 Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the meeting law. This meeting of the tack is being conducted via remote participation. And with that is a call to order for the tack. Any announcements. And you hear everybody. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yes, we can hear. I can hear you. I can hear you all. Yes, everyone can be heard. And, and I sent information to even hold. Okay. Are there any announcements? I had a couple of quick announcements. Let's see. One was that last week I participated in interviews for tack candidates. Yeah, it was very exciting. And I think what I heard from the time and Guilford was there for some of them to what I heard from the town manager is that he's planning to take the, his proposed appointments to the council for approval on February 28. Great. Thank you. And one sad note there is that Holden. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying, Oh, well, actually, maybe he's here now. Let's see. Holden is here. So here we can elevate him. Holden is now a panelist, I think. Hi, Holden. Thank you for coming. How's it going? Good. So, well, now that you're here, I was going to just mention, I mean, you had mentioned at our last meeting, which was only a week ago that you were going to do the interview for the tack candidate interviews. And I was going to share the news you had shared, but it's up to you if you want to do that. Yeah, I so me and my partner are, are trying to buy a house which anyone is also in that process. It's not easy. And it's, it's looking like Amherst might not be where we end up over the next couple of months. So what I told Tracy and Guilford and the town manager was I'm more than happy to participate. You know, as I've been doing and whatever that means for official capacity or not, but just wanted to put that out that, you know, it's been a between applying last April and, you know, now it being February, things change. So I might not be around for the full year appointment or two year appointment. Holden, did you look at 25 Leverett Road? I did not. You should go look at that house and you should really think about art. Okay. Wait, is this a legit thing, but okay. Okay, thanks, Guilford, and thank you Holden for participating even in an unofficial capacity because you've had a lot to add to our conversations. Good luck with your house son. Yeah, good luck with your house. Yeah. And we will appreciate you being here as long as you continue to be willing to join us. So thank you. Any other now, Chris Tracy? I can't think of any right now. And so the next agenda item is public comment, which I assume we don't really have any. And nor do we have approval, I did not see minutes but I didn't see any from Amber either. So I think you can hold that. Yeah. Thank you. So the next order of business is I think Tracy has some news for us on the TSO. Referral to us about the parking permit revisions. Yeah, so I wanted to just check in. So as I wrote in my email this morning, I mean my two top priorities for this meeting. Number one, Kim and myself, we'd both worked on a memo related to the parking restrictions on the arterial roadways that we would like to forward to TSO and the council at some point with with the tax blessing. And then also, I learned sort of second hands that TSO, TSO and their report to the council. And that they are planning on holding public hearing on the revisions to the downtown parking permit program, the ones that were presented by a few members of the town staff. A few weeks ago, the last council to council meetings ago. And that the TSO is requesting tack input by their next TSO meeting, which is a week from today. So that was one reason I had sent the information on it back to everyone. I'm not sure how much they didn't really TSO didn't give me any guidance on what we should be commenting on. I mean there's a few things I definitely think are under the jurisdiction attack that we could comment on there's some other elements that I personally have expressed concerns about in conversations with counselors and town staff. So I guess the thing is I feel like that second that new business item could be a sort of open ended conversation and so maybe. Do we want to get, do you want to bring that up and just go over what you think, you know, points are that we could help because I, you know, in reading it over I'm not sure how much we add to the conversation. I'd be interested in knowing what parts you think. Yeah, I guess do we want to, yeah, I guess so my question to Kim and the other members of the tack is if we want to look at the parking restrictions memo first and get that off our plate or if we want to start with an open ended conversation about the When do I do your memo first we're sure we get that done. I mean that's what I was thinking I like checking things off my list I feel so accomplished so. And I feel like the, some of the parking permit stuff if people are interested we could spend a lot of time talking and thinking about it. Okay, yeah, I have. Okay, thanks. So, um, I send it around, I think I sent everybody memo. Did I. Oh, so I only have I have the version with the marked up version of that we sent. Oh, I did send. I'm sorry, did I not send it to everybody I apologize. It's a quick memo so I think yeah so that we could just literally right right right all right I can just share that right now. I apologize if I messed it up. Okay, um, let me just share my screen, I'll pull it up. Do you want. I was just wondering if you wanted me if you wanted to kind of do the, the send it to me and then I'll share it and you, you critique. I'm fine to. Okay. Let me do that. I think I meant it to send it when I sent the other stuff. Alright, so. My guess is everyone would benefit from having it on their own screen to just having copy. Here it's I'm sending it right now. So I had sent Kim because Kim had sent me her draft and then I sent her back in version with track changes but then I just wanted to share like a clean version with everybody so I meant to send it earlier but I just sent it to everyone now so hopefully can you'll receive in a minute. Here I'm going to share my screen. Okay. That's good. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So this, we had talked about this memo at the last meeting and I appreciate Kim writing up a draft. Um, so what we, what we had wanted to do with it is just to circle back on the original memo that Gilbert had sent to the town manager and the TSO. Um, you know, he'd sent a memo about trying to create a consistent policy with regards to when you make decisions for on street parking and using three criteria, including the road classification, roadway widths and traffic volumes. Um, it did seem that TSO in their own guidelines that they adopted most of the language and the recommendations in Guilford's original memo, which was great. The one piece that they left out is some of the things that were in the next steps. And we looked at that at the last meeting. And then the next steps, including things about restricting parking on the materials. And there's also some elements there about like related to site line restricting parking or site lines and some other things. Um, so this is just one piece of it. I just seemed good, I think to push it forward. So that's why we were posing to do so. So I write in this third paragraph down, it says the last section of that March memo suggests that should it be decided to proceed with using these three criteria, the following next steps are recommended. Right. So one of the next steps was about the arterials. And so, as Kim said, the memo short, what, what I did is just describe, I use the language that was in Guilford's memo as well as in the TSO's criteria about defining arterial roadways. And then I just summarize from the list that Guilford had provided earlier that there's 11 roads that are classified as principal arterials. There are 14 roadways that are minor arterials. At our meeting last week, we talked about that we could, we also shared the list of the connector streets at that meeting. But then, I mean, those include some more neighborhood streets. So we thought that as a start, maybe just to restrict the parking on the materials for the principal arterials and the minor arterials. And on that second page, I just reiterate that, you know, the DPW recommended that the parking be restricted. And we agree with that. And I explain why, you know, that such a restriction is essential to prevent vehicles from parking and bike lanes or on the paved shoulders of roadways for pedestrians could be walking. You know, if they're limited, no sidewalks and parking in the roadway on these busy and sometimes narrow streets can restrict sight lines. And also for pedestrians. So the language could be a little bit cleaner if people have suggestions, but And I said, I just close with ideas about locations where parking can be allowed include areas in and around village centers and other areas of business or other uses where there's a safe spaces for parking. These locations, and this was from the language that Guilford had mentioned these locations would need to specifically be marked so that no, the no parking rule elsewhere along these are would be enforceable and ticketable. That was my understanding from you, Guilford that the Amherst police wouldn't take it if it's not very clear. So, Is that right, Guilford, because that's kind of what I got to. He just nodded and. Okay, I can't. Okay. So they won't take it unless it's clear. Yeah. You should say for the record. You nodded. Oh, right. So do people have comments concerns. I mean, one question I had as I was writing this up, you know, working from what Kim had said is just, we can submit this to TSO. You know, or would it circulate to the town manager first and then come back to TSO like how that would proceed. I also was a little bit sensitive I noticed when TSO wrote up their minutes about it. There had been some former members of the TSO that were really concerned. That tack or staff were trying to tell TSO and the council what to do on public ways and so I wanted to make it clear that these are just recommendations that nothing is actually being proposed and it's up to the council to do as a wish. Do we want to, I wonder in reading this and, and just in along with, you know, kind of the thought that we're not really stepping on anyone's toes. If we want to add where I mean there currently isn't parking on, on these streets, these are major streets and they're, I mean, there's no, there's no one who regularly parks on these things as far as I can tell except in places where, where, you know, there are actually parking spots. There are, maybe we could say something like they're currently, because people don't park there on any of these streets really. I mean, normally. I think that right. I mean, Gilbert might be able to speak more to this but it seems that the issue is that, yes, I do think that on these streets that people mainly park in the village areas like for example like main street is on the list or north and south pleasant street and they're mainly parking, you know where people should be parking but then there's always some people who park elsewhere. That's what I mean, I mean, I just wonder if we went might want to make it clear that currently the usage is, is mainly confined to marked parking areas or something like that. I mean, Guilford we can hear you but is that your experience. It's actually South pleasant and East pleasant are the two that actually have parking that happens on them. We do on Bay Road every once in a while. And the rest are pretty much yeah it's only where there's parking spaces available. Well then maybe we shouldn't say that but I mean we could, as Kim, I mean Kim suggested adding a sentence or two I mean we could call out that the majority of these streets are not having people park already. But there are, you know, there have been some issues when people do. Right. Otherwise it's fine not to not to add that in I just thought it might make it more clear that we're just kind of solidifying something that's not explicitly stated, but effectively true. I like I mean I like that idea. How do you other tack members feel and hold on. Any other comments. I'm just looking at the. I'm wondering if we should simply send this to the TSO with a copy to Paul and Guilford, rather than to the entire council. Oh yeah. I mean if the TSO that's where, you know, we really want to just honor the protocol. So just, well, I think that's true right. I mean I guess one thing is should we as a courtesy then CC the council president. So your charter says you are a town manager committee. So we should send it just to the town manager and then he forwards it to the TSO. I think that might be better. So. But the TSO did ask for the TSO asked for our opinion on this. No. I mean they had early on in the process like when Guilford came out with it has original memo. Okay, well in the absence of the TSO saying please look at this, I think it's girlfriend suggestion that we just send this to the town manager is fine. Okay. So I guess so I guess we could say. Actually, I just checked, you're actually a select board authority over you. That hasn't changed. Sorry. So, I don't, I would recommend going to the town manager since it wasn't directly asked to you and then he can send it to the council president. You can decide what they do next. Yeah, I don't think to select what bother reading this. It's not a priority item. But it could go. Yeah. And I mean I don't feel like I didn't attend all of the council meetings when the stuff was being discussed but when I looked back it seemed like TSO. They took Gilford's memo and they made their criteria and then they use the criteria number of times and when the parking items were being reviewed at the council meetings. They said here is our criteria, but at no point did the council like adopt the criteria themselves which is why I continued to refer to TSO. I think one issue with the counts, the TSO's criteria is that there had been another policy there had been this guide these guidelines but then there had also been another policy that TSO created which also had to do with public way requests. And so it was one of the carryover items that TSO mentions for the new council about reconciling the two different guidance documents. And so perhaps that's why that didn't go to the council. So, yeah, I mean we could do it that way. I mean, I mean so Gilford are you suggesting I mean we would want to add just like a cut, you know, an intro sentence or something. And just, I mean this this did originally comes attack back with your March 2021 memo like you shared with us that memo to. So, we could just say we could just say that we're like circling back from that. I was, I don't think you need I think it he'll understand exactly what you're doing here. Okay. Great. So do we want to if there are no further changes. Do we need to approve this as a committee. Sure I will so move. So, so Kim did we want to then add just one sentence about that this that we're just codifying like current practices because the majority of these streets do not currently have people parking on them. I, I think that that would help the TSO. Okay. Maybe, I guess I would put it I would put it towards the bottom, I think. I mean we're saying you know that we recommend it. So, like you could even put it after that location sentence right parking where parking could continue to be allowed. I mean I would put it like three, three paragraphs down like, I would leave this about restricting locations and we could also just say at the on the last page on the second page. Sorry. And then after the ticketable part, we could just say, you know currently, currently only a few of the, or the DPW reports that currently only a few of the arterial streets, you know, have, have had any issues with people parking on in more, you know, on, on areas that aren't specifically designated for streets with undesignated or you can, you know, have issues with on street parking in areas that are not designated. You know have issues with areas issues with areas, areas with have know with areas where parking has not been not designated or what do we want to say people. DPW reports that only a few just leave it out. No, just not have it. Okay. Okay. No, really. It doesn't. It doesn't need anything really. That's fine. Okay. So then we so this has been so moved. Is there a second. A second. All those in favor of the memo and the current and its current form being sent to the Amherstown manager by hand. Let's see a hand raise everybody. Thank you. So that's, you know, thank you. Tracy, I'll send this to you. The edited version and and we'll transmit it to the town manager. Sounds good. I will stop sharing. So Guilford, I mean, just sort of so in, you know, as a next step, so do you think that the town manager would then just share it with the council president, right? Is that what you were suggesting? And then the council president could send it back to TSO. Yes. Okay. And that what happened with the crosswalk guidelines? Will that be the same procedure then? Yes. Okay. Great. So hopefully they'll come back to us at some point. Yes. Excellent. Thank you. So do we want to take up the parking and start looking at the demo? Yeah. So, and thank you, Bernie, for sending out the correct memo. Send out the wrong memo. Kim, do you want to pull up that memo too? I'm just sending. I'm just following up on sending you this. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. You know, all I have is the, um, it has a lot of correct, you know, correct corrections. So there's actually an original cover memo. So Bernie sent it around. Did I get that? I don't. Maybe I did. And I sent it out. I sent it out late in the day. So you may not have, you may not have seen it. Yeah. So. Right. Oh, you know, I have it, but it, yeah. Oh yeah. I have that. Okay. So I can, um, share with you. Sure. And yes. Okay. There we go. This is this, this is it. Yeah. Sure. So I did ask the, um, I did ask the TSO for a little bit of guidance. I mean, I saw in their report to the. The town council that they expect some tack feedback, though they hadn't. They hadn't contacted the tack and said, Hey, we want feedback on the following. Um, so I had just been thinking about the parking permit changes already. And the ones, so I think them. I mean, I think we can look over this memo. As a group. I mean, it seems like we'd mainly be interested in some of the detail changes. Um, right. I mean, so just to recap, I don't know how long, oh, there's memos for pages, right? So what the council, what them, the town staff who worked on the memo. There is a, um, town staff, like, like parking leadership group or something, which includes the finance director, the town manager, Paul Baccarman and then. Dianne Furlough, something which is, who is some of the financial side of it. So they're initially responding to in this mode. They're initially responding to his CRC memo. That asks them to implement the following recommendations. Um, So in this page that CREM is scrolling to here about the permit price. So one big part of this of the town's proposal has to do with changing the fee structure for the parking, for the parking permits. Because currently they are $25 for a whole year, which is very low. And I think as you see like under that first table at the top, it says for comparison North Hampton $25 per month for its outdoor long-term thoughts and $90 per month for the garage. And they also are interested in structuring it to be where vehicles that are not registered in Amherst, like registered garage, considered to be garage in Amherst, and that then Amherst is not receiving the excise tax from those vehicles that they would pay a higher rate, which would either encourage them to then change their vehicle registration to over to Amherst and Amherst would receive that money and then they would have a lower parking fee rate or I mean, I don't know how much of a difference it's gonna make to those people in terms of the total cost for them, but maybe there's some savings and they would be encouraged to then garage their vehicles in Amherst officially. Either way it would increase, it does seem like. It would increase the revenue. I mean, it does seem like $25 parking fee is certainly inexpensive at least. So hold in, do you have a comment? Yeah, Tracy, did you just say, so is that $25 that's annually? Yeah, correct. Okay, I guess for the table right above where it says for comparison, could that specify that all those amounts are annual right at the top of it? Oh, I think now, Kim, I think if you go back to that page, I saw I see what, right. So when it says like fee 25. Right, right, I see what you're saying, okay. So that's a good idea. I kind of thought that was monthly just based on. No, it makes sense, right. I mean, that would be a normal sort of value, right? Right. I guess, I guess even that, gee. Yeah. Actually, I think it is monthly. If you read the next paragraph below, it says for comparison, Northampton charges $45 per month. It's not monthly. No, these are, these cost fees are the annual fees because look, they have the non-Amherst vehicle registration fee and you see that they're gonna be increasing that to $400 by FY 2025. So that's not monthly, right? Exactly what, why I was confused. Yeah, cause we had, we had a parking permit a couple of years ago, a residential one. It was $25 for the whole year. Yeah. That's insane. That is absolutely insane. It's bonkers. And Marcus. It doesn't pay for anything. It doesn't pay for the lining of the, the spaces. Marcus, it actually used to be less expensive. It used to be when I first moved, I think it was like $15 or $10 for a whole year. It's ridiculous. Yeah. So, so the fees are not really, I mean, that's not, I mean, I assume they're not asking us for that information. No, we shouldn't be setting. Right. I mean, I will say one thing. It is worth noting. I mean, if you just go back to fees, Kim, there was one thing that I had, I had wondered about is there's this reserve spot fee. So those are the reserve spaces on the lower level of the Boltwood garage. And there's actually 28 of them, not 20 of them. And I got clarification on that from the parking team. So. It might be more helpful actually to say that Northampton charges whatever, four to $500, whatever that ends up being for a year. Right, absolutely. Because even, even if you say annually at the top, I think it still is a weird comparison, you know, kind of comparing types of fees. And one thing interesting, so one part of the proposal is to change the permit, the regular permits from being nine effective as well as the parking permit restrictions on the different areas. They're currently in effect from September to May and the colleges are in session, basically the nine months at the colleges are in session and they are not in effect. Oh, really? June, July and August, because the demand is just so much less. So one of the proposals is to make the parking permit to be 12 months of a year and then start it on July 1st. This isn't necessarily, as Marca said, under the purview of the TAC, per se, but I did express some concern about that, that if you were gonna make it 12 months, that it should be aligned with when leases are for a lot of rentals, and as well as the UMass parking permit fees, which those parking permits start in September, like September 1st. How much does the UMass charge? Just out of interest. Well, UMass, typically a lot of the lots they charge, wait, Marca, you don't drive to campus. They typically charge between 300 to $400 a year. Is that it? Oh, wow. Yes, it's also a sliding scale fee. I mean, it depends. But it's so cheap as a get up. I remember like Georgia Tech used to be like 1500 bucks and that was like... What? Oh, yeah, that was... Yeah, but you're thinking downtown Atlanta. Why not? I know, I mean... But that was a long time ago. They have a sliding scale for employees at UMass. And you can also have... I mean, one thing my family used to do is you can get... And they really could advertise this a lot more as you can get carpool passes, like if you're typically only having one vehicle. And then what happens is you register both vehicles and everybody pays a reduced rate. And then you get a certain number of visitor passes. Yeah, yeah. That's what I do. Because I mainly bike in and I'm my husband and I share a commuter parking. But they don't really advertise that program so much. No, we don't at all. And they used to have commuter parking spots. Yes. Oh, do they not have them anymore? Well, not in my lot, anyway. I think what happened, those snowplow knocked down my commuter parking signs and then they never replaced them. So, okay, I'm sorry, that's our sides. Okay, so they want to increase the fee. So that's all part of recommendation. That'll make sense, yeah. And then, you know, they want to have the new signage to clearly identify the lots and the hours and things. They want to update the website. They've already been working on the communication and... Because the weird thing is the memo that I saw had a lot more kind of information that I thought was relevant, including, you know, where the parking was and... Well, right, so Kim, those are actually in the regulations. Oh. So the memo, this is the cover memo that they sent. And then they also shared some of the markup of the regulations. So, Kim, if you want to close the memo, we could open the regulations. Yeah. The markup. Do you have a copy of that too? Yeah, I do have that. Yeah, yeah. That's what I thought we were going to look at. So, it's just in my folder, which I have to locate. Too much things open on my desktop, as usual. Where is it? If I just pause. Oh, there it is. Okay. Amherst. Nope. I guess I don't have it here. Sorry. All right, I'll send it. You can have it in your email from today, Tracy. Yeah, it's a link. I have a link to the town version. Memo from this. Yes. And... Sorry. Let's share my screen. There we go. This. Yeah? Yes. Sure. So that's where the park, the year thing is here. Right, right. The permit year. So, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. So one thing, I mean, I'm not sure how much this is. I mean, because we didn't receive any guidance from TSO, I'm not sure how, you know, how involved we would be with where permits, when the permit year starts or whatever. Yeah. No, no, no. Right. July 1 to June 30, it lines it up with the town's fiscal year. Oh, there we go. But wouldn't it be problematic so, Bernie? I mean, so if the fact that so many leases start in August, like mid August or September, as well as the UMAC parking system, which, you know, as we were just saying, isn't that cheap? So if somebody is moving over the summer, but they were going to be in Amherst for June and July, are doing, you know, would they, would they need to like pay for two permits or how would that work or? Well, you get the permit for the year. If you're moving in in September, you buy the permit in September and it runs through. Oh, right, okay. In 30th, you're... But if you were, say you still had, I mean... The issue would be is if you, do you discount the permit if somebody uses it for less than a year? I mean, so far that hasn't been the practice, but it hasn't been an issue because the permits were $25, but if they're gonna be in the hundreds of dollars, it could be more of an issue, right? And one thing that came up just as an equity issue too, and one of the discussions I heard was that now that the pricing would be higher, like are there ways to get a waiver or are there exemptions, you know, based on income or other economic factors so that people don't have to pay hundreds of dollars? I mean, that's not for us at the side, right? No, of course not, right, no. It's just... So I think it is interesting to look at who... I had no idea about the types of permits. I had heard us talking about employer permits, but I didn't actually understand what that meant. And so that's the people who work downtown are qualified to get permits. That's what that looks like. Yes. And renters. And there's visitors, you can also have visitor permits. Right, so I do have a question about this eligibility, like under section three about, and I mean, maybe Kim, we wanna review the list. I don't know where they are. I wanna know why my street is mentioned here. No, so... Oh, no, no, so what happened was Kim, so this is what I was asking you about. So there are two, we can actually pull up. There are two specially designated residential... I'm just trying to get here. Areas. This is what you want, right? Right, I mean, that should... So is that, did you scroll down to get to that or scroll up? Yes. Wouldn't you wanna introduce that like towards the beginning so that people know what everybody's talking about? Okay, so there's area one. Yeah, so there's this area one. So the way these residential only parking permits, my understanding of the work, is that there's this Allen Street and Nutting Avenue. I mean, I was gonna just, how about if I share that? Can you guys see that? Yeah, we sure can. So I looked at the Allen Street and Nutting today and they're joining Street is Phillips and it's basically mainly fraternities and large rental housing. That's, yeah. Those did seem to be, those residential only permits did seem to be used a lot. I believe, I mean, I don't know how... But there is insufficient parking back there. Yeah. But there must be with all those, I mean, all those fraternities and stuff, they all have parking lots. Do you know? So, I wasn't, I wasn't sure how old any of these date and somebody told me that that area didn't used to be quite so rental student, rental housing oriented. And so it's possible that some of these, this residential only permit dates back to when it wasn't. Which is correct. It's correct. Cause when this was made was, and this was made in 97, 98. So... Half those houses were owned by owner occupied. Oh. More than half. So... I imagine it's also parking for people on this street, you know, whatever the street is here to above Nutting, you know, yeah. So one thing, so that's Phillips Street and there's no parking allowed on Phillips It's all tow zones. And Phillips, right? Comes back out to North Pleasant. So, and then there's this residential only permit area too, which includes this section on McClellan Street. Now, I had heard from, and what's interesting about this, and that's why you saw that special language for Cosby Kim is that, so there's this section on McClellan where this orange section, where it says that it's this residential only permit area too. And that in order to qualify that, you either have to live on this section on McClellan Street or on Cosby. And then there's a yellow permit, there's a yellow, which is just a standard downtown parking permit. Now, when I visited today, I mean, this is just a snapshot in time. I was just trying to understand this a little bit more, but nobody was using, nobody was parked on McClellan in the resident only parking permit. And I don't know how much they get used. And then if you went to that yellow area, they were all used. Now, the other thing is that on the stretch of McClellan, as well as on Beston and Page and Cosby, like almost every property does have a driveway. And so the majority of cars are parked on the driveway. Some other driveways though are pretty small, like where they can only hold like maybe one or two cars. So one thing that I had heard from somebody who lives on Page, and this had been an issue with them for a while, is because Page is not mentioned as a street with permit parking. If they had visitors, they have a small driveway. And if they had visitors, and one of them should be able to park, they said they actually had to go all the way. They had to go park at Kendrick Park. No, that's not true though. Maybe all these spaces were taken, but I agree that doesn't make sense because there's most of the, there's no parking on Cosby or Page or Beston. And so if you do have visitors, you do need another place to park. Now you can park like on your side of the street, on Cosby like after 3 p.m. Right, right. We got that change so that our babysitter could park there in the afternoon. That's why we go. No, so I guess, so that would be one, this sounds like a lot of nitty gritties, but I mean, is that something that we would wanna maybe recommend that one, if you keep residential only permit area, I mean, if you keep that area, then it could also include Page and Beston. It should, it doesn't make sense why it doesn't. Well, Beston does have this, right? But now, but see that what's, what the thing is that because those streets, if you look at the language, it says the only streets that are considered in the town center parking permit area shall be limited. Oh, are within the general business district or budding. I know, I guess I'd have to see what the zoning districts are. Or have frontage or principal access. But I agree. It's very strange that there are these little pockets of resident only. Right. Parking. The little pockets are there, it keeps students from parking. Yeah. I mean, we definitely, the problem is if this didn't exist, if this little red part didn't exist, there would be all kinds of parking on it all the time. So. But you were saying that those don't get used that much that. No, they don't, but, but it also, that street shouldn't have park wall to wall parking on it. Cause you can't, it makes it into a one lane street. No. Okay. It's only like occasionally used parking really. Okay. So it wouldn't make sense to change that over to yellow. You're saying it makes sense or not. No. Okay. I mean, there's actually, so some people had mentioned to me on Lincoln, you know, there's an issue where like say somebody lives on Lincoln North of McClellan. So on Lincoln North of McClellan, there's no parking allowed. Right. Then again, like if they had visitors and wanted to have a visitor permit. So there's no place unless they are considered to be qualified. There's no place for their visitors to park except for like all the way back again. Well, it would have to be behind here, right here. No, but that's, but those are all restricted. Still? Oh, actually no, they're not restricted. They're not. No. It's just restricted on this. Right. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. So that can be one minor recommendation we make. Kim, can you go back to like the bylaws? Oh, I'm sorry. Yep. No, that's fine. I mean, did anybody, I mean, I had gone through this a little bit. I mean, did anybody else read through it and have any like big things that stuck out to them that they'd want to see changed or? So I guess to me the thing that would make the most sense for us to give our input on would be where parking is currently permitted. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I did have, just before we get to that part, I do have, I did have one question, and that again, it was related to the visitor passes. And so it says here, you know, use the visitor passes that elderly or disabled visitors eligible for permits you know, we're able to park and to get visitor passes. But then again, the person on page who had expressed concerns about it said that they were told that that was only, that I'd be curious about how elderly is defined actually because they were told that the person had to be like 80 or over to qualify. So I don't know if if elderly is defined anywhere in the bylaws would it be 65? It elderly is not defined in the bylaws, Bernie. Well, no, there's no, no, there's no definition. And it's elderly is like one of those, you know, somebody who's in that demographic, I can tell you that it depends on perspective and. No, I mean, I understand what elderly is, but if it's gonna say. That's about it. But if the person, I mean, if people are gonna be told, oh, you can only qualify for an elderly. I think that's a valid concern. If you want to use the term elderly, then you should define. Have a definition of what it is, right? You know, you know, persons of what age and over. Sure, okay. If you don't even know the. All right, thank you. And then, yeah, so Kim, if you want to go back, you know, and this is all the verification. I was just reading the visitor, the visitor pass thing. The visitor pass thing, one thing I thought was really interesting is that, so people who live in these permit areas are eligible to get up to 60 passes per year for visitors, including you get, you're allowed to have 30 that are free initially. And then you can also get an additional 30 that only cost a dollar. And, but what Jennifer LaFontaine, what she said during her presentation is that I think that typically only like 30 households request them. So maybe that's something that people don't know about the visitor pass. And it also just seems, again, I'm not sure the fees are our purview at all, but it seems really super inexpensive that you can, for like a dollar, you can have people park there. So. I think, you know, most people have, I mean, I've purchased a few of those, but our, or we've gotten a few of them, but because it's not a problem on nights and weekends, when you have the first, doesn't really matter. That's okay. Right. I mean, like, when would you actually need it needed? When are the police gonna actually care about it? Anytime UMass is in session, I can tell you. But I was actually thinking, I mean, with the price so cheaply, like if UMass student, you know, if UMass students wanted and they were, I mean, maybe they're not aware of the visitor program either, but they could, you know, they could qualify for up to like 60 passes, pretty instantively. And it would, it seems like you, they could really leverage their parking pretty well, you know, so, well, you're not allowed to resell them. And you have to be allowed to, but that doesn't mean you can't, so, yeah. Well, I don't think the town has that many parking enforcement officers when you have all these complicated parking things too, actually. Oh, is that right? They're only two. Is it just two? I'm under the impression it's only two, but. Right, is it just two? Go ahead, I'm sorry, Guffrey. Oh, sorry, it's two and a half. Two and a half. Well, we have some pretty complicated parking to get that much enforcement. I just, Is there a guillotine in the town where there's how you get the half person or not? No, no, no, they have a part timer. Ah, okay. So, so Kim, to your point about them, you know, where the streets that are included on the list, the current list is the same as is in the current bylaw. And I think I brought this up at the last meeting, but the North Pleasant McClellan to triangle, right? They did keep it like on the West side only, which is something of course we want to have removed because we decided, we had recommended and the council agreed that North Pleasant Street should be East side only. So, yeah, so that's something. And there's also, there's also language, I'm not sure exactly where it is, but there's also language that says it only applies for like parallel parking and not angled parking. So I think that that should be something that the town should, that should be. Oh, yeah. Expanded to. Okay, that's a good point. And so, so do you think we should make those suggestions to someone? Yeah, I mean, I was going to, I was going to write up something. I mean, the TSO had asked for our feedback. So I was going to give like these kind of minor points like badly and things like that, unless we thought that there was anything more major. So. Oh, what about that little street that we just restricted parking on that's off of route nine? Kendrick Place. The new, that street, that tiny street. Yeah, Kendrick Place. Okay, is that on here? No, it isn't. I mean, it could be added or something. No, that's fine. I mean, I don't do people need permits to park on that? No, I mean, that's one reason that the street is so crowded is because people don't need permits. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you do need permits to park on, you know, North Prospect and South Prospects and, you know, a lot of the other streets around the area. Yeah. No, I was just wondering if all of the, except for that one, if there are any others of these that parking on the side indicated here is a problem. I mean, that's the current practice. Okay, all of these. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Guilford, do you know of any others with issues? I haven't, I don't drive on all these streets that much, I guess. I mean, I did have some, you know, just thinking about Spring Street, like Spring Street to the east of the common, like once the new housing goes on Spring Street and that they are not going to be providing any off street parking on site. So that seems like that could like, you know, create some parking demand pressures around Spring Street. And then I also thought it could actually impact too. So the Spring Street parking lot currently, it's considered to be one of those more peripheral lots. The Spring Street parking lot that goes between North Pleasant Street and Bultwood, where it charges, it's just like 50 cents an hour and it ends at 6 p.m. Oh, look at you, you're good. So yeah, the Spring Street lot here between Bultwood and South Pleasant. Yeah, so this is considered, these brown ones are considered peripheral lots. And so these brown ones have, they all end at 6 p.m. and not 8 p.m. as the green ones end at 8 p.m. And they are 50 cents an hour and not a dollar. This isn't specifically about the parking permit program, but I guess to me, the Spring Street lot could have a lot of demand, so. Yeah. And if people can't park in the Main Street lot, when it disappears, I think that that would increase the demand for the Spring Street lot too. Yeah. Oh, and there's a charging station back there, that's nice. And there's some charging stations on the lower level of the garage too. Mm-hmm. Oh, actually, I have a question for you about that. Do we, so it's unclear if you're at the charging stations, if you need to pay for parking or if you're paying for parking by paying the meter, I mean by paying the, you know, the charge. So it's kind of weird, but anyway. I'm under the impression, because I heard somebody complaining about this the other day that at the town lot, you're supposed to be paying both for the charging and for the parking space. Yeah, that's why it seems like, it seems to me. That, but at other locations, you know, that aren't town of Amherst Municipal Parking, that's not the case. Right, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yep. You know, electrical cars are just freeloaders anyhow, so they just want it free. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yes. All right. I'm kind of curious, like when, when, you know, we as the town potentially build a performance venue, you know, on the town common, would the town be seeking arrangements with like say Amherst College for parking on their lots, like on Spring Street or at Converse during the summer? I mean, I know technically you can park after hours on college lots for free, but I mean, would there be a more, would they be more willing to make that widely known? The town is talking to Amherst College about things like that all the time. Okay, yeah. Yeah. So one of the things I heard from a TSO member and, you know, in asking the TAC for feedback was that they wanted because, you know, as we have stressed in some of our other conversations that the TAC is thinking about things on like a system level, you know, if we had any sort of like, you know, more system like comprehensive transportation type comments about what's proposed with the parking or if we, you know, think it's all, I mean, we have some minor comments, like I've written them down and I can write them up. I mean, do people, as you people look this over, do you have any kind of larger concerns or? I don't. No, I don't either. So, yeah. Okay. Well, that was an easy job. Ha ha ha. So, stop sharing. Okay. So what is so, so I think with those few comments, we can, you know, give our suggestions to the TSO on those matters that we can, we have those. So, I mean, do we have a perspective about, you know, just in terms of, right, because we're looking at transportation and, you know, like making transportation friendly for visitors and residents and everybody. So if the permit program was to change, you know, from being only during the school year to being over the summer to, you know, do we think that that's an issue? I mean, do we want to comment on that or not? What do you guys think? So. Good with me. Yeah, I think there are no, there's no problems with parking when there are no students around. Well, so, I mean, I guess that's the thing, right? Is it seems like, like think about Kendrick Park, for example, like if they, like, because we've noticed before, you know, even we were asked last summer to evaluate the parking near Kendrick Park and that until the students came back, nobody was parking in those spaces. Right. The ones that you're concerned about, Kim, on the West side, right? And then the minute the students came back, like all the spaces are used. Yes. And so, I mean, in some, you know, in some ways it's like an access issue. If, I mean, and, I mean, I don't live right downtown, but it seems that a lot of the other parking, the permitted parking is underutilized too, you know, particularly when the students aren't around. So, you know, in terms of access, in terms of making it easy for people to come downtown and go to the places they want to go to, is it, I mean, is it a, I mean, is it a good idea for those to all be off, all the spaces to be off limits, like when there's not that much demands. But there also, I mean- People have to park further away or whatever, but- But also, parking is not in the permanent spots isn't an issue when people are trying to get on the weekends and- No, of course, yeah, that's true. In the evenings, you know. And it stops at 5 p.m., right? So it stops even earlier than 6 p.m., right? Which is when the meters stop. So- And holidays, so- And holidays, yeah. I don't know, that's true. Okay, okay. Do we have, do we wanna, so are you talking the other business, continuing business we had here? I mean, I guess it would be reasonable to stop now as well, but the draft memo from the TAC to the TSO and council, is that- Right. What is that about? It's about our- That was the one that we had talked about, yeah, the charter, the charge and things like that. Okay, about our- Yeah. Which I do think we need to work on it some- No, for sure. And I had been drafting it, but then I was caught up with the other drafting. Yeah. So just in terms of just wrapping up here with the parking permit regs. So, I mean, the things we identified is the area to stuff and defining elderly and fixing the North Pleasant. So we didn't have any other specific comments, I guess. No. Okay, all right. I mean, do we wanna- Oh, wait, no, no, no. You want it, we wanted to add the angled parking. Oh yeah, angled parking, yep. Yep, okay. Okay, all right. So, I mean, I can write that up. And then- Great, thank you. And then, so do we wanna just take a vote that, because I guess what we would do is we would just share it with TSO by next week. Oh, right. I mean, I can write it up and Kim can read it over and we could like circulate it for any changes or anything. I mean, it's a pretty straightforward memo. We're not talking about big, deep things. But do we wanna take a vote that will just, those are only kind of comments. I think somebody needs to make a motion, yeah. Okay. Okay, so I'll craft a motion that in our feedback to, in our feedback to TSO on the proposed parking, permit parking regulation changes that we would recommend that area two be extended, that elderly be defined, that angled parking be included is allowed permit parking and that it'd be corrected. The permit parking on North Pleasant Street, it'd be corrected from McClellan to try and like to make it clear that it's no longer allowed on the West side. Right. I second that motion. Actually, I guess, so just sorry with North Pleasant. So when we had talked about it originally, we did, Kim, you had pointed out that there's like a couple houses there at least one, right? That they don't have that much off-street parking. We had proposed that a few of those spaces on the park side like be left for permit parking if needed or something. So I think, so we would roll our North Pleasant Street recommendation into that. Yeah. That makes sense to everybody. Okay, all right. So Kim seconded it. I second and all those in favor. Okay. Unanimous. Great. Unanimous, great. Okay. And you will write that up. Yeah, I'll write it up. It'll be like a one page thing. And then we'll send it to everybody. Oh, and Chris is here, Chris Preston. Welcome, Chris. Hi, Chris. We're almost done. Yeah. She was there. Hi. I've been here for a while since about the same time. I had to drive my daughter to a doctor's appointment. So I've been listening. I've been a stealth. Okay. All right. Did you have anything you wanted to share with us or anything? Not really. I actually belong to the internal parking group. Okay, sure. Well, I see the things that Sean proposes and, you know, before they hit the public. Okay. So I've got my mechanism for putting, for having input. So thank you very much. Oh, okay. Great. Oh, I mean, I just, if you had any other kind of updates you wanted to share with TAC or anything. I don't think so at this time. Thanks for asking. So I do have a quick question for you. Some people have asked me about, or I keep people to quote, help me. They keep forwarding me information about shared streets and spaces, grants like the current round. So is a town going to be applying for those funds? Do you think it's likely or? So we have applied for three rounds. Yes, okay. And we're still finishing the work on round two and round three or yeah. So we're all reluctant to sign up for round four given that we're still catching up. But I understand that round five will be coming along. So I think once round five is revealed, you know, we'll have to go for that. But for now, I think, you know, we're not planning to go for round four. Okay. No, I mean, I just keep her like, hey, make sure. And I was like, I'm sure the town is on it. I just, you know, so, okay. Thank you. That's right. No, of course, right? How much work we... No, of course. That makes sense. Okay. All right. Great. Okay. So I think we covered the main items on the agenda. Are there... I mean, if we had anything else that were on people's mind or I can't think of... Talk about what the next meetings would be. Oh, right. The next meetings. Thanks. Not next week, right? Right. We were skipping next week because some people couldn't make it and then we were skipping. We weren't going to meet again unless we thought it was really necessary until March, like March 3rd. Does that... That sounds good to me. Okay. I don't... Can't make it on March 3rd, but that's okay. That's okay. I don't have to make it as long as everyone else can. So I guess one thing, actually, right, is if if it goes to the council for approval and the new members go to council for approval on February 28th, then we could potentially have new people. If they get into town hall and they sign the paperwork and everything, they get sworn in. So when we're going to keep keeping... Just because we've changed the time, we're going to keep it at 5.30. Yeah. And then... And then it would be 7. And then we would meet on the 17th as well, which I think should be okay. And maybe traveling that week, but... Well, we have a celebration that night of St. Patrick's Day. That's true. Oh, right. I'm half Irish, so I recognize that. Oh, and Holly too. My count says Holly, which is like the Indian, the Hindu Hada with all the colors and such a sunset. Okay. So the 3rd and the 17th then. 3rd and the 17th, great. Okay. Does it move to adjourn? Yes. Yeah, I mean, did anybody else have anything? Oh, okay. No, no need. We're done. Wait, I did just have a quick question for Guilford about the GIS maps. Like, did it ever work out to connect with an intern from UMass or no? I haven't heard back from them. They had anybody know. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Cause it would be great to get those maps. Thank you. All right. We can adjourn folks. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye.