 All right. You're good to go. Have a nice meeting. Thank you. Good morning. I'm calling the June 29, 2020 meeting of the town service and outreach committee to order at. 932. Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting. Of the TSO. I'll now call on the committee members by name to check and make sure that they can hear us and we can hear them. Alyssa Brewer. Good morning. Darcy Dumont. That's me. Dorothy Pam. Hello. Evan Ross. Hi. George Ryan. I'm here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Those assisting the meeting will be monitoring committee member connections and if necessary, we'll pause the meeting until we're reconnected. We request that everyone be patient with the process. So I'm just going to check and see if we have any public. We just, we have art. And he is not raising his hand. We do have another oops. We do have another public comment period at the end. So if someone shows up who wants to make public comment, they can do so then. Okay. So we'll, since there's no public comment, we'll move on to the action items. And the first action item is the town manager appointments of the elementary school building committee. Last week we recommended that the town council approve a list of seven town and school department staff for appointment to the elementary school building committee. Today we're considering for approval and additional list of appointments of elected officials to that committee, those of the two counselors, one from the finance committee and one general. And a school committee member. The town council voted on the two counselors recommended for appointment. Counselors Kathy Shane. As the member of the finance committee. And Steve Schreiber. And the school committee recommended one member. Ben Harrington. So the council needs to act today. Because the MSBA deadline is June 30th or tomorrow. So. The town manager is here. And if he would like to. Add something. That would be great. This is the memo that we see here. His memo. With his recommendations. Thank you, Darcy. So this is pretty straightforward. There are two members from the town council. And one member from the school committee, both of those bodies selected their members. And I am as the sort of appointing authority as the appointing authority. I'm forwarding those to you for your consideration. Great. So do we have any questions for the town manager? Let me look at, see if we have hands here. I do, I don't have questions about the memo, but I do have questions about. The, the resident applicants and the timeline. So I just want. Going to ask that now. We had. Said that we would get those appointments. The. Residents. Recommendations by our meeting on August 6, but now we've added a meeting on July 23rd. So I'm just wondering if you think that that's possible to get. The recommendations by July 23rd. I can't guarantee. No, I don't think so. Just with the holiday and the interviews that we have to conduct and everyone's schedule. I think August 1st, August, whatever day that is, is still the target date. And there won't be a meeting until the full, the committee is fully constituted. Okay. That was another question I had. And that's, so that's, that's a good thing. Were there any changes in the charge at all? No. Okay. Any other questions? I did want to ask Paul, why he specifically wanted to exclude parents with experience in the schools. I don't exclude anybody. At all. There's a preference if you have younger children. So you do have children in the schools. But I'm not excluding anybody. And there's, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no. I'm not excluding anybody and there's, and it's just a preference, not a requirement. Okay. So yeah, we went through that pretty thoroughly at the last meeting and that's, you know, that's in the report. I didn't see it change. Any change though. In the. Somewhere I saw the, the request for members again. In one of the pieces of paper and I didn't see any change. So I guess we discussed it, but I didn't have any impact as well. Okay. Any other questions? All right. If no other questions. I move to recommend that the town council approve the town manager's recommendation to appoint the following persons to the elementary school building committee. For terms that last the length of the MSBA process. Kathy Shane is a member of the town councilor who is a member of the finance committee. Steve Schreiber, town councilor and Ben Harrington school committee member. All those are all those in favor. We need a second. I second. All those in favor. You need a roll call vote. Yes. Yes. And. Myself. Yes. Dorothy. Yes. Yes. Evan. Yes. Lightly out of order there. Okay. So that's unanimous. And that will be reported for the time to the town council tonight. They already got the report of the first batch. So they'll get a report of this. Okay. So. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. The. Options memo, the options for time council review of long-term permanent public way requests. That is a memo that was put forward by the council president and Dave Zomek. The assistant town manager and. The city council. The city council. I'm not sure how the town council should deal consistently with long-term permanent requests regarding the public way. Under the charter, the town council has authority over such uses as opposed to the town manager. And the town services committee has in its charge. Review of such requests. I asked. Lynn that council president is with us today. She's producing the meeting and participating in this part of the meeting. And, um, And I asked her to, um, to present and keep in mind. Generally the, the kind of. Factors that we wanted to look at in our preliminary presentation. So this was brought to my attention by Dave Zomek. And Paul was also there at the meeting. So Paul may want to speak to it. What has happened is we've just become inconsistent with how we deal with long-term use of public way. Sometimes we've done. A presentation at the council. And then we've referred other times we've done a presentation at the council and then we've adopted. And other, and I don't know if we've ever done just a direct referral. So since TSO. Is the body that. Has the responsibility. To deal with long-term use of the public way in addition to the personal experience that we've had, we've had to work with the public on that. To make sure that this memo then be referred to TSO. So let me just say, I don't think there's a magic answer here. And I just want to be very clear. And tonight we're going to have two examples about one example already. No, we have two examples tonight. On the council meeting. But the options that are laid out here, one is that there's automatic referral. TSO. or it's done through a consent agenda which by the way would then preserve the option that it isn't referred and then the other option is that everything is basically heard at the council and we vote to suspend rules and we do the kinds of things we've done. So let me just review a couple things and the reason Dave brought this up is because it the more the more we don't have your path the more we cost petitioners money because so for example they may come to the town council meeting not knowing if it's going to be referred or not and they may have lined up their attorneys and their developer or whoever else that costs the money and then if we decide to refer they have to line those same people up again because now they're going to give a presentation to TSO and it's not out of the question that if TSO once they ruled or made a recommendation when it comes back to the council it could be such a complicated situation that in fact they have to bring their developer their attorneys etc yet again and I will just tell you from my a person not a personal experience but an experience of a colleague a personal friend if you will it cost a lot of money for her to get her building built because between everything the council now needs to do and the planning board needs to do and if they're zoning situations it starts stacking up the amount of additional assistance that you know the petitioner and I might add our staff have to put in so I'm not clear that there is pardon the double use of the word I'm not sure there is a clear path here so for example tonight we have coming before us the group from Crocker Farm who wants to add three more little libraries okay and we have on the agenda tonight that we would actually suspend the rules and go ahead and vote you know this is a group of a it's a teacher Kathleen Perkins and then it's her students and their parents and you know it's one of those times when the council gets to do something that feels a lot more positive than some of the other things we get to do we also tonight have a hearing which we have to have anyway um but it's on the issue of one university drive one university drive came to us we actually did it at a council meeting and the only thing that was left to do is the hearing that we have tonight which would not which is public way but it's public way because it's parking uh and then the other example that was recently done was the one for southeast street and because in the process of looking at that people said well you know um design review board had some questions then there was a referral to TSO so you can see the examples now so again there is no clear solution and um the sometimes these things need to be expedited because we're holding somebody up in terms of getting stuff done and the season construction is narrowing or something like that um so there's just any number of elements that come into here and I mean there another option frankly is you could leave it to you know the president of the council whoever that is to make the own judgment as to whether or not to bring it forward as a full council agenda item or to do an automatic or for not automatic or to put it on consent for referral um again I think that's enough said and we should go on and hear what you all have to think about this do we have discussion wait a minute let's let me uh Alyssa yes you have raised hands I think part of the reason this is so complicated is because the complex system of subcommittees that we have that we don't call subcommittees when the select board did these requests for the public way it was more straightforward we still had to deal with all the maneuvering around did we need a hearing or didn't we need a hearing how much notice has to be in the newspaper yada yada yada so that always took time and we often found ourselves running behind associated with that but as soon as you add in another body as Lynn points out not only is it costly to the applicant but it's costly to all the staff trying to manage this so even if town council believes it has a certain set of meetings then TSO has to have a certain set of meetings etc so there's some predictability for people I I agree with Lynn that there is just there really literally is no one solution to this I think it's going to end up being something that we're going to have to try structuring a couple of things around based on the kinds of things like the example she gave tonight well given that set of circumstances maybe it goes down this directional path given that set of circumstances it goes down this directional path I am totally opposed to the idea of it putting the president in the position of deciding which action town council is going to take what I am most in favor of is something that we are not particularly good at as a town that I think we need to get better at for all the reasons that we're cited which is that we know these things are coming months before they have to be acted on somebody in town knows that because they've been dealing with applicants and they're not somebody who's necessarily on the town council but there's somebody in town so their staff is aware that something's going to be happening so given that there needs to be more effort placed toward I believe getting this on the town council agenda as there's a thing going to happen in six months so but somebody wants to do this in three months somebody wants to do this in two months the farmers market's going to start up what do we want to do because I think it is appropriate to bring it to the town council not for for example like tonight's hearing for all those folks to have to come and bring all their paid staff their paid staff to come and talk about it but simply a presentation by the president and the town manager or whatever staff he designates if it's Dave or if it's somebody from planning or whoever to say this is what's happening there's a project it's at this point in the zba process it's eventually going to need action from you what do you think do you think you want them to come do you the town council think you want them to do this purely at a at a council does it need a hearing oh well then should we have the hearing right away or should there be some preliminary work by the tsl I think if we had that most basic introductory this is like pre before preliminary in our later discussion today if we had a basic introduction to the topic which in fact the president it should be getting not saying they always do but should be getting from staff at agenda setting meetings right this is something that's going to be coming down the line when it feels ready to daylight this right because it's not going to put any applicant in awkward position to say okay here's where we're at so given what we know there's going to be a roundabout okay that sounds pretty complicated are we going to hear that as an entire town council or do we want to refer it to tso right away I think if we have that initial conversation that's not an hour long conversation that has no presentation by the applicants themselves will be in a much better position of deciding then which part of the decision tree we need to go down but by missing that step it always feels like we're trying to catch up later and people feel like they're getting pushed one area or another and finally I just want to say I really dislike the idea of having applicants come to tso instead of coming to the full town council tso is not as accessible to the public as full town council meetings are pandemic or no pandemic people expect these things to be managed at the town council so I think things should only be referred to tso when they're going to have particular complexity and that's why for example tonight we're having this hearing and everything's taking place at the full town council meeting because we had a discussion at the council meeting and we said you know what tso isn't going to be a value add to this this is something the full town council needs to do other things we might want tso to go off and work on for a couple meetings worth of stuff and then come back but without that very introductory presentation something's coming down the line I think we can't make a decision as to wherever we belong on the decision tree before we move on I just want to say that Dave Zomek is here and I promoted him to panelists so he's in the room and Evan has his hand up Evan yeah so I I agree a lot with what Alyssa said including that we should call them some committees but that's a whole different thing um but I guess I just want to reinforce a couple points so one looking at the document that Lynn has shared on the screen definitely completely opposed to automatic referral and and modifying our rules to do such I think one of the complexities of this beyond all of the ones that Lynn and Alyssa listed out is how different some of these requests are from each other and how some of them are pretty significant and others are pretty minor and so it doesn't make sense to me to refer every public wage request to this yes so because some of them don't really require any review some of them we such as the public free libraries that are put up we don't need to go through a review process for some of these things or in my opinion um and that and that takes our time up it takes other people's time up um what I support is what Alyssa said which is first step is an introductory presentation at the full town council level by staff um that doesn't require um the applicants to come in they can if they want but but as Lynn said there's expense um associated with that um and then the town council can have a discussion about what they want to do with it um regarding referral because one of the things that I think we're getting better at as a council and I'm glad about that is adding some specificity to our referrals not just referring for the sake of referral but saying here is what we expect the committee to give back to us and so as Lynn said with the southeast street they said we're pretty much good with this but we would like TSO to just look at these design review board recommendations whereas with uh south university south the council sort of felt like we have all the information we don't we don't really need anything else and so there was no reason for it to come to us um and so I think that's the best approach just start with a introductory presentation from the staff who have been working with the applicants if the applicants want to send people by all means but not required and then the council can say do we want this to go to referral are we just good with this can we just vote this at the next meeting or even suspend the rules um or do we actually want to bring the applicants into a full town council meeting and get a more thorough presentation from it um but I think that's the best approach starting with that introductory um I want to just before you go on to the next when I can't raise my hand because oh go ahead Lynn that um Alyssa's actually right we know these things are coming I knew university drive was coming because Paul would mention it in a meeting you know maybe three months ago David is in those meetings um we knew that the southeast street was coming I knew that the little libraries was coming so I I really like this fact the idea of you know heads up this is coming and when we know that it's almost ready saying heads up it's coming now what do you want to do with it and asking the council um George has his hand up George I like what I'm hearing but I'm I'm a little concerned about this introductory presentation and how it's actually going to save us any time one of the things we're struggling with as a council is the enormous amount of time that we spend doing things that should be done at somewhere else um so I guess it's just a practical question doesn't have an easy answer um Lynn gives examples of things that she knew about you know well down the road but it's still a question when you know what would have happened differently if we'd heard about one of these projects uh two months ago um would we would the presenters be able to give us enough detail I mean just I think it's just uh at some point something's ready to be presented um and you know a pre-presentation or you know a heads up is nice but part of me thinks that's the sort of thing that you you give to a council president as she's trying to figure out the agenda but to have the council sit there and have somebody give kind of a pre-pre preview I'm just struggling with how this is actually going to uh help us a with the fact that we spend six hours or five hours at meetings and b actually advance the the larger purpose which is here so that um applicants petitioners know the process so what we're going to talk about later today is hopefully a process that everyone can look at and they can say okay those are the steps that's the process so here it sounds like Alyssa and Evan are saying we should have some kind of process step which is you know like a heads up to the council so the council can I don't know I guess right and and we'll yeah so I'm struggling with this to see how it's actually going to play out and if we look at previous examples maybe somebody can take an example and and show me how if this idea of a pre presentation had been in place this would have solved the problem of having applicants feel like they have to go to different bodies and how it also would make the life of the council a bit easier I think one of the roles of TSO is to take on some of the workloads so that then we go back to them and tell them okay this is what's been done but it sounds like the council still wants to have its fingers in the pie all the way along so I'm interested in hearing from Dave since you are one of the authors of this or the primary moving party just more about your impetus behind this are you there Dave I am here I'm not sure I'm the the the mover behind this per se I think a lot of things related to public way touch or or my staff or I come in contact with and work with applicants on public way whether it's you know the examples you have been citing southeast street Mr. Mikchi or Mr. Roberts over on U Drive South so it might be Rob Mora and his staff or Chris Brestrup and the planning staff or myself working with applicants I just I'm sorry I was a few minutes late to this conversation but um yeah I mean there's there's a there's kind of a it's made me think about you know kind of consistency of process and and all the things you're talking about is you know what are what are you looking for in these early presentations and and when is it when does it come to the full council or or TSO and the role of TSO I'm very conscious of of cost and time time is money for these applicants so we've heard time and time again that our process in Amherst is cumbersome we're anti-business I don't like that that framing at all I don't agree with it but time and consistency applicants need to know what is the process so they can plan so they can back out the time it takes to move a project through so I think consistency is really important I think we need to recognize that every time a consultant an engineer or a or a lawyer or the applicant himself or herself comes to the to the board or a committee it is money that they they need to spend so I think staff would will be fine and and is comfortable coming to you with presentations um and but we want because we're the liaison to the applicant we want to be presenting a consistent a consistent process to them um you know on you drive south we've been working very closely with Barry Roberts and his team for quite a while and they've worked through conservation the zoning board of appeals the planning department etc so a number of staff have touched that project and we feel very comfortable dpw was right at the table the entire way so we feel very comfortable with that project so I'm not sure if that's helpful or not again I'd like to speak but I can't raise my hand headline um I Dave and Paul I think I my observation is that some people come forward and they're just better prepared all the way around they're more experienced and we have experience with them and so we know what to expect and because they've worked with the town in the past they know what to expect maybe not which meeting it's going to go to but at least they know that the town has certain standards so that's one observation a second observation is um if if we go back to the idea that elissa suggested and that is the idea that this is brought up to the council either by the town manager by the president and at the time it's brought up if you know we can state this project is coming forward it is going to um have x y and z review by the time it comes to you and you know that kind of thing for I'll just take the the book thing they've worked very closely with dpw they know exactly where the library little libraries can be in the public way so that it does not prohibit snow plows and that you know so they've the teacher has done all of that work with gilford and his staff so I'm increasingly liking this idea of a preview to the council and getting a sense from the council but also a sense from the staff of whether they see issues in advance that they know the council is sensitive to and then based on that deciding how what the route would be paul has his hand up so I think it's really important for the council to have a consistent approach to how they handle this a lot of times people will take a small thing that they need in a public way and hook that into a larger concern about a major project and that certainly was is within the realm of how someone can make you know can argue their point during this but I think that if it's focused on what is in your terrain you're talking about the public way request versus the conservation request versus the planning board's request it's but those things ultimately wind up on your plate so I think as long as we're able to create treat everyone consistently so that whoever's asking for it is aware of how the process will work out I think that's the fair thing to do um thank you paul um george I guess I just want to reemphasize the idea of it's this is fairly narrow focus this public way issue right and yet sometimes it does seem like it gets expanded by some of my colleagues the public ways issue is a fairly focused issue very specific and we need to honor that and again I wonder why a lot of this could not be done by TSO it sounds like my colleagues want most of this to be done in full council with full council input both with the pre preview and then the presentation the whole line yards and TSO really doesn't have much of a role to play except when it gets complicated and it seems these public ways requests are fairly focused and fairly narrow and so I guess I'm still struggling to see well I like to hear from my colleagues why they feel that TSO really doesn't have much of a role to play or it only has a role to play when things get complicated part of our charge is public ways it would seem a natural place for these things to come and then we send back to the council our recommendation but it sounds like and maybe that's just the way we're going to go this all has to be in front of the council and as we've seen that often leads to discussions that that drift far away from what actually is at issue in terms of the public way request um you're saying I just have a quick question for George you're saying that that happens in the council or at TSO I've seen it happen in both places yes um Dave two quick things one is you know our goal as staff is always whether we're preparing for a committee meeting like TSO or or the full council our goal is and should always be to present you know a full picture of of the project or the request I did want to say one thing about the pre again I came into this discussion late this morning but a pre presentation one of the things we need to think about is what is the role of staff relative to the applicant and what is the applicant's role in presenting a project to you regarding the public way and there may be times where and I think there are times where where staff may not agree with the entirety of the proposal and so we need to have an opportunity for staff to express that to you as TSO or to the full the full council but I want to make sure if if staff did the pre-proposal does that give an applicant an opportunity a fair opportunity to present his or her proposal to you staff is going to say here's the proposal we we like this portion but we're not in favor of that I just want to make sure the applicant has a has that opportunity because staff you know we don't always agree with what applicants want from the town and in the form of you know public way requests so I'll just not to complicate things but that is an important piece thank you Dave um Alyssa so I um having been somewhat shifted now from George's question to responding to what Dave's saying as well as what George was saying so yes staff has to be willing to say this is the proposal these are the steps they've been through so far this requires a hearing this doesn't require a hearing it's gone through concom it will go through concom we have we staff have expressed to the applicant our concerns about x y z this is still a preliminary presentation they are going to get their full opportunity to explain all of the aspects of their proposal to concom whoever else and eventually to you do you want that to be explained town council to you at a full town council meeting or do you want to shift this over to tso and I feel every confidence in having our staff do that what I don't feel confident about is I don't feel confident about having that take place at the tso level instead of at the town council level the entire town council does not trust each other does not trust the process does not know what their real job is when it comes to dividing up their opinion on the project versus their opinion on the public way as has been made clear by speakers today and at tso and at full town council in the past so until we develop a more trusting relationship with who does what in this process and for the public to see that the full town council is engaged in deciding whether or not it's up to tso to make some recommendations or if it's something the full town council it's like we can just move forward with this this little library thing's going to be great why would we shift that off to tso why would we have had those kids come to tso just because that's our process and so the practical aspect of accessibility is still true tso meetings are not as accessible as full town council meetings to anyone so it looks more secretive to people when it's not and it's an optics issue and the other part is tso doesn't know anything about the public way we don't have knowledge that the other members of the town council don't have we are not yet specialists in this once we have to wrestle with more complex issues because the town council has quite reasonably referred them over to us and said man this is complicated you're going to need to have some more people talk about this then that's totally where tso is going to develop its strength in ability to dig into those issues at this point tso members don't know any more about you drive than the full town council does therefore it only makes sense for the full town council to do it because the full town council isn't going to rightfully so assume tso had any idea what they were talking about any more so than any other five of the town counselors so i want us to develop the skills to really have a value add and we'll do that with the complex issues but i don't want everything to be sent directly to us first because we want to hear just like those specific referrals evan mentioned we want to hear from town council what is it we want to know what is it that staff hasn't yet addressed or that staff's concerned about that we might want to talk about more what are those things and that's the kind of meat that tso can do on behalf of the town council and then report back you dorsi um so i'm very confused here um in the different documents we have of the process we do we talk about a sponsor and that's a person who wants to do something usually a builder or developer then david just talked about getting presentations from staff and i thought well that's who i want to hear from i want to hear from people from the town who've looked at this exam and put it in terms of town policies and and may bring up um some support in some areas and some drawbacks but that's we when we all these different steps of process that's not how things started we all these process papers i've got three of them here start off saying we're going to have the sponsor and then tso is going to ask all the questions so um i i can see that there's a lot of confusion here one of the advantages of having tso be part of it near the beginning according to some of these documents was that it was going to be a focused examination of what information do we need not having it come just randomly from different counselors that a general town council meeting but some kind of focus on what we're going to need to have all of this stuff i could see that as having a role i certainly do agree with elissa though that big decisions should be and presentations where you're calling people in from the outside and their staff um i think that probably it is inappropriate for tso to do that and they really do belong to the town council so question is if it starts with the town council does it start with a staff presentation does it start with a sponsor coming in um we hadn't even talked about that that step isn't in many of our documents here if there's a presentation that's made not by the sponsor but by the staff i could see it going to tso to come up with a bunch of questions and procedures and to focus on it and then to bring it back to town council and then the developer or the person the petitioner the sponsor comes in with their staff that could be reasonable to me but that i don't think that's a plan that we've been presented with i'd like to have people argue with me are there any other comments i would say that i agree with those who have said that there should not be an automatic referral because that doesn't make sense for all items um and i am not wedded to one way or the other um i do think that there should not be a pre a pre-pre presentation by staff before the applicant even has the opportunity to make his or her application or case because that's the first thing that we should hear and then then hear feedback from staff um uh in my opinion i'm not sure also what we should do with this today um paul i was going to throw an idea out there um maybe one way to approach this is to have staff make a like once every two months whatever it is a present a presentation to the full council typically this is something that we would have gone through the you know the chair or the president with but if the council feels like we want to make the decision about where this lands uh staff could make a a summary presentation of here are three things that are coming that we anticipate coming forward in the next two months three months whatever it is and you can start to divide them out saying this one clearly needs to go to tso this one clearly doesn't need to go to tso this one you know president you decide where it should go but um if we could do a if you want to carve time out on your agenda it wouldn't be a full-blown presentation we might come in and say something like um on southeast street that the proposal is to take a piece of the public way for this purpose you know five minutes on that um five minutes on you drive saying here's what we're looking at um for that and you can say this one's a no-brainer we can move forward this one that needs more complexity um that and some things will not fit into that because they'll come before we know it or something like that but that could be one way to approach it thank you other comments um elissa i like that idea of doing something regularly scheduled so we could all be planning on it right and and not do it for you know with paul being stuck doing it at 10 50 at night as part of his interest report but it being something that we we predictably we're going to be talking about because the public would really like that too right they're often after us like where are we on such and such i heard a thing about such and such and so to be able to kind of bring them along i think is incredibly helpful as well the other thing i do want to just push back on a little bit is that there is no such thing as hearing from the applicants first that's just a mythical thing it's not a mythical thing when it comes to bylaws or proclamations or some other kind of measure it is a mythical thing when it comes to the public way there is no such thing as an applicant getting to present to a completely clean audience their opinion as to what should happen to the public way there has been a process for these folks to do something before they ever get to the town council before the town council makes a decision on the public way we absolutely have to have in order to do our jobs as a town council framing from town staff as to what policies we already have what boards they've already been to is this a mass general law issue is this a hearing issue the applicant on a public way thing is not now as lin says some are more skilled than others they could run through chapter and verse and tell you that but the applicant is not going to come to us out of the clear blue saying i need this public way adjusted in front of this project they are going to have been through a process so the idea that they get to present first and then we hear from stat that doesn't even make any sense to me because we're going to have memos if we're doing our jobs we're going to have memos that tell us what the context is for this where this has been where it's going and what the decision points are so this is not like somebody trying to bring us a bylaw idea fresh off the street that a town councilor has to sponsor this is another variation of the several documents we have in our packet the public way as Dorothy said this public way conversation is currently taking place separately from that discussion but it needs to be folded into that discussion and sponsors are not the same when it's a developer of a project that's already been through several steps with the town versus somebody coming to us with a bylaw so it's just yet another complexity as to where we are in this decision tree but it's not ever going to be true that a public way proposal is going to come out of whole cloth from an applicant to the town council they are going to have talked about it with staff first and staff should provide us the context of oh that's actually not even the public way that's not your problem we need to actually hear from staff framing every one of these issues so I do like this idea of if not yet a preliminary presentation on individual projects per se at least this summary idea that paul just came up with that talks about upcoming things which again it's very much like the agenda setting sort of conversations and figuring out what are the easy ones to figure out and then which ones actually need five minutes or ten minutes or a tso discussion okay thank you um george so i'm envisioning this um two months every bi-monthly whatever it is presentation by staff which you know I would welcome to in front of the 13 of us say three or four things are put out there with that's going to take some time and you're going to tell me that the 13 of us are just going to sit there and just nod and not say anything and secondly if we do start saying things which we will then what happens do we take a vote on each one as to where it's going to go and what's going to happen you're getting 13 people it sounds like to try and agree on what the agenda on agenda setting um I guess you could argue that that conversation however long it will go on and I'm sure it will go on for a long time um we'll give the council president some idea of how people are thinking and feeling but is that the purpose I mean is that what we really want to spend our council time on um it seems in a more rational world this is the sort of agenda setting that happens at you know with the council president uh trying to figure out the order of way things need to be dealt with and also subcommittees if that's what you want to call them um but it sounds like we're going to do this as we've been doing it all along all 13 of us are going to sit there we'll get excellent staff presentations we they're very good um it'll be interesting uh they'll be concise but there'll be two three four of them uh right maybe and we're just going to nothing's nobody's going to say anything and we're not going to discuss we're not going to vote we're not going to decide so what's the point so if we are going to do the the discussion and voting that's what half hour an hour it just seems this is it I don't know I just to me it seems like a terrible waste of our time we're trying to figure out ways to get things done at another level and once again we're pushing it up to the highest level um and we're going to spend another hour at a meeting where we already have not enough time trying to figure out the agenda thank you Evan so this is of course more complicated than I think I originally had thought it was hearing Alyssa hearing George and hearing Dave um but one thing I also just wanted to put out there um is that in my opinion um there's been talk about when applicants come in the cost associated with that but I think one of the benefits of having that introductory conversation about this even if it could be time consuming is it helps us determine whether we actually need to hear from applicants and if the concern of staff which is a concern I'm hearing is the time and expensive applicants um when I'm thinking about the southeast street project we actually never brought um the applicant in to either TSO or the council there's a feeling that we didn't need to hear from the applicants we could accomplish that without hearing from the applicants um with university drive south our initial presentation was from Chris if I remember correctly it was from staff um Mr Reedy was at the meeting as an attendee but we didn't call on him now at our last meeting we heard an extensive presentation from from Mr Reedy um which uh while I appreciate I thought was actually unnecessary I think that was a waste of time because he sort of just repeated a lot of things we already knew and showed us pictures we had already looked at and so I appreciated his time but I don't think it was actually time well spent and that was a presentation where after Chris had finished presenting it the council said well we're good on this we don't really have further questions we don't need it to go to TSO so um let's just move forward and of course it got a little complicated having to have a public hearing but I do think the benefit of that that first presentation and having staff speak first is it allows us to determine whether we feel we actually even need the applicants to come in and I think there are circumstances where we we don't when we saw that with Southeast Street I think that would have been true um with you drive especially if it didn't have that a public hearing which of course it does um but I think having staff as the first presentation does that where it gets complicated which I hadn't thought of so I'm really glad he said it was what Dave said about when staff and applicants have some disagreements but that's something where staff could say in that introductory presentation we're not comfortable with all of this and maybe in that situation we say well okay in this case we actually would like to hear from the applicants because there is some conflict and and at the end of the day as the keepers in the public way we're the ultimate arbiter so um I am hoping that we can figure out a way to wrap this segment up um I I am hearing that there's one thing that we agree that it appears that we have consensus on is that we agree that there shouldn't be an automatic referral to TSO but that's what do you have thoughts Lynn on how to handle this yeah um I think first of all you've had a really good discussion about this and I appreciate that uh and um I like both the idea of not an automatic I also really like the idea of every two months or so having a part of our presentation period on our agenda a staff presentation on what's coming up and getting a sense from that and that I think um we all that what I'd like to do is take that and come back with additional ideas and then I think what ultimately TSO needs to do is in fact say we're coming back to the council with these additional thoughts on how to handle this so I think we've done as much as we can do today on this discussion okay thank you um all right we're going to move on to the review process um I am going to share the document I'm going to stop sharing okay here you go um let's see if I can do this let me know if you have trouble because I have it ready to queue up okay uh I think this is it do we see it do you see the um discussion framework we see the discussion framework TSO review process okay and it says draft two and you might enlarge it if you can okay is that good yes um okay so um last week uh we started looking at a draft review uh that was based on one referred to us by the community there are actually three large issues areas that we'll eventually look at have to do a TSO process um one is the steps in our review process from the reverb referral of a measure to the vote and the report back to the council one is our stakeholder rubric that can be used as a guide to see whether we need input from the community with regard to the impacts benefits and drawbacks of a proposed measure um and its factors to consider during deliberation and lastly we hope to be looking at our outreach function and process which is part of our charge today we're just going to be looking at the the review process and what I suggest is that we just start on on the preamble and number one um and see how far we get um and I would like to if possible buy somewhere around 11 we'll see how it goes I thought we were going to get started on this a little bit earlier um I would like to see since we seem to have from our input uh much consensus on what the criteria are um for the information that we need in a preliminary presentation that I would like to um do a practice preliminary presentation of the surveillance technology bylaw uh if we can get to it today and that is partly because um there is uh the there is a piece of it the facial recognition technology that is very relevant now to the discussions that we're having with um the police department so we would like to be able to move that forward if possible so um why don't we take a look at this um what happened over the period of the week is that Alyssa uh made some suggestions about language in the step one especially uh and George uh put together some suggestions and Evan Evan joined him in those so I incorporated as much as I could um into this document so it includes the format that that um uh George and Evan submitted and a fair amount of the language from both their proposal and Alyssa's so um why don't we just start going through it and see how far we can get um uh and uh I have a hard copy of Evan and George's in front of me so um hopefully we can figure out how to do this um and I don't have the screen that tells me if anybody's asking for let's see see if I can forget I have to make sure that I know who's raising their hand but I don't Lynn can you just tell me if somebody's raising their hand because I don't seem I know they're not now but if someone if we go through because I do not appear to be able to see I will do that okay thank you um okay so let's start right in with um um I think the the uh the title and the the heading seem fine to me anybody have any problems with those may end up being a different draft um and the preamble um this was this was uh uh offered by George and Evan the preamble any any thoughts about that or do we have consensus on that it basically is is um directly quoting our charge on uh how we do our review I do have I'd like to say something if I could go ahead George I just want to point out what's probably obvious to everyone that this is very focused it does not address um town manager appointments and does not address outreach so it's it's a piece of our charge um this preamble and this document is focused on um they're trying to focus on a very specific thing so I assume everyone's comfortable with that everyone's okay with that this is not a process document for everything we do it's we're trying to create at least my understanding was a process document for dealing with the kinds of public ways requests um potential town policy issues and bylaws so just pointing that out and that's that we cover in a in a foot footnote below right um that the oh the there's a footnote that pertains to or maybe the footnote is left out uh was that footnote in the preamble referring to the footnotes that are at the bottom the the definition of a measure etc um I guess I guess in the process of redrafting this I left out the footnote so we need to put that back in and I can't remember where where it uh what it referred back to it was in the first was it in the preamble yes yeah okay so we'll put that back in there but and I think that um I actually added some words to the footnote um because it said um measure refers if you a measure can you see it on your screen the footnote mm-hmm yeah um it says for the purposes of this document measure refers to bylaws public way requests and town council policies I added plans or goals um just because I wasn't sure that policies included plans and goals um Alyssa has her hand up Alyssa thank you so we're going to struggle throughout this document with the fact that it's trying to be one thing that solves them all it says that it includes public way requests as it's written it doesn't include public way requests and so I appreciate what George said but this doesn't cover everything and we should have a policy or a process of our own about how we're doing town manager appointments and about how we're doing public way requests and in fact the public way request should be folded in here the titles just a little miss the titles um aspirational at this point because we cannot we cannot pretend that all these words apply to all these things I think that one thing that will probably help us maybe in part of the preamble at some point can be added in as we backfill some of this is to say this is where things come from to TSO because this does not cover where this doesn't even cover the fact that a referral's been made to us this doesn't mention that that's where something came from was as a referral as opposed to somebody coming to us directly and so there might be things where people come to us directly so I'm just saying we may want to add a little bit of a section to explain that and that can also say for public ways see this for appointments we haven't written that yet but I don't want it to imply I'm fine with keeping the title it's just aspirational at this point because this doesn't cover all these possible paths that we have to go down and that's one of our challenges here right is we have some very different kinds of things we're trying to do and we're trying to wedge them all into one process so I think we're going to continue to rub up against that and we just need to consider we need to plan to add a section about where we're getting things from how things are getting on our work plan whatever but that and so I will try not to express that frustration throughout the meeting but when you said are you okay with the title I'm like well not really because it doesn't actually deal with public ways requests yet but we're working on that as we just did that's kind of why I asked the question okay um so we we can other than let's see I guess do we have consensus on the preamble if we add the footnote at the bottom here and I hear what you're saying Alyssa yes sir so I am not seeing any of your faces or hands or anything so I'm assuming we have consensus I think Alyssa raises a point I'm sorry to interrupt but about something going into preamble about where things come from yeah and we don't have that in this document at the moment I'm not sure we have agreement about that but maybe it's just a technical thing we can easily solve it we're not going to solve it now I agree but that does seem to be something if I understand Alyssa's comment that's missing from the preamble that needs to get in there somewhere or something somewhere at the beginning of the document something like that it needs to be put in and so I don't think we can really we can't sign off on the preamble obviously for a number of reasons um and one of them is it seems unless Alyssa disagrees that that there's something missing here that's important well I think that Alyssa had included in her hers an additional step and actually my original had had a separate step for referral and that's perfectly fine to have an additional step I think that I was just trying to to condense steps and I wasn't sure that that was necessary so but if people want that that's absolutely fine with me uh so shall we just add referral as the as it was in the original version or step one and then move the bump the others up I guess for me it just becomes a question of what people want um I really don't care where things come from they just they get to us right however they get to us they get to us and the question for me is what do we do with them what's our process once we get them um but it does seem to matter to some and maybe it should matter to me um that we have spelled out where they can come from most of them come by referral but Alyssa's correct there could be something could be initiated from within the committee or something could come to us from I don't know from a citizen I guess um I personally don't really care about where they come from um at some point the committee has to decide I mean if it's referred to us by the council um we have to deal with it right I assume that's true right we can't the council refers to something we can't just tell them that we're not interested we have to deal with that but if a citizen comes to us or if a committee member says I'd like to talk about X Y I want to do something with X Y or Z then the committee will decide whether they want to do that they might say no we you know four of us don't want to do that or maybe all of us decide we do want to do it so I personally don't really feel the need for having something about where things come from um but I could be in the minority and that's fine um but if we do want something like that then we're going to have to make a decision about it and put it somewhere yeah it is referred to in the preamble I mean it does say two ways in which things could get to us referred by the council or take up matters within our domain so it exactly it's there right but is that enough is that enough um that is enough for me um I hear Alyssa sighing yeah you do well I I appreciate that George and you and I are always going to be in disagreement on these sorts of matters and I just have to live with that but it's if we're trying to make it clear to the rest of the council and to the public as well as to ourselves what we're actually doing to just have the broad reference to something that's within our domain doesn't really tell them how to get it actioned upon and so I really appreciate that Darcy included my wording along the lines of it being in response to the TSO work plan or by request of a TSO member because if we if people don't know how it gets to us because the work plan right would include all our referrals or anything else that we've done then I guess I'm okay with that as long as that if people feel like that makes it clear where stuff comes from because it's you know then perhaps that is adequate language to make that clear because it's not in the preamble and so we were arguing about the content of the preamble which is going to take a really long time if we do that line by line but if the first sentence in step one covers it then for everybody else then I'm good with that okay great um does anyone else have their hand raised I'm assuming not okay so we're moving on to step one preliminary preliminary presentation of a measure and this is this whole section is a combination of mostly what Alyssa suggested and with some of I mean it was there was a lot of overlap between what Alyssa Evan and George suggested and the original document so let's look at the first paragraph here and this is this is Alyssa's language so she does she as she said she includes the two different ways that a measure could get to us I have a question about who the presenter is supposed to be this says the chair will present maybe that's what we'll decide but my thought was that doesn't always have to be the chair someone could be designated as presenter and that step one will describe what the presenter has to do um but this says the chair will present a preliminary presentation right that's what we want no we we want the chair or the chair is designate in my opinion um so yes good point George um anything else on that paragraph yes I think we're just we're we're not really working at cross purposes here we're just not sure which sentence we're on the first section talks about the chair the next sentence which we aren't at yet modifies the first sentence and talks about the chairs the chairs designate or committee member when it says committee member I don't know what that means I don't know if that means a TSO committee member or some other committee member I don't know why there would be somebody other than the chair I don't understand that sentence but the reason I wrote chair is because chair never means in anyone's world that only the chair can do something it means it's the chair's responsibility the chair can always delegate to someone else the president can always delegate to someone else who's acting as the president in almost everything I mean there's the charter provisions about the president will have x y z but generally speaking common usage of chair means or somebody the chair assigns it to if you want to elaborate that that's that on that that's fine with me but it never meant and it will never mean when I write chair just like the chair does not always have to write the report of the committee to the town council the chair can assign things out always but if you want to make that clear here that's fine but in that next sentence which in fact does talk about exactly that I we just need to clarify what committee member means because I don't know why there would be a difference between the TSO chair the TSO chairs designee or some other TSO member I don't understand the discrepancy there I think that's just old language but to make it clear George I never meant and I will never mean that the chair means only the chair yeah we can take out the or committee member language that is unnecessary so can we move on to the numbers below well can we just agree I'm sorry can we just agree that I would like I appreciate Alyssa's comment and I will try to remember that in the future but I the phrase or chairs designee included if that's okay and I I'm wondering just for her if that first clause meets her concern about the preamble because it seems to me that's a good place for it in other words in response to the TSO work plan or by request of a TSO member does that or would you still prefer that that be sort of highlighted somewhere else because it's there and that seems to be addressing your concern but maybe it's not so two questions one are you okay with the insert it sounds like you're okay with inserting or chairs designee but what about that first clause is that addressing your concern or is still not enough I thought I said already that it would be that it would address my concern as long as people were comfortable with it being there if they thought that we didn't need to say it in the preamble and we said it there as it's just a first step then I'm fine with it as long as it as long as it made it through this part of the conversation that I'm fine with it being there I just wanted to make sure it was someplace and I'm fine with it being in that spot so thank you George okay great um so um and we could we can change everything to chairs designee like that can just be like a common parlance of ours that would be fine right the chair or the chair designee that's good and we'll take out committee member um so sounds like without seeing the ability to see anyone's hands it sounds like we have consensus on the first two paragraphs there um I have a you have your hand up Dorothy um when I look at Alyssa's I know you say you took into account her proposal in this language but I have to tell you I like it it's not even a full page I find the sentence is easy to read and clear what are you talking about the thing that says blower proposal step you know that's on page three of this little print out okay and you said that you included that in in your presentation but I just find the sentence structure easier to comprehend and it's clearer and simpler and the structure is simpler I I find this is just getting it's getting too complicated it's getting so you don't want to ever look at it you know so that's just a general comment about style I I prefer the simple style okay she she only dealt with one piece of this um so that might be why it's shorter um but can we go on to what number onto and I guess the numbering is off here it should be one two three four um okay um so we have identity one identify the sponsors to identify the purpose of TSO review uh why it is within the TSO charge and then clarify timing issues um and forcibly inform TSO of background information provided by the sponsor but let's do one two three first I think that everyone that that contributed anything um included two um and to some extent included three although Alyssa got into more detail on on clarifying the timing issues and Alyssa has her hand up Alyssa well I mean thanks Dorothy because I like my wording better too I think it's much more user-friendly and makes it much more likely we are literally ever going to use this again after the first time uh a statement when and how the measure came to TSO I find not as useful as wording along the lines in terms of when do we have to take action is it related to other actions is it a public health or safety emergency when are they what's need does the measure address I do like that wording better and obviously Darcy likes her wording better and Georgian Evan commented on her wording and that's the fun part about open meeting law is that we couldn't decide where Evan could I could say to Evan well what if I change the sentence and he said yeah but don't change the sentence and now we're trying to do that here and it's just really cumbersome as we have seen in all of our other committees so I don't like statements like when and how the measure came to TSO as much as I find it much easier to understand what are we hoping to do what need will this address I prefer the question format because I think it helps me process the information that's provided better that is fine with me I'd be glad to change these into back into questions I think the contents are the same I think it's just style to the point that's fine sounds good um and um are we good with the content of one two and three um you know Alyssa included the question um identify the need um and yeah I like it I at the time thought that you know why would anything be in front of us we have to look at things they're in front of us and we don't get to say that there's not a reason for them to be there but in fact we probably do want to hear about the need um so I I agree that we that that would be good to put back in Evan has his hand up and then George Evan so first just a clarification because obviously the number and got messed up when you're saying one through three you mean one through four right right no no I was saying let's just look at one through three to start with the first three yes first three yeah okay so then I agree with Alyssa that we get rid of one and how the measure came to TSO but the need part is part of four right it's not a timing issue it's not a timing issue that's where I'm getting confused about what because the numberings messed up and it's what we're actually talking about add the need for number four that what you're saying yeah the conversation you know having around the need and the wording of Alyssa's content or underneath that is all in four so are we talking about that now Alyssa's Alyssa's uh hers is yeah hers is under under four right the the the second point what need will the proposed measure address so that yeah that will be under four what that will be under what is going to be for here so I like Alyssa's language under three I like I like all of those that would go under our four just short they're they're easier but I do want to you know to some extent inform TSO of background information this is information that we should already have from the sponsor and so I do want to make clear that there are two steps involved in this and this is getting a little ahead but it's helpless in this part which is we need to be informed first about what we already have from the sponsors before we can have a conversation of what we still need from the sponsors because that leads into the next step so I think that Alyssa's summary of proposed measures from the sponsors point of view lays out very nicely um what we're looking for and so we need to be informed of what do we already have of these yeah I would um I would disagree that that um let's look at Alyssa's again um I would uh disagree that the sponsor that that that that would be a precondition of moving forward that the sponsor have information about um how the staff feels about it whatever the initiative the measure is I mean I think that sorry go ahead that's and I have expressed that before I don't I think that it's that it's important and that we definitely have to have it and have a plan to have the staff input but I don't believe that that's the sponsor and I don't think that has anything to do with the sponsor's point of view and it or that it is um uh responsibility of the sponsor um but it is a responsibility of the chair and the committee and it doesn't I don't see really what how it matters because all we need to do is ask the staff ourselves so I I guess that is we just we just have a disagreement here of opinion I I want the burden of providing the if someone is a sponsor or someone feels this is important and is going to take the initiative to bring a measure forth to the council it is on them to bring forth all of the supporting information that is needed it is not on PSO to play research and so I think what we need to know and what's part of three and I think Alyssa laid out really nicely is what has the sponsor already provided us because then we can have a conversation about what information we want and need so that that goes to the sponsor for them to bring so I don't think that then having the information is a precondition of having this preliminary presentation but it absolutely is a precondition of having the formal presentation and the benefit of the preliminary presentation is we can see what's already been provided for us and then we can communicate to the sponsor here's the information here's the input that we're looking for when you come before for a formal presentation but that's not the sponsor if they're gonna if they're gonna go through the process of bringing forth a measure that they have to be willing to back it up it's not I don't want any person off the street to say hey I wrote this by law and I don't know what staff things and I don't know what best practices are in other communities but you guys figure it out we're not going to do that right if they're going to go through the process of bringing forth a measure it's on them what we're here to do is say okay thank you for the information you've provided here are the things we still need from you before we can get to a formal presentation and that's what I see is the purpose of this preliminary presentation other comments I have my hand up I'm sorry thank you all right I'm kind of just jumping in and I apologize but item four is specifically about background information provided by the sponsor everyone's agreed with that that's all the items under four the new four have to do with information provided by the sponsor right and we're just being informed as to what it is and what might be lacking right then the next step would be um are we satisfied with what we have do we need more information from the sponsor do we need to do anything as a committee that's step five number five I assume is that is that correct yes yeah it sounds like yeah I'm assuming that's my job or the chair chairs designates job is to figure out okay what what is the remaining uh what are the questions that I've gathered that I need to send to the sponsor what what additional um the the questions that I've listed here a bcd uh but Darcy that says that you will solicit the committee right whoever you or whoever it is is actually dialogue with the committee right and it's not going home and saying okay scratching your head and saying okay have you heard all this what do I need to do next no the committee the responsibilities to tell you or the the presenter this is what we want you to do good you're okay I that's why I wrote it like that no exactly I just want to point out that that's what you wrote um I have a question about need um I I'm still a little nervous about this um it seems to be uh potentially drifting into the realm of deliberation so could somebody just clarify for me how addressing then what why this is needed is not actually becoming part of a deliberation as opposed to simply preliminary um the preliminary should be just basic facts so I assume what people are saying is that what's the factual problem or or whatever that this is addressing um is that what they mean in other words one way I think of need is somebody could just say why is this needed right but that would seem to be addressed under deliberation but so what does need mean here yeah well that that was my initial thought um when I took it out but then on further thought I wondered whether it should be back in so um other are there other hands up my hand is up Dorothy's hand is up okay I think we do have to ask need we don't want to waste our time on things that that might be a vanity project or you could say that's very interesting but this is not really relevant to what we're trying to do now or we have it's something that if we had infinite time we might think was good to pursue but we do not so we won't I mean we I think we always have to have a practical judgment as to whether there's a reason to go forward and often if you ask the question you may learn something that makes you realize yes we have to do this people don't always put forward the some of the most important information and they make a presentation so I see it as necessary for elimination I mean we hear things we think okay it's thinking deliberation well um is it only deliberation if you talk or you're sitting with other people uh we're thinking beings we have to be given information that makes us say decide this is worth doing and let's go into it or go at least explore it do you think we should include it I do I do um okay so it looks like Alyssa has her hand up as is George okay Alyssa just to clarify and deliberation sponsors can't deliberate only the TSO members are deliberating so it's not a deliberation as to whether or not we believe it meets a need like Dorothy said it's them telling us it's them putting right up front why this is a need to meet that's why it clear I thought clearly said in bold and italics from the sponsors point of view it's purely from their point of view we may have a completely different perspective and well that'll come out in our discussion but they need to tell us why they think this is so important and being very direct about that rather than us trying to kind of get around to it through the rest of the presentation I just think it's really helpful yeah I agree okay so it sounds like we have consensus on number one two and three George has his hand up George so one two and three I understand everyone's struggling with this um I'm looking at at least three different documents um and I'm not sure anymore what one two and three refers to um I hear Alyssa makes an excellent point it states in bold from the sponsors point of view the problem is I'm looking at a different document that doesn't have that in it so um I I'm just struggling to I want to approve this I want us to get through it but I just want to make sure I know what I'm approving so when you say one two and three are you referring to one two and three that's in Alyssa's document or you're referring to the one two and three that's in your document that's my question I'm referring to my document but I did agree to put the question the questions in in question form under the timing issues um and um they are a little different in Alyssa's she added the issue of a public health emergency which I took out because I thought it might not even fall under this policy uh or under this process I mean so but it's fine to leave it in and I the first question the first timing issue was in George and Evans so I that's from theirs when and how the measure came to TSO um so um I'm glad to add all four of them in question form and then and when we get another version of this at the next meeting that will be what is there Evan has his hand up Evan thank you George I'm because George expressed the confusion and frustration I think I'm also having I'm wondering if um we can we have a uh a word document of this so can and we have the ability to share screens can we just if we're just editing this in real time can we literally just edit it in real time can someone just have their screen and we can edit this so we can see I would prefer not to do that um if that's okay I'd rather go use this document because it incorporates both yours and Alyssa's and just would rather do that but we're coming to consensus around changes and I don't even know what we're coming to consensus on what the changes are we're adding are under what what says three but this should be four I think are we swapping A through E out with what's under Alyssa's now we haven't agreed to that yet um the when let's see um what do people feel about that first yeah I can't agree to something if I can't see what it is I'm agreeing to and and I understand it's difficult for everybody including you particularly but um I can't say you know do you agree with one through three when I don't have a language of one through three in front of me um and so we're gonna have to resolve that somehow otherwise I can't simply can't vote um I think Alyssa's suggestions are great are wording we can quibble about questions versus declarative statements but uh I think it should be added maybe all of it should be added but I just need to know what's being added what isn't and what's one what's two what's three what's four and if I don't know that I can't approve it I can't vote on I would not voting today so I can just come back with the revised language and we can look at it at the next meeting um so it's my place I don't know what the revised language we've been moving forward with this what we said was that we were going to keep one and two as is three we are swapping out for Alyssa's questions in addition we're adding a question for a when and how the measure came to TSO so those questions Alyssa's questions and when and how the measure came to TSO so that will be under clarified timing issues um then in number four we didn't really come to agreement but I'm interested in knowing what the people in this committee feel you know I would I agree to all accept I don't agree that the sponsors need to um let me go down here again um I don't agree that they need to provide what information we'll need from town staff and the town attorney because I don't think most sponsors have um some sponsors won't have any access to that and they won't be able to provide that that that's our responsibility where the George has his hand up and Alyssa has her hand up um George just very quickly it's a small point I apologize but um I agree with what you described I think we're all in agreement for one and two I do have a question about Alyssa's question of sub three is this a public health or safety emergency I don't really see I think you took it out I thought that made sense but maybe the rest of you disagree are people okay with leaving it in I don't feel real strong but I do feel like you know why is that there so other than that I'm fine with what you've described for one and two um and three and then four we're gonna have to talk about okay so you're talking about summary of a proposed measure that's coming up I'm talking about under Alyssa's number two her a sub point number three is this a public health or safety emergency and I just I'm just why are we asking this question and the answer may be because it makes sense but I just struggle to see why that should be there are people want it in fine do they want it out I take it out you took it out but maybe the three of you other three of you think you should stay in maybe you don't care that's my only question otherwise I think you've described what you're going to do with one two and three um yes okay um do other people have a feeling about taking out the public health and safety emergency Alyssa has her handle Alyssa she could explain why it's there rather than which which would be helpful and she could also talk about the point that Darcy made about people about not all the people coming to us will have knowledge of what town staff wants so I'm really confused about which question I'm answering now but I'm going to try and answer Darcy's question first which she wasn't a question it was a statement which was that not everyone coming to us will know what town staff or town attorney input is needed and that's totally fine a because this is from the sponsor's point of view they can say I don't know that is a totally reasonable thing for them to say I also want to emphasize that the vast majority let's not talk about mathematical percentages but the vast majority of materials we've dealt with so far are from fellow town counselors not who absolutely know what kinds of things are and I'm sure that's going to continue so that's why that was in there but again it's clear that it's from the sponsor point of view and if it's somebody from the outside it's totally fine that they don't know the answer to that it's just if they've already done something they can say hey I talked to Dave Zomek about this that's great information for us to have whereas if we don't ask for it we won't know that they've already talked to staff about it as to the public health and safety emergency um I'm trying really hard not to be facetious here but that's how we had the excuse of doing the zoning bylaw and the public way changes because we were saying there was an emergency that's why we needed to act so that's why I had it in there I hope we never have to use it again maybe if we need water restrictions although they probably won't be for the public way I hope TSO never has to use it again but that was actually one of the reasons we hurried up and dealt with both the zoning bylaw change right which we did as a full town council but then also the public way recommendation we said sure let the town manager and staff do whatever they want to get businesses ramped up that sounds awesome we did that because it was an emergency that's why it's in there I just lifted that from the charter idea okay I would like to interrupt and call time on this discussion I know we're right in the middle of number one but I would like to just take these general criteria that we've we are generally agreeing on and use them to run through a practice go through with regarding a preliminary presentation about the surveillance technology bylaw and I did put something together which I would just like to present and see if what people's reaction are to it this has her hand up um no that's a vestigial sorry leftover I would like to answer the question and I'm sorry to cut off this discussion sort of rudely in the middle of it and I would like to just say that that I will come back with what what we appear to have agreed on so far with new language for the next meeting and then maybe alternatives for the number of the proposed measure from the sponsor's point of view section it seems like that's going to be a lot of work for future me so uh I would just like to go over this and Mandy Joe is here in case we need any background I'm going to suggest that I bring Mandy Joe into the room make her the host and that I drop out okay okay that will work open meeting law wise so um two meetings ago we had our first presentation on the surveillance technology bylaw sort of out of order presentation um and our discussion was incomplete because members decided we should look at creating the review process um in order to ensure where we were adequately prepared and that the process itself was adequately robust and at that time Evan suggested that we use the surveillance technology bylaw as a first example of the review process so anyway we looked at it in a very cursory way at the last meeting um but today I'd like to look at it by using some of these questions that we have very tentatively agreed on um so um the surveillance technology bylaw is sponsored by two counselors Mandy Joe Hanneke and Pat D'Angeles so and you can follow along the questions on the review process see if I'm answering them um the reason why this bylaw is being reviewed by TSO is because under our charge it is a measure that may affect the provision of services by a town department and that's because it it um applies only to a surveillance technology by the town um so it was referred to this committee by the town council on May 4th I believe you might have to check that with a report back uh time of 90 days um and it was also referred to GOL um the sponsors would like to be heard on the proposal as soon as possible um we have two documents in the packet regarding the surveillance technology we have the the proposed bylaw itself and we have a fact sheet um so there's no currently no town bylaw pertaining to surveillance technology and no state law uh though there are multiple bills pending in the state legislature so you know this might be the time when we do get state um a state law since they're the same thing is going on in the state level with regard to interest in facial recognition technology etc um so it's not known right now what stakeholders will be interested in this bylaw but possibilities include the chamber of commerce downtown businesses especially ones that are within view of the fire station where there is surveillance technology um downtown business owners and customers possibly people particularly interested in privacy interests or ACLU or whatever um I had occasion to speak with the town manager about getting staff feedback about the operation of the bylaw and he suggested uh possibly hearing from Anthony Delaney and from the police chief um they were possible presenters that he put forward and as far as best practices looked at the sponsors modeled the bylaw after the Cambridge ordinance and in addition Boston Springfield Northampton Brooklyn and Somerville have either enacted or are looking at passing surveillance technology ordinances so um um right now is where I think that I would normally uh throw out to the committee whether they have questions now or whether they want to like submit questions over the next few days that we could uh pose to the sponsors so that they could answer them by the next meeting um also if you have any questions about additional staff that you can think of that we might want to hear from or additional organizations or stakeholders that you think we should hear from um and yes so that is my preliminary presentation thoughts questions um I raised my hand yes Dorothy let me get rid of this okay and and you may have answered this when I stepped out of the room briefly um first I want to know who has surveillance in the town um what businesses what uh town offices and what kind because I don't know what we have and that so that would be first of all how is there is there any requirement anywhere that this be recorded I mean does the town know who has it or kind of business just put in their cameras and the technology without informing anybody so I don't know what rules we have on that so this doesn't pertain to to surveillance technology by anyone other than the town is my understanding mandy joe do you want do we want mandy joe to be answering questions now sure mandy joe thank you um this does not apply to businesses it applies only to town and town departments so um whether businesses have it or not um if they do this wouldn't affect them at all if they don't it wouldn't affect them at all um I think in terms of the town we don't know and that's one of the reasons uh Pat and I are seeking to enact this by law is so that it is out there and transparent what surveillance technology the town departments are using but if private businesses have technology and there's a case then the police or the courts can um subpoena that technology um so it's it's just a partial thing to talk about what the town has I mean I think we obviously need to know um but um it's not a new vacuum and I think I think the question is we need to know all of who's got got kind of technology and who's in charge and what can be used and what protections people have otherwise I mean it's just a start um do we have other questions george if this is supposed to be a model for how we're going to proceed in the future we've already violated our policy that we haven't adopted it yet um the preliminary presentation is done by a member of the committee and there's no provision for sponsors to be present answering questions now maybe we want to change that but it seems that these kinds of questions in this kind of discussion would take place at the formal presentation and that that what you're supposed to be modeling here is what the uh chair or chairs designee is supposed to do to inform the committee of where we stand now I'm glad Mandy's here and I have lots of questions too but um I don't think that in terms of the process at least that that's what we're supposed to be doing right now we're supposed to be just you're supposed to be telling us what you've got from the sponsor and then we're supposed to tell you um what we want from the sponsor now it turns out the sponsor is a counselor and she's a very amenable and and and and pleasant counselor who is willing to take her time and come here when I'm sure she has many other things that she'd like to be doing and that's all well and good but it's not actually the way we're supposed to proceed and in the future I assume we won't proceed this way um or the committee needs to say no this is great we want to have if the sponsor can show up at the preliminary presentation yeah let them come too um so let's be consistent about what the process is and and let's model it correctly um a lot of you are interested in this bylaw and you have good questions about it and we could have a grand old conversation about it for the next hour but that's I've got well I won't say what I have better things to do but it's just not what we're supposed to be doing right now yeah I totally agree George and uh that's why I asked the question of the committee whether we should ask Mandy Jo a question now um so um I I agree that we should just gather our questions this is the time for us to answer those threshold questions and to just gather our questions and I know that um it's possible that the committee members don't feel adequately prepared to ask the questions right now for our list but if you could send me any questions that you have for the sponsors um within the next three days um that would be helpful and then they would have enough time to prepare before then well actually a week would be fine I'll send an email giving a deadline um because our next meeting isn't until July 23rd we have a little bit more time so um there are three hands up I don't know whether you can see the hand star so I'm sorry the order is Evan George and Alyssa no I can't see them Evan so right so I mean this is when I when I suggested we use this as a as a practice I assumed we would adopt the process before we tried implementing it so I'm I'm still not clear even what questions we're looking at um that said it seems to me like this preliminary conversation should be addressing what Darcy said not necessarily our questions initially about the bylaw to Mandy um and so two things one is I'm not clear on the staff mentioned the stakeholders mentioned Darcy are those ones that you thought of or are those ones that came from the sponsor who said these are the people that we've identified so that's question one it came from the time manager it came from the time okay and then uh all including the the state the businesses the all that stuff that came from me okay so that that's important because I wasn't clear there were a lot of these are the people we should talk to and it wasn't clear who that came from I was assuming it actually came from the sponsor which of course my question was then going to be why is the sponsor telling us what stakeholders are important to engage but didn't engage them but I think we need to have a conversation about them so I'm not completely clear why the Chamber of Commerce is listed as a stakeholder that we need input from since this is something that only applies to towns however what I didn't hear but is featured in the bylaw is the idea that one of the imp the impetus behind this bylaw is the way that facial recognition technology has often been um problematic for marginalized communities that's that's a big piece of the bylaw um is that a group of stakeholders that we want to try to engage I think this is the conversation we need to be having in the preliminary conversation I don't agree that the Chamber of Commerce is actually a stakeholder we need to talk to I do wonder about um if there is a way to talk to other stakeholders who are impacted by surveillance technology by the town and specifically by the departments that that we've listed which of course primarily is the police department um okay so thank you Evan um George so again just a process question are we doing this for real yes practice because if we're doing for real I wasn't prepared and that's my fault perhaps in other words it was in the packet uh we do have information from uh we don't have the bylaw it's been referred to us but I wasn't uh and maybe it's my fault here that I was prepared that we're actually going to be doing this for real we're actually having a actual preliminary presentation today as opposed to what I thought it was was well if we ever do adopt a process like the one we're looking at this is how it might look if we did it so is is it the ladder right or is this is for real and Mandy's here because she's actually going to be you know I just don't know what are we doing that it is it's an actual preliminary presentation but how can it be you said you we were modeling it modeling isn't doing modeling it's just a practice activity okay is there a problem with yeah you said I thought we were going to kind of play around with it and see how it went we but not that we were doing it we don't have the the whole point of having a preliminary presentation is that the members of the committee don't have to be prepared and like they would have to be for the formal presentation and so it's a time when anyone can put on the agenda up can ask to put on the agenda a preliminary presentation and so it's that's the whole purpose of it it's preliminary and so the word modeling Darcy yeah modeling isn't doing but I but we did just do it and so but that's why George wasn't prepared because you said modeling don't have to be prepared we don't have to be prepared for preliminary presentation but we do within the next week or so I would like to get your questions about the about the upcoming formal presentation so we do we don't want to have I mean this was a reaction to all of you being concerned about putting something on the agenda that we that we aren't prepared for and so now we have this process to have a preliminary presentation and this is the example of a preliminary presentation and I just am wondering why it doesn't count in your mind as a preliminary presentation and he says we're going to practice your recital it's not the recital it's a practice and so I I'm an English professor I'm sorry it was it's just a language thing I it didn't communicate to me properly so maybe it's just my brain okay but I got a different idea so when the question was okay is this for real to me it was obvious that no it's not for real it's just practice it's a modeling elissa's had her hand up for a while elissa so I had if this was actually the process if we were actually doing this which I believe you're the only person Darcy who believes we're actually doing this we all believed that this was just a great example of here are the words now how do they actually translate to a practice and we could go oh oh well this is missing oh well that makes sense and it's informing what we're writing in that document right that you're revising and bringing back to us it is not at all the preliminary presentation for a couple of reasons one is we can't unsee what we saw at the previous surveillance technology proposal so it's not cold it's not with no information so I appreciate what you said about this may be the rare occasion in theory when you do a preliminary introductory type presentation that we know nothing about it coming into a meeting that we come in completely cold we're not coming in completely cold to this we can't unwind that and we weren't told that we were doing it for real today and so I think it just I'm looking at it as it was a good exercise in terms of figuring out oh that's what the words we wrote in the process mean for what it's going to look like to do one and now as we revise the process we'll look at that again and we'll go yeah that's what we meant when we did that in no way shape or form is it appropriate at this point I think for us to say these are our questions and I also object to the idea that you're going to solicit those questions between now and the next meeting the next meeting is when we're going to look at the process again we are not ready to do the surveillance technology by law this week or the next time we need to finish our process first Evan yeah so I will second every sentence that Alyssa just uttered um but since we're talking process um one thing that has been mentioned but wasn't actually discussed beforehand was the idea of committee members sending individual questions to the chair the way I always had envisioned this was we would have this preliminary presentation and then a discussion as a committee as to who does the committee want to hear from staff community stakeholders whatever and what are the questions of the committee I don't want each I don't personally feel comfortable with the idea each of us sitting there after this meeting reading through the bylaw going what are my questions and then the sponsor having this big list I would rather us discuss it as a committee and then send questions to the sponsor that says here are here is the information requested by the committee and here are the questions of the committee I think that's a better way to do it it requires a bigger discussion in the council it's going to take up more time in the council on the committee it's going to take up more time but it means that we have some consensus on this committee about what we are asking the sponsor for because you know what if what if I decided you know what I really want her to talk to Mike Morris that's that you know which and no one else agrees that right why should why should I just send a question and then Darcy you as chair would have to figure out well am I going to ask the sponsor to get feedback from Mike Morris or you know I mean something like that it seems better for us to have a discussion about it first other thoughts I agree that we should discuss as a group because when you're listening to other people talk and bring up their things it helps you clarify what's in your mind and we we do work if not to a consensus we work towards a consensus or to a at least a shared understanding of what the issues and the conflicts might be um and I mean the problem with the open meeting law is that so many conversations that I would like to have can't have don't happen and I just feel that that we are social beings we are a town council we're underneath it all is an idea that that more heads than one are better and that somehow from amongst us we will come up with some reasonable stuff so I like the idea of our coming up with our questions together we may you may ask us to refine them you know or whatever but um I think it's important that we do that together for that the first questioning session George two quick thoughts one is that um as chair of GOL you have my deepest sympathy because you face a really difficult job here this is not easy to do and so this is a process we're all struggling with um I would just make a suggestion for the agenda in the future that if you plan to have a preliminary presentation that in the agenda item you listed as preliminary presentation colon and then whatever it is um that way at least as chair you've notified us that there's a preliminary presentation coming and if someone like yours truly is clueless it's his fault because he's not paying attention um but that's not what it says on the agenda and I think just going forward that if you do plan to have a preliminary presentation make sure that it's clearly stated in the agenda I'd also ask you and you don't have to do this but I I try to put the agenda in the share point folder as well um it's it's not a big problem but I I'm in the folder and I'm you know printing stuff out or whatever and then I have to go off to the town website to find the agenda um it's a small thing but if you could do that as well that would be helpful but um what you're trying to do here is hard this is not easy um and this is a committee that has a pretty complicated remit and we're struggling with it so um it's not about you it's about this whole complicated process but just anyway suggestion about the agenda in terms of letting us know ahead of time just by labeling it yeah the agenda is in there now um and the agenda did does say preliminary presentation although it may say example of preliminary presentation um not the same thing so I guess we had different interpretations of what that meant um so um I feel like there uh you know I have heard from um the sponsors their desire to try to get this done um more quickly because of the facial recognition piece of it um and that is part of why I wanted to put this on the agenda today um and to get it on the agenda for the next meeting and I disagree very much that we should wait until we finish all of our process issues before we do anything we we uh we talked for 45 minutes about the the public policy issue today we didn't put that on the back burner um so and we didn't use any review process whatsoever looking at it so we have the ability to do what we want to do and I think that we shouldn't we should be able to continue to look at issues there's no harm in going forward with the surveillance technology bylaw and we should be doing it so that we are relevant to the to the um police department process that's going forward at the same time in my opinion so um I will do more thinking about this before the next meeting but I probably will solicit questions from you and we'll we'll figure out and we'll figure out whether um we have to take a whole other two weeks so that we can look at those questions together um I I do see the mirrored in doing that looking at the questions together obviously but um I'll let me just see what the questions are if they're if they're you know if they're none that are too crazy maybe we can just use them um but so let's so far afield with our questions um so uh I think that that uh what I do want is for everybody to really uh look over the rest of the review process and um also start looking at the rubric for ideas about how we can use the rubric in the future um because who knows when we'll get to I doubt if we'll get to it at the next meeting we do we did definitely need that meeting on July 23rd so um I'm just going to leave it at that that um that I will still be soliciting your questions and we'll figure out why do you think you get to decide this Darcy this is not going to fly I mean just heard I mean I would second Elissa's point that I'm not willing to go forward on anything until we figure out the process so the fact that you're going to put this on the agenda next time is a big problem for me we need to solve the process I think we're there we're almost there but we need to get that resolved before we start taking on issues like something as complicated as this and I appreciate that maybe you or the sponsor are in a hurry but I'm not in a hurry at least not so much in a hurry but I'm going to take this on without a process agreed upon so we don't have an agreed upon process and I'm not going I'm not going to discuss this next time if we don't have a process you can have a meeting committee meeting with more people issues if we discuss so far without a process Darcy I've had my hand up a long time all right Dorothy we add another meeting I notice there's a whole month between our next meetings no we didn't have a meeting we could finish our process come to our understanding on our process and then move forward on other items you saw that we did add a meeting right July 23rd um awesome now short a few I see that we have the today's meeting the 29th of June and then we have a meeting on July 23rd there's a long almost a full month between those two dates we could add another meeting in which we could complete the public our process discussions and then we'd be able to slowly move forward you know trying to use our process and then maybe even refining it after that but we need to come to an understanding on the process before we take action and that meeting could help us I mean I I've I mean listen I don't want meetings either but it is a big it's a big piece a big gap and I think we're very close to coming to an understanding of how we're going to proceed but I'm just throwing that out there okay well it looks like everyone wants to um just continue with um I I I don't think we're going to agree to get an agreement on an additional meeting unless I'm wrong about that tell me tell me if I'm wrong um George I personally agree with Dorothy that this is extremely important for this committee to get the dam excuse me to get the process settled and um it's up to the other members to stay what they think but if that requires an extra meeting to get it settled so that we can then proceed to deal with the actual business of the committee I'm willing to deal with another meeting um but that's just me and Dorothy seems to agree but I don't know how the rest of you feel but um we could wait till the 23rd but that meeting will be consumed by process and hopefully we'll decide at that point and then we can then turn to the the actual business of the of the committee but I am unwilling to to proceed with the business of this committee without a process so yes I'd be willing to have another meeting if the rest of you are willing Evan so I think there's a possibility for another meeting uh it would be tough in my calendar I'm away for an entire week in mid-July of course you can still get a quorum without me I do agree that I think we should nail down a process we said wage theft by law was a um uh sort of we did that without a process for some reasons which I and I think actually came back to bite us a little bit that we did that without a process um so I don't want to do this without a process I understand the feeling of urgency for this because of the racial element um you know I I do sometimes wonder since the big thing is the facial recognition and I think that's the simpler if if maybe we almost if there's almost a possibility of breaking up the bylaw and doing that piece first but um I think that uh I guess I'm curious given budgets and everything right now since a lot of this is about the acquisition of surveillance technology if the feeling of this is just there's a lot of conversation about racial justice right now so this is the time to do it or if there's actually a feeling that there might be a purchase of surveillance technology in the near future and that's the urgency because I think those are two very different things do you know anything about that Mandy Joe so Evan hits the nail on the head I would say we're in the middle of budget season we have seen some desire for from the public for body camera purchases I have I do not know what we'll find out when the budget comes in whether um the police department intends to purchase any type of surveillance technology but if they do and this bylaw is not adopted we wouldn't have any mechanism for actually making that transparent um questioning it having a process for when that technology uh data gets used or gets disseminated or how it gets disseminated or not and how long it gets kept um so so it's not just the facial recognition ban that uh the sponsors feel is urgent it is also because we are in the middle of budget season and there are calls for specifically the purchase of surveillance technology um for police purposes for these reasons and so that's that's the other reason why we would like to move on it sooner rather than later okay um so am I hearing from the committee that they want to add add a meeting it's possible we could meet the the week of september 16th 16th is the um the week before our 23rd meeting on a thursday night um we could conceivably do that listen i see you have hands up yeah Alyssa yeah i'm i'm totally okay with adding another meeting i'm totally not okay with assuming that surveillance technology is going to be on the july 23rd agenda as our next item um just like at all even if we're that with adding the meeting but i certainly think we'll know by the end of our meeting if we do it that week that um we will be able to determine that and the other thing i just want to mention as an aside with surveillance technology and body cameras there's going to have to be a long process working through the union to whether for usage of body cameras we can't just buy body cameras and tell people to start using them it doesn't work that way so the likelihood that we're going to be setting aside money for a purchase for something that can't be implemented immediately given the constraints on our budget does seem relatively low at this point so i'm seeing it is a relatively low risk though i totally appreciate the need to bring transparency to it we don't want anything snuck in on us but that's the town manager's responsibility at this time given where we are given public sentiment given our clearly expressed desire to know about this if the town manager allows a technology purchase to be snuck into this then we have a problem with our town manager so this is not something that they're going to be proposing for this year because they don't have any agreement with their staff yet to use body cameras and that's why you don't see them very widely used in the entire commonwealth of massachusetts okay so um i guess i feel like the the reason that we are pushing an additional meeting is because committee members do see the need to get going with the surveillance technology bylaw but if you don't and there's an additional meeting i think it's like we can't do anything unless till we've agreed upon our process so whatever else comes down the way even something we haven't even thought about we we feel we must get the process done it's complicated with all the words in the different versions a feeling that we're not that far apart that we should complete the process right but there's no add a meeting if we're there's no agreement i mean i'm getting the sense from the committee except for elissa possibly that there that we would be doing this because we want to allow the process for the surveillance technology bylaw to move along that's not my reason in george that's not my reason either i have to i guess i'd just have to speak up i said nothing about that at all i'm just talking about process and as dorthy pointed out we really shouldn't be doing anything of substance and haven't also alluded to this with the wage theft bylaw we really shouldn't be doing anything of substance until we finally agree on a process that does not mean that i agree that we need to rush the process in order to get to this this suggested bylaw i actually don't think that i'm willing to be changed i'm willing to have my mind changed at the moment i don't that's not my reasoning it's just to get the process done and if people are satisfied with the 23rd is a date that's okay by me but it's not my decision is not based on any hurry with any particular bylaw or proposal in front of this committee you guys are tough just careful um uh okay so uh uh i'm leaning toward not adding an extra meeting if you want to know the truth um so um we are running late right now um i was hoping that we would um look at the the calendar the 2020 calendar agenda but i i'm perfectly willing to leave that until the the next time although i think it's really important for everybody to look at and see what you think about it um whether there are things on there that are way off or whatever you think um but uh unless you are willing to look at it right now um elissa has her hand up elissa i wanted to make a comment about the additional meeting i would be happy as much as i am tired of zoom to add another meeting only because while this information is fresh last time we met the 15th i presented my information to you that afternoon the 15th you then got additional input from george and evan none of which i saw until near the end of last week so a long time period was in between there and i kind of lost the thread of some of our conversation so if it would help you because you're not going to be out of town um to to get the revisions done which we appreciate you doing on our behalf for a meeting sooner than the 23rd that we could read the stuff before you know and absorb all of it well before the next meeting i'd be happy to do that but if simply because your summer schedule which i totally understand a lot of people have a lot of commitments in the summer um want to wait till the 23rd i just don't want to not think about this again until the 20th i will i don't want that long of a gap in between but if if that's what works for your schedule i'm saying i'm giving you that flexibility i was just trying to make it clear it wasn't in order to get to the surveillance technology bylaw so if you're fine with waiting until the 23rd but hopefully getting us a revision well before in advance not 48 hours or 72 hours in advance of the 23rd then i'm good with that if you feel like you have the time to do it sooner then i'm happy to have a meeting sooner and if you don't want to decide that yet if you people should probably check their calendars though for that date right now and you could decide after a day or two if you think you'll be ready for it because it's because the burden really is on you at this point because of the revision of the process right like i like i would be glad to put together the revision and get it out to you all um and um i am you know we just added the meeting on the 23rd so i i don't think there's really any need for another meeting on the 16th if if there's no no or not uh if there isn't any specific reason for doing so um so um okay um let me get the damn thing raising my hand i don't see oh Dorothy okay um Darcy we don't know what's happening we don't know the future we're in a very uncertain time we are you know town council is very very important now we're helping to keep the town of Amherst going and running i would like for TSO to be ready to proceed with whatever whatever we want to do in a way that we can do it in a unified way so unless it's just totally difficult and messes up your summer i would really like to have the meeting on july 16th so that we can have our procedure together for whatever comes our way and we don't know what it is but i feel that we're we're in a crisis situation which i don't mind being in okay i'm from the generation that you know we're i'm really from like you know little girl in world war two i want to be ready for whatever we have to do so i am for adding the meeting do we do we want to vote on it or do we just i'd like to vote on it unless i think elissa tried very hard to make it clear that she did not want to mess up your summer that we all know you're working extremely hard i'm as chair of this committee and if there's a reason why this really mess up your one fun moment we don't want to do that but if we can do it without such a cost it would be good to do it yeah it's it's possible that it would um okay well i mean that's that's you know something to think about because you know people have a right to having some life yeah i'm taking the week after fourth of july which would be the week when i'd have to get everything in well yeah um so it would be difficult um not probably not impossible but close close okay so and everybody make a meeting that day because i'm i gotta say what if what if something comes up and we don't finish it in one meeting that's one of the reasons i'd like to go with the 16th and have the 23rd still available to us if there's something we still need to hammer out and then be doing other things as well it's putting it i don't know if we realistically can finish on the 16th given that we also have to fold in the public ways process so that means if we don't meet the 16th i don't know if we can finish everything on the 23rd so it's if you want to add it and then cancel it and say you know what realistically i can't do this that's fine but if you think there's a tentative reason to meet then i would like to do it just so that i have it in my calendar and don't use it up with something else but if all five of us can't be there on the 16th then i say let's just throw it out all together can all of us be there the 16th i i cannot be there on the 16th but i am i am also i trust y'all enough to to do it without me if if there's if the majority of this committee feels like a meeting on the 16th would be useful i am happy to set it out but i can't be there on the 16th if you feel comfortable that if we if we you know if we have like split votes or whatever that we could then just continue the conversation on the 23rd because you'll be back on the 23rd but if we could get through a bunch of the material but if you're not going to have a chance to see the revision at all before we do that then that's not very practical either so i don't know um i was gonna say this is the moment when george usually steps in and tells us what to do but i'll just wait to do it george where are you if we meet on the 16th we can do most of it get a copy to evan and so that when we meet on the 23rd we all get together we're all on the same page and we finalize the process hopefully without much time at the beginning of the meeting so we can then move forward with something else also if i see the revision i can submit comments to a single member to bring to the meeting so my perspective is shared although i do also think that i've been vocal enough and at least my key priorities in the process that y'all know where i stand on some of those things i'm comfortable with you i was working in my absence on the 16th um i i i guess i feel like i really don't want to meet on the 16th um and that it would be pretty pretty much of a hardship um so i would like to reject that idea i'm pretty amazed that this group is like pushing so hard for an additional meeting when we just got another additional meeting you know so and no one was asking for a meeting in that five week period so that's crazy um but um anyway dorsi george has had his hand up for a while harry george i'll change the topic um i'm looking at the tso calendar 2020 it has my name down for spring street and it has spring street as a projected item sometime in august so am i to understand that at the moment at least you are expecting me to be a presenter of that on that date is that what that means you had a long time ago volunteered for that and that's why i put your name there but if you don't want that and you know if the the public way um policy gets you know we don't know that that's even going to be referred to us um i just want to understand what this document is and um that um right now the only other person besides myself that's on the hook is dorothy but that's how we're envisioning these sorts of assignments to be done um which is you know i mean i obviously i had agreed to it i think dorothy'd also agreed to the parking but that's what that means okay good it's only because you had brought no i'm not yeah i'm just other people want to attach their names to other things they are welcome to let me know and um uh do we want to look at that document now or do we want to wait until another meeting because i'm happy not to look at that now if people aren't it it's afternoon yeah i'm hungry well let's be practical okay eat lunch um no uh so i do not i'm going to just i'm going to entertain a motion to adjourn pretty soon yes um yes yeah there aren't uh that was you know we were going to talk about that under the next meeting agenda preview um but we basically know we're going to be talking about the review process we're going to be is did lin say that she was bringing back the public way policy yes and um we don't have any other things anticipated in the last 48 hours and yes um i moved to adjourn until the 23rd i'll second that motion yeah do you want to call the question although oh do we have to have a roll yeah well at least we always do it i should declare i'm going to declare declare okay well played one thing that was well played today see you all uh soon um tonight yes oh god yes hours from now yes yes yes okay