 That's 1134. Right. Today is July 13th. It's 1134. This is the call. I'm calling the disability access advisory committee meeting to order. And we have, I believe everyone on the committee is here. Is this correct? Let's do a roll call. One's missing. No missing. Oh, yeah. Missing Xander, right. Okay. I'm sorry. I know that he would be late in all likelihood. Yeah. Right. Yes. Okay. Marty. You're here, right? I'm here. Marty. Sorry. What? Yeah. Yeah. Ruth. Yes. Yes. Lisa. Yes. And Myra. We're here and Xander will hopefully come later. Okay. So anybody have any announcements? Okay. Anybody have any new business? Well, then I guess we can get into the old business. One of the things that I want to say is that because Maureen and I didn't get to talk this month to plan the agenda. The stuff that isn't on it. I think we'll come back next month. Like we have to really start to review the report. That came from the consultant. That we've had for a few months, but we've had so much to do. We haven't really had time to do it. I'm particularly interested in knowing. Which departments are really on top of this and which departments. Might need a little bit of a push. So that's one of the things that I would like to talk about. And then there was an email from somebody. I don't know who. That asked for the, a survey of the listening devices in town rooms. Who did that? Cause you can tell us more what you wanted. Who did. Me, Maureen. Yeah. So. Um, you know, some of our public meeting spaces. Do have assisted listening devices such as the town room. Um, there's a meeting space in the police station. There could be other rooms. That I'm not aware of. But the bank center. Um, does not have any assisted devices. And I know. Um, that, that, you know, during non COVID times that, you know, that's where we have senior services and all, and, and have, you know. Community meetings and all kinds of stuff. And it's been expressed again and again to the senior. Center director. Uh, several times for the need for assisted devices there. Um, and you need a loop. There's different variety. There's different options out there. Okay. Of assisted devices. I'm not an expert. I feel like if we did dive into it, I will become an expert in assisted device. Okay. Um, also maybe the Jones library doesn't have assisted devices. The North Amherst library does not have assisted devices. Um, That's probably true. Then I'm South Amherst as well. Correct. Correct. Correct. And so there is a grant. Um, an annual grant through the mass office of disability. Um, they have an annual grant application. Um, to remove barriers of, you know, physical barriers and, um, and then communication barriers and stuff like that. So, um, I know for instance, North Hampton applied for, um, this very grant last year to provide assisted devices to all their meeting rooms. Um, and they were awarded it. And so that got me thinking like, Oh, that this would be an eligible project that I've just, I've heard a lot of members of the public express the need for assisted devices. And then also in context of this sort of COVID world. Um, you know, as, as the town sort of contemplates. Um, meeting rooms, um, whether they'll be hybrid meetings or virtual meetings forever or whatever, this could be a nice, um, sort of add on in context of that as, as, as we're going to try to be as flexible as, as we can legally be, you know, possible, um, for meetings. So anyways. What do you need? When's the grant due and what do you need? Uh, it is due. In October. And so I'm asking the IT department to do an inventory of all the meeting rooms. Um, of what, what is there and what is not there and, and what is their working condition? Sounds. Yeah. Sounds familiar. Doesn't it? Maybe they'll be a little bit better at responding. Yeah. One would hope. Um, so, um, maybe you could get also a letter from the senior center director supporting the grant. She would, she definitely would. And maybe. The library systems director. She would, I'm sure if there is an assisted device there, I know that they would love it. So that's a good, that's a good, um, suggestion, Myra. So, are these devices portable? Like, for example, at Jones library, if they have the meeting in different rooms, could it be carried into those rooms? That's an excellent question. I don't. I only can speak about the devices that we have in the town room. So in the town room and town hall. That room. Has like an odd, like an audio system and every, and all the microphones are connected to the audio system. And we are assisted devices. I wish I knew the names of them, but they look like walkie talkies. And so you would, you know, just. Put this device on your, you know, in your pocket or hold it. And it automatically hooks up to your. Hearing device, which then automatically tunes into the overall audio system for the room. So you could walk around or whatever you can move around in the room. Um, but it would only be, uh, it would only work in that room, in that room. But yeah, maybe, maybe they, yeah, maybe they have upgraded the systems, maybe they have portable ones. And maybe that should be something. I don't know if we need to look into that or, um, or if you just apply for the grant and then while we're, while you're using it to purchase material, then you can make the decision at that point, but portability probably might be helpful. And another thing that I'm very curious about is the interpreter services. Like does the town have an interpreter and a, what is the usage of the interpreter? Because there might be some people like, uh, they might be intimidated to go to meetings because they don't know what's going on. Very good points, uh, Saren, um, so that we do have, um, a, at least one staff person, um, that can speak, uh, Spanish is fluent in Spanish. Uh, Spanish. That's Angela Mills. She works in the town manager's office. And I believe we have another staff staff person that is fluent in Mandarin, um, which is, um, one of the languages used in China. Um, I think Saren was referring to sign language. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So we don't have a staff person that is a, I guess that would be ASL interpreter. Um, but, so there are, uh, specific protocols for that. So if someone needs, um, requests a, that, uh, that combination, they would need to contact our, um, the town and we would then need to seek out, uh, an interpreter. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of them out there. Um, so, um, more advanced notice is preferable. Um, but that is something that. You know, legally, you know, should be provided, um, with, with the expectation that they would need to inform the town and advanced notice just because it is. It is based on the availability of that individual. And then. Do you know if it's, um, really clear on the website that. That that, that there are procedures. Does anybody know. So about the website, or, um, I think you're getting at is the website ADA accessible. Um, no, I'm, I'm, no, actually, that's not what I'm talking about right now. I was just wondering if it is prominently displayed on the website. That people who need interpretive services should do X to get them. Or do you have to dig deep into the website to find that? That's a very good question. Um, and that is something that I personally have been. Uh, wanting to. Understand better. Um, since January. And unfortunately I just, um, I can do that for you. Oh, okay. Yeah. It is something that needs to be looked at and to have a formal. You know, look and feel and where that's located. If it's on the manager's website. Is it on the DAA? Um, I don't know if it's on the manager's website. Um, I don't know if it's on the manager's website. Um, I don't know if it's on the manager's website. I don't know if it's on the manager's website. Um, I don't know if it's on the manager's website. Is it on the DAA website? Is it on the human resources website? And like, or all three. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, or it could be on every page. Right. Um, and, um, on the website. So it just kind of pops up at the top or somewhere. Um, um, and so. So that kind of question is, I think it's a really good question for the organization of the town of how they want to handle that. So. I would hope that it's listed somewhere. Is it easily. You know, visible. Or found that I don't know, but I'm going to make a note of that. And I hope to have some sort of update for you in time of the next meeting. Yeah, and I'll try to look today or tomorrow and track it down and send you info, Maureen. Thank you. So should we segue into the discussion? I mean, we're not having a website discussion, but that's the other thing that I wanted to bring up is that we, at one point had voted. That we would support the expenditure. Remember there was $50,000 for capital that was going to be reserved. For D for disability access. Each year. And we. One time took a vote to. I think we had a lot of, you know, I think we had a lot of, you know, I think we had a lot of support. Work on the website. And we never heard any more about that. So that's one of the things that I wanted. To bring up. So if anybody has any ideas about that, that you want to afford to Maureen for questions that have to do with the website. I already talked about, you know, accessibility and testing for accessibility. Not just plugging it into a piece of software that they don't have access to. You know, they don't have access to it. And they don't have access to it. They don't have access to it. They don't have to be allegedly accessible and then be done with it. Cause that doesn't work. So I, I, you know, this question is also. A question, you know, the, the. The. The, the information coming on the website about getting interpretive services. So if anybody has anything else that you want. Maureen to look into about the website. Yeah. Yeah. And I just want to backtrack a little bit. And I want to say that there are except there are. FM listening devices. For people who are deaf or hard. Well, hard of hearing. That are portable. It's just a matter of doing the research. And finding the right. Equipment. And I would suggest. That you might want to consult with. People who are deaf themselves and find out. What, what is new. What is being used right now. Yeah. So that is my suggestion. And the other. There was something else you guys were talking about. Oh, the website. It is. In order to be ADA compliant, you should have. On the website. How to go about. Requesting interpreters sign language interpreters and, and how long. You need them to whoever wants to go to a meeting. How long you need. And usually you need two weeks. At a minimum to request sign language interpreters. So that would mean that they would need to be aware. Of the meetings coming up. If they wanted to come to a meeting. So they have to be aware. In advance. At least like three weeks. Or a month before the meeting. So I don't know. How that works. I don't know how early you post your meetings. Well, there's a calendar of regularly scheduled meetings. Meet meetings are really never posted more than three or four days in advance. Cause an agenda can't be posted. You know, I mean, you can't put that together so far in advance. Right. Isn't that right, Pat? There's this calendar that has. All the. Scheduled all those committees of the town council. And the regular town council, however, regular schedule. And at the, um, on the calendar on the website does have the current day, couple of days. Meetings and times. Um, but I don't know how accessible that is. I mean, it is to me because, you know, but, and Tory and, but I'm not sure. For others. Is there a place that has all the posted agendas that are, you know, everything that's posted for meetings within three days. That would be accessible. I've actually found, I've actually found meetings. It's not that bad. I've found meetings on, on there. Well, if you go to the town website where it says town government, you go to committees. You can find the committee you're interested in. And it will give you information about when it meets current agendas and things like that. Is that what you mean, Myra? Well, yeah, that, um, but there's also a big calendar. And I think you can click on the date. Right. I think there is. I have found, you know, it's not the easiest website to use, but it's not the worst at all. I mean, I, I would say there are things. The reason I asked the question about the other thing is sometimes things are embedded so deeply in a website. That you have to dig too hard to find them. And the part about finding interpretive services has to be really clearly available. You know, it has to be something that people. Exactly. Hey, I remember years ago, I participated in some meetings. They had a device that was called close captioning. And like whatever the speaker would speak and it would put it on a screen. And I thought if the town would have something like that, there is no need for interpreter or anything. It just, all they need to do is read it. So you have to hire somebody to type all that in. Right. Well, I will say with zoom. Automatically does it. I think. No, no, no. That's a closed captioner. That's a closed captioner. That's a closed captioner. So we have to have somebody there. Yes, there's someone there, even if they're not in the room, they're actually typing on their computer. Yeah. Yeah. So with the zoom platform, we do actually have the capability of using closed caption. Right. And actually we can turn it on right now. If I, if, if I am allowed to, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to. I'm allowed to. I'm allowed to. I'm allowed to. I'm allowed to. It does. And so the, the. It's not perfect. So for instance. It doesn't understand the word air moist. So it always misspells that. And so. It doesn't, it's not perfect. So if, if it doesn't hear you, you know, perfectly. If someone mumbles or, or, or whatever. It doesn't pick it up perfectly. There is a way to then. For a staff person to then read. Because it actually becomes like a transcript afterwards. So there is a way to edit it afterwards. Before that goes on. As you've. Been told and maybe viewed all our recordings are then posted on the town of Amherst YouTube channel. And so those closed captions that have spelling mistakes. Or whatever. Those could be edited and corrected. I don't know how time consuming that is in, you know, in. And with that, for me. Makes me wonder how feasible that is. If it's, you know, sort of a half an hour of fixing, fixing spelling mistakes. That's one thing. If it, if it's several hours of fixing spelling mistakes, that's, that's a. A lot of bigger question. I don't think it's a half an hour. Yeah. Nothing's a half an hour. All right. So anyway, those are things to talk about, but I think the website is something we should put on the, on the next agenda. I want to get to the number one old business thing. And I want to thank Marty for going out into the field and. And doing the work that we had asked someone else to do for four months and then didn't get done. And so Marty, do you want to talk about how you did it? And then Maureen got a response. When she sent. Maureen sent Marty's. Spreadsheet. Who Guilford mooring and many other people. And she did receive a response. And so I think it's something that we should look forward to. I don't know if you'd like her to tell us about that, but Marty, you want to talk about how long that took you? How much you want to build a town for doing it? Yeah, I should. Absolutely. So it took about three hours to go to each. Intersection. There's 13 of them. What we got from the DPW was a list of their equipment and in fact, they listed. The Pomeroy. West street intersection, which has no, by the way, no pedestrian signals. So anything we do there will be better than what's there. So it took about three hours to three and a half hours to do that. And then it took another. Probably I spent another three hours. Creating the spreadsheet and. And then it took another three hours to do that. And then it took another three hours to do that. And. Transcribing all of the. Information that I collected. The upshot is that. We've really got a mishmash of controls. They're different. I mean, there's some intersections where there's four different types of controls. They're not consistent. It's not consistent what they, what they do or say. None of them. You can hear passed about five feet from the button. If you're lucky. I was, did it on Saturday morning. Through. I think I started about 11 o'clock and finished about two 30. And so, you know, it was peak time at all these intersections. There was a lot, you know, there was traffic and. And you can't hear anything. Some of them say wait, some of them. I'm not sure that they have, if there's a question mark on the spreadsheet, it means that I can't tell whether that's. Actually an audible signal or not. It looked like it was, but. There are some of the signals that don't have. Some of the signals have little pinholes in them. That you can, you can see that there's a speaker there. But some of them, I think the newer ones don't have that. They don't have that anymore. The other thing that was disturbing is we've got a bunch of the signs that tell you how to use it. That are completely washed out. They need to be replaced. And. Just the fact that the audibles are not working as. Disturbing actually the best one is the one that's up on. It crosses from the new. Police state UMass police station. On East Pleasant street. And Eastman lane. That one moves. But you can hear it almost halfway across the street. The way these things are supposed to work. Is that when I push. The button to. Cross the street. And then it picks up the one across the street. Right. For the last half. And none of that works. And my concern with this is beyond the fact that it's not. It's not right for our citizens. Is the fact that. Now that we have the survey, this is why I was a little reluctant to do the survey. Now that we have the survey. And it's a public survey. If someone's hurt in those intersections. The town now has a great liability. Once you know, there's a danger. You have to fix it. So that's, Oh, I think, I think. Morey, I mean, Marty. Guilford stated in a public meeting on March 18th. That he knew that many of them were disabled. He had disabled some of them. And that's many of them didn't work. So he has said that publicly. Well. In March. So now. I don't even know how to respond to that. Yeah. Right. It's a big, it's a big. Unconscionable. Yep. He should lose his job. Yeah. Well, I agree. They have, couldn't they use that? Focus that money to go to these signals. What did you ask, sir? The what that they have. I, if I'm not wrong. Morey said there's 50,000 there. That is to be used for accessibility needs. Could that be just focused and put into the signals. And then. That's a good point. The FY 20 was we said we'd like it to go to website. But FY. 21. Is now. Yeah. I mean 21 now it's FY 22. Sorry. I mean, that's his responsibility. You know, what you're going to do about it. So Maureen, would you like to tell us what the response was when you sent the letter. To. To Guilford with Marty's spreadsheet on it. I don't have it in front of me, but it basically. He asked. Do they want the volume turned up? No, actually, he said, he said, nice. Actually, what he said was nice. They could have done that a long time ago. Do they want the volume turned up is exactly what he said. I was so astounded by it that I do remember it. It's rhetorical question. It goes. So clearly he doesn't understand that the law says. That any services that the town provides have to be accessible. It's not accessible. It's not up to him to decide which ones should be accessible and which ones shouldn't. If you, if he drives the car, he knows to stop at a red light because he can see it. Other people, according to the law, that has to work for people who can't see it and want to hear it. It's just using a difference, a different sense to cross the street. He gets a red light. He gets a walk light. He gets a green arrow. All the rest of us get. Would be a bell or a thing that says which direction we're going in good stop lights. And it's not up to him. He doesn't understand the law and he has thumbed his nose at us. And I can't believe it. Probably he's getting complaints from the businesses around or from residences around. Because similar thing happened in my neighborhood. About the streets. It's street lights. They are in our street. They have street lights in every corner. And on the cul-de-sac. And there is some group that want those shut off. Because they cannot sleep in there. It comes to their bedrooms. And I said, this is an accessibility issue. I feel safe with those street lights. Please don't ask the town to turn them off. If you want, it's very simple to get them off. If you want, it's very simple to get them off. If you want, it's very simple to get them off. If you want, it's very simple to get the drapes that shade the lights, incoming lights. So it is the pressure that they don't want to hear from the neighbors. Of those intersections. So they are in a dilemma, which I understand. But. They're very few residences near these lights. They're absolutely are very few. That's correct. Yeah. The closest ones are down at. East Hadley road. And one 16 by the old Christmas. Yep. There's a couple of houses there. The people at the Christmas. Probably don't want it on. But sorry. Yeah. I will say that I have. I, it looks like I have two. Scheduled meetings. This week. To go. Well, I'll talk about one specific. I have two grant related meetings. With staff this week, but I'll talk about the one on. Friday. It's with the assistant town manager. David Zomac. Sean. Mangano, who's our. Finance director. And Rob more on the building commissioner and Jeremiah. Love plant. Our facilities manager. And it's to talk about. ADA product projects. And so. You know, Dave Zomac and Rob and Jeremiah and Sean. Mangano. You know, I've had. A few meetings with them over the last. Couple months. And they are very. Intuned and. You know, welcoming of making. These improvements. Sean mangano being. The money man. So he's the most important person, I guess. To involve into these meetings. So the town does. You know, want to make these improvements. And so I will of course be relaying. All your feedback. And I think we're going to have a little bit of a break. At this meeting on Friday. And. You know, as you said, you know, we're. Hey, you know, we don't want. Accidents to occur and have an unsafe intersections. But B. It's the law. So the town, you know, it's in their best interests to obey by the law. And I think we're going to have a little bit of a break. And I think we're going to have a little bit of a break. And make. Making, you know, all public rights away. Accessible. For everyone. So I. I, I definitely empathize with everyone's frustration about this, but I definitely feel that, you know, days. Oh Mac. Particularly will be really. Respective of, of, of these comments and to push this forward to the public. I think we. I think that's the, the, the best thing about this is the. The, the, the, the, the, the, the. The, the, the, the, the, the, the M. The mass office on disability. Um, Grant or perhaps it's through DPW account. You know, accounts that they already have. And we don't know if they're broken or they just need to. Flip the switch. Um, so we don't know if. Or maybe Marty knows. I don't know, Marty. There are a couple of things I want to say. specialist technician out. It's not going to be Joe DPW guy. It's going to be a programmer from the controls company. They come around. I know we use them at UMass. But the other thing that I'm a little concerned about it is a problem that I've had in other instances. And that is using this budget for doing something that is maintenance. Once the installation is done, the town takes over the maintenance of it. It should come out of maintenance budget. Correct. And if they're not budgeting for this, then somebody needs to review the the DPW's budget. They should have money to do these kinds of things all the time. You can bet they would have money if the red light didn't work. If the vision didn't work. Absolutely. So where do we go from here? At least as your hand up. Oh, okay. Who does? Elise. Okay. Elise, you have to yell in because I can't see your hand. Okay. Yeah, I don't have a raised hand emoji. Just yelling like everybody else. Well, it's not just flipping a switch. I'm going to share my experience with those lights. Sometimes I press the button and I hear, you know, a voice that says wait, which is very low pitched. And then I don't, there's no signal that says it's time to go. So it's not only flipping a switch is a volume, definitely volume. And many of them like the one in front of the post office don't even have that. So just to share that. And especially if somebody like the other day, there was somebody with a loud car stereo. And I couldn't even hear the traffic. So I need, we need those buttons. We need those audible signals. Thank you, Elise. That's, that's a point very well taken. Kat, did you have something? Yeah, I was wondering if people would be comfortable if I asked, if I could attend, ask Dave if I could attend this meeting and possibly Myra or another member of the committee, Marisa could also attend this meeting or I can certainly ask Dave. It is the meeting is for ADA projects, but it's also for other right, but if they could attend topics or the period of time that it was. I'll certainly ask. It might just make more sense for us to have a staff meeting to have sort of a preliminary conversation and then perhaps next week we could have a follow-up meeting if that could work. I'm on the finance committee, so I might on my own just say, hey, I attend because then the other projects would be of interest as well. And I'll do that part, Marine, but if you could find out about a member of the committee that be grand. Sure, yep. So I think some of this stuff was actually spelled out with great care in the report that we received from the consultant last fall. That report did not cover all of these lights. Marty covered them, but that report covered the ones in town and there was enough information even right there about their lack of operational status because it said that. And so Marty, you didn't provide any information endangering anyone. They've even had an official report sitting around for now nine months that said that and they haven't done anything with it. So I'm really concerned about this. And I mean, I don't even know what we're supposed to do and Pat, maybe you can help us with this. This is not the first time that Guilford Mooring has treated things that this committee is very involved in for the protection of the people in this community with a little disdain. I mean, he talked to the town council at one point, I assume you heard him. I don't know the date right now, but he said, you know, he said basically they're only advisory and there's no rules in the federal government yet. There's no rules that say anything about whether this has to be done with the with the signals at Pomeroy. He is technically right about both of those things. Right. That's not the point. The point is that that, you know, when I sent those in those letters way back with the thing from the executive director of the accessibility board, when I that US access board, when I sent that all to him, I said there are currently no regulations. It should have been no revelation for him to tell you that there aren't any. But I said that they're working on promulgating them. And the reason they don't have them is because for four years they weren't allowed to have any new regulations. So that was one thing. And yes, we are advisory. We are not the law. That is beside the point. We're a standing committee of this town. And they're supposed to hear what we have to say. And for him to thumb his nose at us in a public meeting, I thought was pretty outrageous. I don't know if you heard it the same way I did. Pat. Yeah, I'm not as strongly as you I must admit because but yes, and he shows disdain for many people, but that doesn't make any of it okay. Yeah. So I wonder if it's I don't know if you need to talk to the town manager as a member of the town council about any of this, but I'm really feeling frustrated because well, the town has liability absolutely. And frankly, when I joined this committee, someone who's no longer on it told me about all the trials and tribulations of even getting the snow cleaned up in the winter. And we wrote a letter about that. Right. For member for COVID, we said, oh, it's going to be even worse than usual because the businesses aren't even open. So we wrote a letter about that. And last year we had very little snow. So there wasn't like a real problem. But I don't know. I feel like there's just a lot of work not getting done and a lot of disdain coming at least our way. I don't know anything else because I don't know about any other disdain, but I don't know what we need to do about it. And I will email. You can't allow it without the town manager hearing about it. I will email the town manager a short note about it and ask him if he would like to talk to the committee. Would you guys be comfortable if he did that? Or should I? I just, Pat, although I'm completely fine if you do that just in context of the sort of protocol for your staff liaison. Well, I do what the committee asks me to do. I'm supposed to be absolutely silent. And if we were in the room together, I'm supposed to not sit at the same table and just be a conduit. And so this would be doing my job, which would be to relay a complaint. So I don't know how the committee feels about it. I said my piece. I'm not the committee. I'm just the one that's really mad. If you wouldn't mind, I think I would like to reach out to Dave Zomac and to Paul Backelman about a variety of these topics. And then you could certainly send a follow-up. Okay. Thank you. Would you send me a copy of what you send out, then, Maureen? Sure. It may be just a phone conversation or in-person conversation about these topics. Okay. So you can go ahead and send your email. Yeah, don't wait. Okay. But I will, as the staff liaison to this board, talk to the town manager and assistant town manager about these topics because they obviously know that these are important topics that need to be addressed. And unfortunately, things have been delayed. In particular, this year, I don't know what the work capacity is in other towns, but I do know that everyone in town hall is working well over 40 hours every week, sometimes six, seven days a week for the entire extent of 2020 and into 2021. And so it has been a very strenuous year for probably all departments. So I don't want to defend Guilford by any means, but I do know that all departments have been working over capacity. And I would say, frankly, are at burnout levels months ago. Right. Well, I will only move forward with an email to Paul if that's what the committee wants me to do. Okay. So we'll give you a little shot at this, but let's move on to the grants. You have three grants listed there. One is 2020, one is 2022, and one is, I think we talked about the MOD one. Yes. So if you've been in downtown lately, in context of the 2020 MOD grant, the contractors have finished redoing the sidewalk, which is known as Pleasant Walk. It is the sidewalk adjacent to the old Starbucks location. It connects downtown to the parking lot and garage behind like Antonio's. So that has been officially completed. And the crosswalk right next to Pleasant Walk, which is in front of the old Starbucks and CVS, they should be, that should be finished or is about 90% finished. And that should be finished in hopefully the next couple of days. And then once that is completed, they will be redoing the crosswalk at the intersection of North Pleasant and Coles Lane, where Brugel's Bagel is located. And so that hopefully should be completed by the end of this month. And so that's good news and more good news. And I'm very, again, proud of this committee. So a couple of meetings ago, I had told you that the town was applying for a third round of a mass DOT shared streets and spaces grant application. And so a couple of meetings ago, I told you the sort of initial proposal. And then after discussion, we as a group helped sort of evolve the grant application. So we were awarded the grant and I'll show you, although I'll just, I'll show you the images and describe them. So you view the work needs to be done by the end of December 2021. Wow. Yeah. And that's cool. Yeah. So let's just go to this page. So that's, if anybody doesn't remember that's the Triangle Street, Triangle Street and Prey Street and East Pleasant Street and Prey Street. Correct. Yes. So this image shows Triangle Street where my mouse is. And so they're going to redo all the crosswalks at Prey Triangle and maybe North Whitney Street. I can't remember what street this is. No, not North Whitney. Hi. No, I forget. Where are you? Hold on. Maybe I can figure this out. It just keeps jumping. Sorry. Well, it's the little side street that brings you back to like Chestnut Street. I can't think of it. I can't either. But that little street, anyways. It brings you back to Chestnut Street from where? From where TD Bank North is. And well, where Prey Street exits onto Triangle Street. If you're on Prey Street, you could take a left or a right onto Triangle Street. Oh, you mean Cottage Street? Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah. Of course. Okay. Okay. So that's the one that I would use all the time. So that's really great. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for remembering. I knew it was Cottage Street. Okay. So anyways, they're going to redo the crosswalk there. I'm going to zoom in here. And they're going to add the rectangular rapid flashing beacon signs on both sides of the crosswalk. And I advocated that a third one would be added here. I can't see your mouse. Yeah. Sorry. So if you're on the north side of Triangle Street, there will be a RRFB, the rectangular rapid flashing beacon sign, which will be solar run. And it will also have audible signal as well. So then you would cross over to the south side of Triangle Street. And then you would, I don't believe there is a sidewalk on that side of Prey Street. So then you would cross over to the over again onto Triangle Street to connect to the Prey Street sidewalk, which is for the full extent of Prey Street, which then connects you to East Pleasant Street. And it makes a right angle turn. Yeah. Correct. And so I will say currently there are no crosswalks along Prey Street. It's just kind of like a sidewalk. There's also not a continuous sidewalk. Yeah. Because there's like little parking lots. Yeah. It's not easy. Actually, I did it. Yeah. It's not easy. But maybe we can, a little bit at a time. So can we actually, Elise, you might actually walk around there too, is can we meet with people to make sure we understand how they're going to do it and where they're going to do it? Because I know that it's possible that we could, you know, that small changes can be made. I'd like to ask Elise about the ones that are finished on North Pleasant. Have you crossed in that new crosswalk by CVS? I don't, yeah, I have, but I don't think it's finished yet though. It's not finished yet. Yeah. They strolled upon a lot of... What is the texture and visual? Like, what can you see there and what's the, what would you be able to feel there with your feet or your cane? I think they might have put in, I don't see much, I don't think there's much difference yet. I think they did put in a tactile thing near the curb. I think they did that. I've kind of been avoiding it during the construction. So I haven't used it much. Maury, do you know how people are going to know if they're in the crosswalk going straight? Is there any kind of tactile anything on the street there? Yes. So similar to this application or approved grant and the MOD grant is that there's going to be imprinted thermoplastic crosswalks with detectable warning surfaces. So... Okay. I mean, I heard that. I don't know what that means. Maury, do you know what that means? I haven't used it much because I, you know, there's construction and I haven't really felt safe walking around there yet. Yeah. It's been very noisy. Marty, do you know what that is? I think it's what they use at UMass. It's a poured product that they then stamp. Oh, yeah. Exactly. And so it's not actually brick. It may look like brick, but I believe it would be concrete with a stamp. It's not concrete. It's thermoplastic. Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's a flexible material. The problem with the concrete is that it cracks up. Got it. Thank you. So it's a flexible material. So you should be able to tell when you're using a cane, you should be able to tell when you're on that versus asphalt because it's going to have a different response. You should be able to, but I think you said a couple of... You mean that's the one over by the University Drive roundabout? Yeah. Okay. It might be a little bit easier if I knew it was a straight run with the University of Drive one. It's not the easiest thing to feel, but if you had time, it would be okay. Okay. So I have a question. If it's like an overlay, does it get slippery when wet? It's not an overlay. It's a different product. If you go to the crosswalk between CVS and the old Starbucks that we were talking about that's unfinished yet, you'll notice that the surface of the walkway right now is about an inch and a half lower than the rest of the street. And it's cut very straight because they're going to put this thermoplastic material in that lowered area. So it's flush with the road and it's stamped. Okay. So it's not like an overlay. It's actually a product that you drive over and walk on. So similar to the ones near the curb texture? No. It's different. The curb cuts have a particular texture. They're a little round. Truncated domes. Yeah. Truncated domes. Thank you for the right one. Yeah. Okay. So this is a different thing. Okay. Well, that's good actually because then you know you're coming up to a curb. Yeah. They don't have a visual like they'll have a big line on the side. So it's very visible where it is. Or does it end up having stripes across it? Oh, excellent. I don't know. How do they do it? They paint it. There's a surfacing paint they put on it and the standard around here has been red in the center and then foot-wide white stripes on either side. Oh, that should be very visible. Oh, yeah. It does. It does turn out to be very visible. Yeah. And so if you can see the image that I'm showing you, that's what Marty was describing. And then there would be the truncated domes at the I guess the landing at the end of each end of the crosswalk. And so just let me go back to the slide I was going to show. One more. And so give me one second. So we talked about the improvements along the triangle prey cottage street intersection and then the crosswalks along the full extent of prey street and then there'll be a new crosswalk provided along East Pleasant Street which then connects to the existing crosswalk over to Kendrick Park. And again, that will all these crosswalk replacements will have the imprinted thermoplastic crosswalks with the truncated domes on each side. And then so at the East Pleasant crosswalk, they'll add the rectangular rapid flashing beacon signs with audible signals on both sides of that crosswalk. And so that will be a such a wonderful addition to downtown creating a corridor for folks coming from the neighborhoods of high street, cottage street, Chestnut Street, the middle school, the high school, anyone, any ages, any mobilities that want to go from there to connect to downtown, you know, either to Kendrick Park or to the downtown library or shops, restaurants, etc. So yeah. Coming from Chestnut Court as well. I mean, it's anything up East Pleasant Street. And Chestnut Court is very close to there as well. Correct. Yeah. So yeah, this is definitely a win-win for all, you know, all demographics that are want to come into downtown and want to leave downtown and want to take a safe way if you're coming as a pedestrian. So yeah. So this is wonderful. And thank you so much for your recommendations specifically for the crosswalk improvement at East Pleasant Street. How about handicapped parking? Well, that's not in this scope of project, but we can certainly take a look at that in the future. I mean, if they're going to put so much money into this, couldn't they spare some more to focus on the handicapped parking because that's an issue in downtown? Sure. Again, that's not in the scope of work for this specific grant, but I can certainly relay the message to staff about whether more on-street ADA parking spaces or off-street ADA spaces could be provided in downtown. So there's also a lot going on right now with the town they're talking about maybe putting in another garage, but maybe yes, maybe no. And there's, there are a lot of people on the town council, my counselors for sure, who seem to believe that there is much more than adequate parking downtown if only people would be willing to not get out of the car and walk right into the building in front of it. So I think if you have a concern, I think it would be really good if you wrote that up in a way that you could, I don't know if you can quantify what we've got or what we need, you know, and where we need it, but there are a lot of town counselors who do not see parking downtown as a problem and they're taking out parking. I know, especially the one in front of the town hall now that's going to be abolished and there are a couple of handicapped parking places there. So, but what happens is because the handicapped parking is so limited and so difficult, what does it do? It discourages me from even going and trying there, you know, so, but that's a problem. I think you should talk about that specifically, like, I mean, I'd be happy to write a letter, but I don't really, because I don't drive a car. I don't know where the specific problems are and where the bad parking is, but they have voted to take it all out in front of town hall and they really do not think it's a problem. And no matter what people, and there are some people on the council who have said repeatedly that it's difficult for older people and it's difficult for this and it's difficult for that and it seems to just go over everybody's head. So, I lost that vote. I voted to keep the parking there along with Sarah Schwartz and Kathy Shane and some other people. Yeah, there was like eight to five or something. But anyway, I don't know what to do about that. So, if you could get specific, that would be really helpful because then we could write something that was specific. Like the Amherst Cinema, for example, parking by the Amherst Cinema is a problem. And once I parked behind the cinema, but it belongs to Bank of America. So, there was a guy and he wouldn't let me park there. So, you know, it's a challenge. So, what happens personally, I know if it is too difficult and I said, hey, I'm not even going to do my business there. But, you know, I mean, they don't realize it's a big problem because it is not encouraging people to use the town, but discourages some groups, unfortunately. I have a clarifying question. But I'll be, but I can, you know, write something up and share it with all of you. And I would appreciate that because then we can make it into something if it's specific. Tori, what did you have? So, they're going to take out the spaces in front of the town hall. So, do you mean are you talking about the on-street parking on Main Street or are you talking about that little parking lot, the upper parking lot on the green in the Amherst Common? Yeah, that one. They're taking out that parking lot altogether? Yeah. Yeah. Because the town council believes that it's supposed to be a public park and they don't think parking is a problem. I know some people do, but most of them don't. That parking lot is usually packed, especially if we have things going on downtown. Yeah. And there's at least two handicapped spaces there. Maybe more. I can't remember now, but... Oh, no, they say they have handicapped spaces in the upper. Pat, where are they going to be? The handicapped spaces. He says he's not taking those out. I'm sorry, what? Allegedly, they did make a question, there was a question about the handicapped spaces that would be lost. And I think Guilford said that they would be retained, they would be put someplace else, but I don't know where. So maybe just along the street. I just pulled up on my screen. This was the plan that was approved by the town council on May 24th. And you are correct, the parking spaces in the existing parking lot that's directly in front of Town Hall has been removed. There are two on-street ADA spaces along Boltwood Walk Ave. And those will remain. And then there's, of course, on-street parking along Boltwood Ave. for the full extent of that street. And then there is going to be added. Although this plan was approved by the town council, it still needs to be refined and adjusted accordingly as they get into the real construction details. So some of these layouts could be slightly different when all said and done. But there will be parallel parking according to this plan along Main Street. And I would suspect that there would be some of those that would be ADA parking spaces. Maureen, you can't make those, because the slope there, you're not going to be able to put handicap there. Got it. Okay. Well, yeah, that makes sense. Also, how do you get out of your car when the traffic is there? That's not accessible. Yeah. How do you get on your van? Lower the lift. Well, all very good points. So as you can see, if you can see where my mouse is hovering, where it says ADA parking spaces, these angled parking along Main Street don't say ADA spaces. So I was just kind of guessing. But no, that's a good point that because of the grading that that would be prohibitive of becoming an ADA space. I believe there is an ADA space along Main Street at the Main Street entrance to Town Hall. And there are there is a although this plan doesn't show the existing parking lot behind Town Hall, there are ADA spaces behind there. And I do know that the Shawn Mangano and is leading currently leading an effort to take steps about parking in downtown. And I'm sure that the this specific area will be revisited regarding parking and making, you know, more ADA spaces, perhaps the parking lot behind Town Hall, perhaps, you know, additional ADA spaces could be provided back there, if that's a concern for folks. But yeah, I just wanted to show you this plan that was approved by the Town Council. Marty has her hand up. Yeah, I have my hand up. So Boltwood is going to become one way south. That's right. So if I'm coming, if I'm coming in a van, and I need to park, the problem is that my van opens on the other side. So my ramp instead of being where it should be is going to be in the street. They need to review that. Because you can't park there and get out of your vehicle. So sorry, Marty. I'm such a visual person. So say you're driving down, driving down, you park here in a van. And then so then someone gets out of the van with a wheelchair, they're exiting out into the street. Into the street. They've got to put their ramp out into the street. Yeah. So what's up with, what do you think? So why couldn't they get out on this side? Because they don't have a door on that side. Yeah. The handicap van opens out on the passenger side, not the driver's side. Now, Sharon's car, you get out on the driver's side. No. Oh, you got a new car? On the passenger side. You got a new car? No, it's a big van. Oh, you don't have your little brown car anymore? Yeah. Oh, okay. No, it's not. Yeah, I have vans. Okay. I didn't realize that. And also, stay the lift opened on the sidewalk. There usually is not enough maneuvering space on the sidewalk also. So these parallel parking places are not suitable for van accessible places. Unless they're deep enough. Yeah. Because I have the same problem in my voting place in Monson Library. And I talked about this so many times and nobody listens, you know, so. So to get back to Marty's point, you know, well, depth is like the next layer of question. But if the ADA space, well, they can have two ADA spaces here and then add two more here or just swap them out and then make sure that this sidewalk, the grading and the width of the sidewalk aisle is wide enough to accommodate someone getting out of the van with that. It needs to be eight feet wide. So this says that the parking space is eight feet wide. The parking space is eight feet wide and the access aisle is eight feet. Right. You need 16 feet. Yeah. So, Maureen, is this going to be designed by Guilford or are they hiring somebody to do this? Wait, wait, everyone, just give me one second. I'm using my post-it to measure out the sidewalk. So yeah, the sidewalk looks like it's like five feet. Yep. It's way too long. I want five feet in those spaces. Well, you know, like everything, there's always, you know, it's a design challenge. And so now I'm going to go to the corner of this page and see who prepared it. So, give me a minute. Looks like Department of Public Works Planning Department. Conceptual plan. I do know that they are hiring a consultant to finalize the plans. And so, oh, survey prepared by, I do know that West, Weston and Sampson engineering firm did, was very heavily involved with the initial design. And I do believe that a consultant, perhaps most likely from Weston and Sampson, will be hired again to help finalize and create all the construction details in construction plans related to this project. And in the town is aware that you, as a board committee, has requested that you review this at both 95% review and at 100% review. 95 is so late. I thought we said 50. 50. And somebody had told me that even 25 is what we should be doing because 50, they've made a lot of decisions already. 25 is better. But 95 is no good. It's all done then. Yeah. Let me, I will go back to, I could, I could just have a bad memory. So I'm going to make a note to check on those percentages. So I think I would like a motion from this committee to ask Pat to go back to the town council and tell them that the plan as constituted for the, for the North common, while well intentioned has really cut off legitimate legal handicap parking for people who use vans, people who use a regular old car and just pull out there, you know, somebody pulls out the walker from the trunk is a different story. But if you are driving and if you are using a van, this is not going to work. And the town council needs to know that. And in fact, the town council should have been told that originally by the person who drew up the plan that you in fact will be losing van accessible spaces. Yeah. And if I'm not, but anyway, can I can I just interrupt? Is the, is the committee interested in having Pat talk to people about that? Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. And, and I, some old members might remember Chris Birstrom came to our meeting or we discussed a design prior to this one. And it was going to leave a couple of handicap parking places very close to the town hall. They didn't vote for that. So they were not? Huh? They didn't vote for that. They had the option. Oh, they did? Yeah. They had the option to vote for modified parking on the North Common or to get rid of it. And they voted to get rid of it. So who was not in this meeting? So what are your thoughts about not knowing intimately about these topics? Um, you know, does, does every ADA parking space need to be for a van? No, no. And can, can, if there is parking spaces behind town hall that would accommodate the 16 feet width for the space itself and for the aisle for a van, would that, would, would that be acceptable? Um, okay. State code says, I'm just looking for the number. One of every eight accessible spaces has to be van accessible. Every eight spaces. And that's MAAB. That's MAAB. Every eight, eight, eight spaces in a parking lot that are. Every eight accessible spaces. Every eight accessible spaces need. And that's within a parking lot. So if you have two disparate parking lots, each one has to have van accessible. So when we talk, talk about on street parking, I don't think MAAB regulations get into that. That gets into parking lots. MAAB actually, um, technically, uh, van accessibles are, are on street parking is not parallel parking is not allowed. No, you look at the red parallel parking for accessibility is not an option. Right. So you can, Maureen, you can have candy cap parking. Like I said, the person with the walker, the person who blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, like near the entrance to the blah, blah, blah, they have, there were regulations about how much of that you have to have per, per the number of spaces. We're not talking about that. We're talking about van accessible spaces. Yeah. Well, I'm actually talking about all that information to me. Um, it's just the 521 CMR. You can 521 CMR. It's, uh, there's a whole section on parking, which is chapter 23. Thank you. And there's diagrams and things, but parallel parking doesn't work for either, especially when it's on a one-way street, because if your passenger is driving and parking on a, on the side of the street, in this case, if your passenger gets out, they're not going, they're going to be in the street. There's not enough room. Whereas if the cars turn the other way, they could get off onto the, the path. It's nice having the path on one side. It doesn't work on a one-way street because you can't maneuver the car to get the access aisle. One of the reasons they did one way was so they want, because they thought they could sneak in more parking there. Um, and a lot of people objected to it. Um, but that's what they did. And I mean, if what they did is not going to be able to comply and is going to make parking with a van more difficult downtown. Yeah. And what way does that serve the public interest? It serves the people who ride bicycles to downtown. I know that they don't care about that. They want parks. I can see a solution to this. And that is simply make the path on the west side next to those parking spaces, eight feet. Then if you have a van, you can pull into those, make those handicapped. But I'd make both sides handicapped because you've still got the situation where the driver may be in a chair. Yep. So it's going to affect you know, which side of the street you're going to get off on. But that's the only way I can see solving it. Well, this has been really helpful for me and I've been typing all these notes. It's helpful for me and educational for me because I don't know all and that's okay. And that's why we have Marty. I don't know at all. I'm sorry to say this Maureen. This is what the director of public works who proposes these things is supposed to know. And that's of tremendous disturbance to me. And I don't know, Pat, you'll have to say whether the town council was really told about van accessible parking being compromised by proposal A or B. I don't know. No, we were not. I would argue or I'm not arguing, but it seems that my guesstimate is that the existing sidewalks I'm currently on but would have are five feet. Therefore, there is no van accessible parking spaces on Butwood Avenue. So there is if that is the case, there would be no removal of van accessible parking spaces because they're taking them out of the parking lot. They have to put them back somewhere. Yeah. Right. Can I get back to the 50%, 95%, whatever, because that grant you just got, that's fantastic. I want to make sure that they have a consultant or at least that they even talk to, I don't want to be the expert. I'm not even that good. I don't want to be the expert. I want them to make sure that there's somebody who's looking at that plan to tell them, yes, that is the absolute best place to put that. That is the way that you should demarcate it. The curb has to come up to here. The curb cut should be like this. There are people who know this stuff. I could provide you with a potential consultant who could tell them exactly, yeah, this is great. Put it right there or no, it would be really much better for visually impaired travelers if you move it this way. They need to not rely on themselves or on just a regular traffic consultant. Since you're doing this for accessibility, it has to end up accessible and they could easily do it wrong. I'm happy to say that the town is working with Stantec Engineering Firm, which is, I believe, an international engineering firm. Yeah, they have 50,000 employees. They have provided much guidance with all of these three rounds of mass DOT grants, including this one. They will be shepherding us through this design process. I'd sure like to know, since I'm going to be using it, I would sure like to know which side of the Prairie Street, Triangle Street intersection they're going to put that on. Where are they going to put the crosswalk? Is it going to get me to a place that, on the other side, that is accessible? I want to know that. I'll go there and look at it and come up with a plan. They may be right for sure, but I want to make sure that they are going to be right because it's a lot of money to spend and there's not going to be another shot at doing it right. I have no confidence in the town, maybe the consultant, but I have no confidence in the town, in the DPW. Neither do I. Well, folks, we're winding down to almost one o'clock. The next meeting, let's see here, is the second Tuesday of August, which is August 10th. Does that work with everyone? Usual time? It would be way better for me if it could be a different week. The next week, does anybody care? Yeah, I would prefer that the following week too. The 7th. August 17th. Can people do the 17th? Yes. I concur because I'm going to be out of town too and I have to call in. So, August 17th. Okay. Is there someone that doesn't work for? Let me just check. Did Zander ever make it? No. She just sent me an email saying sorry. Oh, okay. Yeah, I can do the 17th. Is there anyone who can't? No, I can do it. I can do it. Me too. Okay, great. Tori? Yeah, I can do it. Excellent. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Well, Pat, I would love it if you would report what you feel like you can report. Maureen, thank you for all of this. We're being very demanding of you, but I really appreciate your incredibly good naturedness about it. It's my pleasure to work with you. It's my pleasure working with you and seeing this through and using my privilege to the benefit of those that lack visual ability or mobility. So, I'm happy to use my privilege for your benefit. And as a planner, my sole responsibility is to serve the public interest. So, I'm happy to be part of this discussion. Well, thank you. Maureen, thank you, Marty, for all that work you did really. Yeah, thanks. Because it would never have been done. Thank you so much. Maureen, could you send me your notes? They don't have to be just on the parking stuff? Sure. That would be very helpful. And then I can contact Paul and I can contact the council. There won't be a council meeting until August 2nd, I don't think. But I will get the information out to counselors before then. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, let me make these into full words and sentences. Yeah, well, yeah. And I'll send them off. Okay. All right. Well, have a great rest. Thank you, everyone.