 turn started the recording. Thank you. We are recording. Okay. Good evening. It is July 17th, 2023. This is a regular meeting of the town council. The open meeting law was extended. This allows us to continue to hold meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present. However, we have a quorum present in the room tonight. While providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. The public is also welcome to be in the room tonight. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9 and live stream. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the July 17th, 2023 town council meeting to order at 6.30, 1. I'll call upon each councilor by name. At that time, you should unmute your mic and say present. This will indicate that you can hear us and we can hear you. Please remember to mute your mic again. Right. I'm going to start with Shalini Balmil. Present. Shalini is present, but remote. I need to do this for the purposes of the minute taker who is remote tonight. OK, well, one's one's here and one's not. OK. Patty Angelus present and in the room. Anna Devin, Gauthier is absent. Lynn Griezmer is present and in the room. Mandy Johannity present in the room. Anika Lopes and in the room. Michelle Miller present and in the room. Dorothy Pam. Don't see Dorothy yet. Pam Rooney present and in the room. Thank you, Kathy Shane. Here and in the room. Andy Steinberg also here in the room. Jennifer Taw here and in the room and Alicia Walker. I'm going to give her just a moment since the audio is just connecting. Alicia, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you. OK. There's no chat room. If you have technical issues, please let Athena, me, Shawn, Paul. No, and we'll decide what to do at that time. There is no change in the order of the agenda as posted. We are going to quickly just go to the town to the calendar and note that there are council meetings scheduled at this point. August 6th, 7th, I'm sorry, at 6 30 is if needed. And we'll discuss that later and the committees are meeting as posted here. With that, we're going on to the next agenda item. There are no hearings, but we do have general public comment. And this is the only public comment this evening. And if you are in the room and would like to make public comment, please make sure that you have signed up over on this side of the room where Shawn is. And if you are in on Zoom and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand now. We are waiting to see for all the people who had to sign up for public comment, both in the room and I've asked those who are on Zoom to raise their hands now and show on how many people have signed up. OK, with that, why don't we take the first person? If you would read their name, they'll come up, state your name and where you live. Public comment is restricted to three minutes. There's a clock up on the wall and that we all can see. So so the first name is Wayling Greeny. OK, please come forward, Wayling. Good evening. My name is Wayling Greeny. I live on 76 McClellan Street. I'm here today as the founder and executive director of a local nonprofit organization. It's called the Amherst Community Connections. I'm here today to request that the town of Amherst consider distributing a part of the ARPA funds to organizations that have applied for the most recent round of CDBG funding but did not receive it. Our agency is one of the agencies that didn't make it to the top five agencies that receive the CDBG funding. As you might know, CDBG can only choose five agencies every year to fund. And we came in six and we were severely impacted by the COVID-19. Just prior to the pandemic, our agency was funded by the CDBG funding for the work with the homeless and low income. However, during the pandemic, the town announced that you will not fund any agency due to state funding. And during that same period of time that we work extra hard, serving twice as many participants who we like to address as people we work with from the 400 families to 800 families, about 50 percent of them are from Amherst. Out of the pandemic, the most recent round of CDBG funding was a double funding situation. It skipped a year and doubled the funds into years, but they can only choose five lucky nonprofit organizations, not 10. Unfortunately, while we feel thrilled for the five lucky organizations who got double funding, our agency is very disappointed and disheartened that we are not able to participate. In this round of good fortune, it's an Asian American woman who has headed this small nonprofit local organizations in Amherst since 2000. We have applied for the CDBG funding seven times and received two fundings and we yet see other same time. Thirteen years, their agencies apply every year and receive funding. So I wonder about the equity issues in the CDBG funding system. So in conclusion, the SDM members of the Amherst Town Council and the hardworking town manager that I urge you to consider appropriating some of the ARPA funds for Amherst community connections and other nonprofit organizations that applied during the double CDBG funding cycle that were not chosen in that process. I thank you so much. You have been sent an email for this content of my presentation tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're going to now go to the audience on Zoom and the first person is Miranda Balken. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Am I on mute? Can you hear me? We can, but you'll need to speak a little louder. OK, is that better? That's much better. Thank you. Hello, my name is Miranda Balken and I live at 591 Bay Road. I use she her pronouns. I am an Amherst resident and a family physician. I'm a past board president of Medical Students for Choice and current medical director of Oxford Primary Care, a family medicine clinic at Cooley Dickinson, as well as medical director for LGBTQ services at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. Although I speak tonight as a private citizen, I am here to urge the council to vote yes on councillors Haniki and Devlin Gauthier's bylaw affirming our town's support for legal and private access to reproductive and gender affirming care. I realize this is not on tonight's agenda, but I am not able to attend your GOL meetings due to patient care responsibilities. While Massachusetts state law currently protects such care, transphobic and anti-choice activists to groups who overlap considerably are working on as many fronts as possible to limit the bodily autonomy of people born with a uterus, as well as anybody who is not cisgender and to interfere with medical providers ability to exercise our clinical judgment about what is and is not appropriate care. The right combination of legislative and judicial hate could easily take away the rights we have today. My patients are terrified of this future. Every day, I have conversations about mood disorders that have resurfaced because the nation is peppered with legislation, taking away their rights to medical care, to parent their children, to use the bathroom. I have spoken to transgender people who don't leave home without their passport in case they need to flee to Canada on a moment's notice if a new worst law gets passed. I have inserted IUDs from monogamous lesbians who are worried their rights to abortion will be taken away and you never know what might happen. This bylaw will help to keep our community safe and protected and send a message of love and acceptance. Please pass it without further delay. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. We'll go back now. And I just want to remind people that have and come into the room since we started. If you would like to make public comment, please go over to Sean, the gentleman with the blue shirt on and sign up. OK. Sean, what is the who's the next person in the room that's on the list? The next person is Lauren Mills. OK. Good evening. Lauren Mills, a long middle drive to a long middle drive. I am a former and continued member of the Board of Health, but I am speaking from my own personal viewpoint. I want to thank Vera, Cage and Mrs. Pat Onubaku for all of the diligence. They have showed and bringing important community issues to the public. When we don't know ourselves, we take the role of our oppressors. We need the creativity and imagination of all of our residents. Hence the example, tail of two two paintbrush kits. One has just one paintbrush of determination. The other a complete kit, economic success, a complete kit for economic success, good trusting relationships, economic knowledge, capital, equity, institutional and generational knowledge. Where should justice lie in our town, especially not so post covid for many people in our community? And looking at how Amherst is choosing to distribute our funds. Justice should be everywhere, but are we afraid of too much justice? Now is the time for our youth to be seen and heard, whether that be through more engagement activities to know what our young people want and need in a youth empowerment, cultural community center. Or actually or actually department departments coming up with public initiatives for social issues that have been brought forth in several surveys and the Department of Health and the Department of Health needs assessment. One of those needs that was prioritized or should be prioritized was mental health. It was mentioned as a priority in the community needs assessment as a and as a continued board member of the Board of Health. I would like the health department to take mental health initiatives. Seriously, and have activities to reduce chronic stress in the most vulnerable areas of our population, children, students and the elderly. I want to also thank the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Committee for holding its listening session and trying to get to the root of the housing crisis and Amherst and find solutions. Where are the models of care that our children are learning in school? The school year of 2022 started with a traumatic incident on July 5th with young people being detained, some say for their protection. However, it was traumatizing for them and racial inequity has come up. Also, our school year ended with another traumatizing and emotional situation with students who identify as LGBTQ AI, also feeling their rights were ignored. Lauren, please wrap up. To the BIPOC community leaders, we also need to do better in bringing a clear vision and picture of what exactly does youth empowerment mean, visualizing the programs that would go into a space. And more importantly, who will be working with youth in developing these programs? Will it include learning focuses such as photography, learning about the built environment, cultural historic preservation or self-reflective education? Just because we live in a college town does not mean we automatically are going to go to college. We know that this is a goal that takes hard work and persistence. So we'll actualize so we'll actualizing a youth empowerment center. We need to make a youth space as a priority for the remainder of the opera funds. One place my kids like to go is the Jones Library. When this closes for renovations, I believe in December, where will these activities be moved to? Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I want to take a moment and make sure that Dorothy Pam can hear us. Yes, I can mute it again. Thank you. I apologize for being late. That's fine. Welcome. OK, we are going to go back to the Zoom audience. And the next person is Margaret Sawyer. Please enter the room, state your name, make sure you unmute. There you go. And tell us where you live. OK, hi, my name is Margaret Sawyer. I also submitted this in writing, but I am glad to be here with you all to speak it. Are you able to see me? No, right? Yeah, OK. And can you hear me? Yes, we can. OK. I'm a resident of Amherst. I have two children in the Amherst schools and I serve on the board of Amherst Media. I am asking that the Town Council consider supporting Amherst Media in the next round of ARPA funding. We are Amherst's own independent nonprofit public access organization. And we have the distinction of being the oldest and longest operating such organization in the country. We were founded in the 1970s to help make local government more transparent and help promote communication among the people of Amherst. Today, right at this moment, we record and broadcast every town meeting and every school committee meeting in addition to select subcommittee meetings and hearings. Our staff and interns attend in person meetings to film them. We broadcast the meetings live on our YouTube channel and on our cable access channels, and they're also archived for future viewing. We also record and broadcast different events around town and we host community members who produce their own shows. Finally, we have 30 to 50 college interns every year who come and join us for training and media and production. That's something I hadn't realized when I joined the board that it's a very competitive internship. Kids come from all of the five colleges and many have gone on into broadcasting. Amherst Media is a vital part of our town's ongoing work to have a strong, transparent government. Since we started our YouTube channel 10 years ago, we've been watched 250,000 times this spring. Over 2000 people watched the school committee meetings that we recorded. For many years, Amherst Media has worked with the town to identify an appropriate site in which to build the Amherst Media Center. I have not also realized how many years we've been working on this together. And now we have a site. It's directly across from Elements Spa within walking distance from the middle and high schools. We're finalizing the building design and we believe the building will be a critical hub to further expand and lift the voices of our town to train young people in media production and to help them learn how to lift their voices. We've seen our young people can be amazing reporters. Supporting Amherst Media is supporting the many stories and experiences that belong to our community over the years. We've sponsored, spotlighted many different valuable people in Amherst through our Gene Hagerty Award, including Ellen Story, the Rotary Club, the women's, the League of Women Voters and many Gary and Carly Tarnacoff and many more. We hope you'll consider supporting Amherst Media. Thanks. Thank you for joining us. Go back to the audience, Sean. Next name is Vera Cage. Good evening. My name is Vera Cage. I live at 12 Longletter Drive in Amherst. And I want to. Appeal to the town council to consider the folks that have been left out from the first round of ARPA funding. You know, I think that. It's American Rescue Plan Act and. We really need to focus on the existing. Businesses and organizations that have been in our community. To lift them up. I think that the first round we saw a lot of newer businesses being lured into our community. And I think that's great. But I think that at this particular juncture, we really need to consider how do we support the ones that have been left behind that will probably leave our community if we don't shore them up. As I'm looking at the data that has been provided by the town thus far. And thanks in large part to Mrs. Pat Ononabaku. Who presides over the Black Business Association Amherst area. We've been able to see how much money has been awarded to which organizations, to what businesses. And there was one, you know, I think there, there's a lot of there are a lot of questions currently in my, my mind as we study that list, which includes a business that, you know, just established as itself in this community in this town in January. And it was awarded technical assistance towards plumbing. And so we don't know what the dollar amount is for that particular business. And it's located at 35 Montague Road and there's not a lot, you know, that's out there about that business. But we do know that it established itself in January. So I will stop there. It's not over yet, you know, we're going to keep asking the town for more data for more information about how this expenditure took place. It appears that there are a lot of excuses of why existing businesses didn't get the award. And that needs to be transparent. That needs to be publicly discussed and not privately gossiped about. I think that's doesn't bode well for the perception of trust in this community. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. If you've come into the room and you would like to make public comment, please make sure you've signed in with Sean who's over here on the left on my left. Okay, with that we're going to go to the zoom and the next person is Irv and Irv please enter the room state your full name and where you live. My name is Irv Rhodes. I live at 173 Pondview Drive. And I sound a little hoarse because I have been on the phone about 90% of the time. My wife is threatening divorce, but here is my comment is that I have and was on some of the committees who were involved with distributing our funds throughout the town and through various organizations. And one of the things that I really appreciated about being on there is that how thorough the process was, how transparent it was, all the information about what was done is available on the town website through the town manager. All that information is there. Nothing is hidden. And that can be accessed. I continue to believe that remaining funds should be distributed on an equitable basis. To both individual agencies that are in need of it and who can demonstrate that need. I also think that agencies or groups, business groups, etc. should be looked at in a very serious manner, especially those groups that are connected up with other groups within the town. So that these funds can find their way into the places that they need to be. I totally agree that there should be a youth center. I totally agree that there should be a community center. And I'm purposely not saying a youth empowerment center. I'm saying a youth center. I'm not saying a youth center just for black kids. I'm saying for all kids. I'm not saying a community center just for black people, but for all people. Because that's where my values are. I believe that businesses in town who are black, white, or otherwise who were left out in the first round that a way should be made so that those groups can receive funds. There's the same conditions and same with the same criteria that other groups who came forward and got funds are. I'm totally for that. And finally, people don't know who I am. And what I stand for, I really want a cross cultural cross ethnic, all background people to be involved in Amherst. I really do not believe in separation of any kind for any reason whatsoever. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I hope your voice gets better. We're going to move back to the audience. The next name is Kathleen Anderson. Very cage Bob long metal drive. Amherst. So last home council meeting. We discussed the ways in which bias may have or preference may have been provided to the developers and landowners and property owners in this town organized by the business improvement district. I understand that Barry Roberts is the president of the business improvement district. And we have to look at how those funds. Have benefited. People indirectly. Right. We have members in the audience today. That are shop owners who there's one that isn't in the downtown area. And, you know, it was overlooked. So we have to consider how the funds have been distributed and how it has enriched people indirectly and, and we have to really look at the ethics of that. We don't want to look at how the town has responded to calls for fairness and equity. When we talk about, you know, existing business black businesses not getting ARPA money. We're countered with, well, you know, over half went to BIPOC businesses. And in reality, you know, that statement is not taking in consideration what the Drake received in terms of the $300,000 in ARPA funding. So once again, Mrs. Pat Onanavaku, who's the number cruncher, has repeatedly put, you know, try to assert this fact to correct what's been printed. And I think we need to stop trying to mislead people and really address the issues head on and really believe in the people that are presenting the data and really discuss it in a very open and honest way. Thankfully, because I, you know, just like Mrs. Pat said, you know, the Drake is a business as every other businesses as a business, it's nothing special. And I think that people don't know that they never went through an application process to get that $300,000 from the town. So many excuses as to why existing businesses are not eligible or that organizations like Amherst media didn't apply because, you know, there wasn't an opportunity to apply for organizations like Amherst media at the last round. So I'm pleased that this round were being considered. And I think the community owes a lot of credit once again to Mrs. Pat Onanavaku for really being persistent about this issue and really seeking the justice that we all deserve. Thank you. And we're going to go back to Zoom and Representative Mindy Dom, who informed me in advance that she was going to try to be here, but she's stuck on the mass pipe coming back from Boston. So Mindy, please enter the room. You can state your name and where you live. Thank you. I pulled over. I just want to assure people I'm currently not driving, but I apologize. I very much wanted to be there in person. But unfortunately, a meeting in the State House went later, and I got caught in traffic. So my apologies. I'm Mindy Dom. I'm the State Representative for the Third Hampshire District. I hope you can hear me. I need to share suggestions regarding the allocation of round two in ARPA funds for the town of Amherst. My suggestions are in response to the town's presentation at the June 26th town council meeting and your invitation to the public to share ARPA spending priorities. My recommendations are based on the needs provided by the town to my office and those described to me by residents. But first I want to express my appreciation for the work that has occurred in identifying needs for ARPA funding, the distribution process used thus far, and the allocation decisions made around one. The purpose of my speaking tonight is to share my thoughts on priorities for the town of Amherst in its round two spending. And I will be focusing, as I mentioned, on projects that have been brought to my attention and that have been described to me as urgent and have a significant price tag. The amount of the $4.9 million available in round two, $600,000 is committed, leaving $4.3 million to be allocated. So first, ARPA and infrastructure. And forgive me for speaking quickly, but I think I'm going to go over and I'm going to try to be very quick. In February 2023 memo, the town provided a list of capital projects to our office based on this information Amherst residents would benefit from ARPA spending on two projects in particular, the upgrades and renovations to the water treatment plant and more funding for roads and sidewalks. I would like to suggest that a significant amount of ARPA funding in round two be dedicated to these critical and expensive needs. As a result of recent weather events, there may be other infrastructure needs that also increase in priority, including dam repair. The treatment plant was described to us as having a top priority with the projected cost of $4 million. I understand the town has received a no interest loan for this project. ARPA funds offer unique opportunities to cover those costs. The need for this project was described as quote, critical to preserving the town's water supply for the next 100 years. The housing costs have dramatically escalated during COVID due to supply and labor shortages, causing the total price tax for this project to exceed what has been authorized by the council. The town has secured a state revolving fund loan. We need another funding source, or the cost will need to be absorbed by the water enterprise fund, negatively impacting residential water rates. Roads and sidewalks. I'm very aware of the relentless nature of road and sidewalk repairs, the need for more sidewalks, the escalating costs for this effort. The town's very strong advocacy for more state funds to address this need and its assessment that the local need regularly exceeds the state funding and our capacity to secure additional support. Designating a specific substantial amount of funding from ARPA to address the regular shortfalls in this area would respond to this need and help make Amherst a more walkable, rollable and accessible town. Using funding for ARPA funding for some of these substantial projects could also advantage future town applications for state resources. I want to just note the town's list also included net zero improvements to the new elementary school as well as solar counties for parking lots, both of which may be able to seek alternative sources of government funding at the state or federal level. I also believe that reserving additional funds and forgive me for going late I'm speaking as quickly as I can. I believe that reserving additional funds in this category for addiction prevention with the family outreach of Amherst program would be a strong move to preserve housing status for Amherst residents. I want to consider expanding the eligibility for the systems to cover additional debts, which individuals or families have incurred in their attempts to stay out. These debts could include for example utilities credit card, medical expenses, and phone. In terms of childcare. In meetings with. Mindy can you. Yes, I will. I'm just going to. I'm going to talk about childcare and then small business if I may. They'll both be brief. In recent meetings with providers in our region. I've learned about the deep relationship between the shortage and providers and the need for better reimbursement rates. I believe the state is beginning to meet the reimbursement challenge. However, perhaps creatively determining how ARPA funds could be used to provide local one time hiring bonuses could result in the increase in local providers. That is required to staff the slots we need. I, there's other things but I'll put some into some writing, I want to also share that I've reached out to the executive office of economic development to begin conversations around having a public round table and Amherst related to small business grants that are available at the state level. To take this opportunity to pledge to work with all interested in parties, including this council to make such a meeting happen quickly. Hoping this will help maximize participation in these grants opportunities and bringing more state resources to our community for small businesses. Welcome to Congress and the government about including the small business administration. I believe these comments reflect the priorities that have been brought to my attention by the town. And I thank you for the opportunity. I'll submit this in writing to the council, which also includes additional. Thank you. Thank you. Pat, you have your hand up. Use your microphone please. Thank you. What I said was, if we're going to institute three minutes, it needs to be on a consistent basis, no matter how much I respect representative Dom, she should not have been allowed to go on so long. Thank you. I'm going to go back to the audience. The next name is Pat on a buck. Good evening. Can people hear me. Yes. Keep leaning towards the mic. Thank you. Is that better. Yes, thanks. Okay. So, thank you again for the opportunity to speak very briefly. I want to start by thanking MS in D for publishing a letter that I sent to you all earlier today. And I would urge audience and other readers to go to MS in D and read my letter. I don't want to repeat what I wrote for the sake of time. And basically, what I tried to do on behalf of, oh, I didn't want to introduce myself on on the back of from time I got I apologize. So, I don't want to repeat what I wrote, but basically, what I've been trying to do since last year is to call attention to injustice and corruption. And favoritism in, in the distribution of business within the business community through the upper points. So now we have $4.9 million left, our caution and urge the town council, our time manager to use most of the funds to our residents who have been negatively impacted by COVID pandemic. There are people who are still struggling. Who can even have three bills a day that people who have high credit credit card. Housing utilities care repair childcare. I am not in support of using some of that money for road road repair. I'm sorry. I think most of the money should go to benefit our resident, our businesses, not only black on businesses, but other businesses who have been struggling. You know, last meeting, I heard one of the counselor saying that our town is doing so great, even though we don't have economic director, and most of the spaces are filled. You know, when I listen to that as somebody who have done business in this town, what that counselor failed to think and recognize is that the fact that some businesses have written spaces doesn't mean that everybody's making it. How many people has this counselor actually go to their businesses to ask, you know, how are you doing? Are we only here to protect the rich landlords ranking out? Do we really care about the businesses? This is a seasonal town, and in the summer it gets very slow. So we have to be careful about we're doing great, you know, downtown is coming back, economic, whatever. It's not like that for everyone. We also need to think about when we talk about businesses, it shouldn't be only downtown. During pandemic, there are businesses, black on business that were on the front line, taking care of your neighbors who are elderly, disabled people, who are distributing PPE, and who, you know, did we get that kind of accolade? No, we didn't. So we just, we should think about when it comes to who is contributing to economic contribution in this town, it should not only be bed or chamber of commerce. Not everybody belongs to that. I don't want to state about rumors that is going on, the reasons why some people didn't get funding in the beginning. I actually took my time to research the federal final rule on upper funds. And basically, there's nothing that says you have to buy taxes as a business to get it. And you can have the social security number to if the screening committee wants to know that the upper fund is meant if it even stated you can give cash to residents to meet their needs. I urge people please take your time and read the upper final rule. What happened in our town is shameful. I think our problem in this town, we want peace, but when the people in power refuse to acknowledge mistakes, it makes the situation worse. And I don't want to repeat what other people said, but see what happened in Piasco with July 5th, what is happening in middle school and the upper funds. I will think that as leaders, when issues come up, you get in front of the issue and try to make it go away and resolve it and own up the aspect that you're responsible for. All what we are asking for BBAA is for the town leaders to acknowledge, including beat director and said, yeah, we were in fact that we tried our best. We hear you BBAA. That's all we're asking for. But we didn't get that. Instead, there was like falsehood spread around everywhere. And I want to conclude by thanking so many people over several weeks. I've been very overwhelmed with personal texts, messages, emails, phone calls. I want to thank my fellow BBAA members. I also want to publicly thank our representative McGovern that came to BBAA event, his aid today. We met with him again today at the aid. And we did reach out to Dom and also to Joe Comerford prior to McGovern. We are looking forward to working with Dom. If she responds, we reach out to her earlier in the beginning. So I want to thank everybody for your support and some of the counselors who have reached out. I want peace, but peace can only happen when justice is addressed and it has not been addressed. Let's take our time and figure out how to spend the $4.9 million. When I hear that we need roads, we need cash reserve, I just feel like who are these people representing? This town belongs to all of us. Add on to the powerful and elected people. Yes, you guys elected to represent us, but sometimes I feel that some of you do not represent me or people who look like me is the fact. I know my time is up. I am wondering what was next. I hope that would be a robust public forum on APA funds, because I worry about outreach of people who don't speak English translation. I want investigation on how it got $300,000 and Drake. There's a lot of transparency issue that is still not out there. I hope we take our time this time and get it right. And let's spend significant amount of the money remaining for the people who really with childcare, for people with disability, and so on and so forth. So that it will reflect broad base of our community. Thank you. I'm going to return to the zoom audience, and I am going to now go back and reinforce the three minute rule. I've already been chastised by one of my counselors. And I really don't want to have that happen again. Thank you. The next person is Calvin Dingra. Please enter the room, restate your name because I'm sorry if I mispronounced it and where you live. Yeah, my name is Talvin Dingra, I live 49 Kester Lane in Amherst. I'd like to thank Shawnee Balmiel for inviting me to speak in support of the BIPOC Youth Center. I believe that, so I believe that youth should be part of the committee. I think that as youth of Amherst, we can provide unique insight onto certain issues that the center should focus on specifically education. Specifically the schooling system education in regards to the high school. In regards to language barriers that are are seen in the high school, and really through the entire district. But specifically I'm speaking from experience with the high school. Language barriers, lack of support maybe for BIPOC students in the high school. A lack of diversity in AP classes and honors classes. Yeah, I think those are just some base issues but I think that the youth of Amherst can provide an element, especially given that it's a youth center that is needed. So, thank you. Not going to go over. Thank you for joining us. Back to the audience. Next name on the list is Dennis Vandal. Hello there. My name is Dennis Vandal and good evening to all of you. Can you hear me okay. Yes, we can. Thank you. I come here this evening. Oh, my name is Dennis Vandal and I live at 173 Columbia Drive here in Amherst. I come here this evening, basically to ask on behalf of the senior center for a significant portion of ARPA funding as well. The senior center is one of those little entities that provides remarkably important services to about 5500 members of our community. There are people who are over the age of let's say 55 or so, many more of whom are of course retired. And in recent years, instead of actually gaining space, we've actually wound up losing space during the pandemic. We're looking to get it back because activities are increasing. And so we need more space and we also need greater facilities for feeding the hungry. And that's mainly done with improvements that will be done with the kitchen that we're looking to to have improved. These things are really very important mainly to feed the hungry with the the congregate dining program and also for exercise providing space for the exercise programs that are also really very much needed in terms of eliminating hunger and also for providing exercise and and a healthy movement for senior citizens in this town. I'll basically keep it brief and my remarks brief. These things are needed because our town has not been in the forefront of elder care, while other communities have done remarkable strides, such as such as Hadley, such as Ludlow, many other communities really have remarkable senior centers now, and we're sort of, we need some updating, we need some improvement. And that's what I'm here to improve it to ask you for to wrap it up. The most important thing that I can offer is that the senior center, regardless of gender, regardless of race, regardless of sexual orientation or anything else. The senior center takes care or offer services to everyone who hopefully will get old. And that is mainly or older. Yeah. And that happens mainly because, oh, let's just say it happens to all of us in the blink of an eye. And that's what I asked you to keep in mind when you're looking for when you're looking to allocate our funding in the future for, especially for the Amherst senior center. That's it. Thank you for your comments. Thank you very much. And now to the zoom audience, Mark Barrett. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hello, my name is Mark Barrett, I live at, let's see nine chestnut court in Amherst. And I also am asking the members of the council to consider spending money on the senior center. I go there quite often. They have a lot of variety of programs, but we would like to do more. We have a exercise room that we can't even use. There is brand new equipment that's not being used. We have a kitchen that is totally outdated and the health department won't even let us make anything more than a cup of coffee. So we cannot feed people. We cannot have activities for people. The building itself needs a lot of work because it has been really let go over the years. We know our neighbors have built new senior centers and we are willing to work with what we have, but we need help. And I'm hoping that the members of the senior community can be considered when you're thinking about spending the money or some of the money. And that we could have a win-win situation for both the seniors and also for the town where the bank center could be used for other functions. And if we upgrade those kitchen and that kind of stuff. So once again, I thank you very much for listening to me. And I do hope that the members will consider it very fondly if they can pass some money along to us. Thank you very much. Thank you for the audience in the room. The next person. The next name is Ed Cage. I'd like to yield my time to. Thank you, Mr. Cage. My name is a milk car. I live at 29 Chapel Road. I serve on a town appointed committee, but I do not speak here today as a representative of that committee, but just for my own opinions on this matter. The senior lives matter. LGBTQIA identified lives matter. And we also say here, black lives matter. And it is important to recognize how black businesses, black owned businesses serve to anchor the black community here in Amherst. One of you referred recently about the importance of businesses to help alleviate our revenues that our town needs, that it's not all resting on the property taxes. And that is a, that is a valid point. But within, but there are other functions as well to the business community and they're being a diverse business community. Every year I welcome in my role at my job at the University of Massachusetts. New students that come new graduate students in particular, who come and have to find a place to stay. New faculty that come whether in my own department like our new chair that came in last year, who did become an Amherst resident and we were, I was personally ecstatic about that. Colleagues of mine that come to Amherst College, one of whom also became an Amherst resident that arrived here, Professor Bradley very recently. So, you know, this is important, but a lot of times they don't. They opt for, I mean, everywhere, other than Amherst, they opt for, for Hartford and commute on, you know, obscene distances to come in on the days in which they teach, and they opt for Springfield they opt for Hadley, they opt for North Hampton. And it's hard to give them a point, the points for for Amherst. Some of them don't have children. Some of them are not looking to have children. So it can't just be oh we have the great schools we have the greatest schools. There's got but when they can see the business community that represents them that looks like them that plays the music they play that cut the kind of hair or groom. They offer grooming services for the kind of of hair and things that they need products that they need when they have a folks that are dealing with the cultural aesthetic that they are a part of this serves as to say, Oh, well, I'm welcomed here. And so I think we have to look at the investment in black businesses as a real strategic investment in securing the black community here in Amherst. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I'm going to go back to the zoom audience as soldier or tag up Mr Monty, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Good evening. South Amherst, can everyone hear me. We can. But, yes, we can. Okay, I can be louder needed. Thank you so much. And I am going to make very quick points here given the time for the past 22 years, I have been either as an applicant or volunteer involved in applications for state, federal and private funding, both public corporate and foundation. In this capacity, I have certainly learned the ins and outs of the pitfalls and the joys and, and disappoints of applications. Given that experience. I was also invited to sit on review committees for other applicants for grants by organizations in the region, and the state. I have also sat on scholarship review committees for the community foundation of Western Massachusetts where I was a trustee for a few years. I have never had the opportunity. And perhaps I should say that Mary to remain in application process in which any in any way, there would be even the appearance of a conflict of interest. I do not know the details of every decision every person who sat exactly what they did, but I urge you given the grounds well of protest and investigation to have a review process that shed light and transparency. And reestablishes trust, or at least attempt to reestablish trust in the system. It's very fragile. And handling public funds, particularly federal funds or recovery. This is an incredible responsibility. You in any way are related to any organization that can benefit from such a process, as we can see in our Hampton such individuals colleagues included were asked to step out of the process. If businesses do continue to need help. I was going to look to the support of the greater Hampton Chamber of Commerce, where we are looking at always support small businesses. Finally, on the mental health front for youth. I have to quote very, very quickly. If I can have dispensation of just a second, but the last survey, which surveyed all 8th, 10th and 12th graders in Hampton County. Which is conducted every year by the highly regarded norms tested survey of the city coalition in collaboration with educators, all the school districts, etc. All for Hampshire County and this is publicly available to have the slide here. All overall for Hampshire County youth asked whether they had been sad or depressed in the past week, and we had 57.6% of black youth, 60.5% of Latino youth and over all for youth, incredibly by obviously vulnerable populations of GTQ IA and others, and, and overall, um, you know, an astounding 82% of parents students have been sad or depressed in the past week, and the majority of all students. So I hardly agree on the focus as well as everything else has been stated on youth participation and mental health. Thank you very much. Make it. We're back to people in the audience. The last name we have is I'm a car so Shabazz. Thank you milk or Shabazz South Amherst again. This time I would like to speak more specifically to my own experience as part of having a family business. Before COVID we had started a family business black star livery, and we had a bust we had contracts with the University of Massachusetts workforce development taking folks to training sessions across the state. We had, we did local services on busy nights, moving students to and fro safely to, and to keep people who might be drinking from from driving, we had took people to airport runs we worked with a lot of the elderly. And we hired a number of drivers for that. Of course, when COVID hit, we pretty much suspended operations. Patrick Chapman back in the back of the room housed our large bus that we had for for many, many a year. Thank you Patrick happened for that. We, and, and other of our vehicles we we've gone ahead and liquidated at this point we'd like to start back up, and where there is support for this. It would be great I'd like to introduce my son a milk or Shabazz junior in the back he was one of our really fabulous drivers he's, he gets letters all the time from insurance companies astounded by his his excellent driving record that want to offer him insurance car insurance he's he's quite fine where he is. He's ready to go back, you know, and doing things helping our Amherst neighbors, our elders to get to appointments that they might need don't want to operate on a uber basis there are too many issues with with those kinds of car services we'd like to locally operated people call people sign up people subscribe and they can get to and fro. But these are the kinds of things that we can do where there is, you know, whether it's support for these kinds of business activities. So just trying to give you. And let me say this where certain businesses may not have had things right I often wonder with those who were giving out the money. What were the follow up to some of those businesses that applied that were turned down that were minority owned that were African American own did anyone go and say hey, let's talk about this this reason that we we had to disqualify you, how can we help you, how can we get you to, you know, be in line for for next time around. You know, these are the ways that if we, you know, want to, to really, again, think about the strategic investment that that black businesses offer wherever they are and other black organizations black churches, for that matter of faith based organizations. If we see them as important this is where we can help. Thank you. So, I'm going to ask the Zoom audience Lev Ben Ezra, please enter the room state your name and where you live. Hey, I'm Ben Ezra. I live in greenfield Massachusetts, but I'm speaking as the executive director of the MR survival center so yes first before I continue I'll just confirm that that's okay because I'm not a resident of MR. Can I continue. Please, please go ahead. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much to everyone who has spoken. As you consider additional projects for round two, I would like to consider the council to really encourage devoting additional resources to support basic needs of area residents living with very low incomes. This is something that I see daily at the MR survival center, as we are now serving 33% more people every month than during the highest peaks of the pandemic. This program has grown more than four fold compared to 2019. And we regularly hear from folks who come for the first time saying things like I never thought I would need us or we hear from families that we've known for years about what a lifeline it is. So I would like to state that we are incredibly grateful for the funds that were awarded to the MR survival center and round one. This is helping support free grocery delivery to Amherst residents. And if it were feasible and there are many competing priorities, additional ARPA funding in round two would be incredibly helpful as we stretch to meet dramatically rising need. We're navigating compounding and really serious factors of this incredible rise in need that just continues every month. It's far beyond anything we've seen in the organization's history. At the same time, as we are seeing an end of COVID grants, decrease in individual donations, and a very significant decline in food received from the food bank and other donation sources that's requiring us to dramatically increase our purchase food. As we navigate these challenges, it's incredibly important that we continue and strengthen our focus on food access and belonging across language, across identity, country of origin, physical ability, transportation and family sizes. Over the last year, our food pantry, for example, has provided free groceries, now two full weeks worth of groceries each month to every household to 2,592 Amherst residents, folks who shopped on site, picked up curbside orders or received grocery delivery. And this was a really significant increase from the roughly 2,000 Amherst residents the year before. We expect next year to be higher still. I really here and appreciate other comments tonight stating the importance of supporting organizations and small businesses who have not yet received ARPA funds. And beyond the Amherst Survival Center, I strongly encourage you to prioritize basic needs and area residents living with low incomes. This is truly a scary time for many that unfortunately seems to be getting worse and not better. So I really, really appreciate all of the comments tonight. I'm always inspired by the engagement and leadership of residents at this town. So thank you to everyone who has come out into the council. Thanks for letting me speak. Thank you. From the audience in the room. We. Oh. Oh, sorry. Try and pronounce your name correctly this time. I'm a car. So, Shabazz. Oh, junior. Sorry about that. I guess I should have read the junior part. Hi. My name is a milk hard Shabazz junior. I live at 29 Chapel Road. So, I guess my comments are really about transparency. You know, I, I'm not very politically active, but I try to do. I try to vote more often. And when I go down to the, to vote for elected officials are different policies. I really have a lot of faith. And I hope that psychically, you know, even though I don't understand the, the total policy that I'm voting for or the person that I'm voting for, I really hope that, you know, they do the right thing. And, you know, for a while I lived in Florence and I got to see a bit of Northampton and hear about the things that they are trying to do. And, you know, we were definitely first in the area. To try to tackle something like reparations. But they also are trying to do this as well. And the particular attitude that they have is that even if they can't provide assistance to the current population of Northampton that is black. They're trying to make opportunities for more black people to live in their city. And that I feel like is, you know, really different. I feel like in Amherst, you know, the things that we try to allow to happen. And to promote and try to uplift people here. I really feel like if we just listen more to the people that that need the help and, and ask for it. And did more to have more, more transparency. I really feel like our culture would improve here. I don't know. I guess I just by living in different towns. Still in the area. I see, I see very different attitudes that people have. And I just hope that that this situation continues to be transparent and people listen to each other. And we, we really try to get policies that benefit people here. Okay. Thank you for joining us. Kathleen trap Hagan, please enter the room state your name and where you live. Hi, thank you for having me speak my name's Kathleen trap Hagan and I live in district two on southeast street in Amherst. I would like to first of all thank Ms Pat, and the other folks that are involved in the black business association of Amherst area, and also via a cage for the work that they've done over the past few months to amplify what where the money really went, particularly around where the dollars went, as opposed to the percentages which was really eye opening for me and I hope. I just want to thank a lot of you, all of you. I also want to thank counselor Walker for the work that she's done around this. So I wanted to say that this money is supposed to be rectifying the damage done by coven. And we all know that we all did not suffer the same damage from coven. The communities of color suffered much more damage in people lost in grief in mental health in stress in jobs lost in economic lost then generally the white population. When I looked at the proposed list of projects that thank you. President grease my for sending that in email to your constituents. I didn't see any of that mindset reflected in the proposed list of projects for round two, like a solar cover for the high school parking lot or roads and sidewalks. It just seemed like this. There's no strategy and no mindset to actually repair harm that was done. So, I think that in almost entire list of projects except for where you're talking about community based organizations needs to be rethought. I think you should listen to the Black Business Association of Amherst area, and in fact consider shifting power over to them for some of this money in the same way that you shifted your power over to the bid for the first round. I also think that it would be great to take seriously and listen to the amazing work that's been done over several years by the community and justice. There's been a couple of different names for this committee I think they were first the Community Safety and Justice Committee and then they were the social justice committee. There have been a lot, a lot of work done around why we need a BIPOC Youth Empowerment Center and the groundwork for that I think you should seriously consider funding that. There also was an enormous amount of groundwork done about how to get a resident advisory board, which I don't know if that work has been sufficiently listened to and used. I noticed that there was quite, there was some tens of thousands of dollars that were being set aside for a consultant to do that. I'm not happy that that's actually going to move forward but I think if we could just look at whether we need to spend all that much money to do that because a lot of that groundwork was done in the first report which is now three or four years old. And so if people could go back to that and look at that again. So that's all I've got. Thank you so much for listening to me. Have a good night. Thank you. Any other people from the audience. Okay, and we are done also so public comment has concluded. We want to thank all of you I just want to mention that there are 56789 1011 12 people in the audience with us tonight here in person, and on line there at this point. There's only one and that's about where we've been all night. That does not include everybody who's watching through Amherst media are on their phone or whatever else. So, that concludes public comment. I for the town council and I want to thank all of you for being here for the town council we are going to go on to our consent agenda. And that is. I just want to mention that on the screen. I just want to mention that as in the past, these items were selected because they were considered to be routine. And it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy. However, I do want to mention two things. You can ask to remove an item and that does not require a second. In addition to that, you may say, you know, I'm willing to vote for this as part of the consent agenda. But when we get to that item on the agenda, I'd like to hear a little more about it. Okay, because that some of these particularly around conservation land and so forth are new. Dorothy, did you have your hand up for the consent agenda. I had a question. I'm sorry that I entered late. We had the public comment on ARPA funds. Will counselors have a chance to speak on ARPA funds tonight. Yes. When we have our discussion period, which is item seven on the agenda. Okay, thank you very much. Absolutely. So, the motion that I'm seeking a second on, but unless I'm pulling something off is to move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. Authorization of community resources committee to hold a public hearing on proposed amendments to buy law 3.48 stretch energy code. Adoption of amendments to the following conservation restrictions. And I want to note that one of these has been pulled earlier today. So it is only eight be lower. Market Hill road and flat hills road Amherst mass and eight D D groves 69 shoots very road Pellum mass. Eight I adoption of the flag policy, eight J adoption of amendments to the town council policy regarding control and regulation of the public ways. Okay, rescission of bylaw 3.35 parades and public meetings nine a one to eight approval of town manager appointments and 11 a approval of June 26 2023 regular meeting minutes. Are there any items counselors would like removed to be voted for later. Kathy. Yes, I'd like to remove eight a authorization to hold a public hearing. Thank you. When we come back to that we will ask Kathy to speak to that. Okay. I see no other hands and I'm sorry. Yes. I also have some questions on eight J adoption of amendments to the policy regarding control and regulation of public ways. I didn't think that was going to be on the agenda tonight. We did do a first reading at the last meeting. So the second reading would be tonight. But we'll pull it off the consent agenda and we can discuss that later. Okay. All right, are there any others. All right, then I'm seeking a second. I've removed item eight a and item eight J. Second, Mandy. Okay. In the vote. Pat D'Angeles. Hi. On a Devlin got here is absent. Lynn Griezmer is an eye man to Joe Hanneke. Hi. Anika Lopes. I Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer Todd. Yes. Alicia Walker. And we will. Yes. It's unanimous with one. With 12. Counselors voting in favor and one absent. Okay. With that, we have no resolutions and proclamations. Given that I anticipate. Can you use your microphones, please? She has been booted out of zoom. Let's move the consent agenda off the screen. And we need to pause while we bring. So we have both Michelle Miller and. Pam Rooney have been disconnected. But you were there for the vote, correct? Yes. Okay. Okay. Michelle is back on. Yeah. I'm going to suggest we take our break and we reconvene at eight o'clock. And we'll try to, um, correct the technology glitches. And when you're gone, please turn your mic off and your video off. You're reconnected. Yeah. Put my button on and talk. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're saying if you're in the room and you. So I was. Yeah. And I have expected somebody. These are changes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sean, would you please unmute the town room? There's no audio. The town room is muted. Okay. Thank you. When you return, please. Turn on your video. So I know you're returned. Jennifer, you need to turn your video. It's okay. I shall. Thank you. One, two, three. Meek and shall. All right. In the interest of trying to. Complete our meeting. Alicia, you have a question. So I'm going to actually. Do the meeting again. And Alicia, please forward your question. Alicia. Maybe you're not back yet. I am sorry. It had me in the audience at first, but I am. I'm so far. I'm sorry. Thank you. Did you have a question? No, I just wanted to be brought in from the audience. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. If you're back, please turn your mic. I mean, please turn your video back on. Thank you. Thank you. I'll move to presentations and discussion. The first is regarding the town manager's report. It's a follow up report. And it's on the American rescue plan act funds. And this is the opportunity for counselors to ask questions and or make comments. Okay. Paul. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We provided an update on the status of the funds that were awarded. We noted that they were aligned with the goals of the town council and met the needs of many of the town residents and needs of the town. We were very grateful. The federal government for the funds. And we're very proud of how we allocated them. Last week we talked about the funds that were not expended and we could reallocate. The funds that were not expended to the town council. And we had a lot of feedback from the town council. And we had a lot of feedback from the town council, which was quote, added to $4.9 million. This was noted. And we throw out some ideas on how we could present, how we could allocate those funds. To the council and basically asked for feedback. And we had very rich feedback, both in writing, a lot of written comments. In addition to the rich comments that we heard tonight. So tonight. We're going to talk about what your, what your priorities are. Cause we want to make sure that we are aligned with where the council wants to be in terms of allocating the funds. I'm, I'm not going to say more than that. Except, you know, There is a, we're here to listen. There's a document in your packet. Oh yeah. That is comprised of questions that were forwarded to the town manager in advance of the meeting. You may have additional questions and you can ask them now. I want to remind people that while the town manager has come to us for input, we actually do not make the decision about where the money is going. Okay. So the floor is open. Dorothy. First, I would like to say that there are many, many excellent suggestions of places that deserve. I would say that there are a lot of things that we need and should get ARPA funds or for additional funding. But I see this next disbursement. As a kind of double checking, making sure that things are fair and balanced. And I would say of all the things, and there's so many good causes that have been brought up. I think of two forgotten areas to neglected areas. The idea of having a working kitchen and having more space is, has been presented in terms of practical terms, but we have to also think about what was the purpose of senior centers. It wasn't that seniors were starving to death. It was at seniors were alone. They were lonely. They needed to eat in communal meals. Not because they didn't have food in their house, but because they needed it for social, intellectual and emotional well-being. And that's the heart of the senior center movement. And I, as I think I've told you before, I was a director for a number of years of a senior center, which had incredible, fabulous food. That meant that people from all walks of life came in to get this incredible dinner, socialized, got along with each other. And it was a very democratic thing. It wasn't like, oh, these are hungry people. We've got to feed them. It was, this is to make the life better of seniors. Now we've talked a lot about young people and how they had been hurt by COVID. And we know this is a very big truth. Seniors being older have in fact been more resilient, but many seniors, particularly people who live alone, have had a very quiet and lonely couple of years. So senior centers are extremely important. And I want to say that the, I'm not saying the other source suggestions are not good, but I think that that is a major, major place where we should put some ARPA money. And the second one is the topic you heard many speakers on today, which is to make sure that the black business association feels that they have been heard and that the local black business community of existing and new businesses feels that they have had a fair chance. I am not going to say that anything was done wrong, but I'm going to say yes, there is appearance of impropriety. And you know, we don't need to have that. We don't need to have that. And I think that anymore I'm spent in saying, of each side, you know, saying you didn't do this or somebody said, oh, yes, we did this. I'm tired of listening. I have to assume that the people who did what they did, did it with good reasons and with, with a fair conscience. Okay. But we're not perfect. We're not perfect. And we go and we're happy with the people we know. And we often work and associate with the people we know. I'd hate to have it be that a business gets funded because it's going to be located in a bid owned property. Or somebody who's a bid member, but it was paid up, paid up, paid the dues up to date, because that is concerned. Okay. So I'm saying that I would, of all the many choices I would like to do the senior kitchen. And I would like to do to get our community back on track. People working together. And where the black business community feels that it has been heard. Thank you. Thank you. Shalini. And thank you. I have a lot of points. I'm just going to make a couple and then I'll wait to hear and then come back. So my first point is around the youth empowerment. And I really believe that in the plan that's proposed, I like bringing in people from different committees. But I also strongly feel that we should include the youth. There's no better way to empower them other than giving them that opportunity to lead this initiative and having spoken to a few youth member, you know, in high school, one of who was here today and spoke. And I said, would there be an interest? I said, absolutely. There are many of us who are really passionate. We would love to be on the task force. And I said, would students have time? And he said, absolutely. We have the time. So I would really like to find a way to include them in this leadership aspect, leadership role. The second thing I was thinking of in terms of economic development was that our town, one of the main businesses is investing in housing. And we've heard in CRC a lot of issues. We've heard from affordable housing trust, a lot of issues around affordable housing, workforce housing. And so could we use some of the funding to hire an economic development director with the focus on in going and looking and inviting new developers who are committed to these newer innovative kinds of housing developments, like the one we saw from New Hampshire. We had a speaker developer who came, who's doing these small, tiny homes. And so the idea of this economic development officer for two years could be to go and attract, to engage with the different stakeholders and find out where can we find these kind of developers who would do the kind of investment we'd like to see that supports workforce housing. This development officer could go and speak, engage with UMass, especially the BIPOC communities on campus to support them in launching their social and entrepreneurial innovations in Amherst. And lastly, this director could be the person who is working with the local entrepreneurs, artists and businesses with a special focus on BIPOC communities to make sure and then engaging with the black businesses association, you know, connecting with the dividend association, the Asian communities and really like trying to find out where are they needing support? What kind of support do they need? Where are they feeling stuck? So yeah, that's all for now. And then I'll come back after. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, I'm going to speak of mostly the matter of principles and I'm going to start with one that is that number one principle is that we comply with the ARPA law regulations and other ARPA grant conditions. In doing that, it's really important for the community as and for the council, I think that we establish criteria and there may be an opportunity to come back and discuss criteria. Things that I think about very strongly are the purpose of ARPA was to address problems of the pandemic. And so how an organization or an individual or business that was seeking funds through any of our programs was affected by the pandemic and why this is funding is necessary to correct that. I think this is one possible principle we should be considering very strongly in the first round and this is touched on by a prior comment. I think it was really important that we make sure that the downtown and village centers remain strong. Property taxes are the greatest source of local revenue. And if we don't get good support from the business community in the downtown and village centers, it all falls on homeowners. And I think that we all recognize that the problems didn't sue from that. We've made great progress on that. We have a lower, lower vacancy rate than many communities. But I do think it's worth bearing in mind. I think it's important that we not fund anything that has an ongoing funding requirement to it. If it is something that is just general funding for an organization without relationship to a specific purpose or correction of the pandemic, then what happens after ARPA funds run out? So I think that that's very important for us to consider. In the end, the town manager needs to make the decision about the grants. And I think that it's important that that decision be grounded and explained based on the criteria. And the last thing, since I only have 30 seconds left to talk about is infrastructure. Infrastructure is very much a part of the ARPA grants. And many communities have relied very strongly on ARPA funds to fund infrastructure purposes. And for that reason, I think it's really important that we consider it. That can be the senior center, the solar canopy, the high school, roads and sidewalks. There are a lot of things that it can be. Thank you. So thank you. Pam. Thank you. Dorothy did a nice job of summarizing my two programs. My two priorities as well. And I think a case was made tonight, especially that we are looking to strengthen a broad base of businesses that don't necessarily sit in the front window, you know, the corner of main street and. Helping build back and reestablish a strong base of. Entrepreneurship in the community is really key, especially if it helps attract and maintain residents who otherwise would look to other communities to find a more comfortable home. So I think as Dorothy did say, I think we can do a good job on round two. I did send in a written list already, but I wanted to reiterate those two. The senior center is very important because it serves such a wide, right? Wide range of folks in the community as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I start with that. I'm sorry. I think I just lost my computer by accident. But I start with the fact that the ARPA money is set is supposed to. Help those individuals and areas where. That were most affected by COVID. And so I don't hear myself saying this very often, but I agree with Dorothy is with respect to the senior center seniors were some of the hardest hit individuals in COVID. Both in outcomes and just loneliness in some sense. And so money spent for a senior center seems directly in line with what the ARPA money is supposed to be doing. With that. That. I agree with Andy on the requirements, needing criteria. I think we need specific criteria based in the federal reasons for ARPA. Grant funds to determine where we should put the money. And so I think we need specific criteria based on that. Beyond that, I have serious concerns while I support solar canopy at the high school. I have serious concerns about how that works because the high school land is not our land. It is the region's land. And so I would be very hesitant to commit any money to a project that. Is on land. We do not own. We do not own land. We do not own land. We do not own land. We do not own land. We do not own land. We do not own land coming from three other towns. So before any of that money is committed, I'd love to be able to ensure that. The other towns have some contribution or we have some ownership rights on the land or something. I don't know how that would work, but I'd want that. And lastly, I want to go to housing housing and security during COVID was huge for those that are low income. In the long run, there were a lot of jobs during COVID in the service sector and the rent, um, some of the eviction protections are expiring and everything. And I think. Something for ARPA. Should be to ensure housing stability or increase housing, something right on point with what ARPA funds are meant to do. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle. Thank you. I agree with some of the other counselors. I think all of the voices that we've heard tonight and via email are in need of and deserving of ARPA funds, and there are a lot of competing and necessary demands and a decent chunk of money. So what I think about while I'm listening to all of the possibilities and doing some research into how other communities have allocated their ARPA funds, it occurs to me that in any where we receive as a municipality any federal or state funding, and when there is a community input process in place, that goes through an advisory committee. And so my question is why are, you know, I think it's generative for us to be throwing around ideas and listening to the voices of our community, but in terms of process, it seems to me that having an advisory board that would be appointed by the manager, just like with CDBG and CPA, just to give some context for CDBG, I think about 1.65 million was given for our use this year and CPA is about 2.7 million. We're talking about 4.9. So to me, that's worthy of and a whole year that we have before this needs to be determined. So to me, that's worthy of putting together an advisory board, having an RFP process with criteria in place that the advisory board would use, of course, using our equity lens. I think that this would be good to include education and awareness, translation, getting out into the community to make sure that that input comes into the advisory board from all of the pockets of our community. So if I had it my way, that's what I would like to see is us put together, Paul put together an advisory board, a diverse set of individuals who would take proposals and look at them through an equity lens and then determine how the money should be allocated. So that's where I think we have an opportunity to improve in this round. And I think that's what many communities are doing and very successfully. So thank you, Jennifer. Thank you. Yes, and I that's a terrific suggestion, Michelle. Please speak into that. That was, you know, with support. Yeah. Following through, we're looking at Michelle's suggestion in round one, you know, we were kind of inventing the plane or whatever the saying is as we were flying it. I think sometimes we have to remember where we were when all this started and we were in totally uncharted territory. But I do think as the emails came in, lots from letters from residents, I mean, there's nothing I wouldn't support. They were all the most worthy and needed, you know, causes and organizations to support. But I think I do think for our community to move forward, we do, if it's, you know, going through an advisory board, you know, have to make a portion of the ARPA funds available for the member businesses of the Black Business Association of Amherst Area, those that are in Amherst, and even other Black businesses that may not be part of the organization, that that we have to do better in round two for the businesses and for our community. And then beyond that, I certainly, you know, if we're looking at the ARPA funds that were intended to respond to communities that were experiencing harm and hardship during COVID, I think that, you know, organizations like our Senior Center, a Youth Center, Amherst Survival Center, Amherst Community Connections, that those organizations reach everybody. And I think it's important that they be helped to be able to reach all members of our community that experienced hardship during COVID and continue to do so now. And, you know, and then beyond that, we receive requests from Amherst Media and even from Amherst Historical Society. I don't, and many, many, many residents expressed concern and they want to see us respond to roads and sidewalks. And where, you know, initially I thought, well, of all the requests, that one seemed to be, you know, there were different kind of wish lists, but that was on many. But I don't know that we have enough funds that we can really make an impact that way where I think that we could, you know, giving funds to the businesses, to the Senior Center, to a Youth Center, to Amherst Survival Center, Community Connections, that we might, the 4.9 million, I don't know how much of an impact, as I think about it more, it would make on roads and sidewalks, although that is a top priority for all of us. So I put that out there where the funds distributed among organizations that are directly serving people that experience hardship as a result of COVID, it might make a bigger impact. Thank you, Pam. Pat. Thank you. I want to say first that I'm a regular volunteer at the Survival Center, and I'm part of the Mobile Market Planning Group, but I'm not speaking for either of those groups. I just want to remind us, because I looked at the town manager's report, and I was delighted to see that Craig's Doors, Amherst Survival Center, the Homelessness and Rehousing Working Group, LA Community Health Services, Housing Trust, the Mobile Market, yay, and the Family Outreach of Amherst, were all spoken to and input was gathered from. So I want to share very briefly, because they're particularly some of what Jennifer said, but a little bit of everybody's, the federal final rule around ARPA funding. That rule recognizes that certain populations have experienced disproportionate health or negative economic impacts during the pandemic as pre-existing disparities in these communities amplify the impacts of the pandemic. For example, the interim final rule recognized that the negative economic effects of the pandemic were particularly pronounced among lower income families who were more likely to experience income loss and more likely to have a job that required in-person work. The interim final rule recognized the role of pre-existing social vulnerabilities and disparities in driving the disparate health and economic outcomes, etc. So and presume that programs designed to address these health or economic disparities are responsive to the public health or negative economic impacts of the COVID-19 public health emergency when provided in disproportionately impacted communities. Spend a couple of hours, some time at the Survival Center, and you will see an incredible cross-section of this community, and it will break every assumption and limit that you place on who goes to the Survival Center. But that's true about community connections, it's true about everything, and it's true about businesses, black businesses, and other BIPOC businesses that have been individuals. So it seems to me that we have to spend time in this round really looking at how do we help individuals as well as businesses, and I think that's critically important around housing, around health issues, etc., etc. Thank you. Alicia? Thank you, Lynn. So I think most counselors alluded to most of what I wanted to say, so I don't want to be too redundant, but I do want to emphasize a few things. I think Dorothy Pam said almost exactly what my my emphasis would be, and so thinking about what the ARPA funds are really for, and that's to mitigate the impacts of COVID and the impacts that they've had in our community, and thinking about some of our most vulnerable populations who may have been more disproportionately impacted by COVID, and seeing how we can reinvest in those communities. One of those I would agree would be the seniors and the senior center. The other huge portion that I think we continuously overlook is our youth. They are experiencing severe mental health crises, and I think we definitely ought to invest in an empowerment center or some type of services that can be directly distributed to the youth, and that the youth may have some say in how they are cared for in that way. Also low-income residents, and so this is just going off of a little bit of what Pat just said, and while I support giving more monies to businesses and that we've had a rental assistance program that was distributed by a local business or a local nonprofit, I further support direct payments to residents and to not go through another organization. And the reason I say this is because financial hardship doesn't present in one way. So just missing your rent is not the only way you can be experiencing a financial hardship. Some people have severe housing insecurities and they will scrape together every last penny to pay the rent, but then other bills are going unpaid, and so how can they get help for those other bills? And so putting restrictions and requirements on how people can use the money or how we expect people to be behind is really unrealistic, and some of the requirements that we had on this round of monies, although it's great and I'm happy that a lot of the funds were distributed, you had to have an actual eviction notice to even be able to access the funds, and to me that's unacceptable. People should be able to access the funds well before an eviction notice is received because that goes on your permanent housing record and prevents further housing opportunities. So thinking about really ensuring housing and the longevity of housing and other resources like car bills, electricity, heating, like there are so many other things, food insecurity, food stamps is not always enough, and I think Lev Benazro said really graciously during her public comment, COVID benefits are coming to an end. So people who received those benefits during the emergency are no longer receiving those benefits, and that does not mean that they no longer... Alicia, please wrap up. Yeah, so I would support direct payments to residents, and the last is for businesses and again my urge is that we look at the requirements and the application processes because I think that that was one of the biggest challenges during the first round as we put unrealistic requirements and expectations on the businesses, on the peoples who are applying to receive these funding. So I ultimately support much more relaxed requirements. You don't need to be paying taxes, you don't need to be... Alicia, please wrap up. ...or you to be able to or to be able to receive ARPA funding, and that has happened in plenty of other towns, so I know this to be true. So again, I really are just to relook at the way in which we are dispersing the funds. Anika. Okay, I'm going to try to get through. I think some of these we may get an explanation at a later date. I do not like to say I'm the only one because these things often get put in headlines, and I do not claim to be, but I believe I sit here as the only black business on council. So that may be something that I may be most aligned with, but I wanted to address also, and I do appreciate, Michelle, I really appreciate your comments, but I wanted to know also just as taking into consideration the requests that we have seen submitted by the community, and some we know have been overwhelming. I've had an overwhelming support. Mindy Dom just mentioned about the water treatment and that being a top priority, that's a public health issue. So I would like to hear more about that and see how that's being explored as we know water is life. That is incredibly important. You know, we've had, we've heard a lot of the push about roads and sidewalks, and where I do understand all of the opinions that come around that, could we have a breakdown of if, what would that look like? What kind of impact would that happen if money goes to roads and sidewalks? How is that determined? Because I think that we know, I mean, we have people who are, you know, hurt, you know, and it's a safety issue for those who have mobility issues and, you know, also concerns of those who feel like, you know, hear our voice, especially in regards to taxes that are paid. I do also have, want to appreciate and support Senior Center. I just would like to make a comment that we are losing a gym this coming Friday, Donna Hancock. She's someone who has run the lunch program. She was there every day with our last director, Mary Beth Olawitz. She has, I have personally witnessed her take from her own pockets to provide lunches for those who are hungry to sustain them either through the evening or through the weekend. She, her heart and how she sees people, that is invaluable and replaceable. And it's, you know, I spend a good amount of time there in the Banks Community Center around, you know, where the Civil War tablets are and just with those who are so lonely and hungry, you know, and are limited in many ways. So I'm, I'm seeing that I'm over my time. I'll pause there and if there's time, I'll come back with some additional comments. Okay. Are there counselors that have not spoken who would like to speak at this time? Kathy? I'll just, I'll be really brief. I think it's a mistake to think of $4.9 million as one big bucket. I think we need to carve out some place. If we want to carve out a community piece, carve it out and be really clear on what the criteria of, because these other kinds of needs, roads, sidewalks, the senior center, requires substantial investment. So trying to say, you know, what investment in upgrading the senior center versus helping emmerced survival center, I don't think we should try to make, we should just put them in a different bucket is the way I would do it. And I, I very much liked the original criteria that Sean and Paul gave us that it shouldn't be an ongoing expense. It should be in some way an investment at one time. And to the extent we can invest in something that lowers the cost to taxpayers would be great. So if water treatment plan is out there as an issue, hitting people with another water rate increase or another sewer increase is something that would be nice to avoid. I don't know enough about that. So I just think we need to be really careful. And I tend to think about it is that these were our tax dollars. How would we spend them? We're not going to get this gift again anytime soon. So we should be really careful with what are the unmet town needs that we've just queued up. And sidewalks would be one of them. So I just think trying to divide divide it up rather than thinking the whole piece is going through the same set of criteria. It could be different. That's it. Are there other counselors that have not spoken? I'm looking around and I don't see any except for me. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank the people who've spoken both tonight and also in the previous meeting, as well as many, many people who have written to us on emails. I accept responsibility for one of those floods because I sent it out to my constituents and Pam Rooney did the same. So she has to accept some responsibility for that too. Let me just say, I think the council has come forward with a couple of different really significant suggestions, including the advisory committee and also the idea that there's different different chunks of this money. And while I believe we should do something that continues to invest in our businesses, including our Black and BIPOC businesses, I also have to say, and it's not going to come as a surprise, every dollar we can find for roads and sidewalks we need to find. So I really don't want us to overlook that. I share some of the very same concerns Mandy Jo does about the solar on the high school parking lot. I'd love to see the project happen, but it's not our property. And so that concerns me. And I very definitely would like to see us make an improvement for our senior center because we're not going to be able to build a new senior center any time in the near future. And we need to invest in reclaiming our senior center for our aging population and help bring them back into the community that they were estranged from during COVID. That's also true for our youth. And so these are tough decisions. There's more good ideas out there than we could ever have possible money for. And I want to thank the town manager and Sean for putting out some initial ideas that stimulated the conversation that's begun, not finished begun. And although it has included some very controversial thoughts and so forth, let's look at this as an opportunity to do this in a way that we have a renewed transparency for all of the money that we spend. With that, I'm going to ask if any other counselors feel as if they need to add anything else at this time. Anika. Yes, I would also like I had requested the last meeting that we will that if we could have a clear breakdown if possible or as clear as possible as to what criteria is to receive our funding. We have a lot of opinions out there. We're hearing a lot about appearances, but people cannot eat appearances. And they will not be successful with appearances. You can't pay your rent with appearances. So I think that if we can have as much information so we're clear and not debating about what we think what we've heard what we've read, just as clear as possible about what exactly the criteria is that makes one eligible or not and where is their flexibility. I think that that would be really helpful because going in circles again is not going to sustain anything. Okay, Michelle. I just want to quickly build on what Kathy was referring to. And again, if we look at the CDBG funds, their RFP process is broken down into non-social service priorities and social service priorities. So that might be a way for us to look at the full pot. The other thing I wanted to say is when I was listening to Wayling Greeny of the community, is it community connections? Yeah. They spoke of not receiving funds in several different applications that they submitted. And I just want to uplift something that Vera said in making sure that we are really looking at those that may have been left behind in the first round and really digging into that. I really have no way of cross referencing which foundations or non-profits or businesses received money in which buckets of money are available. So it's important, I think, that that is a lens that we're using to really ensure that we are using a fair and equitable process. Thank you. Alicia. Thank you. I just wanted to build a little bit off of Anika's ask because I would like the same information if it's available, but in two parts. Like, I would like to see the federal guidelines and requirements and what our town has made the guidelines and requirements because those are two separate things. And it would be really helpful to see those things because I'm not sure if those were made available to us and for the prior round, but also for the next round coming up. So it would be helpful to see like when the town manager is getting ready to allocate these funds, like what the application process is, what the requirements are. I also support having another review board of some sort, looking at the funds that is comprised of different peoples from the town. And I would also highly support and recommend reopening ARPA funds to those who applied and did not receive it in the first round. Dorothy. I just want to say a good word for community connections. Wayling is on the front line, one by one working with the individual people who come with problems and helping get them on the road to being in control of their life. And her community connections also is a wonderful bridge with the university, a place for the college students to do an internship. And it's it's it just links so many different aspects of our community together. The problem is we have heard so many wonderful needs today, and we're not talking about that huge amount of money. But there are other funds coming up other places. And let's just hope that this this the outpouring of comments from the public that we remember them, including fixing puffers pond. I mean, they're just so many good things. But I will say the song that everybody sang was roads, roads, roads and sidewalks. But this little piece of ARPA money isn't going to fix that we have to find another way to deal with that. So it's a problem. It's a problem. And I guess it's not ours. It's the town managers. So, you know, I wish you luck in making these decisions. Thank you. Yeah. That's Shalini. Yeah, I also want to just like highlight this the email that we received from Weiling. And I think what stood out for me also is the idea of the perception that she and maybe others have that what is the reason for them applying seven times and only receiving it twice? And is it are there inequities in that process? So, you know, either the, you know, like what is the criteria that's being used award the CDBG funds? And then maybe is there a communication that happens after the awarding happens and who received it and what was the criteria or something that needs to be maybe improved upon? So people are not left feeling that there are inequities in this process. And also was struggling with I agreed with the with the proposal that came to us from the town manager about, you know, the senior center, I definitely, definitely agree that we should support the kitchen upgrades over there. And I personally would like to see the solar canopy. But then we heard from Amherst Cinema and Amherst Media and Puffer's Pond and all of these. So I do appreciate Michelle's idea that and maybe it can be there are projects we've already identified like youth empowerment and all of those. So getting those started with the task force and so forth. But then for the remaining, maybe a small pool of money, if we have an advisory committee that can, I don't know, like, unless you have a, and it's in your court, of course, Paul, like how are you going to prioritize? But in my mind, I was like, Oh my God, how am I agreeing? How do I even prioritize? Like, what do I even offer as a recommendation? So I would love to hear what you decide in terms of how you did end up prioritizing these different needs and communicating that, you know, with the, with our community. Thank you. Paul, do you have any final comments you'd like to make before we move on? Sure. I mean, I think there have been some common themes that I've heard. And I think it will go back and really I want to look through my notes. I've taken detailed notes on everything that everyone said tonight, the public speakers as well as the counselors. May I think I've heard what I've heard very overwhelmingly is the support for a youth empowerment center and a senior center. I haven't heard a lot of support for the solar canopies there because there are not a lot of questions that go with that. Even though I think everybody supports that, I just think haven't heard as much like that's a top priority for the council. And then I've also heard about the value of an advisory committee, the importance of transparency and the desire to have explicit criteria in advance of the decision. So everybody's clear on the criteria. I do want to make a note that the CDBG decisions are made by an advisory committee. So even they sometimes will not fund some things. But so even if it's an advisory committee, it doesn't mean it's going to be a perfect decision in some people's eyes. But I think the process that an advisory committee brings is important. So those are the major things. But I think I really want to sort of dwell on this and talk it through. And if you have other comments or thoughts after tonight, especially after listening to what the public had to say or what some of the correspondence that you have read, you received a lot of emails on this and you have a revelation, please send them along to us. So over the next few weeks, we'll be talking this through and trying to figure it out. Thank you. Shalini? I'm sorry. I wasn't there the last. I'm sorry. I know. I know this is the last thing. I just wasn't there the last meeting. So I just want to acknowledge all the comments that were made by the members of the Black Business Association and the points that were raised. And I think I just want, and then I also want to appreciate the work that was done by the town, by the bid. And I think there, what I'm hearing is that we can always continue to improve on, which is already been said, but I just what had to say it. And in terms of finding, continuing to improve the channels of communication, whatever we decide with, if you're going to continue to give grants for moving forward, making sure that we increase the channels of communication, whether it's to the Black churches, to the BBA, the Tibetan communities, all these difference of how can we engage and reach that. And then I think the other thing is, in terms of the criteria, which I think Alisha was talking about, what are the criteria that are used to give these grants out? Again, assessing those, reassessing those and supporting businesses at home. Alisha was talking about the rental stuff and all. But I think all of this just to say that we did the best that we did. And there are a lot of people who did a lot and a lot of hard work to help the people in need. And how can we, moving forward, continue to improve and listen to our community's needs. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to move on to the other discussion item. It's really not a long one. In your packet and attached to the town manager's report is the legal review that we requested regarding bank choice voting. We mentioned last week that there is, there has been another hearing. And my testimony was attached to the president's report. Mandy Joe Haneke also testified at that, as did a Senator Comerford and Representative Dom. That committee has still not done its referrals out. But one of the things that you will find in the attorney's opinion, and also in a separate conversation that I've had with Representative Dom, and that is we should seriously look at what East Hampton has done. Because they found a way to weave through this. Now, I'm not suggesting we debate that tonight. It's something that GOL could take up. It's also something that the Charter Review Commission could take up in the coming year. So, unless there's questions, basically what the attorney has said is we, yes, we had to file a special legislation. That is the only way we could do this at this time. Andy? Yeah, just one question. The way that I look at the statute that was the special legislation it was filed, it only applies to elections that are more than 120 days after enactment. And so at this point, we are not going to have ranked choice voting to the election in November. I think that if there's agreement to that, then at least we should acknowledge it as we look at the process going forward. In fact, we were very clear when we filed the legislation, if it was not enacted by July 1st, it would not give us sufficient time to educate voters as well as prepare the the town clerk. So it will not be implemented for the fall election. Michelle? Can you just quickly summarize what you mean when you say what East Hampton did? East Hampton actually did get their ranked choice voting approved, and some of it was how it was written in their charter, and some of it was their timing with the legislature from everything I've been able to do. I honestly haven't had time to spend a lot of time on that, and hopefully someone on the council might do that. It's just that every once in a while people reference that, and as I mentioned, both our attorney included as an attachment to the opinion East Hampton's bylaw. And in addition to that, Mindy has made several inquiries about it as well. So it's kind of an emerging conversation. Okay. All right, then I'm going to go on to action items. The authorization of community resources committee to hold a public hearing on proposed amendments to bylaw 3.48 stretch energy code. Kathy, you asked to pull this from the consent agenda. And Mandy, Joe, you were the one that asked that it be put on the agenda. So I would like to hear from both of you, but talk with us. Okay, I'll tell you why I pulled it. Mandy and I had a quick discussion during the break. So I got some answers I didn't have before. When this was brought up at the last meeting, well, I was on another continent and it was 3.30 in the morning. So I wasn't completely following all the pieces. But if we adopt this as a town, this is on top of a brand new state building code that will be taking place this year, increasing the cost of building statewide. And so I think we need more information. So my concern is going out to public hearings before we are able to at least provide, ask some questions and provide information. So what is the marginal impact on costs? How will it affect older housing stock if the owner is going to renovate it? Do we have staff with the expertise to be able to assess and apply the stress code? What does it do to the grid? And does it put us at a competitive disadvantage with other communities if they don't adopt it? Who can, you can move a mile away and you can build the building, whether it's a house or an apartment building or a store. We're already really expensive. So I think we should pose those questions and at least begin to have some answers before we go to a public hearing. And Mandy can follow up now because she's going to assure me that we will be doing that. So I just saw a public hearing and I thought, but I don't have answers to any of these. And I'm happy to send my two page list onto you. Please do. Mandy. So give a little reason as to why this is on here. The last time, last council meeting when we referred it, I had seen in a DOER, Department of Energy Resources, FAQ, that a city council adopting the specialized stretch codes needs to hold a public hearing. Well, our motion to refer did not have that authorization in there. We did get from KP law confirmation that a hearing needs held before the council could adopt that. The motion to refer and what the referral that CRC now has is to make a recommendation on whether to adopt or not. And so the KP law also said CRC could hold that hearing in the council's stead. So I asked that Lynn put this on the agenda so that CRC can hold that hearing. The plan as it stands now is to, if this is referred for hearing, if CRC can hold the hearing is to start on August, is it the third? I think it's our next meeting. The first meeting in August 2nd, 7th, 7th, whatever the, no, the first CRC meeting in August, I think that's the third or the second. So third. Whatever it is. The third and get a list of questions that councilors want answered and provide that list to. Anna was the councilor sponsored to this. Jesse Selman was the lead from ECAC, provide it to them, provide it to our staff and try and get all of those answers. I have been myself working on compiling information produced by DOER that will be in the August 3rd packet as well as presentations from the one community Watertown that has already adopted it so that we can see what they were presented with when they made the decision and some of the information there. So I am already working coming up with that information. If we, you know, and then the plan was to then on the 17th hold the public hearing. It's sounding like we might not, that two week lag might not be enough. So we'll probably then hold the public hearing in September instead. But all of that additional information along with whatever's going in the August 3rd packet would be included in the packet for the public hearing. So that we have and the public has as much information about this as possible prior to holding the public hearing. So that's the plan. I have also found DOER put out a sample bylaw. So I've forwarded that on to Anna to work on to provide potential changes to the current bylaw that has adopted the stretch code to make sure we have the language. KP Law and Athena said we need the language to hold the public hearing. Okay, Melanie. I'm sorry, Kathy. And I just want to follow up a little bit and I will send this through, you know, I think too often we jump to regulation and we're in a really unique place, a good place in the United States is I read this inflation reduction act has huge incentives, positive incentives for people to move towards solar. And so we could take some time to say what happens if you have incentives and you have what the state is already putting on the books and how fast do things move rather than go to regulation right away. So that's one of my questions is not answerable, but it's for people to think about because we've got an experiment going on that my son said Europe is looking at because we're moving faster than they are and they've gone the regulatory. I read made a huge difference, particularly in food supply, fertilizer and farming. So just trying to think that how do these interact. So these are the questions, Mandy, I just didn't want to rush to the public hearing and wanted to get these kinds of issues posed so the public doesn't have to supply us with the information they can react and then interact. Thanks. Shalini. Yeah, I was wondering if the public hearing could also be an opportunity for education and if ECSE could come and make a little presentation on why this is important. And you know, even what we're doing with the waste hauler by law, like part of this change is only possible when we all buy into it and we buy into it when we see how why this is needed. So I think that would be really helpful to see that. And the other thing is something along the lines of what Kathy is saying, but but what I also heard, it's a yes or no, there's no path. Like I was almost thinking like, is there a roadmap to rather than just overnight changing it, is there a way to get to that place in terms of building a capacity, whether it's the technology, the staff. And so is there a roadmap to get to that end goal? Or is this something we need to do overnight change to that? Andy. Yeah, this may be a question for Mandy when she speaks. And it's very simple. I'm assuming that unlike zoning, that there's no requirement that the council act within a certain number of days following hearing. And but we should know the answer to that. So the KP law opinion did not indicate any time frames on it, just that a council had to hold a public hearing prior to the change taking effect. So that means before we vote. So there's no timeline unlike zoning where the hearing closes and you have to vote within a certain amount of time from what I've been told in the legal opinion that was sent through to answer Shawnee's other question about ECAC presentation. I have been in direct contact with both Anna and Jesse about availability. If we switch the planned hearing date, I will recontact them to make sure they are available for the planned hearing date. They will give a mini presentation on August 3rd in, you know, before questions so that we get a little bit, but their most extensive presentation will be at the public hearing. So Mandy, Joe, that would be not unlike when we do the public forum on the master plan. We always kind of have a little education period about the master plan first and then we actually do the forum. Okay. Any other questions at this time? I need to ask for a vote. I'll make a motion. Please go ahead. Move to authorize the community resources committee to hold a public hearing on behalf of the town council on proposed amendments to bylaw 3.48 stretch energy code for the purpose of considering adoption of the specialized energy code. Is there a second? Second, Daniels. Okay. Motion's been made in second. Are there any other questions or comments? Michelle. Is there a time or this is just when it's deemed appropriate to do so? Okay. Okay. If I answer further, the prior referral had a date to return to the council by I think it was 90 days. Although, as always in that case, it means we'd like to at least hear from you with an update and it may not mean that we're ready to make a decision by then. Okay. I'm going to move to the vote then. Anna Devlin got his absolute and Greece Merzin. I made your hand. Okay. I an equal hopes. I, Michelle Miller. I, Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi, Jennifer Todd. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Yes. Shalini Balmilne. Yes. Pat Daniels. Hi. It's unanimous with 12 counselors voting in favor and one counselor absent. We have already voted B, which is the conservation restriction. C was withdrawn. D was voted. I'm just making sure I get everything. So we are now up to E and this is the acquisition of a permanent utility easement, parcel of land located off old farm road. And I believe it is coupled with F and David Zomac is in the audience. If people have questions along with Guilford mooring, I think Guilford is really more your item, isn't it? So there was a memo, extensive memo in your packet. It included a map, but Guilford, do you want to give us the, you know, sent the couple quick version of the summary? I guess there's really no quick one, but I'll try to be fast. We do have an iron, iron block, iron oxide issue in the drain line here. And what we've done is we've partnered with a company that was a spin off at UMass. They have a pilot or they have a technology and we're going to pilot it at this site to try to remove the iron manganese out of the water so that we can release the water differently than what we're doing now. This is a totally a pilot. If it works, we have a lot more things to do. If we don't work, it doesn't work, we're done. But what you have is a two things. One is a lease. We're leasing a piece of roof from the neighborhood to put a solar panels on. And then we're leasing a site to run the solar power, the power from the solar panels all the way to the easement. The easement is actually on an existing drainage structure that we own. And we just need a little bit bigger area so we can install the mechanism which is going into the manhole to treat the water. So I think I've confused everybody, but that's it. The lease is for the lease is to put the solar panels on the roof and to run the power line to the easement. And the easement is just to install the device over the storm drain. It's getting late. I don't know how you guys do this. Actually, I thank you for your very detailed memo. Mandy, Joe. Yeah, mine's just a clarification question. In the motion and on page three of the very detailed memo, it says that the easement area is approximately 518 square feet. But the very next page on page four of the memo that includes the grant of easements, the first paragraph says that the easement area is approximately 225 square feet. So I'm curious why there's a discrepancy and which one's the actual number that we should be moving in the motion sheet? 225 is the actual number. It was reduced down and the I don't think Sharon actually saw the reduction before she drew the documents up. So we only need 225 for the easement. Okay, the drawing, the actual survey is correct. It says 225. Mandy, Joe, thank you. I know you asked that in advance of the meeting and I don't know that we got back to you. So with that, was there any other question, Mandy, Joe? Okay. The motion is to authorize the town manager to acquire and accept on behalf of the town of Amherst a permanent utility easement in on under over along and across a parcel of land located on off old farm road. Which parcel is identified by the assessors as parcel one eight C dash one dash one and described in a deed recorded with Hampshire registry of deeds in book 11437 page 292 and which easement area is shown as easement C area plus and minus equal to plus and minus 225 square feet on a plan entitled easement plan for the town of Amherst Massachusetts dated January 20 2023 prepared by Chappelle engineering associates incorporated on file with the town clerk. Is there a second second Mandy? Okay, is there any other question on the first of these two motions? Yes, Pam. Is there an actual cost to the acquisition? There is a there is no cost to the acquisition. There has been a small amount we've paid for the project and we the most of the project is being funded through a grant that Beth Wilson worked out with the state and the company we're working with, but there is no cost for the acquisition. Okay. And so the motion's been made and seconded. We're going to move to a vote. Mandy, Joe, Hanna key. Hi, Anika Lopes. Hi, Michelle Miller. Hi, Pam Dorothy Pam. Yes, Pam Rooney. Yes, Kathy Shane. Yes, Andy Steinberg. Hi, Jennifer Todd. Yes, Leisha Walker. Yes, Shawnee Balmille. Yes, Pat DeAngeles. Hi, Anna's absent and Lynn Griezmer and I and that is unanimous 12 counselors in favor of one counselor absent. The second which is building right on this and regarding the solar is to authorize the town manager to enter into an execute a lease agreement with Ice Pond Woods Condominium Association pursuant to which the town will for nominal consideration, install and maintain solar panels and related equipment within portions of the premises located at 87 to 88 crossbook Amherst for a term of up to 15 years and any and all notices of leases, easements and other documents related there too. Is there a second? Hanna key seconds. Answer it. I'm sorry. Oh, okay. I see. If you're in the room, just belt it out, you know, right? Okay. Motion's been made in second. Are there any other questions? Okay. With that, we're going to move to the vote. Anika Lopes. Michelle Miller. Hi, Dorothy Pam. Yes, Pam Rooney. Yes, Kathy Shane. Yes, Andy Steinberg. Hi, Jennifer Todd. Yes, Leisha Walker. Yes, Charlie Balmille. Yes, Patty Angeles. Hi, Griezmer is an I made a Johanna key. Hi, it's unanimous with 12 in favor and one absent. We're going to now move to G, which is the acquisition of permanent public way easement 75 East Pleasant Street. Paul or Gilford, do you want to speak to this quickly? So this is basically cleaning up something that didn't get done in time. The select board, the town meeting approved the select board to take this back when we were doing the roundabout project at East Pleasant Triangle. It was actually documented. Everything was signed. It just didn't get recorded in time. So because it wasn't recorded in time, it actually doesn't exist. So now we're just redoing it so we can get it recorded in time and make it exist. But Bank of America donated the piece of property in yellow, that little highlighted section, which was part of the roundabouts, a little piece of roadway, and it mostly contains the sidewalk, which goes around the roundabout. So you're voting to take this again and hope, yes, we will get it recorded in time. And we won't have to do this again. Are there any questions or comments? I'm going to read the motion to take on behalf of the town, a permanent easement for all purposes for which public ways are used in the town of Amherst at 75 East Pleasant Street as shown in the order of taking on pages 11 to 15 of the motion sheet and to authorize the town council president to sign the order of taking on behalf of the town council. Is there a second? She got it done. Mandy, Joe, you have a question. Yeah, with this voted in 2016 by Town Count Town Meeting and completed five, six years ago or so, could you explain why it wasn't recorded in time such that we have to redo the vote and haven't been potentially legally using the property for this number of years? It just didn't get recorded. It got stuck in a pile after it was signed and it wasn't picked up and taken to the registry and recorded. It's just one of those kind of oddball things that slipped through the cracks. Any other questions or comments? Then we're going to begin with the time we go to Michelle Miller. Who was the second then? Oh, it was Pam Rooney. Thank you. Absolutely. Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer Top. Yes. Leisha Walker. Yes. Shawnee Ball-Millen. Yes. Pat D'Angeloz. Hi. Lynn Griesmersen. I'm Andy Johanicki. Hi. Anika Lopes. Hi. Anonymous with 12-foot council voting in favor and one absent. We... Thank you very much. Good night. I'm sorry. Thank you very much. Good night. Good night. Thank you, Guilford. Transportation and Parking Commission proposal. Paul. Thank you, Lynn. So this is a different kind of request to the council. We often are looking... A big portion of the council's time is spent on public ways, requests and concerns about handling resident requests. And one of the things that we had talked about is we have this Transportation Advisory Committee, which is sort of trying to figure out its role with the council, and I included the charge from the Transportation Advisory Committee. A couple of years ago, they started talking about the purpose of their charge. What is their role? Do they just respond to things that the council has recommended to... Has asked them to comment on... Can they take initiative? Things like that. I've had several conversations with Tracy Zafian. I began... Should we both independently begin looking at how do other cities handle transportation and parking issues? And what many of them do is have a separate commission that is set up and each one takes a different form, it seems, to handle these things and actually has decision-making authority. So the request to the council is to have the conversation amongst yourselves as to whether you want to delegate some substantial portion of your authority as keeper of the public way to an independent body that would make the decisions in your stead. You could hold back some responsibilities, say, I'm not sure which ones you would, but there may be some that you think, oh, no, we want to retain this from the council. This type of thing should come. But if it's a, for instance, a utility poll hearing or... So I want... One of the utility companies wants to install a poll. Is that something you want to spend council time on or is it something that you want to spend... Have an independent body address it? Under the town charter, the charter commission had established the licensing commission to do the same thing, but for liquor licenses and other license authority. And our experience with that has been very successful and very well run, very efficient. And that's an authority that could have been given to the council, but it was chosen to give it to this separate commission. So I have given you some background information, give you some some logic on what we could do. Late today, I hadn't finished the spreadsheet that shows how all the other cities have approached this. I've got about five more to add, but I sent that out late this afternoon. We'll be updating that for your consideration. And it has links on it, so you can look at whatever other city in the Commonwealth, how they handle road and transportation issues. We are doing this partially because of frustration that residents have had and trying to figure out who do we address our concerns about roads or if we want a road paved or if we want a road made one way, a sidewalk to be considered. And I think there's been a lot of frustration with our residents about where does this go. And so we some people are going to the resident to the capital request process. They're coming to council goals. And it's just sort of like it. I think we needed to provide provide clarity to the residents. The advantage of this is that we would have one body that would be looking at all the requests on a townwide comprehensive approach. I believe that there will be additional clarity and transparency in the process. I think that there will be efficiency in terms of, you know, residents will know it goes to this committee and here's the process that we would establish. And I think that also would lead to better planning because we'll have people who are dedicating their time just to transportation, anything to do with the roads, whatever you decide to delegate to it. So my request to council is that you consider this if you think that it might be a good idea and have it refer to the GOL committee to start having that conversation. I also want to just connect a dot here and that is that at one point because of the various proposals that came to see, you know, to JCPC this year and also then came to light with the discussion regarding Cushman school. The, instead of putting, coming up with a response to those specific kinds of things, Paul instead came forward with this as a way of looking at comprehensive things. This is the opportunity to ask lots of questions and we're going to start with Pam Rooney. Thank you. I wonder why GOL would look at this rather than town services. It seems like town services gets into the nuts and bolts of road conditions and improvements. Why the suggestion for GOL? I recommend GOL because that's the committee that looks at our operations of the town and the sort of structure. You can refer to either committee, both committees. It's really, I think it's better to be in one committee, at least initially, but you can refer to whichever committee you think is valuable. Shall I? Yeah, as a member of the town services and outreach committee, I just want to speak in complete support of this recommendation. Whenever we've received, I think this is a way to channel the expertise that is in our town as it pertains to road safety and transportation needs and all of that. It really gives the people who are investing the time in the research and the study and proposing these, making these proposals, giving them the authority to then act on it or to me just makes a lot of sense to do that. I'm happy to answer any other questions that we have experienced in town services and outreach with respect to these issues, but just at the outset, I would highly recommend that we go forward with this. Mandy, Joe. So I don't think I'm going to be voting to request this or to continue looking at this, but I do have some questions in case it does get the motion is to request the manager develop a draft charge and then that draft charge go to the GOL and I'm not sure I want that to happen, but it sounds like, although you didn't propose right now, that you're proposing potentially of stripping the council of its entire authority on the public ways because you said almost, well, you could retain some, but I'm not sure why you would want to. So I would like more clarification on if that is what you're thinking and would include in your draft charge. I thank you for the spreadsheet, but it would be really helpful to delineate on that spreadsheet what the charter dictates for each city because our charter dictates that it's the council. And I'm curious whether there are any cities where the charter dictates it's the council if they have delegated their entire authority to someone other than the council. I'm concerned that there's a push to remove the council's role in government as a whole, particularly with this, but we have heard concerns from prior counselors or some counselors that counselors shouldn't be proposing legislation and now we've got a proposal that says the council shouldn't be dealing with anything related to its roles as the keeper of the public way. And that really concerns me that we're trying to stop the council from doing what the council's been elected to do. No specific instances were given in this recommendation that the council hasn't done its due diligence when deciding public way matters, only that it takes the time of the council. Yet we just finished a motion where seven years ago town meeting authorized the taking of the matter and it had to come back to the council and take time at the council to redo something. That also takes time when things the council authorizers and town meeting authorized are not done in a timely manner. I guess part of this is a frustration that the lack of clarity on how to do this simply means we strip the council of the authority and send it to someone else instead of proposing how the council can be more clear on exercising its authority. And then finally, if this goes this way and we go this way, we'd have to change some bylaws because the bylaws say the council has to hold a public hearing on any parking changes and parking regulation changes yet that wasn't part of your memo. And so I worry that this is not well thought out, but I'm particularly concerned with the potential stripping of council authority when it is permanent changes to public ways, which is much different than the board of licensed commissioners. And that was one of the reasons the charter commission felt that the public ways needed to remain with an elected body. Jennifer? Well, Mandy said it doesn't often happen that she agrees with Dorothy. I guess I could say the same thing because that was kind of my reaction reading this. And my concern was that it was delegating a major responsibility of the council to something. And I think the comparison with the board of licensed commissioners was we really never hear from them. So that maybe it was just not the best example, but I thought, well, what kind of decisions are going to get made that we'll be, we'll find out after the decisions are made. So I had actually made a list of some of my concerns. I felt a little better when I saw the chart because some of the cities and towns have counselors represented, which I would definitely want to see on such a commission. But I was, yeah, so I've mentioned a couple of things that just I was concerned that it just took too much away. And then I was also concerned, so with like the Cushman-Scott childhood center, that if this commission's purview is pretty macro, when you have a neighborhood or a district concern, is that where are they going to address something kind of that micro? And I think there's a big, there's just so much expanse between, you know, electric poles, which I don't mind a commission addressing, and then really all parking and transportation. And I even wondered with something like a parking garage downtown. I mean, the zoning already allows for it. So would the commission decide we're going to do that? And then the council will be informed. So I have more concerns than not. But I would, you know, be open to discussing, to discussing it further. Kathy? I guess we're building on similar themes here. So I'll just provide an example. That during JCPC, we had some neighborhoods and there have been others were asking for a speed hump or something that would slow traffic where there are through street, where you can avoid an intersection by just cutting through the streets. So cottage street would be one where it's already happened. And the issue we ran into there is we didn't have a policy that looked at how many places in town are like this, where are the priorities, how would we make a decision? So the problem was we didn't have a way to make a decision. It wasn't that we needed another body. We needed someone to sit down and figure out a way to make that decision. Because otherwise they came to us, they went to tack, they went to DPW, they came to us, you know, it was because everyone said, well, we need a roadmap in a weird way. I mean, Pam said, let's look at how many places that are like this in town and what would we do? So I think punting it to a group doesn't get rid of the need for some clarity. And I'm also one of the issues with DPW and what tack with DPW is that tack can come up with policy and think through things. And then they feel like they have no authority over DPW at all. And it may go ahead and not do the top priority or any of the priorities. So there's a lack of who's in charge here. So I just think those are questions, Paul, that are raised here. And I'd like to know how some of these other committees in other towns actually work, which issues come to them. And lastly, the License Commission has in licensure, there's already on the books like how many liquor licenses, how many this can there be, they've got a set of guidelines. And then they're parsing along the edges of it, rather than saying, should we have any liquor in town? Should we be a dry town? They don't have to tackle that. That's already been set up. Problem here is we don't have whether the Cushman intersections are great when should there be a stop sign there? Should there be a blinking light? And they just keep begging somebody to make a decision about this. And we already brought the police and everyone in. So I think we need to know a little bit more, a lot more about how other towns, what they have given over to it, and to what extent some of the big issues still are residing in the council. Michelle? I still have to wrap my head around this a bit, Paul, but I generally like this concept. I am wondering, so reading the third paragraph under the background is what really is resonating with me. I think that close attention to technical and engineering questions and all of that is really important. So my question is, would this committee be a reporting committee to the council or would it have full authority? I think in Chelsea and Framingham, it looks like the commission's report to the town council. Is that what you're suggesting or are you suggesting that the commission would have the full authority without involvement of the council at all? So I think that my recommendation is that you give it the authority that you want to give it. You may retain some authority, say changing the direction of a street, whatever it is you want to retain, but you've delegated some responsibility to the town manager already for certain smaller things, which is great. And that facilitates what requests for parking or things like that, and that works out pretty well. But then we've stumbled in other areas, like we continue to use Cushman, and I think that a body like this could grapple with that in a more interactive way than a formal council meeting would be able to. And I think it's 100% up to the council to decide, A, if you want to do this, B, what authority you want to give it, this group, and see if you don't want to. But I think if we don't, then we need to clarify the role of TACC, because I think that's where TACC is sort of struggling. They do all kinds of hard work, and they're sort of saying, who do we give our work to, and what do we do with this, and are they taking direction? And early on when the council was first created, there was some question about what the role of TACC was in this process, because it was created under the advisory to the select board and to the town manager at that time. So I think at the very least, we need to clarify that charge, but it's an opportunity to clarify the decision-making process for many of these things that sort of get jumbled up. Andy. Yeah, I made the proposal to talk about this, because I didn't think we were being asked to commit to adopt anything that was proposed, but I do think we need to recognize that the current system is not working well, close to broken. That there are a lot of times that things are referred to TSO, they either take a tremendous amount of TSO time, such as the parking issues around Kendrick Park, or the never good address, such as the sidewalks along North Pleasant Street, along the university, which has been referred to TSO in the last days of the last council and still hasn't been heard or discussed. So I really feel like we have a broken system, and what we need is a process to talk about what the options are to fix that broken system. And that doesn't mean that the council has to give up all of its authority necessarily, but we do need to do something in this way to at least start that process rolling. You know, it doesn't work great under the select board, and, you know, we tried, we used TAC as best we could, and I don't think that it's been any better under the council, if anything, it's been more difficult under the council, because I think that we've had so much on our plate, and they've taken on so many different kinds of issues. And I think that the analogy to the License Commission, which was a decision of the Charter Commission, is actually a good parallel, because the select board spent a tremendous amount of time on very difficult and unpleasant discussions. And I think we should be forever thankful that we don't have that responsibility and not have, I mean, to have the discussion for the fourth time about Panties, for example. I just think we should be thankful we don't have that. So I do think we should have a process to get underway and think about what's wrong with the current system, and what are the options for fixing it. Pam, you only had a very brief question to start, so I am going to go back to you, and then on to Dorothy. My brief question is that I think it's, I appreciate that we develop some policies and priorities for roads, sidewalks, parking upgrades in town. I want to ask the question if we need to take a vote tonight to direct it specifically at a charge for this commission, or can we send this back to the town manager to say, can you just give us a little bit more information here? What are some other opportunities for us to consider rather than all in one fell swoop, a new commission? As Andy said, a process is desperately needed, but I would like to hear some suggestions on different options. And I would be open to having a body that actually makes recommendations to the council. I can see so clearly that TAC is sort of, you know, master of none, you know, doesn't know who to answer to. Does it answer to you? Does it answer to DPW chief? Does it answer to TSO? And I think all of that really needs to be clarified, because I would like very much to have a group that whose responsibility it is to look at the town comprehensively and holistically look at safety areas, issues, upgrade requirements, and come forward with, you know, in essence an upgrade plan. And I would love to see that. So thank you. Dorothy? I certainly can see the appeal of a group of people who are looking at the overall picture in a disinterested professional way and giving us the benefit of their advice. But some issues are very political and that's us. We are elected by the people. We represent the people. And when it comes to something like a parking garage, I am not willing to give that away to a commission, no matter who's on it. And the people are used to expressing themselves to us through the town council, through mail, through meetings, through public comment. So I think this is an idea that can be discussed further. I like the phrase that Pam Rooney just used, make recommendations. But the question of exactly where the power resides at which times is an important one, and I think more work needs to be done. Thank you. Bellany? My understanding is that it's the idea is to vote to pass it on to a committee that is going to discuss these issues, who is, you know, what is the charge. And they're seen, they could be a very clear separation that the policy making is still with the council. But there are a lot of safety issues that we hear from residents and then we're, you know, it's not the town council's job to do that. It's more the town manager's job. And there's no one really, we're listening to it and then we pass it on, but we're not really doing anything with it. And so in terms of town safety or so many other issues that could be looked at by a committee that has the expertise. So I think this is where I would also love feedback from the tech, like what are some issues they see that they would like to take ownership on. And all of these discussions can happen in that committee that is going to have that discussion. And then we can decide, you know, what part would what we want to agree with or not. And the other thing is like, there's so much flexibility in who are they reporting to as well. So I think there's just so many pieces that can be discussed and fleshed out and that need to be fleshed out. But I like that we are having this conversation and this recommendation that there be a transportation, what is it, commission, transportation advisory commission, what is it, transportation, parking commission. Okay. Jennifer. Hold on one second. Anika, you haven't spoken yet. Yes. So my comments have been covered, majority by Andy and Jennifer and pretty much everyone who's spoken already. But with that, I did want to really, you know, acknowledge Tak and especially Tracy Zafran, who was pretty much an honorary member of TSO and great help. And I do agree that, you know, and in clarifying the charge and I do support annual additional responsibilities, but my eyes start to twitch sometimes when we say recommendation and just making sure recommendations and making sure that we're clear, you know, because we have seen we have, we have seen issues with recommendations and what are they and clearly defining them, you know, what are recommendations, what are directives. And, and then I, you know, also, you know, support engaging in intact and seeing if there are specifics and what what would they like to handle or see being most helpful because I do see that there are plenty of issues in time that we simply cannot get to and are not on the streets with the people and the way that I'm sure we would all love to be but just cannot. Jennifer. Yes. So I did have a question because it sounded like in your memo you would said that you would would we refer to GOL but you would come back with, you know, a more maybe, you know, a proposal based on some of the feedback you've got from our conversation. So maybe we should get that before we make the decision whether to pass it on to a committee. Yeah, I think the actual motion is that you instruct me to put something together and a little more thought. I didn't even know if you wanted to talk about this. It sounds like a lot of folks don't and some folks do. So that's why I need clarification. I don't want to put time and effort into a pretty detailed, engaged process with our, you know, the staff and with the Transportation Advisory Committee. If the council is just not interested in it, if you're like, no, we're sort of, we want to go a different path that that would be helpful for me to know. So yeah, well, I think we we do feel that we need some expertise and they're probably like again, the electrical poles and maybe a little more involved than that that we would be happy to have off our plate. But I at least for myself would not want something as removed from the council as the board of licensed commissioners that just and I'm more comfortable with a, you know, a commission board handle of experts that would report to the council. But yeah, so I just wanted to ask for that that we don't need to vote now to refer to a committee, but you'll come back with something. Thank you. Mandy, Joe. So I'm listening to the comments. I'm trying to figure out how we could modify this motion to sort of take in the comments. But what I've heard from counselors is we need a process. That process may or may not be appropriate to include TSO in because of potential time issues, but we need expertise. We appreciate the expertise of the tech, but that the council at this point is hesitant to delegate permanent changes to the public way to anyone but us, but we would probably love some advice and recommendations related to those permanent changes. So I think some sort of motion that asks the manager to come back with a process that sort of, you know, allows for that advising of the permanent changes, but also potentially changes our already existing policy regarding public ways to delegate even more to a certain body or something because we've delegated stuff to the Board of Licensed Commissioners within that policy and that maybe the manager can come back with that sort of actual draft in hand with specifics as to what would be delegated or what would just be what that body would advise the council on prior to the council acting. So Jennifer, go ahead. So I think one of the things that I've been thinking about is not creating another layer of where people go to a committee, they make the appeal and then that's a we're going to make a recommendation to the council and then there are all those people have to then come to the council and have the exact same conversation. That's why I was trying to place decision making authority with the committee so there isn't this two-step process. If there are things that you don't want to delegate, that's that's good but I just I'm trying to think from the public's point of view they mobilize their their their neighborhood to get something they go to the transportation or whatever the advisory committee then they say yes no whatever and then they again mobilize it just seems like a just looking for the efficiency of the decision making process that's why that's why I was thinking of it this way and maybe that's not something you want to do but that's how I was conceiving of it. I'm getting the sense that perhaps the council is not ready to vote on this that they might want to see a little more in-depth thought about what might happen or not happen what would get referred what would come back to the council so unless somebody wants to make the motion that's on the sheet or a modified motion I'm going to suggest that town manager come back with additional information. Pam. I was told once by the town manager that he really doesn't take any action unless it's been motioned and voted on so I just want to make sure that he's comfortable with us asking him to do something without an action and a vote. Well I was going to ask what do you want back in addition like what would be more specific about when you said more detail that doesn't help me a lot. Let me build up on where I think Mandy Jo and several other people have gone and that is are we delegating everything are we asking for delegating some things but asking for recommendations on others and I think that's where the crux of this is that's. And I would say since you've found those. Can we go in order? Kathy yeah go Kathy go ahead. And since you've found other towns we might have some glimmer that they've delegated everything they've taken delegated pieces just some examples something more concrete than other towns do something. Let me go back to the people with the raised hands Michelle. From my perspective Paul provided to us in pretty good detail the proposal that he's making and the reason he's making it and what I'm hearing is that he's looking to us to come up with some ideas about a process and about how we might view what could or could not be or should or should not be delegated. I'm sort of taking I think what Dorothy said about certain aspects of this being political picking up on maybe Jennifer talking about the parking and so I'm wondering if this is a discussion that the council needs to have. I can't imagine what Paul could bring back to us that would move this along. I think he's given us what we need to put it into a committee and to have a discussion happen and then have that be brought back to the council with some options about how we might pursue it or not. Yeah I'm wondering if it's better to send this proposal to the town services and outreach committee because we are the one that deals a lot with these issues and we drop on the expertise of the transportation advisory committee often and it has crossed my mind you know like when the lack of communication with them or like it's breaking down or it's there's no formal process here so it's often crossed my mind that we really value the transportation advisory committee and we deal with these issues. So to me it makes sense that if the TAC could provide their input and then Paul could provide a little more clarity in terms of at least with some of us that these are policy issues and these are the more executive sort of issues that the TAC could take on and or maybe there might be some policy issues not like political ones but some other ones that so just getting a little more clarity around what are the the just the division between these different types of requests we're getting from the residents and I think the TSA would be a good committee to tackle this. Paul you had your hand up and took it down. Yes I'll take it down again. So I think that that's I think the council needs an actual concrete proposal to refer and to respond to and I think that's one of the things that Athena's really sort of emphasized and that lead up to this is that you can't just say it would be not very efficient to give it to a committee and say think about this because I think it's much more reasonable for a committee to have a proposal that you can tear apart and say not this but that um so I think that that's what that's what the recommendation is and in that case we would not act on this but you would come back with something if you want me to yeah that's that's what this motion is right. Mandy Jo you uh Jennifer I'm sorry yeah I would think we'd want something I can't I don't think this should actually be referred I think we need something more concrete including I think your vision of who would be on this commission thank you. So in other words you really would like to see more of a charge attached to this before a referral is made. Mandy Jo yeah I think part of the concern with maybe the motion here is that we would tell Paul do something and it automatically goes to GOL without ever seeing what that proposal is and there's a lot of concern as to what that proposal is and whether we even think it's sufficient enough to talk about potentially adopting or modifying. You know one thing I struggle with in trying to revise this but maybe the first part is just you know stopping at transportation and parking commission period like with a date or something and not anything else is you know it from this conversation it sounds like there's certain things that we are really hesitant to hand off delegation for but then I can think of things that I wouldn't know how to modify our policy that we already have regarding control in the public way to hand it to a transportation commission you know but I could see speed bumps being something that maybe even though they're permanent changes to the public way that the council would be willing to delegate um you know or additional stop signs I think we've delegated some of those things but I'm not sure the policy might not be clear and so looking at the policy where we've already made some decisions maybe tightening those decisions up and turning that into not just a charge for the commission but also a modification of the policy that you know we come to next to potentially modify tonight um could be worth then then we'd have something to talk about here as to whether it's worth referring but I'm I'm not sure I'm willing to pass a motion that says oh and well it automatically goes just to go well to talk about so Mandy Joe um in looking at this it seems to me that we want something where the town manager develop a draft charge for such a for a transportation and parking commission and submit it to the town council or referral to and we can just submit it to the town council period do we want to give a date so I would also include proposed changes to the town council policy regarding control and regulation of the public way because they would go hand in hand um okay so I'd like to see his proposals proposed changes to that policy but okay um all right do you want to try a motion Mandy Joe sure I can try one I think I got it um if it was just as you said Lynn Mandy do you want to I can ask but I was going to ask Paul what date he could have something by so I don't pick a bad date it'll be after Labor Day okay the end of September so um uh I moved to request the town manager develop a draft charge for a transportation and parking commission and propose changes to the town council policy regarding control and regulation of the public ways um and submit said proposal to the town council by September 30 2023 okay was that close enough Athena yeah um and okay but September yes September 30 Athena do you have a a different suggested motion no that's fine okay can somebody read the motion again before I look for a second the request the town manager develop a draft charge for transportation and parking commission and propose changes to the town council policy regarding control and regulation of the public ways and submit it to the town council by submit them to the town council by September 30 2023 okay is there a second second Shawnee okay um Michelle you have your hand up I'm gonna vote yes for this but I just wanted to say that it does seem like a lot of work for the town manager and I know that's what you requested is to put a charge together um but with so much sort of controversy already um that I'm hearing I just would have preferred that we had further discussion or that a committee had further discussion to provide you more feedback before you go ahead and develop a charge that then we rip apart in September so I will vote yes but I I just want to say that would have been my preference Shawnee um I think I'm good with the charge because he's you know kind of highlighting what the town council policy is and what that is so I'm okay with that but the additional changes because we haven't yet discussed that initial charge which will then between may end up changing and then and that would impact the changes to what Mandy just added so I'm wondering if you need to leave that out for now and just go with the charge and then based on what we end up deciding then having him come forward with the other changes to the policy I hear you uh Pat please use your mind Pat we can hear you thank you I wonder if it wouldn't be more reasonable to ask you to have it by October the end of October instead of September given everything that's happened or even November I think that's more than reasonable to ask from that one Jennifer I was going to say the same September okay there's also been a suggestion however that we really just focus on the proposed charge for a transportation parking commission and that come back to the council by October 31st and not add in the changes to the um public way policy that we we see if the we we see if we want to go with the charge before we mess with the policy yes Pam Rooney it may just simply be potential changes to policy just you know as you come through the policy what might likely need to be affected or what would be affected and likely need to be changed right rather than a cast in concrete yeah right potential changes okay yeah all right with that I do need a second so there was a second but with the friendly amendment I'll take to October 31 and potential changes and yes the potential changes not you don't need the exact language but I think it would be helpful to know exactly what on that policy that we've delegated would be continued you know would be added to the delegation it might be obvious by the charge but I don't know whether it would be okay next are there any further questions or comments Pam you have your hand up no all right I believe I'm at Dorothy Pam I think Shalini has to okay the October yeah change in the motion oh okay and also the use of the word potential yes all right so are we I would vote yes at this point Pam Rooney yes Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer Todd yes Alicia Walker yes Shalini Belmiln yes Pat DeAngelo's all right Lynn Griesmer's and I may be Joe Hanna keys I and Anika Lopes I and Michelle Miller I 12 counselors in favor and one absent we have one other item that was pulled from the consent agenda and that is the actual proposed changes to the town council policy regarding control and regulation public way this was reviewed last time and this would be the second reading if you will although not to clear that the second meeting was required but Pam you pulled this and I believe you explained to me you confused it with the item we just dealt with okay however I'm going to now place the motion on the table to adopt the amendments to the town council policy regarding control and regulation public way as shown on pages 19 to 22 of the motion sheet effective immediately is there second second the angeles okay is there any other comment or question okay seeing none I'm going to move to Pam Rooney yes Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer Todd yes Alicia Walker yes Shalini Belmiln yes Pat DeAngelo's hi I was absent Lynn Griesmer's I may be Joe hi Anika Lopes I Michelle Miller I and Dorothy Pam yes it's unanimous with one counselor absent we are done with the votes for the evening and we are going to go to a committee and liaison reports of CRC Mindy Joe I think I covered most of it today do any answering questions so there's there's really not we're almost almost ready to get to making a recommendation on rental registration so I'm hoping within the next month you'll guide everyone I'll see that excuse me elementary school building committee Kathy we are in the midst of design details which include things like how white should the white brick be next to the red brick and where the trim goes so it's fun but and and the designers were here in Amherst to walk the site to show us what the layout would be and also to bring materials and that will continue there'll be another in person in a couple weeks and then we go that design detail then will be the basis for another cost estimate it's sort of at a there's a stopping point and they're getting ready to go before the conservation committee and commission and the planning board so um what we we we're meeting once a month as the full committee and then these interim pieces the sustainability net zero committee we'll be meeting again but this the code that's changing the building code for everybody that some of the details still are not published yet so we're trying to figure out how much it increases the cost of the school building we know it's going to increase the cost of windows we probably need triple triple pain but it looks like we're okay otherwise but we can't meet until the guidelines come out so that the modelers can tell us this so it's an interesting time period right now thank you Andy finance committee finance committee has no report um we sort of after a budget process in the discussion that we had about compensation needed a little bit of time off so by the next meeting we will have an agenda and the meeting plan going forward for the next round of work assigned to us okay gel jennifer oh actually no it's not jennifer uh it is pat you must be jennifer this is a real simple um we have been we were going to work on the zoning changes uh that but we did not receive the material from kp law so we have postponed that to the 19th which is our next meeting we looked at bylaws that have been brought forward by the bylaw review committee way back when and we're just down the committee is just down to i think two bylaws that we're looking at the regulations regarding animals and i forget historical commission and the which is a very minor change we are waiting for more information from the town manager on the bylaws that have been put out to dei and other committees we're hoping to have that as soon as possible hopefully for enough time to get it in the packet for the meeting on the 19th thank you uh anika jones library building we have not met since the last meeting okay tso anika so whomever missed our last meeting really missed out uh we welcome back dorothy pan we uh had a an update on the we actually went through the rf5 for the holler bylaw which was long waited and exciting and then we had a conversation about sustainability with a director sustainability stefanie chicarello which was a really wonderful um presentation incredibly informative and that will be available on both on uh their website and also to us all to be able to share um so yeah it was a was a great meeting yeah i've added uh ahra and asked michelle to give us an update the plan is for us to publish our report on august 17th in advance of the august 21st meeting um in which the committee or as many members of the committee who are able to will be present um to share our recommendations in our report with the council uh liaison reports are there any liaison reports see none uh we've approved the minutes town managers report hall yeah so you will see some new faces in town hall we have a community fellow uh that's working at shadowing shon mangano ray thon who um went to amherst schools has gone to greenfield community colleges now at umass and looking for a career in municipal finance and this is a position that was funded by the state and requested that we host by the state so that's a good thing and thank you shon for taking that on uh we also have two work study students some of the counselors who've been in the office have met one of them who started this morning uh so we'll have two work study students in the town manager's office doing various things mostly working with the cpo's and also covering the front desk when we have vacations and things like that kudos to our recreation department for a terrific independence day over 5000 people were in attendance um you know it went really well we've learned a lot and have had a debrief with our team about how we can do better next year um the health director you know we have the the search is going on for that i was sending you a memo appointing um Dave Zomac as the temporary health director he has served in that function before um once and i think jen is here until the end of july so i'll give you i'll send that to you in short time uh police chief search uh we have our consultant uh we you'll be asked if you would like to participate in a one-on-one interview with our consultant we'll do that with a number of other people on committees and former members of committees as well um we've decided to hold on the public outreach until after labor day since we've gotten a little bit later start than we anticipated we don't i don't think that would be wise for us to be trying to do public outreach during august so that will put us back a little bit but we're still going to try and move forward on it we can get a lot of the interviews the one-on-one interviews done uh in advance of that um the um crest department as you noted has been part of the uh harvard's government performance lab and we've had our first meeting with them it's really exciting our team is very excited about being participating in it um i'm really proud of our team being admitted into it it's a pretty prestigious thing i put a list of the communities who have been selected for this cohort so i think we're going to learn a lot it's a lot of communities struggling with and trying to figure out alternative dispatch options which is what we're talking about this is not just alternative responders because the responders are not alternative it's the dispatch that's a alternative so we're going to be learning a lot in that process um the pulmonary village roundabout is taking is in really good shape it's got they've gone very quick and i think people who've driven through it have been really really like it if you haven't take a chance take a drive down there honestly we think um uh i think already mentioned the TSO committee so Stephanie Chickarello did a terrific job and we hope to with that presentation to snip it and sort of make publishize it so people can just watch that little segment they don't have to watch the entire TSO committee meeting and then two things from my neighbor here um downtown wi-fi uh Sean and his team have been working very hard to upgrade all the wi-fi and have much more robust secure wi-fi fixtures throughout the downtown area um it's 500 thousand square feet of coverage something like that and the other thing is that um is he's also replaced the i-net that throughout the town but most importantly we got a grant to extend the i-net which is our fiber network all the way up to Mount Lincoln in Pelham which is where our radio transformer is for public safety and it saves us thousands of dollars that we had to pay to Verizon on a regular ban measure wow do you accept me the number nice work roughly a thousand yeah so it's yeah so it's really exciting so good as to Sean for making all that happen see there's a reason for that there's a reason you came to the meeting tonight Dorothy you have your hand up um I I would just like a few more details about um what you mean when you say the crest is participating in a program at Harvard are they in at Harvard University right now or are they is it somebody from Harvard who comes to Amherst no so it's a great question I wasn't clear about that so the Kennedy School of Government has a unit called the government performance lab and this group takes on certain topics and they start to work with um various groups about whatever it is they're doing so in this one they're really looking at alternative responders alternative dispatchers and they've been working with a number of communities so it's more of the term of art is community of practice it's where other entities that are doing the same thing get together and they share stories they also give us one person who is our sort of guide in supporting us and so when we have questions they meet weekly with our team and they'll say our team doesn't go anywhere but it's part of a larger conversation and it's just kind of impressive that they really wanted our team to be part of that larger conversation because you're looking at like Harris County of Houston and Denver and Baltimore and Allegheny County and stuff so it's kind of cool. Sounds wonderful thank you. Mandy Jo. A question on the RFPs um it was used to be in your manager report and it's not any more design guideline RFP that was voted now I think for funding two years ago has it gone out and if so when is when are the proposals due? Design. We had you had had funding for design guideline uh a consultant for design guidelines I think in budgets for planning for two years ago I think in the JCPC budget and planning's been working on it but we haven't heard any updates as to when that RFP has gone out and when proposals would be due. I will check on that. Thank you. I don't have an update for you tonight. Okay. Shalini. I just wanted to again give kudos to the Crest for getting into the Kennedy School uh government because my recollection is we tried to do that before and we were not able to because it's really challenging to get into this cohort and and as you mentioned Paul looking at all the other cities that got into like DC and Portland and Sacramento and Amherst so that's like really cool that we will have this year-long participation in the cohorts and guidance and it's really amazing so thanks to all the staff and the police and Crest and the fire and everyone who's been working together. And dispatch has been crucial to that as well and they the Harvard wants to do they do their own press so we can't do any press on this until they put their own stamp on it so but we will be putting this Harvard. Yes. Pat yeah a little bit more about Crest please uh from what I understand from talking to people in the in the group um they are ready to go 24-7 and they are ready for 911 calls and so when you talk about dispatch and Crest and how is that working out and how will decisions be made on which 911 calls to make and why what's the timeline on this actually happening. Yeah so that's the crux of the matter um is one of the things that from going to any sessions but that Crest learned at least the director learned was that you don't start with too many calls you start with a small a relatively small sampling of calls that you really focus on and you get those right. There is it's a it's I think our responders are prepared and getting prepared for that. There are some union collective bargaining responsibilities that we have that we have to continue to meet um which we are doing and uh but we're we're expecting to move this forward as soon as we can um once we meet our union bargaining obligations um but in terms of the pardon me what's the impact on the on the on the dispatchers and um and how they're perceiving this new responsibility they're bringing on they're taking on um in terms of the calls we have a lot of different call types we you know the LEAP report identified a whole bunch of calls and I think you know we're in real life we're every weekend we we start saying ah that would have been a good Crest call this could have been a good call and even Crest itself is learning on a daily basis what works for them. I don't think they're looking at 24 stuff I'm not sure who is I mean the director certainly is not looking at 24-7 coverage for Crest at this point we don't have a budget for it but also um I think you can we can talk to him directly but you know any call after 10 p.m. very I don't think any program in the country it goes goes operates after 10 p.m. at night I think there I think one of them Denver is going to start this year by going 24-7 but no other programs in the country go that length but he can give us an update on that if you like. Michelle? I'm not sure if this is a question for Paul or the council in general so um we received a state of human rights report um it just occurred to me when someone else was speaking um from the Human Rights Commission and I don't know is there an action that we're supposed to take to acknowledge or adopt or do something that um lets the Human Rights Commission know that we've received the report and acknowledge it? It's not in the list of groups which by the way the Board of License Commissioners is in that group that is required annually to report to the council um so I didn't see any reason besides distributing it which was done for us to actually act in any way even to accept the report. There are five I think it's five reports that we are supposed to receive annually by virtual the charter and we tend to do that um around the time beginning of December when we also do the state of the town address. So just to follow up do they did they just do this they just do this on an annual basis uh what I've never seen one before this year. Yeah I can look I don't think there's a requirement for them to do it. I mean for instance the housing authority is required by the state to do one so that when they give up when they do ours they just handed us that report as their report so it's not duplicate effort but I don't know of one for Human Rights Commission. Okay well I just wanted to share that I really appreciated the report and that they brought it forward. Absolutely. Pat? I also appreciated the report and I feel like while there is no requirement it does seem that it would be valuable for the council to spend some time talking about the report directly and perhaps inviting the Human Rights Commission or some of the members to come forward and answer questions or share additional concerns with us. Okay let me put that as a future agenda item. Are there any other questions of Paul? Yes. I might not have an answer Paul but I'm interested I know the uh and I know the lottery for East Gables happened and I thought there was something like 900 applicants. How many do you know how many of those folks were 30 percent area meeting income or less? No I think I think it was a newspaper I just that's the first time I saw it as well so I can I can find out from Valley. That would be great I I did email Laura Baker but I haven't heard anything thank you. Okay. Your packet last time we met included the president's oh I'm sorry Pam President's report um and uh with regard to future agenda items uh I would like the council to guess the best way to do this is to say our August 7th meeting is listed as if needed okay and based on that I think it would be useful for the council to vote that we meet on August 7th and let me just mention that if we meet it will be totally virtually because we don't have a neither um neither of our count neither of our clerks the Athena or Angela can be here so the whole council would meet virtually and that way we don't have to deal with the electronic issues of being in this room. Pam you have your hand up. I can start by asking what are the agenda items that that we need to fit into an extra meeting? The main agenda item that's coming up and there are others but none of them are as time sensitive is in fact the zoning um by law amendments and that is that is only if CRC I mean GL I'm sorry that's only if GL finishes its recommendation on clear consistent and actionable. Do we have the KP law? Okay but do we have the KP law have they reviewed it? Paul email that came today to the whole council. We just got the um we just got KP law's opinion back today. Thank you. It was just sent to you by Paul Backelman. It's not in the packet but it was sent to all counselors. Pam you still have your hand up. I'm waiting for unexpected items. Unanticipated okay uh okay Michelle. So you're asking us to vote to maybe have a meeting on August 7th? No but GL is telling us that they will be ready so. So are we having a meeting on August 7th? I would prefer that this be a vote of the council since it was listed as if needed. I have the right to call it but I also want to honor the fact that people are on vacation. It was listed as if needed okay. What what are the consequences in terms of the timing of that proposal if we do not meet? Min Jo you're the one that has worked out the timeline and so we because the planning board has completed its hearing and we will have a planning board report and CRC has completed its hearing and we will have a CRC report and GL will have met but it's really many joke correctly if I'm wrong on this it's really X number of days after the planning board concludes its hearing. No? So I can answer that but my hands up for another reason which I'll ask that question before I answer this one which is what's on the August 21st agenda such that it would be more useful to have an August 7th meeting so that not everything so that we don't go till 2 a.m. on August 21st like that can't be moved off of August 24th first that would that would be one question because there's other things coming up for August beyond just the zoning. To answer the zoning questions CRC closed its hearing June 26th was that our meeting? Um once CRC closes its hearing the council must vote within 90 days or CRC or slash the council because the CRC holds the council required hearing if the council does not vote within 90 days of the council's hearing closing which is CRC's hearing then the council slash CRC would have to hold another public hearing including all of the notice provisions before it could vote and act on the proposals that 90 day deadline is in mid-September there are the August 7th meeting is exactly four scheduled meetings before the deadline is reached for the council I always recommend to the president that the council start its first reading for scheduled meetings before it must vote because there is always two potential right to postpone options after you get to the second reading so you have to have two meetings before you run out of time but if counselors choose to use their right to postpone and then the further right to postpone you're not past that 90 day deadline that meeting would be August 7th to ensure that you don't get past that deadline can I ask my other questions or my other things about beyond what is already there as I stated for CRC chair um rental registration will probably have a recommendation to the council um in mid-August for the council to take up which is a huge item too and then street lights was postponed from two weeks ago because of the length of that meeting and so that needs taken up too so rental registration is going to have to go to go to GOL first though the referral was for us to send it back to the council I'd go recommendation to the council and then the council will need to decide whether it goes to GOL or it gets voted on or goes wherever else but it'll need a full discussion at the council based on our recommendation and has there been legal review yes okay so um and the AHRA is presenting first that's why I asked for what all is scheduled for the 21st so I've got AHRA you're telling me rental registration might be ready by then I don't know whether GOL will have rules of procedure or bylaws by then um and the other thing that you just mentioned was the street lights so that's what would be on the 21st we were also supposed to get a report of the library thank you okay so that's what's there so by moving street lights could go on the 7th AHRA is not ready by the 7th uh the bylaw the uh duplex triplex bylaw um would be on the 7th so the things that would move to the 7th that will be ready by the 7th are duplex triplex bylaw and street lights that's the way I see it because I can't imagine GOL will get done with rules of procedure and time to bring that forward too and the we already did finish the other bylaws right so uh just to clarify then with the sorry to know the duplex would be um a first reading the street light would be a referral or a vote it's actually a responding to so it was set for a potential vote it doesn't have any requirements for first and second reading because it's a policy but the council has not had a time a chance to yet talk about TSO's recommendation and there were a lot of comments so yeah so on the 7th we would do street lights we would do um duplex triplex zoning bylaws zoning amendments right and we could do the um um uh leftover leftover bylaws okay there we go that's what would be on the 7th the point of order yes was this potential vote considered and anticipated by you more than 40 less than 48 hours ago or more than 48 hours ago versus just taking a sense of the council just trying to get a sense of the count so it's not a formal vote no okay sounds like we have fine we'll have a meeting on the 7th 7th at 6 o'clock 6 30 will be totally virtual 6 30 totally virtual okay uh are there any other comments Lynn Paul so I just want to go back I did look at the on the human rights report so the town's bylaw requires the commission to shall annually prepare and submit to the town manager town council report on the state of human rights in Amherst that's that's they're responding to so I don't know whether I'll try to schedule that on the 7th or just later can I respond to that yes in the past with other reports we've just simply had a vote acknowledging receipt yeah right but if the council wants to speak with the human rights commission that's different one of the members has literally just moved out of out of state but might one of the co-chairs but might be willing to well okay okay so we're having a meeting on the 7th at 6 30 virtually seven people have indicated that they are available uh a few people indicated that they might be able to be available and three people indicated they are not available okay all right anything else topics not reasonably anticipated I would like to acknowledge two things and one is that today is Sean's anniversary and he's spending it with us thank you Sean the second is that that Kelly Miller is moving to Seattle and this is her last in-person meeting with us she'll be helping out but she's pursuing her PhD the University Washington and she's moving anything else if not I'm sorry yes go ahead I'm I don't really want to have a discussion at the sour tonight about it but I did want to bring this up and it was not anticipated because it really came out of last week's and then this week's public comment session I would like us to consider having GOL look at the rules procedure again about of public comment period there were a couple things that I think that we need them to talk about one is whether it is appropriate for somebody to ask to be recognized and then turn over their time to somebody else particularly somebody who has already spoken but it's really not necessary that's the only reason that it is done and I would like I don't want to have the discussion I would like to well to have that discussion and I certainly didn't want to have the discussion during public comment thick of course because it's not our role but I think we should talk about it the other thing was raised by Pat during the discussion in public comment and I think that we really might want to give some more feedback to the president about what the process ought to be and the policy ought to be for enforcing the time limit because it did create an awkwardness as was noted and I'm not going to get into the details so I just would really like to have the appropriate committee spend a little bit of time thinking about those issues on behalf of the council. Okay now one of the protections is having a consistent policy that is that is enforced consistently it's for our protection as a yeah. Okay are there any other comments or questions I have to look at my screen sorry if none the meeting is adjourned at 10 37. Good night everyone.