 All right, you're all set. Go ahead. All right. Do we need to wait until are there any attendees Athena and the audience coming in or should I just go ahead and start. No, no attendees coming in. So you can go ahead and call the order. Okay, perfect. So, hang on a second here. All right. Good morning, everyone. I'm calling to order the April 27th meeting of the governance organization and legislation committee at 901 a.m. And we'll just take a moment to make sure everybody can be heard and can hear me and all of us. So we'll start with you, Pat. Present. Mandy. Anika. Present. Jennifer. So just as a reminder, we decided to make this a two and a half hour meeting because we have a lot on the agenda. And I think what I'd like to do is I'm going to review our agenda. I'd like for us to start by approving the minutes just get that out of the way right, right in the beginning and then we're going to start with the plant medicine resolution and we have a couple people joining us for that. Yes, Mandy. So I couldn't find a copy of that anywhere. So I wasn't sure whether it was coming off the agenda or not. Oh, yeah, I didn't see it. Because it's been like on and off a couple of times. I wasn't sure. Yeah, was it not in the, oh goodness, that is on me. I should have thought I did not. It did not get into the SharePoint. So it was in the public packet. I didn't see it in the public packet either. I thought I saw it. Maybe I missed it there, but I didn't see it there. Children, mental health, GLL agenda, heritage month, council committee restructure, finance, the CRC it is not there in the public either. Okay, I'm going to send it. Well, Oh, go ahead, speak. Yes, Pat. I want to look at it now, even though we haven't had a chance. All right. Well, that's, that's really up to the committee. I apologize. I thought that it was in the packet. I will say that the sponsors who are myself, Anika, Pam, and Anna have thoroughly reviewed it multiple times with the sponsors without the sponsors. And I support it, which I probably, I don't, I think I can say. So it isn't that I don't support it, but I don't like, I mean, we've added an extra. I'm, I'm not going to apologize. No, I'm not apologizing for everything, but I'm feeling like I haven't even had a chance to look at it. It's going to take up more time therefore but let's get to it. Okay. I don't know if it's. I think we need a copy of it before we say anything as to whether we should be even reviewing it or not today. Maybe a recess, a temporary recess before we take that one up might be appropriate so we can get ourselves off of video to review it privately before we discuss it. Yeah, I think that's possible, but I would say let's move on to other things. The only issue is that James and let's see, we have Adam, James, and Anna and Pam all here. So I really apologize. I really thought that it was in the packet. So, let's see if we can just check in with these guys and see we have the API sponsors are coming at 930. Maybe what we can do is ask these guys if they're able to these people if they're able to come back at, say 10 o'clock and or 1015 maybe and give us a little how many, like how long would you want to I still don't have a copy of it so yeah I know I'm sorry I will get that to you just how many pages is it. Hang on let me just look up here. I'm just trying to get it Pam Pam Bruni was the last one that sent it off to us so I'm just trying to find it here we go. Okay, you have it. I do have it yeah. So, let's send it but I'll just put it right in the packet right now. Hang on one second. I reviewed the packet so many times to and so I feel so bad. Hey, let's see. All right, here we go. It is going to go in in two seconds. All right. I just dropped it in there. And let me while you're all kind of looking at it for a second let me just check in with our sponsors here and see Athena would you be able to somehow bring in our sponsors quickly so that we can just check in with them on timing. James and who else. It's James, Adam, Anna, and Pam. Good morning counselors. Hi there. This is James Davis and I am more than happy to come back at 10 it sounds like you all have a long meeting ahead of you today so don't let this be a stress point, and really excited to chat and thank you for your consideration we really appreciate it. James, yeah, I'm so sorry this is totally my mistake I thought that it was in the packet and it wasn't Michelle I, this is Anna. I do have a 10 o'clock that I have to go lead, I could come back at 11 but I have to, I cannot be here at 10, however, there are so many sponsors of this that if you need to do move on without me I trust you all to move through. I think it will be more likely 1015 unless we take that recess now to look at it so if everybody would like to take the recess now okay let's check with Pam. Thank you Anna that's helpful. Pam. Hi, I can come back. Okay, you can come back at 10 o'clock. I can make I can make myself available yep. Thank you Pam thank you so much. Alright, so James Adam Pam if you could come back at 10 o'clock and we'll have had a chance to look at it and then Anna I'm sorry. You won't be able to be here but we'll take good care of it. That's okay I trust all of you thank you. Okay, thank you. So let's, because we have folks coming at 930 why don't we pause if everybody wants to turn their camera off until what do you say 915 is that enough time or nine should it go in the public packet as well. I just added it. Yeah. Oh, thank you. How much time would you all like to review it. At least till 915. Well let's check back in at 915 and then if we need more time we'll take it then. And if you want please turn your camera off so we can. Where is it. In the package. It's in the public packet now. Okay thank you. You're unmuted Pat just wanted to let you know. Oh thank you I'm not saying anything, which is good. Thank you Athena. Just in case. I know you know me very well. Let me get. How are you doing with it Pat. You're muted. Yeah, I'm fine. So, I haven't read any of the results yet. Okay, so let's take another five minutes. We'll check back in five minutes. Or yeah just turn your camera on when you feel ready. How are you doing with a Jennifer. That's my head my. Your camera back on. Okay. How about you Mandy. I think I can be ready. Okay. And Pat. Pat, you good. Okay. And we'll just wait for a Nica to come back on. I'm ready. Oh, great. Okay. So I do still see that. You know, I'm not sure if that's a good idea. But I think that's a good idea. I think that is in the audience. And on a, I just raise your hand if there's anything that you wanted to just add about your, you know, about the resolution given that you're a sponsor and you won't be able to be here. Great. All right. So let me, if Athena could bring in on a just for a moment, that would be great. All right. Thanks, Michelle. So I appreciate. I appreciate you giving the time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the support for an action that we know needs, needs change at the state and federal level. I think we've seen. Statistically why decriminalization is. Is so important to. Really understand the benefits of plant medicine. I think when you read the studies of how it can support folks with anything, you know, from anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD, and the criminalization of it has led to disproportionate, disproportionate arrests and continues to exacerbate systems of oppression. And so I think for me, decriminalization is such a clear path forward that I'm, I'm grateful that we can do our part to support, to show our support, which then lends that that little oomph to the, the state legislation that can move forward as well. That was not super gathered. I apologize. I did not write it down, but yeah, I'm excited about this one. I think it's, I think it's really has a lot of potential. And it's a good, a good move for us to do to demonstrate our, our support. Excellent. Thank you, Anna. Thanks a lot. And thank you for sponsoring it and for working on it together with everyone. So it's been, it's been a little while that we were working on it. Yeah, and I also started, sorry, really, I do want to thank, you know, I think we've heard so much from our community sponsors and their, their groups as well. And so I think this is one that we can see isn't just, this isn't just a council initiative. This has widespread support and deep committed support too. And I'm very grateful for them as well. Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Okay. So let's go ahead and I think with the time that we have, we can approve the minutes. And then if we can start talking about calendar. Until 930 when the sponsors of the API proclamation come, let's try that. So. Did everyone have a chance to review the minutes. April 13th. Okay. So I'm going to move to adopt the April 13th, 2022 GOL meeting minutes. Is there a second? Second. Great. Thank you. Anika and Mandy. Hi. Pat. Hi. Anika. Hi. Jennifer. Hi. And I'm an I as well. Okay. So. The reason that I put the meeting calendar on, there are a couple reasons that I put the meeting calendar. On to the agenda. The first is we had talked about when we initially set our schedule that we would around this time review it and make sure it's still working for everyone. There are also a couple conflicts. I have a conflict that I'd like to share with the group on one of our meeting dates. And then Anna also is, has a conflict in terms of being here to review. The, the bylaw that she proposed on Monday. So. But let's keep those things separate. And I'd like to just hear from folks about how this day and time is working. And Pat, I know you had also talked about morning. So just, I wanted to check with you about early mornings as well. Yeah, I wouldn't mind if it started a half hour later, but I can do the nine o'clock. Okay. And is Wednesday morning, Wednesday still a good day for you? Yes. Okay. Great. What about you, Mandy? Yeah, I'm fine. Wednesdays are fine. Later would be fine. You know, in terms of Wednesday mornings. I'm pretty flexible if we stay on Wednesdays. Yeah. Okay. Jennifer. Yeah, flexible. Okay. So generally this is working for you, but 930 working for me, but I could do afternoons. You know, as long as it doesn't conflict with CRC, I guess. Right. Which is Thursday, right? Yeah. And Anika, how is this working for you? You know, in general. Day. Meetings are usually a challenge for me to, to fit in. You know, especially warnings, but I've done it. And so if it, and I, and I do it on a very tight schedule. So I can, if we need to move, you know, even a half hour, I would just need to know that. You know, as far in advance as possible today. To be able to, to do that. Because just, just for my, myself personally. The, you know, a lot of. You know, like traditional schedules are going to start probably like 830 and go on. So. This is kind of like smack in the. The middle of the busy morning time, but, you know, as I said, I'm not very good at this. I'm not very good at this. I'm not very good at this. And I want to be able to have the best of this, so I would just need whatever notice possible to be able to. Shift around. Okay. Great. And Pat, I saw your hand before Jennifer. So thanks. Given Anika's schedule. I don't want to move it to 930. I'll keep it at nine. You've already, you're already compromising by having it in the daytime. And I really can't add another evening meeting. So I would. I don't want to move it to 930. I don't want to move it to 930 would be physically very tough for me. So, but I could do that. I'd rather not, but I can even do that if necessary. I wouldn't suggest that. And honestly, I do, I do understand if, you know, if it's, I think if it's, if it's a matter of health, just so you know, that's priority, you know, for me as well for you. So if it is a matter of your health, I don't think it's a priority for me to know as far as advanced. Let's keep it at nine. Let's keep it at nine. But if it does please really, if it does become something, I would like you to put your health first. Okay. Thank you very much. Good. And Mandy. You, or I'm sorry, Jennifer, you had your hand up and then. Can I hear that it's easier, more convenient for people in the afternoon? Will you say that Anika would that be better for you in the like during a day, if it's in between like anything that's between nine and either nine a.m. and eight p.m. I am fitting in. So it's, yeah, it's just a matter of scheduling. Okay, and Mandy. That was going to be my question because I thought I was hearing from Anika that a late afternoon might be better for her, but if that's not, then- Oh no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I just didn't want to be dramatic. There's no time, you know, that's possible. I'm just, I'm fitting it all in. Cancel all meetings. Can't do this. It's great to be that busy. All right, so that's settled. So we're going to stay with nine. So then with that in mind, I have a request for our May 11th meeting. Anna is not able to join us until 11 and she'll really just barely be getting out of the class that she teaches. So would it be possible on May 11th for folks to meet until, if you want to start a half an hour later, so it's only a two-hour meeting, that's fine just for the 11th or if we want to just extend that meeting by a half an hour so that Anna can be with us for that, for the, to review the by-law. Yes, Jennifer. So I won't be able to be at the May 11th meeting unless for some reason it was later in the afternoon that day. Okay, all right. Well, that's good to know and to take into consideration. I do think Anna is still here. Yeah, what about others? Would that go from if we did this, if it was on the 11th, would that be from 11 to one? No, so we would meet from nine to 1130 or if we wanted to just keep it a two-hour meeting, we would meet from nine 30 to 1130 to give Anna that half an hour between 11 and 1130 to review the by-law. Okay, I can be flexible with that time if it works for the majority. Okay, great. Anna, Athena, if you could allow Anna to talk, please. Well, I was just letting you know, I am still here and yes, I could be there at 11, I also could do before nine. I'm really sorry. I do teach typically Wednesday mornings, so I apologize that I'm causing havoc. No apologies. I mean, maybe a little problem, but... What about you, Mandy and Pat? How are you feeling about that on Wednesday the 11th? A half an hour shift is fine. I'd prefer the shift over extending the meeting personally. I would too, just to add that in there. I think that would be good. Jen, I see you're, okay. How about you, Pat? You're muted. I'm muted. Who? I would like to shift it to 930 to 1130, not to add a half hour. Okay, perfect. I don't have any things that day that... So let's do that then. On the 11th, 930 to 1130, we'll welcome Anna at 11 and on the 25th, I am not able to be here at all. I have to be in court. So the options are for Anika to chair the meeting, which I think is perfectly fine option. And we could just, if you're okay with it, Anika, we'll just touch base prior to the meeting. And then does that work for you? Yes, that works. Okay, perfect. So that meeting will be 9 to 11, as usual. And then we'll just continue with our regular schedule. So that's settled. Okay, good. All right, so let's see if we have our sponsors here. Okay, I'm just gonna... Okay, so I do see that Professor Richard Chew is here and I'd like to bring them into the room. And Mandy, if you would bring up there, I think in the packet there may be two versions of the AAPI. The latest was yesterday at 1.50 PM. That has your name on it, right? Yes, cause I added some things to that one. This is cool. Welcome Professor, nice to see you. To see you all. Thank you for inviting me here. Yeah, thank you so much. We're really excited to have you and I'm just gonna check here to see if there's anyone else that is coming. I know that Jennifer Moisten was hoping to be here. So we'll just keep Jennifer's, we'll keep an eye out for Jennifer. And also, do you know if Dr. Leo Hwang is coming to join us today? He said he'll try. I think he is on another meeting but then if he finishes early he'll try to join us. Okay, excellent. So we'll keep our eye out for him as well. So I just wanna start by really thanking first Jennifer Moisten who's not here for reaching out to her contacts. And she really started the ball rolling, getting in touch with Professor Chew and then Professor Chew took it from there and got in touch with a bunch of other people and asked for folks to review this proclamation. We got some really excellent feedback. I'd also like to say that Professor Chew is a commissioner of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Commission of the state of Massachusetts. So, and as is Dr. Leo Hwang, we're very, very lucky to have them sponsoring this. And we have some other sponsors here as well. So, but before we kind of move into the review, I just would love Richard for you to talk a minute if you'd like about this, what this might mean to you, this proclamation and your work on the commission and anything really that you'd like to add. Well, first of all, I'd like again to thank you and Jennifer and the rest of the council for inviting me to weigh in on this and to be involved. I think this is an important step that the city of Amherst is taking. And I hope that many other cities and counties or the whole state would also follow in your footsteps. We in the commission, we strive to be an advocate for the Asian American communities in the state. And so we are acting as a liaison between these communities and also the state of the legislation, the legislature of the state of Massachusetts. And so we are really, we would really like to support initiatives like this one and then also reach out to all the other communities. And if there's anything you'd like us to do, please let us know. Incidentally, so I see Yasmin Padamsi Forbes name, she's the executive director of the commission and also Mina Vakatsi I think also said that who's the chair of the commission would also like to be a sponsor. Yes, that is my understanding and that is so exciting. We're really grateful for that. And I did just, yeah. And I also just saw that Jennifer joined Athena. So if you would bring Jennifer in, that would be great. So we thank you so much, Richard, for sharing that. And I do want to just say for a moment, I think Richard just shared that Yasmin is the executive director of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Asian American and Pacific Islanders Commission and Milan Kang. Did I say that right, Milan? Mina Vakatsi, her name is Mina Vakatsi. Let me get her. So she goes by Mina, but her full name is Minaksi Barat. And I think she just sent you an email saying that she would like her name to be also included. Yes, and so we should, let me, I'll get the spelling there. So am I correct that she is the assistant professor of women's studies at the University of Massachusetts and affiliated faculty in sociology and Asian American studies? Does that sound? Oh, that's Milan Kang. Okay, so these are, oh, I see. We have someone who just emailed now. Okay, yes. All right, this is great. We have so much support. So I believe that she also would like to be added as a sponsor. She's our chair in the commission. Yes, okay, perfect. So is Jennifer here? Let's see. Welcome, Jennifer. Good morning, everyone. How are you? We are. We're good. Thank you for joining us. And I did go ahead and add the Human Rights Commission. Before you got here, I was just saying, I was thanking you for making the connections for this proclamation. And Richard was talking a little bit about what he does in the community and the proclamation and sort of the importance of this. And so thank you for joining us. Thank you, Jennifer, for connecting me to the rest of the council. Oh, of course. And thank you for stepping in and helping out. It's really important that we get community members involved in helping us move forward with the many different heritage proclamations that we would like to create in events. So thank you very much. All right. Yeah, and we'll definitely be in touch about trying to create some sort of event to raise more awareness and to celebrate. So what we do here is we will be going through this proclamation and we'll be reviewing it for clarity, consistency, and actionability. And I have gone in and added some of the suggestions that we received from the group of community sponsors. And we will go paragraph by paragraph. So we'll have an opportunity to look at each one and what we're really looking for is clarity, consistency, and actionability. But as we go, we'll also incorporate some of these suggestions. So if at any point, Dr. Xu, you'd like to add something or have something to say about a particular whereas or a particular paragraph, just please raise your hand. You should have the ability to use the raise hand function. Or you can just, sometimes we just talk, try not to talk over each other, but... Oh, and I do see that Leo Huang is here. So if we could please bring him into the room as well. Welcome. It's nice to see you, Dr. Wang. Thank you for joining us. Sorry to come in late. No, better late than never. We were just talking a little bit about the proclamation. I was explaining what our review is going to look like. But I'd love for you to just take a minute if you'd like to just add anything that you may want in terms of why this is important to you or why you chose to be a community sponsor for this. Well, I just want to express my appreciation for the committee and the work that you're doing to make Amherst really make the kinds of statements that are important for the Asian and Pacific Islander community. And the work that you put into this on a daily basis, but also on these special times of the year as well when we're trying to raise awareness of different communities. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Wang. We're really happy to have you. Okay, so let's go ahead. Again, we'll be reviewing for clarity, consistency and actionability and we always start with the title. And Mandy is going to be making real-time edits to this as we're working through it. So I did want to point out with the title, one of the pieces of feedback that we received from Milan is here. So if everybody could just take a look at that. And I did go through and add the word the where it wasn't there or excuse me, and where it wasn't there. And so I think I caught them all, but we will want to keep our eye out as we move through it to make sure that that is there. And if anyone has any comments or questions about that. Pat, did you? Yeah, I'm looking at the title and also the language throughout and looking at the information you gave us about the Pacific Islander term. And I would like to change the title of the proclamation and wherever Pacific Islanders is used to have it say Asian American and indigenous and native Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. If that's okay with the sponsors. Yeah, I'm curious how do the community sponsors feel about that and you can just unmute and talk. I think I wouldn't change the title and include the indigenous and native populations because first of all, they're not here to represent themselves and see whether they agree to that. And also by lumping us together, then we are really taking out the voices of specific groups. And although we are all like a part of a marginalized of press communities, we do have very different stories or histories and relationships and experiences to racism. Pat, does that resonate for you? Yes, it does. Okay, all right, so we will keep it as is. Oh, no, it does not resonate with me. Okay, I heard differently. I thought Dr. Chu that you were supporting the change, but I may have misheard. I will go with what the sponsors feel is appropriate. Yeah, I would recommend having a different proclamation for native and indigenous peoples. Okay. But again, all the issues and the histories are pretty different. And so, no, we should, I think it's best not to lump these groups together because then their voices might be drowned out. Okay, thank you for that clarification. I misunderstood what you were saying. Thank you. Uh-huh, you're welcome. And I wonder, too, Pat, if you were maybe referring, I don't wanna go too deep down, you know. Yeah, here. Okay, all right. You don't have that much time. And so perhaps this should be changed to Asian-American Heritage Month Proclamation. How about Dr., or yes, Dr. Huang, what is your feeling on this? I think part of what Millian was pointing out was that ideally, if we had a phrase somewhere, whereas we recognize Asian and Pacific Islanders include the wide diaspora of immigrants in the United States and include Indigenous and Native people from those lands, I think that that's probably more something that she was inclined to say. And so it's kind of hard to encapsulate that just in one phrase, I think. Right, in the title. And that's how I had read what she was offering as well. So, but I just wanted to, yeah, okay. Oh, I like that. So, whereas Asian seeks to honor and recognize contributions of US citizens, residents and communities originating from Asia and the Pacific Island communities, countries, including Native and Indigenous peoples from the Pacific Islands. That's nice. Richard, do you think that's okay? Or are you still feeling that's conflating too many things? Yeah, I have to admit, I didn't read her, the link that she gave. And so, let me see. If you can go on and out. Yeah, let's do that. Let's move on and then we can come back to this piece. That's perfect, okay. All right, so let's go to our sponsors here. And we have Councillor Henneke, thank you for sponsoring this. I would also like to sponsor this. I've enjoyed working on this and really appreciate this proclamation very much. And is anyone else here adding their name to be a sponsor to this proclamation? Chicken, okay. And then we also have the Amherstown Manager's Office was a sponsor. Oh, go ahead, Mandy. I'd like to say something about that. That ended up being the community sponsor last year because this came from, I greatly appreciate that Jennifer is the one that drafted this last year, but we didn't know whether the Human Rights Commission was the sponsor or not, but we felt we needed to recognize Jennifer's contribution to that and she sat in the town manager's office last year. So that's why that was in there. Given that Jennifer's new role is not in the town manager's office and that was sort of a placeholder last year, I think we could potentially delete Amherstown Manager's office from the community sponsor list, given the history of why it was listed there last year. Jennifer, would you like to speak to that? I agree with you, Mandy. I'd like to hear Jennifer, does that, because we've now added the Human Rights Commission, so. Yes, and so typically anytime that a proclamation is brought, it's on behalf of the Human Rights Commission, which still falls under my new role and I'm still located in the town manager's office, but I'm not, I'm in a different department now, so, yeah. Okay, great. So, and then I wanna make sure we have everyone here and Mandy, I'm gonna give you some spelling for Mina. Okay, so for Mina, it's M-E-E-N-A-K-S-H-I and then B-H-A-R-A-T-H. And I can read that again if you need the, okay, great. So I just wanna make sure we got everyone here. Richard and, or excuse me, Richard and Leo, does this list look correct to you based on our email exchanges? The only person that was in question that I don't think responded was, let's see. So, Million Kang is not listed, should Million be? I think yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah, so she emailed us and said that she's not sure whether she can be listed. So I think she would like to be listed, but she's not sure because she doesn't know whether people who are acting in their own individual capacity can be included. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes, they can. So they can and they don't have to be, we found, they don't have to be Amherst residents. So I know that was another question. And so there was CNLA that was also on the email, but I didn't get, there weren't any emails that I saw that came back in response. So without their affirmation, I guess we'll leave them off of the proclamation. Okay. All right, so then let's move to the first whereas. And again, we're looking for clarity, consistency and actionability. Mandy, do you have the ability to make this just a little, I know because we have notes on the side, it's harder, but are you able to zoom it a tiny bit? There we go. Awesome. We need to see the notes, I can move it so we can. Great. Okay, any comments or questions on this first whereas? And you can just unmute. All right. So the second whereas again was a recommendation from Melan. You, Mandy had, did you remove what I had crossed out that was underneath that, that was there originally? Yeah. So I basically accepted all the changes you made just so we could see a cleaner copy. Perfect. Okay. And so we still have a question here that we're gonna come back to about this adding any language in there. So let's leave that for now and we'll move on and we'll come back to that. So now we're at the third whereas today, more than 20 million. So do we, please. I'm sorry, I wanna ask about this in the prior ones we were referring to it as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. But when we, you know, four whereas is below we celebrate the achievements and contributions of Asian Americans with an S and Pacific Islanders. And so I'm wondering in this whereas the 20 million Asian American and Pacific Islanders do we wanna plural Asian Americans so that both sets are pluralized given millions concerns about the term in general. That makes sense to me. Yeah, maybe. Right. Also, do we need a comma between actions and make through their actions? I don't think so. I don't think we need one there. Yeah. Okay. So then we can move on to whereas Asian Americans and I see Mandy's already gonna make that change throughout and there was a comment here actually. So if we could look at that. So I thought this was a really great suggestion to add these additional professions and contributions of professions. So if we could add those and if there's any did that look comprehensive enough? Leo and Richard, the recommendation that was there. Okay, great. I wonder if it's better to say and other professional workers or blue collar I don't know if blue collar is also the right word because I think the emphasis here is that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are not only involved in what we might call white collar occupations but they also make up a significant portion of blue collar jobs, you know but I don't know if that is the right word to use. Could you just scroll over a little to the comment, Mandy and others? Okay, and others. It might be just in other industries. Yeah. The workforce. How does that work? That's prominent. So farmers is there twice now? If you want to take it out of the original piece as innovative farmers and ranchers. That feels important. A lot of them is two different things. There's the ones that have bought the land and are the owners of the ranches and then there are the farm workers who are the employees of those that own them. Yeah. And I do think that that might be what the intention of the comment was and so keeping them separate I think makes sense but how does that feel for you, Leo and Richard? That works for me, yeah. Same here. All right, all right. So moving on to where is Amherst's population? I just looked at the census numbers and I think it's 10.2% solely Asian American or Pacific Islander because that's how they group it at the US census with another up to 3% as a multi-heritage. So I don't know. This was obviously based on a number from 2010. Right. So you just looked at the 2020, the latest census. From census.gov, yeah. Okay. Do you have any knowledge of that, Richard or Leo? Mandy, are you saying that you base it on the 2010, not the 2020 census? So last year's was based on the 2010 census because last year we didn't have the numbers yet. Mm-hmm. But do we have... Oh, wait, maybe I have the wrong town. Hold on. I totally searched for Amherst mass. So... And it's still saying Erie here. Oh, that's weird. Let's make sure I can get the right one. I thought it was low. So it's Hampshire County. How come I cannot get Amherst? Maybe if you spell out Amherst and Massachusetts. Yeah, it's not. I'll work on it. Okay. We can add that in. We'll make sure that... Or someone else could work on it too. Yeah, we'll definitely get the most accurate that we can. I know that there... I have heard that there's been trouble like finding the most accurate 2020 census info online. So I don't know if it's all been uploaded yet, but we'll get there. All right, so is there anything else in this paragraph to comment on? All right, so then moving to... Whereas as we celebrate the achievements. And Milan made another comment here that I thought was really good and I didn't add anything. I just wanted to flag it and see what the group thought about her comment and where we might include it. Can I just... Please. Back up for a second the previous paragraph. We have another list of professions should like since we already listed professions and to like I'm sure one of the comments would be why didn't we include like the service workers in the Amherst population part? Could we just say Amherst population is more than 15% Asian-American and Pacific Islander and includes devoted community members? Absolutely. Can I share a screen? Yeah, sure. You should do have... I think Mandy might have to stop and then see... Let me if you... We should be able to do it now, yeah. So this is what I found. This is from the Institute of For Asian-American Studies based in UMass, Boston. And as you can see here in the chart Amherst is listed there 2020. With having 17.8% of the population. But you see, this is also just Asian-Americans alone. You see here. If you include Asian-Americans and in combination of it would still it would even raise the percentage higher. But we need to look for that number. I'm sure I can find it. Because I think it's important to when we're giving statistics to include not just the Asian-Americans alone, meaning they consider themselves pure, not mixed race. But many people now have started to identify or identify as mixed race. So I need to look for that number so that we have a more accurate percentage of Asian-Americans plus those who are mixed race Asian-Americans. Yeah, and when we vote this, we can, if we don't have that information by the end of the meeting we can vote it and just make it conditional on getting that number. And the other place that you could look Richard is the Donahue Institute. I know that they are responsible at UMass. They're responsible for the census in our state. And I believe they had uploaded the most the most relevant information. So that's another place to look. And I think that Leo, the change that you made there I think Mandy's already taken those pieces out that made sense. And just to James and Adam and Adam and Pam will be moving on to the plant medicine resolution as soon as we're completed with this. And thanks for your patience. Yeah, so it looks like we can at least change this to 18% for now. Because we say is more than, right? Right, and when we get a better number we can put that where it needs to be. Okay. All right, so let's move on then. Again, are there any suggestions for the recognition of intersectionality that would, is there any language suggestions? Any placement suggestions? Think for hands and also just chime in. Okay, so any other comments about this paragraph here? Do we need after culture, a comma, Mandy? I forget that you can't see my cursor, can you? So in the second line. We need with one. No. Are we onto the now therefore? Unless there, yes, unless there are any other, well, no, we have one more here. The whereas despite their contributions and leadership any comments on either of those last two whereas? Jennifer, are you trying to say something? No, I was just wondering if we're going to include Millian Kang's comment. About the intersectionality. We need someone to suggest some language. Yeah. Dr. Huang. I think the last whereas would be a nice place for the second to last. Yeah. The last. The second to last whereas, Anika? Yeah, one of the, you know, the there or yeah. I think put it, or the last two, I think probably could flow out of the last two whereas. Would we want to say inequitable, institutional and systemic injustices? The result of or fueled by something, you know, xenophobia, misogyny. Yeah. I can feel it by so good word. Yeah. So the edit I would make is these additional efforts are not a result of inequitable institution, but they're a response to, I like that. Okay. Good. Okay. Great. All right. So whereas despite their contributions and leadership, the role of API individuals has been specifically about teaching and study of American history. Does that one mark? Feel it by xenophobia, misogyny, are we going to say classism or in other forms of inequality? So yeah, include the other forms of inequality. Yeah. Or maybe other forms of what? Discrimination instead of inequality because for example, I'm thinking of homophobia and other forms of discrimination. I think that's a better word. Yeah. All right, so I think we're at the now therefore. I just, Jennifer, do you know if there's a scheduled event yet? We are processing a schedule event and then if I could reach out to Richard and Dr. Wang in regards to that event, I just wanna make sure that we're on the right track and that we're creating an event that is going to be culturally sensitive and aware and meaningful at the same time. And so I can reach out separately outside of this but it will be probably the middle or towards the end of May. Wonderful. And what we usually do is as many of the town counselors as they as can will be there to read the proclamation and it's usually really nice event small but nice event. They get bigger as the years go on as we consistently have these events. They get larger and larger. So it's really nice to watch and to be involved in. Great. So any other comments or questions before we vote on this? I have on the, what's this? Contribute, okay, on the, is that the third? We're asked today more than 20 million. I would say more vibrant, diverse. Maybe add the word diverse somewhere there. I don't know if the word secure is too, it's something like a conjures up kind of a police state or you know, like you were in the state of war. Or I don't know, maybe safe. I don't know if that's a better term or welcoming or inclusive. Jennifer, do you remember what you were getting at here when you wrote this or probably not? Well, I, when I'm looking at it now, I kind of feel like perhaps it was in regards to the AAPI community members that are in fault, that are active members in service. Right, because we, I just tried to like find as much as like, you know, every ethnicity, in the United States participates in everything that happens. And I think I was just trying to highlight that. And so it could probably be worded differently, but I did like where you were going, Richard, with the welcoming and inclusive piece of it as well. So... How about the Peaceful instead of... Yes. The Peaceful Nation. Yeah. And I'm remembering that we didn't, so we haven't cleared up this, including native and indigenous peoples from the Pacific islands. We haven't confirmed what we want to do on that. And I'm wondering if Richard or Leo had anything to add to that now. All right, let me see. Yeah, I think I'm going to say this too. How about seeks to honor and recognize the contributions of U.S. citizens, residents? Can we actually take residents out? I just, I don't like that term anymore. But then if we leave just citizens in, well, I don't like citizens either. Right, we don't include anyone that isn't a citizen and I don't like that. Yeah, no, that works. And yeah, actually citizens was just included. Originally it was just residents and communities. And then Yasmin added citizens. Well, in fact, we can remove that because residents can refer to both citizens and non-citizens. Exactly, yeah, yep. So U.S. residents and communities originating from Asia and the native and indigenous peoples from the Pacific islands. What about that? Leo, does that work for you? Works for me. Okay, and Pat, I know you, how does that, good? Okay. Can you lose the countries, let's see, and the native indigenous peoples from the Pacific islands? And then the next paragraph, the nation, I don't know if that should be capitalized because if it's capitalized, then it conjures to me again, also the indigenous peoples' nations. Yes, that looks good. All right. So the only outstanding piece that we're gonna want to double check on is the percentage, yep, the percentage, okay. So would somebody, Mandy, would you like to make a motion? Sure, I move to declare the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month proclamation clear, consistent and actionable. Second, the Angeles. Great, and Mandy, we don't have to say anything about the percentage in the motion that we can make. I'll make a note of it. Okay, perfect. All right, so let's do a vote then and we'll start with you, Anika. I. Jennifer. I. I'm an I, Pat. I. Mandy. I. Excellent, all right. Great job on that. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Yeah, appreciate you. Yeah, thank you for the three of you for being here and joining us. And Jennifer will keep you posted about the community celebration and ask for input. And yeah, thanks. Wonderful, thank you. Thank you, good job. All right, bye bye. All right. So we have Pam here and I know she probably is needs to get out of here because she's already come back. Let's bring Pam, Adam, Adam and James into the room. Thank you, Athena. Nice to see you, Adam. James. Council. Pam. Pam, I want to check with you because I saw your hand was raised and just is it a timing or whatever it is, please share or you were just ready to come in. No, no, I raised my hand because I had a question on your last proclamation and it said, I think that you were proposing to have maybe the AAPI month in Amherst. And I happened to remember that last night or two nights ago, we voted on the Jewish American Heritage Month and that was also listed as May. So I didn't know if you were gonna do two groups on the same month or if in fact, we should like. I mean, I think it's. Well, I think these are natural. I think it's probably not proper to declare the same month for two different groups. Are they listed already though? It was the last paragraph, but now we're. It's not. Therefore. National recognition. National recognition. So it's declared the same month for both groups. It's not in our, it's not in our control. They're national heritage months that have already been declared. So we're just following that schedule. Is that where you were gonna say, Jennifer? Yes. We can have two, we can have two propositions for the same month. Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That was my question. Speaking as a Jew, Jewish Americans and Asian Americans have a lot of ties together. So it might be to our advantage to keep us. Nice. Thanks, Adam. So we are excited to finally get to this day. I'm gonna apologize one more time for my mistake and then I'm gonna move on and we'll get to this. So I think counselors that are here had a chance to review the resolution and we may have a little bit more questions because they didn't have a chance to review it in advance, but I do wanna welcome our community sponsors starting with James Davis, who is the, I think James, are you the chair of the coalition for decriminalization or a lead, how would you name your, how would you identify? It's funny, Michelle. I always tell people I'm a lead volunteer because we like to keep the relationships pretty horizontal, but I do the majority of the legislative work. I do a lot of the organizing behind the scenes as well. And then our group will become a formal nonprofit in the next couple of months. So I'll be on the board of that. So whatever you wanna call me, James is good. Wonderful. Okay, and then we have Adam Fink, who I think Adam, did I get it right that you lead the base daters group at UMass? Is that right? So we are affiliated with base daters, yes. We are the multidisciplinary psychedelic club. We are a community focusing on safe use of substances and intellectual exploration among college students on our campus. Excellent. And Adam, you're also, Adam Clem, you are also part of that group as well, correct? Yes, I am very proud to be so. Okay, great. Well, we welcome you and Pam, thank you so much for joining on it is also a sponsor of this resolution but is unable to be here. So what we do, James and Adam and Adam is we're gonna review this for clarity, consistency and actionability. I saw that you were in the audience for the last ones, you have some sense of what we'll be doing going through paragraph by paragraph. We are running a little low on time. Usually I would love to give you a few minutes to talk about what this means to you, but I'm hoping as we move through this, we might have an opportunity to do that. I do wanna make sure we get it through it by the, so it gets to the council. So that's the priority here. So if there aren't any questions, we will move on and begin the review. All right. And just to quickly say that the council sponsors and the community sponsors have been working together, I think for the past two or more months on this, I also want to say that Pat was a sponsor of this and was very much in support of this, but just due to scheduling demands, removed herself as a sponsor, but I think has already said is very much in support of it. Pat, would you like to add anything to that? No, I could tell you wonderful tales of my 20s someday. Awesome. Okay. I have a question about community sponsors. Sure. I just have listed the names. Are there groups, like has the base daters or the UMass group voted to essentially be a sponsor and should they be listed? James and Adam and Adam, what do you think? Yes. The board of the Multidisciplinary Psychedel Club is in full support of all of these motions. Sam can be said of base daters too. And the club is at UMass? Correct. We are also a registered nonprofit as well. And what's the title of the base daters? So the new nonprofit title is just base daters. And then we also go by base daters for natural medicine, but base daters is probably good. And it's actually two words too, base daters. Awesome. Thank you so much. All right. So it is two words, base daters. Thank you. All right, great. And does that look complete in terms of sponsors? Okay. All right. So the title, do committee members have any comments on the title? And just unmute because I can't see everybody in one. Yes, Pat, I did see you. Just a general vague confusion. You talk about in the one, two, three, fourth, whereas about the toads and frogs, which are favorite animals of mine, but there's nothing in either the title talks about plant medicines. And yet here we're talking about animals. So I'm not sure whether that needs an adjustment or not. I understand, I kept going over and over it. So the reason why that is important to us, Pat, is unfortunately with the rise in popularity and reemergence of psychedelics, there are a lot of people that are poaching this in desert tone. Yeah, I'm sorry. And it is something that is very much on our radar because we have a chance to prevent these species and their poisons from becoming a mainstream part of this movement. And to that end, we've hosted events with a few conservation societies, including the New England Herpetological Society, the Tucson Herpetological Society that's trying to protect these toads and they've endorsed the measure as long as we exempt those poisons from decriminalization. The other piece of this though is let's say that those compounds do have benefits for people. We're decriminalizing eventually through the state the production of them through our university system because without that, it's very sad, but the reality is the Sonoran Desert Toad which is precious to the Yaqui people and also the Phylo Medusa tree frogs in the Amazon are in for a world of hurt in profit driven circles that want to extract their poisons and give nothing back. So that's why we included it. I know that it feels different because it's not a plant medicine but we're specifically separating it from what we do if that makes sense. It makes sense, but somehow rather the, it's a, and I don't wanna take it out. It's not that I wanna take it out but somehow or other it feels like it needs to be reflected in the title but I will go with the committee whatever the committee decides. Okay, well let's sit with it and we'll come back to it and revisit, we'll move on and we can think about that as we move through. Okay, so let's start with the first whereas. So just a formatting issue. We've never formatted any proclamations or resolutions in this way. It's always been whereas comma and then sort of just paragraph form instead of this. What do we wanna do? Is that true for resolutions as well as proclamations? Yeah, I mean, I think we should keep them consistent personally but I'm not, I don't have a strong feeling one way or another but I think Pam, Pam has a suggestion there. Please. I don't have a strong feeling either. This was sort of as it was prepared for us as a starting point from James. So I'm totally open if we have a different standard. Great. All right. But I would say could we actually go through the content first and then do some horse, you know. Yeah, Mandy is magic. She really is. Be patient with me and we'll deal with it. But as you do the content, I'll take care of this. Perfect. Thank you, Mandy. Thank you. All right, so let's, any comments about the first whereas? Clarity, consistency and actionability. But we have one typo that needs to be removed, the file and the use of halfway through the paragraph. It's struck there. We got that struck, yeah. So what happens Pam is Mandy will work in this format as we're going along and then she'll show us a clean version with all of the things that have been struck and things like that. So any other comments on this first whereas? All right. So let's go ahead and move to the second whereas and just unmute and speak please if you have a comment. Okay. Moving on to the third whereas? Okay, good. Fourth, any comments on the fifth? So I highlighted war on drugs. I wasn't sure whether it needed capitalized or not. James, Adam, Adam. So some advocates go either way. I think that capitalizing it makes more sense to me personally. Sort of. I don't think it really matters. It's sometimes even put as an acronym of WOD to people who are really active in drug policy. So I think capitalizing it makes it clear that it's a more formal term for what it's worth. I think similar to like, we capitalized civil war. The idea of like this was like a purposeful thing. Having it capitalized here would be helpful as like a distinct measure and body of policy in historical periods. Great. All right. Where are we here? Is this where we're at here? Yes. Mandy, okay. So whereas decriminalization of controlled substances that's where we're working now. Can you say, Mandy, why is word? Okay, not anymore. Nevermind. Why is word picking up stigma? Okay. That's why. Good. Excuse me. Anna has been able to return to the attendees for meeting when I ended early if Athena could bring her in. Thank you, Pat. Welcome back, Anna. Thank you. Okay. You didn't miss the whole thing. We still got half to go. All right. So were there any other comments on this one? The decriminalization of controlled substances. All right. Moving on. And I just, I want to note, Pam, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was an addition that you made based on some conversation that you had with James toward the end of our process. And I do believe that James felt really appreciative for that, for that addition. So just want to mention that. Okay. And then we're at the city councils. And again, just unmute, Anna, you just got here. So we're just unmuting and offering comment. Okay. So moving on to Amherst residents. And I will say that we, I think we, as sponsors wanted to make sure that we provided a comprehensive list, the original one that we received had some North Hampton organizations that we decided to remove to keep it concentrated within Amherst, but please do review this carefully. So my only comment was, and I struggle with this one, which is the inclusion of Cress simply because residents have benefited from organizations that have worked tirelessly and Cress is so new and hasn't really started running that it seemed in one sense an odd inclusion. And then another, I absolutely understand why you put it in there. So actually Mandy, we decided, and I'm sorry, I didn't make that change. We decided as a group, at least the council, I think we all decided that we would say and soon to be Cress or something along. Pam, is that what we had? Yeah, and I didn't make a change. So does that, would that feel more appropriate, Mandy? And James, I see your hand is up as well. Just an idea, maybe we could change the phrase that have worked to are working. And maybe that'll fix the problem, assuming that they're soon to be operational. So if they're reading this in a month, it'll be 100% accurate. I support that. The director has already begun working. We have a director now. He's really been out there from day one. Great, great. That's a great suggestion, James. Thank you. All right, I just had one question. And did we confirm, this is just the question I forgot to, did we confirm that they do provide these provisions for harm reduction? Do you mean Cress? All of the organization. Because if you know, if we're reading this and someone's reading that, oh, I can go XYZ for this, is this accurate? That they can go and, as I said, for the provision of sterile syringes and other equipment with harm reduction, have we confirmed that? Because we could be sending people. And if they do, fantastic. But I just wouldn't want us to miscommunicate. I don't think that all of these organizations, provide all of those harm reduction possibilities. I did see Anna's hand was up, though. Yep, that's what I was gonna say. I don't think we're communicating that they all offer everything, but throughout all of them, I believe those are all of the things we say are covered. But there's at least. They probably provide, they would connect you to certain counseling if they didn't provide it on site. Right. Okay, so at least one of them, someone could go for all of these services. One of these organizations that are listed here, someone could go and get a sterile syringe. I think that's the one that we really wanna make sure. Does anybody know the answer to that? I don't believe that the Amherst Survival Center, I think along the lines, I mean, excuse me, family outreach of Amherst. I think the long lines of what Jennifer said is it would be making the connection to somewhere that could. What about Craig's Doors? Does anybody know? Well, also, yeah, I don't know this. James. Other idea, if we wanted to get around that more technical question, we have the first whereas at the top of this page where we say we are sending a message to the community that investment in comprehensive services and harm reduction and education services. Perhaps if we thought that one or two of those items in the fourth whereas on the page didn't fit there, we could move them there. It's really not a big issue for us either way because harm reduction is pretty clear from our perspective, but just an idea that maybe it could be moved, some of those items could be moved there. It is a little different because it is the city saying that those are a priority, which is a little bit different of a statement than thanking organizations for which it's a priority for them, but just a thought. Yeah, because I think what happened is we took out tapestry and tapestry is the one that does do needle exchange. And so we either can add tapestry backing, even though they're now in Northampton or take out the needle, the syringe, excuse me, syringe. I think adding tapestry backing makes more sense. I agree. And I think Amherst residents have benefited even if they're in Northampton, so not a problem. Okay, good. I was gonna say that including the numerous organizations and neighboring communities certainly covers all of those things. That's true, yeah. But Anika, thank you for pointing that out because that is so technical. And you're right, I think that I'm glad we're adding tapestry where we know they do that. So- I just wouldn't want us to like send someone for a service and attach it with a name. And, you know- Absolutely, yeah. All right, so let's go ahead and move on to Despite. So the change I made here for suggest making is using the American English spelling. And I thought that should be plural because it's referring to multiple possession, use of substances and accompanying paraphernalia are multiple types of criminal offenses, not just one. And is the A crossed out so they remain criminal offenses? Yes. Yeah, okay. That works. Does that really- And I put a comma? No, I got rid of a comma here because I read it as possession and use of substances and accompanying paraphernalia which would not put a comma there then. Are those together from your perspective, Adam, Adam or James? Should those be together or separated by a comma? I think that it is kind of a run on sentence as with most resolutions I've looked up but I think what makes most sense to me grammatically would be possession, comma, use of entheogenic substances, comma and before the and and after substances, comma. And then we need a possession, use and possession. Possession. And possession of paraphernalia. That doesn't sound as artful because we've already used the word possession. So maybe we could say possession of controlled substances, use of entheogenic substances and possession of paraphernalia. And that is definitely a long sentence but I think that that's grammatically correct. Looks good, okay. All right, great. So now therefore be it resolved. These were just changes to our form. My question on this one, we'd normally reference the Amherstown Council but I moved that phrase up because the way it was, I felt this was a little clearer. People can reject that but the way it was reading with the by-town departments at the bottom was, you know, should be understood first and primarily as an issue of public harm and restorative racial justice initiatives by-town departments. So I felt like it wasn't understood by the town departments though it was written, it was understood that these things are done in the town departments type thing. And so that's why I moved the phrase up. I have no problem with that, does anyone else? Okay, James and Adam and Adam, does that work for you? Great. Okay. Yeah, no, take your time, Mandy, thank you. And so we're at the second where, or be it further resolved, excuse me. So again, I added the Amherstown front of everything. The of the town was because it said no town of Amherst apartment or employee. So it was kind of repetitive. Right. Yeah, that can come out. Pat, I see your hand is up. Yeah, and each of the further resolves, it says be if further resolved. And I believe it should be being it. I totally typed it wrong quickly, thank you. All right, good catch. Amazing how your mind changes those things. I didn't see that. There's also a font difference in the, now therefore. Yeah, I'll fix all the fonts and all later. I think there's a size difference too on some of these because I just copied them from other things. All right, anything else on the second, be it further resolved? I do. And it relates to all of these, the maintains and the two policies. GOL has had this debate in the past. Our resolutions meant to adopt policy. And different counselors have different views of that, but I always get concerned when these seem to be directing the town, because we are as counsel, the chief policy setters. And so when we're actually saying this is the policy, yet it seems buried in a resolution, we always, a lot of counselors think of resolutions as not setting policy, yet this is clearly meant to set policy, including policy about actual enforcement of laws, right? And so is this something that a resolution should do or should not do? What is GOL's position on making comments about that? And if it is meant to be a policy, should GOL recommend that such a resolution meant to be a policy be reviewed for actual policy implications? I know we've struggled Pat with that before with some other issues. So since GOL does not generally review stuff for substantive matters, should GOL make a recommendation that this be referred to a different committee for review of the actual policy implications here? And I think it would probably be referred back to our committee, wouldn't it? Well, some of these are town services policy. Yeah, so. That's true, yeah, that's true. But so are you asking it the question of whether? So I wanted to point that out because I think it's something, it doesn't necessarily affect clarity consistent, it may affect actionability. Do we have a policy of adopting, of saying resolutions are actionable when they set policy or not, but it more reflects what report and motion we make to the council or potentially additional motions we make to the council. Landy, when going saying, using the language using policy, would this be something that we would have to address and presenting to the full council or is this, has this happened before where resolutions end up inspiring or enforcing policy? So I think Pat, correct me if I'm wrong, the last time we dealt with this was a spraying issue. I think that was sponsored by councilor Demont and basically we ended up, we ended up voting them. So I think two things happened, if I remember correctly, the GOL voted the measure clear and consistent but not actionable because it had the policy issues, statements in there that were adopting policy and then the sponsors actually changed the language and came back to GOL in order for GOL to be able to say it was actionable because they changed the language to get rid of the policy statements. Did they change it to practice or how did they do that? Yeah, right, what was the change? I think they just got rid of those, their force, those results. I can't remember clearly though, Pat. I can't either about whether it was removed entirely, that it means changing the practice. What about changing policy? Somebody said it to practice. Okay, so I saw that Jennifer's here. It supports the practice, I don't know. Go ahead, Jennifer. Let's go. No, actually, I just ways to ask the question of how they dealt with it before because I see what you're saying, it's like we're adopting policy just as a committee. Well, that we'd be saying that it might not be realized by the council that there's actual policy in here. Normally when we adopt a policy as the chief policy setters, the title is policy on. Right, no, and then wouldn't the full council have to approve it? Yes. Yeah, and they'll have to approve it anyway, but what Mandy's saying is. No, no, I understand. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree that we probably, unfortunately have to temper it. Let's see what Pam, because we did talk about this as sponsors and I know James will add something. Let's go to Pam and then James, please. Yeah, I, it, this is the first time I'm hearing the concern about policy versus something else, but given the fact that we're trying to strongly recommend that this be a low priority in law enforcement that maybe if we could use the word intent, that it be the intent of the town that it maintains that it should be the intent of the departments, et cetera, is that somewhat less than policy, but still set a tone for how we want. I think it, I think it actually does try to set policy, but if we're not going and I'm not part of GOL, so I'm not gonna weigh in on if that's what we should be doing, but if we could change it to intend or practice, as Pat mentioned, maybe that's an opportunity. Just to add another thought to the conversation, when we had the legal departments of these four other cities review the measure, it wasn't an issue using this stronger version of the language because it was understood that this isn't policy, this is a resolution. And we have respected that with regards to how we communicate about it as well. And the reason why fundamentally it isn't policy in our opinion is because it's still illegal, very illegal under federal and state law to grow, manufacture, distribute, possess these substances. And it's kind of just ironic that localities don't have the authority to really set this or we would be pushing for ordinances. But the reason why we structured as a resolution and we push it as a resolution, although it does have strong language saying this should be the policy is because we're setting up ourselves for the state reform debate next year that is going to have a lot of out of state interests that are lobbying to get a system set up in a particular way. And we don't have the expectation that the town of Amherst Police Department will enforce this to a T or that it truly will be the lowest priority in all instances, but this does give cover to patrol officers that they know that they're acting within the democratic will of the council to not arraign people and not arrest them and not investigate them. And that gives a lot of cover to lower level officers who might have a supervisor that's more strict on these types of things or wants to enforce state law. So I would say in practice, this doesn't change policy very unfortunately or we would have pushed for an ordinance. And I feel that watering down the language with intent, it just doesn't reflect what we did in other cities. So that consistency might be a good reason to just keep it in place, but understand this isn't unfortunately legal policy until we change the state law. And we wanna force the state to reconcile that fact that there are so many officers and departments not following the state and federal government's guidance on arrest that it is their lowest priority. Thank you, James. Mandy? Yeah, so thank you for that, but I caution that Northampton has a mayor that sets the town, the city policy. Eastampton has a mayor that sets the city policy. Even Cambridge under their charter has a mayor which is I know weird because it's a mayor manager system, but their mayor that is the council president is technically their mayor sets the policy. In Amherst, the policy for the town is set by the council under our charter. So it is a different system, which is what worries me. So in Northampton say they can say should be the policy because they don't set the policy, the mayor sets the policy. But if Amherst says should be the policy, technically it is the policy because in Amherst under our charter, we set the townwide policy and that's why doing stuff and using words like this in a resolution, I bring up that big sort of concern of we need to let the council know because it actually might be different in Amherst than in any of the other communities that these have passed in because of how our charter is set up and worded. I'm sorry, I had to step away. Was it Pat or Jennifer that had their hand up first? It looks like it was Pat. Okay. Let me get it down. I'm curious about whether the police department was contacted about this resolution and was it discussed and what was the reaction of the chief to the resolution? Because that might help us figure out what we need to say here. Because I think this idea about, we can't really legislate via resolutions. We really need to, so was the police met, where were the police met with? So I can see your hand, Pam, but actually I remember hearing from James that there was maybe some communication. So James, do you wanna speak to that? Sure, thank you so much. And what we've done in other cities is followed up with the police departments after passage. And so for example, in Somerville, they have passed a more official department policy with training and eliminated their entire narcotics unit, in fact. And so that's the type of outreach we want to be doing using these measures as a jumping off point to having those conversations. What I will say is we did reach out to the Amherst police department and we had a lieutenant that leads opioid overdose prevention for the city of Winthrop. And we were not replied to by the police department of Amherst, which was disappointing. But I think that passing a measure like this will help facilitate those conversations. And the less we're not trying to be abrasive with the police department at all, we see law enforcement as a key beneficiary of this policy and this form of treatment. And so I don't know why we didn't hear back from them but we did proactively reach out to them. And so for us, that introduction, that conversation would be very welcome. And we tried to have that conversation. I just feel like maybe in a lot of cities, our experiences, people are like, oh, well, this isn't gonna happen. But it is and we see overwhelming support from residents as well when we do outreach and when we mobilize them to email and call the city council. So I think that we look forward to meeting with the Amherst police department. We reached out with a really good policy that they could adopt very well-researched policy for law enforcement. And we're eager to chat with them more. That conversation might happen on better terms once the measure passes too, so that we can provide more guidance to them on what a good policy to adopt internally might be. Thank you, James. I see Jennifer and Pam, you add as a, please go because you're a sponsor of the resolution. So you go ahead and then Jennifer will go. I was going to let Pat know that when I first started getting emails from base daters, I reached out directly to the town manager and said, so tell me what the incidents are of arrests for possession. And he was the one that came back and basically stated that both the town of Amherst police department and the district attorney's offices have long, for the last, I think it was seven years, there were 12 arrests or 12 arrests in seven years, something like that. And almost all of them were secondary to an actual event or a crime taking place. So that was not targeted as substance arrest and that most of the time they're able to direct folks to rehabilitation programs so that it was pretty clear that, I mean, he's the one that basically said it's a really low priority for us. So that's where the genesis of that particular paragraph is. I appreciate you saying that, Pat. What I would say in response is a couple of things. The first is we understand that there's actually probably only dozens of psilocybin arrests that happen across the state each year. But the bigger issue is that people don't know about how to safely use these medicines, but our culture is quickly embracing them. And so the reason why those people and so the reason why those arrests may be so low is because so few people are actually using magic mushrooms. It's very low. So as we scale up as a nonprofit, providing free training to people on how to use them safely as we build out a network of trip-sitters that are well connected with therapists and drug treatment specialists like we trained tapestry leadership and its applications for opioid use disorder. We're still at extreme risk. Like if one of our people got caught transporting psilocybin mushrooms, that could come with very, very steep penalties up to two years in jail. And so I'll say that this is kind of a future growth issue that we pass these types of measures so that police departments don't interfere in the future as this industry grows. The second thing is there are many drug possession arrests where the person has eventually let go or they're not charged, but the psychological harm that that can have for people is very palpable. When police stop vehicles and ask to search vehicles, we know from the data we've collected in Worcester and Boston that those arrests tend to happen with a very stark racial disparity that may not be the case for the town of Amherst. But in general, we want this drug possession arrest not to be a tool as a gotcha for other types of crimes. If people are committing other crimes then they should be held accountable to those and drug possession shouldn't be something that's used to get ya on other stuff, if that makes sense. Okay, let's pause for a minute. I wanna go to Jennifer and then I wanna look at the changes that Mandy is suggesting. I'm aware that it's a little over after 11 here. So go ahead, Jennifer. No, I actually, I was gonna suggest the changes that Mandy just made that the, because I thought it was already the assumption in practice that it was a low priority in Amherst. So that's what that's really saying that we support it to being a low priority. You know, James is disagreeing, but if we can't say it should be policy because we're really not allowed to say that in a proclamation, I think the way it reads now supports the town of Amherst. I mean, it's communicating that we believe it should be a low priority and not be what law enforcement is. The fact that Amherst, sorry. One second before you reply to that, I wanna give Anika the opportunity to speak on this. And I also wanna ask you if the word practice would be, would be a word that you would be comfortable with, but let's go to Anika. I just wanted to point out, I think, you know, James, I really appreciate what you had just said. And I've, you know, I think that's a really good point you know, I'm getting, you're really looking forward, you know, which is the way to go and what could happen looking with a bit of a wider lens. And so where I do not have the magic word or what, but I'm just thinking like, and Mandy may have already done it, I haven't looked at all of the changes yet of what we could do to still capture the essence that this is, you know, we're not basing the future or the point of this resolution on what has in the past or currently been going on, but we're also taking into account that this will be a growing issue, that these numbers will increase, you know. And also just, you know, preventing this being used as a tool, so just a comment. Thank you, Annika. So James, I want you to reply as you were going to and also you see what Mandy has done here. I'm not sure I support this and I can explain why, but I want to, I want James to have the opportunity to either offer something else that would work or just reply and respond to this. Yes, thank you so much. I think it should be cause for concern that the Amherst Police Department didn't return the communications of another sworn officer on this issue. And that's why I'll just say I am concerned about weakening the language because if the existing policy is already that, why would that conversation not have been engaged including the follow-up and this does risk people's freedom and opportunity and it really important work to combat the mental health crisis. So I think that the stronger the language that we're able to work out here, the better. And so one suggestion I would have is, I don't claim to be a linguist, but I think there is a difference between the word shall and should. So if the Amherst Town Council hereby maintains it should be the policy of the town of Amherst and its departments, maybe we could change the second shall, for example, in the second to last resolved to should because it's saying that like that ought to become the policy of Amherst and very likely with what we could negotiate with the state bill, a lot of these types of measures could later become official policy and you could see a decentralization of how cities are allowed to enforce this officially. So I would just say supports the town of Amherst's making. It just doesn't have the same fierce urgency of now if you will of language like should. And I think that if we talk about this in the public debate as not being official policy, it is a resolution after all that that should be good enough. So that's my thoughts is I really do think that we wanna make a strong statement of how we want the police department to enforce this going forward and I'll leave the thought there. Mandy, does James suggestion of using the word should make this more actionable and less controversial for you in this respect? I mean, I still struggle with if the town council is the policymaker of the town and the town council says this should be the policy isn't that the policy, whether it says should or shall if the town council by law is the chief policy center the town council adopting something that says this should be the policy I think linguistically makes it the policy. And that's where I, that's why I brought this up. I don't know whether it can be resolved outside of a council, but that's my concern is that even language like should be the policy when the council is the chief policy center if it passes or something, anything that says should be the policy, isn't that the policy? I haven't heard that it wouldn't be the policy then just because it happens to be included in a resolution and I just wanna say I typed that language in there to just be a potential option. Obviously I'm not a sponsor. We can reject, I just thought it might help for people to see what an option might look like. Thank you, Mandy. I just, I want to clarify that is it, it's clear that resolutions are not policies. Is that true? What was that Pat? It's not clear. That's the debate that we're starting to have not just here, but Andy promoted up with the student debt resolution. I think it's something that we really need to look at. I don't think it's a small issue at all. And I feel like in a certain way that not the intention of this group, but there's a run around making policy, making legislation by supporting resolution after resolution. So I must admit as much as I do support this, I don't know if I can call it actionable right now. Okay, and it sounds like one thing to keep in mind and then I'm gonna go to Anna and Jennifer, but James and Adam and Adam, keep this in mind. We don't want to get this to the council and have the whole conversation co-opted to be about this bigger issue that our council needs to deal with. And that would be my biggest concern here. So if we can compromise on something that doesn't feel like it waters it down, but that maintains the integrity and the strength of what we were trying to say here, but doesn't, because I do think we're gonna, and I think Pat just nailed it when she talked about the student debt piece, because if that's already another conversation that's happening, this is gonna be brought to the surface sooner than later for a full council discussion. So let's go to Anna though. Sure, so I mean, I feel pretty strongly that resolutions and proclamations are not binding policy. And I also, what they are in my mind or what we've seen them used as is support for binding policy. And so I think that they carry weight in that sense and they're not to be taken lightly, but I think for me should almost more gives us a mandate of saying, great, hey council, you should get working on this actual policy versus being the policy itself. For me, that's how it reads. Shall reads much more strongly to me as like, oh, that would be policy than should. Should in my mind leads to a to-do list for us, which I don't have a problem with. Yeah, so I'm comfortable with it saying should be the policy because I do not think that that makes it true. I think that makes it so that we should write one. And this doesn't walk like a bylaw, bark like a bylaw. It would look very different for us to actually write policy than what this looks like. Thank you, okay. I did see that, Jennifer, did you put your hand down? Yes, I guess because you really said what my concern was, that it not get the, you know, if the council were to, if we said should, which, you know, I don't have personally any, I agree with the should, you know, one could say that if the folk, when and if the full council approves it, then they've approved, maybe it's they've made a policy decision, which they can make, but I would also be concerned that maybe it would get derailed at that point as you expressed, and I wouldn't want to see that happen. So one option that we might be able to do to deal with that is I could speak with Lynn and let her know that we've had this conversation, let her know that we're aware that this conversation is circulating amongst other resolutions and that it needs to be something that we talk about as a council. I also am comfortable with leaving as it should be the policy. I haven't heard anybody respond to the word practice, so it doesn't sound popular, I guess, but I think that practice is possibly the sort of middle ground between these things. And so Anna, I see that you have something about to come out of your mouth and I see Anika's hand is up. So Anika, do you want to? I just wanted to add that I support using should. I also have seen even the amount of time that we have debated here and acknowledging that if it goes through council, that can be tenfold. So I guess my question around should is whereas it hasn't been done, can we just stand behind and we said should and we mean should? And having that not go in the realm of that we are actually, because we said should, is there any way we get out because we're saying should that this is policy, just like how Anna said? Is there anything that we could do or say ahead of time or add that it's clear that this is exactly what we mean without, well, you're a council and you said it so that's what it is. Right, I think we can, but you know, by the time this gets circulated around in the way that this will be used and in things like that, that's what I'm, I think, also thinking about James. Just before you make your comment and please I want you to make your comment, but we it's 1115, I have a hard stop at 1130 and we do have at least a little, I have a recommendation to make about the two other proclamations that we have on the agenda that I need to consult with the group about. So I just, can we just pause for a minute and GOL. Mandy, would you mind just taking this off for a second and so I can see people better? Thank you. So we have two other proclamations that we're supposed to review today. We have the arts proclamate, the arts week proclamation and we have the children's mental health awareness proclamation with respect to both of them. We do not have community sponsors. I spoke with Alyssa who was a counselor sponsor of the mental health awareness. Go ahead, Pat. You're muted, Pat. I spoke with Sarah Schwartz who was one of the originators of the proclamation and she would like to be a community sponsor of the children's. Oh, okay. That's wonderful. Okay. I added that I would sponsor the arts week. Yes, you are a counselor sponsor of arts week. So let's just take them one at a time. So the children's, it sounds like we now, we do not need community sponsors. They only need council sponsors but if there is a community sponsor, we'll add them. Yeah, no. So let me get to my suggestion real quick. My suggestion is because I don't think we have time to review them both. It's my understanding that the children's was reviewed last year and that the arts was not reviewed since 2019. They're not major, they're not super lengthy or super, so I guess the question is can we vote to have one member either myself as the chair or somebody else review those and submit them as clear, consistent and actionable without doing this all together and Mandy, go ahead. So I think that mental health awareness week, one can be done very quickly. Okay. I've reviewed it. I know I'm, I don't know whether I'm the only sponsor. I'm sorry, no. Yeah. Okay, yeah, but there's basically one, there's basically two changes to it. Okay, so let's definitely do that one. And then in terms of the art, it was Anna and Anika who are councilor sponsors for that one. So I guess we can, I mean, I guess the question I have is does it have to be reviewed here or can we vote that one person on the committee or review the arts proclamation and submit it to Lynn? I mean, I think technically we probably could to satisfy the rules of procedure, but only one person. One person, wait. Okay. All right, let's go ahead and get back to this then. And I'm just gonna say if we can try to get this wrapped up in the next five minutes, if possible, I'm sorry to have to cut things short if it feels that way, but if you wanna pull that back up, Mandy. And James, go ahead. So I'll cut straight to the chase. I think that this is actionable for two primary reasons. The first is it's a resolution that is stating what the city council believes should be the policy of the town of Amherst. The reason why that's actionable is it'll facilitate conversations between our group and law enforcement and also help us identify goals and priorities for state reform. Second, passing this as official policy, while I completely understand Mandy's points, I think they're brilliant, that doesn't in practice change what this does because police can still choose to enforce state law. This state law has to change and until it does, there will always be an excuse that law enforcement can lean back on to arrest people. And so with that in mind, being that in practice, it doesn't change the outcome whether or not this is passed as a policy or resolution. And also that we don't want this to die in a larger debate about student debt or what resolutions mean or if resolutions are policy, we would request that this be treated not as policy, but instead a very strongly worded resolution. And from what I've heard, the word should is a little less intense than the word shall. For some of these measures, the last sentence says shall and we would just recommend that that be changed to the word should and that we try to keep the timeline that we've had so that we can take action to help people get access to this medicine safely because it really does change lives. And I think that procedurally it is actionable to say that the town council believes this should be the policy. Thank you, James. Pat. Yeah, I did a quick search and it does look like shell is binding, should is not legally binding. So I support what James just said. Thank you, Pat. Okay, so it looks like, Anna. No, I just, I have to apologize. I have to go, but carry on. Good work, everybody. Thank you for having me as a part of it. And I like the word practice as well, Michelle, for what that's worth. But I was not rejecting that claim. All right, bye, everybody. Thank you. Bye, Anna. Thank you. Okay, so I think we are gonna keep it as is from what I can, as Mandy has it. So should be the policy, it's been changed too. Mandy, I don't know if you wanna, like, do you, are you ready to move forward with that? Or do you? I mean, I've just stated my concern. My vote will be that it's not actionable because I think it should be the policy is great if you're suggesting that someone else make that the policy but we're the chief policy setters. And so I don't see a difference between should and shall in this case because we are the chief policy setters. So, you know, I just wanted to bring it up. I think it's a problem for actionability, given past positions on what resolutions, whether they are binding or not or should be binding or not. So, but I'm happy to move on. Okay, so one thing I will note that in the report that you had this concern and I'll try to work on having a good discussion piece in the report about this. But one other thing to keep in mind is it has to be voted by the full council. And so if it says it should be the policy then when each counselor goes to make their vote, they're agreeing to that or not. And so as the chief policy makers what this language does and I support it and I'm willing to take that risk but I wanna say is that what it does is as each counselor decides, if it says it should be the policy, if somebody, if a counselor thinks the way Mandy is thinking, for example and doesn't feel like they want to take this out of a symbolic status and work on some policy, they may not vote for the resolution. So I just wanna put that risk on the table but I'm willing to take it personally. It sounds like the other sponsors are and I think that we need to move on and go ahead and finish up. So James, I do see your hand is still up. Are you comfortable with us moving on? I just left it up, I understand the concern and really appreciate the thought and care you all are putting into this a lot. Thank you. Thank you. And okay, so where are we? We have- These are the three we haven't reviewed yet. The first two are just sort of the semantic changes resolution since it's this one we normally capitalize. And the last one I'll just say looks like there's a whole lot of changes. We generally list from highest office to lowest office. So that's why you see it all shifted. That's generally been our practice that we start with the highest office. And so, yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that works. Okay, are there any other questions or comments before we vote on this? Okay. Okay, Anika as a sponsor of this, would you like to make the motion? Okay. I can make it two and you can second it if you want. Oh yeah, go ahead. Okay. I moved to declare a resolution protecting adult access to plant medicines and prioritizing public health responses to controlled substance possession, clear, consistent and actionable. Second. All right, and I will start with you, Pat. I. Mandy? No. I was gonna go to you Pam, I'm sorry. Jennifer? Yes. Anika? Yes. Michelle is a yes. So that passes, but it will be noted in the report as we talked about. So Adam, Adam, James, thank you so much for your work on this and for being here with us today. And I will follow up with you all about the council meeting and what to expect for that. Okay. And thank you, Pam, for also joining us. Yes, Pam, thank you. Thank you, Pam. I somehow thank you for being a member of the group. You can say it. Okay. All right, so let's move on. Mandy says we can do the mental health awareness proclamation quickly. So let's pull that one up. I have no idea. Don't tell me it's not in there. No, no, no, I have it. I don't know why it's not coming up easily on my share screen. Oh, gosh. There we go. Okay. I don't know. Okay, here we go. I just didn't know why it wasn't coming up easily. Okay. All right. So and I do, if you all could start the review, I just want to make sure that nobody, I want to make sure if any other counselors, I think that Dorothy may have responded to this. So you can start. I can just go through what the changes are, at least my changes, which are the years. There's an extra comma here, but the biggest changes are to the year and the date of passage, the dates of the arts of mental health awareness week. Those change every year and the theme, which is find connections, build community this year, not painting a picture of hope for the future. So basically the changes that I saw were updating for the current year and adding missed Oxford commas. And I would like to be a sponsor for this as well. Pat, you were the one who mentioned it to me, but you said it verbally to me, I think. So that's why I can't, I couldn't find an email. And for some reason, Dorothy sends her responses to my personal email. She's a free state. Check there to make sure. Is Dorothy a sponsor? She was last year and I'm just checking to make, she didn't respond on my counsel, but I want to make sure that, because like I said, she sends them sometimes to my, no, I don't see her. So I'm happy to sponsor as well. Okay, great. So Anika and I don't have anyone else that responded via email. I mean, I'd be happy to, I just feel I didn't do anything, but we don't need to all. Yeah, we don't need to all do it. Take me off. No, no, no, don't put me on. And I feel the same way. That was just so hard because you don't want it to seem like you're not supporting it. But you support it. We support it once with our vote in the council. That's where the real support is. And so do take my name off. Cause we're just, I think, yeah, take my name off. Thank you. Pat, can I just, I hear you, but you had said to me that you wanted to sponsor. So I'm just, I feel. No, it's absolutely fine. That's absolutely fine. Why don't you put your name back? I can take mine off. I'm not showing you my name. No, I don't want to spend this time. I like to talk about it. No, take my name off. All right, we're going to have a bigger discussion about this. This is something that several counselors have brought up, including myself. Pat and I have been talking about this for a couple of months now. And so I think we need to talk about how and why we put our names on things. Right, I agree. And so we will definitely do that. I will flag Lynn again on that. And maybe we start with that conversation here, but go ahead, Mandy. That's it. That was it? Okay. So everyone good on this? Mandy, will you make a motion please? I moved to declare the 2022 Children's Mental Health Awareness Week Proclamation Clear Consistent and Actionable. Second. Go ahead. Anika seconds. Anika seconds. I just want us to vote because it's 1130. Pat, vote. Jennifer. Hi. Anika. Hey, to you. What was that? Oh, sorry. I was just saying hi, hi. Hi, Mandy. Hi. I'm an eye. Okay. All right. Before we adjourn though, I want to remind us that, wait, let me make sure we don't have public comment. No. Okay. I don't have any items that were not anticipated. We still have to have the town council standing committee structure discussion that we have been pushed, that we've, that's gotten pushed off. And is there a volunteer to review the arts week proclamation and then send it to Lynn? Is there a sponsor of that proclamation on this committee? Anika, raise your hand. Yes. So then I, I moved it a week. Anika review it and send it on. Okay. Is that Anika or does that work for you? That's fine. I just need to wait. Is it in the, our packet from today? Yes, but I'll send it to you too. Yeah. Okay. All right. So do we need to vote on that yet? Jennifer? Are you talking to me? Yes. Oh, I mean, I would have to vote. I thought you were, I thought you were moist in here. No. Wait, I'm sorry. So you're going around asking for a vote. A vote on Anika being the reviewer. I'm sorry. I just checked an email. Yes. Okay. Mandy. Hi. Pat. Hi. I'm an I, Anika. Hi. Excellent. Okay. Great. Any other comments, questions or concerns? Just note that there's no public for public comment. I did. Can you tell me who this, who the second was for that past motion, please? I think the second. I think it was Jennifer. I thought it was Anika, but it was Anika. Okay. Okay. We need to plan medicine. So we need to plan medicine or something. Ah! Okay. I'm moving to adjourn at 11 32 a.m. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you.