 Good evening, and one of the select we're meeting November 26, 2018, calling me in order at 632 p.m. We'll start with our opening remarks to announcements in a gender review. I'll start with a gender review, although we have our agenda in particular order, we'll probably take it a little out of this sort of top to bottom order because we're supposed to be here to attend to their particular items. I'm trying to keep those folks waiting as best we can. Are there any additions or changes that anyone on the board needs to make about the agenda for tonight? If not, is there anyone here for public comment other than for an item that's on the agenda? Also, anybody on that? Okay. So I think what we'll do first is go to our Licenses Public Way and Metered Parking Reservations because we have two items for a change. One for a change of manager for the BFW of the U.S. Incorporated Rural Standards Post No. 754. And so we'll start with that. So if the manager in question would come forward to us, please, if we just have a seat there, you want to introduce yourself for a second. I'll take through our paper to the right stack of stuff. Take a moment to yourself to us. Tell us a little bit about the change that's happening, and then we'll probably ask you a few questions about where we are with the application for the change of manager. My name is Kevin Dyla. I moved here to go to UMass a few years ago. A member of the BFW got me here after I moved here. Started taking over and helping out. Got a lot of aim and work there. Helped out with picking up any supplies or anything to do there. And you could just slowly take it over the place. I don't need to get an official on paper. I told that you guys needed a, or requested a roster of the membership. I'm going to provide that for you here tonight, but I'm not supposed to furnish that for any outside things. So I can give it to you tonight until I look forward, but I need it back tonight when I can't have any copies. I was standing to join on the end there, if you would please. So I think that at this point, thank you. And so if the board has questions for the applicant, can you take those to this point? Just a second. Yeah. Thank you. I didn't get a chance to look at the, the details as I just glanced at it. Are I, I'm making an assumption, but one confirmation that because it's a veterans organization because the age in which most people have served and become veterans that you don't normally or wouldn't expect to have members who are not 21 years of age. You usually about the time, sorry. Go ahead. You usually about the time they exit the service and get to us. They spent a few years in the service generally when they age 21 years. I have not seen one person come in and apply for membership of those when they age 21. They could become a member, but they wouldn't be allowed to. Are you getting to the issues that I'm asking about because the second part was whether there's anybody who would be underage who might arrive to train for what your process and procedures, policies are on how you enforce state law in that regard? So any, the staff all know the numbers that do come down. Any non-member that comes down, the guests of the numbers have signed and the guest book and all those are subject to the ID unless they're very evidently above the age of 21 we know they have their ID. So we suffice to say the ID everyone that comes down is a non-member and it would be, if we don't know that they're... Do you use any scanning equipment or have any policies to make sure that you have training to spot an appropriate illegal... Right. So we have an information poster that points to the common signs of counterfeit ID. We have that posted to the employees to look over. We also go over the common thing that's being cheaply landed or things like that. A lot of the problems that we do, the ones that we do encounter people that come in with a temporary license that very clearly says they're not valid for identification purposes and they try to pass that off and we just throw them out and tell them it's hard to know. But as far as scanning equipment, I've looked into it and it seems like the low end ones are generally $200 or $300. The high end ones, I can tell you, it's a repeat ID that someone handed out to their friend and they're bringing it back in. It was from a worn range of $900 or $1000. Not that we don't have one right now. I intend to get one, but it's a matter of finding a used one or something. I mean, I think that's... I appreciate your vigilance to the issue. Yeah, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you how we come down and it does happen, but we watch what we're throwing out. I was good with throwing that. And quite in all seriousness, I appreciate the seriousness with which you're looking at this because we would not want your establishment like any other establishments to become known as a place where you can go and that has happened with other establishments over time and so we appreciate your attention to that so that you don't develop that. Any other questions for them? I move to approve it. I move to approve a change of manager for VFW of U.S. Incorporated Earl Sanders Post 754 457 Main Street, Kevin Dibot, manager. I'll do a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? So that's unanimous. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming down. So next we'll take a... I think somebody in the second half... That's right. I'm just on one. Okay. Thank you. Sure. We'd like to make a little comment and just a general rule, not that you don't know this, but for folks at home, we should limit to about three minutes and we should do a comment on the comment. So we'll take another advice. So please. First, thanks for making the exception. I arrived early for the meeting and then I noticed there was a sign that said, it's not this logic that brings me here. I realize this may be the last meeting. The reason I'm here is that this time of year has, I think, all times in the year, people who depend on public transit are extra dependent on cold weather. So I realized that it's been a while since we've talked about this public view and I just wanted to make it public right here that I trust this top priority to ensure that my arm is sore and improve the public transit service and I've been looking at it for the last few months and I'm here to support you. I'm here to manage your awareness. If you need an alternate at any time, I'm happy to step in and help you out. So that's amazing. I encourage you to continue on. I know it's the rest of you. Some of you will be on the council. Some of you will be cheering on the slides. So next up, we'll take the change of manager, manager M Hermann, and change of doing this, of DBA from Lord Jeffrey N. to N. at Bultwood. So if you'd like to come up and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the changes occurring in the opportunity to kind of do as well at the time of the year. Okay. My name is Deborah Hermann. I'm the general manager for the Lord Jeffrey N. So we'll be in on Bultwood. We are obviously changing the name which has created the necessity for that change in DBA. And then I have stepped in to the role of general manager, Fabio Parri, Dima Muruga, took a position in Florida and it's no wonder with the property. I've been with the property for about six years now. I'm a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Hospitality Program and have spent the last 20-something years in the industry. Thank you. Good question. I guess the questions I have are similar to the questions I was asking previously. But we always like to hear a little bit because of concerns about the number of underage people who are interested in alcohol within our community. To hear a little bit about what your standard procedures are and how you train and supervise employees who are in the position of serving alcohol. We require all of our service representatives that will serve alcohol to be fully-tipped certified. So we do put them through that certification. We also proactively ID anybody under the age of 40 for the most part. And we have a fleet of trained service people that are looking for that opportunity knowing that we're in a college town which is a hot spot. Fortunately, we're not too much on their radar so we don't have too much of an issue with it but we are very proactive in that respect. And that applies. And how do you apply that when you're doing events, weddings and things like that? What are those services that are fully-tipped certified as well? Thank you. Any questions? If not, can I entertain a motion for the manager and the change of the doing business ads? I move to approve the change of manager and the change of doing business as DBA for Lord Jeffrey on Boatwood, 30 Boatwood Avenue, Deborah Hermann's manager, second. A motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? So that's unanimous. Thank you very much. I have a question about our agenda. So as we frequently see, we received additional information tonight and it's very hopefully marked revised and highlighted so we have a new agenda. We have a new motion sheet, we have new other things. But what I'm confused by is that our original agenda had this attachment for licenses and the new agenda has this attachment and I'm wondering, I'm thinking this is an addition to not new places, but I'm not sure. I'm not either, I don't know. So I do know for a moment there are contracts that seem to be the same. Who's the question about the consent? Well, from the standpoint of we've had one attachment. The other one came tonight and I don't know if the one tonight includes all these plus more or if they're two separate ones. The one that you received tonight with the yellow is in place of the one. We can toss this. Thank you. I wanted to make sure. All right. We'll come back to that a little later. So next on our on our agenda, we'll go back to our action discussion items. We'll take up the poetry tree regulations. Pardon? Or do you want to do the proclamations? Oh, sorry, thank you. Or do you want to do the human race day proclamations instead? Since we look to the regular, poetry tree people aren't. So please, if you'd like to come up and tell us a little bit about it. I don't know, but it's not fair to sort of share and do a little bit of an advertisement. Well, my name is Elizabeth Conn and I'm really pleased to be a Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission in Amherst, Massachusetts. So I'm here to read the proclamations of 2018 Human Rights Day. Whereas Human Rights Day is observed annually each December 10th, commemorating the day on which in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a universal declaration of human rights. Amherst celebrates this day with a communal reading of the declaration on the common at 4 o'clock p.m. Please join us. Residents of Amherst have expressed their belief in and commitment to protecting the human rights we all share by consistently adopting actions to demonstrate the values we hold as a community. In 2009, the town meeting adopted a human rights bylaw establishing the Human Rights Commission and asserting that it shall be the policy of the town that no person, public or private, shall be denied any rights guaranteed pursuant to local, state, and or federal law on the basis of race or color, gender, physical or mental ability, religion, socio-economic status, ethnic or national origin, affectional or sexual preference, lifestyle or age. In 2011, this definition was expanded to additionally include gender identity or expression and genetic information. The town meeting has also adopted a sanctuary community bylaw established race and day and authorized a select board to file special legislation seeking the ability to provide local voting rights for legal permitted residents residing in Amherst so that residents may vote in local elections and be elected to local offices in the community in which they live. It has passed resolutions to create a human rights culture to assist in the safe resettlement of local communities and to non-fugitives with the State of Arizona due to its immigration laws. The select board has issued annual proclamations in support of Black History Month, Puerto Rico Heritage Month, and Human Rights Day and has deliberated upon and endorsed all of the previously stated town meeting actions. The select board has participated in the annual Martin Luther King Junior Breakfast and the Human Rights Commission Human Rights Heroes Award celebrations. These actions collectively reinforce the town of Amherst's dedication to the fundamental proposition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that each one of us, everywhere and at all times, is entitled to the full range of human rights and that it is every person's responsibility to uphold them. They bind us together as a global community. As a select board, we have always embraced every opportunity to reflect and involve these values in our work for the community. We do so again today. We have resolved that the select board of the town of Amherst was hereby proclaimed Monday, December 10th, 2018 as Human Rights Day in Amherst. Any questions or comments from the board? Well, I was just thinking so they read us the statement how it almost seems quite archaic given what's been going on in our country so it's like we have these values and we try to represent them in what we do here locally but it feels like compared to what's going on with the rest of you know, the state of Arizona we might as well make a list so it's just kind of, you know that was nice, maybe you know, we usually just sort of revamp the same one so it seems to me that while it's probably freezing cold out it's particularly important for people who want to participate to come on December 10th to help join in that statement of what our values are and how we don't see them reflected by our wrong government so thank you for doing that. Well thank you, I really love putting on the commission even though a lot of what we do is very behind the scenes you know, but I love reading the declaration, it's a wonderful opportunity to stand with other people and say these values out loud and I will be there and I hope that you will be there. Since this is such a great compilation of the various things, child meetings that are has done, it would be also awesome to double check our records at some point associated with this and then for example, the select board is also done to that day, we know it's consistent but we have been doing a proclamation for that too, mainly for the future to make sure that those things continue to cycle back to the council to make sure that those continue to happen each year and I know we have an excellent calendar, we keep track of it. Ms. Mills will be keeping track of it and this is directly not complaining at all but it just popped into my head that's one that we can make sure was on in the catalog so to speak to make it clear that we do want to do this recognition. Thank you. Since we're across the street we're at the police station tonight instead of town hall and we're across the street from the first churches it's also important that we recognize that our community has had someone who's named Lucio Prez, we're living at the church for over a year now and again, I think that's an extraordinary human rights issue and one that we remain resolved to provide him refuge until it's no longer necessary and hope that that day comes soon. So if someone would like to rewrite our motion, can you make the proclamation of the day? The moved proclaim Sunday December 10, 2018 as human rights stay in the town of Amherst. Monday. Monday, I'm sorry. It says Sunday but you're right, it is Monday. I was hoping it was the motion. But we want to make that clear for Monday. Monday. Because it is great about we have people to cover, we don't want them to cover the wrong day so thanks for the correction. Monday at four is there a second? Is there for the discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. And that's unanimous. Thank you very much. I think what we'll do is under our current condition there's some bylaw recommendations to us and so since those folks are here and their staff and their waiting we'll have them come up and walk us through some of that a little bit. So that's 70, aye aye aye, report B, aye aye aye. Is that right? Yeah. So we're going to go to the committee. Um give them all the money. So yeah probably for the best. Um Jack Brown is economic health director so we are here tonight to request that the Select Board refer a bylaw review committee's to change the building bylaw provided by the Charter essentially it's non substantive changes in certain places the building bylaw refers to the Select Board or town meeting and there won't be a Florida town meeting as of the week from today or week from yesterday that's part of the charge in your packet you had a list of all the changes and what I just handed out is there was a some of the changes in 10. 0 2 were not accurately shown weren't crossed out but the handout shows the correct red line version of the zoning bylaws as it will be presented to the planning board so we are requesting that you transfer the entire zoning bylaw which being 115 pages I just want to overwhelm you with all that given that these were the entirety of the changes thought it would be easy to read and less very intensive just to give you the changes however I do have a copy a digital copy so if you want to hold them up I can do that as well both red line version clean version of the recommendations as well as the current version zoning bylaw do you have anything you wanted to add at this point well currently the planning board is holding a hold of public hearing on December 12th on this issue if you choose to refer the zoning bylaw to me so I am concerned that we received a document called zoning bylaw recommendations it's from the bylaw review committee that's not dated it doesn't say who the bylaw review committee is it doesn't have page numbers etc etc so it's a little bit harder for us to deal with this in comparison to some other things that say public shade tree regulations as of such and such by such and such people so I would just like that to not happen again but luckily it's our last meeting so I guess that won't happen to us again we recycled you still concerned about that we're getting documents like that I would like us given especially since there's no cover or explanation beyond the bylaw review committee as to the provenance of this or the date I think it would be helpful for us to have a short cover memo on this Mr. Slaughter that whether you can work that out with Mr. Bachman that basically says the part the technical part which we know about from our previous work on the slide board about moving it over to the planning board like anything anybody brought us that's only related but I'd also like it to be clear that we call out a couple of points associated with that and so maybe if somebody's we could include that and namely the thrust of it being not endorsing any of these changes we are leaving it to them to sort it out just like we do when somebody bring used to bring us his own petition and we automatically gave it to the planning board we didn't say oh we think that's a really good idea we just have the planning board's job now and then it came back to the slide board later after the planning board did their hearing that did all the due diligence so I just don't want anyone to think that we unless we do express opinions tonight that we are particularly fond or not fond of any particular recommendations here it's really just a technical yes so we cover memo with this referencing title the documents reference the two documents you have in front of you and the three documents you have in front of you put that on the website tomorrow morning I don't want too much because I haven't really noticed from the point that Mr. Ruh made about this reminded me of the prior job every document has to be a standalone document so let's just get separated from this meeting in this packet it doesn't make sense to identify if someone pulled it out or sees it doesn't have a meaning unless it can be somewhat self-explanatory in and of itself even though we have the contacts any questions relative to the changes would you like a statement about what the bylaw or the committee is would that be helpful for Mr. Ruh's origin was Mr. Kravitz could give a summary we could from the standpoint of what Ms. Cougar was just referring to but the remains that there is a bylaw or the committee this was part of their task and we were moving a lot of hands at like although we weren't consure at first if it was going to be part of their task or not if someone bylaw was and so that's helpful in that you're going to be explaining that to the planning board as well and so I'm not sure that's as essential as making it clear this isn't really our document it's that body's document and it does say from the bylaw or the committee but I'm not averse to added words I always like more paper being sent to people I do have some additional points about this one is in regards to the hand that we received tonight trying to super speed read that actually it's not the same in 10.01 as it is in this document because it crosses out both the number four and the word four in 10.01 for associate members it says five members and now it says blank associate members and is the way it's crossed out I think you're seeing it as a crossover it's actually the four we had so we're trying to say the four because the new charter uses digits rather than words it just looks like it's crossed out but it's really not because the version we have has both the blue one has optical delusion optical delusion yes so it's supposed to say four so then that brings me to my next question so this handout clarifies that and so that's great my concern is that I don't have any reason to believe that's a good idea in terms of having five members and four associate members and so four associate members was obviously based on three full time members and so this is simply one of those things that lots of discussion could take place around I'm sure could be really useful I certainly don't believe that the bylaw review committee would have been able to have that conversation to the point that I would have been satisfied with it but I'm sure the planning board can and so they can have that discussion and make that recommendation and obviously then we'll go to the council but those numbers are again it's the charter says five it doesn't say four associate members and so I think that the idea of recruiting nine people to serve on the zoning board of appeals when they're already freaking out about finding five people to serve on is an interesting conundrum and perhaps is I'm a little concerned that the bylaw review committee is recommending that whereas on the planning board side it says in the current bylaw that you can have two associate members to go with the nine current planning board members so that's been changed to seven the two at least is carried over one might argue well but again I'm just I'm not sure where the part about having an opinion from the bylaw review committee versus just updating things to show the accurate information that's in the charter I think are two separate things that have been a little concerned about the crossover there in terms of potential overreach as to what those assumptions would be based on well similarly I didn't I I don't understand why I guess this is to go to council for proposed change that's coming I don't have any background in this but it's always my well maybe you could tell us Mr. Kravitz or expressed up and then I had a comment I think it's similar to a warrant review before kind of reading in that there should be a reference to the mass general laws that we were advised that select board needed to report to the planning board before they could hold a public hearing okay so it's like getting the ball started for the public to so if I could just make it because I won't be part of that dialogue I had always understood the reason we had the associate members who his own board is because our bylaw required three of three members to vote to pass something and if one of them couldn't be there that was a real problem because action didn't happen but with five members and a three member voting majority it may or may not remain to me for the associate members and I'm not sure you know I'd have to think about associate members who are planning board but I would need to be convinced but just I didn't know what this was or where it came from so it's coming from the bylaw review committee as a first action in order to get it before the planning board this would be a zoning bylaw change I just kind of get my head around it thank you I don't know if I've given a very good explanation or summary of what this is about but it's really the bylaw review committee was tasked with looking at the general bylaw and zoning bylaw and making whatever changes or recommendations were absolutely mandated by the charter and they were not tasked with looking at any of the peculiarities or difficulties with our current zoning bylaw so they didn't look at the bylaw in terms of its substitutes they merely looked at it in terms of changing the bullet select board to either town manager or town council or they looked at it to say now we're going to be seven the charter doesn't have these numbers the bylaw review committee was not tasked with making sure that the bylaw was perfect making sure that the bylaw reported with the charter in its what it's whatever the charter was stating was incorporated into the bylaw and later on every two weeks the town council can choose to look into various aspects of this bylaw and change it if they feel that it's necessary or if the funding board brings to them a concern and the concern that you're raising tonight is certainly something that I would bring to the planning board but that particular item is really beyond the scope of what the bylaw review committee was tasked with just to be perfectly clear the real changes in regard to this existing bylaw has three members with four associates and nine planning board members with two associates that may be appointed so those associate memberships are exactly as they were there's no real change to that so the bylaw review committee was not making any statements to whether it's good, bad or otherwise they just said the current charter as we have it from last March doesn't say anything in either direction relative to associate members and so that's a point that will need to be debated essentially by the planning board as they take this up and really they were just saying but we know we have to change from three to five from ZDA and we need to know we need to go from nine to seven for the planning board because that's expressly in the charter. Nonetheless there are a couple of things one is we need to somehow communicate in this cover memo that at least to the best of my knowledge we've not had two associate members for the planning board in the entire 20 years I've been paying attention so that be that as it may that it's allowed. I'm not arguing it's not allowed I just want it to be clear that we haven't availed ourselves of it for over 20 years we may decide we want to this may be the perfect time to do so but I absolutely believe that someone who doesn't know anything about our bylaw looking at this is going to say okay sure that sounds good they just transferred the numbers over except we don't have to right now and so I'm sure the planning board will get into that level of detail but just as a standalone document it makes it seem like you're just doing the same thing you're just plugging the numbers but there aren't two associate members of the planning board now and they haven't been for decades so that seems worth noting and then the other part is even though you're just plugging numbers in again we've heard substantial criticism of the number of CBA members from the standpoint of difficulty recruiting in fact have overings on that body right now and the idea that it's assumed that we have to have four associate members just because we're plugging members over I would argue okay well what if we don't update the bylaw what if we just follow what the charter says and have five CBA members and seven planning board members who's going to say oh your bylaw's out of date we need to be sued for that so I'm not really clear that the council is going to be looking at this every single week for the next forever and so they'll need to understand a level of priority that the planning board believes this has so the planning board may just say you know what we'll talk more about that but please just plug these numbers in and that's okay but I would just like them to be thinking about how to effectively communicate that to the council I'm the public so the planning board is going to create a document to pass on to the town council that lists many of the things that they've talked about over the years that need to be corrected or changed in the zoning bylaw and this could be added to that list so there's not really an opportunity right now at this point to confront all of those issues and that would be one of the issues that they could add to the list so just to be clear one is that we make clear the point that this is a technical transfer of information I'm really enraged by the word either for or against the technical changes the second thing is changes that and this is just a matter of clarification is that what's been recommended by the bylaw review committee are just changes only to the base membership of those two boards the ZBA and the planning board not anything relative to the associated the third point that was brought was the two associated planning board members have not been in existence for a long time and so whether that's so valid but any of the changes or recommendations relative to these particular points of associate membership need to be communicated clearly and effectively to the council and perhaps with some urgency so that we're not in some strange space trying to fill seats that we don't really think we need and so I guess the other question I would have going through the bullet points here are there other comments relative to the other changes that need to be brought to the attention of planning board as we transfer this to them as far as things that have a bit more urgency because I think that technicality of the associated membership isn't addressed expressly in the charter should that the question should we just adjust the numbers in the in article 10 relative to the appointments of those two boards or should we take them out completely I mean it's a interesting space to be in in some respects as to whether to make that edit or not so I think that if there are other edits that raise similar sorts of conflicts or questions for both we should communicate that as well to the planning board so did the bylaw committee see that as a substantive change that they didn't want to adjust the associated membership because it wasn't addressed in the charter or did they have that conversation the bylaw review committee felt that it was the role of the planning board to recommend most of the changes and therefore didn't even consider changing the number of associated numbers or making any sort of recommendation that was outside of the I think that's useful for them to communicate to the planning board associated with that and also eventually because that will eventually blow up council to understand that they were just trying to stay in that way but saying somebody's going to most deal with this you guys decide when is the right time to deal with it so on a different topic associated with this one of the things that unfortunately I asked staff and yes staff agreed to do just a probably regretting even now is under section 7.104 dimensions making and delineation it refers to the street and site work construction standards that were adopted by the select board and I was like oh what now and so I am so pleased to say that staff did this up from 1972 with some number of signatures that we recognize here as far as I know this select board has never seen this document and that's fine and it's going out of the town council that's just one of the things that when the select board gets invoked I want to know did we actually do something with that and the answer is no and so I think it's worth just maybe including this with the cover memo that says we haven't done anything with the street and site work construction standards as a select board in forever so it's not been unlike a later conversation we're going to have when we belabor the public sanctuary committee regulations for a long time that was something we actively worked on we've not worked on this like ever as the select board so we're glad that it's being changed right to show the accurate number but we also don't want to give anyone the impression that we actually did anything to them while they were still under our purview since we kind of didn't know they were there so that may be something that we want to leave alone and not change to town council because for a street and site work construction standards were adopted by a previous select board a long time ago I'm going to say I don't even know what the date is. 1972. So it was adopted by the select board, it hasn't been adopted by town council and so that would be perhaps the judgment of the town manager and that's as to whether that should remain select board until such time as we have a new street and site work construction standards which we are hoping to work on with DPW and then it would be adopted by town council. That's really the adopted by select board, it's really just a statement of fact. That's correct. It's not a current endorsement of. If you say town council, it's sort of implies they've done something which is not something they've done. So it becomes sort of archival, I mean it still resists, it's still in the sense of force until otherwise after that. Like so many things, many of those. Right. I think the mission of the by a lot of review committee was to extricate the word select the word select board in part of the document so I don't think you can reference the select board probably makes sense because the plan board wants to recommend to do something like that, they could do that and then they would have to choose another body that would have to approve those things. Right. Then there's one other thing on page 3 we have to be consistent on right of way, right of way, right of way. I saw that. I caught that. One's capitalized, one's hyphenated. Yes. Is that that? That is a good question. HBs, third paragraph it's a section E. Is that E or is it F? Yes, it is E because planting on page 5 under B it should be F. It should be made in accordance with the determination whether to allow the planting shall be made in accordance with section E, planting. Okay. So that's correct. It's correct. So it was accurate. Any other? I moved to adopt the public registry regulations as amended at the November 26, 2018 final. So like we're meeting. Are you going to start adding five? Penultimate. Penultimate. Can we include that in every motion? Penultimate. Is there a second? Yes. We'd like a second. I think I'd rather have you come back on Saturday. Please. Oh, man. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. One, two, three, four, five, six versions something like that. We're done there. So yeah, this is finding all those in the back of her car which is pretty impressive. I'm ready to go. You got this. Well, I think it is a lesson to be learned or to be promulgated to the councils that changing or creating a regulation especially through scratch is a non-trivial process because there's a lot of subtlety and rewards. I like that. All right. Moving on. So charter transition to the topics of future council consideration. Sure. So the inauguration and ceremonies scheduled for Sunday, December 2 at 1 p.m. We'll be putting out a press release tomorrow on this and I need to check the quote with you, Mr. Chairman. What did I say now? What did you say? So it's at one o'clock on Sunday, December 2 at the Amherst Regional High School and we encourage everyone to attend. It's free open to the public. We encourage attendance. We'd like you to give us a head count if you can go to our website. You can answer a few quick questions so we know how many people are coming and what groups are being represented. We're trying to get as many community groups to be present as possible. The ceremony itself will be followed by a reception with a lot of great food for all tastes from, we think the reception will go, the event will go from about one to two thirty and the reception will go from about two thirty to four. Just some highlights is that we've requested and she's agreed to have Nancy Eddy, former select board chair and served on a dozen of other things for the town and the founding member of the Mass Municipal Association will be the MC. Mr. Slaughter will say a few words. Judge Collins, former representative will be doing the official swearing in. We've invited the we've made this a really Amherst centric event. We really are focused on having people participate who are from Amherst, live in Amherst, have Amherst as their home. We aren't going outside for any of the speakers. We really wanted it to be about Amherst and that's why we're doing it at the high school and is part of a community event because it is a community event. Matthew Charity who is the chair of the Human Rights Commission and his attorney will be the keynote speaker. Karen Scofield who is a local poet is writing a special poem for the vacation. We have a student from the high school, Carrington Dowl, who will be providing the perspective from a student who lives in town. We have the Crocker farm fifth and sixth graders who will be singing a Torren Moore who is a resident who will be singing as well. So it's going to be a really good event and we're trying to keep everybody to a couple minutes when they speak and that's going to be the biggest challenge but I think Nancy Eddy has known the crack of good lip so I think she will keep everybody in line. And so that's pretty much the lineup the types of things that we're anticipating for that day. The next day December 3rd at 8 p.m. It's an usual start time but that will be the start time for that first meeting is 8 p.m. in the town hall the council will have its first meeting and the suggestion will be that each council member may have a few minutes to sort of give an individual speech for themselves that will be broadcast live on Amherst media and so I think that that's a good sort of segue into their job as being counselors. The town room is under construction right now as we prepare it to become council meeting room it's been under construction for several weeks now and it's looking really good. There will be some new technology invested in there so we can make the meetings more focused with technology and so people who are attending or watching on TV will have a better idea of what's happening and where we are on the agenda. The and the entire council chamber is being built by for the most part by local by our own town staff there are certain things that we're contracting on like the painting and things like that but look I think if you peek in there it looks really really really sharp so that's sort of where we are in terms of the transition. The council has a workshop this Thursday at 6.30 p.m at the bank community center that first floor is just as you walk off of Bullwood it's right to the right where some of the voting occurs. We will have our town talking not about the substance but just going through a little bit of the thick types of the way they approach their work they have about 15 or 20 minutes to do their presentation that will be followed by a training on the public records law and the state ethics law by our town attorney Lauren Goldberg it's an opportunity for council members who have already raised a lot of questions to ask the questions that they need to have answers that everybody stays within the balance of the law because there are a lot of gray areas and I think having the town attorney there able to provide guidance she's an expert in all these areas of law will be really helpful to the council members once they get sworn in we want to make sure everybody observes the law totally and we as a community are very committed to opening transparent government the next thing that will be coming up for the council is on Saturday December 8th is the four towns meeting at the Amherst middle school library at 9am and council members are invited and the general public is invited to attend that as well and this is where there's a preview provided by the school administration about the school budget and where they stand on a number of things so the council will be off to a running start at their first meeting they will need to elect a president elect a vice president appoint a clerk temporary rules that they want to follow using Robert's rules of order and then also set a meeting date for the next time they want to meet we're hoping that they will choose the Monday two weeks later which is December 17th but they can choose whatever date works for all their schedules the reason December 17th works is that that will be after the planning board has met and had their public hearing on the zoning bylaws I guess this planning board happens to make a decision that night that can be transferred right over to the to the town council but it also gives some time for people to have some time the council could also meet on Monday December 10th we're going to be encouraging the council to meet on Mondays in December and then choose whatever meeting schedule they want after the first of the year because that helps us with our room scheduling in town hall I guess I think that's pretty much good if there are questions or concerns things that I'm not thinking about right now so I have two things one is I wanted to follow because I think that you were considering a done deal was the Board of License Commissioners material you gave us so this is really good you got all our edits thank you I was like yes those are all the things we talked about so thank you and I think that this is very informative and I did want to just mention while I could that I thought it was so interesting because you pulled in some additional information that you hadn't had in here before and it says as it says in the charter five voters it is literally the only thing that says voters that is so weird because it really clanked when I read it but of course you pulled it directly from there so thank you so much for taking our helpful input and including that and then I did have a question for you in terms of perhaps this is something you could advise the council about their meeting on the third since it doesn't seem like we had time during the workshop it's already jammed on Thursday night and that is one of the things that came up during many discussions associated with change such as we are now undergoing is when you show up at four towns meeting no town meeting members ever came to four towns meetings the council is a legislative body with policy making authority but now we have three towns who if they get a good turnout are sending select board members school committee members and finance committee members are our finance committee members that currently exist except they won't exist anymore on the 8th so they can't go of course we have our wonderful school committee members but you're now, you always went already and so there's no executive branch there beyond staff which has always been willing to go on Saturdays which we really appreciate no finance committee it's very strange that so on the one hand it's like if 13 people showed up that would probably force them to get a different room because of the number the library doesn't work very well for this particular meeting anyway depending on turnout but I'm not really sure what that looks like then and I wonder you might think about perhaps in consultation with the regional school committee chair because I always like to think of the four towns meeting as not a staff meeting but as a regional school committee meeting they don't always think of it that way because they have staff to do so much work for it but to give people a sense from the council what their role is because aside from Mr. Steinberg and myself I don't now I'm guessing but I don't believe any of them have ever been to one school and they're not going to be in the same position as any of the other bodies we don't have those corresponding colleagues now it's going to be weird it will be different I don't know if it will be weird but I think one of the things that I've had a conversation with the superintendent about was how to educate the council about the way things work in terms of the regional school district and this is a really good way for people to hear the presentation by the school business manager school finance director and the school superintendent and to sort of see how people react to it there are no decisions being asked of at this meeting by any of the towns sometimes there are questions being posed to towns and asked for direction but I think one of the things we had suggested I've suggested to the superintendent that he may want to hold an additional session contingent either immediately prior immediately after the four towns meeting to talk more with counselors the school committee has expressed a lot of concern about how are they going to know about what we do and every board is saying that and that's a question that's going to be posed to the council how do you want to learn about all the different committees or all the different departments that are under your jurisdiction as the legislative leaders of the town so I think there are some you know I defer to Mr. Steinberg because he's been handling this a lot in terms of the town in terms of regional school but I think having our legislative bodies grappling with a lot of things educated as best as possible on all the major school issues that the regional school district is facing I think will be really beneficial to the town if I may just to suggest a couple things I think moving forward you may not want the entire council to come but it might be wise if they form a finance committee that might be wise because that will have some authority to the council by virtue of having some councilors on it I think you're right in this first go round having all of them come is probably an inappropriate thing to do the other thing that this conversation just prompted in my mind is does the regional school amendment need to be amended because we've changed form of government and the reason I ask that question is one of the things that happens with like capital projects is that there's a very specific sort of protocol that happens as far as notifying select board and they can accept or reject essentially or those capital items and so is that those particulars are sort of outlined if I remember correctly in the actual regional agreement which is not part of the town charter so I didn't know how that plays out if you have the charter calls in 10th point 7 says the immer school committee shall negotiate an amendment to the existing regional school agreement bringing to the existing regional school agreement bring its references to Amherst legislative executive bodies into conformity with this charter so that's up to the school committee to do that but they do need to do that fairly soon and how those other towns I think they all have to approve it out of account Yes this actually is one of these questions so we're going to have to really work through the amendment of the regional agreement the way it is written now has to be adopted by all town meetings of the member communities we won't have a town meeting at the time so not only are we seeking an amendment but we're assuming that the council by virtue of the law which is incorporated to try to become part of the law substitutes the council for that role but I do think that it's important that we get agreement of the other three towns to just get the words changed so it works right before we get too far down the line as far as the issue that Ms. Brewer raised I also raised that issue and discussed it unfortunately we have a meeting that doesn't start till 8 o'clock on the third ideally because that's only meeting before it would be nice to have had 15 minutes in that meeting to at least outline the process so that people would know what the four town meeting is about before they get there and that there can be an agreement made that we do not have everybody speak on behalf of the town but we designate somebody to speak on behalf of the town and we get some clarity going into the meeting but I don't know if we can get that onto the agenda at this point so I have a meeting scheduled with Ms. Pam over the agenda items so I can raise that with her just to throw make sense I think back to other four town meetings in the past I think to kind of figure out a role for the 13 counselors because it could seem really overwhelming to our neighboring towns to just walk in there it's always been open people have come to listen and learn it's great but that's different than the role of speaking on behalf of one of the boards however that's going to go so it's not overwhelming or maybe even sitting in a different section something so that we don't start off on the wrong with that because it should be really overwhelming and even though you said there won't be a decision making there is a past practice for people who are there from those other towns asking questions or raising their hand so to try to figure out maybe we'll just go to the chair and how it's going to go maybe some way to ease it in so it doesn't work here comes Amherst with all 13 people oh my god I would really appreciate it if you would speak with Ms. Pam about including that on the third's agenda and I'm sure you thought that through as well yourself wondering oh wow how is that going to go I'll call it weird I'm sure you wouldn't call it that but I appreciate the mention you made of the fact that this is not one of the meetings where they were planning to have the regional school committee say to the group okay, what do you think? because this would be super messy for us to have to do that so I appreciate that they thought that through right at the meeting on the third that sometimes it's like that like you said the finance committee would be under this form it's probably the logical choice to make that but it will be really difficult for some brand new town council members if somebody from oh say which town shall we pick on one of the other three towns decides they're in a mood and they say something about the amazing work that's been done on the regional assessment and their counselors are like should probably be doing something and wondering if they should be doing something and so for them to feel confidence that they will represent Hammer's best by not feeling that they will serve our community best by not feeling like they have because they don't know and that's why I appreciate also the idea that there could be an educational session particularly associated with that because they will be another four boards meeting before the town council's met very many times so that education will be really important but people want to feel like they're representing but I just follow up I agree I think it would be worthwhile to confirm with Dr. Morris from Mr. Magano that there is no intent to ask about whether our budgets will allow for an amount of money to be appropriated as suggested and anything that was presented I think that usually happens at the second of the four town meetings but I don't think I couldn't say that it's never happened at the first and it would be worth confirming that with them and dropping the hint that it puts us in an awkward position at least we ought to know because there is an answer and it depends on our initial projections what the current finance committee that's going out of business has put in its guidelines whether it meets that amount or not as far as Brewer's point at this first town meeting other towns have come in and made statements giving opinions asserting what they think their position is going to be regarding the assessment methodology and that has always been a very awkward position to be put in and we've been very careful about how to deal with that because of my longevity with the issue having been a member of the finance committee back when Ms. Carlosi was the one who was dealing with this issue principally on out I've frequently been cast in the position of the respondent but I mean it's going to be an awkward position unless we have some clarity going in that if that were to happen whether I or somebody else is designated Can you answer questions or updates relative to the transition in my colleagues there alright so let's move our agenda to the section 7 which is the license to publicly immediate parking reservations we have some license rules and we have one more parking reservation so in any particular order under consent calendar I think there were some late additions of changes so we should review those a little bit or I'm going to be wanting to sort of pull out something from the consent calendar the only two items on the consent calendar that were added was Ms. Sighon Corporation and University Liquors that's all the renewals I'm sorry yeah the consent calendar had the consent calendar actually spotted a problem with consent calendars that was originally drafted and it was corrected with the revisions and that was that if you compared the requests that came from the University for one day licenses that didn't coincide with the list that was originally presented and that is what the correction does plus the addition of one additional item onto the consent calendar which is appended to the document so that we do have documentation and it does match would you offer a motion on consent calendar having spoken to it already I will I move to approve the consent calendar as presented on the consent calendar calendar page attached to the agenda excuse me the amended let me call it an amended I would say revised revised consent calendar page attached to the agenda of the September of a select board meeting dated 26, 2018 second hearing none all those in favor please say aye so that she names so then we have a license renewals and you were saying that there are just two that are different from our original list to our new list Mr. God and the University paper on ink okay I move to approve the renewal of annual licenses for the calendar year 2019 is listed in the revised annual license renewal paper of part 70 an additional page of the select board agenda of 11, 26, 2018 second so I have a question that I am confident staff has an answer to which is Amherstin and the Lord Geoffrey and so are we renewing their DBA as their new DBA are we going to have to do something else but then obviously we're not going to do it on Saturday but I just wondered if this was one of those things where you have to just keep going with the paperwork you've got for the common then we can do the DBA for the ADCC staff that has to come back from the state before we can change the name I mean we're on it so I'm not really mad I don't know probably this but I'm just curious I know that the staff worked really hard to kind of get these rounded up in and I'm wondering if there's any like how many didn't come in that still are hounding I believe we are all set for alcohol okay so we get them all I think we might have some lingering comments and that's a no small measure to the work that was going through the spells put into calling reminding people regularly wasn't just used by me to the first email they were making phone calls thank you for that is there further discussion are you done all those in favor please say aye aye so that she didn't miss as well and so yes so I'd love to be able to train with that Mr. Slaughter I'm sorry so are we going to talk about the committee appointments and vacancies going back is that sort of fitting under current transition because we don't have to do it now but I'm saying we're going to do it but I'm planning on not doing it yet because it's not called out yes it would technically be under the topics for future council I think it's part of that yeah which we'll come back to because that's a yeah let's finish right so we got a request for tomorrow for a couple of spots the one question I have the time it's requested is 3 to 9 p.m. so it's really only 3 to 6 p.m. would be the sort of meteorable hours would we be charging in for those 3 hours for those 2 spots yes charging them for sure would because it's usually 10 dollars a day or 10 dollars a day I was just saying because they get the privilege of having to be serving that so we probably should have that in the motion yes sure so I just read the request and it looks to me like it's just going to be overnight parking and it's only till 9 because that's when the it ends or is this a mobile it says sweet traveling sweet is that like an RV kind of thing because I don't really actually if we're providing we're allowing the most worshipful one to have an RV I interpret it sweet to me in entourage it might be more than one vehicle not an RV it's not an overnight place they're staying because I wouldn't have a problem with that I don't really care what they do but yeah but maybe Miss Mills be able to explain what it is I think it's more than one vehicle or overnight or just just for that so basically it gets them free parking I think there's an accessibility issue perhaps just proximity to the building because they have to carry equipment I think there's some of that I think there might be age involved so I don't think trouble understanding for this light is different than anybody else who is older and has to park and get to something or are they just because it's their lodge they want the privilege of being able to park right in front I think they feel they have a very honored guest who's attending they like to have reserved parking right in front of their building so they can say we've reserved this parking for you and it makes it easier for the most worshipable one to get into the building so I guess with the amendment it's as good as having a dumpster someone want to make a motion I do think we should yeah we should offer that opinion we should I move to approve immediate parking reservation for two parking spaces in front of Pacific Lodge 99 Main Street in November 27, 2018 from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. with a charge of $10 per space Jimmy well it's only one day Jimmy Berghoff president of Pacific Lodge Building Association exactly if you're further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye so now it's technically for me but largely crafted thank you very much for that by the way so I do know however I will vote so in our packet there's a report of eight pages in length dated 11, 21, 2018 which has asterisks asterisks on people's last name that has been changed to be on the date as opposed to on the name and therefore if people are in more than one place and have different dates it only shows up where it's supposed to so I do know that that will change relative to that report print a copy right here because we just got one on our desk so there's a new one tonight it's beautiful technical expertise coming this morning thanks for the programming that was necessary to make that allow I was wondering about that expertise so so do you want to introduce the bill at all under the charter the slot board is required to provide a list of vacancies in the town boards and this would accomplish that task and we also made one other change which is don't we copy these throughout the committee charges we adjusted we took off the special municipal employee designation and changed the historical historical question something of the change it was the local district committee went to his commission so on your desk there's a new memo a very busy yellow what's different about it on the board? what's different do you want to read my version of that in this case? yeah we'll see is it attached to it? okay we don't so what we got in our yellow folder was not the track changes version we got the new version from that look so Mr. Slaughter's version before I wrote all over it would be like this and then tonight as of like 6.15 was writing around printing this yes that says we'll be on select board letterhead this is largely a longer version of what the previous one was because I tried to take into account I probably thought of one additional thing but I tried to be into account our relatively lengthy discussion last time we discussed this because Mr. Rothman had given us a memo dated November 9th back at our meeting on the 13th that described all the things he just said about what we're doing and we've made some fixes to the database so we can track things appropriately and we've made some fixes to the vacancy list I'm assuming because once the database gets updated then the vacancy list is corrected because there were some errors in that too and we've made some fixes to the database over time and so what I asked to have added to our packet tonight where Mr. Slaughter had asked for that just that nice clean back and forth and that was what was in our packet that was delivered what I added was thanks to Ms. Mills I added the one that says draft will be on select board letterhead Mr. Slaughter has a copy of the track changes version and then I also asked for this which staff also had to repair this team which talks at some length about how our process actually works which seems incredibly useful because now having spoken with several future council members who have absolutely zero ideas to how the applicable process works I thought giving them some additional context for how it works would help make some of that thoughts that we were sharing with them make more sense but given that there is now more than twice as much information on these pieces of paper than there was before so why don't we take a brief recess because it's time anyway and then maybe people could read it and then we could see how close it is to you now have the electronic version and we'll be able to just make it so yes be done with it oh it will not be that we'll find 50 things so why don't we take a brief recess for reading and let everybody get it she has three through those so I think we'll call ourselves back to order since I think we're inside an opportunity to read through the particulars and so are there comments, suggestions, edits so one type of that I wanted to mention we'll read it quickly working groups instead of working group we've got task forces I think it's just an S well what I would like to do at this point is I would like to happily argue over any of the typos I made but I would like to no longer have responsibility for this I'm not going to make the notes as being something I'm going to fix so I'm hoping that between you and Mr. Ronkelman you will take care of the things that arise as they arise it is a memo from me I'm just remembering because I thought we were going to get this to look at like electronically from you when it came in I had to pack it when I read your draft I was like what do I do with this now so I didn't put any time into it but it needed work am I just remembering no I think we had hoped to get it to everyone a little earlier than we did so I have an assumption where do we want to sit here and slot through all the changes or do we want to have another process and somehow get something and act on it on the first there's a lot I'm open to suggestion it's sort of a question Mark I'm curious what the other members think about that numbers of times they want to send them to me and merge those together I suppose what I would hope we could find a way to do all the one person's typo is another person's beautifully worded poetry I suppose but rather those could just be forwarded to you whether it's by handing you hard copy or whatever to do rather than trying to merge several track changes but I wonder if people have substantive things that they want to say no this shouldn't have been in here yes this actually makes me think of this other thing that should have been in here I'd go at that because what I'd prefer to do behind me already saying I won't do it anymore is that you would just publish it I don't think we need to look at it again on the first person I would just assume you did it but maybe if somebody's volunteered to help you with it that's something that's awesome too would we have it electronically in our electronic packet or is that a PDF that's probably a PDF it can get the electronic one out or you can get this electronic one that literally only got sent to people a couple people today at 6.10 so that could be forwarded well if no one got it no no I'm just saying if I'm going to do typos I'd rather do it in track changes so I'd rather have it electronically but I could quickly go over the things of substance if that's what Ms. Brewer wants us to focus on and then that way we could maybe argue about the substance but I don't have to go first why don't you well having invested too many hours in this planning process and thank you for bringing out the 2016 but okay so some things were just beginning but second paragraph it says to engage new people to engage with the government and what do we mean by new people do we mean a wide range of people with different backgrounds or to engage a variety of people promote awareness and engage new people so it's okay but news because if new had more value additional yeah additional maybe because I didn't change so it was painful and then the third paragraph where it says continually life product citizen activity form process the process but we hated that form and we weren't able to change it because we didn't have a database that allowed us to modify it carries a lot of stuff that I wasn't really happy with including the thing about diversity and membership and we have different opinion I think there's some questions there that I thought were inappropriate so I might suggest more that we we used it but it it bears a kind of re-examination or re-consideration rather than saying oh we love the CAF keep using it because I don't think that's so the CAF was carefully constructed to collect demographic data that would help us improve diversity and membership that may have been true but there were a bunch of things that I thought were I just like to new eyes looking at it again rather than saying oh we love the CAF I don't so that was one so could we talk about that for a minute? sure so I'm fine with adding something that makes it clear that it's far from perfect it's just that it's a thing that we have now that can continue to be used and if we tell them it's so horrible that they need to throw it away then just think how lovely that'll be to try and figure things out and suggest it to me by one person that maybe we just sent all the names of interested parties to the town manager and then he'd deal with the list and I thought that was a really interesting approach but the temper is something if you want to temper it with something that says it went in a great process but it's pretty good I think that's a good view right and I think Mr. Slider tried to get at that perhaps in working with Mr. Bappleman before saying it's a good process there was a general good caveat so something and then did Mr. Wappen say did you have something about that? maybe his reading is different this is a bureaucratic document not a love letter whether it's as new or additional I'm not starting to hear what I'm going to die on I thought I was in a spirit that Mr. Slider and the town manager was trying to achieve we have a process that works but obviously every process needs to be refined and we hope that the town council makes it its own too I can live with that I just something that reflects that there's some more I guess the question would be do we like a standardized form because it helps tracking changes over time when you change one that makes it harder to track I don't know what to change and we're not going to do that now because it's not two years ago two of five select board members took on the management of regularly filling select board a point of date I wonder if it's recommending people to fill because it sounds like the two people were making the appointments filling and then bringing the appointments forward in the fourth paragraph of the beginning this is management they're not actually filling it themselves alright I'll let that one go I mean just know we didn't have a chance to just doing this before then the other thing was the last sentence of that fourth paragraph these brief private interviews have been a useful bit of time consuming process given scheduling logistics among staff and part-time volunteers and I might say that the select board has changed the practice to allow phone or one-on-one interviews in some instances because we actually changed the everyone shall be interviewed thing and we abbreviated it we talked about that in a meeting I don't know how many times we can fill it but it's like in this case it might be the manager or it was the chair or the liaison depends on what the committee is how known that person whatever it was so I just wanted to mention that we actually as a logistical burden we kind of that should be added on unless someone remembers that differently no no I agree I guess I would have I mean I was wondering whether we have to probably have to lengthen this document you know the reason we did it because the temporary town manager felt he needed more guidance this thing and then when the current town manager came in we decided it was a useful process and then having done this for everyone we decided to apply it more selectively so we may have the whole history but maybe we can say that we decided to apply it selectively or at someone's discretion rather than in every case so I think we should that would be really good to add that there but it is important to tell them how we got to this point so that they can do it however they want and they're doing a lot fewer it's going to be a very different process but at least they know how we got there so you can add that and then the last paragraph on page one it says while providing for perhaps about the six year thing it says the membership extenuating circumstances I assume we should give an example of what an extent the circumstance might be not having thought of one yet um most of the rest oh just when we give the list on page three of all the committees this is going to some newer participants maybe we should write out what those committees are it was six and five you're showing way too much ownership of this back please do that I think that showing the acronyms is important because people use them all I think it would be a great idea to write it out and then I'll see all committee charges where in the second paragraph it says dormant committees not found in this material may not have been officially should it just be other committees not found in this material like the new one but you're not seeing it here it's not true dormant dormant but it's not a not a big deal it's a question mark on dormant and that's all I got the reason I put that there is because most of the ones that follow in this exam in this list are listed on the current committee and board page as though they're real things like you know somebody turns in a thing for Kendrick Park design advisory committee will do something but it says not found in this material in this material they're not in this material they're not on here then what do you mean they're on the list dormant committees not found in this material so there are committees that are listed on the town website there's not being provided to them this is being provided to them and it's not in here and there's no charge for I think it's confusing but that's another way to phrase it the attachment to it works did you have any comments no I didn't just pick up something that just Krueger mentioned and passed over with that further comment I don't know if it's worth it at the bottom of page one the last paragraph since you and I worked in appointments at that time you know reducing I would limit in service no more than six years I guess I might add there that it was wrong the informal custom that you serve two terms you know it's not the same we made about ourselves so we decided to we enforced the custom we formalized the practice you know that was the previous understanding that had none of those things so it has a certain weight and it's not necessarily the town council overturn likely and I don't know if it's an example I believe all the time we worked not necessarily the iconic sake committee you know something for Japanese language and culture or water commission you might do the special things like that maybe that's the extenuating example I mean those are examples that came up frequently in conversation I think that's not you don't do this it's all town manager now I mean it's all town manager now he does what he's doing I mean we say advisory committee right so this gets sent to them with your direction and then they figure out what they want to do next but at least people will know how we got the people we have yeah to get back to the point that was previously discussed I was looking on my iPad quickly we seem to have lost over the fact that Kani and I sent a memo on February 8th of this year in which we made some significant recommendations of changes to the interview process and named certain committees that we thought did not or full interviews of everybody all of the time to reference that here I think that we called for a streamlined interview process for a number of committees which could be one person and either the manager or the board who is the reporting authority including possibilities of phone interviews for the committees of merit into that so we really take that February 8th memo and consider appending it to this I still think it's important to include the one from May 2016 as well because it does details but I think that's really a great companion piece because it goes it's another piece that's really important thank you for reading the memo and in that at that same time was where we had the I think maybe it was later but the recommendation that we made about I guess it was later about the excuse me appointments that were expiring this year on June 30th we used the word re-appointed to so the correct statement in that sentence which is on the second age under A and about the 56th there gets one that begins you will note that even beyond the date until they replaced re-appointed or they resigned we didn't get the re-appointed oh that's one of the other choices re-appointed so it wasn't sent out as a signal that the manager could not propose re-appointment we didn't so that should be added and in the very next paragraph this is a real simple one I would put for example EG before HTF as you did in the next one for example it's down there so I would suggest I'll take these under consideration but if people want further reflection see something else that they want to mention I do think that absolutely take them and leave them on that but we'll definitely include I think that memo from the 8th of February will include in that cluster of things that are attached to this and we'll reference that in the document as well good work so we'll follow it together and share it back out and just have you guys give it one last read through before we well you don't have to if you don't want to overcome it it's fine as it is before Saturday? really? what are you doing between us? would you want this for the council at their first meeting on December 3rd as an agenda item or just as a transfer from the select board if it's ready by any time to fill out your packets this week we could physically hand it to them on that night so I was thinking you were going to come in and put it out a little pillow a little presentation I don't think so many of you have a good idea unless you're planning to answer a whole ton of questions so maybe just distributing it it's a lot of paper and it does need to be paper as well as and then maybe once the president is picked or elected then they can decide it's a separate agenda item to have a former chair that's a good idea then you can bring it down a little bit of context is we wanted to do this on a lot of topics and this is the only one we could do it's the only one required by the I would hate to see the first meeting go until midnight or 1am until it starts at 8pm before they leave so I think we need to be somewhat cautious here's the thing you can read in all your spare time before the next meeting that you are having set up and then since this one they can crumple it up after all it would be well passed Mr. Mayor's box down by yes true that okay so we don't have to do this since Saturday so so did you want to do this in a member report no I'm going to let Mr. Sanger do that because he did the vast majority of the work that would be great although this is technically not under this would probably fall under member reports the letter to the messages board of elementary and secondary education we won't take that up at this point I think we should we may have a cycle back on other member reports but I did want to have a substantive conversation about this and I will as usual state that I tend to fall into conflict on topics like this because it's related to school and so I will sort of yield to my chair to this crew group this room your vice chair I should actually find it I know I had it but we just started to not so I hope if you have time introduce it yeah as you will recall I'm sure on October 15th of this year this board voted to submit a letter to the board of elementary and secondary education requesting that they again deny the request of the Pioneer Valley Chinese Emerging Charter School for revision of its charter to enlarge the number of slots and the designation was that the brewer with my assistance would draft the letter and we were empowered to send the letter on behalf of the board at that time I think we thought that the deadline was the beginning of November so we were under some pressure it was then extended until December 3rd so a letter in fact has not been sent as of yet but we have drafted the letter put it in what we believe is final form and sent it for comment to known people for review and have come back and it's final editing and this is the letter now as we propose to send it it is ready for me to sign this clerk on behalf of the board since the president signed and really doesn't know who would do it so we figured it was just as well to have it be as state as the word of now and to so we are prepared to do it but we do have time that we didn't anticipate when we did that on October 15th to actually receive comments from you because you revised minor revisions and still get it in the mail and in the hands of the board by the deadline I was I'm sorry I was under the impression that I already got emailed today I didn't think we were I thought it already was the very reasons we talked about before so I was what happened was it was put into final form with the intent that I was going to sign it tonight and then it was going to be mailed in hard copy tomorrow and emailed it could be mailed also but we want to have the formality of a hard copy so it is in fact not been said since I didn't give a chance to sign it yet just a quick question to you it says copies of the town meeting resolution and our correspondence which refers to previous correspondence of this board if you're going to email this would you append or would it just be a pending hard copy because you might want to make that reference if it's emailed and I don't know what your intention is because there's three other documents that go with this yes and I don't think that it's a problem to append the documents because we actually have them in electronic format so that would really be important if someone recedes it is it going to go anyway it can be a pending vote great it keeps it all together does anyone else have any comments and I don't believe we need emotional because we already voted this on October 15th so we're just as a courtesy you're showing it to us anything else thank you Mr. Stumper thank you for taking those with that to rest and I'd like to turn the gavel back to Mr. Slater great thank you so if I'm reading the correct way I believe that we are Mr. Chair small good news we received a cultural council grant for $5,000 for our cultural district Amherst Cultural District Amherst Center Cultural District this is to fund brochures networking events temporary staff for the cultural district on the bad news side we did not receive a master's grant we received a letter in the mail today we did not receive the master's grant that's not a surprise to us and that all the master's grants were announced immediately prior to the state election we were not invited to any of the announcements so yeah the a letter is going out we had the first snowstorm a couple weeks ago where we declared a snow emergency and we did not ticket and tow cars but we are because of the snowfall and people to be educated so we are educating people by putting we've recorded where all the cars were on the street where they should not have been and we're leafletting all the cars during the next couple weeks so that they have adequate notice that if they're parked on the street during a snow emergency they will be ticketed and they will be towed we've also sent out letters to people where we've noticed that when they plowed their driveways or were removing snow from their property we put back into the street and that's a violation of one of our bylaws and so we put notification advance warnings to people that if they continue that practice of putting snow in the street or if they're plowed it's typically not the individuals it's the plow companies that they've hired the private plowers and they may not even the homeowner may not even realize it's being done but to let them know that they're responsible to make sure that they don't put snow back into the street once our plows have gone through the streets to clear the roads and that's frustrating to people because sometimes it plows in their driveway so they get angry but the solution isn't to put it back in the road because what is the solution? is to move it to the side of the driveway as opposed to putting it back in the road because then we come back we start putting it back in here the solution is we have bigger plows maybe I don't know hopefully that people will help solve the situation by not making the road the travel lane the road more dangerous by putting snow in there we spent a lot of time and effort to clear the roads and we try to keep them that way I do have a suggestion on cul-de-sacs if they do not have a curb on the inside they can push the snow to the inside and see the outside because I live on a cul-de-sac they push the snow down the street into the circle in the center of the cul-de-sac and then proceed to push the snow to the edge the outside edge puts it in everyone's driveway so they're trying to get as much down as quickly as they can and it's a reversal normal operation more than this that shouldn't be a hard solution but I know that there are times that they can't help it, it's a straight street and it puts it in someone's driveway but other times it sort of unloads more of the plow onto the end of someone's driveway when it's on a circle it's almost as good as parking right next to it right next to it so while we're on that topic one of the things that I just hope that somebody has a conversation about someday is we have a tradition here of blocking numerous downtown parking spaces with piles of snow for weeks at a time depending on the time of year sometimes days and it's really frustrating when we say we don't have parking and then snow is piled up in those parking spaces so I wonder if we maybe if there's a philosophy behind and then it usually gets removed within 72 hours and I realize that when they're having to really be out on the roads all night of course I mean there's human limitations as to how much we can make people work but sometimes many days go by while the spaces are still blocked and people get really frustrated by that so maybe we can just be able to explain people what the philosophy is at some point in the future you can expect that that will be cleared out within three days and if it isn't please put it on C-Click Fix or something like that so you call this to remove snow from downtown especially from all the main streets through downtown and the parking lots occasionally what happens is that I've had these conversations with DPW is that they try to schedule the overtime because they typically do this at a lot of it at night or early in the morning so that if they've been plowing all night or during the course of the day they have to give them a certain amount of time to recover so it seems like it's been days when it's actually been there coming it might be two days because they might plow all night long it's there they can't come in the next night because they're they've been working all night so it might seem like days and then sometimes some other things pop up and so if I know that it's a priority for them to remove snow from downtown they're used to doing it so I just think they attempt to do it and if they are there's usually a legitimate reason because I've had multiple conversations about this as well DPW another topic that has come to is the station road bridge and we continue to work on that we're looking at we'll be updating the website with an updated FAQ because people have been asking additional questions which we are attempting to answer and some of the questions are very logical to the average lay person and that makes total sense and for instance one of the questions is why can't you just put in a temporary bridge that's three feet taller which is what we've seen and just have people slowly climb up over the bridge and that's engineering why it's not permitted and so when you have to make a three foot say climb you have to have a pretty fairly long run up to climb over it but and then at that last three foot section you have to have a fairly wide base to accommodate vehicles going over it we're trying to keep within the right of way of the road without extending into either property that the town does not own so we have to do a taking even a temporary taking or that extends into wetland so there are a lot of complications when you start looking at what seem to be logical solutions the engineers are really diligently looking at this Mass DOT has been cooperative with us they know they're well aware of where we are in the process we've been we did orings today to determine the the strength of the footings basically the official name of that's holding the bridge up now and they're finding all kinds of things as they start to explore the territory there but the key is that we have to put if we're going to the town is going to invest money into anything that's going to cross that that span we have to make sure that an engineer is willing to put their stamp on it and the engineers won't put on a stamp on something that isn't safe and so that's a really key ingredient Mass Highway does not require us to get any approval from them for a temporary bridge but they do we do still have to go through a permitting process all the wetlands for a lot of the other species you know different environmental issues that we will face even if it is a temporary bridge just like any other project even if it's temporary you have to address environmental issues so we will continue to work on answering questions for people as best we can and sharing that out through the website and other means as best we can the last thing I have for you is that we received a letter from Berkshire Gas today indicating that we are on their way less since there is no relief from the moratorium coming they were required by the State Department of Public Utilities to have a public interest benefit grant program to encourage public entities and non-profit organizations to utilize alternate heating technologies so that's something we will want to be looking at to take advantage of for any projects that we may have I've shared that out with the town officials to see if we have anything that that can apply I think the deadline is May of 2019 so we have time to sort of work through this I didn't really read it that closely I can send it out to everybody and other than that that's annoying I should definitely be thinking of a much smoother way to say this but I'm not going to I'm just giving you the heads up so we have a beautiful seven page updated town managers report it has so much information it has also its personnel changes that I don't think I was particularly aware of so thank you for letting us know about those I don't believe the MassWorks grant or the station road bridge appear in this memo although I haven't had time to do a search in any place and so what I'm just saying is it would be great at a category for because you have so many great projects like preppers permanent stuff to just have it there and show that it's always there I'm sure it's got as much update information as it should I kind of figured something is in there but it would probably get it's a terrific document to be able to look to particularly when you look at it electronically if you need to search more easily I'm sure if you want to make that right there but it's literally just go one sentence maybe move it under projects so it gets some more attention project updates yeah other questions yeah I did two things one is something you directly spoke to and that is so emergency we do have three houses in my immediate neighborhood that are student rentals and offering that students very well and I mentioned so emergency to residents one of the houses and hope this individual to relate it to his housemates that when it's no emergency comes they can make a request that when that happens we would send a text message or email which was policy originally and I hope is but I would urge to remind because knowing these people that's what's going to grab their attention they're not going to see blue lights as easily but then they we're very eager to comply they were pleased to know about the policy for me and not get a ticket first and the other thing just is a reminder and totally different subject is when we did the renewal of the contract between us and Amherst media to be the bank provider there was a re-opener that we negotiated that said that if the town changed its form of government that we would reopen the contract for the purpose of changing the designation of meetings that would be covered by the Amherst media and we probably have to exercise that re-opening Any other questions or comments or comments? So now we're on to select member reports excuse me so I think we discussed last week each was taking a moment to sort of since it is our last in front of the camera sort of meaning to sort of offer a comment about our time on the board and that sort of thing but before we get into that I just want to remind you that we're going to do that we've thought about that a little bit but also the other topic I wanted to bring up tonight was that of minutes and so I think what's likely to be the case because we don't have any in front of us this evening but we might have some for Saturday the first but we also may have a motion that allows us to sort of delegate the authority to approve from the other minutes so I just want to give you an answer that probably works but we've got the formal language just with us tonight I don't think let's make it up well there's some specific things there were some things that council had suggested in the motion but there were and I in reading that also thought there were like one other thing or two that I would like to add to that so I think we might want to be more comprehensive just be careful a little bit because it has to do with executive session minutes are existing minutes and not we want to get it right we really get one shot at this I just have a logistical question so I had gotten an email with catchments asking me to look at minutes which I then said yes and forgot about and I marked up two sets of that eight and I did it in a hard cut so who do I give this before I get those changes made because I've done two and tend to do the other ones so just what's the mechanics of this what's the preference maybe after the meeting or tomorrow you should check with Ms. Mills as to what was useful to her what I've been doing is a different process I've been doing attract changes on a Word document but that's an extra step and it does take time and but something has to get in so if you give them to me we'll take care of the change we can incorporate those easily enough and any minutes that we have ready by Wednesday that we can send out in advance of the Saturday meeting we will anything that's ready on that that's not ready then we just won't send out and we'll have a draft motion that the chair will be to delegate I'd love to take those right now and I'll just say if you can't think what I meant just let me know and the only reason I underlined the date at the top is just to remind me what I was working on but the other stuff was just to bring on two different people was it me and once in a while usually say not related so just little stuff nothing of substance they were all like commas clean up work nothing that was misquoted thank you so at this point I think we can go into our select for member reports and so anyone would like to offer their comments about any actual reports like we usually do or any additional comments that we would like to make I think we did the reflection thing at agenda setting so I'm not reflecting at this point we did hear it in an email and so we'll hear it in an email so obviously we can do that but what I wanted to do was just to remember a report associated with something that I've now completely forgotten but I will say associated with that Mr. Bachman very kindly drove us up to a meeting about western Massachusetts network 10 homelessness Pam Schwartz many of us are on her email list and she had invited all the representative elect, the senator elect so it was great to have all those people in the room but because the weather was really crummy that morning they didn't get there early enough that we could really bend their ear the event started and then we had to leave before they really got into the Q&A which was really more with some other people so it was one of those things that it wasn't a bad thing to have gone to except it took a big chunk out of the day but I really appreciated that GCC hosted it the president of GCC is very interested in homelessness and food security both brand new president there so it was a good experience from that standpoint and it's one of those things where you go take away doesn't always happen but that did happen and I previously that week been to a habitat event associated with small houses and the struggles with trying to make that happen in the community so those were the committee type things that actually weren't committees at all but I want to because there they were that was my number well I'd just like to say I agree with reflection I've you know on Sunday afternoon I'll be all done with the exception of you know AVTA and a few other things affordable housing trust that sort of thing but by and large you know things will be done it's been a pleasure being on select board with all of you it's been informational it's been engaging it's been enriching it's been a pleasure to serve the community in this way I've been you know humbled at being your chair and I'm hoping that I did a fairly decent job in sort of keeping us moving along in a reasonable direction in a reasonable pace most of the time but it's been tremendous opportunity for me and I hope that our community is better for our work I think it is and I really appreciate each and every one of you brought to this board the time you spend and the effort you make on behalf of our citizens it's really phenomenal I'm not sure that everyone always understands that as fully as we do as far as what it takes from a time standpoint and what it will take in the new council for the two of you that are moving on but I did want to take a moment and thank you all because it's been a pleasure serving with you anyone else want to talk? I can go next no reason to move in the actual order here as somebody who did just run and was elected to the council I look forward to the challenges ahead and the challenge of making our new form of government work as citizens envisioned when they passed the charter I am beginning really just beginning to get to know a number of members of the council and I have great hopes for the group being able to function well but it is not going to be the same as the select board I think that I have four exceptional colleagues and Mr. Slaughter having most recently who were before provided great organization and leadership and moderation of the process and being exceptional spokespeople for the board and often for town government so it's sort of this strange time for me because I'm looking forward to what's ahead but I look back and the solution of this board that I have enjoyed working with so much and really will miss this group because I think it is an exceptional group nothing original the same I'd like to join Mr. Steinberg in expressing my deep gratitude to all of you because I have enjoyed learning about town government but it's also been a pleasure and honor to serve with you with the town manager and town staff and I emphasize town staff and your predecessors emphasize town staff too because I think the ordinary residents don't realize how much work those people play in sometimes in the office but also meetings it's been an easy job in a sense because it's the town runs so well it's a well managed town where employers always respect us we have good standards in performance and public services and everything else so that's been the nicest thing for me I guess I have some mixed things about the transition I like the idea of a select board going back to the 18th century and town meetings and so forth but you simply find tradition because it's there that's not a very good policy and I think unfortunately we simply reached a point where we fairly expect 240 people to master the intricacies of government for this age and the complexes we have but that doesn't mean I won't miss town meeting I don't appreciate the work that town meeting members did and you know what I think about the things I learned I guess they're not very surprising either rather the most important one is that things look different from the side of the table you know a perfect example you know if things were as easy as people think they are they would have gotten done a long time ago and I think the example the town manager spoke about with the station road bridge and the detail then we sent out trying to explain why we can't do this why we can't do this you know you don't want to sound negative but you have to deal with the realities of the law and what's practical and so forth and so you know that brings me to a larger point that I'm sorry that in the you know in the transition in the run-up to the transition to the government a lot of the public debates seem to be characterized by so much distrust and hostility you know distrust of town staff distrust of town government but you know I think what we want is some kind of a situation in which we are always listening to the public and the public is also listening to town staff and professionals you know it's a matter of respect but not on that in Richard Richard deference there's got to be some kind of a balance there so you know I think if we can all learn to be patient and work together you know more profoundly besides I'm sure I mean that's good what it takes really so I hope that no matter how people voted back in March they won't really wish this government good luck because we've seen how good luck works in Washington elsewhere it's not it's not pretty and just historical foot that I realized that when the town transition from a three-member to a five-member select board back in 1954 the person who was presiding over that process lived in my house so we're close to another historical circle there and I'm happy to be retired and moving on to another thing it's great so I was thinking back to when I was first elected to the select board in 2014 four and a half years ago I really didn't know what being on the select board met and despite having worked for the town and serving on time meeting in a couple of boards and committees I wasn't clear what my role was and I remember meeting a couple of times with former select board chair Stephanie O'Keeffe and asking her so what am I supposed to be doing what is the job because I felt like I wasn't doing enough to happen to be summertime so I didn't know what's coming but and then of course I had this trustee guidebook the select board handbook which I refer to many times and I'm certainly wanting to donate this for the archives and maybe there's a bunch of these floating around in the town all over and no and I gradually learned a lot more about how town government work and what the select board can do to both respond and initiate actions so when I look back at what has made this a really wonderful experience it's been the sense of camaraderie that we've developed as five as a five-net reward so we have our five distinct individual personalities and opinions and views I probably know them so well sometimes I feel like they've stand up and give the other persons the thoughts but we've learned to operate as a team and we've been able to trust each other to do our best to step up when needed and to offer support to each other during rocky times so I'm leaving my time on this last ever select board with gratitude for my colleagues on the board for our patient and skilled town manager and the great staff that allows us to do our work into the amazing, talented and dedicated residents of our town that is now a city it's been a real honor to have been entrusted with this position by the voters of my town and what I wish for the new council is that they too will form bonds of trust and operate as a team as they lead the town into the future everyone should go back to what each of you said because as you might expect I spent more time working on that select board in memo than I did you just wanted to go last so I keep trying and everybody has said such wonderful things I think that I reflect back to I was just part of a campaign as well I'm thinking back to why I ran for select board back in 2007 so many years ago and it's interesting how the things that this select board has cared about for a number of years focusing on the things we need to focus on rather than I mean sometimes that involves smithing but still focusing on areas that are within our purview not just things we're randomly curious about and we'd love to have people come and talk to us about just for funsies but we can actually do anything about I appreciate that we don't just throw things on the agenda to say let's let's hear about that it's like we are focused on what can we do what's our role we listen to people out in the community and we function as a board and I don't have any idea how that's going to work on the new town council that I'm going to be private I have no idea how a legislative body of 13 is going to function as a board and as everyone's pointed out here we don't all think the same way by any stretch of the imagination and we can predict to some extent what each other's going to say about things and then we try and figure out our arguments to work with those things but it's going to be a very very different situation it's not going to be a select board on steroids it's just going to be very different and one of the things that I always appreciated about town meeting when I was in the town meeting member back in 1999 is the people who really put in the work and this select board select boards I've served on now for the last several iterations have always really put in the work and I can't emphasize that enough I think that's been brought up by others that people don't perhaps realize how much we actually do in fact I would argue many people during this most recent campaign had no idea what select board actually does and strangely we seem to find ourselves incredibly busy doing it so I like to think that we provided valuable guidance as part of the executive team I have been told by people from another community that this select board was perhaps taking on a larger role than that individual thought we should and I disagree strongly that the town manager we have might disagree with that as well but it's been an interesting push pull to be part of a six member executive team where five of us are elected we have the voting accountability but we don't have the authority to make anything happen in all reality and so we have to work together as a team to make things work and we do have an incredible staff does a terrific job and I just want to remind people something I'm constantly going to be saying moving forward for the public if something looks messy or screwed up it's just because we were super busy and we didn't get it quite right it's not because anybody's trying to not get it done correctly we have an amazing dedicated number of people working on any number of things and we could actually use more of them for the money to pay them and so all the work we've done together I think is incredibly important it's going to be completely different moving forward and I just can't appreciate enough how everybody has to bring a sad note but to bring a sad note in we went through the death of our town manager together and we managed that and it was really hard for people on so many levels and we couldn't be in the building with staff all the time trying to support them they figured out great ways to support each other and we supported each other and I think we have done amazing work together and I can only hope for the future council that they find ways to pull together to work on things to really reflect the values of our community the way this board has thank you all for your comments and reflections we don't often get an opportunity to do that I think we think in these terms a lot but you don't always get a chance to say it out loud because we have business to attend to but since we've attended to the business this evening I think our agenda is exhausted and so I would maintain a motion to the jury if there is any other thing we need to do I don't want to deprive you Mr. Spenner this is one of the last times that's so predictable so for them I move to adjourn is there a second? is there for discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye we are adjourned at 932 thank you