 Great. So since we do have a quorum, I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order and we'll wait for some others to join. So I'm calling the July 6th meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly to order at 12.03 p.m. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public would be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And now I'm just going to take a moment to make sure that everybody can be heard and can hear. So Jennifer, I'll start with you. Hi, I can hear. And Pamela. Hello, I can hear. Excellent. And Dr. Rhodes. Good afternoon. And how about you, Dwayne? Yes, I can hear you as well. Thanks. Okay, Alexis. Hi, everybody. Welcome. And Dr. Chavaz. I can hear. I'm having problems with my video, but can you hear me? Yes, you can be heard. Yes. All right. So I want to begin by welcoming our new director of diversity, equity and inclusion, Pamela Young. This is a really exciting time for the town and so happy that Pamela was able to join us today. Pamela, did you just begin yesterday? This is your second day. Yes. Yes, today is day two. So yesterday was my first day. And I'm really happy to be here. I feel like I have a lot to learn, but I'm excited to join you guys in the great work that you're already doing. So thank you so much. We're really looking forward to having you with us. And we also have Dwayne Breger. And I hope I pronounced that right, Dwayne. Oh, yeah, very good. Thank you. Okay. And so we're going to, let me just review the agenda, and then we'll talk about the order. So we first, Dwayne is here to talk about the USDA REPP funding for local solar ownership. And Dwayne will be joined by Dr. Shabazz and Jennifer Moisten to discuss that project. And then we have on our agenda a debriefing for the funding stream request that we made now two weeks ago. I think it was at the town council and another huge congratulations to the committee for the $2 million commitment from the town council. And then we will review the mass humanities application. That is due on July 11th. So we do have to make sure we get through that today. And then we have community engagement. I've reached out to Paul. Paul had given us an update on the special legislation. I think he's expecting something very soon within days. And if I receive anything from him during the meeting, I'll make that update as well. And then I've also added Reparatory Justice Principles and Tenants. And I'll explain more about why I added that if we get to that today. But as a priority, I'm going to in this moment, since we have Dwayne with us, I'm going to turn it over to Dwayne and Dr. Shabazz and Jennifer. Yes, please. I know that there's no one in public, but in the audience, but can you just call public comment please? Oh, absolutely. You want to call it now? Well, we have it on there twice. So you can Oh, yes. Sure. Sure. You are absolutely right. Yes. So we do not have any attendees right now in the audience. We will certainly come back to another public comment period at some point if we do have attendees. Thank you, Jennifer. So I'm going to pass it over to Dwayne and Dr. Shabazz and Jennifer to present. I guess, Dwayne, if you'd like to kick things off and then Dr. Shabazz and Jennifer can fill in the blanks. Great. Yeah, I'm off mute. Okay, great. Thank you, Michelle, and really appreciate the opportunity to be here with the Assembly Committee. And just to introduce myself, Dwayne Breger, I'm the Director of the Clean Energy Extension at UMass. And also, notably perhaps I'm also serve on a town of Amherst Committee on the Energy Energy and Climate Action Committee, ECAC, as we say. And so also work closely with the town with regard to trying to meet the town's commitments with regard to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and incorporating renewable energy within its town. But primarily, the discussion that I'll bring forward is primarily with my day job hat on it as the Director of the Clean Energy Extension. I will say as part of that, I'm also affiliated faculty with the Energy Transition Institute at UMass. And by way of that, a colleague of Dr. Amakar Shabazz, and have had the opportunity to discuss the proposal with him as well. So really appreciate his collaboration on this. And then also more recently, as of, was it yesterday or was it last week? I can't remember. I had a very nice conversation with the town, including Jennifer, but also including Paul Backelman and Stephanie Siccarello. And Sean, last name, escaping me, sorry, the financial person from the town. And basically, what we are looking at and proposing and looking for feedback from the Assembly here is a proposal that we have submitted. I should say a letter of intent that we have submitted to the US Department of Agriculture under their REPP Renewable Energy Pilot Project Program, where the USDA is looking to give awards of roughly one and a half to $2 million to various communities around the nation to pilot renewable energy projects that specifically support number one rural communities per the USDA of which Amherst is designated a rural community. But also, and more relevantly, also projects, renewable energy projects that also support efforts to provide environmental justice to communities, reduce energy burdens, energy cost burdens to communities, directly support populations of priority, including low income, but also including populations of diversity as well. And then also populations, or communities that does not really impact our region, but regions of the country that are transitioning from substantial fossil fuel workers to new employment opportunities. That's not as relevant to Western Massachusetts, but would be for other parts of the country. So what we put together as the Clean Energy Extension in coordination with and with leadership in terms of the application itself with the Franklin County CDC, the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, we have a partnership, including the proposal is a partnership with five towns in Western Massachusetts of which Amherst is one, the others being North Adams, Shelburne, Athol and Ware to pie and in terms of as well as additional resource partners, including two local solar companies, Northeast Solar and PV squared, and then some financial and supporters or partners in the form of co-op power in its located in Western Mass here, as well as UMass five college credit union. And then and then also importantly, the Franklin County CDC itself, which does a lot of work in community development and and small business creation. Now what's this is a renewable energy pilot program for USDA. So what we're aiming to pilot here is for each town to develop to locate site and then develop and construct a 100 to 200 kW solar project. And importantly, that is not the pilot. We don't need we don't need piloting small solar solar projects. There's plenty of solar projects around that we don't really need to pilot that per se. Importantly, what we're really piloting and proposing to pilot here is innovative and new business models to support small, you know, commercial scale but relatively non residential but small commercial scale solar projects on this on this scale that are locally owned. Two things. One is locally owned, which is not common in the way that solar is developed today. And second, where the benefits of ownership, which are substantial in terms of the economic benefits over the say 25 year economic life of the project substantial benefits, where those benefits are specifically targeted as much as possible to these population priority populations that are laid out by USDA. And so the letter of intent to USDA, which was submitted, I think back in March or April was well reviewed. And we were encouraged to submit a full proposal, which is now due on July 18. So we're working diligently and hard now to pull the full proposal together with the Franklin County CDC and with our partners. Now the proposal would provide and then we'll get to the specifics with the how it interacts with the assembly here in the town of Amherst. But each what we're hoping is that each of the five towns will work independently, but also with our resource partners to develop a business plan for local ownership that works for them. The hope is that across the five towns, we actually get some diversity in those business plans so we can evaluate them and pilot a range of business plans. The town itself might own the project and allocate the economic benefits to one of these priority populations. That's not necessarily needs to be the case. It could be a private small business and LLC that's formed external to the government, the town government that develops, sustains and maintains and operates and coordinates the business side associated with this relatively small solar project. The grant itself in terms of the budget that we're submitting provides that the USDA money that's available is really USDA wants the large bulk of that money to actually go to support the development and construction of the solar project or renewable energy project. They could be other technologies but we're focused on solar. And so the way we've laid out the budget and each town will have some differences here but generally we're allocating to each town what would be $200,000 of USDA money that comes as a grant to support the development and construction of the solar project. In addition, and the idea is that that each town would then be looked at to leverage that $200,000 with potentially in some cases an additional $200,000 is the target to sort of double that money. Typically that would be done through trying to get a loan, debt financing for the other half of the project to amass $400,000 which would then be sufficient essentially to pay for these 100 to 200kw projects. And in addition to that budget, each town is also going to be receiving for successful $50,000 to support either staff time or community members time to set up this business. There will likely be legal fees, financial fees associated with establishing these new businesses particularly if they're innovative those legal fees could be a little bit more substantial and so the $50,000 can be used by the town to support the creation of this business or to pay for staff time if that's it's sort of up to the town. And in addition, I'll say the other partners in the project, the two solar companies co-op power and so forth will also be receiving some money in 20 or $25,000 so that they are available to each of the towns to provide advisory support in terms of how to develop these business models as well as to provide some for the solar companies to provide some feasibility assessments and so forth too of what the in terms of the solar projects themselves. Let me just say one more thing and then I will pause is that is most of the towns who are looking at the other four towns are really focused on using this money to then construct a project and local ownership with the benefits really accruing primarily to low income ratepayers either through virtual net metering or through a housing authority or a low income housing complex that the town may have some authority over or relationship with. What has obviously been brought up in Amherst with some real enthusiasm and interest is the idea of what might this look like in terms of using this solar investment and funding as potentially a form of reparations to the Black community and constituents within the town. The idea here is that and obviously and you know my hats off to the town of Amherst and to this assembly for moving forward you know so uniquely in the country I think except for Evanston, Illinois I think it is the idea of providing reparations and I know there's still some issues and legal things that need to get through but nonetheless you know the idea that we've looked at with some financial analysis and have shared with Dr. Shabazz has been if some of this reparations money is used to invest in a solar project and that solar project creates rates of return might that investment actually be a the net present value of that investment be an attractive opportunity for of the use of reparations to create even more wealth generation for the Black community as well as potentially a small business that they can own and manage and and use to create its own well rates of return to then potentially build another project four or five six years down the road and then where these economic benefits most likely primary through the form of net metering that we have in Massachusetts be allocated to in some way that the town and the assembly would have to figure out to the Black community within the town and importantly I should say that you know there's a lot of community shared solar in Massachusetts these are typically third party owned the large financial returns are accruing to the equity owners of these projects which are well removed from the local economy tend to be Wall Street equity firms and hence the money is trickling up to the highest to the to the income brackets that you know that exacerbate to some extent the wealth distribution in equity that we have the the the and leaving leaving the the net metering off takers with relatively small discounts typically 10 maybe 15 discount on their electricity with the local ownership and particularly in this case where we have quote unquote free money coming in from USDA we would expect to be able to offer quite deep discounts 60% potentially even 80% discounts after the loan after a loan is paid off if there is a loan to to the net metering off takers creating some you know much more substantial economic impact on those households and we've developed some of those financial models and that that demonstrate that that would have to be much more borne out in this business model creating but but we're sort of confident that that that's what what the financial analysis would be able to provide and so what we're looking for is a discussion about about this possibility but also we are we have worked with through through with through Jennifer as well on the phone that the town of Amherst is seems likely to be able to provide us with a letter of support and commitment to engage and be active and and and work on this project with with with us and with the Franklin County CDC and with the whole project team and and and it would be really helpful as well particularly because I think you know this is such a unique opportunity in the country to demonstrate solar you know potentially solar as a form of reparations and and and test that out that you know I think a letter of support or letter of interest from the assembly would also be go go a long way in in supporting the the proposal and again I just I want to stress that this from from my understanding you know this is not a decision the assembly makes per se it's a recommendation in terms of how the assembly might want to recommend spending the reparations money which I think still needs to get through legal hurdle but nonetheless it's more of a recommendation to the town council I believe and to the town manager maybe but and and and you know we're not looking for a commitment in this letter that absolutely the assembly wants to commit reparations money to this solar project we're not looking for that the idea is that it would be a commitment to earnestly work together on a business plan and and and and through that business plan and only through that business plan would then act after that's fully evaluated and understood only at that point would a would the assembly and and the town for that matter be in a position to move forward or not so that's that's what we're we're we're have been working on and appreciate any comments questions or any additional thoughts from Dr. Shabazz or Jennifer so before we do that thank you very much Dwayne that was very clear and very helpful I would like to make sure that Paula can hear us and can be heard I can hear you can you hear me yes welcome thank you okay great thank you so yes I am going to turn it over to Dr. Shabazz to add to this and to Jennifer and then we'll open it up to the full assembly for questions and really to hone in given your deadline on what is needed from us between now and the 18th so over to you Dr. Shabazz thank you and thank you Dwayne for that incredible overview I think we ought to really stay laser focused and first of all put on the table what is particularly the ask to AHRA at this moment my understanding isn't perhaps I should yield to Jennifer Moyston to perhaps talk about how the meeting went in terms of if a letter from the town itself is forthcoming and then to what extent is an AHRA letter at this stage useful helpful are we looking at coming in at another point Jennifer please I was typing so from what I understood is that the town is excited about this and would sign a letter of support but they wanted to you know find out how the assembly felt about it right but they are willing to do a lot of support if that is something that they feel that the assembly agrees with and that from what I understand Dwayne at this moment you're looking for a letter of support from the town and you're looking for a letter of support from the assembly yeah and it's a little bit unusual for Amherst because the other town that's really just a letter of support from the town in this case because of this unique situation where we have a potential target specifically for the reparations and with the assembly I think it would be helpful and meaningful to also have a letter of support and interest from the assembly Dwayne can I ask and maybe I'm just going to put this out to the group as a whole I do wonder how beneficial it would be to have a mutual letter of support so one letter that's from the town and the African Heritage Reparation Assembly that feels like it might have more power in it of course you're the expert in terms of knowing how the the application is set up but I would want to make sure that the assembly in the town are on the same page and I see Dr. Shabazz your hand is up and then please anyone else who would like to discuss this or make comment raise your hand Dr. Shabazz and then Dr. Rhodes yes because I'm because of my knowledge and familiarity with the USDA grant process and with this larger idea I'm certainly prepared to make a motion and allow our group here to discuss and potentially arrive at a arrive at a vote relative to what our input could be but before trying to fashion such a motion I just would explain like to offer by way of comment that if you would furnish any existing copy of a letter from another rural town rural municipality that might also facilitate our work on this and to get the appropriate kind of letter if it's best relative to the grant process just coming from the town itself at this point we can then kind of craft it in that way an HRA can encourage the town along the lines of executing that but the to my members here fellow members of HRA what I would point out is is that within what Dwayne Dr. Breger presented you have to understand the the economics of solar as it as it infects and is going on right now in Amherst okay and it is a process that involves generally the business model the financial model at this point involves three groups and that is solar in solar developers solar investors and solar off takers and you heard Dr. Breger discuss solar off takers okay the the issue for us as AHRA is to acknowledge this emerging economic engine this emerging economic process with respect of our town and to look at from the lens of reparative justice how is it that African heritage people and can can be a part of that emerging economic model that so concerns us in our response to climate change that concerns us African heritage people in the response to the energy transition to a decarbonized future for the town of Amherst and the thing is how do we merge our through a reparative justice lens how do we get the African heritage community with all its histories of harms with all its hidden stories of harm to be on the front end and in the vanguard of this process of solar of the energy transition that we're we're a part of we're making happen right now in real time in Amherst so I open with that and I yield to Dr. Rhodes so I am I'm trying to get my head around what we are being asked what is the ask here and that's a and b what role would the AHRA have in relationship to that ask and and and I guess I'm when I was listening to the presentation I was thinking well this sounds interesting but I'm not sure what I'm being asked to do or why I'm being asked I saw I heard one part that said something about an investment that could grow over time and I was thinking well that's interesting what is that investment and what does that have to do with the AHRA would the AHRA be investing their funds and and and if we're going to invest those funds what kind of returns are we looking for looking at and then I hear that a business plan is going to need to be developed so when I put all those things together and if you hear what I'm saying I'm rather confused as to what we're being asked so before you answer that Dr. Breger let me just check in here with Hala and Alexis and also Pamela to see if there are any comments or questions um or Jennifer um at this moment Hala or Alexis I do see Alexis's hand yes hi um oh man so much is happening um so I you know what I I kind of want to wait until the questions are answered before I want to say my thing because maybe my thing won't matter so I'll yield okay and um Hala I do not see your hand raised at this moment um so that is correct okay and Pamela did you have anything to add at this moment before so I um I did take a look at some of the background um materials that were shared with the committee and I do have some questions but I think I need to hear more could I attempt to um to summarize my understanding of the proposal so far which is that the USDA is oh goodness I think you're frozen is that true for the other assembly members is Pamela frozen Pamela is frozen Pamela if you can hear us sometimes if you turn your camera off off and then see if that unfreezes you and try turning it back on but I hope hope she's not talking and thinking we can hear her that's the worst um oh we just lost Jennifer and interesting I wonder if something is happening in the town hall since we lost both of them at the same time uh hang on let's see I'm going to just pause we do so we can go on um and so I I think though that it would be really helpful for Dr. Braggers response to be heard by Pamela and so I'm just going to give Jennifer a call and see if this is going to be permanent or uh temporary Dwayne in your answer what I would note is um in terms of the concern and we discussed this already because um the but it's it we're not um anticipating right now who is in installing the here we go are you we're back I'm not sure what happened okay all right bye okay yes Pamela Jennifer is coming back too right and the and the the request I'll just the request is for a letter of support for those and for that endeavor right it's that's um yep so I um I I do have like a ton of questions but I think in principle I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a letter of support and the other questions that I have could could be answered at a late at a later update um which get into the nitty gritty of like but what I sort of envision as you were describing the project is that this would would work um similar to the state of Alaska's uh a gift back to residents based on their uh gas and um uh resource gas and oil resources like so Alaskan residents get a check from the government based on those natural resources and this would sort of be similar to that except for in the form of um reduced utility uh expenses yeah I can talk talk a little bit about that but yeah and I think that Pamela is absolutely on to the on the on to the right um sort of focused today in and Dr. Spas did this earlier we have limited time and so if the ask is for a letter of support and it's clear that we'll have plenty of time to discuss the details at a later point we should focus on the letter of support I think we will need a motion from the assembly um that states their support of drafting that letter and who writes that letter whether it's myself with Jen and Pam or some other uh Dr. Shabazz and Jen and Pam for example depending on who has time between now and the 18th um we can decide those things as long as we are not making any decisions about the business model itself at this time which we you know would be a later discussion um but Dwayne let me turn it back to you to sort of answer some of what has been raised please great yeah thank you and and really appreciate the the comments and your comments Dr. Shabazz and then and and the questions and comments from from Dr. Rhodes particularly and happy to sort of respond a bit um and I guess in terms of what uh what's needed uh I think as Michelle was sort of implying there's sort of the the practical immediate needs of of a letter of support and I'll talk about that in a moment but then there's also and perhaps you know getting more what Dr. Rhodes was um getting at is what what what are you committing to or what are what are the needs and the and how does the uh how does this work if we are successful in the in the award or or truthfully even if we don't get that award maybe there's a path forward also uh but how do we uh what would be the role of uh of the assembly um going forward uh and so first I think with the with the specifics about the letter of support um uh yeah we're we're sort of on on a tight timeframe for that the proposals do July 18th but we're trying to pull together letters of support by uh you know say the end of of uh middle of end of next week uh to give uh UMass as well as the Franklin County CDC time to pull everything together uh um we we have and and uh Jennifer's aware of this we have drafted letters of support for the towns to use as a template uh and that's in the hands of the town now um uh the the idea of the question of whether it makes sense to do a joint letter with the town or separate ones um I guess I'm a bit ambivalent on that I think you you could make a case for either and I I guess I would probably leave that to the town and the assembly to um do what they're most comfortable with I would say if the assembly is interested and wants to submit a letter the independent letter themselves we can share the town template but obviously the the voice and perspective of the assembly is is quite distinct from the template we wrote for for the town uh and um I'd probably you know share that with you but leave it to your literary and and creative devices um and perspectives that are you know obviously best uh addressed from from from from the membership here than from us trying to to draft something but we can share with you that what we have for the towns and I think you can get a sense of what we would would need from that letter from the assembly um in terms of of um sort of moving forward um I think as as uh Dr. Shabazz was mentioning as well um you know one of the if we were to you know get the award or and move forward um then it's to some extent I think between the town and the assembly of how they want to work together uh on this as well as the clean energy extension at UMass we're we're we're um part of this project as well a substantial part of this project as well uh to provide oversight advice uh technical advice uh and business advice uh to to each of the communities as well that's part of the work that we do as an extension arm of the of the university um uh so so there's there's a lot of things that would need to be figured out but you're starting from from scratch um in terms of uh I know the town itself is uh looking at a number of potential sites for solar on their own facility on their own town owned town owned facilities so maybe there's a opportunity to use one of those projects as the project for for this for this investment or it could be a site that is not on municipal land and actually in the conversation with the town the idea of one of the one of the three institutions in the town the two colleges in the university maybe there's a role for them to play of of uh dedicating a site these are not large sites this is 100 200 k w it's a couple acres or a big parking lot for example these are not large projects like have been of some concern to some people in in the town so maybe there's an opportunity to work with one of the colleges or the university on a site or the town or maybe um a um an individual landowner in the town all that's to be uh worked out um and uh and then the business model you know the the um you know not the the the assembly I think would want to and and and should play a an active and engaged role in working with the town and constituents within the town uh about what sort of business model makes the most sense in terms of whether it's it's going to be owned by the town with some relationship with the with the this assembly committee or whether it's owned as an ex private entity ideally in my mind at least owned by and of and for the black community in Amherst and how that works out in terms of the the governance of that LLC is it needs to be carefully evaluated and addressed and and pulled together and I would imagine the assembly could play an active role uh in in that in that development so excellent thank you that helps to address your questions Dr. Rose particularly okay let's uh check in here with Alexis and then I'm going to come back to you Dr. Shavas uh Alexis thank you um okay so I just want to preface this with I feel like I I am good with voting to recommend this but I think that a few questions came up so with regards to you know using municipal or even university land is this a situation where an individual can put in money or or or I guess I'm a little bit confused is this something that like the invest whatever we're getting out of it does that come back into the stabilization fund or is this something that like someone becomes a part of and then as an individual gets a return um and then I think the second question has more to do with the town and how this would work so for example and and it can come later I think that my first question is a little bit more relevant to this but um in in the event that the town feels like like let's just say that they came up with a business model for this and they felt like the stabilization funds would be well used in however way that they felt was appropriate could they then without consulting the HRA or could they on their own accord use the stabilization funds for what they feel like is reparations I'm going to answer your second question to the best of my knowledge Alexis I I don't think that that would I think the very reason we're having this conversation is because there's a collaborative attempt here to to work on this and I think Jennifer being in the meetings and sort of liaisoning between um and that's why I was sort of recommending potential of having a mutual letter of support so that it is clear that that we're working together on on this um before okay so we have three hands raised I just want to check in here and say that it's 1247 we do have to get to the mass humanities grant and I have a hard stop at 120 so I if we if we want to make the motion um to allow whichever people to draft the letter of support we're going to need to get to that fairly soon so um and I do think Alexis that your questions uh are very very important to have answered and so if I see Dr. Shabazz and Dr. Rhodes and then if we can if somebody would be willing to make a motion or has a motion that would also be good so go ahead Dr. Shabazz thank you yes and I'm happy to both make a motion I'm happy to uh work with uh Jennifer and any other um uh you or any others from the town um the ask here involves no monetary obligations on the part of the AHRA and its its funds uh its current stabilization fund that is directed toward reparative justice any future funding that makes no claim on a dime of a of of any funds dedicated to reparative justice not a none let us be clear it is about supporting a group at the University of Massachusetts the clean energy extension that is applying for a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture that if that grant comes through then we're talking about the clean energy extension um with partners that's already developing would have a couple of million to fund some small pilot projects that involve community solar ownership and from that community solar ownership however it becomes configured okay there would be certain benefits accrued to the community and the uh the gist of this grant is that those benefits ought to be targeted to low income and environmental justice community that's federal kind of language and environmental justice communities that support social and policy commitments to adjust energy transition so that's baked into the grant all we're saying as AHRA is that we're interested that with the grant being funded and when this targeting would occur within this small community solar project that the reparative justice framework that we are developing and will submit in June of 2023 would be prioritized as the way in which that targeting of benefits could take place okay we don't have it worked out we're still doing our own planning but but we're trying to get on the front end of this that if this goes through and the town of Amherst backs it that when the project would start to take shape and we start to think about the community benefits and how there to be distributed that we would look at that coming within the reparative justice framework first and foremost that we are developing so we've got time to think about how such a benefit stream could work within our plan but right now the ask is to endorse this small pilot project and the potential that it will get federal government funding and then the potential that it will come to Amherst and work with some partners so I think it's a it's a win-win for us and I'm happy to offer a motion I move that the African Dr. Shabazz I'm sorry I before you make your motion and we do need the motion let's go to Dr. Rhodes and see if he has an additional additional comments to make I have you know this is all interesting and I think that we should just move on and the clarity will come later on and and obviously the big question hovering over all of this is when does this all come together and where will the HRA be in terms of a committee when it does come together because we have a due date in which we expire hmm that's a really fair fair point and actually Jennifer and I spoke briefly about that and whatever structure that we recommend when our recommendations are made in June 2023 to sort of administer reparations going forward I would assume would take responsibility and ownership and so that's that's a whole other structural piece that we'll need to work out for sure so Dr. Shabazz go ahead with your motion please I move that the African Heritage Reparations Assembly endorse the town of Amherst in submitting a letter of support for the UMass clean energy extension local ownership of community solar projects for rural under-deserved underserved communities grant application second I think I don't know who had it anyone all right Dr. Rhodes got it and I'll pause for discussion I just want to add to this that and maybe we can just do this by consensus to say that the group is comfortable with for example myself and Dr. Shabazz and Pamela and Jennifer working together to define what that endorsement will look like over the next couple days without it coming back here okay I see a thumbs up from Alexis Dr. Rhodes are you okay with that yes I am okay and Hala does that work for you okay great all right so we have a motion it's been seconded and I'm going to start with Hala for the vote please Lord I and Alexis yes Dr. Rhodes yes Dr. Shabazz yes and I'm a yes as well so that's unanimous so thank you Dr. Breger for an excellent presentation for answering your the questions and we look forward to working with you and supporting you and and the all of the folks that are working on this moving forward great thank you be in touch yeah absolutely yeah that was my last point is well first of all thank you so much to the assembly for their interest enthusiasm and support on this I look forward to that I do know myself my colleague River Strong who who Shabazz knows is are available to help you in language and drafting or any questions along the way so keep us informed and and look look look forward to the letter thank you very much thank you and thank you to Jennifer for being a liaison for this and for Dr. Shabazz's continued work on this with Dr. Breger as well over the past time period here okay all right so we're gonna just gonna check to see there aren't any attendees in the audience so with that I'm going to move toward the mass humanities grant which is due on Monday at 11 59 p.m. and I know we didn't have a forum last week and there was a bit of a discussion we didn't have a full meeting but Jill Brevik who is a community member that's helping us work on the application did join us and she is working with Hala and myself on the application I'm gonna pull up and share my screen in a moment the application for everybody to take a look at before I do that though I wanted to voice in Ms. Bridges who is unable to be with us today Ms. Bridges is a new assembly member that may not I'm not sure Alexis I don't think that you were here last meeting and Yvonne was not either so she is like a doctor in my mind Deborah Bridges is our newest assembly member and I want to congratulate her she's dealing with some personal matters that I believe will be impacting her for the next couple of meetings at least for today she's not here with us but she has asked for me to share after having reviewed the application herself and the letter of intent that was previously submitted she's asked for me to share I would say a concern that she has that she would like us to address in the application so she read the letter of intent and the letter of intent was accepted by mass humanity so at this point we're moving forward into the full application which is due on Monday and what she would like us to do is to note in the application or uplift in the application in some way that although Black history so we're calling this actually let me just share my screen real quick here um and see if I have this okay uh no okay so this is does everyone see the screen okay great so we're calling this hidden stories of harm and um if we just to review here um we have that our project will document oral histories and narratives as told by Black and African heritage residents about the lived experience of being Black in Amherst and then we go on to say that history for Black residents has been erased and what Ms. Bridges would like us to include is that her father going back many years has been working to make Black history more to make the Amherst community more aware of Black history and these first families as she said have been working on this through historical district markers of Hazel Avenue through work on the Civil War tablets and now most recently through the creation of ancestral bridges so Dudley Bridges Ms. Bridges father has been doing some of this work and she's concerned that without us incorporating that into the application we may be essentially erasing that and so I have assured her that we will work on some language that uplifts some of the work that has already been done but of course without her being here unfortunately I've done the best I can to express her concern and open it up for any questions that I may be able to clarify or comments but what we really need to be able to do by the end of our meeting today is get a motion approved that gives myself and Hala and Jill the authority to submit the application based on the general premise that we've outlined in our letter of intent and to see if there are if there are additional inputs that the Assembly would like to make that motion can encapsulate that those inputs can be sent to Jennifer and myself directly between say now and the next couple days and this will go out to the full Assembly so you can see the application questions so I'm going to pause there that was a lot and just see where we are here and I see Dr. Shabazz and then I'm going to continue to share screen but let me know if you want me to take it down go ahead Dr. Shabazz yes so I do you is my screen now on the screen yes so through the work of the memorial tablets the Civil War tablets I've gotten to know Deborah Bridges I'm so incredibly happy that she's coming on board when circumstances allow to our African Heritage Reparations Assembly she brings an ancestral connection to the African Heritage community of Amherst that is so vital to the input to our work this on the screen now is Deborah's father of whom we're speaking Dudley Bridges who who himself a veteran a war veteran that worked for tirelessly to the end of his life to get the in a number of ways a number of areas but specifically to get the Civil War tablets to be preserved to be taken care of to be distributed displayed and as they are now and thanks to the work of Deborah Bridges and Nica Lopes and others that that have stepped up to get them out of the DPW facility where they were created up and and now in the bank center and and then on from there into a future future home so that is to note both an endorsement of the language that you have in there but at the same time a kind of problematizing of it what I would say is is that and and I hope we can retain the the lovely alliteration with this of hidden histories of harm in this town where where the H is never silent sometimes but the real issue is is that I would agree that you could change that intentionally erased and silence part of that sentence to simply say hidden that the history has been hidden through explicit and implicit racial racist practices so it's it doesn't get us into the question of intentionality or non intentionality it doesn't get us into the questions of of silence as though somebody's trying to speak something but it's but it's not but but it's being suppressed from being articulated to simply saying that it's hidden it's been buried it has it's it's there and people have done work to bring it to the fore like the uh the collaboration of black and white veterans of the civil war in 1893 to create the tablets okay down to the work of Dudley bridges to try to get the tablets brought out of a DPW storage facility uh down to the work of of Anika and and Debra to have them displayed that's just one example of history that has been hidden literally hidden in a DPW storage facility until about a year ago a year ago from last Juneteenth it was hidden you couldn't see it we tried to go see it in August and Jennifer had to tell us that sorry they said it's too dangerous for us to go in there and see it so literally hidden in a storage facility but people work to do something different and so I just would say yeah let's just go back to the word hidden there rather than intentionally erased as though it's gone and it can never be changed to simply say hidden and and but other than that I think it's important to know that and and and what I really want to get into is I'll send you all thought about how the hidden histories of harm and the collection of some of these narratives can take place in ways that coincide with and support the outreach work that we're moving towards and I'll I can talk more about that but I've talked enough already thank you for your important work on this Madam Chair and and Jennifer and others and in getting this holla all others and getting this grant move forward and and other than that respecting Debra's wishes there I think definitely let's let it rip thank you Dr. Shabazz um are there any other questions or comments so my right now what the goal would be to get a motion to approve that we are moving forward with the mass humanities application due on July 11th and that members of this committee will be working in collaboration with Jennifer Moyston and Jill Brevik a community member to complete the application and will be taking input on the application which as soon as I end the meeting will send to you via a Google actually I'll get send it to Jennifer via Google Doc she will send it to you um and so if the feedback would be needed I would say by noon on Friday July 8th um if you need more time just let one of us know and that feedback would want to be sent to Jennifer and myself um or just to Jennifer and she will make sure that holla and I receive it so um and just to say that we're not moving anywhere like what we've already approved in the letter of intent is the intention so that that hasn't changed it's really just about filling in the details for example I'm going to be calling Alexis up and talking to her I'll budget um to get a little bit of a better understanding on what we should be proposing there um and and things like that so um Dr. Rhodes I see your lips moving but I don't hear anything so oh there you go okay please Dr. Rhodes I have to leave this meeting a project project to later on it's gone from bad to worse so I have to get on it so excuse me yes okay and I I assume you're okay with this plan for us to move over this motion okay all right thanks Dr. Rhodes all right so would offering a motion for a second or shall shall I offer a motion if you could that would be great Dr. Shabazz I move that the African Heritage Reparations Assembly uh uh support and move forward the mass humanities grant application as um as as presented Lord second any further discussion all right um and so let's go to you uh Alexis yes Hala Lord I yes A and I'm an I and Dr. Shabazz yes okay great wonderful so that's been approved um and Dr. Shabazz I see your hand is up is that for a matter just getting past the vote I wanted to offer that I'll send um I guess it's if it's Alexis and Heather and you however I can send it what I'm um recommending of having looked at it is that maybe one way to think about is the five areas of of harm to look at the hidden histories of harm through the five areas of harm that we we talk about in terms of um reparations and that being um crime and punishment um that being uh education health peoplehood nationhood and wealth poverty and I've got some examples in each of these that in the in what I can send to you I will I'll show you but for example under crime and punishment um we have going back to the 19th century some instances of harm uh in the in the area of criminal criminal justice and and and punishment um there are things we can take forward more to the present in this area and then likewise um I can give even specific examples of folks we might want to target for for interview maybe you've already got your interview list together but similarly and health similarly and people in nationhood and under wealth and poverty um so for example Dr. Driver um if there is a way to document his story of being unable when he came here as a faculty member in 1948 unable to find housing in Amherst due to systemic racism structural barriers Esther Terry I've heard an interview but I think it was lost in a fire by one of my my um colleagues at UMass she was interviewed of when she came to Amherst in 1965 to be a graduate student in the English department and could not find housing she'd see an ad at a 10 in the morning and call and ask could she come and see the apartment and by the time she got there and they said yes and when she got there at 12 noon or at one o'clock she's and they see who who's there they see this this black woman coming asking for the apartment suddenly it's gone it's oh between the time we talked to you at 10 in the morning and now we've we've leased it out or we it's no longer available and and that happened again and again and again she was in later years able to buy a home on Pine Street but um but the point being these are the kinds of stories of what people who actually are a first person evidence that can give us first person stories of the harm of how racism anti-black racism manifested itself in Amherst so those are a couple that I named but I'll I'll I can send this to the chair or send this to some of you working on this and you can consider it and one key thing is maybe stipends for those uh uh both doing the video work but also those we ask for the video work even if it's just a gift certificate somewhere if it's uh you know just something to thank them for sharing the stories um which is which takes which which is a lot thank you thanks Dr. Shabazz um Jennifer I just need to go back to the motion um which I have as the ahra although it was said fully and I'll change that in the minute support and move forward with the mass humanities application as it is presented but we're possibly making amendments to it like I just feel like you have to throw something about that there's possible changes to happen Dr. Shabazz when you said that the way that I understood that was as I presented the process in the meeting okay so um if maybe we want to know as as the process was presented in the uh July 6th meeting by the chair or something like that just to indicate for completion by July 15th or whatever that deadline for I don't want to hold it up but but yeah I don't mean what was presented on the screen but what was presented as to what needs to be done between now and the 11th of July. Does that clarify that for you Jennifer? Is that good enough? Good enough sometimes as well um okay so that's excellent um I want to give you a quick update to say that I heard from Paul while we were in the meeting and we will have a draft special legislation petition uh emailed to I think you'll be emailing it probably to myself and Jennifer um and then we will make that available to the rest of the committee um and perhaps creating a packet for the next meeting sooner than later even if it's gonna be you know that we're not meeting and I'll talk about that in a second for a couple weeks but with that packet being created and with the bill going in there um I believe that you know we can send that out to the rest of the committee but Jennifer you're looking at me is that is that is that true? Oh can you tell I'm looking at you we're in a Zoom meeting I'm looking at everybody no we can I I was actually thinking about how the materials that I received from Dr. Breger could be put into that same packet as the legislation information and as whatever else that you have and then we can send it you know within enough time for everybody to be able to review it but I wanted to get the stuff in there for Breger because it might help answer some more um questions that people have or come up with. Absolutely and you know what you're right because the special legislation was on our agenda for today it can be included in that packet it's perfect okay that's great um so you'll all be seeing that soon and then I also wanted to just put something out there quickly so the next sort of phase of our work and we've identified this and I think Dr. Shabazz has has really helped us to identify that the next phase of our work is moving toward engaging um and and reaching out to members of the Black community and Amherst and so um there are three really important data sets that we have um that we can over the next couple weeks and I'm gonna ask you if we can take a break um to meet again uh the week of the either to meet again on the 22nd but more ideally uh the week of the 25th Yvonne Ms. Bridges is gonna need some time Yvonne is not really available um until except on Mondays so I was gonna suggest the 25th as the next meeting date but the three sets of data are the Black Assembly of Amherst, Massachusetts has a list we have the Black Census and we've just received um Dr. Shabazz asked me to request the full voter list in the town and I've just received that from the town clerk so we want to take the data those three sets and try to put together as comprehensive a list of African heritage residents in the town so that when we meet again we can really hone in on how the assembly wants to move forward with beginning that engagement process um so I just um I wanted to put that out there um and see if there were any before we adjourn if there were any questions or comments about that yes Dr. Shabazz I was just asking so um we're not are we agreed for the 25th are you still checking with people for July 25th how does that date work I know Jennifer when did you say that you were going to be away I'm away the 28th through the no the 29th through the fourth so 25th is good for you Jennifer 25th it's good for me Alexis I'm sorry say that one more time the 25th don't have a quorum anymore what happened we lost Heather we I think we're fine just just checking on dates if there's more I don't know it's 20 you're talking about the 26th of July oh my god I love that calendar Alexis that's bigger than you I made it okay but you're talking about the 26th of July correct no 25th how many attendees she's called in so um I'm just gonna okay there Hala we're talking about dates can you meet on the 25th of um of July that's a Monday yes that would be that that date works for me it's good as I'm gonna run into um town council yeah so we'll have to do it it like our usual meeting time Pamela does that work for you on the 25th um our usual meeting time was about two o'clock on Mondays it should work for me as well yeah okay excellent yeah all right great so let's say two o'clock on the 25th and if you have any additional like for agenda items please send them to myself and Jennifer otherwise we'll we'll create the agenda based on what we know and have a wonderful week if there aren't any other comments or concerns we don't have anyone else in public comment um that was Hala coming in by phone um then yes Dr. Shavas yeah I just want to thank everybody for uh stepping out on faith with endorsing this community solar ownership uh project pilot project it's uh it's a small step but it's a it's a necessary step in the right direction and um and like I said that that benefits portion which you know right now is all very conceptual you first have to get the grant for two million dollars you then have to see how how how that all gets structured but but it does um but what it can say as a pilot project and if if that is ultimately gets associated with our reparative justice planning work uh I think can be can be a really um vanguard move for us so again thanks everyone for for just sort of hearing that today and stepping out on faith with that and uh let's just kind of fingers cross uh well we'll get our letters in but fingers cross that um clean energy extension gets the grant and we can go forward from there thank you thank you absolutely thank you for your work on that Dr. Shavas I think it's a really great opportunity all right if there aren't any other comments or questions I'm gonna adjourn the meeting at 121 Jennifer okay thank you everyone bye bye thank you bye