 Okay. Good evening and welcome to the Wednesday, May 10th, 2017 Select Board meeting being held in the Amherst Regional Middle School Band Room. It is now 6-something, 6.05 p.m. and this meeting is called to order. This is one of our unusual pre-tell meeting sessions during which we have no public comment and in fact tonight I don't think we would have any visitors coming to see us that we're aware of and so this will hopefully be a rather brief meeting but we always like to leave it on the schedule just in case stuff comes up because stuff tends to do that when you're in town meeting sessions and in terms of actual items tonight the one thing that we had planned that we would do tonight is we would look at our calendars. We had previously received a couple different versions of this calendar, a slightly different version of it is on our desk tonight and basically the staff took off the meetings we've already been having over the last couple of weeks because it was a May schedule and so they reflected reality rather than possibility and so this does not include a meeting for tomorrow night and we can talk about whether or not we intend to have tell me tomorrow night in terms of what we intend to recommend to the body in a little while but that's why this starts with the 15th which is next Monday which we're assuming at this point we'll still be we'll still be in town meeting for. Given how things are going it feels theoretically possible that town meeting will indeed end prior to July and so why are you jinxing it? I said July. You did say July not June. That's why some of these are bold and in terms of May 22nd as being a regular meeting meeting just a mere two weeks from now we could be having a regular meeting back in the town room because town meeting was over and if not then then June 5th of course then we start to run into the fact that at some point this summer we are more than likely not going to have all five of us together that's just going to be the reality we will absolutely avoid that happening when it comes to dealing with the town manager's evaluation for example because that's just how we do things select for but there might be some other meetings we do in fact need to hold simply because most of us can be there and we have to get some business done so this is the calendar we have in front of us is there anything else that's obvious as to just not going to work since you've had a chance to look at this more so sure why it looks like this so what we tried to do is look with the big the schedules that you had for the summer trying to map that on here and then look for a meeting schedule that was somewhat regular like every other week because I think it's a it's helpful healthy for our department to have an every other week schedule for the summer at least and that's we tried to match it with your schedule so when more the most people are here and this can be moved around for added meetings obviously so the bolded ones are the ones that Debra and I sort of took a crack at because these would be good meetings to have but obviously this is a couple of people and you want to be and it's you know that the sort of short changed month is august because of their schedule so two meetings it's not unusual I think in a any anything so the rest of you want to take a moment to take more of your paper so I could find out the old version of this we did want to be cautious and not have anything possibly go online that indicated when people might be away we do not try to advertise when they're actually going to be okay so I have a an edit as it were yeah so uh the 12th of June as well as the 19th I'm actually in town but not available because of events on those evenings okay so you can just add me as a dug away to June 12th which was only going to happen if if tell me what happens is the way I'm reading it well again by then by then we will surely be done and so the question is given that we have such a short month in august is there an appropriate amount of material that we need to do stuff in June that's where it starts to get tricky that was coming up on your camera yeah that would be worth knowing only do you want to give an overview that would be fun yeah so when we started to map out what was in our agenda planning things coming up would be next Monday would be the recreational marijuana first look and then a discussion about fall meeting dates fall town meeting dates reaching out to all the critical people in terms of what days they're what we are available for two weeks in November I think that we as we start looking for that May 17th there is a possible free removal request that's still not verified yet but just for at 415 Shade Street May 22nd we were looking at liquor license policies which we have a draft of we would look at depending on when town meeting concludes and resolves a close town meeting wrap up so we go through everything and see what actions the board needs to take some proclamations and things like that and then I think June really starts to build into committee appointments and reappointment process and it performance evaluation goal setting for this town manager and that those are time consuming tasks I know so those are major things that we see coming up and do you want to add to the list because we haven't had a meeting where we've sat down and updated we want to add how that's 60,000 that's been added to community that would be like the post-count meeting oh yeah that you went you went well I know and part of them there's two reasons for that one we're definitely going to need to call it out as its own item and the other is that we have never just strong word we do not normally actually debrief on actions we still need to take what we normally debrief on is the things that we need to we feel the need to talk about in terms of how things went how we might do things better at the next town meeting and we share that with TMCC it's a really good idea to also have a list of okay these things were asked this has to go to the attorney general this yes that would be helpful we've not done that before so that would be good and the 60K would be part of that we would just want to make sure we call it out as it's own agenda item but also you took as a separate action from town meeting to have that meeting so you're right that should be a separate agenda item but I'm I'm referring to the meet that's two issues yeah so there's a meeting in September regarding all of community services and then there's also an agenda item in June roughly that says this is what we'll do next to figure this out not that we'll have a solution but to let people know that we're continuing to follow through on that and as you say there may be other items traditionally we have not done a fantastic job of that sort of follow-up but we will do better this time so thank you Ms. Brewer thinking of that yes Ms. Kruger and looking at the schedule it occurred to me where we have a sparse month that there may be the flexibility amongst to have a daytime or morning meeting if we had things like a backup of licenses or things that people were waiting on us to act on that maybe there would be some flexibility to add something in daytime hours I don't I have a flexible schedule but I don't know if that's true for others but sometimes the summer allows for some of that flexibility that is a good point sometimes it does not for all but some enough for some that it may make it work because as you say if it's licenses and we only need three people there to do it and much maybe much easier to get those three people together to do such a thing even if it's not an amorous media broadcast which it might not be depending on the you know the sort of how much you know public interest there would be you won't have to guess at that I'm fairly certain that the reason that I'm scrambling through my pile here to look from our previous version of this is because I gave it away at one point when I was saying add some meetings here drop some meetings there and so actually it was all that and then I was dropped and I suspect that that has been well incorporated into this and I don't pretend I haven't memorized but one of the things that I was looking at then that was making it challenging was our time manager evaluation process in terms of our reading night seeing what each other has written and being then being able to see if that is reflected in chairs summary report and that is frequently involves a couple of meetings not just the 14th and the 28th the 14th is too soon for the evaluation probably has been prepared especially when people are away prior to the 14th and the 28th is getting a little late although you know we have some flexibility on that too and mainly it's that we do the evaluation and then we are able to have executive session but we are also able to then start talking about goals because we like to do that as early as possible so do we want to say that given what we know now we would not schedule June 12th as a regular meeting you would only be pre-town meeting if needed because we know we have two people away we will bear in mind that there will be a there's the possibility of having summer daytime meetings for straightforward things minutes licenses parking issues potentially common little things like that the we prefer not to do a tree removal that way I prefer to have a larger group available for that so is this looking like it relatively reports with what you I mean we have to as time goes but it would be good to have a sense that these will work for people now and then we would have a motion the other one thing I would just for disclosure purposes on August 28 I will be in town but I may have a conflict for a portion of the meat that could overlap portion of the meeting so that I could be possibly late for that meeting so that's what we're anticipating doing on that day but you know given that four people will be here and I basically will be here part of the meeting if not all of it and can't tell you for sure I would suggest not doing anything with that date but we'll we'll keep that in mind so that if that turns out that's going to have some association with town manager evaluations the question as we get closer as to how much of it will be that night and we will just assure and ensure that we don't do it while you're not there we'll do something else while you're not there other questions or comments along those lines or to someone want to read that motion you know I was gonna say I've still got a chunk of as I mentioned I've got some uncertainty around from late July and first part of August but you know we just we just can't work with that I know we had you blocked out for a month Mr. Walden there's just not a lot we could do with that no I don't mind so as you as we find out however yeah you know as we get closer right and we may want to ship something from one week to another week right step before we have the motion and other yes thought bubble here um since um the 14th is on August 14th is um when people are coming back so there's some you said it's too early for certain things um August 28th is getting late might it make sense to consider I think it's would be August 21st um as one of the adding um we were missing someone during that week oh okay just and and the other problem is the 14th is missing me and so um and you and so the 14th is I don't know why it doesn't say some members are away because um so that um so we would have four members and maybe the assistant town manager or we'd be on our own that would we cannot we're not going to do the evaluate no no obviously I didn't mean I just I'm I'm considering the viability or the desire to add August 21st if that made any sense because we we knocked out August 7th and I understand about the pattern of every other but we have the opportunity you said somebody wasn't here on the 24th Andy's not here on the 21st okay so we'd be and I'm not here on the 14th so in both cases we can do some stuff on either the 14th or the 21st and so those should have been treated equally by by this chart um which I did not see so I think I wonder if we should do it as a placeholder and if we decide we it's not viable and we don't want to do it knock it out but that way at least we've held that is a possibility there's uh yeah there are two of right town managers so there are two of us away the 14th well one select board member and town manager on the 14th one select board member on the 21st that's it's just not it's just not good is what it comes down to it just conflicts um and there's not enough time to do it like later in the week prior to the 28th because there's a return date that's right before the 28th so we we are kind of stuck so at this point since we haven't mapped out the evaluation process deadlines yet um which we can do and then play with this a little more what do we want to reserve at this point do we want to reserve the 14th the 21st and the 28th do we want to pay just the 21st maximum flexibility why not map all of them yeah and then we can change that obviously figure out which ones to drop as we get as we get into really hard to the evaluation process with just something that's going to need to be um later this month yes I'm going to make sure we have all those dates lined up but there's a traditional set of material associated with figuring that out there's no process to update the dates and then work from there okay so we've got no not the 7th but the 14th 21st and 28th as possibilities and that way they're just all on there and we all know it's not going to actually likely to be to happen but we'll take them for now so we've got the space and we'll go from there because we will be we will have a portion of time for example between the 17th and the 14th where we won't be meeting we will be meeting but not with a full complement of members and it sounds like Mr. Wilde will probably overlap some of that July time as well so we will do the best we can and we will as we do with most other things shift items around so that areas that are particular global's interest will not be covered while people are away all right so we've crossed off the 7th 17 and 24th 10th of July are all on there the 19th of June has been removed altogether and the 26th has been put in its place since the last time we got this right because of the chair that I won't be here right that makes a lot of sense but the 26th is not something June 26th well it's missing one person yeah I think this there's no consistency here we're just going to have to run away um so we continue to figure this out and we we're going to be missing somebody a lot and I think once we start to map out once we sit down and map out not only the town manager evaluation process but also these items that we talked about as a group in but not with specific dates yet we'll be able to figure out what we can shift to and it may be that we need to have a meeting okay so let's back up one more time so if we have a meeting on the 22nd because as a regular meeting because town meetings over that's useful and makes the need for more June meetings a little less critical but we're starting to lose people as we move into June um May 24th of course would be a Wednesday so that would only be a pre-town meeting June 5th would be the next possible Monday we know for sure we're going to miss somebody there but you'll be here for that Mr. Slough okay thoughts the only additional thought I have is is that um we try and traditionally meet on Mondays but there's no statute that says Slough can only meet on Mondays that is a fact it's just really confusing for all of us but yes it is absolutely true when it comes to the week of the 19th Mr. Slaughter as the chair at that time is there any other time during that week you're just going that week I'm just going that day oh you're just I haven't been in town that I'm at for part of that okay evening so I can't so are you seeking to meet weekly during the summer or are we we're just trying to maximize what we've got at this point because at this point we what I'm not willing to do is I'm not willing to say we are definitely missing the week that Mr. Wall is not here we're definitely missing the week Mr. Steinberg is not here until we see what it is we're trying to against these things then I figure we're going to drop a few of these things and we'll be able to do that within the next two weeks probably just to figure that out but at this time I'd rather be inclusive be inclusive and exclusive exactly rather than trying to flip a coin as to how many times one person's going to be away versus another so now weekly probably not but we've already seen as we belong those two things and this and so if we met the week of the 19th week of June 19th people are not aware that we know of so what if we met a different day of the week of June 19th everybody pull out their handy little calendar wait a minute what are we looking at we're looking at the week of June 19th the Monday bad but is there some other day that week that's possible that we may in future trade off against the 26th we would probably not meet midweek and then also meet the 26th but we just don't know at this point which one we want to do so I'll answer for myself but and that is that uh I could meet any day the week of the 19th but the week of the 20 on the 26th I will not be here right okay now it's already down so handy away you're away on June 26th correct no it doesn't say that under doesn't say that it might have been too much to say I know I'm adding to my little thing so the 19th so the week of the 19th Tuesdays the 20th Wednesdays 21st Thursdays the 22nd to now there's anything exciting yes not 22nd if at all possible okay so not Thursday the 22nd yeah all right so do you are you in town on Tuesday or Wednesday that week I'm in town uh on the 21st I think there's I have something on the counter about there being an employee event an all employee event oh like the staff and barbecue whatever summer outing I think it's okay so that's the 21st so what about the 20th Tuesday the 20th Tuesday the 20th look theoretically possible to people so looks good to me so what we could do given that it looks like we know that now we could do Tuesday June 20th instead of the 19th or the 26th sold solved all right okay Tuesday big letters Tuesday June 20th regular meeting and that's in addition to potential meetings on the 5th and the 12th at this point till we figure out when we're done with town meeting and then we wouldn't meet again until July 10th okay how's that looking to people June 5th and June 12th at this point um we know that there are two people that are going to be away so no we're taking off the 12th so we've got the 5th and the 20th as being the only June meetings we're taking off the 12th yeah because we're missing two people okay we just realized and so the 5th and the 20th they're the only two dates we're going to be missing Mr. Wald on the 5th it looks like so we will take that into account as we plan for whatever items those are and hopefully it won't be because we're still here at town meeting and and we would meet again on July 10th and then again on July 10th the 17th 24th and at this point we're so we've got 10th 17th 24th then we've also got August 14th 21st 28th again with the idea that there might we might be dropping one of those and then September 11th 18th and 25th because we have this camera for me during Labor that doesn't work does that work you're saying May 22nd June 5th June 20th Tuesday July 10th July 17th July 24th August 14th August 21 and August 28th correct okay would you like a motion yes I would I move to approve the to approve the schedule not to approve to approve as it says here I moved to approve the schedule for the 2017 move to approve the schedule for 2017 select board meetings June through September as amended second any further discussion and who says our meetings aren't exciting all those in favor please say aye just remember we're not a 19 member council or anything like that okay so key updates tell me do you have anything forward to yeah regarding tell me tonight does anybody else have anything regarding tell me tonight all right so did you have anything else you wanted to talk about okay do you want to tell us why don't you tell us the short one okay and then maybe some things could go in the email sure yeah there seems like you put in dog park committee we have entered Mr. Wald and Mr. Pistrang and I interviewed about 16 people there were 23 applicants some people weren't able to come in during our marathon interview sessions we've selected nine to be appointed and I'll send the list out to you and it looks like a really strong committee with new people people have been in town for a long time lifelong residents renters and owners the one common denominator is I think they all are dog owners but it looks like a very strong committee and Mr. Pistrang intends to I've asked him to convene that meeting and he's going to do a do a poll on for a meeting the first week of June so I'll send out a full memo on that to you when you say that 16 out of 23 were interviewed and of course not everybody can make the particular interview date were there people who were selected that weren't interviewed no uh well just uh other than Mr. Pistrang himself and Mr. Diamond Dr. Diamond who was the other proponent of the other proponent okay great I just in just in terms of some criticism it was level but town meeting about transparency recently we have one member of the planning board who volunteered it's not because of his nature of this so I think you're done and yeah okay so I mean first we could you thank you to everyone who applied and thank you to those of you who did all those interviews that's a lot and yes as Ms. Crew-Gragley was also pointed out if any of those people are in so many other committees you know we should be working on that all right there might be some we just update you we continue to negotiate with Amherst Media we had two negotiating sessions the first time the first one was really a get to know you set the ground rules have the first initial conversations the second one we exchange proposals we're scheduled to meet again next week with more detailed substantive discussions about each of our sets of proposals so that is moving along pretty much on a every other week basis just good the the planning board and select board have talked about doing a downtown planning initiative of some sort and we are working on organizing that so that we can have an event that happens in June and a relatively defined event that would then be revisited by the keyboards in September so there'll be a small group of us who are going to try and scope out what this will look like based on other experiences that we've had in planning and then sort of circulate that idea out and invite people we don't have a date a location time anything or an agenda yet and then will you share the very large letters draft tentative agenda direction with the select board in an email from the town manager in which case we could respond to him individually and then if any of you feels it needs to be discussed at a select board meeting we could do that then but without seeing that list that's we don't need to craft things from scratch and we know that the planning board has put a substantial amount of thought into this already so we'll look forward to a town manager email with that the the business improvement district memorandum of understanding expires and so that has come to my attention and we have very preliminary conversation with the director of the bid or i have had a preliminary conversation so that's something i'll be eager for your feedback on as we move forward our agreement when it was signed was a three-year agreement um the university in the college when they signed it was a five-year agreement there the bid comes up for renewal in a year so they are marking that date in 2018 is being an important date um as they talk to their membership and they're looking at they're starting to reflect back on what the bid has accomplished and what they want to accomplish in the coming year so i think there's going to be a lot of energy on major issues that they'd like to address during the coming year and so you'll be signing a new MOU for a period of time even though they have to go through the renewal process just because they have to okay so was that something we know that it's entirely within the town manager's purview to sign the bid memorandum but was anyone expecting to see it before it got signed because that would be the time to mention that maybe what i would do is i'll share i'll share out the existing MOU which i've just given which then if you have comments on our suggestion we have not had any substantive conversations about it just like hey we got to talk about this i guess excuse me it's hard when we're in a line like this yeah you can't see me um but that my main question was is it essentially a continuation or do you see anything changing and i don't mind taking a look i i had looked at the old one at some point and i think it's manager's participation there's an amount of money and i don't know what else what other commitment but if it's essentially doing that but for another year or longer than it has a couple small things more logistical we want to have a clear conversation about who takes care of what i.e. the lower lower the parking garage that seems to be you know sometimes the town does sometimes right we want to be clear about who's responsible for certain areas like that that sometimes some things are sort of spelled out but through experience we've learned that it would benefit from having more details to be more okay so we'll get that yeah and then you'll tell us yeah or even just if you want but for if you see something like why are we doing this right or i've been hearing about one because some of us go to the forum yes so it's gonna be helpful particularly like just giving us the heads up in some in some fashion about those other the sort of newer things because the other stuff is probably just to continue yes um the um i signed the preservation restriction for the library which has been winding its way this is something from the previous board of trustees have not been executed and so it has gone through the trustees it has gone through the historical commission it's gone through the town manager's office is now at the state for their review and approval um everybody seems to be on board without that what that's looking for um excuse me really briefly yes um mr buckman um if that comes up tonight in the discussion the library which it could then i i would think maybe it would be appropriate for you to share that so everybody on the town has signed off on it right right because it often it comes up but it will come up yeah people question yeah and that's the right answer what you just told us is happening with it yeah that's the answer we have received a grant for a solid waste coordinators you well know um this is something i'm told you had talked about last summer with mr hank and lector when the grant was applied before i've not found anything writing on it but the time has come now for us to execute the grant which i'm inclined to do and here's why this and i can share more information with you if you want to think about this until next week um the it's a grant that pays about half the salary of this person we would have to keep the person for two years but no longer the state would fund the entire first year and then a portion of the second year um the way it's organized um and then and then we could make an evaluation whether we would be able to contain that continue this the question was how do we pay for this we're looking at the reduction i'm looking at the reduction in hours and stat and this pay level of our community health director as being the way where some of the funds could come to support this as we start to ponder through this for f y 19 so we're really talking about so a couple of things one is this is going to be more than you thought it was going to be so explain explain again about salary because we've gotten somewhat different messages about it's half the salary for two years or now it sounded a little bit like it's more of a salary for part of the first year it's so what is that the the town contribution in the first year is zero okay um but there will be some ancillary costs like if the person chooses health insurance or things like that uh the second year of the town's dollar commitment will be 32 000 dollars and the state's contribution will be 50 000 dollars so this person will be paid 82 000 dollars in irrespective of benefits it'll over two years i'm confused i have a question um but we don't even i can't even understand this most basic math so i'm sorry i'm gonna have to ask you to do that again um they will be placed on our they have to be paid 15 dollars an hour at least so that one's out to about 50 000 dollars but given our schedule we have to put them on a certain schedule a corner in our personnel okay so here's here coming back this up so one there was in no way unanimity that we were ready to do this when it came out before and it was being pushed very heavily by the salad waste master plan and the recycling our peace management plan it was not included in the budget purposefully it was right correct and so that was a signal that we have not made a decision if we had made a decision we could have included it then even though we didn't know for sure about the grant it was it was it was in the budget as possible it was not agreed upon that that was a policy priority that doesn't mean you can't do it anyway right but that it was not necessarily a policy priority there was a good bit of discussion around what this person's job actually would be because it seemed quite clear from the information we were given that it was in no way shape or form a substitute for what used to be Ms. Waite's position but it was a completely different position that had to do with enforcement not education and so what that actually would look like we were told we can find out down the road because there were still more rooms to jump through as to whether or not we were actually going to get it what it would actually look like and so I'm not comfortable saying the select board thinks this is a good idea a bad idea when we don't there's we don't have a busy time meeting time we would know the actual dollars both years and we would be able to compare that to all the other things we're not doing that we wish we were doing and what that person's actual responsibilities would be like and then I think we could make a more informed decision but other members of select board I suggest we make it an agenda item so that we can see you know either description I had had that same question it seemed from what I'm remembering heavily enforcement rather than education which may or may not be as much of interest to us and I remember that being an important thrust of the solid waste committee but not necessarily beyond that that more enforcement was the way to go and I want to know what the job description was as required by the grant so we can make it and I know I just a short comment and I'm sure we'll get to this again it's a lot harder to let someone go after they've worked for the town and made connections after two years even if you start out with most two years and then we can let the it's really hard to do that okay so again we understand that technically you don't need to ask us but we would like to have we would at least like to talk through what the ramifications are and then you choose to make decisions and that's what happens yeah just briefly that I think that there's a fine line between enforcement and education because I think that some of the goal is I really just to get people to comply and education is a way of reducing what you might call enforcement in a heavy-duty sense so in addition to the budget a description of the position would also be helpful because I think that we're getting confused in the jargon exactly right because you could just assume what those two words mean rather than what they actually need and I'm guessing the grant has some specificity associated with it based on what I remember of it from way back months ago so other of the millions of things I really want to bring up is that um the next um coffee with town manager will be on May 19th at Atkins flagship store May 19th um what I saw that in the news and announcements that we all subscribed to yeah what time is it again 7 30 to 9 at Atkins on Bay Road yeah oh I know yeah and uh Dave Zomac the assistant town manager will be with me on this one um there might just on outreach there might be a way to let people who live at Applewood know and then there's also some associations for Hampshire Village and the the orchard if they're not to let everyone know but maybe their officers could get the word out oh yeah whatever their usual communication email I'm sure they they've probably switched email by now cool what else that's why I am oh okay so and just to back up for a moment on the Amherst meeting and negotiations you're still doing that with mr. Steinberg and mr. Slaughter yes just so we know that we that's who I've been telling people to funnel their questions too okay great thank you and thank you both for doing that other reports from the slut board on things we need to know going into this town meeting or prior to next Monday's meeting which is going to be a night as mr. Brooklyn just mentioned um your minutes ago that we're going to have a first look at marijuana principles document which mr. Kravitz has been working on and which Kruger and I have also been looking at with him and it's um quite extensive and I think you'll find reflects a lot of the different things and pulls it all together in a place that we can look at and then eventually turn it into more of an elevator speech um as necessary the letter to the co-chairs of the committee is going out soon and so that follow-up is in process and then we'll also look at our special town meeting dates because there's already been some question as to backing up things for items associated with our marijuana discussion and when zoning type items versus non-zoning type items would need to get worked on in order to be ready for that fall town meeting so we need we're going to take a look at that slightly sooner than we usually do although Miss Pupple usually gets us up with that in the summer anyway but we'll try and look at that next week if we can have the time to put it together because of course she doesn't just look at the calendar right she has to consider all the holidays and everything else that's in there so anything else because then I'm going to ask mr. Steinberg to make a motion I move to adjourn second further discussion all those in favor please say aye all right and it's 6 46 p.m. we are adjourned thank you Amherst media we are off