 Okay. So welcome. This is the district advisory board meeting August 11. So we call to order. I cannot see. So the first item on the agenda was to approve the minutes, but I don't think we have them yet. Let me just share my screen. Can everybody see that? Yes. Yes. But I didn't see them in the packet yesterday. So you two came in late. I had explained that I had asked Brianna Sunrid from our IT department to remember I was talking about streamlining the website. The way we had originally set it up. We had on the page for the DAB. We had everything going into one place for packets and it wasn't differentiated by meeting date. Right. She has since changed it around and when she did that, it happened this morning. I had to rearrange everything. So I had to move things from one place to another. So you probably everything's back where it lives right now. So that's probably why you probably looked at it and it wasn't there when you were looking. Yes. So I would move to postpone the discussion unless until next meeting because I didn't have time to read it. I would not be able to, I would have to have stayed and I don't know who else would be in the situation, same situation. I agree. Okay. Somebody seconds it. Second. Second. So. Do I have to make a roll call? No. No. Okay. So. We move to postpone the discussion until next meeting of the. So we cannot about the minutes from previous meeting. Yeah. I mean, I did have one other comment on that. I noticed that some agendas. Some committees, they put the review of the minutes at the end of the meeting. I don't know. We feel like we might get bogged down in it or something. It's, it's up to the chairs to decide how, but they prefer. Okay. And I accept preferences. I've been in committees at the beginning. If people have preference to put it at the end. I'm okay to put it at the end of the meetings. I prefer the beginning if we can do it quickly. I think it helps. It helps people remember what we did at the end of the meeting. Yeah. It's a way of recapping and making sure that we approve them. And we don't like behind on that. I agree with that. I just want to, um, I, I guess a point of order is do we need to do a roll call vote? Because the other committees that I'm on, we do a roll call vote for all decisions. Okay. I just don't know. I mean, that's a, it was a question. I guess I was a question. I guess I was just thinking in the case of a minute, it's not really a decision, right? Like that. We just. We'll review the minutes at the next time and accept the minutes or edit the minutes at the next meeting. That's what. I defer to the chairs on that. We kind of recall both about the decision about the firm for next meeting. So. Um, How many parks. Hi, Joseph Gordon. Hi. Tracy's FN. Hi. Marlene about. I. You didn't know how many I saw in motion process to move the discussion for the next meeting. Okay. Can I throw out one other note? Yes. Can I just have my name changed to Tammy on the mini, on the on the meetings. It's just my preferred name. Tammy, you are coming up as Tammy, where are you? You mean in the minutes? Yeah, if you look at the minutes. Oh, yes, okay. Yeah, great. Yeah, okay, that's for Joseph. Okay, I cannot see if we have people for making public comments. There are no people in the attending section at all. So this is what I ask. If any other people want to make a public comment, I don't know if your Susan and Mike would be. Be the public? Yes. No, I mean, they're on the committee. No, they're on the committee too, yeah. Okay. The next, we are going fast. The next item on the agenda is a standing item that we decided to put clarifying this for Merlin Blossom, that you are not here. Whether we want to change any rules of regulations of the procedure based how we are conducting the meetings. And this is, we agreed last time that we have it as a standing order. See if we needed to make adjustments to each meeting. So how do everybody feel? How do we have to make any change? I think it would be helpful to let Merlin know that what we decided last meeting is that we would limit public comments to three minutes per share. And that we would have public comments at the beginning and at the end, although we didn't put it at today's ending of agenda. And see how that goes. So we really want to encourage the public to comment and we don't want to end up getting bogged down during the meetings. So. That sounds reasonable to me, I guess. And I think the discussion, I did watch the video but I think part of the discussion was whether you limit it to one person can only speak once. And I think that's something we need to review if they're, you know, if today is any example I don't think we have to worry about it but I am a little concerned that there's many people we don't want anyone to monopolize. So, just my opinion. Tamri? I wanted to throw out that we might also want to limit the comment period at the beginning of the meeting so we don't end up having extra hugely long meetings or not getting to, you know, the matter because we're listening to comments. So I guess if we just limited at the beginning at the end, you know, I guess we can be a little more open about it but I'm just thinking it's important to get to the meeting. That seems reasonable. Okay. So does anybody, do we want to do it at this moment or in case needed to have it as a, or you want to set it in stone now? I think we move on for now. I don't think we need to set it right now. Yeah. There's nobody commenting. That's my point. Great. The next item was open meeting law refresher and the material was posted in the package and this came about because at some point we started exchanging, I think I requested some material for Susan via email and her concern was not to have communications and that everybody's clear on the open meeting law. So it would be a good refresher that there should not be exchange of opinions with people that you might reach for. I think that's one of the biggest items. We should not be discussing things offline if we reach items about this board. Right. Anything that's under the jurisdiction of this group should not be discussed outside of a posted meeting. And that includes also, I think what you call it but if one person talks to one person then that second person talks to a third person that third person talks to a fourth person that's violating open meeting law as well. Yeah. I did send, did you see the FAQs? Those are very helpful. And talks about the electronic regulations. Yeah. And these serve belonging to these serves that might talk about these on social media. Yes. Yeah, all kinds of things you can refer to. So yeah, that's all I wanted to say. So I think everybody's clear on it. Okay. The next, anybody has any questions or shall we discuss? The next item is the consultation with about the precinct numbers and the clarification of section 10.4, I believe it was regarding the precinct names and numbers on the charter. So that was me. It's actually section 10.7. Oh, 10.7, okay. 10.7 E. And I did not contact the town attorney because they were working on, we're still in the midst of a lawsuit and they had all hands on deck and they had a filing deadline of Monday. So they were working all weekend, all day Friday, Amber was here in the office until seven o'clock Friday night. So it just, I didn't bother. But what I did do is I went back and read it and it dawned on me that, I just sent our town manager a quick email but he hasn't responded yet. But this section 10.7 falls under article 10, transition position provisions. And so it relates to our transition stage of the town government from how to basically ease into this new charter from the old form of government. And it states basically, it outlines what you shall do for the very first election. But then it says the first regular election under this charter is provided under article seven. So then when you look at article seven, that strictly talks about section 7.4 under article seven. It talks about just districts and it just says the territory of Amber shall be divided into five districts based on all the same things that we're gonna be working on. And that the role of the Districting Advisory Board is to review such district and propose changes if necessary to such districts to ensure their uniformity in number of inhabitants and conformity with state and federal law. So I think at that point, it was clear to me that the question, I think the question again, the question was do we keep things as district one through five with the precincts one and three under this district? I think that's what the question was. And obviously it's gonna be no. And I think at that point, when we determine what precincts are going under, what districts, and we propose that to the town council, they're going to have to take it from there and whether they have to file for new legislation to change our charter, I don't know. So I would like, I still would be receiving better whether if we have clarification from legal counseling, particularly after reading the minutes from the charter commission when they were talking exactly about this, they were mentioning that if they were needing more precincts, at least it was on the minutes of the charter commission. And they were talking about, exactly when they talked about the number of precincts, they said, oh, we may need and revise the charter. I know that that's maybe it was a comment. I'm not a lawyer again. I would feel better and make sure that we got all the eyes and since this is the first time we are doing this, that we make sure that we will have problems. We are early in the process, so. Yeah, but what is your question exactly? That's what I'm confused about. My question is exactly, because it also talks about the, it talks about the first regular election. This would be the first regular election, no, no, under the charter or the second. Say that one more time. It talks about- Yes, my name is Belstein and first and Tracy. So my understanding is that they're talking about the 2021 election and from what I heard, these precincts will not, the decisions we recommend as a committee will not be applied until 2022, correct? So it has nothing to do with the 2021 election. Okay. I don't think that was the question though. Was that the question? Nobody might clarify my doubts because I think this is the first time we are running elections the second time. Right, right. This won't affect the elections next year. Yeah, yeah. Tracy, you had a comment? Yeah, I actually had a comment just about public participation for this meeting. And I'm sorry, this is off topic of what we're talking about, but I noticed that the, the listing on the Amherst MA.gov calendar for this meeting where it says link, click here to join the virtual meeting that the link is like not complete and it doesn't work. Like if the public was attempting to join this meeting. It has the, so it's got a typed out though, right? Web ID number and all that? No, it does not. It doesn't have it in the link. It has it in the location of the meeting, but like if somebody just clicked on the link, I mean, right, you're correct that you can add the Web ID to the meeting, but just perhaps to like check that for the next meeting. And the fact that we don't have any members of the public, I don't know, but. And actually one just popped in, but I don't normally supply a link. We usually just give the Web ID and a phone number, but I mean, it certainly can be added. I mean, typically right, if it, I mean, right on this announcement, it says link click to join the virtual meeting. So I would think that the link click to join the virtual meeting should be a link with the meeting ID. Okay, I'll check it out. But I mean, just for people, particularly somebody who's not like super computer savvy and I don't want to make it harder or whatever. Yeah, I'll check it out. Okay. And that was, we have somebody in the attendee. It was D. Shibas. I just let her in the room. Hi D. Hi there. Hi D. So I wanted to check. So the feeling in the committee is that we don't need to consult legal and that we're okay. My feeling is that we're okay, but once the dust settles for the lawsuit, it doesn't seem like it would be terrible to check with the town attorney just to confirm. I mean, I guess, you know, I guess I would check first with the town manager, also like the council or the council president on like their interpretation of the charter. I've done that before. When I hear back, I'll let you know. So I mean, just in terms of like attorney resources and all that, but. So Susan, as soon as you're here, can you put the summary of the email on the package for next week? Yeah. Well, then we have it. May have to give a little nudge, but yes, okay. I'm gonna put it on the agenda item. I'm making a list. Well, actually, I think is next week, I will have to give a nudge next week the town manager's on vacation. So if you can give him a nudge before he goes on vacation, and probably this is not on the priority list, but if you can give a nudge. Push it along. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. The next item is about the update on the email and website. I think Susan, you were mentioning that the website now looks somewhat different. I didn't have time to check it yet. Yes. So we set it up where, instead of all of our packet materials going into one huge depository, it's now going to list packet materials for each date. So each meeting date. So you know on a four, we talked about this and eight, 11, we talked about this. So that's been organized. The meeting postings will go on there in their own section. The agenda also goes on there in its own section and there's also gonna be a place for all recorded meetings. So people can just click on, go to the DAB webpage and see all of that. So that's organized. And then for email, Mike and I sent Paul an email and what we got back, I'll read it to you. We asked him if it was possible to set up a new email address for the DAB to receive public comments. And he replied, we do not create group email addresses except under very rare circumstances. The reasons is the ongoing maintenance, lack of clear ownership of response and the danger of violating the open meeting law. Our standard operating procedure is to have emails managed by the staff liaison. So with that said, I'm happy to manage emails. It would go to the town clerk department. I think maybe we could somehow get word out that in the subject line that whoever's submitting a comment can put districting advisory board so that we can pick them out quickly and easily but we're not bombarded by emails right now. It's not too bad. And when we do get requests for mail in or absentee ballots we have our own dedicated email address for that. So yeah, I'm fine with that in light of this. It's already listed on the website. Staff liaison with my email address on there. But do people know about this rules outside the small network of people? Is there a place that we can tell people that this is the email of the committee? Because it's clear. It's clear when you have an email that is the DAV. It's not so clear when it's due. I see Hans, Tracy, and then Joseph. Yeah, so I don't know Sue, is it possible to add just to the website as you're suggesting where it says contact you? Can you just have something there about like subject line or something? Yeah, I was just gonna say that. That's exactly what it's gonna be. And I have a related question just about this page is that I believe this is a committee of the town council and as such, I didn't know whether it should be listed under the town council committees and not under the main committee. Or should it be under both? It is created by the town council. The town council has jurisdiction over it and they're the ones who like choose the members. It's not selected by the town manager. Correct, they're the appointing authority but it's not like the OCA and DOL. Okay. Yeah, yeah. If you go on, well, if you search for boards and committees and just search by name, it'll come up with our page, but I'll definitely on the page maybe. Or maybe even with count. I mean, maybe under the council committees, right? That it could, I don't know what you're saying but I don't know. Like for example, the finance committee like as a council committee is considered so it's listed under council committees or ad hoc committees. So I don't know. I mean, maybe it could be listed both places or something in case somebody's looking. Anyway, it's just a thought. Yeah, I'm just thinking when somebody goes to look. Yeah, I'll just think into that because I know when you're looking for boards and committees, you go under boards and committees and if you search all, they're all there like medical order. So I'll take a look at that. And like the finance committee, I think the finance committee is listed under both. Okay. Check out. Yes, the finance committee is listed under both. Anyway. Okay. Okay. Joseph, you have a comment? Yes, so in regards to letting the public know there's some sort of email where they can send comment in the future when we're going to be sending out or making public whatever maps we're working on. This might be a question for Mike with formatting but is there any way on those drafts that we send out? Like in the bottom it's like for comment, email, staff liaison to sort of like make it so there isn't like one specific place you can find this information. It can be like a very abundant resource. Yeah, so I had my hand up next. Yeah, thank you. So I'm gonna, I'll take that comment and then I'll spin into what I was gonna say. Absolutely, absolutely, Joe. We can, on the maps that we'll be producing, the draft maps that we'll be producing, we can put, you know, how to contact us. We can put email on there. We can write addresses for if people wanna write a letter and mail it to somebody. We can, we can customize that to do whatever we want. And my suggestion would be when I'm looking at the district and advisory board website would be we should have a little section that says how to make a public comment. And then right beneath that have three options or at least three, but the three that I can think of off the top of my head. One, join the meeting and, you know, comment during the public comment period. Two, send an email to this email address, which would be Sue's email address as the staff liaison. And three would be if you wanna send us a, if you wanna mail us something, mail it to this address. So, you know, just so that it's straightforward and it's when people go to the DAB website, it's right there in front of them. I think that would be helpful. And I'm sure there's more than just three methods, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head. The open meeting law allows the public to address us individually, right? I mean, so if somebody wanted to make a comment by approaching one of us, that's also okay. Yes? I think, I'm just thinking about it. They can approach you and then it's something that you could, we could put on the agenda to discuss at the next meeting, comments made by public to count to, you know, whoever. I mean, it seems pretty common, right? That, you know, members of the public will come to committee members and bring things up. As long as you're not a quorum and discussing things, you know. I mean, and I guess too, like if somebody emailed you, personally, you could also forward the email like to the group or something. And I guess just as to what Joseph had brought up earlier, like if we do have materials that we're sending out just to make it clear that if you not, not just that our email address is like town clerk, but if you're emailing town clerk at amherst.ma.gov, it's actually the committee, like, you know, email. And that's where you could just say the subject line thing just so people don't feel like it's just going to the clerk's office and like where is the DAB ever going to see this or something, you know, to contact the DAB, email the clerk, subject line, you know, DAB or whatever. To make sure. So I have a question, Susan, how would you manage those emails? Would you put them to the package as a separate comments, public comments? Do we have an item, public comments as the emails? And is there going to be something that you send back to the people? We receive your email on, it would be forwarded to the committee or so that people know that it was received and it's going to be forwarded, but it doesn't go into a feed. Yeah, lost in space. Yeah, no, I always respond to email. So I would definitely acknowledge their email and say that I passed their comments along. I'll come up with some kind of wording, general wording. I've got a folder right now for the redistricting. Everything's been there and I think what I'll do is put a sub folder just for the emails and the public comment. And then what I do is save those emails as a PDF and then I can put it in the packet. That's what other, I've checked around a couple other staff liaisons and that's what they're doing currently. Okay. Does that work? Does that work? I like the idea of the packet just so we don't get emails like all the time. I mean, especially if we're meeting regularly. Yeah. I prefer everything, as I said before, I agree. I prefer that everything is public and in one place and everybody can access it the same way we have. So, okay, thank you Mike for checking with about the email. The next item on the agenda, I was asked to put it by Tracy about committed vacancies. I think we are not at full capacity. So I don't know how we can encourage people from the districts that are missing to put names forward. Yes, Tracy. Yeah, so I'll just mention on this. So the members of this committee, the resident members like were selected through a process like applied to the GOL, right? And then the GOL recommended people and then forwarded that to the council and the council voted on it. And so I did reach out to the chair of the GOL, George Ryan, because he's one of my counselors and I'm in touch with him regularly anyway. And what he told me is that he wasn't sure about getting members on the committee, now that the committee is underway, but that they would try. I mean, I know that with the summer that the GOL isn't meeting that often and that the council isn't meeting that often either. I know that council's next meeting is August 23rd. So ideally I think if there was somebody who's interested like to let them know to contact the GOL, like right away, I mean to fill out the form or contact the GOL right away and to express interest. And then of course they'd have to submit like a statement of interest or something. But it does seem like it would be, I mean the last DAB, the one from 2011, they had a full committee of nine members. And I just, I do worry a little bit just, you know, both in the summer and then as the school year gets underway and things, people are busy that sometimes people can have conflict and with only seven members, if we lose more than two people then we don't have a quorum. So, I don't know. Thanks Tracy. So I would put the call for everybody's if you know of anyone and I don't know how come we advertise. If so, you know that somebody might have an interest again to contact the career. Marilyn, Dustin, you have your hand. You're muted. Just for those of us who don't know, what is GOL? Sorry, so GOL is one of the subcommittees of the council. It's the governance organization and legislation committee and the jurisdiction of creating the DAB falls under them. Okay, thank you. And so based on the current membership of this committee that there's currently nobody from district, sorry from district four, which I believe is precincts five and nine. And then there's only one member from district five, which is precinct seven and eight that's South Amherst. And so if anybody was to apply, they need to be like from one of those two districts. Like because the other districts, the way the committee was structured in the rules is you can't have more than two members. And we already have two members each from district, I mean districts one, two and three. So I mean, I don't know. I mean, I know a lot of politically active people in South Amherst, so I don't know if any of them would want to join. And it seems that district four might be a little harder because I don't even think they have like a slate of candidates yet for the council seat, but who knows? It's tough. I reached out to a few people too and they weren't interested. Okay, so if you have friends in South Amherst or this district four, please let them know. It's gonna be fun. Already is. It's not already. It's not already. I like it. Okay. So now we get into the meat of the subject. So we have all the package material and I even don't know where to start. Maybe I must confess, we have a lot of information from the GIST. But I think one of the big items in the package was the email from the mic posted that the census data is gonna be released tomorrow. So we won't be working with preliminary data but with full data. So that gives us some one month, almost a month of wiggle room compared to what we have in the past. So I have a question about that. What does that look like when that gets released? Like will we see it tomorrow? Will the state see it tomorrow or? So, I don't know, but what's happening tomorrow is the Census Bureau is claiming that the data is gonna be released on their website, on the Census Bureau's website. In the past what that's meant is their website crashes because 176 million people are trying to get on their website and get the data and do exactly what we're trying to do. Every city and town in the country is trying to get online and download their data so that they can start working on stuff. I would just say, I don't know if it will be available tomorrow but by the time we meet next week, we will have maps that show how many people are in each census block. I can start running those statistics that you folks asked for last week that said, okay, for the 2020 census, how many people are currently in district one? How many are currently in district, are current district boundaries? I can start producing map products like that. And then we can also start reviewing those on a digital map together. So it will be available to us as early as tomorrow. I would say probably on Friday or early next week. And then the other component of my email that I forwarded to the meeting packet materials is the state is automatically going to produce another map for us. I don't know if you guys caught that. Whether we want them to or not, just like they produced the 12th precinct map back in May and the 15th precinct back in May, they're going to create another one for us as a baseline for us to use if we want to. And it's going to be using the real data this time. So that will probably be the first visual representation of the data that we will see unless I can get my act together and produce something faster. And will it have 15 precincts likely? I think it has to. I mean, that's up to us as a committee, but I don't think we can split a precinct. I don't think you can split a precinct across district boundaries. I looked at a bunch of other cities and towns around the Commonwealth. Cambridge has 11 wards, which are the equivalent of our district. And they have 33 precincts and they all perfectly nest. Worcester does the same. So I don't know if we're allowed this split precincts and I don't even know if we would want to consider it. Yeah, I'm with you, Tracy. Yeah. I mean, I do have a related question to that. And I mean, this is getting a lens of the weeds in terms of what's in the packet and so on. But, you know, as we look, as we look towards like how to create the precincts and update the precincts for this time and including adding five precincts if that's what we have to do. So my understanding, you know, is that you need to split up the precincts like along center lines or road and like other features. But it seems pretty hard when there's certain parts of town where there's all like subdivision roads and it would really make sense for like, you know, say you have two subdivisions off a main road for like one subdivision to go into one precincts and maybe, you know, for the numbers or whatever. And then the other subdivision to go in the other precincts. And so what are the other defining features like, I don't know, streams or whatever? Like what are the other lines that we can legitimately like split the precincts by? We're supposed to follow census block boundaries. So those census block boundaries follow those features that you're describing, roads, streams, big, big like power line cuts, you know, the not little tiny telephone. Or like the bike pass or like the bike. Yeah, I think the bike passes. So as long as I guess, so the question is, so if the census blocks are split up along those lines, then we can use the census block boundaries to do our splits as well. That's what we're supposed to do, correct? But that's good because there's a lot of blocks compared to. All right. So I was wondering, I cannot share on this computer, the census blocks you send, that's part of the package, right? I sent a, there is a packet material item called estimated persons per block. That is using the estimated data. It's big caveat there. But that shows roughly what the census blocks look like. The geography of the census blocks. There you go. So you see the gray lines in, well, some of the gray lines are streets, but if you look in kind of northeast Amherst, where there's like a faint purple, the kind of, there's kind of just random lines in there, those are census blocks. So that was one of the questions because there seem to be some very small places like up on the right corner that are less density. Those are small census blocks. Do you know the correspondence of each color? I'm sorry, can you zoom in to what you're talking about? Sure. Or to the right. Or at least, I believe. Yes, over the. Are you talking about the tan color that's to the right? Yeah, to the color on the right. There is like an island in between the purple. Is that a census block on its own, a very small census block and then the purple is a big census block? Correct, that's correct. Okay. And we can think, the other question I have is the maroon off North Pleasant Street. All that is one census block or multiple census blocks? That is correct, Irina. That is a great point, like between North Pleasant and East Pleasant Street, that the big maroon blob that's right there in the middle. That is like, that is all one census block because there is no defining feature that goes north-south in between that block that you can split it up into two. And what's crazy about that is it affects the subdivision there. I believe that's, is that Harlow and Van Meter? Drive and then on the North Pleasant side, there's, oh, what's the name of the, there's a small apartment complex. I forget the name of it. No, Puffton's on the west side of North Pleasant, but there's a small apartment complex on the north, the east side of North Pleasant Street that's lumped in there with the subdivision on off of East Pleasant Street. And there's nothing that we can do about that. We can't, we cannot redraw census block boundaries. And then the census block goes across the street. It's the same one or it's a different one. It's a separate one. Okay. Yes. So then we're gonna need to identify. Sure. So. I do have just a question too about, so that, I mean, I am assuming like once, Mike, you get the data, the updated data and have had a chance to look at it, that you would send us some sort of version of this like with the updated estimates, right? Well, what's gonna be really great when we get the real data is I'm actually gonna publish an online interactive map. Oh, okay. So that you guys can go in there, you can zoom in and zoom out and you can click on a census block and it will highlight and you can see how many people are in there. And once I get that, I'm gonna publish that immediately as soon as we can have it. Oh, God. And then we can start, when we start creating our draft maps, we can load those in there so that we can see it, the public can see it, we can interact with it. And it's more than just this static map that we're looking at. So that's the goal. So, I mean, one challenge I saw with looking at this map, so my sort of estimate was based on those preliminary numbers that the Census Bureau was saying that Amherst has a population of 41,500 people. And that if we're doing 15 precincts, then we're looking estimated population per precinct of about 2,800 people. And then, but on the map that, this map that is showing on the screen, that that top category, like with the densest parts are is 700 up to 700 plus, like up to the 1727, but to actually know, I mean, it makes a big difference if you're trying to get to 2,800, like if those are 700 or the 1700. So, I mean, even if there's a map that is being published, like a PDF static version for the public to look at, if to differentiate that a little bit more, just on that top end, but. Sure. I see Kansoff, Maronin and Peggy. So I have a question. Can the Census Bureau change the existing census blocks or is this already set in stone? The census block. Yeah, I'm looking at, for example, at Echo Hill, which is black, or any of those that are black, is there any possibility that they will change those boundaries? Not any time soon. I believe that they're only changed in between. So like, I imagine it's usually like five years after the census, they start reaching out to cities and towns to redraw block boundaries for the next census. It has to be like an emergency. Wow, there was a very big egregious mistake to redraw a census block. And it's not very common. It's my understanding. Can I clarify the big incident going between one second? I think that in the minutes of the 2011 district advisory board, there was some notes about requesting splitting some census blocks because they had too many people. And I think there was a whole process. And on the minutes, there's a description about doing that because some of the census blocks were over 3,000 people. With the sand, southwest storms. Yes. And I think what that resulted in is if you go and you start looking at the maps and stuff for Amherst that were created back in 2011, they aren't in August, September, July, they're in January. So they were actually doing this process, what we're doing right now. I think they started in May or something, but they weren't actually redrawing the stuff until January, probably because they were waiting to hear back from the Census Bureau. Okay. Sorry, Peggy. So this actually speaks maybe a little bit to the 10th item on the agenda, but we have the map here now. When I look at that census block between Northeast Street and East Pleasant Street, I see what fingers and tails, the very thing that the state said that we're not allowed to do. And yet they're kind of forcing our hand. So I guess the question is when the different standards are mutually exclusive, like you're not allowed to have fingers and tails, but you have to follow the census block boundaries and what, which things get priority? How do we decide which is more important? I know I understand that census blocks rule over everything else, but in terms of the other possible things, like in terms of 5% population versus fingers and tails and things like that. My understanding is that you cannot be over that plus or minus 5% that you cannot be over 4,000 people. So if there's truly nothing that you can do other than creating a finger or a tail, I think it would, I think we would have to produce it with the finger and the tail and then we send it to the state and the state reviews it and the, what is it? There's another body that reviews the maps and says thumbs up, thumbs down. But I know that that plus or minus 5% and that 4,000 and not following census blocks, those three are hard stops. Like if you do those three, if you do any of those three, your map is gonna be rejected right away, I believe. Mike? Hello, sorry. I'm sorry, Tracey, you probably had your hand up before me. Oh, go ahead, D, I've talked before. Can you scroll down to the bottom there for South Amherst? I see everything pretty detailed and labeled within the top part of the map and the mid part. Can you scroll, yeah. Okay, further down, please. Yeah, that's me, by the way. Yep, that's as far as I go. Okay, well, we're there. So I see Hampshire College outlined in Bay Road, which I live near there. Can you point to where is that large purple sector to the right? Is that supposed to be Amherst Woods? It's not labeled. No, that's Middle Street, that's like Mount Pollux area. That's like Mechanic Street on the South, Bay Road, Middle Street up to, I don't know the name of it, it goes by a cemetery and then Southeast Street. So it, that's where that purple is. Amherst Woods is, if you scroll up, Sue, it's over to the right beneath Echo Hill. Isn't that the south one behind? Yeah, okay, so that's near Echo Hill. And so what we're looking at are two districts after Amherst College. Those are all clumped together as two districts. One, kind of a longish one to the left and then this larger one that's more lit. And can you scroll back down the screen, Sue? Can we make it, I'll make it a little smaller. There we go. Or maybe we can let Mike drive or something, I've got it on mine, so. Keep going. Well, down where D was talking about. Okay, back down to the bottom. I mean, aren't some, I'm assuming that some of the large like shapes like as Mike was saying about Mount Pollux or just because there's not that many people there. And so, and like some of it, you know, isn't developed or something. And that's a census block. And so that, That's a census block, that's there's nothing that we can do about splitting the people up inside that purple area. But like there's only like two, a couple of streets in there anyway. So there might not be many people. Yeah. What's the white? White is no data, Irina. I didn't, I was struggling to get this map. I said I would get this map out on Friday and I didn't get it out until Monday. So I was struggling with the no data. So I just made it white. Okay. So does that actually reflect places that people don't live primarily? Well, again, this is the estimated data. Oh, that's okay. That's the big matter here. This is, this is, this was the reason that I produced this map and not the other ones, the other ones that show people per district as of the current districts and people per precinct is this just shows the relative density of people within census blocks. That we might get this data tomorrow and, or yeah, tomorrow. And it might show that we don't have 41,000 people in Amherst. It might show we have 45,000 people. And the relative density is probably still the same. The map is probably going to look very similar to this with little changes. We might also get this, the data tomorrow and we still have 39,000 people, which means we don't need 12 district precincts. We still need 10. There's a lot of stuff that kind of hinges on the balance of these, of the data that gets delivered to us. So don't, you know, this was just as a discussion point for us to look at those apartment complexes, the boulders, look at how many, that's one census block, that dark census block right there. There's nothing we can do about the 1,000 plus people in there. We can't split them up and divide them into different areas. Yeah, so I had a question about that, like with the polygon. So if, would there be like two, I mean, how can you tell the boundaries of one next to the other, if they're the same color? Or does that not happen very much? Do you know like, so the point that you just brought up about how the boulders and because there's actually, I think like there's four complexes in there. There's Mill Valley and the Brook and the boulders and South Point. They're all in there. And that you said that's all one block, one census block. It's almost all one block. You see the letter shape. Back in a bigger. There's a letter, there's a little drive that kind of enters off of East Hedley Road and it forms the shape of the letter U. And there's a medium shade of purple and a light lavender inside of that. Those are two separate blocks. Those are two, one has very few people in it and the other is a part of the boulders that has a good number of people in it. I think that that purple, the darker purple is probably the brook. The brook is over on the East side, but then it wraps all the way around. It includes part of the boulders and it includes all of, it used to be called South Point, but it just was rebranded to be Renew. So it includes complexes. It includes all parts of all three complexes and there's a fair amount of people in there. I think Renew is like the owner because now Greensleeves says Renew too, but I don't know. Okay, so one thing is, I know you sent us the list of like new developments and so on including some of the new mass storms, but when we're doing this process, I mean, we can be aware of those, I guess, but aren't our census precinct supposed to be based on like what's currently there and the 5% and so on, like we don't actually, is there any point in this process where we're formally incorporating the data on the new units or the projected new units? I'll have to go back and read the presentation. It would have been in last week's packet materials and I believe it's called, it's the precincting PowerPoint. It's a long PowerPoint slide and it go through there and read it. I'm not sure the language that they say, it's something to the effect of you should consider new developments and how developable an area is when you're drawing a precinct boundary. I guess at the same time though, like in terms of the actual figures about who is in the places like we're bound by the census block data. Correct, correct. So that's not in there. I just don't, and we're supposed to stay within 5%, like the case of like the UMass norms that are gonna be like in the center of campus, which are replacing of course, like the ones in North Village things, but I think they're like higher density and there's more units, but I mean we shouldn't, it doesn't seem like there's a lot we can do. Like do we keep that precincts much smaller in anticipation of those? We can, so Tracy, we cannot keep it much smaller because they have to be within 5% all of them. That's what I'm saying. If it has to be within 5%, yeah. But one thing that we can do, and this is part of the discussion we should go on the other items when we said priorities, maybe we should take this into account when we are creating the districts to make sure that if there are new developments that they all not fall in the same district or they don't all fall in the same precinct. That would be my suggestion. I don't know how the rest of the committee, but maybe to try to think okay, thinking forward, okay, we don't want 500 new rooms in all falling in one precinct or in one district. We want to make sure that when we create the maps, we take this into account and somehow if possible try to figure out to make sure that they fall in different. Yeah, no, I just brought that one up because that one is estimated to be 600 beds. Yeah, but I mean, as opposed to like summing up a whole bunch of different projects, like anyway, but I mean, so that might be 600 here, 200 there. So I think try to make sure that we don't have the 600 and the 200 falling in the same. Yeah, but so I guess so Mike on that in terms of complexes, like if there is, I mean, the census blocks don't ever break up like a building or something like Southwest Dorms or like they're actually separate structures. Is that correct? That's correct. So, yes. And can I throw out before you guys get on a roll on something else? I'd love to invite every one of you to come into the office, you know, one at a time and look through the old binder that's been put together from 2011. There's a lot of material in there. It might be very helpful just to know what the last group was up against. I wrote down just a couple key points and they had said that, you know, the one single block had 4506 students in it. That was the Southwest and how it severely restricts the ability to draw the precinct lines, of course, which we're already discussing, but they also encountered some errors in the block population that they got from the Census Bureau. So something to be on the lookout for, there was one block that said it had 225 people in it that was actually a woodland and parking lot. Yep. And also 31% of the town's population lives on just 2% of the total land area. So some of the difficulties, but it was very helpful. I went through that whole binder again today and looked at everything and it was just, I think it would be very helpful if you want to come in. I'd be happy to share it. Marilyn has her hand raised. Yeah. I think so much is what we're talking about now is speculative and I think we'd probably be better off deferring this discussion until we see the actual data. Just my suggestion. I mean, I think there are certain things we want to anticipate, but it could be that all of these issues or many of these issues will be resolved once we see the data. Okay. Mike, can I have a question when you make the math? I don't know if it's possible. Can you make the numbers so that it doesn't go from 700 to 1700? Yes, absolutely. That's all I had asked. Yes. And then maybe also having a different color, the census blocks to make sure that if you have two areas that have the same population density that we are able to identify that there are different census blocks, maybe that doesn't happen. No, it does. It does. There should be a boundary there. I think what's really confusing is that the secondary roads are light gray and so are the boundaries between census blocks. So I think that's what's throwing everybody's eyes off. Blue, I don't know. Yeah, so I'll definitely tweak that and make it better. I was just trying to get this out very quickly on Monday as a proof of concept. Thanks, Dave. Yes, so I appreciate that, Mike. So we have some of this data. I appreciate the urgency. It would help, I think, to visually see the overlay of the current precincts and then the population. That will be tremendously helpful for next time, but I do know you're trying to work within some tight deadlines. Yeah, that is a great point and I will 100. When you start adding lots and lots and lots of different lines and colors to maps, unless it can really confuse some people. So I tried to keep it simple here, but next time I'll make you go crazy with all the different colors you'll see. Or maybe do it in layers so that you have different versions that you add the complexity so that we can... Yeah. Well, I mean, the total population for each of the... So I know that in some of the materials that were sent out, it did show, I guess, the state's versions of the maps that they generated based on 12 precincts and 15 precincts that did show the 2010 population for each of the precincts. Right? So I guess that would be helpful, I mean, not to add it all to the map because I know that the map can get kind of crazy, but even just to see how the 2010 population for each of the 10 existing precincts compares to the 2020 population for each of the precincts. Like in terms of how much we're gonna need to tweak things around. Yep. So... Yeah, I'm making notes. I'm not ignoring you. Well, it should be pretty exciting when you get the new data. I hope so. I hope we don't find people that are in a wetland or in a parking lot like we read, but that is exactly what I heard in other towns say about the estimated data. They found errors in it. So, and I'm betting that that's why Amherst, their maps that they were drawing in 2011 were actually done in 2012. If you go down and look at the bottom of the map, some of them were done in January. I think that's probably because they found those errors and they found that one single census block that violated the census's own rules about the number of people that can be in a precinct. There was also an ongoing error from 2000. There's a whole history in this binder. Truly fascinating. In 2000, there were a bunch of errors that were supposedly corrected. And then they found out when they got the new material in 2010 that they were never corrected and they had to submit all kinds of pay. It took, Sandra documented the whole thing. It's about a gazillion pages long. Yeah. Oh, and did Marilyn have to leave? Yeah, I was just raising my hand to say, to remind people that Marilyn had to leave at five and I think she just stepped up. Yep, she did. We still have a quorum though. Yes. I'm sorry. Do we still have a quorum of voting members? Yes, we do. Yes. Five. Five. Last time we were playing. But Marilyn's not here, so now we only have four. No, no, no, we still have five. Count yourself. Okay, 34. Yeah, you're right. Okay, sorry, that's long. Okay, that's good. So I want to say, we have a question about the material, the potential developments. This is all that is going, I'm trying to go through the package. So the first question is, anybody has any questions about the map? And we want any request for next time, beyond the ones that we had asked Mike now. I mean, it seems really helpful to have that information. I mean, I guess it's helpful to know like when they're going to come online, but I guess if it's going to be in the next 10 years, then that would influence it. I mean, some of these projects are going to be sooner than, Yeah, then some of these projects are going to be sooner than others, I guess. Yes, some of them, you know, 26 Spring Street, it's in the middle of downtown. It's been in its current state for what, two years? But they were they were advertising for renters for the fall, but yeah, I parked my car there every day and there's nobody there working on it. So I can ask that those questions. As you see there, there's still some things that I have not heard back from the planning department. There's still, you know, metrics about the number of people, the number of units, as well as notes. So I'm waiting on hearing back from that. If there's other data points that you want me to ask, like what did you say, estimated time of completion? Is that what you're thinking? Well, just in terms of, right, if it's going to be during this decennial census cycle, compared to like, you know, after 10 years. Yeah, I think we can take the eruptor off, but it's useful just for people to know that it's not. But, and so there is some North Amherst project with Sint Jones, I guess, an additional one, or is that expansion of her current one? I don't know. Oh, okay. I have no idea. Some of these things, my understanding is that some of these things are, they're anywhere in the development cycle, right? Some of them are conceptual. Some of them are like 26 spring seats, they're actually being built, you know, and some of them are in all flavors of in between. So we can ask, I would say if it's on this list, we should make the assumption that it's going to be completed in the next 10 years, I would say. I don't, yeah, that's just my gut instinct. And so this North Village and Lincoln apartments, so is that, so that's replacing the current? Yeah, they're moving, my understanding is that they're moving people out of there and then they're going to tear it down and build back. I don't live in North Amherst, I don't know. So those two are North Village is already empty, that's the family housing, the students, the grad students and most of the family housing, they've been moved to other complexes in the area. And that one thing is coming up soon. It should have started construction last year. But they were using it for COVID housing. No, Lincoln apartments were using for COVID housing. No, but North Village too, that's what I heard about. I don't know, maybe just if you know more, but. They were both. Okay, so I think that put that delay, but those two should be larger than what it was in the past. So I'm wondering if these two UMass dorms are on top of this? And I'm thinking by the address they are or is it Lincoln apartments? Sorry, Tracy, go ahead. You might know more than I do. Oh, I mean, I believe that they're like, it's going to expand significantly like into the parking lot as well. Lincoln apartments are not very big. Okay. And so that's why there's been like all that other construction in that vicinity. That's my understanding as well, Tracy, that the parking lots just south of Mass Ave, that they're going to be two dorms there. We lost the member, I just noticed. Okay, so we don't have quorum? We don't have quorum right now. Four, no, no, we still have the five. That's what we're talking about. Two, three, four. No. Four. We lost Tammy. We lost Tammy. Let me just. But now weren't you, wasn't somebody going to join at five or something? No, Marilyn had a little. Marilyn was leaving. Yeah. Oh, I thought, oh, Tammy's still here. Okay. There she is. Okay. And that the North Village Project is like higher density too. Okay. So I'm thinking along the lines of what Marilyn said that unless we actually have real information here, this discussion doesn't help very much. So I guess the question is how do we find out, how do we fill in the blanks here? Is that something that we do? Is that something you do, Mike? Is that? No, that's, I don't know. I don't know any of this information. I've delegated this to the people that know. And I've followed up with them a number of times and I'll just keep, I'll keep following up with them until we get this thing completely populated. I guess, I mean, my suggestion would probably be that we focus on the census data we do have on the priest's level. And we do these rough cuts of breaking up everything into the precincts. And then we can consider this table, but I'm not sure like exactly how much it can influence unless we have like firm numbers or firm info. Right. My suggestion would be that once we have the preliminary, maybe precincts, we should take into account that the big ones, the smaller ones, it's going to be harder, but maybe the big ones that we know that the human storms don't fall in the same, the same one. Because we know that those ones are going to be big. So, yes, as much as possible, try to put them in different, put the lines so that they don't fall. But definitely. Well, like for example, the East Street School, like that's not going to be a big project. It's, I mean, I think they're redeveloping the building. I think there's just not that much from there. Compared to it. Okay. So, Mike. This, okay. Thanks. Yeah. So, I have a question. When you say you're, you're out reading folks about this information, particularly for this chart and the, the building timeline, or Nate should have like, you know, permitting processes to go through this process to see how close these particular projects are to our timeline so that we can, you know, at least account for the ones that have gone through permitting processes and are more of a short thing and not theoretical. Is there a way to get that information and input here? As Peggy said, Okay. Yeah, I think that, I think that's a great idea to add that. So I'm putting that on my list. Thank you. Thanks. Any other items that we want to discuss from the packet? Yes, Mike. So one, so one thing I do want to say about this, like Tracy mentioned, you know, we have to focus on the census block data. The, you know, if, if we get all of our numbers below 4,000 and plus or minus 5% and we don't consider this at all, the Census Bureau is going to say thumbs up, you know, or the, the state and LE, I forget the acronym. There's another agency that reviews it. If they're going to give us a thumbs up, but I think one of the things we'll probably see when we get the new census data and I overlay it on top of the current districts and the current precincts, we're going to see that, oh, this precinct grew really fast during this 10 year period and it's now well over 4,000 people and it's well over 4% or 5% larger than its surrounding precincts. And so when, when you do take these types of developments into consideration when drawing these precinct boundaries, what it could potentially do is 10 years from now, when there's another DAB in place, they may not have to consider redrawing that boundary because we considered that development in 2021. Yes, 2021. So. I agree, we want something that is resilient to change. So. Tracy. So I have a question, Mike, about the 5%, you're talking about the 4,000, but my read of the rules, and you know, much better than I do, is that, again, like just based on this calculation about having 15 precincts and having, you know, 2,800 to 3,000 people a precinct, does the 5% based on that or is the 5% based on the 4,000? The, it's, what we do is you take the total number of people that are enamorced, you divide it by the number of precincts that you have and whatever that number is. Yeah, it's 2,800 right now. 2,800 plus or five, the plus or minus 5%. Is it 140? Is that 2,800, is the 2,800? So it's not really the 4,000, right? We had some that were like 3,000 that the state would have an issue with that. Correct, yes, yes. The 4,000 is the cap, like you absolutely, we can never have more than 4,000 people in a census in a precinct. Got it, thanks. So regarding that question, what if the, I guess, okay, I'm gonna wait until next week and we'll see the data. I was thinking what happens if it comes that current population is 39,900 people. But I'm gonna wait until next week. Yeah. Maybe tomorrow, maybe I'll publish a map tomorrow. Okay, send us an email to everybody. We have this amount of people posting. So I would just mention, I know you were asking about the packet. I know that I put in some of the information from the charter. And I just threw that in there just to show people. I'd offer to look it up. I don't really think it's that relevant to our process. So one thing with the charter is the charter's task, at least in terms of the districts, was much simpler than ours because they were working with the precincts that already existed based on the 2010 census. And their only decisions about the boundaries was about how to turn those 10 precincts into the five districts. And based on the requirements about having precincts be next to each other and so on, given the shape of Amherst and the shape of those precincts, there were only, I think, up to like nine options of how they could pair it and get everything to work. And so, they didn't have to work kind of at a, we're at a much earlier sort of harder stage where we need to also look at all the different factors that go into creating the precincts in the first place. And then once we feel comfortable with our draft 15 precincts, then doing what they did in terms of putting them into the districts, at least that's how I see it. And I had, I'm the type of person where I'll think of something really good to say as soon as we hang up this meeting or I'll think of it tomorrow or I'll think of it when I'm putting my kid down to bed at night. I thought of something the other day and Sue, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure if the town council has to sign off on our precinct map. I think they have to sign off on the district map. The district, yeah, it's right in the charge. So let me read it to you. But we're drawing the districts off of the precincts, but when we think, when we were talking last week about our very aggressive timeline, like we're gonna get this data at the end of September, we have two weeks to produce something so that it can get on the town council's time. We can schedule it with the council, they can review it and give them a buffer to reject it and us do it again. I don't know if we have to worry about that with the precincts. The precincts are for the LEDRC. The council, we're recommending districts. Yeah, you're on mute, Tracy. I read the press release from the Census Bureau and it seems like right that if these are being put forth as the precincts that the executive body or like somebody still needs to approve them at the town level, not just them. I mean, that was my take on what I read. I don't think it would hurt, but I don't think it says anything. I mean, just that we're not like an authority, we have no authority per se, like in terms of like final decisions, I feel like it does need to be approved somehow at the town level. Okay. We have to talk about the polling locations where those extra five precincts, if there are five, are going to be voting in and then it'll be up to the council to vote on those. But again, it's a recommendation, but I think that comes from the board of registrars. I think one thing leads to another, leads to another with this. Yes. Yes. So I can give an update. I did email the town council clerk requesting that we are put in the agenda and in requesting an extra meeting so that they can vote on this and I have not heard back. Athena's on vacation, so it's possible. I might also suggest, well, if you re-email Athena, but also to email the council president, because she's usually pretty good about getting back to people. And I don't think, I think Athena's the clerk, I don't think she has like authority to decide about meetings or anything. So it would have to be approved by the council, members themselves. Yes, she's your first contact person though, because she'll get everything off to the council, but yeah, Lynn is good. But so I guess one thing right is like with the election, is that the council usually meets on Monday. So their last meeting that we saw in the schedule was October 18th. And then so they could maybe have a meeting on October 25th, but then it wouldn't be realistic for them to have a meeting like before the day before the election. I asked, no, I asked on the, in fact, because we have to put it before the end of October in. So I asked for the 25th that week, yeah. And I mean, when there's deadlines like that, I think the council's usually pretty accommodated and they can also just have a meeting where this is the only topic or something. But they do have a procedure that says that any of these substantive things, they need to see it twice. So it would be good, but they can choose to waive that if they all agree. Which I think in this case, for public input, they wouldn't. Okay. So any other discussion that we want to have over the package material? So, Sue, I just had a question about from 2011. So the only thing that's online and available to us from that process is just those emails. I'm sorry, the minutes, the minutes, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, I don't, I mean, I think it's great if everybody wants to go and look through all your, I mean, are there any other like digital materials that would be available? Did you check archive materials? Did you look under like, or did you make this? Archives are usually based on what's in the committees. I don't know. On the old DAB page, see if they had anything on that page. Is there a new, is there an old separate DAB page? Yeah, let me look. A lot of times the archive part is just minutes and agendas. But then I noticed like with the charter, when I was looking for the charter information, they still have like a whole page about that has a recap of like the materials that they use at each of their meetings. This may take me a while here. However, there's not something, it's not stuff that I can put online. It's to, there's big maps and things like that. No, I didn't know if there's like any part of it that that's helpful. Like even, so one of the things is like, for example, the minutes, they refer to like different scenarios and things, like things that we don't really have access to, but I don't know. Or maybe one of us can volunteer to look through and see if there's anything that's easy to like scan in or something. I mean, my main takeaway from looking at least at the minutes is just that it sounds like the state redistricting committee, whatever they're called, the local redistricting. L.A. DRC? Yeah, they, yeah, exactly. That they would have questions, like if we do have things with like little, as Peggy was mentioning about like fingers, like different parts protruding and they wanted explanations about those. So I can see them doing the same to us. Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that's in this binder. Basically what happened? Well, it was mostly to correct that problem from 2000 and just the way we have to deal with the intense blocks of large groups of people that it's hard to break up. So... And then conversely, huge amounts of space with very few people in Amherst. Like if you look at South Amherst, there's just, it's all conservation land and it's got 20 houses on there and it's an all one census block. It's strange geography. Tracy, I'll check online because I can't check and talk and listen at the same time, obviously, or apparently. Okay, if you find anything, can you add it for the package for next week? Yes, I think. Yeah. Great. So this leads to the next item. There's, I think this is, I wanted to start the conversation on how, and this is what Peggy, you were asking before, how is it gonna set up priorities? What takes over when we are creating the precincts? Because there are multiple factors. There are some, as Mike says, that there are the hard stops. They have no more than 4,000 but no more than 5% difference and census block. So those are our starting points. Beyond that, we have a clean slate in practice. That's how I see it. So one of the questions that we have to come forward and think is, is it important that we keep as close as possible the current precincts or not? Is it important that we try to distribute the precincts in such a way that as much as we can, we make sure that the final districts have similar population densities? This is something that was not able to be done in the previous, in the last month creation because they were working on the existing precinct. So one way would be, let's look at the population density with age profiles and look for similar age profiles and population densities in all districts that within each precinct might not be doable because we might have large connotations but is it important for us that we have a distribution that they are self-similar, that would be a way or we start dividing in different ways than the precinct? So I think this is a conversation we need to have because we have some hard stops and then we have a lot of things. And this is the conversation that we were having the other day, we started to translate or we start with what we have right now and just try to tweak what we have. So there are a few other things we have to consider, minority vote dilution. You know, according to the, we cannot redraw precincts or ward or district boundaries that result in the dilution of minority group member votes. This is all in the presentation that we, and they give examples of what minority vote dilution. So those are things, there's also other, they're considered other considerations, existing polling place locations, potential polling place locations, communities of interest, and then this is where they also mentioned new construction. Those are other considerations that you should take into play. And then the second thing what you were talking about there, Irina, is I talked to a guy in California today who's like a re-precincting and redistricting expert. Like he helps, he's a consultant and he helps cities and towns all over. And he said, the question that you just asked is the hardest one to answer. And that is, do you start with what you have or do you wipe it clean and start from scratch? And he's like it, his experience has been that starting from scratch is really difficult. I would still want to put it on the table because I think in Amherst, I think from my point of view, I would like to know how other college towns handle things because the way our form of government is such that we have to have two representatives per district. And if we end up with a district that is mostly on 95% students, we have one now in the committee, but it's harder to have part of the representation in town. So that's why I was pointing, okay, if we have similar age profiles, we might be able to have a better, like the permanent residence and students might be a different way of doing things. I don't know a better way but it would be a different consideration to take into account. Just because of how our form of government is and we are limited by the, that was my nine of thought when I was suggesting that, when we see that we don't have, even in this committee representation from some districts, right? But maybe that's the problem. So I know it is harder and I think we have to figure out but that's why I wanted to put it up in the table. Tracy, do you have a hand? Yeah, I mean, why the question? I mean, maybe we could like each kind of offer thoughts on it. I mean, one thing I was thinking about is that I do think that we will, there will be some precincts that are predominantly students. And I know that the 2011 redistricting committee that they were trying not to have like the precinct 10 be all students, but it's pretty close. But I think, so for some of these questions that you're raising, it seems like some of them could also be addressed at a district level because the district level is like the main sort of building block for the town, the form of government we have now in terms of district representation. So like even if you did ever precinct that was predominantly students, you would hopefully match it with other precincts that weren't predominantly students too, like for more diversity. And so I think that some of what that, the charter commission tried to do when they took the precincts and they moved them to create the district, looked at them to create the districts. I mean, one thing when I've been looking at the stuff that Mike sent, the maps and so on, I mean, one approach I might suggest that I've seen work on other committees, I've been on not that we've looked at population per se, but even just spending a few meetings like going through like different parts of town, starting at the north or starting at the south and just, and as a group, and I mean, Mike's offered her if we can have some interactive map or something to like start to kind of roughly draw some precincts and see how those populations are looking and then sort of move through the town to try to approximate and then kind of go back and fine tune it and look at some of these other issues too. Because I mean, one of the main things the Census Bureau is looking at right are the total counts. So even if we have these other factors in mind, like we need to look at the total counts too. And I mean, I'm assuming that some of the precincts won't have changed population that much. Like even if our population did go up as much as the Census Bureau says, which is like 2000 people, like some of the precincts might be pretty close to what they were, whereas some will have had a lot of growth in, so. Yeah, but the fact that we are increasing the number of precincts, we're gonna have to lower the number of precincts. No, of course, of course, yeah. But I mean, just in terms of like where the changes are or so on. But I mean, I was just like conceptually myself as I looked at it kind of like being like, oh, you could shift, you know, you can have a precinct here or there or like starting to play with it a little bit. And so if that seemed like a good use of the committee's time to maybe spend a few meetings sort of working through town and doing that, that would be, but that's my suggestion. Thank you. Yeah, I'm gonna say thank you. Before doing that, I would suggest that we talk a little bit about whether we wanna approach this from the perspective of keeping the districts as much as we can as they are for continuity versus feeling like, you know what, we have free reign, let's go for it. Mike, I know you're gonna help me for asking this. Can we have on the current precincts this age profile or distribution of ages or density histograms of each of the districts? Not the precincts, but the districts. The districts using the 2020 data? Yes. Assuming that they route. Or the 20 whatever estimate that we have from the past. Just so that it gives us an idea how current districts are distributed. Yeah, I mean, I'm hoping my hope is that tomorrow when they release the data, it's not just population data, it's socioeconomic data. That is what I'm really hoping for so that we can have everything at our fingertips to do exactly what you just described. Because I think it would be useful to have different layers of information. I think for us, if we minority, I don't know if we can have that information, but maybe it's an economical distribution of socioeconomical. So one is age distribution on census blocks. Maybe, I don't know if at that level or a district level or at census level, at the census block level would be great. As a second question also, I don't know if that is a part of the data. I would hesitate to use the 2010 data to do these maps, but my, like I said, I really hope that that comes as part of the release tomorrow so that I can, and when the census releases their stuff, each thing, think of it as like an Excel spreadsheet for Amherst, the socioeconomic stuff will be in Excel spreadsheet. The population stuff will be in a different Excel spreadsheet and race will be in a different spreadsheet. And then I have to take all of that stuff and kind of say, hey, match all of this stuff to that census block. My hope is all that comes out tomorrow or before our next meeting so that we can really play with all that stuff. So I have a question. You are using which software to do create this map? I use as ESRI products. So ArcGIS, ArcGIS online and different things like that. And I use, I'm a SQL database person so I'm always doing stuff in SQL. But we can make maps and graphs and interactive online maps and graphs and summary charts and there's lots of different things that we can do to provide tools for us to make decisions but then also for transparency's sake, you know. Oh, here's scenario one, two, three, four, five and six that the committee came up with. And here's the race distribution for each one of those scenarios and here's the age distribution for each one of those scenarios. Those are tools that we have at our fingertips. I think that would be great to have. And I think part of the discussion that we have to have is, okay, beyond the top, the things that are hard, how do we balance all the other items? Yeah. Well, so I had a question, because Peggy, you were just asking about the committee needs to decide about whether to keep the districts the same. Is that what your question was? No. Or were you referring to, I wasn't sure what you were referring to. No, I was trying to say that in terms of whether we approach this, I guess I'm just curious whether people feel like, is there a leaning towards trying to keep the committee, the districts the same or is there more a leaning of let's build, let's build up from the ground? So it was just kind of a way, I think it was just a way to start the discussion. Yeah. I mean, maybe we can all kind of voice, if you have an opinion on it, they can voice what they think. I'll start. I think since we're getting the data sooner than we thought that we should at least, I would really like to look at the precincts and try to balance and not worry about what the previous committees have done and see what we come up with. If we end up with our, if we end up with no time or we can't get the data to work or whatever, we can fall back on what has been done before and maybe tweak it. But at this point, we have more time than I thought we would. I'd really love to try to think, go in with an open mind about what we'll come out with. Great, thanks. Joseph, do you have your pencil? I totally agree with that. I think one thing we do need to keep in mind is due to our sort of low numbers, especially in districts four and five, that if we're not able to sort of get more people on our board here, that we do use a lot of the older data for those areas specifically. However, I do agree with you that I think it's a good opportunity to sort of play with a lot of this new information when we get it. Tommy? I was just gonna say, I think there's a value in keeping voting places the same just because it's hard for people to learn new things. And I work in the polls and I spend a lot of time sending people around to other precincts to vote. So I think there's a value in trying to keep it the same. But I also think that once we look at it as a whole picture, that may not be possible. So I think we need to be really open-minded but to keep in mind that for a lot of people here or a lot of people in general, it's easier to do what you did before. Steve, you want to give them, Steve, you have your time. Yeah, I think there's something to be said about making sure that folks know where to vote, you know. But I also believe it's an opportunity to look at these growing populations through graphics and shifting and changing within Amherst. We can simply look at our school system. It's almost 50% people of color. And so I would very much be interested in looking at the minority majority type of balance in terms of these precincts and districts. And so, you know, if it takes really, you know, and exploring that, I'd be in favor of that. Now, of course, I'm just, you know, the here is the representative and the member. I'm looking at it in a fresh way because the population is changing and shifting would be important. Tracy? Hi, so, so I think, I think that these factors are really important to look at. And I think there's also some good points about precinct, I mean, voting locations. And I guess initially my take would be to like sort of start with the precincts that are there and see about how to shift those particularly as we're moving them from 10 to 15 and also looking at the latest population trends. I think it's really important as I had mentioned earlier in the meeting just about like subdivisions and neighborhoods and stuff to try to not split those up. Like if you, it's, and it can be a little hard because we're using central lines, right? So like if people on one side of the street voted one precinct and people on the other side of the street vote on the other precincts and then, or maybe even, and that could even be a district boundary later. And then people are like, where do I vote? And, you know, and people don't know. And so to just sort of look at like some of those clusters and so I think, I mean, I might tend to look some of the population figures first and then fill it in and adjust things based on all these demographics and factors we're talking about. And in terms of creating the precinct, I mean, sorry, creating the districts after we've agreed about the precincts, I definitely think that we should go through that process ourselves. When I went back and I looked at the charter commission's plan and their discussions about how they said that there were nine different options for how they could have grouped the precincts. I mean, there were a few other options that they didn't choose. And in my look at them, I thought that they were just as viable and in some cases I could see benefits for the options they didn't choose in some ways. And so I think that we should go through that process ourselves because it does, because that the districts are now the building blocks of the council, it seems really important to get that piece right in terms of representation and so on. Tammy. I'd also like to say that I'd like to see polling places at UMass and at least Amherst College. It's very hard to get college students to vote and having the polling places be kind of in more than one place in town has also been really difficult trying to sending people back and forth because the dorms are in different voting places. And so I would love to see UMass have at least one polling place, if not two. And I don't know at this point, I don't know what the Amherst College, I don't know what the numbers are. I also don't, I guess we're not really considering the voting population we're just considering the general population. So I don't know, but I do, I personally feel that the student voters are underrepresented. So. They usually, yeah, so I think that in UMass, at least early voting for whenever there's early voting, there used to be an early voting place, a polling place at UMass. I don't know what, yes, so I don't know. Have one time, right? We had them a couple of times, no. We've had problems every single time, I have to tell you, because the room has to be secured, has to be available. We have to be able to get our stuff in there. Parking spaces were supposed to be reserved. We have a lot of equipment that we bring in. And I know the last town clerk ended up having to cart stuff, probably a good half a mile in to get, because the parking spots, there's always been a glitch. Let's just put it that way. You don't need to hear all the particulars, but, and it also has to be available. Every single time we have an election, we have to know that that spot's available for us, no matter what is going on on campus. So there's issues. We've had the sub precincts over the years, three times there've been sub precincts, three, four, nine, and 10A were the sub precincts. And because of lack of turnout, they ended up the school, ended up contacting us and saying we can't do this because they have to pay a portion of it. So they've canceled it, three times we've tried it. So I see the benefit definitely, but then there's also those two hands on this one, two sides of the coin. There was also a bad messaging there where students were told to register to vote but in their hometowns. And then some students were told to register in the town of Amherst. And so they were thinking that they could vote in Amherst if they registered in their hometown. And so it was like they got a lot of mixed messages. Interesting. Precincts you have? I mean, so I mean, I can talk about my opinion on polling places as somebody who's worked a lot of elections. I do wonder like is the polling place locations is that actually part of our charge at all? Or is that something that will come later like after the precincts are created? It's not something that we determine ourselves. I don't think so. I don't believe so. We're supposed to consider their location when drawing these maps. But I don't think it's our, and correct me if I'm wrong Sue, I don't believe that it's our responsibility to draw where the polling locations are. No, and that's not my interpretation either. I think I spoke to this earlier Tracy. Yeah. It's something to think about. Definitely. I mean, but I guess logistically too. I mean, I do think it's important for students to have access to voting. But I mean, I know that I've worked as an election worker on like the on the, in the on-campus precincts that weren't like early voting. It's early voting included all the precincts, right? So you didn't have to know like which precinct you were in. And then sometimes the turnout, particularly if it's a local election because unfortunately local elections do not typically draw as many college students to vote as say like a presidential election or something. I mean, I think I worked one precinct, one election on campus in the Cape Cod Lounge and we only had like 10 voters for the whole day. So I mean, I think there's a balance and it will also be important to see what happens at the state level about allowing like vote by mail and early voting, including for local elections because a pretty high percentage of people like voted remotely or early last time. And so, I mean, a part of me wonders, you know, the extent to which like day vote, voting the day of the election will like continue to draw people. I mean, I personally will always continue to vote like on-person the day of the election. But I mean, a lot of people just like the convenience of not doing that. Yeah, I see, yeah, definitely. So going back to the discussion about the priorities I think to think into account the polling places is good but we don't need to keep them the same besides we have 15. So we're gonna have to have things gonna have to change. So as long as there is a good education and there is time in advance and we start the messaging, the town starts the messaging early, I wouldn't put the polling places to keep the same as a higher up in the list, as other item. As long as it goes accompanied with good communications from the town and there's gonna have to be communications with the town because the prisons are gonna change and the districts are gonna change. So everything is gonna have to change. So there's gonna have to be a lot of outreach and together with that outreach should come the polling places. I might be wrong, but I will hope that I would do a good job of saying things change. Oh no, that's where the town clerk's office will reach out but I believe the state will be walking us through that because all the cities and towns are gonna be doing the same thing. So I'm not sure if it's going to be through our voter registration system, something that automatically gets printed out because all these voter registration cards that are in the system have to be changed because when you look somebody up in our system right now it says, okay, Harkness Avenue precinct, whatever. If that now falls in a new precinct that all has to get changed at the state level. So when that happens, I think there's gonna be an automatic printout, like an acknowledgement notice. I believe that's how it works. I haven't been involved in it, but that makes sense. So in order to summarize, I think we've heard different views. People have different approaches I think it's a conversation that we need to keep having and maybe based on data and things, how things compare and how people go feeling that we go changing but I think this is something that we should have a check-in every time about the priorities and how to combine all the information. I would not want to say a hard stop now and set up all the parameters until we see the data. Because there are different levels of information and I think we have to try to combine all the data. I don't know if that makes sense, but I'm saying. So I wanted to ask, so I think we went through some of the items. I think we need to plan for next week and other items, it would be to set up the meetings for future meetings. But before we stop the discussion is what information do we want to see and put Mike on working or any other homeworks that we want to give ourselves to move forward. We had talked about the clusters creating an list that this relates about points of interest to the point of one of the items that we have to satisfy our points of interest. And I don't know how you want to go forward creating this list because we had, presumably we have some information that comes from previous meetings, but I think things have changed in the last 10 years. Susan, do you know if that's some information that is on the 2011 binder? No, that's why I went through that today. I tried to find that, I couldn't find the thing. I looked through all their meeting minutes and it didn't say anything. Yeah, and back then it was in person so nothing's recorded. So there's no way of knowing what they were talking about. Okay, so the question is, do we want to create a list that based on what we know of each precinct that represents those are points of interest for each precinct currently or do we wait until we have some new information about the boundaries or more or less approximate boundaries and we figure out if there are common points of interest at that time. You're referring to communities of interest? Yes. Irina from the, okay, all right, I just wanted to clarify. Yeah, communities of interest and yeah, communities of interest and thinking of falling places, maybe thinking for communities of interest falling places or we're going to go doing it as Tracy was suggesting, looking at the map as we were creating and trying to identify, make sure that we are not splitting communities of interest or make sure on the spot. I mean, I still, I mean, I do think that, I mean, I think the precincts will be the existing precincts are kind of grouped including like they're not, they're grouped around like densities, right? Certain clusters of populations and to certain extent like communities of interest. And so I think that, if we take some, I mean, just I'm assuming that, right? So we'd have to be working on redrawing the boundaries like interactively at a meeting. I don't see how else we would do it. Like in terms of like if we were meeting in person, right? We'd all be gathered around a map and like trying to lay it out, but now we're on computer. So Mike and Sue and we can like interactively try to look at boundaries. I don't see any other way to do that so much. And I'm not sure it's necessary to like come up with list of clusters and community of interest because I think as we have discussions on the different parts of the community, like we, you know, as we're going sort of through the town like those will become apparent. It is helpful if we do have, you know, as Joseph I think or somebody else who was also talking about just like with South Amherst, but like some of the people on this committee have lived in Amherst quite a long time and so might feel like they know quite a bit about the clusters and communities of interest. Not that any of us are aware of like everyone, but so we might be able to do a rough cut, you know, just interactively and not focus so much on like creating a list and like working from the list because I think as we have the discussion moving through each part of town, like those things will come to the surface. That's my take. Anybody have any other suggestions? I mean, one thought I had is I really think that it's premature to try to make a list when we haven't seen the data yet. We don't know if we're making more precincts or fewer precincts or whatever. So I think we'll know a lot more next week. Hopefully we'll next. Hopefully. Yeah, because it actually gets a drop to end my minute to make the map. We'll know a lot more. Okay, now I was just trying to plan for next week and what to prioritize because I think for Mike, we will like a whole list of maps, right? Yes. Although we can't give them a whole list. Yes, and then the question is based on timeline and the limited amount of time to prioritize, I think. This is all doable. I would say something if it's not doable. Assuming that the data comes out in a timely manner. I've seen it in the past where it's dropping today and it doesn't drop for a week. So next week's meeting may be very short. And if the data looks okay too. Not only is it there, but you can actually use it. Yeah, so, yeah. And you know what I was gonna say is that the last group I counted their meetings, they met only seven times before they had a propose. Only seven times. So what did you see their maps? Sue, did you see their maps, what they did? They printed out, I believe it was 11 by 17 paper. Yeah. And they colored with crayons and they colored, I think, in what they wanted the precincts to be. That's how they built it. They were outlined in red and yeah, I did, I did. Yeah, but I mean, if we meet every single week, we have a lot more meetings, so that's good. But they didn't need to do districts. Correct. No, that's true, that's true. Which would be at least a couple meetings. Yeah. I guess I'd be interested, Sue, in what type of public process they had. Like, I don't, I did live in Amherst in 2011. I don't remember there being like a public forum or anything like that. There was none, there were none. They met in the first floor meeting room from five to seven, well, not once a week. They met on 331, 474, 144, 285, 526 and 62. And did the select board approve their boundaries before they were sent to the state? Yes. Yeah, I think they were revised though, as revised. So I have a question. Do we want to have a press release that this is happening so that people are aware that this is happening? I think that's a good idea. It is a good idea. Yeah, I do. I suggest we do it once we have some data. Yeah, exactly. Right now there's, it's kind of a, it's kind of a land. Yeah, but it's considered, but I would not want to have wait too long. I would say some data, but since we have a short timeline and we want to let people know and maybe participate, I would like to be out before mid-September. Sure, definitely. Before probably if we can do something by the end of the month would be great, but not later than the first week of September to how our press release is happening. And even I guess once Mike verifies that he has the map, like he has data that we can look at. I guess, and I have a related question is that many, I don't know if all, but many of the town's committees, they have a council liaison who attends the meeting mainly as an observer and then they can report back to the council what's happening. And that's one way that both the council and the public can find out about what different committees are up to. And I don't know, would we be assigned somebody like that? Is that a question for the council president? Do I don't think so. So in terms of we wouldn't have a council liaison on this committee? No, because our charge doesn't have that. They thought about having that and they nixed the idea. But I don't think that most, I mean, I'm on the transportation advisory committee and we don't have, it's not in our charge to have a liaison. It's just like a courtesy kind of thing. A courtesy kind of thing, exactly. Communications kind of thing. I mean, that maybe we could request one or something because if I know that the committee, I know the councilors have a lot of... The question, Tracy, what would be the purpose of having that? Because the one in, we can report back or we can send a message this is happening. They can look at the meetings, but the council, yes they're gonna have to vote on this, but the question is, can they come and say we don't like the way the new districts, you have to start from scratch? Is there a basis where the council can reject if we satisfy, this is a question for everybody, if we satisfy the no more than 4,000, the 5% the things, can the council say we don't like the way you do the prisons and the districts because they have a vested interest if they want to continue being representative of one district or another? Can the council come and say we don't like it? You have to start from scratch. Well, I think the council can weigh in and not approve it. I mean, it's in the council's purview to do that. I mean, if we weren't gonna have, and I mean, maybe it's not necessarily have a council liaison like come to every meeting, but there is a part of each council meeting towards the end where they have updates from committees. And that's typically where a liaison will weigh in and just say, oh yeah, I'm on the finance committee and this is what happened or something if there weren't any finance committee items on the agenda earlier. And particularly even just to let the council know that like that the DAB is meeting and so on. And hopefully like, you know, by the time they have the next council meeting on the 23rd, like we have data and we're doing these things or something like just to provide a brief report to the council or brief update on that. The has kind of fun. So could someone just voluntarily and they can switch out from this may offer to attend the next council meeting and provide an update and maybe make a request to the public as well. It would be an opportunity to talk to the public to do two things. One, invite someone to apply to be a part of the committee if it's not too late. And then secondly, notify the public that they can email Suadette, comments, anything that they're concerned about regarding the redistricting, provide her email and let folks know also the packages include maps that they might find helpful to read. I think that's a great idea. I just know from being with Amherst media for so many years after Paul Backelman became the town manager, it seemed it wasn't very popular to have these liaisons for the town council and it sounds like they were also kind of restricted in their participation. So I'm just saying if we wait for that approval to get someone like that, we might miss an opportunity to inform the public of what we're doing. I'd like to check with the town manager and see his take on that. Cause I know there is a point, like you say, Tracy, in each council meeting where there's board and committee updates. I think there may be a little difference with this group because we're only for a specific purpose in a short timeline. So we don't fall into the same parameters that other ongoing boards and committees do. I wonder, I just want to get clarification on that. I think the one option, I mean, one thing is that those reports are at like the very end of the meeting which knowing the council could be at like 11, 1130 midnight or later. And I've very rarely heard any reports on any of the committees. I mean, I think the town manager could put something in his memo. He does. But like perhaps one of us, and I would be happy to do that if nobody else is interested, like could even speak to our public comment and just say that we're like up and running or something. And that from the public comment period of the meeting is actually like when the public is all still there and not at the fourth or fifth or six hour of the council. So it just seems higher profile. Like if we, one, we're inviting public comment and participation. And two, if we're still able to continue try to recruit members or something that it would be nice to have it at the beginning of the meeting. I mean, even the town manager's report is at the end of the meeting. Can we come up on tier? I'll do it unless anybody else feels strongly. Go for it. All right then. So that would be August 23rd. But I will say, I mean, that's getting pretty late if we're trying to find members because like as I said, right, it has to go to GOL and then it has to go to the council and so on. So hope like my kind of dream if we ever found if anybody volunteers is that they could actually be voted on by the council to join on the 23rd. But I think those are two different items. I say- Yeah, no, of course, of course. If we can outreach and still even if we get somebody comes on board around that time or one week later, it would be great because again, the issue about quorum is something that worries me about being in committee so we hadn't had to cancel it because we didn't have quorum. So that would be- Well, and I think too, if we did have somebody from the public who is really interested, who wasn't officially appointed, like maybe there could be some way for them to like somehow be, let their opinions be known or something at least, even if they're not officially a member of the committee. I have a question on the press release who I can do a press release. I usually communicate with the newspaper. So if you'd like me to do that or Mike, would you rather do it? Doesn't matter to me. I've never done it. Oh, okay. I've done it many times. Things go through Brianna for us with stuff like this. I've never- Did you want to have a second? So again, I'm just a representative body but I'm a communications person. I don't mind writing a press release but whoever writes the press release, I feel that it should be approved by at least the executive committee and then be able to see it goes out. That's my advice. I would be, that's what I was going to suggest before sending a press release if we could read it and approve it in the next meeting so before sending it out. Yeah. Oh, I wasn't going to just answer. Yeah. If you could put that on the list of items, maybe we can create one in the next meeting with everybody's input. No? No, it's hard. You need to, like somebody should draft something that we can respond to. Yes. So if D is volunteering to draft it or anyway, but. Sure. So if you all could let me know what bulleted type of points you want emphasized. One I know is we need someone for district five and I forgot the other districts though. You know, maybe four, district four. There's space for somebody from four. So we can have up to two new people including district four and district five. Okay. So any of that bulleted form you can send me Sue once you have the minutes I'll just take it from the minutes and draft something and have it available for, because I guess as a committee, we would have to approve it during the meeting to not violate open meeting law. Yeah. Yeah. So I could have a draft available and then we could read through it and tweak it. Yeah. Just so you know, D, Joseph is our minute taker. So. I'm so sorry, Joseph. Yes. That's right. Yeah. And that's okay. But Joseph, when you're done, he's been forwarding everything to me and I've been putting it on the website. So check the website. I'll email you when it goes on there. So you know. Great. So I'll be happy to do a draft, take a stab at it. Great. Thank you. So the next item is we need to schedule our next meetings. And I think there was a preference. So you said something, I think you have the information about the timelines of everybody. We had agreed that Tuesdays and Wednesdays between starting between four and seven, I think that was the agreement. Yeah. And I think Marilyn said that after a certain date, she's going to be freed up. Unfortunately, she didn't think we were going to start quite so late. I forget what she said. But so I think, you know, we can't really go by her schedule. She's just going to count on us setting the schedule and she'll be here when she can after she's freed up. So Wednesdays, I think Wednesdays were the better day for everybody. Well, I had a question. We have the one appointed member who hasn't come to any of our meetings yet. What is her schedule like? She... Was she the one that's going to be traveling? No, that was Marilyn. Her, that was my heck. Hold on one second. Marilyn said that almost all of September won't be around, right? Yeah. Yeah, let me just look here. Checking through the emails. Just one second. I'm surprised because when we were appointed, we had to say that we were gonna be available during these months. I know. She's going, Marilyn's going on a trip from mid-September. She'll be available after she returns from her trip from mid-September to mid-October. So that's her availability time. And I think that the nights were good with her. But my heck, she said Wednesdays after five works beautifully for her. So Wednesdays, I think was the day for everybody. I mean, you were having also, you were preparing after five, right? Tammy, yeah, you too, because you work. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, one thing is, if we wanna, I guess, right, we're already the 11th. So we would be trying to meet, say, every Wednesday. For now, are there other Wednesdays we would take off? I mean, I know that there's like the Jewish holidays. So like there's a week of Yom Kippur, there's a week of Rosh Hashanah and a week of Yom Kippur that we, but are there other, would we? Look at the calendar, Rosh Hashanah starts on the 7th of September. Does anybody, is that gonna interfere with anybody? No, I could be, the meeting would be on the 8th. If we do the meeting on the 8th. So that's Wednesdays. But if Rosh Hashanah starts on the 7th, it should be, okay, with me. And then Yom Kippur, we would take off at Yom Kippur, right? On the 15th. Oh, that's on the 16th on my calendar. Well, it starts at sundown on the 15th. Wait, does that mean Rosh Hashanah starts the sundown on the 8th? No, it starts on the sundown on the 7th. Of the 6th, of the 6th, it's 6th to 7th. Let me see. That's what my calendar says. How about we schedule, so for August 18th, the 25th, the 1st and the 8th, we try to do Wednesdays. And then by then we can we take it up. Sure, sounds good. If it turns out that people's schedules change because of the beginning of the school year or whatever, we can revisit at the end of August. Right. Yeah, that sounds good. For me, it's okay, but I don't know the rest of the people that are on. So, I mean, I know UMass classes and like Amherst schools, they start the week of whatever that is, the 30th, right? So, the 1st is the 1st, they have UMass classes. But I like that idea of just scheduling out maybe like the 1st, like three meetings or. Yeah. Actually, I'm gonna say something. Actually, on the 8th, I have a conflict. I'm gonna have to ask if we can set the 5th 30. Let's schedule the next three weeks and then take it from there. Okay. That's good. Okay. The 18th, the 25th, September 1st from five to seven. Five to seven. Yes. And also, I guess if we have new members right when are they available? So. Yep. Okay. Okay. So, is there any other item that we want to discuss that we did not cover in today's meeting? No. No. I don't think we have anybody for a public comment. Nope. Okay. So, anybody want to make a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. Second. Second. All second. Okay. So, everybody in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Can we do that? Okay. I can go do a roll call. We all agreed. Yeah. Peggy. I agree. Aye. Tracy. Aye. Tammy. Aye. Joseph Gordon. Aye. Yiren. Aye. Yiren from the eye. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Bye. Bye.