 Okay, Andy, we're recording. Okay, I'm going to call the finance committee meeting of May 18, 2021 to the order at 3 minutes after 1 p.m. And this meeting is being held virtually pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 roll, last chapter 30A, section 18. And because we are having this finance committee by remote participation, I need to check with each member of the committee and have them confirm that they can hear me and be heard. So, Kathy Shane. Yes, here. Lynn Guzman. Present. Pat Hanselos. Present. Dorothy Pam. I don't think she's hearing us. Yeah, she also her pictures frozen on my screen. I'll give her a call and see if I can. Dorothy, can you hear me? I'm here. I hear you. Can we hear you? You're freezing periodically. You might be a little too far from the Wi-Fi. Bob Hegner. I'll be back. I'll be back in a minute. And Bernie Kubiak. You're here, right? Mm-hmm. And Jane Schaffler. I'm here. Okay, great. So we just need to solve the problem. With Dorothy Pam. And. The. Agenda today is to review the budget. For the enterprise funds. And because we have two people who are here. Work with the transportation enterprise fund. We'll start with that. And. I'll first ask Sean, if he has anything introductory to say regarding the enterprise fund. Before we. Yeah, so thank you, Andy. So transportation enterprise fund is probably the hardest hit of all the enterprise funds from the pandemic. When you look at the budget, you'll see a pretty big reduction in the spending plan. And that's mostly being made up through reducing the indirect charge that it pays to the general fund. So really the general fund is sort of taking the hit because of the struggles in the transportation fund. So, so we're looking at that really closely. That's, this is an area we, you know, we anticipate will improve when the college students come back and downtown returns to normal a little bit. But we are really, you know, we have a high awareness to the need to get revenues up in this fund. And we, we did get a number of questions from Mr. Hegner on the transportation fund. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was, I don't know. He sent him in a format where I could actually probably just share my screen. We put our, our responses in. And if that's easiest, maybe I just share my screen and kind of go through them for transportation. Is that okay with you? Yes. Okay. Okay. Do you see. Do you see the questions on the screen? Yes. And there are, are they large enough to read? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I think that's a good question. And I'll probably just ask people to jump in and kind of expand on this a little bit. The first question was at a time when the number of existing parking spaces may actually be reduced, where would additional parking spaces be located? And I probably look to Guilford to weigh in on any thoughts. He might have on this. I know there's talk of a parking garage at some point in the future. But Guilford's probably got the best perspective on where there might be additional parking. So we can't hear you, Guilford. You're too far away wherever, wherever you are in your background. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yeah. The zoom in the zoom in teams doesn't work well sometimes. So we're looking at mostly building or adding parking on existing roads. There's not very many other places to put it except in a parking garage. So we've kind of been trying to figure in spaces wherever we could along the roadways. Thanks, Guilford. And one of the other things we're doing as sort of a team has taken the report from the consultant that I think was a couple of years ago or maybe just last year. And one of the major pieces there was around signage and making sure it's really clear all the lots that are available for public parking. And that may also maybe not add parking, but make it feel like there's more parking if people can easily find the different lots around town. So that's something we're going to be working on quite a bit this summer. And then the second question is at a time when building permits are being issued from excuse facilities within an adequate parking and much and more such facilities are being planned. The issue of a parking garage and how it will be funded needs to be a priority. And again, I think that's something that's a constant thing where we're looking at and monitoring. We are also as part of one of the recommendations from the consultant's report was to look at our permit program. And so that's another thing we're looking at Jen and I and some of the others that were involved in the, in the parking group. We're going to be looking at our permit system and making sure, you know, it's in a good place for the next five years, given some of the changes to downtown. So two hands are up. And I'll ask first Kathy and then Lynn same question. Are you. I'm just asking questions along the topics that were in the first set of questions, which were the challenges, long range objectives. Kathy. Yes, I'm, I'm just going to focus on the following up on parking. So a question I've had for a while. So as you shown, you've said a few times you're re looking at parking policies. If you go down into the boltwood garage. If you go down into the boltwood garage. If you go down into the public space, we have reserved spots, which are about half. Not quite half the garage. And I know people pay a fixed fee for that. What I have observed. Is those are often vacant while the rest of the underground lot is full. And that includes on night times and on weekends where they could be used. So could we revisit whether you, when you buy a reserve slot, you're going to be able to do that. You're going to be able to do that and free it up on weekends and evenings. Cause you could actually be towed if you park in those. Cause someone has taken them up and maybe alter the fee, but it's, I have the count in a memo I've done, but it feels like a lot of spaces and it's. Conveniently located and we spent money to build it. So I've wondered about that long-term rental. That's a great question. I'm going to turn to Jen. I think some of those spots are dedicated spots. So that's why you may see them vacant because I think they pay more for them to be dedicated, but Jen, you'll know that better than I. Yes. I believe there's 27 or 29. Reserve spaces and the way it's set up now is 24, seven. It's $1,000 a year. I think it was, this was also one of the items that the consultant touched on to, for us to take a look at. Yeah. I just want to say, I knew that people were paying that. And I raised it when the consultant was, but to me, we don't have to give 24 seven. We could give, you know, if we're doing it for people who are workers downtown, so they're out. It could be eight to five. And then to the extent you want to park there at night, you like everybody else. So I'm just wondering about the policy. And then does that mean it's not not a thousand is it 900, but it's a prime location. If you go down there on weekends, more than half often of those 27 spaces are empty. And that's true in the summer as well. So I think it may be seasonal, you know, people who are student, you know, people who are in town when the university is in session. So it doesn't appear to be just workforce that are renting those. Okay. No, when we look at the, that's definitely something we'll, we'll take a note of and we'll look at. Again, we're going to be looking at this pretty closely in the June and July. It's sort of our summer project is to see what we can do on that front. So we'll make note of that. Yeah. I'll go into Linda, but. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One observation on that new question is whether any of those rentals are by people who are downtown residents in one of the adjoining buildings. I know, I know at least one example of where it is. So I think that's again, part, I think from their perspective, it might be, they want that spot. So when they come home, they have a, you know, a place to park. So I think that's one of the major objectives is we're going to be looking at, we've already started this a little bit. We've reached out to Northampton to see what they, you know, what they're doing for parking. Not that we have to follow Northampton, but they have a pretty robust parking. Program as well. So. My question is in the same area. And it's really as you're taking this look, are you looking at what we really should be charging. For these spots? Because frankly that seems cheap. Yeah. No, I think that's, that's one of the major objectives is we're going to be looking at. We've already started this a little bit. We've already started this program as well. So yeah, no, that's one of the things we're going to be looking at is are the fees at the right level? You know, is it. Is it structured in a way that it's sort of incentivizing what we would want it to incentivize. And so that'll, I'll be part of it. Okay. Kathy. I have the same question. I know you're going to be looking at permits too, but I looked at the permits and I just, I'll just, I send you my memo, Sean. And I collected what does UMass charge for its various slots, starting with the cheapest lot. Compared to what we charge for a permit. And so the thought is, could we have a two tiered permit policy? If you work downtown and if you're senior citizen living downtown or in an affordable housing, you get one rate. It's $25 now. And if you're not, you may not be able to access the permit policy, but it's not a permit. It's a lot. It's a lot nearer to what a UMass. Remote lot would be. And then secondly, I asked this of Paul and he confirmed, you do not have to have your car registered in Amherst or your plates registered in Amherst. You can still get a parking permit. Should we do that? Should we instead say, if you want a permit to park on our streets, you've got to register your car and Amherst. So it's not a permit. No, it's not. It's not a permit. You can't have a permit. You can't have a permit on your late side. So it's just, it's, we streets are expensive. And those parts. So trying to think of. A differential policy around permits. As we, as we move forward. So. Yeah, no, absolutely. Are there any other questions? Are you going to move on to the next one? Yeah, I wanted to go ahead or Dorothy. I think Dorothy's got her hands. I thought I had my hand up, but I moved my computer and it would hop down. And I wanted to go back to that. And I was like, Hey, I've got to go back to the car, because I didn't think there was anything. Um, differential, um, permits for different people. Um, and I do think the idea of, are you, um, taxpayer is your car registered? Are you paying the car fee? I think that's relevant. But this is a question. Um, on Amity street, there are a number of, of, uh, permits. And, uh, before I got. Become a member of town council. I had just assumed. on the south side of Amity. I rather densely populated. So I had assumed that it was parking for people who live there but for whom there was no parking in a room in the driveway. It was only when I laid later found out it was just any random person that walked into Town Hall and paid $25 got one that I began to have great questions about the whole permit system. It's just set up for people to take advantage. And I agree that if someone is a UMass student could park on UMass lots that that's where they should park and not on the streets of Amherst. But I think it comes down to the fact that I disagree totally with the policy that said we don't need parking downtown because there's a bus because I cannot in any way make that make logical sense for me. I see it as a kind of mantra, but I don't see it as rational. We need to think about these things but in the end I want to try and stay focused on the budget side to the extent possible. Yeah and I think our goal just you know the transportation fund with the you know some of the weaknesses of the transportation fund were sort of exposed by the pandemic that it wasn't in a very strong place pre-pandemic and so when the pandemic hit again it just kind of exposed that. And so you know our goal is not only to get back where we were prior to the pandemic but how do we start to build a balance and start to build a reserve and be able to build funding to make improvements within the transportation fund. And so that'll be part of what we keep in mind when we you know we look at all this and think about changes for the future. And Sean these, Andy I think these ideas are all revenue producing too so it wasn't just to focus. I mean I think these are potential revenue sources so yeah. Well I think I think I agree that to an extent they are but I'm just trying to separate out where they're not. Let's go with questions because we've got three or more enterprise funds and the entire department in the time limit. Okay so the next question is is this so the collection rates were between 70 and 79 percent and the question was is this due to the appeals or failure to pay parking fines? How much revenue is lost and our failure to pay is the failure to pay largely from out-of-town state license plates? Jen do you want to weigh in on that one? Sure so there wasn't as many ticket appeals during the pandemic because there was not as many tickets written but as the hearings officer if it's a first time ticket and they're appealing it I tend to be a little more favorable to them to entice them to come back to Amherst. I don't want to leave a bad taste in their mouth. And as far as the what was the other question failure to pay there's really a mix of mass plates and out-of-state plates. We do have a boot policy for any plates that have five or more late tickets but again this was suspended at the beginning of the pandemic with the state of emergency that was issued so we we've not yet resumed the booting policy. And then the next question and this may also be you Jen annual meter revenue per space ranges from $179 with the lower Bultwood garage to $1686 for Main Street and $1691 for Amity Street lot. Can you provide a brief summary of why the differences exist and how much revenue could be realized if all the spaces were fully utilized and what is being done to try to increase the utilization of existing parking spots? So I don't know if we have the numbers of what's sort of the max per lot I don't know Jen if you have that if you know if they were all utilized fully all day long but again that the main one of the main strategies we're going to work on this summer is the signage and and making sure that all the public lots you know you can be guided to or there's some way to indicate where those public lots are so if one is full it won't be hard difficult to find another one and and utilize some of those lots that maybe have been less utilized in the past. But Jen do you have any thoughts on the I assume it's just related to the permits and the and the fee structure for those different lots is why there's differences and and how much how close to the center or town they are but do you have thoughts on that? Right so the lower level of the garage the Spring Street lot and the CVS lot are all 50 cents an hour where the other lots are a dollar an hour and the Spring all three of those lots are also eight to six as opposed to eight to eight so that would take in to account a little bit of a little bit of the difference as well. Yeah I just wanted to follow up with you know first of all there's a typo there it's 197 at Lower Boatwood I apologize for that but it does seem like you know given what Kathy had just said before about how spaces in Lower Boatwood are kind of out of premium I would expect that those would be more fully utilized than they appear to be. So I do encourage you all to try to figure out you know how do we get people to use the parking spaces that are there right now. Yeah building on what Bob just said which was part of what I was going to say if it revenue is potentially $1,686 for a parking space you know just with turnover why is our permit or our dedicated space only a thousand dollars why aren't we charging full freight for that ongoing reservation if we're not going to limit it. Yeah I don't have a lot of background into why the permit rates are what they currently are. Again I assume the rates are a little bit lower maybe to incentivize and sort of lock it in and you're kind of guaranteeing that money but I'm not sure Jen do you have any background on when the last time rates were updated? I want to say I want to say it was probably five or six years ago it went from 850 I believe to a thousand dollars. Okay so but again that is definitely one of the things we'll be looking at we've already started looking at but we're going to continue to look at over the summer as some of those rationales. Kathy. I'm unmuting. The $1,686 is that the North Commons lot that's that high return so one of the things I think we just heard is the hours at which you have to pay a fee are longer so it goes off at a different time at night. I park at Boltwood underground because I can park there starting at six o'clock so I can put my 50 cents in and be there for a town council meeting but in terms of equalizing or not equalizing and that I think is something maybe to look at and my other question is that underground garage people have said oh god I would never park there can we get better motion center sensitive lights there that even run off solar like I have out in my barn because it's people may not want to be there at night because it's dark so just something that makes it a more hospitable place to put your car down and walk around. That was one of the recommendations and the report too was just looking at our parking and the lighting and what may deter somebody from parking in a given lot if there you know there's a good lighting so that will be that that makes a lot of sense. You know I might just comment on the 197 bob on lower boat garage those spaces are full at night it's just you can't park in the you know so pat part of it I think is it goes off at six o'clock is why it's lower but I often try there before I start driving around streets so I think it's that there aren't that many spaces and they're full because it's cheap to park there and you can not pay after six o'clock. Yeah yeah but that sort of begs the question as to why the meter revenue per space is so low but maybe that's the price you know the cost. Yeah well 50 cents versus a dollar so that's I just you know it's just my sense is how many hours is the space available and then if you only if you're paying half as much for it it's fewer hours at a cheaper rate but I have no idea if that's are they always full or not I don't know. Right and we'll double check that number and just make you know the one thing I could see is did we and Jen probably knows us when we divide it by the number of spaces are we only divided it by the spaces with meters are we including the permit spaces as well because that would that would bring it down quite a bit if we were including the non-meter spaces. Yeah that could be that could be it but we'll double check that. Yeah I think I'm sorry I think that the purpose of this question was to generate this kind of discussion and I think it's been successful in that. North, hear him. Yes I'd like to speak on the garage I have never ever entered it when I asked somebody about it they told me there was never any spaces but it turns out Kathy who uses it says yes there are often spaces so some parking garages have a sign outside an electronic sign that tells you how many empty parking spaces there are and I mean this was built with public money and you know the law of the public isn't using it because of perception which may or may not be true that there's no parking spaces available so I would recommend getting when I don't know whether that means it has to be staffed but um thinking about how can this public amenity be more open and user friendly for the public and I agree with Kathy lights would be good but if you had a sign electronic sign saying that there were five or ten parking places available then you would go in and try it. No it's funny to say that Dorothy because that's the technology that I looked at into a little bit and got a quote it's pretty expensive um depending on the technology but I think it was um the native uh what's is it the native mall has that technology now in their in their garages so you don't have to turn down a you know a way unless you see that there's spots available it's really nice um you know we probably have to see how it uh interacted with the potential surveillance bylaw um because the technology they they post something up on like a light pole and it shoots down at the spots and it can tell if there's an empty spot and then it sends that signal to like a some sort of board that tells you how many spots are available um but that's an example of the kind of thing where if we can get to a place where the transportation fund is making more money that potentially that could be done with some lots in the future because I agree that it would be nice to not even pull into a lot if there's no spots um downtown I think that would help out a lot yeah and and airports I've seen some of them where they actually tell you the number of the open space on each level yeah and then it's a question that uh we'll have to figure out the cost that I one more one question if captain ting is um available to answer or has an answer in that is whether there are any problems with the lower level of garage that require um attention and might be keeping people from feeling comfortable going there for parking yeah my my only response to that idea is that you know at times you know certainly during the winter months at times uh some of the homeless population will will camp down there and uh we do regularly monitor it however you know we are reluctant to just kick them out necessarily if it's a really cold day so we do try to find them shelter if that's possible but at the same time I do recognize that uh that could be a possible deterrent for some people to utilize the garage okay thank you um Sean you want to continue on yeah I think we only have one more um two more transportation questions um that uh pre sent questions um so this next one is about the number of parking permits that increase significantly from f y 16 to f y 19 but declined in f y 20 what does the expected number for 21 and how much of the increase is due to new development downtown and how much is uh how much of the decrease is due to COVID-19 um Jen do you want to answer that one sure so there was two mixed built mixed use buildings that happened in the last four or five years um and that definitely put more people in town that were eligible for a permit um so that that was the result of the increase and the pandemic really did a number on f y 20 and gave us less permits than what we had planned on having right and I don't think we really know for f y 21 um uh well actually we do we I think that's a number we can get to the f y 21 number I think we can get you an update on where that's at um I don't you don't have that off the top of your head do you Jen I don't but I can I can get it for you we can add that to this question packet before we post it um the f y the number of permits for f y 21 okay so that um does the questions uh I'm sorry there was one final one that was after and that was um please explain the explain the difference between parking violations and parking fines and the differences that parking violations are the actual fee issued and parking fines are the local um late fine assessed after 21 days if it's um of a violent violation issuance so that's if it's late right Jen yes correct okay thanks I had uh just one observation and discussed all of the enterprise funds uh Sean but I'll ask it in terms of what's on top of page 228 of the budget book which is transportation since the fund we're on the um number that we have in the f y 22 column is the original manager budget yes a revised number um for 22 no I mean for 21 I'm sorry um for 21 it would be um on the revenue side it would be the recap which uh Sonya I don't know if 21 changed at all for transportation did the recap change the transportation revenue line um what page are you looking at so we're looking at the um page 228 it has the revenues on top and the expenses on the bottom and the question is whether the f y 21 column um on the expenditure side we know that that's the um the budget but on the revenue side is that the recap yeah that's the final figure that went into the recap of course we don't have the last quarter in I was just um no so the recap is you know that's the the estimate that we have when the tax rate is set based on how things are okay yeah so that so it's not the it's not so when we get to the actual the number will be significantly less yes yeah yeah when we get to and you'll see the third quarter budget report pretty soon um we're going to send it to you on Monday actually the third quarter budget report transportation's coming in quite a bit less even lower than what we thought because I think that uh we just have to be aware of it when we're looking at the figure to know what that number is and that was the original budget not the actual and the actual is substantially different and uh the change then uh when you go to 694 it's against the figure that doesn't make any sense because it's not actually you know it was done before there was a change in circumstances yeah no I mean when so the the 694 I believe is actually a little bit of an increase from where we think we are going to end up for actuals for FY 21 and and you'll see that in the the Q3 report but yeah I went at the time we do this you know we always base it on sort of what was the last official estimate of the of the revenues for the year I can tell you through the third quarter we've taken in about 486 thousand dollars so it's significantly less yeah so 694 would be a presumption that we will be on our way to recovery but not fully back to what we had had in some previous years okay um see so Sean can I just clarify something the number on the budget book is the actual budget before we set the recap so when you set the recap there's always some tweaking of revenues to make a balance so the recap is actually 838 to 22 yeah that that's what's in the that's what's in the budget yeah that's from the projection just in case somebody notices it's different when you see the third quarter report so does everyone understand what the question was about here yeah okay Sony do you want to should we do a quick really two second explanation of the recap versus the the original budget Andy just to in case I go ahead okay Sony do you want to just give that quick so basically what it is is revenues and we're estimating our revenues and our projections they are truly estimated until our budget is set and once we set the once we appropriate the operating expenditure sign whatever you vote that's law that's the amount of money we're we're budgeting for but the revenues are still in flux until we actually set the tax rate because the tax rate is a huge calculation that goes out in rounds numbers and everything so and it has to balance so sometimes we have to tweak the numbers you know up or down 100 000 like our local receipts are normally what we state aid is usually what it is once the tax rate is calculated we can only get so much out of the tax rate so the only thing we can balance with is local receipts so we can move local receipts up and down until we once it's on the tax recap and they approve our tax rate those estimated receipts are still estimated receipts but they're written in stone at that part you can't say we're going to get another hundred thousand dollars so let's add another hundred thousand dollars and spend it here it stops right there right so the so the expense budget is locked in place when you vote the budget in June the revenue budget still shifts around a little bit up until the tax rate is set in and usually December right right which is why you can only appropriate from free cash or existing available funds once the tax rate is set the enterprise funds are separate beasts we can't move from the enterprise fund to the general fund other than the amount that we're charging for indirect costs I may be a little trouble figuring out why recap works is it help for us well the sewer fund is also part of the recap so once the numbers are set completely fill the numbers in the recap the recap is kind of like the last moment once the recap is set you can't say we're going to estimate more revenues in the year say we're going to get taken an extra like I said our next hundred thousand dollar and water rates and we can't take that and appropriate it in the same year that's why you have retained earnings just like free cash in the sewer in the sewer fund okay Lynn yeah I just want to make sure so that if I look on page 230 at that revenue detail it's the same the FY 21 is what the budget was set at even and it does not reflect actuals no yeah so if you look at the FY 21 column for transportation the 838-222 that's the same as what we had we had projected the budget in that mount for FY 21 if you go to page 261 of last year's Andy thanks for asking that question because I really was having a difficult time understanding the negatives shown here for FY 22 thanks so other questions and then Sean we went to do we want to go on yeah there's no other transportation questions we can well we before we because we don't want to hold captain thing longer than necessary I think the one thing that course you do play a very important function as I understand is that you're supervising the parking officers and we've we reassigned correct me if I'm wrong but we reassigned the staff and we're able to move some of the expense of them over to fun time funds yeah so earlier in the year they're all back now but earlier in the year we we reassigned some of the parking staff both the the park enforcement officers but also we had some parking staff in the finance office as well and the collector's office that were reassigned to do whether it be the puffers pond and trying to serve as an ambassador role of puffers pond they also helped out at cherry hill so that cherry hill didn't have to hire additional staff for certain periods of time but all that's gone back to that was for a certain period of time really over last summer where that happened so does anyone have any questions the operation our enforcement side is doing I think we unless do you have anything do you want to report gave her we because I think like us to just just uh just to piggyback on what Sean was saying um you know over the summer and throughout uh covid as we kind of suspended um enforcement of uh the meters you know we did reallocate our two park enforcement officers to other areas you know as well as puffers pond and cherry hill they were also utilized with the senior center and helping out to deliver meals so again what Sean was saying that everything's back to normal now and as things are starting to relax a little bit more they are focusing solely on enforcement now so okay we still have a part-time position vacant right that's correct so right now we have two full timers and one vacancy with the part-time positions right and we've decided not to fill that sort of on a temporary basis as one of the sort of a cost-saving measure in the fund correct and and gave the other thing that might be interesting you know there is a couple capital items that we're thinking about with this fund and I think the one that you've brought up that we're looking at is the um the handhelds that the park enforcement officers use it's something that's we're going to have to think about in the next you know near term yeah you know the the handhelds that we currently use are are really outdated and they're kind of on its last leg um the piece mealing it with the uh with the current company that that uh provided them but it's getting harder to uh to maintain because the parts are no longer really available for those particular units and again you know the technology has moved so quickly where the newer units that are out there and available are just far superior and would make things a lot more efficient and a lot more profitable to be honest with you so that is something that we would be interested in in proposing down the line for a capital expense and from your experience and the reports that you're getting from the officers is the parkmobile being a helpful add-on and are those parking boxes working well it's extremely helpful very helpful they've been working out very well but again the handhelds they coincide with the parkmobile app and again those are struggling so down the line we certainly need to replace those and that would make it much easier and just one other thing that might be interesting for you all is that we're also looking at as a potential revenue generator are the charging stations um you know we have a number of charging stations we're looking for grants to put in more and and so you know there sort of needs to be a cost analysis of you know whether we're charging the right amount at those charging stations but they also theoretically in the future can attract people downtown if we have these charging stations people are supposed to pay for parking while they're charging as well and so it could be a draw to downtown if we have a number of these especially we get a high speed charger we don't I don't think we have any of the high speed ones yet but we're we put a grant application in for one and we're hopeful that we'll get it that could be a draw for downtown okay anything else from the committee because one other topic that I just want to touch on quickly related to the fund which is different and that is just to remind everybody that PBTA comes out of our assessment for PBTA comes out of the transportation fund and so revenues are down on the fund it puts stress on the bus system there was the report that we were we read that was related to the reparations work that was said yesterday's council discussed yesterday's council meeting but the report talked a lot about PBTA the way that PBTA is funded is so tied to the university that the criticism that was put forward in the observation that was put forward in that report we really have a problem with the financial side of it because of how it's paid for and I think that at some point it might be worth while getting a better understanding of how the whole PBTA payment system works so that people can realize why we're so tied to the university's schedule for PBTA but if there's any quick questions that people have to understand that they should ask it but otherwise I'm going to move on to one of the other enterprise funds um Dorothy just a quick statement understanding something is one thing but using it's another um we can understand our financing of the PBTA but the bus system is not really reliable it's not year round and people who need it to go to work find it lets them down so it to me is a kind of a more of a theory than an actual thing that people can count on and yet we talk to people there yeah actually I'm going to be very brief on this but that is where they tie together because if you have a system that is so dependent upon the university and the five colleges paying for a substantial portion of the bus service then there um then the bus service gets tied into what the major payers are expecting why they're putting that much money into it and we don't therefore have a revenue system that is going to pay for a robust bus service system and I think that's where the two kind of collide but anyway Kevin King thank you very much appreciate you being with us there's always you're welcome to stay and same I think uh some to you Jennifer uh that um Montaigne we're uh I think we're going to move on beyond transportation now so um thank you really appreciate you being with us thank you so Sean how do you want to proceed do we want to stay with enterprise funds since we're on that and then come back to DPW or yeah I think that's fine um so I'm going to go maybe I'll just go to the back to the beginning for enterprise funds which would be um water these are so there's actually a list of um sort of general questions for enterprise funds so I'm going to share my screen again so the some of these were just sort of comments and I'll just show you what our response was um so the first one was um about a listing of the current future balance in each enterprise fund so whatever what the sort of the retained earnings balance would be um we do provide that for water and sewer when we talk about rates we do provide sort of the beginning retained earnings balance but I don't know if you ever really see it for um parking or or solid waste so that's something we can certainly add to a future for to the next budget cycle is including sort of the fund balance to start yeah the the the reason for that was you know if we see like we're going to dip into the fund for a hundred thousand dollars what's the denominator you know yeah 1% 10% you know 50% you know I it's just helpful for me and I know some of this information is elsewhere but it's helpful to just have in one place right now and that dovetails nicely I still want to um you know we did a sort of a preliminary update of our financial policies and I still whenever the finance committee ever gets a sort of a break in your schedule which you've had a pretty busy schedule the last few months but if you ever get a break in your schedule there's a couple topics I want to bring back and one of them is to look at our financial policies and get your input on some of the updates and one of those updates that's new is a policy on reserve we have a five to fifteen percent for general fund reserves we put in some our thoughts on what we think would be a good reserve range for enterprise funds and having that and then showing you what the amount is you'll be able to kind of see whether we're you know operating within the policy so I think that makes a lot of sense next question was it would be helpful to have a statement summarizing out your estimates for projects that may have a large impact on a given fund obviously Centennial may probably come to mind for most people because that's the big one and again I think this is something you know we did talk about sort of the impact of these big projects for water and sewer but it's definitely something we could try to expand on the within the budget to talk more about that yeah it's a show and I was just I I don't I wouldn't expect a detailed analysis it's more of a heads up you know that hey guys you know this is coming down the pike and you know just so people don't forget about not that the finance finance committee would forget about it or the council but you know residents may or may not have that in their heads quite as much as we do so sure that makes sense and then the last sort of general question was about in the accomplishments and objectives including installation installation replacement of infrastructure this type of work would seem to fall within the town's effort to more systematically inventory future capital expenditures so I think Bob correct me if I'm wrong I think this is about in our capital inventory you know just making sure the enterprise funds are are well represented within that capital inventory yeah Sean yours for some reason you're not sharing the screen anymore I don't know you know what I dragged it over and that's what happened sorry but but yeah I mean I just you know obviously we've got sewer lines and water lines and roads and things and and I know that it's difficult to inventory them right now and to set up some sort of schedule for maintenance on them but I think it would be helpful over as we develop our our capital inventory to bring in as much as we can that we know we're going to have to spend so much money each year on water lines on sewer lines etc so Dilford do you think do you want to mention a little bit about the program you were looking at because it seems like that might line up nicely with the program that you're exploring for managing your assets um well actually you could use the program we're looking at for those assets for pipelines and hydrants and so forth we do have an inventory we know pretty much where every water line is we know basically the age some we don't have the exact age the problem with our pipe system is they're kind of like our road system in that some deteriorate faster than others so even though we may think it's a hundred years old and we may want to replace it that's one we want to keep and we want to replace one that's only 50 years old so it's not just a simple matter saying these are the pipes these are the oldest ones these get replaced first but it's something we do work on and we do have sort of a rough idea in our head what we want to replace we have different reasons for replacing it not just age and not just the worst condition so we are working on that we do we do have a list of those if we actually told you the number the dollar number for that we would knock you off your chair and everyone would think we need to file for bankruptcy immediately so we don't typically talk about that all the time but if we wanted to we could we could spend millions of dollars every year replacing water and sewer lines and storm drains was there I think I saw Kathy's hand up earlier yeah I saw that actually the three hands up Bernie has to we've even heard from Bernie give him first crack and then Kathy and Dorothy so I see three hands Bernie thanks I'm going to say what for Amherst has been a foul dirty word betterments to my knowledge Amherst has never charged a betterment when we have to expand a water or sewer line other communities do that would go at least partway to offsetting the cost of some of the expansions and some of the replacements that we've my expansion primarily that we've had to do and I think that that that should be taken in as a considered as a policy and I don't think we have any water lines that are we're around when Lord Jeff was here but Guilford's point is well taken the other thing that we need to pay attention to and it'll come up with the DEP emergency response plan is storm drains are are going to become if they are they are a more critical piece of infrastructure now than they have been in the past because of more concerns about polluting pollution yeah and I think there's you'll see some questions on that in a minute I just didn't get any response but yeah I did I did enough on the question of betterments and that sure that you are you thinking of when new construction goes on when that requires I would say you know there's been a lot of work up in Amherst Woods that whole subdivision I believe was built septic and and wells and you know there's been a lot of new new plumbing installed there and the that's being the cost of that is being absorbed by the the water and sewer funds and Guilford can correct me if I'm wrong but it's though that's the kind of example I think when the new subdivisions built that the developer needs to pay for that infrastructure but when we have to go back in and basically redo areas because of felling what wells are failing septic that's an improved or an improvement to the property and there should be some temporary payment for that that goes to making those improvements and I certainly recall the town meeting discussion about the Amherst Woods which was originally built on septic and then converted to sewer which is what you're referring to and does that project was placed for everybody to pay for as opposed to just the homeowners in that neighborhood Kathy um so I I appreciate Bernie raising this I had a slightly different thing but I would love to have when we're get beyond this budget to talk about are there some policy changes we'd like to talk about so I want to keep that on a list um one of my cross thoughts when I saw these questions that Bob did is that in our capital improvement plan program you don't see the enterprise funds so you both don't see it here in the operating budget um with what's looming you know where is it going and I found I was looking for something else I was looking for something called linkage fees which are a little bit like your betterment fee Bernie but it's when it first comes in you know that you're contributing toward the public but the town of Medford when they do the capital improvement plan or program they have a whole section on enterprise funds so they they flip to it at one point to say and to you know to try to think of signaling um Guilford is telling us it's millions of dollars but just what's in the offing what are we doing now we don't easily have a place to put that other than when we vote a rate increase you have to go back and find your notes or find the meeting we talked about it so it might it's something for the future Sean to think of you know how do we package this so you where's the best place to put some of this and um so people can see it yeah and um I don't know Guilford our water connection fees and linkages the same thing yes I would consider a sewer connection fee uh water connection fee or a link is the same as a linkage because if you connect to the system you pay a fee based on what size you're connecting to okay and the people and the people in Amherst Woods just so you know the cost of installing the sewer in Amherst Woods wasn't borne by all the people in the town the system the town has is as Mr as Bernie has said is um the first person on the sewer and water system will pay the most money by the time everyone's connected the last person on the water sewer system will pay the least amount of money so it's the existing customers who pay for the addition or the expansion and the new customer world and the new customers pay only the connection fees which are very small compared to the overall fees of the sewer or water line and just so you um there was I brought that up is because the water connection fees are broken out on um in the revenue section of the enterprise funds um you'll see that in the sewer and the and on the water side but I think your point about including the capital for enterprise is one of um was a good point and um now that we have the capital improvement program I you know sort of a foundation for it that might be something we can think about adding to it in the future it's otherwise kind of missing so Bob has been in all you know he can see where the costs are coming from but he can't see the big capital project you know I don't want I don't think we should have to bulk up the operating budget this budget book per se but just figure out how to share yeah okay so um there's a question and actually two questions for Guilford um I just was somebody sent me material from 1986 when there was a moratorium on building suggested on the grounds of it wasn't clear whether there was the town had sufficient water and sewer um and um you know so what kind of fun reading is what was going on 35 years before um I have not heard from Guilford that that's something that we worry about now um and um you know with centennial although it's very expensive it's part of the kind of protection system to make sure that we don't say we don't have enough water and sewer so I wanted to ask Guilford whether in fact things are different now than they were in 1986 when there was a worry that excessive building and development might um stress or tax on the town system so those are really that's really kind of a night you have to go back in time to think about what happened at that time um the great water shortage of amers happened about that time and UMass had to close down and send students home and it was actually during a period of time when the town was converting from a certain actually the brickyard well field which is out near Amherst Woods they were converting from that water source and they were building new water sources which were wells one two three four um and five as well so well sorry about that uh so we were converting from our sources of water to um at that time period and we were a little the town was a little slow in doing it and a little behind and they got caught up in a drought and they got caught up in a situation where they ran almost ran out of water they actually kind of did run out of water so that time period um was kind of an interesting time period we actually have a t-shirt in the office here that says I survived the water shortage at UMass or something like that it's in Amy's office um but no right now we are really doing quite well if you go back and look at the Tynan bond study we had not Tynan bond the Tata and Howard study we had done it talked about things we needed to do to make our water portfolio much more resilient and we've done a great deal of those um when we bring Centennial back online we will be at a very good place with our water supply um we'll be able to meet DEP requirements we'll be able to have additional water that if we want to have and support the continued growth in town the only thing that we have to pay attention to is some type of permitting requirements that will limit withdrawals at certain times of the years which is common in the new waste uh new water management act permits so those that's the only thing we have to worry about for the future is that type of restriction but right now we have a good source of water we have a varied source of water um Centennial gets back online and and we will be sitting very well in the water world and for the future growth and supporting the future growth that people want to see happen here thank you I I thought that was so but I was hoping it was so and then I had one of the questions when you were talking about converting septic tanks to town water um the people did pay for that themselves right the town did not bear the cost is that correct the property owner has to pay for a connection fee and to re-pipe their sewer on their property into the sewer connection we give them so yes they have to come re-pipe it and that's all but it's a relatively small number compared to what the town put in right the town put in the big pipes that went that essentially under the streets pretty much the town paid for the sewer pipes the paving and the pump stations and all that stuff yes so the last part is when the town because we know we had to pay about 37,000 to we do our connection on Amity street and there were town people a police and DPW people who would sometimes supervise sometimes check and whatever I don't know whether we paid that or whether the town pays the cost of that in terms of town contributions the town the town pays for that it does you pay for the police detail but the town pays for um the DPW employees to check and make sure things are going well thank you very much so Shawn back to you hey it's your enterprise funds yeah so now we're into the water um fund so the question was about um this one was for for Guilford to provide a brief summary of the scope and any potential financial impacts of a new DEP emergency response plan and you can see Guilford's response there and then there's same thing about a drought emergency response plan so uh Guilford um in the discussions that uh we had led by Kathy and and and Bernie about possibly coming up with a different strategy for metering we we talked about possibly having two meters per house where there's an irrigation system would that be part of this I think DEP is leaning very much towards having two meters and DEP is leaning very much towards having a very expensive control system for the metering so that you can actually physically shut meters down from remote locations um which would be a big that would be a big cost to our system if we actually have to do that okay thank you so we're going the second meter uh you say this is farms or residential also um they're pushing more they're pushing more for residential um really there's a strong group of people who are pushing to stop people from watering their lawns um take potable water and putting it on lawns is something people want to have they want to stop it it's using a valuable resource um for basically an aesthetic reason it's taken away from the environment it's putting a stress on the environment so the second meter would be for irrigation and it could be for a house irrigation or it could be for a farm or some type of business irrigation but they're looking there's a lot of talk about splitting the two apart and having more control over irrigation so this next question was about exploring new sources of drinking water and I think Guilford sort of already you know described that about um sort of once centennials online sort of this sort of optimizes our number of sources uh the next question was about I think this is mostly about indirect costs and how indirect costs get charged to the Enterprise Fund um and asking about some of the modifications that might happen in the future um and so so the way the indirect costs work is it's sort of a reimbursement from the Enterprise Fund to the General Fund and it's a revenue source on the General Fund side so yeah if there's any changes in the methodology it's it's it would you know one side would go up one side would go down depending on what that change is um so it should overall be sort of a zero change and we have started uh with Guilford and Sonia and some others we have started looking at the types of things that go into the into the indirect cost number and we've looked at even more some of the things that are not in that number and that are directly charged to the Enterprise Fund and that is another thing that we might change for FY 23 between now and next year is doing a hard look at what what's in each category whether it be a direct charge or an indirect charge and and does it still make sense given how some roles have changed one example I can give you is that we've talked about is like the procurement officer the procurement officer provides a lot of services to the Enterprise Funds I think right now it's a direct charge right Guilford and and so that's one that we're talking about you know should it continue to be a direct charge or should it be in the indirect because it it fluctuates at times how much how much work that person's doing for each fund so that is something we're doing and then the last one in water the revenue amount of 4.6 million assumes usage will be at 1 million 100 cubic feet this is the same usage assumed for the current year budget this appears to be a conservative assumption given the current plans for UMass to fully reopen in the fall is that correct and do you have any estimates of actual usage for the fiscal year so just like transportation if you look at the numbers for FY 21 we're expecting the actual numbers for FY 21 to come in lower than budget and so you know this is a ballpark figure but I you know based on what I just looked at through April we're probably going to come in somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of what we budgeted for FY 21 in terms of consumption so so yeah we are we are doing a conservative figure for FY 22 but it's not but it is assuming a little bit of a bounce back in terms of consumption okay any questions on the water fund that weren't talked about questions generally about water fund because I know I really we probably spent a lot of time on the water and sewer we're through the right discussion so I think a lot of the questions may have been but the fund may have come up through that discussion already all right do you want me to move on to sewer I think so okay um go for you probably want to speak to this this is going to be a an issue that's going to affect many areas of town government and that's the the cost of things increasing generally um and and the lead time to get those things you want to expand on that a little bit Gilbert um so right now the biggest the biggest impact we're seeing is in lumber prices and people have read seen in the paper that lumber is tripled um so we we are having I mean the prices going up the supply is not there um sometimes we're actually having to pry pay premium prices because we need lumber and the only thing that's available is premium lumber even though we're going to just use it for a non-premium use um we're seeing problems in or being there's been reports about shoreage chemicals such as chlorine um we don't think that's a problem for the water and wastewater side because it seems to be the solid pool tablets that are the problem not the gaseous chlorine or the sodium hyperchlorate that we use in our systems um so we're just overall we're seeing that because people had to shut down and workers didn't work um supply is limited and low and um we're having a hard time building back up supply because everyone's using it as normal but the supply was definitely reduced quite a bit we've also the thing that gets us is electric electronics a lot of the lot of tropical things we buy um they're like your cell phone they want you to buy them and use them for a year and then buy a new one um they're quite expensive and when you add up you need a lot of them like you need 30 or 40 of them um the price is very exorbitant exorbitant over the year replacing them and this mentality is is hurting our system because I mean we'll buy a piece of equipment and it'll break in five years but we have to buy a whole new piece of equipment not just the replacement part um so that's the second part of the supply and maintenance part we're having problems with right now as well yeah and I think we expect this will you know we're going to see this and that's like the regular capital plan for FY 22 as well there may be um projects that we're not getting as much for as we thought like the 200 000 for facility improvements that might not go as far as we thought it might um the the amounts that were budgeted for vehicles we've seen some increases in vehicle prices as well um there were shortages in semiconductors and things like that the the chips that they put in these new vehicles um so it's just it's an area we've got to monitor I think for all of our capital projects and um it'll certainly be a challenge for FY 22 um if things don't start going back the other way questions from committee I'll come back to one later when we get to DPW um okay we have a couple more questions I won't read the exact I'll let I'll let you all just look at this but the first question was about um dye testing and then Guilford provided a response to um the dye testing and to verify service line locations and then there was also a question about um related to septic dumping rates and increased treatment costs and you can see Guilford's response to that are you suggesting in that last one that the council could involve from the rate discussion I wasn't suggesting it I was just asking whether this was something that you know the council or the select board in the past and you know dealt with I should have clarified that a little bit Guilford do you know if that rate is um was on that fee list that I sent out was that one of the fees listed on the under DPW or under water and sewer it is one of the fees okay so we did it is on our sort of master list that we've been monitoring and we're gonna kind of take a look at every year so it's it's definitely something we'll be looking at and septic septic is a very small analysis comes into the wastewater system so any questions further on sewer and recognizing that we recently spent a lot of time on water and sewer fund I have seen no hands go up so I think we can go on to my favorite fund solid waste um the one thing can I just say one final thing about water and sewer um you know it's unclear yet whether the american rescue plan funds can be used to make up for shortfalls in water and sewer there's a lot of discussion about there you know one of the eligible uses of those grant funds is revenue replacement um but there's there's sort of still defining what is included in that revenue replacement number I've seen some different definitions of what they think we'll go into that um and the last thing I saw you know there was a question about whether utilities would be allowed to be counted in that um and so I'll give you an update as soon as I get more information but this is I think the transportation fund the water fund and the sewer fund would be good candidates potentially for those funds because they all have they're all expected to have revenue deficits this year and it's all directly related to the pandemic so just keep that in mind and then we only had one question for solid waste and it was more of a comment so I just put thank you in there it wasn't really a question it was commending the staff which was appreciated yeah as I say I'm a regular user of the transfer station and it was pretty remarkable the efforts they went to to kind of lay things out so people could um you know recycle things um safely so and the one sort of thing to note about the solid waste fund they're um I believe so they're an FY 21 again if you look at solid waste you'll see a dip down and that's because for FY 21 we as I mentioned last night we increased it for that roll-off truck that the town had to have a matching share of and now that that's gone that decreased the the budget a little bit we've had a constituent inquiry as to whether or not now that we're rolling off all the restrictions with COVID whether or not the transfer station will go back full operation including take it or leave it that's a gilford question right I don't know we would we're we're looking at how to bring it back and how to make it a little better than it is now um to take it or leave it is actually one of the money losers for the transfer station so if we've actually probably made I mean this this fund has made money over the pandemic and I think that was probably because we weren't taking as much take or leave it stuff and we cut out a lot of things that are very low low return for what we do so um we need to take a better look at it and then see whether we're going to bring it back or not maybe take it or leave it with a plot for donations the only question on take it or leave it is that might be a money maker that we don't know about secretly is whether anybody is actually buying stickers in order to get in to the facility to use that uh attribute Dorothy uh following up on that program uh babu is a regular at the transfer station it was upset at the fact that the bikes are not being found new homes are not being found for them and you know we're just thinking of past collection of bikes for rotary and whatever or lines club I guess it was so you know I I could certainly don't want a policy that would it that makes this uh transfer station not break even but some stuff really should be moved on to people who need it so that that would be one of those things we're talking about looking at how to restructure it so that we can actually move things to where they need to go and not just get the town gets stuck holding it and not having to throw it away and pay for it that that would be something that would be very we'd be very interested in talking with that person about um we'll do question that I have about the fund how is the um amount that we're having to pay now to get rid of our recycle or if we're not inhibitory are we actually still getting paid for any of the recycle and how is that affecting the fund so um we we stopped using where we stopped being a permanent member of the mirf um many years ago and what we've done is use whoever is the cheapest to get rid of our material um which actually it's still the mirf for bottles and cans although um we've been using another vendor for bottles and cans right now we take all our paper to um Sonoko directly to the recycler and they they they pay us for it um prices have been good they've stayed on the positive side um they have not stayed positive enough positive enough to have us make money or to offset our costs but they've been um we haven't had to really we haven't had a large increase in the price of getting rid of paper so we we can watch it ourselves and we kind of try to manage it the best we can and keep the play the market and keep the market working in our favor so at this point that is not affected the viability of the fund no we've been able to maintain what we've been doing in the past and not uh negatively impact the fund or cost you know cost more money or anything and I gather the premium for cardboard must have gone away because you don't ask people to separate cardboard um we do have a bend for cardboard only but you don't yeah you don't have to separate it no but you do get more money for cardboard um more money for white paper and less money for mixed jesse um as the um Andy mentioned that maybe people want to put a transfer station sticker so they can bring their stuff to leave it um and that would actually be a good description of us that we once a year used to buy the transfer station sticker to bring some stuff to take her to leave it but my question was about um garbage and restrikeables now that we're down to I think just one company and their rates have gone up a lot have you seen an uptick where people are actually using it I mean is there a way of you judging that because I realize we're generating so little right now and the cost is so much higher than it was two years ago to have the truck come and pick up a half empty garbage can but I don't know but that that leads people to say I'm just going to throw out my car and bring it over to transfer station do you have any sense of that uh yes we had about a 10 or 15 percent increase since ticker sales um probably around December when the the new rates went out with for USA and is there this is a bigger discussion so it's not for today but um when there was some competition um one thought that maybe you had choices whether the choices turned out all to have the same rate so it wasn't exactly clear to me whether we had a choice or not um is our town starting to take this back that they are doing their waste you know a waste fund where they're actually the town is providing the service has that happened regionally or in the state at all there are communities that have our type of system where you just tell the tell the residents to get your own service there are communities that are looking at now trying to consolidate their waste system in some method whether it be contracting out a hauler for the entire town or sections of the town or trying just to consolidate it and they're doing it for two reasons one is is better they think they can get a better price and the second reason is is that it reduces the amount of vehicles driving around town so it's more of a climate greenhouse reduction tool yeah it was it was not necessarily a bad thing to go to one because the trucks used to go up and down the small streets at different times a day but it's more what has happened to the pricing since that happened in Amherst yeah so okay so that's just that's a longer range question um so no one's just taken it back like bought their own truck but they've used the leverage of a town say we're going to buy for the whole town well I won't say no one has not done that I haven't heard of anyone okay okay thanks we've never thought about becoming our own municipal trash collectors you know my experience has been I grew up in New Jersey and lived in the northern Virginia for a while and in both places the the town or the in northern Virginia it was a county uh did the the trash collection and the recyclables I mean it was just part of you know part of your taxes yeah so it's on the other hand we've had we've we've we have property on Cape Cod and we've always had to pay for for trash removal there so yeah I mean the problem with that is Bob that if you if we were to switch now and you were to build wanted to build it into the tax rate and uh would you end up with a uh tax a proposition to tax cap problem and you'd almost have to set it up through an enterprise fund anyway in order to avoid that issue yeah the I wasn't suggesting we do that I'm just sort of commenting that it seems to be a massachusetts thing or maybe a new england thing it's a the the town dump uh is a new england thing and since I moved to amber moved back to amherst I felt disconnected because I didn't make I have been making my weekly trip to the transfer stay or the dump to have coffee and donuts and throw out the trash and catch up on the news I think the town could I think trash collection is exempt from 30B so and and we could probably if the town wanted to find a single trash vendor I think we could probably do that but I don't don't take that um I'm I'm a little I'm a little rusty so don't take that for uh for a fact Lou this issue is going to come up when we get the ACAC report so look forward to it rich report ACAC the environmental community oh okay action report I didn't realize that I had a connection in here it was an environmental issue at the point when we had two different companies running duplicate truck routes and I remember that discussion going on fairly lengthy but as it turns out as Kathy has pointed out there was a cost to getting to one truck route called lack of competition unless we regulated ourselves we've got a problem so we can't control it anything else having to do with uh the enterprise funds because it's not Dorothy so one of the reasons the town would go to its own collection system is if it's having trouble with illegal dumping so I would like to ask Guilford if there has been an increase in illegal dumping since we've reduced to one um truck going around and he's raised the prices but my answer is there's not an increase the amount of illegal illegal illegal dumping we have as me is maintained itself and it's still pretty high um we actually had a town resident tell an employee yesterday and he was telling me the resident said well I just tell my residents to put their trash on the front lawn they don't want to take with them and it sits there for three weeks and then I call the town and tell him someone dumped trash on my yard the town comes and picks it up so if it hasn't we do have a dumping problem in this town and um it would be that would be one of the ways to actually at least try to cover the cost of the dumping is to have a townwide trash collection system thank you I would go for it aren't those usually the bigger items like furniture and things like that that people are that they are it's usually it's furniture it's sometimes we've had people just leave big piles of clothes out in front of people's houses it's it's amazing what people leave behind because they don't want to move it because they're going so far away we have a little gulley off of pine road and there's a resident who lives over there who regularly goes down and picks up trash andy where someone just throws instead of taking each of the dump that's where they and she tracked them down when they put unopened envelopes in it so she could report it was just and they could I think I know where this is coming from but she called conservation to come get it to clean it out so it's it's a site that you can't quite see unless you know to look for it so it's not just furniture as all I can say yeah yeah in northern Virginia uh twice a year there would be a pickup of heavy goods like you know old washing machines and beds and things like that so then they'd have a special truck come out so if we were to do something like that that might be something to consider is you know like in the end of May or something after the college students leave have a have a truck go around and pick up big things sounds like we do anyway yeah right anything else on the budgets because we always need to stick with budgets um so we want to go back to the DPW budget yeah so um so the DPW budget is also broken into two different sections so the first section is administration and the first question was about um the EPA's store water program and the financial impact Gilbert do you want to walk through your response to this first one yes so yes there can be there can be significant impact like I said a couple times the first few years of the program are for us to figure out what we need to address what problems we have in town and we expect to do that for the next few years and then once we address or figure out our problems then we can decide which ones we want to address and hopefully we get the we get to decide what we want to address and we're not told what to address by the EPA or DEP um so we're kind of in a in a figuring out phase now um if the costs of doing these projects or the projects are not that big we can continue can continue to use chapter 90 in general fund money to solve them while we do bigger projects or we may have to go to a store water utility and come up with some way to fund these projects if they're if there's a timeline for repairing them or fixing them and there's some type of um urgency put with it that's beyond just working it into the regular projects Gilbert what's the I think the bylaws were just approved right the the two bylaws um so what's the next step um what's the next big step now that the bylaws are in place well the bylaws are only uh one uh one of several steps so the bylaws now let us manage new new development and redevelopment and they also allow us to take care of illicit connections to the stormwater system so those two are totally two other pieces of the of the the permit we have to deal with and the bigger piece like I say is figuring out what's wrong so the thing that'll be going on is just identifying our storm drains identifying the outfalls of our storm drains and then coming up with a testing program to see what type of contaminants we're finding in those storm drains and in those outfalls and then adjusting our program to eliminate those contaminants right since some of the committees for regarding administration or do you want to go through us to the questions maybe that makes there was a there were a couple other questions um one was about the water management act permit um and you can see gilford's response to that and there was another question um related to that in terms of staffing and procedures you're gonna uh by the way these questions and answers that you're gonna forward to us and yeah these are all set to go so I can send them right after this meeting to to the committee and to athena okay anything else there so are there any questions regarding or additional questions regarding general public works administration highway gets into the exciting questions of her roads and sidewalks yeah so the first question was about private roads and the ones at the town is still maintaining um and gilford gave a response about how that's minimal do you want to add anything to that gilford um we're just we're just trying to get them we've been talking to a lot of them we're trying to get them either to upgrade their road and be accepted or to be let them know that they're responsible for them we have we have like three I think that will be coming to the town council at some point um hall drive is one of them they repaved the road they want to become a public way they don't want to be a private way anymore um and then you have the amherst hills neighborhood that's working becoming a public way um and I think there's one other street in there that I can't remember the name off the top of my head that they're working to get their their roads as public ways as well and that's that's kind of the direction we're taking right now you are not plowing any of the private roads it's my understanding um there's one or two that still get plowed for one reason or another beyond the fact that it's just a private way that we've always plowed it lark larksburg drive is the primary one that that's supposed to be turned over as a public way and it was built to be a public way but it hasn't been turned over yet so it gets plowed amherst hills they're supposed to be turned over as public ways they get plowed those are the ones that definitely get plowed we took over we did plowing for hall drive because they started the process of becoming a public way um so there are some that are going through the process of becoming a public way that we're now plowing and that's it just plowing larksburg but anyway questions on this or should we keep moving anything else about the uh because most of it really is in the um capital plan for the discussion of the roads and sidewalks yeah so i i wrote this question before the weather got a little warmer but since we had a snowfall about three weeks ago but this this is where we stand right now as far as the snow and ice budget we we do have a a small surplus this year 11,000 we were able to cut it pretty close there well managed good job yeah they did a good job this year street lights and traffic lights yeah the the reason for this question was really just um you know at some of these intersections there's a a bunch of cars idling for a minute or so and that does add up and you know it i have no i i had no idea what the cost would be to upgrade these signals um and i don't know how many we would need to upgrade um but um it might be something to consider for some of the more some of the busier intersections well the the biggest intersection uh there's north hammers yeah and finally we got a resolution this is short term resolution to that are the cameras installed on that now is it automatic yes the cameras and the automatic controller are installed and the response here they're we're missing a hundred thousand dollars it's it can range anywhere from 15 grand to a hundred thousand dollars currently to upgrade the intersections the word more shouldn't be there it should be a hundred thousand oh okay yeah well that's that's a lot of money yeah i had a question i mean we do have thank you gilford the north hammers light which the other day i was astonished because there was but we were backed up almost to 116 and we all got through which used to be an experience of six changes of the traffic light um so does that light automatically um change how long it stays green left hand turn at different times of day and can you see can you i know it's smarter than dumb lights were but you know so can you say okay at five o'clock we need to leave that green signal on longer in the morning we need it on the other direction does it readjust itself or that someone back in your headquarters making those judgments making those judgments no it readjust itself and it doesn't it doesn't go by a set program that says this is friday do it this way um it actually just monitors the traffic and it has a minimum time and it has a maximum time it can operate so it'll start with the minimum time and if it sees that it didn't clear the queue it will add more time to the next queue and then it just keeps adding up until it gets to the maximum and then it watches traffic and as traffic's not if the lights green for too long in one queue it'll start reducing it back down to the minimum so it does that automatically because that seems that's what our observation has been that it's it's work you're like oh well that was really long next time it wasn't that it it looked like it was being smart which is why it's called a smart light so the other you said you hadn't I think you said you hadn't added let has you had we started to be able to count traffic in multiple directions and then count you had to add something special for pedestrian and I wouldn't you know but just to get a sense of how many people are walking through that intersection or riding a bike through no we're trying to resolve there's two pieces that we there's two pieces there one is the pedestrian and bicycle and we haven't worked that one out yet and then the vehicle counting we also haven't worked out yet there's something we need to add on to the controller for the vehicles and we're still trying to just find the right product to count the pedestrians and the bicyclists and we haven't added those those on yet you know so it's it's less that that I need to know that because I'm living up here but if we think in terms of trying to reroute the roads and go back for a mass works grant we had to do expensive traffic studies before and this could potentially give us counts that would be if we're back and reopened and north square is in full function you know with people there we would get a better sense of of the flow in all directions so that was just trying to think forward that this would be a useful source of information for future planning then I my second is I think it's on treason treason tab um what's the what is the cost if you are at a crosswalk to put in a solar powered light that shows up at night so it illuminates it we've got one over coals that I think north square installed but we've got some crosswalks that I've noticed that not only the lines are rotting away but you can't see them at night because there's not a streetlight is there a way of putting something that illuminates both the fact that there is a crosswalk um so cars see that people are coming but the people also know there's a crosswalk there the pedestrians is there a cheap cheap ish way of doing that's not electrical um um uh I guess it depends on what you call cheap yeah um we can put a traffic we can put a street light in um some places we can put streetlights in some places we can't put streetlights in just because of how the power is set up but um there's there's the possibility of doing a street light but that just lights up the ground and if the if the paint's not there you just see asphalt you don't see the crosswalk there are signs we put signs up at most crosswalks they're reflective that's the cheapest cheapest way the rectangular flashing beacons we can put in if we need to those are anywhere from nine to twelve thousand dollars a pair um and those actually those are actually pretty substantial so they don't get destroyed by young college students who want to try to rearrange the world sometimes um okay thank you welcome it's so going on so far do you want to talk about the automation programmer um yes actually on both these um the electricians work in the street lights and traffic light division they both can't work that so that's why we put their accomplishments there just so you know there's not really good place to put them out of the places because they're kind of small in the rest of the world that programmer is um almost everything we own in our water plants our pump stations our wastewater plant and even our traffic control systems are all have a program to them and run on a program it's not like it's not like the it programmers who just program your computers and set things up in your in that but it's what we call process programmers um and we definitely at some point we're going to have to set up either a lot of money to pay someone outside to do it or we're going to have to hire a position and fund a position that's a programmer who just does this um we have enough work for them um it's just uh we decide which way to go um right now we use a um we use an individual who will be retiring soon um and he's he likes what he does and he doesn't charge us very much but we get a lot of work from him but at some point we're going to need this to invest in a programmer for um all the stuff we have that needs programming just something we all need to do go for it is the um electrician position still vacant or was that the deck it filled no boat we have both our electricians are on staff now okay good use your hand up for this or yeah it was for me sorry it was for me for i forget to take it just a comment on that programmer um it now clarifies what a friend of mine did many years ago when he left new york city for somewhere near boston and all he could say was i got to program the traffic lights well he was a very brilliant trained person he's not people who do that kind of work are not cheap so i don't know what gilford what do you think it's going to cost to get somebody um in the competitive market well that's that's been our problem we haven't been able to attract anybody um we attract our electricians who actually they can make a lot more money on the outside they're making for us but they want a different style of a different lifestyle and we've had high turnover in our electrical positions um they're here for a short period their lifestyle their life changes and they're ready to go back to making a lot of money they don't need to stay home with their children or their families so they leave us and we're probably going to end up in some type of situation like that where we're probably going to be paying a high end almost close to a hundred grand for someone doing this and we're only going to have them for a short period of time and then we're going to have to replace place them and get somebody else um which is fine i completely understand that but um that's probably where we are with this type of position are there other positions within uh areas that you supervise where we also are having problems finding qualified people we're any any actually all our jobs right now we're finding having a hard time finding qualified people um wastewater and water jobs definitely that we're having a hard time we're actually just bringing people in who are interested in getting into the field and we're training them ourselves and we're finding we train them we pay them what we can pay them and then they can find they can find better paying jobs and better working hours at springfield water and sewer commissioners and other larger facilities and even some of the smaller facilities they can find more work or more pay and better working conditions um then we have and they leave and we start all over again so um the job finding someone to work right now is very very difficult i mean we can't even find truck drivers right now to work for us um which is nationwide they're having a truck driver shortage but we can't find qualified truck drivers or people who are qualified to work in construction type work because they can be getting more money elsewhere they get more money um doing something else um and they're fully capable of it so this would you put it's a long term budget challenge yeah yes it's a very long term it's uh yeah a long term budget challenge and a long term just operational challenge other questions in the committee so um group and maintenance um yeah so this wasn't um uh wasn't a question this is more of a comment yeah i was just saying that you know having a digitized maintenance schedule would be a good step forward in making sure things don't fall between the slip between the cracks i've i've i've threatened uh my my wife and myself that i would create a digital list of all the canned goods we have so we don't buy 10 cans of beans that we don't need and then the under tree and ground maintenance there's a question about the cemetery land and i think that's sort of an open question i post this because i think this is an issue that you know maybe the council needs to address you know does the town really want to stay in the cemetery business we are getting to the point where we are running out of vacancies in our hotel um and we need to decide whether to expand or to just be a maintenance type facility um the other the other cemetery in town is also i understand they have they have openings and availabilities but they seem to be having some other issues so it may be something the council might choose to think about having a discussion with them does does maintaining them also mean you mow them are you in charge of to extent there's grass and you go between them we mow them we trim them yes the only thing most of the headstone repairs are are done by um planning through a ccp cpac grants most of the headstones we do that way but we do all the grass cutting the the fence painting and all that stuff is done by dpw and is that i actually had a resident write me that she was distraught on the state of the historic cemetery the one downtown with emily dickinson of grass and weeds and i didn't know how much of that was coming out of winter and i know the headstones are being repaired so is i i didn't send it through yet to ball but so the section of the cemetery she's talking about the historic commission wanted to keep it and what it considered to be a historic um historic naturalized naturalized yes a historically naturalized setting because that's they didn't have mowers at that time period so that's why it's taller and we only mow the grass there twice um but they do that there's been a lot of complaints about that and there's been some discussion about just maintaining it like a normal cemetery and i think that historic commission is ready to say no we just want to maintain it like current standards not like a historic naturalized area thank you i will i will let this person know thank you welcome jane yeah i um i actually just wanted to weigh in on that cemetery as someone who was on the historical commission up until about like two months ago um so part of the problem with maintaining it my understanding is that when they were when people were trying to mull it was it was knocking over some of the headstones so the historical commission has been looking into trying to find ways to help maintain that section of the cemetery without damaging the headstones and so they've been looking into uh sheep or goats and i think they found that goats were too uh destructive and so they were the last i had heard they were working with someone to see if they could find sheep to help herd some of that grass sorry i don't know if that makes any sense or if that's helpful at all yeah kathy are you to do anything further yeah um i was actually going to shift off the graveyard to uh tennis courts and basketball courts um the basketball courts up at mill river um is there if people want to know when will things be finished since i see you've got them on you're maintaining them as you know right now they're torn up or last time i looked a week ago so it's just are there ways of knowing timetables and i'm not sure what you do with tennis courts whether you are maintaining we only have i think the two unless you're doing the ones for the middle school so it's it's a question on dpw's role with each of those areas so there there's no changes proposed for the tennis courts right now we we did some net repairs and those are that's just regular maintenance if the net needs fixing you just need to let the tpw know the net needs some attention and they'll go do it um the basketball courts um the contractor is supposed to be coming in probably the june middle first of june middle of june to do that work at the basketball courts and we hope to have that all buttoned up at least by the end of july have it all back together so you can use them there's actually going to be an extra court there's going to be two full courts and then two half courts that are for smaller smaller adults smaller children sorry not adults for smaller children so there'll be a total of two full courts two half courts when we're done because i think you should know that they're used all summer long particularly as kids get out of school it's and if someone's over in the swimming pool the kids are out playing i mean it's a it's a good good outdoor resource yeah uh paul had something uh so whoever's uh managing satina or whoever could bring paul in so that he could paul has his hand up yes paul is in our attendee athena are you there i think lin was are you uh coasting and athena let me see what i can do but i don't think i can do anything yeah athena just brought him in we don't see him he's still on the attendee list i'm sorry i stepped away for a moment i'm bringing paul in now hi sorry it's it's not a big point this was on the cemetery thing so when i worked at the Cambridge Historical Commission we have the old burying ground in the middle of harvard square same issues historic gravestones fight between the historical commission and the dpw because they just went to go and mow it make it look like a suburban cemetery and they always damaged the stones whether it was a weed wacker or uh and and there's like permanent damage to these stones from the 18 1700s and 1800s so um and people always complained about them saying it looked unkempt but that was what those graveston graveyards looked like back those burying grounds at them that's what they were called looked like then at that point in time did they use sheep they they talked about using goats and sheep but they never did have you ever given any thought as to whether we should maintain ourselves in the cemetery business or whether when we've sold out the plots it's time to move on to other yeah i think we're we do we have are we required to do that goford we're required to maintain what we have um i don't think we're required to offer we don't have space we're not required to offer space unless we want to because we would have to acquire property to do that or as you say acquire another cemetery that's got a lot of maintenance requirements to it um is there anything else because i think that we've really uh the only thing that i was going to ask you gilford is you had mentioned chlorine costs way back when when we were talking about the enterprise fund pursuer and that uh cost had gone up considerably which i have heard about for swimming pool chlorine is that end up being on your budget or does it get charged back to recreation your muted area because you're muted sorry some of the guys were all leaving so i muted myself um the town pools don't use tablet chlorine we use liquid chlorine so our prices are actually staying lower than what they norm what everybody else if you have if you have a home pool and you use the tablet system for chlorination you're going to see a much higher price than we are right now ours are still staying low gas gas yes chlorine and um liquid chlorine are staying about where they were last year and so i see that there's a couple of hands up uh dorothy and kathy so dorothy um it's about whether the town should be in the cemetery business um i would say only if the town could sell a plot at a much cheaper rate than the private ones but if not i see no reason to i mean we have other cemeteries um wildwood's not that expensive some towns have cemeteries so that they can have more affordable spots but if you don't have many and they're not affordable then you just should be maintaining it and getting life easier it's my suggestion kathy you're muted okay i'm unmuting but um i wasn't going to ask about graveyards or cemeteries i wanted to go back to um a more general question about the planning and thinking about dpw being in an alternative site um and can i ask that now or should i worry about interrupting the flow go ahead because so my my question my my kind of general question gilford seeing the amount of salt and other kinds of materials you're using to maintain roads is have we looked at the extent if you weren't out this site and someone said um are there any hazardous material what's the condition of the soil um are there any things that would have to be cleaned up do we know the answer to that is that one of the things that would be assessed as we're doing uh uh plans for the fire station so it was a have we assess that and if we haven't assessed it would it be should we do it sooner rather than later to avoid a delay if we were going to try to do a fire station there and have you be somewhere else so it's it's a one of the towns in the news was something got on a big delay because of what they found in the soil um on a plan for using it for an alternative purpose that's my question so we we know we have some questionable materials on the site we know that already when we've been talking about using it for a fire station we've brought those up and talked to people we've had one we've already been through one um one environmental study with DEP because we were working in the yard and we had some strong odors coming from the ground we brought a an LSP in we did a whole report reported everything at DEP they found that it was not a significant it wasn't any type of pollution it was just a release of what was in the soil um but this facility before it was a DPW was the trolley facility um and there were things done here that weren't probably done by DPWs but um there is probably some contamination here and they will find some things that probably need to be cleaned up the biggest thing I see that to reuse this facility is actually we have asbestos and lead paint in the building asbestos um we have some asbestos insulation and some asbestos caulking that was used in the glazing of the windows because they're older style windows and then we do have lead paint in some sections of the building so the building is actually has things in it as well as just there might be some things in the ground but most people know the ground probably definitely because if you dig in the ground you'll find a layer about six inches deep about maybe a foot to a foot and a half deep it's just black and it's um from creosote just being poured on the ground or oil being poured on the ground we just have this layer but there's no indications downstream or upstream or downstream of us that we're actually leaching anything into the water with that study that's been looked at already and we've had this small one small study done about the site itself but we do know we have lead and we have asbestos in the building and I realize you know Andy I know we're again we're on operating budget versus capital but I am also focused on the way they interact and worried about I've been worried for a while about is plan that has been proposed feasible and are we underestimating some of the costs you know when we're looking at so that's Sean that's one of the reasons I was asking on this so I know it's not answerable right now but yeah no it's definitely something we think about and again it's one of the reasons why we use a lot of conservative assumptions when we do those plans and why we why we included funds in this year's budget for design work because we want to start being able to answer those questions and we can't really do that till we have a good design that looks at some of those things so I think that's that is a good question especially in light of the cost stuff that we're talking about too just the cost generally rising we want to see what the town can get for the budget you know that's in that plan and then we can see if we have to make any adjustments from there but no I think that's a good question for for the projects you know because it's a little bit different than design as you can hear I mean it's demolition cleanup costs that have irrespective of what we're physically going to put there and is there potentially a long delay because that's not as easy as one might think or or it's more costly than we might think one or the other so it's just I'm a worrier when it comes to millions of dollars plus or minus so yeah yeah I will say on the on the it's a very small point but on the bright side we Paul and I were in a meeting recently about some energy incentives that might go along with the net zero program and so if we do you know if we will design these buildings to be net zero there will be some money coming back potentially in incentives from mass save and from ever source for those buildings and we were talking in regards to the school but they said it would also apply to a fire station or DPW great which is good it's great thank you we've won attendee and I don't know if the attendee has any public comment or question to ask because so this should be a good time to pose that question so the attendee does want to do so be recognized and raised hand would let me know because otherwise it is a part of our posted agenda and it's important that we include it never meeting at some point and I want to make sure we can offer bring that opportunity if attendee wishes okay so seeing nothing else that's come up are there any other questions for Hilford regarding the or in general regarding the DPW budget all its sections Bob you're you're all set which you need to give us a write up for the yeah I think I'm good okay so Gilford thank you very much for being here I appreciate it and unless I see raised hand from some category I appreciate you being here so I think there are only a couple things that I want to touch on quickly and then I'll let us turn earlier today and of the two things one is that I think that everybody except for our resident members was at the end of that very long council meeting last night and knows that there was an additional issue that was referred to our committee but one that the resident members may not have been aware of I don't have the exact wording of the motion so if I misstated I have other counselors who are going to correct it I'm not going to even attempt to do it with an exact wording but we had a very long discussion about the whole subject of reparations and reparations group came in and that led the council to want to have a discussion on several subjects one of which was referred to this committee and that is to help to think through what could be a long-term source of funds for a reparations program I it's obviously one that we're not going to really address until after we're done with the budget and get a budget report get budget recommendations the budget report off but it will then have to be on agenda during the first part of June to take up the issue but I didn't want to leave three members of the committee not knowing that this referral had been made so if there are any of the councilor members who have went to a better explanation than I just gave please feel free to do so or if there are any questions from members who are not present during that portion certainly can ask Lynn yeah I think you got it right I think the only thing you didn't get was there is an expectation that we look at this in relationship this budget that we're recommending and a specific recommendation around the marijuana revenue stream so it's it wasn't there was a my feeling in that meeting last night was giving a pass to this to FY 23 was not not very acceptable to those presenting and those who were voicing their opinion from the community and I'm seeing Kathy and yeah I agree with that and it the word possible was added in at the last minute but it was stretched to find a way and one one person regularly mentioned marijuana so I had actually asked Sean on what is the revenue stream from marijuana and there are two parts of it you know so that we could have a focused discussion on that Andy if there's time in one of our meeting times in May so you know they're right now that marijuana stream is in general fees and service fees and then there's the impact part of marijuana but but in any case it's that was mentioned as a possible place to look at um that's yeah I think you have to just follow up on what you just said and then I'll recognize Pat I know in Dorothy's hand hands us up so I realize that there's other people who want to speak in Bob Eggner's hands us up as far as the marijuana tax did you I have to didn't look back and I could obviously is that listed as any part of the revenue for stream for this year or for the proposed year yeah it's in our we budgeted 190,000 in local receipts and that's built into the budget already yeah into the the tax portion of the revenue is yes so expenditure of it is not additional money as it would require a reduction in other parts of the budget right so that tax revenue was treated like that that excise tax was treated like our other excise tax revenues and that it goes into the bucket that supports the overall budget this year and what about the impact fees so that yeah so that is not budgeted yet and we have a separate accounting of impact fees received in prior years as well because that money we have to use for the the the eligible uses so even money we collected last year and I think we might have collected a little bit the fiscal year before the money we've collected in prior years has gone into free cash but we have a separate accounting of how much that is because we have to use it for those specific purposes and then the annual amount that we're getting each year that is not yet been budgeted so that is certainly up for discussion I mean it's all discussion but the problem is to try and make the stretch of saying that the permissible uses of impact fee could go into a reparations fund yeah I think there's there's there's sort of two questions there's one I think confirming the use of municipal funds for reparations is one legal question that we have out there that we need a confirmation on and then two is if that's if it can be done then can the mayoral the impact money be a way of doing it and so those are those are two sort of legal questions that we need responses to to help guide next steps because the impact fee was designed very soon then I'm going to go start recognizing people the impact fee was for a very specific and limited purpose when it was created by the statute and the regulatory follow-up to the statute with the Canada's control commission and that was to address the community's impact for example additional policing costs or similar costs that communities relating another one was in I know that we had questions about this from members of the school committee at one point about educational programs about marijuana and the impact of marijuana and whether it has costs those were the what the intent was when they created the impact fee system yeah the host agreements lay out some specific things and those are some of the things that infrastructure education mental health those types of things were all listed the other consideration around the impact fees there's also some legislative action right now that potentially could call into question whether we'll continue to receive those fees every year going forward so the agreements that we have for those fees are five-year agreements and then they have to be renewed and there has been some push by some constituency groups to get rid of those fees or lower those fees or modify those fees and I don't have anything concrete that that's going to change anytime soon but there is some action on that and I think it might have been North Hampton that not too long ago just said they're not going to collect them anymore you know they did collect them to begin with and they've used that funding and then I think they came out recently and said they weren't going to collect them going forward so again that's just right now it's a revenue source we get each year but it may not be permanent. Bob how are you in question? Well yeah I was just going to to mention what what Sean just said that the North Hampton has decided not to continue to collect that that fee so I would expect that at some point it would not be sustainable for us to continue to collect that fee. Dorothy? So I guess you're saying that they're not going to collect the fee because they want to keep the price of marijuana cheaper and therefore our marijuana would cost more than North Hamptons but the fact is my students tell me that street marijuana is much cheaper than any of the municipal marijuana. I want to make the point that I do not regard this as a topic of choice at this moment. People were asked to respond to an issue and they did for hour upon hour for hour well organized well thought out speeches and yes there were people that we've been hearing of for quite a while in terms of the defund the police group there were a lot of other people I hadn't heard of before professionals people who were you know very embedded in the life of this town and my feeling is that if we do not find a way to deliver something meaningful that we will then have absolutely made our government seem like a a farce that has no relationship to the people so I feel that we're at a crossroads right here I had not expected to be here except that related to referring to the crest program and the community safety working group and not the reparations which was the second discussion I that no right now the reparations I'm talking about both groups reparations group made it very clear with it we had a we were all too tired okay we were way too tired but the conversation would going back and forth would it be next year would it be sometime and the answer was no they wanted some sign of direct action the reparations group is the quote-unquote more polite group okay but that doesn't mean they're not going to um that they don't feel as strongly about the issue um and they feel that they've had a long wind up on this topic not just what's happening nationally but remember we all got delivered the book on reparations at about was it two years ago I have no idea of time anymore I'm just saying I don't think we have the luxury of saying well we've already made the budget it's hard we can't do it we've already committed the marijuana money to other costs I think that we were being asked to go and to look at the budget again and to find the money I felt that the program that they were they were using some phrasing which was I think relatively conservative I forget what it was but it was um referring to another it wasn't all BIPOC people get reparations it was to those who had been historically affected people of African heritage that's right and you know that is the if I'm a whole spectrum of that thing that is something that is easier to explain to a lot of people who say what the heck are you talking about because it does make some sense I just feel that we have to do something and if we don't they don't they're not going to care about anything we do then they won't they won't vote for things we want them to vote for they won't do anything um and I don't mean just a small group I mean people will say what is the point if we've done it the right way we have done it respectfully and we've you've wanted facts we gave you facts you want reports we give you reports you wanted people's lived experience we give you people's lived experience and if we just say well it's not convenient we've made a really nice budget and we don't have room for it now so I think we have to find a way well let me let me let us uh recognize other people and I have some thoughts on it too but I don't recognize everybody's hands up so Lynn um I actually feel that Dorothy is voicing the sense of what we heard last night in a very serious way what we heard for the first two and a half hours of the meeting was a kind of a wind-up to what we're going to hear next week and uh what we heard for the hour or so that we discussed reparations was directly in line with what we heard for the first two and a half hours it's that an expectation that we stop using lip service and that we do something that demonstrates our commitment I I don't find this easy it's not that I don't feel strongly it's that I I know from a financial standpoint I don't find this easy I will also say and you're gonna hear a frustration from me as president of the council I've had an ongoing conversation with one member of our council wanting to bring a discussion to the council about marijuana for the last two and a half years and I always got resistance and we need to understand marijuana because there are 11 people on our council who were not in elected positions when all of that was valid and so we don't really understand it and I get you know we get emails about different situations and I always just have to refer to someone so I think we need to look at this before we make our recommendations on our budget I think we need to understand the two different streams of money that come in through marijuana and we need to understand what those uses are and not used for I think we also need to understand whether we can legally support reparations in our budget or not and I think many ways at a much much different level this is coming with the same kind I'm feeling like I need to go figure it out tomorrow like I had to figure out how to get mosquito on the table so we could pass it I mean it's this is not something to put on the shelf until July I'm gonna I'm a little bit concerned about taking this on too long this is I'm considering as a topic not anticipated 48 hours in advance since it was only less than 12 hours in advance that we knew about this topic on the other hand the purpose of the open meeting law is to give notice and to have a substantial discussion of the issue to take place to the meeting that is not noticed does make me feel uncomfortable even though we did not anticipate it 48 hours in advance so actually probably not going to make my own personal responses to what's been said at this point for that reason and want to limit this and get it back on an agenda that's posted and let the minutes reflect please that this was taken up as an issue to announce to that was just not anticipated 48 hours for the reason stated I see Bernie's hand is up so let's see what else we can do briefly and then with the understanding that we are going to have to get it on to a posted agenda for real discussions so that it's notified to the public that this discussion is occurring Bernie very briefly I you know I think there's a certain magic that was attributed to marijuana in terms of revenue that was overstated and you know I do think that we really have to I agree with Lynn we really have to this council really has taken a good hard look at this I also would suggest that reparations need not be financial we might look at other ways to if we can't come up with a dollar figure right now there might be some other ways we could do non-financial incentives or moves to to help people not just simply show good faith but to actually help people and thirdly I really hadn't considered and I should have whether or not the town can legally do this if this violates the NEA amendment or anything like that so my question would be are we waiting for the town attorney to tell us or are we waiting for more a healing to tell us whether reparations are a real thing oh so we've had a request into the town attorney for a legal opinion for quite some time now and it's a complicated thing and it's they just haven't completed that at this point but they she knows I've talked regularly and they know they're working they are working on that legal opinion wouldn't it be worth also contacting the Attorney General's office for their opinion that's a good idea yeah thank you but yeah I just wanted to um and I am just now reading all the material we got but I don't think we should err on the side of defining regi reparations too narrowly as an individual benefit to an individual person it could include that it could also include in my mind it could but that's why I would like to have the committee set up with a charge but if one of our schools became vacant would we have a multicultural section with particular race and ethnic stuff would we do programs in the schools I don't know what else they might come up with um as specifics but I just wouldn't want to get too narrow opinion on legality until we know the breadth of what could be and and again I would like this to come from the group not from me on what could be seen as part of of the response um so that's all I was worried about that we not go to a town attorney with can we do this or that but but some not not narrow it too much at this point right I'd also be surprised if KP law has not talked to the AG's office the law firms that do this have everybody's extensions and uh direct numbers I still would like to hear directly from the Attorney General's office well um I really want to cut this off uh for the reason stated this is not publicly known as discussion and we are getting fairly far into something that um I don't want to take advantage of the 48 hour exception um in Trump on public's right to know we're having a discussion but uh bob your hand is up I I just have a question uh is if there is any written material or any presentation materials that are available could I get them are they on the on the website or the the material that was sent to the council yesterday um we can get that sent to the three resident committee so everybody has the same packet material I will do that because I always try and get that done at some point and I will do it on this reparations question material that was sent though I think that the presentation and discussion really sort of lucked from that not wasn't about that material uh so at that point um in knowing we have another uh meeting coming up is there anything the other thing that I just want to touch on briefly is uh we are under time squeeze with the 30 day rule for referral um the um is you probably know and if not I'll say it again the charter says that um their budget is referred to us as a finance committee to investigate and report back to council within 30 days of referral it's referred on May 3rd Athena hasn't disputed my arithmetic so I'm assuming that 30 days after is June 2nd and that means that we need to complete our recommendations on June 1st and try and have at least the core um what I was hoping is is that the report on our meetings with the various departments would get encapsulated in finance committee reports and didn't have to be repeated and that the final report then had would be able to focus solely on our recommendations and that that could be framed in advance but couldn't be written in advance but so it would require a fairly quick turnaround so that's the process that concludes this for us and we'll have to work I'll have to work with Sean I'm figuring out how to add a little bit of time to do a posted agenda item to continue the discussion that we started on the additional piece that was referred to us any other comments Kathy um just Andy thank you for bringing that to our attention so one of the intense discussions we're going to have is not till the 27th um that relates to the budget so I think everyone you're to the extent we come up with some ideas and that aren't just you know a line item here and there um we will have we might we might need to meet again I guess is what I'm thinking that um so just be anticipating you know wherever the discussion on the 27th goes if the our report is due on what did you just say on the next Monday okay we have a we have a June 1 meeting scheduled which is a Tuesday and I have to Wednesday I'm just getting my calendar up right that's what I'm just wondering do you know my calendar is often wrong on finance now because I plugged them in at the beginning of the year so do we have a is the eighth the eighth would be the day after the town council meeting do we have a meeting I'm just asking if we need another day for a meeting after the 27th whatever that discussion is the eighth is CRC finance and CRC alternated and they they just so now we're we're the first Tuesday so I just have it on the wrong day Dorothy is that what we have okay so we do it June 1st and June 3rd is finance but we don't have uh we don't have it on the eighth as I said Mike so we we already have a meeting scheduled for June 1st is what you're saying yes and June 3rd as well person may I I all I'm asking is what is our deadline for getting the report back and do we have time for discussion and it sounds like the answer is yes I think I heard the answer yes the wait a minute which report are we talking about now the report to the council well if the report to the council is two 30 days after referral from the council to us and it was referred on May 3rd then it's June 2nd that we have to give a report right it's our report on June 2nd and June 1st is the last finance committee meeting and that's going to be substantially to vote recommendations we have two meetings set up for the 27th one with the community service working group at 5 30 in a 1 p.m. meeting that I think encompasses the last pieces of the agenda right Sean yeah so our next meetings with the 20th is general government the 27th is conservation and planning and development and also public health has been added to that last one so we have a little bit less time on that last one than we initially did because of the the rescheduling of the finance committee meeting a couple last week so public health will also be on the 27th and then we should have a little bit of time I would think after that probably an hour hour and a half still but then again we're going to have another meeting that night that starts at 5 30 so it depends how many consecutive hours you want to meet for if we start at one o'clock and then we have another meeting at 5 30 and of course the other thing is is that I think we made a decision at least to involve new linus council president feeling that we need to be very respectful of the community service working group and that we can talk about how we're framing the report but that we can't vote recommendations we should not vote recommendations until a week after we've met with the community safety working group because of the the sequencing so we are running on an extremely tight time schedule now I have a brief question is is there any way I know the charter specifies the 30s days but is there any way for us to legitimately ask for even a small extension on that I have thought about that too and you know Leonard Paul had a different take on it but it's pretty specific in the in the charter I mean there's a specific statement and I don't know the I don't think that we have the ability to ask the council to make an exception to the charter I don't know if our expert on the council who is on the charter commission will have a different opinion of asked I think the issue is to the extent that the charter is tied to the general law associated with cities and I I personally don't know that but we certainly can ask I will just point out that the council itself doesn't meet again until the 7th of June and at that time is when we have the hearing for the capital program the small capital not the big building and then we meet again on the 21st which is our target date to accept the budget but we do have a meeting on the 28th on case we need it to accept the budget I think we're going to need that meeting because it's last night I had to move four items off of the agenda until this coming week as well Andy I don't know if this is a viable alternative but we have a we have a finance committee meeting scheduled for June 3rd I don't know if people can meet on June 2nd we could potentially move that meeting up a day so you have another meeting I mean you'd be meeting June 1st and then June 2nd but it would give you one more block of time to finalize the report and then send it out that evening that's that's what I was looking for just you know if we can't move it by a week can we move can we have enough more time to be thinking together it is uh availability for moving the June 3rd meeting to June 2nd that's I because I had actually we had actually put in the June 3rd meeting not thinking about the fact that 30 days was going to be up before we I forgot that whole 31 days in May or thing and I think that the I think that the problem that that you were getting at Lynn my recollection of the statute and I obviously not looking at it now that I've read that section of the statute pretty frequently I don't think the 30 days is in the statute I think that was created by the Charter Commission I think that the what it says in there is there's a specific number of days after the formation of the council for the town manager to submit a budget to a council or the mayor if it's a mayor form of government and then the June 30th deadline for final council action is in the statute but the the referral to finance committee and the 30 days to report back was a creation I believe of the Charter Commission Andy I think that you're absolutely spot on with that and I think that we saw that happen last year when we needed the extension it was the state but the extension was given for when we had to adopt a budget by not when we had to report it back I'll also be more than glad to check with Mandy Joe and her recollection on that and meantime we can also look at the municipal the uh state statute but uh I'm also available on this yeah I am I think I can do the second I am I have to get my calendar yeah I will make myself available I guess yeah but we're gonna do some additional thinking about this I um at this point we do need adjourn so that we can have I gotta have a break we do we do okay see you so I think at this point we should adjourn this committee meeting and I will get back with a memo to the committee after after doing some investigation it's the thought about the scheduling thing so that because because we can do that by email legitimately with the open meeting law and we'll handle it by email exchange for scheduling purposes only and so anything else for today if not I'm going to keep this meeting as adjourned at 345 thank you okay thank you