 Okay, you're all set. Have a good meeting, everyone. Right. Thank you, Athena. Thanks. Seeing the presence of a quorum, I'm going to call this meeting of governance, organization, and legislation to order on this date. We're pursuant to Governor Baker's order of March 12, 2020, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. This meeting of GOL is being conducted by remote participation. We are being recorded, and I first want to make sure everybody can hear me. And so I'm going to start just with my screen. Lynn, are you there? Yes, thanks. And Mandy. Yes. And Pat. Yep. And Paul. Yes. And Andy. Yes. OK, so everyone is present and can be heard and seen. And so I'm ready to call us to order. The agenda as a number of items on it that we cannot address today, the focus of our meeting today is going to be, I think, exclusively on the town manager goals for fiscal year 21. And we'll be working with the document that Mandy has very kindly provided for us as a draft. We'll get to that in just a few moments. But all the other items, we are not ready to move on wage theft. And I'm sorry. Can you say that again? We're not ready to move. Wage theft was placed on the agenda. It was placed on the agenda as a placeholder. I think that's something we can ask Paul about in just a moment. But I do not have anything from, I do not have the attorney review on wage theft. That's stupid. Our translator just left the room. So we can't, we prefer public space. And the minutes just got to us today. And since we only had a one week turnaround, that's not any kind of criticism of the minute steak or that's perfectly reasonable. We don't have a chance to get to it. And so that's not, so we're talking today exclusively about the town manager goals fiscal year 21. And the first thing I wanted to just discuss with the committee is how much of Paul's time we need. I don't think he needs to be here for the entire meeting. I think he has seen a draft of the minutes as you all have courtesy of Mandy. So we might want to begin by asking him if he has any thoughts, reactions, comments about that document. Otherwise I need guidance from the committee as to, for Paul's sake, what you expect of him beyond that this morning. Do you want him to stick around for a while? Do you simply want to ask him, well, to ask for his comments on the draft? So that's, first of all, I need a sense of the committee, what you all want here. So Pat. Before we get into that, I don't think Paul has to be here for the whole meeting, but I would like him to answer the question about why wage theft has not been returned by the lawyer. Okay. And what's holding it up and when are we going to get it? Okay, fair enough. We'll certainly raise that question. Paul, do you want to answer that right away? I don't know what's holding it up and it's very frustrating. And I know that it reflects poorly on them and we are looking at alternative options because we actually have a conversation with Lauren, with the president today, so we can re-emphasize that. Thank you. So yeah, I know it's, there's a number of things with this, with the firm right now that's very frustrating for us. It's not just wage theft. Yeah, no, I know. Thank you. All right. So again, thoughts on just for Paul's sake, let alone for the chair's sake, what do you wish from him today? Anything? Just want to mention that when we did the goals last year, these many, you know, had a pretty engaged conversation about the goals and whether, how he felt about them and points where he needed clarification. And all of that was before it went to the council. So I think that's what we would want to focus on. Mandy's out of your head. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was gonna say, do you want me to put them up on the screen? I really do want to hear what Paul thinks of essentially a whole rewrite of the floor. Yeah, I do. Absolutely, we do. He thinks it'll be a better review based on this format versus a prior format too. All right. And I think that the other question is something that he has, Paul, you need to tell us what time you have available in your level of interest in being engaged in the full conversation, because I think that we're gonna probably start with kind of a global take on the different approach, but then we probably would be going through the document section by section with specific comments and certainly welcome your participation, but also respect your other time demands. Well, point Andy, I think that pretty much encapsulates it, Paul, I hope that gives you some sense of where we're coming from. So then I think we're going to begin with that sort of global overview and looking initially at least for any reactions that thoughts Paul might have, but obviously beginning with our own thoughts. So we have a division between policy. So I guess we want to put that document up if we could. Yup. And I mean, I have a copy on my screen, but as you know, I'm technologically challenged. I can't go backwards. I can't go from PC to Mac and back to PC. It's just, especially with this device. I'm a terrified, I'll lose everything. So the document is divided into two broad categories, policy goals and management goals. And so maybe we want to begin with that distinction there. When I'm looking at Paul's self-evaluation, I think he pretty much followed the goals of that year in terms of how he laid it out section by section. And so one observation I have right now is this would seem to add a number of new sections to his performing self-evaluation unlike the one that we got this year. So that's just one sort of superficial thought. Policy goals versus management objectives or how do we put it? Management goals. And then within that, you have five elements for policy and six for management. My initial observation is the policy goals reflect sort of the broad vision roughly, sort of a sense of direction and the management goals reflect broadly, not completely a sort of sense of what we expect from him in terms of job performance. So shall we begin with that? The policy goals versus management goals and the number of each. Any thoughts on that broad distinction, that broad separation and about the number of items within each? Again, I think policy goals gives us a sense of a roadmap. Management goals seem more about, this is what we expect you to do in terms of your day-to-day performance on the job. Yeah, let me see if I can see hands or you can just raise your hand or you can just speak actually. Remember, I can't raise my hand. Okay. I thought we were gonna have Paul reflect first. We could do that if you wish. Sure. Paul, go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, so I think this is a really good document. I do like the division between policy and management goals. I'm assuming that they're not in priority order or anything like that. I think they're just random. So medical, actually. Are they alphabetical? Of course, there's something. I knew there was a logic point to that. Yeah. Policy was alphabetical and management was alphabetical and then not quite. Okay. And so whenever I go through these things, I look at them and say, and this is a conversation we had last year with the committee was, okay, what would you expect? How would you be able to say this was accomplished? Would you expect to have a document? Would you expect to have just a narrative? Would you expect to have a presentation to the town council? So I think looking at them through the frame from, as I would be looking at them and saying implement, and it also has to be something that I can control, right? That to be able to gauge it. So implement community choice, aggregation, municipal, vulnerability program. Those things are ongoing, probably can accomplish that. So that's how I would go. I haven't really focused on that level of detail on these particular goals. I was looking more at the format and the structure of it. But I could go through that at a different time to sort of say, does this one really nail down what I think you're trying to accomplish and what I think I can, how I can respond to that. So I'm just scrolling through them on my own. And we all, yeah. So the biggest thing for these will be in terms as I start to look at these, it's going to be where do you want money to be put in the budget when we start working on the budget come, we start working in September, October timeframe. So getting these approved and the fall is really significant to me because if we're saying you really wanna do certain things on parking or whatever, we'll want to build that into the budget as we develop our budget. And we'll be doing capital earlier than we have in the past. So the only thing I would say is, sometimes, and I don't know if you, I don't think this document is really where it would be. I think it might be in a something else, but, and I think the, for a document like this, the fewer words the better. And then there might be some secondary things like this goal can be met by blah, blah, blah. These are examples of things that we would expect. So that's my overall comment, but I do like the, I think having these, I think what we did last year and I think was the committee was to have big broad categories that everybody could latch onto and say, yes, we care about housing, affordable housing, we care about climate, we care about the economic development. And then this year, the new one is going to be community safety, I think. The one that's not on it, we will be doing a lot of, I think internally on staff on racial equity things. So that might be something we might want to incorporate somewhere. I think that's actually something the council might want to be explicit about saying we want to move forward. And I think that would help in a lot of levels to have that be made one of your goals. Mandy has your hand up. Mandy, go ahead. I thought it might be helpful to give as brief as I can overview of how I did this. So people kind of can go from one to the other. So I did some research on trying to find how council manager systems do performance evaluations and what those goals look like. And basically I didn't find much other than, I found a lot, but I also found a lot on doing the actual evaluation, not setting the goals. And many of the evaluations and statements from the managers on manager websites, you know, the town manager portion of the town's websites where we set our goals, I set my goals based on the policy implementations and policy directives of the council. And so that's how I got this split between policy and management we had talked about. We really need, one of the things we're doing is evaluating when we do a performance, evaluating his management ability of a town. But that doesn't really go to the policy goals. And then what I did, I felt bad about creating more goals. I will say that. I was like, oh, we went from like seven to 11. I felt really bad, but when you're doing policy goals, what I tried to do is pull out some of those, what I thought were really significant policy goals that were buried in some of the other larger goals into their separate goals. So that's why essentially the four major capital projects and housing affordability were pulled out. They were mostly within economic, cultural and neighborhood vitality, that old one. But I didn't think they fit well within that goal and that we as a council had sort of already adopted policies relating to those separately. You'll see, I tried to quote the policies as much as possible that we've already adopted in the policy section to give that guidance. And then in the management goals, I'm not sure I added anything specific to them. I think financial management ended up separate. The way they're organized is the management sections and then the two non-sort of management relationship with people sections. And they're in alphabetical order from that. I took some language from some. My goal was the numbers in each one of these, like say fiscal management, financial management, were taken mostly from the old document, not fully directly from them, some with directions. But I tried to always have the statement here before the buy whatever as being the one that we might be able to evaluate under and then the numbers as some of those examples that for the council might be more important than others things, but there can clearly be a way to fulfill financial management without just doing the five things that are listed there, which is why every goal has that sort of to provide access to for affordable housing, the buy is some suggestions. That's the way I was thinking about it is the some suggestions are the more important things we might be looking at within that goal. I tried to for climate action, take what we received from ECAC and meld it into this. It was tough because that one was a very specific long set of things. So I tried to meld it into this version without losing necessarily anything. I left the, I had already had in CCA and MVP in there. They didn't really have anything about those particularly in there, but I decided to leave them in there. That would be the only comment I have on that one based on what ECAC was, but I hope that gives people an idea of what my thinking was around how we might use this for performance, the first initial thing before the numbers. I'm looking for comments from others before I start Lynn, please. So the other, first of all, I wanna just say to me and Joe, thank you for all of your work on this. I think you've done an amazing job of pulling in references to existing documents, adding dates and reflecting conversations of the council, particularly over the last year. When I look at a document like this, I say, well, how are we going to then turn it into an evaluation form? And so my initial reaction was fine. The ratings for all 11 documents, 11, we can use the statement that's at the beginning like you just pointed out. And when people are writing, they would write two issues that are mentioned as the one, two, threes and fours. So for me, it actually creates a document that's a little more like what we've been using this year than what we have done in the past where we had 99 or 100 categories to rate by. And so in terms of turning it into an evaluation document, I can see how that can be done. In terms of the actual individual items, there's a part of me that would like to prioritize them differently than alphabetically, but I'm sure I would do it one way and another counselor would do it another way. So that's one way to look at it. I really do not want to lose the comment I said very early on, and that is I really appreciate the work that's gone into reflection of dates and documents and the way in which it relates to the conversations of the council over the last year. Andy. Okay. So the reason, I guess first of all I want to thank Mandy also for her work on this because it obviously was a monumental effort and I think has moved us in a good direction. Some of the thoughts that I had in looking at it was, I'm not sure if it shouldn't have management first because we're, we have for a couple of reasons and then get to the policy goes second. The reasons is the managing the town and making government and making sure that the services that people expect from a well run community, such as providing for public safety, providing for community services, providing streets and roads and public works, all of those things that are just part of general management, I think you kind of have to put that high because that is what people expect. And the additional policy goals that are defined that we as a council have created, there are things that we think are important to work on are essential, but I'm not sure that management doesn't come first. And that works out also when we're dealing with budget which is why I'm thinking about it. And it had to do with how we structured the budget guidelines that were proposed to the council and adopted by the council was to say that first you've got to keep the town running and provide the services that we think need to be provided. And that you need also we hope to give consideration to important policy concerns that have been identified by the council and how we would address those and also recognizing that there are limitations on availability of funds and that you can't address all of those policy goals that we identified that were as they were put forward in the financial policy because there's a limit in resources, but as you consider finding additional resources to the extent that you can, these are things we would like to have you consider. I think that it might be helpful to make sure that we do an even better job. We actually did a pretty good job last year of making the documents parallel but I think we could make it stronger. So those are my general comments. I think the only other thing that I just will say is that I know that there will be some counselors who will be looking for how in the self-evaluation process Paul reports back on measurable pieces and I don't know how to address that. The one that was sort of keeps throwing up at me is what about filling vacancies on boards and committees as a part of that overall goal? And I think that what we're trying to do is move away from that kind of specificity, but at the same time, I recognize that it's gonna cause some angst on some members of the council who think that that's really important. And so I'll leave it at that for now and get to more specifics when we get to later discussion. Okay, Pat. Yeah, first of all, yes, Mandy, thank you for your work as always. And Andy, thank you for your comments but I feel pretty much opposite them. I feel like policy is the critical issue in all the work that we do as council members, as town managers, et cetera. And since I feel Paul is so strong in terms of management and things like that, I have it feels it doesn't need to have that position of first place. The thing, the difficulty, I think, that will come for him and for us is to integrate policy into our day-to-day practices, into, if you look at ECAC, into hiring, into finding people for committees and things like that. So I feel exactly opposite you and I would like to keep the structure as it is. Okay, I guess if I can speak for a moment, and again, you can either raise your hand. I have my screen so I can see the raise hand feature but you can also just wave. I have a little concern about the increase in the number of categories. I'm looking carefully at Paul's self-evaluation and I'm imagining if he were to follow the procedure he followed this past year, this document would have now a number of new categories. And that's not necessarily a terrible thing but it seems that we've increased the number of categories and it doesn't strike me that it necessarily makes it any clearer for us. One thing, for instance, I notice is economic development has been sort of placed to the side and that's something we may talk about a little bit later. It's there but it's in a category, it's sort of a collection of things whereas in the past document, it was a standalone category. I guess the management, I'm also struck by how there are six goals under management five under policy and it seems like I think management could be condensed. We could make it a much more condensed set of categories. I don't see the need for six separate categories in management. Partly, I think reflecting Pat's thought that we have an excellent manager to begin with and having six categories and they go on in some detail, a lot of it seems to be job description or just things that would be expected. We do have to evaluate him on these things, I agree but I'm not sure there's much in there that's new to him or that he would go, oh, okay, now I've got to really do this, I've got to do that. So again, that's maybe something we need to talk about because I'm probably missing some things there but I'm concerned about the sort of imbalance to my mind between management versus policy. I'm concerned about the increase in the number of categories. I'm also concerned about the loss of economic development as a standalone category. That's something else that concerns me. I guess that's for starters. And again, I'm in with what everyone else has began with which is a deep debt of gratitude to Mandy to doing this and because it focuses us very clearly on what we need to do. So again, thank you Mandy. We're talking about long, we're sort of thinking about the document as a whole. Eventually we're going to go through it section by section, any other thoughts about either in reaction from the comments that I've made or Pat's made or others have made in terms of what I see as an imbalance and also the increase in the number of categories. I think everyone seems happy with policy versus management. Are we ready to move to each separate item? Do we want to talk some more about the overall shape and design of this? I see policy, yeah, Paul, go ahead. Thanks. So I think one of the other things as you look at this document, you need to recognize and I think you do that it's an outward facing document too is how the public sees you doing your job, not just how you're, and part of your job is holding me accountable but also articulating your goals. So I would argue that I would agree with Pat that the policy pieces should be upfront because I think that's what the people care about the most. They're not gonna care, did you balance the budget? They assume that that's part of the job but they're very eager to hear how you have prioritized, how you have told the manager to prioritize the town's resources in accordance with your values or whatever the things that you want to accomplish this year. So I think that as you develop this document you should be thinking and it's something I will share with every town employee so that that's an important thing to think about because I think it's really a very important outward facing document because I think that if you were to say these are our five or six primary things that we want to do this year that's what we're gonna be sharing out with everybody saying this is folks this is the page we're on, everybody get on it. So, and it's not like you're gonna get into the details of make sure these 17 streets are paved or something like that that's not what this is documents about but it is the bigger picture thing. And I think as I looked at the document I would struggle a little bit with all the management things because a lot of them are you doing your job type things and I get that that's part of your role too is to ensure that the manager is doing the job that the manager was hired to do but like implementing town financial management policies and objectives for sound, yes. So I think we could probably slim those downs a little bit to sort of meet the same needs or to highlight things in each of those categories that you really want to focus on. Right, right, good. Andy. Yeah, I mean, one thing that this conversation has raised for me is the question everybody, there seems to be an assumption that and I'm just thinking because financial management's on the screen, not because I'm picking on it in particular, that there would be commenting on each of those subcategories under financial management as opposed to just a report back from Paul in his self-evaluation about how financial management as an overall objective has been performed during the year and the not necessarily having to comment or expect the council to comment on each of the numbers below and which gets into them, I guess, do we want that level of specificity? Sort of it's like, if we have it in there what do we expect to be done with it? Does Paul comment on it as self-evaluation? Do we expect councilors to comment on it on their evaluation of the manager or is it really just the major objective itself that is being subject to evaluation? Lynn. Thank you, George. I'm going to support the way it is presented as policy goals up front and management goals. I think the policy goals are a way for the council to, without them going through the painful process of setting their own goals, it's their way of saying these are in fact our goals. This is where we want you to pay attention. I do agree there might be ways to consolidate under the management goals. And I just want to clarify something Andy. I didn't expect that every council to speak to all of the numbers under, but those are the areas that tell you what is really involved here. And so they can draw from those as they make their comments. They may say, Paul is a terrific fiscal manager and just leave it at that. Or they may say, Paul has done a terrific job of managing through the pandemic and making sure the budget stayed balanced, blah, blah, and then they can get into any other number of things that are there. But it gives the counselors a way to talk about the area if they want to expand beyond just a basic rating. The other thing that I see in the document, and this is where I'm kind of balancing between where we come from and where are we trying to go? And that is what I see in the document is a tie between what used to be there and going in a different direction. And so all of the stuff under management goals is in fact very much reflective of what has been in past evaluations. And so there's a way in which, yeah, we might want to condense them and so forth. But if we ended up this year, just keeping them the way they are, I wouldn't be upset because it basically is the transition of what we used to do to what we're trying to move to. Those are my comments at this point. I do have one other comment. And no, I don't. I'll wait, I'll have one. George? Mandy? So I can say I struggled particularly with the supervision and the community and intergovernmental relationship sections. In all the documents I reviewed, there was always that when you're reviewing a manager and the part of these goals is to aid in our management, you're going to have to review the leadership supervision and personnel management. And it's such a broad category and it has so many things. And you can see I couldn't even get the leadership down to beyond six, that I struggled with how to condense that in a way, but also explain what effective supervisor and manager means to us. And maybe that's where we need to be discussing. What does effective leadership mean to us? Because we can say to provide leadership, but I think we should hint to the manager what that looks like to us, since we're going to be the ones that are looking at whether we think he did that properly. And so I struggled with those. I do think some of that could probably be incorporated into the longterm vision or capital management, however you want to do it. And particularly the administration and operation management, because the charter itself talks about managing personnel under administration and operation. So we could probably move some of it into there if we're really concerned about how many numbers are under that. I mean, I'm looking very, I mean, as we're doing this, I'm looking very closely at Paul's self-evaluation, which is guided by the document that we just used for last year. And so you have personnel management. So one of the areas that we focus on is how does Paul, what do we expect him to do and how does he manage the staff? And then you have Paul's relationship and how he works with the community. That could be broadly speaking, you know, the formation of committees, but just in general, what do we expect from him in terms of his engagement with the community and how do we evaluate that? That seems like a separate area. We call it, it was called community engagement. So I guess I'm struggling a little bit with what I think last year's document and what Paul used to evaluate himself has some fairly clearly defined categories within which there are a number of subheadings that to my mind in a kind of very clear, direct way reflect, you know, what we expect in terms of, from a town manager in these broad categories. And I'm struggling a little bit with what we have here which is on the first part is a set of goals which I think we need to talk about and define and so forth, that's what we will do in a moment. But then we have this management category. And I guess I'm struggling with how this is an improvement or a better than what we have and I'm concerned because what I'm looking at, you know, so, you know, that's where I'm really having difficulty. This is, seems to me, for me just when looking at the management section, I'm thinking, you know, I'm really struggling to see how this is going to, you know, be helpful, evaluating, clarifying and guiding the town manager whereas what we've had before, they're fairly clear areas. You know, how does he deal with staff? How does he manage the town fiscally? How does he relate with the community at large? How does he relate with the town council? These are very clear, divine categories and right. So I'm really struggling with that part of this right now but that may be me. I'm just going to suggest that we begin by beginning with policy. What I'm hearing is that Andy's points well taken but it seems the consensus at the moment is that that policy should come first and that we might want to work our way through these policy goals, all five of them and see if we're agreed on them. We also, I mean, Paul's given us some good thoughts to consider. First of all, is this something that Paul has control over? What would count as a deliverable? What would count as satisfying the goal in some broad sense? I think it's a question we want to ask and also we need to ask about priority. So first, the goal itself where we all agreed upon it. Secondly, you know, is it something that Paul, we're going to assume but let's, you know, Paul can have some control over this and what would count as achieving the goal? What would, there's something in here that gives us a clear sense of deliverable and finally, terms priority. I think a number of us have suggested that right now the order of these probably needs to be reconsidered. We could just agree alphabetical but and that may be the simplest way because I think the other thing that strikes me is that, you know, we're trying to establish a series of goals for the council and it's really a conversation. We as a council, and it correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think it's a conversation that we as a council, all 13 of us have ever really, really had. So this is really also a struggle for me because I, you know, there's certain of these goals that I have some personal reservations about but I just keep my mouth shut. So if we'd had, you know, so that's another issue but let's, I'm suggesting right now we start with policy. We work our way through one through five and if people wanna add something or take something out, they wanna rephrase it and we'll ask a series of questions for each one and then at that point we can move on to management. Do we need Paul here for this? That's something I think Paul's gonna decide given his, the commitment that demands on his time and the degree of specificity and I think he's made some excellent points to guide us but he's certainly welcome to stay. If someone wants to make an argument that he should stay or must stay, they should speak up but otherwise I'm gonna leave it up to Paul at this point whether he would like to continue to be part of this conversation. And he doesn't- Yeah, so I mean, I would leave- If you want. Go ahead Paul, I'm sorry. I mean, I would leave because I think you're talking about prioritizing goals and that's up to you guys but I see Andy has his hands up so maybe he has an opinion on this. Yes, Andy, go ahead. My opinion is not on that question Paul. I think you can make your judgment based on your interest in time. My comment was actually gonna be the consensus seems to be to leave the policy goals first. I still think that there is a policy statement that maybe we still need to recognize that maintaining quality, municipal services is a important value of the council and in doing so that these additional policy goals need to be considered. Some overarching statement like that at the beginning sort of so that we don't lose the sight that these other, these policy goals are so important that we think that degrading other services is what we're looking for in order to achieve those policy goals. Policy goals are things that we would like to see built into quality to the quality management of the town. I think that they're without us having to draft it right now there's probably a way to do that and that may be a way to sort of get at it and then get on with what we're really after which is them to get to the policy statements. And otherwise I think we just have to go through each one and then the question is whether there are others that we missed or whether the order is correct. I would think we could do what Andy said somewhere where in this highlighted paragraph at some point. You think rather than a separate policy goal like I kind of hear Andy's point that as an ordinary Joe citizen looking at this it seems to partly reflect recent, some not so, but recent concerns which is fine but you kind of think to yourself what about just the overall goal of quality and municipal services and roads paved the streets and I've taken care of sidewalks in general. So that I think there might be maybe that's not quite the way Andy would put it, but something like that would seem to be important as a separate standalone item under the goals as opposed to just in the general document that's just my initial thought others on that point. Andy's suggesting adding a goal. Mandy's suggesting perhaps it could be captured in the initial introductory paragraph. I think that Mandy's correct. I agree with Mandy that it could be just in the initial paragraph and that one allows to get into the policy goals quickly. Okay. I agree with that. Okay. All right. And we're not going to wordsmith that now. We're going to thank you, Mandy. Can't see what I'm typing with videos up so. I can see it. I don't know whether it's misspelled or not. I think if you just add the word management to your note, you'll be fine, Mandy Joe. Quality management services. Quality services and management. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You know, you'll do the wordsmithing later. Yeah. I mean, I think just again, just briefly, we're facing, I think I don't need to say this to anyone. We all know this. We're facing a very difficult fiscal climate and a very challenging fiscal year. So I wonder if something without getting explicit some kind of acknowledgement of the council's desire for, I don't know how to phrase it, but it's clearly something that I think above all else in my mind is going to be the challenge of providing, as Andy suggested, these services in a very difficult fiscal climate. And I don't know if that should be in there, but that's certainly in my mind, that's the biggest concern I have. And to what degree we can, you know, we're just acknowledging reality. I like adding something to where Mandy Joe has her cursor right now. And just remember, these are goals for a year. They're not a goals for 10 years. Right. Okay. And I'll reflect that in later in how we talk about economic development. Okay. Okay. Paul has his hand up. He's Paul. Yeah, so I think that's a really good point because I can imagine if things go south on us, you know, financially and we're facing nine C cuts and we're doing all these things. And then people are gonna say, well, I can't do these goals. I think that intersects, that will bring up a new discussion on these goals in terms of, you know, some of these things cost money to do, right? And are they still gonna be a priority when we're trying to retain existing services? I think that's why Andy's point of putting something like you are introducing something that our first order of business is to maintain core services. And then we start to try to accomplish things that we wanna move the town forward on or something like that. And again, I think acknowledging that this is, as Lynn points out, this is a one year document. Yeah. And it seems to me that this coming year is going to be extremely challenging. And so whether we need to acknowledge that, I think we should acknowledge it but that's not my decision. But that we're gonna face some really serious fiscal challenges. And that needs to be in people's minds as we look at some of these larger goals that, as you say, cost money versus basic services that are essential to what makes this town run. So yeah. Okay, I see no other hands up. What I'm gonna suggest that we now move to the policy goals and we start them in order and begin with climate action. Yeah. All right, Paul, thank you very much. Thank you guys. Thank you, Paul. Thanks, Paul. All right. I think this is already well worded and reflects your climate action has been. Yes. This past year and going forward. Yes. I think managed an excellent job in incorporating the ECAC memo without getting into the weeds. But what are thoughts of the rest of you in terms of, first of all, the goal itself, I think we would all agree is a goal of this council. No question. I would not put it in the first position, speaking personally, but that's just me. But I think the wording is excellent. And I think it captures an important goal of the council. Any thoughts about this either in terms of the wording or something that's missing? And are these things that we, I think we can reasonably expect Paul can attend to that with Andy's purview? I guess my question is, do people feel like I captured well enough what ECAC has forwarded to us? I think you did, Mandy. I think that you also very skillfully avoided trying to get into the weeds there. I mean, they have some very specific suggestions that I think are well beyond what this document can manage. But people have the document in front of them or they sort of hopefully looked at it. I think that's something that could, that document would be useful to Paul in terms of, you know, reflecting on what he can or cannot do. But I'm not comfortable myself as a councilor right now saying I endorse these specific actions. That's between Paul and ECAC. If I have anything I would change, and it's just that I don't, this is the only place in the document I believe that we actually mention a committee. And I really don't, the fact that a committee is seen as driving our goals, that they have to be goals that the council adopts. And so the very last sentence, I would do something, I'd probably end it right, I'd probably eliminate what you just did and just say, climate action goals period. Good, I think that's, yeah. That's not a reflection of the climate action committee. No, no, no, no, no, nobody's taking it that way. Lynn, I think it should come out also. Okay, I'm prepared to move to the next item. And all you have to do is raise your hand or just yell and we'll stop. The next item is community safety. That has your hand up? Yeah, it's waving your hand. Pat, I can't hear you, Pat. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Did Mandy Joe, do you need to go? No, of course. Okay. I think this is well done, except I think in terms of what we agreed or our objective around looking at policing, but there was also, there's a commitment to social justice issues. And I don't see that reflected in the objective. This objective is very specific. And I think that when we think about the $80,000, there are multiple ways of using it, maybe only to address this. I don't know, but we haven't heard enough yet from the community to make that decision. So I think that somehow or other, social justice needs to be woven into this because for a community to be safe, it needs to be a community where issues of white racism and bias have been addressed and are being addressed. So I attempted to do that with this sentence. We could pull that sentence out as a separate paragraph, which I've done in other, and I welcome any revisions to how that is written. But that was my, this was my attempt to do that. And I will admit it was an attempt to do that in to address the varying competing ideas and concerns I got last week, or I guess last week at this meeting. So I know it is not very strong. Well, I actually, I feel strongly that it shouldn't be very strong. So here's an example of where my perspective that does not agree with the perspective of some of the other people. Certainly people I've spoken to, people I hear from would be not endorsing the more specific language. So this is where we run into the question of, what are the council's goals versus what do you individually as a council want to see the town do? Because I would be uncomfortable with that kind of language. I could be outvoted, but then we don't take a vote. We've never really had this discussion beyond a very specific language that is here. So that's where I have, that's why I like this language the way it is. It acknowledges a concern. It also reflects, I think, at least on my part, some deep ambivalence about some of the things that have been said and alleged. And just because people allege or claim things, doesn't necessarily mean that that is a good thing or something. That's what I'm trying to say about the town council. So unless the council wants to talk about it in some way, talk about it in a negative way. So God, I'm sorry, we're taking a second look at that. I can't understand you, George, because of... Sorry, can't you move? But George should mute. I'm sorry? Everybody but George should mute. Gotcha. Speaking. I'm sorry. Anyway, I like the big language. I'd rather leave it the way it is. That has her hand up. Yeah, please, go ahead. Thanks, George. I guess maybe we need to have a larger conversation. I don't buy everything that has been said over the course of the last so many weeks about racism and Amherst defunding the police. My guilt because my actions are performed, all that stuff. But I don't know how any of us, and I mean this respectfully, George, can sit and pretend that there aren't... That racism on a day-to-day basis and micro and macro aggressions happen to people of color in our town on a consistent basis. And it may sometimes feel made up to us as white people because it's not happening to us. But at the same time, there's a consistency to what's reported across the community of color. So I guess I'm wondering what... This isn't the only thing that's driving... Why did we put $80,000 away to address social justice and then have nothing in here about social justice? Because the two are tied, but vagueness is not necessarily a strong point in this instance. We're making no statement. I don't think this is what any of us are saying, but it's okay, we're going to take care of this. By January 31st, we're going to have a report and that'll take... Because there are other issues brought up by the community members about what it's like to be a person of color in Amherst that we need to address. And so anyway, so I guess I'm going to go ahead and say so I guess I wonder what you think the $80,000 is for in a broad sense when it says social justice. Does that make sense, George? Well, the decision was made by the town manager, not by the town council. Right, that was the town manager's decision to take that money and put it aside. And the council didn't object. So you could argue that that's council acquiesced in that and maybe even supports it. It probably does support it, but the decision was made by the town manager. I guess Pat and I, Pat, you and I just disagree about this and maybe I'm just a symptom of the disease that you're pointing out to, you know, and so I don't know what else I can say. I hear from other people, including some people of color who say different things and the fact that and also look at the groups that present themselves and you know, I'm asking myself, does this represent? And it represents a certain portion of the community. Absolutely doesn't represent. So I really struggle with the idea just because a group of people or one or two individuals come and tell you something, that somehow that means we have to, you know, do some major goal around social justice. I just don't agree and I'm sorry. I don't need you to agree with me, agree with me, George. But I guess I have had the privilege of having access to more than the fund 413, which is consistently privileged white people, although there have been some people of color who have been part of the group. That's largely a white privileged organization demanding change. And some of that change, I can agree with it. But I really, I do have relationships with a large swath of, is that the right word? Of the community of color, both economically advantaged and economically disadvantaged people of color and educators and janitors. And so I'm not, I am not. And I think you think that I'm not holding on to 413. But to look at social justice, to look at when a community can talk, can be racist and get away with it. And they don't get called out on it. When a community can say, I don't like homeless people and I don't want them walking up my street. And it's a public street. Duh. Nobody owns their sidewalk. So none of that ever gets addressed and looking at issues of social justice might be able to begin to move. A larger percentage of residents of Amherst. So that's kind of where I am. And, you know, I don't need you to agree with me. You know that. Part of it is, is that this is so evolving so quickly, but it's important to remember about the $80,000, $80,000, you know, the notice, the numbers, the numbers, the numbers, all of that, you know, I don't know how to, you know, how that came about in what the sequence was. Pat, you and Shalini arranged with. A couple of citizens, a conversation with the chief of police and his senior staff. To talk about the issue in general. lively and good discussion that was attended by a number of members of the council. Paul in good faith then said maybe I need to set aside some money in the budget because it was still early enough in the budget process to enable that to be so there was something meaningful behind it. He put it in the budget he put it in the community services budget with really no definition because there wasn't a process to talk about it. And the whole defund 413 came about, which we all know was a difficult and heated discussion, which led the finance committee then to come up with that first part of this statement is a way of putting something forward that would allow us to then also just drop the budget is recommended. So that was the sequence. So the $80,000 really came first and was never defined for the reason stated and now we're trying to come up with the town manager goal that encapsulates. It was the original intent and what happened as a result of the different 413 discussion and how the council was able to continue the budget, as it was proposed. So, I just throw that out so that we all recognize how that evolved, but now it's question what we do about it. I'd like to suggest that we look at the wording here, and what mainly Joe has added, and I want to take it further and say and ensure that all community members are treated equally, and are safe and Amherst. I don't want to say that they believe it. I want to be treated equally. And the, and having said that, one of the things that strikes me all along in the issue of racism and social justice and that is the town, the government council of Amherst can only do so much. There can never be the kingpin in making this change. We can do lots of things to change things. We can do lots of the things that we can do with inside of government, but it has to be well beyond us as well. Now, in the area of ECAC work, social justice is also a area of to be noticed. And so it doesn't just apply to policing. It applies to a lot of things, including environmental protection, including economic development and so forth. So having the word someplace. Don't bother me. What does bother me is that we want people to believe they're being treated equally. No, we won't be able to be treated equally. So what we're trying to do is just obviously want to move with some dispatch, but we need to be comfortable with each step. Can I comment on the believe versus are I mean, perception is sometimes more important than reality. There are probably many people in this community that believe that that that believe others are treated as equally as them, or that in our town government that that say would say everyone is treated equally. And what got to me was there's a number of people in this community that truly believe they are being mistreated or they are not being treated equally, whether or not that is actually the case. You know, I struggled with the wording, but that was one of the reasons I was also going with perception because we can treat everyone equally. But if someone does not perceive themselves to be treated equally, we will still have a social justice problem. And so I don't know, I don't know what the solution to the wording is. I'm okay with the changes as they're on the screen. I would say all community members believe and are treated equally and are safe and Amherst. I just think what control do we have over people's beliefs. I mean, let's be realistic here. I mean, our, we are a town council. And we're concerned with, we're trying to give the town manager some guidance that's basically we're trying to do we're trying to tell him these are things that are important to us. But surely we are concerned about what people believe and somebody comes to you and says, I believe X about the town council, I believe X about Amherst, and there's someone that you respect. Right. And they express a belief that the troubles you that that troubles you as well. You also could have people come to you and express a belief and you're polite, but you think to yourself, you know, this just not credible I'm sorry. You know, so I cannot give up my critical faculties, just because somebody says, I believe X doesn't somehow require me then to do anything about that. I take it seriously but I may decide that you know their belief is mistaken. In this case, perception does matter man, he's correct. But we don't I pat Lin is right that you know in the end, what our concern is what actually the town does, what the police department does what its policies are what the town manager and we can't really have an objective or goal about people's beliefs. It seems to me, so stating that we, I mean I'm willing to accept I'm not sure I like this in the in the header, but in the language of the of the objective. If people are agreed that we introduce social justice and ensure all community members are treated equally and are safe and Amherst that I could I could live with. I would not like it in the header, but again, this is a committee I'm just one for vote, but the language being mentioned okay. And the statement of simply are treated. So it's me is as something we can actually, you know, be held responsible for I can't be held responsible for the beliefs of other people. Okay. And we've certainly had an example of this over the last couple of last month, where all kinds of beliefs are being thrown around that I don't feel the slightest desire to that I somehow need to respond to them. Okay, so I would keep the language that we have here. I would like to have and social justice removed from the header. Pat. Thank you, George. Let's get social justice out of the header. Because we are talking about community safety. I agree. Let's move on. Well, except that there. I was trying to figure out where Go to your social justice would surface in this if it weren't in this goal and I'm not sure I can find another place. So anyway, that's I think it does. I would suggest it does give the town manager some sense that the council supports his decision to set that $80,000 aside for addressing the question of social justice and Amherst and leave it to him at the moment to decide how best to do that. So it does acknowledge that. And it could be more explicit, but I think it's fine the way it is. I see no hands raised so I'm going to move on to the next item but we can always come back. And my first comment and I'm just going to use abused status as chair. I would like to just have economic vitality or you know cultural and neighborhood. I would like to just have a look at this. I was not happy with the sort of downgrading of economic development in this document. It may in fact reflect the reality, maybe in the end, but it still seems to me this should be a primary goal of this council is to encourage the town manager to do more than he's been able to do perhaps even more than he wants to do in terms of the goals of all the things he wants to do. And yet nobody seems to think about how we're going to pay for it and accept raise taxes. And we already have 93% paid for basically by a property taxes so I think economic vitality whatever you want to call it economic development should be a standalone goal, but this again reflects the fact that this is a conversation we as a council probably really explicitly. And it just reflects my personal bias. That's my kind of personally like it. And I like it is because I think that all of the focus that we've had on the downtown does not really keep kind of adding on, you know, our neighborhood centers or our village centers. And in fact, there's been some significant investment made in those village centers. There's even more being made in those village centers. And I think it makes people feel much more inclusive across the entire town. And the other piece is that much of what people think of an Amherst is in fact culturally related to economic development, not just what we would consider hard business. You know, it's, it's everything from neighborhoods to whatever. I have no problem if we eliminated but I just want to say I don't want to dismiss neighborhoods and our village centers more importantly. And the cultural side of what we do. And my whole thing with this one is, first of all, I hope we actually get to parking this year, but I don't want it to dog us. And right now, we're just trying desperately to save downtown and to save our businesses. Like, my God, you know, there's a whole part of me that feels like this goal is like nothing happened versus a goal that says we're in deep trouble, and we need to do everything we can to bring back our downtown and our village centers. So that's where I'm caught. Mandy please. I moved some of the prior economic development goals to the community relations and communication section I believe that the stuff with the bid and, and, and all. I didn't know whether to put downtown parking working group in there, although it says work group. You know, I could probably go with deletion of number three completely. One and two, I think sort of really encapsulate what we're aiming for threes kind of a more specific thing of one and two, I think we need to address zoning and put that in there. And development, developing and implementing strategies to retain attract, you know, attract retain, you know, all of that housing. So I think I'd be okay with the leading number three. I need more clear guidance on whether we're deleting that portion of the heading and whether we would delete it here to to just say economic vitality there. But I'd be okay with deleting number three. Pat. You're muted Pat. Sorry. I agree with deleting number three. And I think it should just state economic vitality. Somebody help me with why we're taking three out because again, it's very specific. I mean, Paul can look at that and go, okay, they want me to do this. Do we want him to do this. Maybe we don't. I think Lynn said it best. That's the last thing on my mind is whether we have new parking signs, or, and I don't want to spend money on a designated train of parking person right now. That's the least important thing on my agenda for the town. And so to have it highlighted as equally important. This feels good. Unbalanced. Before you take it out of the, I don't mind taking it out of the title but before you take it out of there. I'd like to make sure that we, you know, then we find another way to talk about village centers or whatever. These are good points. Yeah. The second one facilitate the zoning bylaws to promote strong neighborhoods and new growth and village centers. So that talks about it. I don't know whether. Good enough for you. I'm okay with leaving it in the, in here. Yeah, I would leave it there but not put it in the title. Then it's a stronger message. Hello. Um, George. This is good. I mean, this, this is difficult. I mean, this is really, really hard. And, and, um, If three comes out, both go in somewhere else or we just feel like it's just too specific or as Pat points out, you know, given the current situation, it's just really not a goal is really doesn't belong here at all. And I don't have a clear answer to that. I, my feeling was here's something specific Balkan actually right and it does relate to downtown vitality, da, da, da, da. These are little items, but they matter. On the other hand, you know, in terms of the great, great scheme of things. They're bigger issues that we're facing. So if you take it out, where does it go and the answer might be it goes in the trash barrel. So, I think it depends on if we can look at who would be doing that. Um, do we have the money for a designated staff person? Would that person come from, say, planning the planning department if it comes from the planning department, which do we want, facilitating the review and revision of zoning bylaws to promote everything or working on improved guidelines? Like for DPW, I think that goes to what Paul's saying is to where there are the priorities in each department to and and looking at this, I think we should definitely take out the designated staff person to all transportation policy given our current financial situation just this year. And then if you're looking at who's going to do the signage, who's going to do the webpage and who's going to, I mean, maybe the earmark, the funds for downtown parking we could leave in because that's, that's part of a budget thing. But signage normally comes from Dave Zomek's department or DPW. Is that what we want them to be concentrating on or do we want them concentrating on something else? On the webpage, we know IT's really, you know, but maybe as they get this COVID thing under control, they do have time to do webpage. So maybe it's really just the deletion of the staff person. So rather than get in, let me, let me try something. Okay. Number one, I'm going to go for two things at the same time, developing and implementing a strategy that include, including that has the objective of attracting and retaining businesses. And then I would take the whole housing policy out because we have a separate goal for housing. And I would then just pick and leverages public and private partnerships with local institutions and entities. Let's assume that underneath that is anything that we might be able to do around parking. For instance, right now, the bid is basically dropped the idea they haven't dropped, but it's clearly way to the side the idea of an additional parking garage, etc. So I would get rid of that sentence about housing because it's down below and I get parking and assume that it's in one. Okay, well, my observation would be that this is actually something that council has actually voted on and decided and asked the town manager to do. And it sounds like we're now, maybe we just leave it at that. I mean, he knows that and hopefully he will attend to it. He doesn't need to be in this document. I certainly don't want it to be thought of that somehow we're just saying, well, yeah, we decided it and we want you to do it, but now don't worry about it. There you go. Mandy Joe has come up with a solution. She has. Okay. What I liked about what you did, Lynn was that sentence all holds together as a single concept in broad economic vitality terms, and then he's going to figure out how to carry it out and if he doesn't we can criticize him for it. Downtown parking being added in there seems a little bit. And now, like, as you, as you all been pointing out, it really sort of specific. And that's down to number three. And there seems to be a sense that maybe of the group that that that should just come out. And if something like this happens over the course of this coming year. That's great if it doesn't. You know it's not it's not a priority. The other option would be to take. I would like to leave the sense as it was where you rephrased it. Tracting trade businesses residents and visit. Okay. Okay. So then instead of that in under three just say addresses downtown parking or something to keep it alive, but recognize among us at least that trying to implement the parking study this year is just not really feasible. Yeah, well that I think that's a question and I think that's something we just for a moment let's think about it sounds like the consensus is it's just not feasible. I don't know that but and maybe and when and Mandy given your experience with finance, you know, it's just that's a fact and that's the fact I need to just accept. I guess part of my thinking is this little things matter. Think of like the Puffers pond that really made a big difference to a lot of people up there it's just a little thing and yet that little thing gives them a sense that that, you know, things are happening progress is being made gruff park. You know the downtown we're going to hopefully put these little things do matter. So signage, you know it's a small thing but it matters. You know, addressing parking is a small thing but it matters. I don't think we should give up on. And I know we won't but we shouldn't give up on doing little things just because we're in this very difficult situation. I'm thinking also the North Common the accepted wisdom and it may just be a fact is that we just can't really about it because financially it's impossible. I don't know that's true. Maybe if it is true then that ends that discussion, but I would like to see something like that happen in the coming year like to see us to do a few small things. Right. Before you take out what you put in about visitors. Don't, don't take that out. Okay, now stop there. And instead of saying develop. Maybe it's continue to pursue strategies related to downtown parking and not get so specific. Because right now the biggest problem we're having is nobody wants to pay for parking now that we didn't pay during COVID. And our parking guys up at Puffer's, you know, drawing circles. Well, the other thing is that there's less downtown now because we've we're supporting businesses and allowing them to have part of the street to so that they can. So I really feel, I still feel like we should remove the whole parking thing but I can go with whatever the group decides. Okay. I think we also need to recognize that the parking came about not because citizens users, it was because the businesses were concerned that the parking policy was not serving their needs to bring people into downtown by making spaces available for people to go out to a movie and go to dinner. Hopefully we're going to get back to that. But right now, their highest priority is just to make sure that there's a movie theater and restaurants to go to. But they will get back to the parking if we are successful, because it will return to be an issue. And the thing that probably Paul does well, and I don't know if we should include it is that he listens to the business communities right he's in regular communication with the bid and with the Chamber of Commerce and that some direction will come from them as to how important parking is. Paul just says to develop a plan to implement. It doesn't say to implement. So maybe that's vague enough, given the year we're facing. I hate to see it just thrown out, though I understand the argument and it's certainly reasonable one. But yes, we're in a difficult situation yes it's a crisis but you know we did as a council make this decision CRC did do what it's supposed to do. We're causing it out because we feel like it's just not feasible this coming year. Isn't that the town managers decision. I mean he could come back and say look you know I couldn't do it just didn't work but we're just going to throw it out. Why can't it just say develop continue to develop a plan to implement these the three actions. Okay, fair enough. I mean, it just it's there to, you know, so we haven't forgotten it. We're acknowledging by its language that given the situation, it may be simply impossible to implement it. And not list what even what they are I don't think that they that needs to be there. Yeah, to develop a plan to implement the That's an end of the period. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Go on to the next. Good. I just, I just know we have to get this to the town. I know Lynn, I agree with you 100% by when by when how about October. We can tell him we're working on it, we're working on it for capital projects for major capital projects. Thoughts, first of all, this is belong here. Yes. And the wording is the usual wording, it's not changed really. Right. And I made up the wording for that part. Right. Or renovation expansion of the Jones replacement of the central fire station replacement of the DPW headquarters and construction of a school in accordance with the Fort River MSBA grant application. That's the one I have real problems coming up with, but this language. Go ahead. Language comes from our vote. The language we voted on October 21. Just as you have Mandy Joe, it says repair renovation expansion of Jones library. It's not the MSB is not a construction of a new school. It is either the construction of a new school or the renovation of an existing school. And we I don't think we made a formal decision, nor did the school committee on which thing was going to happen yet. So I think the safest thing to do here is to say repair or renovation slash expansion of Jones library comma central fire station. I guess my concern was, we're not looking at repairing central fire station. We're not looking at repairing the DPW building. We should just come out and say replacement, which is why then I struggled with the wording of the school. Well, why don't we say repair comma renovation expansion or replacement of, and then go through. See, I wouldn't know. No, no, no, no. No, I put the school up there before the very top, and then it applies to them all without getting into are we repairing. Okay, I got it now. I'm glad you do. That's good. Okay, now it's still doesn't, I think. The main point is that, you know, we are replacing. We want to replace the fire station, we want to replace DPW building, and that's what we the council want. Right. Yeah, but if you remember at the council, we went through this extensive conversation. Right. But we're not replacing the Jones I think this. I think this wording. All right, then maybe you need to go. Try it backward the way you had it because I know we're not replacing the Jones. But see, I think when we get into the schools, we're in the touchy area. So, so, touchy language for the schools. I think construction of a school goes back the way it was. Yeah. And I do think that that is the sense of the council. Right. No, no, there's no sense that we're gonna just repair these buildings. I mean, construction is vague in a sense. Good. It's good. I like that. Very fond of it. Why are construction to renovate, expand or replace something? It's going to require construction. Depends on how you consider the word construction. People kept using repair, renovate, replace. And the only place that expansion really applies is Jones. So that one of the plans for Fort River would be an expansion. You're right. Yeah. Repairs probably not right for the school because it's going to be a renovation expansion or. I would agree. Yeah. Unless we end up with everybody rejecting the next round of MSBA money and we have to repair the roof. God forbid I can live with it this way. I can too. Thank you. And do we need the reference to the actual council vote? In other words, just in terms of keeping these as short and sweet as possible, it just reminds us of where we did it. But does the public really need to know this? Does Paul need to know this? I keep it there. I like these references. It shows. Okay. Housing. All right. Housing affordability. By the way, I have a hard stop at 1230. I think so. I went Andy. Okay. We have to publish these by next Wednesday, right? Yes. We might need another meeting. I hate to do this. Another meeting to get through the management goals. I think we may. Yeah. I don't know whether I'm even available, but. It's due on Wednesday. The 12th, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm available. I hate to do it. I hate to even suggest it. I think it's a good idea. We could always cancel it. The one on the 17th then, or whatever the 19th. A little bit of a holiday since it is the summer. Some of us might even be thinking of taking a little break. I'm going 50 miles. So what day would work? I don't know. Just keep it on Wednesday. And 30. Oh my God. Which Wednesday now the 12th of 19th, both. Well. Right. Cause we have to put, we have to get to the council on the 12th. Yeah. So that has to happen. My concern is we don't know when we're getting wage theft back. And it already looks, unless we get it back very soon. We don't know when we're going to get it back. We don't know when we're going to get it back for the 17th. It's starting to be. The wage theft can't go on the 17th agenda anyway. It's the 31st if we can get it. Pardon me. The 31st, if we can get it before then. That sucks. I agree it does, but at this point, Paul is struggling with the law firm. I don't know what we can do. I think Paul was gentle in the way he discussed that. So we're thinking of meeting on the 12th. I guess the 12th of 10 30. But my understanding is we have to get these to the council on the 12. Yeah. And then we go. That is we would, we would do them on the 12th. Within two hours. Maybe we'd make whatever changes need to be made. And then Lynn would send that out to the, to the council. Or you would as chair. Yeah. I think that would be nice. I think that would be a good idea. I think it would be a good idea. I think that would be a good idea. Okay. They're fine. So. And that 12. On the 19th, correct. I would just cancel in the 19th. If we've done three in a row already. Now would be, I would certainly have no problem with that, but. Help me just under. I just, I should know this. Why can't we delay this a little bit? I mean, we meet on the 12th. We do our best, but we might need, you know, So here's another option. The timeline says first draft of the goals to the council on the 12th for review on the 17th. Maybe we're, if we can agree, we're good enough with this draft that we've gone through half of it. And the other half while not fully reviewed is good enough for a council first draft. We could ship this out after revision as the first draft meet on the 19th and we'll have the council's response back. We can go through the management goals, get through the draft, get through the council's responses. And then we're set to do the 31st, the second draft of goals. Maybe that's better. Cancel the 19th if we have to review what the council says. So Mandy, when would we review it? We would still meet on the 12th reviewing the counselors. No, we would meet on the 19th, 19th. Okay. We would make me my calendar very messy. Without having actually discussed the management goals. It's important to get some feedback from the rest of our counselors because we know what it's like to when this gets presented to them. And all heck breaks loose. Let's give them a chance to do that first. And then, and if they don't. Then we can complain about it, but we're going to finish this through housing. Okay. Okay. Yes, today. And then we're not going to meet on the 12th. We're going to meet on the 17th at which we'll take both what the counselors have given us and we'll deal with, we'll deal with the management goals. Yes. I have a lot of comments on management goals. I just wanted to let. Housing now and then run through comments. Maybe we can address some of those quickly. We got 20 minutes. Okay. We'll see where we get to. Okay. Housing affordability only had. Just one general comment. And that is. That we. It addresses the question of. The interim affordable housing policy. But there's also the question of. We were going to. You know, The interim was to allow us time to develop a more comprehensive. Long-term policy. And it doesn't really get. Reflected. Hasn't even been started to be drafted yet. Yeah. And so the question is whether there should be something about. Assisting in the development of a long-term policy. I have to. I don't know. This is not a small job. I want to, I want us to have a goal about affordable housing. Because I think it's critical for Amherst. I don't even know if the council is going to get this one done. I mean, if again. We're doing very well in affordable housing. Can we do better always? Do we need to look at our zoning laws? Yeah. Yeah. We need to look at our zoning laws. Between now and the end of our term, which believe it or not is not that far away. I would actually say I want to see zoning. Housing policy. Yeah. And. So. Again, I want to put something in here. Because I want to make sure. Our commitment to affordable housing is there, but. Oh my God. I think Lenny, you're right. Realistically, what's accomplishable and also what's most important and pressing strikes me in the next year. I think the discussion that the council needs to decide. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's going to be to disagreement. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't even had the discussion about. Not continuing to work on the master plan. And I can just tell you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think right now we're going to have some counselors who's good. Who are going to go, no, that's not okay. Okay. Yeah. This is. Put it in for now and see what people say on. The 17th. Yes. So we're, we're inserting, assisting the council and developing a comprehensive housing policy as a specific objective for the coming year. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't, you know, but. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'll leave it in. I just think. No. Discussion for the full council. Okay. And seasonal shelter. Okay. And we do have zoning somewhere else. Where do we put zoning? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The review and revision of the zoning bylaws to promote strong neighborhoods and new growth and village centers. Right. Thank you. But that doesn't say anything about. About downtown. All right. I know. We are satisfied with these goals. We're moving on to management. And now I think we're going to let. Just added. Yes. I am fine. Moving on. Andy, why don't you say you've thought about this a lot. Why don't you give us the benefit of your thoughts. About management goals. My only activation was there too many of them. I thought there are too many of them, but then. For which cotton to that question that we had raised earlier. As to what to do with the. Number. The number of things. Because. What we want to say is to ensure the town's strong financial fiscal health. And then. Which can be accomplished by or something, but not to make sure that. To not make the measurable goals necessarily. My comments generally going through on the financial management. I wasn't sure what we meant by. And we're aligned with the regional economy. That that was. May need some thought as to what was intended there. Andy under. Number three long term vision management. Objective. Where it says charter section 5.8. Did you mean 5.7 B? Oh, probably. Under. Supervision leading and personnel management. I sort of highlighted the words encouraged. Decision making and still in confidence emphasizing support. Providing opportunities for professional. Development advancement. I was wondering if all of that is needed. Because it's directly developing an effective team staff members. The rest of it is telling him how to do it. And I thought our goal was. To just be more. You know, Directive and respectful of his professional judgment of how. To do things and whether that additional language that I just read. Is really necessary. I agree with removing her. Yeah, I'm okay with it. We're going to get a lot of pushback when this is presented. So be prepared. So. I think what we're doing is good. I think it's important and. And I don't know. And I think it shows real leadership and ability to trust our town manager, but I think we're, we're going to need. I would love to strategize how we're going to counter some of the stuff that's going to come up. But I don't know if you can do that. Yeah. I mean, should this phrase that is highlighted also be eliminated? Yes. Again, my thought is just that I'd like to keep each of these objectives up roughly the same length as all the others. And I know this is hard and it may not be possible. And that's okay. But just, you know, it kind of reminds us of the importance as Paul said of brevity. We want to be shorter the better. Right. And we don't want to be just, you know, writing down what are basic, you know, requirements of any decent manager. We want to be thinking, you know, are there some particularly particular things we want to highlight. As opposed to just a laundry list of things that any decent manager needs to do. And so I think what's valuable to him is highlighting things that we particularly want him to focus on as opposed to listing everything a good manager does. I would get if what's highlighted number six can be deleted. And if number four can also be deleted then I agree with that. I would think so. I mean, you know, and we, when we're done with this in whenever we've done with it, we want to really look it over with the final thought of, you know, is this really emphasizing things that really think are important as opposed to, is it just a list of stuff that we think ain't right. And that's what we're trying to get to. What I like about what we're doing is at least taking a first stab at these and getting rid of some stuff that we just don't need to put out there. Right. So this is the way any good piece of writing gets done. It's, it's, it's all. If anything I would love to see under supervision leadership and personal management, even more consolidation and have one paragraph. I would agree. I think each one should be one paragraph. And we try to keep them as much as possible at the same length. We might be able to combine one or two of these into a single one. Because I'd like to be a balance between ideally between policy and management. If we can make it work. The, when I was going through it, the second paragraph under number four, the entire paragraph. I'm not sure what it's going to look like. I'm not sure what it's going to look like. But my thought was, is that it really belonged under number one, not under number four anyway. Hmm. That was going to be one of my suggestions is if we wanted to get rid of number four completely, we might be able to combine it into number one. So supervision leadership and personnel management combined with. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. But I will go back to what Pat said earlier. We're going to get enormous pushback on. Maybe personnel. So maybe administration. Operation leader and operation management and leadership can be together and supervision and personnel management can go. And we can move this paragraph up to the administration one, the second one. I would agree with that. I'll have to do it later, but. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. Because later, whatever that turns out to be, would then be shipped to all the counselors. For their review and comment. And then. We would take the document that Mandy has. Revised. And their comments as our jumping off point for our next meeting. Right. And so we don't have to vote on this today. Absolutely not. That's right. Okay. No. Are there any other things people see? I don't know. I don't know. I just keep going back and forth between screens. So the relationships with the town council, I'm good. I have to go back to my own copy, which is where it's getting confusing for me. If I can get there. The under number two. Instead of labeling the finance committee and the development of budget guidelines, I would have just said provides support for. Committees or for committees and policy development or something like that. I wouldn't single out the finance committee there. Just council committees. Just stop it right there. Anything else. Yeah. The old category was community engagement. That. Not. Is that not specific enough? I mean, for five, it was like five and six are going to stay in. We're like, we can't combine them. And then we get, they are important. We want to evaluate and guide him. What do we expect in terms of how we engage with the community? And certainly how he deals with the town council. Do you want to just call it community engagement? And then you have all the various elements below that, which includes, you know, town gown includes the community. Cludes, you know, committees. That's a huge, but that's essentially Paul's relationship with. Communities. I'm just looking at the way it was before. And I'm trying to keep each of these headers pretty concise if we can. So, but community covers a huge category. I know. Um, relationship with universities. Um, you know, technically could be with businesses that could be, you know, obviously, and most important for us is how it gets relates to the, you know, the residents to, uh, interacts with committees and residents. We're okay with all that under five. Yeah. Now, yes. All right. Well, it's 20 after, um, you guys have been working like demons here. Um, I'm not sure there's much more we can effectively do at this point. Um, but I'm open. I'm willing to, uh, Call it a day. What are you thinking? Are there any final points people want to make? I think, um, Again, we're in enormous debt to Mandy. Um, she's been very good about the way we've been taking her document and carving it up. But, um, this is the way it gets done. And I like the idea of getting some feedback from the council before this gets presented to them. Um, I think we really need to hear from them. And so I think that's a good, that's a plus. And, um, we're not going to satisfy everybody. I'm not worried about that, but I really do want to hear from everybody other than just at a council meeting where they're kind of presented with this as if it's a fate to complete. Um, it's not a fate to complete. We really do value what they think. And so having this extra session on the seven, what did we say, the seven teeth. I think we really need to hear from them. And so I think that's a good, that's a plus. And, um, we're not going to satisfy everybody. I'm not worried about that, but I think that's a good point. I think we're going to have a meeting on the seven teeth. Parts will be the 19th. We're meeting on the 19th. Okay. That's our, and that is an official regular meeting, correct? Yeah. Okay. We'd be meeting on the 19th. Um, And in the meantime, we all have a lot to think about. Um, and Mandy will send us, um, uh, the, her vision of this. When she sends it to the council. Um, So I'll send it to this committee. Um, Because we don't have to send it to the council till next Wednesday. So I will send it to this committee. Um, so that you guys have a chance to ensure that I've made the changes, especially in these comments where I didn't actually write anything. As requested. Before I then send it off to George to send it to the whole council. Um, We can individually just be put in the packet by Lynn. How do you want to do getting it to the council? Is it just an inclusion in the packet? Is it. You're muted. Um, that's what I get for trying to multitask. Um, I'm the, I might send it out. It out to them in advance, but it's just an agenda item. And they need to have it in their packet. I'm just thinking that. I'm just thinking that I'm going to send it to the council. Um, I'm going to send it to the council. Um, I'm going to send it to the council. For me, speaking personally that, um, the sooner we get it to them and the more we highlight it. From my perspective, the better. Um, but there's also the option of just putting in the packet and saying, you know, well, come on, you got to pay attention. Um, no, I think, I think sending it out to them in advance will be good. Explaining that this is just a first draft coming from GOL. Um, it's just a second draft. Okay. So that. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm feeling so encouraged that we are this far along at this point. I really, really am. I just can't tell you how painful last year was. So. Good. I mean, I'm glad somebody's feeling good. I'm, I, we wouldn't be here if me and did you, I hadn't done this work. I know that's something forward and having the council go after you with it, but thank you. Right. We're going to sacrifice her. We'll say we didn't do it. He did it. I'm willing to be sacrificed. I have plenty of band-aids to spare. He's going to need bandages. And he's going to need bandages. I don't know if he's going to need that. But I'm not going to be able to do that. Major surgery. So this document that Mandy will. Wait, she'll get some comments from us. She will. Fix it up as best. And then she will send it to me. And I will send it out to the entire council with a note. Reminding them asking for their comments sent to me only. And that we will be meeting again on the night. No, you send it out to the council as it's part of the packet received then. But we need to see it when Mandy Jones finishes what we have talked about. So we can comment with each other, or at least to you. To me. So yeah, George, so I will send it to the five of us when I get this cleaned up to ensure so that you guys can go over it and ensure that I made the changes you guys all requested. Any comments about that, come back to me. Once I fix that up, I will send it to you, George. You'll send it to Athena for inclusion in the 17th packet and out to the council with a note that it will be discussed on the 17th as part of the town manager's evaluation performance goals. So they will both, it will be in the packet, absolutely. But you're also saying I should send it to everyone as well, apart from the packet, or just send them a note that it's in the packet and that it will be discussed. Sorry to be obtuse, but in other words. I like the note that it'll be in the packet of saying, hey, check out your packet if you're looking for. Right, right, but leave it in the packet. Right, and it'll be discussed, yeah. And after that discussion, what I really want back from them are written comments on this document, but it should come after the discussion. So we will have a discussion at council on this document that you revised. And at that point, it will later someone or I will say, and if you have any more thoughts, send them to me only. And we will take them under advisement when we meet on the 19th. Only, well, no, they're gonna have a council discussion about it. That's where we collect their things. We will, but I still like to give people the opportunity if they have any further thoughts, da-da-da-da-da, to send them, but I don't have. After the council meeting, you mean? After the council discussion. Okay, that's fine. Okay, but not before, and I'm not sending them the document in advance, I'm simply telling them it's been, a draft is available, it's in your packet. Please pay attention to it, and we'll talk about it at the council, okay? All right, multitasking, I'm sorry. It's all right, I understand. That's, I think we've completed our task for today. Again, in gratitude to all of you, particularly Mandy, also to Emily, thank you for hanging in there and having to deal with all this, but so we will meet again on the 19th, and between now and then, stay well. I don't know about you. Thank you, John. Love the night with something else. Separate from all of this, did you get the email about, I sent you forwarded an email to you? Yes, you did, I did, and I'm all for it. So as I said, I'll follow your lead if that opportunity arises, I'd be happy. I don't know what's gonna happen yet. Yeah, I understand that. Are we adjourned? Yes. No, we're having no discussion. I'm sorry. For record, you have to say any public comment, and I'm telling you, there's no public attendant. Thank you very much. Is there any public comment? There is no public present, so there will be no public comment, and I am adjourning this meeting. GOL, go well. Thank you, John. Thank you. Thanks.