 Darcy, can I make you host? Sure. You're all set. Good night, everyone. Take care, Athena. Good evening. Seeing that there's a quorum and attendance. I'm calling the October 8th, 2020 meeting of the town service and outreach committee to order. At 633. Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the town services and outreach committee. I am now going to call on each committee member by name to confirm that you can hear me and we can hear you. Alyssa Brewer. Present. Darcy do not present Dorothy Pam. Dorothy. Present. Evan Ross. George Ryan. Present. Okay. And we'll be hearing from other people or people later. Those assisting the meeting will be monitoring committee members connections. And if necessary, we'll pause the meeting until people are reconnected. Press that everyone be patient with the process. Let me just check and see. I don't think we have any. Public. Do we? Nope. No public yet. No public comment. Okay. We, I think we have Paul just for half an hour. Is that correct Paul? Oh, you're mute. So we have. Two sets of town manager appointments today. I think we have. We have appointments recommendations to appoint people to the CDBG. Advisory board and the cultural council. You should also have design review board. I do not think we have that. It's in the packet. The design review board is. I went in and checked and printed things out again. I don't think it's in the packet. Did everyone else see that? Cause I do not recall putting that in there. It was sent to us on the 24th. I don't believe it's in the packet, but it was sent to us on the 24th. Oh, okay. Well, I don't think we can look at them. It's on the, it's on the post in. It's in the meeting posting. It's in the packet. I went to TSO. I sometimes get confused when I'm there. I poked around any, I think I finally found the. Papers for this meeting attached here. I tapped on here and I saw it there and I. Right. All I want to know is can we. Can we look at them? If I didn't put them in the packet. If I didn't put them in the packet, I wouldn't be able to put them in the packet. It doesn't make any difference if you put them in the packet as long as it was part of the meeting notice, which it was. Okay. All right. All right. So we're going to do them last because I don't have them on my. Script here. So we're going to start with. CDBG. If you could. Oh, actually let's start with the Amherst cultural council. Okay. So the Amherst cultural council, it is for the Amherst cultural council. We have one vacancy and there's one appointment. I'll talk about that first and then we'll talk about the non voting associate members. So first for the one three year term, I have Matt Holloway of 63 maple will drive. And Matt is relatively new to town. he has a young family and this seemed to be a good fit for him from the cultural council's point of view because it helped to sort of bring a broader group of people to their group. And so that's the appointment. And then we had interest from three high school students and well, and very energetic young women and really felt interested in having them participate as did the chair and the, I think it's the secretary of the cultural council. So adding them is non-voting associate members for term of one year, and they are Nandi Chavendi, Sydney Major, and Leah Newberger. And each has a different perspective that they bring to the committee. Each has been involved in the arts in one way or another. And each brought a perspective of wanting to involve young people in the arts, in the cultural council. And it was just so refreshing to hear their perspective about how they wanted to be more involved in town government. And it was a real opportunity to engage young people in a cultural council which is allowed to have associate members like this. So those are also presented to you. Thank you. Do we have any comments or questions from the counselors? I have one question about Matt Holloway. I just noticed that he didn't have any arts background. And I wondered if he's enthusiastic, but is it the case that there were just weren't other people that had an arts background or? He doesn't himself, but he comes from a family of artists. His father was an award-winning movie maker of some sort. I don't know exactly who he was, but and so he has arts and is a philosophy major in college. So while he's not professionally dedicated to the arts, he does have a lot of interest in arts personally. And were there other people that did have arts background or arts? This is my presentation, yeah. Okay, so no other comments or questions? All right, so I actually have my hand up. Oh, well, I'm sorry. Sorry, Evan. I just wanted to follow up on that because when, as Darcy and George and Alyssa know and Oka, we often worked with Paul on memos. And I had the same question as Darcy. Given that the cultural council charge seems pretty specific about wanting people who have demonstrated, I think it's here, Evan, in front of me, scholarship, creativity or service to the arts. And I didn't necessarily see that in the description. You've provided a little bit of that information now verbally. But again, that's the sort of information I'm usually looking for in a memo is not just, you know, that yeah, personally, I don't care that he's a first time homeowner for the cultural council. That doesn't mean anything to me necessarily. But what does mean something to me is what the connection is to the requirements, because this one actually has requirements to some extent or at least guidelines. And that's more important to me. And so I appreciate giving that have that information now. It would have been nice to see it in the memo. I would agree with that, Evan. So if there are no other comments, I move to recommend to the town council the approval of the following town manager recommendations for appointment to the Amherst cultural council for three year term as a voting member expiring on June 30, 2023, Matt Holloway. And for a one year term, as a non voting associate member expiring on June 30, 2021, Nandi Chivende, Sydney maker and Leah new burger. I have a second. I'll second. Okay, so roll call Alyssa. Yes, Darcy. Yes, Dorothy. Yes, Evan. Yes, George looks like we lost George. Where did George go? Maybe his connection. Well, I think that's a not sure what we call that vote. Well, it definitely passed for we should stop because when somebody disconnects, we're supposed to stop and figure out what's happening. Our minutes are supposed to show that someone's gone. It's not just they come in and out or someone have the ability to text George to see what's going on. I can do that. I have a question. We had a problem with times last meeting, two years and three years. And and the question of what was in the charge and what was in the state law. And we didn't, you know, I read over the minutes for the meeting. And when I hear 23 is a date, I'm thinking, aren't we in that same spot again? Isn't that three years? You're not in the same slide. No, it's it's a tweet. That's a two year term. No, that's a three year term. So sometimes George has reported that he just lost power. So I would assume we should just continue without him. Right. The minutes need to reflect that he's gone. And then was he planning to call in? Because he doesn't, he's like happy to sit in the dark and talk to us on his phone. There is one phone attendee. I don't know whether that's George's number or not. Okay. Mark is absent from that vote then. Yeah. Okay. We have four votes in favor. Okay. So moving on. We have the CDBG advisory committee. And Paul, would you like to give us an outline of that? So there are four appointments, two reappointments, and then two new appointments. The reappointments are Paul Goldston and Nathaniel Larson, who are in the second, would be that this would be their second term of appointment. The new appointments are Becky Michaels of Evergreen Lane and Lucas Hansgum. So Becky Michaels has been, has had a lot of experience in the community, works with the district attorney's office, has been co-president of the Amherst Education Foundation, has volunteered for not for bread alone. The Fort River School Council has been an LSSC soccer coach. And most interestingly, she had experience delivering meals during the pandemic to seniors. And that was an important thing for her in terms of what it revealed about the nature of our community that she had her eyes open in some ways that helped her really want to contribute to the town through the CDBG advisory committee. So Mr. Hansgum is a person who has expressed a lot of interest in serving, serving the town. Again, we're trying to broaden the number of people and the range of people who participate in our local committees. He was familiar with the CDBG advisory committee, but not experienced in it, but was willing to learn. And in our interviews, we felt that he was a good person to bring into the fold at this point in time. Thank you, Councilor, questions or comments? I don't see any hands raised. Okay, I do not have any questions or comments about that. But if we don't have any, I will move to recommend that the Town Council approve the appointments of the following people recommended by the Town Manager to serve on the CDBG advisory board for a three-year term expiring June 30th, 2023, Paul Golston, who was a reappointment, Nathaniel Larson, who's also a reappointment, and Becky Michaels. And for a two-year term expiring June 30th, 2022, Lucas Hansgum. Do I have a second? Dorothy. Okay. A roll call vote. Alyssa? Yes, with just the caveat that the minutes reflect that it's not called the board, it's called the committee, but that's fine. As long as it reflects what it actually says on the paperwork, it's the CDBG advisory committee, not advisory board. Okay. Darcy, yes, Dorothy? Evan? Yes. Okay, so four in favor again. And lastly, we have the design review board. Paul? So this is basically passing through the planning boards designated to serve on the design review board. It's Tom Long of 105 Heatherstown, a member of the planning board who they have designated as their representative to the design review board. Okay. Evan? I just wanted to say that we have a phone number in the attendees that I believe is George Ryan's number. Oh. Well, I shouldn't read it to the public, but it's the one that ends in 131. Okay. I believe that's George Ryan. Let's see if I can figure out what to do about this. Okay. Oh, so it's allowing me to allow him to talk, rename, and remove. So. Well, there should be an option to promote to panelists. There isn't one. No, but that looks like it made him a panelist or... Darcy? Yes, George. Okay. Yeah. We've lost all power, but I was able to call in. I could only get in as an attendee, but so I am able to hear you. And I suppose I can vote if needed. So I'm here. Okay. We're voting right now on Tom Long for... All right. We didn't do a roll call vote yet. So did I make a motion on that yet? I don't think I did. I think I did. I'm asking questions. Okay. Questions? More questions? Let's see. Alyssa. So I get to be the one in the room who always has to be picky about the package and has to bring up the fact, she says sarcastically, about the fact that the charge isn't part of this memo. Paul and I already talked about this. I'm just wondering why nobody else is asking about it. That's a question for my fellow TSO members. I know the answer from Paul, but I don't know why nobody else has brought this up. I can include it in the packet before it goes to the town council. That would be great. Okay. Great. Other questions? All right. If not, I move that... I move to recommend that the town council approve the appointment of Tom Long to the design review board with the term to expire June 30th, 2021. Alyssa, do I have a second? Second. Okay. Roll call vote. Alyssa? I, yes. RC, yes. Dorothy? Yes. Evan? Yes. George? Yes. Okay. Five in favor. All right. So that's all of our appointments for today. We are, I believe, going to get the community safety committee appointment recommendations before the next meeting. Is that correct, Paul? I'm hoping to, if we get all the interviews done and everything happens by that time. Yeah. To the extent that you can get them to us a little earlier than usual, but I think it would be helpful for that set. And also, do you have anything else on the agenda for appointments for the next meeting? We are, there's another set we're working through, I think, agricultural commission. There might be a couple others. I don't, Angela manages all that, so I'm not really sure. Okay. Alyssa? Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to verify that, that when we say it's going to be ready for the next meeting and hopefully, as you indicated a couple days ahead, although, you know, it's a very, we're working very fast on this process for this new committee, is October 22nd, right? That's our next meeting. Okay. Next meeting got moved. It was going to be the 29th, then it was moved to the 22nd. Yeah. It's a much more complicated process because it's a very large interview team and Corraline, getting all the schedules done for everybody is a pretty big chore. And you're interviewing everybody who applies? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to our other action item, which is the base recognition technology bylaw, which the sponsors of this bylaw are both here, Manny, Joe, Henneke, and Pat DeAngeles. At the suggestion of the majority of this committee, they subdivided the bylaw proposal into two parts. And the TSO members stated that they thought some TSO members stated they thought it would they'd be able to approve the facial recognition portion of the bylaw more quickly and easily and get it back to the council. So sponsors exceeded to this wish and will be presenting their revision of the face recognition part of the bylaw tonight. So take it away, Manny, Joe and Pat. Pat and I said we should discuss who's going to present before we did this again and then we didn't. I don't like to talk. Okay. We're bad at planning, apparently. So yes, we did split this in two. Do you want me to put this on the screen while I talk? Because that might be easier to point stuff out. So here's the split. This one's a lot shorter than the other one with the split because this has one purpose, which is to prohibit the municipal use of facial recognition technology. So we have four definitions. I want to point out the definition of town of Amherst is limited then is a limited definition, which is why it's in here to be clear that to try and do the sort of separation. I think Alyssa was asking about this. And it was one of the things that came up with Paul and the staff that were at the last meeting. Who does it apply to? And so we took some language from the charter and we limited the town of Amherst to essentially be any department except those departments under the jurisdiction of the school committee, regional school committee, or library trustees. So we're trying to limit it to anything the town managers in charge of and nothing the other committees that are elected bodies are in charge of. So it won't apply to the schools, for example. It would only apply to the departments that the manager is in charge of. So I wanted to point that one out. And then it is the prohibition in B. And then we've added some exceptions. Well, we had one exception in there already, which was the inadvertent or unintentional use, but we added to be in response to some concerns of staff at the last meeting. And this is a language that we hope allows for or the intention of this language is to allow for essentially the use of facial technology to sign on to a phone or sign on to a computer for that instead of typing in a passcode. There were concerns about that given that many computers and all are starting to use that type of technology as their sort of sign on method. And so we have added that as an exception to this prohibition. And then we kept the the bylaw before had an annual report. We kept that book for this one. We made it by annual. So every other year to report. And we picked March 30th for the timeline of that. So every March 30th and even numbered years. And the report would be for what types of uses are being used under that exception for face log on instead of password. And then information regarding the inadvertent use of facial recognition technology. So basically the report is to report on the use under the exceptions. And then we left the enforcement section the same as it had been before. Questions. Alyssa. So always fun to be able to do brand new things, right? Things we've literally never done before, which include putting in a bylaw that a by annual report has to take place. So that it's rare that the bylaw mentions an annual report and a by annual report is even more unusual. I'm not sure why we chose that, although I appreciate the explanations we've received so far. But the other specific thing I want to say about the reporting itself because I actually do like having reports written into things is I want to be clear that at the beginning where it talks about the definition of the report, that sounds good. But down at the bottom, it says somewhere approval somewhere in here, it says that the town council approves the report. We don't approve reports. That's not a thing. Accept reports. I'm just, I don't know how we say we disapprove of this report because if you approve of a report, you're approving of the content. And if the content is, I didn't feel like writing the report. So the answer is no, or I'm writing part of the answer here, but I'm not actually giving you what somebody happens to know is actually inaccurate information. I'm just not, like I said, reporting is unusual in the bylaws to begin with. So let's be cautious with it. If you really want to go with by annual, I won't fight that, but I don't want it to say that we're not going to approve a report. Where do you see the approval? At the top of page two of even number years for council approval. You know, you could just take it out. It could just say of even numbered years. Oh, prior to even numbered years. Okay. It was at the top of page one for us. This part right here. Yeah, it could just stop where it says even numbered year. Period. Because that would mean, because your sentence already says it submitted to the town council. It's published on the town bulletin board. But if you just took out the phrase for council approval, I don't think you'd lose anything. And I think it causes confusion to create such a concept. Other comments? I'm sitting here thinking about it. I hear what you're saying, Alyssa. Accepting the report in essence would be saying, hey, yeah, this is what we wanted or no, this isn't what we wanted. Which is a form of approval. I'm not having trouble with the word approval. Well, I have trouble with the word approval. No, I understand that. I mean, I don't have trouble with you having trouble with that word. I can get rid of the word. I'm just trying to make sure that it isn't just that the report is given to the council, but the council reviews it to see if what's been happening, whether or not we have to make any changes or anything like that, I guess. Sorry, Pat. I think the third number under this covers that maybe that was one of the things I was pausing on, too, that based on the information in the report, the town council shall consider. So that's us looking at the report, the town council looking at the report and saying here's things, but it's not the actual approval of, oh, hey, the report reports good. It's using that report to make other decisions then. So I think I'd be okay with the removal of that language. I am, too. Cool, because I think that does cover it because you called that out specifically that we have to do something. We can't just say thanks and be done. So thank you, Melissa. Okay, Dorothy. I'm having trouble with this because it exists. You're using it. People are using it for to let people in and out of places, people are using it to get in out of the phones, but I am not using it. You don't like it because it's not trustworthy, but it's used. It exists. It's on equipment. It will be on new equipment. And so you're saying, okay, you have this and it says this, but it all depends upon the purpose. So it's because of the intent and the purpose part of it, that it confuses me. So if your intent or purpose is to let somebody in or out of town hall because they work there, that's a good purpose. But if your intent is to use it against somebody in the criminal case, then that's a bad purpose and you're not allowed to do it. And I guess I'm finding that kind of going against human nature. I mean, we have this in terms of wiretap laws. Did you get permission or was it under certain circumstances? And yet I know that stuff that's on the wiretap, it always comes out. It always gets used. So it's the intent part. So I'm finding it very complex and I'm wondering who has really been gone over by a lawyer who specializes in this field, because so far all I can see is that if somehow spatial recognition is used because it exists on town things, and when more people call this someone a problem, that this allows it the right to sue, but that part is kind of vague. I don't know what they get. And I think it says that nobody's going to have to pay any money. So no monetary damages shall be allowed. So I'm just, besides being a statement, a very complex statement that we don't like facial recognition technology, because I don't even know if it's in this particular version or in the last one, you talk about it not being really good enough on certain groups and it can really be used to misidentify individuals. I just see it as a really confusing, wishy-washy thing and I don't know what it gets us, or whether it just gets us into a situation where somebody says, well, it wasn't supposed to be used this way, but we have it. Somebody goes into town hall and wrecks it up. And you have some picture from some camera or some whatever, and you're saying, well, you can't use that. So what is besides saying we don't like this, how is this going to work with the business of town hall and not end up being used when somebody wants to, as opposed to being not used? Mandy Jo? Yeah. So if face surveillance technology is used against, in violation of this bylaw, the thing you were mentioning about, well, it's going to get used anyway then in a court of law, say. No, it won't, because the bylaw says you can't use it for that. That's the whole purpose of the suppression section. So even if the town is violating the bylaw by using facial recognition technology, that is not going to be able to be used in a court of law to say prosecute someone for some crime. To go back to your other concern, a closed circuit television capture, which is sort of where I think you were referring to something that, or let me use an example that wouldn't even fall under this because it would probably be used by the schools, a video camera that's at the entrance of a school building to look at an individual before they let that person in. Technically does not, in my opinion, fall under this because it's not identifying or verifying an individual based on the physical characteristics of an individual's face. So this is not prohibiting just the, you know, sort of the typical security camera use, because you're not trying to, with that security camera, say, oh, that's so and so because of, because we know that person has this dimension of their eyes or something. You know, that face recognition technology takes a video essentially of your face and marks different spots and different dimensions 3D wise on your face and then says, and then says that's so and so. You know, that's Dorothy or that's Mandy and then gets another video and says, oh, because of all of those characteristics, we know it's Mandy. And so that's what it's prohibiting. It's not prohibiting sort of that security camera that's there to be able to say, oh, that's a person that we're going to let into the school. You know, if it's there to say that's so and so because we've already captured that person and we're running the software to run it through a picture database so that before we hit that button to let that person in, we've scanned all of the photos and identified through that scan who the person at the door is. Then if that was used at Town Hall, this bylaw would prevent it, but it's not preventing that sort of typical thinking of use of, you know, a video camera to confirm that it's a person that's not holding a weapon, say. But you know, Mandy, Jill, that's that of course, then some when you have a camera system to let people in, of course it matches data somewhere. I mean, and we know that it's not that well used. I'm just, for example, my photos in my Mac do this thing on their own. They put faces and there's a lot of weird mistakes in there and they try to and I don't ask it to do this. It just does it. Okay. That's part of this technology. It puts people in groups that said this is all this person or that person. And then if you want to identify people in a group picture, it actually puts names there and, you know, a third of the time they're wrong. So I'm just saying the fact and the thing, the story you told of, why would you have photo to let you into a building unless it checked against the pictures of those people who are authorized to get into the building? What is the point of having a photo recognition? You should have a code instead or a key, you know, the old fashioned thing. So I'm just saying it's here and it's and it's very complex and I don't think this is going to accomplish what you want it to accomplish. What is it you think we're trying to accomplish, Dorothy? You're muted, Dorothy. You're trying to say it can't be used to do that, but it is being used to do that. And a lot of things that the town uses use it right now. It doesn't suppress that usage. It is using facial recognition technology in law enforcement and and say identifying someone and saying, yes, they're the perpetrator of this this action. It's if you so I don't think we're saying that you can't use your phone and your facial recognition on your phone. But we are saying that if you do that, it's not going to be used in a criminal procedure proceeding to explain clear, you know, Pat's exactly right. We are attempt this bylaw would prohibit the use of facial recognition systems and softwares to identify essentially to take a picture of someone or take a say, say a camera caught a person walking into town hall and they believe that person, you know, tore up town hall. And this bylaw, if passed, would prevent the police officers from taking that picture that they caught and running it through a database of 10,000 photos and trying to get a name match through that it would prevent them from doing that. What it does not prevent because of the exception we added because there was a lot of concern, this one I just highlighted down here is the use of someone to use that same technology to sign on to a computer. Like I do with my phone, it doesn't prevent that you you readily admit from what I've heard that that this technology is not good at misidentifies people regularly. And that's the reason we want to prohibit it because we believe that that's the reason it's here is because it does not work properly. Oh, so I understand that. But has this gone before a criminal lawyer? We met with Bill Newman. I don't think it'll work is what I'm saying. So we have met with Bill Newman from the ACLU of Massachusetts. It is based on many other towns in cities in Massachusetts's bylaws for this. In fact, the towns that have put this ban into place include Northampton and Eastampton, Springfield, Somerville, Boston, Cambridge to name. I don't know whether that's you know, a complete listing. But yeah, so it is this basic legal law is in place in at least six other towns in the Commonwealth. Go ahead, Doug. I'm sorry. Evan's been waiting to speak for quite a while now. Evan? Yeah, so first I want to thank the sponsors for being so receptive to the committee's request that we divide the bylaw. I think this is a much more digestible bylaw and it's certainly something that I'm in support of for the reasons that you listed with regard to the problems that come with facial recognition. I had just two questions. So you just meant you just cited a number of communities that have those. And so anytime we're passing something that another community has, I like to look at what they pass to see are similar. And so I picked up Cambridge's, which is very similar. I'm assuming is possibly a model of what and the one of the differences I saw and I'm just curious if this matters. Both of my questions, I'm you're perfectly willing. You can send me your overthinking this, Evan. But I noticed that Cambridge's says unlawful to obtain, retain, request, access or use. And we have request, access or use, but not the obtain, retain. And I guess I was wondering, does that matter? Does the absence of those two words allow things, you know, to, you know, the retention? Like if, because and I guess, and here's, here's I guess the thought behind this is you have that it's an exemption of if they get it incidentally, right, or accidentally. But then if they get it accidentally, could they lawfully retain it? I guess, because that retain is not there. I guess I'm just, and I don't want to get nitpicky and you can tell me that I'm overthinking this. But that was a difference I noticed and I wondered if it mattered. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. That is actually one of the removals we did in response to staff concern. We had a lot of concern from the IT department that all of the software is already in a bunch of stuff and that they would have a hard time obtaining software for, say, our computers that we're using now, because it's built into the device and they can't buy it without the software being built in. So we removed the obtain and retain so that that concern of IT staff that they wouldn't be able to purchase things because it's now sort of a standard type of software from the prohibition so that they, you know, so that they can purchase a computer or a phone that has the standardized software in it, but then it just can't be used. That was the obtain. I think we thought retain might be similar to that, Pat. I can't remember. We would probably be willing to add retain back in if there is a concern that the inadvertent obtaining of it should be then immediately deleted. Okay. Thanks. I would have assumed that their concern would have been obviated by B2B, but you're saying even with that exemption, they still felt as though it was a problem. Okay, interesting. Well, that exemption allows for the use of it. We're just sort of covering our bases, I guess, is what we would say. And the second thing, and again, I'm very likely just overthinking this, but I was reading the suppression, which to me is sort of like the most, well, the second most important, the most important part is the ban, but maybe the second most important part is the suppression if the ban is violated. And I guess I'm just curious, so no data collected or derived from any use of face surveillance or face surveillance system in violation of this bylaw. So I guess I'm curious, because the inadvertent or accidental acquisition is technically exempted and therefore not in violation, if someone in town staff gets accidentally sent data that was derived from facial recognition, would this bylaw still suppress the use of that in any type of proceeding, even though it wasn't technically in violation of the bylaw? It may not. That is a good catch that I think both Pat and I would like to probably get rid of. And that language just mirrors Cambridge. It mirrors Cambridges. Yeah, they have, I guess that was my curious, if someone, if it's town staff member, a police officer accidentally obtained information that was used in facial recognition, could they say, well, it was accidental, so it wasn't a violation of the bylaw. So we're still going to use it. It doesn't have to be suppressed is I guess my question. Right, it should be suppressed. And I thought originally we had something in there about accidental receipt of, but... I just went to that one. We have that they can't request it, did not request or solicit any of that, and that they log it in the by-annual. But it doesn't necessarily say that they can't, if they accidentally receive it, that they can't then use it. And my assumption or my personal belief is they shouldn't be able to use it, even if they get it accidentally. You're absolutely right. So I think deleting that five word phrase would take care of that issue. Those are my two questions. Thank you. So I have a quick question, and that is, our body cams that our police have, they do not include facial recognition, is that correct? Our police department doesn't have body cameras. They have dashboard cameras in their cars. Those are different things. And they don't have it, do they? I do not know whether they are capable, or whether they... So the camera itself, I don't know whether has the software installed to do facial recognition at point of time. And I do not know whether the town itself could send that off then to run it through a database. I believe last week, or last meeting, that this was talked about the chief, I think he indicated that he had no intention at this point in time of acquiring something like that because of its issues with identification. I think that was his comment. So even if it has the capability, my understanding is it's not being used right now. Okay. I just would like to make a comment that I did some research on this, and I just feel like there's a long list of reasons why this is a good idea, and it's very future-focused. I appreciate the sponsors bringing it forward because it's very future-faced. And there's a lot of worries and things going on with people's privacy being invaded. And so I agree that a big reason is because of the way it can be used in a discriminatory manner. But I think that there are also a whole long list of other privacy concerns that are equally important. So I also see George has a comment. Yeah. We got our power back, magically. Just a question, and I'm sure just my lack of knowledge of these sorts of things is the issue. But under enforcement, I think the numbers are right in my copy. Number two, violation. Yes. The last sentence. No monetary damages shall be allowed in any legal proceeding for any alleged injuries arising out of any alleged violations of this bylaw. I guess I just don't understand that. It sounds like where the town and its bylaw is sort of instructing a court as to what can or cannot be done. I just don't understand this. So if you could just clarify how the bylaw can state that there cannot be monetary damages in a legal proceeding. What does that mean, I guess? It means that they can't sue for dollar for their injury. If someone's rights are violated under this, or if the town violates the bylaw and surveils someone, and that person say, you know, that picture that I was talking about before is run through a face recognition technology and the cops arrest a person that was identified for it. Whether that person was the right person or not, whether it was misidentified or not, the suit that can be brought for violation of this bylaw is a suit essentially for suppression or injunctive relief. It is not a suit for monetary damages. And we can do that. We can say that. So I can't, if my rights have been violated, this bylaw doesn't allow me to sue for monetary damages. I just, yeah. Okay. I mean, we'll run this by the lawyers there, but that the person who was identified using that software would not be able to get, I mean, it seems like suing is what I'd want to do. And I'd want monetary damages for this infringement of my rights. So, but this says I can't do it. That's basically as I understand it. And I don't see how you can do that, but that might be perfectly fine. So maybe it's a question for a KP law. I don't know. It just allows for injunctive and declaratory relief. That's the categories of relief that are listed. Um, any other... Oh, dear. Oh, dear. We had Bill Newman from the ACLU look over this, and he did not look at that and say that's not possible. And he looked at it fairly carefully, but that is something that we would want to check. I don't know how much of that answer you guys heard. I got kicked out halfway through. No. It was like, I'm talking and everyone's frozen. So yeah. So George, you're right. Since I don't know how much you heard, I'll repeat it again. The bylaw essentially prohibits monetary damages. So if a person is video is captured and then the police say run it through a system and then charge someone, not only can that evidence not be used for the criminal matter, but if that person would choose to sue the town for violation of the bylaw, the relief granted under the bylaw is not money to the person who sues. It is things like you have to stop using the software and the injunctive relief and declaratory relief that yes, they violated the bylaw, but not where the town has to pay you money. And it's my understanding that that type of prohibition is allowed to be written into things like this. It is in Cambridge as it is in many others. And it's in some sense it's not unusual to be written into bylaws is my understanding. Mandy, I just said that Bill Newman looked at this and had gone through it fairly carefully and had not come up and said, oh no, you can't do that. You can sue for money. Okay, Dorothy. So I can understand that people say that, but you know, we can't, it's like there's lots of things in the law where that something is stated like that because that's what you hope, but somebody can or possibly can or will sue using some other law against it because otherwise we'd write down you can't sue me for this, you can't sue me for that. And sometimes we say, oh yes, I can if I feel like it. I will vote for this because I understand the impulse behind it, but what exists exists. Think of those things in property, police property rooms that sat there for 20 years and then DNA science got better and it got things pulled out and got used and some of the many of these things are being used in the innocence project. So many of the uses are in fact good and not evil, but I think the horses out of the barn and I see this as a symbolic step to try to stop things from moving in the direction they're moving. And I think they're moving truthfully in a dangerous direction in terms of privacy. So I will support it, but I I believe it's it's like a house of straw, but it's what we've got. So Alessa. I was just going to add that you've all done a lot of educating of all of us already as this has gone through the steps. But when it's ready to go to town council, maybe our TSO report could mention amongst the various things that we've just mentioned, that it would be super helpful to have another FAQ specifically on those two items, one about the monetary damages that's just like buy, you know, because that's the standard what exactly we just talked about. So it doesn't seem like you're having to explain it after the fact. And the other is since obviously not all town counselors are aware that we don't have body cameras and use right now, that should be specifically mentioned. We don't have body cameras. We do have dash cams. And then that specific question as to whether or not the dash cams have that software and you referenced that earlier, Mandy, in terms of the chief's answer. And obviously things could change over time as per the rest of the bylaw to come back to us. But in terms of this particular part at this particular moment, I think people are going to make assumptions about what we have now, if you don't address it right up front. So thank you for continuing to educate everybody on that. Yeah, George, did you have something else? Yeah, just I don't know if I'm channeling Andy here. Maybe I shouldn't pick on him. But I guess I get I'm getting nervous with the way we're creating bylaws to deal with future problems. How would this be different? What if we were to instruct the town manager that we don't want any department doing this? So not using a bylaw but simply communicating to the town manager that we want some kind of memo or whatever, just some kind of instruction from the executive that this kind of use is not to be permitted in the town of Amherst. Why is a bylaw the way to address this rather than an instruction from the town council? Because I'm struggling with that just a bit. I wouldn't have any problem with that. But bylaws raise all kinds of issues and complexities. And it seems, well, maybe that's just the way we have to go because somebody helped me understand why this is preferable to an instruction to the town manager that we don't want this to be used in Amherst and we would spell out what we're talking about. An instruction can be ignored. And if this technology is incredibly inaccurate and people have spent time in jail in prison because of this technology, I think that it, since the state has not passed any kind of facial recognition ban, it's up to municipalities to lead on this issue. And I understand that it seems like the future, but the future kind of is now, who said that? Timothy, maybe, but it really seems to me that we are stating a position and demanding not only that the town manager follow this bylaw, but that the police department, that all public officials follow this because of the danger of inaccuracy and particularly because it impacts the BIPOC community, the Asian community. It impacts women of color and women more than it does. It's only 100% accurate with white men. That's the truth of the technology. Technology will change. Now, and I think the objection is to the use of the technology at all. And that I understand. But if it's just the other argument, then eventually the technology will improve. So this is not really about technology. It's about a use of technology that threatens people's privacy. Right. It does threaten people's privacy. But you asked why we don't just tell the town manager what to do? Because he has an independent streak. No. I mean, I think quite literally, we are saying this is technology that the town of Amherst will not use even if it gets better. I mean, there are exigent circumstances, if there are, perhaps that's in the other bylaw. I'm more confused than ever. If the police came to us, meaning the town council, and said, these are the reasons why we need this. It could be, the usage could be reconsidered. But I don't know, Mandy, you can probably do a better job of this. I mean, my answer would be town managers change. Bylaws are enforceable. Memos of agreement are not. And so if this is important enough to the council, it should be in a bylaw, not in a memo of agreement. Alyssa, do you have something else? Yes, I can't emphasize that enough what Van Dijo and Pat just said. I've worked with six different town managers. We've never done orders in this town. Hey, Aaron's here now. He could vouch for that. We've never done orders in this town except for these new financial orders since we're under the new form of government. Memos fade from memory as well as from even being able to find them literally. So this, given the importance of this issue, I absolutely agree that this belongs in a bylaw. Let's also remember that when it comes to evaluation, for example, George, something you're very familiar with with GOL, we all have different senses of priority as to how important the various things are that we agreed as a town council where the town manager's performance goals. And this is not something I want to be subject to a performance goal as to whether or not this happens. I want this to be the law of the community is this until, of course, technology changes and we need to update it. Any other comments? I think we may be ready for a motion. It sounds to me like we are. And yeah, I guess I'm just curious. During this meeting, Mandy edited the bylaw. I'm assuming those edits are things that both Pat and Mandy are agree. And so if we do make a motion, we're making a motion on the amended version. Okay, that's just need that clarification. I'm good to go. Anyone like to make that motion? I would be glad to. But if anybody else wants to. I move that we approve the face recognition technology. We recommend to we move that we recommend to the town council that they approve the face recognition technology bylaw as amended. Does that sound correct? I would just swap out approve with adopt because I think we adopt bylaws, right? Adopt. Okay. And I know I'm not a member of the committee, but the title of the bylaw is prohibition on the municipal use of face recognition technology. Okay. I can second that. Okay. Discussion. I see hands. Are they current hands? Alyssa? George? Okay. No, current hands. All right. All those in favor, Alyssa? Yes. Yes. Darcy? Yes. Dorothy? Yes. Evan? Yes. George? Yes. Okay. Unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you. So now we move on to GL. Yes. And will it go to KP law? At that point, it will go to KP law. I assume George, you're the chair. It's going to KP law. Oh, and it will not open up your heart and your mind to other lawyers as well. They work for us, Pat. I think this is really something that I really have to make a statement. They work for us. They represent the town of Amherst and its interests. The ACLU and the other lawyers that have come before us, their contributions are welcome. But they do not work for us. And that doesn't mean that we accept what they say. And we have in the past, I know there's a case where Evan raised it, very good objection to something they wrote that we simply couldn't understand. So I have no problem with going back to them and asking for clarification. I have no problem with disagreeing with them. But I really am getting a little tired of viewing them as just another bunch of lawyers that happen to be out there. They are our attorneys and they look out for the interests of the town of Amherst. And so I take what they say very seriously. That doesn't mean I will agree with them, but they definitely will see it and hopefully they will do a good job. We've had another problem with them as we know, but when they do do what they're supposed to do, I think it's important that we all take it seriously and we read it and think about it, which I know we do. I do take it seriously. And in meetings with them, I have taken it seriously, but we really need to look at the quality of their work long-term and separate from whatever I'm sponsoring or not sponsoring. I think we can move on now. We'll fight later, George. Thank you all. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. So our next piece is presentation and discussion items of which we have one. Our next agenda item is a presentation from the chair of the transportation advisory committee, Erin Hayden, the committee, the TAC committee met last week for the first time since before the pandemic. And I'm the liaison from the town council to the committee and also I'm the liaison from the ECAC to the TAC. And in the packet is the TAC charge and materials that Alyssa gathered regarding background of TAC. And I was going to read the charge, but then I looked again at it and it's really long. It's got multiple, multiple bullets of what is charged with doing, including, you know, Alyssa noted that at the end it includes that it shall take the place of the functions of the public works committee, the public transportation, bicycle and pedestrian committee, and the downtown parking working group once the working group has completed its initial phases of work. That was an earlier iteration of the downtown parking working group. So it might have been unnecessary to have this on the agenda, but hopefully it'll still be helpful. The reason I put it on this agenda was I put it on for our future agenda before TAC decided to have its first meeting. So now that it has sort of decided to get started meeting again and the members decided to meet every couple of weeks, I'm not completely sure why we're hearing from TAC today, but I like I said, I hope that it still will be helpful because there are a lot of ways in which our charge is kind of overlaps what TAC does. So and I'm hoping that one of the things that Erin will cover in his remarks is the value of resident involvement and input to the town manager and to the town council and so I welcome Erin Hayden and he's going to be giving us a presentation on TAC. Yeah, well thank you all for inviting me and taking time and it's clearly a very busy agenda. I'm impressed. So there are two questions I guess that you're asking. One is why are we worried about, why are we coming to you, why are we worried about meeting and I guess it's because I was a little worried that we didn't have anybody to give advice to and our principal job is to advise. I'm going to set that aside and try to boil the charge down into what we felt we feel are its most important elements. Principally what's most important about it to us is that it establishes us as our primary purpose is to be an effective communication, effectively communicate transportation issues, wishes, concerns with whomever and the whomever is public work to town manager and town council of course. What's important about the very brief history that Tarsy mentions about being pushed together from three different committees is that, well for me anyway, is that every one of the 50 some odd committees that have been created in the town of Amherst and were in place two years ago each one of them came into an existence because there was a community concern, a community issue that we wanted or was desired that there was some group that had a task to deal with that, to understand that issue and help you know town meeting in the select board in those days understand and you know do good work with that and that's kind of you know we take that responsibility we understand that responsibility we take it very seriously so the importance and I'm kind of I'm glad that that that Tarsy asked the question specifically why you know how how are the communications important why is it important to come in with the community I hadn't imagined well I hardly need to tell you as counselors why communication is important in the case of transportation though it's it may be a little bit different in that transportation affects all of us every day somehow or other either we're driving or we're trying to cross the street you know we're all affected by it we all interact with it it just we're handicapped and we're trying to walk on a sidewalk these are all transportation issues that we have every day and in the old days anyway I'm sure this hasn't changed much there was a flood of requests that would come into public works the town manager's office the select board for all kinds of things related to transportation among everything else of course but in transportation specifically now and there was always nor there was often a you know sort of difficulty in answering the question well how do we establish the communication with this because the answers um you know really fall into a couple of different groups and and you know if the if the communication comes to the group that doesn't have that answer you know if the if the select board got the request to repair a pothole select boards don't repair potholes but what works does so part of what we understand and take you know as our principal charge is being communicated to a sort of understanding what the requests are and I use the word requests because I'm not smart enough to think of a better word but the requests that come in and we want to we try to categorize and try to put them into one of five different types and I'm going to have to look them up because you know they kind of always they're changing a little bit but many requests that come to the town and I'll use that word broadly are for enforcement or maintenance you know hey I saw somebody speeding I need uh I saw someone to run through that intersection I want there's a pothole that the stripes are not painted and there's certainly one way to handle those there are also requests that involve policies hey you know we'd like the speed limit all over town to be 25 miles an hour there are requests for planning you know let's let us establish safe routes to school so that we can have parents be comfortable with allowing their children to get to school without having to be driven so anytime you know you that's getting back to the communication anytime you get a kind of one of those requests there's a different level of communication that one needs to enter into to be effective in answering that request like I say in the case of enforcement or maintenance you know the police department public works there people who have to know about that and take care of it if it's a matter of planning you know improving an intersection there's a little more involved we have to engage the community with the the neighborhood specifically who's most effective the sort of most important stakeholder in an intersection we want to engage them directly in a manner that's effective for them to communicate to us and then through us to the town council there's an example of that when we were considering the planning around the south Amherst intersection around the south around the common you know we had a couple of public meetings where we sat with the people who live there the people who drive through there and we also established kind of it's amazing how the word gets out and we began to get all kinds of of correspondence from people who also use that intersection but don't live there so if it when it comes to policy for instance there is a little more there's there's the outreach to the community is different but the level of research that needs to be communicated to the town council is much higher you know there's there's pouring through regulations and it's it's it's amazing how curious how regulations around transportation change so frequently I mean what is an acceptable design for crosswalk changed you know twice last year and you know our the guidelines that we're offering you to sort of consider as being what guides how crosswalks are installed in town had to be modified also for policy when the policy involves state regulations like the the complete streets policy which which you adopted almost a year ago now there was a different level of of dealing with stakeholders and getting examples from different parts of the country so the importance of communication to answer the question directly is that nothing is simple in transportation it's you know issues that are seem to be very specific to this one place when you pay attention and have heard that geez you know there was a similar concern a block away at the same intersection and then to realize that the issue is not that intersection but that piece of road or you know the issue is not that bicycle but you know that there is not infrastructure to support bicycles so really what I'm hopeful to to get tonight I guess is an affirmation that that this form of communication which has been established is one and it's not in conflict with the tax that that you have set for yourself the TSO rather I see it as complementary in you know I don't know how to describe it so much as saying that you know we're happy to be the the people who organize the charrette over this design or have that open meeting or do the research so that the the the regulations are understood and can be presented we're also happy to to organize the work to you know figure out and we're in the middle for instance of putting together the our vision and what we hope would become the plan for pedestrian for improving and maintaining and building the pedestrian the bicycle networking in around town one of the things that we noticed is that the road forms in town which we think of primarily as transportation um many of them were established in the early 18th century that are still with us today the last big improvement to the road big big change in the road form happened almost 50 years ago we've not moved away from let's build it so cars can go through here more rapidly and that's not how we use our streets anymore we want people to stop and you know shop we want people we just want to move them through you know we want the streets to support transit this is another function that that another communication that that we would offer which is to keep tabs on how transportation is going when the b-49 was going to be taken away from the center of town you know this was an issue that we needed to communicate and get on top of fortunately it's still coming downtown so we will continue to have direct bus service between northampton downtown and amherst downtown things that that we have missed in the last six months since since we've been in hiatus during our pandemic has for instance has been the the final draft of the changes to northampton road between the intersection at pleasant street and university drive the 100 percent drawings were not quite approved the drafter they're being sent around and you know just by because i'm nosy you know i find out that in fact all of the recommendations that we made that the town asked for that went into that were in fact implemented um jason has one small thing that he wants to change i i hope he can do that but otherwise so the work is continuing and and we've we felt a little bit on the side you know because well we haven't we haven't had the regular communication with you all um and we we see you know things happening that are kind of leaving us out and we're we're anxious it's it's um i want to i guess remind everybody of how how great this this this committee is they're they're very energetic they put a lot of time and effort into it um one of our big efforts in organizing the communication is to build the sort of a decision tree so we can we can you know when we're trying to prioritize work what do we want to go to first and what i have second you know we'd like to have an objective tool for that well you know three of our members meet in between our annual our semi monthly meetings to do that work and they've gathered together a lot of they have a subcommittee they've gathered together a lot of resources they're doing a lot of work to do that um so i do want to advertise um their willingness and their energies and i'm going to stop now and answer questions thank you very much air and that was that was very helpful um so i am not completely sure what we're going to be asking questions about but um i you know open it up in general elissa has had her hand up for a while if that's current and i would not along thank you so much erin um and i'm glad we went ahead and did this because it might feel a little bit like we're picking on tack but tack is just one of the many committees that we have in the town of bamers that doesn't have a requirement to exist under mass general law like say a conservation commission or by town by law say the human rights commission or by town meeting action or really any reason at all so i find it a little strange when before erin spoke darcy when you referenced like well they just want to meet because they want to well so what they get appointed to do a certain job they don't just get to keep meeting because they want to because they had before this particular form of government took place a committee that exists doesn't just get to exist because it wants to exist it's supposed to exist because it's supposed to be fulfilling a charge and so we kept referencing tack at both town council and at tsl and then we're like well i guess we shouldn't be talking about them unless we talk with them wouldn't that be great so i'm really glad that we're doing that i appreciate darcy that you've been a liaison to tack but as they indicated they haven't met so there was no official liaison time for that to happen and when we talk about communication between the bodies there's been almost none partly because the pandemic obviously for the last part of time but before that it's because there was not a structure for communication between the tack the town manager and the select board then the tack the town manager and town council aside from the individual projects like complete streets which was great i mean it's they're doing terrific work we just need to understand how we can all work effectively together so they feel like they're getting done the things that excited them to be on the committee in the first place that the town manager is getting the advice he feels like he needs from different places and that tso and town council feel like we're getting the advice we need and again not picking on tack and although tack is really special as erin said from the stamp from many standpoints but partly because of it does affect everything everybody right whether you ride a bus you walk on the sidewalk whatever it really does affect everyone and so if we don't have some way of figuring out how we can effectively use their resources and time to help tso make appropriate recommendations to the town council or for the town manager to maybe talk to them before he brings something to the town council that he's been tossing around based on his department head meetings if we don't have that kind of communication then they're kind of just being treated as an afterthought and we don't want to do that we don't want to like start a whole process and then say oh yeah transportation we have a committee for that don't we and so we want to make sure that it's integrated in some fashion because if it's not going to be integrated then what's the point of it i mean it needs to be advising somebody and it's not advising anybody right now not just because of the pandemic but because of the way it was you know the transition and the fact that there was not a strong communication path way back in the past either so having that is really important and one of the things that i think we you know i'm really glad that erin was able to come and i believe tracy's here too and i really appreciated that tracy came last time is just trying to figure out how to use all this energy effectively together so that they don't feel per se used as our research arm but effectively used and as our research arm because we've talked about how you know we don't have any expertise on the town council in these areas i mean sorry but aside from me and andy you guys don't know anything about the public way you know zero so tac knows a lot about this because they've been doing it a lot of different ways coming at it from a lot of different approaches so i would love to hear their opinion on more things and we just i think we just need to figure out when to make that happen the other thing i just want to refer back to on the charge itself because you all know that i so stupidly volunteered to help work on the charges is that you can't necessarily one-to-one sub some things here in terms of advice but the one thing that's really missing from the tac situation that is something that is not their fault it has existed since time began to the best of my knowledge maybe we'll find a select board member who's 87 years old who remembers it differently but is that no one has ever fulfilled bullet point two in the tac charge which is to establish and periodically update a work program that tracks all these things that Aaron so carefully described in terms of how stuff just constantly comes in right somebody calls the town manager somebody calls public works somebody calls the town engineer because they know somebody calls the town counselor i want to stop sign i want a speed limit there's zero process for managing that there never has been in the 20 years i've been involved in town government so understanding from tac what they think would be helpful that way and then maybe some input from counselors who've already been getting requests like that as to how that would work i think could be in there could be some incredible synergy here between tac and tso and then eventually the town council to actually implement the things tac wants because tac can't really do much of anything in the end without having town council support or the town manager's support and so we want to make sure that they're going to get to the end their end goals but we also i think want to make clear that we have a place for people to go with those concerns because otherwise people are again going to start coming to town council saying i want to stop sign and we don't know what we're going to do with that thank you alissa did you want to respond to that at all erin or um uh very briefly uh which is to say yes thank you for for making all of that clear and also um i'd like to offer that uh we can say no um to requests and uh sometimes that maybe the most helpful thing to do um george two things um one is just a request that you consider um revising your charge in light of the change in government and i don't know if that's something that you and your committee would would be willing to do but i think it would be helpful um the second is just i want to be clear in my own mind what documents are out there that um that you use and that you've created related to transportation and so i'm trying to make a list i wonder if you could just help me with um what i might be missing so um the embers master plan obviously is one important document there's a transportation plan that was created in 2015 and i believe that that has not been revised or amended in any way so that's a second document there's a bike and pedestrian plan that is about to be presented to us or to the community uh a ballot is an interesting term but yes we're close to finish yet okay but that would be a third document there's the complete streets that's that is a document correct that's something that i'm just trying to look it up now but the complete streets is is is the fourth um is that right that's right okay and um the last that i remember vaguely from when i was i would come by occasionally and enjoyed them very much sitting in on tech meetings and just listening but um i did get the sense that you were working on a list of priorities um somewhat like what elissa was referring to or was that something completely different i this is my bad memory but i i thought there was a related to the subcommittee perhaps that you described earlier and that they are trying to also bring about some kind of of document that would be a kind of prior toward prioritizing of transportation matters is that is that right or is that i've got that completely confused no no you've got that completely correct the um the idea is sort of you know among the tasks that that we're organizing um are you know capital projects and and larger things and um we are trying to come up with a mechanism a process um for objectively evaluating what is the value of this project over that project how can we offer advice on the reason we're going to pick this as opposed to that so that that is a document that is being worked on and and um so yes you're exactly right on that and that that would be an internal document essentially something that you would create for the committee to use in their own work yes and um we would clearly offer it to the town council saying this is how we're working in bringing something forward to you um sort of part of the communication it's a dialogue it's understand that those are so one of the things that we learned when we were putting this document together is that what the town what the community values what's important the community is changes over time and so so we realized that we had left out of this document the whole thing about uh of you know justice sort of you know racial justice in evaluating things so it turns out you know that's important to us and it's something that can be evaluated and and ought to be out front um so we would want you to look at that do you that the council the people who would be taking decisions based on it we're offering advice on the decision that we might recommend but we would want to get you know have it not as a completely secret internal document but one that would be shared and I take it that that's an exhaustive list or can you add anything else to that that that I should that we should be aware of that helps guide your work and what you use when you're you're doing your work those five I've got a list of five things now five documents oh oh okay which list the list of the uh the prioritization or so the document that basically define um the domain that you work in so the master plan transportation plan of 2015 the soon to be hopefully delivered bike and pedestrian plan um complete streets document and this document that your subcommittee is working on which is prioritizing um how to evaluate projects we also have a very small document which is our intake form which is our attempt at you know sort of the very beginning of dialogue with the community at organizing you know which you know what we're going to do what and so everybody can understand what the process might be that's going to be followed um we also have the um the the regulations about what you can do with the streets you know you know all oh man it's it's that that's the one that keeps changing every once in a while we're uh describing you know corners and speed limits and signs and traffic intersect how all of that's kind of stuff that's a state document that's a state regulation that um is in our world um we also have uh the sidewalk the um the crosswalk guidelines that we uh put together where we describe sort of minimum requirements for how crosswalks work um similarly work where we would want to put together one for how sidewalks work so sort of again guideline you know we're not going to build or repair sidewalk um to an inferior or an unuseful in an unusual way and the guideline will help us understand what help us communicate what that way ought to be um also um I mean they're going to be as as we tackle different types of issues over time and understand better what has to be communicating that dialogue back and forth I'm sure there're going to be other guidelines and processes that we will end up promulgating um the the um the pedestrian the bicycle and pedestrian plan that we're working on um actually we were able to take advantage of some resources that were available from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to be able to now we've always wanted to do that it's very important work that we've had but we were able to take advantage of that opportunity to get a lot of work done um and the step that's left just by the way on that is um to complete the maps which we um want to do uh maybe take a draft within the uh the committee itself but we have a sense that there wants to be some a larger community I mean you remember george I think when we put all the stuff on the table we were marking with pens we think that we'd like to do this something like that one more time just to get to connect all of those red lines that we began to develop so um not very many documents but they're quite engaging it's like quite a few um I come up with nine are you um uh in need of a few additional members to the committee are you down are you down a couple um um I believe that I believe we're down one seat um I believe I have to double check that yes there's only vacancy hi gilford thank you um yeah I as as we're talking here it's actually I felt like it is kind of exciting because one of the things that you know one of the problems that this committee has had is just like capacity to put in the kind of work that we need to do on some of the larger issues the larger town white issues um and you know the the possibility of our farming out some of our work to tack or to at least ask tack to come to us with a recommendation about something like for example you mentioned the um the town wide speed limit change possibility you know that's that's that's on our list and that's on your list um so that would be something where it's a big chunk of work to do the background work necessary to look you know to look at best practices uh or to look at what other towns are doing which ones have adopted a lower speed limit etc but that would be in my mind wonderful to be able to to go to tack and say could you come up with a recommendation about this or could you do the background work on this and come back to us um with a recommendation or at least a report um yes exactly we'd love to do that the maybe the only thing that we were anxious not to take up is parking downtown but otherwise absolutely I may have missed something but I have a few questions here um I don't understand who gives you your tasks I don't understand who you report to uh or your relationship to public works in the town council and um that's something I know that we had mentioned that we weren't quite sure about them um I'm just having because some of the stuff you do it sounds like you're a town department but I know you're not so I don't know who you are who or what your authority is um and that's really what it is and then some some and I can see great um you know knowledge and depth but I think that we need to figure out how that goes how the what the power relationship is and when we do something because of course I mean I was interested in what you said about um guidelines on crosswalks I thought well I don't think a citizen committee creates those guidelines doesn't uh Guilford um have access to the general rules on crosswalks and thought a citizen committee might make a suggestion but I mean doesn't Guilford have to say what it is because I mean you know George and I are we are being besieged with crosswalk issues so crosswalks is something that we're thinking about but I don't quite know how we and you and Guilford work together on this well that's that that that's actually that's kind of at the heart of our discussion tonight um the what what I would offer is that um we we're happy to be the wide end of the funnel to get together the data the community interest community uh concerns and ideas and you know do whatever it is to come up with um sound advice that we would imagine could would be acceptable to offer to and and this is probably with the heart of your question is who who are we offering it to and what what is it we're offering but to the town council if there's an issue where they have to figure out something about modifications to the town way or something you have to do with the town the public way that's you know there's no power in the TAC we have no power over that at all but we do have before it comes to the town I mean when we think the process of work which we are inventing as we go along is that we come up with an idea and then we do some consultation with the town um was in responsible for putting these things into action and then we argue amongst ourselves and hopefully come together with a an understanding and then the town does the work and carries it out but am I right on that no that's quite right and we I'm not interested in getting in the way of the argument I am interested in um our the resource of the TAC engaging with the communication to you so that when you're making that argument you have some basis in whatever it is in state regulation is it um the result of a survey of a town meeting some work that was done to to to understand and clarify you know the issues and the the aspects of the issue um so that's one so that our you know advice would be to you as stars you suggested hey we have a question about speed limits in town how do we think about this well we can do the work we can do whatever it is and offer you at least the the seed for the discussion that you'll have amongst yourself um also I see our as you read the charge and it's kind of a kitchen kitchen sink charge everything is in there um there is advice that we offer to public works um you know gilford has how do I decide what to do first okay um this was an important question and we're trying to answer a way of answering that one in a way that um you in your direction of the public works could would find is acceptable you could change your mind I mean it's okay to reorder things that we're going to suggest but at least we want to offer the mechanism for giving a sound an objective decision um and then um you know there's there's going to be uh advice you know we have been pecking away at um wondering wondering what a policy for shared um bicycles would be what is a what happens when you know lime shows up with you know 2 000 scooters the way they have in some places you know will we want to think about that well maybe this is kind of in the future we've got that we've thought about it we've got some stuff and if there comes a question we can answer that so um there there's no no idea that there's a power that we are assuming but there is an idea that we are a conduit a way of communicating a way of collating ideas have been communicated from the community to you to the town manager to public works thank you I'm just doing a time check here it's 8 15 um I don't talk long I know this this has been great um I think that generally speaking I think it's just valuable to have this conversation with the transportation advisory committee just so that we can think about how we're going to work together I don't necessarily think that we need to be taking any particular action but I would kind of like to wrap up the discussion for this meeting because we just have to talk about our future agenda items does anybody else have any final thoughts I see some hands Paul wants to say something and I do say I want to I would really like to hear from Guilford and Paul okay let's hear from them I do recognize Alyssa had her hand up first I'm not sure if that matters Alyssa would you like to speak first I would only because then it won't sound as much like I'm criticizing Guilford hi Guilford so um to reiterate what Aaron and Dorothy just said TAC has no power it is zero power except the power that the town manager gives them by appointing them and by not revoking their appointments and by rewriting their charge or not rewriting their charge and that the town council gives weight to their things to say so that's why we're saying let's make this an effective team effort here because we have all this potential work that they could do and that they are doing and so they are not a town department they don't decide anything unless somebody decides it's okay for them to decide to give their opinion on something and the reason I said I'd go ahead and talk ahead is that again I don't want to upset your worldview here Dorothy but the reality is that Guilford's not the be all end all of how a crosswalk's designed or placed or not placed yes there are all kinds of rules all kinds of rules absolutely but there are always options he may tell you that what you're pursuing is a terrible idea but that doesn't mean it's illegal he's had those conversations with the select board in the past and sometimes we've agreed with them and sometimes we haven't and I imagine the town council will do the same just as I imagine the tack probably has a couple of those points where they rub up against what the community thinks they want and what the state thinks is ideal so that's why it's great to have a body like the tack right because the TSO would never have time to do all of this to learn all these amazing types of things and then if tack can do that and feels like we're not just dumping on them as a TSO but is open to this idea of communication and the final part I just want to say about that is I'm a little concerned when I hear about the idea of tack going out to the community to have some bigger public meetings without having discussed that with the council ahead of time and I'm not telling you to ask permission Paul knows I have this conversation with them all the time you're not asking permission you're just asking for help because if you come to us and say we're going to have some public meetings about this really cool set of maps that we drew that's based on this that and the other thing then we can all say awesome we're going to put that in our newsletters we're going to discuss that at our district meetings and we're going to twist all the arms we can to show up at that thing otherwise what's going to happen is you're going to go off and have those meetings as a tack the town council generally won't even know they existed most of the community won't know they existed then you'll bring the proposal to the town council to the TSO or the town council and they'll say okay well what kind of outreach did you do and they'll say well I didn't know anything about that outreach and then it's like I'll icky we've been down that road before so again it's not permission it's just finding ways to work together and communicate I think there's a huge amount of potential here where we could help you and you could help us so thanks you Paul I'll try to be brief I know it's getting late so I think it's we're in a new world I think it's important for the council to think what do we need pretend the count the tack doesn't exist what would you want as a service to the council to make decisions about things that's under your jurisdiction which is the public way and what I don't want to get into is that you have a body that goes through a whole process that involves the community and then the council goes through the exact same thing again it frustrates people they feel like didn't we just go through this so the council is saying we are going to delegate our authority to another entity either by bylaw or some other mechanism then do that like you'd like the license commission or something like that or if you're going to hold on to it and you then designate a you know this committee or some other committee of the council then you you should do it because I think what has happened is people find themselves going to this committee to ask for you know whatever it is and then they feel like they have to come back to the council and it's like and then it all starts all over again and I think either the council so I just think it's a valuable thing to think about I think the tack has done tremendous work in the past and respect all the members on the count on the tack but I think it's worth it for the council to sort of give it some thought about what would best serve you as keepers of the public way in your decision-making process and then go from there you can look at lots of other communities who have we everybody has the exact same situation we do um you know everybody's got roads everybody has community members of the public or asking for things let's look at how other communities you know cities have organized themselves and they do it in lots of different ways so I think it's it's worth spending a little bit of time um I think it's a mistake to say just because you exist you should continue to exist it's not the way I run when there's a vacancy and and the in our count staff I said let's talk about whether that position needs to be filled let's think about it so that's my suggestion to you Alyssa did you already spoke um is that it um Guilford did you want to say anything you're muted the only thing I would say is yes there needs to be you need to decide some way of how you want this to interact and what you think is best because then we can decide how to reallocate resources or what we need to keep doing this one of the reasons we failed at being able to make some things and do some things is um there's not dedicated resources to it and we we pigeonhole it for somebody to do it for a little while and then that person gets busy with something else and we move it over here and I can pigeonhole it over here somewhere and then maybe some of one of the planning department does it for a little while for one project one of the planners was instrumental in working with um Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on the bicycle thing um she's doing other things and she has other things on her plate that the what you want out of this and what you expect we need to know so we can try to figure out what resources go to it to make it actually work much better because there's a lot that can be done there's a lot that could be done that's um a lot simpler than what's being done now I guess it's a good way to say it we put the resources to it and we know this is where we're going hey thank you um all right so I think that we'll just um you know if we want to take it up at another meeting we can do that um and in the meantime um I don't know do Dorothy do you have your hand up for some reason we have to make a plan we can't just have had a discussion where we understand that we don't have clear lines of of demarcation and whether you want to have a a subcommittee work on this uh we have to make decisions so I don't say well we had a discussion and we learned some stuff uh and leave it at that so um we need to say what's going to be our next step and who's going to work with whom and I'm not saying I have a suggestion but I know that we have to make a next step so that we can um iron out how we would work together I think that that the Transportation Advisory Committee is a committee of the town manager um I mean we have a relationship to it but we don't really have any authority over it is that correct Paul yes that's my understanding uh so uh I think we can make suggestions or uh to Paul or but we this is Transportation Advisory Committee is not our committee um but very much related to what we do thank you I think I don't know where this conversation will take place for the council if it doesn't take place here at TSO at least to start I mean we could put it on the council agenda and I'm sure that would be a lot of fun um so why don't we I think Paul has not put out a challenge but he's basically said what do you want do you want to give up some of your authority as a town council don't you what is it that you want and so it seems like I mean Dorothy and I have some questions or issues that we're wrestling with um we're going to be reaching out to Guilford um but I think it's a conversation we as the TSO should have and see if we can come to some agreement as to what it is that we want do we want to recommend to the town council that some of our authority be handed off to an entirely different body not necessarily tack but whatever do we want to create some other body and give them authority over the public way um so I'm not saying I support that or not I just think it's that's what Paul's asked to think about I think it's interrelates to some of the things that we've been talking about and listening to today it certainly relates to some of the things that Dorothy and I have been talking about um and I think we as TSO at least for a few minutes next time hopefully or soon should have this conversation amongst the five of us and see if there's any consensus agreement as to how to proceed um so I would hope this would be on a future agenda I would like it to be on the next agenda if that's possible I'd like to continue this conversation amongst the five of us I'd like to take up Paul's uh suggestion and see what we all think I'd like to have us just talk about what we see our relationship with TAC to be because I don't think we've really gotten to that we'd have time for it now and again I'm just going to put in this little request again I would like to see TAC rewrite their charge in the face of just the fact the town government has changed um it when I read it there's certain things that simply don't apply there's certain things that simply right and it would be helpful I can't write rewrite it I don't have that it's not my role but it would be helpful if you would consider rewriting it so that it represents the world we live in at least in terms of the charge but we as TSO I think should talk about this next time um and I'm I'm getting that the rest of the committee would like to do that conveniently we have almost nothing on our agenda for the next meeting so I think that that would be a good time to do that um so uh all right um moving on thank you so much for coming Erin and um engaging us in this discussion um and so thank you indeed and um like I think Dorothy said Tracy I think has been here too um on the phone because I think she didn't have power at her house either um so we just have um minutes we have I noticed that we never we never adopted our august 20th minutes um for some reason they just got lost and the minutes from the last meeting I think we need to do them separately because I can't vote on the last minutes um that people have the chance to look at them um yes uh there's a typo on august 20th first page black youth leaders group and defund it's just a typo it should be it's there's a u where there should be an e in the word defund I can fix that um any other comments um okay I move we adopt the minutes of august 20th 2020 as amended a second all those in favor um elissa abstain Darcy yes Dorothy yes yes George yes sorry yeah now that's four in one abstention um and I move that we adopt the um September 24th 2020 minutes second um all those in favor elissa abstain uh I am abstaining to uh Dorothy yes Evan yes George yes okay so we got three and two abstentions um okay the um announcements uh nothing unless anyone else has any announcements um next meeting agenda preview um I updated the work plan which is in the packet um it's still pretty bare bones but it's attempting to give an idea what's coming up um like I said we're going to have the community safety committee um appointments at the next meeting we could put we can put tack on for the next meeting um and then on November 8th the surveillance technology is coming back with their part two um uh I did wonder whether we want to hear from Guilford at some point on on the townwide parking proposal is that something we want to schedule well um Darcy both Dorothy and I are going to reach out to Guilford and follow up on that and um so I think we will sound him out on when we would be ready to uh bring that so I think if you'd let us do the initial outreach follow up basically on what we had um on his email to us sure um and otherwise does anyone have any other items that you want to put on future agendas Dorothy I had mentioned the question of broadband not ready to bring it up yet but I wanted to see if there was anybody on this committee that wanted to work on it with me I did I put it on the list on the work plan did you see it there no I I looked at everything but I didn't look at the work plan uh so we'll we can we can put it on an agenda when you're ready Dorothy um Alyssa I just uh two quick things one was I don't think the work plans in the public packet I could be mistaken but I don't see it there and so it just seems like we might as well include it there too mainly because I hate SharePoint so I mostly use just the work the public packet because I want to see what the public's seeing um I only feel like confidential stuff needs to be in SharePoint but aside from all that um is the so we could probably publish that more publicly next time and then the other thing was just a matter of practice that maybe we could talk about at some point which is associated with vote order while we're continuing in this lovely zoom environment not that I don't mind that I mind putting my vote first every time but I know that we don't we do rotate it in council and I just wanted to see if TSO wanted to briefly discuss whether or not they wanted to rotate that as well so that there wasn't always one person that went first uh yeah I could see where that would put you in a hot spot Alyssa um I would be glad to do that and hope that I could handle it and remember what I did the last time um so George I don't have any suggestions I think it's a perfectly reasonable request um you could always just do reverse alphabet you could start in the middle you could just mix it up I don't know but it'd be just random right it'd be a surprise each time for me in a hot seat for instance today's vote not that it made any difference but I was not able to go first yeah it's a little too rude to do it the same same way every time so that's all I have um let me just check and see if there's any any public comment no oh wait a second oh we do have a public comment um all right so I am going to uh this person is on the telephone and I'm going to bring him or her in and if you could just identify yourself you're on hi um this was Tracy's a fan um so um I had tried to I had um connected online earlier but it kept coming up with my work um login and so I gave up on that but um I I just want to take I um you know Erin had decided to make the presentation to the THL tonight about the TAC and um I just wanted to add a few comments um and I understand you are going to take it up again so I don't really want to take too much of TSA's time but George had asked some questions about like what were the documents that the TAC created um and I mainly had some comments just about this complete streets policy um like the the complete streets policy is not just an internal tactile document it's a document that was helped developed by TAC with staff support and then adopted by the specs board I believe in 2018 and um I worked for the state department of transportation and the MAST DOT and MAST DOT has a complete streets program where they ask people to communities to have like different levels of tier in terms of their commitment complete streets so by adopting the complete streets policy Amherst achieved tier one and then to get to tier two which allows Amherst to be eligible for funding it actually needs to create both a um prioritization plan um that's been submitted to MAST DOT for approval and also a pedestrian and bicycle network plan um so Erin whose remarks she had suggested that some of the prioritization plan was just going to be an internal TAC document but it actually would also be something that would be adopted I mean or at least you know reviewed by the council and then also submitted to MAST DOT for approval and then the town would be eligible for that so I mean most of our documents do sort of come back to the council so they're not just for internal review but thank you thank you thanks for your comment Tracy um okay looks like no more comments um we don't have any items not anticipated 48 hours in advance so I think that's it for tonight um so I declare this meeting adjourned thank you thank you good night