 first of all thank you for being here we're going to call the meeting to order we are expecting one more counselor Andy Steinberg is here but on his way and then we are have two people who are not able to participate but we are not doing remote participation in addition to that however we are also not taking any votes tonight today so we don't need to do roll call votes are there any announcements at this time we basically have two sets of presentations today and I'm going to call on David Zomac assistant town manager and conservation and development director to introduce the first of the two great good afternoon everyone happy to be here today to talk about the functional area conservation and development I'm joined to my right by Stephanie Ciccarello our sustainability coordinator who will help me with the first part of our presentation behind me are Rob Mora who is our building commissioner and also the assistant director of conservation and development Chris Brestrup who is our planning director and Nate Malloy who is one of our senior planners so our hope today is to take you quickly through a very large functional area that does a lot of things within the town and for the town and with residents and businesses our order today will be conservation first planning second and then we'll end with inspection services we're happy to take any questions along the way or we could pause at the end of each department and take your questions at that point why don't we plan to do a pause at the end of each department okay thank you that sounds great hello Shalini so for the sake of time I will proceed I want to call out a few themes that I think you'll hear throughout the day throughout our presentation here from our staff a couple of the themes that I think will resonate will be collaboration collaboration among departments with businesses with the community community involvement broad community involvement that's one of the goals that conservation and development strives for is to engage our residents school children college students in the work that we do support for volunteer committees and boards you'll hear a lot about that this functional area supports many of our volunteer committees and boards and again I'll let the other department staff talk more about that we'll talk a little bit about quality of life we are very focused on the quality of life that we can provide for our residents here for our families for visitors we take great pride in that and then good planning good planning results in good outcomes so you'll hear a lot about how we plan together how we collaborate how we bring some really smart people together and figure out how to move forward because not everybody knows what our functional area does I just wanted to set out very quickly kind of some of the broad areas of programs and services so under this functional area our conservation planning zoning inspection services historic preservation and more recently licensing so that is a lot under one umbrella but I think as we go through today's presentation you'll hear more about some of the the the deeper information that we have to provide about various things that we do so overall we try to help the community make choices that's one of our major goals what do we protect what do we conserve what where and how do we do we develop our community what do we want our community to look like now and in the future in the built environment as well as the natural environment those are some of the pretty fundamental questions that we try to help the community answer you'll hear today about 200 million dollar science centers planning for village centers providing permitting for a house or a garage permitting for a wood stove protecting endangered species writing grants that benefit conservation areas or recreation areas all of those things are encompassed in conservation and development so let's take a look I'm not going to read our mission statement but I'll let you just take a quick look at our overall mission statement for the functional area and what I want to call out on that mission statement is really three things the word protect protect natural resources two to create and implement good planning three to ensure public health and safety those three things are really what we're all about on the second floor here in town hall our goals are to work together to create a community where people want to come to live work study raise a family and play we want to have some fun we want a community where that is active that is healthy that gets outdoors sometimes our work is not easy it's difficult there are difficult choices to be made there are difficult conversations to be had and my staff and I are often in the mix with some of those difficult conversations supporting the boards and committees that we do people in Amherst and throughout the Commonwealth don't always agree but the work that we do is critical we're committed to it we're professional and we want to help you and the other boards and committees make decisions that create the community we want to live in we also enforce regulations which is not fun not always fun but it's very important we often joke on the second floor that we don't get invited to many parties and it's true because we often have to have difficult conversations with residents with businesses with restaurants with developers about what they can and can't do we don't set the policy but we have to enforce what has been set before us and provided for us so those can often be difficult questions and challenges but we take them head on and we're professional about it again our goal is to provide support guidance and expertise to the boards and committees as they grapple with what kind of community we want in the future our staff is about 20 odd full and part time staff members in those broad categories conservation and sustainability planning and zoning inspection services and now licensing I'm very proud to work with all of these staff folks they're incredibly committed incredibly dedicated my job is to oversee the functional area but also take assignments and support the town manager so my job takes me somewhat far afield sometimes from this functional area but overall it has been my pleasure to work with many of the folks who are here now these departments have not always been together I think that's really important to understand we made a conscious decision six or eight years ago to bring these departments together under one umbrella and that I think has shown great dividends Amherst didn't always have a history of responsive permitting and planning and and being responsive to residents and businesses and other entities in town and we made a conscious effort to change that by being more responsive to being more organized to being more collaborative by bringing together conservation planning zoning inspection services our health inspectors are now here as well so Amherst made a conscious decision and I think I'm confident that you will hear very positive things about the work on the second floor so we set out to change that culture and I think we've done that we're not done yet we have lots of things to improve and you'll hear more about that in a few minutes many I should add many small communities many small cities and towns have also brought together very similar departments they don't all call them the same thing but by and large it's about community development how do we want our community to evolve and change to serve our residents our goals here are efficiency collaboration and better service service to that resident who needs a wood stove permit or wants to build a house or wants to expand on their existing residents or somebody who wants to start a business here or open a restaurant here all of those things are important to us whether it's the individual or a larger company or one of our institutional partners like the university or the two colleges we are always in meetings with them working with them to help them achieve their goals we've assembled a great team and I just wanted to touch really quickly on some of the technical expertise within this functional area and I had to write these down myself but we've got folks who are experts on wetlands on building both residential and commercial we've got land use experts planning experts obviously energy expertise electrical plumbing and gas inspectors landscape architects we have forestry we have a one of our staff members who helps manage our conservation land is a forester and of course we have public health experts all of these people sit within feet of each other and they all collaborate and they share information and they share in that process of bringing projects and initiatives forward through our boards and committees I've been at various events some of them not or some of them quite emergencies if you will through the years I've been with our electrical inspectors at 3 o'clock in the morning at a school when there was an outage I've been at fires after first responders get done and our inspectors are right there waiting to go in to make sure that that that home or that building is safe for people to move back in I've been at sewer and water main breaks where we need to make sure that the environment is protected after DPW gets done with their work I've been at Puffers pond where we've had 2000 people unexpectedly come on a May day and we're usually not ready for 2000 people to be there and the staff in this functional area have responded incredibly well to all of those circumstances so very proud to work with them I think they serve the community well and you'll hear more about them in a minute we're going to move into conservation specifically now and I'll share the mic with Stephanie so under our broad mission within the conservation department we take a lot of our lead from the Conservation Commission and the Agricultural Commission that the Conservation Commission is the regulatory authority that oversees our wetlands and Stephanie will talk a little bit more about our wetlands regulations both at the town level in the state level in a minute we also manage a tremendous number of protected acres of open space and again I'll talk more about that in a minute the staff you see a certainly a portion of Dave Zomek is focused on conservation and then Stephanie and then we have a land manager assistant land manager and a part-time wetlands administrator and administrative support so that is what makes up our conservation department I should say that Amherst has made one of the strongest commitments to conservation I think and I'm a little proud of this but certainly going back 50 years we have been protecting open space working on water quality and taking environmental planning and environmental regulation very very seriously so Amherst is a leader has been a leader I hope we are always a leader in environmental and sustainable sustainability efforts statewide so we're going to talk a bit about the guiding framework of the department and there are really two dominant factors that sort of dictate what we do and one of them is the the conservation commission and their responsibility for enacting the the state wetlands protection act and as well as the town's local bylaw in 1957 the state enacted the conservation commission act and that gave communities the option to appoint local members and they would be responsible for planning for a natural resource protection that gave them the authority to acquire land for conservation of important land and water areas and also to manage the areas for conservation and passive recreation their broad authority actually comes from home rule under article 89 in the public land protection article 97 of the state's constitution and I'll talk a little bit more about the wetlands protection act in a later slide so as we transition into talking about the town's assets we cannot move forward without talking about the town's open space and recreation plan and again the town has many plans you have heard about them many of you have been part of creating some of them and we on the second floor take those plans very seriously and we use them they're not bookends they're not collecting dust so from the master plan under the master plan is a very very important document the town's open space and recreation plan and this really outlines kind of where we've been where we are today and where we'd like to go in terms of conservation but also in terms of recreational assets so this document also talks about how departments within the town and within the schools need to collaborate together on recreation we're not going to talk a lot about that today but suffice it to say that my staff and I spend a great deal of time collaborating with DPW with the folks at LSSE and with the schools and I know you'll be hearing more about some of our plans for improving some of our recreational assets that community field in the high school in the weeks and months ahead but on the conservation side this is really what we use to guide our decisions moving forward are there are there parcels of land that we think are critical moving forward that we need to protect once we do protect them how do we manage them we need to manage them for ecological resources first and foremost but people also want to use them they want to hike on them they want to bike on them they might want a horseback ride on them they do yoga they throw frisbees they picnic they swim a whole host of activities happen on our conservation land and we need to be aware of those those activities encourage the ones that we think are compatible and try to manage those ones that we may not think are compatible with the ecological goals I won't go into a great deal of detail on this I encourage you to look at the open space and recreation plan it is online this is one of my favorite maps and kind of a foundation map for us the town of Amherst up in the north and the south Hadley over here Pellum Leverett shoots very here and again I'm not going to go into great detail but I often talk about puzzles and this is the great puzzle this is our our puzzle of the town of Amherst and whether you're talking about planning economic development conservation the pieces of the puzzle are very meaningful so in blue we have state land up on the Mount Hoyok range this is the east-west Mount Hoyok range and you can see that the state has invested millions of dollars to protect those sensitive resources up in the Mount Hoyok range in green are the town conservation areas conservation areas that are owned in fee by the town this tan color is where the town has made a conscious effort to say where are the best soils in the town of Amherst and those best soils should be protected with those private landowners so we have what's called APR farms agricultural preservation restrictions those farmers those individuals who have decided to sell their development rights we do not take land we do not force any farmers or property owners to move toward conservation these are all decisions that they've made voluntarily other things of importance here are to note the land owned by the University Amherst College and Hampshire College so what's left are all those lands in the white and our hope here and I'm quite confident of this is that Amherst has made very good decisions to guide growth and development we it's something I think we need to do because without it growth would sprawl throughout the landscape we're fortunate to have quite a bit of water in the town of Amherst so wetlands and rivers and streams do limit development but by and large this puzzle and this map really will guide us for the next 50 years and where we want to develop in our downtown in places you know like you know the Beacon Project up in North Amherst a logical infill development and in other spots so our goal now our land acquisition program was very active during the 70s and 80s and it's really slowed down considerably we're very very targeted in what land we now look at and we're very deliberate we're not we're not trying to work outside of these colored areas we're trying to connect the dots and fill in those puzzle pieces that might make sense so happy to answer more questions about that now and in the future but please take a look at the open space and recreation plan and it lays all of this out quite nicely 80 miles of trails here are some of the stats that might be of interest to you 2,000 acres of conservation land about 50 open field habitats 80 miles of trails another roughly 2,000 acres of land protected for farm farming again private land that is part of our economic and farming agricultural business community and we manage my staff working with DPW manages the watershed forests that are in Amherst Belcher town of Pelham and shoots very so it's a lot of work we take it very seriously you can see around the edges here some of the projects 20 acres of forested land for conservation we might not do much management at all on but when you invite people to come on those 80 miles of trails or to puffers pond or to some other amenity that's when you need to more actively manage you need to think about impacts trash safety trails those 80 miles of trails have thousands and thousands of linear feet of bog bridging to help many hikers keep their feet dry in some in some cases we are maintaining trails where there have been blowdowns and we do maintain a lot of habitat for early successional species as well and as we all know people really enjoy those fields they fly kites in them they walk their dogs in them and a certain suite of animals and birds really prosper and do very well when they're in those open field habitats so I'll talk a little bit about the wetlands protection work that happens in our department so in 1972 the wetlands Protection Act was enacted and it gave the Conservation Commission the regulatory responsibility to implement the act and its accompanying regulations so they basically have the permitting authority for the state and also they do have like local wetlands bylaw so they also enforce the towns wetlands protection bylaw as well as its accompanying regulations what I'd like to point out here so whenever we have projects that are within a hundred feet of a wetland resource area the Conservation Commission has jurisdictional jurisdictional authority so that's the resource area is defined and then there's a hundred foot buffer zone where the Commission has jurisdiction so anything that would happens within that hundred feet needs to get reviewed by the Conservation Commission in Riverfront the distance is 200 feet and the entire 200 feet is a resource area so all of that means is that if there's any work directly impacting the resource area itself there needs to be mitigation so the Conservation Commission has to review how much is being impacted what the mitigation is going to be whether it's allowed under the state wetlands Protection Act as well as under the town's bylaw so one of the most important aspects of wetlands protection which you probably see these all over town and I told Dave I really wanted to point this out because people see this and just think it's that ugly black-looking fencing that ends up sticking around town for a while but this is an incredibly important step in wetlands protection it's probably the most important step really in having it being installed correctly because this is what protects resource areas and usually it's short up depending on the project may require more than just the fencing you may see hay bales and other things but this is what stops material from leaving the site so when you see this its important role and function is to protect the resource area by maintaining any of the soil and sediment that could potentially run off site during construction of the project until the project is completed and stabilized so know that this ugly fencing serves a wonderful purpose within your community and you should be thankful when you see erosion control installed around town it's a really it's a it's a good thing and it means that the community is doing the right thing and following the the regulatory framework by protecting the resource areas so our wetlands administrator works very closely with the conservation commission to ensure that these are installed correctly when a project is permitted that's one of the first steps that has to happen is the the erosion control goes in the wetlands administrator will go out and inspect the erosion control and then periodically through the construction process will also have to go out and make sure that this erosion control is being maintained again one of the most important pieces of wetlands protection and then there's an aspect of stormwater management that also falls under this regulatory framework so stormwater management is also part of the conservation commission's review the other thing that the department does in terms of wetlands protection is to collaborate with multiple town departments so especially when there are larger-scale projects that are being developed within town that have that require wetland permitting the wetland administrator will work with the inspections department especially to make sure that they're coordinating efforts that they're informed about what's happening when and where also there's a lot of coordination that happens with state agencies so in particular the the mass department of environmental protection mass DEP which actually administers the federal wetlands protection that is something that they coordinate with the the towns and cities and the state agency is the implementing arm for the federal wetlands protection so there's communication regarding making sure that those requirements are being met for applicants and also the natural heritage and endangered species program so endangered species protection is something that also falls to the conservation commission as well and that review happens and coordination happens with the state agency to make sure that we're protecting our species I've often said that the conservation commission is also the voice for the wildlife in our town so they have a really a broad responsibility for the development that happens within town to protect our natural resources and for the land but also the wildlife especially so I I'm not going to get into a whole lot about sustainability in part because I was recently before you and you probably heard more from me than you needed to but I do want to talk a little bit about some of the things that I didn't really mention sort of overall what my broad responsibilities are and that would be one is to secure grant funding so with the green communities program we secured over three-quarters of a million dollars in combination with state funding incentive funding for implementing projects then I'm also involved with creating opportunities for the public in town through public education and outreach and the annual sustainability festival which I hope you will attend on April 27th of this year it's a Saturday from 10 to 4 in the town common it's a really fun event and it's wonderful event but it's an educational event I we make it a fair to make it fun but really at the bottom of the bottom line of what that event is this is an educational opportunity for residents and businesses in town to go somewhere where they can actually get information about living more sustainably working more sustainably the maintaining a more sustainable structure so there's a lot of opportunity there for people to get information there's also regional collaboration that happens in town I did mention valley bike share at the last meeting so we'll point out that we have a collaboration right now on investigating community choice energy which would be an inter-municipal aggregation with the towns of hell the town of palom in the city of North Hampton where we're looking to see the feasibility of whether that's something that's possible and if so that would be something that would help us with our greenhouse gas emissions reductions it would help us with a hundred percent renewable energy it would also help us potentially with more equitable energy supply and so we'd be investigating we're investigating that and we'll be talking more about that I'm sure counselor do not will will be talking about this more as time goes on as we get more and more information about the feasibility and then I wanted to talk about about about the solar landfill if you know the song the children's song this is the song that never ends it sometimes comes into my head when we talk about the solar landfill this project really is alive we have been working with Cypress Creek renewables and we have the power purchase agreement which has been revised to reflect the new smart program but also because we have a new partner they're looking at the development a little bit differently so this is this is only a draft a preliminary draft of what the project could potentially look like on the landfill on the North landfill so we are moving forward with this and hoping to have an executed agreement within by the end of the month for sure and we are finding this project really interesting because for those of you that don't know originally this project was proposed on both at the North and the South landfill so the one with the black lines which is the potential solar array layout is the North landfill thank you Dave and the one to the right which is the South landfill was also proposed to be developed with solar arrays however the grasshopper sparrow which is an endangered species is located on both sites and in communication with the natural heritage and endangered species program the recommendation was that perhaps we investigate the possibility of putting a conservation restriction on the South landfill and protecting that and preserving that as habitat for the grasshopper sparrow and in the in the tradeoff we could then sort of maximize the development on the North landfill so that is precisely the procedure and process and steps that we're taking to look to develop the North landfill is by putting a conservation restriction on the South landfill so some of the things the community features that will remain on the South landfill it would be first of all the sledding hill which a lot of folks have utilized over the years and so that will be preserved so the sledding hill will not go away we're also looking to put in a perimeter trail all around the entire cap portion of the landfill and then we're putting in as well a dog park which is been moving forward and so we'll be looking forward to seeing that develop over time as well so there are community features that will be maintained on this on this landfill and it will be preserved for for wildlife endangered species wildlife habitat so I'm aware of our time so I think we need to quickly move forward to get to planning I think I'll just cut through these slides but basically they illustrate a number of different projects that we're involved with throughout the community here are a few more again we're looking forward to working with the new energy and climate resiliency committee implementing the buffers pond 2020 initiatives so let me move forward with the planning department and we'll switch up thank you okay so hello I'm Chris Brestrup planning director and I have with me Nate Malloy senior planner and he's an expert on several things that we do in the planning department including affordable housing and grant funding those are the two things that he's really expert at but he also does a lot of other things the mission of the planning department is to protect and enhance the environment environmental and economic and social quality of life in the town of Amherst for residents and visitors and to create and implement plans and regulations for preservation of community resources and to promote rational and sustainable development we have a staff we have a staff of five people planning director two senior planners an associate planner and an administrative assistant we also share a permit administrator with the inspection services department and conservation our governing legislation see if I can do this yeah okay we're governed by state laws as well as local laws so we have state laws mass general law chapter 40 a and chapter 40 b and chapter 41 and you don't need to know all about those but if you want to know more about them you can call me or email me or actually email town manager and he'll ask me to answer you we're governed by town by laws and regulations and standards the town of Amherst has a zoning by law and a zoning map it also has subdivision regulations which talks about how to divide property and provide access to the property that's divided and we have additional bylaws such as this is an example we have a local historic district by law that governs our areas of town that have particularly interesting historic structures and we also have an Amherst municipal affordable housing trust by law which helps us to figure out how to provide more affordable housing in Amherst we have local guidelines such as the design review guidelines streetscape standards and landscape standards a lot of what we do in the planning department is supporting boards and committees that are involved in permitting so the planning board and the zoning board of appeals are the primary permitting bodies in Amherst for land use permitting when someone wants to develop a property or change a piece of property or a building in town they usually have to go to either the zoning board of appeals or the planning board for a permit these permits can take the form of approving the subdivision of land they can be site plan reviews of new buildings and activities on properties granting special permits for things that are not ordinarily allowed but may be allowed in special circumstances and other boards and committees are involved in the permitting process such as the historical commission the local historic district commission and the design review board some of the recent projects that have gone through our department and the planning board and the zoning board of appeals are the North Square project at the mill district you may have found heard about this one let's see if I can make this work there that one yeah so that has 130 apartments 26 of which are affordable or will be affordable at a level of 50% or less of area median income so we're very proud of this project and we think it's going to be a real asset to North Amherst it also has 22,000 square feet of commercial and retail space there's a mixed-use project currently going up on University Drive and it will have 36 apartments and four affordable units here's a project that's already been completed it's on North Prospect Street and it was the reuse of the old Hastings family property which has a beautiful historic building on the frontage and then four townhouses were built behind and then we have a new building that's being proposed on Spring Street and this has been approved by the planning board it's going to have 58 units of market rate housing sure hi I'm Nate again and I'll speak to the next few slides for affordable housing the town's been a leader for affordable housing for a number of years so you know our works just carrying over what you know the town has done for decades just a brief summary of the housing in town so when UMass expanded in the 60s and 70s there are a lot of multifamily developments around town and then subsequent years the regulations changed and those types of developments weren't allowed and so you know in the 80s 90s and early 2000s the most of housing growth was single-family homes and small developments and that has led to a lot of pressure on different types of housing for different populations you know I think the town's seen that so we've always been trying to you know preserve and create affordable housing so the state has a you know 10% of your housing stock is affordable you're kind of okay and Amherst has been above that threshold since the mid 80s I think the town's recognized that that's not a housing goal it's just a number so we're trying to create housing for different populations the town really isn't a developer of housing the town facilitates projects so in the planning department we'll work with consultants or we'll work with the developers to develop property when rolling green was set to expire a few years ago 42 units could have been you know washed away from being affordable and so the town working with mass housing partnership as a strategic consultant looked at who would be willing to buy this property or preserve those 42 units and now is successfully done when beacon community stepped forward but the town's role there was to facilitate it and to research it so we knew a few years ahead of time and we use different funding to hire lawyers and consultants to determine what can we do to preserve those 42 units and so that was something that the town can do was really important to affordable housing is state and local grants the community preservation act funding CPA funding is really important and so that's local funds that the town can spend on anywhere from feasibility studies to construction and a lot of times those monies are spent on costs that grants won't refund so it's feasibility studies it's engineering studies it's upfront work to make projects happen and so I think CPA funds are very instrumental in affordable housing as well as open space so those funds can be used by the town to really help preserve and create affordable housing recently there's the housing trust and so that was adopted by town meeting there's a by-law and the general by-laws and the trust is actively trying to create and preserve affordable housing it's a volunteer committee it's a town board they have a lot of powers prescribed by mass general law and right now they're trying to do outreach they're trying to engage the community on how to there's a consultant that's reaching out to people to determine where to build housing and they're looking at the East Street School property for affordable housing and so they're you know looking at what other properties in town could be made for affordable housing community plans I think people say emers like the plan I think the plans are important so the plans touch on different aspects of community life there's the transportation plan open space and rec plan there's a housing plan and all these plans are incorporated into the master plan and the master plan was adopted in 2010 it was the first time the town really adopted a plan in about 40 years and it kind of set the guiding framework for how emers wanted to develop and grow over the next you know so many years you know the plan respected the history of the town and also provided recommendations and strategies to move forward and it's about 10 years old and so it's time that it could be updated a really important piece of these plans is that involves usually a robust public process and so the plan starts with an idea and then the planning department can facilitate consultants so oftentimes you work with outside parties to help produce a plan and so there's a whole public process to get a plan implemented and it can take you know a few months or it could take a few years and so with the master plan it took two years to get that plan ready and consolidated and I think the work of outside consultants is very important they can lend expertise and knowledge so we recently worked with Weston Samson at community field and their engineers and landscape architects too who really looked at what can be done to improve field conditions and also what different types of concept plans can be developed on the high school middle school in those fields that meet different community needs and so we relied on their expertise to develop concept plans hold public meetings and then synthesize everything into report that will be do out soon and so you know working with consultants is something that the planning department does and we use them you know pretty strategically when we need to board and committee support there's over 15 boards and committees that the planning department supports there are the regulatory boards the planning board and ZBA that Chris mentioned and it's really important that we have staff to help guide those boards they're volunteer citizens who are implementing you know complex state laws and regulations and so planning staff helps guide that those boards and committees and then there's a number of local boards and they can be advisory they could be term-limited so maybe it's a task force that meets for a year on a specific topic like the dog park or downtown parking you know the boards I also like to think of them as little worker bees and that they are you know members of the community they come back to town hall and they help provide a pulse on the community and so you know with 15 boards that could be you know 100 different people that have different ideas and perspectives that come and bring those ideas to each board and committee and so I think it's a really important way to get community feedback during different processes so the value of boards and committees you know sometimes can't be understated because they really provide you know that pulse on the community and just a little snippet in FY 18 there was over 200 meetings that staff attended and many of those are at night and there were 120 applications reviewed by these boards and committees and so you know at least once a week maybe twice a week town projects the planning department is involved in a number of projects often in collaboration with public works or leisure services or conservation and so the projects can be small they can be something like using CPA funds to restore the Dickinson family plot in West Cemetery or they can be a larger project like the North Common they also take a lot of time so the lower image in the left is Groff Park and that's something the planning department has been involved with for over two years so the planning department helped work with consultants to have concept ideas and go through a public input process we're working with consultants now to finalize designs and then bid it and then we'll be working with the contractor to construct it so and to apply for grants and so you know when this when Groff Park is done it'll be a three or four year project and so it's something that the planning department sticks with you know from the beginning to the end and grants the in the last few years the town's been awarded over six million in grants I will say grants are becoming more competitive you know ten years ago when I'd go to a workshop there might be like five or six people in the room now there's about 40 or 50 most grant applications require a local match a cash match and a public input process to apply for a grant so that means it can take two to four months to get a grant application ready and that local cash match is really important and so CPA funds as I mentioned before are really instrumental in applying for grants the community development block grant CDBG is the most complex grant we apply for the towns and many entitlement community which means we get federal funds administered by the state we get up to 825,000 a year it takes about seven or eight months to apply for this grant we have a standing block grant committee we go through a public input process we have a quest for proposals and then we have 12 to 18 months to execute the grant and implement the projects and so you know that rolls over so every year we may have two or three grants going on at the same time that had various projects the other grants listed here can be used for open space for recreation there is an infrastructure grant we apply for and so typically in a year we might apply for 10 or 12 grants we may you know we get a word of all those will be really busy but you know we try you know I like to think we try to apply for one a month and you know and that takes you know months of planning ahead so we you know we keep rolling the calendar and and move that along so the planning department is very committed to reaching out to the community to educate the community members about what we do and to explain zoning bylaws and other regulations to people who are interested to inform people about town projects and to provide information about private projects that are going through the permitting process we welcome community members to call us or come and meet with us to find out about projects to ask questions and to give us information that they might have we try to put information online about most of the major projects that we're working on we hold frequent community forums to talk about projects that are of interest to the public such as graph park there were community forums held about graph park while we were developing the design for that and we've also held recent forums on the North Common and Main Street parking lot project in addition we have a wealth of information online you probably have become familiar with it as a result of becoming counselors but there's a terrific GIS geographic information systems program that we have that tells us information about all of the properties in town just about anything that you might want to know and we use it to help ourselves as well as the public to understand issues related to land use we also seek public input in addition to having public forums we put information online and seek public input that way so one of the projects that's recently been put online is the bicycle and pedestrian network plan we've been working on that with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission our planning department and the Transportation Advisory Committee and that plan is almost finished and the TAC the Transportation Advisory Committee web page contains the plan if you choose to look at it and you would be welcome to submit comments to to the TAC on that project I think the comments are due maybe February 1st something like that but anyway take a look at that and some of the steps that we're taking in the near future we know you're all interested in zoning and planning and all of that so we're planning to work with the planning board and the town council to review the master plan and possibly update the master plan if we determine that it needs to be updated there are many sections of the zoning bylaw that we feel need attention so we would either like to address those individually or perhaps address the zoning bylaw as a whole at some point with your assistance and we would like to engage the community in ongoing projects such as the work on community field that Dave and Nate talked about our planning for village centers including the downtown building the projects that we have planned such as Graf Park in the North Common applying for grants and funding to support future projects and collaborating with other town departments to make project review and implementation run smoothly and be complete that's a really important part of what we do so we look forward to working with you to plan for the future of Amherst and now I'd like to introduce Rob Mora building commissioner thank you hi Rob Mora really fast so inspection services in in addition to our core services building zoning plumbing gas and electrical we also have health inspection all the environmental health inspection and permitting programs land use permit coordination electrical code enforcement and licensing is highlighted there because it's coming soon once the Board of License Commissioners is established we have a couple of building inspectors code enforcement officer we share the permit administrator that you heard about and electrical inspector and a couple part-time inspectors for gas and plumbing to health inspectors and some administrative staff to work on our programs the permit administrator role is very key position in our department that was established about five years ago with the idea of being the person that will coordinate for the applicant the permitting path through the various boards committees town officials departments and bring those those people together to make sure there's an efficient process laid out for that applicant that has been a very well received position in the community and we hear positive feedback regularly about that permitting this slide just demonstrates the breakup of our core services electrical building plumbing and gas we do all of our own plan review permitting inspection by our own staff we do not hire any outside services we have a very quick efficient turnaround for permitting reliable and predictable service to the contractors the homeowners who are coming in trying to get their project going the developers know when we are available for their inspections to keep their projects moving we also established years ago a joint inspection team this is where representatives from each of the departments will get together regularly to talk about what's going on how to address certain projects or issues and make each other aware of what's going on it's an opportunity for one inspector to learn about something that's going on that they might not have otherwise known about it especially with the departments that are not within our office here in conservation development here's a few recent projects I'll just talk a little bit about the Hitchcock Center and Kern Center because I think we feel like we were very fortunate to work in Amherst during these projects those are living building challenge projects something that is very unique and we felt fortunate to be a part of that and learn as the designers and the contractors did through the construction of those buildings we recently worked to have the science center open on time and there's a couple of projects a couple of photos there I wanted to just highlight electrical a little bit because it's unique to our department because it's the only service that we provide to you mass the state does have plumbing inspectors and building inspectors but they do not have electrical inspectors so we are working at you mass weekly for electrical services and down at the bottom of that bullet list there I just want to mention that our electrical inspector is one of the inspectors that is regularly called for emergencies whether it be a fire or a broken water pipe they are available our electrical inspector is here in the channel there large-scale solar this is images of some of the recent projects and pulpit Hill solar which is under construction right now right in the middle rental registration this is our our permitting program for residential rental properties came into effect in 2014 it's been a very successful program I think it's accomplished everything we hoped it would with identifying the properties and creating contacts and communication between the landlords and property owners code enforcement is a big piece of the work that we we do here in inspection services this this illustration here the numbers aren't so important but it what it what it what's important here is that we now have several years of data that we never had before because this was a new new effort on our part what you'll see in the blue represents the building or the code complaints the purple color would be zoning more related to cars parking on the lawns and the green at the top just represents the small number of of situations that result in some sort of a citation or a fine being issued what's interesting here is that the blue area has grown in the recent years and I think that's another indication of the success of the program because we are now hearing from people that we normally we didn't hear from before so we we have this presence we have this online access to us and information and we we now get calls or complaints or notifications from residents tenants parents of tenants and and just a variety of people that we didn't before this program started so it's it's really been a great effort here's some images of a few violations that we typically see you get the trash the cars on the lawn smoke detectors being removed the bottom left the the chair there on the top of the car like to keep that one in there because that's a situation where we ask for the chair to be removed from the property and that's where it ended up our ceo I this is our certificate of inspection program this is a program that I'm very proud of a lot of communities are unable to complete this is a building code mandate that we perform a periodic inspection of certain buildings I'm proud to say that all the buildings that we are able to identify through our assessing records through our rental permitting program have been inspected this is looking for just the basic systems working in the buildings the the fire alarms the exit signs the stairways being safe so we're working really hard on that multifamily is one of the pieces of that certificate of inspection program that we added a couple of years ago because we now had all this information from the rental permitting program to know where these properties are and how many units were in these properties so we were able to conduct inspections this is not inspections of the individual dwelling units this is just the common areas make sure the stairways and the doorways and the major systems in the building if they have fire or sprinkler systems are tested and functioning properly one piece of that down at the bottom the last bullet or fire escapes that's something that we take very seriously we are required to look at fire escapes every five years by the building code 67 of them so far have been looked at many of them replaced many of them repaired and many of them just certified as being in good condition here's a couple of examples of fire escapes that were very poor condition that we came across here's the after up top of a safe sound fire escape our online presence is very you know very much there for our rental permitting and our complaint program complaints can be filed online photos can be attached it goes directly to a code enforcement officer and worked on immediately the results can be followed online and that way they can people can follow up and see where where the case is at any time here's a map that was created years ago just to show where our activity is the different colors represents the type of whether it's an open or closed case but then we recently or in the last couple of years added the blue dots which show the fire the police departments response for certain noise violations health licensing and permitting was moved into inspection services a couple of years ago that has proven to be a very good change we are able to work very closely building inspectors and health inspectors on the various projects or renewals of licenses online permitting you're able to file your rental permit online currently that's the only online permitting that we are we have available we do have a kiosk at the outside of the office where we can help applicants work through their online renewal if necessary another nice feature of the mapping system in the tabs to the right the permitting tabs will show all the building permits recent and archived zoning and other permits will also show complaints and violations and the status and any of the documents that might be attached to go along with those those cases we put a significant amount of time into our outreach and education neighborhood resource fairs is something more recent it's a combination of our code enforcement officer APD and UMass to go out into neighborhoods talk to tenants invite landlords and residents and bring everybody together to talk at certain times of the year looking ahead what we're really focused on this year is expanding our online permitting it's something that is underway with the IT department and we're hoping to use technology more in the future thank you that was about as fast as you could go thank you very much given the time we're not gonna it's really up to the council I know there must be tons of questions would you like to have a few questions at this point I just want to point out that we do have the fire and police department ready to make their presentation as well Pat I feel like I can hold my questions and contact people with that through the town manager please contact the town manager thank you okay okay then we're going to move on to the public safety side of town and we have both the police and the fire department and I guess we're going to start with I'm sorry three minutes that's it a three-minute break quickly the best advice I can give you if you want an overall workings of how police agencies work just watch that 80 segment of Barney Miller and I can leave right now that was the best show going as far as what goes on in police agencies but no I will try and be brief again I've been the police chief here for just over nine and a half years I've been employed in the town for 42 years I came here right out of high school and I've been here ever since so continuing on run our mission statement was designed by members of the community and our police department patrol staff back in the year 2015 it was updated and it really represents kind of what our agency is all about we're very very proud of that mission statement continuing on we are a Massachusetts police accredited agency what that means is that we are held to the highest standards of professionalism both with policies procedures equipment training pretty much everything that encompasses a police department this is a mass this is a state agency that oversees police departments to make sure that they are practicing best practices and doing everything in a professional manner we were the second police department that was accredited in this in the entire state back in 2001 additionally I think you'll be receiving an email from me if you haven't already we are going for reaccreditation in February of this year so there will be a lot of press releases coming out about that so look forward to that just our organizational chart where we stand part of my responsibilities in addition to the police department is I oversee the communications center with Chief Nelson and the animal welfare office as well with Carol Hepburn where we are as an agency breakdown we have we are budgeted for 48 officers 13 of those being staff 25 patrol officers that makes up the brunt of the all the work in the agency including two canine officers eight officers are dedicated to the detective Bureau I'll go through that a little bit more detail and we have two full-time officers who's really there their entire work encompasses community outreach and I'll touch on that as well so staffing budget we are I think still the largest portion of the public's sec part of the public budget to process us fire and EMS probably second only to the school department budget so the largest portion of the public sector budget so the patrol division yes so they handle the brunt of all the calls that come into the agency you know pretty much everything starts with the patrol officers themselves you know from initially responding to calls doing proactive patrolling traffic enforcement when they can we don't have a specific dedication for traffic enforcement although that's something that we would like to add on we get a lot of requests for traffic enforcement in neighborhoods officers are also responsible for doing all follow-up so if they respond to calls that initiates something as basic as maybe a car break in they're responsible for not only completing those reports but then doing additional follow-up in regards to that investigation as well we do a lot of community police and initiatives that the patrol officers are responsible for in each of their assigned sectors we went to sector-based policing back when I became chief in 2009 and really what that means is that each officer on a yearly basis is assigned to a very very specific geographical area in town and they are responsible for not only answering calls in those sectors but recognizing problems and issues that might be very very unique to those neighborhoods and then finding response finding answers and doing problem solving for those specific neighborhoods so in a very condensed word it's you know it's their responsibility to do what's right for that for that sector and figuring out what that specific neighborhood needs for policing that's just a breakdown of our service calls I can tell you you know the calls for services gone up in some areas but overall when it comes to crime and crime prevention extremely safe town a lot of the areas that we've really been concentrating our efforts on the arrest numbers are way down and the call volumes are way down specifically areas of quality of life issues whether there's noise disturbances disturbances in general fights you know things associated with alcohol and young people are way way down and you know that's really kudos to our officers for their community outreach so if you check your budgeting books and compare with years and past you'll see reductions in really really important areas of crime prevention our detective bureau and administration like I said eight officers are assigned as detectives one being a lieutenant one a sergeant and then the rest of them are the worker bees they are responsible for all investigations with the agency all the court functions scheduling of hearings everything to that nature background check and they process and collect all of the evidence you know it depending on you know what they're investigating I'll give you two examples we had most recently and the detective bureau was responsible for an investigation it took over three years it was about house breaks and it started in the town of Amherst ended up being involving agencies in Franklin and the Berkshire County we solved the case Tina Knightley was the detective responsible for that well over 600 hours of investigation like I said three years charging three individuals over 400 house breaks involved another example I think most people are familiar with the home invasion we had on southeast Street a couple of years back that was another investigation it really took the entire detective bureau to solve but again and 300 plus hours of investigation went into that case so depending on the investigation it can involve all the officers involved in the detective bureau or just one or two but they do an outstanding job and really really proud of the work that they do again community outreach is a huge part of what we do as an agency you know when I took over as chief nine years or so ago I was really kind of frustrated with the fact that we were just responding to the same calls over and over and over again and we didn't really see any end in sight so what that was one of the reasons that we changed kind of how we operated as an agency wanted us to be more proactive and you know have the officers involved and participate in problem-solving and so that that's another part the community outreach with their neighborhood liaison officer I'm sure you've read his name Bill air me who's a especially trained officer who deals with crime prevention through environmental design and what that really means is he'll look at a specific problem with the sector-based officers and they'll come up with solutions and biggest example of that is probably the townhouse coming in condominium complex on Meadow Street and what they've done there and also what they've done on Hobart Lane and the Phillips Street and Farring Street areas so really a lot of success stories there and they are branching out into other parts of the town so you know our downtown community outreach officer officer Casey Nagel currently works closely with the business improvement district people and the chamber stay home holders there with the business people he works very very closely with the individuals who are homeless or at the shelter he knows them all personally and they have a really good relationship so really really excited with the work that he's doing our adventure Academy summer camp is something we've been doing for since over 15 or 16 years now it's a free camp that we offer to residents of the town of Amherst and students an opportunity for the officers to kind of take a break and relax and you know kind of hang out with students and we do that with the University of Mass Police Department very successful program we're actually thinking about adding weeks on to that because we usually have to turn people away from that Ronnie continue on this about four years ago we we initiated a crisis intervention team which is a specially trained team that incorporates about 25 or 30% of the patrol force and the concept behind that is that we we respond not only when people are in crisis but also for aftercare purposes and the idea behind that is to shift away from the traditional policing of enforcement and looking more towards resource-driven problem-solving skills so in others our police officers provide aftercare not personally but get them wired in with the appropriate resources that could maybe help them when they are not currently in crisis it's based on a national model that we incorporated again going about three or four years ago it's been immensely successful we're very proud of it I'm very very proud of it simply because we've I think we've been able to impact a lot of people over the last couple of years and it really has bridged some relationships not only with clients here in the community but also people in the various resources around Berkshire County, Franklin County as well as Hampton County. Again just our Adventure Academy summer camp that's just a couple of photos you know in the morning the morning segment is classroom and then in the afternoon they'll go out and do adventure to type stuff in our ropes course swimming you know all sorts of fun stuff so relatively new program we instituted is the dark response team drug addiction response officers these officers are specifically trained to deal with and look after individuals who may have either overdosed or have issues with opioid and or alcohol issues a lot of it they deal with our homeless people. Molly Farber, Maddie Zellmack and Justin Sikowsky the officers who have been specifically trained for this their responsibility really is if there's an individual in need they respond and do a lot of follow-up to make sure that not only the individuals who may have overdosed or been having issues with addiction but the families as well so it encompasses a lot of the you know resource centers that we have whether in North Hampton at Cooley Dickinson Hospital it's a lot of work and they're really really good at what they do so they again continuing on with our outreach to Craig Craig's doors liaison officers really important job that they have both Casey Nagel and Mike Barone they go to the shelter every night for intake and to assist the people there with the shelter you know they're happy to have officers around both these guys know all of the homeless people in individually and what their special needs are you know again very very successful they're there in the morning when it's closing up to make sure everything goes smoothly so you know a lot of things going on in the background that you might not see. You know training a really important part of what our agency is all about I'm on the state commission for state committee for training I was appointed by Duvall Patrick's administration back in 2010 and have been with them ever since we really mandate what every police department and every police officer has to be trained in every year and there is very specific mandates about hours of training and what those training segments consist of so you have the usual you know firearm CPR first aid but then we'll you know we'll do segments dealing with you know people with special needs or mental health issues dealing with autistic children was a big one a lot of what we choose as topics for police training comes from the public themselves or from legislators you know so you know we're in that process right currently I'll be going down to Boston tomorrow to decide what the next group of trainings will be for the 2020 year so very important and then our Alice safety training program you know good portion of our officers are all trained in this matter of fact we're down at the where are we tonight doing Jewish Community Center Jewish Community Center doing a training for them so we've been through all the public schools at least once including the elementary schools most of the town buildings have had specific trainings in an active shooter in response to you know special incidents as we call it but we are now branching out to the public in general to as needed and as requested so a lot of what we do is you know now transitioning over to community when specific to Alice training so dispatch real quickly we oversee that I oversee that 12 full-time dispatchers one supervisor his name is Mike Curtney does an unbelievable job he knows a heck of a lot more more about communications than I ever will one of those positions is grant funded through the 9-11 grant we are also the regional hazmat dispatch regional hazmat dispatch center there are only two in the in the state we are one of them so they will dispatch hazmat teams from Worcester West as our responsibility geographically you know they are dispatch center I can't tell you an upgrade things about the job that they do it's a difficult job it's hard to find really good people and we're really really fortunate to have the people I would I would you know encourage any of you to stop up into our dispatch center some night and just watch them in action because they're phenomenal so dispatch level types that's just kind of in one year what they do as far as handling that's just the phone calls they receive and the transmissions that they put out typically there will be two to three dispatchers always a minimum of two usually three and then I'm busy times could be four to five so you know I always used to get asked in town meeting when's regionalization coming it's something that we're continuing to look for partners with them we you know continue to have discussions with area towns about joining our our award-winning dispatch center so and then animal welfare the best advice I can give you on that is if you see Carol Hepburn coming run if she gets all of you you know you're not going to get away again but you know Carol's probably the most well-known person in town for a lot of great reasons she does a really wonderful job she's a great ambassador for everything animals whether handling complaints one thing probably a lot of people don't know about Carol Carol is she's also responsible for all the inspections and all the farms in town which is a lot of her work so if a farm says tells the state he's got four cows she's got to make sure he has four cows and not forty four cows so she actually goes to all the farms and does inspections and stuff and of course responsible for all the dog licensing in town and I think she told me she has about a 92% compliance rate and I don't know how she figures that out she probably just filling me full of baloney but I don't know I trust her so that's about it I think that it good to go questions thank you very much very well gee thank you are there any immediate questions for the police department yes you're Mike please I want to say thank you for you specifically chief and also the department in the support you gave us around the sanctuary bylaw I'm very grateful for that I'm also interested I understand there was a possibility of a restorative justice program with the police and I was wondering if there was any education around internalized racism so restorative justice is part of the Massachusetts mandated training and we have participated in that but I also just did an agreement with our district attorney's office for restorative justice so we are participants in that and with our district attorney's office we participate in that you're very welcome other questions yes Dorothy could you give me an example of the crisis intervention team what kind of things you go to so typically a lot of things that would be perhaps masters of disturbance or would appear on our daily logs of disturbance could be somebody who's potentially in crisis and we found that the old model of policing would be that we would go there kind of restore the peace maybe problem solve a little bit and basically quite frankly make the problem go away what we found is by dispatching will redirect officers from another sector of town to go there to have special training have probably already developed relationships with people and and try to get them in a place that's beyond just basically triaging the call that night and then what we do follow-up wise is within the following week when crisis is no longer apparent that same officer will reconnect that person to see if there's something that we can do to help in terms of wiring them in with resources if we can do something in terms of support and quite frankly sometimes we meet with the family members as well because they need support additionally that's just kind of like a bottled version of what CIT is but you had to apply it kind of the cross-section of variety different related calls of one area that we've seen a significant increase in the call volume is with mental health issues and so those officers would be very there would be responsible for dealing with those specific issues other questions at this point thank you for your presentation and for your service to the town would you like to bring up another chair okay are the mics on yes yes they are okay you'll introduce you all of yourselves and proceed thank you good evening how are you fine no Nelson fire chief been here eight and a half years start to start out in the city a whole whole the up for 28 years and I've brought cohorts I am Lindsay Stromgren assistant fire chief for operations and training Amherst born and bred been here for my life I've been with the Amherst fire department since I attended UMass at a high school my name is Jeff Olmstead assistant fire chief as well I've been with the Amherst fire department for 24 years background before that was four years as a firefighter for your National Guard and then 20 years full-time and then 20 years as a National Guard been retired I oversee fire prevention and EMS primarily as well as some of our specialized teams so just gonna give you just give you a view of who who we are what what what we are and what what we do this is gender the general list of some of some of our response to responsibility so obviously fire EMS but also also there's a whole raft a raft of other things that that we do in the interest right wrestling we do all a good part part of our own bill building ground grounds may mean maintenance that's our own our own staff in addition to our vehicle some a good good deal of vehicle maintenance and the last line that's that's a category you really that is kind of all on on on its own when folks really don't know what what what to do or they're not not not not sure about how to handle something they'll they'll call call us and it runs from plumbing electrical heating a dog stuck on the under a porch you name it when you don't know what to do you call call call a fire this is kind of breaking down what what we we we do you know we we brought fire any EMS for the entire entire town EMS for shoot shoot shoot shoot through whatever propellant on a contract track the basis and of course in that and the town includes all all all three well the two to call call just end the universe city want to you know and it is addition to that we also you know each the town town has you know police police force D to W each each school has its own police police force and and a well physical physical plant which take which is there D to W and but we but but we take take care of all all all fire and EMS service and inspection services services for the entire town and all and all three three schools have you have an idea there what of our call call call volume over over the last year and our average average call call calls per day we operate out of two station one that's rather old as I'm sure you know yeah right right down downtown and then one up on east or north station East East Pleasant Street and we're three with we're three forces but we're one we're one team so career career forces of the on-day on-duty duty folks 20 24 hours a day said seven days a week three hundred sixty five hundred six sixty six don't leave leave leave leave here that we're on run run duty our call and students student force they they are there there are support they sub sub supplement the career career career it's just a break break break break down of how how how we're supposed to split up so again for first off more deep deep deeply into the career career force as you see there's a lot of responses sponsored bill billy that we we care care and of course all fire with fire fire way lighted lighted calls EMS rather rest rescue that type of thing one of our big big big for poor portions of our department is our preventive prevention department kind of goes on in in in the background but it's a critical part of what we do we also do a lot of fire for friends of the basic gaiting have has material materials large and small and then there's an emergency management function I'm also the emergency manager for the town that's going to talk talk briefly about the other two forces because I directly oversee them as the chief mentioned we're kind of unique department with three forces most departments around us three they're all full-time or there's a few that have full-time with some traditional call force which means they're paid part time we actually have three forces like he said the full-time people that handle all the day-to-day calls the call force are people that live and or work in the community they are on call 24 hours a day for structure fires they get called in to handle station coverages which is means the full-time people are all tied up on ambulance or fire calls we need to bring people back in to stand by for the next calls so between the well the student force I'll cover the student force are primarily mass students casually of a Hampshire Amherst College student this they are in service during the academic year so September through December and February through May they have a schedule where they have four of them in the fire station at night every night seven days a week at 24 hours a day on weekends and six of them actually live at the North Station that was built with dormitory space throw so through a schedule depending on the time of day day a week month of year the student force and call force handle these station coverages when the career firefighters are tied up on calls and each one of them also does a variety of outreach functions they respond as first responders if there's an EMS call and we don't have any ambulance available oh yes and I had the privilege of serving on all three forces I did start as a student firefighter when I graduated Amherst High School went to UMass I was on that for a number of years I then graduated went to the call force for a number of years and then became full-time which is where I am now this is a break break break out of some of our sponsors sort of the high the high lights you know you look at look at the fire number he saved in 991 and then structure structure fires there were 38 you would think there's you know the town town might be burning down but that's that's a that's that's how how how they're coded for for for for the state a trash trash can fire is consisted of the fire okay and then there's also car car fire is broke broke brush fire so it's all like it's all on how how they're coded for for for the state dolly loss significant that's that's for for last last last year that was most of that is one is the fire we had had on main on main main street that was a significant one and we see oh carbon monoxide monoxide calls are are increased increasing you know and and part part of that is a educational piece pushing folks to get get see you see all these detectors but also also also also to to call us when we went when when when when they do act activate so you can see our EMS numbers the EMS system here is is fairly busy and active for the size department we are we did over 5,000 calls again last year we know we're gonna have a drop this year because of the change in the Hadley contract but even looking at last year we average about 14 to point two calls per day that's over the course of that FY 2018 but we think that our numbers are gonna drop probably back to where we were around 2012 2013 range because of the change in Hadley we're still going to have the occasionally for mutual aid and for paramedic intercepts but those numbers are fairly small I think we've been there about 30ish time so far that this 25 times of this past six months that being said we expect that this is an opportunity for us to try to look ahead that five years and now we're gonna be back to where we were before July 1st came where we were really busy crews are very tired and they were working very hard trying to keep up with the call volume that we had you know we look at this town and we look at some of the impacts that we have on our call volume so college students have always sort of taken a heavy rap in the media for the volume of calls you might do here but honestly they're a fairly consistent number of calls we do there it's a busy call volume and certainly as the university has increased we've seen those increases with it but surprisingly it's our over 60 population that drives our biggest increases so I'll show you the next slide here so this is a sort of six year run by time and age and if you were to look up at the 18 and 22 year old group you'll see a fairly consistent line across there and 11-1200 calls per year range and tops out at just about 9000 but if you drop down and you look at the over 65 group you see that we went from 1273 in 2010 so almost 2000 calls for that age group by 2017 so when we mentioned that you know or over 60 is really what's driving us so it's in town it's in Amherst that's what we're talking about and it was interesting me you know that we when I put this out and we got these numbers back the 12,000 calls total over that time frame was significant and I'd like to add that I mean part part of that is because this is a nice place to be the valve of the valve valley and Amherst in in particular is is is considered said to be a very good good good place to be folks come come come come here to visit they come come here to shop they come come come here to work they they like it here and then they retire the tire here so so that's so that's that's kind kind of the drive drive driver in our in our call call call volume does anybody have a question before I move on you look like Mike was in the last two years of over 65 yeah you really look at that 2014 15 change over and then up through 16 and 17 and some of these may be related to you know we have assisted living in town yeah we have Applewood we have University Drive we have Center for extended care those are all places that you know have a high density of folks who are in that age range and you know the other pp piece of this is that they but baby boomers are getting older you know and that that was a large that was a large large group and we as I look at these these two we easy you know we you know the big baby boom with that large group you know right after the war are getting older so that is so that's so that's part that's all also part part part part of the mix so when we look at numbers and we look at you look at numbers we don't expect the colleges group to change inevitably it might go up a little bit but it's gonna be fairly consistent we don't see anything but increases into our call volume for that over 65 group as the baby boomers continue to you know age so that's going to be a continued source of calls and resources for us to provide and people are all living long longer you know folks are especially are them to the demographic graphic here folks are used used to very good good health health care and we're we are that first step into good the good good health care that that we have the have around you so those are all factors factors just want to explain a little bit about the three different levels we have is ENTs we have at this point 38 paramedics three advanced and four basic ENTs and the differences are largely about education skills and experience our basic ENTs as you can see the three of those they took an initial and we all did and we started initial 120 hour class about one college semester we teach them skills during that class of CPR and using non-magnetic fibrillator plating control splinting and then they work out and they work on recertification every two years from there our advanced have a little bit larger scope of practice and we take all those skills we learned is basic ENTs and we add some more understanding of the body physiology chemistry medicine we give them some more skills and the paramedics those are what we provide on all our ambulances all the time they do a fantastic job and we can measure a lot of our paramedics not just in number of years but actually closer to decades I have some folks a couple in back the room we've been practicing for one or two decades as paramedics and they do a great job but just that initial class was 12 to 1500 hours of classroom training clinical time field time and that was really just the beginning so if we hire a new person or girl said where they come from we work with them on a mentoring program that teach them about our area the number of people that we interact with the first responder groups we work with the area that we work in because we go to three other communities we have three campuses on in town and we expect a lot of our paramedics to run and manage scenes because they may not get any support depending on how busy we are because there may not many people to send them to give support so we ask a lot of them therefore training is constant you know for patient care needs our recertification that happens every two years we're looking for best practices always always new equipment on the level of for example what we do cardiac monitoring when I first started we were interested in how fast how the rhythm was it was it was it normal or abnormal and now we're worried about putting 12 leads on and looking at the whole heart we're trying to interpret to make sure to see if someone's having a heart attack and make sure if they are we take them to the right place that they can get definitive care and we'll see other changes we'll probably see ultrasound sometime in the back of the ambulance in the next five years because if anything else medicine keeps moving forward and that pushes down on us and we'll continue to advance and advance our scope of practice over time recertification I mentioned sorry if you go back a second we look at 60 hours of training for every one of our advanced in paramedics every two years that's a pretty significant training load to put on somebody every two years and we have to do that both on duty and off duty and try to find a way to get accomplish that a non-duty training is definitely a struggle so we send people out to do some of these trainings on a pretty frequent basis to accomplish that we also do training first responder training for Amherst police paramedics teach there and we spend a fair amount of time working medical training during active threat with the three police departments in town and we've actually sprenched out and trying to do some community-based police control training that you'll see both in town hall during the safety as well as we'd like to expand out into the schools eventually next slide please both means bigger than it looks for every call that we do we have a QA group that looks at our calls every calls looked at for both quality and for billing to make sure documentation and information is correct that we did a good job to take care of our patients and ultimately the billing process is an effort constant effort to make better for both billing and ultimately collections because the money that we collect is important to the services we provide the river rest rescue side of the house again it runs the run runs again gamut and we talked to the talk about has this material as we've got five five of our per person including including my myself or members of the state state river regional team that's a great asset here in town there's a lot of it's not just a big you know fuel fuel truck and this and that go go going off off off the road we've got that we've had mercury spills and in homes we have there's we've had had a few home home laps that are that a pop popped up and get given that UMass is right right right down down down the road we tend to have a lot of retired professors that have collected stuff over over the years and then they they they they pass away and some someone goes to clean clean out their shed or whatever and you find some rather exotic stuff there so yeah so you know so that's that's that's that's part part of what what what we do and as the police chief mentioned the we have one one one of the diss has has that dispatch says says the centers for for the state what he knew like I collected to say was that I brought that here when I came came here so I just want to put the throw throw throw that in there so job job is a life that's our quick cooler equipment actually extricate people from car accidents and what what what have have you one thing I've noted notice since I've been been been here that folks just don't know how to drive here I swear I'm telling you it's it's yeah folks just don't know how to drive so since you fell on said was hard to talk about some of the special teams we have a group of medics that embed with the with the Amherst police UMass police and Amherst called called called college police first but special since situation they work and train train train with them on a concoct year year round round in fact the rescue task force that's a new all relatively new new thing actually came came out of the call Columbine incident active shoes shoes shooter some some kind of attack some some a rogue drive drive the truck truck truck through through a crowd are on to do the duty staff is there the other ones that are going to respond first and in in the past it was wait wait wait until the scene is completely safe to go go go in and and extricate the victims but that's changed now to where you know you're you're you're on to do duty staff with the proper proper training and equipment protective equipment can run can go go in and ex ex extricate the patient quick quickly and and it and it and it worked it saves saves lives so we we initially initiated that about a year ago yeah it's really the medical side of the active threat response so we're kind of the next component after the police have taken care of the initial threat and then we embed with them a different police that may come in either in town or from mutual aid and provide the medical support that goes with it so take and then Ted Tech River rest rest rescue high rope high angle combined five-spaced that that type type of thing we have our own team we've had a team here for I mean the Amherst team for 20 years 20 years and from that sprung the regional Ted Tech River rescue team and then our members are founding them members of that of that that of that group of course we do ice and over water rep for us here this is as I said earlier this is what this is part part of our job that doesn't get a lot of a lot of press or whatever it's not it's not that's sexy but it's effective it's probably one of the the biggest parts of making this a safe community and it's a critical part of making making our community safe and again as I said it happens sort of in the background so this is really it like a chief said a big part of what we do is trying to provide prevention services so that we can eliminate or prevent incidents from happening fires particular and we use a variety of focuses to do that we do it through code enforcement we do it through public education we try to find ways to do community outreach there's a number of things so really if you build a new home or you want to do a renovation on your house or if you want to put up a new building we want to build a new school a new science center all those new buildings you see going across UMass campus all that inspection work for the building itself the fire alarm system I should say in the sprinkler systems and even those special places like hazard materials storage that inspection work was done by the fire department the state provides a building inspector for say University of Massachusetts and we do a lot of work with them and their staff at their emergency health and safety folks that work there we do a lot of permitting inspections and you can see the long list there I do want to emphasize the safe program and our fire safety education that we're very proud of we've had 23 years of success it was a group that I was a part of for 15 years and really enjoyed we do a lot of we've advanced that into our senior safe we're trying to do outreach into our to our seniors using a lot of the same principles that we do in senior safe and we've had really good results for that so far community outreach you know fraternities and sororities working with the building inspectors and with Bill Laramie from Amherst police trying to do community outreach and reach out to those areas that they've been working on in the Bering Phillips Street the old fraternity row area that's been a big focus for us fire investigations all fires have to be investigated for cause and origin but not most of those fires we investigate ourselves but there are particular types that we have more interaction and get a support from the Amherst police detective bureau particularly and particular calls that we contact the state police fire marshals office for their assistance this is another one of those things that kind of goes on in the background and only come comes comes it only really becomes known that during some type type type of emergency so we do a lot of it as I said I'm the emergency management director for the town but along with that I do a lot of or we do a lot of collaboration with with with with the state and and and with all all three three schools we're part of their emergency management teams at all as well because again what what what happens there can affect us what happens here can affect them so so so we work work on them in a collaborative collaborative way you know to to ensure that we we have tools and policies and so you just see the city manage pretty much under the any kind kind kind kind of event disaster if if you will and so that that includes you know active active active exercise size starting those plans we're gonna actually the town's team is we're setting up a exercise for next for next month so that's so this is kind of time time time so we're up and we're constantly updating our emergency management management plans and as I said we we don't we work jointly with all all three schools and some some of that involves as you can see moments concon concerts graduations knock on wood Super Bowl this this this year World Sears series of this past the past fall and then the end blarney blow blow blow out those are all things that where where we were we sit and plan for the what what what if you plan for the worst you hope for the best and that and that's and that's an ongoing process even that you know I have a half mayor mayor mayor mayor on this something we work on and of course you know being the new the new england it's whether we're related related events we'll start you know when like you know the storm coming up this weekend we've you know we've been watching that for a couple days if if if the patch when Sun Sun Sun Sunday we'll begin plan planning the next the next day with with you you you've asked and and the APD so these are the things that are ongoing and kind of as I said go on in in the background but they're critical so I'm a little talk a little bit about the operations of the department I key asset to provide the service we do to the town is our people we need to have well trained people good people well trained people that's our most important resource but for them to do their job they need vehicles they need equipment and they need a building to house them in so that's large part of my job it's also a large part of our budget after the salaries of everybody so I'll quick talk about the you know the chief mentioned earlier the buildings we have the two fire stations one thing I think is unique to us as a department is we have no custodial staff we have no building maintenance staff it's our on-duty firefighters that are doing all this work I don't think we mentioned the number in the beginning we have eight on-duty firefighters as our minimum staffing during the school year seven right now during intercession in summer so we have seven or eight people on duty in those two stations doing all of the stuff you saw earlier the number of fire calls the number of EMS calls a lot of the fire prevention etc and as I mentioned the call and student supplement here and there but the majority of what we've talked about tonight are done by those seven or eight on-duty firefighters we'll talk about that at the end is under challenges but one of those things is they're doing all these services that most other departments are provided by other staff custodial building maintenance etc so we are doing all the maintenance and cleaning of our buildings snow plowing during storms lawn mowing around the north station and a lot of the basic maintenance of our fire stations vehicles is our next single biggest resource in order to do the provide the service we do we do have five fire engines five ambulances not always staff we have five ambulances a ladder truck a rescue and then a number of other support vehicles so that's a big part of our job to stay keep those on the road keep them up to date we do a lot of the basic maintenance routine and repairs in-house using on-duty firefighters sometimes firefighters on overtime bigger repairs safety related things like break jobs we send out to mechanics but anything we can do in-house saves a lot of money shop rate these days for a large vehicles about a hundred and ten hundred twenty dollars an hour for a mechanic even if I pay a firefighter over time it's a third of that so anything we can do in-house is a big savings but this is a big part of our operating budget every year and talk about community out out outreach there's a rat as I said this said before there's a rat raft of things that we're we're we're involved vol but and it's and it's pretty much cuts throughout the throughout the department part and from the three three chiefs through our on-duty staff and and our the call and assist the student for forces they're all we're all involved in in in these in these these types of community out of out outreach items I mean the list the list is even a little longer than then then there's all kinds of things that we're involved all then because you know again we are part of the community community and and it's a critical part of what we do and just back to equipment again another big part of what we do is our radio communication system I'm not going to spend too much time on that but a couple of the key points police you've mentioned the dispatch center part of that is we actually have a third facility up the Mount Lincoln in Pelham it's a small radio shack but that is where the primary transmitters are for the police department the fire department and actually many other agencies and we maintain that facility we have a microwave link from the police station right here to Mount Lincoln we have a number of our remote radio sites listening for transmissions around town as does the police department all in all we have about a hundred pages in the field 40 or so mobile radios about 60 portable radios so we have a lot of a radio equipment our needs are we need to be able to talk to ambulances up in Greenfield for Franklin Medical Center we need to be able to talk to our ambulances down in Springfield to Bay State Medical that's a pretty big geographical area we need to maintain radio communications with so again that's a large part of what we have up and running in the background we do a lot of that programming to maintenance ourselves in-house and then just a quick note on computers as becoming a more and more part of our job our paramedics are carrying laptops in the fields are doing their patient reports in the ambulances and at the hospital and that's immediately transmitted back for billing and then we obviously were everything from controlling radios to fire reports are also done on our computer system and fortunately the town has a very good IT department that is helps us keep that up and running and they're always very responsive to our needs but it's becoming more and more part of what we do so the chief mentioned a little bit some of those other responses you might not think of and they could be you know flooded basements which we saw this week as we started seeing the cold cold temperatures and the frozen pipes at break inside the house especially on some of our rental properties with their you know they're left alone during the Christmas break power lines down annual rescues electrical plumbing heating issues carbon dioxide malfunctions when it beeps and ultimately when you don't know what to do people call the fire department we always encourage that it's always safer to call us and make sure we can sort it out or help you deal with your problem then to just let it go so we appreciate people to call but ultimately it's it takes time and it takes some work and I'm very proud of the folks that go out there and take care of these calls that may not seem to be what you'd expect but they always do a good job and good community service for the folks that we interact with challenges and we have we have how we have our share I mean staff staffing has been the challenge long before for where I got here I mean we've we've maintained our staff staffing as it is now but as you've seen our call call volume has risen and it rises it pretty much a steady rate each year and that's and that and that can and that is a big challenge and we still find the way way to serve serve serve serve the public keep and keep keep the town town town safe but it is it is it is a challenge of challenge to keep keep up that that that pace of the NRS staffing next we remember we mentioned the new stay station which I think is near and dear to a few some of the some of the some of the art it's built in 1920 2029 it there been forced to the study the studies five studies done on on replay place and the first one was done in 1947 so it was built in 1929 so it's it's it's just you know we've out how grown grown it it's it's it's not in a good good good place as a town town has grown and and we've heard heard heard it all before but it doesn't fit it doesn't fit the needs of a modern fire fire fire fire fire fire it really doesn't we just have to get out of that place I mean to be blunt so training this is training is that's pretty near and dear dear to my my heart you know there's a saying you train like you fight you fight like you train I'm Governor Baker Baker a point point I mean to the man has fire train training counter council about two years ago and we're responsible to set set the set the tone and set the set the Paul Paul Paul season guide guide guide lines for fire training training throughout throughout the state on the EMS side of the house there there are state state man mandates and things that we have we have have to do not not it's not so much on on the fire fire fire side there it's now the Nash naturally accepted stance and standards that we that we try to try try to maintain and adhere adhere to the training piece kind of goes back to our staff staff and we because because of our call call volume and because of our level our level of staffing most of our training is done by our folks off to do the duty we don't you don't get the opportunity to train as a group as a company because of our our call call volume I like to say that fire fire fire fire fighting is a team sport we come with a group we come with all with all all all all our tools we don't do things alone we make it could be first person foremost because it's unsafe but that but but to do do that you need to train train together and we really don't get that a lot of opportunity to try to find those opportunities to train as a group as a company is one one one of those child child child and we do the best best best best we can we just need need to do more thank you are there questions I do want to last I'm sorry last last slide last slide so again last slide trust me so again as I said we are a team it's it's a team team team con con con we're working and we work working together amongst amongst ourselves with our partners throughout throughout town and really it's because we want to make this a safe safe commitment and that's and that's why that's why we do what what we do that's why why we're we're we're we're here to take take care care of the community and to take take care of our people we tell you if we tell you to take care care of our personnel it means we can do that is that much more for the community and I mean it says it right right there per personnel really are a great great greatest resource we have a talented highly educated KK Kated for force here the extreme stream extremely so and that goes into the flip-flop flexable ability part we're going from fire fire call to am am am am am let's call to you name it name it back and out the same same people are jumping back and forth and back and forth and making making making decisions snapped decisions decisions on on on the fly and you need a talent talented educated KK Kated force we attract very good people from some highly talented talented talented talented folks they want want to be here they want want to be part of what what what we do because bottom bottom line we're working hard for for our community that's what it's all about for us with that first of all I want to assure my colleagues I was not on the first fire station study committee nor was I chair only the last two questions yes shell I'm sorry yes Mindy John I just had a quick one about forestry and wildland firefighting and all I is there training going on for that and is that a preparation since we do have the Holy Oak range in our town we do we we we really don't have what what you'd call the wild wildland urban interface for us most most mostly it's brush brush type type type type fires for the wild wild wild wild land we the state the state here the state hand hand hand handles most of that we we will go go in to to to assist and and and and we train train train on that other questions at this yes shall we this is regarding the closure of the station road bridge and I understand there's no impact reaching the houses but do you have a sense of how much longer it is to go from the house let's say in Amherst Hills or station road to Gully Dickinson Hospital or we took a look look look look at that and really there's no no there's there's no in increase in time because because that and it's because of of who of who who is going which which am I am am ambulance or fire fire truck is going to to to respond to the that that air air air that air area and Amherst woods are still gonna go back back up on the on the route route 9 to go go direct to Gully Dick so we we we took a look and there's no in or in order to delay so other questions yes Alyssa I don't know if this is a quick question or not but I believe I saw a number on one of the slides early on that said there were false accidental alarms in the range of 916 do you have to roll equipment for every one of those yes we do yeah we do I mean you that that you know the determined term termination that that's a false or rather accidental isn't made until after we we arrive and you always have to make to make sure I mean one of the one of the things I like to say is that I'd rather rather send send send everyone and find find out that we weren't that it was false and not send enough and find out that it was a true emergency and you really don't know until you get get there and that's the call and clear the call I would add if I may just also that that doesn't mean they were all false alarms nothing was going on many of those call services are rendered again has to do the way calls are coded as an example somebody may have a small they may burn the food on their stove fill up the apartment with smoke and we will go it's a false alarm but we will spend 20 30 minutes there with fans venting it out it may be a false alarm that was caused by a water leak and we'll go and shut the water off the whole host of things that we're actually going to render some kind of service to the resident or who business it's not just the alarm went off for some reason any other questions at this time I'm sorry Dorothy in your student corps have you ever gone to high school students in towns where I live with total volunteer fire department high school students who are year-round residents served well that's a good question the answer is no we haven't we've been the student force has been around since 1953 in some capacity we have not branched out the high school I am aware what you're talking about New York State Connecticut have a lot of them they call them junior firefighter programs it's been talked about very briefly we have not we haven't gone to that level we actually are good at recruiting with our student force for the UMass we keep it full not to say we couldn't look at a junior program somewhere down the road is you know a vocational training start for people to get them interested at the high school level what one thing I would say is typically those junior programs there's some kind of a ride-along program our student firefighters are fully trained as firefighter one firefighters they're operating their own truck engine three they have drivers officers so that's something you wouldn't see from high school we wouldn't do that with somebody under 18 first student but they would fill out the roles I'd like to add you know the student force was it it was begun in collaboration with UMass back in 1953 and the students get get called college credit for their time time here and one of the things that we do we insist that they are student firefighters for the school school come come come comes first and one of the nice nice things about having having a career career force that is highly highly educated a lot a lot of times we're we're there to assist the students in their academic lives so it's it's it's it's just a really cool cool cool pro program as you can see one of one of the graduates but we've had doctors lawyers we have one one rocket science science science science science science scientists and and just and some go go in to go into the fire fire fire fire service but I think if you ran or ran into any of these folks down down the road what I what I've heard I mean I was on a beach in San San San Diego sitting one one day and someone saw the saw the saw my Amherst hat and he said that Amherst mask said yeah I said why I was a student firefighter firefighter out of really he's the Dean of Admissions at San Diego State but he's he said and I've heard this again and again that that was probably one of the best times of his life and things that he learned there he's you know he's still still used used in his life so it's a great it's a really good good good pro pro are there any other questions from the council thank you very much for the presentation and for your service to the town at this time do counselors have any other comments we will have a public comment period is required but are there any other comments from counselors yes Alyssa if I could briefly I realize we're running very late I want to both express my extreme appreciation for the fact that we're getting these this is something that no other committee or body that I'm aware of in the town of Amherst has ever received this sort of orientation to the way our different departments work so this is incredibly valuable it would be even more valuable if we had power points emailed to us as people walked in so we could make notes we have nothing to make notes on I appreciate that we are not printing them out but we are all just sitting here listening and I'm sure you're all excellent processors but we don't have anything to take notes on that's associated with these things and of course as good presenters always do they're not reading just every bullet point and they're also adding information that we have no place to put and when you combine that with the fact that we had no time for questions for most of these for many of these presentations it's just difficult for us to figure out how we're going to most appropriately follow up but that doesn't deny fact that it's great to listen to I'm just not 100% sure we all need to be sitting in the same room listening to it if they're just going to be taped presentations that anybody could watch so I think we could make them even more valuable if we tweaked it a little bit thank you other comments from the council is there anybody in the audience who would like to make a public comment seeing none I would like to call the meeting to adjourn is there a motion to do so second okay thank you we were adjourned oh all those in favor I'm sorry