 Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the meeting of the Amherstown Council on August 19th to order, excuse me, and it's five minutes after five. Let me just say I'm not going to spend much time. We have no announcements, we have no hearings, we have no proclamations, and we are going to spend the first hour and a half reading the performance evaluation. This is a reading period. You're welcome to sit here and watch us read. Let me also say I'd like to explain to the councillors what you have before you, okay? And I'll do that as soon as we get two or three more people seated. You take one of each item. Okay, there's something wrong with that Athena. Which one is it? Which one is it? No, there's two giant ones. Here is another copy, because God knows, go get food now, or are we still going to call boarder? It's in the stack, it's in the stack. It's in the stack. All right, what you have in front of you are eight different documents. The biggest ones, the biggest one, single one, is individual evaluations that each of you did. The next largest one is the composite. And that was created from a summary created by SurveyMonkey. And that composite then forms the basis about the memo that you have that is to Paul, from me, with the CC to all of you, dated August 18th. Okay? This actually should be the 19th, but I'm not worried about that right now. Let me just explain. What you need to be doing is probably focusing most of your time on the memo to answer the question, does it reflect how I have done this evaluation? And things that I have said, and in general, do I agree with the summary statements? But let me also point out to you that if you'll turn to page two under fiscal management and just look at 1A, Negotiate Host Community Agreements. If you read all the way through there, you get to a parentheses that says A.1.A or Q2. A.1.A is the goal, as it was stated in the goals that the select board set with the town manager. Q2 is the question from SurveyMonkey. So each of them are correlated. And then what you have here is the percentages from the SurveyMonkey. And then if you go on and there's all these questions go under fiscal management. And finally you get to page four. And each of the things that are written here is a paragraph, for the most part, it's a paragraph for each of the questions. So for example, the first one is just a summary paragraph. But the second one is really about marijuana. So that's why it's highlighted in dark, so that you know which paragraphs relate to what, okay? And obviously you can't reflect exactly what everybody says. But what you can do is say, do I agree with it and does it reflect how I feel? The matrix that you have actually lists the six themes that I organized this by, which are fiscal management, long range planning, relationship of the select board in town council, staff and personnel relations, community intergovernment relations, and volunteer committees, boards and commissions. And then the final one is transition to the implementation, excuse me, the word of should be there, the new form of government. And each of this is the general themes that are under each of those six. And these are the item numbers from the survey monkey that are clustered into that, okay? I do want to say, and I'll mention this later, this evaluation not only includes the statements or the individual evaluations of 13 counselors who've all diligently and I might say spent a great deal of time and thought on this evaluation. It actually comprises over 90-some questions that in addition to that, we sought comments from the public. We received only three. We sought comments from committee chairs and commissions, et cetera. We got 10. We sought comments from staff and we got, I believe, 30. And a breakout of that is in the back of the memo that you have. So it does provide you with a sense of what kind of individual additional feedback we received. Each counselor was provided with those comments from the public, from individuals, and from committee members. And they were to take that into consideration in their writing to the extent that they felt it was applicable. In no case do any of those, I just want to say, they don't represent a sample. It's totally voluntary. Those will never be made public because those are considered private documents to the council. On the other hand, the council documents, the council evaluations individually and the composite, as well as the memos, will be made public. And in fact, Athena just went and did that. They're now filed and made public. Okay. Are there any questions from the council at this time? Yes. Alyssa. So first comment, because this is Amherst, and that's how we always open every question, is I can't believe the extra amount of work that staff and the president had to put into this to do this instrument this way versus the way the select board has done it in the past. So she's given you a huge amount of cross-reference data that was not necessarily done that way in the past. So it was always an immense amount of work. It used to take me 10 hours just to fill the thing out, much less to write the summary document. So I can't even fathom how many hours of additional staff time and went into this. So trying to be incredibly respectful of that, that leads me into my question. So we have this, what I'm hoping, I'm perceiving correctly, as a guide to who made which comments, so that if you look under each question and you see number five, you know that belongs to Alyssa Brewer. Actually, it doesn't work that way. That's what I was wondering about, because it clearly doesn't work that way. The only way it correlates is if you look at the date and the time. So for example, I'll just point out, Steve Shriver was absolutely right on the ball. He did his on 7.15, 2019, and completed it by then, okay? So whenever you see in the right-hand side a comment, you see that date. That is Steve, but it does not translate to a name. And not everybody commented on all questions. But just to follow up, every single one that says number, ignore the number. Right. Look at the date and time. And match that back to the term on the previous guide. If we can confirm that yours is there. If we can figure out a way to change how that comes out, we will. But right now, we haven't. I would also just mention, we will convene into a regular session at 6.30. At that point, we'll take public comment. However, we will not be taking public comment on the town manager's performance evaluation, because that is identified in the agenda as a place for public comment. And that would not be until we finish our reading period, have our council discussion, and then accept public comment, okay? Are there any questions at this point? Happy reading. It's almost 6.30. Anybody else want to take a break? Did you take a break? Not yet, but I will later. All right. So we have some regular business to conduct tonight. So if you'll just put this all aside, we're going to go to the agenda. And we're actually going to move on to general public comment. And again, this is not on the town manager's evaluation. That opportunity will come later. Is there anybody that would like to make general public comment? Okay. Seeing none, then we're going to move on to the action items. And the first, Mandy Jo, it's rules of procedure. This is the second reading and the adoption. And we do have a slide for this. I'll check again, yeah. We did ask for public comment earlier, but not on the town manager's evaluation. Is there anybody who has just joined us that would like to make public comment? Okay, thank you. Thanks, Athena. So we created a slideshow this week to describe some of the more major changes. This first page of the slideshow says sort of the general overall changes which was fixing Scrivener's errors, adding the hyperlink. So most of the changes you see in that document when a reference to a charter or an MGL or a CMR is highlighted saying there's a change. It's because we added the hyperlink to the reference online to those items so that people could just click on it and be directed directly to the mass general law that it's referring to. And so those are the bulk of these changes, adding the table of contents too. And all of that was requested by the ad hoc rules of procedure committee's final report that was then referred to us by the town council. So on the next slide, this one shows sort of the first the first sort of substantive change. And all of these changes are nearly all of them, I believe are as a result of what that ad hoc committee, the ad hoc rules committee, brought to the town council when we adopted the final rules and then a list of things we still needed to look at. And so this is what we've been working on. And this first one is serve as a spokesperson, it would add letter H to rule 2.2 to serve as a spokesperson of the council for all inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council. This was on by unanimous vote of the GOL to put this specific language in. And we wanted to clarify when a request comes in from either the media or really just anyone addressed to the full town council, who's the one that should be responding on behalf of the town council? And so this is what this language is attempting to do. It is not attempting to prevent counselors from speaking on behalf of themselves if requested. And so we debated a bunch of language and this is what GOL came up with as what we thought best sort of when we sort of addressed both of those concerns, the concern that it should be clear who can speak for the whole council but also should not limit each of us as an elected official for corresponding with constituents even if they addressed a question to the whole council or to the media or things like that. And so this was sort of our attempted compromise on that one. So the next slide. This is rules 3.5 and 4.4, all of which relates to executive sessions. 4.4 was just to clarify that in order to go into executive session, the vote needs to be taken by roll call, that is part of MGL law. So it was just add that in just to be clarifying. Rule 3.5, B4, I did not show section A, is sort of is an attempt to make sure that executive session minutes are reviewed on a regular basis and what that means. So a lot of this MGL obviously has some requirements. This goes slightly further than those requirements to define sort of times. Not to exceed three months and not later than October 31st of every calendar year to make sure they are reviewed to determine whether they can be released or not. And we kept, we had a couple of options for who reviews them to determine whether they can be released. And the choice that GOL is presenting tonight is that it would be the whole town council. That it is not, one of the options was that the president could do it without reference to the town council as a whole making that decision. And we as GOL felt that keeping it as a decision for the council and not the president was in line with what we believed this council would prefer. So next slide please. Rule 8.2, this is financial. We were asked to review the language of the automatic referral for financial measures to determine and make a decision on whether everything should be automatically reviewed, whether the budget should be exempted, the annual budget or whether everything should be exempted and all financial measures should come to the council before they get referred on to the finance committee. And the GOL through consensus is presenting this language to you which changes what was adopted in at our first adoption of the rules to everything. That's what we had originally passed as an automatic referral to everything but the budget, the annual budget submitted under charter section 5.5 which is the annual budget in the generally the May 1 submission. So that's the change there. Everything's crossed out just because it made it easier to just do a full cross out and replace instead of try to add the specific language in. Okay, next one. Rule 9.4, I put this in here. The changes are moving, there's the change to the law which was to add in more specific and these were all subject to MGLs. So they're not anything we're adding new and saying these will have to be roll call. They were already required under state law. Enter into our exit from executive session and release executive session minutes. So we're just putting them in there as a reference. The nine vote items, those two new nine vote items are actually being moved from requiring at least two thirds of counselors present and voting in favor when abstentions don't count to a minimum of nine votes and that was based upon an opinion we received from the town attorney. So this is to update based on a town attorney opinion the bills on unpaid bills from previous fiscal year and borrowing authorizations based on MGL sections and a town attorney opinion that says it's going to be nine votes at a minimum. So it's just to make that conform with town attorney opinion on what we actually have to do. Next one, rule 10.3 and appendices B and C. The GOL in discussing appendix B was originally going to include all the town council committee charges and when GOL started discussing how to do that and with a goal of not having to modify by vote here in town council when a committee charge changes, we agreed by consensus to delete the appendix and instead do hyperlinks to the standing committee charges which is why those five committees are now underlined those are the hyperlink to the charges on the website. So when the charges change and the website is updated the hyperlinks will automatically update well the hyperlinks will still be active and they'll go to the new charge and so that will require less updating of the rules of procedure by vote of the council. In discussing appendix C it was a similar reasoning and this was a unanimous vote also to delete it. The OCA appointment process and appointment confirmation process is likely to change regularly potentially and so again with GOL's goal of not having to revise the rules on a fairly regular basis for things like that we thought it best to just delete the appendix. Okay then I think there's one more potentially. Yep, 10.6. This one is a proposal to delete 10.6 J and then renumber K to J. We were asked by the council to discuss the language that's there and lined out right now. Committees have the right and obligation to be creative, offer opinions including majority or minority views and produce documents and to try and come up with new language that might better reflect the goal but also be enforceable and in discussing that at the GOL committee in the end GOL voted to remove the language completely when it looked at all the others A through proposed K would be new J they all had sort of shouts, maize they could be determined that when you look at that you can say well we did provide for a period of public comment if you look at H the minutes did comply with rule 3.5 A but when you looked at the current J you couldn't really make a determination was this followed or not so that was a concern in terms of a consistency that that one subsection of rule 10.6 was not really consistent in its sort of mandate that the other ones are the other recognition was that our appendix A, the values appendix really does cover our desire to be creative offer opinions and all of that and also I think it's J the committee reports are actually required under new J, old K, current K to offer the reasonings behind any recommendations including majority minority views opposing opinions and all of that pros and cons related to proposed action memorial minority views current K one requires all of that so we didn't believe in deleting this that we actually lost any of what that item says and because they were covered under appendix A and mostly under what would become J and I think that's our last slide am I right or did I miss one, oh one more 10.10 was language for nonvoting members of finance committee again with a goal of not having to revise this on a regular basis recognizing that that appointment process might change GL opted for language that might be able to withstand any changes to the actual process while also being clear as to who the appointing authority is so that's why that changes there and those represent the bulk of the proposed changes coming out of GL I do wanna identify that work groups are not included in this because we had not gotten to that language yet they will be coming a proposed language proposed language for work groups has been agreed upon to be forwarded to the council as a whole at our last GL meeting there has been a request that it not be forwarded until we also look at language for ad hoc committees so that is why it's not being presented tonight because some of the language will potentially require some changes to the ad hoc committee language and we'd like to present them together a full report on that language and the discussion that you all had for work group languages will be presented when we bring that to the council when those two sections are ready. If I correct that this is exactly the same thing that we were presented on the 23rd yes of July, okay. Are there questions from the council? Yes, Andy. Excuse me, I have one and it goes back to 3.5B4 which is the council minutes from executive sessions. I'm not sure the more I read that new language the less clear I am about what is intended for the intervals. Is and have assumed that it is no more frequent than once every three months and that there has to be at least one a year and then the question of where the October 31st fits in is that there has to be one in the year before October 31st. That's the only way I can make sense of it all but I realized when I was rereading it again today and I was still confused by it, it seemed to me that there might be some need for better clarity of language. So this language nearly mirrors if my memory serves me correct MGL chapter 30A section 22 nearly which is why it's there but it would mean entering into executive session at least every three months. So no fewer than every three months so more than once a year at a minimum at least every third month to review the minutes to determine whether they can be released. The October 31st of every year is a desire for to at least do it by then if we haven't or even if we haven't so that if there's an election in that year, executive session minutes that can be released are released prior to the election and guaranteed to be released prior to sort of an election or the end of a council term. And that was the best way we could figure out how to word that and to put a hard date on that. It Northampton has very similar language. I don't know what their date is whether it's a week prior to the election or but they also had this provision to make sure anything that could be released prior to an election was released prior to an election. Yes Dorothy. I don't really understand that if this is something that somebody needs to have released before an election, get in on October 31st is what I call an election leave surprise and is not a good idea. So if it is important to have these things released before an election, I would say October 1st, not the 31st at the least. Other comments is Andy. I mean going back to that and to Dorothy's point, I thought about the same thing and then the additional point is that it's not October 31st of an election year. It's October 31st of every year and which adds to the confusion level. I have to now to go back and look at the statute in order to be able to put the statute to what is put forward. Doing requiring an executive session for the purpose of reviewing minutes every three months may in fact be more than is warranted given the number of executive sessions that bodies are likely to have and to say that you have to have a meeting in order to review minutes when there may not have been meetings that need minutes to review. I mean I think that there's just some clarity in thought that might be given to that either by subsequent discussion or by holding that one section but I'm finding it very confusing. Okay, so at this point let's stay with this issue. Are there any other comments about this particular item? So one option is to try to edit it here. The other option is to put it aside and ask that GOL come back with this at a future time and we go ahead with the other pieces that are here to change. I would suggest the latter if we really feel it needs to be reviewed for additional clarity and based on the input here today. That perhaps October 31st seems like a little bit late. That was one comment I heard. And the other comment is that, Andy correct me if I'm wrong, is that in non-election years October 31st or whatever date we choose in October is arbitrary? Amanda Jo. So the MGL requires someone to meet at reasonable intervals. So we could delete everything. The clause after that shall at reasonable intervals enter executive session if people are concerned about the rest and then it would pretty much conform with MGL. The question I would have for the council, I don't have a problem with you guys sending it back to GOL for more discussion. I'm curious what the council thinks. Like I said, we had a couple of options on who makes the determination and we are proposing the town council. If the town council is concerned with having to enter into executive session just to do this when we haven't had one, would the council as a whole be more comfortable with it being the president making the determination because that is an option that we could propose. And so I would ask that if you send it back to GOL you give us some guidance as to who you want doing this. Are there thoughts on that particular issue? Yes, Alyssa. On that particular issue, yes, I prefer that it be the entire town council. I personally prefer that. Andy. I also prefer that which is why I then got into the question of whether it needs to happen every three months to have council meetings. But I do think that the decision should belong to the council. All right, so I'm going to suggest that we look at the rest of this, that we take this piece and it goes back to GOL with what we've just discussed. Okay. So any other questions about other parts of it? Yes, Alyssa. So if we do that, I believe we're not including this paragraph at all. That's correct. And so the other, I know we don't want to believe with this and we have a lot to do but having heard all the comments that people made I'm suggesting every six months and just leave it at that and not mention October 31st and use six months instead of three months as the interval and just make those two edits and call that good because we will every six months have had several meetings to choose from to which to put an executive session. And it prevents us from saying, oh wait, have we done that in a year? All right, so would you please read to me what you would like that to say? Where it says at reasonable intervals not to exceed six months, comma, cross out and blah, blah, blah, blah through year and just go to enter executive session under. So that whole clause that says October 31st, does that still scan, Mandy Jo? Does that, is that consistent with MG Mass General Law? Yeah, as my understanding is Mass General Law just said at reasonable intervals, enter executive session. So we added those two clauses. So. All right, so Alyssa would you please make that as a motion? So moved. I'm sorry. We don't have a motion on the table yet to amend. That's right. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make the notes if I make the motion to adopt, I can add that directly into that motion. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other pieces of this that counselors would like to discuss at this time before we move to vote? Yes, Dorothy. I would just say it seems like a good job with the exception of the thing that we're clarifying. And I also really appreciate the slides. I think it helps us all understand things better. Yes, Alyssa. Completely separate issue. In terms of setting a standard for future documents, not because we should have known to do it this time. In addition to the table of contents where it says adopted and it should show revised, which it doesn't on the current draft, on the footer of every single page, it should say what this document is and when it was revised so that you don't have to pull it out and wonder, wait, are these bylaws or what are these? Yeah, just the title of the document and a revision date and the footer would be amazing. Okay. All right. So Mandy Jo, given the language that we have, do you want to go ahead and make a motion? I will give me a second to pull it all up. So I move to amend the town council rules of procedure that were adopted on May 20th, 2019 with the revisions indicated in the document titled quote, rules of procedure dash adopted dash 2019 dash O5 dash 20 dash proposed GOL amendments dash 2019 dash O7 dash 10 GOL vote dash marked up version and quote to add a table of contents, add the language and hyperlinks which are indicated as pink underlined language, delete the lined out language and change in the language of section 3.5, point B, point four, the words three months to six months and delete in that same section the words quote and not later than October 31st, 31 of every calendar year. Period. I further move that the clerk shall update the pagination of the table of contents as necessary once and the footer of the document once these revisions are adopted. Is there a second? Okay, Pat has seconded that. Athena, I wanna make sure you have all of that. Would you like me to read it back? Please. I move to amend the town council rules of procedure that were adopted on May 20th, 2019 with the revisions indicated in the document titled rules of procedure, so forth, to add a table of contents, add the language and hyperlinks which are indicated as pink underlined language, delete the lined out language and change the language in section 3.5, point B, point four from three months to six months and delete and not later than October 31st of every calendar year. I further move that the clerk shall update the pagination of the table of contents as necessary once these revisions are adopted. And the thing about the footer. And the footer. It was the table of contents and the footer is necessary. Sorry, I added that too. And a footer throughout the document. Thank you. Alyssa, the motion's been made in seconded, comments. I'm willing to put this on the future list rather than trying to make yet more changes, but up until page 10, which is sections, okay, it's not scrolling, you're just gonna take my word for it. Up until page 10, which we consistently say clerk of the council or town clerk. And then suddenly on page 10, we just start saying clerk. And I think we shouldn't do that. I think so many people have been used to the town clerk as a thing that we should be really clear that we're talking clerk of the council every single time, but that's just something. It's one of those things that later cleanup is fine with. Since we expect GOL to come back with potentially language around ad hoc and also working groups, perhaps they'll come back with those as well. Okay, anything else? Any other questions? Then I call the question. All those in favor, please raise your hands and say aye. That was 11 ayes. Are any abstentions? Any against? I'm sorry, I took that in the wrong order. And two people absent. So it's 11, four, none against. No, no, no, zero abstaining and two people absent. Okay, we're going to move on to the council order with regard to, I'm sorry, the Energy and Climate Action Committee, Darcy. Thank you. You should have received a motion in your packet today that is a little bit more extensive than the previous motion. The committee added a preamble that because they were interested in explaining to the committee why they are seeking an extension of the order. And I also want to introduce you to the chair of the committee who's here, Laura Drucker. She's also the sustainability officer at Amherst College and of course, Stephanie Tegrello, who's staffed to the committee. I'm just going to read the motion and it explains the reasons why we want the extension. But just in addition to that, I just want to state that one of the reasons obviously is that we want to do more outreach. And one of the things that we were not able to do with an extension ending today was to do outreach to students and youth. And we wanted to be able to do that. Our youth aren't coming back for a while. So the Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee requests a 90 day extension of the time needed to bring climate action goals to the town council in order to both respect the urgency with which the original order was made and take the following actions necessary to responsibly and thoroughly develop initial recommendation for climate action goals. Complete initial outreach with the Amherst community during September and October 2019. In these three different ways via two or three public forums to discuss the rationale for urgent climate action with the Amherst community and listen to ideas and concerns of residents. Evert will be made to engage with underrepresented groups, environmental justice communities and students. Also via educational materials that present a rationale for urgent climate action. And also via interviews and questionnaires to engage key business and community leaders and town of Amherst staff. And we also want to further study climate action goals and other progressive communities. So, and the motion is therefore the Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee requests that the Amherst Town Council amend order 01, 28, 2019, 6B2 passed on January 28th, 2019, ordering the Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee to submit initial goals to the town council by striking the phrase within 90 days of its first meeting and replacing it with within 180 days of its first meeting. Is there a second? Second. Okay, Andy. And let's make sure we have the motion the way it's been made. Athena, are we okay? All right, council discussion. Let me just say I'm very pleased to see the extension and the reason for the extension since I was very clear that public outreach was high on my list. So we look forward to you coming back and thank you Laura and Stephanie for your work as well as Darcy. Yes. So, and we have discussed in the committee sort of two levels of outreach. The first that we're going to try to complete in the next three months is sort of initial outreach and then we'll have a whole other plan for deeper outreach to do in conjunction with our climate action plan. Great. Are there any further questions at this time? Then we'll take a vote. All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Opposed, abstain. And we have two people absent. So it's 11, four, zero, opposed, zero, abstain and two absent. We're moving on to the dog park permanent use of the public way. Mr. Zomac. Thank you very much. I'll try to be brief. I know you have a long agenda tonight. Here before you, I was here a few meetings ago outlining, broadly outlining the project. As you know, the dog park task force has been working extremely hard over a number of months to try to fund and design a dog park off of old Belchertown Road at the site of the South landfill, our oldest capped landfill. And you as the having authority over the public way, we had come before you outlining a request to use part of that public way for parking and other improvements to the frontage to welcome people to the dog park and make it safe for people to park and associated improvements. If we could maybe go to the next slide, Athena, I'm not sure that that would be fine. And then there's one more. So my understanding, I was away on vacation, but my understanding is the project did go to the CRC for review. And although I was not there, staff did report to me that the CRC recommended the project to you. And I would defer to the chair for more information on that. But I'm here tonight to request formal use of the public way for those improvements. Steve, do you have comments at this time? So the community resources committee did, did I get that right? The CRC did. It did get it right. Did discuss this project and we have a motion that passed 401. And the motion is as follows, that the community resources committee recommend the permanent use of a portion of the public way to allow for parking for the dog park as shown on these plans approved by the planning board and to consider appropriate parking restrictions to assure the use of those spaces as anticipated. So that last part might need a little explanation which is the turnaround for the PVTA bus 30 is just off the screen here. And there are basically during the school year, there are buses waiting there. So every 15 minutes buses leave from there. So we're concerned that this not become parking for the bus 30 into Amherst. Okay. So you would like the motion for the council to include all of that? Yeah. Okay. And I think I don't have the right motion sheet tonight. So yes, David. So if I could just follow up on that. Sharon Everett from KP law did draft a motion for you which is on your motion sheet. And I believe it is addressed. We addressed that concern in the motion. We heard CRC and we understand it could become an issue although it's a fair distance walking from the bus stop to the dog park. But what we've learned through studying dog parks elsewhere in the Commonwealth is that the typical visit to a dog park is 45 minutes or under. So having one hour parking or dog park, dog park only parking one hour, something like that is seems perfectly reasonable. And we can keep an eye on that in the first six to eight months and see if it becomes a problem. But I think it's reasonable to do one hour parking only at the dog park. There will be 22 spaces. Two of those will be handicapped accessible. So 20 spaces total. So yes, Amanda Jo. I had a question about that when I saw the motion but I was also concerned that we didn't get a written report from CRC on this that outlines what they talked about, the vote I didn't know until Dave mentioned it, what the vote was for recommendation or not. So I think our rules say anything we're gonna be voting on should be written. So it would have been helpful as I was looking for this because I had a question directly to why the motion restricts this to dark dog park uses. And that makes sense but I think it misses the Robert Frost trail that is about 40 yards or less down the road and a limit to dog park users would not allow Robert Frost trail users to park there and that doesn't seem appropriate to me. A user hiking on the Robert Frost trail I think should be able to use these parking spots. They already park on this road when they do use it at least I've seen some cars there for that and to restrict this new parking to not allow them has a real concern for me. So I actually don't support that part of the motion. I would like to see it amended somehow to at least allow, so I would support more like a one hour or two hour limit over dog park users only for that reason. And without a report I wasn't sure whether things like is the road being narrowed because of the parking and visibility and pulling in and out both sides of this kind of curve into where that is. And so without a written report I didn't know whether those questions were asked and what answers to that might be. Let's first of it, let's address the issue of the last issue pulling in and out. Right, so from great questions by the way. So we've reviewed all of this with Guilford mooring and his staff. So the public way is not being narrowed at all. All the standards for width of travel lane on both sides going at that point, which is really kind of North, South are all accounted for. So we're not narrowing the road at all. We're simply using some of the public way which is very wide there. So backing in and out of there it's not a heavily trafficked road but that has been reviewed by Mr. Mooring and he found that perfectly acceptable. On your second or your earlier point I think it's a very good one and probably might have come up had I been able to attend that meeting. I think a friendly, I would look to Steve for input on that, but I think a friendly motion on that is could be very helpful in terms of parking there. It is, I think a most of the use there of the Robert Frost is fairly short. It's not a place that a lot of people do through hiking but any chance we can get to improve access through parking is a good thing. So I think something like a two hour or something like that, we could even designate a couple of spots as longer on that end on the, that would be the south end, something like that. So there's ways to, if you would amend the motion we could work on that with the designers. Great. Yes, Alyssa. So I think part of my confusion here is simply that we've been provided documents that have dates on them that don't reflect the most recent motion sheet. So the motion sheet that has this language on it is dated the 15th. Today's revised motion sheet doesn't include that language. So we, I didn't bother rereading the motion sheet from the 15th because it had been replaced with one that was revised today. But that's, so that's, I think if we all go in they can pull that language up because as was pointed out this isn't a report, this is some great really helpful maps, but it's not a CRC report. Athena, could you pull up the motion that were actually the larger motion? Thank you. Right. And if you can slightly enlarge it for those of us that are going blind. Thank you. All right, so there is no motion on the floor. And I would suggest that somebody be prepared to make this motion and do the additional statement to it regarding this. If I could, could I have one comment? To Alyssa's point, Sharon Everett referred to in the series of slides that was part of your packet. The slide we were just looking at is the conceptual design. Further along in the packet is the actual Amherst Dog Park plan, which the motion refers to because we know you want to refer to an engineered plan and that plan shows how many exactly how many feet of the public way, et cetera, et cetera. So the one we are looking at is the conceptual plan. So that was my only comment there. Okay. Yes, Andy. Yeah, speaking as a member of the CRC who was involved in the discussion, it was not our intent to create language that would go on signs. We thought that that was a professional judgment to be made by the appropriate staff, town staff, but we did feel that there was need to put in a provision to say we would like to make sure that the spaces are limited in time so that they not be abused by people who are using them as state time users, as Steve indicated. We might, with that mind, just change it to something like, and to approve and dedicate the parking spaces to be created for the exclusive use of visitors of the dog park and other recreational purposes, and leave it at that because it's really up to our staff to then decide if they want to limit it to four hours or how they want to go about doing it to serve the purpose. Right. So Andy, since you've got that language, how about you give us the motion, please? Okay. I would move to authorize the town to make landscaping, parking, and related improvements to the portion of Old Belcher Town Road that lies adjacent to the proposed town dog park, which improvements are shown more particularly on the plan entitled Amherst Dog Park Layout Plan prepared by the Berkshire Design Group. And to approve and dedicate the parking spaces to be created for the exclusive use of visitors of the dog park and other recreational purposes. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Any further discussion at this time? Yes, Alyssa? There should be a date associated with any, when we have her, we reference a plan. Amherst Dog Park Layout Plan. Amherst Dog Park Layout Plan. The date that's on it is? The June 17th one, Mr. Zonek, is that would be, would that be the accurate? I'm gonna need somebody to either enlarge that. I cannot see that. I have a May 17th. I think it says May 17th in the bottom corner. Somebody enlarge that. There we go. Thank you, May 17th. Okay. So that's a friendly amendment, putting in the date of May 17th, 2019. Okay. And that's accepted by those people making the motion? Yes. Okay. Then is there any further conversation or discussion here? Then although, yes. Shall we? This is just from my understanding. I'm just, there are these two water bodies shown on the map and does the dog park and the parking in any way affect the water bodies next to it? It just shows on the map. I'm not sure specifically what you mean by effect. The project did go through the conservation commission. It should have no adverse effect on either water body. One is across Old Belchertown Road and all the drainage actually flows west. So away from that water body. And then the conservation commission did review the project and required put some conditions on the project so that any water coming off the old landfill has to be filtered in or treated, if you will. Treated stormwater needs to be treated. In fact, we're gonna make improvements. It'll be better than it is currently flowing off the rail trail into the Southern pond. So, yes. Okay. Other questions for the discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Opposed? Abstain? Thank you very much. Two absent. So it's 1140 opposed, zero abstain and two absent. We have one other item for action and then we actually will actually go into executive session. The item is the percent for art working group charge. And I believe, Kathy, you've worked with counselors or with different people on this. Yes, I'm prepared to speak on this. Would you like me to? Please. Yes. You have before you a draft of a work group and as you heard earlier, or we don't yet have a work group in existence but we have vague language that would talk about a work group that's an informal group that gets together short term in a very focused way that's not just counselors. We first talked about percent for art here at the council on June 3rd where we had a presentation of a town meeting proposed bylaw that had passed and there was talk about the need to revise that and there was a presentation on the 3rd of June. At that point, the council referred it to the CRC committee and the finance committee. The CRC, I was just double checking took it up on June 12th and unusually for some of these meetings. There's actually a video of that meeting. They're not always easy to find. But in that discussion, there was a lot of back and forth again another presentation and there was a lot of back and forth on potential fine tuning of some of the wording. Should there be exceptions? How might this work in some detail? And the comment was made by the chair of the committee that this seems it needed a work group that we needed to have someone go out and do some revisions on it. The finance committee didn't take it up. We couldn't fit it on an agenda until July 23rd. So remember we first talked about this on June 3rd? So when we talked about it, we got a very thorough presentation with some terrific slides making the point that this is potentially an economic development investment. It's not just beauty and culture, but it is also that. And some issues that could be addressed for the revision. And during that discussion, it came up with, we actually need a revised document to look at. And President Grece Merce suggested we have a work group and that someone draft one. So I raised my hand and I said, here is a draft. So it's pretty simple. It just has one from each of the two committees it was referred to, plus the two people who know a lot about this, the current chair of the council, Art Council and the former chair that was the original sponsor. And someone designated from the town manager's office that would be talking from the town side with the pure goal of taking the original document as already revised to deal with some of the legal problems and issues that were raised at the state legislator and come back to us with a revision. So we're no longer talking about old, but we're talking about new. And it has a very short timeline on it. The group would meet and get something done in about 30 days, coming back presumably to both of the other committees. And we discussed and financed that this, if the council took it up after the committees took it up it would have to go to GOL. And after GOL it would need a legal review. So we're creating multiple paths for this still to go through. So this is a proposal to set up a quick group of five. And in drafting it, I worked with Bill Kazim to draft this just to try to make it simple, making it a small group. And I picked one from each of the committees just to say the two committees then would have someone on each committee to speak to the revision. So you have it before you. It's got five people in it. What it's being asked to do is take the draft we already have which was revised draft from the original draft and address a series of questions that have been raised between the two committees and come back with a revision. So what I'd like to do is have people discuss the charge. If there are a few things we need to tweak we might do that. If not, we might actually have some changes and come back next week with it. So, yes, Dorothy. Okay. I think this looks like an excellent way to deal with the public art bylaw. And I just wanted to say I appreciate the timeline of September 23rd because in the discussion of the dog park in a previous CRC meeting we spent a good amount of time discussing that as being a wonderful place for public art. And Steve had some interesting comments about I think it was St. Louis. I just wanted to make sure that we didn't move ahead too quickly with the dog park before we got the public art in some way working and working together with it. Okay, great. I had two questions. One is who appoints the counselors? Well, the choices are the president, town council. Oh, the other thing we had thought, I'm actually, I attended the GLL meeting on work groups. When we said, how could we make these work quickly? We could have each of the committees designate the one person from the committee. So that would be the third option line where there are five people on each of these two committees and I say you're the person. I don't know when finance is meeting next. September 5th, so that would be probably too long unless we, yeah. Yes, Steve. Yeah, actually I was going to say something very similar to that that it could be if everyone's designated two members as designated by public art commission rather than designating by name. So there's two people that are named that we know who they are and everybody else is, you know, there's some vagueness to it. So I'd prefer that it would be two counselors from finance and CRC as appointed by those committees to current or past members of the, or to residents appointed by the Amherst Public Art Commission, one staff member designated by the town manager. You know, something like that. I'll just do just a real quick response to that and the reason it was, I think it'd be fine, the reason it was this specific is these two people, not us, are in the middle of drafting this and they know it. So they're gonna choose themselves and I think the original notion of work groups going back to what they would be is if we had a very specific thing we were trying to pick people who were knowledgeable enough so they could report back quickly rather than start from scratch again. You know, it was a jump start rather than start the ball rolling again. So on the counselors, I think any way of getting one from each of these committees and I had one counselor text me before tonight saying how come only these two committees, what about other counselors who might wanna do, you know, so I just picked the two that it was referred to because we're in a do loop. Well, that's a computer term, but we're in a do loop right now. It just keeps going around and no one's taking responsibility for it. Okay, so there's multiple discussions on the floor. Let's just deal with the issue of the counselors. And one question that is out there is whether or not it should be restricted to people from finance and CRC or just to be generally open? Yes, Dorsey. I was the person who brought that up with Kathy. And I guess when I actually think it's a great idea to have this work group and I think that it could work really well with members of the community. My first thought was that the CRC is probably gonna be the committee that is most likely to have work groups because it's our only committee that really deals with substantive matters. And so my first thought was, well, am I never gonna be on a work group? Because I'm not in CRC or the finance committee. So I personally would like it to be just two counselors just for purposes of the future because we're probably gonna have a bunch of these ad hoc work groups. And I think it would be fair to be inclusive of all of us. I'm really interested in public art, FYI. Okay. Yes, Amanda Jo. So I've got a bunch of concerns with this and I'll try to stay under my three minutes. Right now we don't have work group rules. So this would have to be formed, I believe under the ad hoc committee rules. The president under the charter appoints all members of committees. And I'm just gonna set that out there. So I'm not sure this charge is actually compliant with our charter right now. I'm concerned that the charge has not been through GOL, speaking as the GOL chair, because our charges normally go through GOL and all measures are supposed to come through GOL before they're acted on at the council. This one has not been through GOL for things clarity, consistency and actionability. The charge itself, as Kathy mentioned in presenting it, the percent for bylaw was referred to actually three committees, not two. CRC, finance and GOL for the final bylaw review before it comes back to the council. When I read this charge, I see it as saying this group of five people would come back with a bylaw that comes directly to the council, so it never would receive a recommendation from CRC, would never receive a recommendation from finance and wouldn't come through GOL at all, which again doesn't seem to work with what our referral rules are. I, when I voted for referral to CRC and finance, want recommendations from them on the bylaw that the council's going to see at the end. And when I read this charge, I don't see any reference to those committees ever seeing that bylaw again before the council sees it and I think they should see it before the council sees it and I think GOL should see it before the council sees it. And then I think about just, and then I'm concerned about the legality of saying in a council committee that the town manager has to be on it where the town manager has to appoint a staff member, again, charter issues. But then I think about what are our committees for? And this is something that GOL's discussed, so I don't think some of my GOL members will be surprised when I say this. If we refer something to CRC or to GOL and there's a problem with it, I think those committees can either deal with the problem themselves by either signing, they've talked about it, it sounds like CRC's talked about some concerns with it. So I don't assign someone to work on those concerns and bring a draft back or if you're not, if you don't think it's ready, send it back to the sponsor. That's what we did with the ECAC charge sometimes before we tried to figure this out. Send it back to the sponsor when GOL's come up with policies in the past, we've talked about what we wanted to see, then we assign it to one person on the committee to make a draft to bring back to GOL after we've discussed what should this look like. We did that with the public ways, we were doing that with resolutions. What should it look like we discussed then we send it back to one person to come up with the draft, to come back to the committee. If we continually keep making new committees to do, I don't think it's efficient. And it's what we should be doing. So I've got a lot of problems with it, some of which is just, I think it's going against the rules we've set up. Okay. Yes, Pat. As a member of CRC and GOL, I'm sitting here. To me, the idea of a work group is a flexibility and quickness. And I think that adding all these layers is moving us away from those very important goals. This is not CRC giving this up and finance giving this up. This is pulling together a group of people to look at the bylaw and bring back to those committees of a new and revised draft. And it's very like what happened with the net zero building bylaw where a group got together and they worked on it much longer than this. So for me, I hear what you're saying. I also see that at any final decisions, these are recommendations that would be made by a small work group to their committees and then the committees would move from there. And then if it needed to go to GOL, it would. Go ahead. We are meeting next week. And GOL, I believe is meeting this tomorrow. Wednesday. Wednesday. And as a CRC. But the group that's not had any discussion about this at all is GOL. It's not, it's not that. I'm not clear that any of the committees have seen this charge before that. No, they haven't. Yes, Pat. That's making the assumption that this charge is going to be applied to every other work group. And I don't think that's necessarily true. I think we need to look at this and say, how does this get us further on the percent for art, both financially and in terms of impact on the community, other impacts on the community? Yes, Dorothy. I agree. And I think that if we just added GOL, one person from GOL there, we'd be able to move forward because I think we have to move forward on this thing. We are just looping it around, around, as Kathy said. Where would you add the GOL person? Make it three counselors. One from finance, one from CRC, and one from GOL. Okay. Andy. Okay. Everybody's talking about why we need to rush this. I want to point out the other reason. We don't need to rush this and there's damage that we can cause by rushing it. So I would like to flip the conversation around for a minute in that regard. The reason to rush it is, is if we think that a project would go forward that might require percent for art by a bylaw that would be adopted, that would be effect, that might happen or might not happen because of delay that occurs. I just don't think that is foreseeably possible. The one that's been mentioned of the dog park, actually I have some question is whether the dog park would be applicable or could be applicable because it's funded by grant. It's not funded by town money. And we have to be very careful about whether we can require a grant or ever to allocate money to the extent that we might actually lose the grant by putting on stipulations that are inconsistent with their desire for giving us the money. So there's that round of problems with it. The other thing is the reference was made to this net zero energy and having been on the work group that revised the net zero energy and there was recognition of how long it took us to do that. It was not a simple process. It was not a simple process because we recognized that the biggest need was to come up with what our understanding of the goals were, what the intent of the bylaw was and then to develop a new bylaw that would actually accomplish the goals in the best possible manner and then present that through a process to town meeting which was at that point the legislative body. What we are faced with now is a redraft that was done by the arts commission that submitted the first draft that ran into all sorts of problems and was acceptable neither to the Department of Revenue nor to the Senate and therefore it was never implemented. And I think that we really need to be very careful about not rushing the process and getting into the same type of thing that we really need a more deliberative process. And again, as I said at the beginning, the only reason to shortchange the deliberative process is if we really fear that something is going to be built before we can complete it and not give the council the opportunity to consider the percent for our bylaw before that happens that doesn't seem to be likely. Steve. Yeah, so I think this is a unique animal because town meeting passed this past a bylaw and I am a town meeting member that voted for this. I fully expected this to be the law and actually I was surprised that it wasn't the law and I now understand the reasons that it's not but that would for me that would be the reason I wouldn't say rush, but to make this a priority is that basically we hope to town meeting to implement a law that they passed. So I think it's, you know, for me that's the urgency and some of the questions you're asking whether or not the dark park would even apply or would Groff Park or would the station road bridge? These are other reasons that we need to address this so that those each one of these smaller projects that goes by creates anxiety as to whether or not, you know, we should have this bylaw and whether or not it should apply to it. So I think that this is a priority because of the fact that it was passed by town meeting. I don't, I cannot imagine. Yes, Kathy. Okay, I just want to say, I don't, we're not rushing this. I think it would be a stretch of the imagination to say we talked about something on June 3rd. We talked about something on June 12th. We talked about something on July 23rd. We're saying this could be a two month process rather than a month. Come back with a revision that addresses some of the concerns and then there's a legal review. There's a council review. We might not be finished with this for another six or seven months. We could create a bureaucratic nightmare that nothing ever gets out of our process unless, and when we take something on an agenda the way we did on June 3rd, we seriously talked about it. We talked about town meeting and my impression was a bit like what Steve just said, that we were going to move to address the things that had run into trouble at the state legislature. A few other questions and the whole town had voted on this. So I think we're honoring both what was done before but also if we're a deliberative body we've got to deliberate. We can't put it on an agenda and have one committee say, oh, at some point we're going to come back to it, which was what CRC said, and then finance said, oh, at some point we're going to come back to it. We've got to have a continuous deliberate. So if this is not the method then someone has to suggest another. We are a legislative body. We're supposed to be drafting and considering things, not being the buck never stops here and just keeps moving around. I'm actually just kind of astonished and Andy was at the finance committee meeting where everyone told me and Bill and I sat down the next day to come back with this for August 19th. So we were, we didn't do it just like, oh gee, let's rush this. This was suggested as a path forward and I sent it. It has been sitting with the president since July. So we could have shared it with every committee if we'd wanted to. I'm saying there wasn't an effort to jump hopskitch over. It was an effort to get something before people. So we can meet on this next week but I don't think anyone will accuse us of rushing anything. We don't have to worry about that accusation. We will be slow. Mandy Jones. I want to clarify that I am not rooting for a GOL member on this committee. I don't think it's actually appropriate to have a GOL member on this committee. What I'm saying is when you read this proposed charge and I'm going to read sections of it, develop a revised version of the bylaw for consideration by the full council. Another one says report back to the council by September 23rd council meeting. The reports say the chair of the work group shall be prepared to present the report and revised bylaw for council consideration at the council September 23rd meeting. When you read this document, it reads as if CRC is done with this bylaw and finance is done with this bylaw, GOL is done with this bylaw and I don't think either any of those three committees should be done with it. But that's how this charge reads to me so that I think that's a big error. So that's a revision of this, yeah. Okay. So it seems, yes, Andy. Yeah, similarly, I was not suggesting that I want this to gone forever either. I, when I put in my additional question it was about the September 23rd deadline not creating the charge promptly and getting the working group just to commence its work. I think that that was clearly what the finance committee was talking about. The September 23rd deadline, I think is what it was problematic. The other thing that I think we should be very careful about and I have to be very cautious is to try and word this carefully. The prior body that voted on it was not the town. The prior body that voted on it was the prior elected representative legislative body. We are now to replace the successor as the elected representative body. So we are just continuing its work but it was not done by town referendum which is what the implication of always conflating town meeting with the town which is actually a common parlance across commonwealth. But I think we need to be very clear that in representative town meeting status we were not an open town meeting. I believe that we need to refer this to a committee. It seems to me that it might be appropriate to refer it to GOL and have them come back by next week if possible. Is that possible, ma'am, Jo? It can fit on our agenda on Wednesday. I can't obviously guarantee and speak for the committee that the committee would be able to vote depending on the changes but it would certainly be able to be considered this coming Wednesday. Okay, and the goal to send it to GOL would be to make it consistent with our own bylaws and our own rules of procedure, et cetera. And then bring it back next week, Alyssa. So basically two things. Following up on what Mandy Jo said about where this fits, if we knew how work groups worked then we'd know how this would work. This is a way of jump starting a work group which is great and so GOL referral makes sense to me. The other thing I don't want us to lose sight of here because I totally stumbled over the whole develop the bylaw as opposed to get it ready for other people to work on it is the other place I stumbled was associated with I don't believe it's mentioned in here again whether or not we're gonna need special legislation because I'm assuming we're still gonna need special legislation. This isn't like a bylaw that town meeting used to pass that then had to go to the attorney general for approval because our general bylaws don't have to go to the attorney general for approval anymore now that we're city instead of a town and we only have to send them zoning bylaws just as an FYI they don't get to approve them anymore. As far as I understand it, this still needs special legislation to happen through the legislature and that's not clear at all on this charge. This just makes it sound like we can pass the bylaw and it'll be done. It won't be done and I will tell you that our very same KP law firm thought that it was good enough to send it off for special legislation the last time and it wasn't so it may be that the Senate special counsel changes bodies and different interpretations, et cetera but if we're talking about special legislation that needs to be taken into account in timing. I've actually, I just wanna say that I spent a fair amount of time looking at the old bylaw. It was not workable. There was one part of it that was workable and there was a second part that was totally not workable and it was the first part that could pass and that's the part that basically puts this levy on big projects. The part that was not workable was the one that wanted to take things like the dog park which is not even workable anyway or the roof of the elementary school or the middle school and take a piece of that and put it into some fund and then somebody else had to do some kind of action and finally you could appropriate it and basically the attorney general said you can't do that or the revenue said. So as we went to back to this I thought that we were sticking with the idea of just the big buildings but that's a later discussion, okay? That's something for the group to come back with. I'm not opposed to forming this. I just would like to make sure that we don't set precedent, precedent that we can't live with later. So I send it to GOL and see what we can get by next week. Yeah, Steve. So I have a theoretical question. There's nothing that prevents Bill and Eric on their own as citizens of Amherst from forming their own work group and asking two of us to be on it and asking the town manager or someone from the town can be on this. So it's a work group that has nothing to do with us. Alyssa. Yes, I do. Bill and Eric can talk to each other all day long but as soon as you include a single counselor you're going to be subject to open meeting law because that counselor's trying to influence the rest of the council. Yeah, it's, we have special status and we have special status and some of that special status means we can do certain things and some of it means we can't. Sarah? I was just commenting that Mandy Jo's expression was priceless from where I'm sitting right now but I just wanted to say that I do see Mandy Jo's point in the fact that we have five standing committees and all of us are charged with certain things and while I'm not opposed to working groups I'm also the one that always says consistency, consistency, consistency. So any charge always goes through, you know, GUL and then I just want to say that there is, I think as much as I feel like this is what I thought out when everybody wants to hear from responsible parties and get a lot of input I will agree that sometimes working groups can be really helpful and get down their feet fast and sometimes I feel like it somehow muddies the waters and I think there is some validity in saying what are these standing committees and what are their jobs and how fast can they do something. So I just want to say I see the merit in that. Are there any other comments? Dorothy? I think that we can have a working group that which we then send to GUL. I don't think that everything that we do is going to be exactly how all working groups would be afterwards. I think that we could move ahead on this. We had in our discussions in both CRC and finance we had it completely dropped the problematic part which where money was piled up to be used for the performing arts. We completely dropped that. We were only talking about the part which would get approval. So we no longer believe that it needs lawyers or getting special laws passed. So I would like to say I think that we could have this draft go through GUL. Lots of good things have been brought up. Things which you say, oh yeah, I should have thought of that, right? And then come back to us so that we can get moving because I do think that we have to be able to take action at some point and this is pretty important. Would you like to make that as a motion? I move that this motion that for the work group be sent to GUL for comment and that it be brought back to I guess the town council for approval. Is there a second? Can we also add the date by which we want it back? We can, you can state one if you'd like. The next town council meeting. Which is the 26th of August. Further comment, Pat? I was just gonna say that I feel like what I want from this working group is that it return and it meet with CRC and I'm assuming it would meet with finance so we could make recommendations. That feels critical. So it is, Andy's idea about speed is not what I'm concerned with. I feel like I'm concerned with, we have a bulky process and we need a flexible process. Okay, I think that part of what GUL will have to do to make it consistent is consider all of that. Okay, so there's a motion on the floor and there's a second. Is there further comment? Worthy. Can we take Pat's as a friendly amendment that it go to GUL and then to CRC and finance before coming to full town council? Is that correct what you were saying? I'm not sure. I feel like what I'm trying to say is that CRC is not done discussing this as an issue and the work group, whatever happens to it now, the work group was to facilitate, to get some extra work done, some intense looking and then coming back to the committee. We haven't made a decision about whether we even support this. Right, neither has finance. Right, so we're saying that GUL is gonna come back with a charge. The charge will include that after the draft is developed it will be referred, immediately go back to CRC and finance. And then, and only then come to the council in the meantime we can clarify whether or not it has to go for special legislation. Although, and we'll find that out, okay? We have a motion on the floor and a second. Any further conversation? Yes, Kathy. Okay, I just sent to GUL or the chair of GUL an edited version based on comments. And my only comment is when we started in January and February we quickly revised charges as a group and put the words in and then it went back from revision. We're doing a process here that even when we all agree on what changes we want made we have to refer to a group to make the changes so they can get back to us with the changes so we can look at the changes again. So I'm not trying to speed this up or slow it down. I'm just finding it bizarre. But in any case, hopefully this will keep moving. Okay. Okay. Shall we? I had the same question that Kathy raised that if we can all agree right now with the changes are can we just make the changes and go to the next step? It does feel that especially moving forward that there are a lot of decisions that the standing committees have to make and in order to be nimble and to be creative which is our value, we need to have this flexibility of creating these work groups and that will dive in and then report back to the respective committees and then to expedite things. So I really, if there is a way that we can expedite this process, make it more efficient, not fast but efficient. And I don't know, I would refer to Mandicure if there's some way to do this quickly. Well, we're referring it to a group that says they'll look at it on Wednesday and bring it back next Monday. That's about as efficient as we can get. Okay. Any further questions? Okay, then all those in favor of the referral to GOL? Raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Okay. So and then two absent. So it's nine four, none opposed to abstain and two absent. Okay. Thank you. We are now going to take roll call vote and go into executive session. We will be returning from executive session, yes. Minutes first. Did I say we were going to? No, we're waiting on, we're gonna do minutes when we come back. Okay. Do I see people waiting for public comment? They're waiting for, I assume you're waiting for public comment on the town managers. Are just, I'm sorry. They're here for the discussion, right? Which we'll get to as fast as we can. Okay, so we need to take a roll call vote to go into executive session. And basically it's to move that the town council meet in executive session, pursuant to the provisions of master and law, C.30A, section 21A6 to discuss the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property. If their chair declares that the open meeting will have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body, the council will not, will in fact, reconvene after this session. We'll be right back. Okay, Alyssa. I'm very sorry. And I know we have many people who are new to this, but the motion cannot say if the chair declares. The motion is that the chair is declaring it. Yeah. Okay. Friendly amendment is that that real property, the chair has declared or is something like that. Okay. All right. And roll call vote. Second. Okay, thank you. Councillor Ball-Milln. Yes. Councillor Burr. Aye. Councillor DeAngelo's. Councillor DeAngelo's. Yes. Councillor Dumont. Yes. Councillor Grisimer. Yes. Councillor Haneke. Yes. Councillor Pam. Yes. Councillor Shane. Yes. Councillor Schreiber. Here. I mean, yes. Councillor Steinberg. Yes. Councillor Schwartz. Yes. We're going to the back room. You can only eat pizza. I got the cards. You got the cards. Is that what you just said? I hope no more than a half an hour. Thank you for asking, and that's a very appropriate question. All right, we're going to reconvene. We are officially back in session. It's been requested that we have 15 more minutes to gather your thoughts, if you will, and that we will then go into the discussion of the performance review. And could you, Lynn? Yes. Do you explain what we will be doing around the performance review? You will give me any suggestions that you have, that you would like to see made. And if there's discussion about that, we will have it. We will do this by going through it piece by piece. And other than that, that's it. Going through your... It's through the memo. Your composite memo, okay. Through the 20, God, however many pages, I ended up 22 pages. We're going to reconvene. And let me mention that during the time you've been reading, since I've read this more than I want to, I have gone through and where I've... I'll give you an example. Where I, on page three, for example, E, where it says, Negotiate contracts for emergency medical services with three remaining partners. There was one place where I said it was 39%. In fact, it was 38%. So it's basically technical issues in relationship to the actual goal statements. Anything that was in the parentheses in terms of where it refers to the town manager's goals and where it refers to the survey monkey document and any other notations, like, for example, under 2C, I noted that when counselor did not respond, that's why you don't have a total of 12. So it's really, it's technical edits. And as long as people don't feel I need to go through those, I will make those changes in the final document. I could bore you to death, but you don't really need that. Yes? So I just wanted to ask, I found a number that I'd love not to have to say out loud now because it would take some time. Is it possible to just send those technical edits where something was like the wrong tense or he instead of a you, those things? I think we can just send that to you. Thank you. That would be perfectly fine. By the way, I never refuse edits. I really enjoy having them. So the first question I want to ask is, if you go to the second page, the paragraph that begins with ratings and to ask whether or not you accept that way of demonstrating with bold, non-bolder italics and italics, and the ranges that I have stated there. Yes? I found a couple where they satisfy two of those categories. Yeah. And so I didn't know what to, I've marked some of the ones I found as we've gone through, but I don't know how strictly these should be followed when sometimes there's 50% adds up multiple ways. Okay. Yes, Alyssa. I agree with that. We end up with too much bold in the entire document. I mean like two thirds of the document at least is bold print and it just, it's no longer meaningful after a while. And so I wonder if, especially given that some of the ways, some of the numbers add up that we just not bother with that. So you're not saying get rid of the bold, you're just saying where some of them in the center add up, don't use them at all? I actually would say get rid of the bold because you emphasize it so well later on when you're talking an individual paragraph, highlighting particular phrases, et cetera, that I think it's much more valuable. I think that that was valuable when there was a clear split, when it was like really this way or really that way. But the ones that aren't really this way or that way, there is no third method of highlighting those. So. Okay, Kathy? I think if the bold was only where the commendable was on the high side, it would get fewer. What would be your cutoff for? I'd have to go back and look on how often is it 30% or it's a three or four people did a commendable, on some, so many people didn't have an opinion at all. But on, so I'd rather accentuate the, where there was a high percent of needs improvement or unhappy and there weren't very many of those. So just to flag the two ends, because that'll do you to needs attention versus outstanding and then the understanding as everything else was a high score. Would you like me to use 30% as commendable and that would be the bold? 30% is. And at least four people said commendable. So I think that's a decent. Okay. And then. Again, Lynn, I was just looking for something that actually flag things that were particular strengths because if it's an overall positive rating, then we don't need to flag everything. Yeah. Okay. And on the needs improvement, unsatisfactory, again, 30%. Yeah. Alyssa. So part of me says, I don't care anymore because honestly, this is already overwhelming in terms of the way it's being presented to us. But when we have 23% unable to judge, we cannot call that a positive overall positive. I mean, an unable to judge at that level is just too far out. So if you can come up with a cutoff that works for you. Well, it gets worse when 80% are unable to judge. I think it just needs to be a moving target. I'm not sure there's anything where you can say you hit this number and it gets bold simply because of the year we're in where there were so many unable to judges. And we're not through a full year. I mean, we have five months that we've never seen before but other two people on the council have seen. Yes, Dorothy. I think this report is extremely useful. And I really would hate to see you waste any more time dealing with it or styling it or doing anything because we've got a lot of material here. And as I said to you earlier, it's a list of what we have to work on as a town council. And so it's really a useful document, but we have things to do. And so I would really not want to belabor the style points. Okay. Then moving on, I'll see what I can come up with on that. As I mentioned, the real point where we would want to focus would be in the written narrative. And I would like to focus on Roman number one, which is fiscal and just go through and ask if there are any, not technical and editorial, but other things that you would either like emphasized or de-emphasized. We can start with marijuana. Yes. We're going to go through each one. No, I had a word. Real quickly. Okay. I'm going to wait because I have a general comment. You're not on the specific ones we were asked about. Okay. Massworks, economic development. I'm sorry, we're on page four. Yes. Okay. I should have said that. And I'm using the bold titles. Okay. Classification, hearing, emergency medical services. Transition to, yep. If you don't look up, you don't have to call on me. So there's that. Which one? Emergency medical services. I appreciate that someone said this, but I don't think it should be quoted. The talk about what happened at UMass, that happened maybe a decade ago. That didn't happen last year, the year before, three years ago. It happened many years ago. And so that, while that concept is still occasionally in play, like why don't they do that? And we know it's because they can't get the right certification to do it. It doesn't belong in here because it makes it sound like it's something that just happened that's impacting us. So just eliminate from that point on. Yeah. I mean, future discussion, but it doesn't make any sense to put in here. When I was reading that, I said to myself, I thought this was a while back, but okay. But the lift and assist continues. It's much newer. Okay. Any other comments on that one? The transition to a health benefit trust, create efficiencies in the structure and delivery of services? Yes, Alyssa. I just wanted to be clarified because anybody, I think reading this that wasn't one of us would believe that new contracts were negotiated with other towns we've previously not had contracts with based on the wording here, which we all know is not true. So some phrasing along the lines of, new contracts negotiated with our usual, the other partner towns, that didn't change. We didn't suddenly have North Hampton in the mix. It's the same towns except Hadley. And it's like- Can you give me the sentence exactly? It's the one, two, three, four, fourth line from the bottom, fifth line from the bottom. It says new contracts were negotiated with other towns. It could just be renewal. Yeah, something like that. You could probably make it pretty short. Renewal, okay. Okay, got it. Anything else on that one? Collective bargaining agreements, lessening the tax burden on residents? Okay. Yes, Kathy. It's not clear to me we've lessened the tax burden on residents. We might have attenuated the increase. The tax burden did not go down. Okay. And no one will. And it's going up 2.5% every year. You know, it's the way people see their tax bill. So it could have gone up faster. So however you write it. Okay. And then I just, the next sentence, commercial-based residential and business construction is consistent. I think we've gotten less commercial that's not residential than we might have hoped. And I'm not sure we know whether we have a solution to that. So I'm not saying, you know, but it's a challenge. And I don't know how to word this, Lynn, and I tried to do it in my overly long sentences, but it's not always clear to me that we get a full net gain if we've had to spend a lot of public dollars to get something. So we just need to be thoughtful as we're doing things. So if we've had to build a new road, put sewer lines in, do a series of things that we financed that the developer didn't and that the first real net gain is 10 years out, I don't think we can just count. So just, we've attenuated the increase, I think probably could be safely said. Okay. Hopefully I can get the essence of that one. Anything else on that one? Yes, Steve. Yeah, a couple of things. So along the line of the first sentence, maybe expanding the tax base or something like that. The words lessening the tax burden on residents come right out of the question. So I'm gonna have to find a way to work into that. Then I would say that we're not, yeah, yeah. Expanding. We failed to do that, but we did something else. So that's the, how do you... And then the last two sentences in that paragraph, don't seem appropriate for this because questions are being raised regarding the master plan, especially in the light of some of the larger buildings and complexes. I don't see how that is an evaluative statement because the master plan is all of us. I had the same question on those last two sentences. I don't challenge the validity of the thought, but I questioned the relevance to the document that we're placing them in. Okay. All right. Yes, Dorsey. That wasn't my comment, but when I read this sentence, I also was mostly interested in what questions were being raised. So I just think that we should include that because someone raised questions and it was clearly more than one person or it wouldn't be in there. And questions are... It was a question. And, but it would be interesting. It seems like it makes sense to say what the questions were. Or eliminate the last two sentences. I mean, we know this is on our agenda this next year. I would not eliminate those two sentences. I think they're relevant. Let me see if I can just say something about looking toward the master plan. Something that implies that it's coming up. Could they be moved to one of the long-term goal sections maybe? I don't know if there's a separate section that they might be more relevant to. Yeah. If I may, the very last sentence in that paragraph makes no sense in the valuation of the town manager. This is about two bodies that the town manager doesn't even appoint. Actually three bodies of the town manager doesn't even appoint. The ZBA, the planning board and the town council. All right. So I'll eliminate the last sentence and then the sentence before that. I'll just allude to the fact that we will be moving to a review of the master plan. I just, with regard to our process right now, are we, I mean, if someone disagrees with someone else's comments that Lynn included in this, does that mean we're going to drop them? I mean, it doesn't make sense to me if she's included it in the composite summary because there are one or two of those comments that if one of us doesn't agree with the comment that we're able to pull that comment out. The question I think there's, let me try to approach this in two ways. I'm trying to look at this from the standpoint of is this an appropriate statement for an evaluation? That's number one. The second thing is then if there is disagreement is to try to find a common ground. And that's why I was suggesting for the second last sentence that I just say that in the coming months, the council will be moving toward a review with a master plan, period. Yeah, no, I'm just saying that I don't think we should be asking to take out comments that have been put in here that are there because they were part of the evaluation. If they're not appropriate, let me tell you, if you really spend the time looking at the composite, and as I think several people have said to me already, this is really an evaluation on us in many ways. It tells us where the expectations are and where people are thinking we have to place some time. But we have to remember this is an evaluation on this town manager for this year. So I'm trying to find the middle ground there. Alyssa, you've had experience. Yeah, I want to come back to lessening the tax burden in a minute, but before that, that's the beginning of that paragraph. So when we think we finished the rest of the paragraph, but in terms of that general question, it's a really good question, Darcy, and it's why I don't understand why you all think you're done rating because there's a lot of material in here. And if I were to go through and pick out some of the things I brought up that not a single other one of you brought up, I could convince some of you that those things were important enough to put in the evaluation and others, you wouldn't agree with me. But if I did pick them out, you would find them. Our president had to go through and find the ones that really stood out to her in her reading of doing this over and over again. It's an art. It's not a precise science. And if somebody brings up at this table that they don't think it belongs in there, if the majority doesn't agree it belongs in there, it doesn't belong in there. That doesn't change anything anybody wrote individually. And we really hope, despite the formatting that the town manager reads all those pages, because they all mattered to us at some point. But if it's not the majority opinion, the fact that it appeared in here is not scientifically proven to mean that two people said it or five people said it. It was the sense that she got based on all the reading that she did. And so if somebody says, you know what, I don't really think that quite fits, then that's the board's decision. And that's what the decision is for the evaluative interest instrument. Remember, all of your individual evaluations will also be public. In fact, they already are. They went public tonight at five. And the composite went public at five. So it's not as if your individual thoughts aren't there, but if you take the time to really read the composite, it's just, it's mind boggling. It really is. I just admire all of you for having stuck with this and answered all those questions the way you did because it was mind boggling. 96 questions, and we missed two and had two duplicates. So, yes, Kathy. Okay, I just have a, I agree with what's been said on you can't write a lot and we will have all of this represented, but I want to just go back to the collective bargaining one and then make a comment on this. The very last sentence said, however, some employees feel there's been minimal salary increase in a number of contracts. I would also do comma. There may be staffing concerns in some area because there was a lot of both the feedback we got, but also various people mentioned in the comments that worried about staff burnout or overtime. So it's, it's, it's that it's, so being an employer of choice is both what you get paid and whether you feel like you're stretched too thin. So I'm just looking at add a clause about staffing or stress. There were many comments here and there about staffing and whether or not staff were stressed or stretched too thin. Right. And so there were, it came from us, but then we also heard it from, from people too. So I just wanted to add it, just not pay. And then my, my thought on the tax burden, there were a few comments on recreational and medical marijuana that we, we need, and this is us, not just the town manager, need to not put all the rags in one basket that we shouldn't be thinking this will solve our problems. So it's, whether you put it here or not, but it's not going to be the silver cloud and the silver lining that suddenly yields. And more than one person made that comment. So it's, there's a unique opportunity, but it's, it's not necessary. It's, be cautious. So this was a be cautious about it. At the end of the sentence, the last sentence under marijuana, I say, however the remains concerns as to whether the town has placed a premium. Okay. So it comes later. That's fine. Yeah. Okay. Are there other, I will re-craft and you'll have a chance to look at this again next week. That's sent, that whole paragraph on economic development. Moving on. Yes. Alyssa. Sorry, coming back to that, that phrasing that again, you're trying to artfully accommodate with lessening the tax burden. We wordsmith this to death over the last five years at the select board. And the actual goal is to reduce the burden on residential property owners. That's not decreasing the tax burden. We're not trying to make anybody's taxes lower. Okay. Cause let's be honest, we're not trying to make anybody's taxes lower because we don't see how we'd ever provide the services we want with lower taxes. But we were talking about that shift, that commercial shift. And so the actual wording in the goal is to reduce the burden on residential property owners. It's not to lessen the tax burden on residents. Let me go back to that. Thank you. Okay. Any further ones on that? Okay. Develop strategies for long-term financial health of the town. Other post-employment benefits. Bond rating, relationship with our legislature. I, yep. It's, when I read through the comments, it seemed like a high percentage of us weren't sure. So I think this overstates you have, and then you have, however, the lessons is, however, some counselors are not aware of your efforts. So I don't know whether that last sentence was referring to the relationship with the new senator and representatives or the relationship on Hampshire College and Craig's Doors. But I would say that last sentence, so it's like we want this to happen and hope this will be happen, but we don't know. We're not aware of the extent it has or hasn't happened, would be a fairer way to say it. And you do mean with legislators? I just purely meant the legislators that making us more aware, we're hoping for that, yeah. Okay. All right. And anything else on that one? Major capital plan projects? I'm sorry, Darcy. I just, third to the last sentence is still recognizing that the top priority as a new school were better positioned to move forward on the four major capital projects. And I just wondered if that's a decision that's been made that I don't know about. Okay, so it may be, we're better able to consider the four capital projects? I mean, the other issue is the top priority as a new school. Well, that is a lot of our top priority, but I don't think we've decided that. Okay. So I guess I just feel uncomfortable with that language. Right, I mean, let me work on making that a war. We shouldn't be assuming that before we have actually decided it. Right. Even though it probably is what we're going to do. Okay, let me work on making sure that doesn't sound like a decision's been made. Okay. Yes, Steve. So maybe starting with the offer of land. So there are a lot of if then statements that I'm not sure. There's a lot of assumptions of if thens of things that will happen and how the priority list is shaking out. And so along the same lines as Councillor Dumont, I don't think that we've settled on that sort of that. Okay. So maybe I should just cut down on the whole. Yeah, I think so. Okay. So you could always end it after residents and voters and get rid of everything after that, that we have a way of assessing this and thinking about it, but so far, timing and, okay. I do like the last two sentences of that though, but it's one area where the development of a strategy and the need for strong leadership falls. Absolutely, absolutely. So maybe it's just those two really getting rid of three sentences in there. From with the offer of land, get rid of that sentence. As we move forward, get rid of that sentence. And it's those two sentences. Still recognizing. Oh, I'm sorry. Still recognizing, yeah. Yeah, and still recognizing. Then it reads well. Okay, got it. Except. Yes. Well, you know, when the actual goal, which I understand the town manager to his credit, I had suggested this some years ago that he not repeat every single goal. If you don't read the actual goals, he doesn't necessarily address them in his evaluation. So you need to read the whole goal and in the original form. And it included mention of the library and there's zero mention of the library in this document. So at least throw in a reference to the library as being the fourth project, because it mentions four projects, but it doesn't say what they are. Okay. All right. I can envision how to do that. Other comments on that one? All right. Budget, FY20 annual budget. FY19 approved budget. Okay, are we ready to move on to long range planning? First one is facilities profile. I'm sorry. I'm on page eight. It's seven on my paper. I'm skipping to the narrative. Yeah. I'm sorry. I will try to be clear about the page numbers. We're skipping the questions that are being answered and going right on to the narrative, that begins on page eight. Okay. The first one is facilities profile. Second one is property disposition policy. Yes. This one reads weird to me because it talks about the property disposition policy, but when the East Street School was brought to us, we had to beg for the policy and see it and whether it had been followed and all. And so I think a clearer description that it be used consistently and be described consistently to us as to how it's been followed or all of that would be helpful. Any further discussion on that one? Green efforts in programs, affordable and seasonal sheltering, affordable housing and seasonal sheltering. Yes. I was wondering if there was a way for us to know about Craig's door, what's happening. It seemed really sudden and was there any way for the town manager or staff and for us to have known that there were problems starting to happen. Just seemed very sudden and I'm sure there was a buildup to it. So. I think the only buildup that I know that we all saw were the continuing letters that we kept getting from people. And that other than that, I don't think anybody had any knowledge but Mr. Bachmann might, I mean, I know what he's doing now and it's in his town manager's report and we'll talk about it. Okay. That's fine. I don't know if it belongs here but I'm just gonna say it in terms of having a clear plan. I mean, there's, I'm not clear if there's a central organization through which affordable housing is being approached. If there's data being collected, if there is a central, I mean, is the housing trust the central organization? But it seems like people have to go to each an individual housing to get. It's not through like, if you are on the list centrally, you will be notified. It's more like they need to go to Beacon and they need to go to East Street and they need to. So I don't know. I just feel like this area needs more clarity. I mean, at the town council level or at the, I don't know where and who and how but it seems like we don't have a central organization through which all of this is handled. There's no data, central data being collected and maybe part of it is the town council's job to clarify. The other thing is to remember that we'll be setting goals for next year. That's where I was like, maybe that's there. But I don't know what, it just feels like something is missing in this paragraph and I don't know what it is. Alisa. Part of the problem with that question is that it was never intended to be three things rated. Four was supposed to just be the preface to that talking about preservation, creation, safe, decent, affordable for low and moderate income individuals. And it got boiled down to just affordable and that's in the A and B section. So things just went a little wacky with the rating there. And so I appreciate that it was added on about the part about leaving middle income residents because that was part of the preference that we were trying to get at. We made a big point of not just saying technically affordable housing versus housing that's available to a variety of people in a variety of circumstances. The other thing that I'm very concerned about and we always play around with this and this is part of the whole tense issue not that there's tension around it but you, the town manager, all that kind of thing. We always assume that staff is involved in everything even though I know staff sometimes occasionally complains that they feel like they're not getting enough credit. We always know everything's a team effort. I don't like the sentence that says your staff's in your efforts relative to various affordable housing process has resulted in RSHI staying above the 10% threshold. That's simply not a fact. It's not just the staff's efforts. It's town meetings efforts. It's the select board's efforts. It's the continued focus on a policy direction for this and we have had town managers prior to this one who nearly dropped the ball on that. And so that has been a strong pressure from our community and so that's why we worded it in terms of reviewing and assessing where we are, reporting out on where we are. Those are really strong and those are really important for us to know we're keeping on top of the goal but to say that it's entirely due to their efforts that we made the goal is not actually reflective of all the efforts our community has put in. Could it say the town's efforts relative to various housing? Yes, Steve? Yeah, so since this is the evaluation of the town manager, I think it's appropriate to say your staff's in your efforts relative to various affordable housing projects and then I would say have contributed to, so resulted in it means that you have contributed to the collective effort or something like that, have positively contributed to the collective effort? Okay. If we're, that section, the very last sentence, the summer worried low income housing has left middle income residents with a feeling that they are being squeezed out. There is a reality that middle income, that there's not a subsidy for them and there's not a lot of affordable. So there is, have left a concern on my middle income residents that there won't be anything affordable for them. So it's a squeezing out because the property, yeah. So I could change the word feeling to concern? Yeah, a concern and it, having seen that some people are moving out of town because they can't afford to pay their property tax, it's not a feeling, it's real. Anything else on that one? Okay, infrastructure? I don't know how to frame this because I think the outcome was very positive but the going in requests on roads didn't reflect what we were saying publicly and then Paul actually came in and said, no, this is what we're gonna do and turned it around. So he was really instrumental in reallocating the capital budget but I found it process wise odd that we didn't come in, if those were the priorities, why weren't the original requests along that? So it's more doing a sentence that in the future we might want to do more priority setting in advance. And I'm really worried about, I wrote this already but I'm really worried about a five and 10 year plan that's in deficit every single year other than the current one. It doesn't look like a plan. So there's something that we need to do to signal to people that we actually have money problems. So there may be a way of just doing a nice sentence here Lynn because again there were a couple people like we can't, people think we have enough money to do everything and we don't but. Yeah, let me see what I can do with it. I also just want to point out we weren't the ones that set the budget guidelines. They were set by the previous select board and that's what the budget was developed on. And I'm just doing just the pure infrastructure. But when the town manager realized where we were coming from, he made the changes. And so I. I think he gets full credit for that flip around. I'm just saying that his staff came in not proposing the things that then, well you were there. No, but they were following the budget guidelines that were given by the select board. Before. Okay. Yes? No, maybe. Not on capital. Not on capital. It's probably never that clear. Yeah, I think it's not that easy but it also is very hard to deal with it as far as the evaluation is concerned because I think that the point still remains that over the past two years that we have ended up with budgets that had significant increases over prior years in the amount for roads and sidewalks and that that was because the town manager in the end of both of those processes came through and provided really strong leadership to get JCPC and the elected bodies on meeting one year and council next year to agree that that was a priority. And so this leadership was really important but it's hard to simplify. It was very complicated. It's how we got the A to B. Okay. Let me see what I can do with it. All right. Yeah, and I'll help if I can with a few and run language by me because I think the important thing is the leadership that we got from the town manager is what we're recognizing here. Right. Okay. The Transportation Advisory Committee. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I guess I again on this one, I don't disagree with the sentence but I'm not sure that the lack of clarity amongst the council about how the TAC makes and recommends decisions and to whom where that falls. Is that was that an expectation that we clearly had? I just urge you to give some thought to that sentence but no more. Any other comments on that one? It is one of those areas where I think we had a fair number of people unable to judge. I'd have to go back and look. Which is an important point that we need to remember when we do goal setting next. Absolutely. And remember that we will be there for the full 12 months. Just if I could follow up on that. Yep. The actual goal and I know this is so hard when you're trying to pick out which things to talk about and which things not. And so I feel like some things got mushed together like planning improvements in parks and village centers. But going back to TAC for a moment, reviewing and following up on actions recommended by TAC. That didn't happen. That's just a fact. There was no review and follow up on actions recommended by TAC. Or people either people don't know the answer or it didn't happen because it didn't happen. And so to say I'm we're not sure if that was a goal that was exactly what the goal said. It said reviewing and following up on actions. So you may not agree with the goal anymore but that's what the goal was that we wrote down. No, I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm not sure that the wording of the sentence in the proposed evaluation is consistent with what you just read from the goal. I'm more open to suggestions on how else to word that. I would urge that you read the composite for that though. Okay, improvements to public areas including parks, commons and greenways. Looks good. Okay. Downtown and village centers. I just have one question on the top of page nine, Lynn, I was about to you'll know better because you wrote this is did Paul mention the potential low cost interim solution in his self evaluation? Because only a few of us would even know about this. It was mentioned, I'd have to go back and look at his evaluation. It was mentioned in council's evaluations. Okay, are there other questions on this one? Yes. If I might add something that's more food for thought, I suppose toward future evaluation rather than trying to reword Smith this because it's just something that I didn't give you detail on is that when the actual question was around planning and implementing maintenance and improvements in the downtown and village centers, we talk a lot in here about the village centers and that's really important. I don't wanna deny that at all, but one of the other things we were talking about in that goal is the fact that railings are falling down in various parts of downtown and that way finding systems that haven't been improved yet are like old rusted pieces. That was additional part of that. So that's just the kind of thing we need to know moving forward, how to tease that out when we want something specific because I might be upset about that but be really happy about what we're talking about in our thammers. So how do we appropriately capture all that information? Okay. In that paragraph, the sentence second, near the bottom of the paragraph before all of the dashed line, some counselors stress the need for creating a more friendly, business-friendly environment to remain concerned about charge for parking after 6 p.m. may be an absolutely valid statement but again, where does it relate to this evaluation? Shelling. Just a South Amherst Village Center. There are a lot of things that are broken and not well maintained. So I'm not, I just feel I don't have enough information to say what is being done for the Village Centers in South Amherst. I found this one of the most difficult ones to do. Could we lose that last sentence that say many problems continue for the Village Centers? I feel like that's really randomly vague. I'm not sure we can feel like we want to, either we should go back and elaborate on what those problems are because it sounds more serious than I think. Again, it was like, do I mention this sidewalk? Do I, you know, and even in District 5, you know, one of the things that stands out is this ongoing conversation about Atkins and that area. And it was a way of saying, you know, where people are happy about the bridge and however they're concerned about the area around Atkins. I mean, it was, it gives examples. Maybe I should say, for example. And Lynn. Yeah. I would advocate for keeping that sentence in about creating a more business friendly environment just because that is an issue about, you know, advocating for residents and businesses who are wanting that, wanting a more business friendly environment, including. That was brought up in within one Councilor. However, I will say that the parking charge was only brought up by one. I think I'll eliminate that. Steve. So with apologies, but I find this, because I know you worked hard on this, but I find this paragraph to be a little bit, just a tiny bit odd, because it's making the assumption that there should be improvements or even attention in all districts, you know, sort of equally, but we all serve on the Council to serve the town, not to serve our districts. So I think we can talk about some of the, I mean, I think it's appropriate to talk about the North Amherst Library, what's happening there. But I think there's too much of an effort to talk about all of the districts, but then some aren't really talked about. Like the North Common, is that a District 4 problem or is that a town problem? I think it's a town problem. Right. And then the temporary bridge is kind of a different space than the North Amherst Library. So one's sort of an emergency, the other one's, you know, kind of a, more of a sort of a long-term aspiration. But I think that there's something about that that assumes that each of the districts has to be touched and I don't think that we should be operating without assumption. And interestingly enough, I threw in District 3 and 4 at the end. Yeah. Yeah. So can we look at the question again? The question's got nothing to do with some of the things we talked about here. Okay. The question was planning and implementing maintenance and improvements in the downtown and village centers, including working with town staff in the business improvement district to assess capital needs, to implement improvements, and to complete current projects, such as the downtown wayfinding system. The one just above it was improvements to public areas, including parks, commons, and greenways, so they're safe and attractive. That's got zero to do with being business friendly, which is incredibly important to me, but doesn't belong here. Just because a counselor threw it in at a question that they wanted to talk about it in, doesn't mean it applies to that particular one. It doesn't belong there and parking charges after six o'clock don't belong in here that wasn't the town manager's idea. You can be as unhappy as you want about it, but it doesn't belong in planning and improvements that had anything to do with the town manager. That's to blame the select board for. Just to clarify, when we talk about the improvements, is it just speaking to infrastructural improvements then and not, okay, yeah, yeah, I'm reading the question, but that's not okay. I guess that's only partly true, Alyssa, at the end of every section, we were given an open-ended say something. So we didn't have to be responding to the exact wording that the select board wrote. We could say, if we're talking about, so in Lynn writing this up, since you're giving the response on specific questions with the ratings, this to me is the more the gestalt. So I'm not saying that this is written perfectly, but this should take, if someone took the time to write anywhere, a more general comment on this, and we feel like it's a good thing to be doing, so it isn't narrow. I mean, I found some of these questions to be, yes, no, happened, didn't happen, but I wanted to be able to talk more generally on how do I think things are going, where? What we, you have to go back to the beginning of the process. We have an employment arrangement with the town manager. We establish goals at the beginning of the year that we present to him. He then goes and performs during the course of the year, recognizing that those were the goals that he was told to pay attention to. We get to an evaluation. The evaluation then becomes, and think back, how do you do evaluations for people when you were evaluating people in employment arrangements where you were the employer? Because that's where we are here. You evaluated against what were the goals that were established for the person who you were evaluating. You can't extend beyond it, and furthermore, the second is an additional point. It's many, many times, it's more obvious this year, even than it was when there were five of us doing it, but you have a number of different individual assessments. What the president is writing is a collective judgment that becomes the judgment, not of the individuals, it's the judgment of the entire council, so that we as a group of 13 are owning it, not the individual, and that's the challenge that the president was dealing with, and it was about two and a half times as great as the challenge that the chair of the select board used to have to deal with, just simply because the number of people were sitting here. And I completely agree with that, so I don't think you should evaluate on things that he wasn't asked to do, so what Lynn has done artfully, I think, here, and it's just a, maybe it's a second paragraph, there were things identified to think about for the future that were more general, so it can be based on what he was asked to do, here's the performance, and then more generally, these are issues that have been raised. So I'm not sure in this paragraph which pieces, but yeah, a lot of these things were, weren't mentioned in the evaluation form, but it's done nicely, Lynn, I think, that you blended very specifics with some more general, where are we going? Let me just say, first of all, this was not an easy right. In fact, I've written many technical reports, and this was probably one of the most difficult. I want to take Andy's statement and I want to add to it. And we only served for seven months. The other were five months. We haven't even completed a full year, so we're assessing the town manager on what was a full year's worth of work, but in fact, we weren't here for five months of those year, that year. So it's almost three times as many people, two and a half times as many people, and not a full year. I did try to foreshadow a little bit, but I didn't want to use the evaluation to start setting goals for next year, for this year, the year we're in. So I tried to just say, there's some concern here, or this may need some tension in the future, or whatever, instead of trying to say, and next year, on July 3rd, you need to make sure you're presenting us with this, because we're not at that stage. So I'm trying to, just if you'll keep the future things, kind of, they're there, but I didn't feel it was appropriate to emphasize them here, because the next phase we go into is in fact the phase of us setting goals with the town manager, based on our goals, and so forth. So Dorothy. As a humanist, I want to say that I believe valuation of people is an art, and it's not a science. You can have somebody and set them goals, and they can meet every one of the goals, and you can not stand them, not want to work for them. So I think we have to stop thinking of this as being a precise instrument. For me, it was torture filling it out. I would have preferred to have written a five paragraph essay on five major points that would have gotten across the feeling. I mean, we're talking about a person, a human being, who is trying to lead another group of human beings who all have different feelings into doing something for a town where we're concerned about capital projects, but we're also mostly concerned about the human beings in that town. And I just think that this was an impossible task, and I hope that we have a much more simplified form next year, because this is not how we really choose people. And we just think about, if you wrote up a list of all of the things that you would want in a future husband or wife, and then really think, is that really what you want? Is that what you married? And the answer is no, it isn't. Actually, I'll take the one I have, thank you. I think we should have a goal next year that the town manager is expected to herd cats. There we go. It's a general higher ed faculty statement. Okay, so I think I get enough feedback on this one to try something. Let's move on to page 10, and we're now moving on to yet another one that was difficult, because as we looked at this, it was all written by the select board, and yet, even though we've only been here seven months, we have seen the results of some of this, and some of this we have absolutely no idea about. Okay, so, and yet, let me give you an example on the first one. I happen to know that we still are working on those minutes for the select board, because I'm in the third floor office once a week, and I know Angela's been working her heart out and trying to get them done, but it's only because I'm here, and frankly, that was an inheritance Paul got. So, moving on. The first paragraph is not toward any one goal. It just kind of sets the table. The second one is the select board minutes, and it's a recognition that it's still a problem, and, but Paul is devoting a lot of time to it. Staff time to it. Is there any problem with that? Alyssa. You just might change the word appropriating, but I'll mark that for a different question. Appropriating, significant. Okay, you're also, I don't know, signing, devoting, assigning, I'd like that. Okay, but that usually means money. All indications are that the seasonal homeless shelter ran smoothly. It did, but then it didn't. Right, and we will get to a discussion on that. Is there any further conversation on that one? There is, Paul is working very hard on that, you'll hear more about that later. The police grants the central repository of all policies. Just to be a little clearer on that, there wasn't one. So to say that as with the select board, yeah, I mean, yeah, we needed one too bad. It's gone. We didn't get one. So you already have that statement on the next page where at the end of the section where it says as stated earlier. So I think you could just leave it on the next page, take off as stated earlier and just say, yep, we need a place. So where do you want me to leave it? I'm sorry. Out of page 10 altogether because there never was one. So to say that as with the select board, we need one. And then on page 11, you say we need one. And that's true. We do need one. Okay, you want me to take out the entire sentence about central repository on page 10? Yep. Thank you. And leave the way it's stated on page 11. Yep, aside from the part where you said you weren't going to talk about future goals, but that's okay. I'm fine with it because I think it's a good goal. Okay. Any going on to communication with the select board in another town council? This is just, it's late and it's awkward. And I know it's exactly what he wrote, but he didn't meet weekly with the select board chair and vice chair. He met with them in order to prepare the agenda exactly like he does with town council. But he also probably did meet with select board chair every week like he does with you every week. Okay, got that one. Okay. Anything else on that one? Response to individual town councilors? Issue or changes that fall within the town council's authority? Feedback on critical issues? What? Sorry, issues or changes that fall within the town council's authority? I think that again is a discussion to be held in the future because I think it was something the select board didn't always entirely agree on. And so it's really difficult if people have different expectations just like with communication and everything else. So that's something we just wanna focus, if we have it as a goal next time is how do we measure that? How do we know what needs improvement commendable or unable to judge would be associated with that? But we're not changing this here. But we're not changing it because it's not worth fighting about. Okay. Feedback on critical issues? Collective bargaining litigation. This is a wonderful example of the timing of the year. Okay. Relationship with the media? And I'm leaving the last sentence. I should just say this should be a goal. Yes. I think it's a title for a great book. Right, there you go. It should be a goal. No, simple repository for all policies. Jesus, talk about boring. All right, staff and personnel relations. We're going to, I'm sorry, that was not reflecting on anything you do, Athena. But in fact, I expect you to have it because when I want a copy of it, I need to come to you to get it, so. It would be a service funnel. I'll listen. So we're at the bottom on page 12. I'm moving to it, yes. So there is no shift from the select board to the town council here. That's not what actually happened. We had zero input in who was hired in the past, and now the town council has some input for some hires. That doesn't necessarily change the answer to the goal, but that statement's just simply not relevant. So why don't I just focus on the town council? So I would just say the town council. Okay, it's not involved in hiring, only in confirming directors and other key staff. Okay. Anything else on that one? Staffing plan? I think I got a little lazy here. I kind of, yes. The last sentence of that seems to be missing something, and while that's somewhat Scrivner, I think the what is important. Which sentence? You also hold meetings across departments during which it is assumed directors and department heads are encouraged to something with each other, and I'm not sure what this something was. Can you get me to the sentence, please? This was, I get... This was probably the one that was on Sunday night at eight o'clock. Okay. Oh my God, you have no idea. Which, we're on the one that starts with staff morale, right? Can you tell me which sentence to go to? The very last one. You are, you also hold meetings across departments, and meetings across departments, but the very end is are encouraged to with each other, and I'm not sure what it was supposed to be. Maybe someone else can help. To communicate with each other, how's that? To communicate, oh. I'm surprised that's the only one you haven't found like that, and word checked didn't pick it up. Is there anything else on that paragraph? Yes. I had a question about that. Do we have a comprehensive plan for equity and diversity inclusion in our hiring policies and so forth? Do we? Dan, if it's at the level of a plan that some organizations have, I've never seen it, so yes. Do we, Paul? No. Okay. Moving on. This next one was all around retention. Can I make a quick comment on this? You should not cut anything out because you went to all the trouble of cutting it. Go ahead. Don't beef anything else up unless we ask you to because I don't feel like you should have to repeat anything the town manager said. Oh, this is what we said in response. You don't have to. The only reason I do some of it is because this is probably the only document the public reads. Not everybody reads like you do. Not everybody reads everything like you do. Anything else though? Okay. Foster attitudes of helpfulness and courtesy to the public and improved customer service. Yeah. I know that I made a comment. I'm not using these exact words, but some worry about burnout and morale because people were some of the staff was perhaps being stretched too far in order to balance the government. Now, we did put something that I'm adding something earlier about that. Okay. Anything else on this one? Professional development? I just, I have just a comment on this. I, you know, I think he is, Paul is a model for this. I have no independent way of knowing whether people are now getting meeting nicer, friendlier, more efficient. Can I help you? So, so I think this doesn't say therefore we conclude this is happening. Right. I think it says he is, he is leading by example to try to foster this. And the website. That's the intent. Yeah. And the website is extremely difficult still. So I just, but I think there is a sincere effort to improve it. You know, so again, just later when you read it. So just that I don't want it to say that we've actually got an easy to use, find things. So I think you've done it, but I just, yeah. How about begun to improve the information on the website and accessibility of our website? Continues to work on. Right. Okay. Anything on professional development? Yes. Yes. So in the middle you talk about, that's a challenge. Understand the competing needs for resources, some expressions to dissatisfaction. Please drop the last sentence that says most staff understand. First of all, you've already said that. And second. They do. Got that one. All right. Is there anybody that has any objections to the statement I've made about the human resources? Human resources audit. That was at nine o'clock last night. Okay. So most, most counts, that's how you've done it. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's a, there's times I'm looking at this and I'm going to shoot us now or shoot us later. Yeah. Providing periodic updates. We didn't. All right. The next one is the whole broad brought community, intergovernmental relations, volunteer committees, boards and commissions. And unlike in the past, we put the schools here and higher ed here so that if you were waiting for your opportunity here that is. All right. The first one, we are now on page 13. We're everybody. What? Oh, I'm sorry. Did we do? Yes, we did. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Page 16. Elementary and regional schools. Regional assessment. Andy, chime in. Okay. Yes. Quick comment. As we organize our goals for next time, it's really important past select boards didn't necessarily get this. We've been doing it right for the last couple of years. We organized our goals in a certain way. You reorganize them. And over the way the select board wrote them, which one makes it hard to follow because those were the goals. But it makes sense. And I can agree with your grouping, but let's make sure we group them the way we're gonna group them at the other end. Let's work backwards. Absolutely correct. But if you go back to Doug's evaluation last year, he's the same three grouping. The biggest problem is you had the, here we are before the new council comes in and then part B, which was after. And it was like, but some of these are the same. So it was, I was trying to make it sound like it hung together. Point for moving forward. Yeah. I do want to. I want things together. I want fiscal goals. I want this goal. I want these kinds of goals. Just so that it's like what we reflect here. Okay. Elementary and regional schools. The regional assessment, no. Fort River Feasibility Study. And I added in the paragraph on the MSBA and the Pellum elementary, the discussion with the Pellum elementary schools. Higher education relations. Relationship with the university and colleges. Partnership strategies with Amherst and Hampshire. And then we came to the wonderful and exciting write up about UTAC. It's like, it doesn't exist. How can we evaluate the town manager on something that no longer even exists? So anyway, any comment on that one? Spin off businesses. Relationship with the chancellor. Here comes a good one. Strategic partnership agreement with UMass. Soon to be on channel five. I put a big gold star next to what you wrote on that one. So thank you. Do you know you should bring me always? There's been too many hours spent on this thing. Awareness of developments and planning in nearby institutions. The fact that the town manager basically, I dare you all to tell me what you think that actually meant, but we can have that conversation next month. Yes. Page 18, we're on to community engagement relations and communication. Early voting, community engagement regarding town successes and challenges. Meeting the scheduling of more meetings and outreach sessions in locations such as community rooms, et cetera. Consistent process for you and departments to follow when communicating with the public. Yep. Felt like the last sentence should be more directive rather than just saying would be appreciated. Is that something we can put into next year's into the coming year's goals? Yeah. Again, we're evaluating this year, this past year. Yes. And what I think you're saying is we need to go around this. Yes. For the coming year. Okay. Diversity in government and technology. The most amazing combination of everything else that was left. So boards, and if we're currently using it, I need to look at the wording on this because it's not the right wording. But this was really about boards and use of kind of modern selection, whatever. It's the whole goal to me was a bit of a mystery, it's frankly. If anybody would like to help me word that one, please do. Diversity among staff, boards, and committees. This is a goal that you will never be rated high on. You can try and you can try again. But you'll never, you'll never completely satisfy people. Is there any questions here? I just, I think what Shalini mentioned before might be addressed in this paragraph. So I wanted to ask you, you talked about, I guess, specific policies. And does this paragraph address that? Staff is employees. This is staff, boards, and committees, all of it. Okay. Got it. LSSE, the INET, and the creating a wholly owned communication network. Yeah. Do you have any recollection next to you? I don't expect you to just have this memorized, but on page 18 under diversity in government and technology, and you mentioned utilizing the current best practice. I don't even know what that paragraph's talking about. I have to go back. Thank you. And I have to go back and look at that goal and look at the write up because I, again, I think it was in that shady hours. Yeah. It's not, it doesn't reflect the goal and it doesn't reflect, I'll redo that one. It was question 91, I think. Improving overall modernization and management of the volunteer committee's boards and commission system. Yeah, and I think I probably should speak to that a little bit because I look back on it. Was your goal? At the end, last year when we were still a select board, Ms. Kruger and I shared the role of sort of being the select board people who took kind of the lead role on what our responsibilities were in the system of finding and recommending to the select board when there were select board appointments, people for committees boards. And what we found was is that there was real problems with the paperwork flow system between the forms that were being filled out by members of the public and how it got into the system and how it tracked back to what vacancies occurred and when we knew that there were positions becoming available. And we always felt that the promise of what technology had to offer us never really met with the reality of what was being available to make that process work. And I think that it was largely there and I think that the hope was that the modernization of the community activity forms would help but then really that's a matter for another committee of the council to judge. That's useful to understand, thank you. Yeah, maybe he could just rewrite that section because that's exact. I mean, the rest of it isn't untrue in terms of plans, et cetera, but that was really just referring to the mechanism of having an accurate list of vacancies and accurate list of everything which our current technology does not allow staff to do. I mean, we would like a little flight to come up and say it's time to reappoint, yeah. Or somebody's term has just ended. Yeah, right. There's a couple of difficult areas that have come in here because there are certain goals that were kind of being very carefully worked around sort of what we were thinking of is really suggestions about individual members of the staff, not the town manager, but people who the town manager supervised what they might be able to do differently. It's very difficult to do that in an evaluation process like we have because we're not evaluating the underlying people, we're evaluating the town manager's supervision and ability to hold somebody else accountable. And so how you deal with it in goal setting and how you deal with it in evaluation has never been easy. And it's one of the things that I find particularly dissatisfaction level high for the whole evaluation process that we're forced into with the open meeting law in Massachusetts because you can't really have those kinds of open conversations and really say what I was getting at. You sort of have to kind of pick at what I'm getting at and guess. Right. And believe me, there was many a time I would have liked to have sent several of these questions off to you or Alyssa and say, what were you talking about? All right, so anything else on iNet or the creation of a wholly owned communication network? All right, then we're on to the transition last four. By the way, Board of License Commissioners is repeated here. Is there a certain place you would like it? Would you like it here or would you like it back in finance? Wherever it was. I'll refer to it here. It's repeated. I like the groupings. Thank you. I appreciate that. I spent a lot of time on those groupings. I wanted to regroup as I was doing, but this is great. All right, the Board of License Commissioners, anything on that? Amherst transition between forms of government. Communicate efficiently and effectively with town staff. By the way, this is going to be one of the items on our retreat agenda. Yeah, Paul and I just started talking about it the other day. We have a, oh yeah, it's the 21st of September. Yeah, what we don't have for sure yet is a location, but it'll be someplace in Amherst and we know Steve won't be here, which is unfortunate because there was an item we would want to talk about, but we want you there for. All right, is there anything else on this? The last page, two pages plus is about the process itself and the responses. So I will take your comments and I may check back individually with some of you. And we will hopefully by maybe Thursday have the next round, which will be the round that we will bring forward to the council for your approval. We go into executive session next week as well. And at that point is when we discuss the compensation package, which would go into Paul's next contract, okay? When do we do the vote? We do, we discuss the compensation package next week, but we don't vote on it until September 9th. I don't mean the, before you compensate somebody, you hire them. He's already hired. When do we finish this process? We finish this process next week, this part of it. Then you move to compensation, then you move to approval of the new contract. How do we finish this process? I come back to you with my next draft of this and you have to vote on it. Okay, so we vote that it's a good, that the report is correct. And reflects your, okay. I thought we were gonna vote on, that we thought he was doing a great job. We'll help you to vote on that next week. Perhaps it would be helpful to republish the timeline that says what we do, which week, in next week's packets. That would be helpful. But yes, we vote that, just as Lynn said, we vote that this is the comprehensive document that is the evaluation. Then we have a separate conversation about compensation. Right, so Lynn, is there any other comment at this time? Yes, Dorsey. I just think it would be good to have as a future goal, you know, seriously increasing the amount of people participating of the staff, the committee members and the public in the evaluation process as a goal for the town manager because these are numbers this year. They're consistently low. 10 people representing boards and committees and three members of the public. Yep. I think people don't respond because the process is so unwieldy. If there were a simpler way for people to respond, they would. You know, online form for them and one person filled it out. Was it the same form I got? No, I don't know. It was just like to his request. It was like, yeah. It was very simple. And it was, you know, that's a discussion for a later date. Yes, Shalini. I just want to acknowledge Lynn for the amazing job done. Shh, I'm not supposed to clap, ever clap, never clap. Yeah, yeah, but yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, we're moving on. We have no appointments. Committee reports. Pat. Audit. Okay. Bylaw review, Pat or Alyssa? Ah, I guess it's you then. Same old. When do you think that you're going to be coming forward with the next round? That would be Bob Ritchie's conversation with you. Okay. All right. And CRC. So you've heard part of the CRC regarding the dog park. The other time, the other thing that we're spending a good deal of time on is going through the master plan. Okay. And we're going to continue doing that. We did that. We've been doing it several meetings, but we're going section by section strategy by strategy. And are you talking about what you think the forum that we're required to do should look like? I think that would be fair to say, speaking off script, that we are trying to focus on that part of the master plan that we think may need to be updated. Okay. That which parts of the master plan we think are solid, which parts we think need to be updated. And yes, in preparation for a forum. Okay. Because we do have to have one of them this fall. We have to have one every year within the 12 month period. Okay. The ad hoc goals, we haven't met since the last time I brought you up to date. Finance committee, Andy? So just as a reminder, I think it may have been mentioned at the last meeting. We have a special meeting of the finance committee and the joint capital planning committee in combination scheduled for the evening of September 5th and we're still working on exactly how we're going to structure the meeting that I do feel comfortable in explaining the goal. The goal is to talk about the major building process and to begin to formulate a recommendation back to this council on a process for making the big decisions that need to be made including how to reach out to the community to other elected boards and committees that have an interest in it and how to utilize our council district meetings and other meetings and possibility forums. There's a whole range of things but how do you inform and involve the public which then gets back into things like you've heard and seen in demonstration at one point about the planning tool which has been continually refined to make it useful for the broadest range of public but we want to make sure that that is something that's an accessible part to all of this. So it's going to begin with this meeting on the 5th but it's really a prelude to things to try and formulate something to come back here so that the real discussion will ultimately be in the council or it belongs because it has to be a process that we'll feel comfortable with because the council will have to make the final decisions on all of the major building projects and what we can do with the capital money that's involved. So I at least wanted to tell you about it and make you aware of the meeting. I'm not suggesting that we need to make that a council meeting of the whole on top of the 13 people who will be here because they're either on one of those two committees already including the members of the public who have begun to participate and I should say we have had one meeting since they became members of the committee. It was very effective in good meeting and it worked very well with the enlarged committee in the first meeting of it. So I'll just, at least that's my impression other members of the committee can weigh into their own assessments. So this next meeting on the 5th will be their second time where they're participating. So when I gave the number of people who I expect to meet at the front of the room, they include those three people. The one other item that was discussed at the last meeting and will be discussed again at the next meeting and then come before the council is a fairly large dollar request for money to do some significant improvements to the Centennial Water Treatment Facility. And it's really more than just a modification. It really is a reconstruction of the entire facility. And it's a pretty complicated question both in why this might be necessary and what the consequences and the amount of dollars that are being discussed might be. It is money that would be charged against water rates because it is a water enterprise fund question will be before the council is probably because we're the water commissioners. And the decision we make if it, whether to borrow the money or not to borrow the money and whether to have the improvements or not have the improvements affect the water system to the extent that we do decide to borrow the money and to make these large expenditures it then will affect future water rates. Though the calculation of what that means is something that is still under development to the extent that we can provide and develop that information. So that will also be discussed further on the fifth. And at this point, I believe might come before September meeting of the council. September 9th. I think September 9th is a ton of date. To bring it before the council. But it is the other major work that is going on in the committee. So I think that would advise for the report. Okay. GOL. As I alluded to earlier, GOL has voted to move forward for work groups to the council, but we're looking at amending potentially ad hoc committees too. So we want to bring them together because they're related to each other. At their next meeting, in addition to the referral that we just received for percent of art, we'll be looking at a resolution that should be at the council on Monday, next Monday. And we'll also be close to coming up with a policy to propose for resolutions, proclamations, commemorations and citations that will involve potentially revisions to three different documents. One of which you guys won't need to see because it's our own guidelines, the GOL guidelines for review of stuff, but also the creation of a public document regarding these. We're also looking at revisions to the public ways policy for flag raisings and commemorative flags that we hope to have to the council soon. And we are awaiting some town attorney advice on the publication of candidate statements before we really dig into what we can do with them. And we are hoping to have that advice before meeting on Wednesday, so. Okay. Oka. Alyssa, I think you're on board for this one. This is an interactive report. How many of you actually read Evan Ross's report? Come on, raise your hands. Yay. So we've made some progress there. We wanted to get that out to you now knowing that we were gonna be focusing on the evaluation, but as food for thought, because one of the things that Oka continues to find a challenge is trying to read everyone's minds here before we bring you a recommendation. And so we are hoping to have a conversation that I'm sure Evan will discuss with our president as to when that will be, if that will be at one of the September meetings or an early October meeting to talk more about what our expectations are as a council and how we might choose to meet those, whether it comes to our own appointments, which hopefully we won't have to make for a little while because no one will resign or move away from the appointments that we do, but also of course with the town manager's appointments, which are the vast majority of appointments. In terms of appointments, we were provided some additional appointments that we were not expecting. And so they will be acted on at the Oka meeting on the 26th and you probably won't, therefore you won't have a written report that night. Or if they're not ready, then you'll have a written report for the night, but that will meet the 30 day requirement for the town manager appointments. But we were not expecting them before our last Oka meeting and they appeared. Okay, so you're saying you don't think we have an agenda item on the 26th on that? We won't have a written report on the 26th, but it is entirely possible that we will be able to give you our recommendation verbally the night of the 26th because we will meet on the morning of the 26th. We normally give you written reports, but in this case, I think there are a few that we can do without. Would you please drop an email to tell me what those appointments will be so they're on the agenda? Yes. Thank you. Okay, anything else? Okay, they're moving on to approval of minutes. These have already been revised. Are there, is there a motion at this point and the motion is to approve the July 22nd, 2019 Town Council meeting minutes as presented and actually amended, presented. Is there a motion, a second? I need a second. Oh, I'm sorry. Steve, thank you. Any changes, corrections or additions? All right, hearing none. All those in favor, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? An absence. So it's 11, four? No opposed? I'm sorry, it's nine, four. No opposed? Two abstained and two absent. Eight in favor? And who was the third abstain, abstention? Yours, you abstained. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see that. Okay, I'm sorry. There were eight in favor. Nobody was opposed. Three people abstained and three, two people are absent. Okay? The town manager's report. This will be brief, fortunately, because you're already in your hour six. Even though it's now six, four weeks since we've talked with you. There's more, but I'll be more, I'm just knocking things out until next week that aren't time urgent. Three date specific things. Thursday, Lauren Goldberg, our town attorney, will be here meeting with the Ranked Choice Voting Commission. This is, they're encouraging people to attend because this is part of their learn with us process. The second is next Tuesday, a week from tomorrow, still tomorrow, is the first day celebration on the town common. At the, which it celebrates the beginning of the new school year. The, on August 28th, which is Wednesday, is the parking forum, which is where the consultants will be returning to deliver their report on the parking forum. Then, once they have feedback from the public, they will be coming back in September, October, when they can ever get scheduled to make a formal presentation to the full council. So this is the preliminary sort of report. They will continue to receive feedback. Their final visit to the town will be before you as the keepers of the public way. UMass and other colleges are all starting the big move in weekend, it starts August 30th. So that's when everybody, we're all geared up for that. And then the only other thing I really want to talk about was Craig Stores because that has come up and that's been an issue. So Craig Stores is operated by a non-profit organization. They have four members of their board of trustees and they hire and fire the staff. They're responsible for it. They receive no town funds. We are, we devote town resources obviously because our police officers are there almost on a daily basis. We're participating in the homelessness systems forum that Julie Fetterman and other staff attend, including Captain Ting and Assistant Chief Olmsted and others who come regularly with other care, other providers in the network. So we're intimately involved. The resignations caught everyone off guard and I think that that was most, if we read the letter of resignation by the staff, it was really directed towards the board of directors. That being said, the shelter is a very important asset for the town and for the region and for the state. Everyone is concerned about maintaining the shelter. The state provides the bulk of funds to the shelter. $175,000 comes directly from the state. The Jane Banks who was the director at the state level secured an actual line item in the state budget as opposed to an earmark which we had had before. Earmarks can come and go based on the favor of the legislator at the time. An actual line item is much better. They get about $15,000 from the United Way. They raise a certain amount of money themselves and they have some other grants that they apply for and get by being a shelter. But so if they're in the $225,000 range in terms of a budget, $175,000 comes from the state. So the state is the driver on this thing. State was informed immediately about the condition, the situation, the state came in, did an audit of the organization. They have provided the organization with a corrective action plan. They also simultaneously were going down another path of saying is there another way to address the, to meet the needs of homeless people in Amherst because we had a state funding, we had a location, but we just didn't have the organized staffing. So they were reaching out to other agencies which Craig Storre's board of directors had done previously and had no takers. They were hopeful to have a larger organization come in and operate the shelter instead of hiring independent staff that's overseen by this four member volunteer board. That's still a work in progress. I think that's the preferred alternative. Whether that actually will come to fruition is a big question mark because a lot of the other non-profits who might be willing to step up also might, they have other reasons for not participating in this. So there's two paths going down. One is for the board of directors to take the corrective action that they need to take for themselves. And then they would then subsequently go out and hire staff. We would support them in any way they need to be able to hire qualified staff to run the shelter. The other path is to see if there's another agency who would come in and take the funding that has been secured through the state and others. United Way has promised that their funding would continue for this shelter or at least one member of the board of directors of the United Way has said that. So we think that the funding is secure. Conversations need to be had with the church whether they will continue hosting the shelter. The state has a problem with the way the shelter is operated because it doesn't open until 9.30 at night. They want the shelters to be open at five in the afternoon because there's a big gap when people are seeking to have dinner and then they're just waiting. We all see them every night waiting in bank lobbies and things like that until they can get to the shelter especially when it's very cold out. But the church has had a pretty firm line about we can't let people in because we have evening activities, we need our parking lot, we need our rooms available. So that's something that would need to be brought up with the church. People are very grateful for that the church is hosting. They do get paid rent for the space so it's not a purely an act of kindness on their part. But it's also something that they take on as a community and they're very committed as a religious community to this mission. So no real updates other than that there's a lot of people who are focused on it. You know, we've had a meeting with folks from lots of different groups who are trying to scope out what housed the best strategically. The state has the biggest footprint on this and they will be saying where they want their money spent in essence. And if we're, the hope is that Craig's doors will be strong enough to populate their staff and be able to run the shelter. The goal right now is, let's at least have what we had last year come November 1st. And it's gonna sneak up on it, it's not even sneaking up, it's just around the corner and to get people who are committed to being able to work those evenings and to organize the volunteers and to make arrangements for all the food. It's a lot of work that needs to be done. So I'm open to any questions on that. Go ahead. Yes, Dorothy. What were the staff, I had just visited it maybe a week before and there was not a clue that this was coming. The staff said they had serious problems with the board of directors. What were those problems? I'd rather you just read their letter because the letter was pretty explicit. It wasn't about the full board, it was about a member of the board that they felt wasn't serving their purpose well. I did read the letter and I still did not know what they meant. I'll talk with you. Okay. Yes, Shalini. Could we get access to the audit that was done by the state or is that a private document? I would ask the state, I don't know if that's private or not, but I can certainly ask the state. If they're a filed non-profit, the audit should be available. Yeah, I think so. As should be their 1099, I'm sorry, their 990 and a bunch of other, yeah. I mean, they have to file documents annually. But they may have additional requirements if their budget's a state grant in terms of disclosure. I would imagine because they have the state grant, they have to have their audit filed. So this is just a financial audit. It's also an audit of what the board needed to do. Like one of the things. Oh, that may not be public. To repopulate the board was one that, they were trying to do themselves, so that's been out there. That may not be public and they're not required to make that public. Yeah. Any other questions? I think since we'll see you a week from now, we can maybe catch up on all the other, the rest of the four weeks. Just very quickly on my, I've only one comment and that is, we did receive a proclamation for the 50th anniversary of the Jewish community of Amherst. And as I am supposed to now do, I automatically referred that to GOL and they'll be taking that up this week. Future agenda items. There's so many, I think we could probably sit here all night. But yes. In terms of following up on the shelter beyond just an update, one of the things that I think we need to clarify is what say, we don't have say because we don't have the financial strings that we had in the past when we originally set up the shelter and we asked somebody to come in and before these organizers to meet certain needs. If Craig Stores decides to go a different direction, et cetera, we may be less welcoming of their choices as opposed to another agency. So I think figuring out how to have that conversation is something that maybe you and Paul can talk about. Do we have any say or is it just, it's up to the church now that the state's weighing in and saying, well, we want you to open earlier, et cetera. We had a lot of community input before the shelter got started. Now we feel like it's largely out of the community's hands, but if they're going to come back for us for money at some point, et cetera, then maybe we'll be able to have that conversation again. Or if we can just say, nope, we get no say in this, this is just like any other nonprofit running stories. We don't tell big brothers, big sisters how to do their work unless they want to grant. I just think that needs to be clearer to people. Okay, Paul. So just, so our operating assumption is that what we have had in the past is what we want to continue to have. And so we're not changing anything. The state and we are saying we want it to be, continue to be a wet shelter, what they now call low threshold shelter, which seems to be the going, that the state wants all shelters to be that because it's really, there's no discernible real difference between wet shelter and dry shelter because they really are behavior-based shelters. So that and the fact that we want them open at least as early as 9.30, we'd like them to be earlier, which I think is what the state has said. I would definitely like them to be open. And then we want it to be operational. We would like it to be co-ed. We want to have the same number of beds as we have had previously. We want to support this fall. We need to go to the state building code to get a building board to get permission to continue to host the shelter the way it's been hosted in the past. So just, we're basically saying we're not looking to make any changes unless the council's next year or in the new year process says we want to make some significant changes to the shelter or get rid of the shelter, whatever. Again, the issues, where's our money? Okay, any other council comments? Yes. So I just wanted to mention thank you to Alyssa for starting the organization of first day council presence and first day celebration. And I think you might have started the block party one too, but I'm not sure. And you put out who should do it. And I'm gonna talk to Alyssa again since our chair of OCA is not here, but we have an outreach communications and appointments committee that it seems like the outreach portion of this might fit well under that committee. So I'm, in my council comments, making a strong suggestion that maybe OCA as part of their outreach portion of their charge can take charge of this. So Alyssa is doing this out of the goodness of her heart. No, she said she's not. But she wasn't doing it. Okay, so. Chair of OCA is not here, which is why you're the vice chair. So I'm readdressing that comment too. The list of things to be done as much shorter this year if someone wants to read that email, be happy to answer questions, but it's not my thing this year. Any other councilor comments? Any other topics not anticipated? Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Second. Is there any other discussion? All those in favor say aye and raise your hand. Aye. Opposed? Abstained.