 I call this meeting to order at 10 o'clock we have are there any announcements okay we have no resolutions and proclamations and we have no hearings or we are moving immediately to our first action item which is the state station road bridge funding I have asked councillor Andy Steinberg to make the recommendations and we'll move then to approvals I'm gonna start with making a motion on the station road bridge funding item number one and then I want to make one comment on the something said at the public forum just for clarification purposes though it does flow from the written report that we've already presented the motion I'm making is to appropriate two hundred and twelve thousand five hundred dollars for the purchase and installation of a temporary bridge for the station road hopper bridge and to meet such appropriation transfer two hundred and twelve thousand five hundred dollars from free cash or period is there a second shallony is the second are there comments Andy so the the one thing that I was going to say about this is that the question arose during the public comments at the forum about the effect on other projects and that this was a topic that was referred to in the finance committee report this was not something that we did not think about we certainly did think about it and I made reference to the fact that we talked about how major project funding would work for funding for major projects which is a topic that the council is going to be coming back to over the next several meetings but basically the any plan to fund that number of major projects and the plan that had been in place from last year in the year before which was part of the proposal that had gone forward about the elementary school it was then rejected at town meeting on the bonding relied on four parts one was his reference seeking grants wherever possible to pay for as much of our projects as can be funded in this situation the bridge grant and then of course we've talked about MSPA and the mass board of library commissioners funding the second piece of it is that we as a community and do what any business and most homeowners do is you manage your debt and this you pay off some debt that frees up the capacity to take on other debt because you've built in repayment within the budget it's part of the capital budget and as we have a number of projects that we've had in the past that had funding attached to them that are expiring and that gives us the capacity to borrow additional funds for taking on new projects so that was the second element the third is the use of reserves and it had been the policy over a number of years that we had been strategically building up our free cash and stabilization fund in order to have money available to fund the projects that we're talking about which then left the last piece which is that some segment of it will have to be as an additional request to our taxpayers in a debt exclusion override to take on the additional debt that cannot otherwise be covered and of course as we probably all know the debt exclusion override was passed by the voters prior to the town meeting multiple votes and then the reconsideration by the voters and so that the debt exclusion had passed but the town meeting has said that they still did not want to borrow the funds as we take money out of reserves of a significant amount that's going to put pressure on that whole schematic that I just described and probably require that we have to ask for slightly more funds in debt exclusion override and that's something that mr. Mangano is going to help us analyze and understand in the future but the station road bridge we were looking at on the finance committee is an entire package of a permanent bridge to be funded to the maximum extent possible by the small bridge grant program the remaining funded out of town funds and the taking so so it's you know the decision to replace a bridge is going to be somewhere around $750,000 of additional money that is going to have to come from other pieces within the entire planning for any for the other major projects nonetheless knowing that the committee presented the recommendation that it presented I'm gonna add two comments the motions we're dealing with today do not provide the funds that will match the state money we hope to get for the firm and permanent bridge that comes later that was part of what Andy was pointing out the other thing is just in a broad picture that I think is very important to those of you that are here and those of you that are listening and others as well the council will really be focusing focusing on capital projects for the month of February on our meeting on February 11th we will actually be reviewing with the major people representing the library DPW fire we will not have the schools come back since they have already been here and we're involved in quite a process with them so we'll be learning about where those projects are how they would move forward and what is required the next meeting which is 14 days later therefore on February 25th we will actually be looking at a option of how we would have have to move forward to fund those projects and what the impact of those projects and that funding would be on taxpayers so we think this is an opportune time not only for the council to be educated on these issues but also for the public to be educated on these issues and it's just the beginning of that process so other comments on this motion yes Dorothy I'd like some clarification at the finance committee I guess my understanding was that we voted to recommend going ahead on the temporary bridge and that any decision on the permanent bridge would come after we did get a go-ahead on state matching funds but that at that point we would then take a vote it's the for example if we did get funds from the state for part of it we would at that point make the vote on the permanent bridge am I incorrect no you're correct okay because sometimes it sounds as if we have recommended the permanent bridge we just said we would go ahead on the temporary bridge Kathy that was actually my comment but I just urge it it's written in the document as well we did not make a decision on the permanent bridge correct shall any oh I'm sorry yes Mandy Joe so before we actually vote on this I wanted to make a few comments about where my decision process was because this was actually a hard decision for me it's more expensive than I think we thought it would be and so that we heard that in public comments but I also wanted to acknowledge that some of us counselors I know I received public comments through email that advocated both sides of this funding and not funding a temporary bridge and so I wanted to put that out there that that some of us have heard both sides and advocates for both sides of that and acknowledge that we had a lot of comments on this issue that may not have been seen by the public my thinking was who bears the cost of this just the users or the entire set of taxpayers and that's one of the things that I've been considering as we're looking at all of this but before we vote I want to say I think the closing of the station road bridge exposed a number of shortcomings in our town and we heard some of those comments shortcomings on the detour routes an unpaved road that is a major detour if we do close this if the station road is closed the detour routes are not necessarily safe and we need to be considering that as we look to planning infrastructure wise as a whole I think that we shouldn't take this vote and say we're done that we need to consider things in the future and that planning on infrastructure in general needs to be better and we should take that to heart ourselves in the end and my vote I looking at the numbers as one public commenter talked about in terms of cost and all I think I'm to the point where it should be it's a major enough road a major enough route that it should be the entire taxpayer base that bears the cost of that not just those 1100 cars that use it a day thank you yes Sarah so I think I feel the same way that we had a process in my head of which the way my vote is going and I would like to say formally of being part of a finance committee that I believe that I respect all of the work that the finance committee has done and I do believe like generally the finance committee says something they've thought it through and and I feel it's for the most part disrespectful to go against what finance committee has said however I would like to point out the fact that we're talking about sort of where money comes from at what pockets you know we draw from for certain things so the process right now is if somehow the town figures out and again I feel like it's not completely clear how they constitute something and emergency or a priority over similarly funded projects in the town and we're taking them one by one and if you take them one by one there's no way to actually look at say you know five other projects that are similar right and to make a priority list and to look at it as how to make a priority of those five projects right so I'm just using that number when you take that money out of the that pot out of that bucket it's gone so that's one thing I want to say is if you're just taking one thing at a time there's no way to prioritize other similar projects I will say that also in my district we have the intersection with Meadow Street and Pine Street and so all of the things that people brought up and I'm not saying that this project is not important because I agree that it is however at that intersection that intersection as you know is one of the most dangerous that intersection is rated and an f out of a a is great f is bad okay so we have that if you're trying to get from 116 from to my house which is right at the the lights at that intersection I waited up to five to ten minutes and that's just one way so we're talking about emissions that's huge also that light has been hit I mean it's gone it's not the first time that's been hit so it's dangerous in the fact that if you're trying to take a left turn from Meadow Street going towards like the mini malls and such people are trying to get there's no light that is paused so that you can get across that intersection everybody just gets a go and everybody goes for it so that's why people are just making like just chancy moves to try to get through and it's really dangerous also trying to get through it's such a weight that it affects the library it affects the mini mall it affects the mill district we're on it 63 and 116 hook up through that intersection so you've got highways and right now the trips that we have a day through there are roughly six thousand the beacon project should be up and opening this summer which would add approximately five thousand trips a day I believe 25 25 thousand trips a day 2500 trips a day thank you to that so just what I'm saying is is not I'm not advocating one part of the town over another or that should never be I'm just saying looking at the process I think it would be better if there was a way for a deciding committee to be able to see all projects at once so thank you very much and in fact in between our public forum today and the calling of this meeting I go for just hold on to your hat okay I asked mr. Bachman to add to our agenda on the 11th a review of these other types of projects that are out there and have significant financial implications as well as public safety and convenience and implications for the town so that that review which is an ongoing list will also be available particularly because there are people in town who suggest that the fifth capital project is in fact our infrastructure so I hope that we will have many more opportunities to address exactly that project and others that we see on the list are there other comments on this motion yes shall I think I just want to emphasize also I agree with having a common set of criteria for how we're prioritizing so and also how difficult it was for me because I am on the finance committee and I'm also district 5 counselor and to balance and make sure that I'm while I'm taking care of the needs of district 5 residents I'm being fair to the rest of the town and some of the criteria that that I looked at how do we prioritize this was in speaking to some of the businesses all Kamalito and Atkins and how they're getting affected and looking at the residents and some of the figures have been added and just taking very conservative figures it amounted to if the delays by two years we have two million extra miles which is taking very average figures it's $250,000 extra gas money that residents are paying where you know of this particular neighborhood and this is again not to deny that there are other projects that are not important I think this issue has highlighted that we need that process but it is not to again say that this is not urgent so I just want to emphasize that and I think most of the points have been made but the real estate aspects that houses that are trying to sell right now in these areas and they're not being sold or the emergency aspects which again we've heard the doctor reached out to emergency doctors as well and again they emphasize that from balloon to you know from door to balloon the time has to be minimized so you know it could be just one resident whose of you know whose life could be affected so do are we willing to take that chance so I mean these are the criteria that I've went through and it was a very difficult decision but I strongly feel that we should move ahead with the temporary bridge and at the same time let's take this opportunity while it's still fresh and everybody's minds to work towards looking at our infrastructure and preempting and having a plan for that are there additional comments that add information to this discussion let me before we move on say thank you to the finance committee although a member of it I have to say the deliberative process was most educational and the presentations provided to us were also extremely helpful I'll call the question all those in favor of the motion that Mr. Steinberg has put before us please raise your hand we have do you want a roll call vote okay there are all of us except for one no Sarah's a no okay we'll move to this are you ready up Margaret okay move to the second motion Andy second motion is to appropriate two hundred twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars to reimburse the road repair account for the engineering service costs incurred for the station road hop bridge replacement and to meet such appropriation transfer 227 thousand five hundred dollars from free cash is there a second a counselor Pam counselor Dorothy Pam the only comment I'm going to make here is to point out that the money that was spent on this the vast majority is absolutely applicable to a new permanent bridge as long as we build that permanent bridge within five years and then we may have to redo some of this so it's not money that was done just for the temporary but also for the permanent other conversation about this motion call the question all those in favor opposed thank you we have one other action item and it is the Pioneer Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization this is an organization that has representations by clusters of towns the town cluster that we belong to includes East Hampton North Hampton Hadley South Hadley and Amherst we are very fortunate that because the mayor of North Hampton is the chair of the advisory board for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission he automatically gets to sit on this commission this is the group that looks at road allocations transportation issues etc and therefore there are three candidates for this position up at this point one is a select person from South Hadley the other another person is the mayor of East Hampton and the third person is myself as president of this council is there a motion we do need to vote to put this motion forward Andy I moved to support Lynn Gershberg to as northern to representative to the MPO and I guess that I want is the maker of the motion Doug Slaughter is the chair of the select board has been the most recent person in that role it has been extremely important for this community which is the by population largest community in the county the Hampshire County to be represented on the MPO the representation that he provided in the information that he was able to bring back to the select board was invaluable to this community both to the select board and to the town manager and furthermore as I looked at the qualifications of the three candidates I think that we are at my motion is to support the person who is the most qualified other other comments I want to be very clear I am not a transportation specialist but I've spent a lot of my career around issues related to transportation as they relate to employment economic development and so forth and if I am selected in this pretty tough race I look forward to representing Amherst very well and our and the five towns we are moving on oh we need a vote I'm sorry okay I call a question all those in favor thank you oppose no nothing all right we're moving on to presentations Mr. Backelman has asked various members of the town to complete in a rapid fire motion manner our education of town departments so again I think this is an opportunity for the community to be educated as well and let me just say one thing while we as a council are in our own process of being a new body of government one of the things that has been most helpful to all of us is that we actually have a town that has continued to operate all around us we have a police department we have a fire department we have a school department we have it and we have many many other departments and so it's not as if we took a pause and had no services in Amherst but under Mr. Backelman's guidance and the superintendent of schools and so forth we have continued to have terrific services in Amherst during this transition period so Mr. Backelman you want to take over yes so this morning we have six departments who are going to present we've allocated them 15 minutes each and they have about 40 minutes to discuss they're going to talk super fast and I think if you have a question or two at the end but I think the chair will be having a firm hold on that timing because I know you've already been here an hour and you have a limit so the first up is IT and Sean Hannon is the director good morning so with two-thirds of the IT department here we're we have about 15 slides and 15 minutes so we're going to be about a minute per slide this one it's going to come in under a minute so we're a six person department so I think most of you have met most of the department but I'm Sean Hannon I'm the IT director in our department we have Rich Dukevich our information specialist Bill Glover who's up here our network administrator James Saltis our newest hire who's also an information specialist Brianna Sunrid our communications manager who's here and Mike Warner our application manager when you add it all up we have 63 years of service with the town between the six of us just to give you a sense of who we serve we serve essentially all town departments the schools as well we provide internet connection for them we also serve Amherst Media their phone system the phone system for some of the tenants over at the bank center and obviously the council and other boards and committees we use a ticket system for support requests that come in last calendar year we had 3248 support tickets with us supporting the public safety organizations we have somebody who rotates being on call 24-7 so if the communication center has a problem they call usually one of these three people at two in the morning and get it fixed for the presentation we kind of have three three roles here that we're going to talk about Bill's going to talk about the infrastructure which essentially is the plumbing that kind of connects everything together connects everything Mike's going to talk about the application side of things which is basically what the users end up interacting with and then Brianna with the recent change we had in our department taking on the communication role she's going to talk about the communication and outreach part that it is taken a more active role in so first we have Bill Glover good morning and thanks for listening to us today so my name is Bill Glover I've been with the town for 15 years I worked in local government for about 20 I work with a team of three so primarily I work with Rich and James on a daily basis we're very busy but it doesn't we're not siloed we all work together we're divided between infrastructure and software but it's a team environment where we all kind of lend a hand if we're busy or somebody's out that type of thing like Sean mentioned I'm kind of the the plumber that you would call if you have a pipe that is broken or your electricity doesn't work at your house we work on systems that often go unnoticed until they break so if somebody's phone doesn't work your internet internet doesn't work your laptops are using right now don't work they call it and that's something that we we take care of so house comparison usually works pretty well because you know kind of simplifies it like I said we have very busy days we where are we here so we have a pretty large infrastructure compared to a lot of different towns one of the things I'm going to talk about on the next slide is an upcoming product project we're doing a Windows 10 upgrade so I'll just highlight on this slide that we have 558 computers but one thing that I do want to speak to is that we're very proud of our internal skill set we do a lot of things internally in this town that a lot of other town will hire out so that's one thing I just wanted to highlight on that and another thing that I wanted to talk about this really briefly is we're always trying to innovate we're always trying to learn new technology we're not staying in place we're constantly trying to move ahead so this is the recent and upcoming infrastructure projects that I was alluding to on the first slide there so in green is the ones that we've completed in the town room technology upgrade obviously you guys are very aware of and obviously we're very proud of that that was done in a very short time frame and it's turned out amazingly well and that was a team effort led by Sean and but it was a whole entire group collaborating to get it done on time under a lot of stress and then the last thing I just wanted to talk to you because I don't we don't have a lot of time but the Microsoft Windows 10 PC upgrade there's a deadline of January 2020 that we have to be on Microsoft 10 they're not supporting legacy systems of Windows anymore so there's a hard and fast deadline that we have to meet so with that I'll hand it over to Mike hi good morning everyone I think I've met or interacted with most of you I am the applications manager for the town and what that means is once the plummings all settled and you come in and you sit down at your computer every day what tool do you use when your computer to do your daily job whether it's a Microsoft word or an Excel or something as complicated as the financial system or for emergency responders the patient care reports they fill out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital those are the sort of things that the application team kind of supports and like Bill mentioned it's a team effort Bill maintains applications for the police department and Brianna as she'll talk about later manages a lot of communications applications like Bill mentioned on the application side of things we do a lot here in town that a lot of other communities contract out for specifically with product selection so we often hear when we're working with a department oh this isn't working for us or can you help us find a new way to do this well we hand hold those departments through the process from conducting a needs assessment to procurement to implementation and we'll highlight a few projects where we're actively involved in that right now we're involved in training different users around town hall and all of this software applications that we maintained store and massive databases around town so what we try to do is tie all of those databases together so that they can communicate with each other and one of the major applications that we have in town that we're very proud of is Amherst maps as residents of town you may have seen it or used it we're nationally recognized for it and have a great reputation in the northeast for our mapping application we have 40 plus interactive maps our most popular is our parcel map where you can go online and get your property card or check your assessment values over time to the voting map that's embedded on each and one of your council members web page that shows where your district is and where your local polling places are to parking maps or trail maps so that people who are from out of town want to find a trail to hike on or a place to park they can pull it up on their mobile device and see where they can park and how much it is and then on the other side of the interactive is data collection so and specifically for public works they have a lot of guys who are just out in the field all day long working on trees or water and sewer pipes or street signs that get knocked over there's a they can there was a water main break on main street about a two week two or three weeks ago those guys don't even have to show up to the office they can go right out use their phone pull up it maps make edits make changes and grab all the information that they need so we provide a lot of those tools and for as for recent and upcoming projects that we're currently working on we're working on a police scheduling software for the police department they have incredible union rules that they have to sort and they're doing it all by paper and by hand right now and it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to do that so we found a software solution that was a perfect example of us hand-holding them through the whole process and identifying exactly what they need and one major project that were the applications team is working on right now is the permitting system replacement so to be able to provide members of the public the ability to fill out for a permit online instead of having to come into the office and fill out a piece of paper and pay you can pay online so we're actively involved in that process right now it's a very big project that touches many different departments it's very complicated and it's definitely one of those that you traditionally see in other communities that's contracted out so that's something that we're working on if you have any other questions feel free to reach out there but I'll hand it over to Brianna for the communication side of things good morning counselors thank you for your time and attention I've met most of you and had an opportunity to work one-on-one with many of you so look forward to working closer with everybody so what I'm gonna talk about today is communications and outreach basically the public information side of things what Mike and I do does frequently overlap and where it differs kind of falls under my umbrellas if it's public facing or web based so one of the main things that I focus on now and will continue to focus on now that in my new role is supporting and maintaining the town websites public information social media news and announcements I won't go through the whole list but these are just kind of a sampling so projects that fall under the umbrella of the communications manager this is just a quick snapshot some numbers I know people love numbers we have seven websites actually that we maintain you can see some of our metrics for our website visits from the last fiscal year a number which we're hoping to increase with one of the projects I'll mention in the next slide we have nearly 7,000 web notification subscribers I'm sure everybody at this table is on one or more of our oh counselor Pam's not okay we'll get you there we have an emergency alert system which luckily we haven't had to activate too often but when we do we have five thousand almost five thousand subscribers not a terrific tool for us to activate a message in an emergency situation that will go out to the subscribers instantaneously robo call them email them text them post to our social media it's a it's a very robust tool luckily we haven't had to use it but we have it if we need it so we have nearly 2,500 followers on social media I know that a lot of you have liked and shared some of our posts we thank you for that we hope to increase that number as part of our communication strategy as well we have a community calendar that we're proud of we have a big subscription base to that where members of the public can post to to share community happenings and we've held roughly six community outreach specific events where we've been tabling on behalf of the town talking about communication tools public safety tools and we hope that number grows in this next year and we did start tracking about a year ago outreach specific support tickets and so our numbers ticking up there you'll see we've got about 250 support tickets and that's of the total that Shawn mentioned earlier 3,248 for the year and I think we just crossed the 10,000 ticket mark so so recent and upcoming projects again just something that we will in the recent past we've just updated a applicant tracking software and a public-facing jobs portal which just makes it a lot easier for the public to learn about and apply to jobs for the town we hope to expand that to internship opportunities and also boards and committee vacancies to make that process smoother one of the big things that I'll touch on I won't touch on all of these but one of the major things that we're hoping to accomplish in the next six months to a year is a complete website redesign and that's not just about aesthetics it's really to improve navigation to improve searchability make it easier for community members to access information and to make sure that we're maintaining ADA compliance and going above and beyond those standards the next one which you'll probably be involved with at some point is a legislative management solution and I know Margaret over there is probably jumping up and down on her receipt nope she's smiling that solution is gonna be really important to many stakeholders in the process the the staff in a town managers office for agenda prep town clerk staff for meeting management and minute management and also will have benefits for the town counselors or any other boards and committees who happen to use that solution to better access their documents and take notes and basically a tool to improve your experience during before during and after meetings and I will take one second to just mention down below that I am part of the community participation officer team as you most know so we're getting started on some great work for that and we are working with a student from the School of Public Policy who's come on board with us in the last week whom I hope to introduce most of you to to kind of do some research for us evidence-based research so that we can add that to our approach and how we interact with our community and I'll pass it back to Sean now so obviously it's a great team we have a couple more people downstairs to and we have a great team who work on all the great projects some of our challenges we face staffing we're the same size department we we were 15 years ago so we constantly trying to do more with more with the same I guess obviously providing 24-7 support everything it doesn't give us many opportunities to upgrade things without planning things out really well we can't just go over the police department and shut things down for the weekend to upgrade things for them and then the last thing that we were working on more on this year is providing training to end users the the pace of change of the systems we have is is increasing and just trying to make sure that our users keep up with keep up with that change so that they can they can best use the systems that we invest in so with that if you have any questions keeping in mind we have five more departments to go through are there any of any questions I know we have tons but yes Evan I have a lot of questions but I'll keep it to just one question on one of the slides there was mention of downtown Wi-Fi upgrades if I could just get a quick overview of what that plan is yeah so the plan is with the nicer weather we have we actually have two units they're gonna go out on the test units out in the back with the banks parking garages and then basically the plan is to do everything early spring replace what's out there early spring we have the capital money to do it anything else thank you thanks we kept it we kept it to 16 minutes thank you for all of the work you've done to help counselors get on to their computers and so forth you must be doing economic development next morning Jeff Kravitz economic development director real quick I'll give you an overview of what I'm gonna be talking about today the department in general some of the highlights some of the other responsibilities of the department then I'm gonna present some employment and wage data such as the unemployment rate the number of jobs and Amherst wages for different sectors and industries and an overview of the local option meals and rooms tax revenues and then briefly discuss our challenges so about the department department is three years old we have one employee so a hundred percent of the department is here and our non salary budget is $0 and we'll get back to this talk about challenges I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this slide the mission is up on the economic development webpage but I think it's important to highlight that you know a lot of these things talk about Amherst community values or consistent with the character of it Amherst I think it's important to talk about that and say that it's not that we're looking for any opportunity any sort of business that wants to come in here it has to be something that that supports what what Amherst is and what Amherst wants to become and I won't give examples of types of businesses that we didn't think would be a good fit but there have been things that we thought were not quite aligned with with what Amherst is so sorry innovation and entrepreneurship so just talking about some of the things that I do on a regular basis the Amherst Center cultural district steering committee the cultural district was formed in 2016 we've had received two grants of $5,000 one was a matching grant one was not and a quick plug April 26th through May 4th is art week and there are going to be events throughout Amherst so please try and attend the Western mass economic development partners is a monthly meeting of economic development professionals chamber of commerce folks throughout Western mass held in Springfield at the Western mass EDC they also put on every other year developers conference that we attend or that I attend and presented at a table at and there's also annual presentations that I give to that group about the Amherst economy developments jobs that sort of thing the Massachusetts Municipal Association is another monthly meeting the policy group meets in Boston and I provide feedback on economic development bills bring back other types of things there was a presentation on aging in place and various things that impact municipalities and then through that I was asked to speak on marijuana which we'll get to in other responsibilities but at the MMA annual meeting which a number of you were at as well as there's an event at the social library with the mayors from Holyoke in North Hampton and I presented there in conjunction with the MMA the cannabis control commission in the social law library the International Town Gallon Association Amherst and UMass are members of they have an annual meeting that Amherst has presented at in the past a great resource to see what other college towns and universities are doing throughout the country and highly recommend it you will every time I go I come back saying oh we're not the only one spacing with everybody all these communities are facing very similar issues then moving on to economic development I was the staff coordinator for applying to be a community compact cabinet member for Amherst it does a number of things but specifically gives us extra points on grant applications not just economic development grant but mass works grants all sorts of different state grants but as a result of that we received $25,000 to do three reports that are also on the economic development web page an economic indicators report a retail market analysis for Amherst and strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats analysis then the North Amherst Opportunity Zone this is new North Amherst well we actually applied for two areas in Amherst essentially it's a way for people to reinvest capital gains in certain census tracts that meet certain criteria and North Amherst was one of that I worked with Nate Malloy in the planning department on applying for that designation and the idea is to spur investment in certain areas then retention of businesses I'll give one quick example FTL labs which does scientific research and development outgrew their space they were an Amherst company and I was able to connect them with the property owner who had available space that so they could stay in Amherst and continue to grow here for agriculture and farming been to several of the agricultural Commission meetings talked to them about things that we can do to help promote farm stands work with the farmers market on some of their issues and then also help disseminate information during the drought about potential disaster loans and grants that agricultural institutions could apply for and then the Amherst half marathon which is new it's only been around for two years but main point of contact for that coordinating with police and fire for emergency services road closures that type of thing and then following up with this group to in this formerly the select board with the result of the marathon it brings in about 600 people each year and again it's new and it's growing last year it was during homecoming weekend so it was a little bit of an odd weekend but I think that they they love coming here and are excited and so I think that's it goes along with my point from the previous slide that's something that I think is really consistent with Amherst it's you know a healthy lifestyle it's an active lifestyle so supporting those types of things and then working with the surrounding businesses to say hey do you want to offer a big brunch where you come in with your racers bib and you get a special price on a brunch and trying to create economic activity out of those types of events innovation and entrepreneurship since I got here the first co-working space in Amherst opened Amherst works by all accounts it's it's doing very well it's got a number of offices including the UMass data science center executive director has office hours there so making connections with UMass and bring some of them downtown and it's the the first space in Amherst that sort of creates a an urban co-working feel that's been really successful in Boston and Cambridge and Austin and throughout San Francisco and then finally the relationships with UMass specifically the Institute of Applied Life Sciences and Data Science Center regular meetings with the data science executive director quarterly meetings with the executive director of IELS just talking about what interesting things are students and faculty doing that might be commercial is commercializable might be spin-offable into Amherst and trying to connect them again with property owners who have space to rent so that we can try and keep some of these companies in Amherst oh and for Applied Life Science is one of the connections I made this goes to an earlier point in the slide with the Western Mass Economic Development Partners invited them to come speak to them they Life Sciences said hey what's who how do we talk to these people how do we reach out to them and I said oh I meet with them monthly come present and they did a presentation and made some good connections they were promoting a voucher program for manufacturers in Western Mass alright the second half is quick so other responsibilities this will be very quick too because I don't have time to go into details but if you want to invite me back I'm happy to talk about any of these things in more detail one of them is marijuana worked on the zoning for recreational marijuana establishments the general bylaws process for evaluating potential operators negotiation of post community agreements parking previously worked with the downtown parking working group and Department of Public Works and police on updated winter parking policy which went into effect two years ago UMass data science for good parking project I'll touch on that quickly how did they set up a webcam and figured out if they could create artificial intelligence to determine if there was a car parked in a spot and it was sort of a pilot program it ran for I think about a month and I think their their AI program got about 80 to 85% accurate which was pretty interesting so trying to find town-gown relationships to solve municipal problems at the university level and now the staff liaison to the downtown parking working group bylaw reviews for the bylaw review committee who are eager to continue their work and and finish up with the bylaw reviews and then town-gown relations things like public partnership economic opportunities like I talked about and the upcoming strategic partnership agreement renewal so employment and wage data and there may be a lot of questions here and I'm happy to flip back if there are but I just want to go through them they're all in your packet and again happy to come back and go into more detail unemployment rate in Amherst has been steadily in decline since 2010 in fact last two months it's been under 2% which is pretty incredible and just for comparison Hampshire County similarly tracks Amherst and the state don't have 2018 final data yet but again similar downward trend these are the number of jobs in Amherst for the last two years you can see that it's grown fairly steadily added 1300 jobs since the beginning of 2017 average weekly wages have increased by $150 a week which turns out to $7800 a year that's an 18% increase since 2010 and this is just sort of a weekly wage comparison for other similar communities there we can pull in other communities if you want to see different comparisons I thought these were somewhat comparable so I think we're doing fairly well for the surrounding community and and statewide here's the breakdown by industry this is the minimum wage this is the living wage in Western Mass as most recently calculated and that is the average wage in Amherst I think it's obviously pulled up because you'll see right next to it I think is educational services and we have such a large number of people employed in that industry but still you can see that all but three industries make above the living wage in the area which is fairly good so now I'm going to talk about some specific sectors of the economy retail wages have gone up since 2012 14% increase and since the low point in 2014 we've seen 86 additional jobs in the retail sector this is information technology see generally wages have gone up except for I don't know what happened in 2016 heading back down a little bit but it's just interesting to see how how the number of jobs have changed nearly returned to our peak in 2013 educational services again the largest sector of the economy it's had steady growth which is a good thing wages have gone up 18% since 2010 and it's added about 1600 jobs in that time arts entertainment and recreation I'm definitely going to spend some more time looking at this because I don't know why it fluctuates quite so broadly but wages have been fairly steady since 2010 down 13% since the peak in 2013 but we've averaged about 11 new jobs a year so totally 77 more jobs than we had in 2010 and then local option meals and rooms tax revenue this is a decent proxy for tourism people stay in hotels people spend money when they're on vacation so I wanted to include that and then last slide is going to be current challenges I think the first one is the coordinated execution of the master plan I think that what I've heard from the communities they don't people trying to do business trying to do they don't understand why they go to one board or committee and hear one thing and then go to a different boarding here a different thing and I think that I understand each board has their own responsibilities and what they focus on but understanding here's the overall picture this is a business we want this is a project we want and making sure that that is felt throughout the process of interacting with the town I think would be valuable or it's something that we don't want and then I don't tell them yeah this is a great idea we're all we're behind you and then the second is limited resources and multiple responsibilities right now the the town invests in me for economic development and anytime spent not doing economic development that means that it's not happening so there's also a benefit to investing in economic development more economic activity which means a stable or tax base and more revenue to support municipal services so thank you very much that's my presentation I just want to emphasize you mentioned there were three reports on the website that you received a grant to do and one of them was around the whole employment statistics no this is I should have explained that a lot of this data is pulled from state websites department of revenue local services and labor workforce development okay the other thing I just also want to mention is we are trying to schedule a session if you will with the chamber and Jeff will be part of that to talk about economic development right now we're all way into April to look at for possible dates and questions yes start here Andy Joe the meals slide and the I guess it's meals and rooms tax that rooms tax has a precipitous decline did something change between 2014 and 2015 to cause that yes it did you tell us and explain what that was yes there was a court ruling that the UMass hotel did not need to pay the rooms tax so my understanding is that what currently happens is UMass does pay the rooms tax for any room rental that is not done through a university account so we are getting some funds from the rooms tax but there there was a precipitous drop in 2014 because of that interesting yes Kathy I had two questions but I don't need long answers to them you have the economic opportunities zone listed up and that's up where we are in district one are there any current plans I know what that is but are there current any plans or current interest in using that basically a tax loophole that the tax bill opened up for investors so is there anything in the works was question number one and then I was just curious on the employment and wage data is that out of census data because some of it may when you look at it may be random variation it's not it's sampling kinds of variations I just wondering what the source is yep so to answer your second question the sources Department of Labor and Workforce Development data state data and to answer your first question there's a lot of interest and inquiries but I'm not aware of any specific projects that have been proposed Sarah so my oops so mine is a little bit of a follow-up on that so I know that one of the things that for our master plan that we're trying to do is really concentrate on village centers and making them better and bringing in more traffic and I know so North Ambrose doesn't mean traffic like that sorry like to make them to improve them I'm just wondering if if other village centers also are have a similar program to bring in investors or if North Ambrose is different at this time different so the opportunities zones the eligible ones were based on census track demographics and we applied for I think Ambrose has three and we applied for downtown the downtown track in the North Ambrose track we thought that's where the most opportunities were and the state said you could only have one and so it was in North Ambrose so the short answer is no the other village centers don't have opportunity zones attached to it but I think that I know that we are looking at all of the village centers and how they're different and what types of opportunities would be available in each of them yes Dorothy in reference to agricultural economic development have you been considering a commercial kitchen like Franklin County has and it's completely full up or even a large freezer which can be used by various farms yes absolutely we're that's one of the ideas we've talked to agricultural business about they they wanted to do a little bit more and I've been working with inspection services and planning on how we can allow farms to do more things such as hosting weddings having a commercial kitchen that's available not just to that farm but to other farms so we've been trying to explore additional opportunities for agricultural institutions and how they might diversify what they do so I am in talking with many businesses during the campaign trail I heard from a lot of them there were many hurdles that Ambrose had in starting up businesses so from your perspective what might be some hurdles that you think we should be focusing on solving like one for example when I heard was high permit costs permitting costs and two what are some opportunities that we could be really focusing on as a town you know thanks sure so I'll tell you that that's the first time I've heard high permitting costs as one of the issues I think each community has their own unique strengths and weaknesses and I think one of the strengths and weaknesses of Ambrose and we have a fairly steady economy base because it's based on education and we have you know UMass is backed by the state and Ambrose College has an incredible endowment and so I think that our economy has been fairly steady and you look in other communities that got really hit hard during the recession in 2009 and 10 and what you find is they're desperate for businesses and so they're willing to make things ridiculously easy or ridiculously low cost and I think that Ambrose has kept its high standards because we're able to so you know I think that that there are certainly things that we've been working on to try and make things easier and you heard from IT a minute ago about new permitting software and we're hopeful that that online permitting software is going to make things much easier for people to get through we've been looking at zoning issues and you know I think that there are a number of challenges for businesses but none of them are things that we wouldn't be able to overcome. Given the discussion that happened at our retreat around the strong interest in economic development and perhaps the formation of some body to address that with the town I'm sure we'll be talking to you again. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Good morning. Thank you for having us. I am not the best driver of slides so we'll see how I do here. I'm Julie Federman. I'm the health director and with me is Jennifer Brown our half time public health nurse. So one of the things I wanted to say to you is that we both love public health. Public health is just awesome. Clearly CDC thinks so also. Another thing is I wanted to give a shout out as I'm listening to people give their presentations. One of the wonderful things about our department is that we get to work with all the other departments and just how great it is to work with all of our colleagues. So this is our organizational structure. This is where we sit in the town. The health department has had various sort of structures at this point. We are a two person department myself and our public health nurse about three years ago we moved our health inspectors over into inspection services. And part of that was to increase the efficiency in terms of permitting and inspections. That's worked out really well. You see we've got that bubble kind of overlapping with our department because I still work with inspectors on complex issues on day to day routine supervision. They come under the building commissioner. We have a board of health that has five members. All 351 towns in Massachusetts have a board of health. That board's power comes directly from the legislature. Our board has a physician, a nurse, two environmental scientists and at this point we have someone whose background is neurology which has been actually fantastic as we've been looking at marijuana. The mission of both the board and the public health are to promote the health and well-being of the community. The reason I chose this slide is because while we do that from our office we're also out in the community. We're out in homes. We're out in the street. We're talking to people. Assessment is the basis for what we do. So we look at data frequently that comes from the state that comes from some of our regional entities. For instance Cooley Dickinson as our community hospital has to do a community assessment every three years. We're really lucky in Massachusetts to have phenomenal data. We're also assessing our community through a lot of our human service partners. Policy development, well that sounds very dry. The reason I chose this slide is because we have internal department policy. We have interdepartment policy which is the concept of health in all policies and that's where I'm as health director working with the planning department, inspection services, zoning to look at where the public health impacts are as we create projects and as we create policies for everything we do in town. We also on the board of health are creating regulations and policy and again the reason I chose this slide is because when the board is looking at something for example several years ago they were creating styrofoam regulations. They were not only looking at the environmental impact but also at the impact on businesses and so as we create policy we're really trying to look at all the implications we can within the community for people for businesses for the environment. We provide some services and educational opportunities. This is an example of what we were doing during the drought. So the posters you see up there about washing full loads and taking shorter showers was part of a collaboration with the university. We have great relationships with the university that allow us to be able to do so much more. We put these up around town because one of the impacts on the drought was that if we really used up too much of our water it could mean that our water supplies quality would decrease. Assurance, this is ensuring that all Amherst residents have the services necessary to maintain good health. So this is our building commissioner Rob Mora. He is putting up a sign pointing to the Musanti Health Center. The John P Musanti Health Center was a huge undertaking regionally and was something that I watched for about 23 years as we looked at what people in Amherst and surrounding communities needed and it really has been a privilege to see this actually come to fruition. And again this was an opportunity to work with many departments and with many of our partners in Hampshire County. The Board of Health is responsible for the protection and promotion of public health, the control of disease and the promotion of sanitary living conditions. They create new regulations, review existing regulations to bring them up to current times and they also will review variants requests from a restaurant, from a building owner so that while these regulations are very strict and enforceable, the Board is also approachable around changing things that perhaps in a particular situation are not equitable. The agents of the Board of Health include myself and the inspectors who are located in the inspection services department. They are responsible for enforcement of Board of Health and state regulations, housing, food establishments, camps, body arts, body arts is tattooing and piercing for those of you not in the know. Pools, wood burning devices, wells, Title V. I chose this picture because we're all familiar with the Romaine lettuce outbreaks and again when we're looking at public health there are many pieces that come into play in terms of keeping the public healthy and for those who've never experienced being ill from a communicable disease or a food or waterborne illness, sometimes it seems like our regulations and our inspections are very strict but it's all about preventing things from happening. Public health is invisible when it works. Currently the Board of Health is looking at our tobacco regulations to update them. One of the things we're seeing is an epidemic of vaping across the country. Vaping is this little device on the left is an example of a vaporizer. It's a very small thing. We're finding that children, youth across the country in Massachusetts in Amherst are able to vape in the classroom, in the bathroom, whether it's tobacco and sometimes marijuana they're able to do this in essentially an odorless way. So right now this semester we have a team of nursing students and one of our board members who is going to be creating education for the schools and working closely with the school departments because the school department because they are very concerned about what they're seeing in the schools. The Board of Health and myself are also monitoring the rollout of adult use marijuana to see if we need local regulations. Infectious disease control is a large portion of what we do. We monitor cases of 60 different reportable communicable diseases including tuberculosis. This involves case investigation to contain and control the spread of diseases that you may be familiar with such as pertussis which is whooping cough and foodborne illness. So we get a lot electronic notification from the state. Back in the day when I first started doing this we got a letter in the mail. It was a lab result so by the time we got it quite some time had gone by. Now at any time 24 hours a day Jennifer or myself can check our electronic disease system and find out if someone is ill. Jennifer then makes a phone call to the patient make sure they're getting all the health care they need and then also does control of contacts. If we see something that appears to be foodborne she's then working with the health inspectors will go out and do an inspection figure out if there was a food involved and at the same time the state is monitoring all the towns around us. So it can be lots of fun because they'll be able to see oh well you've got one person who ate at such and such a place or bought chicken at such and such a place but we can see in the town surrounding you there are six other people and so that way we're partnering with the state and controlling things as soon as possible. Again it's invisible when it works we've got great food establishments in town. Some of the programs that we administer are a sharps disposal program. Many years ago we were one of the first towns to get a small grant so that we could accept use needles into our department. This is different than a needle exchange which is for IV drug users. Though of course if an IV drug user wanted to come to us and purchase a sharps disposal box that would be fine too. What we really see is people who have to take medications at home. So this is something that operates out of our department and is and also out of the transfer station. We work with DPW on this. Since 1998 we've provided childhood immunizations for those who are either underinsured or low income and not able to really use their insurance because as we know in Massachusetts we've worked for a long time. People have health insurance they can't always use it. We also have people in town whose legal status is not something where they're applying for insurance so we work very closely with the schools to make sure everyone gets immunized as quickly as possible so they can begin school. We have had health insurance navigation in our department for about 15 years. Most recently this is a partnership with the Musanti Health Center and navigator comes to our department a day and a half a week bilingual Spanish to help people access health insurance or to stay on their health insurance. If you have Medicaid it's often you're constantly having to reapply and reprove that you're eligible. We also do education through the schools examples of things are mosquito and tick-borne illness and as I mentioned before vaping currently. We work closely with many regional entities. The Adult Use Marijuana Review Committee was a committee that I was on with Jeff Kravitz a member of the select board the police chief the planning director. We spent a few years looking at the rollout of Adult Marijuana and then in this most frequent previous six months actually meeting with entities who wanted to open retail establishments. I chaired the MRS Human Service Network with Human Service Agency partner. Every month we meet to talk about what's happening in the community. What are human service agencies are seeing what they're facing. It's a great opportunity when something emerges in the community for us to work together to think how to address issues. I convene a homeless systems meeting. Stakeholders are around the table. We've been doing this for over two years now. Again we have deep difficult conversations about how we serve those in our community experiencing homelessness. How we interface with the regional agencies who work to prevent homelessness and working and we also discuss we have a private conversation about even specific individuals that we know of experiencing homelessness because we have providers right at the table and we try to troubleshoot solutions to help individuals as well as creating a structure to serve people. Hampshire Hope is a Hampshire County wide entity that is working to prevent and improve services for people experiencing substance use disorder. Amherst and five other communities applied for grant funding to begin this coalition as we saw the impact of the opioid epidemic in Massachusetts. The Pioneer Valley Tobacco Coalition is 27 communities in Hampton, Hampshire and Franklin County that Amherst is part of. That's how we enforce our tobacco regulations and also how we stay current with what the state's model regulations and suggestions are. We have an ongoing relationship with the Museo to Health Center as they continue to grow. They've just recently added as I mentioned before a health insurance navigator and they are also just adding full-time behavioral health that will be bilingual in Spanish. That was again a big need that we were bringing forward as the health center was being developed. This is my last slide I believe. Emergency planning is something that's been going on in Amherst at least since the end of the 90s. I love this slide because it points out that it's the planning not the plan. So we work with town departments very closely with the University of Massachusetts. The Hampshire Public Health Preparedness Coalition is a coalition that was funded after 9-11 through Homeland Security funds that went out to the states. I'm on the executive board of that committee and the Western Mass Health and Medical Coordinating Coalition was something that was created a couple years ago so that we were improving our preparedness in Massachusetts because we were siloing a little bit. So this was to bring in emergency medical services and hospitals more to this planning. But the reason the Kitty Cat has a sandwich is because we plan and we plan and we plan and then something happens and we have to get very creative and we have to think what are we actually going to do in this situation. And so all those years of meeting together and planning together we know everyone's strengths. We know who's got the cats, who's got the bread, and who's going to tie it all together and get it to people. I think that really shows a lot of our strength in the town and also in Hampshire County we've done a really good job around this. So I apologize for my rusty voice. I'm fighting a cold and hopefully I've left enough time for some questions. Are there questions? Dorothy. It's two parts. In Amherst can anyone get an exemption from a vaccine in the school system? So how that works is it's Massachusetts law. So you are able to ask for a religious exemption. In reality in Amherst what we found is that many years ago when we started this collaboration around vaccines is it was not that we had so many people who wanted exemptions. It's that it was so many people who just didn't have access to health care. So we do not have that many people in Amherst or in Hampshire County who get exemptions. There's more of that in Franklin County. And the second part is I'm just remembering in the past when say for example the Astoria Health Center anyone could go in there. You didn't have to prove you were poor or that you needed money and you could just bring your baby get well baby care and the free vaccinations. Is there anything like that where you can just walk in and get free vaccinations? Yes you can come to the health department. You can't just walk in only because it's Jennifer and I. So and actually to give a vaccination you have a responsibility to know a little bit about who you're vaccinating and what they need. But what we do is we make an appointment with that person and then yes we vaccinate them. We also really try to connect them to a medical home because vaccines have two purposes. One is of course to so that immunity is created. There's also that we don't want any block to someone getting child care or getting into schools so they need to be vaccinated appropriately. But really ultimately everyone needs a medical home that they feel safe to go to, that they feel well served, and that they feel like they can afford. And with the opening of the Musanti Health Center we really feel like everyone can have a medical home now. George. My understanding is that communities in Massachusetts are differently affected by the opioid crisis. And I'm wondering what your sense of it is in Amherst and whether you are getting data that you need to sort of keep it and get a sense of what it's like. Yeah in Amherst unfortunately across the state the way the opioid epidemic has been tracked is by overdoses and overdose deaths. And so we are not seeing a lot of overdoses or a lot of overdose deaths in Amherst. But for the past 18 months I've met regularly and kept in close contact with fire and police so that we're looking at every use of Narcan in an ambulance every call to a home. Our police department is doing what many departments in Massachusetts and especially in Hampshire County are doing which is doorknocks after there is use of Narcan. Our community policing officers when they're getting to know people on the street who they think are using IV drugs are forming relationships with them. So I feel that Amherst is affected by opioid and drug use but that we don't have necessarily a lot of data about that because it can often be very hidden. So the bottom line is we're not seeing a lot of overdoses and we're certainly not seeing a lot of overdosed deaths. But that doesn't mean that we're not having all the conversations that we need to have and working closely with healthcare professionals and with the schools around how we keep our eye on this and how we're educating especially our youth. Do you do the inspections for farmers markets? So all the inspectors I'm an agent of the Board of Health but really what I do is very rarely am I doing inspections. We have two and a half inspectors in inspection services so we have Susan Malone who's a full-time health inspector. Ed Smith is a full-time health inspector and John Thompson is our code enforcement officer who can enforce health and building code. So the inspection of the farmers markets happens out of inspection services and Susan Malone is usually the one doing that. And they are inspecting even vendors who come from out of town? Oh yes. Everything that happens in Amherst around food for instance if you have a caterer who's coming from out of town and they're getting a temporary food permit all of that is overseen by the health inspectors. The reason I'm asking is I understand that we'd had three vendors that have been told they either can't provide something they're presently we're providing or cannot in the future provide at all. I don't know the details of specifically what you're talking about. One thing that just happened was in October of 2018 Massachusetts adopted a new merged food code so there's a national food code and then there's the Massachusetts code and so it takes time but they've finally passed that in October. I'll be going to a training about the new merged food code in two weeks. I've been talking with Susan about some of the changes in there some of the changes have been great because they've actually loosened up a few things that were looked at to be not necessary to the public's health to control in such a way. Other things have tightened up a little bit. Thank you. Other questions? Shalini. I was curious if you've looked into mindfulness is a possible solution from what I understand it's a low-cost solution to many chronic problems addictions especially in school children. Well I'm personally very interested in that I believe in that myself. I know that in some of our schools they are using some mindfulness so I believe it is in Wildwood where there's some mindfulness going on. I don't know that that has been being explored in many ways in the schools but I absolutely agree with you and I'm glad you're bringing that up. George. We recently had a very tragic event in our shelter and I'm wondering when that sort of thing happens does that involve your department? Do you get involved and what do you learn from these sorts of events? Thank you. So there was a death at the shelter and yeah the answer to that is yes. We work closely with the staff at the shelter. So for example we reached out to them about what they the staff there might need for their own process and we also are very closely linked with them whenever there's something happening around health that might affect our folks who are homeless. So for example yesterday an advisory came out from the state about a slight uptick in HIV fresh new HIV transmissions among IV drug users. So I am immediately contacting the director of the shelter so that she knows about that. We're communicating of course we're always wanting to teach people about the importance of using clean syringes if they are using about harm reduction about safe and protected sex. So we're in really close relationship. In the fall there was a reported outbreak in eastern Massachusetts of hepatitis A among the homeless and so again Jennifer and myself are working closely to provide vaccinations one-on-one to folks experiencing homelessness or anyone who uses IV drugs because they're also at risk. So yeah we're working really closely with all of our partners who serve the homeless. Yeah thank you. I think we unfortunately are forced to move on but thank you for your service to the town. Now we're going to find out about Margaret's other job. I'm here to talk to you about my other job. So thank you I really appreciate you allowing me to come and talk with you about what the town clerk's office does. I'm sure you all have different things that that come into mind or come to mind when you think about the town clerk's office whether it's elections dog licensing and right now with the issuance of the street listing forms the annual the annual census. So we in the town clerk's office are a staff of three including myself and I should probably just give you a 30 second let me give you a 30 second bio of myself. I started my public service career in Amherst years ago and worked for the town of Amherst. I started working for the town of Amherst under the magnificent Stan Zomek. That was my first stop in Amherst and then I moved along and ended up in the town clerk's office and served as town clerk for the last five years of my tenure here and I was extremely fortunate after leaving here and taking a small break to work part time and spend more time with family I moved on to municipal management in a couple of small towns so I spent 13 years combined managing the towns of Sunderland and Rutland which is just outside of Worcester and I just celebrated my six month anniversary back in Amherst last week so I've been here for six months. So anyway we are a staff of three. The town clerk's office is one of those municipal departments that's extremely heavily governed by by statute so the town clerk's office has to comply with 73 chapters and 451 sections of mass general laws and many many many regulations that are issued by agencies that that are in that are the control those those statutes. The town clerk is separated into three essentially three different divisions. We have the town clerk's office and here is an outline of some of the things the town clerk's office does and then the other two divisions are elections and registration so we're just going to take them one by one. The town clerk's office as it says on the slide is the general store of municipal government and also the archive center I should add. We have the examples of things the town clerk's office does on this slide each are governed by separate and distinct statutes of mass general law except for passport acceptance which is governed by federal regulation and laws. Vital records in particular I'm only going to highlight one of these things you can certainly read the numbers but vital records in particular has seen a creep up in issuance because of the new federal regulation for real ids so we are seeing an ever increasing volume of requests for vital records so people can get their new ids. The statutes are frequently changing and since I was last in Amherst I think all of the laws pertaining to all of these items have changed several times. Now records management the town clerk's office is the archive center for the town. We maintain current and historical records of the town going back to the town's 1759 incorporation and before we actually have militia records and you're welcome to make an appointment with us we'll take you on a tour of our vault at some point but yes the town is actually celebrating its 260th anniversary of its incorporation next week February 13th so we do keep records management we do keep records going back in time and again because of the statutes were governed by we kind of have to do it our archives in a somewhat archaic way we still have to maintain paper and we have lots of paper however with the it presentation you saw earlier it is looking at implementing a new permitting software and a document management solution that I hope our office is the the beneficiary of okay election now we're moving on to elections and registration chapters 51 through 54 the mass general laws govern most of what of what we know as our elections and registration process. As the town clerk I am the chief elections official and a member of the board of registrars in Amherst. We have a four member board of registrars I'm one of the members currently we have one vacancy on the board the other members are Bob Pam and Jamie Wagner so they on the next slide I'll get into the work of the of the board of registrars but to prepare for an election this is not a two-week process this is a many months process in fact elections and registration happens year round to prepare solely for an election we have to recruit train and schedule up to 300 election workers to staff our 10 polling places throughout towns we have 10 polling places in eight different buildings. We prepare and post all election warrants we prepare all of our absentee official and early voting ballots and yes each is a separate separately printed ballot specially identified for the type of voting the person is going to do we have to maintain our voting equipment year round we have to test the voting equipment in accordance with Massachusetts regulations we conduct absentee voting and early voting for state elections and I should note that the secretary of the commonwealth is now looking at the possibility of early voting for the presidential primary in 2020 so this will be something new it's going to take us in a in a new direction potentially with state primaries and presidential primaries and that could evolve into local elections then again as I said we operate 10 polling places in eight different buildings and we are required I am required to tally and certify the election results now this next slide talks about registration and this ties in with the annual census process I would like to say that it starts with the annual process but this is this annual census cycle represents an annual cycle everything is is tied to each other so as far as as registration and maintaining the voter list we do use the local street listing form to update our lists of registered voters if a census form comes back and a registered voter has moved that voter is put on what we call the inactive voters list and that person if they don't take any other action to to vote or to maintain active on the voter registration list they would be removed from the voter list with due notice after four years after two consecutive general elections after we issued the the local street listing form process that we mail confirmation cards to every single registered voter in town in the spring that's required by law and by state regulation this is to ask again if we have not received a census form from the voter we ask again are you here and we hope to receive answers to those we prepare a street listing and a jury list from the information that we gain in the in the census process the jury list is not an elective function of the town clerk's office it is another statutory requirement so we do have to provide that and then again that all ties into the the voter list maintenance and upkeep the next um did i just skip there we go everything in our voter list is tied to what we call the voter registration information system it's a statewide database of registered voters throughout the commonwealth and it tracks not only where a voter is currently registered but that voters activity in their current community in their prior communities so it tracks the motions of every registered voter so we are i think this this commonwealth does a very good job of of mitigating voter fraud through this system but it also protects the voter in that if the voter says well i'm registered to vote we have the ability to look that voter up find out where they're registered to vote what the voter status is and direct them to the proper polling place to be able to vote this voter registration system just like our voter list just like our resident list is maintained throughout the year we do see peaks with with voter activity with nomination papers and petitions which have to be processed and entered into the system with actual voting where all activity is entered into the system and other things that keep a voter's status up to date now the last slide i have i think i'm still within my time i'm trying to fly through this i'm sorry upcoming projects we have a list of upcoming projects here mostly geared toward the upcoming elections but i wanted to add that in coming back here and and having kind of the breadth of experience that i've that's that's my time oops okay so i'll add one last thing my my hope is that we can establish a town gown coalition representing stakeholders from the town from the institutions of higher education and other and other segments of the community to promote voter participation through education and outreach so i've actually started uh pulling together working groups we have one scheduled actually this week but that's going to require a firm commitment by all stakeholders to work with each other in in a collaborative way in order to effectively get out voter information so that concludes my presentation for now if anybody has any questions can i just this goes back to a a prior life um you work on the census so you do the block listing and then that goes into the block estimates that then lead to redistricting that's a that's a great um a great comment because the annual street listing least listing we do is not tied to the decennial federal census however i am the census lia the town clerk is a census liaison and will work with districting and representing and to make sure that listings are correct that are then used that's right so for the resident listings um that are generated by the census the federal census count yes just for the another connection to our own university massachusetts which works with the secretary of state on the decennial census actually every year works on the census and provides the block estimates that then go to the state house where they do the redistrict they draw the district lines so thank you thank you thank you so just to note this she didn't point out her additional job here which is being our town clerk um next and i very much appreciate being appointed as your clerk of the council thank you very much thank you almost afternoon goodness i'm barb bills and i'm the director of amherst leisure services and i'm really happy to be here today and uh thank you all for being here i'd like to have my staff that are with me today introduce themselves we're in charge of children's programs that are not sports related so summer day camps after school i'm christ johnson the sports director charge of all programming camps our mission at illicitse is to enrich the quality of life for all members of our community by providing the highest level of recreational programs and facilities and services we do this through a wide variety of uh by offering a wide variety of programs that take advantage of all the rich resources that amherst has to offer we are dedicated we have a dedicated staff commissions commission members and community volunteers while we serve both children and adults our major program focus is youth activities and we strive to serve all those members of our community last year 1,164 children receive fee subsidies so that they can participate in our programs last year we also established a new program outreach initiative to better serve children living in our town's low to moderate income housing areas we are now providing on-site services and programs and at the south point north village butternut farms mill valley olympia oaks and village park so whether it's winning the cardboard classic sled race at winterfest or taking an art class at a local studio downtown illicitse is about fun active and safe experiences from ultimate which was invented in amherst to football basketball lacrosse and more just about every child involved today in high school athletics got their start at illicitse our two pools our two outward pools i should say the middle school pool and totman pool at you mass are some of our most valued and utilized resources in town last year 1,686 children took swimming lessons through illicitse and over 12,000 adults and children utilized our pools as i'm sure you're all aware we are in the process of renovating grove park this is a major undertaking we are hopeful that this summer we'll have a brand new playground and spray park at grove but our ultimate goal for aquatics and for our program is to teach every child in amherst how to swim it's a lot to go but we believe it's doable illicitse brings our community together by hosting three major events the fourth of july halloween fest and winter fest currently we're in the midst of winter fest it started eleven years ago as a one-day event and now has become an event that takes it takes place over eight days has almost 40 different events at 30 different venues throughout the town i'd like to take this opportunity to invite any of you who are interested to become one of our celebrity judges for the chili cook-off at winter fest this saturday that's what you know that you were our first choices if you're interested just just email me and i'll put you on the a list so from special events to community theater it takes a village to make all of this happen we collaborate with a variety of community partners including the bid the chamber umass the amherst public schools other town departments social service agencies local businesses and more their partners are instrumental to the success of our events and we see ourselves as the conveners one of one of the most beautiful pieces of land owned by the town is cherry hill during every season of the year our residents enjoy this very special open space last year alone 11,344 children and adults played golf there and hundreds of Nordic skiers enjoyed cross-country skiing on freshly groomed trails when during the winter months when weather permitted permitted it now again none of this would be possible without an amazing team of staff and volunteers my my staff as you can see can dress in a up and have fun but they're really all hard-working professionals we also have a great commission and those members are responsible for setting our policy and ensuring that we're meeting our goals and finally we couldn't run the majority of our programs without our community volunteers last year we had 143 volunteer coaches and another 672 program volunteers for a combined 17th hour close to 17,000 volunteer hours that's really amazing contribution to this community and now i'd like to have stacy and chris speak a little bit more about their respective program areas hello my name is stacy again and my role is children's programs that are not sports related including our after school at Crocker which that's a picture from maybe two years ago we serve almost 100 children every day after school at Crocker farm i'm in charge of our summer day camps in school vacation camp weeks our performing and visual art classes those are used and adult we're currently serving about a thousand children between all of these programs we make this happen through program these subsidies we serve food we have transportation we really try to do whatever we can within our means to get every single child involved in something at later services we also serve children with diverse needs we serve children with physical needs such as asthma allergies children who are in wheelchairs we serve children with social emotional disorders with cognitive issues we've had refugee children participate in an hour after school and other programs our outreach efforts that Barbara alluded to is one of the ways that we really try to make sure that everyone in our town has the ability to participate we provide programs that are safe most of my programs are regulated by somebody my after school program is overseen by the state department of early education and care we're licensed by them they come in unbalanced whenever they want and so we make sure that we're up to par if not beyond par when it comes to the state regulations for after school our summer day camps are inspected by the town and the health inspectors and they again they come at the beginning of the summer and they can feel free to come one week or all seven weeks and make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to if not more we try to promote caring about ourselves and others positive growth emotionally and physically we try to teach children to foster healthy relationships and encourage positive interactions with peers and adults and we hope to be positive role models and mentors in order to accomplish these goals we have many great partners Barb talked about a bunch of them I really kind of wanted to throw a shout out to the school system for many different reasons they provide our housing for a lot of our programs they help out with fussing our school staff at least the ones that I come in contact with are really awesome people we partnered this past summer with the mass department of education style of entry and secondary education to provide breakfast and lunch this was kind of huge guys breakfast and lunch for all children in and our camps with partnering with the school system and with the state so anyone who was in not only our day camps but our sports camps was able to have breakfast at lunch which out of school time is really a hard time to make sure children eat Mill River was also a site for children who weren't involved in one of our programs so we didn't really limit it just to sports and day camps but Mill River was a site for anybody not involved in something under age 18 to come down and get a lunch three days a week we also work with the family center I can't leave without talking about UMass and Amherst College they work as our staff they work as our volunteers Barb talked about volunteer hours and how a lot of what we do really wouldn't be possible without them and then lastly I just kind of wanted to give a shout out to our staff our staff is comprised of not only the college students but a lot of students that live and grew up in Amherst one of this full-time staff in our office I remember meeting her at five and now she's come full circle and she actually works for leader services as one of our outreach professionals so we strive to for a multicultural staff that mirrors the youth and publicly serve our staff are all CPR and first aid certified two of your full-time staff are actually certified Park and Rec professionals so it means two of us in our office are certified on a national level we took their tests we took the requirements and we do yearly continuing education units to maintain that certification so I will turn it over to sports and Chris any other questions we can discuss it after all right thank you so much for taking the time to be with all of us kind of listen to what we have to do how we contribute to this town let's get my name is Chris Johnson the sports director for Leisure Services and Charitable Programs camps and events my responsibilities are to effectively go turn towards me can't hear me back there are to effectively collaborate with the Amherst community school departments and various town departments that we deal with on top of you know UMass their Eisenberg School of Management the volunteers and you know various individuals that apply for opportunities of work and employment that we have with all that together you know our efforts are to ensure that we you know create a positive approach to fitness health and and passion we offer a wide variety of sports programs for youth and adults in town maintain all innovation standards by working effectively with with national associations such as USA football USA volleyball USA basketball net generation for tennis the list goes goes on but majority of those you know that we work with allows us to you know ensure safety fun practice lessons make sure that we're keeping up to date with you know the national scale of how we're educating our kids within sports and you know at the end of the day all we want to try to do is you know produce positive results in the games regardless of you know wins or losses it's not about that it's kind of the biggest thing that we try to promote one of our larger programs that we run is the national ultimate training camp we're actually in our 19th year we work alongside with Tina Booth she's you know in the Hall of Fame for the national on the national level she's our camp director in preparation for 19th year the national the training camp we actually just you know got the bid submitted about last week it will be over at Mount Holyoke we're actually going to move forward with registration opening this past Saturday we've already seen influx of people coming in which has been great so but one thing is that you know being one of the largest camps in the country one of the most successful camps in the country this is where if Tina was sitting in the back would interject and she'd say no we're actually it's globally we actually have kids coming from Peru kids from Colombia Germany and other various countries internationally which kind of makes it exciting for us and creates an experience for our campers that's one of one of a lifetime so one thing I briefly touched on was safety safety has been a large priority for our programming in terms of making sure that we're up to date with our our medical equipment making sure that we're up to the standards of what we're allowed to do for our our programs but one of the most important things that you know we kind of looked at as a whole is making sure that our our facilities our fields and everything has been up to date you know Barbara myself had been a part of this the recs working group in town which is you know makes up of various members of town department heads the school department heads Rich Farrow the athletic director Sean Manjano from the finance committee getting together and really evaluating our recreational space and making sure that we're doing stuff effectively looking long term working with DPW if it's Guilford Alan Snow to make sure that we're moving forward in all the right aspects so about two years ago maybe two and a half years ago that was established a moment I'm actually only spending for a year and a half so kind of hit the ground running when I came in with the group but a consulting group was hired in an innovative and design group Weston and Sampson out of Worcester but they've taken the large scale of everything and really reevaluated everything to make sure that we're either have a master plan in order make sure that our staging is is correct moving forward make sure that our our sourcing of what we're doing is right so I know if I didn't speak about this for the you know the sport community and for this group you know they'd be saying what are you doing here you know so I want to make sure that we touch down on it and I know that they're really excited to hear your opinion on you know the master plan and the strategic planning moving forward with that so we have a lot of members in town our numbers stick true so make sure that we're doing in a safe way that we're approaching the two main aspects of safety and accessibility is a very big priority for us so what's in our goal is to use sports effectively as an outlet for youth and adults to ensure that we're creating an opportunity for passion on a larger scale we want to make sure that everyone in town knows that they have this opportunity to participate and as we aim to assist every child young adult in reaching their highest potential through athletic outlets as we look to cultivate leadership character development or the adult aspect making sure that we're providing continuing those passions so that's where we are as a sports department so thank you for listening are there questions yes go ahead please as you can see the sky is limit but the challenges are real as the requirements from state and other oversight organizations increase so do our challenges to meet or exceed those requirements as minimum wage goes up so do our costs but we must ensure that every child in Amherst is able to participate participate regardless of their ability to pay because in the end elasticity is about making our community a better place to live in and clearly the opportunities are in so thank you very much you have any questions witness with chili challenge next saturday the ninth okay it's really good chili you should come on down i've been there are there other questions yes darthy um i just wanted to say that uh peter pan was really great and my granddaughter who i've taken to the shows every year was just jumping up and down and saying this is the best the absolute best but and we were very lucky because we originally had tickets for sunday and i had to change them to saturday so my question is i know you had to cancel your sunday performance because of the snow has that presenting you with a big problem financially no not to date not just had some conversations with the producers um after just very generous people in amherst and almost everybody donated the cost tickets back to the community theater so thank you george just a brief comment really directed to my fellow counselors i just want to make sure you know that currently serving on the council is a former youth basketball coach and a former soccer youth soccer coach of some standing actually um and who can speak personally to the fine programs that lsdc runs especially in the sports and i only did baseball thank you thank you very other questions yes kathy um i live up in north amherst and actually our kids went to the summer camps all the time i have a question on cherry hill um to what extent is i know winter fests are done there um is the clubhouse winterized so could can that be used for community events at all no something i don't know i know it's not open but it's not winterized if you say it's not very well insulated so we do um dpw um basically turns off the water there ensures that it doesn't freeze the water pipes so we actually close it for a period and reopen for winter fest so no at this point no but it might be something we it worth investigating for soon other questions thank you for all the fun you provide for amherst thank you great i believe senior center is next so as we migrate into the next um madam chair yes to our final presentation so i just want to thank the counselors for devoting the amount of time that you have to these presentations our departments and our staff really appreciate they work really hard and they prepare for these and they think they take it very seriously also want to mention that some of our you know many of our staff live in town some have grown up here chris grew up here um jeff gravity or he grew up here and so it's nice to have this connection there's people who are working here for long periods of time who've really invested in the community and your next speaker will be a person who's worked here um nancy 45 years 46 46 years so she's a newbie so be gentle on her i want to congratulate you on your election i appreciate you not used to being on the mic i want to congratulate you on your election and i'm staying here for what must have been a lot of information going into your head today thank you the emmer senior center in the bangs community center is a precious jewel in my opinion in the town it's a team effort a team the team is our staff four full-time and two-part time our council and aging advisory board with nine members and our friends group our nonprofit corporation that raises a good deal of the money we need we have also a great number of volunteers 184 in the last fiscal year our volunteers do everything they can to answering the phone helping with the financing teaching classes delivering meals that kind of thing we are totally dependent on them the senior center is a very busy place we serve between 250 and 260 people every day as far as our staff i'm very fortunate to have two of our members here with me today um and helen will introduce herself to you i'm helen macmillan a program director for social services hi i'm jennifer reynolds i'm the administrative assistant so the senior center um i gotta push the button here how do i do this ah there we go okay as you probably know our population of older people is growing rapidly between the last two federal censuses 20 at the 2000 and 2010 we grew 34.6 percent in the number of people 60 and over and we project in 2020 that we will have grown another thousand or more people and so every day at the senior center we enroll probably another 15 to 20 people um and from their 25 percent of our people are from other communities and people that come uh are coming for the services the recreation and to be volunteers and to have their retirement enriched we conduct a survey every 10 years the council on aging and in the last survey we found that 75 percent of people who are 75 and older use the senior center 96 read the newsletter i brought samples for you and most amorous people want to stay in town as long as they possibly can one of the most important focuses we have is food and nutrition and safety and so we don't pay for any of the food we distribute and in the pictures here this is our lunch program which has two components that has the congregate meal and the home delivered meal which is four routes around town in amherst and pillum this program and like all our other food programs has grown in the last year about another seven or eight percent highland valley elder services is our area agency on aging a conduit of federal and state monies in 28 towns in our area in hampshire and hamden county and they are the ones that grant fund us for a nutrition program we get a dollar for every meal that we serve or deliver and that pays for the lunch site coordinator who's part time helen is going to speak about a number of our other food well i'll just go on to embellish about our umass meals on wheels program you were very lucky to have umass helping us out with that program they have a community grant that pays for their staff time and then we actually then charge our seniors for the actual costs of the food so we get to send out their award winning food every day we deliver well between kathy's program and the evening program we send out 26 000 meals a year evening meals and also in house we serve 16 000 lunches sitting down or delivered to the delivered to the senior umass everyone clamors for the umass meals on wheels because i hear about that award winning food so michelle and i've had to move to an evaluation system where we do do a health evaluation either over the phone or in person to make sure the senior truly needs it um i recently had to remove someone from the program who was going to the gym um driving around town and the volunteers were complaining to us that this is supposed to be frail homebound elders so i told that peppy senior they can call back when their health declines again uh we just came from the wednesday free bread produce which is a farmer's market um that happens every wednesday morning we have donations from all the merchants as you can see here one of the goals is to get um organic produce um bread we have some lovely bread donated out to seniors we also do get meat and eggs we try to keep everything healthy everyone wears gloves it's quite a diverse group one of the things i wanted to um focus on when i came on board a few years ago as a program director is really getting more translation services at this program and other programs so we have umass students coming in who might speak spanish or mandarin chinese um we also have some portuguese people coming through i have a triling will nurse coming once a month and she can flip between spanish and portuguese and english while she's doing blood pressure um also jen has a contact with kevin zowan parking and so he's been helping us to move all our signage over to including mandarin chinese it's very easy to find someone who speaks spanish or portuguese but mandarin chinese is not so much but he's been a huge help to us and also the brown bag program which is food coming in a big truck comes in once a month from the western mass food bank all these programs are meant to help seniors really a lot of these programs are not necessarily income eligible but just for amherst seniors but it is meant to target people who might be in food stamps and we spread these out over the months so that by the end of the month everyone has access to food on pretty much a weekly basis to dove pale with their food stamps michelle chamorro are the social workers unable to be here because we are so busy and don't have a huge amount of funding i'm a halftime program director halftime social worker michelle does full-time social work when i came in board nancy moved the senior center over to professional social workers licensed social workers only on staff so that's been a recent change we also had to move away from walk-in seniors just walking into appointments because we've gotten so busy we're really very busy with the baby boomers and that we call it the tsunami of the baby boomers we're just swamped swamped with people coming in so we really do have to be careful with our time later on you'll see under the financial slide talk about our funding sources one thing i did was write a title three grant with highland valley it's actually changed from a caregivers grant to an aging across the spectrum grant and that supports the caregivers support group the lgbt programming and also the grieving support of the michelle runs and every year we've been able to double the funding from highland valley so we're very thankful to them we're also moving into bilingual with the latinx social group wanted to heal who many of you may know retired from the amherst housing authority came over and said could you use me and it took me a second to say yes so she comes in twice a week we're very lucky to have her volunteering to do bilingual program programming and outreach with the bilingual spanish community so that's been a wonderful addition some trends coming down for social services on a statewide level there's some mandatory legislation that will have all the local senior centers and boards have lgbt awareness programming for all our boards and all our staff so that'll be coming down the line that'll be provided by the state also statewide efforts are dementia friendly programming and also age friendly programming charlie baker's own mother has dementia so he's very aware of senior services and the needs so there will be more money coming down the pike attached to these programs and another key one just to point out is the tax workoff program that's a wonderful program to offer seniors in the area who are finding the real estate tax is much too high each senior that's eligible for the program it is an income eligibility program can earn up to fifteen hundred dollars a year off their real estate taxes so that's a wonderful benefit for seniors it's a huge relief and if there's a couple in the house they could each work for the fifteen hundred dollars so that would be three thousand off their tax bill that makes a big difference for some that wants to stay in their home and age in place it's also a wonderful source of volunteers they often work at the library some at town hall and a lot at the senior center most of them when they've worked their hours and earned their fifteen hundred dollars don't go away they stay around and they continue the volunteer and they're terrific so they're a big help to the senior center sorry we're very proud of our senior health services program the school of nursing at the university and students and faculty got a federal grant back in 1979 to provide health services at the senior center and that grant continued until 1988 and one of the faculty at the nurse the school of nursing was incredibly committed to having when the grant ran out to continuing the program so she searched in the community and found some very benevolent community members a husband and wife who agreed to donate ten thousand dollars a year which they have done now they've already donated a hundred and eighty thousand to keep the nursing center going there's no town money in the nursing center do write grants now and then to help with supporting it and we are so lucky to have the head of the of the senior health services to also have her phd in nursing so it's a wonderful set of services she offers back both at the senior center and clinics in the Clark House and home visits to really help people to to feel that they can manage whatever their health issues are she sees about 15 people a day on on average we have a you probably have seen our newsletter i brought some copies we have a wide range of of recreational and educational activities about 19 fitness and dance classes numerous seminars and parties and trips and that kind of thing we try to keep everything very low cost and when there is an instructor that requires a fee the various participants pay the small fee to to go to the event many of the instructors then turn around and give us that money as a donation we managed to keep going with our donations we have a travel program with which is a good fundraiser for the senior center it's self-supporting and provides a lot of fun and a chance to get out of town and i'm sure you can appreciate that that sometimes is important i would say a majority of the people we serve are living alone and have lost a number of their family and friends and this is an opportunity to just have a happier existence some of our activities are in in the same room as other activities we're a little cramped for space and the pictures on the right there are games played in our computer rooms so when those are going on there can't be use of the computers and then of course using the computer this is not advancing using the computers is is very important these days sorry so when they're not playing games they're using the computer we have free individual tutoring which is a very popular event one of our largest programs is our convalescent loan and repair program that program we loaned an fyi 18 322 pieces of equipment it's very much appreciated in the community most the equipment is donated to us we've bought some friends have paid for some equipment the embers woman's club has donated money toward wheelchairs and that kind of thing this is a very important program other services of the senior center the newsletter which is we found from our survey read by a huge portion of people that get it it goes for free to everyone in town when they are in their 59th year or older it's 16 pages long it's also online our income tax assistance program is incredibly popular right now we're taking appointments and it starts tomorrow it goes through the middle of April obviously health insurance which is a nightmare for people to wade through we have counselors that come in usually twice a month we have an attorney that comes once a month and a whole number of individual health clinics by other nurses in our senior health service director we have a partnership with the police and the fire and the sheriff's office the salt council so we are the conduit for requests in the community for house numbers home safety inspections and carbon monoxide detectors i try to also use student groups to help with yard work leaf raking and snow shoveling although this year it's been more difficult to to get that help because you know intercession people are gone but we do try to help people and what a other well anyway that they they need the senior center tries to be the family that's not nearby and the friend that they need to talk to and we try to help in any way we can whether it's picking up medicine for people that they can't get to the pharmacy that kind of thing we have discounted pvta van tickets the town of amherst transportation program committee reduces the price of the tickets the tickets are for amherst residents three dollars each way and it's oh okay okay these are just some of the activities financing we have money from the town grants from the state and highland valley those are all listed there and there's a lot of donations friends group is our main fundraising non-profit corporation and and they take care of any program expenses we have because we don't have program money from the town this is a little pie chart chart on that our biggest challenges are pretty straightforward everyone knows about parking issues we suffer from that and we need more people if we're going to provide the services that are like other senior centers and are in high demand so we appreciate our space the town pays for and our computers and phones we don't have to pay for that so we are very fortunate in that regard thank you very much for allowing us to speak if you have any questions i should have jen also mentioned one thing she does you probably some of you have been in touch with her to reserve space in the bangs community center which is a very busy place maybe you could mention how many request there were last year last year we had three thousand five hundred and eighty reservations in our rooms in the building which is a high number they're all non-profits we also in addition to our programs that we do it for mass rehab who's trying to connect people to jobs again that had been injured previously or service net pvta they meet people there to be qualified for the ada transport so there's a lot of non-profit groups that are in and out of there every day that we also serve you may recognize jen because she was working for the parking department for ten years before we were lucky enough to to have her start with us last last year and she handles all our money thank you are there questions just so you know we you are well represented for seniors on the council some of us hit that age mark a couple years ago i'd like to also mention our council and aging president rosemary cofflers here they're incredibly supportive of our mission and we really couldn't do it without them thank you yeah our board actually serves as receptionists and handles many many direct service things going on in the seniors that are every day including going down two floors to get convalescent equipment which is a big part of our day thank you okay we're going to move on with the rest of our presentation but thanks for your services thank you paul did you have a no okay we have no appointments approval of minutes or committee reports at this time i do want to offer people the opportunity for public comment is there anyone that would like to make a comment okay see none um any council comments at this time must be hungry um so with that i move to adjourn is there a second george is your second all those in favor unanimous thank you