 Allegra. Sid looks like he's somewhere amazing, but it might just be fake. Not it's fake for now, but next week. All right. Next week? For now. Yeah, Thursday. I always take a group of students to Cape Verde. So we'll leave it Thursday. Be there for a week. Great. Pretty cool. Thanks. They get credit for that or is that just for fun? It's a service and they can't get credit for it. Yeah. So there's a service component to it. Right. Cultural education and community service also. Yeah. Nice. Okay. So we have a full forum now. Yeah. Hi, Rob. Which is great. With Rob joining us. Hi, Allegra. Nine people. So we may. Hi, Rita. May as well get started. Let's see. We have a number of other attendees too, which is good. Okay. So I just had a few announcements. Nothing of earth shattering. Import. First of all, George Ryan volunteered to take minutes for this meeting. And so I accepted George's offer. And he's on board and we'll take minutes for this meeting. And then we have to figure out what to do about June because he'll be out of town. But anyway, for now that settled. The other thing that I wanted to mention, and I'll actually send out an email on this. Chapa is sponsoring an event. Actually, it's a larger event that's being sponsored by another organization that is titled tips and tricks to build support for housing in your community. And that it will include two Massachusetts community. I think Newton and Brookline and what they've been doing as well as Dr. T. who's been a consultant to Chapa and also to MHP on how to structure advocacy efforts. So that should be a pretty good event. And it is on Thursday, May 26th from 1 to 2 p.m. So it's lunch and learn. And again, I will send out a note about it. I think it should be an interesting hour. Okay, so our next item of business is reviewing the minutes from the last meeting. Earlier today, I got a note from Carol about something that I missed. So I've yet to digest that and add that. Any other comments on the minutes? Carol, do you want to say anything about what I missed? Well, I don't need to unless somebody wants to hear it again. I said it, I had something else I wanted to say actually at the moment, which was I just wondered why if George is taking minutes, wouldn't we want him to be in the room? So if he has a question, it will be easier for him to ask it or something. Or is there some reason why that's not a good idea? No, there's nothing to prevent it. I guess Nate can add George as a panelist then if he has questions, he can speak up. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of your call. Yeah, I think that would be fine. He's listed as an attendee and George, thank you. I do appreciate it. And so that chapa thing, John, I sent out the chapa brief, but it wasn't listed in that. No, it's something separate that I got from the municipal engagement initiative. It wasn't a general chapa announcement. So I got it sometime today and I didn't have a chance to send it out yet, but I will. So I think that would be a worthwhile hour for people who are interested. I'll just mention that Keith Ferry, who's the president and CEO of Wayfinders, has made, has started an initiative to try to create a regional advocacy group. And he had a meeting on, I think it was Wednesday afternoon, Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, and there were about 30 people from the region. From various groups participating in the meeting. And the next step is to figure out whether we have enough in common so that we can start advocating on at least a few issues as a region. And I can't tell you what those would be because there were lots of ideas mentioned as a laundry list, which I think we all need to review and try to mark out two or three priorities that we would actually work on. So those are my announcements. Anybody else have any announcements? John, just to touch on that, you know, a while ago the Housing Trust, you know, approached Wayfinders to ask if they would manage a regional, you know, be like a regional housing agent or affordable units. And they seemed receptive. There are some details that needed to be worked out, but maybe that's something that could be brought up again. You know, I know that since the town's changed inclusionary zoning, we're capturing more projects. And some developers had said it's hard to find someone to market, you know, one, two or three units, right, or four units. It's just a small, small number and, you know, the town, we can't do it. Yeah, that idea goes back. I think it's something that Tom Kegelman approached Peter Gagliardi out who is Keith's predecessor at Wayfinders. And I've never talked to Keith about it. But I think it's an idea worth repeating. I mean, there are options. The more that we've gone along, some people have gone to the Amherst Housing Authority to undertake that work under contract. And another possibility, and I can't remember the name of the organization, but Valley Community Development and actually Tom Kegelman's organization uses another group to do their marketing and to evaluate their eligibility pools, etc. HMR, that's what it is. So that would be another possibility for folks. They're a national organization, but they do have a strong local presence working for, as I said, Valley Community Development. And I can't remember the name of Tom's organization left hand. Anyway, so we could talk to Peter about it because obviously, they're all sorry, not Peter Keith about it because they're set up to do this for their own programs. Any other comments? Okay, then actually, since Michelle McAdara is here, I'm going to swap items and talk about the planning for a housing forum, likely in the fall in which we would present to the community information about the East Creek Belcher Town Road project and also, I think, some information about what the trust is doing, although the first would be the primary focus and we would expect that Wayfinders would do the presentation. So I see Michelle has joined us as a panelist. Thank you. And it looks like you're representing Wayfinders this evening. Thanks. Great. Okay, so this was the fourth item on the agenda. And I had approached the Unitarian Universalist Society about having this in their social wall if we can do an in-person meeting. And they were interested, but of course, I didn't give them a date. But if we can settle on a date to do this this evening that works for the Housing Trust and works for Wayfinders, then I will approach them with at least one possibly two or three options, whatever we think. And then we can talk about other elements of this and move forward. So the options in my mind were June and September, but the sentiment at the last meeting was definitely September. I was looking at the calendar and I was doing a timeline of activities and trying to figure out when I want to submit my you know, eligibility application. And the week of September 12 actually looks really good. It's past Labor Day. Kids are in school, you know, and that would allow me to say that at least we had a couple of outreach events because I'd like to do one by Zoom as well, John. Okay. As well as one in person. And then when I submit my eligibility cert, I mean application, we can include the outreach, at least some outreach. Okay, that would be great. It's possible we could do a mixed event. That is, it could appear on Zoom on Facebook, as well as a live event. I don't know, I've never done that. So I know how well it works, but it might be something to consider, Michelle, so you don't have to do it twice. I don't mind doing it twice. And you know, I was wondering if you know, do you do one during the day and one in the early evening? You know, I don't know. Okay, well, the dates that I had in my notes were either a Tuesday or a Thursday and I had September 13th or September 15th, which fit with what you just suggested. I don't want to do it on a Monday night, because that's when town council meets. And Tuesday and Thursday has generally been good for the housing trust. So I thought the 13th or 15th are possibly the following week. But it sounds like both the 13th and the 15th would be good for you. Yeah, I'm just trying to back into the project eligibility, the, you know, the 40B application and everything like that. So, you know, when I back into it, that looks like the ideal time, you know, we have a lot of due diligence to do between now and then. It will also be, where things will already be done, you know, the, all the environmental, you know, with wetlands and geotech and all that will already be done. So it will be allow us to give some really good updates where the project says. And you should have signed a land development agreement with the town by then. We hope we have. I'm hoping that's done, like, at the beginning of next month. Okay. Nate, just a quick question. I want to put you on the spot, but it does talk about the ground lease being attached. And I'd like to review the ground lease. Yeah, I think there was a standard ground lease in the, maybe an RFP, if not, that's something we can, you know, get. It wasn't, it wasn't, I didn't think it was in the RFP. Yeah. Yeah, I know you'd ask for it. So it's something, yeah, I think, so I don't know if the trust is where, you know, you know, wayfinders is developing and for the public here, you know, housing, affordable housing at East Street School and Belcher Town Road properties. And so this forum or, you know, I agree, it could be a few, you know, it's to let the public know, and I think, you know, we haven't engaged in neighborhoods in a while. You know, this was something that started a few years ago. And so this is to help kick off the project. And so I think, you know, the town, the trust and wayfinders, and maybe more could be co-sponsors of these events. And typically, when a promise of permit is submitted, there's a first phase called product eligibility. And it, you know, so that's the, I don't know, maybe there's like a few months involved there. And then once wayfinders, a developer gets approval from the state on that, and then they can submit their comprehensive permit. And in the end, it could be a, you know, a nine month process from start to permit, permitting, to have their land use permit. So the, you know, the point of the forums in the summer fall is to help get the town involved, you know, hear comments and kind of prepare wayfinders in the town for a comprehensive permit. So previously when 132 Northampton Road came through during the PEL phase, there was a lot of comments. And so when we packaged it all together to go to the state, you know, there's like a hundred pages of letters and everything. So it really does become a pretty involved process. And so we usually set up a webpage and we can work with wayfinders. But in the past, we set up a product webpage in the town website to catalog all that. And for people to submit comments. And so if we think this is going to happen in September, we can work with wayfinders to start setting that up and get, you know, different media presence, you know, just to get this product visible. And so if we think mid September is good, that gives us a good starting point. And we can work back from there. Okay, Michelle, do you have a preference for Tuesday or Thursday? No, it doesn't matter. But I have to tell you, the seven o'clock meeting is a killer for me. And I'm so happy you moved me up because I said it's not my first email at 7am, you know, so it's a long day. Yep, I understand. Well, that's why I moved you up because you're the only guest that I needed to accommodate. And so I thought it was fair to put you on first on the agenda. I really appreciate it. We could start the forum earlier. What would you prefer? Oh, even 6.30, you know, it gives enough, the parents enough time to get home if they have small children, feed the children, get them some daycare, you know, for do we want to provide daycare, you know, some kind, get some kind of organization to provide, I don't know if the hall is large enough to provide daycare. Yep. I think Risha was talking about trying to make sure people from the Fort River community get to participate. So that would include parents, some of whom might need the kind of support you're describing. I can reach out to our property management team and see if they, you know, have any idea of who could pass through. Yeah, okay. We can probably use a small amount of housing trust funds to reimburse people for daycare. Does that make sense to you, Nate? Yeah, we can look into it. I think it could be an option. Okay. Other comments? Other people comfortable with doing this on the second Tuesday or Thursday in September? Okay, it looks like everybody's good with that. So I will talk to the UU. Should we be starting earlier? I'm just getting your opinion. I'm not the best person to ask because I'm pretty flexible. Anybody else have a comment about what time to start? I mean, Michelle, you mean like the actual start time in the evening? No, I'm talking about the process. Should we be reaching out in July? I mean, it's waiting until September to late. Yeah, we can start doing announcements in July. We need to create a poster essentially for the forum. Start distributing that. And I, you know, I have about two dozen organizations that I asked to distribute the poster so we can begin with those. And then I don't remember if it was Richard or Allegra suggested that we also do this through the Amherst schools because of the presence of Fort River. So I can ask the school superintendent to do that also. Well, and that's where we're going to miss the school if we, you know, because school is not going to be back in. Oh, I think by the 13th it should be back. I know, but we won't be able to start this in July for the schools, but we can start other organizations. And I think the apparent contact list that we can distribute to even in the summer. So yeah, I mean, I think it's something, you know, we've, staffs talked about, you know, reaching out to the neighborhood and to the, you know, the community at large about presenting this project, you know, as it's moving forward. So I think, you know, that may be a few different things, whether it's, you know, a product web page. And if we want to try to get some feedback, you know, Michelle, I'm not sure what you're thinking about either, but I just want to make sure we frame it and we have a clear, you know, the same message and we make it clear where people can go for information. So, you know, is it way finders doing the outreach in the summer as part of their permitting? Or is it something that town is doing, you know, just forwarded or just to, you know, we know that feedback is going to be part of the PEL phase. So, you know, I think we can talk about that. But I think starting earlier is better, if you're thinking about actually submitting something, you know, in early fall to the state, just so we can, you know, we can keep, keep on top of that and not, you know, not have any questions at the last minute. Right. And the reason, you know, when I did the timeline and even though, you know, the PEL supposedly is a 30-day review period, I've seen it take 60 days and then, you know, putting our application into the town and then, you know, you have 30 days to start the public hearing and then I'm backing up to when the one stops their point feed. Yeah, my guess is that Mike Morrison and his staff were communicating with parents in July, if not in June, not throughout the summer. I mean, I can check, but I'd be surprised if they aren't sending something out to people in which this could be included. Michelle, do you have other things in mind that you wanted to do like before September? It's not just advertising about September. It's, it sounds like you're thinking of other things that you're going to do. I just wondered what those might be. To decide on how much outreach and what kind of outreach that we do want to do, a meeting schedule, sorry, I have horrible Zoom connection and who's going to take the lead on what. So I think we may want to do a little bit more than just this. Yeah, like I said, I typically contact about two dozen organizations in town that are pretty representative and I can send you the list so that you've got some idea about who they are. I just want to raise, I actually do have a conflict on one of those days, but I'm sure that it's not going to be possible to get everyone on board. Which days do you have a conflict on? The 13th. Okay. Well, if we can do it the 15th, I'll try to do that. Anybody else have a preference? Okay. Well, that's the purpose of having this discussion. I don't know why you guys don't have your calendars fill through September, but. Okay. Other comments about preparing for this? Well, I think the Amherst Bulletin would be great to have an article in there if you're thinking about PrEP for the future. But I just wanted to ask, it sounded like we were going to have in-person and a virtual one or just one? We're looking to doing both. I think both would be good. Okay. I mean, obviously they can't be both on the same day. But even if one's during the day, I think that's fine. I think it's pretty easy to have a Zoom forum. And if we have online presence and have some way to also collect feedback ahead of time, if we have just to get some product information out there, I think that having two is fine. Okay. So you're suggesting the Zoom forum during the day and then a live meeting in the evening? Well, maybe. I mean, I found that the Zoom meetings are really well attended. It really accommodates people. So having in-person in the evening, if they do have other things that complicate it, whether it's children or other responsibilities in the evening to get somewhere in person, it doesn't make it difficult. But so I think an online forum is also a good way to go. Okay. Okay. I'm sure we can come up with a way of managing that. Most of the burden will be on Shell and Wayfingers. But again, I anticipate that the Housing Trust will do at least a 10 to 15 minute presentation on what we've been doing and what affordable housing development is currently occurring in Amherst. So people are brought up to date. Any other thoughts? Okay. Just to check, I move that we hold this housing forum in September. And is there a second? Carol seconds. Okay. Let's just do a quick roll call to make sure that everybody's on board. So we've touched all our bases. I'll ask whether you're in favor or not. Carol? In favor. Yes. Ashley? Yes, that's fine. Risha? Yes. Sid? Yes. Allegra? Yes. Erica? Yes. Paul? Yes. Rob? Yes. And I'm in favor. Okay. So that passes nine to zero. And it means we can move back to the item that I skipped. Okay. The item that I skipped had to do with another forum that will be held later this month. I tentatively committed us to this, but we can uncommit if people are uncomfortable for some reason or don't want to go ahead. The other forum is part of the age and dementia friendly community project, which Amherst is participating in. It's partly organized by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and Becky Bash is the person who will probably chair or facilitate this meeting. And then other people from the town of Amherst will be involved. So let me see what I wanted to tell you about the meeting. First of all, it'll be on Monday, May 23rd in the afternoon from 2.30 to 4 p.m. It will be advertised or promoted as a listening session. So while there will be people saying something, including Nate and I, the primary focus is hearing from older adults in Amherst. And we hope to recruit a good number of participants to be a part of that meeting. The poster for the meeting, in addition to giving the time and zoom information and so forth, will focus on it as a meeting, looking at the housing needs of the aging population. And we've tentatively included as issues, aging in place, home modifications and repairs, affordability, accessibility, that means the need for developing new housing for older adults and also safe and walkable neighborhoods. Those are all things related to housing that came up in the older adult survey. Nate, can you put on screen that piece that I had that I can't seem to get on screen? Okay, thanks. One of the things that Nate and I will talk about is both what now exists in Amherst is housing for older adults and what we might see in the future. And I'll just kind of give you a little bit of a look at that. There's quite a bit of data that came in that I'll describe in a moment. The person who's been analyzing the data is Nicole Orient, who is an intern with Becky Bash at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. We did two types of surveys. People may already be familiar with this, but I'll just give you some idea about the returns. We did a random sample mail survey, 500 mail surveys were sent out to the over 55 population in the town using the street list, 223 surveys were returned through that mechanism. The street list was pretty good. We only had information about five people who moved or died. We didn't get anything back from the post office that said address the unknown. So basically we got about a 45% return rate across two waves. That is, we sent out an initial mailing and then sent out a second mailing for people who we believed hadn't responded to the first one. So we got a great return from that. And that was, as I said, a random sample and numbers are still going up slightly. I got one today in the mail. The second were what we call convenience sample surveys. So those are surveys that are made available in the community. The largest number came through a publication by Amherst neighbors on their website or in a message to members of that group. People also could pick up surveys at the Bang Center or the senior center at the Jones library and the Amherst survival center. There were a number of other organizations that sent out the survey. And we also did a certain number of person-to-person requests, particularly in communities of color. Overall for the convenience sample survey, we got about, we got exactly 651 return at least as of late last week. So total we have about 874 surveys, which I think is more than the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission has seen from any of the communities where they've been doing this so far. And we're probably the, I don't know, the seventh, eighth, or ninth community to participate in this. I'll just mention one finding before I talk a little bit more about it. And that is over 70% of people report that is either extremely important or very important to remain in Amherst. Next page. Right. We asked people in the survey about major or minor barriers to remaining in their housing. And the first table shows the number of barriers that people reported. Most people report zero. It doesn't say that in the table, but if you take all the information there, it means that over 70% said they didn't have any barriers to remaining where they are. 17% said one barrier. This is in the random sample. Smaller number had two barriers, etc. If you look at the convenience sample, they showed slightly more barriers than the male survey. I don't know why, but it's clearly that people who responded to the convenience survey saw more problems remaining where they are. If you want to look at the specific major barriers, that's on the next table. And if you just want to know who decided what was major and minor, it was me. While Nicole did the analysis, I decided what would go in this table and what would go in the next table that was minor barriers. So if you disagree, we'll have to fix that. But at least you know how major and minor were more or less decided. If you look at the random sample survey, about 13% reported that their present housing is not affordable. 9% had concerns about paying for home repairs. And again, smaller percentages were concerned about home modifications, paying rent or mortgage, or concerned about paying for basic maintenance. Now just talking about that column of the people who were mailed a survey, remember that's our attempt to do a random sample of residents in Amherst. And we got about 45% responding. So what does it mean? If you go down a little bit, Nate, I have a note at the bottom which says taking the issue of housing is not affordable. 29 people report this. What does that generalize to? A rough approximation would be 11 times 29 or 319 older adults in Amherst report that or may have that as a problem, trying to generalize from the sample, the random sample returns that we have. There is a bit of a wide range on that. It could be plus or minus 100 or a little over 100. It probably isn't that large because when you add up the random sample survey and convenience numbers for that, you end up with a pretty large total which is, I can't remember, it's in the table. Go back up a little bit, Nate. Yeah, it's 128 people. And that's from the two combined surveys, the convenience sample and the random sample. And that's a lot of people who are saying that their housing is not affordable. And like I said, that's really the minimum number. The actual number could be two to three times that. Carol? John, I just wondered why housing is not affordable, is separate from I can't pay my rent or mortgage. Isn't that sort of the same issue? Well, I'm sure that they're related. And if I looked at the overlap and reporting of the two things, they're probably some overlap, but they were asked as separate items in the survey. And so I'm reporting them as separate items in the survey. I think there are other issues other than paying rent or mortgage. There's also taxes, home repairs, a bunch of things could be related to the fact that people are reporting that their housing is not affordable. So you can think of that as an overall statement. Was it a choose all that apply or did you have to or are you limited in the number you can choose? It was choose all that apply. And we've ordered them so that the most common responses at the top of the table and the least common is at the bottom of the table. So all of those things that are checked could be contributing factors to the overall statement. And again, you can see the convenience sample has a slightly higher rate of people checking that box. I'm not suggesting it's statistically significant, just noting that it is a little higher rate. But it definitely illustrates housing not being affordable for a significant number of people in Harris, not a majority of people by any means, but a significant number of older adults. Okay, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on minor barriers because I think the major ones, at least for me, are the ones that are greatest concern. But you can see there are more minor barriers than there are major barriers. It's a higher percentage for both the random sample, male survey, and the convenience sample. And then if we drop down to what the minor barriers actually are, you can see it includes, at the top of the list, people need help with basic tasks or errands. People report not having a friend or relative or neighbor who's close by who could provide help if they need it. A note about specific services. Again, none of these numbers is too large or the larger with the convenience sample. But if you think again about the male survey being representative of a larger group of people, then those problems become more significant. And there are things that conceivably programs of the senior center or Amherst neighbors might address. But I mean, that's the value of the survey to tell us something about what the senior center, what Amherst neighbors and what other groups that are working on these issues might be thinking about programmatically. Okay, I've got one other page, I think. Get to it. Yeah, 70% of the respondents, this is across both types of samples are in single family homes. There's again a variety of things they could check off. They could choose more than one future type of residents that they're interested in. Of those now in single family homes, 50% would say that's where they want to be five years from now. And then they list other things that they would be interested in. And I'll highlight the top two, which probably do overlap senior independent living and apartment building. So if one of the things that the trust wants to promote is a new rental project for older adults, I think there definitely is a market there. There are people who definitely would be interested in that. And as a next step, I'm going to do some more work on this and try to come up with more specific estimates of what the likely number that would be interested in that would be and what the range is for that. Anyway, I'm pleased with the survey data. I think it's doing part of what we want to do, which is understanding the housing needs of older adults. The survey also has a number of other areas. I mentioned that we're going to have this housing forum on May 23. Becky, along with Amherstown staff, are planning three more forums on other aspects of the survey, health and social services, transportation needs, and I can't remember offhand what the fourth one is, but there is definitely a fourth one. Comments or questions? I just wondered, is this an in-person thing or a Zoom thing? It'll be a Zoom event. I think people weren't quite ready to do an in-person event yet, so it'll be a Zoom event. And again, the link will be available shortly, and I'll send that out to people, and it'll go out through other organizations again, so you may hear about it. So is everybody comfortable with our being a co-sponsor of this event? I guess they can take a formal vote, although is anybody object to that? Okay, I think I'll take that then as unanimous consent to move forward rather than actually doing a roll call. Great, and I hope folks here will have a chance to participate, and Nate and I will be sending more information about our presentations as part of this. We aren't going to be the primary presenter. There'll be at least three or four other presenters, but as they said earlier, I think the most important thing is to hear directly from people online about what they think their needs are related to housing. Okay, the next area of discussion has to do with replacing the current chair, and I have been talking to Carol and Erica about this a month ago. I guess I asked one or both of them if they were interested, and they both suggested independently, or maybe not independently, I don't really know, that they would be interested if they could do this together. And I said that would be fine with me. I don't know if it's going to be fine with everybody as we'll hear in a moment, but in any event, I'm not ready to take a vote now, but we will take a vote next month assuming they are the candidates and nobody else comes forward. Erica and Carol asked me if I would do a review of the way I understood the job of care of the housing trust to work, and I said I'd be glad to do that. They wanted me to do that not just for them, but for everybody, both I think so that everyone has an idea about what the job is, and if also there's somebody else who wants to step forward and take that task on, that they do that, they can offer themselves up now or at the next meeting as a candidate. I'm personally not expecting that, but nonetheless, I was glad to do what they asked. So I wrote out a list of things that I think I do or try to do. I know I don't do all of them, or do all of them all the time, or do all of them very well, but nonetheless, it is a list that I created. I actually created it or the first draft of it two or three years ago. I was asked to talk to both Northampton Housing Partnership along with the Eastampton Housing Partnership in a joint meeting to talk about what a housing trust does. So I started it then and then I kind of augmented it after hearing from Carol and Erica. So I know I sent everybody a list, but nonetheless, I thought we'd put it on screen and I would briefly go over it and give people a chance to ask questions or comment or whatever. Remember, this is my personal view. Although I will say the more I thought about this, most of it is probably relevant not just to being chair of a housing trust, but being chair of any town committee. Now, obviously, every town committee isn't responsible for creating a pipeline of affordable housing projects. That's clearly what I regard as our most important task. And everything else, at least to my mind, is in the service of that goal. And that is one of the things I've tried to do as chair. And I think that's a pretty straightforward idea. But if anybody has a comment, I'll stop. The second thing I think is as important as we all know, the work of the housing trust is and we think everybody else has our has our back. You can't assume it. Everything that we have to do that we do has to be earned and earned again. People's memories tend to be short. And so we have to remind them or keep asking them for their support. If you don't do that, then their support can go away. So I think that's another important idea. Of course, everything I have on this list is an important idea. We've had various housing forums as long as I've been chair. When we went to Zoom, I actually sponsored more housing forums because they could be done over Zoom. And in some ways it's easier to do them than to do in-person meetings. And we get pretty close to the same level of attendance or participation. In any event, doing public education programs is important. And for me, it's given me an opportunity, or I should say it's given us an opportunity to reach out to other people who we should be collaborating with, but we don't always. So for example, we did a forum with the Energy and Climate Action Committee, which isn't obviously a collaborator. We did another forum on equity and racial quality, which again pulled in another group that theoretically we could have been working with already, but necessarily weren't. So basically it's to try to create a wider base for support of what we're doing. The number four is kind of a little like number two. Well, we generally have very good cooperation from town staff. We do have to remember that everybody, including Nate and Dave, will be with us later. Stephanie Chickarello, who I started talking to about a year ago. Rob Mora, who has gotten involved in our projects, they all have lots of other things they're supposed to be doing. So it's important for us to keep asking them to do things for us and keep reminding of the assistance that we need. Number five is again an obvious thing, although I have to say as a chair, I don't do it often enough, which is to celebrate wins. I tend to think, oh, that's good. We're done with that. Now we can move on to the next thing. And I forget to celebrate something that we've done successfully, like getting out the RFP for East Street and Belcher Town Road. That was a big win for us, I think. But I didn't spend much time celebrating it. And I'm not sure anybody else did. Okay. Number six is obvious. I think I'm talking too much, which means the meeting is less interesting than it might otherwise be. I do try to share information about what the Housing Trust is doing. I maintain a list of about 90 to 100 people, including all the town counselors. And so I send them out the Housing Trust agenda. So what we're doing is in front of them. Consistent with that, I have made an appointment to get to know all of the town counselors, as well as candidates for town council. Mostly that means that I call them. But occasionally, people have called me. Anna Devlin-Gautier in this last round called me when she was a candidate to ask about us. And in prior rounds, people have called and said, what exactly do you people do? I need to know more. I've gotten to know key town staff, Nates and Avi's person. I mentioned other people who have really been helpful and are in a great position really to push our agenda. Collaborating with other civic organizations. It must be now three or four years ago, I attended a workshop that was run by someone whose name I can't remember now, who is an affordable housing developer in the eastern part of the state. And he said, if you want me to come, and he didn't just say this to me, but the other people who were in the workshop, here are the things that I look for to figure out whether or not I'm going to be able to do this project successfully in your town. And one of them was what you do to get political support for what you're doing. And part of what he said is not only, you know, do events that you do by yourselves, but you need to involve other civic organizations. And since I heard that I've at the top of my list has been the League of Women Voters of Amherst, and they have been a major sponsor of pretty much every educational forum that we've done, which has been really helpful. And again, I've tried to pull in other organizations, as I mentioned earlier this evening. There are other relevant providers who do housing in town. I kind of have an on and off dialogue with family outreach of Amherst, initially primarily with Laura Reichman, who's the executive director, but increasingly also with Francine Rodriguez, who is her major staff member. They're doing stuff that relates to affordable housing, and we need to support them and expect support from them as well. Okay. The developers, I've gotten to know, obviously Valley Community Development, Home City Housing, which is Tom Kegelman, and Wayfinders, Michelle MacDair was with us this evening. I know two or three other people in that organization, and they're really helpful. When you're asking whether something is possible, even before you do an RFP, you get good ideas. They really do know their business. And so it's them. And I would also list beacon communities with which the town has had a lot of contact as well, who've been a major affordable housing developer for us. So it's helpful to get to know those people and to reach out to them. We haven't lately had any formal cross board memberships, but we have had people who do participate in other groups or have a history with those other groups. One of the things that I appreciate is having Rob Crowner, because Rob was for years on the planning board. And so when planning and regulatory issues come up, Rob's a great resource for us, and for me particularly. And so I think those are important relationships as well. Let's see. The mass housing partnership does a lot of events to train people. They also have Shelly Göring, who is their housing trust person, who I go to if I have questions or need some kind of help. Occasionally there are other people at MHP, but more often than not, I rely on Rita, who is a former staff member at MHP to reach out to people that she knows, and that helps us. I used to talk with Peg Keller, but that was before she retired as the housing person for the city of Northampton. But when I came into housing, Peg had a lot more experience than I did, and it was great to talk to her. So you do want to find other people who are doing the same job. And there are people like that all over the Pioneer Valley, who can be helpful. Let's see. I'm going to skip over 16. I think that's pretty obvious. Another thing that I've tried to do, although I haven't done that in a while, is working on an advocacy group outside of town government. But having that group has been helpful. And again, we're all community organizers at the end of the day. I know there's stuff that we are charged with doing, but the most important thing, which isn't necessarily in our bylaw, is making sure that there is support for affordable housing, which makes us all community organizers. At least that's the way I tend to think about it. There's lots of things going on elsewhere that we need to track. And again, I do my best to keep in touch with Pamela Schwartz, who heads the Western Mass Network to End Homelessness. I have relationships with people at Chapa. And I also talked to Joe and Mindy and tried to make sure that they're aware of the issues related to housing that are important to us. And I found actually, Mindy comes back to me now and says, are you aware that the legislature is considering this or that? So that's really helpful. The last two things I have are pretty obvious. One is to be opportunistic. And the last one is to remember to say thank you and thank you again and again, when people give you their help and support. So that's the end of what I didn't expect to be a lecture, but turned out to be. So my apologies. Are the people have questions or have just sort of pushed beyond your tolerance or whatever? Particularly Eric or Carol, did either of you have comments or questions? So I was going to just say quickly, John, that you don't have to be daunted by the list. It is a lot, John, has a lot of free time and interest to put into this. And staff is a resource and the trust can hire other people to assist with certain things. So we have Rita and we can also use people to have specific tasks that we need something to get done. For instance, if it's due diligence on a property. So I think John does a great job and I just want to make sure that he doesn't do all those things every day. So I just don't discourage or, you know, worry that they can fulfill those 20, 20 items. And so I said, we're always here as a resource as well. Staff is available for help. Yeah. And if I didn't say so, Nate and Rita have been the most important resources for me as the chair. But as I mentioned, there are other people in town government who also contribute, if not every day, on an on and off basis to help support the things that the trust is trying to do. And it's really helpful. Well, is it good to hear Nate to say what he said? Because mostly the list just makes me want to go put my head under a pillow somewhere and give up before I start. It feels both, it feels daunting. Maybe the main question that I got out of it was, can we please have your address book? Or would all ever all the contacts are that you, you know, I mean, you had a whole bunch of contacts there and I don't, I don't know who's in whoever takes over next would be very well served to have your lists of contacts. No, I refuse to share. Yeah, I'll take that under consideration, Carol, for sure. Okay, other questions. Anybody else want to step forward and say, gee, I'd really like to be the next chair of the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. And I want to step in before anyone does step in to say that it was really important for Carol and I to have John go over this list, because we want to make sure everybody has time to think about this. This is not, you know, this is our group and our vision and our mission. That's why we've become part of this group. And everybody should have an opportunity to consider this. And to think about this and to step forward. So it's not a done deal. Think about it if this is something that you really want to do. One of the things, one of the reasons why Carol and I talked about co-chairing is I have a job that's almost 24-7 and it's really hard. I just want to make sure, you know, if no one else steps forward and Carol and I do do this, then both of us have an opportunity to always complement each other and always be there to make sure there are agendas that we're following through that we're moving forward. But this is absolutely an opportunity for anybody else who wants to move into the position to really think about and step forward. Okay, thanks. I'd also like to say that, you know, typically it's an annual, you know, it's an election of officers for board and committees in town. So sometimes, you know, it's a chair, vice chair, you could have a clerk or others. So, you know, John has served for more than one year. And, but, you know, so it's something that we can, you know, I think the trust does discuss every year. So if someone is, you know, uncomfortable this year, next year, there could be a chance. And so, you know, every year we'd say it's in, you know, July, August, September, there's a chance to have, you know, an election of officers. So that's something that, you know, that should happen. Yeah, I will say if people are curious about how I got the job. Sometime around three years ago, Tom Tegelman, who was then the chair, gave me a call and said, I can't do this anymore. It competes too much with my day job. And I want you to take over. And when I agreed to do that, he basically told I think the rest of the housing trust members that that's what he wanted to happen. And I don't know if there was a vote, but nobody disagreed. At least that's my memory of how, how the transition occurred the last time around. Okay, well, we have a few updates to do. And then I want to welcome Dave Zomek to do the first half of the discussion about ARPA before we go into an executive session. So I know Nate's been working on trying to figure out how to develop the strong street property with significant assistance, at least from Rob Mora. I haven't talked to Rob, but Nate's mentioned that a couple of times at least. So I guess my question is what's the latest on our ability to do that development? I don't really have too much new information. You know, Natural Heritage did catalog this as a, you know, they filed it as a pre-construction. We submitted a concept plan and we just, I've been emailing with Natural Heritage and the engineer and botanist. And so we're still waiting for a meeting. You know, there's been some questions, but there hasn't, you know, there hasn't been any decision or determination. It's really still now figuring out how could there be development on the property? So they haven't said no yet, but there really isn't any, you know, it means to me, it's still an opportunity, but it's not, you know, yes or no, it's just kind of work through it all. So, you know, I'm keeping it on the table still as a possibility. Okay. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. Let's see. Okay. I also had East Street, Belcher Town Road on the list, but we've really gone over that with Michelle, who I think is no longer with us. She was ready to call it a day. And I don't think there's anything else to add to the conversation we had with her earlier. I appreciate everybody's making suggestions about doing a housing forum with wayfinders. The third thing that I had on my list is East Gables. If you go by that section of Route 9 between University Drive and the center of town, you can see that they've actually started demolition on the existing house there. Although when I try to go by, there's too much traffic and I don't get a chance to get a really good look. But nonetheless, I do know that Valley Community Development has got that project underway. And I think that their plans are for occupancy of studio apartments maybe a year from this September. I assume at this point, although I haven't checked with Laura that they do have an agreement with Western Mass Housing. I forgot the name of the organization. Anyway, Western Mass Builders, they're constructing the development. Their name actually is sitting in front of the property. And somewhere our name is on it too as a sponsor. Anyway, that started, which is great. And as I said, we're really talking about construction being completed in a little over a year. The last thing I had on the list was legislative advocacy. And I meant to send out a list or an email that I got, but I didn't get to this on right to counsel. One of the things that the affordable housing people in Boston are pushing is legislation that would assure that people have right to counsel if they're being threatened with eviction. It's something that's been before the legislature for the last two or three years. I believe we've supported it in the past. And it just got through one legislative committee, I believe. And so it's something that at least the House might be acting on soon. And then the Senate. And I believe that Joe Comaford is a Senate sponsor for this legislation. Anybody else know any more about the right to counsel legislation beyond what I've said? I have anything to add? Well, I guess. No, but I will say, John, that I've been in housing court and seen where, you know, a tenant is facing eviction. And then the landlord comes with an attorney or two. And it just really seems like an unfair playing field. So they have enough information that the tenant really is left at that kind of their mercy. Unless they have some strategy or they're working with someone, whether it's a social service provider, they really don't go in there with a lot of help or guidance. And so I think it is important to have this. And so, you know, sadly enough, by the time you're facing eviction, if you go there, right, you incur court costs and other costs. And usually you still have to pay those. And but to have, you know, to have some someone there helping you, you know, hopefully, you know, family outreach has been working in other organizations to try to, you know, get work with the landlord before it gets to court. Right. But if there is those proceedings, it's nice to know that there's someone there for a tenant, because it is, it's really surprising to see if, you know, if you're in housing court. Yeah, actually, you remind me of something, Nate, that I'd forgotten. Tom Kegelman pointed out to me that there is a provision in the legislation that would also provide counsel for small landlords. In Amherst and elsewhere, there are lots of small landlords, and they also can't afford the higher attorney very often. And like low income tenants, they have to represent themselves. And so that's not necessarily helpful. And so I know Tom was pointing out to me that this is an important provision of the legislation that doesn't just focus on tenants, but it also focuses on small landlords, which certainly from Tom's point of view was a good reason to endorse the legislation. Anybody else have anything else to add? I don't know if this is really about the legislation. It probably isn't, but it would be great if the way that people learn about it, one of the things that it says is the first time you get a notice, try to get help. Because an awful lot of times what happens is somebody just, oh, I can't deal with this. And so you're like 700 miles down the street before anybody thinks of trying to go and get help. It would be really great if somewhere and however it's advertised, it says, don't wait. Start as soon as you know there's any threat at all, because you have a much better chance of doing it. Yeah, I'm sure you're right, Carol. And I can't remember if there's, I remember that in Somerville, they had a local initiative that included recrying the landlord to tell people what their rights are. There was literally a piece of paper or a notice that landlords had to give tenants at the time that they were threatening them with evictions. I don't know if that's part of this legislation or not. Well, part of my reason for wanting to bring it up is to ask whether we should be writing a letter in support of this legislation. And I'm sorry, I don't actually have the language of the legislation or much of a summary beyond what Nate and I have offered for people. But if you think that's enough, then we could decide whether or not we do want to endorse this legislation. And I'll get back in touch with the person who's leading the right to council effort, from whom I get an email at least once a week. I would, sorry, Carol, it sounds like you're going to go ahead. I would support this. I remember having this conversation and Tom being part of it. And one of the reasons why he felt strongly that small landlord should have a right to council is that there's a fear that if this passes without that then small landlords who absolutely would love to offer affordable housing wouldn't be doing it because if there's a problem they have no recourse. So I think it does increase the opportunity for both sides to have fair council, but to also ensure that people are willing to rent out to individuals and families. Well, is there a motion to endorse this legislation? I make a motion to endorse this legislation. Second. Okay, so it's their discussion. Either pro or con. Or I don't know enough so I'm not willing to vote on this. Okay, well then I will call the bill or whatever it's called. Is there a way to send it around? Yes, I could send. I'm sure I can get my hands or my electronic hands on it and send it around. That should not be difficult to do, Marisha. So I can send it around and then we can vote at the next meeting. I would say my only reservation is I'm not sure how critical it is for us to be showing support now versus a month from now, but it may not make much difference. Okay, I will send around if not the actual legislation, but at least a fair summary of it. So people can take a look at that and we'll put that on the June meeting agenda for discussion. Okay, I think that's it for items that I had other than the discussion about ARPA, which as I mentioned earlier and was in Nate's agenda is broken into parts. The first part is what will a discussion about what will happen with ARPA funds that we really don't need to go into executive session for. The Housing Trust was promoting various ideas and so this is our opportunity to review them again with Dave Zomek and then once we've done that we'll go into executive session and talk about other work that Dave is doing related to the use of ARPA funds for affordable housing. Everybody good with that? Okay, Dave is with us. He's just been promoted to the panel. I can see him squinting on screen. Thanks for joining us, Dave. I appreciate it. So there were various ideas that we had and I think the ones that we should focus on now are the ones related to home ownership. There were a variety of things that people had worked on and I know I've represented them to some extent in the past but I wanted to give members of the trust an opportunity to bring those forward again. So that could be I think Rob, Erica, Carol, not quite sure who else but at least the three of them had written proposals that we submitted to the town to Sean Mangano and to Dave about the potential use of ARPA funds to promote home ownership. Somebody want to step up? I mean I'd be happy to give a little bit of an overview if that gets us started on this job. Absolutely, Dave. That would be great. Thank you. And then maybe Rob or anyone else. So good evening everybody. I don't know everybody on the call but for those of you who don't know me, I'm Dave Zomek. I'm the assistant town manager and I try to get involved in a lot of projects. I oversee the functional area conservation and development. So that includes conservation, planning, inspection services, some of the health functions, zoning. I work with this great team on the second floor at Town Hall and have worked pretty extensively with John through the years and members of the trust, Rita and others to try to forward affordable housing projects in town. And I'm surrounded by a great team of people. We don't have a huge staff but we have some very talented people. Obviously, Nate and John has referenced Rob Mora who is our building commissioner and quite experienced in development himself and his private life. And then we also have a wonderful planning director, Christine Brestrup and a few other planners who help out around the edges. We're also using CPA funds after July 1st. We'll be hiring a part-time planner specifically focused on housing production. So that's pretty exciting. As you know, Paul, who's on this call, did set aside and really instructed staff to focus some of the ARPA funds on two categories, two pots. One is on finding a permanent home for a shelter slash supportive housing. And then the other rather broader pot of money, a million dollars, it should be focused on affordable housing in general. So, you know, I've looked at the outline that the trust provided. I'd love to hear more from you tonight as to kind of, you know, what are some of your priorities moving forward because really this is, you know, the work that we do is opportunity-based. Some of it is opportunity-based. A lot of it is opportunity-based. I was listening to John's description of what a chair, his personal view of what a chair should do a little bit ago in the meeting. And the number one thing was to really look for opportunities and produce more units. And so that's really what I focused on over the last couple of years. But I'd love to hear more from you, particularly about home ownership. So what my staff and I try to do is cast a wide net. We continue to be opportunistic. I think that's, you know, our most recent success. I think you were talking to the staff person at Wayfinders 30 minutes ago and really excited about the opportunity that we had to pick up a couple of parcels on Belcher Town Road and bundle those with the East Street School. So as you know, real estate is very challenging in Amherst. It's also very expensive. But the staff we have are really quite skilled at finding parcels that make sense. So that's going to be one of our goals over the next couple of years. Working with this ARPA funding, we have a few years to spend it. And Paul has really instructed us. He wants these funds to be, this may be my word, but kind of game changers, that these should be significant projects that make lasting impacts in town. And I think I'm kind of paraphrasing what Paul has told us in the various categories of ARPA funding. So as we look at the million dollars for a homeless shelter site and or supportive housing and then affordable housing general, we want these to be kind of game changers and really make a significant stride forward in those two categories. At the same time, we're going to continue to use the master plan, the comprehensive housing plan that the council recently adopted. And we're going to continue to look at zoning opportunities. But in the short term, right in front of us are opportunities for looking at a permanent shelter site. And we've been looking at three or four sites. And I think in executive session, we'll be telling you about one that we think has great promise. So that's, you know, I have heard and have read carefully what you have put forth. And I'd like to hear more tonight. I know our directives from Paul. And again, we have this list. We have Strong Street. We have Hickory Ridge. We have the South Amherst campus, which is down on the South Amherst common that is a parcel that we're looking at to see what what its future might be. We know that there'll be a school site that will be vacant in the next couple of years as the town decides whether to use Fort River School or Wildwood. And then there are a couple of parcels I'm looking at for conservation and affordable housing, limited development possibilities where we could pick up a piece of land, carve off the development on the frontage and preserve the backlands, say, along the Fort River or the Mill River and do affordable housing on the frontage. So there's no shortage of opportunities. I think $2 million sounds like a lot of money, but you all know the game we're playing here. It's an expensive game. It's an important initiative, but $2 million doesn't get you to the finish line. So it's all about partnerships. It's all about working with DHCD, Wayfinders and all the other great partners we have out there. So we're going to try to make some pretty strategic decisions with this $2 million and see if we can open some doors to some some transformative projects. And I think East Street, if we get 70 units on East Street, that's a transformative project. I'd love to do another project like that. So maybe I should stop there. Again, permanent shelter site, transitional housing and then some other affordable housing project yet to be determined, but we're kind of beating the bushes out there to try to find another opportunity for purchase or partnership. So why don't I stop there and I'd love to hear from you. I'm sure Nate would too and Paul is here. How can you help us and how can you guide us moving forward in the next year or two? Carol? It may not sound like a game changer kind of thing, but I would really like to see some of the money in some way go into home ownership opportunities. Maybe Strong Street, maybe somewhere else, but the people who own something here are really committed to being here and staying here. And if we can find home ownership opportunities for people, for families with kids that are in the schools that give us, it just gives longevity to the whole thing. And it may not look like a game changer in because there are so many people, but it's a game changer in the sense of possibilities. So the thing I wrote was for doing something to do some of, maybe provide some of the pre-development kind of costs, stuff for some place where there was some kind of home ownership opportunity. And I don't know that that's exactly the right thing. I just would hate to see home ownership fall off the side of the table. It definitely won't, Carol, from our perspective. And I know Nate and I and Rob and I have had conversations about Strong Street, that project, that property, if it is developable, if any portion of it is developable, that seems to have some characteristics that might be conducive to home ownership. The other thing I did not mention, and I heard it mentioned earlier and I'm glad it was, but opportunities for seniors to stay in the community is a particular and just an interest of mine and a commitment of mine that I would love to do something for seniors, affordable housing for seniors in our community. I think, John, through the survey work, I believe some of the data really suggested that is a need there in our community. So I'd love to, Hickory Ridge may be that opportunity. As we look at that comprehensive plan for Hickory Ridge, maybe an opportunity there for affordable senior housing there, just putting it out there. Yeah, there are at least two other opportunities related to home ownership. One, I'm sure you're aware of, Dave, although the specific property is not publicly disclosed yet, but Valley Community Development is working on a property in North Amherst that I think promises something like 50 to 60 units that would be for home ownership. It would be focused, not exclusively, but I think primarily for families. And that's an area where pre-development costs might be helpful. We don't have a specific proposal yet from Valley Community Development, but I know that they're pretty close to actually acquiring that property. They haven't done that yet, which makes it difficult for the town to commit to them. But they've done a lot of due diligence. They're at the point of which they, I think they've satisfied their concerns about the fact that their problems with the property relate to prior use. Those seem to not be as significant as they once looked to be. And I think Carol is now, Carol, not Carol. Laura Baker is now pretty convinced that they're going to be able to go ahead with that. And so I expect them to try to acquire the property in the near future. But that would certainly be something we could support. Yeah, as a North Amherst boy, I am very familiar with most properties in North Amherst. So I think that's a great opportunity without going into detail here at this public meeting. I think it's a great opportunity. I would say also, John, just to remind the trust that the town council did approve a half a million dollars. So we have the two plots of money from ARPA. We have a half a million dollars that the council approved recently of CPA dollars for the town or through the town, if you will. And then honestly, I'm blanking on the number that the trust got. Was it 200? I think 250. So we look at, you know, I think in collaboration with the trust and that's that's how we have been operating and we should continue to operate. You know, as we look at these funds, you know, what are the best ways to apply those to leverage units and opportunities working with partners like wayfinders or home city and or others. So we've got the two parts of ARPA money. We've got the half a million dollars that came through CPA to the town. We've got the 250 that you all were successful at advocating for. And you may have others in your arsenal there. But yeah, so I think there's opportunity to support some of these initiatives that are ongoing in the community. We also don't know. I mean, wayfinders, as I recall, wayfinders did talk about maybe coming back to us for additional funds for East Street and Belchstone Road. So we need to keep that in the back of our minds as well. They did their proposal includes, I think, around a million or 1.1 million of additional town funds to make that project to go. I didn't remember that number that high, but that might have been my wishful thinking. I'm pretty sure that was the number, Dave. Another route to home ownership, which we've talked about, and Rob could talk a little bit more about it, is either through the Amherst Community Land Trust or Valley Community Development. They have home ownership programs. The problem that those programs have run into is they don't really go to scale, like some of the other project ideas we've talked about. But they're really more one house at a time. And they need greater subsidies than they've had in the past, even if it's one house at a time, in order to be able to capture existing homes that can then be purchased by low-income home buyers. I know from a little bit talking to Rob, but also Linda Slakey, that the Amherst Community Land Trust tries to look for people who are 60% area median income or potentially lower, and that the amount of subsidy they need to purchase a property is much larger than what we typically think about because of the cost of purchasing property in Amherst today. No, no, Rob, do you want to add anything to what I've said? Yeah, sure. So a lot of the projects that we talk about are our new development projects, building a place on East Street or building a place on Strong Street or Recreate or whatever. But there are lots of existing homes in Amherst that are not affordable for people who want to live here. And so I think, and as John said, it's hard to scale. You can't buy 10 or 20 homes all around Amherst. It costs way too much. And it would be hard to get that game changer feeling about because it might be here and there. So I think the way that we should think about doing that is when there's an opportunity to do them, to do one here, one there once a year or every other year or something, to just pick them off as we can. And I think it has a benefit to the town, not just for providing a family or a person with a formal house, but it makes their neighborhood a place where there is hopefully a stable residence. If you go through, if the Amherst Community Land Trust does it, that home is protected forever. And it will always turn over to a person at an affordable price. It will always be owner-occupied. That makes the neighbors happy. You increase the number of families who can live in town, that strengthens the community in various ways. It's hard to say that this, like you said, it's hard to make this a game changer because it's so expensive and so incremental. But if you don't start, it'll never happen. Yeah, no. I know we've talked a little bit among the staff and familiar with what the Land Trust does, Rob. And off the top of my head, I'm not sure what the investment looks like. It depends on the value of the home and slash property. I think the other thing that we've discussed internally as a staff is the whole issue of equity is how do those homeowners get equity if there is a restriction on that property? And equity is such an important thing as we talk about people who have not been able to get equity in property nationally. It's not just an amorous problem. Historically, people have been shut out of the real estate market for various reasons and not been able to achieve the equity piece. Anyway, we can talk more offline and in the future about that as well. Well, I want to say equity is, if you're buying a home, that's equity. Instead of renting, you're building equity. But maybe you're not, you might not get a windfall at the end like some people can get. But you are building equity and that equity can be taken and moved to another home or whatever. It can be barred against and so on. The equity is there. Are there other priorities of the trust? We've talked a little bit about senior housing, talked about home ownership. Again, John, I think you ended, I have your PowerPoint here. You kind of ended saying, you know, can possibly afford all of these proposals, right? So for $2 million. But how do we prioritize? And to be perfectly honest, I am kind of really hanging my head a lot on the opportunities that present themselves to us. So you know, we're being aggressive out there. We're looking for properties more than we ever have before. And we'll talk about one of those in executive session. But we've got to, you know, and like you said, Rob, if there's an opportunity to get some of these single family homes into the trust or, you know, into the trust program, maybe that's an opportunity. And again, I don't know how the numbers look property to property. I haven't been involved at that level, but it's certainly something we can talk more about. Yeah, the other thing that I've raised in the past, and I may be the only person who is interested in this is the climate-related proposals, where we work with large landlords or even small landlords to get them to implement changes in the heating and air systems in their units so that you end up with something that is driven by electricity, as opposed to fossil fuels, which is more likely what they have now, which improves the air quality of the units and eventually reduces the costs for both the tenants and the landlord. And I know it's something that I think the state is considering as uses of state ARPA funds. There is a model for this kind of program that's already been implemented in Chelsea and my feeling is if Amherst could get a foot in the door, at least find one major property owner in town to go with this, that that would be great. The other thing I would point out is that this is a highly leveraged program. The cost to landlords and tenants is minimal. Most of the costs are paid for by MassSafe. And again, my thought is that what isn't paid for by MassSafe could be filled in by some ARPA funds, and then there's a minimal contribution remaining for the landlords or maybe the tenants to make everybody whole. But it wouldn't be very substantial. On the other hand, it meets some of our climate change goals for sure, and improves the quality of rental units throughout town or would do so. And it's very consistent with what the Energy and Climate Action Committee of the town has been promoting. Basically, it's from that group that I learned about this, as well as going online myself and learning a little bit more about what they did in Chelsea and what's proposed elsewhere. Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought it up, John. We won't take too much time tonight, but just so everyone knows, Stephanie Ciccarello, our sustainability coordinator, is within the functional area that I oversee and works closely with Nate and Rob and Chris Prestrup and myself, and of course advises Paul on a number of issues. And we've talked about this. Yeah, I think we need, like you said, John, we need to get our foot in the door. And it's a little bit daunting to think about this when you think about we've got to find the right property owner. Some of our apartment complexes are owned by these just massive national companies that getting your foot in the door, I mean, we've been trying to get our foot in the door on things like could they upgrade their playground? Could they allow us to come into their apartment complex to do programs through the recreation department? And it can be a little challenging to get our foot in the door. I will say that we've had some fruitful conversations with the folks who own Mill Valley Apartments off of East Adley Road and the Brook, which are individual condo owners, if you will. But we've started relationships with them on a different level in large part due to our acquisition of Hickory Ridge Golf Course, which abuts both of those apartment complexes. And it's interesting because one of the things that came up was they've heard about our efforts to be more sustainable. And they brought it up with us is, is there any way, you know, we could get in on say the solar, you know, the solar movement. So we're continuing those conversations where we're talking with them first and foremost about how we can partner with them on things like access to Hickory Ridge and trails and educational opportunities and other things. But I think the whole sustainability piece is something we're kind of folding in at their invitation. So there might be some opportunities there. And the key for me would be, are those savings, where are those savings going? Are they being passed along to the tenants or, you know, ending up somewhere away? I think that's what they've tried to do in Chelsea. And there may be other models in the state as well. I know from talking to her that Stephanie's quite interested in this, Laura Drucker is interested in this. And so it would be great if we could move something. I mean, this is our issue, right? I mean, it's our climate issue by and large, our climate challenges by and large are driven by the residential part of our town. The university and colleges are doing quite well. Amherst is doing quite well as a municipality. We have a new solar facility coming on board at the Northland, fill in 30 days, 40 days. But it's the residential, you know, it's the residential piece. You know, here I sit in my basement and I'm 10 feet away from an oil tank right through that wall because my house is not conducive to solar. So we do have mini splits, which we use to reduce the oil use, but would love to get that oil tank out of our basement here. Yeah, well, good luck. Okay, well, I think I'm at the point where I do want to be sure that we have time to talk about the specific things that Dave and staff are doing related to shelter and affordable housing. So I'm going to ask, is there anything else anybody wants to add to the conversation that we've had? Or are we ready to close out this part of our meeting? Okay, then I'm going to, I don't know which vote I take first. George has his hand up. Oh, sorry, I didn't see that. John, you do have public comment. I don't know if there is any, but I think you should have public comment before you close out the meeting. You're absolutely right. George, do you or does anybody else, any other attendees have a public comment? We have Jennifer Tau, Mora Keane, and Dorothy Pam participating in the meeting. Okay, I'm not hearing anything. Then before we adjourn this meeting, I'm going to make a motion that we go into executive session. So the motion is that we go into executive session pursuant to Chapter 30A, Section 20, subsectioning A6, which I'm all you're familiar with, to consider the purchase and value of real property. As an open meeting, they have a detrimental effect on negotiating the position of the town of Amherst and the affordable housing trust. The public portion of the meeting will be closed as the trust moves into executive session. So we now need a roll call vote to go into executive session. Carol, yeah or nay? Yes, yes, yay. Ashley? Yes. Risha? Yes. Sid? Yes. Allegra? Yes. Erica? Yes. Paul? Yes. Rob? Yes. And I'm a yes. So that's unanimous. So that means that this meeting is adjourned. And I believe that Nate sent out a another link that we need to use. So we'll close out this meeting and then we go into