 Okay. There we go. Now we're recording. Okay. And you haven't made me host yet, so don't forget to do that. I'll do that before I hop off. Okay. Thanks. Welcome, everyone. Today is the March 7th meeting of the Joint Capital Planning Committee, JCPC, and seeing that we have a quorum, I am going to call the meeting to order, and the first thing I need to do is make sure that the members of the committee can hear and we can hear you. So I'm just going to call on you as I see you on the screen. Jean? Yes. Bob? Yes. Anna? Present. Lee? Yeah. Sarah? Yeah. Jennifer. And Jennifer was here, but said she needed to step out briefly. So we'll wait to confirm. She could hear when she was stepping out. Jean has very graciously, while we were in the practice station, offered to be the minute-taker for today. So we have a minute-taker. And thank you for volunteering. Hopefully we only have one. And as I said in my note to everyone, Athena gets us the Zoom pretty quickly so that you can take as much or little notes as you need during the meeting, but you'll have the Zoom meeting also to fill them in. So I think the agenda for today, the first part of it is the big picture overview of with what was posted on the webpage for the committee is a very long list of projects with a total at the bottom and then also a description of all of those. But my understanding is we're going to first have a presentation about all of this. And then we have several individual projects and we will start with the two from resident, we have two resident proposals. And I see one of the people is here. Hopefully the other person will be, the other person both have joined. So after we're standing, I'm going to turn it over to you and your team. However, you want to do the presentation. And then the next will be Jeremy and Janet. And then we'll go to their series of school proposals. So I'm assuming Athena has sent out notices so Doug knows roughly when to join us. So with that really short introduction, I'm welcoming Sandy to tell us, to give us the bigger picture overview, which people may have noticed if you weren't on JCPC before or if you were over the last couple of years, what we received is different than what we've received in the past in terms of the document. So I think we definitely need you to walk us through the work before us, Sandy. Very good. Thank you very much. Nice to see everybody. What I'm going to do first is give you a little bit of background and then just do sort of a quick run through of the numbers and see what questions people have. I think the most important thing is that because things started a little bit later this year, you don't have the same presentation that you had in the past. In the past, when Sean McGanna was here and Paul Backelman was acting as what was town manager, together they had a system in which they presented a plan that was pretty close to being in balance right from the start. They picked the things that they thought were their priorities. They did some work with determining what would be borrowed versus what would be paid for in cash. And they put that together on a nice neat packet that explained the role of the JCPC that laid out all the projects with short little descriptions and had a balanced summary. That is both not something that we were able to get done this year so far. There's a lot going on. And because it's just a little bit different it's just a little bit different from how I had done things. The way I had always done things with JCPC was to give you the full list of everything. So you can see sort of the scope of what's going on. And then as we work through things to try to help the committee by making some suggestions about things that could either be borrowed or maybe different sources or just maybe needed to be put off. So we're sort of in that second stage at this point. What you have received to date is a list of all of the forms that the departments put forward with individual descriptions of individual projects. Jen LaFontaine has put that in order of departments. It's a giant PDF but you can see it's order of departments and their page numbers. So as we look at different departments, projects we can just go through them in that order. What I am just gonna share with the group right at the moment is the numbers. And let's see, let's make this a little bigger. How's that? All right. So this is a list of all the projects. FY25 is highlighted a little bit. What I've hidden from what you've maybe seen in the past is suggested sources like cash or borrowing. I have not made any effort at this point in the process to go through that. We also had a little bit of a problem in the beginning of this process in that when the staff was first collecting information from departments about their request, all the departments sent back or many of the departments just sent back the FY25 requests. And there was no information about ongoing requests. So for example, I don't know if this was the case with IT but what an example would be that a department like IT would have given back just the $200,000 for FY25 and we wouldn't have known what the needs were in the future years. So that has also taken a little bit of time to go back to the department and get that. I think we have done a pretty good job. There are a couple who I would say are maybe not as quick as other departments. So there are a couple of things that we still need to get but the departments that are presenting today have gotten back to us and we will have that information for you as we go forward. I would say, I think the, I'm not gonna go through this whole list. I'm just, I'll scroll through it a little bit just so you kind of get a sense of what's out there and kind of numbers we're talking about. We have the school department who's gonna be here today and talking about the specifics of their request. So in particular, I'll let Doug go through that. I'm just gonna scroll all the way to the bottom. And say that at this point, we have $10 million in requests for FY 25, six and a half for the next year, 34 and a half back in 27 and then nine and five. So there's $65 million worth of requests. We usually spend, I forget what the number is, six or $7 million a year I think in capital just off the top of my head. So there are clearly more projects listed here than we have money for. One of the reasons that that is, is that there's some projects like, for example, the public works building at $28 million is in there at its full amount. And in the future, when we decide what's gonna be borrowed versus what we'll pay cash for, that number will spread out over multiple years. So right now it's just a list of everything that in their full cost all at once in the year in which we'll spend it. And typically we do present things in both fashions. What we're gonna spend in the given years such as $28 million on the TPW and FY 27 and then the sort of cash flow showing that over the next 20 or 30 years we're gonna be repaying bonds on that. So one is like you get a new credit card and the other is a series of credit card bills. With that, I would say it is my intention to continue to follow up on this and to give you an updated sheet that shows really how we are in balance and to start to make some suggestions. Both Paul Blockham and I have started sitting down to go through this list and we will continue to do that early next week and I'm hoping by our next meeting to have something a little more comprehensive showing the cash flow for these different projects. We're also working with our financial advisor who helps the town with our bonding and getting a sense from him of what the costs are likely to be for the things that we're going to bond or selling in FY 25 this spring which will then have to be paid off starting in FY 26 and some of the other potential bonding costs going forward. So that's really mostly what I have to say at this point and I would be glad to engage in any conversation, answer any questions or share anybody's feelings about the process. So as chair, I'm going to call on other people before myself. So Bob, your hand went up and then I see Sarah's hand is up also. Yeah, I have some questions. I'm new to the committee. So maybe this is a naive question but what I didn't see in this chart or in this spreadsheet is all of the buildings, the four major capital buildings plus the high school track, borrowing, paying off the high school track or at least there should be something in there for that. I didn't see those. I'm wondering why we don't have them in there. The other thing is in looking through the actual individual project list there was a request for police cruisers. I think it was 320K and I don't see it in this spreadsheet. So I don't know whether that was just inadvertently left out or what. So I have some other questions about... If you could hold them up so that I remember all the questions. No, no, no, the biggest issue is we should have all of the major capital projects in here even if we're going to borrow money or we're using the debt authorization, the debt exclusion for the new elementary school. But I think it should be in here. Sure, okay. So some of the projects have previously been approved by town so that they don't need to be in the project as requests because they've already been voted by the council. So what you will see in the backup material that will come with this is what the debt payments on those are gonna be. So for example, the library isn't listed. We are gonna borrow for the town's portion of the library, we're gonna sell a bond for them in May for about $15 million. And what you will then see in some of the subsequent documents that I will get to you is a list of what the payments... Initially what the estimated payments are and then at some point we may even, depending on when the sale is, have what the actual payments are gonna be. So that one isn't there. Something like DPW, which still hasn't been approved is on the list because it still needs to be approved. So that's, I think that deals with the four different projects. Some have been approved already and some still need to approve DPW and FIRE. The school and the library have already been approved. If you asked about the track, somebody else may know this better than I do. I believe what's going on with the track is that the school department, school committee has re-voted an authorization for the track and changed the term somewhat. And I don't know all the particulars, I think it had to do with the type of surface that they were gonna use whether it was gonna be turf or not. And so that authorization, I think is for the council at this moment. And so once we know, once that gets authorized, we'll then have some numbers to be able to put in there. But I am guessing that it had been approved at some point in the past and now is being modified. Right, 1.5 million was approved in the past. Yeah. And it's being modified. Yeah. And then I think there was one, oh, the vehicles, the police vehicles. So within this, all the requests from departments are listed by departments except vehicles. There's a separate section at the bottom that has vehicles. Right now there's listed $360,000 a year for each of the five years of the plan, assuming that hybrid vehicles plus the assorted equipment lights and so forth, you're gonna come to about $90,000. When the police are here, they will explain that in the past, we bought four vehicles one year and then three, three, three and then four again. But from what I learned yesterday afternoon for a couple of years, the police department wasn't able to keep to that schedule. So they are now asking for more than they have usually gotten to try to get back and keep them up to speed. That's one of those issues that certainly Paul and I will continue to have some conversations with the police chief about what the department's needs are because that's been a recently evolving number. So I hope that answers your question. Yeah, okay, thank you. I just don't want to forget those things. Very good. The ticket items. Absolutely. Sarah? Yeah, one small and one maybe a little less small but having to do with that spreadsheet, all the requests and it was this year's requests, total 10 million and change. And then there was a number below that that wasn't labeled, seven million. Is that what's available? Is that, what was that number? So that's what I showed you on the screen which is I will say different from what we passed out. When we passed something out, it didn't include that line because that's kind of an internal working line. I think it is a measure of the cash versus bonded requests but I can't swear to it because it's something that Sean had put in that spreadsheet and I'm still trying to figure out everything that's in the spreadsheet. So it doesn't mean anything, shouldn't mean anything to us at the moment. Exactly. All right. My other question if I can about, you said earlier that departments had not gotten you information on out years but I thought we always have a five year plan. So what is it that you needed? Was it updates like if they've changed there? When you were initially asked before I came on to work for the town, they were asked in a way that some of them I think particularly some of the new department heads did not know or have explained to them that they needed to do five years. So they did just one year. Then as we started to review those numbers it became apparent, wait a minute there are some numbers missing. So we've gone back to and Jennifer has done a really good job of following up with most of those departments to get those numbers. There are still one or two stragglers. Again, they tend to be some of the newer department heads from whom the whole process is new. And so I'd say by the next time we meet we should have all those numbers together and be able to report the full spectrum. Doug, I see your hand is up. So I'm gonna call on you before I go. So I have a larger- I'm just gonna clarify Bob's question. He asked about the track authorization. So that is actually and that bond would be carried by the regional school district. So won't show up on this at all other than the payment. So when the regional schools borrow money we make a, that debt is assessed to the town and that'll show up as a line on this on this JCPC as a single line for all the regional school debt which includes projects from the past and a variety of different things and it's sort of a blended number there. So just wanted to clarify that. Thanks. I meant to say I was only looking for Amherst share of that. Obviously the other towns share isn't relevant to us. So I'm gonna follow with a larger picture question but then also talk about the debt. What we received last few times that was extremely helpful is what you started to say Sandy is how much money do we have? And one of the things that we saw and so I'll just give as of last year what we thought we would have in FY25 we thought we would have about $8.9 million but of that 2.9 so call it three was already being spent for current, for debt that was encouraged. So in terms of money we can look at with this new set it was five million. It was around five with the road money that we get. So I think that would be really helpful for us to get that because when I saw 10 million I go, well, I think it's two to three times more. Even if I said some of this would be bonds or something but just a sense of we have much to spend this much is already spoken. It comes out of the capital budget the things we obligated ourselves to before. And it's just helpful to have that context that this is not a small adjustment that we're gonna be going through but a fairly large being tough on this list of projects. So. Yes and that is something I very much I'm hoping I can decipher the 10 page spreadsheet that Sean had with different tabs and links. I'm getting there, I'm cross-referencing I just couldn't get it done today. Now that's fine. And what I can do to everyone is I can excerpt it was page six in last year's five year plan that gave you the top and the bottom. So you could see what we thought we would have in 25, 26, 27, 28. And then the other thing that I thought was really helpful that we had and I'm gonna hold up this tiny little piece but it was the last page in that document and it was what Bob has been asking about the 10 year debt schedule that all the things that we already said we were gonna do. And so that added up to that what I just quickly said is $3 million of debt service and it showed some things are going off but the regional track was in there and as Doug said, it didn't show up as track as our share of the regional capital assessment. But you could see it sitting there and you could see Jones library sitting there and you could see the the guesstimate for the public works department spread over. So it had already in place and yet to come that we were looking at to have a sense of what was obligated. I just I found that document extremely helpful to realize that when we say, oh, we'll just buy this with debt to realize what that does to the next year. And the other thing that I thought was useful when we get to particularly, well, police, you said vehicles is we had this inventory that had been built up of how many trucks do we have? How many police cars do we have? How old is each one? What is the mileage? It was an inventory that also enabled us to say, here's a request for another, but it looks like maybe there are no, maybe, can you get one more year out of that one? So that was just a useful context document to have when we're looking at requests for new vehicles. Yes. So we will get you that. You will also have an inventory of all the buildings in town. So everybody knows what assets we have. And at some point, I will report to you with the status of previously approved projects is, but that's been in the packet in the past too. And yeah, I'm just looking at the table of contents from last year's preliminary report and the things that had been delivered to the committee, which as I said, I would have liked to have had to you earlier, but it's been a compressed schedule at this point. No, and I just said, we realize it's not going to be exactly, but it was helpful. It's not like this year we're going to have 10 million more than we thought we were going to have. The world unfortunately does. So what I'll make sure everyone has, I can just excerpt and send them the two pages I've talked about because the debt schedule of existing debt won't have changed. It's the ones we'd already purchased, the ladder truck or whatever. But so it feels like we're going to have, how would I say this? More work to do this year than we had last year where the staff had already made some hard decisions before it came to us. Jennifer, I know you're back, but you were making, didn't it come to us nearly balanced? This year we have the full list before the adjustments have been made to get down. So I just think it's important that we keep that in mind as we start to hear proposals. Sarah. Is our CPAC project separately tracked? They have their own revenue, but if there's borrowing then, yeah. They're tracked in two ways, and that will be helpful. You can see it when you get the bigger list. You can see that this is a CPAC project and expense, but there's CPAC money that's paying for it. So it's not off of the general fund. But it affects our borrowing limit, the town's borrowing limit, no? Yeah, and so it's sitting there. And so you can see the CPAC rolling green affordable housing. Well, I'm looking at this debt list that I have. It's all there, but then it's part of the amazing thing that town does, that they know there's revenue to pay that debt. So it doesn't end up as coming off of this year's allocation of the general fund. It's been... So it's not part of that 10.05% that we're spending on capital. It's over and above that. I understand, but the town does have a borrowing limit. So it must count towards that. That's true. I will say we will never get anywhere close to that limit. Oh. It's 5% of our, basically 5% of the total value of all property in town. And nobody gets anywhere close to it. And don't get any wild ideas now. No, and we're just saying. And the school doesn't count. There's a nice, you know, like we don't have to count the school. It's got its own category for whatever reasons on this. Yeah, for... It does go back to the credit cards. Yes, the borrowing limit is high. So you can get a lot of credit cards. The problem is you have to pay them off. And that's the constraint. So I think, are there any other questions? Because, so just so everyone understands what my understanding is, we have the this year list, if everything came through without any designation, this is cash or debt. Because there was one of 1.9 million one. And usually when it's that big, we spread it out. We've got a list that totals to a lot more than the money we're going to have to spend. And we'll be getting more sort of big picture information next week, but we're going to be starting with the department's request. And I guess the first today is schools. And we have the two resident requests. And what we typically do is we raise questions about the requests, ask the people who are presenting. And then to the extent those are answerable, Sandy and the town staff has gotten back to us with answers if we didn't get, couldn't get answers right during the day. So we don't have to make decisions while we're hearing the presentations. We just are going through our larger thinking hats on what we've heard. So are people ready with that introduction to move to the next part of the agenda? So I see we've got, we've got DeGenec McAllen-Leave. She's there. She's gone. Okay, so we have two resident requests. And I think Athena had listed them as next on the agenda and then you, you Doug. So if Jeremy, if you could speak to your request and keep the presentation really short because we all got the documents so then we can ask questions about it. And then Janet, you would follow Jeremy. And tell us who you are when, hi Jeremy. Hi, on that note, Jeremy Anderson, 34 high point drive. And thank you so much for hearing my request and for helping me with the submission process. I'm really passionate about trying to make our streets safer for our kids and for everyone who lives in our community. And I think, it's in the news, I sent in the document that I submitted almost every day. It feels like there's another article about how unsafe the streets are becoming in our state and across our country. Just two days ago in the Gazette, the title was, we're in a state of crisis in Massachusetts. And that was from the director of the Department of Transportation where people are just, everyone's trying to make up for lost time from COVID and trying to do too many things and just driving too fast. And that puts our kids, especially at risk, kids just, they don't have traffic awareness. And we live in this beautiful community where there's so many things you can do. You can go to parks, you can go to see music, you can go to museums and great schools. But all of that requires driving. And so every time that we go someplace to bring our kids to soccer practice, to go grocery shopping, we're getting in our cars and we're potentially creating conflicts. And one simple and just very mechanical solution are these your speed signs that they flash and they have wonderful results. The director, the president of the, or forget the titles here, the Transportation Advisory Committee, she was saying that the new studies show that they have a lasting effect. It's not something you can even shut them off and just having them there will slow people down. So a simple thing we can do to keep our kids safe at all the public schools is to put up your speed signs that remind drivers that they're just, they're going too fast. And it's time to slow down and just take life a little bit easier. And so that's the first request we have. I asked for 10 signs, each sign for about $10,000, $5,000 for the full $50,000 that there was available. And these are available from multiple vendors. And then the other request was to add a school zone posting at the high school and at the middle school. High schools were just added recently under DOT guidelines as schools, according to traffic studies. So it seems appropriate to me that we post to keep our kids safe. Even high school kids need to be safe as well. So thank you so much for the opportunity and happy for any questions. So I see both Sarah and Bob. Sarah, I think your hand went up first. So 10 signs, I'm curious why 10, unless it's a number of schools in one each way. But I think you also said that the signs are effective if they're just moved around or even if they're off. So why not five signs and just keep moving? Yeah, so what I've been told is that it's the permanent signs that are effective. People know that trailers are moved around and have been trying to help out or with traffic on Henry Street and the police department was wonderful and provided a trailer. And while the trailer was there, speed went right down. And as soon as the trailer was gone, it came back again. So they do need to be permanent signs. And yes, it was two for each of the public schools, one in each direction, except for Crocker Farm, which has actually two roads that parallel it. So it would need extra signs. Can I just add that in a couple of years we'll only have four schools? Well, in that case, then it could be moved. I mean, it would be a permanent sign, but I was hoping that they could be moved to another neighborhood or to another part in town. Well, we've been putting them up in downtown and it needs to be there too. It needs to be next to our playgrounds and our parks. But I think starting with the schools, keeping our kids safe is a great way to start. Thank you. Mom? Yeah, I think, Jeremy, you answered this. I didn't see it in your capital request, but Crocker Farms, I mean people, that's part of that is in my district. And I talked to a couple of residents on Shea Street who were concerned about how fast the traffic was there. And so you definitely need signs on Shea Street as well as West Street. So... No, I would think that would only be appropriate, but... Yeah, but I think it's a great idea. Jennifer? Jeremy's and Janet's requests basically for the same thing. And it doesn't make sense to talk about both of them. I don't think Janet's is specifically for schools. It's for a specific road. Janet, correct me if I'm wrong, whereas Jeremy's is there for the similar signs, but it's for different reasons. Yeah, I didn't know about Jeremy's request, which I hardly support. So, Jennifer, you're right. I mean, in that they're asking, and Janet's was for those who read it was more specific that these come and they can be solar powered, but both of them, I double checked on the web and these price ranges are of course correct. I mean, you both did a little work before you submitted it, but it's in the $4,000 to $5,000, they're each. So I guess my question, and I see honest hand is going up, but one of the issues as Jeremy knows full well is proposals come to us from residents and there's other staff departments in town that it would be good for them to have said, this is a great idea and we completely support it. It sounds like you have talked to the police department about this. I don't know whether both of you in their piece and did you ask if they would send us anything that would say, we think this is a good idea, because it didn't come in as requests from them and it didn't come in as requests from DPW. So that's just my general going through the departments where it could have come in as a capital request from them. And so I'll stop with that. It's not a do or die, but it's useful when we get the hands on, this is a good idea. Yeah. Sorry, I did reach out first to Captain Ting who has been incredibly supportive of traffic concerns across the town. And he was very supportive of me submitting this proposal and he has been very supportive of the work throughout town that we've been involved in. So I don't know if that counts as an official endorsement, but he was supportive of it when I consulted with him. I reached out to the superintendent of the DPW or the Public Works Department. He wanted to clarify that this was coming in as a residence request, because they had their own public works requests that were gonna be submitted. And I also reached out to the Transportation Advisory Committee. They weren't able to meet prior to this to give an official endorsement, but the president or the chair of the committee, Tracy, was very supportive of this as well. Again, it's not officially endorsed by anyone, but there were communications that said this were positive and different from capital requests coming from either the police or from public works. So Janet, you can go into yours. And I see also that Anna has her hand up. Anna, do you want to? Sorry, I'm so sorry, Janet. I just, I wanna make a really important differentiation between Jeremy and Janet's requests, if that's okay. And that's why I raised my hand and why I don't think we should consider them at the same time. And the reason, Janet, is that okay? Can I? No, I'm actually a little confused about when I should go. So this is helpful. So what Jeremy, the reason why I think it's important to differentiate the two is Janet's request is for a specific street, a specific spot where speeding has been observed. Jeremy's is specifically for schools and all streets that have that school zone in them. So I think that the difference here is, I know that Jeremy has also been undergoing, what I understand is a very frustrating process to work with the town on getting, you know, speed traffic calming measures at a non-Amherst school area in town. And I think that it's really different to me to say we should have speed signs at schools versus we should have speed signs in this specific space because I have noticed speeding there. That's not to say that shouldn't happen as well, but I think we need to consider them differently because there's, I know that TSO has it on their docket to talk about a process for the ladder for how we do traffic calming throughout town with resident requests. And that's not what my understanding of in reading Jeremy's application is that's not what he's asking for. He's asking for this at all school zone areas. So that's my rationale for, I think I would rather like make sure we've wrapped up questions for Jeremy and then go to Janet's because I don't think that they're the same proposal and I don't want to conflict the two. So let's take it that way. And Janet, then you will have the floor. So does anyone have any other questions of Jeremy? I don't see any. So, okay, go, Sarah. Well, I have a question about the proposal, but it's not necessarily for Jeremy and you can tell me, we'll talk about it later, but is the installation cost part of the capital request? I mean, I'm sure, you know, the electricity, if it needs that, you know, that's just going to be in somebody's operating budget, but yeah, my question is about installation. Yeah, thanks. That's a great question. I don't know what installation costs would be and I was hoping to get that information from public works department. The items that I found, you know, from just a Granger was the supplier that I looked at. They were solar powered. So, you know, hopefully there wouldn't be a continued operation cost to them and also had the lower environmental impact, but I've, from talking with the town engineer, Jason Skills and from the superintendent of public works, the town has its own suppliers for these as well. So hopefully, you know, this is what I found through Google search. Hopefully the town has more sophisticated ways of working with suppliers to get the appropriate device at each, you know, for each school. And in the article that was in the Gazette just two days ago, they were saying that DOT, because they've recognized this state of crisis across our state and because schools are such a vulnerable place for our community. And they also just happened to be a place where people drive too fast. You know, just for whatever reason, like this Bright Pass Fort River every day. It's just, it's insane. There is money from the state as well. So my hope is that we have the money here. Maybe we can leverage that with funds from the state, but at least this would be a good starting point and we could start to make our schools safer. Sandy, did you have a specific question on this as well? Well, I was just gonna comment a little bit about reaching out to departments, which I can do now or we can do when we wrap up the presentations, whatever you do. Let's do Janet first so that could be more global. So Janet. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you for considering this request. It looks like you have a lot on your plate and much bigger ticket items. So I live on Southeast Street and Southeast Street is the straight shot from Bay Road to Route 9 with no stop signs or any traffic lights. And it has chronic speeding, particularly at rush hour, but at all hours in the night. You know, from South Common to Route 9 is, there are three blind hills where like, as you drive along, you don't really see the oncoming cars. I live right below the third hill and which is particularly dangerous. Drivers seem to want to accelerate as they approach the hill. There's a slight curve that people miss and kind of jerk their wheel and sort of wind up in people's yards, often mine. It's terrible and I see wet conditions. There's no shoulder on the hill. So if you're walking your dog or biking, there's nowhere to go. If there's a car coming too close to you, it's been frightening to all the local residents to back out to get your mail. It's frightening to bike over. I have a friend who grew up in Amherst and said my parents wouldn't let me bike until I was 14 over the hill on Southeast Street. It can be sort of terrifying to stand in your yard and people are going by really fast. And so there's been a long history of accidents. I've had two particularly serious accidents in our yard. I don't know that this sign would have stopped those people because they were high and drunk, but I do know that the sign that we have the radar speed sign that is on this side, right near my driveway where people are going north has worked. And so you could see people noticeably slowed down when they see the sign. And then the next sign they see says 25 miles an hour. It doesn't stop everybody, but it's noticeably worked. And so how did we get that sign? I've led a few insurrections. I have a petition with 70 people that signed a residence we've met. We were meeting with John Hussanti. There was like kind of a small core group and he was really interested in addressing the traffic safety issues. Unfortunately, he died. And we did get us two signs that said 25 miles an hour. And the idea was like, let's try this. Let's just keep accelerating. We wanted speed bumps. I've gone to the tack five times over the years and they're always in some kind of process to decide how to prioritize president requests. So that hasn't really worked for us. And so John Hussanti died. We got our traffic signs. The whole thing sort of petered out. And one day my husband called up Scott Livingstone and said, can you bring back that temporary sign? And Scott said, well, I actually have a sign, a permanent sign here, do you want it? And so Tom said, yes. And then we sort of debated in our household which side of the hill to put it on. Frankly, it'd be more beneficial if it was on the other side of the hill to us because the speeders tend to come from route nine and that most affects us. But I also knew that all my friends who live on the hill were more threatened. And so we put the sign, had the sign put in by our driveway that has slowed traffic down. It hasn't really helped people speeding from the other direction, but I can slowly get, I can get to my mailbox. And so I just saw the request for resident requests. And so I thought I'm gonna put it in and see if there's some help here to sort of complete the process. I know you have, I think you could put signs at a lot of different spots, but I do know this has been a really difficult hill and I would love to see a sign come in. And they do work and that's encouraging to me. I think that's it. I've had eight or 10 cars in our yard that have just slipped in. My neighbors, when on snow, I've seen them, people have gone in the ditch and they kind of quietly come out and help people move out of the ditch. We put up a bunch of stones in our yard and that has been very helpful to people. Somehow that means a lot to people when they see they're about to hit something to get a little more focused. But we just need some help. And I told my neighbors that I had asked for this and everybody's sort of excited again, but I know that you have Jeremy's request too. I didn't realize it was that large, but I do think these things work and for $5,000, it could be five fewer accidents, so. Thank you, Jen. So, Anna, do you want to repeat what you said or do you want me to say it in different words or in terms of this has been an issue for us of we, others who have come to us with similar requests, how we decide on one street versus other streets, correct? Yeah, so I'll speak to this a bit and I know that others might have their own experiences with it, but this is something that, you know, Janet in hearing your story, I'm really glad that you got that first sign and that is so not how a process should work, right? Like it shouldn't work that someone knows the person who has happens to have a sign and they get to pick where it goes. And to be clear, I'm not faulting what happened years ago, but I think that's what we're trying to avoid and figuring out what the system is. And at the same time, because we don't have the system yet, it's really frustrating for people trying to navigate a non-existent system. So I recognize kind of the catch 22 we're in. And so I think one of the questions I have and I'm happy to follow up with the chair of our town services and outreach committee is what their timeline is for creating one of the things that's on their carryover memo is to create a process for navigating these types of requests. And I'm happy to reach out to ask what the status of that is if that's something they're discussing or when they plan to discuss it. Because my worry is that we, while we wanna create avenues for resident requests, we also don't wanna only privilege folks who know how to navigate those avenues. And so I think that this is the balance of how do we recognize where these signs are needed? Because like, I mean, I live on Bay Road. Like this is, it's insane. And I feel you with the accidents in my yard taking down telephone poles into my yard. Like I have been there and I know that it's really frustrating and scary. And at the same time, we wanna make sure that we're doing this in a consistent way because speeding is an issue everywhere and signs everywhere at some point are gonna become too deluding, right? And so how do we make sure that we're doing this in a way that makes sense? Sorry, I'm starting to ramble and I'm trying to wrap it up, but yeah. I mean, I've actually heard the tech to say this over and over again for years. And so I think the way to approach it is you can spend years formulating a system for prioritizing. I know the tech had all these things or you could just say, we're gonna buy two signs a year and just hand them out. And so if the tech had whatever they were doing five, seven years ago has resulted in virtually no traffic calming. I mean, so I think, I understand the need for process and privilege is like Tom called up Scott and just said, can we have that temporary sign back? And he happened to have a sign and I don't think that's a great process but it's better to have one sign than no signs anywhere. And so I think that, you know you might just sit there and say, okay, let's buy. I mean, I actually think the school stuff sounds fantastic. It doesn't seem like a lot of money but there is no process and there has been no process for 10 or 15 years. And I kind of threw this in because I was just like, hey, maybe this will work but there is no system and then you could agonize over a process or you can just, you know there's people that have been asking for traffic calming just start doing it. And so I was hoping people would just start doing it here. I hear you. And I think to be clear part of the reason why TAC hasn't been able to do anything is because TAC doesn't actually have that authority. And that's why that's been the problem and we're working on fixing that at a council level too and in figuring out what, how we create a group that actually does have authority to make those changes because that's been, I think a frustration for folks on TAC too is they have the expertise but they're not authorized to do anything. And so I think that is a gap that we are trying to close as well. And I agree, I think we can't do nothing while we create a process. And that's why I'm not saying that this is a bad request or an inappropriate request at all. I'm just saying I think it's another indication as well that we need to get on this in terms of figuring out some consistency because otherwise we're missing, we're possibly missing areas that really could use it. Thanks, I'll stop now. So Anna, I see two more hands are up and I am conscious of time, Doug is here. So, and one thing everyone should know, this is something we can write a full paragraph on and in our report on, you know, in terms of what we get confronted with when requests like this come as well as what we think about the specific requests. So we don't have to make a decision at this moment. Sarah. I hear Janet's frustration, I completely understand. I would say that process is only helpful if it exists. And if we want to give, if we want process, maybe we need some deadlines. So one approach, for example, could be if this request granted this year is saying, we're putting it in next year, you know, you got a deadline, come up with your process for the future, but, you know, this is what we're doing now. So, Jennifer. So I also agree our process is important, but I don't think we should not approve any requests while we're waiting for the process. I think, so that's one thing. My second comment is, have we ever or could we ask APD, like what are the worst streets in the town in terms of speeding accidents? And or where do you think these signs should go? It occurs to me that like, it sounds like they had a sign that was sitting around that they hadn't put out themselves somewhere and that's why they were able to give it to Janet and your husband, which seems a little odd to me, but like maybe, I don't know, maybe they're not thinking about that way, I don't know, but like, or could we, you know, if we have these requests from both Jeremy and Janet, can we go to the APD and say, this is the request, what do you think? And if they say, yeah, those streets are terrible, even if they're not the absolute worst, if they say, yeah, those are really problematic spots, then we just do it while we're waiting for the process to be approved. I've actually had many conversations with police officers often at two in the morning when there's a car accident in my front yard. And so I actually think that's an excellent idea because they're really on the front lines of this. And, you know, I don't wanna put myself in front of Crocker Farm School where, you know, you want kids to be able to walk to school. I just know that this is a really dangerous street. And so I, you know, I know the police officers support it. I don't think Scott was just tossing it out to us because we had talked to him and I'm assuming he talked to John Nussanti, but I do think that's a good idea because those guys know and women know too what's going on. And that that could be the priority thing instead of a complicated system of, you know, points and balancing and, you know, traffic. Cause also accidents aren't all reported. Like I didn't report the accident on, you know, Christmas Eve when I was pushing these tearful people out of a ditch, you know? So I think that's a good idea. Anna, can I ask that, is it possible for you to hold your comment and then bring it back? I just wanted to note that it's more than just APD. And so I agree, Jennifer, that it's great to have a system, but what APD will wanna do is a speed study because like Janet said, not all accidents are reported and APDs only patrolling the roads they patrol. And I absolutely was not, I wanted to clarify, was not saying we should not consider Janet's request. I was saying more so what Kathy was, that we need to be much more strong in our statement that we need an actual process for these. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you both very much. As you see it, it triggered a strong response. So I think we can move on to Doug. Thank you for me. Thank you, Janet. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you all. If I could ask in the attendees is Rupert Roy Clark, our facilities director, and I think he'll be better suited to kind of walk through the six things that we have. I'll give a brief overview while. Okay, so you would like me to bring him all the way in, right? Yeah, if you would please. So we have some, there's a couple of vehicles, one for maintenance, one for disabled student transportation. We have some more quasi-retuned things with energy management upgrades and exterior door replacement and a curtain for one of our stages. And then we have a master plan for energy in one of our buildings. And so if Mr. Roy Clark's here, I'll ask him to kind of walk through those in a little more detail for you and talk about what the intent is behind each and then of course answer any questions you have. Rupert, welcome. And for people who haven't met Rupert, he's terrific. So welcome, Rupert. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you everyone for having me in. Can you all hear me okay? Sometimes my speaker's a little bit bad. Okay. So as Doug mentioned, we have a few capital asks. There are six of them, amounting to I believe $310,000. And they sort of fall into three categories. We have a couple for Crocker Farm. One is an energy master plan. Crocker Farm got a huge rebuild, re-gut and remodel over 20 years ago. And so we are looking at the expected life of a lot of its heating, cooling ventilation and energy plant needing replacement. And in order to do this in a mindful way and a sustainable way and a green way, we need to do a study of how we can move away from fossil fuels, how we can improve comfort levels and air quality, how we can, how we should stagger the replacement of existing equipment, how do we prioritize? What's the best angle to work on? And the point of this study is to help us focus in on the most likely choices, the best choices. So then later we can pursue bitable documents and design. But the first step is to just sort of get the overview of the building and that's what this is. We've started doing some work on this with prior capital money, but we will need to continue it. And so that's the point of it. If we don't do this master planning, I'm afraid that we will end up replacing equipment with identical equipment rather than going greener and more efficient with newer technology. So I think it's really a good wise use of money and it's important to try to get ahead of the curve before stuff starts failing and we just sort of have to replace it as an emergency. So that's for $80,000. The other Crocker Farm ask is for the curtain on the stage. Stage curtains are a huge concern for life safety and fire safety. And so they have to be treated and made safe and they can only be treated so many times before they have to be replaced. We're due to replace the curtain on the stage in the cafeteria and that is a request for $50,000. Do you want me to just blast through all these and then take questions? Does that work for everyone to have them go through all of them? Yeah. Okay, I'm happy to provide more detail. If I'm giving too much detail, you can just roll your eyes up into the back of your head, pass out and I will stop talking. So the second section is vehicle replacement. I was just doing some calculations earlier this afternoon. Our average maintenance vehicle is over 13 years old, the average age of our pupil vans, not the school buses, is also 13. And we really like to replace these sooner but we've sort of fallen behind. It's been a challenge with all of the supply chain stuff, just slowing down the whole pre-care process. But we really do need to replace some of these vehicles so that we can keep them running and on the road so that we can take care of the buildings and take care of the kids and get them where they need to go. So there are two requests there. One is for a pupil van. This one would have a wheelchair lift for people with mobility issues for $85,000. The other is for a maintenance van for $70,000. We would prefer to buy electric vehicles. I think that we likely could get an electric vehicle for the maintenance van. It's a little bit more difficult with the pupil van because of all of the required updating that they have to do. They have to weld a bunch of stuff to the floors and that avoids the warranty and they're afraid they're gonna set the batteries on fire or damage them in some way. So they're working, the industry is working on how to up-fit all electric vans for 70 pupil transit. And if they manage to come up with a solution, that's the way we would prefer to go. Why do we have enough money to do it? But otherwise, we really need reliable transportation for the kids and we would need to get a fossil fuel vehicle if we can't get an electric one because they're so old. The third category is sort of district-wide overarching asks, one is for our energy management system. This is something that's always ongoing. We have building management system that controls heating, ventilation, air conditioning, pooling, lights. It interacts with our security systems and our alarm monitors. So these systems are old, the hardware in them is old and so we try to maintain them as best we can but we need to replace some pricier items. We need to get some new programming and new software. So there's a variety of things that we're doing to try to upgrade this system. This year, the ask for that is $15,000. And the final item is exterior door replacement and repair for $10,000. Exterior doors are a significant part of the building envelope and so when they fail, we get issues with temperature and humidity, wasted energy, pests, being able to get into the building. And in some cases, fire safety, if a door is too hard to open and you can't get out of it from the inside, that's a serious issue. And so we wanna be able to stay on top of those things and be extremely proactive. So that's an ask for $10,000 at this time. So those are the six, that's a quick view of the six. I'm happy to answer questions about any and all and so I'll be quiet now. So I see Doug's hand is up. So Doug, we'll take you first. Yeah, just a couple of things that I'll add on top of that. You know, as Mr. Roy Clark said that, you know, we're trying to go green wherever and whenever possible. So that's part of the idea behind electric vehicles and an energy master plan. The other thing I'll notice is the two specific building requests for Krocker Farm. So as you all know, the Port River Building Project is getting ready to start literally late in this month. And we're excited about that and that has a lot of potential for great things. But you know, we need to maintain and invest in the facility at Krocker Farm. We're gonna need that building for a long time and we want it to be a nice facility and a highly functional facility for our students that will be going to school there. So that's part of the investment in that area. So I just wanna mention those couple of things as a minute to what Rupert just shared. So thank you. So questions, Sarah. And do you wanna go like project by project and deal with the all or just one person at a time? Cause I have a couple of questions. Why don't you do your couple and then we'll see whether others have a couple or wanna talk about a separate one. Yeah, all right. And if people have already mentioned your question, we will be efficient and just do the specifics. This is a general question about any vehicles that aren't customized like this wheelchair accessible van is. Is it cheaper to buy them and maintain them than to lease them? So that's one general question. And then about the cafeteria curtain replacement, I wonder does the cafeteria have to have a curtain like this? I mean, is it, I don't know, is there an option just to take it down and not replace it or that facility is used in a way that does require curtain? So that's really it. Thank you. Okay, let me take the second one first. Curtains help with acoustics in an auditorium setting. So it does have a benefit aside from the aesthetic one in terms of folks being able to hear clearly and reducing echoes. It has a sound dampening function during school lunch, which is very loud. So there are a couple of reasons why I think it's a good idea to have. I don't know that they use it a lot for the actual events. It may be that Doug Slaughter can answer that better or I'm happy to check with Principal Derek Shea and get back to you folks on that question if you wish. In terms of general vehicle expense, we have a certified diesel mechanic on staff. We have to have that for our pupil transportation. So it's a way for us to leverage that and it reduces some of the costs of owning a vehicle by having someone like that on staff. I haven't done a dollars and cents study on lease versus own. My sense is that when you own it, you really take good care of it and you drive it for longer. So I'm inclined in that direction, but I don't know dollars and cents how that boils out. Do you wanna jump in on either of those, Doug? No. Other people? Okay, I have a couple Rupert on the vehicles who said hopefully electric. I would encourage if you can't get electric, maybe hybrid, because what the latest reports on some of the electric is the all weather side of them and really cold weather. They don't work as well in terms of long lasting. So, and the numbers you put in are those best guesses for those or did you have? And the reason I'm asking this for other people is in a few cases people had a pegged a number and it turned out, oh my gosh, it's a whole lot more expensive than that. So just are these based on some minimal research on you could probably get what you would need for that amount of money? I would say based on some minimal research, I don't have quotes. Obviously it's hard to ask a lot of vendors to give you a quotes when you're not ready to buy. So, but what I did was I went to the state bid lists for vehicles and looked at what the pre-bids are for electric vans and I looked at what we've been paying for 70 outfits and wheelchair lifts for that vehicle, for the other vehicle, I needed to put in some extra money for all of the shelving and tool storage and ladder racks and things that you have to outfit a van with to make it useful. So that would include those accoutrements as well. Okay, and then my other question was on Crocker, the study, I have no issue with the amount you pegged in but a year ago, we had a series of specifics for Crocker. So replacement windows, a HVAC system and those were all in theory going to be an FY25. Have you been rethinking this as a, I think that's what I understood you to say is you want a better total picture before you go into do the windows and then do the HVAC. Is that what I'm hearing? Because they were, I'm not encouraging you to put them back on the list given how high the total is here because those were expensive on those people who weren't staring at, you know, they were $500,000, 400, you know, couple of $500,000 expenditures, you know, a million dollars to Crocker, but it looked like we were going to about to spend a big amount of money on Crocker. And I think what you're saying is you can wait and do this study. And then are we looking at in FY26 or 27 the big numbers? Is that, so you've rethought the plan? Is that what had happened? What's happened? I thought we should tap the brakes on some of that. And also we're looking at potentially asking MSBA to join with us on a building envelope project. The age of the envelope is, we're not yet eligible, but if we can keep things going, we may be able to leverage some state funding for not only roof and windows, but also for HVAC. There's no guarantee that we would get that money, but I'm thinking about that. I'm trying to put together some preliminary documents and that's another reason for this master plan. So yeah, I think we are probably sitting on some capital funds or have prior year capital ask that we haven't, that we're not of the right year yet. And I do want to try to put our ducks in a row and do this in the order that makes the most sense financially. So I see that Anna's hand is up, but I think that also means that you think what we have in the school will last at least a year or two, you're not at the point where it's about to crash. Stuff breaks when you don't want it to. I feel like, I mean, we are seeing failures and created failure rates. We do have some funds from prior year capital ask we're leveraging to make smaller repairs while we make the master plan. So Anna, I see your hand up. This might be a completely ignorant question. At the rate that things are moving and changing and adapting, is 20 years actually a lifespan for this kind of plan? We, I mean, it's advancing so fast. So I'm curious, and you're talking about starting to move on this soon and, you know, qualifying for different MSBA reimbursement. So it is 20 years, I mean, you wrote it. So I'm sure you, I believe you when you say 20 years, but I'm also curious how that accounts for changes. I mean, changes in the technology and in the climate and the needs. Yeah, so I mean, we usually think about the whole building as having a 50 year lifespan without major renovation, but then components have much shorter lifespans. Roofs are typically more like 25 to 30, the 25 being the more cautious approach to avoid, you know, water damage, large equipment like chillers and air handlers and unit ventilators are more in the 20 to 25 year range as well. So those components there on a 50 year building you expect to replace at least once and sometimes twice. That said, advances in technology and efficiency could lead you to want to replace things sooner. In our case, I think we're aiming at a sweet spot for sort of new generation of heat pumps and energy recovery. There's been a lot of, there was a bunch of breakthroughs 10, 15 years ago. We're seeing a lot of breakthroughs now. The industry is still shaking out. So I think we're in a good place to take advantage of technology changes at this mid-building life upgrade of some of its equipment. And then my second. Can I answer your question? I think so. Yeah, I just, I was 20 years felt kind of arbitrary. And so you explaining how it factors in with the life of the different components makes sense. It's not necessarily that the plan itself is perfectly situated for 20 years. It's that the components kind of the life of the plan will last for that long. My second question is, how do you plan to coordinate with the town sustainability director on this project as you go forward with it? So Stephanie and I have been in touch a lot around electric vehicles and charging equipment. I guess I don't know how to answer that question. I don't have a specific plan for how to do it. We try to keep each other in the loop for stuff that we're applying for when we're applying for a grant or this or that or the other thing. It happens sometimes that things dovetail. For example, there was a PV feasibility study with schools and the town went in together a couple of years ago and that was very informative and useful. And I would look forward to that kind of collaboration again but I don't have a specific plan. Okay, yeah, I was just, I'm curious. I know that it's obviously there are different entities but as the schools don't have a specific to my knowledge sustainability director, and you kind of do it all in that sense. I think that it might be beneficial and would hope that that would be something that folks would consider is consulting with her expertise in developing RFPs and the like as you go forward. That would be if that's an option. I don't know how that functions in terms of that working kind of across those lines, but. Yeah, and I would say that we're actually, I think schools in town have worked together on other PV investments and also potentially battery storage systems. And we're looking at that and definitely input and support is very helpful and appreciated. Thanks. It's a town mission to reduce all of the emissions. So anything that we can collaborate on is welcome. Thank you. Any other questions? You know, when I assume that Stephanie is going to be, there is a piece of money just called sustainability in here. You know, I'm not going to, what I'm going to say it's not that I'm suggesting it, but if we get really tight for money on this year, part of that sustainability budget could go for this revamping all of Crocker to be in a position for getting us off fossil fuel. You know, just so it's a, when we're looking at the different pieces on a, I just don't know how we're going to get from 10 million down to four. So I'm just thinking, you know, a couple of weeks from now as we're juggling this, not to say that that is a good idea or even one way to go, but we've used that money in the past to leverage getting grants, to leverage, you know, moving to the next step on big projects. So it's something that we could think about if it makes any sense and ask Stephanie about. Yeah, I hear you Kathy. I think I worry about coming in with that assumption before we know what those sustainability improvements are because my big question was, what are those? They're not as specified out as, I think they will be when we hear from them. So I worry about cutting that particular line given our priority areas, but I hear what you're saying that you're not. That's why I said it was a comment rather than a suggestion as we're looking at ways of getting this done. Any other questions on this? You know, I do think it helps that we're not looking at a million dollar asks this year for Crocker. So given everything else's. And this notion that MSBA has potentially opened up a pathway to revamping a building systems, not just roofs, which they've been talking about. That is very good news. It would be great if the state would think more generally about that, or if Amherst College would say, here's a good investment for Amherst College. So in any case, Rupert. Can I just also add, just so folks are aware, MSBA has an accelerated repair program that you can use for windows and doors and roofs. They used to have one for boilers and they are switching gears on the state level so that they're not going to do fossil fuel boilers through the MSBA. It's going to be heat pumps and only heat pumps from what I'm hearing. So they are also going in the same direction and I expect they would be supporting us when we're ready to do that as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we just went through the projects for today and we have finished schools. So are there any other final questions or comments for Rupert and Doug before we say thank them very much and let them leave us? No, so thank you both very much. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Thanks for your time and for all the work you guys are doing. It's not easy. And Sandy, I think you have our list of at least Kathy's list and some of the others to provide us a context when we come back together, when we start to get to some of these big ticket items. I mean, I find the tasks you've put before us quite daunting if we don't at least know what we're trying to squeeze the big numbers down to some of this. It would be great. And one thing Rupert mentioned that was an innovation and I don't know given how things are being tracked is we asked to take a look at any outstanding authorizations that hadn't been fully spent and whether some of that could be repurposed and brought back in. So he mentioned the schools had some money that they hadn't fully used and we had this little chart and I think Sonia set it up that to look three years backward, that if we gave it more than three years ago and it hadn't been used to ask what the status is, are you about to use it or are you about to use all of it or if not bring it in and we could use it for a similar purpose. So we didn't have to revote it and some of these pockets. So last couple of years we found in the neighborhood of $75,000 to $100,000 doing that. So it wasn't just small amounts of money. So I thought it was a good, and I know Sarah, when you were at CPA, you were trying to figure out if you had awarded money five years ago and they didn't use it, were they ever going to use it? Oh yeah, they started clawing it back. Right, so that's, and we didn't get that till the very end because people had to really scrub their books to say, you know, we're pretty sure we're not gonna spend all of it because no one wants to give it back. Yes, I think that's typically an important source of money. And again, I will check in with Holly and extent that Sonia is still around, which is about where we would stand with that. I would also just mention that these energy studies for schools, we did them in Arlington. We did a study of six different schools to see what it would cost to electrify them. And it came in at about $7 million, no, excuse me, upwards of $10 million each. I'm gonna go back and try to figure out where the money came from to do that study which was grant money because I think some of it was or some of it might have been ARPA money. But I just want you to know that as we're looking at electrifying, which I think is a great idea, that at minimum is the kind of money that we're gonna be looking at per building. So just need to be mindful of putting in study money and the timing that might result from that when you actually undertake a project because it's gonna be a lot of money. If I could also just say, I think I didn't respond specifically or to the issues with departments over these traffic calming signs. And so I would just like to say, I think it would be very important to check in with police and DPW, particularly with police on their position on it. I don't remember exactly what TAC does anymore. So the full range of its powers or its investigations, but I do think it is very typical in cities and towns that lots of people want traffic calming and it gets to be very contentious and difficult issue because anytime you do things on one street, it has impacts on others. And so it's not just that people like TAC are sitting around not getting things figured out. It's that there are legitimate trade-offs that have to be undertaken. So I think definitely worthwhile. I will pursue some of those inquiries with police and DPW and report back. Thank you. Anna, I saw your hand go up, went up with that, yeah. Yeah, I wanted to know, we do have the chair of TAC who's here if we sought more clarity, but I think in the meantime, I'm also able to just say that I know one of the things that the town manager is going to be bringing to the council and this has been talked about before is the idea of bringing forward a commission versus the current committee structure so that they actually have some more power. Right now, I think that's been the biggest challenge TAC has had is that they don't have the authority to ask for changes. They can provide advice as they are asked for it, but they are not a body that has the authority to say that changes should, to move changes forward. And I think that's part of the challenge there. But yes, I agree, Sandy. Thank you. Are there any other committee comments or to-do lists or questions that we have of Sandy so we can hear back next time? If not, we have a member in the public so I do wanna give the member a chance to speak if they would like to. So we're open for public comments if that's okay with everyone. So we, as it's on a notice, Tracy is in the audience but Tracy, we're not doing a command performance here. So if you would like to speak, raise your hand otherwise. Yeah. Okay, I will allow you to talk. Hi, I had raised my hand. I don't know somebody put down my hand but I don't have the power. So I was listening to the earlier conversation. I will keep my comments very brief. TAC actually has a meeting that starts in three minutes so I will be leaving promptly. But I did want to say that the topic, that Janet had brought up the idea that TAC over the years has looked to developing a prioritization plan and that is definitely true. As I listened to your meeting tonight I was actually putting together an email response on that before I even joined the TAC. TAC had created a subcommittee that was focused on doing that. In 2018, the AMER Select Board adopted a complete streets policy which is the first step in being part of the complete streets program for the state DOT and being eligible for funding. The second step is creating a prioritization plan and getting it approved by the state DOT. And then the third step, well, once you do tier two, the plan, then in tier three, once you have the completed plan, you're eligible for money. So I was on the subcommittee and we met for months, years to develop criteria guidelines. And we did that, we submitted our draft proposal for this over three years ago and it never moved forward. At the time we were told that in order to complete the plan and get it approved by the state, there would need to be a professional consultant and an engineer involved. The DPW had looked into hiring one and that was never done. But we did look extensively at it in terms of considering requests in terms of other documents that the town has in place including the master plan, the transportation plan, the bicycle and pedestrian network plan and so on looking at crash data, looking at vulnerable populations, like a whole bunch of criteria. So, I mean, a lot of that work has been done and it would really be great. I mean, TAC has really been pushing for this for a while. It should really be great to see that plan, a prioritization plan created and submitted to the state which would one give a framework for making these types of decisions on traffic calming and safety requests but then also would make the town eligible for funding from the state to actually implement those. So, those are just my quick comments but I'd be happy to talk more. Tracy, just say your last name because I'm not sure everybody knows you. Yeah, so my name, I'm Tracy Zafian and I am the chair of the Transportation Advisory Committee. And I first became involved with the committee. Well, actually I was involved with this subcommittee around 2018 right after the complete streets policy was adopted and then I became an official member of TAC in 2019. Thank you. But thank you and I'm gonna leave and go to TAC. And we follow the general policy that the council and other committees do that public comments, we listen to them but we don't go back and forth but we can always follow up and get information later if it's useful. So, any other comments? We have our minute taker for today. So, next week someone would be nice for them to prepare and Athena has put the updated agenda. We're basically meeting every week and you'll see the, we'll I guess we'll hear, we'll do groups the way we did today, groups of proposals that go together. And I will send you the couple of pages that I've mentioned that we had in the past just for a frame of reference that you shouldn't consider those to be exactly the same numbers except for the debt table. The debt table shows you the flow of funds where we've already committed them. So, thank you. Thank you all. We managed to move. I see one more hand just went up. Jennifer. So, just we're scheduled for every Thursday, four to six or until we're done, is that right? So, I mean, it just, and it's only 5.30 now and we're, and it sounds like we're done. It just felt earlier like we were concerned about time and I feel like maybe people didn't fully get to say everything they wanted to say because we're concerned about time but as it turns out we've had plenty of time. So, I just wanted to point that out. Well, we were very efficient. So, but yeah, we, you know, I'm watching the clock and I didn't, you know, originally the Sandy and the staff presentation was scheduled for 45 minutes and we didn't spend nearly that amount of time. So, we could spend more on the resident proposals and more on schools. We may be more cramped depending on how many proposals we get next time. So, I think it's excellent that people have pre-thought questions and picked out the way various people did on the schools that questions on a couple. So that we don't have to have a discussion on everything. You know, Anna. It sounds like because we're also waiting on a little bit more information from Sandy and Sandy, thank you so much for, for getting that together for us. I'm sure stepping into these documents after a long time away must be a lot but it looks like Kathy, we might need some more time in a future meeting to kind of make sure there aren't any follow-up questions based on you had said Sandy, you were gonna get us like the vehicle list and a couple other things. It might be helpful if we have time at a future meeting for follow-up questions, Kathy, or would you like us to email those to Sandy directly? I know we're a lot to do that. If you have follow-up questions, it's fine to email them to Sandy. Please copy me with them or go through me because then I can keep a collection of them or even better, maybe it's send them through me. So if three of you have the same questions, Sandy doesn't have to, and then the answers would come to us as a committee rather than as individuals. So I think just go through me. What we were doing before was going through Sean and Sean could recognize when he had duplicates but you've got so much on your plate, Sandy, I can shepherd them through. And it basically, I'm just sending them on. I just wanna keep a tally of them. Sarah, I see that you have a- Quick question, which projects are we talking about next week? So I know what to mean. Library account. It's the facilities and public works. Lisa, thank you. So it's listed on the agenda, but- Yeah, I just get to it right now, so. No, that's okay, but what will be useful is if a theater tells me when it's been posted, we'll make sure to give you a signal because typically it just gets dropped into the packet and you have to remind yourself to go and look at it. You know, rather than we're not sending out these large documents to everyone, so you have to go and retrieve them, but it's always gonna be in that JCPC website under the day of the meeting. So is there anything else? I'm not rushing to close in case you were worried about that, Jennifer, but I also, it's so rare we can end a meeting early in my world anyway that I'm thrilled to be able to do that. We forgot something. Okay, thank you very much and see everyone next week. I thank you. Hey, Kathy. Yes. I'll keep you on for one second. Or, Jim, did you have something? Oh, you're just waiting for you to buy it. Yeah, okay. I was just curious, at some point I'd like to know about the teaching you did around revenue and so forth. The teaching I did around revenue, you mean in my prior life? Yeah. Or in my... Kathy, you might just want to stop the recording. Oh, stop the recording. How do I stop? Oh, I can see it. I can do it.