 I am ready Mandy Joe. I just, if you could just clarify. So this is, this is a joint meeting CRC and town council. There's a little switch here. I thought I was coming to CRC meeting. You were coming to a CRC and then they called it as a joint meeting. So it is, it is for both the town council as a whole and CRC. Okay. Gotcha. So I'm going to hear two calls to order. Yes. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. So Athena, we're, we're good to go when we're recording. Are we can broadcasting and recording. Excellent. So. All right. We have a quorum of the council present. I am calling the committee of the whole in relationship to the CRC meeting to order. And CRC has a quorum present. So I am calling the meeting of the community resources committee for April 21st, 2020 at 201 PM to order. And Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. MGL chapter 30 a section 20 allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the community resources committee and the town council. I'm going to call upon each committee member and council member by name. At that time, I will confirm that you can hear me and we can hear you. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. And I will start with the community resources committee members. Shalini Balmillan. Present. Mandy. Joe Hanneke is present. Evan Ross. Present. Steve Schreiber. I'm going to call upon each committee member and council member by name at that time. I will confirm that you can hear me and we can hear you. Okay. I'm going to call upon each committee member by name. I'm going to call upon each committee member by name. I'm going to call upon each committee member. Steve Schreiber. Present. Sarah Swartz. Present. And now we'll move on to the council members present. Alyssa Brewer. Present. Andrew Steinberg. Please unmute Andy. Sorry, that. And let me. Capy Shane. Did I miss anyone? Sorry about that one right over your name. So for members of the council and the committee, there is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena or Pam know. I think Athena is probably the better bet. That's right. I'm sure we have Pam's cell numbers to do that. To make a comment or ask a question, please click the raise hand button. If technical difficulties arise as a result of utilizing remote participation, I will decide how to address the situation. We may suspend discussion while we address technical issues. And the minutes will note if a disconnection occurred. Those assisting the meeting will be monitoring committee meeting, committee members connections. If there is a disconnection, we will pause until we can get reconnected. We just lost Steve Schreiber. We did. We will wait a minute or two as I move to the next item. To. See if he reconnects. Because our next item of business is general public comment. Let's see if Steve connected through attendees. We will pause the meeting and see if we can connect with him. Okay. So for general public comment. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of. The chair. Based on the number of people who wish to speak, we will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment to participate in public comment. You may, if you have joined the meeting by zoom teleconferencing, you in order to indicate you wish to make a comment, click the raise hand button. If you joined the meeting via the telephone and Steve is back on the phone, if you joined the meeting via the telephone and Steve is back on now. Yes. If you joined the meeting by the telephone to indicate you wish to make a comment, press star nine on your phone. During the public comment period, the chair will recognize members of the public when called upon, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address. If you do not comply with this, we will end your public comment speaking period. And if you exceed your public, you will not be able to make a comment. If you do not follow the public comment, you will not be able to make a comment. If you do not follow the public comment time, we will end the comment period. Are there any members of the public who wish to make a comment? At this time, I see one raised hand. And so we are going to recognize Janet McGowan. I'm going to click the unmute button for you, Janet. And then you will have to agree to that in order for us to be able to hear you. And then please state your name and your address. I'm sorry. My name is Janet McGowan. I live at 706 Southeast street. I have a comment about the planning board and CRC working together on zoning changes. Should I make that now or wait until that item is on the agenda? You should make that now. Okay. So I know the goal of holding a joint meeting is to save time. But I think that this, the idea of the planning board and the CRC doing meetings together for their public hearings may not achieve the efficiency that's wanted. If a zoning change starts with the planning board, as most do, the planning board will wind up holding two public hearings, not just the one. Also holding joint meetings will be hard to schedule. It could add Wednesday night meetings to the CRC is already heavy agenda and the other, the counselors on it. It's definitely harder to schedule meeting with 12 people than seven and five separately. And it's definitely easier to talk and deliberate in a smaller group and discuss what is said during the public hearing. I think having two separate hearings will give the public more opportunity to be involved and offer ideas. And it's easier for the planning board, the CRC to discuss what is said by the public and make the changes that are needed. So if the planning board has heard comment and decides to take the zoning change proposal back and make significant changes, will it have to do, you know, say rewrite it and make changes? Will it have to come back and have another joint hearing with the planning board and the CRC? What if CRC comes and does different changes? So I think in a way it would just be easier and more flexible to let the planning board go through its usual process for working on zoning changes and then just hand it off to the CRC and the town council. And I think it's very like the missions of the planning board and CRC are very similar. I mean, they're common missions and we'll naturally collaborate with each other and work together and keep, finally, I think keeping separate public hearings will keep the process of zoning changes more nimble and more flexible. And just, you know, and if it's not working out, we can always go back and look at different ways of working together. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Janet, for your comment. Are there any other members of the public that would like to make public comment at this time? I am seeing none. So we will end the period for public comment. The next item on the agenda, the action items, there were none. So we will move on to our presentation and discussion items. The first presentation and discussion item is the COVID-19 and economic development. So we will move on to the next item. And then we will move on to the next item. And then we will move on to the next item. And for this, we are pleased to have present for this, for a presentation. The business improvement district. Executive director, Gabrielle gold and the chamber of commerce executive director, Claudia has money. If you give me a minute before you guys start, I will try to get the, I will try to get the presentation up and running. And then we will move on to the next item. And then we will move on to the next item. And then we will do it. And I think now everyone. Can see this. As part of the meeting. And so I think we are ready to go. Claudia and Gabrielle. You'll have to unmute yourselves. Okay. Thank you for having us. This is Claudia from the Amherst area chamber. And we will now move on to the next item. And then we will move on to the next item. The business improvement district. So firstly, I do want to acknowledge the work of John Page, who worked with me at the chambers, our membership and marketing director. And he has. So beautifully presented the material that we wanted to convey today. He's there. He's steadily supporting this work. And this is really a wonderful opportunity for us to share. A lot of the work that's been happening. So thank you for your time. And thank you for the collaboration, the incredible deep respect and collaboration that has continued and even deepened with the bed, the bed in the chamber during this really unique time. So I am so grateful to the team at the bed, which is and Tweety and Gabrielle Gould and myself and John Page at the chamber. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just devastation. I don't want to under sugar coat anything. I like to smile through things, but there is a lot of unsaid devastation underneath a lot of what we're going to share today. And anything that we've done in collaboration is in every possible effort to try every, you know, to uncover every piece of resource we can for our business community. But I guess I'll just, I'm sure you can agree if you're. For all of our business owners, Gabrielle, Would you want to say something. I will just second that. And I think I would say, let's go to the next slide. Yeah. Thank you. So I think that this is a time. This is an opportunity that unfortunately has been forced upon us. as a complete town and that yes we are complemented by our college and our university but we are our own entity as well. We boast over 50 working farms, eight beautiful museums, three wonderful higher learning establishments and hundreds of local businesses. We have a beautiful urban town center and I look forward to working with the town and the chamber and many of our community members to focus on that and bring us back from this when the time comes. Next slide. You want me to run, Claudio? Okay. In late March and so much has changed since late March. We sent out a survey to our businesses and these are some of the facts and the numbers that we got from them. Over 70% of our downtown businesses said that they will not survive through May. Again, this was in March, this was before Governor Baker closed non-essential businesses and before our restaurants moved to take out. We have a new joint survey going out to all of the chamber and all of the big businesses and so far we've gotten a little under 50 responses from that. It was only sent out yesterday and again to reiterate what Claudio is saying it is devastating the responses we are getting. Is it best for me to read these, Manny Jo or does everybody see this? So you could summarize them. Might be the best way to do it. The tip jar we'll get into but we've had over 77 unemployed hourly and tipped workers sign up for that. Everybody knows we have lost the critical months. I told someone today that this is like the Capon Islands losing July and August. That's what we have lost when we lost April and May. I also believe fully that Amherst was hit two weeks earlier than the rest of Massachusetts when we had the closure of Amherst College and then swiftly on that UMass. Next slide please. Okay so I mean obviously if you haven't seen there's a recent letter from the chancellor. There is a huge possibility from both Amherst College and UMass for fall semester being virtual and so there are huge financial implications for the town. Whether it's empty residential and commercial units, local receipts, meals, tax, room tax continue to decline as well as even parking revenue and the huge devastation of this entire student population not returning. I mean it is obviously a trickle down effect and there is not one industry that wouldn't be affected. Certainly the hospitality real estate property management and more. Next slide. I'll just kick us off and then Gabrielle can pick up. We really again we're working together. These are just our effort to be as much of a resource as possible to our members. So we created quickly John cultivated and created this and curated this COVID information page. I know the town has been an incredible partner and they are linking to it as well and they have an amazing resource page. So just as many resources whether it's funding, whether it's unemployment, whether it's you know issues on housing. We created this open for business really using open source pieces and saying okay well who's open it was such a quickly changing situation that we couldn't keep up. So this is an open source document that we can change daily and a business can go in and change it themselves and edit and the idea is who's open, who's doing takeout, who's available to you and just to keep and sustain those businesses that are still open. And of course we had a support local restaurant initiative that we did and the Gazette was very generous. We were able to place ads and it's been shared. It's probably one of the most shared items that we've put out as a bed and chamber and again that's a shared list. It's all across the Amherst area that's being focused and of course the initial survey and then again another economic impact survey that was just distributed this week. Gabrielle. We also created a virtual tip jar which was for hourly employees and tipped employees to sign up for themselves and be able to receive quote-unquote tips from people. Your favorite bartender, your masseuse at Elements, other things like that. We have 77 people who joined that. The restaurants and hair salons etc sent that to their employees hoping to get them a little bit of relief. Feed the Frontlines was a downtown Northampton business association initiative and they called us. We joined on and the restaurant's Wheelhouse Crazy Noodles, Bistro 623, Pasty Basta, Buayu Isanya, and Mission Cantina all from Amherst immediately jumped in today at 4.30. We will be going to Pasty Basta to pick up 30 individual fresh healthy meals to bring to the frontline workers at Cooley Dickinson. This is lunch and dinner every day for those frontline workers at Cooley Dickinson. Next slide please. Claudia. Sure. So between the bid and chamber staffs, we've been really trying to offer as much coaching and assisting as we can. We are not the experts but we've been engaged and networked with so many of them and putting our businesses in touch with them. And whether it's been the PPP, the SBA, we've let it be known. The MSBDC staff who's normally available in our office, they've offered services. The Valley CDC is also their small business development team is ready to work with our local businesses. So again, just in the effort to continue resources right now, there are so many unanswered questions and obviously so many holes in the PPP program. And go ahead. Next slide. And the the programming continues, you know, we at the chamber do a lot of networking events. But right now it's all about how can we be a resource to everyone and how can how can the bid and the chamber work together. So we've done remote working tips and tools, mindfulness sessions, thanks to Shalini, wellness resources, weekly leadership and crisis webinars, website, digital marketing, we did today and that will be a series for because the online piece is so critical right now with all eyes on our computers 24-7. The website presence of our businesses is as critical as their storefront at this moment. That is their storefront. And so we really are taking that seriously and trying to offer them as many free tools as possible. And also, walking them through this to get, you know, shovel ready when the time comes to open their doors. And the bid has some exciting events, the sidewalk chart, won't you talk about those, Gabrielle? So we are also trying together with the chamber to find happy and light moments. May 4th was the original day that everybody was told that things might go back to normal. I know that the school sent out may the 4th be with you. We all know that that has changed. So what we would like to do is recreate Illuminaria downtown. Light candles in blue bags up and down main and pleasant. And we have ordered big huge blue bows and we would love to do an 8 p.m. Invite everybody to come into town and drive and honk for our essential workers and our first responders, the DPW, the town workers, police, and fire department. So we want to add a little bit of light to downtown. And we are also going to be working with North and South Amherst on this. So everyone from the way down at Mission Cantina all the way to the mill district and in between. So we're hoping that that is something that brings a little bit of light. We're also reaching out to a bunch of different artists and finding out if we can do in safe teams some chalk art, some sidewalk art, once this rain is finished to bring some joy and get people on the nicer days to safely go outside, socially distanced, but to see some artwork and some creativity. We are also reaching out to some musicians thinking that it would be really fun to use maybe some of the float trucks from the UMass Homecoming Parade and have our musicians drive around town on the back of the truck safely and bring some music around town, drive up and down all the streets of Amherst and bring some joy on perhaps maybe a Sunday as the weather is getting better. So again, just trying to bring some joy and some lightness to the residents of Amherst. Next slide. This is you. So the biggest thing that we are doing and that we hope is going to be a help is a resiliency grant program for Amherst wide. This is a collaboration between the Amherst area chamber and the Amherst bid. The downtown Amherst foundation was created originally to become an arts and culture builder for our downtown. Our first priority was going to be to raise the funds to build and donate to the town of performing art shell with a maintenance foundation and a programming fund. We pivoted quickly on this and switched the mission around. If you could go to the next slide, Mandy Jo, thank you. We have created a committee of five who will be able to look at this grant applications and a lot the funds to the businesses based on our application process and our guidelines, which are not 100% ready. They will be by the end of the week. We are looking to start taking applications for the first wave of grant applications on May 1st. Although it does say here that we have raised over $80,000, that is true. We also have a $50,000 additional grant coming in. It will be a matching grant. We are up to $130,000. If we match that, we will be at $180,000. Our hope is to raise $250,000 by May 1st and keep going. Our first wave of grants will be to sustain businesses in this time of closure. We are hoping that our second wave is to reopen businesses. That will be up to Governor Baker and the scientists working hard, but that is our hope. It is an amazing opportunity. We are looking for investors. What are we doing? We are also really advocating for our businesses. We have been participating and connecting with Zoom meetings with local, keeping it local, starting with our town council president, Lynn, town manager, assistant town manager, weekly conversations with Mindy and Senator Comerford's office who have been extraordinarily accessible and transparent. Conversations for both the bid and chambers on our sister. Bids and chambers across the country and some of the larger national bids and chambers, the EDCs. Conversations with a small business development. Conversations with Speaker Jalio, calls to housing and economic development. Keneally and labor and workforce development, both Secretary Keneally and Acosta have also been very accessible. I've had very specific questions I've forwarded from businesses, so they've been very helpful. Really, there's just been so much to sift through so quickly, and they've been really, there's been just so much to lean on. And bi-weekly check-ins with Senator Markey, Warren, Congressman McGovern, Neil, and letters, phone calls, and virtual town halls. And also some inquiries with some neighboring CDBG offices, especially the Boston CDBG conversation. So again, to inform us on how we can better our working relationship with the town and how we can work as a team together to get those monies out as quickly as possible, as those emergency CDBG relief monies. Next slide. Do you want to go on this one? So we worked with the bids across Massachusetts and put together a, sorry, what's the word I'm looking for, petition to go to the state and federal level. It was a grassroots relief for Main Streets.org. The Boston Central Square bid has an amazing and very large staff, and we're able to put together a website for this and get the petition launched. It's been incredibly successful. I believe four of these right now are in legislation and the rest we are continuing to lobby for and to push. So that's been wonderful. Again, the sort of demand for increase of the PPP, especially our numbers from Amherst are not good for that. We are not getting the support we need from those. Unfortunately, the money ran out. I understand today at 4pm, they are voting on another wave of funds. So hopefully that does help. Again, Claudia, the chamber and the bid have been answering questions on individual basis. We start every conversation with we are not financial planners and we walk people through what is available to them and walk them through the processes, but we are not advising people on how to, you know, run their businesses and where to go. I think that is good. Next slide. So this is really where conversations with the town has taken a nice, a positive turn and really trying to figure out how we can all work together to reopen our economy. What does that look like? How do we even start those conversations? So utilizing and when we say this opportunity, downtown is quiet. There are no cars. There are no, you know, there's very few pedestrians. How can we maximize the fact that it is empty for a stronger and more resilient reopening of our town? So it comes from the most basic points of power washing and sealing our sidewalks and also some bigger planning. So for example, talking about permitting, outdoor seating and ease of altering licensing permits for this new reality, how can we be more adaptable? Will people want to go inside and sit in restaurants? There's a little window of opportunity with us. We're opening in the summer, summer months that perhaps the outdoor seating is the best thing to take advantage of and people will be more comfortable given whatever guidelines we will have at that moment. Again, these are all in the framework of whatever guidelines come down from the state regarding, you know, physical distancing. And also talking about can there be a new version of the downtown farmers market coming online soon? Not normal, we're beyond their original start date, I believe, but sometime maybe in May soon. So working on the permitting and the alcohol in the common, looking at our parking, revisiting, you know, what that looks like right now and what that's going to look like when we come back. How to continue permitting the ZBA and the PB inefficient manager in manner. And then again, utilizing those emergency CBG funds, how can we get those out? Quickly, can we, can that really benefit our small businesses? And also, there's going to be some new other health safety protocols. Are we going to be prepared with masks, temperature, you know, taking instruments and portable hand washing stations, those kinds of things to get us as ready to make people feel as safe as possible and wanting to come downtown and coming to our businesses and our, our sources. So not just downtown, but you know, obviously Amherst wide. Next slide. Gabrielle, the placemaking. So again, we would like to revisit the placemaking for Amherst as a whole. The chamber is looking at doing all new banners in downtown and we are looking for permission from, I believe the town manager, but it might be town council to do cafe lightings up and down south and north pleasant and down main streets. As you can see in this picture here, that's sort of what it would look like. Again, sort of being ready to open and inviting and beautiful. We are working, the bid is going to be doing extra plantings this year. We're working with Alan snow on the tree wells, just creating as much beauty and cleanliness and light as we can in the downtown so that when it is time for people to return to downtown in whatever manner that is, it's a beautiful open, airy, clean and inviting space. Again, just really fostering that sense of community resilient Amherst or Amherst strong, however we want to put it, what is the messaging that we together as the town and the chamber and the bid in our community do? Supporting our frontline workrollers and those are some repeats so we'll skip those and go to the next slide. Laudia? So, you know, obviously all of this is what we need from you is really having an open mind and open for business mind. You know, because for us to experience any type of economic vitality in our resurgence as a vibrant and dynamic and sustainable local economy, we're going to have to work together like we've never done before. My sense is that, you know, this is a time to fast track certain zoning, permitting, parking, utilization of public parking. There's a lot here that can be done now in the short term so that we can prepare for some longer term. We hope resiliency. For us, it's about a resilient Amherst. We've heard only the sad stories and the challenges that our businesses are going through and we are hoping that there is a willingness to think big in all these very small ways. We can think very big for our businesses and for the resilient Amherst. So, we hope it goes from relief. You know, the microgram program is about relief to resilience. Can we get there? And I do believe we can get there and Gabrielle and I believe that as we all work together, we've had enormous tremendous support with the town working already and so we just hope that this continues and it turns into real action for a resilient Amherst. Gabrielle, do you want to add? I would just wrap that up with saying that we have an opportunity here to really come together and look at the way that zoning, planning, DRB processes permitting have been done and there is so much that comes down from a state level that is where every municipality in town and in Massachusetts does and there are things that are very specific to Amherst and I hope that we can work together, listen to our business owners, to our developers, to our sort of boots on the ground entrepreneurs as to what can help them be prepared to come back, what can make people say, if I have an opportunity to open a new business in anywhere in Massachusetts, especially western Massachusetts, I want it to be an Amherst. We want to be truly open for business. We want to be shovel ready when the time comes and we look forward to working with you, the town council and with our town manager and assistant town manager and the entire second floor at the town building. We really look forward to this. It's the only silver lining that could come out of this. Thank you for having us. We're here to help. So thank you. It's a stark, you know, your presentation is a stark reminder of how much the non-essential business shutdown affects everyone downtown, but individuals, businesses, the surveys you've been doing, it's been a fantastic job on your part to try and get some of that data on how it's going to affect our own residents and our own businesses and all. At this time, I'm going to unshare my screen so I can actually see people. So I have to figure out how to do that. The PDF that we just went through, the presentation we just went through will be added into the packet. We got it about an hour and a half or so ago, so it will get into the packet on the website as soon as we can for people to see. And the information for contacting both Claudia and Gabrielle and the Downtown Amherst Foundation is there. It's on the screen right now. At this time, I am going to open up this conversation that hopefully we're going to have to all the counselors for any questions they may have of Claudia or Gabrielle, any comments we have, any suggestions or thoughts on what, you know, the original reason for putting this onto the CRC agenda was because there was a thought that, well, what do we, the Community Resources Committee is now, you know, has economic development in its charge, what should the Community Resources Committee be thinking and then therefore recommending to the Council to be thinking about on how to be ready for economic development and promoting that when we come out of this crisis. So at this time, if any counselors would like to make a comment or question or anything, please raise your hand and I will recognize you in that order. I see Kathy. So Kathy, please unmute yourself. First of all, I want to thank you for this presentation and the set of slides. There are a lot of initiatives you have going on right now in terms of a foundation and a tip jar and I'm not sure that those are broadly known. So I'm wondering if there could be a very short version and then if we talk to the town manager and IT, post it somewhere on the town website and up in district one, we have a neighborhood association and they would send it out. You know, they're not going to send out a large chart pack, but something very condensed on, you know, how you can help support local businesses. So we're getting periodically, this one or that one is open for takeout, but I don't think we have a laundry list. And as you said, that's often changing regularly. So just a very condensed version of what you've said that is active. And I very much like the idea of thinking in terms of how can we be best positioned to be opening. And I'm assuming you're talking with DPW with the town manager. I've actually seen a lot of work going on that I would call sprucing up, you know, not as much in North Amherst where we have sidewalks that my brother talks about it. I'll get my forest bike out. It's just like riding a trail, but where we don't have any at all. But you know, but just really thinking about making things easier downtown and thinking about where we have go slow versus go faster procedures that could be going faster if there's some way of expediting with group activities. So I really, I really thank you both for this presentation. Thank you. And we will absolutely get a condensed version of how to help. And it would be fantastic if it can get shared widely. We're doing our best with will be on Monty's radio show and a couple of other things with our own PR, but every share helps. Thank you, Alyssa. Thank you. And thank you. This is so helpful. One question I have is I have been known for a long time as the person who says to the town managers over time, stop hiring people. We can't afford long term commitments. But of course, there are always exceptions. And I'm looking at the position of our second ever economic development director. And I'm wondering what kinds of discussions you've had at the bid and at the chamber about the importance of that position, given where we are, and given the extreme demands that are being placed on the town manager, assistant town manager, and in fact, all of our other top line staff. I can share that before all of this happened. The town manager was very open with to both organizations and met with both of us and our boards to receive input. And we felt it was extraordinarily invaluable to have that position filled. And with some guidelines and things that we saw were priorities. And that has not changed. We haven't really had any more conversation on that as far as the chamber is concerned. I'll let Gabrielle speak with a bid, but we very much agree that it is a position that should be filled and probably more so than now. But I don't know where it stands. And Dave might be able to answer that better. I did ask at our last meeting with Lynn Dave and Paul where it was. And Paul just said you have all been doing a lot. There's been a lot on everybody's plates. And to be very honest, that position and its hiring was at that moment last Thursday down on the list. From our perspective, I second Claudia, there's never been a more important time for that person and for it to be a unicorn. That's the best way I can put it. This town needs an economic development person and a strong one at that. Shalini. So again, before I say anything, I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of everyone how grateful we are for the bid and the chamber and all of you. I don't know for everyone, but it really felt there was this glimmer of excitement and hope seeing those images of what our downtown can look like. So I really appreciate that. My question was, in addition to everything that you're doing, would you be able to offer to the town a list of, and you say Shalini already and you have broad categories like permits and zoning, could you provide us what you think or what you're hearing from the businesses, what kind of zoning changes would be beneficial and what sort of permitting changes or anything more specific that we can really give our attention to and then look at what's possible? Yes. We have reached out to a quite a large swath of people and we are compiling their responses and putting them into a succinct list that will be divided into different categories. And we basically, the way I put it is I said if Amherst had a hard restart and you wanted to come back into business, what would that look like? And I have to say the responses have been very, very thoughtful and we look forward to presenting that. We just didn't want to overwhelm the CRC today with that. Yeah. And I would second that we have a list going, a very detailed list of some of those changes that we're thinking of. And I mentioned that we are meeting weekly and so we will present those to the town manager as well, but I will start there but we do have a very detailed list that is ongoing, but it is started. It would be very helpful if you could forward that on to CRC too, especially the portions that relate to things that would need council action. So that would be anything zoning, potential, you talked about the cafe lights, anything that public way use on a more permanent basis, not a short-term basis, but anything that would be slightly more permanent, things like that. So that maybe we can start thinking about and working from our end to look into those items. We absolutely will. Thank you. Steve. Hi. So plus three or four or whatever to the great presentation. So I think I have three points here. So one is we're trying to impart to our graduating architecture students that things like density and public transportation and are not bad things and social distancing is not a good thing. So while that's appropriate for this emergency, that should not be etched into their hippocampus as some way to build community. So I think that that's one of my concerns is that there'll be this fear of density and that fear might then start to drive certain ideas for zoning changes. So along that same line and maybe on a different track of that, I would imagine that all the small towns and cities of the Northeast are going to see a resurgence of interest from the really big cities that have been hit hard by this. And there've been numerous newspaper articles already about how there's resurgence of interest in places like Pittsburgh, you know, sort of the small smaller cities from people from New York. But I hope that we can position ourselves as being a really attractive place for people that are looking for an alternate to, you know, the really big cities. So basically the, you know, kind of urban life without, you know, accessible to the big cities but not in the big city. And the third one is commitment to public projects. So we know, so this is not specifically in the purview of the bid or the chamber, but there are certain public projects that are coming down the pipeline, some of which are critical for, in my opinion, for economic development. The library, for example, you can argue is has a very big possibility of serving as a public economic driver for the private businesses in downtown. So I'll leave it at that. But thank you again for the great presentation. And I look forward to the continuing discussion. I was speaking with a friend who is in Manhattan as a city planner. And the sort of idea of urban flight to areas like ours is going to be very real. People are going to leave those cities that have been hit hardest. And I think that that is something that is, again, a silver lining for our area. And Steven, I could not agree with you more on the public projects. And I think one of my biggest fears as a resident, a parent, and a community member of Amherst is that those projects are going to get delayed or not put up front. And I hope that that's not the case, especially the library and the school. But then, of course, as soon as I say that, I think the safety and concern of our DPW and our fire. So again, all four. Thank you, Kathy. I might just see Steve's talking about places of investment that support community and support businesses, but also households. It's become clear that the web, look at the way we're all meeting right now is ever more critical. And there are places in town that it's less accessible. I know a small group actually, they're techie people up in Vermont that have been doing fiber optic installations for all the small towns and small businesses, both in increasing the speed. And we've done a piece for downtown Amherst, but it's not broadly accessible. So I'm just, I think some creative thinking on what would it take to, you know, so not just locate in downtown, but locate anywhere around our area that you could be having high speed internet. So when the kids have been home from school, doing it, but there may be people that want to split their time from going to the office and working at home. And the Comcast rates, anyone who's on Comcast knows what those rates look like. It's just fine to think of easy hold on this. So that's just a thought. And as I, the friends I ever did this knew a lot about fiber optics and they've tied together 30 towns, you know, bringing them into a community shared resource. So it's something that has been percolating around outside of all of us for a while, but I have no idea what the barriers are or what it would take. So it's not just an Amherst, but it would be a Pelham Hadley, you know, a surrounding area. And is that something that federal funds would help cover? When, when they first applies, when ERA came online, there was internet was part of the thing that was an eligible project. Unfortunately, the way it was administered, there was a preference for the biggies versus the smallies, you know, so Comcast would get it or Spectrum would get it in New York rather than, or Verizon rather than some of these small top, but I don't know if the federal government is rethinking that and actually putting some money in. I mean, for the tribes up in Alaska, for all sorts of reasons, the federal government made it widely available because communities don't even have a road let, let a little other way. So they do remote medical care and doctors and dentists where you get a dental assistant out in a remote area, working with a dentist in Anchorage, but that was all paid with federal money because they had tribes that were so isolated in tiny towns. So I don't know the answer on whether there'll be a federal pot of money or a state pot of money to tap into, but I think it's a real engine that's supportive of different ways of working as well as businesses moving out of central urban areas. Thank you. Shalini. Okay, yes. So as we're thinking about these creative ways of revitalizing our downtowns and village centers, one thing that I just want to put out there for all of us is how we can do that in a sustainable way. And, you know, I wonder if in your networks, in the chambers and the bed, if there are people we can draw upon to think about like as you were talking about the lights, the thing that was coming to my mind is that's a lot of electricity out there is amazing. But is there a way to do that, that it's sustainable? And so we can incorporate those values, even as we are, you know, wanting to make these changes or smart streets, for example, like I think everything that you're proposing is going to make it more walkable and we're thinking of making our downtowns and village centers be those hubs of activity and culture and so forth. So as you're drawing information getting, if you are able to, and of course that's for all of us also to figure out how we can do all of this in a cool way, sustainable way. Those lights are LED and we can put solar little thingies on them. Are there any other questions or comments at this time for Gabrielle or Claudia or frankly for other counselors to have a conversation about what, we as a community resources committee and then a council, could be, should be, might want to be thinking about as we work our way through this extended shutdown and then the reopening of the economy. Chris, where's that from? It's one of the two with hands up. It is Chris Brestrup. Hi everybody. I just wanted to let you know that, you know, while the downtown may be very quiet, things are happening in the outlying areas. Developments are moving ahead through the permitting process. John Robleski just got a permit to build 24 units of apartments on a property that's near the railroad tracks down by the BFW and Amir McChie is working on building a project on southeast street and there are various other things trickling through the permitting process. So we're here and we're working with applicants and trying to keep projects moving ahead and that's not, it's often not really related to the downtown but it is part of economic development for the town as a whole. So I just wanted to let you know that and sort of in a reassuring manner that all business hasn't stopped where we are helping applicants to move through the permitting process and get their projects going. And as a sign off from from the bid, I just want to say to Chris and Rob and everybody on the second floor thank you for that and we are aware of those. John and I spoke a couple of days ago and I've been working with him through permitting process and I just want to say again the Amherst Foundation and this resiliency fund is for Amherst, all of Amherst. We are not looking at this anymore as lines. We are firm believers that all of these tides have to rise and that we have to come through this together. So we are now resilient Amherst, it is the bid and the chamber working together and I don't look at anything anymore with oh that's not in my bid, I don't, I can't focus on that. So I just want to make that very clear the majority of our businesses are in our downtown which is normal for any area but our support and our passion and our compassion is for all of Amherst. It's for everybody right now, I mean my heart breaks for Italy, my heart breaks for Amherst. So we are in this together and I just want to reiterate that this is no longer a bid issue, this is an Amherst issue and we are all working together. Thank you. It's Brazilian Amherst. And Claudia and Chris we have a couple more hands but before I recognize those hands I want to make sure Pam knows that two more counselors have joined our list for the minutes and that is Darcy Dumont is now on and so is Pat DeAngelis. I'm scanning the list, I think they are the only two at this point that have all now joined. I don't know when they came on so sorry but I just noticed them but I thought I'd mention that so that they can get into our minutes. So Alyssa I'm going to skip over you for now. I'll come back because Darcy has her hand up and she hasn't had a comment or question yet so Darcy. I just wanted to take the chance to thank you for your presentation. I'm really you know it it actually brings tears to my eyes to hear you talking about how you are going to try to bring joy through the arts to people in town through music and art and so on. I think that's wonderful. I also wanted to just mention that and thank you Shalini for bringing this up also is just to make sure that we're all integrating our different plans the energy and climate action committee is going to be putting forward their proposed plans probably sometime in the summer and so we just want to make sure that what we're doing is all as far as a transportation and and energy use and and etc all integrated and all part of the same plan. Thanks. Thank you. Alyssa. Great this is just a little tiny thing in comparison to all the big things we're working so hard to do but the little tiny thing is just as on the town website we do not recreate everything the state provides in terms of COVID-19 materials we just send people to the states as they continue to update then it's updated state level. I don't want to see us starting to have condensed versions of what the bit in chamber material is on our website. I want to definitely drive people to their website so that they can see things as they're unfolding and they can see things in detail. We hear at every single meeting we ever go to I don't know how to find that out. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to subscribe to town things and so I want to continue to teach people that there are lots of different resources and we should definitely link to those resources but we should not be trying to have a once stop fits all. Thank you Alyssa. Lynn. Head on mute. Sorry first of all Claudia and Gabrielle thank you so much for putting the presentation together. This is we've now been meeting on a regular basis for about the last three weeks and as we've been doing that with Paul and myself and Gabrielle David and also Claudia we've been really trying to hone in what is the town's role and then in that what is the town manager's role versus what is town council's role and so and then as we do that sort out which committee does it go to whether it's actually public ways now would go to TSO and the other stuff that we're talking about more in the permitting side or the zoning side would of course come to CRC so this is really I can only say I've just been so proud of our chamber and our bid and what they have been doing for the businesses and how they have been reaching out with creative ideas for helping to bring Amherst back again and I see this is a terrific way to kick off this conversation with council when when other counselors learned that you were going to be at this meeting that's why we ended up with so many people here we had to call it as a special meeting of the council and we look forward to that ongoing cooperation in any way that we can help thank you at this time are there any other comments questions or Gabrielle or Claudia are there anything you want to add based on what you've heard thank you everybody for taking the time to hear this and again thank you to John Page and Anne Tweedy who are working behind the scenes and don't get their pictures up here with us today I'm not seeing anything yet yeah I just want to thank you for the unity that I'm hearing and you know this is this is one of those where we're in this together really has never meant more than it does today and I really want to thank Lynn and Dave and the town manager Paul who I think is now on the call for meeting with us and being open to working together because honestly I I know it's you know we've heard a lot but stronger together there is just no better way to get through this and and as the chair of the CRC I want to thank you know as Lynn just did too and as everyone has both Gabrielle and Claudia and and John and John sent us the the presentation ahead of time and we said we can't access it send us another way and we were able to get to it and he's been doing a fantastic job as well as both Gabrielle and Claudia you guys have been doing a fantastic job trying to get out there on the front of this and as I said getting the data figuring out talking to all the businesses seeing what they need what this this house is going to impact them and then asking them what you guys can do and advocate to us as town council and you know to the executive side to the town manager and all on how we can come back stronger from this from where we were as a town and so I want to thank you guys for taking the time to put the presentation together for attending today and for answering all our questions but also giving us an idea of where we stand which is is kind of grim and bleak at this point but hopefully as we move forward we will figure out a way to as I said come back stronger as a town as a whole so thank you for all of that and at this time I think we're going to move on to our next discussion so that next discussion is on zoning feel free Gabrielle and Claudia to stay but we are we are moving on to a discussion on the zoning bylaws this is as a result of a referral from the council that was to recommend for recommend a plan for approaching the zoning bylaw revisions and we this is still part of the whole town council meeting so at this point I'm going to attempt to share a screen to show people some stuff about the zoning thing and so the first thing I'm going to share is a flow chart that the community resources committee a couple meetings ago three or four meetings ago voted to recommend that the council adopt that has not come to the council yet at the chairs of CRC's request because we realized this might not be complete and so a further discussion has ensued but this flow chart that is being shown right now is intended to start at the time where amendments are either received from a petition as an initiative petition received from a counselor who might have an amendment to the zoning bylaws that they want to propose or received from the planning board or planning staff in a fairly formal and nearly final in their opinion draft and this then shows sort of the steps that need to go through to get that from that sort of near final draft or proposal from a counselor or a resident to a bylaw vote at the council and that includes a whole lot of things and so we put this together it's been through the planning board for comment but as I said it has not been to the council and there's a spot in the lower left corner that says if things are coming from the town staff planning staff or the planning board there needs to be some sort of collaboration and a collaborative process before it makes it to this flow chart. Last week last meeting the community resources committee began discussions on what was a different document that was created to talk about and this is what I'm going to try and find the next one and so I'm going to stop that and see if I can come up with the next document yeah so let's see if I can share this one I'm not sure where it is um so let me figure out how to get that one up let's see and this next document for some reason where is it well we'll do the screen for now is this document and this was a document we started discussing at the last community resources committee meeting about what might zoning bylaws that originate within the town staff or at the planning board level look like in terms of collaboration and timing and all of that I'm going to move to the second page which helps sort of explain this a little bit and this was a document that I drafted after talking with the planning board chair it has not been to planning board yet it is not ready to go to planning board it was just a first discussion at the last CRC meeting we're going to continue that discussion today about not just this document but zoning amendments in general and this was one that suggested potentially having zoning changes come to and hearings held three times a year in general instead of potentially any time a change is ready and so you'll see that with some potential timelines and all and the committee just started discussing whether it likes that idea whether it doesn't like that idea whether there might be another way to approach zoning bylaw changes at the last meeting we heard from chris breastrop our planning director that north ham in response to a question that north hampton deals with zoning changes fairly differently than this and that in north hampton the planning staff brings zoning changes to the equivalent of sort of the CRC committee of the council as a first look not as a last look that that really the planning boards only involvement in zoning changes is the required state hearing that that they really when the planning staff believes a change is needed the first people they tend to look to is the council in north hampton not the planning board so we started hearing about different ways to be doing zoning changes last meeting and so we're going to continue that discussion today i'm going to stop sharing the screen for now we can always do that later if we need to see it again but i'd like to start off with um first recognizing that we have both rob mora and chris breastrop in attendance today for any questions um i'd first like to ask them if they have anything they would like to say and i'll i'll also ask davis ohmett the same thing because he is here as our liaison on two town staff too so we're going to start with um with chris rob and then davie moving to say unmute your mic and you can start talking i'll try and watch who the unmutes are for that um and it looks like davie might have something to say so davie i i know chris just had to step out for a minute so we we may want to just give her a few minutes to get back in in her chair she had to go pick up something from an applicant um i actually don't have anything substantive to say about where you are with this with this um the two different charts if you will rob may want to weigh in but we might give chris a few minutes maybe there are some counselor questions in the meantime thank you for that chris had warned me she was stepping out of 255 till about 305 and i wasn't paying attention to the clock um so rob would do you do have anything you want to say right now i know you missed our last meeting where we sort of brought this up but um you know things about your i know you're working on some zoning changes right now um and you've had experience in other towns is there anything you'd like to add to sort of how that process works in other towns uh i really don't have anything to add at this point to that uh part of the process my focus at this point is going to be on the bylaw itself and not the process and adopting it but i know christine is looking at that are there any counselors that that have anything at this point they'd like to to say i know shalini is the one that asked about the north hampton process um last time so shalini yeah i can just speak to that uh what i was thinking what was going in through my mind is that as we are creating uh an open amherst that's community oriented and all of our vision what for amherst and we're going through these processes of change um i mean we we could reinvent the wheel or we could look at communities how they are doing it and see what works for us and the intention for that is like there is a certain perception about amherst and so i though we come out with a very solid logic for what we are adopting and why and we are able to and we should be communicating that to all stakeholders that this is what we're doing this is why we're doing it and otherwise i think there continues to be that perception in people's minds that amherst is not um you know business friendly and yeah so i i mean either it's a communication problem or there's actually a problem with our processes and so whatever we decide i think it's a good idea this time to take a pause step back see what other towns are doing that who we like and then learn from them and then whatever we adopt we should be able to have a very strong logic for why we are doing that thank you are there beyond north hampton are there other towns um shallony that you had in mind looking at i think north hampton is the one we get compared with the other one i could think of is burlington which is a college town and it's maintained its small town vibrancy and things that we like so as i have reached out to i don't know what the exact process is for north hampton i was trying to find it so i've heard back from one of the ex-councillors and so i'm happy to go and gather more information or unless somebody already has that information i was asking so that we we can as we move this conversation forward know where to look in and maybe assign people to go look in those ways um we still don't have chris brach breaststroke back um i would like to hear from potentially other counselors um particular and crc but frankly on any counselor on their thoughts um as it relates to bylaw changes zoning bylaw changes and and process andy could i could i jump in for a quick start um so yeah i mean i just wanted to comment a little bit on first of all i i did think of gabrielle and and claudia's presentation was very good and and i think you know rob christ and i and the rest of the staff um across the board and we're really talking about many different departments that get involved in permitting oftentimes people say well the second floor of town hall but there's many other departments including dpw and fire and others that get involved in permitting but what i think is really important and i look forward to their they're doing some survey work they're doing some outreach work to their um to their um their constituents and those businesses developers etc i think it's really important to kind of um to to to kind of name some things because this this whole it's difficult to do business in amherst we're we're you know we've we've done a lot of changes i would say over the last 10 years to make it um easier and more efficient for people to do business in amherst but i think it's really important that if there are issues we really need to put a put a we need to identify those because simply saying it's difficult to do to business in amherst and and communicating that out as frequently as we hear it it actually does a lot of damage and i think what we need to do is really name it and have have folks kind of own up to what what it is they're experiencing and then we can take a look um so we've made a lot of changes in our permitting in the way we've done business we've brought many um many uh departments together collaborating but i think we also have to recognize that we have a very very old and piecemeal zoning bylaw and rob and chris can speak to that far more uh in-depth than i can but it's it's a hodgepodge of many many different things of generations of planning generations of thinking steve was the chair of the planning board he can speak to this um i have seen so many planning board chairs and members of the planning board struggle with that zoning bylaw in my 15 years with the town i think we also have to recognize where we've been as a town so town meeting um was a was an institution that could be very challenging for those people in town who including staff who wanted to and planning board members and and zoning subcommittee members who wanted to move forward progressive zoning uh ideas in town so i think we need to recognize where we've been as shallow nay indicated but then really identify those pieces that we can change this shouldn't be about individuals it it's not about individuals on boards or committees it really should be about our process and we do have a a unique opportunity now with the council in your second year um and honestly with this with this pandemic in front of us it's an opportunity to uh restart our downtown and our village center so i think it's really important to take a look at the whole package and say how do we address some of those shortcomings and believe me i've been in probably hundreds of conversations with rob and christine they have many many ideas as does the zoning subcommittee but let's take a look at the whole picture and then kind of move forward on those priority areas that make sense i think we have been talking for quite a long time about 2020 being our year to address some of the zoning shortcomings well we have a pandemic that none of us could have predicted and what a great time to really roll up our sleeves and say what are the highest priorities in that zoning bylaw that we need to address so i will stop there thank you dave um i see a bunch of hands so i'm just going to go down the list and i'm going to start with evan yeah thank you um so you're asking for comments i've leave on the process on this before so last time we met which was my first CRC meeting um i expressed of course some reservation about exerting too many opinions on the process that um i was not involved in putting together through my tenure in oca i'm very sensitive to the idea that you could work for months on a process only to have people tell you why it's wrong who are not part of the the process of putting it together um that said i think the flow chart you showed i've always liked i think it makes sense it's very logical it's very sensible i really like the idea that the council voted on of having the joint hearings between CRC and the planning board i think that that flow chart makes sense the other document and the other proposal which i expressed from concern about last time um and had a really great explanation from from both mandi joe and chris on continues to to sit sort of uncomfortably with me the idea of saying that we have three times a year only that we are willing to consider uh non non time sensitive zoning proposals um and i think the reason for it is actually similar to what dave just expressed was was the idea that uh we are in this new era of the council that provides us with all new opportunities namely the ability for year-round governance uh which differs significantly from when we had town meeting when it was likely we could only consider zoning proposals two times a year and so now we're saying we used to be able to just do zoning proposals two times a year now we're in a whole new era and we can do it three times a year and that to me doesn't actually sound all that exciting and so i understand the rationale for it and i've had two weeks to sit on that and think about it and i thought about it uh more than i want to admit quarantine is getting a little isolating um but having thought about it all over that time i still feel some discomfort with only three times a year and thought that if a zoning proposal is not ready for uh october but could be ready for november then that person has to wait five months um before it can be actually considered and who knows what might be happening in those five months i mean certainly i would have hated it if i had a zoning proposal ready to go in november 2019 to be told oh well we have to wait until march um of this year uh and then all of a sudden we're not considering zoning proposals right now um so i i think that i still have some concerns about just saying we can only do it three times a year and to me it feels uh it doesn't feel like a step in the direction that i think a lot of us in the community were hoping we could move towards when we moved from a town meeting system to a council system um and i also am curious uh relatedly uh there's the the term used of uh zoning buckets or something like that um which is fun and i'm just curious about bringing to the council if it makes sense to be bringing big packages of zoning reforms as opposed to bringing them um as they come i think in some ways when those zoning reforms are really related to each other it makes sense but i think in other in other ways because zoning can be contentious and confusing and technical and time-consuming i worry about bringing a whole bunch of zoning proposals uh that aren't necessarily related to the council at once and and the possibility of that overwhelming the council for a period of time so with that i'll shut my camera in thank you Evan um Steve hi everyone um yeah so the zoning bylaw is really complicated in Amherst so one of the reasons to do it three times a year is it takes a long time to get your head into it and so even if it's different parts of the zoning bylaw you know basically to pick up that document and sort of understand it and understand the context of even what the smallest footnote change might be is a ton of work it takes a ton of preparation just to re-understand the bone the the zoning bylaw each time so that's the argument in favor of that's one argument in favor of doing this in clusters back in the town meeting days zoning bylaws could be considered anytime so there could be and i think there probably were special town meetings that were called for a specific zoning bylaw and i would assume in our case and i'm sorry i don't know exactly the details of this but if there were an emergency zoning bylaw or something that was considered urgent then then we could waive you know that particular you know provision so i think you know i'm back to let's try it you know i think oh there's one more thing i want to say there are 355 cities and towns in massachusetts and i believe that there are 355 different ways of doing zoning bylaws within the context of what mass general law does so we and amherst which have our own unique way as to how we became a amherst town council we should develop our own unique way of dealing with this particular issue but i don't believe that we'll ever find another community that has the exact practice that we can adopt and use in the context in the way in the context of how our particular government was formed thank you steve um we're going to keep going down the list lin uh so at the risk of david and mandy joe and chris um feeling like i'm being redundant i'm going to raise another issue that i've raised before and that is that this is a very big project and it could tie the planning board up to the point that they don't get to anything else or they never get to this and so i want to go back to an idea that i've raised with mandy joe and david and chris in the past and that is that this actually become a special task force or commission and that it have representatives from planning it have representatives from other groups that are affected by zoning bylaws and that it be provided with um the staff support so that we actually take this opportunity of our having three years no other council will have it and we're three months into that three years or four months actually um at second year and actually have that body be the one that spends the time on this because i think the planning board already has their plates full and they will contribute immensely to this but it's more than just a planning board job and that's why i want us to go back to reconsidering that thank you thank you lin um for some counselors who may not have heard um this goes back to the somewhat of what rob was saying was he's looking at um doing a large set of revisions to the zoning bylaws to bring them more up to date and everything and so is chris breaststroke at this point so so the potential is that we're looking at um receiving large chunks of bylaw changes sometime in the next 12 months or so to be able to be looking at that would and not necessarily change the bylaws in terms of how they operate extensively but it would change and update them as to how they're written um is is part of it so i just wanted to put that in there for people who may not be familiar with some of the back conversations that have happened within the community resources committee and and all and from conversations that both chris and rob have have been a part of and mentioned to the community resources committee at this point uh shalini you have something else to add and then we're going to hear from alissa i just wanted to clarify that in no way did i want to suggest that um it's a flaw with amherst or the town or any individual person because i have so much respect and now more than ever i am so proud of every single person who's working in town um so i just wanted to clarify that and i and what i was emphasizing more is the fact that i do believe that we are very responsive to the you know the changes that are happening and it's probably a communication aspect so if there have been changes so it's what i'm sharing is not what i feel but it's a perception in the community and if that's the case then what can we do to communicate more clearly maybe that these this is what we've done for you we heard you and here is what we're doing to bring those changes so one is that communication aspect and i totally acknowledge that you know that is who we were and because of what was the form of government then and now this is where we are so moving forward what can we do and i also don't want to upset the processes that uh the crc had been working on for so long as evan stated but my intention was more again to highlight what was the logic for that so that we can communicate but it seems like we're open to discussing it anyways so that's all thank you um alissa thank you can you hear me i'm not sure if i've pressed the right button i'm not sure if i've pressed the right button we can hear you fantastic i hate being that person who keeps saying can you hear me um i am i really appreciate what evan said about just as we experienced on oca i'm definitely not coming in and telling crc what to do i'm simply going to share the same kind of thing i would share at a town council meeting when i heard this presentation because i think it might be useful to you now so having been a representative town meeting member since 1999 until representative town meeting ended and then serving on comprehensive planning the select board starting in 2007 i hear the kinds of concerns people are bringing from this very long period of time and that extended way before me i do want to say that starting with town manager larry schaefer we changed our inspections around a lot we always had good people working for us but we took a more coordinated approach and you all know that was several town managers ago some of you never even knew who larry was so we have made huge strides and and i appreciate what dav said about that because i know that that's continually a focus whether it's through technology or just getting people together in the same room at the same time respecting what he said that it was also my experience associated with how to come to representative town meeting with things and again that was twice a year as a couple people have mentioned and we actually had planning staff in the past who would say to a caller on the phone i have this creative idea and they'd say you know what i don't think representative town meetings ever going to go for that so i don't want to put our planning staff in that position in the future and the capacity that we have now is certainly no greater than it was before so i'm really nervous about expecting planning staff to be able to do this rewrite with the current resources because i don't see why it would happen now when it didn't happen before and what we're giving up in favor of this especially when we're also working on rewriting the master plan even though it's relatively minor rewriting so i had not heard of this proposal for the three times a year because i'm not on CRC until we just got the document from Andy Joe recently thank you for sharing that with us but not on CRC and i share the concern about not being too rigid in the three times a year because that is absolutely not what people wanted when they went to a year-round form of government but i can respect the idea of maybe there's a way to communicate because all of this is about predictability right so if there's a way to communicate you know we're really not going to have any time to work on zoning during budget some particular portion of the budget season like don't try to bother trying to bring it to us then because you reflected that in your schedule when you came up with those three times you thought about what our other things were doing and so maybe that's the level of predictability i'm not comfortable with suggesting that we move to this system of three times a year given where we are right now given the opportunities we have to make things feel different now that we have an elected town council that's very different than an elected representative town meeting we no longer have an elected executive that never got the opportunity to say yes or no to some things because we never heard about them the sooner that CRC and everyone can work together is great and hearing Lynn's idea for the first time about a special task force that includes people affected i think is fantastic that sounds really good so i i really encourage you to look at those ideas some more and really consider the year round issue with the idea of giving people some ideas of practically speaking we're not going to be likely to be able to work on something some parts of the year thank you alissa um kathy hi um i just had a couple comments listening to other people's um in terms of mentioning towns the one i know that has revitalized quite successfully is Hanover and White River Junction um with Dartmouth in it and i don't know what was behind the scene there how much of it was zoning law so just a place to look um what happened there and then i went to a meeting chris will know exactly who we heard from but it was on the zoning subcommittee pre-election and you invited a senior planner from Northampton to come in to talk about how they had gone through major changes in their zoning law moving toward design and and drawing concepts and what they i think it was a bit what Lynn is talking about too because what the sense was they had some big changes they wanted to make but they marshaled those at different points of time so they weren't all in one big package and then there were some smaller ones that went with the bigger changes that felt like they were going to be less controversial and people there would be broad consensus this is a good change so trying to think of um harder and less hard things to do um you know which is more sweeping less sweeping so she gave a few examples and she said you know the smaller ones that were like just cleaning up some wording and stuff they could package together and move more but they did more intensive work with hearings and bringing people along including people in the community for the bigger changes so it's a strategic way of saying you know where you might want to be going but you don't have to go there all at once um at any different time period and and you're more likely to get all the way through then thank you kathy at this time I'd like to to go to chris and then rob um to talk a little bit about chris um what you and rob and and some of us have talked about but what you guys are thinking in the planning staff planning department inspectional department in terms of where you're going how you're working on zoning changes what they may look like or or the buckets that um evan talked about from what we're going to start with chris chris is working on um and the process that has happened in the past on how that would happen in and and how you might foresee it happening here um and then what rob is is working on in terms of the zoning changes he's looking at so so chris can you talk a little bit about that i i had to find my mute button um yeah so i think um there's sort of two different scales or maybe that's not a good word to use but two different approaches that we're taking to the zoning by law at least that was what we thought about the last time we actually spoke about this i think rob and i haven't talked about it in a while because there hasn't been an opportunity really to move forward with anything um but what we had been talking about was that rob would take the lead on um kind of a rewrite of the zoning bylaw including um you know reorganization and putting things that made sense together and correcting some of the glaring conflicts or inconsistencies in the zoning bylaw and some of the things that he knows that he works with on a daily basis that are just not working properly and one example of that is the sign by law but there are other things as well and then there's another set of things another approach which is that there are specific issues that people in town really want to work on and those issues include things like inclusionary zoning and parking and zoning in the downtown whether that's um reflecting the desires of people who want less development and less dense development or whether it's people who want more development and more dense development that all has to be sorted out but those things are really bigger than the um or i shouldn't say bigger than they're sort of too big to cope with in the context of a complete rewrite they need attention on their own and we felt that um we probably needed some consulting help to help us out with those kinds of issues um in order to reach consensus because i think right now we don't have consensus so um you know going back to the downtown issue i know that some people are really um disappointed with uh buildings that are five stories high and that are close to the sidewalk other people want to continue to build buildings that are reflecting that model and so we need to reach a consensus about what do we really want and how far do we want that to go from the edges of the bg district into the bl so that's something that really needs um public attention it needs meetings it needs people to come together with different points of view and reach a consensus about what it is we want to do before we can really move ahead with those things the same thing with inclusionary zoning inclusionary zoning is difficult and complicated and we we think i think we need some consultation consultant help on that um the things that rob is dealing with rob's done this twice before in two different towns and he thinks that he has a good approach to this rewrite of the entire zoning bylaw so i think that both things can happen at the same time and there may be you know while rob is moving along with his rewrite there may be things that he wants to pull out and flag as things that you know can't be coped with in this in this mechanism so we need to pay more attention to them and hold some public forums or whatever so i guess those are the two different tracks or two different approaches that i see that could progress simultaneously so does that help that does rob do you have anything you'd like to add yes um so what um chris nicely referred to as rob's rewrite i just want to make clear that that would be us working with the zoning subcommittee pretty extensively um and and i think um just to you know emphasize it a little bit more is that really what we want to do is start from everything from the uh the structure and kind of the format of the bylaw uh as simple as getting it into an electronic format one that's searchable and easily used on the website um and and looking at the structure of how the the sections and articles work together identifying all those inconsistencies and errors and problematic pieces and working with zoning subcommittee and planning board immediately to identify those larger issues that really could use some consultant help and larger planning efforts to to or evaluating where we go next steps where we are you know late mid february late february we met with the planning board and we we received their support to move ahead with this so moving ahead meant uh you know christine and i would be at the the next available zoning subcommittee meeting to start talking about this and working on it so uh unfortunately that never occurred and that's where we are today so we're you know we're anxious to get going on that uh start producing some work and working with the zoning subcommittee initially uh to have something to bring forward to the other uh boards and committees thank you rob um i'm i'm going to take the chair's privilege here and and put some comments in for myself um you know i i joined crc back in october kind of jumped into all of this and started approaching when these referrals came through how are we going to do zoning how are we going to work with the planning board from a as some people have said from the process of what we've done before and then you know and that's sort of where we've been moving but looking at what's legally required and then shall any last meeting and evan um you know brought up well is this the right way to do it um and so that got me thinking uh despite having proposed something and drafted that document there that um yeah planning board is very busy right now they've got a master plan they update that they're working on and they've always got all the regulatory stuff going on and so i started thinking when chris breastrupt it described what northampton does and that zoning changes that like what rob was just talking about instead of going to a zoning subcommittee or planning board and working extensively with them first in northampton they pretty much work with the equivalent of crc first it got me thinking i'm saying is that a better model and i don't know what the answer to that is so it's been i really appreciate hearing from elissa and you know lin and and kathy on on from non crc member point of views what what they're thinking and all and then and then our new crc members because maybe it is time to rethink the whole process um that in prior years really did sit with planning board maybe that given our new government is not where it needs to sit even an extensive revision maybe we need a for the extent of revisions that rob and chris were talking about a special task force or maybe crc is the one that it goes to first um and i think that's something that we need to be discussing in crc um which is why i appreciate having more of the counselors here today to be able to hear their thoughts on that because ultimately it would be a council decision to make because i'm starting to rethink that whole process and wondering if given time constraints with planning board and how other cities operate maybe planning staff comes to maybe the the better option is that planning staff brings those revisions to the council subcommittee first before they go through other things um and so you know i personally would like to hear people's thoughts on that what lin suggested what we've already got proposed where people stand and what they think might be a right now we've got at least three proposals out there for how they start where where planning staff goes and and what people think might be the best one we're not going to obviously have time to settle that today at today's meeting um but figuring that out i think it's going to become vitally important as as rob and chris begin working on those changes so any thoughts on that shalini oh um maybe we could gather information you know we we could come up with our own way like the task force i think that sounds really smart thing to do it sounds like duh but that seems like a really it would be a win-win but there might be other towns who've constituted and so just i think we can come up with our own way as Steve was suggesting but i think it would be worthwhile to talk to a few towns and see why they landed on their particular process what were the pros and cons and so we can do some homework and assign it and then when we meet next time we have some pros and cons on the different uh configurations um sarah okay so i'm jumping in because and i will say that i'm new to all of this and this is my first crc meeting due to illness um but just a way in so that you know i'm actually here and listening to what everyone's saying um the task force appeals to me um just if you want to get my off the cuff i'm just jumping right straight into this that sounds appealing to me but i i do see um you know i'm willing to look at things the way shalini is saying that maybe we need to maybe look at some other things that people do but if you want to get a consensus right now that's the way i'm leaning um even though i don't know a whole heck of a lot right now thanks are there any other immediate comments um at this point particularly from non-crc members simply because crc will have the next meeting to chat about this too um where we won't have others um and so i i want to take the opportunity to those that don't normally have the ability to you know contribute to a crc meeting if they want to contribute now what i'd love to hear that i had andy raised his hand and then raised it lowered it so i guess andy doesn't have anything at this point nope and then there's alissa so let's do alissa and then andy so just quickly i'm sure you already thought of this and i maybe just missed it in the presentation but um checking in with the planning board members since many of them are not have not been serving for a terribly long time just so that they understand what where we're going with this so that when they hear this meeting they don't feel like hey wait they're leaving us out but also i'll bet that some of them have been thinking you know i wish we did it like my friend said they do it over in this other place so i think finding out from them when you're talking about homework assignments like shalini was talking about might in fact also prove to be very useful and show clearly that we are in no way trying to take their jobs away from them we're just trying to make it work better for everybody thank you andy yes thank you i waited a long time because i've been on the committee before and i was very interested to see how the conversation went and it made me very much appreciate the fact that we did shuffle committees a little bit and brought some fresh perspective into it i think that what we were probably doing in the first round of the committee was thinking about the planning board partly with a misunderstanding possibly of what the role of the planning board was by statute which is where we need some help from probably our planning staff just to understand what is the role of the planning board but it sounds like from the experiences of other cities that we um read that power of the planning board we weren't correct in our reading of it and i it kind of froze at least speaking for myself got me into a place where i was trying to be respectful of the planning board being respectful of the council and it does sound like we're going in the right direction and i really appreciate the effort that all of you have put into the two meetings since i have no longer been on the committee thank you andy um dave zome thanks yeah i just had two quick um comments um on a task force um number one i'm having deja vu as mandy joe and rob and chris and lin will know you know some of us we're talking about a task force or a group actually we've been talking about that for a couple of years now but i think going back mid 2019 we spent a lot of time talking about a separate entity that might include zoning um subcommittee members or planning board members so it's an intriguing concept it certainly is and and i i recognize the um the amount of work that's on um the planning board and the zoning subcommittee now with the master plan and and their regular permitting work um the thing i think that's most important to me and and i think laudia and um and gabriel might be still on the call is how do we make sure we get the input from the business community to me whether that comes through a task force or whether that comes through the crc or whether that comes through the zoning subcommittee i think it's essential you know we are we all want to do what's right for the town moving forward but we do need to gather that input from those people who who have been doing business in amers for many years or who want to continue to do business post covet 19 who want to invest in downtown amers so the me you know it's really important that we get that input how we get it i think there are many different ways we could get it it could come through the zoning subcommittee it could come through crc it could come through a task force um i just want to make sure we don't create an unnecessary layer um um that's not there now but um so i think there's pros and cons to all of them but i do think we need to get out there with these ideas that are going to be developed by staff with input from both planning board members uh council members and the general public um but we we want to have buy-in from the community you know whether it's we love five-story buildings we hate five-story buildings we want form-based code we don't we want um inclusionary zoning to what degree do we want inclusionary zoning and what's that right mix of inclusionary zoning that doesn't um uh tamp down the potential for more redevelopment and taxable growth in village centers so i'll stop there thank you um andy and then shallony and then i think we're going to move on andy you'll need to unmute i didn't mean to have my hand up and i was having problems with my computer sorry both at the same time okay thank you andy shallony i wanted to speak to one thing that they just mentioned about gathering info from stakeholders and i would expand not just businesses but stakeholders could include university researchers who are doing uh and all that but this the important thing there is i i asked the bid and the chambers if they could be the people collecting that information and i say that because i've reached out as a counselor to speak to some developers and what was some and i said you'll be anonymous i'm not going to share your name in any way and but they were hesitant to share their input because they feel there might be a backlash if they are identified because they still have to work in this community so i found there was a hesitation amongst businesses or stakeholders to share honestly what the loopholes are or where they're feeling stuck so having someone like the bid to collect the information and keep it really anonymous and bring that whole information to us would be really useful rather than having a zoning or a crc or such committee that's my sense thank you shallony um i think at this time we're going to move on this is obviously a conversation that's going to take a couple more meetings to to to resolve and figure out a plan and a process to propose to the full council um and i think i will think about potentially assigning some research to people or talking to town staff through Dave's omac about maybe information we can get prior to a next meeting on some things um but i'm not going to take the time at this meeting to to go through assignments or anything but i will think through that um and see what we can do at this time i am aware that um the council agenda i think has been complete the crc agenda has two more items on it and does this mean does lin want to adjourn the council portion of the meeting at this time um i'd like to see how many people want to stay on because if they want to stay then we can't i'm happy to have them on for the two other items it is meeting times of crc and adoption of crc minutes i i don't need to stay on okay then those people that do not want to stay on at this point please just leave the meeting and then i can tell you whether i've got us your c members do not leave the meeting yeah crc has to stay all right uh then let me call the council meeting of a committee the whole adjourned thank you so council meeting is adjourned at 349 the town the crc meeting is still continuing um we are moving on to our next item which is meeting times general discussion and this is a oh and i want to i think rob's already gone um but i want to thank chris and rob for attending and all and contributing to the meeting we will be back in touch obviously um crc moving on to crc meeting times we have to figure out a time to meet on a regular basis um that can be a problem when i i did not repost i don't think the um the last survey but we did a survey of meeting times and there was not a single half an hour window between monday at 8 a.m and friday at 10 p.m that all five of us were available to meet um which is why we then pulled for just this meeting i am wondering if tuesdays and when i did that poll i included the wednesday morning 8 30 time that has generally been the crc time and a whole bunch of other times um during this crisis Dave's oh map our staff liaison has indicated that mornings can be a little bit tougher although i think those meetings he has had um care uh i don't know core meetings the covid response team meetings generally in the mornings on wednesdays um i don't know whether those have i know they've lessened from seven days a week but i don't know whether wednesdays are still one of the days that they tend to be but um he had expressed at least during this time of preference for not morning at 8 30 simply so he could attend these meetings and also be a part of the covid meetings um i noticed in the responses for last for this week and next week that tuesdays and thursdays around two o'clock tended to be okay so the question i have for our committee members is between now and say august are tuesdays or thursdays generally okay at 2 p.m and if that is the case um could we maybe set a time for either tuesday or thursday at 2 p.m it would be on a potentially every other week basis and then revisit this in august when we might have some of us an idea of what our fall semester schedules might look like but maybe we can get ourselves through with meeting times on a standard basis until august so i'd like to hear from each of you on whether tuesday or thursday at 2 p.m on approximately twice a month basis would be doable so i'm just going to go down people's names so we'll start with sarah since she raised her hand so um i could do either but let's say tuesday would be my preference but i can do either so that's fine although one thing i would like to say is that i am hoping maybe in the fall or when things get back to normal we might be able to start meeting in evening times but i'm just putting it out there because i don't know anybody else so thanks um shalini i can do tuesday or thursday two to four evenings are generally hard for me because a lot of my classes are in the evening six to eight thirty but we can see like i normally keep mondays obviously i don't have any classes on mondays i don't have any classes on friday evenings which is at family time and i don't have classes on thursday evenings because that's when we normally have our district meetings so for my personal work i can only have classes twice a week so if you have a committee meeting then that makes it hard for me to have it yeah shalini would you said thursday's you don't have classes because you tend to have district meetings on thursday's once a month on on non-district meeting nights to be able to meet on a thursday evening potentially potentially yeah okay evan uh so short answer yes tuesdays and thursdays uh that two p.m work for me um both in the summer but also in the school year i don't know about steve my uh teaching schedule is set for the fall already the student server already enrolled and so i know uh tuesday and thursday at two p.m is a time a good time both in the summer and i could also do that um throughout the school year uh between the two preference meeting tuesday and thursday uh only a slight preference for thursday um only because i have a standing five o'clock commitment on tuesdays that i need to be able to eat dinner before uh so it's certainly doable but it's there's just a little bit more cushion if it's on thursdays um and i also it looks likely that tso is going to be meeting on thursday nights um so i'd almost rather just have my committees backed back like they are today um if we're going to move more towards nights then it would have to be thursday over tuesday i could not do tuesday um evenings and i'm perfectly fine with thursday evenings as long as they are not um here's where i'm going to be obnoxious as long as they are not the same as tso thursdays um and also i have a different committee meeting uh the second thursday of every month so um it might get tricky on thursday evenings but i can certainly try and make it work but for the near term tuesday thursday 2 p.m is fine steve so i'm not going anywhere between here and august so um anytime is fine so tuesday or thursday so um when the school year starts and if travel ever starts again then tuesdays are much better for me because i often travel thursday friday saturday but right now with everyone on lockdown i can do any timing one middle of the night um you know it's and when we get back into it i prefer during the day i would much prefer beginning of the day or end of the day evenings are really hard already because we're already giving up um well i should say we're already investing one evening so it'd be hard for me to give up more than one two evenings per month or you know for the town council you know also there are other public bodies that meet in the evenings like planning board etc etc but let's go either one but um i would prefer tuesday in the long run and also tuesday at two to four also works for me in the okay so given that i think for now um as long as sarah it sounds like you're the one that prefers mainly evenings but are you okay with two to four on tuesdays through august and then we'll revisit with a potential for thursday evenings although thursday evenings are going to be a problem we need to revisit that but we might pull for steve said late afternoons um end of day which might be able to be a nice bridge between daytime and evening time for potentially shallony and steve and you and and me but but i think for now i will propose a schedule that is tuesdays two to four um i will get that out to people so that we can formally vote on that and get it published at the next meeting but i will send proposed dates there i'm not going to sit here and go through those dates now um but but we'll get a document out um but but to plan on potentially every other week for now um if we don't need one because things are slowing down or something we will certainly cancel um but the next one would be i think in approximately two weeks tuesday two to four um and i'm going to take the tuesdays because more people prefer that so evan you lost that preference sorry um but you get your hour and hopefully we'll be able to end in under two hours in the future um so with that that is not a vote at this point so we're not doing any roll call we have the minutes to do and i have we have one set of minutes for the last meeting april eight um i had a couple of changes so i want to put on my screen those minutes if i can find them again um so let me let me see what i can do with that because i had a couple of changes and so let me see here we go and so i'm going to see if anyone else has any other changes the changes i have when i find them here i think were towards the end angela took our minutes that the last meeting yes so the only thing i had was to the minutes section um and then i just noticed we don't have the documents i'll have to add the documents in the documents we referenced but the minutes um we made changes so i wanted to note that we discussed them and i wanted to note that the motion was to adopt the minutes as they were amended with those changes um so that's the only changes i had did anyone else have any changes to the minutes i am not seeing any hands raised so i'm going to take that to mean no one else has any changes so i will make the motion to adopt the minutes as seen on these amendments so as amended along with the additional amendment of adding the documents referenced so that's just going to be adopted the minutes as amended is there a second to that motion shalini second thank you shalini um are there is there any discussion seeing no discussion um i am going to unshare my screen and then take a roll call vote um so as i call your name unmute yourself and vote yay nay or abstain to adopting the minutes um shalini yay mandy is a yay um evan yay then steve unmute steve i i think he is a yes but we still need to hear it because it's a roll call hit the space bar hold it down the damn space bar wasn't working don't put that in the minutes yes and sara look can i just ask i'm raising my hand yes okay my understanding was that if you hadn't been there you could not vote gay so i'm just asking that question quickly before i you can vote yay you can vote abstain you don't have to have attended the meeting in order to vote to approve the minutes but it's generally up to whoever's voting to decide whether they want to abstain or or vote yes or no okay so i'm going to say that usually i abstain but i'm we can you and i could have a private conversation later about how you feel about people doing that so i'm going to abstain from now and then we can talk about it excellent so that vote is four zero with one abstention um and the abstention is sara swartz um with that i believe let me pull up my agenda we are on to announcements i do not have any if anyone else has any announcements or unanticipated items please hit your raise hand button so i know um because i don't have any announcements the next meeting agenda preview at this point i'm not sure what it'll look like it will probably include things very similar to what this meeting did which is zoning and bylaw process and potentially economic development depending on what we receive on that document that we had requested from the chamber and um anyone else i think shalini looks to raise her hand so shalini do you have anything that you would like to see on the next meeting agenda or any unanticipated items oh elissa brought up the economic development director question and i wonder if that's something the whole town council should be discussing or the crc should be discussing that is that something or is that paul's decision um i can't answer that one right now um i think i will talk to dave and paul maybe about it um dave's got his hand raised so maybe he has a way to address that yeah so thanks for the question so um before the covet 19 situation started um as was talked about a while ago we did do some pretty extensive um listening sessions with the bid the chamber um opinion leaders in the community etc etc stakeholders many stakeholders so we gathered a lot of information um and we had kind of set a course forward to to begin to um get that get that search process going i think now the playing field has changed pretty dramatically and um you know what we heard from the bid and chamber and i didn't chime in earlier was that you know in large part we might be looking for a different person than we were three or four months ago um because we may need somebody to help rebuild our what is left of our downtown and our village centers but i know it's on paul's radar screen i think the last five weeks we have been you know full on co vid response but i'm sure that he will be talking with me and with our hr director evelyn about um next steps in that process so you know i would encourage you as individual counselors to you know contact him but i know it's on his radar screen and i know it's a high priority for him so thank you dave any other agenda items or anything else i am seeing nothing so we are unfortunately five minutes late so i apologize for going over um but i am going to join adjourn the meeting at 405 i want to thank pam for taking minutes today and for athena for setting up the meeting um so that we could go so thank you pam and we are adjourned at 405 you're welcome um thank you pam thank you you're welcome waiting till after you read them that will be the true count oh no we appreciate you regardless it's unconditional appreciation all right have a good night everybody it's been my pleasure bye bye thank you good night