 Athena, do you want to open to the audience? Let's start recording. We're recording. Okay. We are recording. Thank you. Good evening. It's January 8th, 2024, and this is a regular meeting of the town council. The open meeting law allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at a meeting location while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9 and live stream. There are, in fact, 12 counselors in the town room at this time. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the January 8th, 2024 regular town council meeting to order at 631. I'll call upon each counselor by name. At that time, please unmute your mic and say present. This will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Pat DeAngelis. Present. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Present. Freke Eta. Present. Lynn Griesmer is present. Mandy Johanke. Present. Bob Hegner. Present. Hala Lord. Present. Pam Rooney. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Tob. Present. And I don't see Alicia yet, but I'm expecting her. Okay, there is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know. To make a comment or ask a question, please click the raise hand button. If technical difficulties rise as a result of utilizing remote participation, Athena and I will decide how to address the situation, including the possibility of suspending the meeting or and making note in the minutes. Athena will be monitoring counselors connections. And if necessary, we will pause the meeting. There is only one public comment meeting at this comment period at this meeting tonight. With that, we'll move on to the announcements. And Athena is going to show them on the screen. We have a couple of council meetings posted. January 22nd, 6.30. January 5th, 6.30. That is when we will also have a joint meeting with the housing authority to fill the two vacancies. And February 12th, only if we need it. Otherwise, there won't be. Point of order. I think you mean February, not January 5th. I'm sorry. I do. February. February 5th and February 12th. Right. Thank you. The town council committee meetings have not been set, but they will be as of this week. We wanna make sure you're aware of a couple upcoming events and we'll just show you very quickly the poster for the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Day on January 15th at the Bank Center at one. And then the National Day of Racial Healing January 16th, 6 o'clock PM at Crocker Farm. There are other events where we'll know more about them as we get closer. There is no hearing tonight. We are going to move directly to public comment. If you would are in the room and you would like to make public comment, please make sure you've signed up with Athena. If you're in the audience and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Athena, how many people do we have signed up? Okay. At this point, there's nobody in the audience that... Therefore, I know that there's nobody in the audience that plans to raise their hand to speak. Thank you. So we're going to begin. Let me just say, residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment. And public comment is not reflective of the opinions of the council. So Athena, we'll start with the first person on your list. Jean Horrigan. Good evening. My name is Jean Horrigan. I'm a resident of Precinct 3. Want to take a moment to say congratulations to new and returning council members on your successful election. Pardon me, Jean. Would you please speak into your microphone? And is the light on? Thank you. The light is on. Okay, great. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. All right. My name is Jean Horrigan. I'm a resident of Precinct 3. I'm a longtime resident of town who serves on the council on aging and volunteers at the senior center. The mission of the Amherst Senior Center is to serve older adults to maintain their independence and ability to age in place. A lack of financial resources and an unwelcoming building make it difficult for staff and volunteers to realize this vision. Seniors make up one quarter of the year on population in town and yet the senior center gets less than 1% of the town budget. In fact, the senior center budget is 0.28% of the entire town budget. This lack of financial support impedes the senior center from serving the elder population as it should. In my tenure at the senior center, I found it to be a friendly and welcoming place. However, it isn't always a safe one. There have been numerous incidents which have been disturbing and scary for many people, including both participants and volunteers. There are documented incidents of an individual coming into the facility, screaming and threatening staff, and instances of fires and public urination in the front of the bank center. Security cameras need to be installed immediately. The bank center needs to be a safe, welcoming place for our community. Lighting needs to be improved. Poll cords need to be installed in the bathroom so that it's safe for seniors when they use the restrooms. It's time for the town to take care of the elders. It's time and it's our turn. Thank you for your time and I look forward to working with you to address these challenges. Thank you for joining us. I just want to pause for a moment and make sure that Alicia Walker who has joined us, can you hear us, Alicia? Alicia, can you hear us? Okay, we'll come back and check. You have two different Alicia's. Hi, Alicia, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Thanks. All right, Athena, next. Vic Yorga. Pardon my awkwardness. I'm recovering from spinal surgery, which was successful, but at the cost of having to learn how to stand, walk, and climb stairs all over again. But I don't mind it because the pain's gone. Good evening, everyone. My name is Vic Yorga. I'm a 61-year resident of the town of Amherst and I currently serve as president of the Friends of the Amherst Senior Center. We're not part of the Amherst town government. We're an independent 501C3 not for profit organization that exists solely to support the Amherst Senior Center. The Senior Center is just one of seven tenants in the Bangs Community Center. The Senior Center consists solely of the lounge and a small rabbit warn of offices. All of the dozens of classes, lectures, meetings, and other Senior Center events are held in shared space, which consists of only three rooms, one in the basement, one on the first floor, and one on the second floor. There's no dedicated room for exercise equipment, even though the Friends have purchased exercise equipment for the Senior Center, but there's no room to use it in. Now, ARPA funds are supposed to be used for exercise space, but will they? The Senior Center has no certified commercial kitchen. ARPA funds are supposed to be used to create one, but will that happen? The Senior Center is there to serve the growing needs of over 5,500 seniors living in Amherst. It's your job to make decisions that make that possible. Please don't abdicate that responsibility. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Vena. Dennis Vandal. Hello there. First and foremost, congratulations to all of you for being elected. Congratulations, and thank you very much for being willing to shoulder this responsibility. Some of you, again, I will go to my script, where I'm a little bit more comfortable. You may recognize me as the guy with the camera. I'm the unofficial town photographer, but I'm also the Vice Chair of the Council on Aging. I'm also a member of the Seniors and Law Enforcement Together, otherwise known as the Salt Council, and I'm also the Secretary of the Friends of the Amherst Senior Center. Volunteers like me and my associates who are here this evening are the ones who keep in touch with so many fellow seniors in this town. The Friends of the Amherst Senior Center donated more than $25,000 to benefit programs and services last year alone. The Senior Center offers, and this is really important, the Senior Center itself offers 45 different programs for seniors on a monthly basis. Most of those things that happened at the Senior Center could not continue without the help of volunteers. The work of the Friends directly impacts on seniors in our town and their families. When my late wife was working at the Senior Center, she used to come home once in a while and tell me about how she would get calls, not from the seniors themselves, but from the families. Family members who were concerned about their seniors and about their older relatives and how they could get their help. Staffing has always been a problem for a long, long time and that we need qualified paid people in order to be able to make sure that the needs are met. The Senior Center employs four full-time staff members and to meet the needs of 5,500 seniors, older adults, in neighboring South Hadley. In neighboring South Hadley, a community with essentially the same population, the employees actually, that actually employs double the staff, twice as many people work in South Hadley as they do here in town. As been stated before, 0.28% of the entire total town budget and that is remarkably low when compared to other towns in the Valley. Staffing at the other Senior Sentries is always higher. Amherst spends $41 annually per elder, $41, okay? And that figure in South Hadley goes to 118. So we're falling far shore. Many communities have invested in their seniors. Dennis, we need you to finish up. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. And anyway, yeah, that's the simple availability of spaces and other issue. And that's what we really also need to take care of. We lost a significant amount of space during the pandemic, which made some sense, but we're back and we need it back. Please finish. So that's it. So thank you very, very much for your time. Thank you. Take your picture later. Thank you. Vincent O'Connor. Vincent O'Connor, 175 Summer Street. Good evening. While campaigning for one of two District 1's council seats, the concern I heard from most voters was about property taxes, primarily that they are too high, secondarily that the services the city provides are far below the quality homeowners reasonably expect for the property taxes they pay. Each and every budget year, city government must focus simultaneously on two approaches to these concerns, raising revenue and controlling spending. It is my view that cutting school budgets as the manager has done in the previous two years, underfunding and understaffing the public health senior center and recreation departments and over permitting the construction of quasi UMass dormitories and Amherst Center are misguided solutions for property tax concerns. The answer is more revenue. From three sources that could raise a potential five to seven million. The first would require a council school committee team to persuade Amherst College by whatever community organizing methods they can devise to contribute by written agreement, at least 750, to $1 million annually to each public school district, elementary and regional serving Amherst residents. In the 1980s, Amherst College created a structural budget deficit for local government that persists to this day by bowing out its fraternities and converting them to dormitories. A multifaceted good decision and then removing those properties from the now city property tax rolls. The college has both the obligation and the money to remediate its 1980 decision and other obligations. The question is, does the council have the will to pursue the college effectively? Second, each year, thousands of out of town students and commuting UMass workers purchase thousands of university parking permits. University building contractors come and go, all use our streets, but neither they nor UMass pay anything to the city for the wear and tear on our streets. Despite the additional $1 million in chapter 90 road and sidewalk repair money from the millionaires tax, assistant public work superintendent, Amy Ruskowski said in last week's bulletin, there is not enough money that is put toward roads to help us stay ahead of the maintenance we need. Vince, you only have 15 seconds. So every year we fall further and further behind. UMass either needs to share a substantial portion of its parking fees with the city or we need to work together with our legislators to create- Vince, your time is up. Yeah, to create a new chapter 90 funding category related to the presence of non-taxable high traffic volume to state institutions. Thank you and please submit the rest of your comments. I submitted and writing to the members. Thank you. We'd appreciate that. Are there any other public comment, Athena? Okay. I just want to make note that there's seven people in the Zoom audience. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. The following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy. To remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting, ask that it be removed when I list the consent agenda items. The request to remove an item from the consent agenda does not require a second. So the motion is as follows, to move the following items and printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit. I'm going to give it a little explanation as we go forward. Waiver of town council rules of procedure, rules of procedure 8.6 for agenda item 6A and 9A1. The reason we are doing that is because the committees have not reviewed them in advance. So this allows us to act on them without the committee reviewing them in advance. 6A in fact is the adoption of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Proclamation. 8A is approval of extension to the temporary police chief appointment. 9A1 is approval of the town manager appointments to the Energy and Climate Action Committee. And 11A is adoption of January 2, 2024, special town council meeting minutes. Are there any requests for removal? Seeing none, I'm seeking to, I'm sorry. I'm just the real hand, Pam. My real hand is up. Thank you. Could we take 8A off or at least allow the opportunity for a quick question? If you wanna ask a question, we need to pull it off. Clarifying questions are allowed under the consent agenda. Okay, fine. Pam? Is the town not held to the same standard that the federal government is when someone fills a temporary assignment or is an interim, that there's a time limit actually so that it doesn't give one person undue benefit over any other potential candidate. Mr. Bachman. So the limitation on the temporary appointment is via the town charter. And that's why this is a request to the council under the town charter's permission to allow longer than 150 days. Does that answer your question? Okay, then therefore we're not removing that item. Okay. Is there a second? Second. I'll go there. Thank you. Seeing no other questions or comments, we're going to begin with Anna Devlin, I mean, Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Etay, Dr. Frecke Etay. Aye. Lynn Griezmer. Aye. Manny Jochenneke. Aye. Bob Hegner. Aye. Hello, Lord. Bye. Pam Rooney. Yes. George Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Thank you. It is unanimous. Just give me two seconds to catch up. I've asked Alicia Walker if she would please read the last two paragraphs of the proclamation for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proclamation. And I will also note that Alicia will be leading the council at that event on the 15th. Alicia. Yes. Thank you, Lynn. Now, therefore, we, the Amherstown Council, proclaim January 15th, 2024 as a day to recognize and remember the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the dreams and ideals for which he stood. Let the town of Amherst reflect upon its commitment to continue the challenge that all people will live his dreams. Please join us in a ceremonial reading of the proclamation in honor of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 15th, 2024 at 1 p.m. at the Bangs Community Center followed by a dedicational ceremony. Thank you. Going on to presentations and discussion. And at our meeting, actually just six days ago, we agreed that we would spend some time at our council meetings reviewing the recently adopted town manager goals. In the subsequent agenda-setting meeting, we decided rather than try to do this all in one evening, we would break it over two evenings. So tonight, we are actually going to focus on major capital investments, community health and safety, and racial equity and social justice. And on January 2nd, January 22nd, we will focus on climate action, economic vitality, and housing affordability. The purpose of this discussion is not to change the goals. Although we recognize that that may happen at some future time, amend the goals, I should say. The purpose of the council discussion tonight and on the 22nd is to create a common understanding of the goals from among all 13 councillors and just think about how you would classify the subgoals. Two options include, will it require council action or will it require town and manager staff action? In addition, some of the subgoals may be seen as requiring a special opportunity. For example, state funding becoming available for a homeless center. Something that is at this point, we don't know how we would accomplish that goal. But if money came forward, that'd be great. During these two meetings, we will not prioritize the goals. But and we will not discuss how to achieve the goals. When we have our retreat, which is yet to be scheduled, we will prioritize the goals, subgoals, and discuss issues related to achieving the goals. And by that point in time, the town manager and his staff will have been an opportunity to give us some additional information in terms of what they feel is achievable and in what timeframe or what the trade-offs might be. So I've asked councillors, specific councillors, to provide about a two-minute introduction to each of the goals tonight. They'll talk about the history, perhaps some of the accomplishments or any other details. And as we do each of them, we'll pause, have a discussion among the council, and then go on to the next goal. I've allotted 50 minutes on our agenda for this. And I'd like to stay with that timeframe. You'll notice that there is now a white box on the screen where we are keeping track of the minutes. So with that, I'm gonna start with Kathy Shane, who is going to do major capital investments. Thank you, Lynn. And since I know everyone has the goals before them, what I'm gonna try to do in two minutes without speaking like a race car, is give a sense of where we are. If any of the new councillors haven't done so, they should take a tour of the DGPW building. We have a building at risk, most of being condemned doing to failing systems, roofs and more. The Central Fire Station built in 1929, 95 years ago, is also failing undersized for modern fire engines with poor facilities for staff. At the outset, for the first council, we set a multi-year goal of four building projects, including DPW and Central Fire, the new elementary school and renovated library. We now face the challenge of where to build both DPW and fire, how to pay or and replace them. Unlike the school and library, there is no central state program that helps towns with such essential buildings. Legislation has been proposed but not enacted. We also face ongoing need to repair our roads and sidewalks and ad sidewalks to support safe walking and biking. Although we can potentially use a share of ARPA funds, remaining ARPA funds during the coming year, we're gonna need additional state help to provide enhanced support for ongoing needs, given the wear and tear and the weather impact on our roads. In the coming year, the goals asked the town manager for a plan to make progress on the choice of where to build and affordable designs for DPW and Central Fire Station. Site and design decisions are critical to move forward. Amherst has been building up reserves to help pay for the estimated costs of at least one building, but we do not currently have sufficient funds to undertake both during the same time period. We will face difficult choices that we have to work together, giving the rising cost of the constructions. Without a plan, we desperately need a plan. We remain where we were six years ago. We cannot afford to do all. The council and the town manager will need to make choices and narrow priorities. Okay, so the floor is open for questions, comments, discussion. Again, we're not prioritizing the sub-goals, but it's to make sure that people understand the various parts of the sub-goal. George Ryan. Just had a question about item seven. Explore options for and facilitate a council discussion on a youth empowerment center, improvements to the senior center and or community center. And I just wanted someone to explicate that last phrase senior center and or community center. I don't, I just wonder what that's referring to. I heard this evening about the senior center, its needs. I've never heard anything about a community center, but maybe I haven't been paying attention. Is there any particular person who would like to comment to that? Otherwise I'll go ahead. Actually, some people do think of the bank center as a community center. So it's really just recognizing that the bank center is sometimes thought of as a community center. It's not a separate additional, if you will, entity. At least that's the way I have understood it. I'm sorry, I just read it as improvements to the community center. Yeah, Mandy, Joe, you have your hand up. So another bit of history, I think in prior iterations, this has been a thought of or in discussions, maybe not in the goals, there have been, there has been talk of a new senior center. And so I think the leaving in of community center and or senior center is a recognition that if a new building were to be discussed, that new building may not be solely a senior center. It may need or want or discussions may take place regarding a combination youth center, community center, senior center, a building that houses lots more than just a senior center. And so I think this language incorporates all sorts of things. Good, thank you. George, further question? Okay, are there any other questions or comments, Kathy? I'd just like to make one, because since George raised the senior center and we heard earlier for public comments, there has been discussion, George, about using a small share of the remaining ARPA money to do some renovations of the senior center. It won't address the larger issues. And as you know, you might have noticed in my summary, I focus mainly on the big ticket items. We don't have enough money to do everything we have on the list. But yes, but there may be some for the senior Sunday out of ARPA money. Okay. Jennifer? Yes, I still had a question with the fire station and the DPW. So it's still tied to one another that we, the fire station, we have to find a location for the DPW before so we can move the fire station, build it where the DPW facility is. I'm gonna ask the town manager to redress that. The original plan was to locate the, find a new location for the DPW and then put the fire station at the site of the DPW. Our latest thinking is to unlink those two because locating a DPW is pretty challenging. And so looking at, we've talked about Hickory Ridge as a potential location for the fire station. So choosing where to put the fire station is up in the air whether it should be Hickory Ridge, the current site of the DPW or some other site. And then we'll continue to explore sites for the DPW at the same time. Jennifer? So, I mean, this might be another conversation but I know that there was a, well, you discussed it in your report. Please speak to the mic. Yeah, the $100,000 for if we're so challenged to find a new location for the DPW, could additional funds be allocated? I mean, I'm not seeing how that, how we're making progress on the DPW, that concerns me. Okay. So the $100,000 is just to make repairs to the existing DPW. We didn't want to put a lot of money into the existing DPW but it just needs it just to stop the leaks and things like that. So the goal is, we don't think that building is really salvageable. So to invest money into that building doesn't make any sense. So that brings additional urgency to finding a new location for the DPW. Are there further questions or comments? Okay, then moving on, we're going to go to community health and safety and Jennifer, Todd will be doing that. Thank you, Lynn. And I'm just gonna try and briefly relay the conversation and some of the thinking that went on in GOL in presenting the goals in this area to the full council. So our thinking in GOL was to set top priorities and broad goals for which the town manager and his staff would allocate time and resources in the areas of community health and safety. And while setting some longer term goals which would include work on our capital projects is one example, not under this category, but just that would be an example of a long-term goal that can't be accomplished in a year. We also wanted to set annual goals that are doable in a span of 12 months. So we narrowed it down to five specific goals within community health and safety. And the first was the residential rental property bylaw. And some may wonder why that is included under community health and safety. And that is because the goal of revising and strengthening that bylaw is to achieve safe, healthy and code compliant housing. Because the proposed bylaw hasn't yet been finalized and it's still in CRC, the implementation cannot begin right away, but CRC will be working hard to bring a final proposal back to the council so that that can be an item that the town manager and his staff can begin to facilitate the implementation of in this calendar year. The second item under community health and safety was is the continue to implement and assess the community responders for equity safety and service department. And in the town manager's report that's in the packet for tonight, he provides very detailed current status of the CRS department. So I would refer you to pages eight and nine of that report rather than take up a lot of time going into detail with that here, but in that report the town manager has said that the CRS department anticipates hiring three new community responders to start in the middle of this month. And the search for the new director is actively ongoing with interviews. Looks like they will be by begin this month as well. And that the Amherst police department has dispatch has begun assigning CRS responders to some appropriate 911 calls. So the department has been moving forward. They were off to a great start, had a couple of setbacks but are continuing to move forward. And again, the GOL and as it was approved by the council didn't want to be overly prescriptive but wanted the continued implementation of CRS certainly to be a priority. And then it says under this go under this policy area in numbers three and four it refers back to, it says with respect to formation of the resident oversight board and a review of public safety protocols. GOL here chose to err on the side of fewer words rather than more. So for goals number three and four we referred back to the November 14th, 2023, I'm sorry 2022. So in November of 2022 at the November 14th meeting the council unanimously approved a number of items under the resident oversight board and review of public safety protocols. And that is what is rather than repeat them in the town manager goals we refer back to them but I will explain what they are what they're referring to here. So we approve creating and implementing a reconciliation plan to include a proposal for community visioning. And that is part of what is being referred to under the resident oversight board and that community visioning workshops began last month and are continuing through this month. Also in the town manager's excellent detailed report for tonight it was the time and place for the community this visioning sessions that will be continuing in January. We also voted to create a proposal for a resident oversight board. Listening sessions have begun and again for the town manager's report the goal is to initiate the resident oversight board by the middle of this year. We also in November of 2022 voted to undertake a review of public safety protocols for responding to and handling public safety calls involving minors in order to recommend changes to these protocols as appropriate and those the town manager again I keep referring back to his report but he said today that this will be a review of police protocols will be a priority for the new police chief. The other item that we under community health and safety is it says I'm sorry here that we also want to undertake that we want to develop programming for youth empowerment and also at that November 14th meeting we said we would explore youth. We would explore options for a youth empowerment center as part of the capital improvement plan but because we want to strengthen youth programming while options are still being explored for a youth center we included programming under community health and safety that an actual center would be part of the capital projects but that programming that could begin to strengthen and to have opportunities for youth we saw that as a community health and safety priority. So that's where we are. Are there questions or comments? George. I think it's really a comment. I don't really have a question about the material that's here I think it's just beyond astonishing that the word senior services does not appear in this paragraph on community health and safety. So that's just an observation. So it's not here because it's in another place in the goals. I read all the goals in the only place. It's under the capital investments. Yeah. Which is basically improvements to the senior center and or community center. That's it. I mean, I just hope that at some point early on in our term we can spend some time thinking hard about the issue of senior senior services in the health and safety area. I think personally it should be in this section. I think what is mentioned under capital investments doesn't begin to address the need. That's just my personal opinion. I'm just, and I don't know if this is the time to discuss it. It probably isn't, but I don't have any questions about this except it's something that I think is really important. Okay. I think voicing it now is fine. We'll get more into those issues at the retreat. Are there any other comments or observations, questions, whatever? Okay, seeing none, then we're going to go on to racial equity and social justice and Alicia Walker will take the lead here. Thank you, Lynn. So the racial equity and social justice goal was born out of the tragic events surrounding the murder of George Floyd in 2020. It is a testament to the power of collective advocacy from our residents and the council's commitment to eradicating the effects of systemic racism within our town. In response to the call for change, the council took a decision to create a resolution affirming our commitment to dismantle the ingrained practices of systemic racism within our town and affiliated organizations. We pledged to review and revise our policies, procedures, bylaws, values, goals and missions through an anti-racist lens, aiming to foster an environment that is not only unbiased and inclusive, but free of discrimination, harassment and negative stereotyping towards any individual or group. Over the past three years, we've witnessed progress catalyzed by the formation of the Community Safety Working Group, the CSWG. This group has been instrumental in providing recommendations, some of which we've implemented such as the Crest Department Community Responders for Equity and Social Services and the DEI Department Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Additionally, the creation of the CSSJC, which reflects our commitment to monitoring the progress towards implementing these recommendations and towards taking additional steps. However, let us also acknowledge that our journey is far from complete. We must recognize the challenges that persist and the work that lies ahead. It is imperative that we not only sustain our current efforts, but also that we intensify them, remaining accountable to the commitments we've made as a council. Our dedication to racial equity and social justice cannot merely be a checkbox. It is a promise to every resident in our town. It is a commitment to ensuring that their safety, well-being and the opportunity to thrive exists for all residents. And as leaders, we bear the responsibility of shaping a community where all are valued, respected and embraced. And where we as leaders are actively involved in remedying and repairing injustice and attempting to addressing these situations proactively. And so as we forge ahead with purpose and determination and we continue to build a town that reflects the principles of equity, justice and unity, the objective we have passed states that we would like the town manager to continue making advances in racial equity and social justice to uphold the council's statement of values and adopt resolutions. We are specifically looking to use a racial and social justice lens when making decisions to support the work, sorry, excuse me, of the town in repairing the damage of structural racism and amourst to provide training regarding racial equity rights and other options to the town council, employees and members of the public to begin to identify and propose revisions to policies bylaws and regulations to dismantle structural racism and incorporate input from BIPOC, LGBTQ plus and other marginalized communities and appropriate town committees when reviewing and revising our policies and regulations. Are there questions, comments, observations? Pat DeAngelis. Thank you. I think that in many ways, this goal should be the council's first goal because it affects everything else we do. I wanna look at number three under the goal, provide training regarding racial equity rights and other options to the town council, employees and members of the public. And I've seen real work in terms of racial equity work and anti-racism work with employees and members of the public. And I'm gonna call on the town council and say this is what we need to be doing. We can attend public gatherings and healing circles and things like that. But I think as a body, we need to do what we did a few years ago and address anti-racism and address it as a council and address it as the 13 individuals that we are. One workshop five years ago doesn't do it, doesn't change us. It can begin change, but it doesn't change us. So I'm calling on the council to step forward and do some of the work, not just say employees and residents. Are there other comments, observations, questions? Are there any comments in general about these three goals? Besides the ones obviously we've heard, okay? As I mentioned, oops, Hala. Yes, I was a little slow on the racial equity and social justice goal. And I'm wondering if in there somewhere, I know this could be done at the retreat that we also lift up anti-black racism because that is a, it's a special category. It's definitely we need to look at anti-black racism separately from anti-racism as well. Thank you. Okay, any other comments in general? Preke. I was wondering about racial equity number four, which begins with begin to identify. And I was wondering if there's a difference between begin to identify and simply identify and propose. Is there anybody from GOL wish to comment on that? Mandy Jo. So this one is a new sub goal of the racial equity. And so it hasn't started yet. So what we tend to do is when we add them first in, we start with begin. And then the next year is identify or continue to, but it is a new sub goal for this calendar year. Okay, thanks. Are there other, yes, Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. I just really wanted to quickly just emphasize what Hala brought up and also what Pat brought up. And I do think and hope that during this year, we will take more steps as a council towards addressing like our own personal biases. Cause I agree with Pat that since I've been on the council, we have not done any like trainings or any sessions on this. And I think we could definitely benefit from doing some of this work together, especially if we are, you know, upholding this for, I know this comes in a different goal, but we want to see these strides being made across all town departments. And I think that we can lead by example. And I think we should start working on that within ourselves as well. Okay, thank you. Are there other comments, observations, questions? Seeing none, we're going to move on to the next agenda item. The, we already did extend the temporary police chief appointment. I just want to recognize that there was a question and it was satisfactorily answered. Okay. Okay. And now the next item is eight B and it's how counselors wish to be addressed. And this relates particularly to town council rules and procedure rule 6.3 K. And you, if you have your rules with you, we can look specifically at that rule. And then I'm going to suggest we have a discussion. Would you like me to read the rule? Please, thank you. Counselors shall communicate to the council how they would like to be addressed at the first meeting of the session or at any reasonable time thereafter. Counselors shall use the requested names to address each other. The only history I can give you is in the very first council, there was a decision to go with just using first names. Since then, this has been raised again and it was felt by GOL that it was time to have a discussion again. Yes. Pat? Okay. Mandy Jo. I'll give another longer history, I guess. Okay, please do. The original rules that the rules of procedure from the first council was that the council when they wrote the rules had, everyone would be addressed by their first names. When the second council came in and rules of procedure were asked for any changes, one of the counselors, I believe it was Alicia Walker had requested that we look at that and ask and rewrite it to instead of a default of every counselor gets a first name, every counselor should be addressed how they wish to be addressed. And so we rewrote the rule. And this is our third council and this is I think the first time we're actually implementing the rule, but that's a little bit more of the history. Right, right. George, you have your hand up. I thought about this. Obviously I had experience for the first three years and there's something to be said for distinguishing between the individual and the role. So addressing someone as counselor X, counselor Y is very formal. On the other hand, it reinforces the sense that there's a big difference between you as a person and you as a public official. It sounds like this topic may be more about choice than it is about adopting a common way of addressing counselors. I'm thinking more of the lines of something that we all do together to remind us that there is a difference between us as individuals. So I am a father of two, I'm a retired teacher. I will probably someday be entered into the rec hall of fame for coaches, basketball coaches, but that's different from me as a counselor. So I guess my thought is perhaps not along the line of where this was headed, but that I would make just a suggestion that at least in this body, perhaps a bit of formality would be helpful in a long term. So that was just the thought. Anna? I think George's point might be a separate decision and I would encourage us to look at both of those in two kind of buckets, because the intention with this initial shift in the rules was truly to allow people to name to the council what they would like to be called and go with that. I'd also encourage folks to, if they would like to share pronouns at this point, that would be a good time. And then the other thing I would say is it's helpful if people, once they identify what they'd like to be called, if they ensure that that is the name on their Zoom screen, that's also very helpful. Jennifer, you had your hand up. Yeah, I was gonna make the same comment just so we know we don't have to be reminded how individuals wanna be addressed. Okay. George, you still have your hand up, but I'm gonna go to Alicia. Just piggybacking on what Anna just said and I'm hoping that we might also be able to just add our pronouns to our screen names for future meetings. If that's something that we can determine, I think it might just create a more comfortable environment, one for ourselves and with each other, but also for the public who comes to public comment. And so that sort of takes off of any questions if people want to know how they should address any single one of this, but also I think it's an invitation for others to share that with us if we have it visible on the screen. Okay, are there further comments? Mandy Jo, you would quickly add your hand up and look at that. You said comments, I was just gonna start though, what I'd like to be addressed as, let's go right ahead. But you said comments, so I didn't think it was appropriate. In similar to what George's comment was, I'm going to change my preference to asking to be called Counselor Haneke. Okay. During meetings. I just wanna make sure that's clear, during meetings. Kathy. I'd like to continue to be called Kathy. So we're gonna have an interesting dynamic here if we mix them up so that, but I'm Kathy. And my entire life, people said, please write your full name. That is my full name. I don't have a longer name, just Kathy. Okay. Are there others who would like to express their preference at this time? I can go. Anna still works for me. Please Anna, not Anna is my only request. It's Anna with one N. And similar to Kathy, I don't have a longer name than that. So Anna is perfect. She, her pronouns work for me. Thank you. Okay. Additional comments, preferences. Sure. It's so easier to just. Just go ahead. No, I'm next. I would prefer to continue to go by Lynn. Thank you. Let's see. Let me get my list out. So I'm going to the next person. All right. Pat, why don't you go back to you? I would like to be called Mike. I would like to be called Mike. I would like to be called Pat. I've really been debating this because there's some sense to formality or structure, but I'm more comfortable with my first name. Thank you. Freke. Given the difficulty pronouncing my first name, I think I would go with Ette. Just Ette or counselor Ette? There's only one Ette in Amherst. Okay. So Freke is Ette. Okay. By the way, one of the reasons why Griezmer, I'm not going to challenge anybody to pronounce that one correctly because nobody ever does. Bob Higner. But Bob works for me. Okay. Hallelord. Thank you for raising this topic. I think because representation is important and I come from certain sociocultural locations or identities that are underrepresented, I am going to request to be counselor Lord to the public on Hallelord. And I've just, there's a lot of grace. It's okay, but I think it's important for other people who are similar backgrounds. So thank you. Absolutely. Pam Rooney. I'm going to stick with Pam since there's now only one. One first and last name. Thank you. George Ryan. I suppose Coach Ryan is not possible. It's whatever you want. Basketball Coach Ryan. No, no, no. Hall of Fame Coach Ryan. I think thanks, sir. Counselor Ryan is fine. Okay. Kathy Shane, you've already weighed in. Andy Steinberg. Make a comment in the second, but as I will start by saying that I'm going to stick with Andy and this is going to be difficult because we're going to be put to the challenge of remembering we will all do our best. I'm sure, but this is highly unusual. I think that the first counsel that we came to the conclusion that we work together as individuals, as people and there's a sense of first name identification that went with it. I think that it really did work well, but I certainly respect the people who have made the decision that they want to be recognized in a more formal sense. I will do my best to remember the people who've made that request and ask for forbearance for me and for anybody else that messes up. Jennifer, I'll stick with Jennifer too, although if we had, you know, as that council decided to address each other as counselor, that would have been fine too. Okay. Alicia. I would be, I would prefer to be addressed as counselor Walker in meetings. I think like outside of meetings, if you see me all personally and we're not doing council business, I don't mind being called Alicia and my pronouns are she, her and Andy, I will change if this is helpful at all, my name, I see some counselors have already done so, so that my preference is reflecting on my screen and hopefully that might help for some people to remember, but if you don't remember, I will not take it personally. Thank you. Lynn, before you move on, would anyone else like to indicate their pronouns? I will start by saying it's she, her, but I have to figure out how to change my thing on my screen. Hope her over my thing, right there. I can help with the Zoom name, so you don't have to change it every time, but if you let me know now, then I can update. Got it. Okay. Are there any other people? Yes, Hala, excuse me, counselor Lord. Thank you, my pronouns are they, she. My pronouns are they and because I want to give grace, she. And Kathy. Can we have the right not to have to put our pronouns on? I think that that would also be true, along with the name. Thank you. Okay. All right. People are working on their changes as we speak and Andy, I want to thank you for asking for forgiveness now because later I'm sure I'm gonna need it. So we are going to move on to the rules of procedure. And just as we did with the goals at our agenda setting meeting, we decided to break this into two evenings. So tonight we'll be able to deal with rules of procedure one to four and seven to 10. And then on the 22nd, we will deal with rules of procedure five and six. I also want to really recognize the extensive work that GOL has put into coming forward with this review. It's the most significant review that has taken place of the rules of procedure since the council was initially formed. And a couple of people on this council were part of the group that did the original rules of procedure. Pat DeAngelis is the most recent chair of GOL. And I'm gonna ask if she would give us some oversight and also other members of GOL may want to blend in or add in their explanations as to what they recall as to what our thinking was. If there's going to be changes to what is proposed those changes should come in the form of a motion. Okay, Pat. Thank you, Lynn. Annually the GOL or the governance, organization and legislation committee reviews the rules of procedure. This can be a simple change changing a word like we did in rule 2.1a. We're replacing one word election with is elected or it can be more complex. I sent the sort of a map of what to look at for those of you who are new to the rules of procedure because we're gonna work through them. We're gonna actually start with rule four because we have Athena here who has made some incredibly excellent suggestions about proposed changes to the rules and procedures, particularly around agendas and posting materials and things like that. And you'll see that there were no changes in rule one. That simply means we reviewed it carefully. We saw no reason to change it, but if you see something that you think should be changed, then you'll bring that up and we'll work through. So I'm gonna ask and I am gonna ask members of GOL if there were specific reasons that you wanna add to an explanation that can be important. The other thing that I will say is all of these changes, there were many, many more that were proposed and were discussed by GOL over quite a period of time. There are changes that we decided did not need to be made. This is our best recommendation and as far back as I could go as I look through minutes, the decisions to make these changes and revisions were unanimous decisions. So I'm gonna ask Athena if you would start with some of the changes in rule 4.5. Do you wanna skip over the ones for two? Do you wanna skip over the rules for two? The changes in two, okay. It would be helpful to have her go through. A lot of the other changes can be explained quite simply as we go back through numerically. All right, go for it. I won't go into detail too much. I think if you had a chance to read the memo that I sent to GOL with my recommendations, that's pretty clear, but I'd be happy to answer questions if there are any. GOL considered all of the recommendations that I made, but didn't take me up on every single recommendation. They differed in their decisions. So you'll see that there's some discrepancies between my recommendations and what GOL is recommending to the council now. If there are questions, I can help. Andy. Yes, I do have a question about rule 4.5. And I appreciate the point that you were trying to address, but I was wondering if there's something more that needs to be added because how you count time and what the charter provides as the default for how you count time, that if it's less than seven days, the weekends are not counted, I believe. And since the order that you had previously given is that you look to the charter before you look to the rules, that there's a sequential order, that it would seem that it would be best to do some additional clarification within the rule also to make sure that they are consistent with each other and clear as to what three days means when you have a late in the week committee meeting as has happened with the finance committee on several occasions. GOL differed from my recommendation on that rule. So you'll see there's a discrepancy between my memo and what GOL proposed in the markup. I can put that on the screen. Please do. This shows what GOL has recommended. My suggestion was to simplify it to timely manner because there are so frequently times that we don't have things three days prior to the meeting and it's essentially a rule that the council breaks all the time, we all break all the time in terms of committee reports and other things that come from the town that are added to the packet much later than three days in advance. So Andy, I just wanna go back to specifically what would you change in here? I don't have it written out because I didn't realize that that was gonna be a request for tonight, but if the rules, you can see it right now, it's a committee that might be committee that meets. I wonder about committee who meeting that meets, but that's a different question within three days prior to the measure shall submit materials as soon as practical, I think we would just need to make sure that it is understood that three days includes counting weekends or holidays that intervene. So it would be three calendar days? Probably yes, I think that would be sufficiently clear. Okay, so at this point for the sake of clarity, the suggestion is that wherever it says three days prior, it would say three calendar days prior. And the other suggestion was committees that meet. So is there further discussion on that item? Pam Rooney, on this item specifically, Mandy Jo. So the three days under GOL was not to include weekends because we were following the charter whenever we mentioned days. So those three days that GOL believed it was clear because it was picking those three days as including Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, essentially not the weekends for the latter, the meetings of committees in the latter half, the charter is clear. If we use three days here, we don't need to clarify it anymore. It's those meetings. And GOL changed the shall to a should for that particular reason too. We had a lot of discussion on this one. Yes, we did. Jennifer, we can all remember about Athena's suggestions, but also putting some times in there. So it's sort of a timely manner now, but with guidance as to what that actually means, which is three calendar days before the meeting, Wednesday, before the meeting is when things should be into the clerk so that they can have everything up in the packet. It's always been Wednesday. It has been Wednesday. It's always been Wednesday so that the packet is easily published on Thursday the same day that the meeting must be posted under open meeting law. So the rules do follow the charter of less than seven days, weekends and holidays are not counted in the timing. Then there are several hands up. Yeah. I wanna make sure we stick on this one for the moment. Okay. Oh, Kathy. I just, because we had a charter expert when we were writing these rules under definitions for those of you who are totally confused, definitions defines days just as Mandy just said. It's on page one. If it's less than seven days, we don't count Saturday, Sunday or legal holidays. So it's, you have to understand that math, but we wrote it in on computation of time as a definition. It means that you have to double think when you're reading this to say what is my day versus your day mean, but we did put it in definition. And Lynn, if I may, I think part of GOL's discussion about this was in consideration of my time so that I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be working over the weekend. Absolutely. Okay. So are there therefore no amendments to this? No. What we're saying the way it is stated is consistent with the charter. Is that correct? Okay. If the intention is to have materials in by Wednesday, then it's consistent. Okay. Is there any objection to changing committees who to committees that? Point of order. Yeah. So you actually, we don't have a motion on the table and you've stated in before we started that any changes needed to be made by motion should we put a motion on the table? Okay. Please put a motion on the table. Four. I moved to adopt amendments to the town council rules of procedure, rules two to four and seven to nine with additions shown in red or green text and deletion shown in red or green strike through text on pages eight to 25 of the motion sheet. Second? Thank you. That is the full amount for the, all of them except for five and six. Okay. Now, amendments. Is there an amendment that anybody wants to propose to this particular 4.5? Andy? Yes. I think I will just leave it. I appreciated that the point was pointed out that the time computation is included in the rules definition. I think that is helpful and probably takes care of that issue. So I just moved that we changed the wording so that it's committees that meet. Okay. Is there a second? So unless we're going to debate that, we'll move to a vote on that amendment. Unless you want me to save them all up for the end. Is there a preference? Okay. I think it would be confusing to Lynn. I think it would be confusing to vote amendments all at the end. I think you need to vote on this one. All right. So on this one, we're going to go with changing the word who to that. And I'm going to start with Anna Devlin-Goth here. Controversial. Yes. Aye. Ette? Aye. Lynn is an aye. I'm going to practice this round. Councillor Hanakie? Aye. Bob? Aye. Councillor Lord? Aye. Pam? Yes. Councillor Ryan? Aye. Kathy? Yes. Andy? Yes. Jennifer? Yes. Councillor Walker? Yes. And Pat? It's unanimous. Okay. We're now back to discussion. And Pat, do you want to proceed with anything particular or? Yes, we're going to go to 4.6, the consent agenda for the changes that were proposed by the clerk of the council and a couple of other minor, more minor changes that have come through. So this was just a simple clarification of what the vote quantum would be for consent agenda items to clarify that if there was a higher vote quantum for any one item that the vote quantum for the entire consent agenda would be the higher rather than the lower. Okay. Right. And if you move down. Order, please use your mic. I'm sorry, what? Use your mic. Please use your mic. I have. I have. If we look at 4.6 and we move down to the second paragraph, I believe it is the second sentence. Let's see. Wait a second. On the first paragraph, end of line seven under 4.6. Oh, I'm sorry folks. I have this all typed out and everything else and I'm still flubbing. Okay. If you go to 4.6, first paragraph after a consent agenda may be used to allow the council to act, goes on to say which are considered to be routine and non-controversial in nature. It's been suggested that GOL decided to remove non-controversial and just have it be routine nature. So that is one change. Pat, if I may, I think that was to prevent the president from having to read everyone's mind about what they might disagree on before meeting. That goes back to changing public comment on the consent agenda. That was an error. So thank you Athena for reminding me of that horror show. And also if you move down into the first paragraph, the end of line seven. F, actually it's the second paragraph and line seven is forwarded to the full council of unanimous recommendation. Now having a high level of public interest or controversy, blah, blah, blah. At the very end of that sentence, we are adding or committee chair. And that is an important distinction because it seems that it isn't just the president who can determine these issues but each committee has the right to determine those issues. Let me see. In the first and third sentences of the third paragraph, in the first and the third sentence of the third paragraph, you're gonna see the word item crossed out and it's being replaced by motion listed. And then I think it was because it was contradictory. Well, we added it in the first, the end of the first paragraph basically says the same thing. Okay. Are there any questions on this one? I see Kathy's hand. Yep. When you go back up, it has added sentence, any item requiring a super majority or more than the whole group. I think we slipped into a practice that I don't think is a good one on consent agendas, where it may be a major change that requires nine votes. And I think in general, they shouldn't be on the consent agenda that we should have a discussion about them. And you flag that later with a high public interest. So when we adopted the stretchy stretch code, it went through on a consent agenda without a discussion of what it was. And it then slides under the radar screen because it was a fairly important change in the building code for the town. So I see what has been done to say that if there's something on it that needs nine votes, then everything needs nine votes. But I'd rather the practice be that in general, something that needs nine votes doesn't go on the consent agenda. So I don't know whether I'm proposing amendment because I hate to do this kind of wordsmithing, I must say. I'd rather fix things that aren't working well than rather go over the words, but this enables changing a zoning law, changing a budget authorization. It allows some things that are supposed to be of high public interest beyond a consent agenda. And I don't think that's good practice. Kathy, it would also, so right now it takes nine votes to approve a town manager appointment. It takes nine votes to make a minor change to the rules. So I think there's a little bit of a fine line between allowing everything and disallowing everything. So I think that's part of the president's discretion. Just pointing out, I can see why you made that change, but as we say later, in general, that's of high public interest, shouldn't be on the, you know, if it's a major change. So just thinking about as we go forward, Len, on the consent agenda, things that should be flagged, even if there was, I must say, I missed one that was on consent agenda because I just thought of them as appointments and minutes and sort of simple things, which was how it had always been used before rather than major. So this is saying if it's major, then everything has to have nine votes. We, consent agendas, so for the new people, usually are going through unanimously. So we pulled something off that needed a discussion. So the rest were. Are you making a motion to change something? I mean, you labored on this, but it's, I would actually prefer saying that a consent agenda shouldn't include something that needs a super majority, but that's such a straight jacket that I'd rather not do that right now, especially. The other thing is there is this fine line that Athena just shared with us. Passing the rules of procedure requires nine votes. Is that gonna, and it's not on the consent agenda, but there are, you know, what, I don't have Athena, you said it better. I'm saying it. I think that we can make that decision as where the people who are setting the agenda should be making that decision. That's why I said, I'm not sure I need to amend it, but I just think it's bad practice to put big things on it. And rules of procedure in general, I don't think we should be revisiting them every year. I think we should be addressing things that aren't working well for us. And so minor word changes, I would hope that we're not doing every year, but big changes, I would wanna have a discussion and not put them on consent at. So my comment is more general, but I think I can live with this. I just wanted to say that actually a couple of residents pointed out, you just voted some big things on a consent agenda. Why are you doing that? And sometimes it's Lynn, it's because our agenda is so full, we don't have time for discussion, which, so I just wanted to point that out. Sometimes it's because we actually have had a full discussion in a previous meeting. Right. And the issues have been addressed that were raised in the previous meeting. And therefore, in the second reading, the consent agenda works, but I hear what you're saying. And I think that we have actually had an item on the consent agenda and either I or the chair of a committee has said, I think we need to pull that off because it's too controversial. Okay, Councilor Ryan. Actually, my question has to do with a different part of this. So perhaps we should settle this point first before we go. Are there any other counselors who would like to comment on this one? Anna? Andy, that's... Andy. Yeah, mine is close to it, but not exactly the same, but they sort of come together. And that is that if we fail to get the higher number, I also question whether it makes sense to have to vote every item on the consent agenda separately or whether the votes that are separate should only be the amount that those items that require a super majority because we may sometimes have long consent agendas that have a lot of non-controversial items. Why not let those be adopted and just have the rule reject any that required more than a majority? Okay, other comments on this one, Anna? Yeah, I mean, it's so simple to pull something off of the consent agenda and you can't go back in time and put it back on. I think that it's our responsibility as counselors to have read the consent agenda really thoroughly and to note if something is getting pulled off. And, you know, Cathy, you referenced the stretch code. The stretch code was referred to committee by a full vote. It went through two committees by a full vote and then it came back to the council for two readings. I think ultimately passing something after that level of discussion is considered non... At that point, the rules included the framing non-controversial. And I think that that would have been considered non-controversial because of how much discussion it already had had. And so I do think that there is some level here where we also need to be accountable to reading the agendas and not passing something on consent that we want further discussion on. My issue is really that it's... I actually agree with Andy. I think I wanna pick at the vote quantum a bit because I don't know that it's like a perfect system yet but I don't know that we're going to get to a perfect system there. But I really, I think that because it's so simple to pull something from consent, I would rather have it be that things are placed on consent and removed because they have a reason to be removed versus... Because a counselor feels there is a reason for them to be removed versus going through unnecessary presentation or discussion for something that people don't have any questions on at this anymore because it's especially if it's already been discussed so many times. So that would be my pushback is I agree that things should go on consent more often given prior discussions that have happened or their routine status. Councilor Haneke. I'm gonna piggyback on what Anna said. I think we're forgetting the word that is silent before consent agenda, which is most people think of it as the unanimous consent agenda. That's why it's so easy to pull something off of the consent agenda is because if it's not going to pass unanimously it shouldn't be on the consent agenda. And so I don't have a problem with this wording because I see this wording as protecting Athena and the council legally from challenges to a consent agenda vote that may have required nine or 10 or two thirds votes where our rules say you had to get it on consent agenda. It's clear that it then made it versus should we be rejecting something that could have passed with seven and consent agenda only got eight. And so everything got, well, if consent agenda only got eight there was something wrong with the consent agenda and people not pulling stuff off. And I'm just gonna say that there was something wrong with people not pulling stuff off the consent agenda because if you can't vote yes to the consent agenda you should be pulling it off the consent agenda. One of the options I'm thinking here is that just for the sake of information for the full council is that on the consent agenda behind each at the end of each of the bullets we list the vote quantum required like we do later on in the actual thing so that under waiver of town council rules or procedure rules 8.6 for agenda item 6A and 9A1 we would go seven votes or seven whatever. Athena what do you think of that? That's another thing that I can do. I would also point out that this rule change that's proposed now is it would remove non-controversial. So all that's left is routine. So I would argue that stretch code wasn't routine. I would agree with you at the point that it was passed non-controversial was still on the rules. Okay. And I would also point out that town manager appointments require a higher vote threshold and there's some other things that are routine that require a higher vote threshold. There's also differences between a majority of councilors president and voting and a majority of councilors, the full council. So I think to change, we'd need a little bit more clarification than merely a majority. Right. Okay. Are we done with this, Andy? I guess I would like to propose an amendment. Again, I have problems because I didn't, I had the opportunity to do wording and did not knowing it was necessary, but when the consent agenda includes an item requiring more than a majority of councilors present in voting for passage and passage is not by the required number for this above a majority than those items that required more than a majority for passage shall not be considered approved in the consent agenda. Is there a second? Wait, I think I need to clarify that motion. Yeah, I'm looking for a second and then to clarify. Okay. Can we clarify first? Sure. Go ahead. So do you mean majority present and voting or majority present or majority of the council? So I think I said, that's where I get into the problem of not being able to write it out, which I didn't do, but it would, if you have a majority present voting a majority present voting who pass it by a majority, but not by a sufficient number that is required for a particular motion that requires more than that number that passes that the passage of the consent agenda motion only is applicable to those items that require the simple majority. I think that needs some wording work. I'm not quite sure if I understand what you mean. Well, if you have a number of motions, which is fairly typical, that's what consent agendas are about and a number of them require a simple majority. But one, two or three require more than a simple majority that a failure to reach the threshold required for the highest number doesn't necessarily mean that the ones that only required a simple majority failed to pass. Okay, I understand what you're saying. So there's still a difference between simple majority. You're saying if, because sometimes a majority could be three counselors, if it's a majority present and voting. So are you saying when a consent agenda includes an item requiring more than a majority of counselors present and voting that those items shouldn't be included on the consent agenda? Items requiring more than a majority of counselors present and voting shall not be included on the consent agenda? I didn't say they shouldn't be included in the consent agenda, but if the motion fails to pass, the way that it is written now, if one item requires nine votes and everything else requires a majority of those who are present and voting, then why are we rejecting the passage of the consent agenda motion for all of those items that only required the majority of the people who are present and voting that we should only have to pull out for separate vote those that required a greater number. I understand what you're saying. So if there were, say, and I don't think we would do this after this conversation today, a zoning by law change on consent agenda, if anyone were to wish to vote no on it, they should remove it from the consent agenda, but if it were placed on the consent agenda and left on the consent agenda and the higher vote threshold was not met, and so the motion to approve the consent agenda failed, I would say that you would have to revote each of those items individually rather than these things passed via consent and these things didn't pass via consent. That's why I'm suggesting that at the end of each item on the consent agenda, we be clear about what the vote quantum is and then if it, and in that way, it's right there. I mean, the reality is, and I wanna go back and reflect on what Mandy Jo and Anna both said and that is that if you're gonna vote no and you probably wanna explain why you're gonna vote no, you're gonna take it off consent. Right, so I think it's a little confusing to put the vote quantum for each item on consent next to that item because if they're all voted together, they all need to reach the higher vote threshold. Okay, I'm just trying to look for a communication mechanism that helps people. That's why I put the vote quantum under each item when they're voted individually, you'll see the vote quantum. It is on the motion sheet somewhere. It's just not on that sheet. Right, because it would be confusing to have the vote quantum for the different consent agenda items be different. So at this point, I don't, okay, Pam, you have your hand up. Before we move on, Lynn, I'm sorry, Andy was trying to make a motion to amend and I wanna clarify the language if you wanted to make an amendment, Andy. If you could repeat your motion, please. I mean, the problem is that I really would like to actually have more time to do, to think about the correct wording for this. I think that we're hampered by the requirement that we're trying to dispose of all rules. I think if we postpone discussion of 4.6 till the next meeting when we did the rest of the meetings, that that might be more appropriate. That's fine. So did you wanna move to postpone discussion of agenda item or the rule 4.6 to the next meeting? Is that your motion? I think the motion is postponed consideration of rule 4.6 until the next meeting. I think you have to divide 4.6 out first under the rules. So I think it's a motion to divide 4.6 out from the current motion. So the motion is, go ahead, Mandy, Joe. The motion is to divide. To divide rule 4.6 out from the current motion. Okay, is there a second to that motion? Second to you, Angela. Okay. And so we're gonna vote. Is it Andy's motion or Mandy, are you making that? That was me. Mandy, Joe has said, because right now all of the rules that we're going to consider tonight are part of one motion. So what Mandy is doing is taking 4.6 out of that motion. Okay, so the motion's been made in second. Are there any discussion about removing this from the group? Pam. Okay, go ahead. So it seems like there is one simple choice, which doesn't sound like it's appropriate, but that is to require only those items requiring a simple majority to be placed on a consent agenda. But it sounds like there are enough examples where routine items may not apply. So I'm gonna cancel that. And then secondly, I think I would support leaving the text as it is today because it covers the extent of a higher threshold, higher vote threshold requirement. And if you don't need it, you don't use it. And you take it off the consent agenda as everyone else has discussed. So I'm actually very comfortable with the wording that was developed by Athena and GOL in this paragraph. Point of order. The motion on the floor is to divide rule 4.6 from the motion. Yes. Any further discussion on the motion on the floor? Andy, you have your hand up? No. Pam, you have your hand up? Okay, we're gonna move to a vote. And that is to divide 4.6 out from this discussion. And I'm going to begin with Etay. Aye. Lynn is an aye. Councillor Hannake. Aye. Bob. Aye. Councillor Lord. Aye. Pam. No. I'm sorry, Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy. No. Andy. Yes. Jennifer. No. Councillor Walker. No. Pat. Aye. So it is... Anna. Anna, I'm sorry. I have a vote. No. Did you say no? I said no. Okay. So it is... Eight in favour of a post. Eight in favour and five opposed. And so the motion passes. The motion passes. Now the motion on the floor is to postpone consideration of rule 4.6. Okay. The motion is to postpone consideration of rule 4.6. The motion has been made. Is there a second? Second to Angela's. Okay. Are there any further conversations about postponement to the 22nd of this motion? Of this item? Point of order. Didn't we just vote to postpone it? No. No. We voted to separate it out. And the reason we had to separate it out was because it was part of the large group. Now that it's separated out, now we can decide to postpone it. Okay. We're gonna get through Robert's rules before the end of the night, believe me. Okay. Any further conversation questions? No. Okay, seeing none. Griezmer is an aye. I'm sorry. Lynn is an aye. Councillor Hanneke. No. Bob. Yes. Councillor Lord. Aye. Councillor, I'm sorry. Pam. No. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Councillor, I mean, Kathy. No. Andy. Yes. Jennifer. No. Councillor Walker. No. Pat. Aye. Anna. No. And Ette. No, I voted. One, two, three, four. Seven in favor. Six opposed. The motion carries. So it's postponed until the 22nd. Okay. I'm just going to move on to... Actually, I'm going to suggest we take a 10-minute break since we didn't take a break before. And we will come back. And at that point, we will go on to roll five. I'm sorry. Where do you wanna go next, Pat? We're gonna go on. And then back to two and three. Yes. And then back to two and three. Thank you. So we will reconvene at 822. Okay, thank you. So we'll reconvene at 825. For all of you that are here, please turn your mics off and also take your video down. And when you come back, put it up so that I know that you're back. Thank you. It's 825. Please return to your seats. Turn on your video. Please return to your seats. Turn your video on so that I know you're back. Thank you. Jennifer, turn your video on. Ette. Video on. Alicia, I'm sorry. Councillor Walker, are you back? Yes, I am. Thank you, Anne. Thank you. We're going to continue. Pat, please. Okay, we're going to go in order. I've been forced to take. So we're going to look at rule two, organization, GOL is suggesting one minor change in 2.1A, where it says the clerk of the council shall preside over the meeting until a president is elected, period, as opposed to election of the president. Is there any question or discussion about that? Okay, let's go to three point. Please note there was a couple of changes from times, from two minutes to three minutes. In the version in the center. No problem. We're going on to three. Those of you who will be on GOL, it's the best committee and it's very collaborative and cooperative and helpful. GOL looked at this and it got put in last time with great hope, all of which was dashed. So there's no point in D as it is meetings aimed to end by 10 p.m. Unless the council otherwise determines. We just need, let's get real. The practices we meet until we're done. So that's the only change there. Then we've gone through four point six and now we're at rule seven. We're going to ask rules. This was a very important change actually. Previously it was the counselors could call a point of order and we added the town clerk and the town manager, the clerk of the council. I'm sorry, not the town clerk, the clerk of the council. And that's a very important change because they know more than we do about procedure, et cetera. 7.4, Athena, do you want to go take that on? 7.5 B. Yeah, I think you summarized the change to 7.4 very well. 7.5 was a lengthy GOL discussion. This was my suggestion, but I think you might want to give the- I'm sorry to hear you. 7.5, that was a lengthy GOL discussion about which way to go. Do you want me to speak? Yeah, I'd like you to speak to it. So this is just to clarify what happens when a counselor is absent or abstaining and would like to make a motion for consideration, whether or not that counselor has to present new information. GOL talked about this extensively and this is where they landed. There was a lengthy debate about whether or not a counselor who was absent would be considered on the non-prevailing side and whether they would need to present new information. So I think that's all we need to say about it, Pat. Are there questions, Anna? How do we determine what new or additional information has qualified us? Yeah, that's a good question. That's not defined in the rules. Okay, it's maybe something Geoval should think about. Councilor Lord. Thank you. This may speak to my newness, but does this impact anything that would be an immediate action or motion or is there no such thing as immediate action, motion, motion actions? I'm trying to understand what you mean. So reconsideration is to move it to a different time? No, once a vote has been taken, reconsideration means you would like to bring it back for reconsideration of the vote. Thank you. Please strike my question. Thank you. Okay. Kathy. The question about new information, I think it's only come up once where we've actually done this, but there was new information. So I think the President just has to rule that this in fact was information we didn't have when we voted on the vote. We're not gonna know what the new information is, but I like this change that says if you weren't there, and you're asking for reconsideration, but presumably it's because there's new information. So it would still be the same standard as I understand this. Right, if you weren't there and you agreed with the vote, then it's not very logical to move for a reconsideration. Please speak into the microphone. Thank you. Please speak into the mic. I think that's the line of thinking. Wait, you said, Kathy, if you weren't there and you disagreed with the vote, then you would need to present new information in order to move for a reconsideration. Okay. Anything else on seven? Are we going to move on to eight? So 8.1, you can see there are some changes there under non-emergency measures. And in number one, we're adding and it can be accompanied by a sponsor memo stating the purpose of the measure that provides sufficient information for the council to act, be limited to one subject is the same bears the name or names of the sponsors and four in the form necessary for final adoption. So we have those three changes. Okay, any question on that one? We're moving on to 8.2. So we're adding, if referred to governance, organization and legislation committee, in addition to another committee, the time for the governance, organization and legislation committee to report back to the council shall not begin until the other committee has completed its review and made a recommendation of the measure. That just seems like common sense because we're seeing over and over again that there are two referrals, sometimes even three referrals will be made. So that just gives us an order with GLL having the final pass. Okay. Anna, excuse me. I have a clarifying question. When you say the time, do you mean that the 45 days or are you adding 45 days on to however long it takes the first committee or are you just saying GLL doesn't look at it until the other committees are done regardless, but it's still expected to be back to the council within 45 days total. It's the last, so it's, sorry, I just wanted to make sure I'm understanding. So basically if it goes to say finance, finance has 45 days and then it goes to GLL and it has an additional 45 days. Okay. A long time. All right. So if it goes to two committees now, we're talking like nine months. Right. Right. Kathy, I'm sorry, Mandy Jo. Thank you. Anna just said nine months, but it's really only three months. 90 days is three months. 90 days is three months, yeah. Okay. Thank you. Kathy, you have your hand up. I think this is, I had to read it several times, but to me, this says GLL doesn't start to look at it till it's finished. So when it's going through a committee and it's being revised, GLL is gonna wait until someone says we're done. Yes, we've had instances where we've had instances where you started working on it and there were major reversing. So that's what this says, right? And then the clock starts ticking when someone says it's done it or and that's a good change. Thanks. I'm sorry, Jennifer. Yeah, and if it goes to a TSO and then it has to go to finance, it doesn't go to GS, GLL till it's been to both those committees. Right. 8.2, but I just wanted to clarify something with this. The only big change between B and E, all of the language that's being added on B was already in the rules. It was just under E. We're just getting rid of the automatic referral to GLL because we've been voting those referrals already. And so it seemed that we should just keep voting them within the motions instead of having an automatic referral. So the change is really deleting the automatic referral and moving the other language into the next, the more appropriate spot. Thank you. Pat, would you please use your mic? Any, just any further discussion on this change on 8.2 E. Okay. Then there's a minor change, Pat, on 8.8. It's to word remove or added. Yes. So Lynn, take it away. No, it's right there. Any discussion? Okay. Andy. Yeah, just point out and there's no change in proposing here because it's a discussion that I think needs to happen in the appropriate forum. You might be in the subsequent GLL, but TSO had a discussion. Sorry, I can't hear Andy. Excuse me. I'll try again. Thank you. TSO had a discussion about a proposal from former counselor, Ball Milne, about legislative process and policy. And there were some valuable provisions or what I thought were valuable provisions that were included in that, that would call for some further consideration of the rules that we have just discussed in the earlier parts of Rule 8. And I don't think we can get into that discussion tonight, but I think that it is something that needs to, where the rules need to be brought into the right place because one of the things that TSO as a committee felt was that if there were going to be the kinds of changes that were suggested that they did need to happen through a rule process and not through an additional document. And in particular, I have said for some time that we as a council need to take responsibility when making referrals to consider the time that it's going to take from the council, the council committees, and town staff and making the value of judgment as to whether that time is warranted and that was what was built into that legislative process. And I sort of hate to say, oh, we're done with Rule 8 without recognizing that we're not done with Rule 8 because there's a big piece that's still left on the table. We are done with Rule 8 until GOL meets. It's been charged with looking at the suggestions of former councilor Valmillin. So that's something that's going to happen after this. So we don't have to hold up. That was the decision made by the council on the carryover. Right. OK, thank you. OK. So we've already done 8.8. We're now to 8.9. We're deleting a matter has received a negative recommendation from the GOL and now reads a matter has received the negative recommendation from the standing committee of the council to which it was referred. So it isn't just GOL, but any standing committee of the council. Right. And I think that's an important change. The council in the past had voted to rather than to read changes to the rules at two separate meetings, they changed the rules, the council changed the rules to a supermajority vote rather than two readings. And this was just a leftover that hadn't been changed when that changed. So this is just a cleaning up. So by removing this, it would just be consistent with the rules that say that the changes require a supermajority rather than two separate readings. And for the purposes of all of us, would you please define supermajority? Two thirds vote of the council, nine votes. Nine. OK. Thank you. And if you go on, they clarify quite clearly the number of votes required, et cetera. Anything you just want to add, Athena? So the rules, as you can see, previously included what votes are required, how many votes are required for different things, but then the rules themselves include vote requirements for these things that weren't included in this list. So it was just to make the list a little bit more complete. Mandy Jo, you have your hand up. I'm sorry, Councilor Hannake. Thank you. Right where Athena stopped the proposed addition to quote, amend or repeal these rules of procedure rule 1.6 is actually inaccurate. I just looked it up, because if you look up to we had already had this in as nine votes, so I just looked up rule 1.6. Run 1.6 is 2 thirds of the full town council. So it's listed when we made that change there. We remembered to list it under items requiring nine votes, at least nine votes in favor of passage if you page up. You'll see it just slightly up there, amending council rules of procedure. And so I'm going to make a motion to remove the addition under items requiring at least two thirds of councilors present in voting quote, to amend or repeal these rules of procedure rules 1.6 to remove that proposed addition. Is there a second? Second to Angela's. Okay. Are there any further questions or comments? Then I'm going to move to a vote on that amendment. And this is the amendment. It's to remove under items requiring at least two thirds of councilors present in voting. It is to remove what's printed in red. It says to amend or repeal these rules of procedures rule 1.6. Okay. Okay. Councilor Hanakie. Aye. Bob. Aye. Councilor Lord. Aye. Pam. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Aye. Kathy. Yes. Andy. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Councilor Walker. Yes. Pat. Aye. Anna. Aye. Ette. Aye. And Lynn is an aye. It's unanimous. Okay. And we have one more rule to look at this evening, which is rule 10. Council committees and committees of the town. And GLL reviewed that section and saw no reason to change any of it. Okay. Are there any questions? Andy. Yes. I do this not happily, but I think I have to. And it's getting back to I had raised by hand when we were on the prior discussion about what the list of things that require more than a majority. And one of the ones in there, and I'm going to take spending money from the stabilization fund in the last budget that was passed by the legislature and signed into law, not the general budget, but the special appropriations, the additional appropriations, it was a provision that made a change. And the change said that for special stabilization funds that it does no longer requires two thirds, both. So the statement is now inconsistent with the statute. So this would be under items requiring at least two thirds of councils present, spending money from the stabilization fund, mass general law 40, section 5B. You're saying that that has been changed. That was changed. And I just think we need to take a look at it. Are you familiar with the change, Athena? Not enough to say whether this should be where it should go, but I remember that it's changed. So do you want to just remove it for now? Or what are you proposing to do with it? Proposing that we make it, just make sure that we adopt rule that's consistent with the state statute. And state statute, I think we need to do a little bit of research on how to even word it because did the outside section of that budget, which is pretty clear, was it, did it amend 40 section 5B or does it have some other provision that needs to be cited? But we need to at least make sure that our rules are consistent in every respect with the current statutes of the Commonwealth. And in that one, I'm not sure that we are. Pam, you have your hand up. Can we add, can we add state law or unless you want to spend a lot of time clarifying when this applies and when it doesn't, which would be very complicated. Can we just say for the time being per state law and come back to it once state law has clarified? The problem is it's listed under two thirds votes. And I think that we're gonna have to clarify it. So I'm, Mandy. The state law still says two thirds according to the search of chapter 40 section 5B. Yeah, unfortunately I have to because I think that it would apply to the stabilization we set up for reparations. I believe the state statute said one or more stabilization funds and it says that they can, as long as it's a lawful use of the money that it would stay the two thirds vote. And it just said the specification on any alteration of the purpose and any appropriation of funds from any such fund shall be approved by two thirds vote. And it says it in both areas. I would interpret that as any stabilization fund created so long as it's legal is a two thirds vote for authorization. And if anyone has any other, sorry, I just jumped the line. I apologize. That's okay. I would say for now, leave it be and we can ask AP law if the law actually did change because the search right now shows it didn't. And if it did, we can do the same thing we did for zoning, which sometimes requires nine and sometimes requires seven. So the way the language in rule nine is we could mirror that language if there are certain stabilization funds that require two thirds and others that don't if the law changed. But we could do that later. Yeah, I think we would need a legal advice about what constitutes a special stabilization fund. Pat, did you have your hand up? Andy, you have your hand up? Yes, I would, maybe if you're gonna change it, just say spending money from special stabilization fund if required by current Massachusetts law. And then you have to look at the law every time until we get it settled. But if you wanna just have to get on with this section and be done for the time being that would be the cleanest way to do it. So the amendment that I need to hear is the following, spending money from the special stabilization fund if required by MG Mass General Law. I think the way the law changed was that it would be a simple majority for special purpose stabilization funds. So I don't think that we needed distinction between a regular and a special purpose stabilization fund in order to make this rule make sense. I would suggest leaving it the way it is and then we change, we add a special purpose stabilization fund. I'm hearing you. In other words, this one applies to stabilization funds. Regular. Regular. If we need to add something about special stabilization fund, it's an addition and we need to do some research on that. And it can come back. Yes, Andy. Yeah, just for information of the council, I have discussed this with the legislative staff at the MMA and what was explained to me was that what they were recognizing is that most specialist stabilization funds are created for a very specific purpose like setting aside money to build a specific building and that the decision to put the money into the fund still requires two thirds. And so the feeling of the was that trying to reduce it for expenditures would make it simpler for the majority of funds because the majority of funds are set up for that kind of purpose to do something very specific like build a building. And so it was actually to be a part of Governor Baker's provisions that he was trying to modify municipal law to make it simpler, but this one didn't make it through that process. And so it got tacked on to the recent budget provision in order to address that. And that's what happened procedurally in Boston. Okay, but for the time being, we're going to leave this where it is because it refers to general stabilization funds. And down the road, we will look for inserting someplace the appropriate language for a special stabilization fund. Okay, are there any other questions or comments? Okay, the motion is on the floor. However, the motion actually has slight change and that is to adopt amendments to town council rules or procedure rules two to 4.5 and seven to nine with additions shown in red or green text and deletions shown in red or green strike through texts on pages eight to 25 of the motion sheet. I actually think it says to adopt. Okay, somebody needs to look at the motion with me and tell me if that covers what we've done. It's good. It would be to adopt amendments to the town council rules of procedure rules two to four and seven to nine excluding rule 4.5 with additions shown. Okay, that's fine. 4.6, sorry. And also by amended and as amended by removing the proposed addition under the two thirds vote and changing the who to that. And changing who to that, thank you. Right. And for who made the original motion, Mandi Joe? Okay, and who was the second? I think I was. Anna. Okay, Anna. So Mandi Joe, do you agree with the change? There are no changes to it. There's no changes to agree to it. They were all voted on. That's the new motion. Okay, all right. All right, so we're going to move to the motion. Yes? The vote. Thank you. We're going to move to the vote. Are there any questions? Andy, you have your hand up. Okay, we'll start with Bob Higner. Yes. Councilor Lord. Aye. Pam Bruny. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tob. Yes. Councilor Walker. Yes. Pat D'Angeles. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Ette. Aye. Lynn Grishmersen. Aye. Councilor Haneke. Aye. It's unanimous. Thank you. And again, thanks to GOL. We will come back to those other items later. We've already approved the town council and the town manager appointments to the Energy, Climate and Action Committee. Your, in your packet includes the appointments to the standing committees of the town council. That was based on a survey that I did with all counselors and then consulted with councilor, with vice president, president Anna Devlin-Gothier. So we're going to move on then. I'm sorry, yes. Pat. Thank you. I have concerns about how the assignments, looking over it, what I've seen in several committees is two representatives from the same district sitting on the committee, which is partway to a majority automatically. And I think that I really urge you and the council to reconsider committee assignments that place two counselors on the same committee, two counselors from the same district on the same committee, because it creates an unfair advantage to that district and its counselors during discussion and in voting. This is especially important when we make resident appointments, when we're deciding issues. And in terms of the carryover menu memo, what we will carry over to the next year could be affected by that sort of a pre-alignment or a vote that doesn't always happen, but we've seen repeatedly that pre-alignment or district alignment has negatively impacted our work as a collaborative body. So I would like us to reconsider the assignments. It works numerically, I think it works in other ways. And I would like us to reconsider placement of two counselors from the same district on any committee. Jennifer? Well, yes, I had a concern that there are some counselors that have been on the same committee, like this would be the sixth consecutive year. So I think that might be something to reconsider as well. I would also add that counselors from the same district are not necessarily aligned. There's no, you know, there's no requirement that, that's just an assumption that doesn't really hold together. But I am concerned that some counselors have been on the same committees since the inception of the council. So if we're going to consider, reconsider committee appointments, I think that would be a consideration, I would say more so than the districts that counselors are representing. Kathy? I completely disagree with the idea that two people from the same district will have similar views. They may in fact have similar views on some issues, but I think we should be treated as individuals as counselors. And so I'll just leave it there. You know, the, I think this year, if you look at how people ranked their committees, the president had way more takers for a couple of committees than slots. And so it was a juggling act. And I'll just say that I have been on finance for, it will be the whole time. And I considered dropping off it so that I could get on the committee that I've never been able to get on. And I know that offer would have been there for me if I'd wanted to, but I have two other committees that I'm working on. And I finally decided I just don't have the time. Otherwise I would have argued hard. So I'm not sure longevity matters as much on some of the committees, on some of the others. I know when you were earlier on trying to rotate people on and off committees to give people experiences. And so that doesn't always work when we need to have some depth and some continuity. But I definitely think when I look around the districts, we have disparate people elected from different districts that come from very different places. Pam, Ernie. Thank you. I think given the fact also that there are ongoing members, some of you have served in fact for five years. There's much more of a precedent setting with the way you vote, the way you tackle different issues. It's pretty well known what positions may be before there is, as committee assignments are made. And I think that probably plays a much, much larger role in this election if one were to push the scale of populating a committee with one group of people versus another, I think it's really that longevity and pre-preference that plays a larger role than what district one is from. I want to say thank you for your feedback and the appointments stand as I made them. We're moving on to the Jones Library Building Committee. I want to thank all of you for expressing your interest. Five counselors have expressed interest. They are Counselor Mandy Jo Hanneke. Well, excuse me, Counselor Hanneke, Bob Hegner, Pam Rooney, Counselor Ryan and Andy Steinberg. Is there anybody who would like their name removed from that list? Counselor Hanneke. I will withdraw my interest while I'm still interested but I will withdraw my name from consideration. Okay. Is there anybody else? Is there anybody who would like, I'm sorry, Andy? I think I'm also willing to withdraw my name because I think it is an important committee and if there are other interested people as there are, I'm willing to withdraw from that too. Okay. Are there any other people who would like to add their name to this list? All right. Then at this point, the list includes Bob Hegner, Pam Rooney, Counselor Ryan. The floor is open for discussion and I'll take comments from candidates first. At the conclusion of the discussion when I call your name, indicate your preferred candidate. If a person does not get seven votes, I will ask if anyone wants to withdraw and we will do another round. So, Counselor Walker. I'm sorry, can you just repeat for me one more time the counselors who are interested? Yes. Bob Hegner, Pam Rooney, Counselor Ryan. Thank you. Absolutely. Pam? I would be happy to speak for my interest in this particular committee. I have a background of construction and construction management and I think that it would be a really good use of my skills to step onto a committee that's been going for some time but certainly as they go in to the final phase of establishing construction drawings, there are just always things that come up that I think would benefit from just having someone with a really broad array of construction and construction management experience. I have in my own heart wanted to acknowledge that my former counselor, Anika Lopes, had a very strong interest in the Civil War tablets and their placement and I would like to make sure that those are carried through to fruition so that those stand where they ought to in the new building. Okay. Are there any other people who would like to make comments? George Ryan. Thank you. This is something that I've been involved with on many levels for a number of years and I think just from purely personal point of view, I would like to see it brought to its conclusion. I don't have the kind of construction experience that PAM has, I can't bring that to the table but I do have a deep commitment to the project and we give it a great deal of attention and effort. Okay. Are there any other comments? Seeing none, so as I call your name, your choices include Bob Hegner, Pam Rooney, counselor Ryan and we'll begin with counselor Lord. Abstain. Pam Rooney. Pam Rooney. Ryan. Ryan. I'm sorry, Bob. Oh my God, wow. I'm sorry, counselor Ryan. Ryan, okay. Counselor, I'm sorry, Kathy Shane. Pam Rooney. Andy Steinberg. George Ryan. Jennifer Toph. Pam Rooney. Counselor Walker. Pam Rooney. Pat DeAngelis. Bob Hegner. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Pam Rooney. Ette. Rhysmer is abstain. Counselor Hanakie. George Ryan. Bob Hegner. Abstain. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six for Rooney, one, two, three for Ryan and one for Hegner, right? And three abstentions, yes. And three abstentions, okay. Is there anybody who would like to withdraw? Okay, then we're going to go back around again. We start in this case, yes. I'm sorry, George. I guess I just need... Counselor Ryan. That's all right. It just needs to understand why we're going back again. We're trying to get to seven votes. Seven votes, then I withdraw. Oh, okay. This is Bob. I also withdraw. All right, so with that then, I'm going to make a motion. And the motion is to recommend the town manager appoint Counselor Rooney to the Jones Library Building Committee for a term to last the length of the building project. Is there a second? Lord second. Are there any other questions or comments? Okay, then we're going to begin with Counselor Ryan. Rooney. You just need to say aye. Aye. Thank you. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Toppe. Yes. Counselor Walker. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. Aye. Donna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Ette. Aye. Counselor Griesmer is an, I mean, I'm sorry, Lynn Griesmer is an aye. Woo. I'll get there. Counselor Hanneke. Aye. Bob Hegner. Aye. Counselor Lord. Aye. Pam Rooney. Aye. That's unanimous. Okay, the next one is the budget coordinating group. In this case, there are three people that we appoint and two can be from finance but don't have to be, but only two can be from finance. The names that have been submitted are Anna Devlin-Gothier, Lynn Griesmer, Mandy, Counselor Hanneke, Bob Hegner, Counselor Lord, Counselor Ryan, and Andy Steinberg. Are there any people who would like to withdraw? I'm sorry, George. I would like to withdraw. Are there any other people who would like to withdraw? Bob Hegner would like to withdraw. Yes, I'd like to withdraw. Pam Rooney, you had your hand up. I was gonna ask if we could identify those people who are on the finance committee, if we're limited to only two from the finance committee. Right. Those that are remaining on the list that are on the finance committee are Counselor Hanneke and Andy Steinberg, okay? Is there anybody who would like their name added? Then, I'm sorry, you vote for three. So- Point of order, you can vote for more, you can send more than three representatives. It's no more than two from finance committee and less more than three budget coordinating group representatives. But we only have three seats. I can bring up the charge. Thank you. So, typically there have been three seats and we also invite the similar numbers from the school committee and library trustees because otherwise it gets a very unwieldy number. It seems to be fair to have the same number of seats for each of the three elected bodies, but there is no limit on the number of people according to the charge. I got it. Thank you. So, as you can see on the screen, the number of voting members is NA, BCG works by consensus. So, if we had at this point five people, then that means the total body would be 15 people unless the others don't want to appoint three. It's up to each body to appoint members to serve as their representatives. The council can- So, if that's- It is unlikely that the other bodies would appoint more than two, well, two for school committee and three for library because otherwise they'd have to call those meetings as meetings of the whole because they'd have corners. It's actually a very good point. So, in this case then, unless anybody else wants to withdraw, then the motion would be to appoint counselors on it, Devon Gothier, Lynn Griezmer, Mandy Jo Hanneke, Hala Lord and Councilor Andy Steinberg to the BCG group effective immediately for a term to expire January 6th, 2025. Is Mandy Jo, you have your hand up. I thought we should at least have a discussion as to how many we might want to appoint before we make a motion. All right. Are there people who would like to make comments? Kathy. I think five is too many. I'm sorry? I think having five people be part of this is too many. Okay. Anna. I agree. I think five is too many. I also think that wouldn't this mean it as a quorum of the finance committee? If Mandy, Bob and Andy are all, I'm sorry. Bob with Joe. Oh, Bob with Joe. Okay, I'm sorry. You said your name and I got a few. Thank you for clarifying. I agree. I think five is too many. My comment here is that I think the reason why I'll speak for myself personally wanted to stay on this or wanted to add myself to this list is because I was removed from finance committee I served in the prior year on finance. And I felt that there was some experience that I would bring to this having served on finance but not being a finance committee member at the time. I will also speak positively if it's okay. One of the reasons why I was looking at this list, I was excited about Holla's name on here. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Councilor Lord's name on here was that they'd previously served on the school committee and I thought might bring a really interesting perspective having previously held that post. If you don't mind me saying that was one of the reasons I was excited about that. I also, I think where I'm struggling if I can be very candid is that I would love to be on either budget coordinating group or joint capital. And when I look at the names of the folks who have asked to be on joint capital there's folks who have served on it in the past and I'm sure have done a really great job. And so I think what I'm struggling with is I'd be happy with one or the other but I want one or the other. And I can't guarantee that I'll get the other one if I withdraw my name from this. So I think that's, I'm gonna name that I'm challenged by this. Last thing, I think I said that last time and I apologize. We're heading into a really challenging year in terms of our budgets. And I think that this coordination is gonna be critical in the coming year, especially as we're looking at school budgets across our areas, not just in Amherst. And so I believe that I would bring a balanced perspective to that having served on finance but also having been tapped in at looking at the broader picture as well. Thank you. And there are other comments. Andy? Yeah, I thought I'd raised my hand on it. I guess I hadn't. The reason, I think it's a little bit awkward to be doing it in the order that we're doing it because we haven't convened as a committee and decided on officers to the committee at this point. But from my experience, the connection between the finance committee, which is ultimately gonna make the decisions to act on the work of the budget coordinating group and the budget coordinating group discussions sort of, they're intuitively tied together. And I've thought about this for a long time because I said, well, it's public meeting and does it matter because we don't take boats at the BCG anyway. And but I think that it's important that there be significant finance committee participation based upon years and years of experience in both groups. BCG meets rarely, but when it meets, there's something critical that is going on in the budget process. And I think that as pointed out this year is I think particularly likely to happen because of the budget crisis that I predict that the state is gonna be in in particular. And so it's a tough one, but I put my name forward because I think that the linkage between the finance committee and the BCG is so important. Pam, Rene. I was going to recommend that we vote for three people. Okay. Are there any other people who would like to make a statement or comment? I actually would like to, I'm going to be withdrawing my name from JCPC. And while I'm not on finance, I have been on finance for five years with experience with BCG. So are there any other comments? Jennifer. I'm gonna be withdrawing my name from JCPC as well. That makes any difference to Anna. Any commitment? Paula, I'm sorry, Chancellor Lord. I will also be withdrawing my name from JCPC. From which one? The joint capital, but it's not because of Anna. Okay. Pam, Rene. I was going to suggest that I also take my name off JCPC even though I really enjoyed it and thought I did a good job. Anna. All right, I'm reading the room. I will take a leap of faith. I'll remove my name from BCG. Leap of faith. Okay. So make sure I'm correct from this. The people remaining for BCG are Lynn Griezmer, Councilor Hanneke, Councilor Lord, Andy Steinberg. Is this correct? Okay. I'll deal with the other one later. All right. So, Pam, you have your hand up. So, I think we, while some people have expressed a desire to only have three, we have actually can do all four. Okay. Is there a, and right now there's two from finance. No, two. No. Give up that seat. All right. Is there a motion? I move to a point, a point. A point, thank you. A point, Councilor Lynn Griezmer, Councilor Mandi Johannake, Councilor Hollow Lord, and Councilor Andy Steinberg to the budget coordinating group. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Any other question or comment? Then we're going to move to a vote. I think we are up to Kathy Shane, Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Todd. Yes. Councilor Walker. Yes. Kathy Angelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Ette. Aye. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Councilor Hanneke. Aye. Bob Hegner. Aye. Councilor Lord. Aye. And Pam Rooney. Aye. Councilor Ryan. Aye. It's unanimous. So on JCPC, at this point, we have Anna Devlin-Gothier, Bob Hegner, Councilor Ryan, and Councilor Shane. Is there anybody who would like to withdraw their name or add their name? Then would you just read those again, who's on the list? Anna Devlin-Gothier, Bob Hegner, Councilor Ryan, and Kathy Shane. I think I got that right. Ryan, Councilor Ryan, you have your hand up. I withdraw. Okay. So we have Councilor Anna Devlin-Gothier, Bob Hegner, and Councilor Kathy, and Kathy Shane. So I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to appoint counselors. Oh, and then we'll have a discussion. To appoint counselors, Anna Devlin-Gothier, Bob Hegner, and Kathy Shane to the Joint Capital Planning Committee effective immediately for a term to expire January 6th, 2025. Is there a second? Second, Hanneke. Okay. And are there any people who would like to make comments? Seeing none, we're going to move to a vote. This time we start with Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jen, I'm sorry, point of order. So the charge of the JCPC says that there'll be seven members, two school committee members, two library trustees, and three town counselors, two of whom shall be on the finance committee. Two are, two are. But the memo is I believe phrased differently. You've got Bob Hegner and Kathy Shane are both finance committee. Correct. Okay. So we can proceed. Okay. Jennifer Taub. Yes, Councilor Walker. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Ette. Aye. Lynn Griezmann is an aye. I mean, Councilor Haneke. Aye. Bob Hegner. Yes. Councilor Lord. Aye. Pam Maroney. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. It's unanimous. The final motion is regarding Fortown's meeting it's to authorize the town council president and the chair of the finance committee to speak on behalf of the town council at 2020 Fortown's meetings. Is there a second? Sorry, point of order. Can you repeat what you said? Because the memo says president and vice president of finance committee. The council. Oh, I'm sorry. The memo's wrong. Okay. Just double checking. I'm totally wrong. You mean council president and chair of the finance committee. Thank you. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second it. Devlin-Gothier. Okay. Is there any other question or comment saying none? I'm going to move to a vote. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Councilor Walker. Yes. Pat D'Angeles. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Ette. Aye. Elaine Griezmer is in the eye. Councilor Hanakie. Aye. Bob Hegner. Aye. Councilor Lord. Aye. Pam Maroney. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andrew Steinberg. Yes. It's unanimous. We will begin polling for the first meetings of each of the committees. Standard practice is at the first meeting of each of the committees. There will be a chair elected and then the chair will manage the vice, excuse me, the president or their designee convenes the meeting, manages the election of the chair and then the chair manages the election of the vice chair. The purpose of putting this on the agenda here was that we would also include in the first council, in the first committee meetings, any items that people particularly feel need to be included in addition to the transition memos. Okay. And so I was going to ask particularly on each of the committees whether you have special things you feel should be included. And in this case, I think the best practice is to go back to the previous chair and vice chair and ask that question. Okay. So community resources committee, Mandy Jo and Pam Maroney, items that should be included in the first agenda. I believe rental registration should be and then a discussion regarding ZBA appointments because there are a couple of openings are the most important. I'm seeing nods from fellow committee members here. I think are the most important. Rental registration. Rental registration and a discussion on ZBA appointments are the two most important. ZBA. Thank you. And rental registration. Athena, you've got a draft agenda lists things separately just to be clear on everything we might discuss. The previous CRC was kind enough to put together an agenda for the first meeting. Right. That agenda includes every carryover item so you can just knock some stuff off. Okay. Finance committee, Andy and Kathy. Kathy, do you want to go first or? No. Okay. Then I'm going to throw out two and let you add or subtract as you see. I think that the most important ones is that we need to be starting with looking at the FY25 projected revenue available for the budget and any changes that we know from to the initial financial trends to report. I think by the time we meet, it is likely we're going to know what the governor's recommendation is going to be and we're going to have the formal legislative consensus of what legislative administrative consensus about what resources are available to the Commonwealth for the state budget. And so I think that's an important discussion that we have to have because we need to think about whether we're going to be able to afford to do what we even talked about in the guidelines. And the second item that I would put forward is that we revisit the funding plan for the major building projects with the addition of roads and sidewalks as one of the additional, as an additional add to the list of major projects. Okay. Kathy, did you have anything else? No, I would just point out that by the time this group meets, you may also know what the insurance rates are. Okay. The only thing, Andy, in terms of timing, we will have second quarter fairly soon by the end of January, second quarter. So we'll also have a good idea of how this year is going. You know, but you said both looking forward but also looking mid-year. Right. We also will, we have put on the agenda for discussion with Senator Comerford and Representative Dom that we want to make sure that we totally understand what any of the mid-year decisions and how they affect us. Okay. GOL, Pat and Jennifer. Okay. Excuse me. One of the things that needs to go forward is the legislative process guide that was suggested by Councilor Powell-Mill. Also Charter Commission appointments. Can you think of anything else, John? I would say those were the two most, well, and the finance reparations. Right, right. Committee work, yeah. And also the finance committee appointment. You've got a vacancy on finance. Oh, right. That's right. That's Bob Pickner's fault. And there are also, there are also two proclamations coming to GOL. Okay. Okay, yeah. TSO. Anna. TSO had an extensive caregiver memo on it included street lights and I'm not gonna lie to you, I don't have it pulled up in front of me right now and so I don't have it down, Pat. Thank you. Waste taller. Waste taller is in progress as well with TSO and we have turned the legislative process guide over to GOL, so I think that was that. Oh, and then speed limits and safety zones are the other thing that's in front of TSO. Coming back to TSO. Okay. That's more than enough for everybody to chew on. We've already approved the minutes. Paul, you have an extensive town manager report or there's some highlights? Yeah, I just want to note two things. I mean, you can read the report, but the governor today announced a number of nine C cuts, nine C cuts are cuts that are within the executive branch that the governor controls. And so she has decided not to spend money with the knowledge that the revenues are not coming in as well as they should have, as they were hoping for them to be. So we don't know if it has any direct impact on the town of Amherst at this point, chapter 17, chapter 90, which are two of our major funding sources are not impacted, but we will learn more specifics on that. The other thing I want to mention is that, during the holiday season, we had learned a lot about, we had been following COVID, COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising nationally and regionally, but they're not any worse than last year. We are only major tool right now is wastewater measuring, which was what we've been watching very closely, and we're continuing to measure that. Wastewater concentrations is high and it's also increasing across the United States. So it tells us how much virus is actually circulating in our community. No one, the experts are not expecting an Omicron level wave like we had previous years. They anticipate that the peak for this season will happen in the next few weeks. And when big people who are contracting COVID-19, the symptoms tend to be mild. So, and also the other thing that's a little concerning is that vaccination rates are relatively low. One in five people have been vaccinated. That's true nationally, but also true in Amherst. So we really encouraging people to get vaccinated. And I can... Wow, are there any questions? The vaccine was the latest version. Yeah, sorry. Are there any questions of the town manager? Anna, you have your hand up. It's not a question, and Paul, I think you gave us maybe the intensity lights of that report. And so I don't want to diminish those at all, but I did want to congratulate you on your nomination for second vice president of MMA. That's really exciting. Thank you. Thank you. Bob Higner. Yes, I'd be very interested in seeing the hazard mitigation plan update when it's available. Mm-hmm. I think it's something that we all should be aware of. And in particular, I have a background in disaster recovery. Of course. So Chief Nelson is our emergency management person. So he is coordinating that. So we'll make sure you get eyes on that. Councilor Ryan. First of all, Paul, as always, thank you for this very detailed and very informative report that you do. I always perk up when I see road work under public works. And I'm looking at item bullet three, which says the town was awarded a bid of $2.7.5 million for paving the following roads. And I got really excited. And the next sentence is, unfortunately this work was not so I'm wondering, was there actually something missing? Oh, that was just a tease you to see if you read it. So you're the second counselor that pointed that out to me. So thank you. You and Councilor Hagner win. So I will share that out with the folks. There are some roads. There are roads that the bid has been awarded. So for those who didn't notice a shame on you. We deserve that. Andy, you have your hand up. Yes. I guess the other thing I would add is also that I have received the email from Jackie Laberberg today and Tim gave it to me. I see that's not voting. Fortunately, that's the formula to have consistent news. Good. Any other questions or comments for the town manager? I'm racing the clock gang. All right. Very quickly, the Anna and I had about a two hour plus meeting today talking about her roles as vice president. And one of the things that Anna will be doing is she will be managing the process for the housing authority election appointments. Thank you. And then also doing some tracking on legislation with the more detailed to be to follow with a written report. The first time you'll see that will probably be in February. So those were starters. And then let me also mention on the agenda items for the coming 22nd, which is right after some of us will be at MMA. We will be working on housing authority interview questions. Are we going to have an AT&T public hearing on a petition? We don't know. As soon as you say yes. As soon as I say yes. You confirm that date. We're having it. Okay. We'll have two proclamations, Black History Month, Lunar New Year. We will have the three remaining policy goals from the town for the town manager's goals. We may have the CPA recommendations for referral to finance. There is an item about parking spaces on Spring Street. And we will continue with the review of our rules of procedure. And I hope to have a written president's report. Are there any other agenda items people would like to request for the upcoming meeting? Councilor Ryan, you have your hand up. Kathy Shane, you have your hand up. It's more of a question, Lynn. I know we've talked about a potential retreat. So maybe by the 22nd you could talk about it because in connection with rules of procedure, there are some things, more major changes that I think would be useful to have a discussion that we're not gonna be having just with the amendment you've done and to see whether we can make sure that's on the agenda for the retreat. Okay. And Anna, I mean, Athena, too many eggs. Athena has already collected some dates potentially for the retreat. So we'll be getting ready to poll that. The other thing is we will be polling you for your first committee meetings. And I know we, you know, in many ways we already have times that these committees have met in the past. We'll probably include that, but that is not the only option. Every committee has to look again at what is best for the members of that committee. Are there any other council questions or comments? Kathy? I just have a quick report on the elementary school building committee. Please go ahead. It'll be really quick. We're meeting this Friday. We have the new updated cost estimates and the really good news is they're slightly under where we were before. We are not having to cut anything out and just to have a confidence in that we still have around $7 million in contingency money with the latest estimates. And that includes a lot of new energy updates that we put in. So the other piece is we're getting near to saying March will be when the first fence goes up. But we'll have a discussion on making sure that's well known. I talked with Paul briefly, you know, do something that's an event that this is starting because the first package is gonna go out. So it's pretty exciting. It's moving from those videos to something very real. Great. Thank you. Are there any other council comments? Jennifer? I just wanted to ask about council liaisons to... The list, there is a memo. That list now goes... And thank you for bringing it up. That list now goes to GOL. The chair of GOL once elected then goes back and checks with those committees to see if they continue to want a liaison and then GOL decides can we do that? The only other committee that has requested a liaison is HRC and they did that in late November or December. So if we have the time, can we continue to go to our... If you have the time, you can go to any meeting you want to. But you're technically not a liaison until you're appointed by the council. Yes. I believe you're meant to solicit input from all town committees if they'd like a liaison at the beginning of the year that the president sends out a request of any committee so that GOL can consider any committees who wish to have a council liaison. And Angela does have a list of all the committees and so forth. I mean, we have to be realistic in terms of how much time counselors really have to be liaisons. So there has to be a recommendation from GOL as to which ones should have liaisons. Councilor Walker. Thank you. I probably should have asked this during the town manager report. So I apologize, but I'm just wondering, and this is for Paul, if we have an update or when we can expect to revisit the ARPA funds. So I'll talk to the council president probably, I don't think it'll be this next meeting in January, but we expect to do it in February. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Andy. Yeah, I guess a question about what is the status of people who previously were liaisons to committees until GOL completes its process? And I ask that because the tax, the transportation advisory committee is meeting this week and I got, I received the link for the Zoom participation in the meeting. I would suggest as a courtesy, if you're able to attend, that's fine and you may decide you would like to continue when that comes up. Does that work for you? That's really along the same lines as Jennifer asked. Yes, though, if there's any members of the council who in particular had members who are going to be untapped next year, who would really like to take that over, they might want to give me a call. On TSO. Yeah, TSO on regarding TAC for I think it's Thursday. Thank you. Councillor Walker, you have your hand up. Sorry, I just didn't take it down. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Yes, Pat. A really quick comment. I've been listening all evening to Councillor Lorde, Bob, you know, Councillor Hanigan. And I really feel like we should move to all being called Councillor Shane, Councillor DeAngelo, and out of respect for the people who wished to be called that because it just feels very awkward and odd to me. I would suggest that we not try to resolve that tonight, but we bring it on the agenda for the 22nd, okay? Is there any other questions or comment? Seeing none, the meeting is adjourned. It's 9.47.