 for Thursday, May 14th, and thank you for joining us. As a reminder, this webinar is being recorded, so please refrain from asking any personally identifying health questions. Sorry, a little technical problem there. So if you'd like to ask a question during this chat, please click the Q&A button from the Zoom application. You may also raise your hand through Zoom or press star nine from the telephone if you're calling in with us today. So today we have our public health director, Julie Fetterman joining us. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Good to see you. Before we launch into Q&A from the attendees and some other questions that we've had sent in to us, do either of you have updates? Sure, so I have a couple of things. So it's not COVID related, so that might be a little bit different. On Monday, there was a meeting of the town council, the school committee, and the board of library trustees where we talked a little more specific about the challenges that we have as terms going forward for FY20 and FY21 for the budget. And then the next day, on Tuesday, we met with the finance committee and got even more specific with actual numbers. So I just want to let people know that for FY20, when we do our projections, our revenues will be lower, but we've reigned in our expenses, our ongoing expenses. We've had additional COVID related expenses, but all those things, when you get to the bottom line, we're going to be fine for FY20. So we're confident moving forward on that. For FY21, it will be a bigger challenge. And so the ways that we will meet this significant challenge in our budget is by, and this is a proposal we've made to the finance committee of the town council, is that the three entities would be level funded, not level service budgets, but they would be level funded, meaning that every the towns, the schools, the regional schools in the library would receive roughly the same amount of money for FY21 that we had in FY20. The second piece we would have to reduce is our commitment to OPED, which is other post-employment benefits, which is something we've been putting way to pay for future liabilities that we have as a town. It's been a really important contribution, but it's something that, if we don't do it this year, we'll survive. And then the third thing is a significant reduction in our commitment to capital, the things that we do every day, like buying trucks and ambulances and police cars and stuff like that. We're going to hold off on making any of those kinds of investments at this moment in time until we see later in the year what our cash situation looks like. So these are things that can be put off. If there's something that can't be put off, we will be presenting that to the town council for funding, but one of the benefits of a council form of government is that we can bring something back to it and relatively short-term. So that's where we are with the budget. It's not a pretty picture, but we are fortunate that the town has for years managed its resources well and we have good reserves and we will be utilizing those reserves. The one caveat on this is we don't know what's going to happen with state aid, and the intent is that if state aid is reduced, we would use our reserves to offset the loss in state aid. Otherwise, we will be trimming our budgets in order to stay within the constraints of our reduced revenue coming in. So that's the big news from my seat and we're really fortunate that we have Sean Mangano who is our new finance director and working with Sonya Aldridge who's been our interim finance director and comptroller and so we're gonna need all brains on deck to get through this period. So we've got really good people working on it and it's gonna, we'll get through it. So that's why I have to add Brianna. And so folks who are interested in following along through that budget process as documents become available and plans become available, we will be putting those online at amherstma.gov slash budget. The most recent documents are up there now and we'll continue to add to that as we move forward. Julie, do you have any general updates for us before we launch into some questions? Sure, thank you, Brianna. Good afternoon, everyone. I thought I'd talk about contact tracing a little bit. You're all hearing about this concept. This is something that public health departments have always done for diseases. But of course, during this pandemic, contact tracing is being identified as absolutely crucial. So the state has ramped up a program to help communities with their contact tracing. We have been very lucky. We have Jennifer Brown, our public health nurse working on contact tracing in Amherst. And we also have two school nurses who have been working on contact tracing also during this school year when they're not staffing health rooms. And so we are so grateful to all three of them. And especially the nurses who are, you know, stepping up to take this on. So we've had really great response with contact tracing. When we call people up, we're getting, we're able to reach them, we're able to talk with them. Contact tracing is, I guess I should explain again what that is, is so when we're notified confidentially when there's a positive case of COVID-19 in Amherst. As soon as that happens, one of the nurses calls that case, makes sure that they've got all the care that they need, that they're connected with the resources they need, and that they understand remaining in isolation. Over time, that patient is checked in with during the whole time they're in isolation to make sure they continue to be okay and to recover and to get the services that they need. The other piece of that is at that initial phone call, any contacts of that person and a contact, the definition of that has changed at various times. So at this point, it's anyone that they had come in contact with for 48 hours before becoming symptomatic. And so those contacts are called up and told that they've come in contact with someone who has COVID-19. It's all confidential. They're not told who they've come in contact, but just that they have come in contact with someone and then quarantine is explained to them. And again, people are monitored during quarantine because the purpose of quarantine, those 14 days when people are to stay at home in their own rooms is to see if the disease develops. Now, of course, there are many things that are difficult about quarantine, but one of them is that often people feel fine, but we are finding around the country that it can sometimes be day seven, day 11 when people start to develop symptoms. If a person develops symptoms, then they get tested. If they do not develop any symptoms and they go through their 14 weeks of quarantine, they're released from quarantine and they are able to go about their usual business. In the event that Amherst or any other community in Massachusetts gets overwhelmed with the number of contacts to be followed up with, the state has created a contact tracing program in partnership with partners in health. So that system has been ramping up for weeks now and is now fully in place so that there is this capability for cases to be handled by this statewide group of contact tracers, a thousand people in all, many of whom speak different languages and can help our community and other communities with contact tracing. So I thought it might be of interest to people to understand how that's rolling out in Amherst and in the state. And answer your cell phones, right? Yes, thank you, thank you. So the other piece of this is that you should always answer your phone. And if you get a phone call from an 800 number, a lot of us ignore those, don't ignore it because the contact tracers that are not in our town are using an 800 number to reach out to people. And so answer the call and also know that this is a completely confidential phone call. It's all about just limiting this disease and also helping you with your health because it's crucial for you to know if you've come in contact with someone and potentially been exposed because then you will be monitoring your own health closely and then you'll have the guidance of a contact tracer also to help you with that. So answer the call, thank you. But no contact tracer will ever ask you for your social security number or information like that, right? Correct, not to ask for your health insurance or your social security number. You'll be asked for your date of birth and that's only because they wanna make sure they've got the right person. So your name and your date of birth, any other of your private information is not necessary and won't be asked for. Great, thank you for that important update and reminder. So I just wanna say again to our folks who are on the call live, I see a number of you. If you wanna ask a question, feel free to use the Q&A button or simply raise your hand from Zoom and we will unmute you and pull you into the room to ask your question. So until then, I have a question here that involves maybe both of you. When do you think businesses will be allowed to reopen? Not just essential businesses, businesses like bookstores, coffee shops, barber shops, et cetera and who gets to decide that? So it's a great question. It's a question we're all wondering about. Right now, those businesses are closed at the governor's level. He has issued orders that only essential businesses should be open. They are reviewing that. They have a reopening commission that has been set up. I've been on a committee that's been advising that commission from the municipal level what it looks like on the ground at cities and towns. The May 18th is when his order is the governor's order is supposed to expire. And I do not anticipate that he's going to, I think that he will extend that order. I don't think he's gonna just say on May 18th, everything's open. There's no evidence, no scientific support for making that kind of determination. He may continue. I don't know, it's all speculation. But at this level, it's the governor who makes the general call. And it's actually something I've been advocating for and my fellow municipal officials have been advocating that we do this on a state level, not on a city, individual city or town level, because it can create chaos if one place opens bookstores or barbershops and the next town doesn't. You wanna do this on a state by state basis. And that's the best metric. That's the best level to be making the decisions. There's a lot of complexities in this. You may have seen last week when the governor came out and said golf courses can open in time from other state. And many golf courses did open. But there were a lot of rules that went along with it. So I think you'll see a gradual, you talk about the dial, a gradual opening of things beyond essential services. But there are so many things that have to be taken into consideration. I think it's gonna be a slow process. Any thoughts on that, Julie? I would concur with that. I think it's going to be a slow process. I think that Massachusetts is learning from what's been happening in other states. And I think the governor is very tuned in with his public health experts and scientists. And it will be a very slow opening. I know we all know how much everyone wants to get back to work and needs to get back to work. And I think that we're lucky that the governor is balancing that also with everyone's health. Because if we saw a slip back and cases began to rise, that would not be a good thing. So I agree that I think on Monday we're going to hear about what comes next but not that things are opening right away. This is semi-related. This person hears that the farmer's market, Amherst farmer's market is going to open. They wonder if you think this is safe and what might it look like? Will it be different than it was in the past? So we've been working with the farmer's market to see if they can open for, as a good place to buy food, not as a social gathering place. That's an important change. There will not be music there. It will not be a place to bring your dog and walk it through the market. And anything like that is, it will be an outdoor place to purchase food. And in order to do that, we've looked at two different locations and the farmer's market will like to relocate the farmer's market to the town common. And that's what will be presented to the town council on Monday for their consideration. And if it opens, and that there's a lot more space in the town council and the town common, and that allows them to really space out things and to control traffic flow. There's a lot of requirements that will be put in place for them, including, and Julie has been looking at a lot of these things. And she may add more as we start to experience it on the ground, but you will have to wash your hands before you enter the farmer's market. You will be required to wear a mask when you are working there or entering or going through the farmer's market, though we socially distance all throughout the farmer's market. So I think the town council is eager to have the farmer's market open as a place to buy food outside, but it has to be done with certain precautions. And Julie on that. Yeah, inspection services has been working really hard on this, trying to figure out a way to set up that would be preserving the social distancing and keeping people safe. Notoriously, this has been a place to get food, but also a very social event. So setting up, setting it up physically so that it's not social, sadly is what we need to do now. And the building commissioner and the inspectors have been working really hard on ways to create a system that will allow people to flow through safely and to purchase food. I think it's also a change of mindset for the community that we're looking at. This is another place to get food. We all know it's been tough in grocery stores. Sometimes you're not finding what you wanna get. We also want to be able to support our farmers and eat local food. So this is a great opportunity to do this. The state is all behind farmer's markets being open. And so we're gonna be looking for the public to help us with this, to make it a safe place for everyone to go and for this to work well. It'll be a partnership. So we got a couple of follow-up questions that came in from some of our attendees here. Can businesses submit proposals for safely opening, perhaps partly by limiting services? So businesses, if it's a restaurant or something like that, they are permitted to do curbside takeout type of business. So there are certain rules for certain businesses, but only if they're defined as an essential operation. I think that's right, isn't it, Julie? Correct, yeah. At this time, I know a lot of businesses are thinking about when the governor starts turning that dial and opening things up. How could their business be able to open in a way that's safe? And until we get the guidance from the governor, there's nothing that we can really do locally about that. Definitely food service has been able to continue with takeout and curbside pickup. But at this moment, nothing has really changed from the past several weeks around what businesses can do other than, as Paul said, the golf courses. So again, we're waiting for the governor's guidance on what comes next and then we'll be implementing in Amherst how that can move forward. And one more follow-up on the contact tracing. The Sarah wants to know, will the contact tracers leave a message? Yes, thank you, that came up last week. No, they'll be calling back to help preserve confidentiality. Great, thank you. So some new folks are in the room. Feel free to use Q&A or raise your hand, star nine from the phone to ask your question. Another question we have here is, do either of you have an opinion as to whether the colleges and universities should reopen in the fall, physically? Oh, I was hoping to say, will. That's a should is a different question. Will and should. Will and should. Will they open? Well, we know Amherst Hampshire College has said that if the state allows it and the federal government allows it, they will open in the fall. They believe that they can accommodate the social distancing and the housing and teaching and learning environments successfully. We have not heard from Amherst or UMass and I don't think they, we're all eager to hear what they have to say. And so it's a total speculation on whether they will or not. I know they have a lot of things to consider because you're bringing lots of people into campuses from all over the world whether they, that's a good idea or not. Should they? That's above my pay grade. Maybe goes to Julie. A raise in my future. Yeah, I think this is something, we're confronting all over the country. This balance between wanting education to continue, but what will it look like? How will it be safe? I think it's above my pay grade and we've got a lot of great minds. Thinking about this on the state level with our state university and Amherst College and Hampshire College have been so thoughtful in their approach to this pandemic and how they've been so proactive in protecting faculty and staff as has the university. So I think I trust that good decisions will be made and they're tough ones to make. So, do we wanna talk about face masks again? We've got an initiative going on for the community, but do we wanna share any just refreshers on where we are with face coverings and face masks right now? Two requirements. Yeah, it's always complicated for folks. I think I'm gonna reiterate a little bit what I said last week, which is that, I think I said it last week, I said it somewhere. When you go out the door, have a mask with you. You know, you might be going for a walk around the neighborhood and think you're not gonna run into anyone, but then suddenly there might be like a group and it's a little hard to get past. So you wanna be able to have a mask on in case you're interacting with people. You know, if you're basically just walking past someone and it's, you know, one minute, 30 seconds, you know, you're not, the chances of you becoming in contact with the disease are very slim, but it's also partly about making other folks feel comfortable because they don't know. And so it's also a courtesy to just have a mask on if you're coming within six feet of folks. And really what you have to do is, you know, even if you're going out in your car or whatever, just have one with you. Have it in your pocket. I guess we all gotta have pockets now. Keep one in your car and just have it with you in case you're gonna stop somewhere, in case you're gonna do something. Make sure that your mask fits tightly around your cheeks because the purpose of the mask and across your nose. So some people have the blue paper masks that have a little bit of metal up here. You wanna really shape that to your nose. Make sure the whole thing is fitting smoothly. If you have a cloth mask or a bandana, again, you want it to really be sort of tied up against your skin, but you still wanna be able to breathe comfortably. I've talked before about the right kind of fabrics. You wanna tightly woven cotton, like a quilting fabric or a batik. Here we go. I even got one right here, like this. And you wanna have more than one layer. And what they're finding is layers of two different fabrics that are very tightly woven like flannel and quilting cotton together create a great barrier. And there's some research to show that there's a little bit of static electricity that's happening between the fabrics that also might be helpful. The other thing to remember is that when you take your mask off, you wanna remove it from your ears and try not to touch the front of it because there could be virus on that. And when you've got a cloth mask, just when you get home, just what I do, I go right to the bathroom sink, goes in the bathroom sink, I keep a little soap in there, I wash it out, hang it up to dry. So really the best thing is for, if everyone can have two cloth masks, then you're kind of good to go. One's always drying, one is ready. And what else was I gonna say about that? So we're not recommending masks as you've heard for children under the age of two. Also the commissioner of public health put out an advisory saying that also we know that there are people who cannot wear a mask for various reasons because of their inability to be covered up like that. It can affect their breathing. So recognize that if you see someone without a mask, you don't know why they're not wearing a mask. We're not looking for people to try to enforce this on others, some people just can't wear a mask. And we're hoping that everyone who can will wear one. You are required to wear one if you are going into an indoor space, a store, an office building. So it's a real adjustment I think for everyone to get used to this. And as Brianna was mentioning, the town does have a mask program. We're still looking for donations of fabric and we're really looking and other materials, I think maybe like elastic also. We're also looking for sewers because the idea is to get masks out to people who don't have the ability to get their own homemade masks or to make them. And so we're really trying to make that happen and looking for more volunteers and supplies. And I don't know if you wanna say more about that, Brianna. And I just wanna say quickly, thank you to all of the people who have donated already, whether it was through materials, funds, or actually sewing, we were able to get a couple hundred masks out to people who have requested and we're trying to put them in the lending libraries and working with the school to maybe put them out through the lunch distribution. So that is hundreds and hundreds of more masks. So anybody who can volunteer time materials, if they could call the town manager's office at 413-259-3002 or visit us online on the community participation website, that's amherstma.gov slash get involved. So anything that you can do or share this with someone who you know might be interested, that would be very helpful. Yeah, it's been amazing the amount of interest with people responding to offer services but overwhelming response of people saying, yes, my family needs masks and we can't get them online, we can't find them, this is a godsend. One of our CPOs had someone in tears thanking her for the masks because of her family situation, she can't leave the house easily. And so she was really hoping for a mask. But we have way more requests for masks than we have masks available, even though we produce over 200 within a few days. So it's really a great outpouring, but we need a lot more. Absolutely. All right, I have another question here. And again, I'll remind the folks in the room we're coming up to the end of our time. So if you have anything you wanna pop into the question box, please do that. I have a question is, let's see, when will town hall in the senior center open to the public again? So the town hall we will open to the public, our first order of business is to figure out how to bring employees back safely. And that is a pretty large task because we know that people gathering in a space over time is a bad thing to do at this moment in time. So that's why we're not interested in doing that. We do have a team of employees who are working on our reopening plan for bringing our employees back. And then the next phase will be how do we open the building to the public? That's a second phase. First thing is to, how do we bring our employees back safely? The second is opening the building to the public. We're able to really meet the needs of the public and pretty successfully. We have staff who will meet you in the parking lot if you are looking for your marriage certificates or something like that. It's been worked out and people have been very creative about it. The Senior Center, I would not anticipate that opening this calendar year at all. We will not be looking for creating a space where one of the most vulnerable populations can gather. And again, we will lead all of our, follow our advice of our health and our scientists like Julie and she will guide us on these decisions. But my speculation is that I don't anticipate the Senior Center opening this calendar year. Julie, do you? Yeah, I would agree with that. Because our seniors are just so vulnerable to this illness, I think the idea of bringing people in to a building won't be wise until we have a vaccine or something else changes in this picture of the disease. We have a wonderful Senior Center Director, Mary Beth Ogilevitz, who's doing all kinds of remote programming. And so I think that there will just be more and more attempts to be decentralizing services, bringing services to people, bringing classes into their homes. And the benefit of that is there've also been lots of people who couldn't make it to the Senior Center. So yeah, there'll be silver linings there also. And the food program is still continuing. People are getting meals delivered. So the fact that there's not a congregate place for a meal has not interrupted people receiving meals. Great, thank you. So we're coming close to our 1230 timeline to either of you have any last words for our viewers today? Just thank you for tuning in and we really appreciate you taking the time. And thank you all for what you're doing with social distancing and wearing masks and staying home. Amherst has done a really good job of protecting each other. And I know how hard this is. I have been in my house for a very long time. And it's tough, it's tough. And so we really appreciate the community because you're doing it for yourself and you're doing it for others. And it's so appreciated. Great, okay. Well, thank you everybody. If you have follow-up questions, please email us at info at amherstma.gov or contact the town manager's office. The number again is 259-3002. We appreciate you all for joining us. Stay safe and have a great day. Thank you. Bye, thank you both. Bye.