 Bye bye. Take care. Okay. We're recording pause the host. Have a great night everybody. Thank you. Good night. And I feel better. Hi, everyone. Welcome to town services and outreach meeting. It is for 20 April 20th. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made. To ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. I'm just going to, I mean, though, I think we can hear everyone just do a roll call to make sure everyone can be heard. Andy. President. Dorothy. Here. Anna. Present. Shalini. Present. And Paul. Present. Right. Okay. So if I can see, I do not believe that. We have anyone with us. We do. We have one person. Okay. Hello. To whomever is joining us. I cannot see. So excuse me. But if we have, if you would like to make a public comment, please let us know now so we can bring you in. And Tracy's African did raise her hand and I'm bringing her in. Okay. Welcome Tracy. Hi Tracy. Hi. Thanks for allowing me to make a public comment. And I'm glad I came in as myself and not with my like work. Work ID. So I did just have two comments I wanted to make. The first involve your item on the proposed street lights policy. I'm not sure where that policy is currently. But at our, at tax March 23rd meeting. We did pass a motion unanimously on the proposed policy. I was just about to send it. To TSO's way. I mean, I can read that. Motion if you'd like. Or I can just email it. Is there a preference? Or maybe. Or I can pull it up on my screen. I apologize for not getting it to you later. I'm sooner. I'll just read it. I'll just read it briefly. Okay. Okay. So what we said, so we made this motion after. We had discussed the street lights policy at our February and March meetings, three meetings in total. And we met with the council sponsors at two of those meetings. And so this is our language. It says, and at the second of those meetings, when both counselors and a key and Devlin got there or were presents, they mentioned that they were thinking of. Even though they had done so much work on their earlier version, that they were thinking of going back to the 2001 street lights policy. And at this time working on revamping that. With some additional things related to lighting technology and things, and maybe not using their alternative version that they had created that was quite extensive. So our motion is as follows, and I will email it to everybody after this, but it says that tax supports the idea of reducing light pollution and Amherst and using the latest available technology to do so. However, we have concerns about the traffic safety impacts if street lights are removed, especially for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. If as the sponsoring counselors have said they are considering they decide to rework their proposal significantly and craft a new proposed policy based on the current. Count of Amherst street lights policy adopted in 2001. So the first of these was to add crosswalks and bus stops as locations where street lights will be provided. And the second. Was to change a phrase that tax considered very problematic. Where it's a section about where street lights will not be provided by the town and residential neighborhoods. For pedestrians or residential neighborhoods and less certain criteria are met and so on. So we asked that that would be provided. That it a section, the end of the sentence that says, because such lighting could be requested virtually everywhere in town be removed entirely. So that was our main feedback. And we did appreciate that the council sponsors, you know, came to our meetings and that we were given the opportunity to comment. At the last meeting, we talked about working with them as they, you know, rework their policy and also look at the, the part of it that's looking at the location of where street lights are located. So we really appreciated that opportunity. And we are happy to work with the council sponsors as it moves forward. The one other thing I was interested in commenting on. Just as a sort of general. Totally different topic, but. It's about like snow and ice. It's about, like, snow and ice and the, on the sidewalks and also the tree. Vegetation infringing on the public right away. I realized that those are before GOL right now. And that fortunately the winter is over and we don't have sidewalks covered in snow anymore or anything. But I do really want to ask, you know, just as the town services and outreach committee. If we know, however, we're going to be able to, you know, review the town services and outreach committee. If we know, however, GOL decides to revise the current snow and ice by law or not. And what the council decides to adopt. That there could be a concerted effort. You know, regarding education. And getting the word out about the policy next winter. I did find in my files a letter I had written to. The D P W superintendent's predecessor back, you know, in the 1990s. And it was writing about how sidewalks were not accessible. You know, due to snow at that time and how curb cuts weren't accessible and what a safety and accessibility issue that was. Particularly, you know, for vulnerable pedestrians and people with disabilities. And it doesn't really feel so much. I mean, I really appreciate how. The town, even though the town is required to like clear some of the main pedestrian ways, but. It is still like a continuing issue every year. And so I would love this to be the year that it's fixed. So thank you. Thank you so much, Tracy. And so. And I'll send that motion. Yeah. Thank you so much. And if you, um, if you want to, you know, continue listening, there will be, we will have an update from Anna and. I'll send it to Joe a bit later, probably closer to seven 30 ish. So thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Okay. So with that, we have a move on to our appointments and we've got, you know, some sounds like some exciting new voices joining. So Paul, would you like to tell us about. Your appointments. Thank you. I'll go down just as they are in the, on the agenda for local historic district commission. I have pointed Elizabeth sharp of 24 summer field road. And while this is a term of one year, it's to fill a vacancy. So in 2024, she'll be up for a reappointment, obviously. Betty sharp is remarkable that she works for historic North Hampton. And she has renovated historic buildings. She has, she holds a preservation restrictions on historic buildings. She, you know, actually does not live in the historic district, which is actually a good thing because we have a sort of a ponderance of residents in historic districts that are on the commission. So she can bring an outside view of things. So she's a really strong addition to the local historic district commission. For the next one, it's the historical commission. And what we do on these is we bring the chairs of both commissions and because a lot of times people get confused between the two bodies and we interview everybody together. And then we sort of have a draft. Who try to match up people by what their skill sets are. So the historical commission is down. They're down to four members. So they, everybody has to be present for them to reach a quorum. So these are important appointments. And we have some really interesting people who volunteered to join the historical commission. So Antonia Rillenberg as she, she has worked, she, she's a student at no, she works at Amherst college and came to the, came to town and became involved, went to be involved in town government. She had been involved in local historic activity, district activities and working, volunteering at a historical society in where she had lived previously. And so she'll, she's very eager in talking more, you know, representing Hispanic and Latina youth. And was her special interest was indigenous population says she wants to the narratives that they bring. She wants to develop that additionally. And she's a student at Amherst college. She has also been working in on historic preservation area. And she has served on the arts council in her home community as well. And so they both have really interesting backgrounds. And the historical commission chair was very excited to bring their perspectives to the table. The next is a disability access advisory committee. So we have two appointments to that. Ian Rotowalt, Rotowalt is don't even know if you do the WRV. He's a teacher, he has been interested in serving a lot to different areas for the town and has been really diligent about expressing his, his willingness to serve in a lot of different capacities. He really impressed the people on the interview team because he brought a different perspective that wasn't represented. On the, on the committee. With someone who had, has sensitivity towards sensory issues. The need for public transportation and mental health issues. And so we have a lot of physical people who have physical disabilities, but not some of the other disabilities that are also recognized. So he was very convincing of why that perspective should be on the VAAC and the people in the VAAC chair really thought that was a good, good addition as well. And then Cody Roney is already on the cultural council. He's, he's on the, he's been appointed by governor Baker to the Massachusetts developmental disabilities council, which is a statewide agency. He's a leader at Holyoke community college. And it was a very impressive young person who's, who's really committed to being in town and having people with more severe disabilities represented. And has just done a whole lot in his life just to achieve what he's already achieved. So those are for the VAAC. We will have another vacancy on VAAC coming up. A longtime member will be coming out. And so we had a third applicant who's really strong that we will point at that point in time. For the affordable housing trust. We have Grover Wayman Brown, Grover moved, lives on station road, moved here relatively recently from Oakland, California, where they were very involved in homelessness issues and housing advocacy actually was employed in that area, the East Bay housing organizations. We just sort of a coalition of housing agencies. They moved here specifically to take advantage of our school system and to raise their family here. And I think that this is a type of person who has got, has been attending housing trust meetings and will be a very strong addition to the trust. And that's actually just so you know, that's one of the questions. When we do these interviews, we usually have the chairs, the chair of the committee, the staff liaison to the committee, and also someone from the residents advisory committee. And they, the resident advisory committee meet and they say, well, what's the question we should ask? And they always, they've agreed to say, have you ever attended one of the meetings of the committee? Do you know what you're getting into? Have you watched? It's pretty easy to watch them. And everybody in this group has attended or watched at least one of the committee meetings, which is always a good indicator of interest in many ways that they, and they know we also obviously make sure that they can attend. You know, they know when the committees are meeting and they can be in attendance at these meetings. So this is a pretty strong group of applicants for your review. Thank you. Are there any questions for Paul? No, they look like a good group. They are. Nicely done. I've got some motions for you. Thank you. Okay. Four motions. I didn't try to batch them all into one. Okay. All right. I moved for the town services and outreach committee to recommend to the town council, the town manager appointments of Elizabeth Sharp to the local historic commission for a term to expire June 30th, 2024. Do we have a second? I will give a second. Thank you. Okay. So we'll call it Dorothy. Yes. Andy. Yes. Shalini. Yes. Hi. And I'm an eye. So that is. You're none of us. All right. I've moved for the town services and outreach committee to recommend to the town council, the town manager appointments. Appointments of Antonia Berlin Borg and Michaela Rosnick to the historic historic commission. Historical commission. Excuse me for a term to expire June 30th, 2024. Yeah, we have a second. I'll second again. Thank you. I'll call it again. Andy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I am a yes as well. There you go. I move the town services and outreach committee to recommend to the town council, the town manager appointments of Ian road, Walt and Cody Rooney to the disability access advisory committee for a term to expire June 30th, 2024. Do we have a second? Yes. Hey, thank you. I'll call it again. Dorothy. Yes. Andy. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I am a yes. So we're three for three. Thank you so much. One to go. I move for the town services and outreach committee to recommend to the town council, the town manager appointment of Rover wayman Brown to the affordable housing trust board of trustees for a term to expire June 30th, 2024. Dorothy. Yes. Yes. We're four for four here, Andy. Yes. Yes. Dorothy. Yes. Yes. And I am a yes. Thank you again, Paul. Thank you. Okay. So we are going to move on again. And with her, Paul, thank you again. And we will have an update on the proposed amendments to. Paul or Bible. So we, Gilbert and I met with Susan wait, who is, and she. Started the conversation by saying that she had to eat crow and she apologized because she had. Contracted. The pandemic disease and was out of action for really whacked her. It turns out. But she's back in action. Now we have really positive conversation. The goal right now is to get the RFI, the request for information out. She and Gilbert are scheduled to meet tomorrow to sort of just finish it, you know, bang it out. Get it written up. And get that out. Why are we doing an RFI? The idea on our request for information is to collect information from haulers. To see, to give them a pick a snapshot of who we are as a community in terms of the. Number of households. As much information as we can share with them the profile of those households. And then ask them to, if they're interested in. Bidding, not, it's not exactly bidding, but would you be interested in this? And if you were to approach this as a contract. And what, how would you approach it? And we would, we would divide it up into, you know, the need for trash collection for recycling and for compost curbs, all curbside collection of those. We would tell them that the transfer station is most likely to have the same amount of information for them. And then also ask them what they're, what the frequency they would look to collect on for each of those things. And could they, and what size containers they would use for each of these things. So it's just sort of like some, some like one company might say we don't, we only use mechanized collection. We only use this, this toter. We don't use smaller to whatever it is they decide. So we want to collect that level of information. We want to be able to, we want to be able to collect that level of information for them to give us the names and the contracts that they have with other municipalities. Susan already has all that information, but we'll ask them for it as well. So they can, so we can sort of check the pricing that they already are doing. We don't think it's right. We don't think it'd be. Accurate likely to say, what would you, what would you charge us? We're not quite there yet, but we know what they're charging other communities. So. Going through this process, we'll find out how many haulers are actually in business, we'll get a sense of the market. We can, we will probably ask additional questions like, where do you take your trash? Where do you take your recyclables and, you know, how does it move and all those, all the sort of key things. And if there are specific questions that you think we should be asking at a more macro level, you know, we're not getting into super little details. So that's not what we want. We want to collect information. Just you can send them to me or Guilford. And we'll, you know, they can incorporate those into the, into the RFI. She thinks that she put together a schedule so the goals would be to ID which haulers have interest, learn more about the interested haulers, ID which communities these haulers service, what additional services they might be able to provide that we might not have thought of. What do you charge for existing customers? If we were to initiate a service, how long would it take you to get started? If we were, you know, if we gave you a go, how many months in advance do you need that? And it'd be that type of thing that we'd be seeking. And the goal on this was to get everything done, get the information back, have ample time, have some community input meetings, and then start to share the information out in a report form and have all that completed by June 30th, which is when Susan will be finishing up. So she has sort of like week one, week two, I've asked her to actually put dates in for when we will be doing things. And I think what we'll be doing is trying to tie those dates to the council and the TSO's agenda meetings and sort of like we'll target a meeting and say here's when she's going to present her report and that having a firm deadline for that type of thing will be helpful for everybody. I think so. So that's where we are. Thank you, Dorothy. One question that you may have included, which is what is their commitment to trash reduction? What steps have they taken to other communities to reduce trash? That's a good answer. Good question. Okay. And then the last one is about their environmental practices in terms of where they take stuff and how they deal with it. Yeah, but everything sounds, it sounds really good. Okay, so I'm really excited about it. Thank you, Dorothy. Are there any other questions? Andy? This is an issue that I've been planning to bring up. If we got to the question list, but I think I'm not going to mention it now and that is that what we learned when Stan Rosenberg arranged all of those meetings with USA Hauling and then in subsequent discussions is that one of the things that has made South Hadley so much less expensive than we are paying through the bidding process was that they're unbi-weekly as opposed to weekly. And that obviously would have a tremendous effect because you could have the number of trucks you're running, have the number of personnel that you're doing. The other thing that I noticed when I looked into the South Hadley one is that they do offer an additional cost to the homeowner to come weekly, but it is really quite expensive because of the way that they've structured it. So there's the whole EUS about frequency, but I wonder if we should be delving a little bit more deeply into those questions, which is something I would ask Susan before you get to the final. So the question is about, we would ask the question about frequency and given the profile, what would you, and typically, they'll say, well, what do you want, right? That's typically, but we want to say, would you offer one week every week? Would you offer bi-weekly? Would you offer a hybrid where people could choose and what sort of like, are there costs? I'm not sure how we would get at the cost differences, but we just want to know who's willing to do what, right? If someone says, I'll only do weekly, that might be a non-starter for us, like we want to move people to bi-weekly. Yeah. Thank you. Dorothy. That's what I was going to say that maybe, and maybe Susan has already done this since he's an expert in the field, but I've heard that bi-weekly is preferred and quite possible, particularly when you're using the composting and results in trash reduction. I think right now, people can get every two weeks, but they come by anyway, once a week. And anything that reduces trucks and truck whatever is good, if it meets the needs and the trash gets moved in an appropriate way. So just want to make sure that that was looked into and maybe checking out New York and other places where some things are every other week and some things are once a week, whatever. Okay, that's it. Dorothy and Shalini, you had your hand up. Yeah, sure. Would you want us to, like even the questions that are coming up right now, are you making a note or do you prefer us to email the questions to you? I always prefer the email if you have, because as you're emailing, you might come up with a different question that you might want to add in, so that's always helpful. And then I can just, I can just shoot that off to the people. Right, yeah. So I just encourage everyone in the committee to send their questions so we can make sure that when we get to the decision points, we have all the information to then move forward. And I think some of the questions I'm just looking from the list were related to composting and what do they typically include in it? Would it include yard waste or not meat or bones or things like that? And then I think the other similar question was, oh yeah, and that was something we learned in terms of plastics. I think it was number five that was typically not picked up, but now with the newer technologies, they are willing to pick up. So what, you know, what recycling in different by different haulers might allow for more pickup versus less. So yeah, getting into the specifics of that, because that can make a difference in the cost as well. Okay, that's all for now. Yeah. And I think one of the things that we talked about was like, where are you taking your trash? So if you're saying where do you take your compost is within 25 miles of the town of your emphasis within 50 miles, 150 miles, you're like, so because that might be a value to the town as well, like we might say we want it closer by right. Okay, and I had another question around that was the transparency. That was a huge thing. Like what sort of data will they be sharing with us in terms of how much was collected? How much of it ended up being actually clean, you know, cleaned and recycled? And so what sort of data will each of the haulers provide to us? Thank you. Just to clarify in question, did you ask Shalini? Did you ask for questions to be sent to both you and Paul? Yeah, that would be great because I could just be collecting thank you for that. Yeah, I was just thinking of sending it to Paul, but yeah, that would be good if I can also get because I'll keep collecting all the questions. Okay, I thought that's what I heard you say. Okay, thank you. All right, so were there any other questions? Not just a question, but I mean, I don't know if anyone else if anyone else wants to say anything else. But otherwise, I can just say that, you know, I guess in talking with Anika, maybe, basically, just so that everyone knows where we are going with this, like the most important thing is to get the RFI out. And then once that is out, I think we can have Susan join the TSO to address some of because she did mention that some of the questions on our list can be answered by her and her research. So we'll start tackling some of those questions while the, you know, while the RFI is out there. So it's not like we will not do anything. And once we do have more information as TSO, we can decide when is it a good time to invite the public to start educating them and whatnot, but we'll definitely be having a public forum once we do have information from the RFI collected and the report from Susan and really go about that. So that'll be somewhere around June, but we can decide as a TSO if we want an earlier meeting with public input. Thank you. Dorothy. So this is to Paul. The RFI gives you information. Then will you make an RFP where you have sent out for a request for proposals for them to give you and how does that coincide with Susan Waits time here? Well, it won't coincide with her time here, although she'll continue to be she can she's a regional coordinator and she can provide advice. So we'll either do an RFP or RFQ. Once the council says we really want to move forward. If we're putting out an RFP, it means we're ready to contract. So I think we have to be really squared away on what we want. And then we're going to ask because we'll require a lot of information from people from the companies. We'll ask for a lot of financial background on their companies to make sure they're stable and all that kind of stuff. So we're going to be asking them to put a lot of work into bidding on it. So we really want to know the council really needs to be comfortable with what we're asking for, that you're going to have and what you probably have already taken action on it. OK, thank you. Andy. Yeah, I thought of one additional thing we've gotten as counselors some emails from people who seem to feel strongly about the question of single stream versus full stream for the recycling. And, you know, I've always taken the view that that should be up to the company that is having to deal with it. But I think it might be a question just to ask Susan from her area of expertise as to whether it is a matter that we should be concerned about, whether from DEP's perspective, there's a preference for one or the other and whether she would recommend structuring any question for the RFI around that. So it's a series of questions to ask her. I'm not making an opinion, stating an opinion of it myself. Thank you. OK, so if there are no other questions, we will be postponing our surveillance use policy discussion. Chief Livingstone is not available today. So we will have an update on when that will be, hopefully in our next meeting, but we'll have an update ASIP. And if we could, I believe that Mandy Joe is in the audience now. She can. Let's see here. Not a whole. So if we could welcome if we could bring Mandy Joe in so we can have an update for the proposed street lights policy. Hi, Mandy, can you hear us? Yes. Hi. So. Anna and I have met with. Gosh, DAC, TAC. I think that's and obviously TSO, right? And and did a lot of talking. We have a new draft of the policy, which I can share. I know it's not in the packet. We have reworked based on the comments we've gotten from all three committee. We've sort of reworked the proposal from a repeal and replace to a modify the current policy and then add an appendix. So the draft has a lot of red because it's now not a repeal and replace. And so when it's when it's a modify, you have to now show any change to the current policy in some sort of color that makes it clear what is being changed, what is being deleted and all of that. And I'll show it. And I know you guys won't be able to really take it in right now. We haven't changed too many of the. performance standards, so the illumination and all standards in terms of. Lighting, you know, uplighting and all of that. We have changed the color temperature maximum from twenty two hundred to twenty seven hundred in the new draft because we've also talked to Guilford a couple times and with some informal conversations. And he actually sent us some formal comments. And one of his comments that we got was that twenty two hundred, at least for the supplier, we use as a special order. And so it gets expensive if it's a special order to get twenty two hundred Kelvin lights. And so we've gone back up to twenty seven hundred, which was one of the numbers that we had initially drafted when Anna and I were discussing what level do we want? It's still a much yellower than the four thousand Kelvin to five thousand Kelvin color temperatures that we use right now. So that's one of the sort of performance standards changes that you will see in the draft, although it's not obvious because of how we've reformatted it. We've removed, well, because of the reformat, the placement standards are now you can see more clearly what is there from the current policy to what we are adding or deleting because we're updating the current policy. And and in some sense, that's that's where. The comments we receive nearly all, except for Guilford, who was much more concerned about performance standards, but from all the committees were basically concerned with location. Where do the street lights go? And and so we're not proposing. We're actually proposing only at this point, one change. I know TAC had a motion. It just came through, so I've been able to read what they wrote. And we've added regional transit bus stops to the placements. We haven't deleted anything to it. Crosswalks unless we want to light midblock crosswalks would be lit through the lights at intersections portion of the placement standards. So they're not in there separately, but we'd be willing to consider that. But our at least my thinking with placement standards are is we would really like the performance standards to be potentially voted on a recommendation for and sent back to the council for potential adoption if this committee is OK with that. But to include placement standards, where the lights go and any major changes to that. I think needs a lot more conversation, a lot more outreach and a lot more discussion as to the purpose of where street lights go. We've heard that we need more in town. We've heard we need less in town. And so to tackle that when the biggest impetus for my starting of this proposal was to make sure we're lighting appropriate areas and not over lighting the sky and non travel areas to focus on those performance standards now is sort of where we are. And then as a council, we could decide whether we want to start tackling where street lights go. The other thing that has been removed from the policy itself is the implementation schedule. There is a draft in the document that will get put in the packet after I show it. We're still thinking about it, but to remove it from that. And one thing I got from Guilford and talking to him that is that the current street lights are actually newer than he was thinking. And so they've been through, I think he estimated about 30 to 40 percent of their life right now. And so if we replaced them within the next five years, we would actually not be getting their full value. In a sense, if you think about it in terms of relamping the whole town. And so the draft right now has sort of extended that implementation to 10 years, believing that the relamping would be later than the five years we were thinking it would be, you know, the goal of the performance standards is not to require the town to relamp everything, not on a relamping schedule. In some sense, the goal is to the next time the town is buying hundreds of lights to replace them all in town, that we have the standards in place to get what we want. I don't believe we need to wait until we're ready to relamp to put those standards in place. We just have to be careful about the implementation schedule for it. I think the standards can be there because, you know, you're always going to be replacing a one off when something breaks or when you add stuff, if you're adding streets or adding new developments that new streetlights are going up for, it would be good to have those in place at this time so that those newer ones that are coming in or the replacements that burn out too quickly get the same standards we're aiming for. But the final implementation schedule, the goal is to not force the town to relamp before it's ready to relamp. So if the committee wants to see, I know you won't have read it and all, but I can go through with a big draft and with a share screen to show you what it looks like now and answer any questions. And I'm sure Anna can, too. She's been to some of these meetings, too. So yeah, yes, please. Can I just question? I'm not seeing this in the in the documents. It has not made it into the packet yet. That's, I think, a complete oversight on all of our parts of getting it to Anika on time to get it in. I think I sent something to Anika this morning, realizing that maybe we hadn't ever sent something to Anika, even though she asked us, would we be ready? And so that was that was totally on us for getting to actually send a document for the packet. So that's why I recognize we might not be able to discuss this in detail tonight, but I can show you the document and we can go through some of the changes. And then we'll give you time to digest it and ask any questions and come back once it has been in the packet. Sounds good. Dorothy? I just want some, to me, there's three issues. One is the color and intensity of light. Two is the direction of light. And three is the placement of street lights. So I'm only gonna talk about the first two. I know I've read over these, we've talked about them. I thought you wanted blue light. You want yellow light, is that correct? You're going for a more yellow light, okay. So the one that Gofford is saying it makes more sense to buy because it's not a special order, where is it on the spectrum of yellowness that you wanted? It's still yellow, it's still towards the... So I think what you would think of, like if you're in the store and they've got the LED display and they have a full white sunlight, right? They have that line, the warm white is the end we'd be on. Okay. I can see if we've got a... I don't know, Anna, whether you have the handy little thing. Add a chart handy. Dorothy, if it's helpful, I can find that and add it to the packet for next meeting as well. Okay. So this is on the agenda, I mean, I don't know when. Yes. That sounds like that's gonna be not too difficult to deal with. And the Gofford was optimistic when he thought we would be turning the lights over so it's a longer period of time. But no problem in having the lights go down and not go up, is that correct? And I guess, I know there's also a question about how tall are the poles? Cause that's one of the issues is how tall the light poles are. So the answer Gofford provided in terms of there was concerns that, especially on route nine, but as larger and taller utility poles go up and we put our lamps on utility poles, the lamps are now higher than they've been. What Gofford said was the lamps actually have to be in a specific spot on the utility poles as it relates to the other wires on the pole. And so we can't like install the lamp at 15 feet if certain wires are above that. I'm not gonna explain it well, but the lamp has to be near a certain wire on that pole and that wire is always at the top. So if the pole is high, the lamp is high. So that then makes it more important to have, what I would say is it makes it more important to have all of the shielding requirements. Because one of the things about shielding and directional is that that shielding and making sure it doesn't bleed onto non-public way services can be done even if the light is 10 feet off the ground or the light is 20 feet off the ground or the light is 30 feet off the ground. It looks different depending on how high it is, but it can be done. So you're saying that you can kind of counteract it being too high with the proper shielding? Yes. Okay, so that's two out of three are not the problem. So I guess the contention is the placement of the lights. And I just don't quite get your argument that a crosswalk in the middle of the block doesn't need a light nearby it. I'm not saying it doesn't. We don't know what this committee thinks. We know what TAC said, how to write it into the draft. Right now the draft includes lights at intersections. Most crosswalks are intersections. I don't actually know. I can think of one mid-block crosswalk, but there might be a couple others. And so the question is for the few mid-block crosswalks that there are in town, if there is not a light there would we want to add a street light or not? And that's something I think that TSO should think about and discuss. It's not something that's in the current policy. We're not taking it away. It would be an act if we decided to put it in. Okay, because there's something that I'm just gonna stop at this point, but that we've talked about in the past that we haven't done, which is those little flashing lights, like the thing like that Amherst College has. The indicator because yeah. And those, for example, at the crosswalk on Amity would really, really want that. Cause we think that it would help save lives. So that might be less light pollution. I'm just throwing it out there because there is concern about safety crossing the street. Crossing Amity is really a challenge. I think that would be something that'd be really great for TAC to possibly think through and bring forward in terms of how that would make sense. I agree with you Dorothy, that it's not about, that's not like street lights policy specific, but that it's a street light, but it's not street light, if that makes sense. So I think that that would be a really interesting topic for TSO to tackle possibly in tandem with the Transportation Advisory Committee. Thank you. Andy. Yeah, well, Dorothy's raised one of the questions that I was going to get into also, which was the midwalk, the mid crosswalks and the ones that are not in the intersections. Because there are a lot of them and I actually think that they're actually more problematic because when I drive home at night, like if I happen to be driving home at 11, 30 or 12 o'clock, ask for some council meeting or something, I get to crosswalks and I realize that it's rare that somebody's there to the point where I don't expect it and therefore it's actually more important that there be a light than less important because the person's assuming that they're coming into a crosswalk and that I'm going to be attentive to it, but it's hard to be attentive to it if you can't see it, see the person there. And I glad that Dorothy brought up the Amity Street question, but there are actually other crosswalks all over town, places where people don't expect them up near the university and some places where there probably are few people who are crossing like near the Mill River Recreation Area's entrance, crossing Montague Road. There's some crosswalks along in there in that section, but again, you do at least be good to get tax input on that and then come back to the committee on it. And I know that you just got the tack and we just got the tack resolution. I was at that meeting and so I know some of their issues are but I do think that they were well thought out and suggestions. So obviously I know you'll come back and look at them again. And the last comment that I had is since this is probably the hardest one to figure out is that if the purpose is to protect bicyclists and pedestrians, which certainly was what tax biggest concern was was just because of the number of accidents that happened that injure somebody or frequently people who were on foot or on bicycles. And so we really have to pay attention to that. And then you get, if we're caught in this dilemma that you described Mandy with lights being very high in distance from the roadway because they're on light poles and you have affected the lighting by the standards. Are we getting to the point where we're actually because of the height of the light when we put that in combination with the standards we're putting in for the light brightness will it affect the light where you want it which is where the pedestrians and bicyclists are located and I don't know how to handle that one but I wanted to get your thoughts on it. So those are my comments. Thank you. So one thing I would say at least to the mid-block crosswalks I would be interested in knowing whether or thinking about is an overhead light or the pedestrian activated beacon which one is actually safer the way I think about it. I actually think the pedestrian activated beacon for a mid-block crosswalk is probably safer since you're not expecting anyone there you might not even know the crosswalks there suddenly you get all this flashing that might alert you better than just having a constant just a constant light there that you might not know is there because of a crosswalk. So I think it's great that maybe go back to TAC or Gilford and figure out which one would be better for those instances in terms of the height of the light I think we would need to go back to and I'm trying to browse it quickly. We have illumination levels in our performance standards but they are not a specific illumination level when they hit the ground in the public way they're to an addition of the IES handbook. And so the higher up you go you might need a stronger illumination level so that Kelvin is just the temperature it's not whether it's a 30 watt, take a household bulb you can have a 30 watt, a 60 watt the equivalent or a 100 wall or 200 watt equivalent of a household bulb they can all have the same color temperature but one is a lot more illuminating than another one. And so the goal of our standards is to make sure the illumination level on the public way is appropriate for what you said, Andy but once you're off the public way we want it as minimal as possible. And so the higher up you are you might actually need a higher wattage to achieve the illumination level at ground on the public way that you're aiming for. Whereas if you're lower down you might need a less wattage to achieve that same illumination level but it looks like our policy I don't believe our policy sets sort of a maximum illumination level coming out of the lamp itself because at different heights you need different levels. I just had one commenter question I may have brought this up before. So there are some sidewalks that I know further up East Pleasant I think this is even past UMass I'd be heading towards Village Park Apartments also on I believe it's Southeast Street if you were coming either to or from Main Street there are two areas where you could be you're walking along a sidewalk and it just ends out of nowhere the sidewalk is just gone and it's not even like directly across the street you're just there. And so I don't know if there are if there's lighting there for at night there may be I haven't done these walks at night to see if there is a light there where someone could see that they end. It's not like you have certain areas where it ends but you can go across the street or just maybe you turn a bit and you're on the sidewalk this is where you end up in the street if you continue. Yeah, we don't really have like a shell Silverstein this is where the sidewalk ends sign. That's interesting to think about there are I know Southeast Street obviously is my district it's got that pretty aggressive stop. I think Southeast Street has the street lights anyway but it's sorry. I might be thinking maybe I'm thinking the wrong way this would be like up towards you know if you had passed Main Street and you were coming towards North and West. Gotcha, gotcha. Well, Southeast Street has- There's probably another one. Yeah, there's probably these are just the two that I can think of off the top of my mind but I'm sure there are many others. That's interesting I don't many and I had necessarily discussed that specific issue but we are happy to think about kind of where there are sidewalks and where they abruptly end. I don't know Mandy. Yeah, I'd have to think about that. I don't, there's one on Pomeroy that I used to walk and then suddenly there's no sidewalk anymore. Yeah, the road's too narrow for it. Yeah, yeah. Saloni. Yeah, it was fun. I was thinking it'd be so interesting if you just had a bit three question survey out to everyone, you know like how safe do you feel in your neighborhood with respect to let's say driving, walking alone, biking and then do you feel your street needs more lighting or less lighting or something, you know? And just to get a feedback from people around how they're feeling about the lighting because yeah, I'm hearing people. There was, on a side note, there was that email we were getting. I think Mandy, that might be the person in your neighborhood about the blinking light and I don't know if that ever got resolved. That's a side note, but I hope that got resolved. But just generally, I think it'll be interesting to hear systematically what are people's concerns as we are changing this or adapting, editing this bylaw, you know, changing people's needs, yeah. Thank you. And Dorothy. One topic I remember having a conversation with Tracy was about a particular blind woman that lives in or has family in our neighborhood and walking to schools and places. We're talking about where sidewalks abruptly end and we were thinking of should we try to come up with a policy that says there should be decent sidewalk to public buildings in town. So that, you know, and I know that the town actually worked on one of those recently, the fixing the sidewalk to the senior center, but you know, just kind of like a survey of if somebody were to walk to official buildings in the town, is the sidewalk clear? Is it continuous? And is it safe? I mean, I guess that would be something maybe for disability committee, but it's also TSO. And I don't think that's been done because I have heard about some sidewalks is just disappear. And if you've got your, you know, impaired visually, it could cause you to fall if you weren't, if you didn't know that, you have memorized all that. Thank you. Are there any other questions for Anna, Mandy or Paul? So. I'm going to come back to my question. Do the sponsors think it would be helpful to gather information like that from neighbors? And if so, is that something we can put on the Engage website? Because Engage allows us to have conversations about what people think and experience. So I think it's hard, Shalini, because there have been so many studies done on perceptions of street lighting levels that we know some of that data isn't actually, doesn't actually correlate with increased safety. And so there's perception and then there's data and reality-based information. And I think that both of those are important to take into consideration. I also think one of the things to consider is what, for us, and this is a question for TSO generally, is what gets that sort of response? What is it that gets to be on Engage, Amherst? What is it that gets to be with, whether it's, I'm not even sure what this would look like in terms of like door-to-door surveys or whatever it is. Because I think that we really need to consider kind of how we pick and choose what we're going above and beyond in terms of engagement with. And so that's not necessarily saying this isn't it, but I do think that's really, it's an important thing for us to be consistent with as in terms of like surveys out to folks. I think that this has been something that we've solicited community input, the way that we've solicited community input with everything else. And that there's been a lot of conversation about this in really helpful ways. I also think what's challenging is that this is a town-wide thing. This isn't just a specific area of town, right? And so we then get into like sampling and we wanna make sure that we have representative samples and representative survey data and all of that. So I think that it's something that, Mandy and I are happy to talk about, but it's also, this is very data-driven work in the sense of there's a lot of really, there's been a lot of research on this. And so we also wanna respect that as well and find the balance there. And I think I wasn't even speaking so much about the changing of the yellow lighting and all, as much as the location or where do we need more lighting and less lighting? Yeah, and I think when we get to that part because that's not in this current, we are not doing that with this policy, then yes, there's absolutely a need for deeper levels of engagement as with any zoning changes that happen. Thank you. Okay, and Dorothy. Well, I do wanna say that perceptions do matter because if you don't feel safe, then you don't go outside and the people in your neighbors don't go outside and the fewer people go outside, then the less safe it becomes. A well-traveled sidewalk is much more likely to be a safer sidewalk. So that for example, the Amity Street sidewalk in front of my house is pretty well-traveled and these people do walk on it many hours of the night, you know, on hours of the day. So, but in a neighborhood that seems dark or a block that seems dark when you look down it, the people aren't gonna go out and then it will not be as safe. So I think we can't dismiss perceptions. I do understand what you were trying to say Anna, I do. Okay. I wanted to clarify, I did say both matter, both perceptions and data matter. I'm not negating that. Right. Yeah. And I would add one of the things, if you go back to our, one of the reasons we've in some sense dropped the location issue is because it's really difficult because everyone has a different perception, you know, some of the questions we ran into, you know, if you remember our original one, we had different lighting zones that would have different lighting levels depending on what zone you were in. A business zone that's going to have a lot of evening pedestrian traffic would have a lot more lighting on sidewalks versus a rural farm area that might still have a sidewalk but is not expected to have very much, if any evening pedestrian traffic which might have almost no evening lighting as you get off the main collector roads. And so when you start getting into conversations like that, you also get different beliefs as to what should be lit. And I'll just bring up, for example, the TAC motion because it was just handed out, we just read it. It's part of the current policy talks about not providing lighting, let me pull it up, not providing lighting. It says the street lights will not be provided by the town as security lighting for private property or for pedestrians in residential neighborhoods unless at least one of the above criteria is met or it says select board otherwise deems the situation to require a street light because street lighting could be requested virtually everywhere in town. And so if we get into the placements and TAC has specifically passed a motion that asks us to delete some of that and do that. But some people will say every neighborhood or every house should have a street light near it so that you can walk from a bus stop to your house without having a flashlight. Other people in town will say, no, that's not appropriate because there's not enough traffic in that neighborhood at 11 or midnight to make it unsafe to walk with just a flashlight and that a pedestrian should bring their own flashlight if they're going to be walking at 11 or midnight, whether it's by walking the dog or getting off a bus. Those are different views. Each person has their own view. When you get into that, you need a lot more outreach. You need a lot more consensus on what is the purpose of say lighting in a completely residential area that does not have a bus stop at all inside the residential area and has no sidewalks or a residential area, a neighborhood that has sidewalks and no bus stop or one that is well traveled at all hours of the day because it connects UMass to Puffton Village. For example, you have to get into conversations like that and therefore, if you're going to get to that level and therefore you have to have a lot more engagement and specific questions and all that gets you to that consensus of what are we providing lights for? What does, I think some of the comments we had is what is high pedestrian traffic? What does high pedestrian traffic mean? What does low pedestrian traffic mean? How many pedestrians at 10 at night constitutes per hour constitutes high pedestrian traffic? Everyone's going to have a different view of that. And that's one of the reasons we've stepped back from proposing those placement standards because we've now realized that's a huge, huge undertaking that if the council wants to undertake it needs to make that decision because of how much time, effort and staff it will probably take to do so. There is a current policy that says where to put lights. We have not proposed changing that anymore. And so we're trying to get what type of light we want now, not where. Thank you. Andy. So, let me just. You just muted yourself, Andy. Got it. One question that comes up also on this question that we're getting at is cost because the installation of new lights as opposed to the replacement of lights on the cycle as they need replacement are two very different enterprises. And that's what that old policy that there was really getting at because it's, I think that you're going to always find some people in every neighborhood who are going to advocate for it. And probably some people are advocating against and it's a question of who's the loudest and who's the best organized to get up in neighbors and support of their position which is not a very objective standard to go by. And I think that's what TAC was getting at. I think the question of what guidelines we might want to have that are applicable generally is a question that we want to go back to TAC and get some more thought about. But we need to be very cautious about not getting ourselves in a position where we're opening up the installation of a whole lot of lights where there are no lights now because it doesn't, it's an expensive proposition and it may actually delay having the funds available to do what we want to do which is to replace lights that right now are very bloating as the most reasonable and quickest schedule reasonable with new light standards. So this is a huge, huge topic. And I think one needs to be dealt with very carefully. I would really encourage us to use TAC for help. Thank you for that insight, Andy. It's very helpful. Well, Dorothy, do you have, is your hands still up or do you have any questions? I do. I do agree. We've been talking about different views and I'm just saying let's look for some data. I think there has to be some hard data on lighting and pedestrian and biker safety because I think we could go around in a circle getting different people's ideas because there really are different points of view on how much light somebody prefers. But I think that if we check the research and I think I've heard that it does exist that could help guide us on some of these questions particularly around crosswalks. So that's my observation. Thank you, Dorothy. And with that, our hands, so thank you. Thank you, Mandy for being with us and you came from CRC pretty much. So thank you for taking this extra time. Did you have anything else that? I don't know, I have a question. I sent you the revision that has I called it a clean appendix, meaning it did not have all the deletions. So the policy that you'd seen before had a lot of stuff that we've deleted. And so I cleaned that up to just have the current performance standards in there without showing a track change of everything we deleted. Would the committee want to see that track change of that with everything from the prior policy that was deleted in what is now the appendix of the next proposal? Because that, so that track change would show everything that was deleted but it would also show where changes to the prior policy were made, things like that 22 changing to 27 and some other things made. So does the committee want just the clean version of that appendix that doesn't have track changes and just as in red showing that it would all be new or does it want to also see that sort of marked up version that shows essentially the changes from what I did was I turned the last proposal completely into the appendix and then started deleting under track changes. What does the committee want that additional one to? It's a little harder to read, which is why I cleaned it up but I can send it along. My recommendation would be to include both but folks know that the clean, the version that says clean version is the one that we're really discussing and the other one is just for folks who really want to get into the details of seeing exactly what was deleted. That's my take. Mandy, I don't know if any other. I agree. Yeah. I will send you the other one then too. All right, thank you so much. And we'll make sure those are in the packet for next time. Yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And Mandy. Mandy. Staying with us, have a great rest of the night. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Okay, so we will move on. Has everyone had a chance to look over the minutes? Yeah, I did have a chance to look them over. Are we supposed to fill in on page three? There was an unknown abstention. It says four zero by roll call with one abstention and then it has in parentheses three abstracts. Oh, you know what? That was not, that was corrected. That should have been, and so we can add these for next meeting. That should have been corrected. The, that was shallony who abstained. And I did include that in the report and sent that over, but I guess it hasn't made it into the minutes yet. So we can leave those for next meeting. Okay, sorry. Thank you for catching that. Yeah, so we can put those in. We'll move that on. Okay, so that was, yeah, we've moved right along quickly. I just had a couple of announcements to share. Most I think probably everyone is aware that Saturday we have the farmer's market opening again and also a sustainability festival going on in the common. And also the say yesterday Amherst school folks will be there during the farmer's market and looking for support or people to stop by and say hello. Also, I wanted to share that Amherst resident and physician, Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker on Tuesday, April 25th. This will be at 5.30 p.m. This is at Pine Lecture Hall at Amherst College. She will be having a discussion and screening of her film Ashes to Ashes, which is actually based on a man, Rinfund Rembrandt and he, Rembrandt, sorry. And he was actually the only person documented to have survived a lynching. Shirley's film Ashes to Ashes has been screened at UMass and all over the place. Her work is in the Library of Congress. Winfred was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Unfortunately, this was right after his death, but I would encourage everyone who can to attend this screening. There will also be a preview to her next and upcoming work. And I think, you know, just to have again, there's so much talent within Amherst and I'm so happy that Shirley there'll be another opportunity for residents to be able to see this. I will send that through the council as well so people can have the date and to Paul for anyone interested in attending. And I do believe there will be a cameo from our 54th reenactors who we've adopted here for the town of Amherst. So I believe that they will be there as well, but I can't assess enough that if you have the opportunity, please go to see it. And is there anyone else who has an announcement or question, Dorothy? This coming Thursday, we're going to have the ceremony for the Jewish American Heritage Month Proclamation. And we will have live klezmer music, Brian Benner, a keyboard and vocals and Judy Gutlerner on the clarinet. And we will have some food. So it'll be at four o'clock on Thursday, Steps of Town Hall. And I just want to mention that Rabbi Wiener is or Wiener is going to come. He just gave a address at a rally at Belcher Town on Holocaust Remembrance Day because of, I don't know the details, but I gathered there was some rather widespread anti-Semitic activity amongst middle schoolers. Oh, was that at the school? Okay, I think I saw something about that. Somebody may know more about it than I do, because I just know that it was widespread and kind of just startling, it was absolutely startling. And just bringing home, just bringing home that the problem of anti-Semitism is still with us and a serious one and that we have to stand strong. So I know that there's a lot of conflicting things. I think, Andy, you're a sponsor and you think you may have to be at some MMA event. I'm not sure, but it's gonna be really very meaningful. So I hope that you can make it. Thank you. Okay. I will be there in the... Great. It's the Mass Counselors Association and any of us were thinking about going to the Counselors Association meeting and dinner. And I'm probably not gonna go, it would really have to just attend and then quickly leave, but could do both to get, still get to a certain time for the Counselors Association. That's what I wanted to do. So will you be here with us on the steps or? We'll be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's meaningful to have you, Andy. So I don't know, appreciate it. Thank you. And that's Thursday at 4 p.m. in town hall, right? That's right. Thank you. And inside if there's bad weather. All right. So I think that's it. Oh, Shalina, you put your hand up. April 29th is the Linguistic Heritage Celebration from 230 to 530. So it's just gonna be different languages, cultures, people singing, dancing, all kinds of stuff. Great. And where is that? It's a town common, I think. Yeah. It's in front of 30-bolt one. Okay. Thank you. We're on it. We're sharing everything. Okay. So with that, thank you to everyone, wishing everyone a great rest of the night and we'll see you soon. Thank you. Good night, meeting adjourned. Bye, y'all.