So I will double check figures tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. All right. I will say the reports from those years don't seem to mention borrowing. Is it possible that those would it be encumbered funds? Like they were awarded that money, but it's just being held until it's ready to be spent as opposed to having been bonded? Which is like similar to the Valley CDC project where it's listed on the bottom and it just doesn't have a dollar amount yet because it hasn't started. I thought I wasn't aware that there was others out there in that same category. So I will have to double check. I don't have an answer right at the moment. I'd have to look back. I don't recall any other borrowing authorization that has not started yet. Okay. Well, Sarah. I don't see everybody. Is it Diana speaking? That's Katie. Katie, sorry. No. I apologize. I think I have just a very basic question. So I apologize for those of you who totally get this. But when I see debt service, I'm thinking bonds. I'm not thinking something that was promised that gets paid out of future CPA funds. Can you explain the difference because there are two different things to me and I'm not sure what I'm seeing on your chart. And I would have assumed the town is keeping track of all of this. And if that's not the case, yeah, that's what I figured. So I'm just shocked. So I want to better understand why you had to put the spreadsheet together. It doesn't seem, I'm sort of surprised. So I just want to, but I think I'm missing something is what I guess I'm asking the difference between the two. So the difference between the two is most definitely you're, you're correct. Anything that we have given out as cash that we've taken out of our allocations is, is encumbered and there are accounts for it and they are tracked. Right. Something that is a bond authorization. We don't know when that project is going to start. So we don't know if we're going to be making a payment next fiscal year or three fiscal years from now, depending on when that project would start. Got it. Depends on when we would borrow the money and then it would be borrowed for, you know, again up to the treasurer at our suggestion of how long that would go. So Sarah was just trying to capture if we decide to bond so many of these projects, what would our cash flow or our bond, because once we bond it, we have to pay for it. We can't just go, Oh, forget it. We're done with that project. You know, we've borrowed the money. Now we have to pay for it every single year. So it has to come off of our available funds first thing. And then what we have left over for cash capital or cash projects. So she's just really trying to capture what the effect of these would be. Right. Sorry to Holly. Just one question about my presumption is when you choose to bond you would, it would be done in a thoughtful approach that wouldn't surprise us like we wouldn't be like, Oh, what? The town decided to do all of it all at once or decided to do a payment schedule that doesn't, you know, I mean, it really depends on when the project starts. That's beyond our control. If they don't start the project immediately, we're not going to borrow the money until they start the project. Right. So, you know, say, and I'm just going to use this one, for instance, the Valley CDC program, we voted that in, I don't even know, 2021. Two fiscal cycles ago. Two fiscal years ago, I believe it was 20. But we're not going to go out and borrow $500,000 until they actually start that project. So the start date of that is dependent on when the project starts. And then as soon as we put that first dollar out the door, we have to borrow the money. And there usually is a placeholder down at the bottom half of that spreadsheet for all of our debt payments. And there usually is a placeholder for anything that we have not borrowed yet. And what Sarah is saying is that she thinks the North Common was a borrowing authorization that we haven't borrowed for yet. I'm not certain. I'm not going to speak to that until I get a chance to get into my computer system and look at all my numbers. Because I, I, there usually is a placeholder down there. And if there is not, then that was a, that was a, of an error on our part for sure. And we'll go back and check that and try to figure out what that is. Okay. But even if, even if it was there, I mean, I, I think I, I find it useful to, to lay out, you know, impact on budgets. So, so even a guess, even a guess to, yeah. And I guess I was thinking about bonding things that are town projects. I wasn't, because I'm new to this thinking about projects that are outside of the town scope. So I get it. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah. Unless somebody else really wants to discuss this, I think we should move on. We can help you to, we can help you to refine that, Sarah, that I think it's a, I think it's a very useful tool. Okay. Well, I don't need to own it. I mean, y'all can, or whatever, put it, you know, make it a sheet in what Anthony shares with us, but that would be fine. No, Sean, no, I'm sure Sean is smirking behind his screen right now because he mentioned to me in passing this afternoon, you know, we could really use something like this. I didn't even send it to him. I don't know why he said that. And yeah, and you've, and you've done it for us. So. All right. Okay. Did I see a hand go by? No. All right. So we are, it's 730. I say, I would say let's see how far we get in the next half hour. So we're going to first share our interest indicators, something like that. All right, of these different projects. But I would, I want to propose something before we do that with respect to one specific project to see if you think it would be helpful if it would just make the process easier. And I'm thinking specifically of the, the three part proposal for roof repairs. Would it be helpful to break those out and give your, you know, level of interest for the town hall roof versus months in library versus the North Amherst school? Would anybody, if anybody, I see one thumb up. It's just, should this be a motion? Well, only if people want to do it. I mean, if enough people think it would be good, then we'll move it. But yes. Sorry, Robin first. I just went to weigh in because I do have the list of recommendations from the historical commission that I wanted to present. And we did break it out roof by roof. So if that helps, but I don't know if it helps to guide the discussion for you guys to hear those recommendations from the historical commission for me first, for just when it comes to my turn to give my rankings either way. I would say if, if there are any projects that the commission concludes are not eligible for funding, then let's just let's, let's hear that. So then at this point, there, at this point there are no projects that we consider ineligible after reviewing things. Okay. All right. In that case, perhaps you but we do we do rank everything and we give a suggested dollar amount. So that's the information that I have. I have it in a spreadsheet. I could PDF it and give it to Anthony to send out. If everybody wants to look at it. I don't, I don't have my computer up on it. Why, why don't you do that, Robin? I would say that no matter what, you know, how these things end up in the rankings, we are going to discuss every project. Okay. I went to the public and the applicants to give our reasons, our hesitations, our questions, you know, we can, we can fiddle. This is really just to help prioritize how we move through the discussion. All right. So, well, first Anna had had, I think had wanted to know. All right. Mine was just a process question of if we are, if we can break proposals up if they were submitted as one. My understanding is that that is within our purview. I think you've even done it in the past when portions of the project have been ruled ineligible. You've, the committee has in the past decided to only consider the parts of the proposal that were eligible. So think Holly will stop me if I'm wrong, but I think that's within your powers. Perfect. Thank you. I believe you're correct. You can vote for a proposal in whole or in part, I believe is what the wording is. It would be a, it would be a motion to divide the question in Robertsville. Okay. Great. Who would like to, this is not a motion. Well, all right, I will just move it. I propose that we divide, I would move that we divide proposal HP 10, the application for funds for roof repairs into three parts. HP 10, a town hall roof, HP 10, be months in library, HP 10, see North Amherst library. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any more discussion? Yeah, Andy and Sarah. When we're evaluating these, we're determining how much money we would be willing to allocate towards it anyway. Do we need to do this or not? I mean, could we just say we approve it, but for an amount that would only cover. But I think, but if, if someone feels strongly in favor of one piece of a project and strongly opposed to another piece of a project, it's, you know, it's like, well, then what kind of number do I slap on it? Right. So it just might be easier to express your level of interest in funding to some degree. It isn't like, if you, if you're interested in something that doesn't mean necessarily you want to award every dollar. Okay. Diana? Yeah. Um, Mike, okay. So I wanted to split the ACC one into three, funding three clients, so to speak, and not six, because we have so many needs. Now maybe with this additional money, I won't feel that way. And the other thing I was wondering is whether we would put the slate roofs off for a year and deal with the town hall steps. So I'm sort of sorry that we're just taking the slate roofs sort of out of the. We're not, I'm not asking, I'm not trying to discuss them first or get anybody's levels of interest first. I'm just proposing that when we get to it, we'll do, we will deal with them one at a time. And I don't support doing that for the ACC project because it's one project, we can fund it. It's all the same thing. We can fund it to any degree we like. Sarah, I think you had your. Yeah, I had a, I'm, I just, I would prefer to look at it all together and then discuss it and then sort of rank it. And either if we have a discussion about it, we take off one. I'm not ready to evaluate all three roofs kind of one at a time. I, but maybe it's all the same. But so I'll go with the consensus of the group, but I would prefer to talk about it in light as part of the overall discussion of all of the proposals as we're discussing them. So I ranked it together, all of them. I know, I realize you've all right. Okay, Robin, and then I have a general ranking too. And then I have, you know, I've ranked the roofs and the steps as well. We split out. So I mean, I think, I think we could, I think it would be helpful to have the subdivisions. And I think that I don't think that it should trip us up if we've only evaluated the project as a whole, I think it will end up being more useful to have those lines in our grid, you know, that will, that will, I think, make things work better. Okay, I mean, I don't care which is just a suggestion. I do think we have a motion in a second though, right? Yep. So let's just go ahead and decide. So all who are in favor of splitting HP 10 into an ABC, please raise your hand. I see Sarah Marshall, Sam McLeod, Anna Gauthier, Robin Fordham, Andy McDougal, Katie Zobel, Diana Stein. I can't tell Sarah's eye singer has left the room. Just up, are you? I'm just dealing with something over here, but what, I'm sorry, what was that? I'm counting the eyes in favor of the motion. So I didn't know. All right, so I'm an eye, sure. And David has a screen off so we can't see him. All right, David, can you unmute and? I don't mean to be that picky, but with the COVID rules, it is supposed to be a roll call vote. You are supposed to call each person's name and actually get them to say yay or nay. Or abstain. Okay, so I'll just go around. That's fine. So we should do it. Okay, Sam McLeod. Yes. Andy McDougal. Hi. Anna Gauthier. Hi, it's Anna Dublin Gauthier. Both. Okay. Robin Fordham. Hi. Katie Allen Zobel. Hi. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right, Diana Stein and you're muted. You're muted. Hi. Thank you. Sarah Eisinger. Hi. David Williams. Hi. Hi. And Sarah Marshall. I, so that passes, I believe, nine to zero. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, so Anthony will, I guess, share his screen again and view up. Katie has her hand up. Oh, whoops. Katie's Sarah. Sorry, I didn't, I had a question because I wasn't at the first meeting on one of the projects. So I didn't rank it because I wasn't sure if it was for one year or three years. So I, I can wait until we get to that. That's okay. You will just, we won't count to zero. We'll just divide by a different denominator. I think Anthony can, can do that. Anthony, do you want to run through, run vertically one person at a time? Do you want me to ask for peoples? We haven't done this this way before. I can ask. I think, I think it's probably easier if I do go by project. It'll take a little bit longer, but it's probably clearer what everyone is rendering their opinion on. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go each project in order. I'm going to call out your last name. And if you can give me a number from one to five, I will enter it and then we'll see where we stand. So alphabetically by last name for supportive housing phase three for Amherst community connections, Devlin, got here. I so did not want to go first. I had that one as a five. I'm sorry, McDougall or McLeod, Marshall, Stein, Diana, you're muted, Diana. I'm trying to keep my dog's noises out of the meeting. That's why I keep going back and forth. Anthony, can I go 3.5? Williams, Zobel, housing trust, Devlin, got here. Five, Isengar, five, Fordham, five, McDougall, five for me, McLeod, three because I want more information. Marshall, four, Stein, five, Williams, five, Zobel, four. Jones library revision, revised proposal for special collections, Devlin, got here, three, Isengar, five, Fordham, five, McDougall, three, McLeod, three, Marshall, five, Stein, four, and I have questions. I could change my vote. Williams, Zobel, this is not a vote. Am I correct? Yes, I just want to make sure I'm a five. Goodwin, church restoration, Devlin, got here. Five. Wait, Anthony, they've changed their request, their amount. You're right, I didn't update it here. 21, 4, 1, 2, 21. Oh, 21. We just got updates today. I think it's, oh, they did it again because it was going to be 12,000 plus 6,000 to be 18,000. So, if something else been added, their original request was 12,000 and then they put in 6,000, what do you call it, contingency. Right. And that brought it to 18,000. So, unless there's something I don't know anything about, it should be 18,000. I had 18 in my notes too. I'll double check it. Anthony, can we get the updated budgets for Goodwin and Mill River? I mean, yeah, not pooled at trail. The Goodwin was posted, put in the packet today. I mean, people got about a chance to see it. I mean, I got it this afternoon. Yeah, so we don't have to talk about it today. In fact, maybe we should just delay our straw poll on this if that's a significant change. It doesn't make that much difference to me. I'm just surprised. I think you should go ahead with the vote. It's not a vote. It's not a vote. Okay. So, my suggestion would be to put it to the 18,000 that everybody is aware of and to do your vote based on that and then when you get the additional information, and again, not your vote, your poll. Our vote not vote. Yes. And then you can change your minds when you see the additional, because nothing's going to be finalized tonight. So, that's my suggestion. It's not you guys do what you like, but that's fine. Okay. All right. I'll stay out of five for that one. Okay. Eisender. This is Goodwin Church Restoration. I'm at three. Fordham. Five. McDougal. Not sure. Not sure. They're big budget communities. I'm going to fix it at the end. Your people are so generous. McLeod. Five. I'm going to keep happening. Marshall. Five. Nine. Five. Williams. Five. So, Bell. Five. All right. Apparently I have to deal with this now. I don't know why it's doing that. People saw the comment from Meg Gage, the mom for Mill River Park, 316. Thank you. I didn't see that. Where do I, where am I supposed to be seeing? You go down to, over to Q and A. She's written in. Question. Also, I don't know. You can see that we have 10 people. Anthony, if you just copy the first line into open, you got it. Okay. And then right. Mill River is. At what now? 16 and a half, I think. That's Meg Gage. Yeah. And that's what the, the earlier one. Yeah. Five. Eisenhower. Oh, this pains me. This is a two. I'll explain later. Fordham. Four. Make Google. I'm a two as well, Sarah. Five. Marshall. Four. Stein. Three. Williams. Three. Zobel. Three. Okay. Northamhurst library wall repair. Devon got there. Four. Eisenhower. I'm also a four. Fordham. My Google. The cloud. Five. Marshall. Five. Stein. Five. Williams. Five. Zobel. Four. Town hall front-end side steps. Devlin got here. Three. Eisenhower. Five. Fordham. Three. Google. Three. McLeod. Three or four. Apparently we're allowed to do three and a half. Four. Marshall. Three. Stein. Five. Williams. Three. Zobel. Three and a half. Hey, 10 a roof repairs at town hall only. Devlin got here. Okay. I wasn't quite thinking about breaking it out. So I'm just going to have the same, I think for all of them. Four. Eisenhower. Four. Fordham. One. McDougal. Same boat. As I'm just three for, for all of me. McLeod. Five. Marshall. Five. Stein. I made them all too because I would post on this for a year. Okay. Williams. Three. Zobel. Three. Okay. Skipping the people that said they were doing the same for all of them. So. Roof repair at Munson. Eisenhower. Three. Fordham. Five. McLeod. Five. Marshall. Five. Williams. Four. Zobel. Four. And town. At the North Amherst school. Eisenhower. I'm sorry. The roof at North Amherst school. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's correct. I'm sorry. The roof at North Amherst school. Three. Fordham. One. McLeod. Three. Marshall. One. Williams. Three. So about. One. And Anthony, isn't it two 85. Yeah, there's the membrane is another 85,000. But that's not eligible, right? Oh, Okay, so months. So I'm looking at the budget for months and I just did this on the fly here. The budget was months. It was 53,000 plus an 85,000 membrane that he separated out. So that's for the North Amherst. Yeah. Yeah. So that should actually be 335. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Good catch. Okay, the North Amherst, the North Common Project. Dave Lungoth here. Hi. Heisinger. I've poured them. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Five. McLeod. What? Three. Marshall. Three. Stein. Three. Williams. Four. And so bell. Okay. I said five. Three, three times, but I apologize. Okay. And, uh, that's a couple of words. I'm sorry. I've got a couple of words. We're going to get some replies. So, how about park lower pavilion? Devengoth here. Isinger. Three. Four. Five. McDougal. Do. McLeod. Five. Marshall. Three. Stein. Three. Williams. Five. So bell. Three. a mill river pool repair. Devin Gunther? Four. Heisenker? Four. Fordham? Five. McDougal? Three. McLeod? Four. Marshall? Five. Stein? Five. Williams? Five. Zovell? Four. Okay. So that is where we stand. Fairly, well, a tighter range than we've seen some years, I guess I would say, but that's helpful. So which ones to start with? I would suggest we start with debt and administrative as the easiest ones. Oh, the existing debt, the debt we have no choice about. Right. Yeah. So you mean that's an actual real vote? Yeah, it happened. And we cannot change, right? Yep. Because we don't really have a choice. So, so... Can you tell me more about that? When you say we don't have a chance, a choice, why are we voting? Well, we could choose to default on our debt. We'd be kicked off this committee if that's possible in no time. I think it's just the procedures that you have to agree every year to keep paying it. That is correct because it's coming out of your current year's allocation, you have to vote it. It is, I mean, you could, like Anthony said, we could default on our loans and ruin the town of Amherst credit rating, but I wouldn't suggest that. Once we've borrowed the funds, we must make our payments and you do have to vote it out of your current year's funds. So, so it's procedural. Got it. So I don't think we need to give levels of interest for this one. I think we should just do have them, the numbers are moving around a lot. So do we have to vote them one at a time, Anthony, or can we, can we move to... Oh, you move to vote the entire debt. You do not have to separate them. No. Yeah. Okay. So why don't I just do that? But now I don't see the number anymore. So is it not, it's right in front of me. Is it not showing the total? No, you just blew up, you just blew up part of the... There's no sum here. We need to go... I can, okay. I mean... There, what, what, okay. I move that we recommend to council that we fund debt service in the amount of $388,148. Is there a second? I second. That's Diana. Okay. So we'll have a roll call vote. Well, first, is there any discussion, any more discussion? Okay. So we'll have a roll call vote. Sam McLeod, how do you vote? Hi. Annie McDougal. Hi. Diana, you're after Katie. Katie, how do you vote? Hi. Diana Stein. Hi. I'll take that as an aye. Anna Devlin-Golf. Aye. I said aye. You couldn't hear me? You just cut yourself off real fast. Sarah Eisinger. Aye. Robin Fordham. Aye. David Williams. Aye. And Sarah Marshall, aye. That's nine to zero. Anthony, could you explain the administrative charge, $25,000 for the new people? So the administrative lion item, it is used to pay our dues to the CPA coalition. It is used for any legal advertisements that we need to run. For example, the ads for the hearing tonight. And I believe it will also be used for the signs when we get those going. Holly, am I missing any other uses? It can also be used for general legal advice if we need to. It's not associated with a particular project, but we need legal advice. Does it include legal advice on specific projects, like did in fact happen last cycle? I guess that would depend. I mean, some projects have funds available for legal advice, and then there's general legal advice that's not available in a specific project or is not specific to a project. And the town has been eating those costs, and we would like to allocate them to CPA if it is CPA advice. OK, so Anthony, sorry. Sonia just raised her hand. I just brought her into the meeting. Sonia, can you hear me? Yes. I was having a hard time getting joining this meeting. That amount of money was mainly put in there for signs. It really has nothing to do with legal, because I increased that amount. So it's really coalition dues. It's for the yearly ad that we put into this paper. And I put extra hands this year. I'm sorry, put extra what? For signage. OK. Because we're looking for signage, it has nothing to do with legal. We have to be very careful with legal charges, because not everything qualifies under CPA funding. OK. And I have a question. Once that is voted, is it like any other grant? Do you charge against it, or do you take the $25,000? We pay for the coalition dues, and we pay for the ad. Directly from that account. And if there was any charges for signage, whatever we're going to pay, we would charge it from there. So just like any one of the other accounts, you'll see a balance. You'll see expenditures there, just like all of them. We don't just take the money. Right. And so there might be money returned then? Like from two years ago, you didn't use it all? Usually with admin fees, I mean, it's been only five and then 10 just recently, because our coalition went up because we were getting more money. Usually we just use up the balance of the older accounts first, and then the newer account comes. So it just carries over. So that's why you never see any money returning, because it just gets used up oldest first. Any other questions about the administration fee or line item? I'm sorry, Sonia, go ahead. I came in late, so I just have a few questions here. I'm not understanding why all the roof projects were separated and the stair projects, because those are put together specifically so that we could save money by bidding them all at once. So is that brought up? I offered it as potentially helpful to the group, in case some people had strong feelings about one or felt differently about some of them. OK. Historical commission reviewed them separately. OK, but Sonia, what you're saying is that the actual budget line item would change if they were not all put out together? They might be more is what I'm saying. So it's just. And I also want to bring up that a lot of times, what's happened, what's been seems to be the norm lately is that a lot of these get reduced because you're trying to fit all the projects in at once. And what that ends up causing is for people to ask for more money than they really need because they're expecting you to cut them. So it's better that you just fund the projects as they are and maybe not fund all the projects if you don't want to, but fund them for the amounts that they are, because usually what ends up happening is there's not enough for them to do the job and they have to come back to you in the following year, or people inflate the cost knowing you're going to cut them. So I mean, just it's good to think about that. I don't actually, I'd have to go back to prior CPA reports. I don't actually recall voting a smaller amount for a building repair. Well, I'm not saying specific building repairs. I'm just talking about projects in general. OK. All right. Would anyone, if there are no other comments or questions, Andy? Yeah, not just the, so, Sonia, the 25K, I just wanted to make sure it was completely interesting. If we don't use it all, it just, we roll it into next year. So do we have a surplus today? No, I believe we use the old article up. Have we, Holly? Anthony, you could look on the continued appropriation program. I believe there is still a balance, but I don't know. So when we get the bill for the coalition, we'll use that balance first and then use the remainder, take the remainder out of the new one. Yeah, we have about 1,300 left, it looks like. We really have no idea what these signs are going to cost us. This is a whole new project. So we may need more than 25,000. We may need a lot less. We don't really know at this point. Do you see him? No, I don't. OK. That was actually going to be my question since I was new, is, is what did we, what do we allocate or what do we expect for that? This is new to be learning together on this one. OK, I mean, we just had a number and rounded up to 25, basically. Yeah, science science can be pretty expensive, actually. He asks. Oh, well, I don't think we're talking about science and facts. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to have a sense of that, just knowing 25,000 is more than some of the the projects that we the science is going to cost more than the and I know it won't. But but still, like, I think if it's a large chunk of that 25K, I'd love to have a better sense of that. Well, I think we'll get. I think signed proposals will come back to us, even if potentially the money's already there. I think I think we'll be having more conversations about. Right. It'll come back to you before we even make the purchase or the design of good. So would anyone like to move regarding an appropriation of twenty five thousand dollars for administration? I don't have to make all the motions. I move that we appropriate twenty five thousand dollars for administrative fees. And Diana seconds. Any more discussion? All right, I'll call the roll. Andy McDougal. Andy McDougal. Hi. Sam McLeod. Diana Stein. Hi. Katie Allen Zogel. Hi. Sarah Eisner. Hi. Anna Devlin-Gothier. It's Anna. Oh, I did it. I'm going to get them all. Please keep correcting me. All right. Hi. Hi. All right. Robin Fordham. Hi. I was so close. David Williams. Hi. And Sarah Marshall. I but I feel like I missed somebody. Is that right? No. OK. Nine to that motion passes nine to zero. All right. And it's just after eight o'clock. So I suggest we end our discussion of this for tonight. I think that next week maybe we'll have some more information about the property, the purchase and sale that the trust is hoping to buy. Maybe we'll maybe we'll get enough. I don't know if there's going to be any more updates from the mill from Donna for the Mill River Trail. They're they're trying to also do an application for other funds. We'll get maybe we'll start off listening to the historical commission's recommendations. I don't know. Or maybe we just take those as the as the projects arise. I don't know. OK. Sam. Yeah, I just want to underscore my vote relating to the housing funding is such of a three meaning does like more information. I'm very interested in what we hear from them. Because it's obviously a proposal that unknown purchase. And it wouldn't matter to me if it occurred in two weeks for that matter of all times of the essence. So I'm just underscoring that. Or there are there are many reasons for voting for or three or two or one that don't mean I don't like this project. So but following up on that comment, I think it would be. So next week we meet. It's the 19th. The following week Thanksgiving, we do not meet. But I think we should all ink in December 3rd. We might get through the whole package next week. But we might not. And and we should not feel rushed, right? We shouldn't waste time. Repeat what other people have said. We don't need that. But so does anyone right now anticipate difficulty meeting on Thursday, December 3rd? So those of you I can see, great. Yes, yeah, I have a board meeting that is not yet set that I have to be at. I don't it could go till 6 30. I don't know. I will know shortly, though. OK, thank you. You're posted. Can I ask your process question? Yes. How is it that if we're getting new information, we don't have to reopen public comment? Shouldn't the public be able to comment if there's new information that comes in about? There's public comment on every meeting. Continued public comment. Perfect. That was thank you. Yeah. Hearing, I don't know. It's just formally like come talk about anything. But yes, we can always have. There's double. I had a moment of like, wait, no. Not again. Yeah, I meant like, wait, no. I want to make sure they get to talk. Yes, I think technically, the hearing isn't even have to be part of the approval process. It's just every year you have to have a hearing and we do it. I mean, on CPA matters, we could have had it at the first meeting and my understanding that it's not specified what has to happen at the hearing. So it's not necessarily for the project. I mean, I mean, I mean, we didn't have a hearing for Kendrick Park. That is correct. That is correct. You do have to have a public hearing, but it does not have to be part of your approval process. It has to be a place where the public can go and speak to general anything on the CPA. We choose to do it as part of a proposal because it makes more, a lot more sense. Thank you for clarifying for the new kid. I appreciate it. Well, for the old kids too. At least I didn't know that, OK? Sarah, can I just? Yes. What's interesting to me about the way we did the straw poll is that we're very spread out, you know, the projects are pretty close together. Like usually it's been there've been some more obvious one. Yes, you know, real yeses and sort of noes that we don't. So to me, this looks like we're in for a lot of discussion in sort of equal amount, almost of discussion on almost all these projects. So I think for sure we're not going to get through it next week. I'm just forecasting that for everybody's. So I would say even, you know, look to December 10th. I know how the Jewish holidays come up. I, you know, I don't know the detail on that, but we'll do what we can. And maybe we'll we'll do what we can. OK, maybe we will go. Hold on, maybe we will go late, you know, maybe we'll go nine o'clock next time and nine o'clock on the third. We've done that before. Yeah, so I think we're going to be distance that it's worth trying to finish it up on the third. But we'll see. We'll see. But it took minutes. And to the applicants. So I'm fine with whatever time we have to take. Andy, I thought you I thought you wanted to say something. Oh, I was just saying I was I was glad that I took the minutes this week if we're going to go three hours next week. Maybe we should have two and you can spell it. All right, in that case, may I have a motion to adjourn? I so move Diana. Second, Sarah Roll call Sarah Marshall. I say in the cloud. Hi, Andy, MacDougall, Sarah Eisinger. Hi, and Hanukkah starts on December 10th, just FYI. OK, Anna Devlin got here. Hi, Katie Allen Sobel. Hi, Diana Stein. Hi, Robin Fordham. Hi, David Williams. Hi. Thank you, everyone. I'll see you next week. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night. OK, good night.