 All right. So welcome everybody to our community chat for Thursday. We are joined today by Council President Lynn Griezmer. Also a fellow neighbor. Hi, Lynn. Hi. And as well as your town manager Paul Bachman, my name's Brianna. Just want to remind everybody that this is being recorded. So please refrain from asking any, you know, personally identifying health questions or otherwise. If you'd like to ask a question, please use the Q and a feature within zoom or raise your hand from zoom. If you're on the phone, please press star nine to raise your hand. And we will acknowledge your question. So before we launch into questions, I will give Paul and Lynn a chance to kind of give us any updates they might have. Sure. So there's a lot going on and a lot coming up too. And so I want to talk about what's coming up first next week. You know, the Amherst college and the university probably will be starting to reveal more about what they are expecting to have happened on their campuses in the fall. They have sort of both have sort of said June 30th would be sort of a target date. I think they'll be some, you know, for the college there might be a little more flexibility in that date. But I think they're going to start talking about what it means to be open on the college campus come the fall and what that calendar, which we already sort of know will look like. I think it will have dramatic impacts on the town. So much to pay attention to there. The second thing is today the department of elementary and secondary education for the state came out with additional with the guidelines for reopening elementary schools in the fall. And I have not really gotten into it, but I know the superintendent has and lots of concerns, lots of review. A lot of discussion will happen on that topic over the coming weeks as they have a gargantuan task and trying to get the elementary schools open so that students can return safely so that parents and guardians can have someone take, you know, with their children so that they can get back to work safely. And also to be able to make sure the staff are able to return to work safely because that's the most critical point. That's that's where the education happens is between staff and students. Staff been doing a tremendous job, you know, remotely as we all know. So a couple of other things I wanted to mention, Puffer's pond has been open. We're managing it more aggressively this year aggressive in the sense that we have actual people there from 10 in the morning to six at night. And they're checking people in there, making sure the beach doesn't get too crowded. There's people information folks at the start of State Street. So it gives us a chance to educate people, let them know how we're going to how things are going to work before they park their cars. And then there's people greeting people at a tent as they enter Puffer's pond. And that's been working out pretty well actually and people appreciated those more rational approach to it. Oh, Lynn changed your background. That looks good. And the last thing I want to mention is that downtown is starting to bustle. We have put out picnic tables on bowl and walk. There are now sections of North Pleasant street that are carved out. In the street that we were putting seating in. On Amity street for Amherst coffee to expand. So there's lots of really good stuff happening downtown restaurants are open. So. Lots of things happening. So Lynn, do you want to provide an update or are you too busy with your backgrounds? No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. You're on mute, Lynn. Sorry about that. I needed to change locations. Because we're having some work done outside and all you could hear was hammering. Oh, that's why you're walking. That's why I was walking. So I'll actually go back to my old background. But let me start by saying the council is extremely busy. We actually for the first time, except for two Monday holidays. We had a meeting last week on Monday, but in that instead of been meeting every Monday. In the beginning in March, we started meeting. We were using those meetings as somebody, you know, for the purposes of really hearing more about what the town's response was to COVID. And again, I want to just thank the town manager. And Julie and our first responders because they really have been on top of it from day one. So we've been able to see the town manager. So we've been able to see the town manager. And we've also set up a special website, which is still available. And so what now the, the responsibility. Before the council is to really try to see what we can do to support the economic development. And opening of the town. And, you know, we've done that with some special zoning. Legislation. That the town manager brought to us, and the town manager has put out. So that's going on. We're getting ready for budget. And it's budget, budget, budget. As many of you know, we passed a one 12th budget to just get us through the month of July. But on Monday, Paul will be introducing the. The rest of the FY 12, 21 budget. In other words, the full 12 month budget. And that will immediately be referred to the finance committee. And that will be in July, July 13th. And that will be twice a week. During most of the rest of July. And until we get ready and come back to the council for the budget, hopefully to be passed. Sometime around July 20th. And that includes a hearing on July 13th. That we will hopefully hear from all of you. And there will also be public comment at all of the finance committee meetings. We will also have a special meeting of the town council. And we will also have a special meeting of the town council. And we will also have a special meeting of the town council. And each meeting will focus on a very various pieces of. The budget as well. We also have just called a special meeting of the town council. The focus totally on the public safety, specifically police in light of all of the crises that have been going on regarding. Racism. And so what we're doing is to find out more about our own police practices. Our policies and the statistics. It is not to dismantle. It is not to disarm. It is to make sure we're well educated. So as the public asks for questions and brings concerns to us. We know what we're doing and we can look for opportunities. Whereas always everybody can improve. But we also want people to understand that we're not in the business of. Putting our police department aside. Calling a lawless society. So that's going on at this point too. So there's lots of things happening. We're getting ready to do the town manager's evaluation. Close your ears, Paul. And that includes soliciting public comments. So we hope you will do that. And then we'll be back with our next slide. And then we'll have a solicit comment from all committees and committee chairs. And those notices, I hope we'll go out Monday or Tuesday, or Wednesday of next week. And that's a process. We go through every summer. We're actually trying to move it up earlier into the year next year. And that's just a few of the highlights of what's going on. Lots and lots of things. With all four of our standing committees. Okay, great. We have some questions here already. And I know Lynn mentioned how busy the council was and talked about some of the. The items that are up in front of the council at the moment, but in general, can you go through some upcoming town council agenda items that people might want to pay attention to? Sure. First of all, the water and sewer rates have come to the council once they've been to the finance committee. They are coming back. They're coming back to the council. And if people want to do, make public comment, there will be a public comment period at the beginning of the council meeting. Well, not quite at the beginning, but toward the very beginning. The, there is a slight increase in both the water and sewer rates. However, we're still lower than many of the town surrounding us. And interestingly enough, part of that increase. Yes. So we're not only looking at students around using campuses, but also it's because people are being more conservative. And which is a sign of really looking at sustainability options. So it's, we can't be too critical of the fact that we have to do some changes. One of the issues that goes along with that, of course, is keeping our plants and our water sources healthy and available to all of us. And I think that's a really good point. And I think that the board is a very, very, and I do want to say so very slim. Capital budget. We're basically investing in sidewalks, a little bit in roads and putting some aside to reserve those things we know just can't be held off. For another year. The, the library has created a lot of opportunities in the city. We've already gotten a glimpse on the elementary schools, includes the library includes all of the town services. We've already gotten a glimpse on the elementary schools and also the regional schools. And we've gotten a glimpse on the library because those boards have passed those budgets. And sent them on to the town. So it's really our opportunity to look at all of it together. And come up with our best. Yes. budget. Great. We had a question that just came in from one of the attendees. Has the state provided any estimates of local aid, transportation, funding, school funding, et cetera, for fiscal year 2021? You must have been sitting on my shoulder when I asked Paul that question just yesterday. The answer is no. We don't expect to get any guidance until August if we're lucky, maybe September. I was reminded in an MMA meeting, Mass Municipal Association meeting a couple weeks ago, that there was one year that we went with 112th budgets all the way into November. Yeah, just to add to that, I wish we did, we don't. What did come from the state is that they said that we should expect payments on the same level of state aid that we had for FY20 for the first two months, meaning July and August for FY21. So they are saying level funding at this moment in time and constructing the budget that we are presenting to the town council on Monday, we have projected level funding of the state aid coming into the town that includes education and everything else. And if in the likelihood, and it is a strong likelihood that state aid actually is reduced, the council and the staff have all agreed that we will replenish that lost revenue from our free cash, which is our rainy day fund, which is what that's there for. And the fact that they said two months, it makes me think they're not close to doing a budget. The house hasn't even gotten through the budget yet and it has to go through the Senate and then it has to go through reconciliation and then the governor has to sign off on it too. So I think they're a long ways away from a budget. Another question here for Lynn, what is the council doing to address the national and local concerns about policing and racism? Thank you for that question. First of all, we actually have been having a variety of conversations. Every councilor is engaged in these conversations with their constituents. Two of our counselors specifically were invited by a group of residents to meet with the police chief and with Captain Ting. And in addition to that, about six or seven of us listened in as well to that meeting. That led to another meeting where three counselors went to a meeting of the Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Commission has now taken on a responsibility working specifically with D. Shabazz and also Gazette Gaia to pull together an opportunity for a citizen's forum where they are reaching out, particularly to people who are not comfortable maybe speaking at a council meeting, understand their concerns and bring those back to the council. But meantime, what the council is doing is making sure we're better educated about the practices and policies of our police. And with great cooperation from the chief and his staff, we will be having a special meeting on the 6th of July at 630 that will focus totally on public safety with an emphasis on police and supporting services, including the way they work with the fire and AMS. All right. Great. I want to add that's just the beginning of the conversation. We don't see this as the end of the conversation. We see it as trying to assess where we are, make sure that before we make any moves, we actually understand what our police department does. Paul, do you have anything to add to that? Now, I think it's a conversation, I think, that has to happen at multiple places, multiple venues, multiple ways. Not everybody's comfortable in every forum. And I think a lot of people might feel it might be difficult for folks to come to a council meeting. And so I think that the more ways we have for people to interact with our police department and with everybody in the town government, the better off we are. And then quite honestly, you and I and others, our town staff at our last staff meeting, we talked about the work that we have to do as town staff. So I think while it's a moment, it's not a passing moment. It's something I'm really committed to having an engaged conversation and the sort of re-examination of how we do our work as town employees. In fact, Paul, you might want to give just a little preview on one item in your budget. Yeah, so we are trying to, you know, a lot of this work doesn't happen for free. And so we are finding money to make sure that there are resources available for us to move forward to engage people to help guide this work. Great. I got another budget question that came in the room. If the rainy day fund is also meant to support our large building projects, such as the school, DPW, et cetera, will you put a cap on withdrawals shifted to the operating budget? So, yeah, I mean, I think that we're, you know, having really tight communication with the council and with the finance committee and with our, you know, having, again, having Sonia Aldridge and Sean Mangato on the team and really good communication with the library and the schools, we're all going to be having these conversations with the budget coordinating group as we go down this road. There's so much uncertainty and I don't think we're going to say there's a cap because we just don't know what the future looks like, but I think we're all incredibly cognizant that we do not want to lose the opportunity to move forward on our major capital projects and that having those reserves is an important component of that. But the world has changed and we have other tools that we can use to manage our budget in addition to, you know, using reserves to fill the holes, basically. Yeah, and let me add to that as a counselor and also as a member of the finance committee. And that is in the guidelines that we've given the town revised from the original guidelines because of the change in times, you know, we've made it very clear. We're watching we this is not a keep using cap until, you know, keep using our funds until they're gone. It's at some point and we hope we can make it through the year with the black budget. But if we have to look at it in the mid year, it's always tougher. And that's what we're trying to avoid. But I we've never said there's a cap. But all of the council is committed to the major capital projects. Some of them may be delayed longer than others, although at this point, both options for the library and for the elementary school are still out there. And in fact, the elementary school is moving forward with the naming of a building committee. Great. I'm going to just take a quick chance to remind our attendees who have joined us live to use the Q&A function to ask your question or raise your hand and zoom so we can address your question. I also wanted to take a quick moment that will be. I know we're talking a lot about the budget in in July and early July. We'll be doing a kind of multi channel ask me anything with our finance director so that you can ask any and all your questions about the budget. And we'll have that up in many different platforms for people to send in their questions and get access to our finance director's answers in a kind of timely fashion. So there'll be more to come on that. OK, I'm really excited by that. I think, you know, Sean, I got our finance director and Brianna have worked on this to put out there for, you know, for hours and hours, they'll be available to ask ask me anything and they'll answer to you online. And I think that that is very brave to do that. And I think that it'll open up some opportunities for the public to ask those kind of questions that they might might not otherwise have the opportunity to ask. So we'll see if people respond to it. But it's a I'm really thrilled that they've taken that initiative. Yeah, and it should be it should be July 9th. We'll put out details, but leading up to that, if you have any suggestions of what platforms you use and like best so that we can also factor those in, feel free to email me at info at AmherstMA.gov with any suggestions. And when you talk about platforms, we've talked about Reddit, we've talked about Facebook, we've talked about Twitter, those are things that were when you say platforms. That's what you mean. Yes, that's what I mean. And I know in our community, a lot of folks are using Nextdoor or other different listservs or things like that. So we want to be sure we're reaching people where they are. We have a good sense of kind of the most popular ones, but we want to make sure everyone's included in the conversation. Even if it's just emailing us a question or sending us a letter with a question, a letter. Wow, that would be exciting. That would be really exciting. Mail US mail. We don't get much of that anymore. So we have we have about 10 minutes left. Oh, I see a question coming into the room. Is there is there a plan to physically open up town government meetings to the public? So at this point, we aren't opening our buildings to the public. We're getting prepared to open our buildings by appointment, which a lot what a lot of communities are doing. So there are two things that are taken into consideration. One is the production, the protection of our force, our employees. So we have brought our employees back under strict protocols about how we conduct ourselves when we're in this building up in Town Hall and Brianna's in Town Hall. So so and then and then we'll have strict protocols when people enter the building. And so the idea of opening and creating meeting spaces is just not where we are at this point in time. When you talk about a meeting, you're talking about a group of people in this community tends to be older people in a room for an extended period of time, sharing same space. Even if they're socially distanced, you're still sharing the same air. And that's the recipe for for viral spread. Our health director is really not in favor of it. We are abiding by the state's rules in terms of discouraging it by allowing smaller groups to get together with public meetings. You can't control how many people will show up once it's open. It's open. You know, you can have 10. Nobody show up or you can have 100 people show up. So one of the things that we've learned is that the Zoom platform is quite beneficial in people. A lot of people, a lot more people participate. And this added benefit that Lynn has mentioned is that every meeting is recorded every meeting. And so that has really expanded the way people can access the public bodies as they can do their do their work. I have a comment here or suggestion. Please invite the town clerk to a future chat. I am interested in the preparation for the fall's election. Wow, that's a really great suggestion. She's really actively working on that. There will be changes for the fall election. These changes will have to go to the council. And so we're looking at different alternatives for the fall because we have a September election and a November election. Both will be pretty competitive, I think, because we have a senator senatorial primary and the September election. And of course, the presidential election in November and how we do them socially distanced with all the proper protocols with a reduced election staff and being cognizant that many of our election locations are in schools is a big challenge for our relatively new town clerk, who's also our elections official. The good thing is that Chavina is an expert in elections and election law and knows this stuff backwards and forwards and has been working in this area. And so she has been she has a team that she's working with, which includes our fire chief, our superintendent, public works, our facilities manager and the facilities director for the school department. And they're all sort of scheming out different ways that we can serve the public and make that happen. But that's a really great idea. I appreciate that. OK, let's see. We have a few more minutes and so I just want to give a last call out to the to the folks in the room. Now's your chance. If you want to raise your hand and zoom or use the Q and A button within Zoom to put your question to our panelists. I don't see any hands or any questions. Is there anything that either of you didn't get asked that you might want to speak on now, Lynn? I I get so many emails and I made a commitment as president that I would answer all the emails that come to the town council as a body. And, you know, every once in a while, the emails start having a similar rhythm. And so I tend to use a similar answer or the same answer each time. But, you know, some of the emails that we get when I had recently, in fact, I just answered this morning, they were people who were looking for where were we, how were we communicating about both the covid pandemic and racism? And when I got done writing the response, I thought to myself, I probably should have published that list someplace because the council and the town staff have been enormously attentive to both of these issues. Covid early on and continuing the but though we don't do a special feature at each of the town council meetings like we did starting in March. There is a section in the town manager's report on covid every time he does a town manager's report, which is for every council meeting. And I mentioned earlier in the show the specific things that we're doing to kind of get the conversation going and toward any changes we may see making around public safety based on all of the race and the racist issues that have been going on. This this Monday, for example, we actually are passing a proclamation about Asians because with covid we've seen a lot of discrimination against the Asian population and people have been failing that. And so two residents and three councils are sponsoring that proclamation as well. So it's there's been a lot of activity. The council itself is a lot is really kind of back to normal. If we can call it that, it doesn't feel normal. But we're meeting a lot and and our meetings are really getting the business of the town moving forward again, which I think in the beginning in March, middle of March, we felt like we're all kind of a little stuck. And now that does not feel that way at all. So I had swing some things back to personal things for me. As one is, you know, we went out to Mission Cantina for dinner Saturday night. That was a blast that we sat outside all the good food, all the margaritas. And so as my father's day family type of event. So restaurants are opening up and sitting outside in this beautiful weather under a shade structure or a tent or an umbrella has been really great. We got a grant for ten thousand dollars that we're working with the bid on to make some more create more amenities on our outdoor eating establishments downtown. Yesterday, I've got my hair cut for the first time since covid started and went over to Matt's and not plugging one part of Barbara, but to say he had really good protocols in place and felt really comfortable there. I had to keep a mask on the entire time he kept a mask on the entire time. But, you know, listening to some of these businesses, they're going to have a hard time getting through. And their economies have changed so dramatically where their revenue is cut in half just because of the protocols they have to put in place, the PPE, they have to purchase the number of people who are hesitant to visit them. So I really worry about a lot of our businesses that are the ones that are going to survive, but they're open. They're trying to make a living. They're they're working their their butts off to make it happen. So kudos to the ones who are out there working. And I ask the people to go out and support them. All right. Well, I go ahead, Lynn. I just want to give a plug for the work that the chamber and the bid have been doing the extent to which the town has been working closely with them throughout all of this. Absolutely. All right. Well, I don't see any other hands or questions in the room and we're at 12 30. So I think we'll wrap it up here. We'll put this recording up shortly after and we will be back next Thursday at the same time. Same link and same phone number with a new guest. So I want to say thank you to Lynn for joining us today and also to Paul. Yep. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye.