 Good evening. Hi. Hi. We should have Becky and. One other person to have a quorum, but Rika can't make it. Greg may or may not make it, right? So it's a way that a new member, she'll be here. And then we could do introductions and welcomes and then kind of talk planning for the next application round. Oh yeah, I guess I left my notepad somewhere else. Well, hello, is that Zoe? I think, I think you're still on mute. Hi, how are you? Nice meeting you. Nice to see you. Welcome. Because I'm about to go online. Becky is not muted. Hi. Well, thank you. Nice to see everyone. Nice to be part of this. I think we're two people. I'm just going to, I just need to pull up my, um, my opening statement that I have to read. Yeah. I was saying that Greg emailed me not long ago and said he's not feeling good and Rika can't make it. So. Oh, okay. So we're not waiting for it. This might be it. Okay. I'm just, you know what Nate, for some reason, my, um, my statement that I give has vanished from my desktop. I remember the gist of it. Yeah, the gist of it would be fine. Is that fine? Okay. All right. Then I will kick it off and just say that by the authority vested in us by Governor Moira Healy, we're holding this meeting by zoom. Um, there was an act that was passed and that I believe she. Continued. Um, and that gives us authority to have this meeting by zoom. And so that's what we're going to do. And so with that, we'll start our meeting. Is there anybody in the waiting? Is there anybody other than us, Nate? It doesn't. There's one attendee right now. Okay. Yeah, I made you co-host Becky. So you can. Oh yeah, I see. Okay. Great. Okay. Um, so why don't we just do quick introductions? Um, and then we can get started with, um, with our new developments and the agenda, what's going on. So, um, I'm Becky Michaels. I'm the chair of this, um, of the advisory committee. And I believe this is my fourth year, um, first year of the committee. Um, I think I was the chair on the committee. Um, my first. Full year, I think as chair. Or starting my first four years. Sure. Though I did some last year as well. Um, so Suzanne, I'll just move to you because you're in my, in the order. Sure. Suzanne shilling. Um, I'm starting my second year on the committee. Um, and glad to be here again. Yes. Um, I'm probably the oldest member on the committee, Probably both, but at least at least of these members. And that's been a pleasure to serve and get to meet a lot of very interesting other fellow committee members so it's been a good experience. Yes. Hi, I'm Zoe. I was just recently appointed to the committee. So I'm looking forward to this work. Been, you know, part of, you know, Amherst for many, many years. So this is, this is, this feels really good, you know, being able to get back to the town, you know, that has really offered a lot to us over the years. Good. Thanks. Yeah. I'm Nate Malloy. I'm a planner with the town. I helped staff the committee and manage the block grant. Just a quick housekeeping. Zoe, did you get sworn in with a clerk? Have you? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I still have, I'm going to try to do that tomorrow. I think, I think I still have a reminder somewhere. I need to do that too. Thank you for bringing that up. I think I had a very tight timeframe to get, you know, a lot of statements in, you know, to be sworn in before, you know, accepting this. So I did this back in July. Oh, good. Yeah, we, you know, we, I was going to pull a meeting together in the fall anyways. I didn't think we were going to have a blocker around. Just because we had a, we have a two year grant just starting. And so I thought we were going to have some time off before our next application, but we don't. So we're meeting the, if there is one vacancy on the committee, I was like one announcement and I know the town manager is aware of it, but at this point, I'm not sure it will be filled. And I'm not sure it's necessary. There's six members that someone came on in the next month or two. I feel like you would be right in the middle of the process and it'd be hard to kind of jump in. So, I mean, we, you know, it may be filled. If not, I'm okay with waiting until after the application is due. It's not. Yeah, I think that may make sense. I had the opportunity to Nate and I met yesterday and went over kind of the upcoming timeline of this of the grant which we've just learned about. It's definitely a pretty tight timeline. So probably the more we can just launch in with with just us, the better. So I just have to say it's so funny that we have like a Fort River group here I think all of us are our Fort River parents right. Oh, so I also you are. Yes. What, what age are yours. So they're older now they're all in college I have my oldest daughter is 22. She's a senior at UMass and then the twins are just turned 20 and they are sophomores at UMass. Oh, wow. Okay. My daughters are 17 to 25. So yeah, it's been a few years since Fort River but Yeah, for all of us. So just to kind of bring the soy up to speed a little bit. And then we can kind of go into this where we're at now. So in the past, the block grants had always been done in a year cycle. And then in the last round, we were received essentially double the funds and were in a position to give out two year grants. And it was the, we had the, it was the restrictions were the same and that we as always have are able to get to up to five social service agencies and up to three different non social service activities, but the amount of money was double the amount. So it was intended to last for a two year period of time. And then the assumption as Nate mentioned before was that we would then not really be in a position to be giving money out again for another year. And so to be doing this process next fall for 2025. But instead or for 2026. Right. Because this goes. Yes. But instead, it turns out that we are being given the, another round now. And so we're in a position where we have, there's going to be essentially a year overlap between the two year grant period. And then the one we're going to be deciding now where we can. We'll, we'll essentially go through the entire process that we will be going through and the same organizations can apply for grants with some restrictions. And then we also have the opportunity to look at some of the organizations. Obviously, the last time we weren't able to give to because of the five, the cap on giving to five and think about giving to them as well. So it's kind of an exciting position to be in because I know at least speaking for myself, but I think probably for everybody. It's really hard to not be able to give to everyone because there's nobody who applies who isn't doing really important work. So I'm excited at the idea of really feeling really good having given a lot of money to five organizations already and having that in the back of our minds as we look to other people who to other organizations that apply. The sort of bad news of that is that it was a sort of a sudden announcement, or at least I guess came to us. It sounds like fairly recently Nate right with a pretty short timeline in terms of the process of getting out doing all of the required public meetings and public hearings and then getting the RFP written and then out and then back and then reviewing it. And we have to have everything in by its March 4, is that right Nate submitted so we have between now and March 4 to do all of this work which we often have a longer period of time for. So what we're hoping to do in this meeting is go over what the schedule will look like and kind of a to do list of what we need to get done. Every step of the way and and then essentially set up what will be or lay the framework for our next meeting which will probably be a more substantive and longer meeting where we really kind of dig into what the RFP looks like what kinds of changes we may want to make to the to what we're looking for and asking applicants for it. Great. Thank you. Yeah. So, um, I guess, you know what Nate I realize I apologize for being disorganized on this I don't have the agenda in front of me so I may be going out of order but the next thing on the agenda was just an update on current activities. Okay, so maybe do you want to do that and then we'll we'll talk a little bit about next steps. Yeah, I'll say Zoe we can. If you go to the town's website and you go to the block grant committee web page so under boards and committees, CDBG advisory committee. We have all the grant years and funded activities on the sidebar menu and we have documents from last year up there still so the request for proposal. We have to have a strategy and some other things so that's all available still the typically we have you know one to three grants active at the same time. So we you know they overlap eventually, because they can be extended. So right now we only have one active grant really it's a 21 grant. It typically would expire at the end of this calendar year we have one activity. Hickory Ridge trails were trying to get a trail through Hickory Ridge to connect East Howley Road neighborhoods down to the Pomeroy Village intersection and it's been taking longer just to get that kind of permitted and design. I guess it's designed it's now permitting it's been permitting for a while. There's some natural heritage and sensitive habitat there with endangered species. I was talking to Becky about it's just it's kind of, you know there's a turtle that's a federally endangered turtle so we have to really careful that and then there's freshwater muscles in the river that are also federally listed and so the towns met with wildlife and biologists and now I guess they we have to meet with muscle biologists to figure out the river and it's kind of funny because it was a golf course right and it was. You know for years probably had worse chemicals and everything put in the water and the ground and we're just using the existing bridge abutments and the bridges we're actually letting most of it go wild and so it's just strange that we have so much compliance to do but and then the 2223 grant that Becky alluded to the two year one we're just getting that kicked off now so the state will say if you read any documents they say oh we'll apply in the spring and awards will be made in July but typically we don't get contracts out even from the state until September and activities don't start until October or November so the social services for the 2223 grant started on November and all the other activities won't probably start until the spring and then with this new round we're looking to apply for we'll apply in March and then we'll get funding next fall and yeah so there's it's somewhat interesting that the two grants will be overlapping and so typically we wouldn't have such an overlapping time period and I've asked the state what that means for funding social services and the catch there is typically you can't get to two grants in this for the same activity unless it's an expanded activity so you know it could be difficult for someone all of a sudden just to ramp up and say oh yeah well now we're going to increase services substantially to show an expansion to apply for funding for this coming round and we've had some emails back and forth and they haven't really decided how they'll what they'll do on this so there might be some more guidance coming in the next month but so just to give a concrete example so for example the survival center has used CDBG funds for the food pantry so are you saying Nate that they'd be difficult for them to say well we're expanding the food pantry and getting funds for that but it might be easier for them to apply for a different activity that's not food pantry or right right so they could apply for something else or you know say for instance the food pantry they're like oh well now we're giving we're you know we're doing more vacations or camps or we're expanding hours and it's a demonstrable expansion you know for instance when back now we're talking about something like big brother big sister and we'll say oh we're doing 25 matches with block grant for the year and an expanded activity might be like it might be hard for them to say oh well now we're going to try to do 40 because it's really just the same activity and so you know some of it is it's a little nuanced and I want to work with the state to determine what they mean by kind of that expanded activity so you know like Center for New Americans we teach we support their classes that they teach but they also do legal services and citizenship classes like for instance they could apply for that it's different yeah so I'm not sure where that's going to land and so it could be that we typically fund five social services we don't have to we could fund none we could fund two three whatever five is the max and we typically fund five we've been doing that for years but it could be that this year we we don't recommend five to the town manager we build up to the grant amount so there's 825,000 available to Amherst there's a percent for admin for staff and personnel and things but we build it up so you know we have to you know if we don't have enough activities we can apply for 825 if we don't have the money so typically we don't have a problem with that but we do need to make sure we have enough activities to build the full amount and then yeah I think when I emailed the do you think maybe you'll have a response back about really what it means to have a clear expansion of the program before we do have a the public hearing I think so yeah I mean actually the program rep just emailed me today and said let me know what you think about this like you know I think we're like it sounds like the state's still considering so I might even just say don't even like who not even have it be an expanded activity because for instance it could be that most of the programs we fund we only fund a small portion of their budget and so to me it's like well you know if we're funding 40% of a position at family outreach and they want to fund the other 60% next year who cares I mean it's not like you know I think they're worried about supplanting and other things but yeah I don't know I'm considering writing and just saying you know can you be a little more flexible in terms of the expanded piece just because of this overlap and I know some other communities are also considering this like how does that you know there's other you know it's statewide so how do you manage that yeah obviously we want to be as crystal clear as we can so people aren't wasting time and grants it will turn out we can't actually fund just like thinking out loud for a agency that that you know in that example if we're funding 40% they want to fund another 40% 60% or something wouldn't it be easier for them just in terms of record keeping and and compliance and everything to have all the CDBG funds going to one activity and then using whatever other cash they have for other activities rather than splitting into two CDBG activities and have to do the compliance for both it would yeah I mean it's and it's almost like you're you know it's really redundant in terms of reporting everything else too so yeah I you know it's just I think the state's worried about supplanting so I don't know if it's a state regulation or if it's just a guidance they say typically you know you wouldn't fund a social service that receives state or local funding within the last 12 months unless it was you know already receiving funding or as an expansion so you know I think there's I think it's probably more of like an accounting principle not like a CMR or a state law or anything and so it might just be that we could clarify how that could work this year with you know because it could be a 12 month overlap 15 month overlap which is pretty big yeah so I think for now doesn't I don't think we have to worry about it I think we can put out you know do our work and then get some guidance you know I was looking at the calendar last year you know the application was due at about the same time but we know the committee was meeting in the summer to start the outreach and so I was going to say that when I emailed you to schedule this meeting I think I had just received the email the previous day saying that there's going to be this next application round so it really is a truncated process and so the state does want you know some public outreach to determine priorities and community needs and then you know we we have to hold public hearing on the community development strategy and also to try to get some public input it has to be held two months before the application is submitted and then we have to hold the second public hearing on the recommended activities for the grant so and then it takes a few weeks to actually put the full application together so you know Beck and I went through dates and it really you know it's like you know there's not a lot of there's not a lot of room for for missing or moving things by weeks and so I mean one recommendation that I'm a you know a number of communities met to talk about this we might ask the state to see if they can push the deadline back you know six weeks or something just to give everyone a little bit more time but I'm not sure that would happen so I think I think we should you know plan out map out a schedule for the next three four months and then we could adjust accordingly but I'm not you know even if they might push it back two weeks I mean I think six was a starting point knowing that we might negotiate to like three or four weeks but one of the things that we did last time so I just so you know is we created a survey to send out to the community and had it distributed like through COSA and through a lot of the grantees asking community members what their priorities were in terms of funding so giving some options and then giving another category but you know housing youth services mental health services transportation that sort of thing and we received back I think in the neighborhood of like 250 responses is that right neat about that I think I forgot yeah yeah around there maybe maybe less and so we had talked last time around about figuring out how to get that survey out more broadly before we did the next round but I think Nate and I in our discussion yesterday agreed that that's really not going to be possible given the truncated timeline but one of the things we thought we could do is before our public hearing is actually advertise that a little bit more broadly and and and also create I think it was an online forum is that we called it Nate where people could submit their ideas and thoughts about priorities. Usually at the public hearings the primary people who are attend our representatives from you know executive directors from the organizations that are applying but if we sort of at least advertise a little bit more broadly that there's a way for community members and consumers to let us know their thoughts that we might get a little bit more feedback in that and we can send information out about that in the school newsletters and the COSA newsletter we can ask the organizations to put it into their own newsletters that they send out so that might give us at least some feedback from the community I mean in general you know the the needs are also you know it's food and housing and and I mean all the things that we all all know of but it's good to hear back if there are particular areas that turn out to be the major priorities that people are writing about so we thought we would try to do that to kind of make up for not being able to do a more targeted survey that would then come back to us that we could then analyze and look through and all of that. And so that will be so I think that sort of goes to Nate's point that we shouldn't assume that we're going to get extra time on the back end and should just kind of move forward assuming that we have this this short period of time. So we talked about the having our next committee meeting be on November 28 and that that would be so the last week of November as an opportunity for us to look at the RFP and develop the strategy and the target areas and make sure that the RFP, which we did rewrite recently so hopefully it will not need too much work but but have a look at it so we can all make sure that it says what we wanted to say that we're including all of the areas that we want applicants to to write to write about in their grant applications and that that will give us and that the community outreach we can then we can start that now but we can sort of continue that past November 28 and then plan on having our public hearing where we often hear back from organizations on about December 12 and the idea would be then that we would hope to get the RFP out on by December 15 with a return date from organizations on and I'm not able to read the number I wrote here I think that we say January 18th Nate we said 16th I think we I couldn't tell if I wrote a six or an eight I think it was the 18th and then we said the 16th okay so I wrote both yeah so if we just pause for a second I actually think I'll go back and look at the survey that was done last year to me that's still a relevant planning document in terms of community priorities and need the state wants each community that applies to have they call like meaningful public participation which is fine I just laugh because then they to me it's like oh they think the priorities will change but we often say you know how much do some of these priorities change year to year I mean some of them are just kind of basic and fundamental and so you know sometimes things might a little bit but I feel like you know Amherst we try to have like you know we have anywhere from three to five kind of community service oriented priorities might have a priority for capital projects whether that's you know like sidewalks or housing and honestly that doesn't change much I think what what some communities might do is they really say that they only have one community service priority like a food pantry or you know something and then they only fund one activity and we try to go a little bit broader than that so I think that yeah like what Becky said I think you know I'll work on updating the the committee's web page we can set up an online form through the town's website and if we you know get this information into the newsletters with the schools and others soon we could advertise the December 12 public hearing and you know really as Becky said you know let people know that it's both for organizations and for community and for residents to provide comments on what they think our priorities and then I just want to make sure that we have a quorum that night so you know the dates every time we have a meeting so the 28th of November December 12th you know we need at least four committee members there it's everything will be over zoom for the foreseeable future and then and then like Becky said once we have this public hearing we have an idea of what we'd like to do we then try to get the request for proposals out that same week and then give people a month to respond with their proposals and then you know that it's not the best time of year but the state I think they're going to stick with this kind of early spring deadline for towns to apply so they had tried doing it in the summer or early fall so then the process was a little different and I don't think the state like that actually just because of the way their fiscal year runs and so you know unless we and unless we knew this application round was happening in July then we could you know we can have more time and stretch things out a bit but knowing that we have you know we just received notice of it it puts a little pressure on on us and so you know block grant has to fund a majority low and moderate income individuals for services or you know capital projects and so I was just going to share my screen I don't know if I send this out I worked on it the other day and the state allows us to justify it using block groups so outlined in yellow are our senses are block groups and then the green are income eligible where a majority of residents are considered low mod and you can see the percentages just you know as a label there and so so you know if we were doing a project somewhere that's not in green we typically would have to do income surveys or justify it somehow that the end user was presumed to be low mod and then additionally but we can see here see in these outlines there is this red outline here this is kind of we have to have target areas and so we probably can't have any more than three most places probably have one or two but we've had three target areas so we have this town center target area which is somewhat an odd shape to capture Olympia Drive and Olympia Oaks at one point the East Amorous Village Center here and then Pomeroy down here and you know these can change the boundaries could change we could flip flop on a target area is meant to be you know geographic area in town that is eligible for block grant funding but also a place where the town is doing other other projects and other activity so where we're either investing in development or you know there's private development happening and so we've had these three target areas for a few years and so you know the challenge in Amherst is that you know we couldn't propose a project in North Amherst say a public infrastructure project in North Amherst to do sidewalks on Summer Street because one is not in an income eligible area and it's also not in a target area and so if we did really want to do a product in North Amherst we'd want to change it and make it a target area and then we'd have to be able to somehow get enough information about the demographics to say it's a majority low mod and so you know the tricky part is is that actually and so we've often fund housing projects with the housing authority or housing projects that are aimed specifically at low mod individuals that's easy if we're doing sidewalks in some of these green areas if the block group is a majority significantly low or moderate income you know like 60 or 70% then the state says okay sure everyone within the walking distance is income eligible and so they don't really question it too much but it does leave you know there's a lot of area in town that isn't and it's difficult to justify say public infrastructure or public parks or something in areas that are low mod but importantly if we do get applications for those non-social service activities that are in any of those areas if we are able to justify it the target areas can be changed to match where we want to fund so we're not yeah so we like we have a target area but we can change our target area so that right yeah I mean you know there's a for instance in North Amherst you know especially around coals in this triangle you know there's the new library addition there's work happening up here I mean you could say that there's a lot of things happening in North Amherst that would make it could make it a target area it's just you know because it's not in an income eligible block group it's really hard to say what kind of capital project is there unless for instance I'm not going to be able to do that I'm not going to be able to say what kind of capital project is there unless for instance in a affordable housing project or something came forward and really wanted to to do something so anyways yeah this is this this would be the map I put online showing you know what are the you know for now the draft target areas and the income eligible areas and I just to clarify you probably know this already but I remember having questions about this early on the target areas only apply to the non-social service activities right so the infrastructure in the town that not not to the social service that correct okay I get make sense yeah yeah right so the social services you know they you know most of the activities have to complete a self declaration form and they keep it on file so someone will complete some demographic information as well as household size and income and then they self certify that they meet you know that a majority of the beneficiaries or participants are low mod for a for a social service activity and so and that works out fine because some of the populations are presumed to be low mod by HUD, so if you know a food pantry, HUD assumes that users of a food pantry are probably we still have to do the declaration form but you know so most of the social services are pretty they you know it's considered a limited a limited clientele that is majority lower moderate income you know I was trying to think if there's one if there's you know I'm trying to think of what if there's a social service you know well for instance if the senior if there was a senior service for seniors and Amherst we'd have to HUD has some some information and we'd have to look at the census information and say that you know say the majority of you know 55 plus or whatever the target age would be an Amherst as low mod and it might not be so for instance say there was a senior center proposal or some activity we'd have to confirm that they were reaching a majority low mod because HUD doesn't presume that just because of age that you're a lower moderate income householder individual so going so the our idea the schedule as we're looking at is that the RFP would be due back on the 16th and that we would give our initial questions we would turn those around by January 23rd and then so that's our opportunity just if we have questions that we want to ask back to the to the applicants and they would give their responses by January 30th and we would have our first meeting which would be our first public meeting where we would talk about and and hopefully decide on the February 6 I think was that the date that you had down the answer the 5th or the 6th so I we were focusing on Mondays and Tuesdays everyone just so you know just because those are days the days of the week that work best for Nate and me but if those really don't work for you we can try to have some flexibility and it might take I'll stop my share it might take two meetings to do that so the what the committee's done in the last few years is you know we get proposals and I'll get them out to you that hopefully that day and then you have a week to review them and just generate questions and then committee members send me the questions individually I'll compile that and send it out to each applicant and then as Becky noted they'll have a week to respond. I'll get those back out to the committee members and then you'll meet on February 6 you know 5th or 6th to review those and at that meeting it's a public meeting so applicants can be in attendance but we don't ask for presentations from them it's really you know I consider like a working meeting with the committee trying to figure out how to prioritize and recommend the proposal so the committee you know makes recommendations and then the town manager and the town manager then ultimately decides what's what's included in the town's application to the state but relies really heavily on the committee recommendations and so I think we've been able to do it in one meeting you know but I think we would you know hope we could do that it might take a meeting or two and then after we make those recommendations it goes to the town manager and then we have to hold a second public hearing at least two weeks before the application is due to receive comments on the recommended activities and so we were thinking on February 13 would be another public hearing at which time you know the public would be asked to comment on the recommended activities it's also a public hearing to do any revisions to the community development strategy or target areas or whatever we need to do to make the application so the February 6 meeting is a long meeting it can be and we try to keep them to two hours max but sometimes you know we like to give everybody an opportunity to all of any organizations that that come to the meetings an opportunity to present what they want to present although we're pretty strict with have you given everybody about three minutes and that's but then we also have a lot of discussion so that tends to be a longer meeting yeah and then usually you know it usually works out that we have review criteria and so it becomes like a weighted review a comparative review with each individual committee member and we'll end up you know again setting those to me before the six and so or we can just talk about them and it usually is that there's a few that are say higher priority or recommended and then there's a few that really have to be discussed by the committee in terms of the social services and similarly for non social service and once we get through that then typically the committee then looks at the budget just because oftentimes there's more funding requested than is available so then you have to decide how to allocate the budget you know is it is it a proportional allocation is it a ratio basis you know what how do you recommend someone for funding if they have to get partial funding and so that usually becomes a question and we rely on that to do some some different financial spreadsheets made some spreadsheets yeah there's really no wrong answer but it is it's an interesting thing because we've talked to the committees talked about you know if it's just a proportional amount someone could just knowing that they could ask for more thinking well the committee always gives me 70% so I'm just going to up my ask and so it's it really becomes a kind of a deliberative discussion and you know in terms of okay well what are there other sources of funding is it you know if you reduce funding so much doesn't mean a certain position may not get funded at all or could it be a half time position instead of a three quarter position and so you know that there's a little bit of that could take a little bit of time to really negotiate that you know and then and then hopefully before the 13th you know the town manager reviews it and then and then on the 13th we have this public hearing for you know additional comments and then applications are due on March 4th so it's a it's a pretty quick timeline so for the next meeting the one on the so just November 28th good for everybody who's here is that work yeah it'll work so for that meeting if everybody could take some time to look over the RFP which is on the the committee website and and think about any changes you'd want to make any recommendations for whether they're new categories or new and on the last couple of years we've added in a question about race equity I think we also added in information asking for information about green you know how green the work is if that's applicable so any you know sort of different pieces that we want the organizations to highlight and and the non-social service organizations as well there's anything missing from there to look at that or you know likewise if there's anything we don't want to look into anymore to to shorten it. The application right now is a maximum of 10 pages although often we don't want to look into any more to shorten it the application right now is a maximum of 10 pages although often people will give attachments like an attachment of a budget you know or they're and they have to provide their org chart as well which is always an attachment and so those are not factored it those aren't part of the 10 page cap. The the target areas I mean we can spend some time talking about those but I I guess my recommendation would be that we wait and see what what applications we get because it may be that they all fit right in there and we don't actually have to play around with anything we can just leave it as is and move on to the next topic and and then the other thing is to think about whether there's any other community outreach that we can do or would like to try to do and that does remind me also Nate you had mentioned that there was recently the agent dementia friendly survey that that was you take a look at that talk to I guess that survey also was targeted and some to some of the same people and also in the same kinds of topics. So we can take a look at that. But I should be there should be a report on that to that. The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission is working with the town and so I think it's finalized it's probably through the senior center. So I can send that. Yeah so for the 28th I can try to send around the responses for the survey from last year and the agent dementia friendly survey. The request for proposals we can look at. And I think we've we've we've improved it I think every year we strengthen the review criteria and also the submittal requirements just so it's easier for the committee and also clear for applicants. You know we have some formatting requirements and things like Becky saying we added this page limit just so people aren't sending too much information. The state actually is pretty strict about what we submit the town submits to them to so the review by the committee. You know there's a comparative review and we have that criteria and it's actually what the state will use to then review and rank the proposals on our end. So we you know it makes it makes our job easier as a community as a town to submit our application because what we're asking applicants to submit just falls in line without the state scores our application. But they're pretty strict about page limits as well and so we're mimicking that. So anyways a request for proposal we have to submit the community development strategy every or every year now it's a. I think the limit is like a six page document that's supposed to summarize the community needs and then identify what activities are a priority and so I'll send that out I think it's also online but you know it might only need slight updates this year. The target area map as Becky mentioned I'll send that around that I just showed it'll go online. I agree I don't think we need to you know if we I think those target areas are fine if we and we need to change them a little bit because of activities that are requested we can do that. And then one of the blank rubrics. Yeah we do just so that so I can get a sense of kind of what it is that like what the scoring sheet looks like. Yeah so it's like we have this big table and we have like you know these categories here and across and then you put you know I don't know if we do like one to three anymore and but what we what it really gets to is a composite ranking. Across the activities for each member and so I don't actually need to see your individual score sheet or anything what we've asked people to do is just send me your rank order so if you have you know one through seven just send me your one through seven. And it can be with a note or two like this one's really strong and then other committee members do that and so then when we review them in February I'll just say okay you know here's the individual rankings of committee members and it's like oh here's the top two activities that really seem you know that everyone agrees with and and then here the bottom few if that's the case and so then we just work that way. But at least you have that you know you've gone through this kind of rational approach to review them. Yeah and I found it helpful when I saw that for the first time it just helped me at least sort of guide my thinking on looking at the RFP and what it was that I'm reading for and comparing from one to the other. So I found that really helpful. Yeah, yeah and I think we usually put the schedule online so if we like the meeting dates I can get that online. And I, you know, and I think for outreach. Like Becky said, you know, we'll try to get through the schools and COSA and some others but there's other ideas, you know you can send my send me your back in email and we can, you know figure out how to advertise. You know the idea would be to put everything on the committee webpage and that becomes where we direct people because everything is uploaded there and the schedule and everything. And sorry Zoe I feel like we keep throwing all this information at you but one other thing is that because we are that we are subject to the public meeting rules and so we cannot email amongst ourselves. So if you ever do have questions or a comment, just send it to Nate, and then he can email us to say, okay, that is an excellent, you know, yes, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess the community development strategy right. I was just looking at the one we use last year, the state, you know, they want us to this is why I think everything's so funny they want like meaningful public participation. They give us very little time and then we have to develop the strategy that's really supposed to encapsulate all the needs in the community, but it can only be three pages long. And so, it used to be sick. I think when I first started doing this was 12 pages, and then the state is like gosh this is probably too many strategies to read. They shortened it to six, and then I think last year they shortened it to three. And so, you know, I mean they get, you know, they fond up to 50 or 60 communities so it is, you know, they're probably trying to make their work a little easier. But so anyways yeah we have a three page strategy that could be updated a little bit. Yeah, I've already emailed staff, and I need to email some more people about just letting them know that this is happening, just to try to get proposals people ready, you know, thinking about it because it might be a surprise. So, is everybody clear so the next meeting will be November 28, and then after that the public hearing will be December 12. Yeah. Okay, great. I think all those dates ahead of time makes, you know, makes it a lot easier for us we can table them in. We can work around them. I don't know. So going down then in terms of the next, the meeting after that would be February, we're talking about February 6 that could also be February 5 that works better for people. May as well keep it 6th on the same Tuesday schedule. And then following that would be February 13. Yep. For the final public hearing. Okay, great. All right, terrific. And then we'll communicate that out to those who are not here tonight. Yeah. Great. And Nate, is that does that cover everything? Let me see the agenda. You know, we reviewed the current activities we discussed the, oh yeah, I, you know, I wanted the one agenda was discussed the 2223 grant startup and so, you know, we've just started the social service contracts. I was going to do a startup meeting with them. So typically we have a startup meeting we try to do a mid meeting and an end meeting. And I guess, you know, committee members are always welcome to attend. I, you know, we can always have site visits after they get started. But, you know, we are, I am getting those social services up and running. And like I mentioned, the other activities are, you know, construction based and won't happen to the spring. So environmental clearance is done before we can submit our current our 24 application or this current round of application. So I have a little bit of work to do because some of the activities are near, you know, rivers and other environmental things. So the, it takes a little bit of time we have to do local and then federal review and so our local doesn't have to be done but I have to clear everything federally to get started. So, you know, for instance, one of the activities is adding sidewalks on route nine and East Amherst from an intersection near Cumbies down to like Stanley Street so down by Colonial Village and Alpine Commons and the project itself is pretty big but because it goes to the river. It stops at the bridge. I just have, you know, and we're within riverfront I have to, you know, follow these, these federal steps, which takes I think like two months. I'm trying to get that started. But the grant seems like it should be fine. We're funding Valley CDC with micro enterprise assistance, you know, we have five social services. And then we have some infrastructure. And, you know, one thing I was going to do as well. I mean, we have I was going to send an email with the previous recipients of the grants we have one, and we can just keep that going so it helps with review to see who's been funded in the last few years. So I can get that up out there too. But I think for the current round, you know, I told Becky Valley CDC might submit something for a capital or non social service activity the town has an idea or two. But you know, it is not a lot of time for someone to come up with a project idea and then have plans or a budget and so I, you know, I'm hoping I'm assuming we can build up to the a 25 but it is it's, you know, really not a lot of time for someone to, you know, put a whole product together. But also on the agenda, I think the 24 application we've discussed everything there's still one person in the audience if you wanted public comment. I don't have anything that's unanticipated. So yeah, it looks like lab is raising her hand. I love you can unmute yourself. Thanks so much. I'm always curious and other people are in the audience. But thanks so much for all this information and really appreciate the committee's work and planning on this. I am wondering if you can say a little bit more about what you're anticipating in terms of the eligibility for currently funded programs, a clear expansion. How that will work and my sort of follow up question to that was it sounded like me at one point you were suggesting that there may be some types of programs that would be presumed to serve income eligible populations and thus wouldn't require individual income eligibility so I'd love to just hear a little bit more about that. If you can share. Thank you so much. Sure, I'll start with your second comment. No, what I to clarify, there's HUD presumes, you know, a few populations are are low mod. And so you just have to do a declaration form or an intake form. And if it's if it's not a presumed population, you actually have to do a lot more income documentation with each beneficiary. You know some social services they actually have to collect you know tax information, you know, bank statements and other things to document income eligibility but you know as a food pantry or English a second language classes. You know, those are two populations that HUD is presumed to be low mod so the self declaration form is sufficient for, you know, income eligibility documentation that that's what I was saying. Is that clarify it love. Definitely clarifies the second part. Thanks. Thank you so much for that. Can you clarify the first part in terms of expansion versus existing program. And I guess to not to put you find a point on it but my question comes up with where the immerse survival center is very grateful to receive current CDBG funding to support the food pantry. However, current funding is nowhere close to meeting the need in terms of supporting immersed residents. But our proposal for this year project like outlines all components of the food pantry not really which specific components CDBG is funding. So I guess I'm just curious if you could say more about that if there would be an opportunity. We could potentially even adjust the scope of the two year proposal to have then some other piece or. Yes, I would love to hear your thoughts or what you feel like that means in terms of existing projects versus expansions. Yeah, I mean the state has that in there because they're worried about supplanting so, you know, typically if you receive state or local funding. You can't then you know use new block grant money to then put those funds somewhere else and so when we ask an applicant to apply and we submit it to the state we have to have a full program budget to show, you know, if it's 100,000 block grants paying 40 or 60 coming from and so basically the blocking program knows or sees that the program has a full, a full budget and I think, you know, the was the concern there is if it's not an expansion and then you get funding for the same activity. A second bit of funding say another grant year that then you're displacing state or local funds and it could be a supplanting issue. And so, there's probably ways to show that it isn't but I think it you know it's a, it's probably going to be specific to each organization. So if for instance, you know, the survival center can show that there's a lot of private donations, or something like state or local as in a town funding, then it's not a supplanting issue but, for instance, say Center for New Americans gets, you know, Department of Early and Secondary Education funding. And then they are applying again and there's and it looks like that we're just now they're going to push off their desi funding to do something else and then fill that get fill that with block grant money that's actually supplanting and so, you know, and that's that's that's actually like a federal regulation and state regulation that that can't happen and so I think that's where the states probably trying to figure out how they can allow activities that are funded with a 2223 grant to then also receive funding in this next round I don't you know I think there's ways to but it sounds like it's less about the program being the same program and more about appropriately demonstrating where the dollars are from so that there's no supplantation of either state or local government funding. But if, for example, costs have increased because program use has increased and or other funding that was pending or projected at the time of the early earlier CDBG application hasn't come through. And there's no, it seems like it's not as much an issue of program as opposed to funding supplantation. Am I is that accurate or am I misunderstanding you. No, it's both. So the regulations work now it has to be a programmatic expansion. But I think we could, for this coming round, make the case that it could be a funding, you know, if there's a funding gap or something that whether or not it's a programmatic expansion that it could be funded to have overlapping funding. But the way the block grant regulations work now or the state program is it's a actually it's a it is a programmatic expansion. And it might just be easier for them to do that than try to nuance every activity to see if it's supplanting. So, you know what their guidance document says is that it has to be a clear programmatic expansion. It's, you know, for the survival center and other organizations that consistently receive block grant money. It's not an issue because even if you miss a year, it's less than a year before you get another round of funding so you never have. You know there's never an issue of oh somehow you've backfilled your budget and now you're going to have a supplanting issue but for instance, some organizations. If they, you know, get some funding and then they miss a year or two and they apply again. And then, you know, it's like oh well we're getting all this other state grants but we don't want to do anything we're not expanding our program. And now we're going to take block grant money and just, you know, like I said move state money somewhere else. And so, I don't think the block grant program wants to look at each agency's budget in detail determine if it's a planting. So the easy way to say that is it can only be funded if it's a programmatic expansion because then they know there has to be new money coming in to fund the expansion of the program. So, but for this year, I think we could request that, like I said that they look more detailed in terms of funding gaps and budgets and so that even if a program is not quote expanding their activity, their services but their budget isn't, you know, they're not having a supplanting issue then it could be funded and so that's, that's what I'm going to recommend to the state. And so it's going to be, you know, I don't know what, how they'll, how they'll view that. Thank you so much for all that additional context. Right, well it's kind of like the five social services, the state does it I think just to keep their books easier to track. You know, I mean, I don't think there's a magic number there. So it looks like love is the only attendee. So, did anybody have any other questions or comments. All right, great. Then we will receive some good information from Nate between now and the 28th and we'll see everybody back on the 28th. Thanks everyone much. Thanks everyone. Bye.