 I need to get ready. One second. This is the district advisory board meeting of September. First, the meeting is being recorded and I'm trying to look for the statement. It's on the minutes too. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. It's at the bottom of the agenda. Yeah, percent of chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting might do so in the following manner via zoom on the webinar ID 82414483355 knowing personal attendance on members of the public would be permitted and public participation, any public hearing conducted during this meeting shall be by remote means only. So, so can we let the attendees in? It's like DeShabazz and Craig. Yes. Yes. So, am I not receiving the same link as everyone else is a panelist? No, you are. It's all one lump email that I send out. Right. That's the one I used and I entered in as the audience. I don't know why the I just I got two emails from Sue and I used the link in the second one and entered in his audience. So I left and then use the link from the first one and came in as attendee. Okay. You know what I mean I think the email right so zoom it generates an email when you're at it as a panelist when the meeting schedule and it says I always just search by panelist and then it shows me my panelist links. Okay. Oh. Um, so let's start let me look for the agenda. So, the first item on the agenda is to approve the meetings from the previous meeting, and we have. I know they were uploaded to the website late. So, I want to make sure. So one is that we need to revise the, the agenda of August 18, the revised version, the minutes, the minutes. Yes. Thank you. And then we also have the minutes from August 25. I don't know if everybody has had time to look at them. So, I will propose that we start with the August 18 minutes. That's okay. Okay. Now, our minute taker is not present. So shall we assume as last time that he's going to do it based on the recordings. I'm assuming he's planning to come I had emailed him because I had sent. And I think because of. But I'm assuming he's planning to be here. Okay. But yes, he can, he can take the minutes off the recordings to. So I have a couple of comments on the minutes, but I got up at the floor. So whoever. And do we take public comment first or after the minutes in the agenda is after. Okay. I can switch for next time. So does anybody have any comments on the minutes of August 18 before we put it for our votes approval. I have a couple of small comments. Okay. Do you want to mention or sure. So on page two where it says be constitutional rules regarding number of precincts. I think those two bullet points should be switched the order they should be switched. It's very confusing. Reading it the way it is, but if we switch the orders, it will make that clearer. I believe. And then in point C and census data, it still says 41,000 it needs to say 40,000. I had updated the minutes like as we talked about last time because Joe hadn't been here. And then. And I had also just added under information just as somebody had taken notes like turn our meeting on the 18th. And so the minutes that I had that they were uploaded and they were uploaded into the. Like, I guess probably a little late, unfortunately, but they, they said they were like underscore updated. So I don't know if those are the ones that you looked at Peggy. They are not the ones I looked at. I'm not getting those. Yeah, I got those from Tracy around 1130 and I put them up there at 1230. Well, yeah, I had send Joe, I had waited. Yeah, I didn't want to like preempt Joe, but then Joe had classes and then I was just like fine just put them up. I'm still not seeing them where I see them now. I see them now. Okay. Okay. All right. I didn't see them before. Okay, so we can always wait if like people haven't seen them or whatever. Okay, I have one comment at Tracy on page two. Okay, four item a population 2020 or 40,263. 39,000. No, but I think I'm hold on. Let me see. The data figures show that I'm has a 2020 population. Yeah, hold on. I'm just gonna. I think that I had put both. I think I put both. So maybe let me. No, I said, I understand. Hold on. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I'm sorry. So you were looking. Okay. Item four. Oh, right. Right. Sorry. You're right. It's 39. That's correct. Thank you. Okay. So, but. Anybody else had time to read them should be postponed again until next time. You know what, I'm good to approve. Okay. Okay. Somebody seconds. Second. Okay. So the motion is to approve the minutes of August 18 funding. The changes suggested by me. So that was your only change. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Great. Thanks. So I'm going to make a roll call. Craig Middles. Yes. Peggy Shannon. Hi. Tommy parks. Hi. Tracy Safian. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. So the motion passes to approve the minutes pending the change. Right. Now did anybody, before we start discussion, did anybody had chance to look at the minutes from August 25th? Or we postpone this discussion until next meeting. I'm fine with either. Me. Likewise. Yeah. And also our minute taker, our writer wasn't, isn't here in our meeting. I looked at the minutes and they look fine to me. Okay. I have one comment. If my computer collaborates. There was one comment and then a clarification. On the notes. It was as if it was the. That I had the request that they change. On the previous meetings to reflect that the phone number was not my personal. That was not my personal phone number is the town's phone number. So it wasn't mainly. Ordering, but that was just a minor comment. I think it could be okay. So. Does anybody move. I have a, I have a tiny change also. Top of page two. The last sentence. Another announcement. Reminding certain members of the board that they're missing open meeting, long conflict. Of interest receipts. A few members need to complete these documents. It's not a few members are needed to. It's like every member needs to do it. Okay. So the motion is to make a motion to approve the minutes pending the changes. Suggested. Sure. So moved. Second. Hi. Okay. So the motion is to approve the minutes of August 25th pending the two suggestions. Made. I'm going to make a vote call again. Craig Meadows. Hi. Peggy Shannon. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. So the motion passes and we have approved the minutes. Um, the second item on the agenda is for public comment. We have a located. Sorry. So somebody is going to walk. Joe now. About it. Updates. Yes. I would send him an email. To let him know that this. Um, I know I see that there are three conditions. One has raised the hand. So if they want to make a public comment. Somebody might need to unmute. I mean, I'm asking to unmute and she's in the room. So. Please. Say your name. Yeah. We see it's Adrian. So I, we see the Adrian, but we, you're muted Adrian. Yeah. Sometimes you can right click her to, um, Like make sure she's unmuted. Or it sends a prompt and says like ask her to unmute. I did. I did. Try it again. No, I know she's had problems before. Is there a way of communicating through chat? That she would put. Recommend your channel. No, it has to be set up to begin with. It's not. Or if Adrian called in, she can do. Um, star nine right in star six to like unmute. But either one. And Adrian, if you want to email. Um, You can send an email and I'll see it. Um, We have a public comment at the end of the meeting as well. Or if Adrian can just get into the meeting. I guess. Um, And then can you, can you raise your hand if you are able to listen and you would like to make a comment at the end of the meeting. I think we should move on. But appreciate that. If Adrian finds. A way to contact us and would like to make public comment, we can do that. Yes. And before we do that, can I just make sure I do this correctly? I'm not going to remove permission to talk. Correct. Yes. Okay. There we go. I want to kick her out. Okay. Good. If there's no other comment, we're going to move to the next item. On the agenda. Yeah. I need those. There is announcements. Does anybody. Have any announcement. To make. I have a request, which I wish I had put on the agenda, but I didn't. So I'm going to put it in here as an announcements, which is that given that we're often close to not making quorum, I think it would be helpful for Irina and I perhaps to have everybody's phone number. So that if somebody we believe was going to show up like Joe, doesn't we could then just shoot them a text and make sure it wasn't just a forgotten meeting. Or something like that. So. I can give the distribution list to Irina. And then I can do what you want. Okay. Thank you. That's great. That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at the, the nine one materials and under reference materials for all meetings. The first two items that come up the census 2020 official data for Amherst and then for Amherst plus stuff. Again, is that can it's tiny, tiny data that sideways. Michael, if you could, I'm just pointing that out. Yeah, I think we need to remove that for the reference for. Because it's anything we put in here, it automatically converts it to a PDF. So it's this gigantic Excel spreadsheet that gets automatic. It gets created. It gets turned into a, a PDF and it's just, it's useless. So I think, I think we'll remove it from here. The way it looks on my screen is, it's just. Yeah. It's just tiny lines. Yeah. There's no way to not have PDFs. Like that's. I don't think so. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I think a lot of stuff gets converted auto converted. When you load something in here, I think it gets converted to PDF. I'll try it. I can try it right now. And see what happens. So like Sue with the minutes does Joe give them to you as PDF. You're going in and out Tracy. Um, Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I can. I can. I can. I've been getting it different ways, but I always put it on as a PDF because we don't want it editable. Right now. Yeah. Yes. Tell me. Just one other question. So I'm, I'm starting to play with this big data matrix. And, you know, I have this thing that tells you what all of the, you know, P zero, zero, one, zero, zero means, but it doesn't tell you what the other things mean. And so there's a whole lot of blocks that I'm just wondering if there's a. Yeah. So what I, the reason I sent out my spreadsheet is I hid. Murphy. I didn't. Just hit them. Like I hit those columns. And a lot of them. Are things. So there's a few like the municipality, the. County, whatever the town. And then there's the census tracks, census blocks. But you can hide a bunch of those. Yeah. No, I didn't. It's just. It's things like it'll stay like one race. And I don't know what that means. I don't know if that's incorporated in some, something else on there. I actually hid a whole bunch of them. So I don't see them right now, but the headings. Is there a place that just has like an index of the other headings other than just the race ones? Do you know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe you could show share screen. Okay. Let me just unhide. I mean, I don't know if we're on that section yet. No, I'm not in the section yet. Can we, I have one more announcement and then maybe we dive into. Okay. I just, I just didn't know if there was like a key like this someplace that I could download. But. So. I wanted to announce that there. There were two communications with the state. One was. After the meeting last week, I sent an email requesting one map with 15. Persings. And I also asked them about. What's the procedure? When would we share a map with them so that to get feedback. And I haven't heard back. On that email. I was thinking when I bring them back. This week. The second email and the second email is on the package is generally made. I believe was sent to everybody in every mess municipality. And my take on that email is that. For max generated by the state. We are the lowest priority. Become the last. I thought we were second to last, but. Yeah, but we can, we are not at the top of the queue. So I think we have to march on with creating our own maps and then. See what it compares. So those were my announcements. Anybody else has any other announcements? Tracy. So the press release went out at the end of last week and it was published in the indie. And then I. Is that also got an email this afternoon that Brianna from the town sent it out as a press release too. So it is getting some attention. I don't know. I don't know whether it's a press release or not. But maybe we'll start getting more people at our meetings. Great. Tell me you have a hand up. No, not until we dive into the details. Okay, great. So if there are no other announcements. Let's keep on moving with the agenda. I. I'm going to ask if somebody can keep top of the time every now and then to make sure that we are on schedule. Thanks for doing this. The next item is our standing item about discussion of rules and regulations that the board wishes to establish. And I wonder if anybody wants to change. Or how we are conducted in the meeting. And if not. They continue and we leave it as a standing item. Okay. The next item is the packet material. This week. The packet material was light. The immense and. I saw that. Mike put one map interactive map with the difference in population that was not directly in the package, but that was at the front. And maybe now we could discuss them. The spreadsheet. As I had way before starting to discuss maps. Okay. So Tammy, if you could share your, just your, are you referring to the spreadsheet, the version that I sent out with the headers? I don't, I don't know. I didn't, the spread. Is yours attached to the bottom of the, of, of this booklet? What I got was this booklet. I don't. I don't see the spreadsheet that you sent. I did look for it. And the spreadsheet out on. Well, so, um, so. Mike. I think it was Mike and he had put all the data. It had been on the, um, It had been on the district advisory. Or page. And, um, And so that was the whole data, like with all of these columns and everything. So, and then. So what I did here is see all the data and see how there's all these titles here. Okay. So what I did was I, uh, hid these and then I wanted the block number. So I hid these. I'm guessing that. Alan is the population. Um, no, no. So I would hide all of these. I would hide everything until columns D. Yes. But, um, those are all related to just like the geography. Also, you do need an addition to the block. You also need to show the census track. Because Amherst has, I believe, seven census tracks about, and the block numbers repeat in different tracks. So it's not a unique identifier to have block alone. Okay. All right. So. So I would hide everything until columns D. Yes. Okay. All right. So. So like this title. That's just a geography related to the water. So you can hide that. You can hide that too. So I, what I was asking before is, is there a key to those because I wasn't sure what to take. In that original, um, Mike's distributed it and it's in the reference material. Right. So that version is just an excerpt of the original file that Mike just made, which was like 220 pages. I just created an excerpt with the population. Because I didn't think everybody wanted to look at the 220 pages. Right. So what I did was I, I had this block and I, I get what you're saying about the other information that I need. Yeah. You need to have census block and track. Okay. So what I did was I did a total population. I don't know what one race means, how that's counted, but I did white, black, Indian, Asian. So I went through each group and it actually adds up when I go and, and do totals on the columns. Uh, it is what the population of the town is. And if I add certain of the blocks together, I do come back up with this number. So I was just trying to make. Yeah. So I had, um, right. So I had sent around. I sent an email at the end of the, I'm sorry, over the weekend actually. I think on like Saturday or just where I had added the columns, like all the other columns too. Um, so there are the two. Did you ever, did you see my email at all? I did. I just, I saw the email. The first part of it was the booklet. Well, and the first, and it was like the P one data and the P two data about what they mean. Did you see that? Um, yeah, I see the race subcategories. So that's what, so one race refers to people who fall into each of those one race categories. Yeah. So the thing is, if I were to go across my totals and I, and I added up all of these, it's more than the total population. Well, one thing is that you also have Hispanic. Yeah. So the P two is Hispanic and Hispanic is a different. So Hispanic and not Hispanic would also add up to the population. Right. Because they're considered differently by the census bureau. Yeah. Right. So, but it's two races within all the others. Well, if you look at, like, so, right. So two or more would include anybody who's two races or three races or four races or five races. But are they counted elsewhere is what I'm trying to say. They hope. So if someone is black and Asian, are they. No. So what, no. So what happens is with the one race category, there's a lot of subtotals within all the columns. And so, for example, you have people who identify as one race. Right. And then within the one race category, you have people who identify as one race who are African American. Or one race who are Caucasian. Okay. One race who are. Okay. I am a Native American. Okay. And so all of you have added up all of those together. You would get back to the people who are one race. Right. So. The reason I set up the data like this is that what I was trying to do is I was trying to go through here and find where there were, you know, more population of. Right. No, of course. Yeah. That's the whole point of why I was trying to set this up so that when we go back and look at blocks that we have this information. You know, I'm trying to put it side by side with the number. What's what would be helpful to me here is to have the current. Precinct. If I knew the. Some of that in ourselves. Maybe going to do the geography and see if he can match precincts with the census. Right. Well, that's, that was my idea is that if I knew what precincts these were, the blocks were currently in. And then we could, we could group them by that and, and check the numbers and then, and then kind of switch the numbers up and down. So there's also the, well, you do need to go back. So I really do urge you to include the track as well. Okay. Do you know what, do you know what column it is? It would be one of the introductory columns or also there's an identifier that includes the track and the block together. Just cause you'll it's confusing otherwise. So, so the other question I have is, are there 425 blocks or there are 423 census blocks is my understanding and Mike correct anything I don't. Okay. And then, so, and I'll also just mention with that, that there are 96 of the census blocks have populations that are equal to zero. So for my purposes, when I was looking at the spreadsheet, I just hit those. And there's some other census blocks as Mike has pointed out that aren't zero, but they should be zero. Like if there are parking lot and things like that, but just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what was the other column you said? It's column C. Yeah. So actually, yeah. So what I actually show is, and this is maybe just me, do you see that geo ID. Column E. That is everything that is, that is state, county, tract and block all concatenated together into one. That is the true unique identifier. For every single all 423 census. Blocks. That's what I use, but I can also understand what Tracy's saying, just looking at tract and block. Oh, and why does it matter? So what is tract telling me if this is the block number, and there's, and I have 423 of these, what, what is this adding to it? The tracks are composed of blocks. So the track is a bigger unit. Yep. So the problem is that the block numbers, the block numbers repeat in different tracks. So maybe I misunderstood you before when you said that there were a hundred, it wasn't a hundred blocks, there's a hundred tracks. No, there's like seven, there's seven. There's about seven tracks. Okay. And what are the, what do those do? So those are just a larger geography and then that geography is broken up into census blocks. Yeah. For example, like there's one track. It's mainly UMass. And there's one track that's like, say mainly Hampshire college and things like that. All right. Let me just go back to. So, but as Mike said, you could also use that one that combines the track and the block and everything. Yeah, but I, okay. Now I'm starting to see the value. I just didn't want to hide it all. I want to get rid of these. I also got rid of all the extra zeros. Yeah. I always wonder how you come population with five zeros. Why this pension comes. Yeah, it's going to be a very small portion of a person. Um, okay. I think too, because maybe sometimes they extra, you know, they interpolate extrapolate like the missing data. So anyway. Okay. So if I go here and I do ascending blocks, I mean track. Then this. You have to do, you'll have to do a sort of C and D together. Do C and D together. Yeah, they're sorting together. So I sorted the entire thing. So all the races are sorting as well. So the whole thing's being sorted. What I was going to do is go down here. So this. Stop it. So this right here. Is one block. That's, I'm sorry. What this is one track. And these blocks are within this one. Correct. Correct. Okay. You'll, you'll also see like the very last one that you have there. What does that say is that 5,018? I, what is the block number? I can barely see the, that 5,018, the one, the last green one. It's, I think it's row 96. Yeah. 5,018. Yes. So there's a 5,018. In this census tract. There. There's potentially a 5,018 in the census tract right below that you just sorted on in. Eight two zero 400. There, there could be another one of those block numbers in that same. In a different census tract. Okay. Because the track can have more than one block in it. No, the tracks do have more than one block. Yeah. The track. I mean, I'm sorry. So there can be. So there can be in block number of 5,018. That could show up in more than one track. You're saying. Yes. No. They're actually different. Yeah. The name. 5,018. Can show the block 5,018. Yeah. The name can be track one 5,018. Track two 5,018. Track three 5,018, but geographically they're different. They have the same name. They have the same block. A, but they can be in. So it's a, it's one. A track two. A tracks three. But then geographically it's different. So they're not really the same. It's like a, yeah, the numbers are just repeated. That's why that's why. Mike was talking about using the other identifier. The geo ID. Okay. I just, what I'm trying to do is make this so that this data is like possible to pay it for me to understand, you know, and be able to play with because if we're going to be moving numbers around and adding them back and forth. So let me just go try to do what you just said. So I have a question regarding the president, Mike. We, for us from the exit sheet is very high. We cannot know exactly where they are. Physically located in the map. Except J mapping. So is there a way when we are creating the maps that pulls out. Which blocks they are, which track and block they are. And then we can search for those on the spreadsheet and then look at the profiles. Yeah, I've been working on that. I've been. Go ahead. Go ahead, Mike. I've been working on that. Trying to get it to searching working properly. And I'm. So this is help. This is actually a really helpful discussion. So. I think we should be searching on that geo ID. That would be the easiest thing for me to build. For you guys to search and find things like that. But also. I'm trying something. I'm looking on my interactive map here. So, so when I look at the interactive map. So when I look at it, right? If you kind of right click on like any of the blocks. It tells you how it pulls up and it pulls up the data, including the geo ID. So that's how I've been referencing. Yeah. And no, I understand buddy. Since we're going to be grouping, maybe. Oh no, of course. Then we want to look at the average of each precinct. How the profile looks. Right, right, right. Yeah. So we want, we want to make sure that we can have the, because it may be completely different and random. I've just been looking. I mean, I guess I've just been focusing more on the map because, because when I right click on each, it like pulls up the number. And I've just been like focusing on those clusters. Okay. Instead of trying to do it as much off of the spreadsheet. Yeah. So many, the strategy has so many rows. I think the spreadsheet, I would not use the spreadsheet as a starting point to this find the precincts because we don't know what geographically. If they're connected to each other or not. Well, and I had asked Mike last time, it sounds like he's working on it because I ran into that same thing. And I said, well, I want to know where this precinct is or something. And there's a way for us to search it, even though we don't have like the full arc GIS. That's like awesome, but. So I was going to propose that we. We have it's a 636, 536, sorry. And then I would suggest that we start working on the maps. So, yeah. So that we have at least one hour to work on the maps before we start wrapping up. So go ahead. Sorry. So there are different possibilities. And I think that we had discussed last time. Whether to start from you must and move outwards. So I think we can try that. And then start looking for consistencies. Peggy, do you have your hand up? Yeah, I'm sorry. This, this actually relates to the last thing. It sounds like it would be really helpful in the spreadsheet to have which precinct each line of those, each of those 327 blocks that matter. Fall. Is that right? Like if we had a. So I can do that. I could just go through line by line. No, don't do that. You have a way to do that. Okay. I was hoping last time that Mike said he could like match it, but it wouldn't be perfect for like, I know around UMass, there were some significant changes in the boundaries, right? Um, particularly precincts four and 10. So I think that some of it won't align. Like, yeah, 90% of it will be perfect. 90% of it will, will take minutes, but then those last pieces that Tracy's referring to, those will be the complicated ones where it's like, okay, where, where do I put this number? Do I put it in this precinct or this precinct? Or do I put a note that it's split by the two. Um, so I, I did not add this to my to-do list last time, but I did add it to my to-do list this time. So. Awesome. Thank you. So, um, So I just had a comment, a question, a comment. So at the last meeting, right? We had talked about where to start with the map and Peggy made the good point about starting where we have the densest population, such as at UMass. So I did start playing with some of them around UMass. And I think some of the, I have some sort of draft, draftish sort of precincts based on that. I'm just cause there is such a density in some of those housing clusters that they do, a lot of them sort of become their own precincts or close to it. Um, uh, so I'd be happy to kind of share some of what I did. And a couple of the comments with that is there is still that really large, I don't know, maybe we should get into the map, but one thing I did find is that some of them, because some of the, um, some of the individual census blocks are still pretty large, including that one that used to be like the 4,200. In Southwest dorms, that's now 2,500, that's still like a pretty large block. And it would be nice if it was split up. Um, for our purposes, like for the next census, maybe. Um, but that it does get hard, like it's easy to go over the 5%. That was what I experienced. Um, but I did find two, I was thinking too about how one way to do some of them is to add in some non-student dorms into each of the precincts. And I think we'd want to do that as much as we could anyway. I mean, cause one concern I have is if we have precincts that are predominantly students or even like student rental housing, like in terms of the functioning of our government, like how, who would run for those seats and so on. Um, I mean, I would hope that students would run. I just think that they won't run as much. Um, and, and I just had one other comment, just like with some of the geographies and again, maybe just get into the weeds and we should look at it. But some of the way, so the census bureau when they create those blocks, like they, they split it up on these like central lines and, um, you know, streams and so on. But sometimes what they're doing is they cut like through properties or they cut through as cluster of dorms. Like I was thinking of like, for example, like say puffed in village. So there's actually two census blocks. And I guess we can look at that when we get to it on the map, but what they did is they created that they treated that puffed in village driveway as a road and they went to the center line. So part of puffed in villages in one census block and part of it's in another census block. So both for our purposes, like in terms of a precinct, but even, and it sort of makes sense because property boundaries can change. Like properties can change owners and they can split up and stuff. But at the same time, it sort of doesn't make sense because it's all like one complex, but anyway, but Peggy has a, and then I have a comment, Peggy. My only comment is I don't actually think we have to worry about precincts themselves as being entirely students because precincts are not electing anybody. It's the districts. We want to make sure that the districts are representative of the pop, the population in the town and also did not, you know, break up communities of interest. So I think we have to less worry less about the precincts than the districts. I agree. I agree. But at the same time, I think we have to be careful. When we are creating the precincts, we still need to look for a head of the districts because the districts have to be joined, precincts have to be joined. And we have, we, if, if we create, I don't know. Right. Like if there's something that aren't contiguous, then you can't join them later. I think one of the decisions that we're going to have to make is right now, the districts, I was looking at the districts. Right now, the six trees on the, in this, to the left, very distant forest at the center and district five is all the way at the bottom. Maybe one possibility is maybe that the line, maybe aim to have a, like a radio distribution center in the muscle. We distribute the students. So we have the districts going around. That's a possibility. But when we are creating the precincts, I think we, we still need to think about continuity in between districts and the districts. And that's maybe, maybe in the future, I think the system will give us the more. Options when we are creating the district. I think you have your hand up. I was going to say something similar to that. We don't worry about the districts at this point in time. That we, we look to see how we can fill in the, the precincts. And then look at the districts and see if there needs to be but if we try and tackle both things at the same time we're going to be going back and forth and back and forth and not make any decisions for quite some time and we don't have that much time. Tracy? So I just had a question related to the districts and you know what has to be reported back to the state so I understand that we need to create the precincts you know by the deadline do the districts also need to be sent back to the Commonwealth by that October 31st deadline? My understanding is that no I think we have just to send the precincts but I'm guessing that the town would want to know the districts as well. I mean but just I guess just to keep in mind in terms of our time frame like as we work through the precincts and then you know we could leave a few weeks for the districts but I wasn't sure exactly what we needed to have done so thanks. But the problem is that we we need to have a draft of the districts because if not we cannot at that point we cannot change the precincts. No right of course. So make sure that the numbers ban us. So my point about the districts is that we the districts also have to be within five percent. In go. So that's the the major issue because if we have precincts that are all on the lower side all continuous to each other we won't be balancing the districts. So from that point of view we need to go do doing a check like potentially can we build districts that I have within five percent after us. That's the make sense. It just just in terms of the deadline that's what I was thinking of like willing to. But essentially that okay so Mike how do we go about do we want to start with Tracy's suggestion and Mike goes plotting them in the map. It might be a good idea. So I am I started setting up a map exercise so that we could work on it together in a group. I can't remember did we decide that the map that we're going to start working on together is that we're going to have 15 precincts in that. Is that what we're going to try. Are we completely throwing out 10. Is that correct. I think much. As I first try we're going for 15. Okay. If we find that 15 is impossible then we will revisit 10. Okay. All right. So I started setting this project up and one of the first things it says to you is hey how many how many precincts are you going to have. And I got stuck there and I'm like okay I forgot what we decided so. But in the meantime while I'm setting that up and adding different layers to my map here we can start looking and talking about Tracy's map and then by the time we're done looking at that we can probably take Tracy's stuff and then I can interactively draw it in here and we can start seeing how other things would shape up around it. I mean I guess the question is did anybody else kind of like create precincts too. So I don't want to kind of take up everything but. I fooled around with it but I think Tracy let's just do it. Let's just take what you've gotten. All right. We have to do something so let's do it. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So I started with Southwest. So Mike are you able to pull your stuff up now or do you send up your projects. Maybe why don't. Why don't you share your screen if you can. Or do you have a map or something. Mine is all on paper and like numbers because I don't have interactive GIS. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Give me just a second. I kept like printing it out but I'll tell you I so I started with Southwest and that largest precinct which is the 2512 and that's basically a precinct. I mean there's not that much we can do with that and that is within the 5%. So I suggest at this point that we just leave that alone. And then I took the other census blocks in Southwest and all together right they add up to be too much to precinct by themselves. So I split some of the ones on the north end of the Southwest dorms like the Emerson house the I can't even see some of them the Thorough house and another one and then I also added them I connected them and I added them in with Commonwealth the Honors College because Commonwealth Honors College is sort of often a little island by itself like surrounded by non-residential. And so the Commonwealth Honors College is 1367 and then I added to that like three from from the Southwest dorms from the north end of the Southwest dorms. And then that came out to a total of 2609 which seemed like about right. And then I took the four blocks on the south part of the Southwest dorms and I added those together and that was 1800 and then I also added them in like with some of the residential areas around there and then that came up to be 2742. And then I went over to like a different part I went over to like the central residential dorms and the Orchard Hill dorms. And so I came up with like a few other ones. So again I ran into the same sort of thing there that so with the Orchard Hill residential area that the three there were two in Orchard Hill and one in Central residential area that came out to 2255 and then I oh I added two more there. So that came out to so one thing with that is I actually it came out to 2792 and that was actually 6% and not 5% over the the like average if we're assuming that we have the about 2620 per precincts. So the one thing is when I see the state's instructions it says that it's everything's supposed to be within 5% unless you can like justify it and I thought maybe the 6% might be okay because the reality is that the dorms are so big I mean so those are sort of and the state has recognized before that the dorms are really large. So I have a question about that around the 26 the 2500 census block the continuous blocks around it which one is the smallest one? I'm sorry can you answer your question again? So because we're going to be we the precincts have to be continuous right so if it's within 6% one way to justify it is if any of the continuous next to the what all the census blocks that are surrounding would take them above the the the plus 5% then that's a justification there's no way we can satisfy it within the census blocks and we need to request a census block split. Are you talking about that so I'll say that when I was looking so you can see in the center there's this 2512 block and I really do think that the next time the census bureau does this they should split this up more because it is a little bit of a pain because basically you see this one here this the one right to the south of it that's like kind of surrounded right so that one like you can't it's sort of an island and you can't you know you have to make the precincts continuous and so Tracy what I'm saying is yeah the 20s 500 right the one next to it um if you don't put the layers maybe we can read the numbers yeah sorry sorry um the I don't know how to describe it next to the east to the east to the east yeah that's our 50 so we could add a hundred correct potentially add them I I guess I was just trying to focus on because I thought that whatever this main road is sunset is sort of a main street I had just split it I had just left the 2500 by itself as a start so that would be so with 15 precincts with our population the ideal number of people per precinct meaning the average would be 2618 right so that means that 2512 would be 100 less than than what the average would be right um so I had just from that point of view we could Tracy we could do the whole block we would be here the the one that the three to the east of the 2500 that would get us slightly above the 2600 right so but I guess I was thinking because I know some of the other ones they came out to be over 20 like they're in the 2700 so I just left the 2500 alone at this time okay I mean this could be I mean to your point this could be one that we look at like changing the boundaries because there is some flexibility there I had just I had just focused on like these are student precincts and and that's why I hadn't gone across sunset with it but I did go across sunset like I added those into a different precincts right so what I'm what I'm going to show you here and this is my I've I've experimented and I've played with this but I actually haven't done it but um I'm going to take this block right here okay and with this tool I'm going to assign it and you see how it just got a little arrow around it it it now it it is I'm starting to build our first precinct okay and what we can do then here where is the so there's a little dynamic report that can kind of come here and kind of go with it that that shows where is so so and can we turn off the precinct layer too oh yeah we can I just turned it on there as a point of reference so my my point of making it a little larger physically is because then we can have more connectivity when building the districts if it's so narrow it has very few neighbors for afterwards to connect with the districts if it's a little bit wider we can then have some flexibility how we're going to connect with the neighbors otherwise we're going to be stuck with all the whole district of students but I'll tell you that I put I put those two blocks the 54 and the 53 I put them into another precinct which also includes the dorms yeah but then we have when we're going to end up with the district there's only students no no not only because that's to your point this sunset the stuff on sunset is not just students it's also um residential of people who aren't students okay well let's anyway but I think Irina's point about no of course the districts that are the I'm sorry the precincts that are very very heavily one population like students having them have a lot of points of contact with other possible districts is a very useful point I agree so even if there are census blocks that have zero we can try that we can use of course I realized that we had to do that with this 2500 that's the only way to make it work right so all right so aside from if we want to add those two that's fine so watch what happens down here at the statistics in the bottom left so right now we have this one selected and then we're going to select of course it's going to freak out here it go it that it went up to 2566 and then I don't know why it's doing that but it's going to go up again and I'm going to assign all of those to and now it grew now it's at 2619 which is one above the ideal right the ideal number um and so what was your I'm sorry go ahead so Mike potentially I have a question the the one that says two on the north to the north east so there's one block census block zero and the other one has a two that's wrong that's a parking lot that's that's the visitor center it's wrong that's the visitor center so the Lincoln apartments are all right that's the one where 94 is are 94 and that is actually if we were to turn on the layer that shows us uh players places that were under counted doesn't Lincoln show up as under counted no Lincoln is where there's going to be the 600 beds oh okay it's going to be Mass Ave Lincoln it's going to be like some of the parking lots yeah okay okay so so can we go back into southwest and I can mention like my other ideas all right so then what I did is I took this um so we want to call it like precinct two so I took the precinct that had um the 777 I mean the block that had the 777 right here and the 214 and the 251 and then I also connected them with the Commonwealth College residential areas that are to the north like across Mass Ave so these the two yeah the 598 and the 769 and then you'd have to I guess include the zero in there the zero and the zero here yeah so basically up like this right um yes right I'll try that you're probably going to get a bunch of there's something going on but I'll see what I could do oh I think it got on yeah it did 3164 is that what you had Tracy okay wait you I think you added more than I did um I didn't include the 555 yeah yeah okay and also there's a little zero precinct in there that I don't know if it's showing up when you zoom out in between the 777 and the 555 there's a zero okay which is wrong as you know I think yeah that's Kennedy house which is actually a dorm right right is that the one one of the ones where the 555 should be there or something or that could be yeah so that puts it puts this at 2609 right and then I don't know going up so if you go up north with that one Mike I don't so there is this other zero too I don't know if it makes sense to make this zero to add the zeros there I think I will leave the zero so that's fine as afterwards we can use them yeah connecting points right now that's true absolutely so let me assign these to precinct okay okay and then okay and then I did the south part of southwest yep so um so we know that the on the um left hand side the west that the 12 is wrong because that's also a parking lot right and then um and then so I took the precincts here which were the like the 412 and the 595 and the 263 yep and then I added some of the zeros to the south across faring street and then I went over and I connected them with um with some of the ones I think I did it over to the white 203 did you include the 12 that's over here on this on university oh I did include the 203 oh so I I don't know we can or not I guess I don't know I mean it's actually a zero right so but yeah I mean you say it's actually zero but the census rule is that to be a 12 so we need to include it right now it's true yeah so I mean we may know it's wrong but they don't right they're not gonna allow us to just now it's true I think we can request changes but it's a whole right I guess we'll put the 12 in there then so did you how far down off and then I went so then I went to amity um place I went all the way this 203 I counted the 203 you know in a second it's I guess you'll do the 12 and the zero and the 203 yeah let me unselect here because we are going to be we're building a different a different precinct here so you with with this precinct you went all the way down to amity place which is yes the two which is right here the 203 right but then and then I also went east like into that neighborhood that I read it like included like 61 51 and even over further because the numbers were pretty low okay I included most of the area up to like say I don't know what is this north pleasant street I guess or yeah north in the middle of town yeah pretty much I included that I included that like so I'm gonna make a suggestion what if instead of because if we my concern is that if we move east we are blocking for afterwards then trans to the the center portion we we are forcing that like a division north south what if instead of moving east we move south on the map instead of moving instead of moving like Tracy saying that was saying that she had to move well I get yeah so what I had done is I was trying to do it I guess based on sort of neighborhoods and how amity is a dividing line like I live off of amity it is sort of a dividing line and so that's why I was using that as um to connect but yeah it totally makes sense but I think even as suggesting that we have more flexibility if we go south I don't know if we can do it afterwards Tracy yeah yeah afterwards we can do it with the with the precinct in the districts we can join that but I think we might have more flexibility on how to build if we go okay so we're at we're at only 18 25 now right so if we can add the 203 add the 203 and when we say we don't want to move east what what should be the dividing line of not moving east well then can we include the 51 and the 61 yes okay and then that is 260 so I'll say that I mean I had been focusing on the university so I did include this whole the whole kind of a bunch of the polygons to the east of Lincoln so that takes us all the way down to Northampton road and then if we added that this little block right here so how much do we have right now 2605 okay yeah we can do it that way which is actually the current precinct because I'm in that precinct it's precinct four it goes all the way down to route nine northampton road so if I sign selection so it's very faint maybe I can turn on colors here make it a little bit more visible the transparency put dark yeah I don't know so there is no transparency there was a darker line a slider at the bottom I'll figure it out oh hey it did turn dark so so that has 26 11 so we have three Tracy drew three precincts right 26 19 2609 and 26 11 and then this this column right here shows the deviation from the average right or so it's this one is plus one the second one is negative nine and the second one is the third one is negative seven and and then I drew some over like for the other dorms to like orchard valley which is if we want if we kind of want to focus on those population dense areas which I think we sort of do but this is a starting place just because they're so big and you can't do too much else with some of them right so so in orchard valley I added them so the one the 1265 is one precinct and I attached that with the 391 and then also the 599 yep and then so one thing is if we so a couple options with that we can also then go to the east and add the 143 and the 394 maybe yeah but that is like to the points of people raised earlier that's basically all dorms and I didn't include the 114 because that would make the number go over right so if we look at so that's an area that in the past was one big block it was it was a bigger one I think yeah yeah and they split it and they divided it up yeah so how much is that right now so then so this is 2255 right now but I have not added 143 or the 394 or the 114 no no no so no you can't add the 114 it will like it goes way too high so if you add the 143 and the 394 you get to 2792 which is the 6% but I just I was just playing with it yeah so this one is plus plus 174 which is 6% yeah but it's hard because of the big buildings so the question is can we be in there because the the statement that was one answer that we got is the 5% is a hard stop is there a way of combining these ones with major lines that does not get to but when I read the it didn't actually say it was a hard stop it just said you would have to justify it that's what I read in the email that they sent you yeah but because what if we would take instead the instead of the 143 we can put the 114 and then we are on the safe side and the 120 well then the 120 you're over too but I mean the thing is I guess yeah I mean we can play with it different ways I think one thing with that 143 is you are gonna want to group your if you do that you're gonna want to group it to like the north like in north go up north pleasant yeah but so yes you would have this and then go and then go up to like puffed in and everything you have to get past all those zeros at the center of campus and then go that way or move or move east serbian or afterwards we're gonna have to combine it with east right right so what do we think what are we thinking so just to be clear the the precinct this one that as john is this entirely dorms yes yes so this should be our second precinct that is our third precinct the third precinct which is entirely students well no there is this oh right one of them that we just threw is not entirely students you right entirely students but for that 100 residents right yes it's 90 percent true yeah well and even and even the residential homes that are mainly rental they're mainly students too in this area right so yeah okay so can I ask a practical question here that maybe we don't have to worry about this but in terms of polling locations and trying to distribute the voters evenly at polling locations when we make a precinct that is entirely students are almost entirely students and we know that a lot of those students aren't voting either because they're just not voting or they're voting back in there where they came from does that is that a problem for the town like should we be should we be considering that also but I think that right you could have one well I mean I don't know see you could speak to two but can't you have I mean you could have a voting place like for the districts too well if we if we were identifying 15 precincts and we need to outfit 15 precincts we can combine the location for a couple of precincts but that means we do need 15 tabulators we do need 15 ballot all of that and so you know let's say let's say we put three precincts in one location like the high school and two out of those three precincts are students and you know you've got three outfitted precincts in one building and hardly anybody shows up so yeah these are considerations but I think we're going to have that issue anyway because if we have 15 precincts we have only 2600 people per precinct and there are these clusters of students I mean it was pretty different when we had 4 000 people per precinct right because then we would always have like a neighborhood as well yeah I mean surely this is going to yeah with 15 precincts this is going to be an issue I'm just wondering whether we should in addition to trying not to have precincts of just students in terms of whether that throws off the representation should we be worrying about it in terms of voting practicalities yeah I think we should because then some precincts are going to be it's not even distributed the number of people that show up to vote right in some precincts that are more permanent residents and they're going to be more people or taking person in principle this is all in guesstimates right we cannot assure you cannot assure but it's true that we would ideally we would have precincts that are they have a mixture and they all have a different the same mixture because of location and how the things are clustered it's almost impossible I think the precinct one is the way just draw is a clear example that's impossible to to have a good mixture with the permanent students the second one that we drew it gets to that point that is incorporating is a mixture right so the question is how do we move forward the ones that we were just talking potentially we could group them if we move east we could have more of a mixture we could be splitting the dorms right yes or south you can move south but yeah or even commonwealth college I mean you could group commonwealth college like going up north pleasant street or something yeah Craig has his hands up I'm just wondering other than other than the location of where we vote does do the precincts really make any that much difference anymore we vote by district we don't vote people by precinct but it's but no we vote by precinct we vote by precinct we were by location we do but not not we don't we don't have precinct representation with the way we did it for a town meeting no right but we have so consequently it really doesn't make any difference but she's still we have clusters of students she still needs the staff precincts yes we still have that I understand but if we can combine precincts for locations of where the precincts vote then it seems as though we overcome that problem as long as you don't put three precincts that are all students in one location yes yes well we have fewer elections with the charter right we mainly only have one election a year so and that is not by pre except for the location it's not really by precinct so if we if we have all students in a few different precincts as long as we combine those precincts uh with non-student precincts for districts then it it really doesn't make any difference well we're still okay go ahead well except and and sue uh and others maybe could offer some counsel on this but uh by massachusetts's general law we have to do precincts and the districts are a creation really I mean when you come down to it are a creation of amherst and the charter um so we still have to by massachusetts's law uh divide up these precincts because that's what's really mandated for us to do that's right but as long as we put those precincts we if we have let's say four student precincts if we take those two four student precincts and combine them equally with the into different districts then they they don't really represent they're what they're voting for is still the district which is the creation of the town we don't we don't vote for precinct representation any longer that's that's typically for most everybody else in the state but it isn't for us I think for sue's point is that the mechanics of voting right it's her concern is for the mechanics of voting that she still needs to stop 15 precinct locations even though there might be on the same spot each one has to have independent personnel each person has to have independent personnel is that correction that is correct that is correct um there are cases where you can share a warden and a clerk um depending on the numbers but uh we do staff each precinct individually I I staff a warden for every single one of the precincts a clerk for every single one of the precincts check in people but we are gonna have that no matter yeah no matter what we do we have 15 precincts we're gonna have 15 wardens 15 yes right exactly I mean so but the turnout is what I think you're talking about Craig and you're right it's it's if you if you decide to make district one um three precincts that are nothing but students you're going to have a turnout that's much lower than the other you know and you're going to have whoever yeah yeah well and the issue too is I know like you are mainly students in terms of like where they vote like I mean the hearing you sorry in the past sometimes we've had people loading um on campus like we have had uh the the precinct station and precinct 10 at on the in the campus center at UMass but the problem is that if there's a large student turnout then the precinct is like almost empty so so basically we're it doesn't really make sense I mean if we have if we have a student loading if we have a voting location on a campus um then we wouldn't just a voting location like we'd have to change it for some elections versus other elections because some elections would have no turnout at all yeah and it's not the responsibility of us to actually propose them anyway that's no of course so we don't have to worry about that but but I think we are sort of stuck with the 15 precincts so yeah so I have a suggestion to move forward um with these items so with these precincts I prefer the configuration that Mike is showing and he just changed instead of this one is yeah that's fine because then one thing to note is um for example to the north of the campus even though they are not dorms from north precinct west that's mainly I would say 90 or 95 percent that's student housing so now if in this configuration he currently has it has about people so we'd want to get up to around 26 but then we're sort of splitting we're starting to split up neighborhoods if we like where would you add the other to get up to the 100 or 200 so how many more do we need and we're down we're negative 129 from the average right now so I was I was just as you guys were talking I was just playing um yeah now of course I mean you can add the 66 that's true add the 66 and then we're still negative 60 something so I mean you add the 66 already no I have not I have not yeah but we can be we can be under a little I mean I think the 66 makes some sense yeah um yeah and then you could try to we could try to create a precinct like in between the two other precincts like yeah in the middle area I guess and like that and then it could go up to the north and then if I so you're adding the 66 right I had the 66 yeah I'll have this fixed by next week so that puts us at negative two percent we're two two and a half percent down on the on the average so then could we maybe look at having a precinct I mean this isn't we're trying to focus on the clusters but I guess if we were filling in some say from like fearing and the middle section in between the precincts and then going north like through campus so like starting it fearing and going out yeah well Tracy that's mainly student rentals or no but I'm saying well we're because one one option would are you saying we could go you could start there and go down is that what you're saying I would leave that portion to go maybe to go down to use as a connection point because if we go north okay so the 356 north yeah I was just trying to think of where you're going to connect in the orchard valley orchard hill area like the 336 and the 394 and the 143 like we're going to need it we're going to need to connect those to a neighborhood so where would we want to we'd not we need to connect them up that way yeah so yes if you go if you go north west that's students if we go northwest as students but we still we still need to connect up there no yes through the UMass right yeah that's fine I mean Mike could draw that he could kind of come up with something but wait wait wait because at the same time then then we need to make sure that the honors college precinct goes south we're going to have the problem that we're going to have a precinct a district with two so you could put the honors college if we want to split up you could put the that honors college that's 3,500 people so we could somehow yeah I mean you could connect that to some other precincts I think I'm sorry I'm going to backtrack maybe what makes more sense is go from fearing connect that one to fearing we have one central one there uh-huh from fearing that's well yeah Mike should start to add it up because those are some small numbers it's going to take a lot to get to 2,600 let's see how much so we're talking going fearing north is that what I'm hearing yeah and then we can expand do you want to put Commonwealth College in there or do you want to leave Commonwealth College in the other one Peggy has her hand up thank you I just wondered I'm like I'm noticing that these um well first Tracy thank you so much for for fooling around with this um it's really helpful to have a starting place and and I like a lot of the decisions you made um but I'm one I'm noticing as we're looking at this map that our precincts have a sort of north south um bias to them or or they're they're longer north south than they are east west and it feel I feel like we're getting and we're ending up getting forced into certain directions so I'm wondering what about for example this last one that we did precinct four at the moment maybe we don't make it that shape we may instead we bias it more east west so for example 391 and 419 um and 261 and 93 and so so that direction so that we have more options for where what we do with that fearing street area um so what that's an idea so Peggy where would you so looking at that orchard hill neighborhood what would you take out to kind of go in I think I would take out the one I think I would take out these lower ones I mean the 114 and the 120 and the 66 um and possibly even the 599 I don't know I mean I haven't I haven't done what you did in this neighborhood um but I just feel like we're getting I yeah forced to I think we do need to move like east and west I agree with you um yeah but I don't think you I don't think you want to do that on you know from east pleasant street working I mean east west I think you're better off going north south there I mean east pleasant street is a big divider you know and if we're looking at like the pre the districts later so keep in mind keep in mind like uh the north the northeast corner of town in the southwest corner of town there aren't a lot of people there so you know they're the shape of those areas is going to be really strange so we got to we have to make sure that we don't pinch you know that area too much if we move east west um it's up to you guys where we do that but that's something we have to pay attention to I know if we look at the states map that they did 15 precincts like the northeast most precinct was was gigantic it was it was very large yeah it was a very it came all the way up to kushman and then like looped all the way down to near echo hill it was very large in order to get to the plus or minus five percent so but we can do whatever we want here if we want to deconstruct precinct four and move it east we can try it okay all right so let me take back my comment and can continue so what are we talking so I guess um I mean I know it gets really complicated do we want to try to do anything with like the fearing area going north and try to create something I would say let's try let's start with the fearing going north plus the north the central portion and then we see whether we direction and do we want to leave the um the commonwealth college yes now let's leave it okay that's fine let's for now let's leave it and then we see okay because we're gonna have to go through many iterations it's very complicated and the five percent is very not easy yeah so plus the 336 oh wait wait wait I made a mistake and so then you're basically headed up towards puffed in right because to get the to get up to the numbers we're gonna need like some density or it's south yeah I think we should try going north yeah just going from here north right going from fearing north yeah I mean I guess we could look to the north and just see how much density is up there because you know if we wanted a neighborhood that's also got owners you could go south like to mclellan and hallock and like over towards the high school you could do all that Tracy I'm I'm already thinking but maybe I'm thinking it um my concern is that we have this prison that is very small here at the center that is only students and it's surrounded with we need to when we build the districts we need to make sure that that one is connected to right precincts that have residents so if we were to move this one only to students so we can incorporate some of the 336 and 394 but I would like to include some some that are not some properties that are not students or student rentals so then we have some connectivity there because if we go towards right it's going to be again this district a prison that is mainly students well we could go from that one that area that mics highlighted you could go like south like towards the high school and college and I mean there are it is some rental and it's also student I mean it's both it's a mix my suggestion was to go both north and south we would we would just need to make sure that what's happening on the northwest corner in terms of like the numbers what the numbers look like up there going I mean the north precinct the north like precincts get pretty big too like north of campus so this is only 442 people in this area that's purple here can you include can you include the 336 394 once 43 those terms plus the chance for continuity some of the zeros and the 31 yes yeah that sounds so then there's a zero in the middle but let's ignore that for the time being so then if we go north from there like when we get to the 142 in the 30 oh so actually that's another dorm some of the dorm too all all this is this is still the main campus like this is Eastman the roundabout is like right right so what if we what if we add in the ones that are south of Eastman like the 245 307 one yeah those Tracy if we add those then the other person the prison one is surrounded by precincts that are mainly students um so then we don't we it's gonna be hard to make districts it's gonna be hard to make districts right um so unless we connect unless we would make a district that would go right we need to go down that way yeah we would have to make we are forcing ourselves that this one would either have to go connect so the precinct that we created the precinct three is a mixture that's my understanding right yes yes but then we get into so then one would be exclusively students or mostly students 90 percent students or 95 percent students one is a mixture and then we are forced to go south with mainly um an area there's more residents so all right so can we maybe we want to go up to that cluster with the students that Mike was just up at that the one with um yeah so that cluster so what if you go north from that cluster and you connect that um so I mean this was one that I was sort of looking at is so if you take the ones if you take the ones that are south of easeman the 245 and 140 the 307 those and then you include that one and the zero and this to the west and then you go up north pleasant street and you include the things on the west side of north pleasant street which it would also get into some of those neighborhoods like puffed in so all that is students that's another reason students yeah that's all students but there's also but there's also residential along there not much but can but can there's more residential than the dorms no no no no all that all that 95 percent is students along governor's drive in between easeman lane that's very that's a lot of student rentals yes but I'm saying if you go up north pleasant towards north amherst I mean we need to figure out some that aren't just dorms the at this moment all the houses being bought and sold there and converted those to rentals I mean I know I know I know families who live in that area but okay yeah I live in that area right and I are we assuming at arena and I'm not you know trying to to say this isn't you know true or what have you but are we assuming those are all student rentals or do we know for sure you know because those are there's no way of knowing for sure but if along north pleasant street okay but go ahead yeah by now along north pleasant street most um if you drive by most are there's a lot of student rentals like I can map I can map the rental data but what I'm saying is that what I'm saying is that we do I like that Mike okay but we also need to find but I think we need to create some I mean I hear what you're saying but I mean this whole section if you're saying the residential part the non dorm part of this area is all students and then the dorms are all students like we're trying to create we I mean I feel like we need to create something with that neighborhood west and north pleasant and then you can go up and try to I mean in your mind when when do actual where where is home ownership start like our owner occupancy start so from north pleasant I mean east mainly north of um hovert lane so this weekly line yes right in this area um yeah north and this so north of hovert lane east of north pleasant street that's the high density of owner occupied in the area okay and I I just want to talk about language here unless we have some um actual data to support when you say um owner occupied that is right so so what I'm what I'm trying to say and I think you know where I'm going is that you know there are families that rent here because they are unable to purchase and be owner occupants and so unless we have some some data to say that these are simply students um you know all living together that we're assuming in in you know some rental property I would rather us be specific in that language because okay I'm a person because that's potential voters is what I'm trying to really get at I know I I I understand that maybe my language is not right my language is student rental property okay that's mainly so for example the the complex that is um I know by the bus routes right I know where the kids the bus routes north village that was north village but that bus stop is gone but there is a the coast developed the north the coast the middle right the middle district now it's a rental area but there are a lot of families living there um on the on the complex that is behind Cameroon farms there's a lot of families living there um so I mean I guess one thing is that we look at this cluster here that's got a lot of density right and I know just from playing with the numbers is that we need to split up this density here and around Eastman Lane like these clusters and so if we're trying to create some precincts that will also have more divert more diversity in terms of family types and students non-students and things where so where do those so one we need to split up that cluster with the north residential area in the northeast residential area those ones you know the ones up on Eastman Lane but then we need to connect those with adjacent um census blocks that we're going to create a precinct so my I mean my question is and we can't have them all in one cluster we wouldn't want to anyway because it would be all students but what are the most natural ways to split them and then also I mean I feel like we do need to have one that's going to be in the north going up to the northwest corner of Amherst right so I mean we don't have that much left up there but I mean there needs to be we need to split up that whole north residential area northeast residential area and so how would you every day how would you if you're concerned and you're saying that you know one side of that main street is mainly students like how do we one way would be to take Peggy's suggestion I think Craig has his hand up um um maybe in this case would be one case that we can expand a bit go towards the east instead of going towards the west Craig you have your hand up I'm looking at Eastman Lane you know I don't think there's any question that those are dormitories they are yes yeah and and and if we go north from where we are right here encompass the dormitories then we've got a solid block of of students again and that whole area becomes a number of precincts that are all students if if we we maybe we can capture a little bit of this but we need to go south to get away from having another solid block of students because when we start trying to get break it up in the districts they've got to be contiguous also but where do you where do we go south from Eastman Lane I guess right I would go east so but then we're still splitting like you would split around like on say on north pleasant street and you would say north pleasant street east but then you still have the issue of what's on the what's on the west side of north pleasant street but then we can connect it with other precincts so if we split the student population that doesn't sound right but we split the heavily student population into in this area into two so that um my suggestion would be in this area to start splitting the we have a core that is mainly the center you must we cannot split the doors because the sense of block has to be but once we start moving I leave it out my idea would be to start splitting and mixing with what we know okay not non-student rentals so then the the second like the second core would be a mixture and then um so like for example take the ones that are the cluster of the dorms the northeast dorms that are the ones on the south side of yeah or whatever I mean that's of Eastman Lane I guess right here right so you we could take those and then we could go west with those but then I would say east I mean east sorry I meant east but then you're still we're still gonna have the issue about I mean you could even include the zero and the 001 and then go east around there right yeah yeah sure we could try it I mean some of these zeros and stuff could connect for the contiguous we could also connect them to some of the adjacent ones I would um Mike I would not put all the zeros on the left because I would leave this here so that we can use for connectivity that I would leave this 001 without any assignations so that we can use it afterwards if we need to oh I see all right right for the um districts for the districts yes so leave this leave the one okay because I was assuming we were adding this one in so leave the one out and then the one and the two zeros yeah the one and the two zeros so then so then we can use those because they to for geography okay okay so we're going over here right yeah okay and then so that's that puts us at negative 60 we're down 60 people from it from the average wait does that I think that that that you must I think somebody's double counting are you double counting some because that wouldn't have added up to that much we were only down the 245 143 07 what that wouldn't add up to the 20 whatever you have it didn't get added to the I think oh are we were we creating were we creating a new district or a new precinct are we adding to it I think we were creating a new precinct oh that's what I thought oh that's my mistake that's my mistake I'm sorry I I thought we were talking about how to extend the fearing street block that we were working on I I got confused there so we want we were creating another one another precinct that was kind of starting here and working its way east is that correct yeah I don't think we had figured out fearing stuff yeah so I have a question Mike yes four can you highlight precinct four at this moment precinct four is right here so I have a suggestion at this moment we have five precincts right that we could use these five that are mainly students I think no because we have that one that goes the precinct three it goes all the way down to North Hampton road okay except that one whether we could use these as we start in point as our first core of precincts and then start adding a second layer afterwards I don't know if it makes sense or not hey what do you mean by second layer I don't understand I'm saying we have five precincts that we could in my mind what I'm thinking is can we use these five precincts as starting point of districts I'm going one step I know that we said not to do this no I think we shouldn't we shouldn't do districts until we get to the priest yeah okay and we want three we want three precincts for district yeah right okay so let me let me redraw redraw this so so I think we just left fearing and all those that's not actually a thing anymore but well yeah well we started it but we just didn't finish it so how far east do we want to go I mean I don't even know I'm thinking north east street I think we need to go to village park which is 419 that's the 419 right here yes so I would say this block the 18 to 61 93 yeah that's good and now I have a question though what's happening to them with the dorms the 390 the 333 the 394 and the 143 they're like kind of abandoned no they're in precinct five they're in the fearing street one oh okay I just want to point out it is almost 645 we need to leave five minutes for public comment at the end so we have about 10 more minutes so that is down sick that going east we're 600 people down so further east there's not much going or going north maybe what so if you look right here there's another dorm that's right here on the north side of eastman that has 657 people in it so I would add that one well actually this is an error there's 350 people here 350 people here and 350 people in this one that has zero okay so it's like these so but then we're having we have a lot of dorms then can we what if we go south like across strong street yeah that one okay so one thing we have to be conscious of too is creating like weird shapes yes so you know here we have like a little jut I don't know if that will be considered an issue for the state but they do pay attention to irregular shapes so if we have something that like wraps around here and goes down south you know they could they could see this as a red flag I'm not saying they will but they could at the same time these are such a big numbers so what if in precinct four we don't have a go all the way down though what if we leave out the 114 and the 120 can we do it and then add more yeah and then we could add the door like the 143 or we could add stuff going to the northwest or something because then the then the 140 at least take out the 120 I guess out of there and then try to in the 66 if the 120 comes out the 66 has to come out oh right yeah but then you could put the 143 in it right yeah that's why on the state's map the the original states 15 map they had a they had a really if you go back and you review it they had a really weird um I think they called it like a finger sticking out of it and it was they like put Harlow Drive and a few other of these they put these in a precinct that was majority on the east side of east and then they put this 444 and a bunch of other things in here so it looked the state's map probably would have gotten rejected by the state if they were to submit it to themselves so I think this I think this block is big enough that I don't think no but it's only 2000 no no I'm saying that no I'm saying that the shape of this is not a finger it's not one little I think if we go but if we go down right it could be seen as what was I'm not saying it would be I'm just saying it could I think the issue is just that you have the 1265 and the 391 right so I mean they're always gonna kind of jut out I think I mean I guess we have we'd have to keep going west but we need to make up 600 and I mean sorry east and then you have that super long I think the only way one on the east side south just to go south yeah that area or wait can you slide north there was a little bit that we could go a little bit north and a little bit south but it would start being with weird shapes we have the 16 178 these are weird shape blocks 97 oh can yeah Mike can you scroll up a little I mean we could fill in what if we do that whole like the vision up to the east pleasant street like the 87 30 and you stop there because that's a lot of residential yeah but Tracy that would happen that then we wouldn't be able to farm precinct on the north because the population density going north is very low so low so that we would not have a way of filling a population and even concern that one what if we couldn't we have like one precincts couldn't we just have one north precinct like north Amherst precinct that goes across maybe like how one two is split now or something and we're so good it should go all the way up north and try and and form a precinct up there but we also yeah before we abandon it and then now we also have the issue that we still have the density of the dorms on the north of east man lane which is significant it's like another oh yeah it's yeah you can't we've got a mark that's 700 and on the north side of east man lane there's oh there's 1800 people in there so so we I think we're also gonna want I mean the idea that I'd had was to connect those to the east because to get out of like the dorm student area yeah but by the shape of to do that we need to use this zero and this 18 and this 261 right you know they're not to get which is it gets complicated but we're gonna I mean the I mean that's we're still gonna need to put those those dorms on the north side somewhere where do those connect with so that's I'll just look again at how they did it back when and it it's kind of interesting they took some of yeah they took some of these dorms north of east man lane and then connected them up to the van meter drive neighborhood so there's a you know that's a nice combination there and then the other well I guess then the not dorms but much of the student housing is in precinct one and that past muster last time so maybe we can get away with it again this time I mean there I mean there's not that much we can do yeah yeah okay so it's 651 um I'm trying to look at the agenda um so we need to we have four more minutes to discuss and then we would be adjourning our meeting it's so hard with when with there's so much work to do so how do we proceed from this point one option is that each of us try to look at different areas trying to do similar exercise as Tracy did for different areas and try to see if a couple of people could try to see if we can dive be up in some way the north and some way towards the south because those are or maybe I mean could we just maybe focus on north like north of the center of town and like how we think we can make stuff work a little bit okay I don't know it's just a suggestion but and if Mike can share like what he has or something yeah if Mike could share it to each of us and we can all play individually and we'll come up with a lots of different answers but maybe combine them next time and I think Peggy has a good point about the districts that I mean the precincts that currently exist right like with precinct one and things I don't know I mean I don't think there's that been that many changes there so maybe we just try to keep some of that that we know that the issues you know related to it not being as diverse as we would like but Mike the um that bottom chart that shows the um deep yeah that's what I'm trying to take a screenshot oh yeah don't worry I'll blow it up and I'll blow it up what are you what are you hoping to get yeah just to see what's already established with what um you know difference in in terms of the five percent deviance yes so um what I can do is I can put together like a little map of this um and put those statistics on the map just of hey when we stop this this meeting on this date this is what we had as like a working set um and so this is total population this is the plus or minus from the average and then this is the the percent difference when compared to the average so I'll put that in a in a chart so that you don't have to take a screenshot of it and um Mike I'm going to ask um can we I think that would be the second step um after we have we should look at some of the demographics on this so link link that these census blocks to the census data to look at it about the demographics right okay um actually I have a related question to that sure um so you know at the last meeting it came up you know related to certain immigrant communities and things like that right and that some of that data is in like ancestry and foreign born and all those things are all those statistics supposed to be coming out um september 30th or do one come out sooner I or will they come out later probably later most likely later I I don't know for certain but I know september 30th we might see like some socioeconomic data um we might see like a total count of households you know there's no way to be certain but it's typically quite a while when you start to get like all the really valuable census data it can be like a year a year so after they start publishing the okay their raw stuff so we won't get that like I'm not saying we won't I'm not saying we won't I would not expect it yeah so we are five to seven so I would like to start wrapping up I have two suggestions that people can say yes or no one is to give us everybody homework to maybe pick and choose areas or we can decide to go for a north or south or to start playing the same way that Tracy did how we can put things together um but I would like to see some diversity on how people approach because I don't I think it would be good to see how different ideas come up and say okay I had this idea and you had this other one and then do they match they don't match and maybe it's an alternative we hadn't thought so that would be one thing to look at and the other one that I want to point out is I want to see that we always have kind of a timeline um what's the horizon so if we come back by october 15 we have to be submit the council has to have a map and a report in place so that they can study and they can vote ideally we wouldn't like before that to have public input I think and also we would need at least one week we would like the states to take a look at this so in my mind that means that by the end of september that's by when I would like to have the precinct scroll that's the latest so that we could have an iteration with the state but ideally maybe what I'm talking I hadn't thought this through maybe even the week before because if the state comes we know that doesn't work we're gonna have to meet again and we draw a precinct if they have objections to our map so we need to have at least a couple of weeks before we submit to the council then we'd like to have a response from the state if they're gonna give us a response so then essentially I think essentially we have two meetings to finalize the maps in principle right so that's why I'm going to ask everybody play around with the numbers so the next time we can get the ball rolling as much as we can from the beginning Tracy you have the hand up and I don't know if somebody yeah my question was just about when we're sending our memo to the council I mean I guess we need to send a memo and a map to the council they have to be before October 15th now do we have to send like everything to the council at that time including like a memo writing it up or just like our outline of our map I guess what does the council need by the 15th I think the map uh there was on the email but my my belief is uh the town has to approve the map but then also I guess just thinking about um if we think we're gonna have the districts by the 15th I'm guessing that we're gonna have to have something even if we're gonna have to have them even though we are not required because we need to make sure that we can build districts that are within five percent of each other right um right now that's a that's a our own hard stop that the state mandates also that the districts awards have to be within five percent so if we end up having all precincts that are under the average together group together we will never be able to satisfy the five percent right we have to have a mixture so from my point of view we have to have everything great can I suggest that we uh do our homework and and send it our assumptions to mike ahead of time so that he has an opportunity to layer them and maybe play with him a little bit so that when we come back he will have it all together for us to look at um mike I can do that you can definitely do that the problem would be the timing there I would I would need I would need to have it very soon in order to be able to build build things out um ahead of the meeting um since we're meeting every week um but you can definitely you can definitely do that you can definitely email me suggestions and I could build out a scenario like this ahead of time I'm ahead you're gonna help me for saying this if you were to get by Monday morning several suggestions would you be able to build the maps before the meeting our next meeting this is a reminder our next meeting I believe is um Wednesday it's Wednesday at six um six if I had it depends on how much I had by Monday morning but if I had if I had like three plans by Monday morning I could I could get them all done by Wednesday if I had seven plans no but if I know I guess one thing is if we're building stuff out like um for the precincts that we had already started to create do are there any that we are comfortable leaving as like draft precincts right now and not continuing to fiddle with do you know what I mean like can we say that of our 15 precincts there's like three or four that we feel like these are a good starting place and we're going to try to move other stuff around what do people think well we've only built six and I think well and six I mean they're not all done right yeah three of them are not I'd say only three are done and three are not done I'd rather leave it open for the exercise of us each taking a look at I know of course I also have a question for you Mike when you give us access to the map it's not shared right so we're each doing our own version or is it shared it you would each be doing your own version okay it's not shared yeah that would be an open meeting wall okay probably and and we don't have this tool right we're just doing it on paper or however we can figure out how to do it okay that's what I did I'm trying to I'm trying to get by the time we buy the tool it will probably be the end of September right okay okay okay but if you can can you send them this map the hometown map in a good way so that we can read the numbers yes absolutely and maybe we draw on top of it with a pen and the color pens the interactive map that's what I would use in the interactive map and taking like screenshots and printouts and then playing with them okay okay okay so um I believe we don't have any attendees at this moment um it um so public comment any of the non-botting anybody wants to make any announcement any comments I guess so with the map do we do we want to agree that we want to look at one part like north or something and just sort of finish or something I mean I don't know it's hard we can't go through the whole town in one meeting I guess do people have thoughts about that I would I would suggest that the difficult part of this town is figuring out how to diversify the precincts around UMass right so I think that's where we need to focus and I and of course we need to keep an eye on the fact that once we draw these things the precincts on the edges will be determined but um but it feels to me like we have to work from UMass outwards right yeah well and the ones that we haven't assigned yet right so like the 2000 students who aren't assigned to a precinct yet the ones that are useful right do we take into consideration at all the new buildings that are being put in or is that the state just doesn't care about that we need to think of it but it it still doesn't matter if they're not if the state's not considering it should we be thinking of it I think in part we should be thinking of it then but we cannot officially um one way would be that those precincts would have to be on from the average down um that's the only way I can think that we can take them into account that potential um impact is that we have to have them on the average down that's the only thing but since nothing is on paper until people move in we cannot well and so that's one thing I was thinking about too with north of north of UMass right so north village is empty right now so it wasn't empty in 2020 and it had all that population attached to it whatever it was like but the those people aren't there anymore but we're still going to count them as if they are because that's what the census has I mean in terms of the counts and in terms of the five percent we're using the numbers that the 2020 census tells us yeah as much as we want to think about everything else could we use those the to justify um why we're higher low in the percentage from the average I'm also thinking of the errors um I yeah I mean they're not going to approve errors in time for what we're doing no I think what we can do is we can build the precincts the best we can and then final just based on the information that we gather in the previous meetings the issues that we know that the developments are coming and the areas that we saw that were under counting and then move some boundary lines based on the information that we have so just to to account for those variations so wait so by your calendar we were saying that we want to have the precincts all drafted by what three meetings is that right yeah meetings and then that would give us that would give us like one or two meetings well one to check with the state and then also try to come up with some districts yes so three more meetings three more meetings okay let's do it let's do it in one yeah I'm for it like let's try so but so that's why as much as we can do outside and play with numbers I'll send it to Mike and that's okay okay all right thank you almost in time almost in time do we want to make a motion and adjourn I move to adjourn second second um I'm gonna what's called Craig Meadows hi uh Peggy Shannon hi tell you parks hi Tracy Sefian hi all right thank you thank you next week