 We have a public forum tonight, and we also have a quorum of the council. So seeing that we have a quorum of the council we are going to call the public forum to order at 602 and the purpose of the public forum is Regarding appropriations that were not in the annual budget Specifically in this case it is appropriations with regard to the MSBA having approved us for the feasibility study and just very quickly When we did approve this in our previous budget we approved it at 400,000 and we want to now increase that to 750 so the purpose of the public forum is we'll have a brief presentation and Then a public comment must be at least equal to the amount of time for the presentation So without further ado, Sonia I'm sorry No, no, we'll do that afterwards. Yeah, okay, Sonia. Go ahead. I'm sorry and Mike. Nice to see you We don't really have a presentation for tonight. We have the order up on the screen here and as Counselor Grissmeyer Explained it was part of our it isn't included in the Joint Capital Planning Committee report that was done for fiscal year 20. It's in there for 400,000 as a borrowing authorization that never went to council to vote we just got approved from MSBA and We subsequently we had 400,000 in there for half to pay half of the Feasibility study and then we were recently informed that they would not reimburse us For half so we had to increase the amount to 750 although there is a possibility that we will be reimbursed for some expenses later in the future I think that's I don't have a lot on this Superintendent Morris, please add. Oh, thank you To add to what Sonya said. This is the first part of what's called the enrollment period and there were many steps I think last time I was here We talked about them and funding the feasibility is one of the steps and during this enrollment period that will You know get us to actually doing a feasibility study and to the point that Sonya raised about the the dollar amount And the way MSBA works is you have to fund the full amount regardless of reimbursement this situation this situation our reimbursements uncertain but Even if it was more certain you fund the full amount and then you get reimbursed by the MSBA so Regardless of whether we were planning or not planning to receive any money back That's the way their procedures currently work that you fund the full amount and hope that some of it comes back And I want to thank the council for their continued support in this process, which is exciting daunting long Quite a long process, but it does require some funds and this is what we're here to talk about tonight Okay, are there any brief questions from the council at this time before we move to public comment? Okay, is there anyone here for public comment? Then we will basically look at each other for three minutes You have to do the three minutes That's what the rules. That's what the charter says. You've never discussed that before We've never just let's talk about it, but go for the three minutes this time and then discuss it Yeah Please ignore the quiet debate. All right seeing that is is now six minutes after six I am going to Ask for a motion to adjourn second All those in favor Raise your hand and say aye. Aye it's 11 yes and none None apps. I'm sorry and not no knows no extensions and two absent at this point. Okay We are going to go immediately into a finance committee meeting because the order that we Looked at during the finance committee was different than the order. We're looking at now and so If those that are not on the finance committee would like to take a brief break, please do so otherwise, I'm going to Move and have Andy Take over Now you don't need to move on what I'm going to do is first of all call a finance committee to order and before everybody leaves there's two people here who you should meet and They're Especially Evan now Lost him there We have two our two resident members and please come up and join us And Wanted to introduce you to Sharon Povinelli Robert Hegner who have been resident members and have been Really great participants in the finance committee and very much appreciated and very much part of all of our conversations and So what I wanted to do was to clarify and I don't know Sonya has anything else that she wants to add On the screen. I think we now have At the bottom order 2068 which is being split off from The the prior version of 2068 in that 2068 Only encompasses now the school funding and there's a new order that we'll need to vote on so That it has to do with the portion that was the INET funding Which was actually not the subject of a required public hearing because it was part of a public hearing on the general Capital budget and in and of itself is an amount that's unchanged And this is a matter in the packet Sonya there You want to walk us through any other changes? That we're in this The changes to this order We included a lot of the MSBA language the boilerplate language so that if we are able to be reimbursed The I was going to say article the orders in line with that The other part that's added in here is the boilerplate language for Being able to use bond premiums any bond premiums to pay down the note before we bond it Which was it is the subject of another order later in the The finance committee already considered You will see you will see this language in every single one of our borrowing Authorization it's the chapter 44 section 20 portion of it every authorization for borrowing will have this language in it now So that we can do that what you're going to see later on is to be retroactive for the Authorizations that happened before muni mod Because we have a couple of Bands out there that we are going to permanently bond and we're going to want to be able to do the same thing pay down the premiums before we borrow Feel free To ask questions now If not, I think that the What makes sense is that we Reconsider 2068 the if somebody Sides to make the motion that we As a finance committee recommend to the council The new order 2068 as it has been revised Yes Second from Dorothy Okay Any discussion on this motion? Okay So I think we're ready to proceed to a vote unless they're kind of comments from the resident members before we vote Then okay Then for the finance committee all in favor indicate by just raising hands on saying aye So it's five to zero And we can go on to the other order, which I think is now 2069 now 2078 2078. I'm sorry I'm Sonia initiative Sonia put out a several other orders in between so she had to go to 78 And I think that there's no change in this order from what would have been previous section No changes. It's just separated out And as noted this also has the language about the new Provisions regarding funding and bonds so Any discussion Comments, yes, Kathy. It's more of a comment to make sure I understood it. So by this new wording Next year, we're not going to have to do the pre if you get a premium Authorized the way of spending we've already authorized it in this order The pre prior years, we're just kept we're just um, we have some Bonding that we need to do that this language wasn't in those when they were articles at town meeting the language wasn't in so What we're doing later on is we're just making that retroactive so that we can apply this rule To the older debt that we're about we have a sewer debt of three million dollars That we've been working on the project. It's almost done. We're probably going to go get a permanent bonding on that next fiscal year So we want that language in there if we if we earn a premium Then we can take the premium off the total amount owed Before we go out to bond Then Any other comments questions If not, I would just So she's saying that they're reducing the amount they're borrowing by paying the premium upfront. Is that what you're saying? If we get a hundred thousand dollars of a premium We would subtract that hundred thousand dollars from the three million and then we would only borrow the difference the net amount so emotion would be in order then to If somebody's so inclined to recommend Town Financial Council for an angel order 2078 So moved. There's motions on the floor seconds made and seconded Any further discussion? There's one other item by the way for the finance committee before we adjourn And But we have the motion on the floor now any further discussion any comments from the resident members Okay, I'm it's okay, then let's vote all in favor indicate by raising hands saying aye. I think we're at five five to zero and So it's complete For our action on those two items the other thing just to inform the committee about and to see if there's Any problems this is just under our business not anticipated 48 hours Sonia has advised us that there's a meat. She has been able to schedule a meeting with our Audit firm that did the FY 19 audit Molanson Heath That coincides with the date of our previously scheduled next to meeting which is now two weeks from tomorrow February 25th and So the and she's also indicated that the council and the entire committee Will have the audit report from the auditors prior to the meeting so that My proposal is is a matter of scheduling that since we could make that arrangement And we're required actually by the charter to file a report Audit committee is required to file a report by March 1st on the prior years audit So we don't have that much time anyway so my suggestion is that we meet with Molanson Heath as a major item of discussion and that afterwards we have discussions about other aspects of the audit committee's work, which is the planning for the agreement to the firm to conduct the audit for the FY 20 or the other were presently in and to engage in a process for FY 21 and talk about all three items at the next meeting for For members of the council who are interested in attending the meeting Of course, I think it's always anticipated with audit committee in the past and will be in the future That those meetings and all meetings are open to the public and if anyone is interested in attending and Actually hearing from the auditors and having an opportunity to ask questions for the auditors It is 2 30 p.m. In the afternoon then on February 25th that we will be meeting with The people who conducted the audit this year from the firm of Molanson Heath. Is there anything else you wanted to say on the subject Sonia? Okay, you know, I'd like to just take the opportunity for the purposes of the public Mary Lou who is unable to be with us. She's one of our resident people on Resident members of the finance committee. She did ask the question about the selection of the amount of 750,000 I will attempt to answer it based on my understanding But you may have more to add since the superintendents not here at this point The 750 was his best estimate. The reality is that There are studies that we have already done that may also be attributable to this work those in fact include the Fort River study the Wildwood study this present study that has just been approved for Crocker farm and as well as the sixth grade study that's going on with The school district as well They may therefore say these are really good this part of the studies that we need to do as part of this phase And that may help us even reduce the price further Anything else Sonia Okay, and This is borrowing authority to with an estimated maximum and if it ends up being less than We don't have to borrow and expend the amount But it is a request to the council for authorization to an amount Anything else from Committee or other members of the council who are present any public comments as we have a moment Hearing none, then I'll take a motion to adjourn so we can all have a 10-minute break So moved All in favor of the motion to adjourn I Thank you And thank you both for coming in the count the full council meeting will reconvene at 630 All right, we're gonna start by looking at And Excuse me seen as how we have a majority of the councillors present I call the regular meeting of the town council together at 630 on February 10th 2020 This agenda has kind of a mix and match Associated with it Because we are starting with two hearings and then we're actually going to move to I'm going to ask the council to suspend the rules The rules of procedure on 8.4 for five different items and the reason that I am asking for that is And I've already spoken to Councillor George Ryan whose chair of GOL About this as I've looked at the agenda tried to figure out how to make them not as lengthy and Therefore not as long although this agenda is certainly not a great example of that I have observed that there are some things that are pretty routine There are some things that are pretty therefore also pretty straightforward and There are some things that are should automatically or with council's approval be referred to standing committees or Frankly their approval would facilitate the work of the council in the town so We will get to that point at some point and if people do not want all of those to be Part of this motion to suspend we will do so Otherwise we have two hearings tonight Both are fairly straightforward We'll be holding both hearings and then if we vote to close one or both of the hearings We will then move directly to a vote to suspend the rules that I just talked about and then take action regarding each item Discussed during the hearing our options at that point are to refer to GOL or Move to grant permission regarding the request So let me also mention The order of our agenda tonight is shown up here. We're actually going to start with After I'm done with the announcements and this is the end of them We're going to start with hearings. Then we're going to go to action items 7a 7b 7g and 7h We will have general public comment after we finish those will then go to proclamations and commemorations and Then presentations and discussions After that we will move back to the action items that are remain. We might take a break in there And when we complete the action items, although we will not be finished with the meeting we will go into executive session and We will come back out and complete the rest of the agenda starting with appointments, etc So without further ado Are there any questions from the council on the scramble of the agenda? Okay, then Let's begin with the Verizon petition. Is there a Verizon representative here? Please come forward Let me just say the hearing is now open According to mass general law chapter 166 section 22 It requires that the council hold a public hearing on the petition of any utility provider to construct or locate poles Conduits or underground wires for the transmission of electricity This hearing is to consider a Verizon petition for conduit located for conduits located on spring street Notice of the hearing was published on the town website and sent to a butters The Department of Public Works recommends approval of Verizon's request with that could we see the Schematic up there and would you please speak to your request? Sure. Good evening my name for the record. My name is Paul Davis I work for a company by the name of pike telecom We're contract engineers for Verizon and I am here tonight representing Verizon on their behalf in regards to the petition The fish the petition you see is on spring street right outside here Basically what I was told was that the petition is for the right to utilize the existing conduit That was placed on the petition by the town of Amherst approximately in a year 2008 Verizon is petitioning to occupy one conduit that was placed by the town Very simply the conduit is already in place there are what they call hand holes in the ground that are already in place I believe that the work to be done is for the construction project out on spring street and Again, the petition is just petitioning for Verizon to have the right to occupy one of those existing conduit Okay, are there questions from the council? Dorothy well, these are a conduits that the town made and I assume they made them for a reason but they didn't change their mind and they're empty now or they're not gonna need them later or Kid or is it one of these things where? Thousands of things can go in the same conduit well the The information that I was told last week when I talked I talked to a gentleman that's Managing the construction project out here and he told me again that at one time the town Wanted to beautify spring street meaning they wanted to take the utilities and put them underground take the poles out So where all the utilities would be underground the poles would be removed and you wouldn't see anything up in the air So again, he told me it was around 2008 when this happened The conduit again was placed underground with the hand holes for the utilities to occupy And for whatever reason he didn't give me a specific reason But for whatever reason the project stopped and now they're again He's building the building there and they want to re up the project again and Verizon wants to place service on the road Either for the project or for future service and again to answer your question specifically the conduit that Verizon is Petitioning is just to be occupied by Verizon one conduit. I believe there's four conduit in the ground So it would just be for Verizon's use only Are there additional questions from the council Mandy Joe? So I noticed on the plot plan the poles Say under the legend that they're to remain is that because Verizon is not the owner of those poles and Have we as a council has ever sourced the owner of them So that they'll come back later to petition to remove those or have we already agreed to Have we already granted a petition to remove those pull poles as these things move underground? As far as I know that is Inaccurate what we're looking at as far as I know the poles are to be removed And remember whether we'd already granted that or not. Thank you And then I just have a request to the town manager Could you speak to Verizon so that they correct when they petition us that it says come town council Not select board and board of selectmen Okay Andy I Don't know if you can answer this or if I have to this is one from mr. Bachman, but you had indicated that you thought that the conduits would be exclusively used by Verizon and We're going to be later in the evening discussing installation of an institutional network for a Town-owned institutional network and was there any use of the conduit anticipated for the i-net? Mr. Rocky so it could have been there That's why there are four conduits typically they're empty when they repave a road They'll place the conduits in so they can be used in the future So they don't have to dig up the road and replace them So the conduits are just basically alleyways that you can put wires through so one would be for electric One would be for Verizon one would be for cable in one spare typically Are there other questions from the council I just want to build on that yes Um Does that mean that we have no potential plan for the fourth conduit that they're adding asking for so it's not in any way If we say a year from now We would want to use it for something else because it once it occupies that it It belongs to them correct and so the phone service for those lines will only be Verizon. I Mean it will be a Verizon line that's running through correct So are there no potential alternative uses for it? So would otherwise just stay empty I don't know in the future if there could be something else or if they could Put a parallel line if they have to replace a line or something like that But there aren't many other utilities that put their equipment in the public way Okay, are there other questions from the council? Okay, then we move to questions from the public not statements, but questions anybody with questions, please raise your hand Okay Is there anybody and hear from the public who is here to speak in favor of this petition? Is there anybody from the public who would like to speak in opposition to this petition? Any further questions from the council Dorothy, I know we discussed this before but as far as the town of Amherst is concerned This is a good thing. Is that correct? Correct the superintendent public board recommends this any further questions Okay The council debate on the merits of the petition shall follow the vote on a motion to close the evidentiary portion of the hearing That will be later Therefore the hearing is now officially closed Thank you I'm sorry All right, do we have a motion to close the hearing all those in favor raise your hand and say aye. Aye opposed Thank You manager. All right, we're going to move on to the second hearing. This is a public hearing to consider a Request from the owners of 35 South Pleasant Street LLC for a permanent change in the public way This building is otherwise known as the visitor center of the chamber and the bid and we have with us tonight Gabrielle E. Gould executive director of the bid and Mr. Roberts, how are you? Good evening? Thank you for having us. I'm wearing maybe three hats tonight I am the manager of 35 South Pleasant Street LLC Which owns the building that houses Jay Austin jewelers the bid and One half of the stairway going up to the second floor I'm also the president of the business improvement district and I'm on the board of directors of the chamber of commerce The goal here is to make the visitor center Handicap accessible which it is it is now because we have a temporary ugly metal ramp in front there And the goal is to make sure that it stays within the storefront as you may or may not have noticed the Temporary ramp that we have out there extends in front of Jay Austin's jewelers So if you were to grant us permission to do this this ramp is slightly Very slightly steeper than allowed by code. We would approach the a Architectural access board in Boston and ask for a waiver Which we think mr. Kuhn thinks we would be successful in getting In order to accomplish this and have the proper width and Also a step we need to go we would propose to go on to the town The public way the sidewalk for approximately three and a half feet And it we would like a permanent easement so it can stay there and I think Gabrielle has some comments about how much it's needed So Technically and legally we do not have to have a ramp into the visitor service center But and I'm speaking on behalf of Claudia and at the chamber as well as us at the bid we Cannot fathom being an inviting open storefront and Information center if we are not handicapped accessible the ramp that we currently have is yes Incredibly unattractive and we have people come in on a regular basis and beg us to take it down Sometimes nicely sometimes not nicely We are very aware that this has been a hindrance to J. Austin antiques As everybody knows they have one of the most beautiful windows over the holidays You could barely see it because of the ramp it is It gets extremely icy and it's very hard to de-ice because it has rivets in it and it is very loud and It also is Harboring garbage and leaves etc. Underneath it, which is difficult to keep clean and maintain This would increase the beauty of the street, which we all want to see especially when we're right across from the North Common and the town building and I know that Jeremy Austin has been Incredibly kind to us Partly probably because he serves on our board But he has mentioned that it has hindered his business and I agree I have also had several people come up in wheelchairs and say that it is impossible our ramp is not Friendly to them and nor is the front door, which as you can see on this plan would be a wider new front door for Allowing handicapped accessibility to the building or their questions from the council Andy I have a couple things but first of all is the former Select board liaison to the disability access advisory committee. I know that this was a big issue Mr. Roberts came to DAC meetings that I attended as liaison and I Very much appreciate your keeping after this so that we can get it resolved I think that they were speaking for their responsibilities and Appreciate you're following up on so I have Two questions one is has it do you have you've been back to DAC with this plan and No, we have been nowhere with this plan other than to ask the town for for this permission If we go to if you give us permission, we will go to a disability access Board we'll go to the design review You know we have to and then asked Rob more for a building permit, right? and then the other question is You I assume that Cune riddle has expertise and has In the the radius in front of the front door is sufficient to allow people to Maneuver once they're at the top of the ramp Yes, if you look at the plan view that John Cume drew he shows the five-foot circle which is required it will require a Automatic door opener because you can't come up to the door opens out so it will Have an automatic opener that opens the door Thank you additional questions shall any This is just a recommendation that Something that comes up all the time It's brought up by people with disability all the time that we're making Decisions without including people with disability. So it's just a recommendation that To get the perspective, you know when you get work through the design to get the perspective of people with disability if this is It meets their needs. Thank you Dorothy Darcy She clothed I called on her I just I'm wondering if any requirement that the there be lighting of the stairway in the Dark there are already overhead lights in the alcove if you will that are on a timer that turn on automatically at night So it will be there it casts a glow. Okay. I'm just nobody's going to trip over it Mm-hmm. That's that's my thought is that it will be sticking out into the public way and People will need to know it's there Pretty good street lighting right there Kathy So I noticed the wording said permanent easement into the public way if I look up at where it sits My questions would be supposed at some point in the future This storefront becomes a restaurant, you know, it's an alternative use. Does that mean they can put tables there? Move move this structure Is one part of the question and then if I look at the buildings along there? I don't know how many others have a step, you know It looked like the one just a little bit south also has a step to go up that I guess it's yours You have half the stairways You know, so what I'm it what I'm gunning at is how many of these might we start seeing in a place that has been Sort of treasured as a big wide-open sidewalk so tables can go outside like a fresh side. It's it's one of the Good aspects of our downtown that's what's got that nice public meeting place feeling to it Mr. Backelman, did you care to comment on any of that or at this point? Mr. Roberts? Okay, so the the answer is no they would not be able to use the ramp to put chairs on and No, I don't think that they would be permitted that the town if a restaurant went before the planning board and Ask for outside seating. I don't I would hope the planning board would say there isn't enough room to do it there The step directly to the south leads up to a steep stairway So there is no elevator in this building. So that the rest of the building is not handicapped Steve I Think the point is a good point though So despite the lack of an elevator in the next building this actually is not what I was going to say But despite the lack of the elevator in the next building There may be some day so it in a sort of a coordinated response to this like a more extensive almost front porch You know, maybe something to you know to think about My question was this now. I forgot my question was this We are here somebody to approve an easement. We're not here to approve the design. So the design or these other okay So we're only approving basically the easement as shown on the on the plan That is correct. It's this is a starting this starts with a request For a permanent change of the public way. That's our authority. The other authority goes to other committees Are there other questions? Yes, Alyssa Two items one is if we eventually get to the point where we moved to do this we had received Different draft language that said for the purpose of constructing maintaining repairing and replacing a handicap access ramp and steps Which would also tend to tell me that that's what was authorized by the town manager Eventually that we authorized that he then executes and so if somebody wanted to do something else with it Even though they've got they'd gotten an easement only for that purpose as opposed to an it is We're going to ask you and that's my understanding of partly why that wording is the way that it is On a different note Following up on things that were said about DAAC and design I think that we might want to discuss at some point in the future whether or not we would like to see disability access weigh in on this before we do because Depending on what the state rules are they actually don't have to be gone to and so we can people can say they're gonna go to that I know you will but If we want to know Reflecting back to what Shalini said what Andy said I've been the ever liaison to DAAC in the past too if we want to know that they feel like yeah This is getting to what they wanted Before it comes to us that might be something we require in the future is that we have that information from them before we put It on our agenda Okay, mr. Brockman So just to know that this this Originated with the DAAC asking the building owner to make this building accessible Especially since when the visitor information center was placed in there and I think the building owner said yes That makes perfect sense and try and did a temporary fix knowing that he wanted a permanent fix And that's what that's how this came out It came about because the DAAC had initiated I did speak with the chair of the DAAC and advance of this meeting And he was very pleased to see that the council is considering it Okay Any other questions from the council are there questions from the public are there Any people from the public who would like to speak in favor of this petition Are there any members of the public who would like to speak in opposition of this petition and any further questions from the council? We've debated this in the merits and we'll come to it later Could I have a motion to close the hearing? Mindy Joe I moved to close the public hearing Is there a second I second it any for the discussion all those in favor raise your hand and say I Opposed and It's eleven zero zero and two and one at I'm sorry. It's twelve zero zero and one absent Okay, thank you. Thank you Okay, so now we're going to move on to the rules of procedure and Let me just state that in the development of our rules of procedure The committee recommended and the council adopted those rules on May 2nd 2019 we revised those rules on a regular basis all the way through January 6 2020 rule 8.4 is regarding discussion of measures and It says except for resolutions proclamations commemoration citations appointments referrals and emergency measures The council shall discuss measures at a regular council meeting prior to the meeting on which the measure will be voted The discussion need not include the specific language of the measure to be voted on but shall include the substance of the measure So it's this very rule that we're asking to suspend and we're also asking GOL to look at so and the reason we're bringing it up now is because it applies to various actions that we're about to consider so The motion is to suspend town council rule 8.4 for the following agenda items Or for and for the motions associated with them It's 7a the Verizon petition for conduits on Spring Street 7b 35 South Pleasant Street LLC Request for permanent change to the public way 7g presidential primary election warrant, which is on March 3rd 2020 7h town council financial orders f y 2064 65 66 67 68 and 78 and Joint capital planning committee and budget coordinating group charges. Is there a motion is there a second second Further discussion Darcy, could you just explain one more time why you want us to spend the rule? Because otherwise we have to bring this back for another agenda on it on a Subsequent agenda and what I'm looking for is ways to cut our meetings back Okay, so we just don't want to have a second reading of these We would not on much we can also refer things to committees We can also decide not to suspend for that particular item when we get to it And we're going to do them individually We can do that individually. Yes, but I didn't want to have us vote to suspend each time we get to this item Now if that's what the wish of the council, we can do it that way Just again for instance on the Verizon petition or even the 35 South Pleasant Street We can vote to refer those we can you know, whatever Same thing is true. Well the presidential primary actually is in the category of emergency because we have to file that tonight And the financial orders are a matter of it would be helpful to proceed and particularly on a couple of them It's almost necessary and on the joint capital planning and committee charges Those are modest changes to the charges. Alyssa if I can just clarify then it sounds to me From the way you explained it to us twice now that by doing this just as a group and keeping all of them in there We can make that motion we can suspend the rule And then as we get to each item it doesn't prevent us from doing basically anything we want to do at that point like say You know what? I think we need more on this then we just keep going But that way this is a good start to getting us in that more efficient world you were talking about Thank you Any further questions or discussion? The motion's been made and seconded all those in favor raise your hand and say aye opposed abstain and So it's Yes, one abstention. So it's 11 Zero one and one absent Okay So we're now going to move on to any the Potential action in fact action one way or another with regard to the rise and petition and the two options are to refer the rise and petition petition to Community resources committee for further discussion and the other one is to grant the permission Is there a wish of the council? Motions I move that we accept the proposal from forizon. So it's Yeah, it's the next page And requested Is there a second any further discussion at this time Yes What what mandi noted is that their request to us and the order for it Says select men or select board repeatedly. So Do we just get them to change that wording? So it goes back into town council because it's it's it's referring directly to the document. We just read the job for a zero j four k dub I'd like to ask the town the clerk of the council to speak. Yes We've voted a few of these for poll locations before and I've just typed over town council and right, okay That's all right. I know that we're Thank you Eventually people will catch on Um, is there any other discussion or question? Yes, evan So, uh, this isn't really either. Um, but one thing I just wanted to Bring because I think this was initially built a sort of part of a spring street beautification idea Which I think is great. Um, one of the things we're doing as a council as we have adopted Sort of looking at things through the lens of climate change moving utilities from above ground to below ground In preparation for more intense storms and more frequent intense storms Is actually also not just beautification But it's also going to be a key part of building resilience and climate adaptation And so I want to say that because I think it's useful that we acknowledge that some of these projects aren't just Fun little beautification things. They're actually really important things moving forward as we're going through lens of sustainability Okay, any further comment at this time Okay, um, then we will move on the Motion to grant permission to Verizon, New England to lay and maintain Underground conduits and manholes with wires and cables placed there in under the surface of spring street As recommended by the dpw and requested in the petition of the of said company dated the 12th day of december 2019 job number 4a 0j 4k w all those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye opposed abstain 12 00 and 1 epson. Okay, we're going to move on to 7b This is the request for the Change to the public way in a permanent way for the handicap accessibility our options again Either are to refer to crc Or which is the community resources committee? or to authorize the town manager To authorize the grant on such terms and conditions as the town manager deems appropriate a permanent easement for the benefit of property Located at 31 to 35 south pleasant street for the purposes of construction Constructing maintaining repairing and replacing a handicap access ramp And steps on a portion of the public sidewalk a budding said property Which easement area is to be shown on a plan acceptable to the town manager Is there a motion pat? No Move is fine. Is there a second second? Is there further discussion Then we'll move to a vote all those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye opposed abstain I believe that was 12 00 And 1 epson. Okay All right We are now going to go to item 7 g And this is in regard to kind of a standard thing that the town Select board in the past and the town council now Does and that is to establish the warrant Um for the presidential primary in this case will be held on march 3rd 2020 We're doing this tonight at which point Each councilor that is present will sign it And it will be filed tonight as required by law Are there any questions about that? Yes, bandy joe How early can we do these like Instead of waiting to the last minute. Can we do some of the ones coming up in the fall in like july? Is just a question. I have shabina. Please come forward Shabina Martin is our town clerk Having joined us sometime in the last two months, I think So that's a good question. So in the local election. Yes, we can do them early I have to wait to get the warrant from the secretary of the state And so they sent it at the end of January and so this was the earliest that athena and I could get it on the on the agenda You're welcome. The state process of hurry up and wait. Yes. Okay All right anything else any other questions on this? All right, so this is a lengthy warrant. Would someone else like to read it? And make the motion george I moved to authorize the warrant for the presidential primary election on tuesday march 3rd 2020 With polls open from 7 a.m. To 8 p.m. At the following locations Precinct one north zion church hall 1193 north pleasant street precinct two north fire station 603 east pleasant street precinct three a manual lutheran church eight six seven north pleasant street Precinct four large activity room bangs community center 70 boltwood walk Precinct five large activity room bangs community center 70 boltwood walk Precinct six fort river school 70 southeast street Precinct seven cracker farm school 280 west street Precinct eight months in memorial library 1046 southeast street precinct nine wildwood school 71 strong street Precinct 10 glass room bangs community center 70 boltwood walk Is there a second? Okay, any further discussion? alissa Is this a school professional development day or is this one of the scenarios where we're having to hold an election in the school buildings? Just because that's been an ongoing conversation and now we have a new town clerk That's a good question. Mr. Bakerman. Do you know? You know they if they if it is not I know from my our own experience That we have certain restrictions placed on people polling and people Standing outside, etc alissa while all that is absolutely true There have been safety concerns raised by the schools Around this when they aren't able to figure it out ahead of time So I I have the expectation that it's going to be discussed moving forward not at this level necessarily but between The town manager and the town clerk and the schools It's been an ongoing discussion And now we have another town clerk that can be part of that ongoing discussion And this is a statewide issue that just we live in a different generation We all like taking our kids to school to vote that was amazing, but um, yeah Okay And mr. Bakerman, I believe later you're going to talk about when the polls will Also be available for voting and also So Early voting yes with this martin here. I think we can talk about early voting just Since it's early in the meeting that's like to use the public mic to make that available now Take the opportunity to say that there will be early voting in town hall Come on up shavina shavina come on up. Well So the the town clerk has been working To make sure that we for the first time there will be early voting during the presidential primary so and Ms martin can talk about that and also just as a very late this afternoon We were able to reach agreement with the university. They have early voting at the university for the presidential primary So As town manager bakerman has said so for the first time the state legislator has passed Early voting for five days, which will begin february 24th through february 28th In advance of the presidential primary We are we are required by law to have early voting here at town hall During normal business hours. So that is what we're going to do. We're going to have it here at town hall those four those five days from 8 a.m. to 430 off-site locations are optional and we did Just hours ago. We were able to come to an agreement with umass We will be offering early voting on the three days So tuesday wednesday and thursday from 4 p.m. To 7 30 p.m. So that that way students will also have the ability and faculty To early vote right on campus. And so today is the deadline for many things In addition to the election warrant as well as i have to get those locations The location at umass i have to get that submitted to the secretary of commonwealth by tomorrow But we are excited for that Yeah, but the early voting locations don't require council approval They do not the permanent locations do correct. So any any changes to polling locations I know councillor brewer did mention about schools. I was checking to see if it was going to be an in-service day Though to change our standing polling locations Mass general law says that it has to take town council approval And that also there's a timeline with that as well So we are kind of outside of the window for moving Polling locations for the upcoming march third election. It also requires that wherever we Wherever we choose to move a polling location requires notification to Voters in that area. So it's um, there's a lot of logistics. Um, and when the time comes we will definitely Um be in in conversation with everyone It's great. Mr. Bachman and march third is not a professional development day. Thank you for that information So just be careful as you drive up to our schools. Yes, um in any other place. Thank you very much There's been a motion placed on the floor and seconded. Is there any further question or discussion? Alyssa, I just want to put in a plug of thanks to miss martin and mr. Bachman for working on the early voting aspect. I worked on that with a previous town couple town clerks ago Um on the early voting in 2018 and it was really valuable and I realized it's a relatively short window But that's based on the students input That's when they said it would be useful to them And so I think this will be and of course it's not in the student union because that's not there right now But um, I think it'll be a really good baseline for us for thinking about future And you know, she had to like turn on the dime to do this in terms of making all these arrangements So thank you for going to that extra effort Okay, and you're going to provide us with a warrant that we can pass around and sign Athena is going to do that. Okay. Any further questions or discussion at this time? Then I'm calling the question all those in favor. Please raise your hand and say I I opposed abstain 1200 and well an absent We are going to move on to the financial orders while we're signing this It's yours That's okay Sonja Aldridge is going to Take us through that along with andy steinberg who is chair of our finance committee All right. Um, the first is uh Order 2064 and this is a housekeeping order. Um We are repurposing funds that we appropriated for the station road bridge We Replace the bridge with the temporary For a lot less than we anticipated and we There's some work that needs to be done in northeamers on the intersection of north pleasant pine and meadow streets So we would like to repurpose what's remaining in that fund of 116,919 so that we can use it to repair these the Intersection of the traffic signals there and to use whatever's left to repair roads and sidewalks in that area So just repurposing and already Okay, so the motion before us is In terms of council order f y 2064 an order appropriating funds for general road and sidewalk improvements Including traffic signals at the north pleasant pine meadow street intersection as recommended by the 210 20 finance committee report Is there a motion? Is there a second? Is there discussion or questions? Yes Darcy In district five. We recently had our district meeting and the the topic was Different areas that need Sidewalk repair Different issues around traffic and safety and i'm just wondering how was the decision made to put This money into one particular project as opposed to For example, all of our projects in district five Mr. Bachman So the traffic lights have been identified as a priority for the town and we just never had the funds the dpw Engineers came up with a relatively Inexpensive solution it's not going to look really attractive, but it will help us Navigate traffic through that complex intersection. So it's always been an issue for us It won't use all the money So there will be other funds available as we said because for general road and sidewalk improvements So it allows us to use use that money that's being transferred for other purposes as well Darcy That doesn't exactly answer the question though. I'm just interested in knowing what the process is for prioritizing different projects around town Of which we have many we have many possible projects. So How how are they prioritized? Mr. Bachman So they the town engineers look at the need for the demand by the public for public safety issues And so it's probably it's public safety is the first issue and so and north amherst at that intersection There have been a number of situations where the pole there have been accidents and the poles have been taken out There's also traffic congestion in that area And we try to be responsive to the areas that need it need the funds the most most urgently Mr. Steinberg I would add to that that Over a number of years That go back I believe prior to mr. Bachman being our town manager. We had applied from mass works Grants for that intersection because it has been a part of a whole Circle that includes the area north where Montedey Road and Sutherland Road split just before the north amherst library And that that has been A high priority Of the town for a long period of time. We have been unsuccessful in obtaining the mass works grants but And when I looked at this, I said, oh, we're finally getting to What has been a high priority item for the last 10 years and I think that was part of probably the analysis Alyssa Following thank you. Andy because I remember it the same way except the interesting thing to me is that when we asked about it A couple town managers ago. We were told it was going to take over $200,000 to fix this intersection even to this level And so we kept being told no, we don't have the money. We don't have the money Well, now you can see it's less than 116 and so Engineers continue to come up with clever ways of doing things that perhaps did not exist five years ago when we had that conversation More than once back then and so I think Darcy does bring up a good point though in terms of like an ongoing basis Sort of affiliated with the capital plan and all our facilities and everything else Is Andy and I know that because we've been doing a long time somebody who's been in town meeting might remember We were talking about it for a long time But how do people know right now what our priority list and what are the things that have been hanging on those lists That we all keep hoping money appears for so I maybe they're you know, maybe that's a retreat topic Or or someone has a proposal for how we can keep track of that So kind of everybody knows what the priorities are And that were established some years ago and that might need Some town council input at some point, but I don't think it changes this particular project because not only a do I live in that area B I know it's a long-standing concern and we're thrilled that some reasonably cost Intersection improvement can be made Dorothy Well, I am newer to town council, but when we at the very beginning were asked to replace the station street bridge I know that a lot of people were saying wait wait the north amherst intersection wasn't that supposed to happen next And we were told that we couldn't Because the state had not accepted our plan yet and it was a matter of money But that it so I had the understanding that that was on the list as one of the next things that really had to be done Um, but you're right. We don't really have a formal list and you know, maybe we do need to have one Um, Andy Yeah, I just wanted to respond to one thing that uh, Mr. Birr said and that was about the cost um as Mr. Moring described the project that's proposed When he met with finance committee um, he indicated that uh This was going to be a much simpler approach than had been previously anticipated involving Traffic lights that essentially would be by wire hung over the intersection as opposed to On poles because we don't have the funds to do the complete work that needs to be done One of the issues is that the poles as mr. Bachman indicated are very close to the intersection corners And as trucks or large vehicles Make the turn and uh make it too sharply and take out the poles it causes The traffic signals to be out for weeks at a time And uh So it was uh Really at this point not intended to be the permanent solution The one additional thing that we asked that the finance committee was Is this then an investment that we can't use in the future and uh, Mr. Moring's reply was absolutely not that the um switching equipment and the light standards themselves would be usable at this or future intersections and that there's nothing That we're investing in in the way of electronic hardware that would not be usable far into the future This is just one of the oldest existing traffic lights in town and It cannot be solved without putting in new electronics Kathy um And I wanted to add one of the interesting things that has come up in the last several months because I have a memo That's like six years old with the town commitment to do this light And it said next summer so it never happened But that uh, it's going to be hung so the description is they won't be pretty But there's new equipment that can count pedestrians and bikes as well as cars So we'll get a much better sense of what the flow through this intersection is as the big apartments open up and get Full for future planning on what to do with that intersection. So it's it's doing two things at once it's potentially leaving any delays and as Dorothy mentioned when station bridge came up and people were talking about 10 minute delays We're going that's a daily experience at this intersection You know at different times of days, you know where you had to do the roundabout so What's going to be interesting about this is the information we can get out of This installation in addition to see does it ease up or not having the left hand turn signal or do we need to do more so The creative part here was not permanent poles suck underground with wires underneath But strong across the street suddenly made it much cheaper Further question comment. Yes, pat It's come one of the goals for the town manager is to create a list of priorities And I I know that you will do that But i'm encouraging it because I remember when we first became a council we had concerns About the dpw's process and the ordering of what gets done in town when I've had lots of residents on stanley street talk about things that haven't been done And things on lincoln and amity and everything else gets done much more quickly And we really need that and we need mr. Mooring to participate in that process and not try to control the process Specifically let me mention that under the town manager's goals just adopted in our last meeting Is 3b2 which is to develop a plan that balances Competing needs for investments roads sidewalks building maintenance technology equipment vehicles made Municipal facilities such as parks athletic fields, etc. So I think we understand that Mr. Yes ross Evan So I I actually have No issue trusting our fairly expert staff Engineers department of public works to decide which our priorities are And I actually have no interest in seeing their list of priorities and telling them that the priorities in my district should be higher than the Priorities in a different district. Um, so I hope that when the town manager is accomplishing that goal It doesn't feed into some type of District interfighting my question is something different because I have no issue with this project And I think that it's it is a it's recognized how need I have driven through that intersection I have which were spiked through that intersection Um, and so I I understand that and I'm fully supportive what I what I'm a little confused about and I would like some clarification on is um If this has been such a priority project, why has it not been a part of our Long-term capital plan? Why has it not been in the capital improvement program? It feel this feels very much like oh, we got some free money because something cost less. Where can we spend that? Here's a priority and so I guess to me The if we appropriate money, especially from free cash to a project and that project comes in under budget I would like to see that money go back into free cash. I think we need to be really protecting our free cash and stabilization fund So I guess I'm I'm a little curious to hear the decision about not returning this to free cash and spending it on this and why The decision was to use this money as opposed to building it into capital the way we do Other road and infrastructure improvements. Mr. Rockman. So there are two reasons one is that This intersection wasn't prioritized because we were seeking grants over multiple years Because we wanted a comprehensive solution for not just this intersection But also the intersection with Montague road and Sunderland road and the entire that entire area of North Amherst So that was the first attempt And that we tried to multiple times to get grants for the mass works grant. So that didn't those didn't come through Um subsequent to that fairly recently the town engineers came up with a solution that was not with large Poles that were very expensive, but with Wooden poles that could be sunk in the ground and and relatively Low cost not putting in conduit underneath this the streets where he had to tear it up and put hanging the wires And that's why we call it kind of call it the not most attractive solution, but it'll be effective we think so it's When in this buys us time until we get to A permanent solution there the question is to whether This fund these funds should go back to the free cash or not. That's up to the council We recommend since money this money had already been set aside for road work for this station road bridge And it felt like the council had already determined that that was a useful a use for these These funds and weren't looking at specific by project by project and that was the the logic for moving this forward Steve So mr. Rob I Agree with what Evan saying that this seems like a really the weird way to budget Because we had a special we actually had a special town council meeting for this emergency for the station road bridge And that was the purpose of the allocation is for this emergency the station road bridge And certainly it was my expectation at that time That if it would cost less then the money goes back to where it came from not to another project So this project sounds urgent It sounds like there are all kinds of other urgent projects, but it's not the emergency for which we allocated the money So we wouldn't in our households. Hopefully budget this way. So I don't think the town Should be budgeting this way either so so I Think it's a completely needy project But I think it should be considered as part of the regular budgeting process not as A special reallocation of money that was set aside for a completely different purpose Are there other questions or comments? shall I Referring to mr. This comment. I just want to say that at least I really trust I do trust the employee of the town employees decisions as you mentioned but I think it's And they often have very good reasons or why they're prioritizing what it is and I think what's missing is the transparency or An explanation given to people why? So what Darcy was saying? I think it's more about the transparency piece that You know just letting people know why these decisions are being made and regarding this particular decision I do remember in our finance committee meeting when we were deciding the station road bridge that this The north this intersection came up and it was of Many people were struggling with that and and I think mr. Buckleman just provided us a reasoning why we are doing it in this particular way and I agree that we should Go ahead with it as an exception I would like to mention that we did something similar when we bought a school bus We took extra transportation money that was in the schools and we reallocated it for a bus Not to bring up the bus again, but just to say we've done that kind of action in the past Andy Just here where I looked at the capital plan as we were meeting just now In north amherst intersection and streetscape are in the capital plan for f y 21 At 2.1 million dollars. It was with the grant funding Um We don't know if the grant will come through but this has been in An identified and placed in the capital plan priority And I believe town meeting actually put forward money for a study of that intersection I don't know three years ago something like that Of any further discussion on this? All those in favor their motion has been made and seconded it requires only a majority vote All those in favor, please raise your hand and say I I opposed abstain So we have one opposition one abstain, so it's 11 No, it's 10 1 1 and 1 absent Okay, we're moving on to financial order 2065 Okay, again, this is another housekeeping order and we talked about this a little bit earlier this evening and it's um authorizing the town to apply premiums from prior borrowing authorizations Before we go into permanent bonding So like I said if we borrow a million dollars and we get a premium of 100,000 we would only permanently borrow 900 We would put this towards that Okay So I'm the motion is the following in terms of council order f y 2065 and order authorizing bond premiums from past borrowings to be applied to reduce existing debt as recommended by the 210 20 finance committee report. Is there a motion? second Discussion or question under andy. Did you want to speak to this? No, I think the finance committee report was written to provide the explanation. Okay For the discussion or questions All right, then call the question all those in favor raise your hand and say aye I opposed Upstain So I guess that was 1200. Okay uh financial order 2066 another housekeeping This is the transfer um excess free cash over five percent of the operating budget revenues Into the stabilization fund. This has been a practice um That we follow which is part of our current financial management policies that anything over five percent of free cash would be moved into stabilization fund for long term Planning Okay, we have Free cash was certified at 6.7 million. We are moving approximately 2 point almost 2.6 million from free cash to stabilization The net Um effect is zero It's just going from one pot to the other stabilization is available where free cash goes away June 30th The reason it's so much that we're moving is because we repaid the 2 million from the that we borrowed from free cash for the health claims trust when we were Uh, was it a couple of years ago at town meeting that got repaid sooner So that falls to our fund balancing goes to free cash It won't be this big every year Um The motion motion and reads as follows in terms of council order f y 20 66 In order appropriating transferring funds from free cash to stabilization Stabilization fund as recommended by the 210 20 finance committee report. Is there a motion? Second Any further discussion or questions? Call the question all those in favor raise your hand and say I I Opposed abstain Moving on to financial order 20 67 another Housekeeping item. This is uh We'll be the final order we'll have like this when we were self-insured our medicare d premiums Would get transferred to the opev trust fund It it comes in as free as um general fund revenue and it falls to free cash And then we have to appropriate from free cash To move it into the opev and this is the final adjustment Okay And so the motion on this is in terms of council order Fy 20 67 in order appropriating and transferring funds from free cash to ope head trust fund as recommended by the 210 20 finance committee report. Is there a motion? Second Any further question or discussion? All those in favor raise your hand and say I I opposed abstain Okay, now we're moving on to the one that we just Had a finance committee meeting on So the first one is order 20 68 and that is regard to the schools Correct correct. Okay, please go ahead. So this is an art. This is a two-thirds vote. That's required and it's an order Authorizing the borrowing for 750,000 for an elementary school feasibility study As I explained earlier the original amount that we had put aside in the fy 20 budget was 400,000 Based on the estimate from mass school business Authority, we actually are now estimating this at 750,000 That may at some point be reduced, but you have to upfront the money from the beginning So the order reads in terms of town council In terms of council order fy 20 68 in order appropriating and approving borrowing For a portion of the town of amherst fy 20 capital program elementary school feasibility study as recommended by the finance committee to 10 2020 Is there a motion? second All those yes, andy just want to report for those of you who weren't in the room the finance committee met again this evening between the public forum and this meeting And voted unanimously to recommend this motion Is there any further question? Call the question Is there a change? Mr. Bachman, so there's more detailed language that the finance committee reviewed I believe that mentioned msba and things like that Yes, there is I think that is what the motion has to be Athena, could you put that up and it's the town council order fy 20 68 And at the time we discussed this earlier Sonya miss aldrich Um Indicated that there was additional language added and would you explain why? Um, the additional language added was so that we would be in compliance with msba reimbursements We we were first told that we wouldn't be getting we wouldn't um beginning a reimbursement for this but There's a chance that we might Some of the things might qualify so we wanted to put all the msba language in here So that we didn't have to come back and redo another article later on on that and the other language that's in here is Allowing us to use the premiums To pay down the debt before we go So could we have a withdrawal of the original motion? Yes, all right So the motion in this case is the one you see before you and we're not going to try to read it Since we've looked at it twice tonight. Is there a motion? George And the second I second it dorthy any further discussion andy I just should mention now that I Superintendent morris is still in conversations with mass school building authority about Whether this Order meets all of their required terms We Believe the answer should be yes, but obviously we're not msba And if they require a change in the motion, we will have to come back at a subsequent meeting In the mem the order said correct mr. Bachman if I stated right mr. Rockwood. That's accurate. So what um What the superintendent report is that given the failed vote previously the town should not count on any reimbursement However, after the schematic design process is complete The ms at ba will review expenditures to see if any of them can be considered for reimbursement But there is no Explanation from sb msb on how they would make that determination So we felt like putting this language in gave us the opportunity to receive grants Without delaying the project. Okay any further discussion questions Hearing none all those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye opposed abstain 12 00 Moving on to the inet 20 78 Again, this is a borrowing authorization which requires a two-thirds vote and this is appropriating 589 000 for the installation of the institutional network loop 450 000 of this debt service will be paid with funds from Comcast the rest is Well most likely be paid from Water and sewer fund for projects that they're doing with that okay, and uh the Fiscal order that you see up on the screen Is actually the motion as it's required And it also was voted and recommended by the finance committee committee meeting which was held earlier this evening Is there a motion, please you can just say I move in order of Mandy joe Is there a second Any further discussion? All those in favor raise your hand and say aye opposed abstain 12 00 we are now going to move on to the general public comment Yes, let me use the opportunity while we're moving on to public comment Um, to first of all ask those of you that plan to make public comment to make sure that you have registered in the back And second of all, I just want to mention that we've gone through quite a discussion recently Um among a few council members as to the need and therefore the inclusion of whereas clauses in financial orders And we have made adjustments to those orders that we've just looked at and removed the whereas but in the future Either in the finance committee report or in a cover memo the necessary background to understand The issue will be included Okay Any further question on that? all right then Yes, dorsey just a question. Where was that decided? The whereas conversation where did the whereas conversation take place and It took place between councillor brewer and myself and councillor Steinberg and I think that might have been it Yes, go ahead um Miss aldrich did a lot of research on our behalf after Ms brewer raised this question and uh, there were um number of cities that have orders that have the kind of detail that um explains the reasoning for the Order there were some that do not there were some cities that Depended upon what order they were providing But it was quite clear that it's not required What the reasoning was And if you if you have concerns about it, then I think we should find a mechanism to Have the discussion But what the thought was is that the finance committee Report is in the same packet and that the explanation of the Orders that are recommended by the finance committee Should be explaining what would be an awareness clause if you were providing awareness clause and therefore it was not necessary to do both There was a little bit of thought about whether there should be all in one document so that in the future If people looked at documents and looked at orders, they could see the reasoning for the order In addition to the actual order itself But um in this day and age with electronic packets where it's all bundled together That didn't seem to be As urgent as it might have been Many years ago when orders were first created So rather than get into the question of what was whether these whereas clauses were serving that purpose or not It seemed that this resolution was one to attempt and if there is strong feeling that This should be revisited then I would suggest that It be referred to an appropriate committee for further discussion Kathy, I just want to add if you go back and look at some of the whereas clauses We were getting with these orders They did very little to explain the order They said we're the town council. We had the authority to do it It was a series of things that you had to read And so it's it will be much better to have a This will do the following and this is why we need it with these kinds of orders rather than put a lot of boilerplate in And going back and reading some of the whereas clauses. That's not quite right and we don't want to have to Word smith the whereas clause we would rather focus on the order. So it's going to be cleaner, but we may well need Explanatory memos coming to finance Because we're also trying to pick it up verbally and then represent it and check it back But just what is this for and why so we can refer to You know rationale Yes, dorsi I would just say I would look forward to a discussion In the whole council about the value of whereas clauses Because I I think there's some feeling about them that they aren't Valuable and I could see where sometimes they are not and that they are boilerplate But sometimes they are a valuable introduction or explanation of what it is that is being requested So noted and I will make sure we look at that in the future Okay We're now moving to public comment general public comment on matters other than those under agenda item 6a which is flood mapping Is Welcome Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes And at the discretion of the town council president based on the number. I might reduce that The council will not engage in dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment Please make please make sure that when you are asked to come forward you state your name and where you live And also that you've signed in who would like to speak to public comment at this time Come forward, please sir Good evening Please make sure the mic is on I believe the mic's on it's on Hi, my name is jim barna. I'm a resident of amherst. I live at 34 data place Excuse my my voice um I'm here tonight to just uh comment on the lincoln street parking changes um I Walk lincoln street twice a day every day And um, I see it as a street where public resources are being used. Well This is a hard town to park in and the people that park on that street Are the workers and the students who are all residents of this town and um It's a vital resource That is being taken away Now the town manager's report is going to show us, uh, I believe that um There's been no discussion about the implications of that change on the people that park there um, nor uh any indication of where the town is going to replace that parking This is a public resource It should not be stripped away at will um That street looks pretty safe to me as I walk it every day um, it has Barriers to stop people from driving fast And there are other ways to deal with this parking issue other than just stripping parking or limiting it to a span of time that will Make it unusable for people at work And uh and frequent the university um Thank you very much Thank you for your comment Additional public comment at this time. Please come forward Rebecca hall Rebecca hall stony hill road um First of all, I want to let everyone know that there's been a couple of bills that have been passed in mass twosits favorably Just last week one is bill s 129 which reported favorably um And it's to form a commission to investigate the health and economic impact of wireless radiation The other bill that passed favorably is s 1988 the right to choose non radiation or wi-fi emitting utility meters These are important decisions statewide that will affect every town In mass twosits, and I think amherst needs to consider this in regard to their wireless water meters And also in regard to learning What exactly we're facing from these health and environmental hazards Since the council is in charge of making decisions about telecommunications for amherst And since 5g Will be knocking at our door at some point from one of these companies I think it's important that the council become educated about what 5g means And last week I showed a film At the senior center, and I invited the entire council. I invited many members of town politic town Employees to come to this film and not a single person came We had a really good turnout at the senior center, but no town employees I'd like to offer a showing Of the film again, and I'm going to describe it. It's called generations apt It won best documentary at the dc independent film festival the women's film festival and was selected For the united nations association film festival as well Schools are beginning to show it. It's also screened at public libraries Town halls university churches and other community venues around the world Including at the massachusetts state house The nih and google headquarters If you're willing to show this film I bought the copyrights I bought the dvd and the copyrights and i'm happy to bring it To whatever location and time you want me to to educate help educate and inform our council members As to exactly what this means So it's an offering i'm making to the town and I really hope you take me up on it. Thank you. Thank you for your comment Who else would like to make public comment? Sir back here Please come forward. I'm just kind of working my way across the room Hi, nick. Hi. How are you? Hi, i'm nick seamen from the black sheep for the last 34 years I'm here to speak about the issue of parking and redesign redesign for the north common Parking is the lifeblood of any downtown I've been on two boards of the chamber of commerce. I started the main street association I helped start and was first president of the pda standing for promoting downtown amherst I spent six years on the parking commission and six years on the town commercial relations committee I probably know as much about parking in downtown as all of you combined 25 years ago the planning department Planning department did a study that determined that the downtown was short about 350 spaces After years of fighting the result was the boltwood parking thing An underground undersized and overpriced parking lot adding about 90 spaces Since then the town has seen a tremendous increase in parking demand The amherst cinema opened with 300 seats numerous new restaurants have opened numerous traditional retailers closed and were changed into higher customer count restaurants At the same time the town has consistently worked to lessen the number of parking spaces They created crosswalks jut outs loading zones And due to questionable zoning policies of development the elimination of many parking spaces For example, the new apartment building on the side of the carriage shops eliminated 40 public parking spaces The result is of course, we have less parking now in downtown than we did when the park boltwood parking thing was opened Years ago the argument against any new parking was that if all All of the existing spaces were not full 100 of the time Then we did not need any more parking Using that same logic if 100 of the pedestrian spaces the common suitor park kendrick park The pedestrians the pedestrian spaces in the boltwood parking thing And the north common if they are not full 100 of the time then we do not need any more of it When does anyone not have enough park space in amherst to use and enjoy? The business community needs every parking space we can get losing any spaces in the north common lot is totally unacceptable Thank you for your comment Additional comments at this time Let me take the gentleman right here in the front Hold on and you're next No, I Please you Uh julian hines 54 high street. I would like to inform the council In regard to the public way Regulations on lincoln avenue That it's not just lincoln avenue. Um, I agree that lincoln avenue has a parking problem However, I think it's many other streets as well. I notice I live on high street and We have a problem where cars park Right up to the corner of taylor street and make it very difficult For someone to go around that corner almost impossible for a school bus to go around that corner I'd be concerned to if a fire truck or something like that ever had to go around The corner and since I walk to school every day, I notice that Oftentimes I have to go out into the middle of my street To see if anyone's coming before I actually cross the street Because they are parked so close to the corner On c-click fix, which is a app that the dpw uses some of you may be familiar with it Kendrick place Which is on that side of downtown There was a issue about them having Parking people parked on both sides of the street So it was very difficult for that an auto body shop to get their Wrecked cars in and out So I would like to inform the council that it's not just lincoln avenue We should approach this as a townwide problem Um in a downtown wide problem rather than just uh lincoln avenue because the residents of lincoln avenue came here and wanted to see something um We should rather be approaching this From the perspective of all our streets in the downtown area needs some improvement or some thought on this issue. Thank you Thank you for your comment sir, please come forward And we understand your daughter will be joining you Hi, good evening everyone. I uh because english in my second language I met daughter speak to me for about a parking lot. Thank you Hi, I'm from 39 south pleasant street I strongly disagree to remove the parking space to build a playground Because the parking is already being a big problem in downtown of amherst People have to take a long time to drive around to look for a parking space and I And I don't I don't know if the other restaurants notice that But ever since they changed the parking meter People have to pay until 8 p.m. Instead of 6 p.m The downtown of amherst is so quiet at 9 p.m Our customers stop to come at 7 7 30 p.m and 8 p.m The restaurant is empty 7 p.m to 8 p.m. It's supposed to be the Most busiest time during the day for the restaurant building a restaurant And decorating building a playground and decorating the park can This can attract more people to come to the town but you But you know those people who wants to come to the park To spend time are usually taking the parking space a lot more than the people Who wants to come to the town to eat and shop? People only like to come to the park At the nice and sunny days But we need the park in parking spaces every day The parking space is very important to the businesses in town. Thank you Thank you. Thank you for both of you for joining us tonight. Thank you Thanks for your comments Additional comments, please Gabrielle Gabrielle ghoul downtown amherst bid I'm sorry that nick left because I would have liked to have set this in front of him as well The bid is Very encouraged about the north common Being redone and beautified. We we look at it every day We hear from people that it is an incredible disrepair and an eyesore We are also Doing our own due diligence running around town with tape measureers and things like that and I think that there is an opportunity to look at the spaces being removed from the common and easily replace them with Some restriping etc. I also want to make it clear publicly that A five-part destination amherst was presented a couple of weeks ago And that one of the items on that is the idea or the concept of a parking garage Not to be confused with a parking thing but a parking garage and I think that we need to do a little bit more due diligence on my part to get together with more of our community members And probably using a translator as well so that we have open communication with some of our business owners But I did want to make it clear that I think that there are solutions That can benefit our businesses and our greater community And I do believe that the beautification of downtown benefits our greater businesses as a whole Thank you for your comment Is are there any other public comments at this time? Okay Then we are going to move on to proclamations and commemorations And I would just like to note that we have several women voters in the room Adrienne you might like to come forward and Mandy Jo you are presenting this proclamation Yes, thank you. So this is a proclamation celebrating the 100th anniversary of the League of Women Voters of the United States The council may remember that A couple months ago, we passed a citation celebrating the League of Women Voters of Amherst's 80th anniversary And so this is a follow-up to that to celebrate the full United States's leagues 100th anniversary. So Adrienne had asked us to sponsor it. So Take it away, Adrienne Please come forward and sit and if you have something to pass to the council you actually give it to Athena Thank you very much. I want to thank the council For acknowledging the national league Amherst League is 80 almost 81 years young But I wanted to come forward tonight along with my steering committee members and some league members Who might invite to join me up here? February 14th 1919 Is the establishment the formalized Founding of the League of Women Voters And I'd like to point out that it was six months well several months before The 19th amendment was passed So this year the league is really celebrating commemorating both our centennial and the centennial that gave women the right to vote I'll be brief, but I did want to tell you how the Amherst League is going to be participating in this Friday's national day of action We've chosen a national day of action here in Amherst as a kickoff launch To the get out the 2020 census count campaign in Amherst So I'll pass these around to all of you. I've left some at the back of the room So in February 14th 11 to 1 you'll find us downtown We'll be wearing our sashes and our buttons And as you can see some of my friends have the original suffragists Dress on We will be handing out our cards our literature So that we can get people to not only be aware But to tell them that every every person counts And we want to lose the position we hold We don't no longer want to be among the 10 hardest towns to count in the commonwealth So we are going to join the efforts of the town and our collaborative organizations And continue thereafter February 14th is our kickoff But we've joined with the jones library and with the senior center mariana Mary beth ogle levitz who are welcoming us to host information sessions as well as help sessions so We thank you for acknowledging the national league The work of the amherst league continues We started with the right for women to vote and we continue to support voting rights for everyone And we continue to educate advocate and and impact legislation at the local state and national level So i'll end by saying thank you very much town council It's a pleasure to be here and supporting our work Thank you for your time on behalf of the steering committee and the members of the amherst legal women voters And i have a little gift for you. It is our hundredth. I will pass it out copy of the us comp i will us constitution Residents can get their copies of the reference specs at the jones library. Thank you very much Thank you and thank you for all the work that the league does on behalf of the town and our voters and especially thank you for helping with the Complete count effort in the amherst Is their motion the motion is I'll move to adopt the proclamation celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the league of women voters of the united states as presented Is there a second? Any further discussion George jl met on january 29th and declared this To act to be clear consistent and actionable unanimously Thank you. Any further discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your hand and say I I opposed Upstain it is 12 12 000 and one person absent. Thank you Yes pat, I just wanted to say I'm totally excited about this anniversary But I want us to think about the african-american women who helped get the suffrage Helped get the vote and then were denied the vote And that really it wasn't until the voting act rights act of 1965 That people of color in the united states Began to have the vote and as you know those rights are being dismantled all over the united states So we're not done and we need to fight in a unified unified way now Thank you Thank you. We're going to take a quick five minute break at this time and then reconvene All right, we're moving on to a presentation on flood mapping and um That Does have additional time for public comment if anybody is interested And I just want to note that christine breast strip our planning director will be making that presentation This is an issue that later will come before the council For a vote with regard to the flood insurance rate maps And so listen up now and then we'll come back to us at some point Thank you Thank you Hello, i'm christine breast strip planning director And i'm here to talk to you tonight about our flood mapping project Some of you have seen this before but others for others it might be new I prepared a lengthy memo for the town manager on this topic and that was included in your packets So I won't go into too much detail tonight This is a first look at the flood mapping project There will be at least two more public presentations to town meeting With representatives from our consultants as well as our it department to give you more detailed technical information And allow you to ask technical questions Eventually you'll be asked to vote to adopt the new flood maps The new flood study and a set of zoning amendments to accompany them The town of amherst is a participant in the national flood insurance program Which is administered by fema This program provides subsidized flood insurance for property owners whose properties lie within the 100-year flood plain The adoption of new maps and accompanying zoning regulations Requires the vote of the town council That vote needs to occur sometime in the next six to nine months The town has been working on this project of updating the flood insurance rate maps and the flood insurance study since around 2012 The purpose of the project is to create Accurate federally approved maps for land affected by flooding In order to provide information to landowners To the amherst conservation commission and planning board And to other interested parties including banks that grant mortgages Amherst flood maps were last updated in 1983 New and better technology for mapping flood prone areas is now available And town meeting appropriated funds during several town meeting cycles to update amherst flood maps The consulting firm a e com was hired by the town and has been working with the town with town staff and fema To create new more accurate mapping of floodable areas along rivers and streams in amherst 26 miles of streams were studied including all of the major streams in berkson town In september 2017 Preliminary flood insurance rate maps were presented to members of the planning board The conservation commission and the public At that time The town became aware of a new method of analyzing flood data and determining flood boundaries This new method had just come into use in the spring of 2017 The town decided to go ahead and appropriate additional and additional sum of money to update the maps using the 2017 method The mapping using the new method has now been completed The new preliminary flood insurance rate maps and flood insurance study have been available online And in the planning department office in town hall for review and comment since june of 2019 They were presented at a public meeting on june 25th 2019 And at that time we sent notifications to all those who own property in the flood plain depicted on the new maps So that they could attend the meeting if they wanted to The old 1983 maps were based on usgs topography with 10 foot contour intervals You probably know what 10 foot contour intervals are if you did a lot of hiking and you looked at the usgs maps to find your way Those had 10 foot contour intervals They were also based on data gathered up into the up until the early 1970s The new maps are based on the town of amherst gis topography, which is very accurate. It has one foot contour intervals They are based on more recently gathered data as well This means that the new maps are more accurate in terms of where flooding occurs I'd like to show you a comparison of just one area of town The area around puffer's pond also called factory hollow pond I apologize for not having had these slides ready for you for your pockets But it just occurred to me that this would be a really good comparison So the first map is the 1983 map and it shows Puffer's pond or factory hollow pond right here as a flood flood zone a And the mill river traveling down towards the west This is all the mill river recreation area So the area in dark gray is the flood the 100 year flood plain You can see that they had Elevations where they were measuring. So this is elevation 186 180 178 176. So they did have some Reference to elevations, but they were using this and interpolating 10 foot contour intervals. So it's not terribly accurate This map also shows that the edges are relatively smooth And we know that natural topography isn't like that The second map I'm going to show you if I can get to it Let's see. Where's the arrow? There it is The second map is the new flood plain map So this is the new insurance rate map. You can see that it's much more detailed because it has Very irregular edges Just like real land undulations And the blue areas are the areas that are in the 100 year flood plain So of course Puffer's pond and all of these blue areas going downstream The brown areas are areas that are in the 500 year flood plain adjacent to the 100 year And the striped area is the floodway. So that's the floodway that the river takes Um the third map that I'm going to show you If I can grab that arrow This map has a comparison map. So again, here's Puffer's pond up here The blue areas are areas that were in the old flood plain And remain in the new flood plain The brown areas are areas that were removed from the flood plain from the old maps And the green areas were added So you can see we've done a pretty good study of how the maps have changed This information is online for your convenience So the next steps are that staff will be working to develop amendments to the zoning by-law to accompany these maps We're now in the 90 day appeal period which ends on february 20th So there's an appeal period that allows people who have property in these areas to Approach fema with information that they feel will change the way the map is shown So that ends on february 20th Once all the appeals have been resolved We're going to receive a letter of final determination from fema And the date of that letter Will begin a six month compliance period During which the town will need to adopt the new maps And the accompanying zoning regulations If the town fails to adopt the new maps the town of amherst will no longer be able to participate in the flood insurance program And people with property in the flood zones will not be able to purchase flood insurance at the government subsidized rates We'll be back to meet with town council members once the compliance period begins And we'll bring our consultant a calm and other town staff members to give you a more thorough presentation And then later on in the summer or possibly in early fall We'll meet again with town council one more time To answer your questions and ask that you vote to adopt the new maps and the zoning amendments So thank you very much for listening and with the president of the council's permission. I can take some questions Please Questions Dorothy Um, there's been a lot of talk in different parts of the country about what does a hundred year flood zone mean? And many places have had a number of them In a short period of time So I guess this is the one tool they have to talk about possible flooding But do the experts feel this is the way to talk about It now in climate change Please go ahead. Um, this is the way that fema currently talks about it. Um, we tried to push for Sort of accommodating climate change in our new maps and fema doesn't recognize that They only recognize past data So it could come to pass that in the future they changed their mind about that but for now it's It's just past data and they don't consider climate change Thank you Kathy Thank you chris for this and as you know, I came in a couple days ago when you gave me a quick Learning curve elevation on various terms So you showed us the flood plain old and flood plain new in terms of flood plains but we also in zoning have flood prone conservancy where if I Took the zone and overlaid it on the old flood plains Our conservancies went broader than some of the plains at least in some areas of town What I Um, and I'm reading the memo now. Do we have to change those flood plain? prone conserved the fpcs Versus these planes or could we make a decision to keep them as is but adopt This definition of flood plain Go ahead I think you could make a decision to keep the old flood prone conservancy zoning district It is really a zoning district and it's not something that's approved by fema It might get confusing after a while And I think it will become clearer as we zero in on zoning amendments that are related to this new set of maps whether or not we want to Change or do something with the fpc zone, but for now We're just asking you to look at these new fema maps and zoning amendments that will accompany them and we can consider the fpc zone at some future date Um, it is true that the fpc zone does move out into areas that are not included in the hundred-year flood plain I just do a follow up linds. Sure. Um, the reason I ask is it might be useful when For the future. I understand. We're not is to do some overlays like this if possible so people can see the difference Thank you. We'll do that Chris, um, as I look at these and listen to kathy's question What does the insurance company follow? Is it the fema regulations or by adding additional Land to this by what kathy's suggesting are we now putting those homeowners that are in that property at a higher rate um, it's really um It's really up to well It's up to the homeowners in the banks as to whether they want to purchase insurance Usually if you're in a flood zone and you want to get a mortgage your bank will insist that you get flood insurance For people who don't have a mortgage they can choose to get flood insurance or not They're not forced to get it, but they do rely on these maps Probably this map right now We're in a quasi sort of gray area where we have to rely on the old maps Where they are more restrictive and we rely on the new maps where the new maps are more restricted So, um, that's kind of the situation we're in right now. Did I answer your question in part? It should you as a homeowner who has a fully paid property Choose not to insure Doesn't that then put you in jeopardy for fema help if there is a flood? I would think so Okay And then my other question is as you look at shorelines particularly after Katrina Superstorm Sandy What you've seen along shorelines where there has been increasing flooding is in fact wires put above ground Because they don't want them underground because when it floods The conduits flood etc It's very different than the point that Evan made earlier. So it just reverses And I'm assuming that at some point when we set these flood plains We then have to also make sure that we have looked at the proper Location for wiring and stuff like that Yeah, I would think that's up to the utility company to look at the flood maps and determine if they want to Take the risk or perhaps use some, you know More advanced way of of covering and closing Conduits to keep them from flooding Um, but that's really something that the utility company would decide and and not something that the town needs to really get involved in Thank you. Other questions. Yes, Andy Oh, I'm sorry other. Yes Shalini Do we know what is the net increase or decrease in flooding plain has with the changes have the increased land under flooding Plains or has it decreased? In terms of land area, I don't know My colleagues who are the technical people do have counts as far as Numbers of structures that are either in or out of the flood plain I think structures have been removed from the flood plain, but I don't know the exact count So that's a question that next time we come to you. We'll have an answer for that Shalini have there been residents who've come up to complain about or change ask for a change There has been one landowner who has been Asking for a change and he would ask for a change to reduce the area of flood plain on his property To make it more developable But he needs to file an appeal And what happens is they file the appeal with the town and then the town sends it on to fema and fema considers whether it's A valid appeal or not Okay So just to respond to residents who may want to so the process would be to Appeal and what and then the burden is on them to provide evidence why they think it should not change or what sort of evidence Or supporting support supporting documents to then need to give Well, I must say at this point it's um, it's a little late in the game You know, we did notify everybody back in june That we were You know working on these new maps. We notified all the property owners They had an opportunity to come to a public meeting. We put all the documents online I think we sent out press releases and I think we sent out a press release when the appeal period started in november And so I think we've given people a really good opportunity to respond if they chose to but the only The only person I've heard from is this one person who I believe is Probably going to submit an appeal other comments Yes, evan So I have a million technical questions. I could have asked we had a conversation about this in the past given My graduate research is in this But what is striking to me? So the last time we did this was 1983 Which was before I was born Just to throw that out there And and I guess I'm just curious If it's typical to wait such a long period of time to be updated And there was a statement made in your memo that we will likely sit with these flood maps for decades And trying to reconcile that with your answer to dory the pams question about Climate change and the fact that These models only build in past data, which is unreliable going forward If there's a thought that there'll be An increasing frequency with which we update these flood maps or Like 40 years is sort of the general Time that we sit with these things Yes, I think the coastal cities and towns are updated or have been updated more recently I don't know how far back their maps went But I know that there was a focus on coastal cities and towns and also a focus on towns that about the rivers In our case we actually chose to take on this project because we noticed that there was Such a discrepancy between our flood prone conservancy maps and what we saw as the old FEMA maps So we initiated this project It turns out now that the federal government FEMA is initiating a project for This whole region So but that's really not going to be coming to pass for several more years and so We're kind of a unique town in that we chose to do this on our own So I really don't know what the average Time lapses between one set of maps and another but for us it is what is that 37 years? I think so Okay Any other questions at this time? I just want to point out this is one of Three times she'll be coming before us. Yeah, Alyssa When you bring those numbers back the next time of how many property Structures are in or out if you could also give us a sense of how many people Actually needed to get this notice was it five people five thousand people four people? That would just just give us a sense of scale as we're explaining it to the community Like don't worry if you didn't get a notice it wasn't about you And that would be helpful Thank you We are about to send out notices because there's a grandfathering that is allowed I think if you have flood insurance Um And your property is in the flood zone You are able to keep your flood insurance at the same rate if you Don't have flood insurance and your property is newly Into the flood plain. There's a different calculus. Anyway, we're going to be doing a mailing in the next week or so to about 400 Two owners of about 400 properties To let them know that there is this grandfathering opportunity if they want to take advantage of it Okay manager So I actually looked at a number of the detailed maps because I was curious And one thing I noticed was it was only certain rivers that were mapped or certain You know sort of streams how everyone a column brooks and all is that Standard for something like this That you only pick certain ones is it do they have to have a certain size in order to be mapped? So that that's my first question. My second is I noticed the downtown was not mapped Could you talk about and I'm assuming it's just a standard for fema flood mapping? Where this is a river flood mapping not a sort of flash flood massive storm flood mapping that when the drainage systems in hardscapes are overwhelmed Do we do and and then do we do any of that sort of hardscape flood mapping for flash flood type purposes This is really flood mapping that's associated with streams and brooks bodies of water I believe that we mapped all of the flood areas that were mapped originally Went back and either looked at them again or decided that whatever Information they had was okay at that time But it wouldn't include places like downtown because downtown doesn't really have any Streams and rivers running through it Except handbrook of course, but and the other thing is the center of town is on a hill So, you know water kind of runs downhill and it doesn't really Puddle here. There's not really much of a chance of A flooding in this area. There is a chance of flooding in the north amherst village center So that's you know an area that was remapped you can see it On that map right there the montague road and sunderland road and then what's in between So that's um It's got a big flood plain right right there, right Additional questions or comments at this time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much again. All right. Bye. Bye. Okay Moving on david. I believe you're up next regarding some property I'm sorry We had public comment. Let's I'm thank you. Is there any public comment with regard to the flood mapping Nope, thank you for the reminder Good evening. I'll try to be brief in your packets was information regarding the uh a piece of property in north amherst Owned by the zala family and this may be the first time I'm not sure if the commission has dealt with a chapter 61 process before But I just wanted to make a few comments about the process. I think this was really Kind of a first look for you and and uh, I will take my direction I'll take my direction from from you, uh, lin as to how deep and happy to answer questions I'm not here to advocate for the applicant So in in short chapter 61 a is a tax classification that allows In this case a property owner a farmer To enjoy lower taxes In exchange for them committing to keeping the property in In this case agriculture. That's what the a stands for on chapter 61 a When that any owner of land in that classification goes to sell or convert the land The municipality has the right of first refusal So what's been offered to the town is the right of first refusal? So the town of amherst has the opportunity to purchase the land All throughout massachusetts communities look at these opportunities and A municipality can step into that purchase and sale agreement and Choose to exercise their right of first refusal What typically has happened historically in amherst is a The planning board and the conservation commission Prior to the council being formed They would make a recommend both those bodies would make a recommendation to the select board in this case They would come to you. So the Planning board took up this issue last week and the conservation commission will take it up on wednesday of this week Um, unfortunately, uh, this notice Due to your busy schedule concom and planning boards busy schedules and holiday schedules This was not acted upon in in the normal Kind of more expedient fashion. So the clock is ticking on us. So we really only have until march 6th, which is a 120 day period from the time we received the notice to the time if the town wanted to act So I will report that the planning board last week Did vote to recommend to you that the town not exercise its right of first refusal on this Property I was there for the discussion Ms. Breastrup will be writing you a memo which should be ready later on this week and The conservation commission. I'm sure we'll put together a memo as well The planning board if I could summarize without speaking for them The property is in the prp the professional research park zoning It does not contain soils of the highest quality that we would find in other places in amherst and there are no Species of special concern These are many of the factors that the planning board and or the conservation commission would look at while making a recommendation to you So I think I'll stop there I will say that if if a town And we'll get these from time to time. We don't get a lot. We might get maybe two a year Sometimes we'll go a couple of years without any of them If if if the town does ever want to step into a right of first refusal It's a very Prescribed process and needs to happen frankly very quickly. Um, we typically have 45 days to close on the property So it makes it very challenging for municipalities when they do want to acquire a piece of property Like this. So, um, I think I'll stop there and I'm sure there may be some questions Questions from the council at this time Yes pat It seems to me it would be quite beneficial to the tax base if this property were commercial industrial Um, if we went forward with the industrial park idea Right now we rely almost completely on residential taxes and this would be a way of Opening the tax base up And that seems to me to be a counterbalance to the conservation aspect of this So I was wondering if you could comment on that Um, well, I will say that my recommendation I'll preview that for wednesday night will be to the commission that we not exercise our right of first refusal now Of course, they're an independent Group and they can choose to make a recommendation Different than what I recommend to them But um, in fact, it has never been this parcel has never been identified on the open space and recreation plan as a priority Um, it has been zoned prp professional research park for Um upwards of 30 years and in fact, um, I think the town has always looked at it as a as a area the entire area from Coles Road north on the East side of Sunderland road as you're heading out toward 116 most of that is prp the area in fact where the new solar field went was also Zoned prp. So I think the town's intentions there were to use that land In part to broaden the tax base Evan Oh, I'm sorry. Kathy It's all right. I didn't see it. It's just it's just a hand. Um I I might that we're only being asked about the fighter Right of first refusal here So the pat's question of does this go from prp to light industrial? That's a decision that's going to be made somewhere else Oh, I I might have misunderstood that. Yes. This is professional research park. We also have a zoning Category light industrial that area a light industrial is off of meadow street So we're we're not talking about a zoning change here. This is just the right I mean the document mentions that as as a desire for them And so to the extent that's going to happen. That's not what we're doing tonight at all Correct. And in fact, we are I would defer to the town manager But I don't think we're looking for a decision on this tonight This is simply a first look and we would come back by your next meeting We would have the recommendation from the planning board from the conservation commission and more information from staff That's correct. This is just a first look tonight And I'd be happy to take away any questions or if you'd like additional information We could get that to you in your packet prior to your next meeting in two weeks Dorothy As I remember the majority of the property is not buildable because it's wetlands And there was only a small portion. I forget the dimensions That were available for building and that there was also a question about roads to and from the building Because of the wetlands Yes, I believe you were at the planning board meeting that I was at A week or so ago. Yes. So in fact the property is is just over 38 acres It's a fairly large property undeveloped property. It has been in farming for a number of years The Zala family is a is an old Amherst Hadley farm family that has owned Hundreds of acres in town And in fact, we bought some land from the same family across the street You recall in a high priority zone for conservation to the west of 116 So the property is 38 Over 38 acres. There's only about nine or 10 acres that are buildable of that. It has already been delineated There is a preliminary delineation that has gone through the conservation commission. I do not believe it has been fully accepted yet but It is it seems quite clear that about nine or 10 acres of the land is developable Okay Other questions Yes, a little So back in the olden days, let's just on that So as you indicated this would normally have gone to conservation commission before it came to us So that we'd have that sense right away. Oh, it was the priority or it wasn't the priority just as you've just said But it I believe from what you said that because of the timing of this just with everything else that was going on You wanted to make sure we saw Knowing that those other things are happening and we don't have that many more meetings scheduled before the time runs out And is it also fair to say based i'm asking you to confirm what i'm about to say Which is that typically when we get these which like you said might be a couple times a year Might not be for a year or two It's because they want us to move faster Then we are required to do then then we have this window of time that we're allowed to act in But frequently when people make this request They're like and could you hurry up and make a decision in the next month because we'd really liked close sooner And so usually then you know, you are racing around trying to get conservation commission and everybody else informed So that we can be sensitive to the needs of the property owner Even though technically we have a large window to act with them, but usually the Familiar with some other attorneys who you tend to see on these things over and over again They will say could you do this sooner than you have to do it? And it's because they simply want to move forward. And so when we do We've sometimes felt time pressure in the past due to that We have actual time pressure now because that clock is ticking, but we still have time. We still have time You're absolutely right Normally we would be feeling some of that pressure and I think in this case We didn't get as much as we normally do. I will say that if if the council does not take any action essentially it's Prescriptively granted in other words, um, you're right at first refusal Goes away after March 6. So the council doesn't have to take any action At your next meeting you could choose to take no action and therefore we would not have that right any longer But again, as I said, we'd like to bring you some more information bring you that information from the planning board the conservation commission And any staff recommendations? I believe your next meeting is on the 24th correct So correct Thank you if no other questions Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Um, mr. Bachmann you want to come forward? So thank you. Um We have a unique opportunity to present to you tonight and it's to Conduct some major capital work to an iconic building in North Amherst the North Amherst library at virtually no or low cost to the town and we have been I've been working on this for a bit of time and trying to Bring it to a full enough Situation where I felt comfortable where I could bring it to the public and to the council There are no decisions. You're not being asked to make any decisions tonight if I am interested in Sort of feedback from the council if we want me to continue putting time into this effort or not so We all know the North Amherst library at the intersection of Montague road in Sunderland an iconic historic building that houses Our small library. It is not accessible to the handicapped. It's not accessible to anybody who can't navigate stairs It has no restrooms in it But beloved in North Amherst an anonymous donor Approached us to offer funds to make the North Amherst library fully accessible To add restrooms that would be available to the public and perhaps to add a community room or meeting room and Asked if we would entertain the idea of exploring that So we did a bunch of due diligence to figure out how much money it would cost to do the kinds of things that Were being suggested or requested and also to to gauge the interest of the proper of the anonymous donor to see if They really were truly interested in supporting this project or not Um So I had I made it early on from the very beginning said this is A project that is on our capital plan But not in the near future because we have so many other capital needs that are facing the town That this was not seen as a priority by the town Um, I think it was an f y is listed in f y 23, but I think that was not even realistic in our um in our capital plan And so it was important for the anonymous donor to realize that But for Private funding this project would not be advanced um The seriousness and sincerity of the anonymous donor motivated me to take steps to determine if this was a doable project or not Um I've shared information the basic information With the anonymous donor We went we secured services of coon riddle to look at the building To determine what needed to be done to the building to accomplish the goals that We had established Earlier, which was again to make the building make the building accessible To people who couldn't navigate stairs put in two restaurants And then on a separate piece to add a community room as a separate standalone project that could be yes or no Um Ask coon riddle to take into consideration The impact on the building because it's a historic iconic building you had to think of Whether an elevator had to be would have to be included or not Whether there were other ways to access the building Um And also to consider even though it would be exempt from the net zero Bylaw to that would be something that's because of the council's goals something that we would want to have to factor in as well Um Coon riddle came back with some ballpark figures, which are listed in the memo in short The ballpark figures run from 750,000 to 1.15 million dollars Um, this is plus the it would be architecture fees. Usually they run around 20 percent This was going on right now of 200 to 250 thousand dollars Um, we we tested these sort of ballpark figures with a Construction person who estimates for a living uh for construction today And they they vetted out very close to what our ballpark figures were so we have Solid information about what it would cost to do this Um circled back with the anonymous donor said are you interested in this they continued to be interested. Um Uh at first we thought there was some urgency in terms of what time of year it needed to be done But there wasn't but there's an urgency with the anonymous donor who wants to see this happen um So what i'm looking at doing is uh Taking steps based on money in the bank in essence So if the anonymous donor is able to contribute the money that we need or um To prepare the plans We would then With the money i can't i can't sign a contract unless there's their funds in the bank to sign a contract with an architect or whoever So once the money is donated we would i would move forward with an rfp for um A an architect and sign a contract with an architect initiate a public engagement process because People in north amherst and people in the town of amherst that have not talked about this at all You know whether we want to do it or not Um what it would look like how do we want a community room or not do we is this You know how all these things would work fit together um And we would go through that process at the conclusion of that process If it's successful, we will have a set of plans and a design that would go to the council and say is this Feel good to you and then um So and we would stop And then we would We would not move forward with it We would have an estimate for what that would cost and then we would go back to the anonymous donor and say This is what it cost to do this vision that the community agreed on So it would be a community design design The community would contribute to design in terms of working with the architect and hearing feedback um and then not Turn over a shovel of dirt until all the money was in the bank through through the donation To move forward to the next to construction if we have the funds that we think it would cost to do construction Then that was donated Then we would move forward You know there are issues that it's not just money in the bank There are other issues that the council and I would want to take into consideration and the library director If we have a new building, what is the staffing requirements going to be? What are the expectations for maintenance right now the library maintains the north amherst library? If it becomes has a community room has a restrooms are open to the public It brings along with it other maintenance issues that we would want to have that conversation about Who would man if there's a community room who manages it is it available just when the library is open We wouldn't want that because the hours are pretty limited But who schedules it and who watches over it and you could you know have a separate entrance to it Um and also that the important to note that this would make people it would allow people to get into the building There'd be a chair lift that gets into the main library where it is now Um, but the stacks and moving navigating throughout the stacks would still not be available to anybody in the wheelchair There's just not enough space for that so it accomplishes a fair amount of where we want to go Um So I thought it was timely to bring it to the council Um, I think it's important that um If we get the funds in place for design, we will go that far. We don't move forward until the funds are in place Um for construction And so I present that to you tonight to Hear any feedback you have and if you think it's a good idea if you are you going to say no stop Don't work on this more. Um, and just open to your feedback That It's an absolutely wonderful idea And I there is no reason not to go forward And I thank whoever this person is additional comments Dorothy in the jones library a person in a wheelchair Can't get to the stacks either can they? and now no so When this has been mentioned to me and it has been mentioned several times that they would not be able to get in stacks That's not a unique disability to this plan. Agreed Kathy And and in fact in this anyone who hasn't been there should go there The librarian gets you the books. I can't I can't reach the top shelf to either and I'm not in a wheelchair. It's just it's uh It feels like Everybody's overflowing living room with books And they're books down in the basement and storage which they come in to bring them up So while you can't roam around in it in a wheelchair you can be Completely feeling at home in it and actually there are two living room chairs that you could if you wanted to sit in And so and I agree with pat the the generosity is amazing and I I think the um plan you've presented of getting input on Does the larger community want this with or without a community room? You know what level of enthusiasm is there is great the other thing I saw um in your memo, which I thought was Uh a major point right now. It's um a very old-fashioned heating and cooling system. It's window air conditioners There are no many splits in it. It uses an oil-based small Uh heater, which there is a bathroom in the basement. She can't get to it. So there were In this some of the specs it was We could modernize some of that and make it less expensive to run as a building as part of this Without solar collectors, even we could be doing something to making the space More comfortable with less costs Additional comments Yeah, I was just I'm going to go back to the accessibility issue. Um I haven't looked at the plans recently But if we add an accessible lift Would a wheelchair be able to make it to the desk? Like or would it really be a wheelchair? Into the bathroom area and the new portion only like would there be enough room to at least get to Where Kathy was talking about I know it's a very small building right so the concept that that koon noodle came up with and I don't think we've shared that with folks is Um that there would be a lift that would go up to get you to that main floor Um, there's some discussion about maybe even flipping the rooms to say the new if there if there were a community room The the library part would be where the community room might be in the back and in the but that's a discussion And I didn't want to put forward a design Because I felt like That would prejudice people and just and I don't think that we're there Is this is just sort of our whole thing was like, okay, throw something together. Give us a design that we can test the numbers So our whole mission was to see is there an appetite with the anonymous donor to move forward on it? And are the numbers realistic so that this person would say I'm I'm good with this and that's where we want it to be at this moment in time Evan So I have a question and a concern I suppose The question and this is just purely based on some of my ignorance around what's being proposed For that intersection. Um, is if there's any Implications, I I know we are pursuing potentially a roundabout at that intersection that will perhaps involve Consuming some of the property in that Um, and I'm I'm curious because I haven't seen designs because I don't know either designs for a potential roundabout Which I don't think exists or designs for what's being proposed to the library If there is some relationship between that project that might impact whether or not this is the right time to do this Um, the concern I have was mentioned in your memo and I do want to highlight because I would push back on Pat's statement of I don't see any reason not to do this Um, we know that the library's budget is really tight. There have been concerns from some counselors about Part-time staff and we've heard from the library that Staffing is an issue with their current budget um, and the concern about Staffing a larger facility staffing a potential meeting room is only going to further strain the budget of the library And so I would be interested in seeing Some more Exploration of that I don't necessarily I'm not opposed to this project But I do think what we hear time and time again is that the library's budget is really strained We as a community are not investing enough in the library for them to be able to do what they need to do already Um, and now they're the jones library is currently going out and asking for significant donations to be able to do The project over there. Um, you know, I think that there there's something to be said about making sure Um, that we don't create a great facility Um, and then say the library now figure out how to staff it without pairing that with greater investment in the library's budget Um from from the town So I'll answer the second one first. That was precisely the concern of the director library director Saying okay, you give me a new building and do I have to add staff and how do I afford that? You give me more space. I have to maintain How do I afford that? Where is that going to show up in my budget? Do I have to cut someplace else to be able to do that? So that's a very important conversation to have um, and one of the reasons that we noted that in the conversation um in terms of the um potential changes to any intersections of their As the superintendent public works to lay out the constraints for where we couldn't Break and so it would no matter what we chose to do He's laid out the constraints on where we could work and where we couldn't work And allowing for a parking for the the north amherst library as well So we needed to create An entrance with parking that did not impinge upon Say if we want the current plan has been to relocate Sunderland road to monagu road and whether there's enough room to accomplish all that So that was one of the constraints we put on the architect. We talked about it show Do we know what are the intentions of the donor in terms of what? They really want to see because I can envision that we deal with the handicap accessibility And that would not entail new staff or anything. So we're accepting the donor, you know We're getting a generous donation to fix an old building that will make it more accessible to our town So we should seriously be considering that and be really grateful and working with the donors to expedite that process to make it easy for them to give the money to us And at the same time, you know doing it What i'm saying is we could do it without burdening the staff so um, yes the anonymous donor wasn't The first intention of the anonymous donor wasn't to create a community room It was just to create restrooms and accessibility And that's why we broke it into two sections because there was talk about a community room needed in North Amherst And was this an appropriate site for it or not? And um, it was helpful to see, you know, what how much more would it cost to add a community room? And even if we didn't want to do it now Please design the addition so that A community room could be added down the road if the town ever chose to go that route. So that was sort of the logic of it George I'm just a little concerned about the timing given that we're also considering a major project for the jones and so um This is a very generous offer It's something that that people have been wanting to do for a long time But now it's happening where it looks like it's in, you know, it might be happening at the same time Trying to make a major decision about our central library and so It doesn't say I'm for against it just is a concern about the timing and the challenge of trying it seems like we almost caught between two projects and I'm worried about them being in competition in some way. So maybe they won't be maybe I mean the money is is being offered in a sense for free But it's also involves town resources and probably gonna involve a little bit of town money The same time we're trying to make a decision about about the jones itself So it's just a concern I have I guess about the timing So I think that's a legitimate concern. I think That's something we think about as well. I think that The anonymous donors made it clear that this is it's for this project, but not the jones project And there wasn't an intention for you know, it's not it's this this donation would not be siphoning anything from the jones library But it would be a capital project that we would be devoting staff time to and trying to Facilitate it through the permitting process and things like that. All right one of the questions I raised as this came forward to be put on the agenda was What is the policy of the town with regard to accepting gifts? You know, if somebody gives you land you have to decide can you maintain it? But in this case we already own this building and I really urge Not necessarily in this case But at some point that the council really considered developing a policy about gifts That are at above a certain limit And for that matter even if they might be controversial should somebody for instance want to give us money To build an offensive statue in the middle of you know the street We're not going to accept that gift at least i'm not So and this is a very standard process that higher education institutions and other institutions go through Is that they have guidelines for what gifts they will accept in they in fact on rare occasions But nevertheless do Decide that a gift is just not appropriate for their purposes having said that I think this is a wonderful and generous offer And I hope that there's other people in our town who will think about gifts for other things we might like Well, I think the bid has some ideas for how people can donate money for a lot of different projects in their Right. I have a few a few on my list Listen, thank you for saying that because I was going to bring up much of the same thing This person has been very patient and very generous. This has been perking for a while So I appreciate that they have they have stuck with it and and worked with you and you've worked out the numbers In terms of why not to accept it I I think Evan made a really excellent point there and i'm really glad to hear that we have really looked at the possible intersection designs Because this is exactly why Sometimes we don't know what future consequences will be of things that we do in case it's outside the current footprint For example the jones garden No one envisioned when that garden was created That it was going to then be used as a reason not to renovate the jones library So it just seemed like an amazing gift at the time and it has been an amazing gift But it had consequences down the line in terms of the conversations and the possibilities So knowing that we are certain that whatever we do Won't go that direction where where I think makes a really big difference The other thing I think is great is the idea of while being incredibly grateful to this donor Which we are and we're very excited about this is that we are including a public process Not just saying it meets our policy or it doesn't mean our policy that doesn't exist as to accepting a gift Because I think it will be really useful for the community to try and work through do we want a community room? Because there will be people who say and I'm not arguing this. I'm saying there will be people who say Well, it's really nice if you install this expensive lift to move people to sit in front of the checkout desk But like what's the point? I mean they can get into more of the jones library They can get But if there are people who are living in that area who find that really useful to just go to the front desk That's the kind of thing we can hear from the community or we can hear from more people in the community Who say I want them to have access to a community room like you can't get in between stacks But you can be there for a community room But just getting to go and hang out at the front desk maybe isn't as compelling to people But that's how we'll find that out is by doing that community process So thank you for lining out all those steps for us Okay Are there other comments or questions at this time? Okay seeing none Then thank you. Thank you. So what I will do I will start talking about this in public um and Start to move forward with If the anonymous owner is willing to provide the funds then putting the staff time in to support this Right. Thank you. Thank you um Okay, I'm going to make a suggestion that we Deal with the next item and then Potentially go into executive session and then come back out But the next item is in fact the proposed proposal on changes to the public way regulations on lincoln av Let me preface this by saying As requested at the town council meeting on january 27th Concerning park your parking regulations on lincoln way a detailed member with various attachments Including the petition from the neighbors have been added to your packet In addition a copy of all of the other items referred Referring to past actions by the select board that were in your packet last week have been packaged And placed in your packet again are referred to in links in the memo from the town manager the bottom line is We've tried to give you a lot more information and do it in a much more orderly fashion The decision before the council tonight Is to recommend to the president to schedule a hearing on march 9th, I guess it is 2020 To consider the recommendation from the town manager So we're very clear Regarding the proposed changes in parking regulations on lincoln av This decision is based upon the evidence presented Although I will give you a caveat in that It is not based upon whether you believe we should accept reject refer Or continue the hearing based upon the recommendations from the town That is what we will do at the hearing So we're not here to debate this issue tonight We are only here to decide whether we're going to whether you're going to advise me To set up a hearing While tack has not Rendered an opinion at this time They have the opportunity to render an opinion prior to any hearing regarding this proposal And the petitioners have in fact been in touch with tack And there has been an attempt to schedule attack meeting in a timely manner so that they can do so So This is up for a discussion and the discussion is do you have enough information or what additional information Would you like to see if we go into a hearing? Alyssa so I want to leap in since I was so adamant about this last time And I think that we now have the information I was hoping we were going to get before and so I think we're in great shape And I think it would be great if we could just offer quick comments on What tiny bit of additional information we might want when it comes time for the hearing You know ideally obviously that wednesday before kind of deal so that we're not seeing it as we come in We have so much great data. I think information. We're missing our existing conditions need to be mapped The same way the proposed conditions are mapped. That's just not a habit of this town That's just how we do things and it's so much harder You all tried to do it to do it with just words rather than the map And so I'd really like a map of existing conditions that's made in the same fashion And the other thing is if we could be able to give people a sense of now these spaces are not lined But to give people a sense of what the net loss of spaces is because there already is a lot of Forbidden area along there, but being able to say to people some you know I know that we have professionals who can estimate that sort of thing without having to go out and measure the actual marked spaces The other than the other thing I wanted to add is that although I myself reviewed the motion and now I'm thinking about it again When we do the legal notice that has to go in the newspaper for this which were required to do by our own general bylaws We always use this phrasing about the public way and nobody knows what we're talking about So if we and I've already mentioned this to paul and athena if when the time comes I don't need to change the motion But if when the time comes when we do the legal notice if we could somehow include the word parking In there so it catches people's eye because public way is like what's that? Okay, any further comments about what you need to see for the hearing Mandy joe I just wanted to respond to elissa and the number of loss. So the downtown parking study Actually included lincoln avenue in the study and they had parking spot numbers and so On the proposal the permanent loss would be approximately I had to guess with how many fit within a 30 foot range But I went with 20 feet per spot because I think our current average is around 22 when we line Is approximately 47 spots and then the weekday loss would be an additional approximately 142 With a so total during the eight to five range would be approximately 190 spots lost we will add information again. I don't want to get into the details Thank you. We'll add that information for the patent. There's report the Parking report has that information. Thank you Steve So just for full disclosure I'm of a position that there should be parking on every street in amherst that there should be no Locally owned streets. I know okay. That's not the discussion tonight So really what my concern is part of the Discussion here regarding the right-of-way. So the right-of-way on lincoln. I believe is 23 feet There are streets all over amherst that are 23 foot right-of-ways by using that as an argument for having no parking on the street puts every other street in risk, which I think would have huge implications. I also think there'd be huge implications of Where do these people park? These are obviously motivated parkers That will go somewhere else. And so where exactly are they? So have Has anyone looked anywhere in the study? So one of the things that will be an option as we have a hearing Is to decide whether or not we are going to accept recommend defer our refer And one of the options is is that in fact we may refer it to a place like crc For additional consideration if I may have those kinds of implications. So I had a comment. They're also also we There are some arguments that we can't do. I you know, I don't remember exactly that some possibilities were eliminated like Two hour parking was eliminated, but there's no discussion of limiting other. This is getting into the issue. Steve This is information. I'd like like why not alternates to the side of the street parking? Why not? Parking meters why not other ways of managing? parking So I haven't seen a whole bunch of other alternates Discussed and eliminated. I've only seen one or two. Okay. Thank you Darcy Sort of along the lines of what I was bringing up previously in the meeting I am interested in finding out what what is our criteria for having a hearing on a traffic and safety issue What can I recommend to my own constituents if they want to have a public hearing on The speed limit on southeast street or the dangerous intersection in south amherst common or the dangerous Crossing in front of cracker firm school or speeding on mill lane Or the crosswalk at pot wine and 116 Can each one of those Groups because they have there are groups for each one of those Can they come to us and ask for a hearing? There's a couple different ways that the charter describes coming forward to us one is and there's various levels for petition In this case the neighbors Came forward they met with the town manager and they met with a number of other people And put it into a format that does not in fact meet the requirement for the petition Out of that the town manager did in fact go to dpw the fire and police And put together the memo. So absent Community members fulfilling the charter requirements What is the criteria that we're using to be able to give a particular group in the community A public hearing Why does one group get a public hearing and others don't So I'm just I am not leaning toward giving a public hearing To any group that comes to us with the traffic and safety concern Unless they have 150 people signing a petition on under the charter Okay Kathy I want to build on that. I think it is a separable issue and we should think through How would we set up a policy on how this would happen? But for additional information Um, you know on this situation, I think we need to think more holistically So I would like whatever memo on a preferred Solution both that have a steve said what alternatives are there and why were they less preferred But implications for neighboring streets the Small paragraph we had from tac when they first talked about it Said if they people can't park on Lincoln will they pack park on Dana? Will they park on name whatever the next street over is? And so would that goes into then Darcy will then that neighborhood group come and say Not here. So I think we need to have some way of Saying what is an approach to all of this and And I'm just asking I think it's going to take some thinking I know in the tufts neighborhood where my daughter Was living as a Worker not a student Street after street had provisions They all had provisions because the overflow from tufts was huge But it it wasn't like one street and the next street every street had a provision on it So I'm trying to think of a surrounding area as this might be the first step Not to slow this one down Because I think we did ask for a plan and we have one but that I just want to have that be The next thing we try to think through and I'm no longer sure which committee Does these issues it seems like CRC, but I don't know One of the things again that happens with the hearing Is the possibility that it is then referred One of the possibilities is that is referred with a sense of that larger look that you want Dorothy well assuming that we have a hearing there is some information that I would like And it would include how many people are using Lincoln as a direct road to umass And I know our neighboring street sunset does not have any parking same width How many accidents occur at the intersection of amity and Lincoln Last weekend was a really rather amazing thing with a flaming car and the street closed up and down There were two major crashes Also, I'd like research on what is the average speed of people going down amity Because if you're going down people kind of pick up a pace And you find you can't get through the intersection if you're going to make a right into Lincoln because there's cars on either side and park cars And you can't do You cannot make that turn if they're park cars on both sides You can't slow down Without causing an accident. I don't know. I'd love to know more details about the two accidents last weekend um, and I know that um I live nearby, uh, I there's a certain sound I hear it means two two cars have hit broadside because we have um, the people coming from the the block of Lincoln from Route nine to amity Can't make that intersection the proposal or the concept Before the council tonight is are we going to schedule a hearing based on the On the town managers memo. That's the question If after we have that hearing Should we have that hearing? You and all of this other stuff and then it goes to a committee and then we talk about it some more and it comes back Fine if we can get some of this other information That's good, and I don't I'm not just saying this to Dorothy. I'm saying this to all of you We you asked for certain things two weeks ago. We got them for you. We've said this is what the hearing would be about Now the question is are you advising me? to set the hearing Andy um Like several of you The question was initially presented What issues would we like to have develop this for information for the hearing? And I think that's taken us down a path Because I thought about questions in advance that I have Noted and highlighted in yellow and the question was about how do they get before us? Frankly, I think that they get before us at a hearing and That's what the purpose of the hearing is and that the information we ask at the hearing Is not provided There's another option in addition to what the president has mentioned that is to continue the hearing There's no reason you close a hearing at the time you have it So rather than get into Questions that I have I think I would prefer to postpone it and just get to the core issue in the core issue now is That the town manager has made a recommendation for parking Regulation changes on a particular street and Should we have a hearing about that doesn't mean Do we have the information or we what we should do After we have the hearing Or how long the hearing will be and I hope we can get to that core question Okay Additional questions or comments at this time. I'm sorry george I would authorize you to go ahead and set the hearing I think we have enough information and we will have staff present and we can ask them questions And if we need more information, we can continue the hearing But I think it's time for us to to move ahead The issue the larger issue of how this process should work Is something that gol in fact has taken on and we hope to have something to give to you to think about at some point in the near future But in the meantime, we do have a proposal And I think we should move ahead to a hearing and if you have further questions concerns That's the time to raise them and we'll have staff here present to to answer them And if we still don't have enough information, we continue the hearing or we can close the hearing and make a decision Further comment or question Alyssa So I had asked for some specific things that I hope will be included associated with the hearing And I think some of the other things we're hearing are things that people are going to want to ask at the hearing And so staff would be would be smart to write those down now And plan to answer them at the hearing rather than having to wait for us to do that And then as Andy said we can always continue the hearing if we need to And I wanted to see if anybody else was going to bring this up So I was glad that somebody did in terms of effect on neighboring streets That is definitely something I'm not saying a huge study should be done about now But we should all be thinking about as to what decision we make in terms of referral or Action plus future action etc associated with this because I will give you the exact example of when we put those lovely speed bumps on Lincoln the original proposal by Former town manager was to only put them on Lincoln And the select board said yeah, I don't think that's going to work I think that's going to have an impact on blue hills and Dana And that's why you see speed bumps on all those places So there is give and take in terms of the expertise of the staff and what we're hearing from the community and what we've seen As the patterns, but it also doesn't mean we have to get it all fixed At once But we do need to be aware of those ramifications and what the parking is around that area because exactly as with the speed bumps We don't want to just push it to the next street so that they they have to come to the same thing Are there any other comments at this time? Shall we I just want to clarify What I'm hearing is that we're going we want to go ahead with this hearing, but then And the larger question of how do we address our constituents? Problems and some of them as Darcy mentioned are really serious like here You can't really go very high speed on Lincoln because of the parking. So I'm imagining the risk Is lower versus what we've been hearing with the accidents happening in South Amher. So in our minds, there are certain areas that have really high risk and So we are waiting to have that discussion later Or should we be taking a cue from what's happening now and reach out to our residents and say come to town council and request a hearing The I just want to be clear this did not start out as a request directly to us. It started out as a discussion with actually the district counselors then a discussion with the town manager And I don't know of all the meetings that took place So it's not as if they just stood in front of us one night and said could we have a hearing on this? So it's Right Again, I would prefer that we have the 150 or 200 signatures And maybe that's a good way to go Yes, Dorothy to get that many since this is a The houses have large lots You would have to go to the Lincoln Court apartments, which are going to be demolished and ask graduate students to sign it Um, because the reason he got the signatures that could be got on the street now We could say, okay, go take go get a table at the farmers market and just get other people because There was a letter from a woman who doesn't live anywhere nearby But uses that street to get to UMass every day who said when are you going to fix that? This is just terrible accidents waiting to to happen and she did write a letter and it's in the packet So there are people beyond those who live on Lincoln or very distressed about the safety concerns The reality is that the charter requirement for signatures is that you must be a voter You can be a voter and live anyplace else in Amherst But all you have to do to sign a petition is be a voter Okay, so Yes, that person could have signed this petition pat. I call the question Okay There's no question to call it. Would you like to make the motion? I would like to make a motion if I may I would like to move that we authorize the president to call A public hearing on the date of March 9th at our next meeting to address the issue of lincoln parking and That does she share with the town manager some of the concerns, which i'm sure he's very well aware of The concerns that have been raised this evening some of the questions that staff Okay, sorry there that there's a motion written here. There's one in the packet. Yes. How nice I kind of like my motion your motion included the word parking and therefore I think Alyssa would like that motion. Um, so Move I'm going to be george for a second Go ahead that the council president schedule a march 9th 2020 legally noticed public hearing in accordance with the town general Bylaws section 3.1 for b on the proposed changes to the public way Ways regulations on lincoln avenue as presented Is there a second? I seconded Any further discussion? I thought I was pretty close. You were And you included the word parking Yes I'm thirsty. I guess I I'm probably going to vote against this just because I feel like We should have a policy and if we If if we are going to have Many many hearings about traffic and safety issues They should all fulfill the same criteria So it seems like this is being requested because The residents asked for it without having Fulfilled the requirements of the charter um And I don't think that's a good precedent Can I also add the gl has already been charged with coming up with that process? The gl has already been asked to come up with that process that you're asking for So yes, we are we're aware of that Yes, and to john so I just want to emphasize that While this has been something that we've heard a lot about from residents The actual proposal on the table has come and been generated from our own town staff And to me that's that's one of the ways we get Public ways changes presented to us Is from town staff. We've done a couple today one was A public ways easement That came from town staff But it was really request started with a request from a resident But ultimately came from town staff And so the fact that this is a town staff proposal now to me makes a bit of a difference as to why we can move forward with the public hearing shellony I really really have to just say we've exhausted this one We have but puts us Difficult position because we have been in discussion with with our constituents For a year now with very serious implications. We've had staff and all I'm saying is that I mean, what do we go back and say to them, you know, because they have we've also been having this discussion I feel we've been misled or we we've been misleading our Constituents about what the process is we were trying to handle it We got the staff involved and maybe if we have an understanding of why the staff then she is choosing this versus the other I mean, it's just that we're at a loss of Explaining to people right I understand the predicament that you're in and I also understand that this is why we've asked joel to look at it because We all have these issues pat and I have them in our district up and down the whole place So it's it's not you're not alone Okay Dorothy I do think that we don't Want to get so that we all say but I have something to we all have something we all We have been doing a great job of working together as a council And we have been all been listening to our constituents and working with our constituents and I think we really should not let ourselves be pitted against each other I think we have to think about the town Safety and As we do it we're working through the processes that we don't have and they're getting clarified as we speak Alyssa I really appreciate that go l has had this on their agenda and is certainly going to be working on it again after all this input Associated with this because we do need a process. It's absolutely true But again to really emphasize this is a staff proposal I'm sorry that staff talked to lots of people about lots of things and didn't get as far as making a proposal thus far And that can probably be addressed in the process that george is talking about for gol but This is not The link in neighbors proposal. This is a staff proposal in response to concerns They raised and there should be additional staff proposals in regard. I would argue I do not want to force every single person to go out and collect all those signatures because what that does is that forces our hand When they do that then we have to say okay now We're going to have to work on this one next because that's the squeakiest wheel And so I think that's one of the things that gol is trying to work out Is how to not have it just be based on this random squeaky wheel sort of thing But how to actually have a process that doesn't necessarily force people to just say walls Forget that. I'm just going to go and get the signatures and force them to act right Perhaps gol would like further input on all that We always welcome input from our fellow counselors And I have something to say about that later this evening, but I would welcome any kind of Obviously just to me only but I would welcome any input on this issue. We will be taking it up on wednesday Yeah, if we're lucky because we have a very very full agenda, but it is on the agenda There's a question on the council. It's been made a motion on the floor. It's been made and seconded further comments or discussion shallony Could we ask the staff to explain to us what the The process was for them to choose this over the others then Or is that not let's start with getting our policy and then figure out with the town manager the process Since our recommend our questions always go to the town manager He decides then how to bring staff in Okay Motions on the floor. It's been made and seconded any further conversation or discussion at this time all right All those in favor of the motion Which is that the town council president that the council president scheduled a march 9 2020 legally noticed public hearing in accordance with the town general bylaws section 3.14 b On the proposed changes to public ways regulations On Lincoln avenue as presented All those in favor raise your hand and say I I opposed I'm sorry What we did Show you want to do it again. Let's start over all those in favor raise your hand and say I I Opposed abstain Okay, so it is 12 Athena what Athena what was the vote? That was nine in favor and three opposed Nine in favor and three opposed. Thank you and one absent Thank you. All right We are going to break and we are going to go into executive session at this time And we will come back out of executive session I would say in approximately 20 30 minutes and continue with our agenda as presented, okay Those commissioners has an ability to adopt regulations And then they have the ability to enforce those regulations But one enforcement mechanism that they can adopt but not actually enforce On their own is a non-criminal disposition, which is fines essentially And so they can adopt a regulation And they've adopted two regulations one of which is bring your own bottle regulations and another one is Alcohol food service regulations. They can adopt them. They can say we would like to have as one of our enforcement options fines But they cannot enforce those fines unless under our bylaws The council approves the regulations at the current time so these The by ob regulations were adopted by the board of licensed commissioners on july 29th The alcohol food service regulations were adopted by the board of licensed commissioners on september 23rd I am proposing these motions to approve those regulations because I think it would be good for them to be able to enforce them in all the ways they thought Penalty wise was appropriate when they adopted the regulations including non-criminal disposition and That that's the basic behind why I'm proposing this the the bylaws Right now the reason we have to do it is the section 2.2 b That just went into effect. I am says the non-criminal method for disposition may also be used pursuant to this article for violations of any rule or regulation of Any municipal officer border department Which is subject to a specific penalty provided that the town council shall first approve by majority vote each ruler regulation to be enforced by this procedure My intention is not for us to debate the merits of the regulation. The board of licensed commissioners has already adopted them They are already in effect And these are not bylaw changes these motions Um That is there they have those abilities. It would be essentially to say yes non-criminal disposition is an allowable penalty under these regulations Okay So item d the board of licensed commissioners regulations. This is a first discussion However, you as a council have the option of Referring this To refer board of licensed commissioner regulations non-criminal disposition Pursuant to general bylaw section 2.2 b By ob bring your own bottle and alcohol food service To the g to the governance organization legislative committee With a report back to the town council on a date specified So we can either have this as a first reading And it will come back on next Um the next agenda Or we can choose tonight to go ahead and refer to go well Evan I have an opinion. Um, I Know to go well, I I don't think it's it's it's necessary. I think this is a fairly straightforward thing Right now there are regulations that are in place There is no way for them to enforce them non criminally. I Would hope that we could agree that the regulations shouldn't be enforced criminally um for things like You know violating by ob regulations. Um, I actually don't need This might be hypocritical in light of things I've said in the past Don't even think we need a first reading of this To me, this is pretty Clear cut and I look forward to someone telling me why it's not But I would be also willing to since we've already done it six other times tonight Suspend five five other times tonight Suspend rule 8.4 And and give the blc sort of the authority that they're seeking from us Okay, so your first motion is You move to suspends I would love before I make that motion to hear if there are real reasons Not to do so, but then I would happily make that motion Mandy Joe I would love for it to just Be passed tonight so it doesn't have to come back But I did not propose that because I did not know where this council stood and I Recognize we have rule 8.4 that requires a first discussion before we vote But if the council's willing to just vote tonight, that'd be fantastic Kathy I think whatever and just proposed makes total sense when I read this and when I Heard Doug talk last time. I thought we should just move this quickly through and particularly I think it Mandy wrote a very nice clear memo and if this went back to gel Mandy's on gel Would review what she wrote and said oh Likely clear consistent and actionable and then we then we get it back again So I think we don't need to refer it, you know I mean, I think we we have pretty simply worded wording here Rather than if we were writing the regulations, I would feel differently about it, but we're we're Allowing an enforcement tool All right. Is there a motion to spend? rule a procedure 8.4 with regard to item 7d I so move is there a second second Any further discussion on that this item all those in favor raise your hand and say I I opposed Abstain all right. Now. I need someone to craft the motion Okay, Mandy. Joe. So it's for Athena's purposes. It is in my memorandum on the blc Regulations memo. There are two motions in that memo And I'm just going to read the first one Moved pursuant to general bylaws section 2.2 b The town council hereby approves the amherst board of licensed commissioners by ob bring your own bottle regulations adopted by the board of licensed commissioners on july 29th 2019 Including all amendments. They're too subsequently adopted for enforcement by non criminal disposition by the board of licensed commissioners with penalties as set forth in the regulations Is there a second second? Okay Any further discussion Then all those in favor raise your hand and say I I opposed abstain 12 00 and one absent. So there's one more then And now we're going to move on to the news. There's one more motion. Yeah, the second one. Go ahead Move pursuant to general bylaw section 2.2 b The town council hereby approves the amherst board of licensed commissioners alcohol food service regulations adopted by the board of licensed commissioners on september 23rd 2019 Including all amendments. They're too subsequently adopted for enforcement by non criminal disposition by the board of licensed commissioners with penalties as set forth in the regulations Is there a second? Any further discussion All those in favor raise your hand and say I I opposed abstain 12 00 Okay The bylaw so Thank you all for doing that so quickly. Um, I am proposing an amendment to the bylaw That we just had to approve these regulations under so that in the future We do not have to approve these regulations if the board of licensed commissioners or The board of health or some other board adopts regulations and they desire to have them enforced by non criminal disposition That would happen automatically. That would not require council approval and so That bylaw amendment is on page the proposed that amendment that i'm making is on page four of the Memo that I submitted and basically I went through and and found a number of different towns Including spring west springfield westfield summerville cambridge north hampton. There's a whole bunch of them The memo indicates what most of that language generally was that corresponds to r section 2.2 b I took that language and modified our section 2.2 b accordingly, but I added Some additional language the currently existing or hereafter adopted that was in one of those cities Corresponding section it basically removes the Provided that the town council shall first approve by majority vote each ruler regulation to be enforced by this procedure And then just clarifies some of the other ones But essentially we'd be getting rid of the clause that requires us to vote to approve Each of the regulations adopted in order for them to enforce it non criminally Which would mean we don't have to keep track of when say the board of licensed commissioners adopts new regulations To then bring it back to us for approval. It would just happen automatically Is there discussion about this this is an automatic referral referral to gol because it's a bylaw So but before we send it off to gol are their discussion I just have a comment. I appreciate having local towns included for comparables I guess the only other thing is that I think it was useful for the public To understand that these regulations have happened with the board of licensed commission And so I just like to make sure that we Figure out in passing this bylaw how That's publicly communicated Because it all of a sudden they pop up and somebody says well, when did that happen? So any other discussion before it goes off to gol Alyssa, I think it gol wanted to make a recommendation based on how we have set up other new things on our town website since town councils come into existence In terms of that section that has our rules, for example If we could do a similar thing for board of health regulations Board of licensed commissioner regulations and probably want to have an even thought of But those being the main two because people do not realize If they haven't served here that they get to do what they want largely And we're further enabling that which is fine because they still largely get to do what they want But people ought to be able to find it easily. And so there might just be a way they Given our previous experience with organizing materials that might be a good recommendation to come back out Okay, anything else? Okay, that's an automatic referral. So then we're going to Move on to the affordable housing priorities policy and let me just point out that The affordable housing Amherst affordable housing trust presented a draft policy to the council. It's in your packet. It's dated july 19th 2019 After discussion among the council It was referred to CRC community resources committee and to the finance committee Both of these standing committees have held several discussions Had public comment and gone back and held even more discussions about this policy And they've prepared their reports to reflect this for tonight So i'm going to call on Mandy joe to summarize community resources And andy to summarize finance committee and then we'll move to discussion Mandy joe so The original referral was to provide feedback to the town council on their priorities plan policy And we did that in a extensive memo On November 13th 2019 After that the finance committee took up the referral and then let me know as chair that their recommendation was going to be to do a holistic sort of referral back on housing policy in general to A committee of the council and so on january 29th The CRC revisited the recommendation and the feedback And after a robust discussion we voted four to one With pat was was the one in the know to recommend that the council refer the To CRC the development of a comprehensive housing policy for the town of amherst as a priority Taking into consideration the trust's draft policy in order to make recommendations to the full council The as a priority is in there was To indicate that it should be a priority to get a housing policy back to the council So it doesn't sit on CRC's agenda The no vote pat can speak more fully to this but she believed That a delay in drafting a comprehensive policy would leave the town without an affordable housing policy in the interim And that would potentially harm development of affordable housing. And so she felt that Adopting an affordable housing policy before a comprehensive policy was vitally important and therefore disagreed with A full referral back to for a comprehensive policy development when we had a draft affordable housing policy On the table that could be continued to work on by the trust Um, okay Sir any further comment from CRC at this point? Pat anything? No, okay, andy well We've had a series of robust discussions that I have reported to you in writing on several different occasions including for this meeting and I don't want to take the time at this hour to go into Like the discussion of what the financial Implications are I think that what we basically learned is that there are um Costs that we have to be assessed each time a proposal is made to develop Some affordable housing. We've had some great successes in the town Have learned a lot from them including the fact that There could be in addition to ongoing costs Um staff costs there could also be great benefits as we sometimes find when The state Through dchd is willing to Has a grant program that would support it and each needs to be assessed on its own merits. We think that the um Council will do that and that that's what the council one of the council's responsibilities is happened on with the north hampton road discussion um so that basically We were feeling that The policy was going it was taking us in a direction that was helpful But that it really needed to have substantial additional work done About how some of those provisions are worded so that it comes out right and serves The community's interests One of the other Things that you received. I think was the december 2017 report from the planning department about all of the recent projects over that are discussed and The reason I want to point that out is that It really is a demonstration that we have done a lot. We have had great success We are not going to stop that the lack of the pot that the policy creation Isn't going to stop us from seizing opportunities that come up when we have opportunities And that the important thing is to have the right policy And I think that's basically what the basis of the recommendation is right So let me comment before we go into the discussion of the motion and that is that On several occasions this council has discussed housing They've discussed it not just from the affordable Housing perspective but also from issues like workforce housing middle class income housing Middle income housing and et cetera In in fact to the point that when we first drafted a set of goals, which we never adopted The words comprehensive housing a policy Actually appear in those goals A second thing is that regardless of what we want to do here We do need to consider the staff time Because the very same staff that would work on this Are also involved in master plan and in by law in by law review and then finally I I need to track this down further But I do want to mention that when I was at the full count kickoff thing last friday I believe it was a person from pionter valley planning commission mentioned That they had just contracted with a certain institute at the university that i'm familiar with Which I have not had a chance to track down That they are going to do a comprehensive housing study of the pionter valley So I think we need to find out about that I think we need to figure out whether there's ways that we can gain information from that study And the timing of that study So um, I just wanted to lay out those additional pieces of information for the council So the recommendation here is that we refer The community resources report the finance committee resources report And we refer all of this back to the can end the policy draft policy to the community resources committee And to develop a comprehensive housing policy And again, I don't know what kind of timeframe we want to put on that but In a later discussion, we'll be looking at the net the time Essentially the approach the proposed approach for the master plan revisions, but also After that it's bylaw. So The idea really is at this point with great appreciation for The affordable housing trust for bringing this forward is to recognize that We live this commitment every day in amherst Um to affordable housing, but we also want to look at all of our comprehensive housing issues Further discussion Darcy um, if if this were referred to the crc Does that assume That um There will be a separate housing policy Created separate from our what's being Planned put in the master plan um And are we you know, are we going to be responsive to the target numbers that the housing trust put in their proposal Because I don't see that necessarily Happening in a policy document or a master plan Um So I have those questions I think one of the reasons it would go to crc is because They're they're engaged in the conversation about the master plan and also They would have to look at it I mean it it's kind of sending it to the committee that is already looking at master plan and is looking at Um the comprehensive nature I I don't think we can answer that question completely because we're not Exactly telling them everything we want them to do but that's one of the things you would want to make sure happens Andy and large part of the concern that is expressed in the finance committee report is that Their benefits to having a concrete goal. There are also some extreme concerns about having a concrete goal And that we laid them out in the report And suggested that that's a subject that needs to be determined With a little bit of study from crc We didn't feel it was appropriate to Meet the decision or make a recommendation, but we did feel it on the bottom line But we did feel it was important that that be considered because If you have a concrete goal in the concrete in the goal drives the Decision making down the line Then their consequences that come about I think the other thing that I just would add That I did receive a Memorandum from by email today from mr. Hornick as chair of the affordable housing trust and He said that he was not going to come to tonight's meeting because he was perfectly Fine with working with CRC if that was a decision made So I feel comfortable conveying that information along Darcy I just want to go back because I think what I heard from you is you want the committee crc to look at this and In relationship to the master plan and the goals that were proposed Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what it is the crc is going to do and um, I The master plan process is going to unfold over a period of what 10 months to a year type of thing, right? Um, so this would be integrated into that process and that would be the time frame that we might be Getting a result about this in right? Yeah, shall we I have two questions and I feel like that's something shouldn't the town council be in agreement about A where do we stand with respect to homeless people? Like do we have a policy about that and is that something crc is going to determine or is that Something the town council has to come up with like What is opposition on that? What are our goals or vision for that? And secondly in like we have limited resources and we can't provide housing for everyone who needs housing So again, is that a priority that? As a council we need to come up with like can can we have like a really strong goal that Every working fan. I'm like, you know or something like working families is upper priority and we want to provide Affordable housing we want to make sure that at least the people who are working here Have a house or is it I don't know 80 percent You know below median so is that something that the town council has to Come up with and then the crc works on how to make it happen or What I would hope it would be just the reverse because I don't think The town council is going to Sit here and actually draft a policy I think that what i'm hearing from you though is That you would like whatever they come back with to also address homelessness and also address priorities and goals Okay Other comments Okay. Yes, elissa One of the frustrations i'm i'm having here beyond just the oddity of crc referring it back to itself is The fact that this is the kind of thing that in the past we frequently would have hired someone to do And so referencing what you said about pv I don't even want to say it because i'm not happy with most of the things they provide to us so that agency and also The work we're doing on the master plan and the fact that staff and We'll have a different discussion about the master plan and how unhappy I am about that process, but I I'm not clear on How we're going to manage all this. I mean this feels like something that could literally be all of crc's time all of the time With to the exclusion of everything else in order to manage this and so I i've Been working on affordable housing for years. So it's not like I have a problem with having a policy I'm just trying to figure out Maybe what makes sense is to refer to crc so they come back to us and say what's realistic Maybe that Is why a referral would be something I could support because crc would say okay now that we've thought about this We've looked at other peoples etc. We're realizing given where we are in the master plan This is what we're going to tell town council as opposed to they're going to have a finished thing for us on such and such a date additional comments well, I would just Say that there is a long learning curve, but Everybody can't be going learning the same things at once and I'm going to the planning board the zoning subcommittee the zba the local historic district And there's one other and you know We just trying to get a picture of What amourst has what it needs where it's going and and you know shallony the workforce housing is really Something that's big on people's minds, but it's the idea of I mean obviously some Some research will have to be done, but you know, where is the town going in terms of its Who's moving in What kind of a balance are we going to have between renter and owner between family and student? Those are major topics and I I see Crc working on this policy doesn't mean that they make the policy Okay, that they're trying to put together Some kind of proposal which then the council Will spend a good deal of time on Can I um, I'm going to actually go back on something that was Suggested and that is Perhaps the motion is not for crc to develop the policy But it's to recommend an approach for the development of a policy That takes into consideration all the other things that are on the table and they may come back and say You know, we suggest that There'd be budget money put aside for this or we suggest there be a ad hoc committee for this or we suggest that This be something we face or we try to do over this period of time versus this period of time, but um, it it kind of gets at the issue of How are we going to do this just the same way we said, how are we going to do the master plan? And now we have for for as a proposal On how to approach the master plan Does that Mini Joe your your chair crc Steve's on crc Pat's on crc Andy's on crc Dorothy right Given crc's vote There I surmise there would be at least one vote against such a Change to the motion because it would delay even longer Getting to a policy if the first thing crc has to do is Come up with a process on how to develop a policy Um Andy in the crc meeting when we You know when we considered the finance committee recommendation Made the point that the council is the policymaking chief policy setter in the town um And a policy adopted by the council becomes a town policy Whereas a policy adopted by a board or committee becomes that boards or committees policy um, and so if we're seeking To create a housing policy for this town The council needs to adopt that policy and The logical place for it to be first vetted is a committee of the council um How that committee Vets or developments develops it should probably be left up to that committee That doesn't mean the committee would start from scratch um You know, I haven't as chair thought about how we might Go about figuring out how to do it if this referral comes to us to develop a comprehensive housing policy um We in crc talked about how we would absolutely need to um work with The experts in town to do so Including the housing trust Um and potentially other Places and and committees and staff to figure stuff out But we'd also probably look towards other towns to see if they have housing policies and how those look Um, and maybe start with a template from there. Um, it hasn't been thought of but to add in We can't develop the policy. We have to develop a process first seems like adding extra Work to the council's load because it has to come back to the council to approve before you can then start the policy okay dorsi so Mandy jode, do you foresee that the crc can do all of that? um on its own without like help from an outside consultant or um because You know, we have in the ecac we're going to be coming up with our climate action plan and we Now have grant money To pay a consultant to help us do that um It just seems like it's a massive amount of work and i'm just wondering if you're playing on doing it all Mandy jode So I think it I don't know is the answer um because I think it depends on what In the end crc Decides on what the policy should look like and whether it's just goals the for example ecac came up with goals With some staff support, but not the implementation the plan to implement those goals um If that's where the policy is going then that can probably be done within crc and Consulting others. Like I said, I haven't thought tremendously Extensively about how this might look within the committee. Um, if it's going to be really specific down to numbers of units and And things like that then maybe it it can't be but until CRCs looked into and talked about if it comes to crc talked about what the policy Parameters they want to present to the council are and parameters is More like when I say that the extensiveness of the policy I I can't really answer How the development of that might go the first part of the discussion would be What type of policy Where's our goal setting going, you know, is it Very general is it very specific all sorts of things like that? So Rather than spend a whole lot more time on how this is going to get done. I think the general idea is that it would go to crc And they may come back and say we like the assistance in the following way or they may say Here's the plan we're using or they may say here's the policy Yep So the motion if we have it is to refer the community resources committee report dated 24 2020 the finance committee report appendices titled finance committee housing policy report and affordable housing town support and the proposed amherst affordable housing priorities policy To the community resources committee to develop a comprehensive housing policy With report to the council on A date yet to be specified Is there A motion I would move that a second Can the date be 90 days? Sure because you have to report In 90 days. Okay. So there's a friendly amendment Okay. Yes It's a motion. It's the motion on the motion cheating and all I've done is fill out within 90 days Okay, is there any further discussion? Yes, Andy. I have a question for Athena I didn't see it was when I looked at the share point package just now. I didn't see the Finance committee report. I feel We'll make sure it's added Yeah, I think that's at this point if it's not there it needs to be added the numbering sometimes Makes things Difficult, but I'm fairly sure it's there if it's not I'll make sure it's there. Okay All right If even if it's not there the motion assumes it exists Yep, that's it. I think I've got it January 28th before you had draft on it and ddd or something this now says january 28th. It's under 7h It might have been a link Okay All right, so there's a motion on the floor. It's been made in seconded the only amendment so far to that motion is Not amendment either. It was a friendly amendment is that the council would That the CRC would report to the council within 90 days Any further discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand and say I Opposed Abstain 12-0-0. Okay, we're moving on to master plan process Mandy Joe so this is a slightly revised version of the Process that was presented. I think two meetings ago um It was revised in response to feedback that was received by the planning board by planning board members The revisions were Voted unanimously at CRC to recommend the town council adopt the process as amended at the january 29th meeting as its process for working toward adoption Of the master plan as required by charter section 9.8 The main revision the revisions are Marked in red on page 6 of the CRC report The main revision was there was concern that the phrase changes in town priorities since the approval of the master plan was very vague And could be construed very extensively And so we pulled Deleted that pulled out the climate action goals From the town adoption of plans Initiatives and goals because it was the only goal under that listing and put that in The place of the phrase that said changes in town priorities and just said the council's adoption of the climate action goals um the other big the only other change really was The six months to nine months to extend the time period for it. It is my understanding that on um Last wednesday The planning board adopted their own process for Updating the master plan. There is a Flow chart if Athena could put the flow chart up. Yeah That I created I do not know I haven't gotten updated as to whether the process that I sort of set forth In the big box that has yellow, but um, this just shows the just yep that the first one it just shows the Process we're at the first box on the top right, which is adopting this process that's in this memo and then It would then essentially forward to the town manager forward to the Planning board that we to ask this they've already adopted that they're going to update it So we're kind of already past the second box too And we're into the planning board process where the green arrows are their process is a potential Draft process is outlined there. I do not know whether that is what they're going to follow During that process they would be in Communication with CRC we would be in communication with you once they Get to a final draft of the master plan update it would come back to the council for referral to CRC And then CRC along with the council would look at those updates would make any recommended feedback Feedback any recommended changes if we have any All of that the council would vote on any of that to send back to the planning board They'd go through their process again They'd vote on the final master plan update That would then come through the town manager per the charter to the council The council would then hold the required public hearing under the charter We are in the green arrow now, which represents the required charter part And then the council would adopt the master plan After having held the public hearing at a meeting after the public hearing is held and so that Flow chart was in your packet too And hopefully that helps illustrate what this wording Kind of says okay other questions. Yes Dorothy some some of the Some of the feedback from the planning board was that they hope that The part of the beginning where you see the planning board in a green arrow going down in a green arrow Going back to the big box on the right. Is it that that's where the majority of changes would happen? They were less interested in some of the last loops of back and forth Because of stating that it was their prerogative and we did clarify what you have clarified that We don't have to adopt it for it to be the town's plan The planning board makes that the master plan, but I would say that there was general agreement with the diagram Some people were a little upset about The placement of the public hearing and you know, that's in the charter But the point is they're going to have public hearings before that and we have to do ours We'll do it, but they want public input much earlier as I'm sure we do too So I would say that they it's you've done a pretty good job of of getting A a workable plan further comments listen Never in my wildest dreams Did I imagine after six years on the comprehensive planning committee three of them as chair that we'd be talking about this at this point after 11 o'clock 10 years after the planning board adopted the master plan and never created a master plan implementation committee That we're now talking about a process where we're going to spend nearly a year Reviewing a document that's already in existence But without any additional staff help without any additional money But it's somehow going to magically be worked into Planning board meetings Additional public hearings both the required one here and the planning board trying to encourage people It's going to attract an incredibly tiny subset of people to pay attention over the next nine months Because it's not the quarter million dollar plus master plan that we wrote It's simply a revision and I appreciate that we're trying To balance all these concerns I still don't understand why we aren't simply voting to accept the master plan that we have right now And then talking to the planning board about how they're going to make revisions to the plan and how we can talk to them I think it's Crazy that we're concerned about going through and changing the words from select board to whatever That we're worried about whether or not we've included the name of every single plan In a 10 year old plan. We know that we're in the cycle every 20 years. We need to be doing this I don't understand why we're going to go to this much work And then have to redo our master plan because we are this isn't going to fix This isn't going to prevent us from needing to revise the master plan within the next 10 years So I'm just at a loss as to why this is a sensible use of staff time financial resources we don't have The reason we don't have a master planning presentation committee is because no one had time to staff it or to be on it so I I'm just not really getting What this accomplishes for us I feel like we could easily have just voted to adopt the master plan that exists and then started having crc Talk to the planning board about hey, I really think we should work on the housing section Or I really think we need to work on the the sustainability section And then we would be making progress toward updating the master plan itself Rather than this sort of halfway revision that takes longer than a month Dorothy Well, I think that the last discussion at the planning board Includes a lot of the things that you're talking about There was definitely a desire which grew as they talked to form An implementation committee and to be thinking of it They used an image of a basket when they came to something that was Not as simple not immediate, but really necessary that wouldn't but would not be included in what we call the necessary and obvious Update they would put it in this basket, but it doesn't mean that the basket just sits there Okay, that they would be starting to work on the areas that were longer and more involved Because I think I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think we were supposed to be looking at updates every five years And obviously we haven't done that So I would say that the planning board Is More or less on with the with this project of a limited update While they are getting themselves Going on thinking about the next you know the the real update that's going to have to happen within what the next five years Is it yeah No 10 You have to do it every 40 every 20 years and we're halfway through Other comments at this time So yes evan maybe I missed this But I'm having trouble reconciling The fact that we're looking at small updates that are Necessary Which I support With the nine month time period And I understand that planning board has a lot on their plate their meetings have been running Sometimes almost as long as our meetings have been running And and so I I understand that but I think From an optics perspective saying we're not doing a major overhaul. We're just doing minor updates And then saying and it's going to take us nine months. It's it's hard to reconcile those two things So I'd love to hear a little bit more I have They set himself a schedule in which they Set aside meetings where they would take Maybe an hour or maybe more than that a good a good part of the meeting On different sections of the master plan and there were so many sections of the master plan and they did That's how they got that nine months So they're building in carrying on their regular load, which is heavy And putting in study sessions where where this town staff will help them and it seems to me everyone was on board with that Mandy Joe The other concern was six months was that would put us in the middle of summer And they were really concerned about holding many of the public hearings In the middle of summer and all the public outreach potentially in the middle of summer So that nine months while It's there There's a recognition that it might not actually take that long there could be potential time where it's done But sitting to try and get some public outreach So it's not done when no one's here or it's not done in the middle of budget season From our point of view or something like that where there's To try and schedule those hearings At a more appropriate time during the course of the Year And so it's it's not all a it's going to take us nine months to get this to you It there's a hope that it's not going to it's part of their timing themselves not necessarily that's extensive It's just it needs to fit into their schedule But also they're not they're also as long as we probably would be hesitant calling a public hearing on the master plan in the middle of july Um One other thing to take into consideration is the charter requirement that we have a forum every year on the master plan We did do that in 2019 on september 28th And so the full timing of trying to get up to the next public forum for that would also be consistent Um, there's a motion. I'm gonna read it. Let's see whether we're willing to go ahead And it's to adopt the process for updating and adopting the master plan As set forth in the document titled crc proposed master planning pro plan process 2020 dash zero two dash four As recommended by the community resources committee As presented Excuse me as presented is there Emotion So move is there a second Is there further discussion? garcy I guess my reaction to this is um that you know considering the the the responsibility for Coming up with a master plan resides in the planning board this um I I can understand why the planning board had um, at least some members had a reaction of wondering why We were Trying to control the process so much um And I I am wondering the same thing um Is it that we don't trust the planning board to do the job? um I guess it feels it feels very um Unnecessary to me the this process or this whole flow chart Dorothy Well, what what happened was the crc was having sessions on the master plan And we have a lot of other things to do too So now we're not going to be having sessions month chapter by chapter on the master plan But the planning board is doing it. So I would say that the planning board when they saw the original plan Said the master plan is ours. Okay. We understand that the council has to Well has to adopt it. Well it has to accept it. That's what it is but they they feel now that they're in charge of the Um revision and we will have input as you will have input Yes Indeed joe. Sorry This all stems from the fact that the charter that green section at the bottom of this flow chart is required We as a town council must adopt the master plan Per the charter The planning board has to approve a master plan per the charter CRC There's there's some fine arguments for just adopting it without amendment crc when starting with that question Made a recommendation to say no, that's not what we would recommend to the council Hence this process But so if the council has to adopt what the mat what the planning board approves the whole point of Getting to this flow chart essentially Um was to figure out how That process could go as smooth as possible because there was concern that if There's no communication between the planning board and the council while the planning board is making changes to the master plan That when it comes to us under the green box Suddenly the council may say well I want to amend it here and I want to amend it here and I want to amend it here And then you've adopted and then you make those amendments and the council's adopted something that the planning board didn't pass And that under state law creates many many problems so the goal of this flow chart and the process is to Get to the green section So that when you get to the green section when you get to the Point where the planning board has adopted the master plan and it comes to the council The planning board has approved the master plan it comes to the council for adoption per the charter that that goes as smoothly as possible And the way to do that from the point of view of crc Hence this recommendation is to have those conversations in that feedback loop Prior to the planning board actually approving the master plan I actually want to refer people to 9.8 section 9.8 of the charter Which is about the master plan And it it lineates back and forth between whose responsibility is what this chart is consistent With that as best as I can judge that and it also seems to be laid forth in a spirit of cooperation with each other And um So Again, we have a motion on the floor. The motion is To adopt the process for updating and And adopting the master plan As set forth in the document titled crc proposed master plan process 2020 is a dash zero two dash four is recommended by the community resources committee as presented And I want to point out that in fact we have to adopt the master plan not just accept it There's a difference. Yes, elissa. Yes, and adopt the master plan is what it says And it doesn't say anything about how we can't adopt what we have right now And I appreciate that you referenced that earlier I think the biggest problem we have that this chart is trying to address Is the phrase that's in the charter 9.8 b which says with or without amendments Which makes no sense because the planning board is responsible for the master plan So the fact that this is written This way is what is causing us to be all bollocksed up like this because we wouldn't have to worry about the town council wanting to amend it If we didn't have the choice about amending it So that's what you're trying to address by making us talk it through because The charter says with or without amendments which implies that town council could sit here and try and make amendments No matter how many public hearings the planning board had about this further discussion Darson I and and you I think we might have already covered this the the planning board Has agreed to this process also because obviously They need to agree to do it I believe they did I mean So bandy joe do you have so the planning board About two weeks. Well, it says february january 15th agreed to undertake the Updating the master plan for necessary and obvious revisions They have as of I believe last wednesday adopted their own process their internal process for how they're going to undertake that Dorothy alluded to some of it the process that has the box that has some yellow in it is one of the Variations they've talked about. I do not know which one they actually adopted. I had a couple of different charts for it But In that They have seen The process outlined in the memo that the motion refers to multiple times And they have given their feedback to it And so we did not ask them to adopt that because this Part is mostly our part if you look at it We did not say how the planning board is going to do theirs We said this is when they're at certain stages of their process Here's how we as a council are going to deal with ours That's what the purpose of this process is Is how when they're at certain stages, what are we doing? Hence the green arrows are nothing that really applies to us. That's that's what the planning board sets the blue arrows are sort of meant for what we said The second page is with the flowchart is the Planning the draft planning board process is the draft is the full draft planning board process and so We would come in Before that after that at certain stages of that Okay Are there other questions at this time? All right, so there's been motions been made and seconded any further conversation All those in favor raise your hand and say I I opposed abstain So we are 11 members of which we have Would you give me the final vote please? Eight in favor one opposed and two abstentions. Okay. Thank you and two absent Okay We're going on to Standing committees. This is not the full proposal This is merely a look at and a suggested change of the jcpc charge and the bcg charge And I believe that George this is yours Yes, it is my committee Has voted to Present these to you changes to jcpc and bcg. We met on January 29th And both of these were voted jcpc was five zero and bcg was four zero with one absent And you have in your packet I think it's items 7k1 and 7k2 Are the two charges with red lines? So you can see what changes have been made In the geo geo well report Which Is also in your packet. I give you a very brief Discussion of the just what we talked about in terms of the two changes. So these are here for you to Approve I hope but at least you this is our recommendation for these two charges I don't think the changes are that dramatic But that's just maybe I've been looking at it too long But we could start with jcpc if that's appropriate whatever So the jcpc as far as I can see is changing of the wording Assuming that anybody who's a member of the town council is also current Mm-hmm And the only other thing is to reinforce No more than two and I believe that was to be consistent with what the finance committee charge says Is that correct? Yeah in the report the We observed that this the number of The membership on jpc is three was a compromise some counselors won four There was concern from the committee that having four counselors in the body Would be overwhelming to the other members So we felt three was a reasonable compromise right and if you have three finance committee members of five That means every time you have a meeting you have a quorum of the finance committee All right. Is there any questions about these recommended changes mostly of which are words? Yes, alissa. I'm confused about bcg as I have been since the day. We're doing jcpc. Okay good. Okay Anything else on jcpc? I Why are you crossing out current? Because if you're a member of the school committee, you are current So it doesn't it mean a past member could not be on it then that's correct So it was just redundant. That's it. Yes, it's a bit clearer. Yeah, right Yes, kathy. I don't really have a question on the jcpc wording But when I compare it to the bcg wording Why in one do we say Two council members designated by the council Ex designated by the whatever which is bcg and then jcpc. Just do we care whether we You know The appointing authority is listed above it. They're just they they're written in a different way and I didn't know whether There was A strong reason for that and I think they say the same thing. It's just You know one makes it One is clear that the council's picking whomever is going and school committee's picking and the other doesn't but If you you go into all the effort of rewriting subtle wording, why are they wordy differently? Mandi job So the bcg wording is taking pretty much from the charter the charter when it talks about bcg talks about Designated buys designated buys designated buys whereas the charter when it mentions jcpc Doesn't use the word designated by The appointing authority that we're using in the jcpc charge is through a town attorney opinion that said even though that wording wasn't used in the charter that the It used the word. I think representatives of Those three bodies and the town attorney opinion that came through sometime last year Said that meant that the town council appoints That those representatives of the town council. So it's it's simply trying to just mirror some of the charter wording I just want to recognize we are going back and doing council liaisons. I'm sorry to have skipped that You probably didn't even notice I did I figured you're just prioritizing. Oh, okay So they're on the jcpc charge. Is there any further discussion? Could I have a motion george? Yep, it's on the motion sheet Okay, mandi. Joe go ahead move to amend the jcpc charge as set forth in the document titled jcpc charge GOL voted 2020 0129 as recommended by the two 10 2020 governance organization legislation committee report as presented Is there second any further discussion? All those in favor raise your hand and say aye opposed abstain Okay, now we're going to go on to bcg and then we'll come back to council liaisons Excuse me. I'm sorry bcg You have in front of you. Hopefully with the red line and As we just pointed out managed just pointed out the first change was to bring the charge into conformity with the legal opinion that we got in terms of the reporting authority It was noted that we were just well that I think is just an observation We're talking about a committee that's required by the charter, but actually is met only once And at that meeting all three bodies were present But the changes are there in front of you And I have nothing to say Say hi to question Alyssa I don't think my question can be solved. I think it's just a bad section of the charter But it's associated with the idea that the bcg develops coordinated budget guidelines I bring this up literally every time we talk about bcg. It's not an appropriate task for them to take It is however in the charter. So what's our interpretation of what they're actually practically going to do? Associated with that. I mean what are we sending people off to because they've met once obviously they are not Doing that they're doing the calendaring thing. They're doing the other thing I have to agree with you when I read this in the charter. I'm going e I don't think so, but uh, we did we did this this year by having a full meeting of all three bodies And it was when we did our financial indicators Someone has suggested to me at the point at which budgets get tight That this is when this group has often been used in the past and um Other than that. I have no other observation Mandy joe I think the wording the under the purpose the ensures that information is shared amongst those entities as the town manager Develops the budget is one of the things that's being added to try and clarify what they might do in Tight budget situations where the manager? Obviously the manager is probably talking to the library director and the school superintendent too, but This body at a smaller one instead of calling joint meetings of all three committees Could be the way to funnel that information Through to each of the elected bodies Okay Kathy Really have a problem with the rewording this Do we just ignore the fact that it doesn't really exist as a functioning entity? I mean, I'm just saying this because I was I was sort of In theory on this, but I was not on it in terms of it But but you did show up for its one meeting I did show up, but but we didn't it wasn't even officially called by That group it was everybody on the council and everybody on these other committees So I understand the charter said this will exist Do we write all these functions and just Ignore the fact that it kind of isn't doing most of these I think what we do is At least what I would propose we do Is continue to have finance due any or all of these and in the process Next time we do the financial indicators We convene all three boards and we also call it bcg I this is One of those puzzles Said I we you could almost tell me any wording on this because I don't think It's an entity that actually didn't know your chair Right. There's no chair No one school committee has never designated a member to it All right. Well, let's let's do this. Let's go on to the motion for this And man to Joe To amend the bcg charge as set forth in the document titled bcg charge gol voted 2021 29 as recommended by the february 10th 2020 governance organization legislation committee report as presented Is there a second second any further discussion All those in favor raise your hand to say aye Aye All those opposed There are none and there are up abstain one abstent. No I'm sorry Okay Do you think that we could figure out what is remaining in our agenda that's critical So that we don't have to go on until 1 a.m Um, I'd certainly like to do that However, we have now been asked by at least One committee to get liaisons moving forward And so I'd like to address that Item in the agenda Okay We've only delayed it three times. Yeah, although I might have uh, well So so You have a report in your packet. You've had this report for well over a month now So hopefully you've had time to read it and reread it at your leisure. Um So oko was tasked, um With essentially dealing with liaisons and we saw that as sort of uh, three different responsibilities one deciding um Why a certain committee should get a liaison while another maybe shouldn't Two coming up with a list of committees that we believe should have liaisons and three Actually recommending appointments to those committees. We have done tasks one and two Did these back in december So We had a discussion about what criteria we might want to use To decide whether a committee should have a liaison with the understanding that not every committee Will or should have a liaison and that also An important understanding to this that not necessarily every counselor needs to be a liaison We didn't want to say okay. We have to come up with 13 committees so that every counselor has a liaison. We didn't want to let that cloud of our judgment We had agreement that any committee that regularly submit to the council policies proposals bylaws Um, and regularly is the keyword there, which is why I emphasized it Should have a liaison There were two other bullet points that are in there that we didn't necessarily come to consensus around but just said Sure, um, one was if they promulgate regulations that have a significant impact on the town or the community Regardless necessarily of whether we ever have to approve them And then the other one was the idea that if they distribute funds that are sourced from local tax dollars They would be useful We then said about applying that criteria to all of the existing committees And also trying to work in there the voting we had At our council retreat We came up with nine Yes nine committees Um What is interesting about those nine committees is you will notice that they don't all conform to the criteria that I just explained to you And in fact some don't at all um, and so What ended up emerging were there were some committees that were very clearly checked One two or three of those boxes. There were a few committees, uh, that oca felt that Even though they don't check those boxes because they deal with populations residents communities that are often Marginalized that are often underrepresented That it would be useful to have a liaison to elevate the concerns of that community And so you have the nine in here uh I am open to hearing suggestions about Whether you feel like that is inappropriate nine Whether there are ones that you think should be in there and shouldn't be With the understanding that you already read the report and are not just going to throw out your pet committees Without having read the reasons why they were not included, which I went to careful detail to explain to you The other side of this that I want to add because as Lynn mentioned of prioritizing this is um You could tell us tonight These are the nine committees you want liaisons to Oca has not decided how it will go about actually recommending appointments And oca does not view that as a priority at this moment. There are other things that we need to do First and so uh while I understand there may be town committees who are Just begging for liaisons Um regardless of the conversation we have tonight. I don't want to pour cold water on that But there will be no recommendations for liaison appointments at least within the next two council meetings So one of the options is to um Suspend the rules Go with the go with the memo and the recommendation And then at the very end you suggest that we use the kind of polling process I've used In the past and then the council would select from among those interested, right? So It's a way of short cutting through this, but we're open to suggestions mentia So I Nine given hour Already busy schedules almost seems like a lot to me um But I don't know what to do with it. Um, but I do have a suggestion for the zoning subcommittee recommendation and As chair of crc In working with trying to come up with the master plan process and all of that I had a lot of conversations with the chair of the planning board Um, so if there's going to be a liaison there's already requests from the planning board for during this planning process that The crc designate a representative to attend the meetings That the planning board is talking about the updates at so I I and crc has that on an agenda to talk about which would be in some sense separate from liaisons and I explained to them The chair of the planning board Our discussions on liaisons and what liaisons are set to do and what they're asking for a crc representative to do is completely different, um, but But having Talked with the planning board chair in doing some of this. I'm concerned that A zoning subcommittee liaison to the zoning subcommittee Would be yet another person for people on the planning board to liais with Along with the crc chair and then possibly during this nine month process yet another person So I I don't know what to do about that other than maybe consider For that particular committee given how crc interacts closely with the planning board anyway To maybe designate either the chair or the vice chair of crc And i'm not one that even when we i'm going to say this now. I did not request A a liaisonship to the planning board I don't think I did to the zoning subcommittee when we did this back at the last retreat But from From the chair's point of view from my point of view as chair of crc I think it would make sense if you're going to designate a liaison to the subcommittee To some sort of planning board subcommittee or planning board itself that it be either the chair or the vice chair of crc by default Any further discussion on that issue evan Sure, I mean, I think that the conversation we need to have first is are these the correct nine before we Right, because I think you could make a similar argument for a few of these that there should be a certain person One thing I I want to make I said this in the report I want to make sure I stress because it speaks to the workload is um a reminder that your expectation as a liaison is that you will receive agendas and perhaps skim minutes And keep in some type of regular communication with the chair of the body in order to be a conduit of information There is absolutely no expectation that as a liaison that you are regularly attending these meetings. And so I want to make sure we understand that as we're having that conversation because I don't want anyone to hear Oh being a liaison means I have to go to all the meetings and that's a huge workload And there's no way we can get nine counselors on to this it's I view it almost as a An additional document you have to read for a packet and that's about it um I have a slightly off cycle question and it's to ask gl whether you will be coming forth For the next agenda with the recommended changes to committees That's my hope okay so if we Bring that forth next time and move on it and we take this next time and move on it Then I would be polling For a lot of things all at once, but it also makes putting the puzzle together Though a little complicated it makes it somewhat easier Yes I can we will bring I hope a proposal, but I can't obviously guarantee that it'll Pass monster That one way or the other we got to move on. I agree. Yeah, okay So, um, is there any further discussion on the nine Committees that have been listed here. Yes, George. Just a quick question for Mandy I wonder what she's describing as what the planning board wants from crc Doesn't seem to match what we think liaisons are supposed to do So maybe the simplest thing here would be just to take this off the board Um, because it sounds like you having establishing a relationship with planning Or would you say no, it's not going to be a problem It sounds like what a liaison supposed to do is not exactly what The planning board is looking for from crc I'll explain a little more What the planning board has asked of crc for the master plan update process Is for a representative of crc to attend the meetings of the planning board where that Where those updates are being discussed In order to participate in the discussion of those updates And I have told the planning board chair that that Would be in conflict with the Council's idea of a liaison Hence the idea that crc now has on its agenda on wednesday A discussion of Designating a representative because I don't think it is compatible with The potential designation of a liaison One other thing I wanted to say though with liaisons for planning board and all With the council's vote that CRC be the joint holder of hearings for By-law changes to the zoning by-law that requires a coordination between chairs Or or between chair of the subcommittee and chair of the CRC in order to to already sort of coordinate stuff like that, which is almost a liaison shift So it goes back to what I was saying before so here's what I'm going to suggest We not vote on this tonight. Okay We bring it back next week I'll move it earlier in the agenda so that we're not dealing with it at this hour And we either decide at that point to add or eliminate from this list And move forward. Okay Any further? Yes. Kathy. I like that idea a lot and I would just like one page with the list I don't want to have to read the memo again I mean, I don't I mean, I know I have the memo. I just we'll focus on it We have to include the memo only because of the items in it. But yes, thank you The list is on the first page. So yeah Any further discussion? Yes, Alyssa. I'm sorry. So if people I wish you hadn't said if we're going to just add or delete based on what Evan said earlier So if anybody wants to add or delete anything to this list, then I think you need to talk to Evan Before the next meeting not bring it up on At the next meeting. It's very in hopes that perhaps ocho will have time to discuss that before the next meeting Please don't do it on the fly And you meet on the monday morning before our next council meeting on the 24th Okay Any further discussion on that? All right, we're moving on to appointments by the town manager I Does anybody see any reason why we can't go through all three of them and do a consensus vote No Okay, all right You want me to go ahead move them individually as part of one motion just move them all Different motions, right? Okay different motions Okay, so first I will say that ocho recommended approval of all of these appointments unanimously good cool So I move to approve the following town manager appointments to the council on aging effective immediately As recommended by the two ten twenty twenty outreach communications and appointments committee report For three-year term to expire june 30th 2022 jacklund smith crooks for a one-year term to expire june 30th 2020 Greg bascom Timothy neal is there second second all those in any discussion All those in favor raise your hand and say aye I oppose Abstained moving to the next one Okay, so I'm going to move to approve the following town manager's appointment to the The Participatory budgeting commission Effective immediately as recommended by the two ten twenty twenty outreach communications and appointments committee report For a term to expire on december 1st 2020 or such additional time as necessary to complete the charge outlined in the charter jonathan mccabe Is there a second second Any discussion All those in favor raise your hand and say aye Aye opposed Abstained Okay, next one. So I'm going to move to approve the following town manager appointments to the cultural council effective immediately as recommended by the Two ten twenty twenty outreach communications and appointments committee report For a three-year term to expire june 30th 2022 arthur perot For a two-year term to expire june 30th 2021 Nicholas graver michel for a one-year term to expire june 30th 2020 rachel wang Is there a second Any further discussion yes Alyssa I'm hoping i'm not stealing evan's thunder by saying this In future we are probably not going to bring forward appointments with saying how many years the term is Because in case anybody wonders that just before midnight that one year is not the end of june It just sounds funny to do it that way So we're just going to use dates in future was our thought this morning when we were just good We also mentioned it to the town manager and we all thought hey, that's a good idea We don't have to say one year two year three years. So don't be freaked out if you see it without the years It will definitely have dates Thank you. Any further discussion? Motion's been made in the second all those in favor raise your hand and say I opposed abstain all right um I did polling for both finance committee and jcpc on the finance committee First of all, we would like to thank shallony for her year plus of service But she is just not to be on the finance committee again The people uh appointed to the finance committee are andy steinberg Dorothy Pam linn greasmer pat de angeles and kathy shane Moving on jcpc. I also polled for this um There were really only three people who asked to be on jcpc I forwarded those names to you Excuse me. They are in fact Mandy joe hannacky kathy shane and andy steinberg. This is a vote of the council not the presidents I only do this as a service to get their names out there. So um, there is a motion to appoint mandy joe hannacky kathy shane andy steinberg Or others If nominated and elected by the council to the joint capital planning committee effective immediately Is there a motion? I so move second second all those in favor All right, so further discussion all those in favor. I all the polls. Hey Upsame for done minutes Excuse me We have three we have two sets of minutes one is for our regular meeting which was two weeks ago The other is for the four towns meeting, which was just this past No, I guess it was saturday a week ago and The are there any changes or corrections to either set? Okay, then Could I have a motion to approve the minutes of january 27th to 2020 town council meeting in february 1st 2024 towns meeting as presented till moved Is there a second? Any further discussion? All those in favor raise your hand and say aye. Aye opposed Stain, okay Town managers Report I have four things one is reminder a cup of joe on friday at brugers with our new principal assessor Second is we'd already talked about the early voting that will be at umass at the end of february third There was a site visit at 132 north hampton road today three members of the council were there as well as neighbors And staff as well as the state and the proponents or the applicants and fourth I sent to you just before the meeting Announcement that they're we have a partial agreement on the strategic partnership agreement with the university Where they will provide $185,000 to the To our to the town for use by the schools Divided between the regional school district a minor amount But the most of it being in our elementary schools that number will be included in the superintendent's budget Which will be presented to these Regional to the school committee tomorrow night So that's a partial agreement that we have reached for three years the current fiscal year f y 21 and f y 22 We have a ways to go for the rest of it But because of the status of the school department's budget We thought it was important to get this piece out of the way And approved and we appreciate the university stepping up and agreeing to make this announcement with us tonight Okay, yes I think I remember there was a deficit in the proposed school budget. How does this affect it? Well, the School budget will be balanced is because that's what the superintendent does They had some well the good news with our health insurance that coming in at 1.89 was the major proponent of that reason for it Okay Is there any Quickly committee reports anything further from crc? Nope anything further from finance Just one thing uh supplementing what was just said I've been in contact with other communities and with the Chair of the regional school committee We now have an agreement on both the budget and the method for Regional assessment for next year Excellent Well, I'm sorry. Can we get an idea of what that agreement is? Yes Andy It's the 45 percent because the Dollar amount of the budget went down for some of the reasons that paul had indicated That enabled all four towns to to come to agreement that that was unacceptable For the one year and and one of those was the Very low insurance rate Any further question on that? all right GOL I just want to thank those counselors who sent us written comments related to the committee restructuring proposal Um, those were discussed and and appreciated. I also got excellent comments today from members of oca And so i'm optimistic that we can bring to you a proposal next time for discussion That I think they're going to be issues about what happens to appointments and to how long oca whether oca should be dissolved or not But I think there was a general consensus at least about taking crc and dividing it into two And again any comments that you want to add are welcome We'll have a discussion on wednesday Taking into consideration in particular comments we've gotten today from oca okay, oca no further report And a percent for art kathy i'm just going to buy i'm going to bypass that if you don't mind and just say On our agenda on the 24th will be The first reading of the percent for art bylaw okay I just want to tell you that for all of those who just like to get things in advance We'll probably be able to post all those materials within the next day or two So it'll be two weeks in advance the meeting I mean that they're all done So there will be a collection of documents Okay, there's no topics is reasonably expressed No additional topics. Is there a motion to adjourn? Yes Alyssa do you have actually an additional 48 less than 48 hours. I'm sorry. I'm so tired I have no idea what I'm even saying anymore and I had a couple of suggestions for next time wonder I'll just save till next time But actually one is that we have executive session at the beginning of the night Not the middle of the night not the end of the night, but we start early We've done this previous iterations of life and I know it's hard to change your schedule But wow that would help anyway my my unanticipated item is the Project eligibility letter associated with 132 north Hampton road We are in a different position the select board was as an executive body The select board was the one who actually Had the cover letter that had all the attachments that were everybody's comments that we sent off to dhcd We're not in that position under the charter. That's the town manager now But we as a town council should have a position On what's going into dhcd, which means we need to know what their criteria is which we have that information available to us but we haven't Had a discussion and I didn't know if that's on our agenda for the 24th because we're almost out of time It's not the comment period does not end until the 29th And I would assume if we're going to look at what the Town manager is forwarding. That's what we would also then look at for us was you thinking we're going to have a separate statement I'm thinking the town manager can't get all that done with By the 24th and it's not up to us to approve his package It's that we would have a letter from the town council in there as well as opposed to because otherwise There's no reason for 13 individuals not to write in and that doesn't really make any sense to dhcd to have 13 individuals writing it So I feel like we have to have a town council position I will say the same thing when it comes time for the zba hearing But as the chief elected officials in the community who've heard tons about this I can't see that we wouldn't write something Again, there are there are clear criteria. I'm not telling we're not going to make it up out of our heads There are criteria as to what they what they want addressed in the letter. That's Easily available, but that does mean someone would have to write it And we're nearly out of time right um Let me come up with a way for without breaking open meeting law for consultation on that and bring forward a draft that you get to see In advance, okay Great Is there a motion to adjourn? Yes, a second. Yes all those in favor I