 Okay. This meeting is being recorded. There's. Welcome to the historical commissions, public meeting. I'm getting an echo back. Does somebody have their mic on. Yeah. If you're not muted, it comes back around. How do you two. Okay. I'm going to start over. This meeting is being held virtually using the zoom platform. My name is Janet Mark, and as chair of the Emerson historical commission, I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.33 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and minutes are being recorded. I'm going to start with the meeting on Thursday, September 15th, 2022. Based on governor Baker's executive law suspended executive orders suspending certain provisions of the open meeting loss. I'm Thursday, March 12th, 2020. This meeting is still being held virtually using the zoom platform. I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.33 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and minutes are being taken. I'll now take a roll call of commissioners in attendance. As you hear a name called unmute yourself. Answer. And then please place yourself on mute. Patricia. Present. Robin Ford. Present. Heady startup. Present. Rebecca Lockwood. Madeline. And I am here. Opportunity for public comment and questions will be provided during the general public comment period later in the agenda. And I would just like to start by introducing Madeline. Helmer, whose name you all heard. She has come to us. Who joined the commission. Would you like to tell a little bit about yourself or do you want me to just say things off your application? Yeah. I'll. I'll speak to that. I am a architectural historian and preservation planner. And I just moved to Amherst a year ago. So from Philadelphia, but I grew up in Vermont. So. Yeah, I'm, I'm really happy to join. Thank you. She's worked on preservation plans folks. She's going to show us all up. Okay. I would just like to remind people that you, I hope you've prepared all the materials. I'm going to limit presentations by outsiders to very short. Statements. So please know the material always before and anyone who's listening ready to come in. We're really asking you to keep your remarks very short because we will have read the materials you sent ahead. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our public meeting. With CPA proposal discussions. Some of these are people who have proposals ready and want to talk to us about them. Other ones are people who are just thinking about it and want advice about how or whether they might prepare one. So, Ben, who's first up. That would be. Has she managed to call in? No, she hasn't. She hasn't called in. She hasn't called in. She hasn't called in. She hasn't called in at this point. There she is. Hi, Susanna. You are muted. Can you unmute her, Ben? No, I don't know. Hi. There she is. I think I'm in. Thank you. Sure. So can you briefly introduce your project to the rest of the commission? I just to tell everybody, I'm going to go ahead and get to the rest of you. Yes. I'm here today to float an idea for a. Self-guided walking tour in downtown to join the others. This would be a tour of stained glass in the downtown. And if you'll bear with me, I'd like to take you on a little virtual tour of Amherst stained glass. So this one, this idea came to me because I've been helping a man who's writing a book about stained glass in grace church that will be out in December. And it got me thinking about other stained glass. So proceeding in chronological order. The logical place to begin. Would be at the meat art museum at Amherst college. They have a room from a 17th century English manner house. And they've installed in the windows in that room. A bunch of glass panels, maybe a dozen or so from different European countries of the 16th and 17th centuries. Some are religious scenes like the sink here. Others are more real. And there are also a lot of pictures of sailing ships of one kind and another. So this would show what was going on in stained glass in Europe. At the time that the very first Europeans were setting foot on American, well, Massachusetts soil. So the next stop would be chronologically would be at grace church. Grace has recently found documentary evidence that it has been found in many windows. By the man who's known as the father of American stained glass. His name is William Gibson. He was a Scott. He came to America. And opened the first stained glass workshop in America. In New York City in 1830. He was very successful. And he opened churches, particularly in the south up until the Civil War, which brought a halt to that business. They did this suite of windows for Grace church in 1865. When it opened, I'm showing you just a couple of details. So one on the left shows the kind of really finicky. And the other thing that I work that that Gibson was known for, this is a technique that's found in Gothic churches in Europe, where you use black paint on white glass. To do these small, very tight little designs. And from a distance, it looks gray. So the word reside comes from the French word for gray. So I'm going to show you some of his other special techniques. I'm not going to take the time to describe those, but they're sufficiently distinctive that we hope when this book comes out, there will be other Gibson windows discovered. On the right, you see one of his paintings. He's painting in vitreous enamel. So he's painting on glass. And then after he paints, he's drawing on glass, there's a painting on the right side of the screen. And there's also a painting on the left side of the screen. So that the paint becomes permanent. This is the prophet Abraham. There are many really beautiful paintings among what. Those windows at Grace church. What happened is that fashion has changed. And at the end of the 19th century, because other kinds of stained glass, which we'll see in a minute, came into popularity. And it turns out, as far as we can tell, that Grace Church has the only surviving set of Gibson windows in the country, in the world. And so it is something of a national treasure. It's a very important discovery. Grace has some windows that are not by Gibson. The big circular window that is in the West facade, facing the common, is by the British, the London firm of Clayton and Bell. It shows the Archangel Michael spearing a dragon. You can see the dragon there on his back under St. Michael's foot. And this window is very popular with our younger visitors. They really like the dragon being killed. This window is later. It's one of a pair that honors George Kendrick, the man who gave the town of Amherst Kendrick Park. It's done in a completely different style. This is more like what you would see at Sharks or Canterbury cathedrals in Europe. Small panes of very dark, very intensely colored glass, and much less painting than on the Gibson windows. You'll probably recognize the beautiful Tiffany window from the Unitarian meeting house. Tiffany's big innovation was to use opalescent glass and to mount it in layers so that you see the color coming through from one panel of glass into another and get these wonderful atmospheric effects. The Tiffany windows, well, this one was restored with CPA funds a few years ago and they made a video at the time. So you have good documentation of what how Tiffany made the windows, but also a nice opportunity to bring in information about the importance of preservation and conservation, how it was conserved. A lot of the Queen Anne Victorian houses in the town center area have what's called cathedral glass windows. I'm showing you the window in my house because I happen to have a photo of this window lit from the inside, but there are other grander windows around. I just don't have interior photos of them. Cathedral glass is basically plain colored textured glass that's leaded together to make these patterns. It doesn't have any of the painting on it. It was a way that the middle class could afford stained glass and they would often put these windows in the main stair hall so that when you walk through the front door, you saw the great splash of color and you were very impressed with the house you visited or the cathedral glass might be in the door itself or in the surround, around the door. I don't think these private houses might want to be actual stops on the tour but I think information about this could be in the related materials and it is rather fun to go around town and look for these windows. St. Bridgets is 1925, that church building and they had a set of windows done by the Franz Mayer Studio in Munich which was a very big operation employing about 300 glass makers. They did a series of windows mostly showing scenes from the life of Christ and they're all over this country and all over Europe. St. Bridgets made a video about its windows for its 150th anniversary so that's also available as source material and that brings us into the 20th century and for the 21st century Ben Brueger pointed out to me this window by Mark Ricker that's in Amherstown Hall this is just a small detail it's a much bigger window but it's the only photograph I was able to lay my hands on and I think it would be a nice way to end up by pointing out that Amherst is a very arts friendly town and that we support artists in a lot of different media this one was a public arts commission award and was funded by the Cultural Council and matching private donations so it would be a good place to make a pitch for how important these public-private partnerships are in making sure that some of this beautiful art gets put in public places where we all can enjoy it. So I'm going to stop there and if you have questions I'd be glad to answer them I just want to say one thing I am not looking to be in charge of this project I really want to put the idea out there and hope that I can interest others of you in taking the project on I don't have space in my life to do something this ambitious but I think it's a great idea and I really hope it can come to pass. Thank you, Susanna. Okay, we have a question from Robin and then Becky you had your hand up I used to know, okay, so Robin. Hi there, what a wonderful idea and project I'm very much in support of the idea of this project I'm not sure if we're discussing it are we discussing it under the idea of it being CPI funded? Yeah, she's thinking that it may need something like a grad student to do the research and then it would need whatever kind of marketing for the visitor center, whatever we did however we put it out there. So the first thing I would say is that I know that I'm just going to speak to this in the present and going into the future that CPI funds do not what walking tour or interpretation is not covered under eligibility to serve preservation there's no preservation activity going on that said this would be a fabulous project for the master the embers cultural council which I understand I think is just about to come up into its grant cycle and certainly the historical commission if members were agreed could write a letter in support of this idea this project I think it's a really wonderful one but would not fall under the eligibility requirements for CPI unless I'm mistaken somehow. My understanding was that the riderswalk although it's a long time ago fell under it simply because it's a way of encouraging people to value and therefore preserve things in the town that are worthwhile historical things that doesn't count anymore. I think maybe I'm not sure I'm not sure because I wasn't on the council on the mission at that point of the committee but my understanding that yeah my understanding was that that was a stretch and that maybe should have been funded through something like the Amherst cultural council as well it doesn't promoting an idea of preservation it's pretty clear from the DOR guidelines that's not an eligible expense but like I said it's wonderful that we've had this presentation in front of the commission and we can certainly write a brief letter in support and I would volunteer for that if someone has and we don't have a head for the project at this point but if they were to apply to the cultural council I would be very in favor of that. Yeah I put out a query to some faculty who teach either architecture or medievalism modern medieval revival and one expressed some interest I didn't hear back from the other two but of course it's hard because the money wouldn't come until next year so we don't know which graduate students would be around and which faculty would be available the faculty don't know what their load is whether they'll be on sabbatical or here so it's kind of hard for people to agree that they want to take on the project but I think we can probably find a faculty sponsor if we can identify a student also I had suggested Susanna she considered possibly expanding it to be not just stained glass we have in the town so we have Bridget is Neo Romanes the town hall is Neo Romanes we have some Neo English Gothic churches so there would be an opportunity to thicken if you will the two are a bit with not only the building that the stained glass is in but just some of the other buildings that people could see as they walked around and talk a little bit about why Neo Gothic what or Neo Romanes was prevalent in America from the late 19th century through the early 20th century and the other thing I mentioned to her is that if we want to save costs and we want to get more of these tours lined up on the rack cards as options for people to take and then use their phone to access a webpage we could do them pretty inexpensively by just creating a website for each of these with information and then a map like we did for the writer's walk that would lead people from one to the other and then the things that couldn't be covered like the private homes would just be pictured with information so that no one would try to actually visit them but it would be something that we would still need to research but we wouldn't be like putting up signs or designing all sorts of fancy bells and whistles that would just be literally a rack card with a website address so those are some bells we had and yeah I mean I administered Greenfield Cultural Council for a couple of years and it sounds like the perfect, it's really the perfect project for that particular funding instrument and you know as long as you identify that you are hiring a consultant and I think you have to identify the consultant in the beginning because the clients don't go out until you incur the expense anyway so if you could get a faculty sponsor to put a proposal together and they were willing to try to pull it off within the next year it could be, a request for funding could go in in this grand cycle. Susanna, you have your hand up? Yeah I think having a website somewhere would be particularly important with this because all of these stained glass windows are easy to see from the inside all the time. I mean they're all publicly accessible except for the private homes at some point but not all the time 24-7 so to have great photography from the inside would really make it come alive. Right. So I think it's a great idea to have a website that exists it's just a matter of making it accessible. Maybe we wouldn't have the same amount of requirement for public that the CPA requires. Becky, you have your hand up. You're muted Becky. I just wanted to say I think it's a great idea Susanna we're giving information I think going to the cultural council is a great idea. I'm not clear it feels like maybe you're asking us to take it on and I just want to be clear about that. Well I would love it. I would love it if you wanted to take it on but if you don't want to take it on I would love it if you talked it up to somebody else who might want to take it on some other group. I would love to take it on some other group. So I'm happy to share what I know. And I've got 80 and I've got a very full plate and it's more than I can do. I'm happy to share what I know. And the, you know, the resources that I know are out there. But I just don't want to take on the management of the whole project. Okay, great. Thank you. Anybody else have a comment on this. Pat, did you raise your hand? Sorry about that. I think it's a wonderful project and Jan, I agree with you about adding some architectural. Sites to, to flesh it out. I certainly would support our supporting it to the cultural council, but I do agree that it's not something that we can do directly, but we certainly can support it in, in its, its as a worthy project in, in its own way. And I think that the cultural council, consider funding whatever it takes to make it happen. Thanks. Okay. Any other comments before we move on? I propose we do write a letter to help with the cultural council application. And Robin, if you'd be willing to help maybe work with Susanna on putting together. That proposal. She has a prospectus on this. I'm sorry, I don't know. But she has a lot of resources. So maybe. Get that from her and help her put that together. And then we can try and identify someone. Possibly at UMass, the person that I'll be replacing. Who's going to be on spackle shoes. The person who seemed interested, but the timing is what's up in the air. So it may be that spring when I'm there, I could. Start it. She could pick it up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I'm not a sponsor since you said we would have to have a name. Yeah. I mean, you'd want to be submitting something to the grant. The grant cycle with, you know, a specific point person who would, you know, essentially carry the program through without that. I mean, it's only it's, I mean, right now it's an idea. If it was an idea with, you know, I would be hesitant to put much effort into a proposal if you don't have, if the project doesn't have a specific. Point person for the duration that's completion. Well, if I've had a written proposal, I think I could probably convince her, but it is like, we're at chicken and egg here. It's like, okay. I see what you're saying. So yeah. All right. That's a different point. Well, yeah, then we can exchange an email today and see if, you know, if there's anything that I could be done with. Yeah. So maybe if you would help Susanna put something tighter together and she could get it off her plate by giving all the information and then we, you, you, maybe you and I could work together on writing the proposal or something. And I mean, well, we'll talk to the UMass faculty member and see how we could maybe make this happen. Yeah. I mean, I, I can throw an email out to the Amherst cultural council tomorrow too, just to see what, what their requirements are. Specifically. So. And timing. I don't want to be putting up. Yeah. Sometimes you just have to wait here. That's okay. Yeah. We'll have to just see what their, their timing is. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Susanna. We're going to move on to the next item, but thank you for presenting this. Great idea. Okay. Okay. Okay. Wildwood cemetery has a building that needs some preservation work and they're going to write a CPA proposal. Ben, are they here to present? Okay. Rebecca. Anyone else. Hi there. It took my computer a little while to join. So I'm the general manager of Wildwood cemetery. And I sent you a lot of information. It was working pretty hard on the application and I, it helped me to put those slides together just to bring my thoughts together. And I don't know whether I should go through them. If you've seen them and I should just go straight to your thoughts, what would you prefer? I think that we, I assume everyone has done their homework and we've seen them. And Ben and Madeline, I actually visited the, on Tuesday we went to the building. Yeah, I was sorry. I missed you. I had some people visiting. So I didn't come out to interrupt, but we were, you know, we needed to kind of see it because it isn't so evident from the road. We didn't know. No, no. So yeah, unless you have anything to add to what you already sent us, we can just go into questions if you like. I guess I do have one slide that I want to add because I've heard more from Tamara Kande. So, and we've tweaked her proposal as of, we've done this very quickly. So as you know, there's sort of three things going on. There's the roof. There's the brickwork. That I would like to combine because they sort of go hand in hand, but then we also have that request for the money that you found that helps people become historic sites. And so that's the, that's the new slide that I have to share. So I could, can I share my screen? Yeah. That's separate from CPA everybody. Yeah. So. I'll just share this. Okay. Yeah. So the first few slides were about the cemetery. Oh, and of course the train is going to go by right now. Hold on. I'm sorry. I live on railroad street. This is our appropriate. Okay. So you saw the, you checked out the roof. That's an example of the, the composite. You could, you saw the brickwork. That was our total CPA request and we can, I'll skip through to a new slide. So what we're interested in doing is working with Tamara to identify the historic monuments. And she said she does this amazing catalog of identifying this, the date of the stone, the type of the stone. She would help me with, you know, researching the people as well. What I asked her to do was to include the house. As part of the grounds. And so her proposal. Total is 25,000, but what we did was we said. 900 monuments. We have over. 3000 and counting. But we know where the older sections are. So I think we could, we could get it down to 900 that I would want her to look at the house evaluation. And then assisting us with the historic registration, which I have started, but have been told that it would be very good if I got an expert involved. So that's, I think this will really help us with the process. Okay. Great. Just to clarify for everyone. This was an idea that Ben had and realized that we have money already for these kinds of things. And so it wouldn't need to be a part of the proposal. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a first step to establish the site more securely. Yeah. Another thing I wanted to clarify that I didn't see in the proposal, and I might have just missed it, but I didn't see it now on the slides is that the composite. Roofing material is not replacing real slate. So it's not like they're taking away historic slate and replacing it with modern composite. No, it's not high quality stuff. Yeah. What's on there is multiple layers of stuff and none of it is in great shape. And the tin is the top layer. And I don't know when that dates from, but I like that, that look and if they had slate, according to the Massachusetts historic site that has all the house information on it, they said that we had slate at some point. I don't know where they got that information, but. This composite slate, even though it's more expensive seem to have the right look to me. Okay. Great. Anyone have questions or comments for Rebecca. And I can stop sharing. Should I stop sharing? So. Does that help you back out of that so we can see you better. Everybody would use the hand raising so that we aren't all speaking at once. Okay. Hi, Rebecca. Nice to see you again. Since I saw you at the UU church. I think this is a great idea. I love that cemetery. I walk in it a lot. I've always been intrigued about the building. And what's outside the building does give you some information about what's been going on inside, but I think this is a wonderful. Moment when you could create a map for the graveyard itself. And I agree include the building itself because am I right in thinking that it served a kind of. It was a place for services for burial services at some point. I think that they had thought about it. I haven't believe it or not. So I'm approaching my fourth work year anniversary. And I still haven't had time to delve into the historic documents that we have. I haven't, I, I really want to read through all the minutes that I have written it. Some of them were written in maybe Loomis Todd's hand. It's just amazing. And I just haven't. Been able to do that yet. But I think at some point they thought about that they also had plans for a whole separate chapel somewhere on the grounds. I have those architectural plans, but I don't know where they were intending to put that. Yeah. I mean, that, that cemetery is really important to the history of Amherst. Plus the fact that the little pond at the bottom of the plain as you walk up the, from the main road, from strong street is the, is the beginning of the pan brook. So it's, it's sort of a very interesting spot to me historically in many ways it's sort of for people, for landscape, for the whole issue of the history of how cemeteries change over time in this country. And so I think the fact that you're there spearheading this is wonderful. And you will get to all of those documents. I also noticed there were some really bad hornets nests, like make sure that something is done to protect the building because it looked as though the nests were actually impacting the brickwork. And maybe that's from far and I wasn't really seeing what I needed to see, but. Yeah, wonderful. Great. Anybody else have any comments. Becky. I just want to agree, I, everything had he said, it's an important historical resource. And, you know, I think that the proposal as well. It's, I love that you were trying with the roof to be historic with it. That's really important. And mapping the graves, my goodness, what a wonderful project. So, yeah, I mean, I think it needs the criteria for the grant. Thank you, Becky. Yeah, the CPA part is a big grand total. And we have other many other proposals this term. And I think it's really important. Yeah. Have you thought about splitting it into two years where you would do half. Ask for half now and just, you know, let them know on the proposal that it's half and then ask them the second half later in order to be more likely to get. What you need. Yeah, I was hoping to hear from you about this. So we could. The reason the roof and the brickwork is combined is that they don't have to work hand in hand, but they, they don't have to happen at the same time. That's my understanding from the two. So I would have to find it. Sorry. Well, I'm just thinking of your redoing two chimneys entirely and two partially. If you're not doing it when you're doing the roof. Then you have the issue of flashing. So would the chimneys be part of the roof project or part of the brick tech work tech, tech pointing project. At this point, they're separate. The Mason is separate from the roofer and they wanted to keep it that way. So I'd have to find out from them how that would work if we were to split it into two. And it's possible that the Mason. He was incredible to talk to because he's very, he does everything the old fashioned way and wants to follow the right pattern. I think that's probably what we would do first. But I'd have to talk to both of them to find out which one is more critical and which one makes sense to do first. Yeah. It looked to me like you have so much leakage. From the chimneys in the roof that. You know, I think it's just that if you talk point of the sides. Without doing that, they would just be impacted again. But that's a novice looking at it. You know, Okay. Well, that's just something to consider just because, you know, the allocation isn't infinite. And we know there'll be quite a few big ones this year. What would you suggest. What number would. Be most reasonable. I can't say I would say at least have just half it at least. You can't do it any lower. Ben, do you have any thoughts on that? I hear what Rebecca is saying about the staging and needing to, you know, combine things that similar to our thought process with the women's club last year where they had. You know, two or multiple items that required staging. So we, you know, supported them and moving forward with that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you got to put your. Proposal forward and, and, you know, you have to. Excuse me, two good quotes from, you know, local contractors and. You know, the work is necessary and to preserve the building. So I think, you know, you go, you go forward and, you know, sometimes the best strategies to ask for more and just ask for the full amount and see what you end up with. Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe ask for everything, but plan for fewer things at the beginning, you know, maybe knowing you have to come back next year and say, okay, you didn't give us all of it and we did this much, but, but start out maybe asking for the whole thing. Yeah. Robin, you have your hand up. Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to weigh in on that. I was going to suggest exactly that, that if there are cost savings and or further damages to prevent it, I would lead with a full amount. And maybe have as a backup documentation of, you know, if, if we were to do in this in two phases, this is what it would look like in two days. Assuming that if you did it in two phases, it would therefore be more expensive than the long haul, less expensive year to year, but to have to be able to have both those presentations ready for the CPA committee, I think it would be very useful because it would give them an easy opportunity to choose between. Two numbers. Well, at the same time, stressing, particularly if there's historic fabric that's at risk, but also if they're cost savings, stressing those factors so that both options could be weighed. I think that would make for a good presentation. Great. Yes. Okay. Madeleine. Are you also going to mention the asphalt swale when you talk. Yeah. Well, I was thinking of the, the new building that we saw, you know, under construction. And I think when we visited, we were sort of curious how that would work on the site and in relationship to the, to the building itself. So, I mean, I don't know if we could have more information about. The plans for that. And yeah, and then this swale, the drainage on, on one side, just. We were just curious if. I was curious how. The drainage is working on site because it seems as though that there's that kind of pave and gutter system. Well, just drainage at the base of the building and. Any information about just. Water infiltration in the basement. And if that's been considered by contractors. We are in the process of trying to change all of our drainage paths. So you might have seen up the hill. Our ground superintendent put in a new. Pavement. Pavement. North of the new building. So, and he's, we're also going to change the pavement a little bit. In front of the building. So I think that will stop. A lot of the flow that happens. We don't. The basement is very damp, but it doesn't have standing water. So we don't have a problem with that. I can ask. You know, The drains right around the building and then you asked about the new maintenance center that's going in. So that's being tucked into the hillside. We have a donor that's giving money towards a memorial garden. That's going. Above up the hill. And behind the columbarium. Which we're having all native plants put in. So that's going to be. We're going to be going to be multiple holly trees planted. That will hopefully block the view of the roof of the maintenance center. And that's going to be open to the public. We're hoping to use that space for. Public events and private. Ceremonies as well. So we're hoping that. In the end, we'll have it shielded pretty. We'll have it shielded. We'll have it shielded. We'll have it shielded. Both of you. Anyone else. Well, does that give you some information from us that. Yeah, I, I think so. Would it be okay to reach out to you once I have this sort of broken down into options. Just to get. Another set of eyes looking at it. Sure. Yeah. Okay. And then can I say that you, I have your approval, your blessing. Okay. So. As part of the CPA section that relates to historic preservation. We prioritize all of the applications that fall under our purview. So. We'll, it will happen automatically in our prioritization and our comments. And our rep who is Robin. Fordham who just. Tell you some things. Yeah. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point with our comments to the committee meeting. She's actually part of it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Do you have a last thing to say? I just had one thought. I know Rebecca, you've broken it down to masonry. And roofing. But, but it seems to me in projects that I've done. You're looking at a leaking roof and needing to protect. The chimneys with the roofing. That maybe it needs to be separated to the roof and the chimneys. And then the lower masonry. I don't know whether that's a possibility and how, how that would add to the cost. But if the scaffolding is there for the roofing. It would also be there. For the use of the mason for the chimneys. And that would take care of that issue. And then to address the lower part of the building, just to thought. Basically more specifically stating what we alluded to earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Happened before the, yeah. Yeah. I understand. Oh, and regarding the last, um, the last slide with, uh, Tamara Kande. What is the process for. Getting that money or not getting it. Um, That you'll work directly with Ben. Okay. Because it's already, it's already in the bank, so to speak. Yeah. And we can allocate it, but it has nothing to do with your CPA proposal. Right. Right. I know that's separate. So I'll just work through that. Okay. Second. Yeah, I think, um, Maybe we'll come back to the commission at a later date, just to look at that proposal more closely. I guess it was a bit more than I was expecting. Because we have $25,000 for like all the inventory work that we want. I was wondering what you're telling me. I think it was a smaller amount. I was surprised. But yeah, I mean, obviously it's an important, it's a really important, uh, burial ground for the town. And, um, you know, I think. We were kind of, in my mind, we were waiting for the preservation plan to be finished, which is going to take another year to kind of figure out what we're going to do with the. I mean, I mean, we're going to be doing a lot of work. I mean, we're going to be doing inventory work on a townwide scale, but now, you know, like Jan said, where the money is in the bank now. So I thought, all right, here's this great project that, you know, is inventorying in historic resource in town. And I thought we could allocate some funds. For that effort. But, um, I guess I just wasn't expecting the full 25,000. Yeah. Sorry if I was misunderstanding. No, that you threw that number out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the number of stones that she, uh, would inventory that would, that's where that number is flexible. And, um, She has someone in mind to do the house. But, you know, so that's sort of up in the air right now. Okay. And yeah, I guess let's just touch base soon. Because I think, you know, to really just get, if the goal is really just to get on macros, I think that requires a certain level of documentation and, and, you know, narrative, but. I don't know if every, you know, stones need to be inventoryed at a, you know, very detailed level. I think it's, it. I might be wrong. Very old grounds might be different, but I'm, I'm much familiar with building inventories and it's, you know, it's a few sentences really, but I think for a, for a historical landscape like this, you know, a full fleshed out narrative would be appropriate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering if I had misunderstood you or misremembered numbers because I thought you were talking about a small fraction of the 25,000. And then, and then she said the full, um, do we get reef? Do we get rebuilt every year? Or where's that money coming from? Yeah. So that, that was from the fiscal year. 2021. So we applied for it in 2020. I guess. We applied for it. Yeah. I don't, I don't really remember. Maybe it was a neat project, but, um, yeah. That's, you know, we can always, you know, submit another application for next year or something. Yeah. Okay. Great. I think we'd like to keep some of it then. I didn't realize what, how the numbers had changed. Yeah. For tonight. So. Okay. Work with him. Okay. That sounds good. That sounds good. I think there's some flexibility. You know, that was the number that you told me. And so we went with it. But we can certainly go back to the drawing board. If you give me another number. Um, yeah. Good. Okay. Thank you all so much and come and come and visit the cemetery anytime. Right. We will. All right. Okay. So is Gigi here for Amherst Historical Society. Yeah, Gigi is here. And just for the other attendees in the room for a seek young talk, we'll get to the North Amherst Church. Next on the agenda after that. Amherst Historical Society. So I'll bring in Gigi here. Okay. Hi, Gigi. Hi, Jen. How are you? Um, This I'm with you tonight just to let you know what we're planning to apply for. And I don't have photographs of what we're, what we're proposing. But this past summer, we had funds to hire a short term curator, Diana Lempel, who came very highly recommended. And among the things that she was charged to do was to reconsider the exhibitions in the historical society's building. And she became very captivated as many people are with Mabel Loomis Todd. And she. Is has crafted an exhibition narrative that really focuses on Mabel's love of nature and her skills as an artist. And some of you may have seen the folding screens that Mabel did. I feel like I know her so well, I'm going to call her Mabel. And those are in, those are in fine condition. It turns out, however, that up in storage were five more, well, four more panels and then also a rectangular painting. Two of the five have been framed in the past, but all need some serious conservation from a paintings conservator. And we're in the process now of getting a quote for this work from Michael's gallery. And we'll have it by the end of, you know, in time, I hope for the proposal. So basically we'll be asking for funds to conserve five paintings that certainly are done by a local celebrity and focus on Mabel Loomis Todd's love of nature and her skills as an artist. But I have to admit the paintings are in a couple are in okay condition, but some have a lot of losses that would require in painting some have come off their stretchers and there will be some careful attention made to extending the canvases so that they'll go around the stretchers and will be secure and safe and stabilized for another century. These were done in the late 19th century and clearly nothing's been done to them. So basically it's a very simple project. I hesitate to, you know, throw a number out, but I can't imagine even with the framing that it would be more than three to four thousand dollars a panel. If that. And that includes the panel that's already out the two extra and the rectangular painting or how many three to four thousand on how many. Oh, for five. Oh, for the five. Okay. And they will look splendid. Diana's become an avid reader of Emily Dickinson's poetry. And one of the panels is of Holly Hawks. And it's absolutely gorgeous. And Diana. Just this past week found by reading some poetry that yes, there is one devoted to Holly Hawks. So anyway, it'll have these paintings have a wonderful tie to the community of course, and we'll just be eye catching and pretty fabulous. So if you want, I can come back in October with the full proposal and we can go over it. Then you well, when, when, once it's submitted, you'll be asked to. Okay. So, but I just wanted to let you know what we're up to. Last year we had a grant. We had a grant. To do some structure. To a structural engineering report on the. Simian strong house. And that has been completed. And although the engineer found. A lot that needs to be done. There's nothing that is that endangers the structure at this point. And, um, So. Okay. I just wanted to let you know what we're up to last year, but it's been a long time. So. I was kind of waiting to see what Jake Smith would come up with. And so we don't really have to do anything immediate to the structure. So. Okay. Probably do some. Careful crafting of a large project farther down the road, but right now. Five paintings. We'd love to get them done and they'll look wonderful. And you'll be proud of. Thank you. Okay. You have a question. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, can you hear me? Sure. Can you hear? Yep. Okay. Um, so, uh, what a great project. Um, what an interesting thing to come before the CPA. Um, a shift, a shift away from buildings. Yes. Um, I'm sure that the photographs will make the presentation even more impactful. Um, I think as part of the CPA regulations, the historical commission will need to. Write a letter affirming these paintings as. Historic. Resource. It's just one of the requirements. You're not on the national historic register. If you're dealing with artifacts, um, it requires just a confirmation from our. Mission. So, um, we can put that on our. To-do list. And then I just had a question because it was on the CPA. Um, I wasn't on this last year, but I was on for the three years prior to that. And I'm remembering that at some point, there were outstanding CPA grants from the historical society believe. And I guess this is more a question for Ben. If there are any grants outstanding or if things have been closed out since that time period. We closed those all out. Great. That's great. That was terrible to let them linger. But. My understanding is the only one. From last year is the structural. Right. So that's just. Just. Right. So, and that, the, the report is basically done. We don't have the full report yet, but the work on it's been done. And we had a preliminary letter that, uh, Stated, we're not going to fall apart. And. So we'll see. But farther down the road, there are, there's roofing problems. So we'll, we'll be back with. And some structural timber issues and rotted sills. So there's some. Big deficits there. Okay. Great. Great. Anyone else have a comment or question for Gigi? Oh, Yeah, I just have a quick question. I may have missed. When you said this, but, um, will the paintings be displayed publicly after once they're. Oh, yes. Yeah, because the maple, Maybellum is Todd room. Um, It'll, it'll be a permanent installation. And I think the paintings will be so beautiful that. Um, we'll probably move them around in the house. Um, just for variety's sake, but, um, They'll be quite gorgeous. And yet. Available for the public. Robin is your hand just still up or did you have something else to say? Just forgot to take it down. We'll do that now. Okay. I just, I'm never sure. Okay. Great. So if there is no other comments, we'll just thank you and wait to see the full proposal with the pictures. Yeah, y'all, you'll get that. Okay. Thank you all for your work. I appreciate it. I will leave you now. Okay. We're on to the North Amherst church. Uh, building. We've already talked to them once. What's, uh, what are we doing today? This is. Um, I hope you're in an update. Just on, uh, you know, conversations and kind of contractors. Okay. And, um, maybe a more fine scope of work. Okay. Well, we can take a brief update. Hello, are you with us? Hello. Hello. There you are. Oh, okay. Good. Hi. Uh, since our first two meeting August four. We have some, uh, progress just been mentioned. And want to update you on it. Uh, what I mean by progress, I will explain in a couple of minutes. The historical commission recommended lease getting a three different estimate from general contractors. And while we are trying to accomplish. One of the contractor notice the leak. Which we all anticipated from previous image. Everybody saw. And also our suspicion was correct. The roof. Facing the pine street. Some portion of it. Caved in. And one of the contractor says. He cannot give an estimate in that condition. We must hire structural engineer. So, uh, That's why we call. Well, And I'm sure. I'm sure. Coon and Rital architects in embers. They came out last Wednesday. One of the architect Chris folly and Jonathan Salvador. I could be wrong with the Jonathan last name. But anyway. Chris folly went up to a roof. And confirm the structural issue. And needed to call engineer. of pressing for time. However, we all know this matter needs the time to assess the problem beneath the surface. So I don't know that if an engineer can establish what we need to know within the timeframe, but we are trying and they are trying. And so my question is, progress meaning is confirming our suspicion and what we anticipated. However, if we could submit the application itself by the September 30th, but if engineer report and general contractors estimate could it be come in after the August 30th? That's the question I'd like to ask. And if not, then you have, I am welcome to suggestion what we should do. That's why I'm here to share this progress, so-called. Great, that's a really positive word to use for a setback. I like your answer. Robin, your hand is up. Do you have a suggestion since will she be able to read her? Well, I have a couple of comments. The first thing I wanted to say is sort of for Sikyan's ears and Ben's ears. I know from my research that the MHC has emergency stabilization funds that are off grant cycle. And I don't know if that I have the right connection through the capacity to connect with them to find out that this property would be a good person to at least start making that connection if we're talking about actual roof failure. That would be the first thing. So I could maybe have an email with Ben and Sikyan after this meeting. Okay. And then the second thing, I think the CPC is pretty, I think we have in the past heard presentations from applications where some financial statements were outstanding at the time of application. Obviously we'd want permanent fixed numbers by the time of proposal review. But I think particularly given what sounds like somewhat precarious position of the building, submitting with what you have and just putting it out into explain any contingencies would be fine and encouraged. Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much for that information. We had talked when you were with us last time about breaking the work into different years. Yes. And was the roof going to be one of the very first things anyway? Correct. Yes. Okay, so maybe if that could be this year's proposal and this is all kind of tied together, it might make sense that you had to have this done but you will be coming in with these numbers, it's not like it's a completely separate issue. Okay, all right, that's good to know. Okay, we're trying to prioritize like the first meeting that you mentioned. So that's what we're trying to do. Yes, we don't ask it too much at once. Thank you for that. Yeah, Jan and Sikyan, I don't know if the architect's gonna help. I'm not sure who's helping, kind of helping you phase out the project appropriately from a structural standpoint, but I'd recommend that too, if you can get a professional opinion on how things should be phased, that'd be helpful. Yes, I am. It's a Coon and Riddle architect firm in downtown Main Street. One of the architect is Chris Folly. So they're great. They're looking at the whole thing and telling you what's the most necessary right now. They're giving you those priorities. Yes, I told them that we had a meeting with the Historical Commission, told us that prioritize what is ASP is needed. So obviously it's a roof, it's leaking, but however when they look at it, say a little bit portion of it. So neither a structure engineer, they're trying to get in touch with a structure engineer ASAP. And so that's what I know, that's where we stand and that's what you know now. Great, perfect. That sounds great, yeah. Okay, all right. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else on the commission want to add anything? Sounds like you're handling it as best we can imagine at this point. That's a good sign, must be I'm doing good then. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for letting us know, good luck. Okay, yeah, thanks. Good night everybody. Night. Okay, so Robin you're up next. I'm up. Okay, so I send my thoughts to everybody. Yeah. As I mentioned in my letter, I'm killing two birds with one stone by focusing my community preservation project for my graduate coursework on barn preservation and stabilization and survey work. And after I took a look at our region's different types of barn programs and thought a lot about who owns barns and Amherst and looked at who gets awards in Vermont. And I decided for two reasons. One that we don't know in particular, that the buildings that were worried about being threatened tend to be just kind of sitting there. They're not owned by farmers or, you know, CSAs or things like that. The second idea being that anybody can always come forward for a CPA grant for funding. So unlike a lot of states, we have a funding mechanism that anybody who's in need can use can access pretty quickly. But what we don't have is a program that other states do have or do in one way or another is to provide an assessment process for anybody with an outbuilding or a barn being an outbuilding to get a relatively quick understanding of their structure, what's wrong with it, what it would take to fix it and how it might be adapted and what that would cost. And that seems to me to be the best fit for our community. And then the other factor is that administering an actual preservation program really, you know, from all these other states, it really takes dedicated paid staff. And I think what we really want is to get people who have these properties interested in the idea of preserving them and giving them the starting block. Like I think of this as the starting block that you really can't go for a real preservation project if you don't know what you're up against. The biggest issue which I outlined in my letter is that the CPA eligibility for funding has this very strange part before the horse construction where you have to have a proposal before, and this is the Department of Revenue Guidelines which have a proposal before the committee in order to get funding for a feasibility study which seems kind of strange since how would you know what your project would be if you hadn't done an assessment or feasibility study. So I think since both those pieces of the language are in there that maybe the town can, so this is to point to that Ben, maybe the town can agree that this is something we could go forward with. And if that's the case, I could start to look together to get a roster of individuals who could actually provide assessments in a timely manner, talking to these other states and how their programs work so that we could begin to develop something simple that would be like a flyer to everybody on our outbuilding survey list and then something to hand to anybody who comes before us for demolition requests that this program is available to assess your building. You know, New Hampshire does like a $400 match on that $500 fee and then we could go from there. So that's, it's not a CPA proposal at this point but it's a proposal to figure out from the town how we can find a way to use these CPA funds for that purpose. Okay, I see. But the CPA funds, I mean, they're administrative, they're technically administrative funds. Wait, you mean the funds that we would get would be administered? No, CPA has two funding cuts. They have the project funding and they have administrative funds. Right, right. So it would be from the administrative line item. Yeah, yeah, okay. Great. I think you did a really nice job of looking critically at the whole situation and coming up with an interesting way to start. Everybody has had a chance to read that and now you've heard her presented were there specific questions or comments or suggestions for Robin? Ben, how did you- I'll jump in, yeah. You know, I really appreciate the work and thought that you put into there, Robin. I think backing off from the physical repairs at this point is makes sense. It's a lot to administer and to manage, I think. But so I guess I've always been a little bit unclear about how the CPA admin funds work. I know we've had this conversation in the past about using them for various reasons, whether it's assessments and whatnot or signage even. But I guess why not do this as a CPA proposal for historic preservation? Call it, you know, do like say it's like a pilot project and use the funds for assessments of barns, upon request by homeowners, I guess that seems more just knowing that the town never really used admin funds for anything created like this. There might be some resistance to doing something new, but I don't think it's that wouldn't be that big of a stretch for people to, or for the town council and CPA committee to use allocate historic preservation CPA funds for this type of project. Isn't it more likely one could get the administrative funds because they aren't asked for as often than the others, there's never enough, right? Well, I think they have, you know, there's a very small part of admin funds, I think it's like 5% of something of the total grant and that's usually used for like me, we've heard ministry, we're literally administering the CPA grant. So I just know they've never, I totally hear you saying Robin by finding that DOR guidance and saying, look, the admin funds can be used for this, but I just worry people are gonna kind of just be nervous about that or trying to do something new. But yeah, maybe we can get that out. I think, you know, I'm basically hitting the barn preservation assessment ball into the court of the town. Yeah. When I look at that guidance, it looks like, you know, from a fiscal perspective, we should be spending it out of the administrative pot. Doesn't matter to me, like it looks like it's not eligible under project funds and I just wouldn't wanna put the effort in, first of all, I wouldn't wanna have to put the effort into a proposal if a proposal isn't necessary because administration and administrative funds are just at the discretion of the town, right? Like town council doesn't have to approve administrative funds. I mean, that would be my first question, unless we're, you know, faster turnaround and, you know, no proposal cycle or I don't know how we would manage something like that. I mean, I'm willing to try to bang out. Yeah, I mean, that's my question. It's sort of like, how does the town wanna handle it? And if they really want us to put in a proposal, then I can try to bang one out in time. But either way, totally fine with me. I just don't wanna write a proposal, get to CPC and have somebody on the town side say, or, you know, another one of the committee members, say, you know, I don't think this is an eligible project and then, you know, then we're back to the square one, so. Yeah, we all said it one again. And to a situation where the council decides that everybody who applies has to come before the council. Right. It has to be a much simpler process. Yeah. Well, why don't I reach out? I guess ultimately it's like the finance accounting department that would make the ruling about the use of admin funds. So I can reach out to folks there. Yeah, I mean, either way, however they wanna suspend it, I'm happy to do it that way. I think it's a great, and then, like I said, the next step was really, you know, I would need to find people who can actually do the assessments. So I do willing to commit to that, you know, creating a roster of those people so that we could get started on it. Yeah, we've used a couple in the past ourselves already, so. Yeah. That sounds good. Can you talk to somebody in finance relatively quickly this week or the beginning and next? Because if we do, if they do want a proposal, we don't know much time. Yeah, yeah, I can get on that. Okay, although Robin, you've put a lot together. I mean, I don't think it would be hard to do it, but it's more on your plate, you know, at this point. Yeah, and if, I mean, the other question is, if they do want a proposal, I just need a dollar figure to ask for. I don't know, we could ask for, like, I get 10,000. I mean, if you had a thousand dollars in assessment, which is on the high end, that would be 10. And I mentioned, like, people are gonna be beating down our door to get their out of this success. Do you think 1,000 is enough? And this is, you know, this is why I chose this project for my coursework. I'm working with New Hampshire. They pay somebody 500. They have many grants that are only 250, which are a much shorter report. And then Rhode Island, I saw 1,500. Yeah, I saw the numbers you had. I just, I remember doing the one of them, that barn on Montague Road, remember at the corner of Ponson Street, we had White Oak Timber do it, and I thought we paid more. Do you remember? I thought it was like 1,500 or something, but maybe I'm wrong. Well, I think I'm happy to do the labor to, you know, shop around and find, I mean, find people who are willing to do things on a timely manner. There's no point in having a program if you can't get anybody to actually do it for a decent amount of money. But yeah. I mean, there's one person in the area who comes out and looks at it all, but then never provides a report. Yeah, they don't get on our list. But even if it was, even if we said 2,000, you know, $10,000, we'd get us five assessments in one year. I mean, that seems like a reasonable number. If we have to go the proposal route, which I'm hoping that we don't. Yeah, and it's not scary. It shouldn't scare the town off. Yeah. Okay. Well, does that sound like a good plan, Ben? You'll find out a little more from finance and get back. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you could just email Robin and me and we can think about what the next step is. Cause this is our last meeting before the deadline, right? So we're just trying to get, they know where we stand here before we leave. Okay. Anybody else have any comments on that one? You're all kind of quiet tonight. Good job, Robin. Thanks. Okay. This moves us to number two on the agenda, which is the preservation plan update and next steps that you all probably saw on page five, phase two, Ben and Shannon have proposed talking to all sorts of people to get their input on town preservation. And Ben, you were mostly wanting to know if your list made sense, if there's an order in which they should go, right? Yeah, you know, I'm happy to touch base about this at next meeting only because I talked to Shannon yesterday on the phone and she's going to just develop a few things probably by next week, which is like a actual draft of a survey that we would put out to the public and then a kind of like a list of like questions that we would use at these kind of focused group meetings, like the planning board and town staff and other stakeholders. So it doesn't seem like there's much to, you know, we could talk about strategy and stuff right now, but I think it might be more straightforward if we have something to respond to first. And maybe also in that is the order in which people would be addressed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, remember you and I talked a little bit about Yeah, absolutely. taking things up the chain. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't make sense to talk to the town council first, like, you know, like how to manage it first. Bring them. Yeah. People said, yeah. So we can, we're basically tabling it or we're just pushing it on to the, we haven't really started it, we're just pushing it on to next. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, cat tail in the way. Okay. Okay, then we'll put it on the agenda for next month. Becky, you had brought up the webpage meeting updating. They always do. I mean, I think I had laid it out in that email. So I don't know. I mean, it's just a matter of, it is written as if the people who came here and settled were the farmers. Right. And when in reality the indigenous people were farming the land, a lot. And I just wanted to give a nod to expanding the story a little bit. Absolutely. I think that's been a big, big update for a lot of people on their presentations as we're starting to understand where we've gone wrong here and what is missing. So anybody have any comments on that? Madeline, did you have a chance to see that? You weren't on the email trail yet. Concerning the website. Yeah. I don't think I've received that. Okay. I guess. Okay, well, maybe you can, and you can forward her one thing that got missed. It's basically just the description of the history of the town doesn't include the first indigenous residents, yeah, which. Okay, Pat, you have a comment? I do. I thank Becky for her diligence. If we're talking about history, we have to include all of the peoples who inhabited Amherst. And it's, in my opinion, it's necessary to do that as a proper timeline and acknowledge that this was a agricultural area before the British claimed it and whoever else claimed it with the Brits. So I'm fully in favor of making a modification that would be significantly honor that timeline. Great, thank you. Robin? Robin? Yep, just full support, incredibly important and timely updates. Thank you, Becky. So are you going to provide wording and then Brianna can edit or how are we gonna do this? So I have access to edit the website. Oh, you do? Okay. Yeah, I need images. So, Becky, yeah, I'm looking for the email now. Sorry, when it came through, I was kind of just getting back on vacation and then I had a full chance to read it. But is there a deeper pose language in here or just kind of pointed out some things that need clarification? Can I work with you? Yeah, I had. It was the two parts that said Amherst was not always an agricultural community. It begins that way. Right, okay. So I think inserting that, in fact, it was and maybe reading some of those folks that farms here and lived here and then saying, and then, you know, but you have to be really careful because there's so much new research and the colonists allegedly purchased the land. They didn't purchase the land. They purchased the rights to it with Wampong and for the indigenous people, you know, being paid Wampong meant that there was an honor system going on that the colonists were going to allow the indigenous people to continue to use the land in the way that they wanted to. And boy, they did not. They just moved in and like, you know, they plowed and they put their own stuff in and they didn't use it and really cut people out. But you don't want to get into that on the website. I don't think. So just a not maybe with more of the truth of who was here first. Awesome. Yeah, could you maybe draft a few things and you can either maybe bend it to us and we can look at it. And then once everybody agrees on the wording, he can add this back into the text. Would that be, would that work? Yeah. Okay. It's not out there. So yeah, it's good. Okay. Just send it to Ben. Don't send it to us, right? And then just move it out to us. It's so confusing that that's how it has to go. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. When I sent it out, I really was just looking for who to like often. I don't know what said though. Okay. I can do that. That one. Great. Okay. I'm glad you caught that. Thank you. I haven't looked it our way. So I haven't really paid attention. Well, I want to give. Oh, I'm sorry. I just want to give credit to the author of the essay and who did the research. And he actually mentioned all of the Emmer's Town website because this, I won't, what, you know? So it will be nice to change it. And I think I might let her know that we didn't. Yeah. Yeah. And on the agenda, Ben, you had historical commission web page. It's the town web page. Oh, okay. Robin, you had a comment. Oh yeah. I was just wondering. I mean, I don't want to complicate things too much, but if there was any representative from a native community representative that we wanted to confer with at all, just to kind of fully that whatever our statement is, just a suggestion. It's, that's a good one. I would not know. I know that the scholar who did the work has done quite a lot of research. This is just, I mean, maybe she knows the point. I don't know. You should be here at UMass. How are you talking about? It is. Lisa Brooks, she's done some talks at the Historical Museum, written lots about some Philip's Wars and some of the other indigenous people and they're involved with the columnist. Yeah. She teaches at Emmer's College, I believe. She's a faculty member. That's right. Okay. Yeah. Maybe loop her in to this and just tell her what we're doing. Okay. I will say that. We can be sure we don't do any faux pas. Robin, does that sound okay? Robin? I think we lost her. Yeah, I could do that though. That'll be fun. So, you know, great. Okay. I'm here. No, I think that's a great, I think it's a great plan. I just, I know that there's, you know, that what we are reminded of rightly very often is to seek non-white voices when talking about non-white issues. Absolutely. Yeah. Good. Okay. Well, we'll check with Brooks Sources and go from there. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're at the point now of public comment. So is there anyone waiting in the wings to make any comments, Ben? It doesn't appear so. Okay. So then we have items not anticipated within 48 hours of the meeting. Anybody have anything they want to bring? I would just say that the, yeah, we finished our contract with the contractors at West Cemetery. So they, we had $100,000 total and they did basically that, you know, as much work as we had initially allocated to cost $100,000 of only for like $42,000, which is great. And then part of their work, if you remember we talked about this, part of their work was like assessing the rest of the stones that need work and to give us an idea of what like phase two would look like. So now that we still have like $60,000 left, we could hire, or we still have to put out an RSD and get three quotes, but, you know, they came in the lowest last time. So he might just kind of continue that work and there's a lot more work to do at West Cemetery. Great. I worked up there the other day to see what was happening with the trees and the new construction. Yeah. The Palico building, because, you know, and the rep to design review board, Becky, when this building was being considered and I really fought them on the small setback, they wanted 10 feet and they wanted five feet and I wanted 20 feet and I wanted to save the trees and it was a huge mess. But ultimately all the trees came down. I mean, they're just gone now. And I just wanted to see how things looked. But I happened to notice, because I was looking at the West and the South sides of the cemetery, the headstones look really good. They have done a lot of work. It's looking a lot better than it used to. It was really tawdry for a while when you walked in on that side. And I'm glad, this is like three years we've had this going now with one year gap, I think. But it's starting to show. So it's good. Okay, any announcements? No major change, life changes anybody wants to announce here and take with the historical commission. Okay, next meeting date. Did we set that last time for October? October being tough. I think we have October 12th. 12th night before I leave. Yeah. Okay, is that still okay for everybody? Yep. October 12th, it is back to a Wednesday. It is the second Wednesday, which is kind of where we used to be. So Madeline, you can kind of figure that. Okay. Sometimes each semester things change is a little because if somebody's teaching or taking class or something, their schedule changes. But we have tried to keep it as much as possible on the second, sometimes the third Wednesday, even though today's Thursday. That's not significant. Okay, so good. Yeah, great. And then do we want to pick November and December or what do people feel? Are we ready to move into the holiday period? The one in November would be very early if we were doing the second Wednesday because November starts on a Tuesday. So it would be the ninth or the 16th. I am not in a good position to access my calendar, if you can hear me. Right, right. Okay, so should we make it tentative or should we just wait till next month? Should we tentatively do the 16th? Okay, with that. We can. I may have to fly out to Northern California and take care of my brother. So I may not be here, but. It is not a good month for me as vice chair because I have a comprehensive exam like right around that day. Gosh, Robin, you couldn't just step up in. Well, what about the night? Would that be a better time if you wouldn't be trying to prepare and take your exam? I think the ninth would be, I'd be better, yes. Yeah. How many people feel about that? We're talking November, yes. Okay, yep. That's fine. That's good. But hey, I'm sorry, but. So. November. Yeah, is everybody good with that? I'm more likely to be here. I wouldn't probably have to leave yet if I do have to go. So. Nonalyn, Heddy, everybody good at work, Scott? And then I think it's good. Okay. Well, let's put that down tentatively and then Robin can check her calendar. And if we have to, we'll change it. Okay. Or it also might be, it might be a meeting that I could miss. Now that we have one more full member. Oh, don't use Madalyn. Thank you, Madalyn. I'm not using that as an excuse. No, no, no, no. I'm thankful. I'm thankful that that will be my hardest month. Okay. So if I, yeah, if I'm fine. We understand. Yes, right. We have quorum. We have quorum anyway. Okay. Very good. And I know, yeah, next meeting. From what I understand, the architects of the library are going to come. That's right. Unless there's any further delays, but hopefully not. That'll take up a lot of the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then we pushed up the preservation plan. So it's two things. Yeah. Okay. You know, really, this whole meeting, we haven't had a reason for emotion to be made. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's like the first meeting I've ever been at. And this didn't happen. We can have a meeting to adjourn. We can have a meeting to adjourn. That's what I was heading towards. And I bet that you could be the first person to make a motion. This meeting. Can I explain to you? Sorry to leave a moment. But I guess I did just remember. So if we have the library meeting next month, like I think next month is also when we would need to hear from the CPA applicants. That's great. So, but if I remember correctly, like last year, we actually didn't like hear presentations from all of them. We kind of just, you know, maybe took, you know, maybe took like 45 minutes or something, but we kind of just discussed each project and ranked them and prioritized them. You know, I don't. Okay. In the past, that's been two months apart. There's month where people are available for questions. And sometimes people do presentations, but I'm going to ask us to skip that. That's what the proposals for. They're there for us to ask further questions. And then the following month we prioritize, but now if that's, if there isn't enough time to separate them that way, then we may have to use the November meeting. Right. Can you hear me, Jan? Yeah. When are you going to have to take our list in? It's the CPA meeting start early in November. Like, I think the ninth is maybe the, I'm not sure what day it is, but maybe the first full week of November. So, I mean, Ben can, maybe Ben can take a look at the schedule, but I'm pretty sure that October is, because they've submitted, right? They've submitted in September. Right. So October would make sense that that would be the meeting for the historical commission. Yeah. Okay. Well, November, we're in, we're in CBI's meeting and we're in the weeds. Okay. So October's meeting is going to be big. I would suggest two things. One is that you tell the architects, we need everything before the meeting from them. Yeah. You know, we need, we need to be able to read it all, see it all. And they're only there for questions because I don't want one of these long PowerPoints that takes 40 minutes to get through. Okay. Yeah. And if I did, you know, in preparation for actually last month's meeting, I went through the whole like 80 pages of notes on kind of what, what to pay attention to and what kind of historical resources are being potentially altered and stuff. So I hope that, I hope that- Yeah. You had pointed some things out for us to pay attention to. You were focused on that, yeah. Yeah. So if you can do that for us and give us everything to look at in advance and if we're all ready, we don't have to extend the meeting however much longer now would take. CPA, people there for questions one at a time. We'll have read the proposals. We'll have everything in front of us. Preservation plan, she can send us that in advance. And again, it'll just be if we have any questions or suggestions for her very briefly. Because otherwise, this is going to be another one of our three, three and a half hour meetings. And yeah, trying to avoid that. Yeah, I pray we don't get a demolition application. Oh, my God. Yes, let's hope we don't get a demolition application or more. OK, yeah. So everybody do your homework and it'll save a lot of time at the meeting and we can be super efficient. Speaking of which, it's only been an hour and 40 minutes and Hedy is going to make a motion that we adjourn. She has a move that we adjourn. Has anyone liked to second her movement? Second. I would. Pat and Becky are both seconding and thirding. So everyone in favor of adjournment. It was lovely seeing you all, by the way. Yes, thank you, Dan. Thank you. Great. It passes unanimously. Take care. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Good.