 Okay, great. Okay, greetings everyone and welcome to the first town services and outreach committee meeting of the new year. This meeting is being recorded pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. The meeting will be conducted remotely members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public and adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And with that I'd like to call the meeting to order to order by making sure that our members and honorary members and guests can hear us and be heard. So, Anna. I should have known I was first. I can hear you. Dorothy. Yes, I can hear you. Andy present. And Kelly, can you hear us. I absolutely can you sound great. Thank you. Thank you. And super intended Amy. Again, with the promotion every time. Yes, I can hear you. Wonderful to spend a night with you guys again. All right, thank you for being with us and follow your heroes. Yeah, and Amy your cameras off. That may be purposeful. So yes, I can hear you. Okay. Yeah, I kind of figure I'll be in the background without my camera until you get to my topic. Okay. Okay. I'm going to come and quickly. Don't go far. So Athena, I heard you, but Athena, you still, you're still there. I'm still here. And if you don't mind saying that we're recording just so we can have that on the record, the chair has to declare it, please. And we are recording. Thank you. We are recording. So, all right. Okay. If I could hand over the floor to both Andy and Amy to go over the new recommendations around the water and sewer bias. Okay, I'll start real quickly because it's really going to be Amy who's going to be the presenter I believe. Amy and Sean presented a memo to the finance committee at meeting that we had just on Tuesday that contained significantly new and different information that is about the rates that are projected. So we're going to be executing the changes in water and sewer regulations that makes the enterprise funds responsible for the repairs from the main to the property line. In other words, under the right of way. Is there in their fairly significant differences and every one in who's a customer of the system would be paying these larger rates which I believe Amy is going to present. And after that discussion, we started to reconsider the question as to whether this is the wise approach to take to make that change. We didn't really reach a final conclusion that was what the recommendation was the recommendation was that we adopt, at least for now. All of the other changes, though Amy will have to do some work if she's if we're going to do this to the regulations. So that we can take advantage of all of the fine work that she has done and committees have done and studying the other changes and then hold this one back for a little bit of time until there's additional information. And that we may return to that topic later date. The vote in the committee. As you know, we have three non voting members who resident members and five counselors who are voting members and the other voting members. There were three who voted in favor, and to who abstained. Nobody voted against. So, I think that's the introduction and Amy, if you could present the memo again and the information that is behind it that would be really great thank you. Great. And I'm not sure if you guys have all seen the memo that that Sean mangano put together. Yes, I mean, I'm happy to I'm happy to share it if we want to share it or I can even share screen if we want to go through stuff but I can, I guess let me talk, talk you through it and tell me if you want to the visual. But like Andy said, you know, I know Guilford and I have been kind of been saying all along okay taking over the, this portion of the service line is going to have a cost impact, but I think it was, you know, when we got to fin calm that we felt a little more sturdy in the number that we were presenting and that and that also coupled with looking at how this was going to impact the rates not just a number but just okay how does that translate into what everyone's bill is going to be. And I'll say that part of the hesitation. Hopefully I'm speaking for the, you know, the members of the fin calm. When I say this I think some of the hesitation is that the rates are going to be going up on the water and the suicide over the next few years because of, you know, aging infrastructure. Large projects such as you know the Centennial Water Treatment Plant and a new gravity belt thickener on the wastewater side. Basically everything is costing more all of our components are costing more so and water rates people in Amherst do a great job of conserving water which is wonderful in so many ways. The way that it impacts us though is a lot of our water and sewer system costs are fixed and so then that that means the rates go up so all of these things combined means that we're already looking at some rate increases over the coming years. And then this was going to add something else to it. So that's kind of, I guess, setting the stage. The long story short was that, you know, Sean ran a lot of analysis on it, and ultimately, you know, we think that it's going to be, it could be about half a million dollars a year per enterprise system is kind of the rough number that we're using. I think it might be more than that but we also at least for the first few years until we felt confident that was a number that Sean felt comfortable saying, let's budget for that and if it's more than that you know we do have a little bit of reserve and so we can kind of figure it out without, you know, without overshooting and overburdening the rate payers. And so with that 500,000 you're looking at an extra 50 cents per hundred cubic feet for for the rates just because of this change in ownership. Yeah, I guess that's that's the long and short of it is that it's about 50 cents per hundred cubic feet and so an average Amherst user. I don't have that number exactly in front of me but I think an average Amherst user uses about 9500 cubic feet a year and so that would be an increase of roughly, you know, I think it was that would be $50 here right. And other, and that's one, you know, 50 cents for water 50 cents for sewer so you know that would be about $100 between the two bills. I wanted to put it in context of how that might impact you guys each as a user. One of the other avenues that we went down was just looking at an insurance policy, because I know people have been asking about is there an insurance policy that could do that. And there's kind of two ways that this could go. The town could purchase an insurance policy and we were hopeful that that might alleviate some of the cost on the town. But it's still looking at between, it would be about $150,000 on the water side and about 310 annually on the sewer side and that would only cover if there is a break so unanticipated repairs. It would only cover that and that's not going to cover any preventative stuff that we have to do any replacement of water lines because of lead and sewer. We also explored, explored looking at, you know, if the town partners with an insurance company to educate homeowners like if we didn't make this change, you know, do we want to educate homeowners and then partner and figure out what the cost would be of insurance to each user so that you guys can be protected in that same way. And I, Paul, I know you had the memo on that I don't have that number handy but you had, you had numbers on how that would impact people so we've looked down a lot of different ways. So, I think that's setting the stage Andy did I miss anything. The other way to look at it was percentage increases, which you had in the memo, and just picking on the water I think it was like 3.4% was anticipated originally and up to 13.9 13.9% would be the increase in the next year. And so we were somewhat concerned about projecting that large of an increase and I think the same is true in the suicide. I mean, some numbers we just picked out where the water, but people pay both. And as a consequence, there would be a fairly large rate that would go and be announced and going into effect on July 1. And, frankly, there was some anxiety about doing this right now. Well, we're also looking at the asking voters to consider an increase to their taxes in order to build an elementary school. I guess I'll add I know you guys have hands up so I certainly want to do questions but I will add I believe Andy correct me if I'm wrong. I believe the recommendation is let's let's sink our teeth into this for two years so we're not saying we're never taking this over this is our one chance to make this change it's just the finance committee wanted to be very thoughtful about this but didn't want to hold up the water and sewer issues as we continue to explore this so you know kind of let's see if we can get everything else through and continue to wrap our head around it, talk to other insurance company see if there's other options out there, that sort of thing. Okay, I have several. First, we had a list of water and sewer rates from other towns, and we were below that. So if this increased theoretically, what you think it might be, were added on, would we be way above the other towns, or would we be more like the one. Number two, the increasing rates is about, or maybe less than what a private insurance policy would cost the homeowner. Okay, and as we know from the story I've told you from my house, we had insurance, and it was over $30,000 the cost of fixing things. In the case we had of the older woman who said I'm in my 90s how can I ask to pay this thing, pay for what's underneath the street. It just didn't make any sense to her, and a bunch of people listening to it would say well that doesn't make sense either. And so then the town would end up having to pay for it. So, to my mind. The thing that is more sensible is to do something which Amherst has not always done, which is to go forward in keeping up its systems, rather than waiting for something bad to happen. And when Guilford talked about this, he made it clear that there were a number of pipes and connections that were going to have to be repaired. It was going to end up in, if the town took ownership of the pipe under the road. It was going to be perhaps a better maintained system. So, I am not agreeing with, I mean I understand you can't go forward to you get more facts. Okay, I totally understand that. But I would hate to lose the momentum, because so many things that Amherst had get started and don't get completed. So, the number one is how would the increase cost compare with what other towns are asking now and might be asking in the future. Doesn't it seem this is an enterprise fund, which means it will balance itself out that the cost added cost the homeowner is very comparable to the insurance which when I think it was Town Councilor Taub's husband tried to get private insurance. He found he couldn't get it, because he really wanted to get it and he found he couldn't get anything that was meaningful, or where the pay off is going to be related to what the cost might be. So, I think 9000 was the most it could be, and that's helpful but that's not going to help an older homeowner who says, wait a minute I can't do this. I don't want to have a lean on my house, because I owe the town money for having repaired, you know, my water and sewer, and we don't want people not to be connected to water and sewer. So, those are those are my thoughts and I'd like to hear the answers to that. Thank you. I can try to jump in. So I think what we're saying is that this is a major public policy decision to switch the ownership. Before we take such a significant step. We really do need to look more deeply into that. We don't want to hold up the regulations that Amy and this committee has put so much time into so we can move these regulations forward in the bylaw. And put this in abeyance until we get deeper. In the meantime, we can do what we can offer the insurance policy that Jennifer and I think other people here said, can we offer that can we help homeowners purchase the insurance policy. If they choose to not every property owner is going to want to purchase it this gives them the option. And there is a program out there that we can that we can subscribe to, and they would come in and they would say here's what you if you'd like to purchase this insurance is like $7 a month or something like that. And they can offer all different sort of different variations of that kind of thing. So I think where we are at this point is that, you know, I think the, our rates are below our neighbors, but people don't look at what our neighbors are paying because they are tax rates are higher than our neighbors, and they sort of look at the total cost, and they really look at what the increases and coming out with a significant increase for something that's may may not benefit all the property owners this without fully betting that asking people to rate payers to pay all this extra money when we're not quite there yet. That's where staff started to say we should take a step back. Get the interim piece of let's get the insurance policy available to folks. Let's get the regulations done and let's look at this a little deeper. So we know what the council is really going to be voting on, but I think we have we have a duty to the council give you full better information on that. Okay, I just just hate to see us lose them. I understand why we can't go ahead with all and that we should go ahead with what's the other regulations now. I hate to see us lose momentum because there's always something there's always something that we want to spend money on. And I think infrastructure, we've had a lot of feedback from the public that they're really interested in infrastructure and not just new buildings. Yeah, and I think it's just a jump in here again. We are have two major projects we have a lot of water and super projects but the two we're building a new Centennial treatment plant which is a significant new project. The Gravity Bell Thickner, it sounds, it's a multimillion dollar multimillion, but maybe a million dollars project at the wastewater treatment plant to really key features of our infrastructure so, and then along with all the different pipe maintenance that we already own, and we're what we're saying is that can we really take on owning even more pipes than we do right now. And so, rather than take the sort of pretty significant thinking on more ownership of more pipes we're thinking, let's invest in the pipes we have. Let's study this because I think that I think the council was along this on the same wavelength the same. We should sort of dry up dry dry that the property line but let's really dig into that a little bit deeper on that. Okay, thank you. So I mean, I still very much believe that shifting the way that we propose shifting initially was the right is the right thing to do. And I recognize that it might not be the right thing to do right now. That's what I'm trying to reckon with I think something that's come on to my mind a little bit is, you know, looking at the average repair price that was cited in the memo. And I don't know if you have any way to know this because I think part of the thing, part of what we discovered is that we know shockingly little about the condition of too many of our pipes but I think I what I'm curious about is this has the if is if this has the potential to impact some types of homeowners more than others for example, folks whose homes were built a long time ago or folks whose homes are not are in certain neighborhoods or I want to make sure that we're not disproportionately managing a certain element of our population by saying you're still on your own for the repairs. I really appreciate the interim step of insurance and I think that's really important. And I'm still, I'm not in disagreement with what the finance committee has come up with in terms of saying not right now. Good idea and not right now. I think that the intermediate is important but I want to really make sure that we're, we're looking at this and understanding who we're impacting, if that makes sense, and I don't know a way to tell that is the problem. I'm picturing Amy out there with like a like an x-ray machine and I know that doesn't exist, although I don't know what gravity belt thickener is and it's a weird phrase. So, yeah, anyway. Yeah, Amy would love to explain that. I mean, I can give you the like the 32nd. Yeah, gravity belt thickener. So when you, when you're treating the wastewater, you know, basically, it's a process of we remove nutrients and then ultimately we settle all the bad stuff to the bottom and all the bugs and everything and then what floats to the top is the clean wastewater. And so that stuff at the bottom that's the sludge and we keep some of that sludge there because that's the bugs they eat nitrogen and they process it and they eat the bad stuff. And I know that also we have to waste on a regular basis because they die off, right? And so really nice words to not cuss on camera and I appreciate that. So, and then the bugs, then we have, you know, we have this it's sludge at that point we call it sludge it's this really heavy bio solid product, and you want to, you want to thicken it because it's it's just got a lot of solids in it. And so in order to thicken it, we have this belt that it runs across and it, and you put a little bit of polymer in it to help it coagulate and what comes off it's it. I mean, Guilford calls it like the taco maker like it kind of ground beef at the end and that's increasing the percent solid to about 7%. So basically just this belt that it runs over and through the process of the chemical addition and kind of how the thing works water drips out the bottom and what comes off as a stick and sludge, and that's what we pay to have leave. So anyway, you can do that. That's that's what we're getting on the wastewater side. All right, I'm sorry for the distraction I was genuinely curious the phrase but if you could go to the first part. And the reason we do that is that all that sludge we have to truck away to someplace. And more, we're trucking a lot of water, basically, and this takes more sludge heavy duty sludge and that means we have fewer trips, less cost to the town. That's why this is a good investment. Okay. So do you have any way to know which types are more at risk in town, and where they're falling and if they're falling consistently in certain areas. So, I'm going to I'm going to first say you guys are asking all the right questions that these are the things that we're looking at now but it's partly where like it's it's hard to answer them because we're trying to catch up to that that being said yeah I mean there's certain. You can't 100% predict but certainly there are certain areas of town that you know some of it's going to be based on age where you know things might fail or the material type on. And you know some of it's also going to be on soil type if you've got really corrosive soil or stuff like that then that's just going to be harder on the sewer line and so there's a couple of different factors and we could generalize a couple areas in town that might be a little more at risk. We're actually in the process right now of you know one of our, and that's for the water side, the sewer side again it's going to be the material that any age. I feel like we know less about the sewer side but right now on the water side were about 50% through a project to try to identify all of the sewer lines and we have to do this for something that's going on with water, but we are. It's something where we could run some of those analyses a little better. That being said, the fact that we don't currently own the water and sewer lines means that our analysis is only as good as info that we have, and there are large portions of not large portions but there's at least percentages throughout the town where, you know, we don't have the information because it was built before people knew to hand in a record drawing, or because somebody did a repair and they didn't pull a permit with the town and so it didn't get handed over or stuff like that. So some of it, it's, we're probably missing, you know, maybe 20 or 30% of that info on the sewer side and maybe like 10 to 15 on the water side of the town that we just don't know what the services made up. So you said 10 to 15% total. 10 to 15% of the service lines. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, can I ask a follow up. Yes, go right ahead and then I have a question afterwards and then I see Dorothy's hand up as well. So, I think something that's been something that that I think about is I know to speak for myself I couldn't handle some of those bills that are coming in for folks to fix their lines that would be a huge problem for me. I'm not alone in that. And so I think that as we look at insurance as an intermediary, I'm curious if there's a way for the, for us to support folks in getting their sewer lines and their water lines checked for kind of that risk. Well, I hear that what I'm asking is a lot. And so I'm not, I'm hoping I can just throw the crazy idea out there and we can sift through it a bit but if we if we're able to help folks understand okay your sewer lines are at high risk or no they're great, you're going to be fine. And say, and we are now supporting you in in purchasing an insurance policy should you want to, or if you have a rough idea, you know, making sure those neighborhoods know hey you may want to check out your sewer line check with DPW to make sure everything's up to date, and you may consider, given the age of your home given the location, whatever it might be, you may want to consider this insurance policy, especially hard just to support folks ahead of time so that if something does go wrong before you can implement any sort of policy and change an ownership that they're protected. I'm trying to, I'm trying to find a find a bridge here. I don't know. I don't know if there's an easy way to to identify what what condition, and with any assurance at all what condition your line is. Thank you about a personal experience where I'm getting a building permit for my home and the city is requiring a sewer line inspection before they issue a building permit which is costing just to do the one little is 250 bucks for me to do it. I'm trying to bring a camera in from your home to go out to see what that sewer line is looking at. Now that's a, that's a requirement we don't put on homeowners and Amherst. We don't say before you get your building permit you have to show that your sewer line is up to up to code. But, you know, I think, I think there is a cost for any of these things. And to give assurance to someone, I just don't know what that would be based on and just be a guest and unrealistic really. Thanks. I just so bear with me if this has already been answered I'm, I'm learning so much about the complexities of water and sewer and maintenance and implementation here. But so just I want to be clear here so is this that we would be considering to adopt the regulations without the change in line ownership in concern for associated cost, and then on the other hand then the concern would be a maybe more significant cost in the event of some sort of, you know, unforeseen damage. Is with that is that accurate. Both Amy and Andy or Anna. I mean, potentially, I think, really, I think why we're talking about this is you guys have recommended the, you know, these are the regs we want, including all of the changes that you know one of them is the ownership thing. So we're in a position where the finance committee has recommended in a something that's opposing. And so they wanted to at least, I think, have this come back to you guys to see, do you guys, yeah, sorry, Athena can maybe she wants to clarify I don't know if you guys are reconsidering or kind of what the Thanks. Thanks, Annika for asking that I think the idea about having TSO have this discussion tonight was to give TSO an opportunity to consider whether or not it wanted to amend its recommendation to align with finance committee's recommendations so that we bring the council one set of regulations that don't come with, you know, conflicting recommendations from committees, and we could do that if TSO decides not to change its recommendation. And then the council can have that discussion and make a decision about what they want to see. And my understanding is that Amy, if TSO does decide to amend its recommendation and Amy will prepare those changes to the regulations, and we can present GOL with one set of bylaws and regulations that both TSO and finance have agreed to. I think that TSO would need to do tonight if it chooses to would be to amend its recommendation to not include a change in ownership of the water and sewer lines at this time. Thank you, Athena. Dorothy. I have a couple of comments. This is to Anna. You can't always tell what's going to happen with pipes, because sometimes it's not the pipes, it's the wipes. And the wipes is a serious, serious problem. Okay. So, I've taught you so well, Dorothy, I'm so proud that you say that. Good, good, because it's really true. So, yes, I think that you should have some maps of knowing where Orangeburg pipe is that's the absolute cheapest, crappiest stuff that ever got used and there may be some whole developments that are Orangeburg. I know that we had Orangeburg here on Amity Street, but, you know, somewhere the town should have some records of Orangeburg areas. Those are definitely areas that are going to have a problem. But the other thing too, to Anna's statement of, and I'm totally with you on it. Okay, I'm agreeing with you completely on this, that of letting people know there could be a problem and here's something you might do. I think if people knew the majority do not know that the town that they're responsible for the pipes under the road that instead of them saying thank you for letting me know about this they would get so angry and say, What are we paying our taxes for. So I really don't see, once this was exposed to us as a problem, particularly with, I can't remember her name right now but. Kelsey, right. Her feelings are just the same feelings you're going to hear from anybody else who finds out. And they're going to say, I'm supposed to have had insurance, and you know, some people might be able to get it some might not be able to get it. I think that we've opened doors box. I kind of don't want to do what the finance committee says, which is to do the easy part, because if you do the easy part without the hard part, the hard part won't get done. And I do understand what Paul is saying, we are doing a lot of things on water, we are, but an enterprise fund is different from some other expenses in that it will balance itself out we're not going to put the town that budget in deficit. You know, I still would like to say, see how much what how our rates would compare to other rates. It's true. People don't like any rate increase, but if they knew that they're responsible for under the town roads. They're not going to accept that and say, Oh, thank you for telling me. The only reason I didn't have an absolute fit was I had insurance. Otherwise, I'd be out there with signs, you know, joining with Elsie, because it's a very upsetting thing to find out. Thank you. Andy. I think Dorothy that really responding to you that. Yes, people are not going to be happy when they realize that they were responsible for more repair costs than they thought they would be, because most people don't anticipate that they're going to ever have a problem to begin with. But people are also going to be upset if we just turn around and tell them, well, your water rates are going up 14% and your sewer rates are going up by whatever percentage we had. I don't have the memo in front of me right now. And that's going to happen on July 1. And I can be happy about that either. So we do have an obligation to inform the community about this problem, regardless of which way we go. There's going to be significant portions of the community that are going to be unhappy with either prospect and it's just a we haven't really heard from the community, because the only people who've spoken up or a few people who, you know, heard Elsie's complaint or heard of Elsie's complaint and never understood that if the change was made that it was going to shift costs back to the entire user system and cause this kind of a rate increase. And I think that there's just a lot of community education that needs to take place and, you know, when we talked about it, but Athena was referring to is that there's this discussion of what happens if we the finance committee make the recommendation that was being talked about. And we did nothing and the answer was, well, you'd have two conflicting sets of proposed changes coming up for the council and we'd leave it to the council to decide which I think ultimately could happen depending on the vote of the community tonight, but in any event, it really was about that educational process because the community as a whole didn't understand to begin with that there was ownership issue until it was raised a very small number now do nobody recognize the or understood the rate increase and we're just at a point where we have as elected officials to have to make a decision as to how to communicate this to our community and how we go about making a decision. But maybe I've misunderstood the rate increase, you said a year didn't you. It will the rate increase if we do the change in the impose the regulations effective with the new rate year, we have to increase the rates immediately because we have to assume that the rates are going to be coming forward and have to be paid for, and we have to make sure that the fund, because this is run as a business is not, you know, one that we have we can't have a amount that's the consequences are going in deficit. I'm asking the amount. We're saying like 100 more a year that I mean that's a really the number. Take your take your bill. Look at what you're paying for water at percent. You said 10% Amy for sewer 20. It was 10 and 20 wasn't it. Yeah, it's the I think what's going to be proposed for this year without the rate increase is like three and a half on water and about 10% on sewer. And so with this, and if with this additional thing it would be 13. I think 13.9% on water and 20% on sewer. What would that be in dollars just just for one second. Donna's had her hand up on it. And we'll come back to it's a different topic so if you want to go ahead Dorothy. I just I just I'm still wanting to know how much in dollars I mean I we woke up and got our tax bill on the house, and it went up like $1,000. Okay, but are we talking $100 a year. The hammer, the average Amherst user is a little under 100 cubic feet. And so if we're talking 50 cents per cubic feet on water that's going to be an extra $50 a year in the water this is rough numbers, and then on the sewer side it's going to be an extra 50 cents on sewer. So yeah for an average household it's going to be an extra $100 a year. I cannot see how $100 a year should stop us from doing something which is going to be better for the sewer system and better for individuals. I just, I can't see the what the faucet. I think I'll down, but I so I'm having trouble with that, because I could see explaining this to people and them saying yes, yes, yes, but without it, trying to explain to people the situation is not going to be fun. You know, because they do your point, Dorothy, I think we also and I see your point I think there would be many that will agree with you about we have to. You know, also I see Andy's point there are some people that $100 is a big deal. Do you have more on this or can we go ahead to. Okay. Before just one more thing on that topic so I know Dorothy is asked a couple of times that I didn't get a chance to answer. She was asking how, like, right now we've been on the lower side of our community peers in terms of our rate and I know she was asking that so I do that literally right now is the time of year every year that we redo those numbers so I don't have the most recent data, but I'm looking at our comparison from last year. So it's more FY 22 numbers for neighboring communities, but looking at those that would put us, you know, before we were kind of, there was one or two communities that was below us and we would be closer to, you know, middle to top third in our community with that change I think we're already going to be moving a little closer to the high end versus the low end with some of the anticipated increases already and then this would put us a little closer to the higher end so you said mid to higher so we wouldn't be the highest it wouldn't be a scandal. No, I personally live in South Deerfield and that one has the highest because there's not a lot of users in the sewer system and we're just we're paying for like a multimillion dollar new wastewater treatment plant so I will be paying higher than all of you guys. What it's worth. It's all good. I mean it's it's infrastructure that's needed. It's what you do. So, again, and the challenge that you guys have is to make these decisions. Honestly, I think we all know that if we wanted it to be a scandal, we could make it a scandal. I think that I mean I'm still gosh I'm still so stuck because $100 a year for some people is really significant and especially when you add it on it's not just $100 a year right like everything goes up. I think it's all been hit by this in the past year I'm, I mean, electric rates for a great example of this they went up an insane amount and so I think that it, we have to look at the cumulative. And on the same note, I struggle because it's kind of the idea of the, you know, is it everyone's chipping in less or is it some people get really stuck with a big bill, you know, and I think that that's the part where I. I'm still, I still do defer to our finance committee in terms of looking at the long range picture for our town and looking at what's the best. What's the best mode forward, and I still really strongly believe that we need to get to this place and make a plan to get to this place that this can't die because I do believe this is the right thing to do. You know, but I, and, I mean I said it before right like right thing maybe not the right time. We're looking at a lot hitting us in the next couple years and and if we're able to move this forward without adding one more thing to folks then maybe that's what we need to do. My question is, if you got Paul and I was looking at the memo and I don't think I saw it. If you got any rough numbers on insurance costs. I do. I don't have one in front of me right now, but I'll dig them up while you're here. I think it's seven, seven, seven, I think it was $7 or $8 a month. But I, we do have an estimate and this and there's this is just like if you live in the town of Amherst you want to buy the insurance. That's what it costs. It's a fixed cost they don't come in and inspect your property or anything like that. So, so $8 a month for water and the same for sewer. Make sure the plumbing inside your house if you'd like to do that as well. So $16 a month. It's something, let me, let me verify that because that's almost double the, the, what it would be to add $100 a year on to your water bill. That's right. $8 a month is $96 a year. Right. So, so are we, are we actually helping our people by saying here we're not going to do this but we are going to offer you insurance. I think the difference is just the opt in nature of one versus the us deciding what's best for everyone in the other. That's really the difference and, and yet, you know, I mean, if everyone in the town is chipping in that basically is the insurance policy because everyone's chipping, you know, like in a way it's just you guys deciding everyone opts in. But then we also and we don't know how much it would so Dorothy you said yours, yours happened that anecdote you used was that yours happened to cover 30,000 worth of right or something like that right insurance only covers so much and so we then have to kind of hope that insurance covers either a price amount or a coverage right like, so, I guess I'm not sold that insurance is the right and I, I've been skeptical about insurance just because I'm skeptical of insurance as an industry but that's my own issue. From the beginning right I don't actually think that that's a solution. I think that it's and I don't think anyone's been presenting it as the perfect solution but it's a stop gap but it's a more expensive stop gap and it's not necessarily. I'm saying alright, here's an option it's not, I don't, I don't see insurance as us doing something for the public that's necessarily a good thing for the, for the town to do anyway. I actually had a different question remember an eco when I was like come back to me because my topic is is different. This is Paul this goes back to the insurance question, which is, did it have a standard coverage based on cost or was it based on distance and or was it based on like house to property line house to main. Yeah. So, I have the numbers actually so it's for the waterline it's $6 and 75 cents a month for the sewer line it's $7 and 75 cents a month. And the max the average, they average the calls and they cover $8500 per call you get unlimited calls. What does that mean sorry can you say that again. Yeah. If you have a water break, they'll come out and they'll give you reimburse you up to $8500 under this coverage. If you have a water break a month later they come out and they'll cover $8500 for the break. So, two questions based on that then one how is that going to support people in fixing things to the best of their ability of their ability to be fixed versus just kind of patching and then coming back in a month when it breaks again. And two, and I think we had this information a while ago which is what is the average cost of a. Yeah, I knew it. I knew Amy had that. Sean, Sean put it in his memo. I'm going to say I thought I, I did. Yeah, so the, and I'll say, I'll say that as you were talking as he's like saying, so the average cost for sewer, at least with the data that we have that's 7300. And the average cost of repair for water is 4900. And again, these are only numbers for the repairs on the portion that's under town, town owned land. So, you can look at the whole thing. But so I think where I'm coming down on this. And I reserve the right to shift my opinion, however, however many times I do but I think where I'm coming down is that if this is truly the right, not the right time and, and that's what Sean believes that's what the finance committee believes, then I understand doing an opt in for insurance, but I really don't want this to drop. And I don't think things are going to get less expensive in the next 10 years. And so I don't know when the right time will be. And I want to know what the indicators would be for the council to know when to bring this back up. And then I'll stop talking for a while. I have a suggestion. You could say, we recommend whatever you choose and and that in two years from today, we have received an updated recommendation, you know, with research or something like that from the DPW or whatever it is so you put a time, like a check it back in on a fixed time frame so it is, I mean Dorothy's concern is that this drops and it never comes back and the issue until someone else has another issue and then we're saying why didn't we address this last time. And we say, this may not be the right time, we're hyper aware of this situation we can monitor and sort of delve to get more information on what the cost of repairs aren't how many repairs there are in the town. So, and then say, and how long, I'm not sure it's two years just to write about the time but it seems like a reasonable amount of time for us to collect data, and then come back to you. Yeah, I just, the privilege, the way that insurance privileges people is really hard for me to wrap my head around. Yeah, agreed with the 100%. Dorothy. Well, I truly think that it would be better if the town did it and I think now is the time. I really do. Putting together a full package of comprehensive repairs to water and sewer, and the insurance would, there's no guarantee the insurance is not going to cover the whole cost of I'm a homeowner's land and the town land. It won't, it won't come close. And it costs as much or more as the predicted increase of the of the fees for water and sewer so I, from the common sense point of view, think it would be very bad not to move forward with the original plan. That is my feeling. Thank you. Yeah, Andy. One thing is that the memo that we have and talks about future considerations and the two year came from that and so to go back to what it was it says over the next two years. The Department of Public Works can evaluate more accurately the scope of line repairs replacements needed. We also can work closely with insurance companies to communicate to the town residents what is available to them for insurance and continue considering options for townwide insurance. Lastly, the additional time will allow the town to get the actual cost of infrastructure improvements like this and 10 year project and understood the trajectory of consumption levels. So, that was the, what was in the memorandum that was presented to us. And that was part of what we considered why we were talking about two years was really adopted from the thoughtful presentation that came from Sean and I think working with Amy to come up with that recommendation. And, you know, the other thing that we were thinking about as noted at least one member of our committee was because she's so intimately involved with the school project is to recognizing how override are funded and asking for an override at this time that we recognize that when there's when there is an override for something like a school that it's tied to the bond levels and so the amount of increase is highest in the first years that it's becomes the debt and then it decreases over time. And the policy is anything to add to that one. So, sort of recognizing all of those factors. And if I could just go in for both Dorothy and Anna who I know have their hands up and if you could answer with in whichever else you're going to say so my question is, is there perhaps some sort of a compromise if the languages would be if the language was stronger maybe to about, you know, looking at this giving it a certain timeframe and maybe with check ins throughout to to ensure that that momentum is going are you leaning more towards now or nonsense. And I think Dorothy you had your hand up first. Yes, I think you and I are on the same wavelength. I see no reason why we can't vote yes for the original proposition, but say that we know that DPW needs additional time to get certain research and things together, we could even say there would be a delay before it started. I want us to go forward with voting yes on this. I mean, that voting yes does not mean take care of it starting tomorrow that's the way it's going to be. And I think it makes sense to go. I mean, you know, there's a time the tide of men unfortunately when you just got to take that wave. This is the wave I think we should go with it. But understand that there will be a delay in implementation as they find out the details the need to find out. I mean, Lincoln Avenue parking it took so much energy, bringing that up again Andy you know you know how many years to do that simple thing. Right. And this is not simple. This is really big and meaningful. So I just really hate to put it down, but I certainly have no problem giving DPW in the town, more time to plan the implementation. After we've kind of agreed this is where we're going. So that's what I have to say. Thank you, on it. Dorothy it always thrills me when you and I agree on something, because it doesn't have it happens pretty often but I think we don't think it happens often and I like what it does. I think that what you're saying is, I'm intrigued by that so so you're saying basically we would write in the motion. And I don't know how I'm looking to all of the people who know the rule. Just when I think I'm getting there I throw myself. The people who know the rules as to whether or not we could pass a motion that we are adopting provisions of this now and certain provisions of this in X number of years, and I don't know if we can do that or not. I mean I think, Andy I really hear what you're saying and it makes a lot of sense, as you often do, as you always do. It makes a lot of sense the idea of giving DPW time to gather more data and to kind of make sure that we're really fully prepared to make that shift. I can get on board with that. I have the same fear Dorothy does that we're going to lose this, or that it's going to be really hard to pick it back up in two years when we're navigating the impacts of a hopeful hopefully we pass an override. I'm curious about the possibility of crafting a motion that allows us to take some of the regs into account now and others in two years, but then my caution of that is, what if something looks really different in two years. Right like what if that data comes back and we realize we're in a different boat. So, that was a really inconclusive statement but I think that if the data comes back and it's like oh you know what this is not a good idea. It's going to be a much higher rate hike than we realized. Do we want to make sure that we've reserved ourselves the right to shift at that point so I don't know. It might might have to be around the ongoing communications or updates. Andy. Yeah, no I think that toward honor just asked and both on Dorothy's comments. It's possible I think though, Amy and ultimately others are going to have to weigh in on this you could incorporate into the regulation that effective and then a day two years from now. 2025 that this change will take place and that could be incorporated in the regulation regardless of which way you go to Council always has the option of changing. It's bylaw. You notice, it's regulations, because we are the water commissioners. So, it's always subject to amendment. Anyway, whichever way you go at the beginning you can can amend it later. I think about the consequences of amending it and in particular, if you make the shift now. Then go backwards again two years from now that. The other thing that is the question for Paul since this ends up a lot throughout the question now and that is when you quoted the rates for the insurance company and it was per visit. Did that matter as to whether the, did that cover the entire line from the house, or did it cover just the part under the right of way. I believe it covers the entire line from the house to the main. The coverage that that's what is owned by the property owner now. So, so it's not an apples and oranges situation exactly because it's covering more than the portion that the town would be assuming through the enterprise fund if we make the shift. So, you quoted was like, I think when this first came up. The concern was like, why can't we like Dorothy mentioned how she had insurance we said why can't everybody get insurance. We explored what would it be for people to get insurance and this is what the company came back with as a quote. This is a year ago now. So, and they know our situation. The point I like to make is that while you mentioned it you can't find a future council obviously, because they can always vote something different. The worry and Amy has raised this is that if you say we're not going to implement this until year two or three. If someone does have a legal break, why would they repair it. Why would they even know why anybody in the right mind would say we're just going to wait until you take an over town. Yeah, you have to repair these things if your sewer breaks you've got to repair it. Toilet won't flush. But you can have a, you can have a leak. Yeah, not a full break and wait it out, you know, even now when we find like a water leak. You know, I mean that according to the state these are supposed to be changed in seven days I know you guys even in the rags looked at we put that in the rags because that's what we want. The state that's the standard the state holds us to, and obviously that's unrealistic, but at times it drags on for months and we have to talk to them. Look you're wasting millions of gallons in your front yard, making it a swamp, and have to threaten to turn the water off and ultimately they tell us, well how can you shut it off water is a basic right, how can you do this to me I've got kids at home. This I mean it's a, it's constantly a struggle, because people aren't paying for the water that's being wasted. And I think that's where my concern is is, you know, we don't want to shut off water to people we don't want people to not be able to use their house. We just want them to fix this problem, but nobody's paying for that water. And so sometimes there's not an incentive for them to act quickly, especially when there's a large cost associated with it. Right. So it is hard and I can anticipate people would wade that out. Does anyone have your hand up. Andy. Well I taken it down but actually, there's that additional question as to whether the town is in a position to go ahead and force the repair that be made at the owner's expense. Under the regulations that we proposed. I think there's a lot of ways to do it. And then it comes to lean on their property. We've put much stronger language in. Yes. I think legally, yes, we'll have the right. It's more, you know, feels bad. Yeah, and it you know, do you want to have to go down that route route do you actually want to lean them do you know do we want lawyers involved like these sorts of things at some point it does add up to cost to the town. Add up to cost to the town to do these sorts of things and so we always want them resolved. Sometimes we really struggle for people to understand the urgency that we see. So, any other on it. Yeah, I'm Paul. This is. I'm sorry I can't remember if I've asked this in the many, many, many months that we've been working on these. Yeah, of. So I've heard from other a couple other municipalities who have had lawsuits based on water lines being damaged the homeowner having to pay the homeowner saying they had no control over the water line. Is there any risk of no control over how the water line broke for example it was under a road heavy trucks drove, etc. Is there any concern from the town about possible litigation with the way that our policy is written right now. I think so. Our lawyers looked at this many times. I'm not worried about the situation on that end. The situation. Okay, let me raise my hand here. No, you don't have to go ahead. Okay, the situation on a raised is so inequitable. I just can't see that we should continue to go in that direction, because why should somebody pay for the line under a road that heavy trucks have been running over. It just doesn't make sense. And then you end up having to putting a lien on their house and then if they don't pay it, then you repossess their property. It's very adversarial. And it just doesn't seem nice. And we know that all towns don't do it. Some do it, but many towns assume responsibility for the lines under town property. So we don't but I think that's wrong. I think we should correct it. Okay, Paul and then on if you'd like to respond there. Yeah, just, I think. So I think Amy may say the same thing. So what the council is saying they want to do is take ownership of lines that have been held in private held privately for everybody in town. That's a huge new possession of new that we don't know what we're buying. We actually do not know what we're buying. And so historically from day one the town has always the property owners been responsible to say we it's like we provide the road you provide the driveway. You know, you provide you can connect to our main line, but we're not connecting you to your home. And so what we're now saying what the council wants to do and I hear what you're saying I totally agree with what you want to go. I think that's the right way where you've come to in terms of property line is the right line is the right place to go. But we don't know what we're buying. And so you're going to commit the town's financial resources and the enterprise fund, which means we have to raise the money we don't have a choice on everybody for what we're purchasing we're taking, you know, from from them, and we happy when we do it, but there's going to be a cost for everybody as opposed to a potential cost for a few. I think that's sort of the way it's a hard decision. I totally understand why it's a struggle for the for the council. And what the right thing to do is, I look at the fiduciary responsibility the town and I think that's why the finance committee looked at you look at it from a different lens. So you may come to a different conclusion I think it's like national health care. You know, some people say, I'm not going to get sick I'm not going to spend any money. The same thing. The money has to cost gets shifted, but people are healthier. And I think our systems and our pipes will be better. After a period of adjustment probably. Anna. All right, I've landed because our job is to vote, and I believe in voting and we have to vote. So I'm landing on something. And I'm not, I'm, I'm not quite ready to make it into a motion yet because I'm not quite sure how. And the goal of what I'm thinking right now is that we do, we amend our recommendation to not include the ownership changes in the water and sewer regulations for a minimum of two years. Which DPW will collect data and gain an understanding. And in the meantime, the town as soon as humanly possible, offers the information regarding insurance to community members, widely. And in two years, the next council will either will either shoot this down, or will continue on the path that we pitched. Let's think about that. What, and I'm, this is a great sampling of people to kind of hear this out we've got folks really grounded in community engagement we've got really folks grounded in finance. I'm curious about the idea of delaying for two years. The council as water commissioners could shoot it down in two years. So I'm going to give the time to at least understand what we're looking at a little bit better because my problem is, yeah, you're, you're right, you know, the town doesn't know what it's buying but people also don't know what they're selling. And they know that they owned it, and that they are selling it right so so I, it's, you know, God, why are sewer and water regs one of the hardest boats that we've taken. So I think that's the same opinions on the idea of doing a two year kind of hold on that part of the regulations. Andy you haven't said anything. What, what do you think about that. About honest suggestion. It is really the finance committee recommendation laws. Okay, but I'm saying Andy that it, it goes into effect unless otherwise, like it's the law physics right. It goes into effect unless otherwise acted upon. It doesn't work that way. It was that it was enact all of the regulations except for that piece and that we would be committed to returning to that decision in two years with the additional information that would be available. I think I'd like to do that similar thing except that I'd like it to say enact these changes in two years unless otherwise decided not to by the council. I, I, I can agree I think it's a compromise and it also prevents us from assuming what resident what each resident wants and gives time for outreach, you know, just to, to be sure but at the end of the end date allows us to kind of start protecting or, you know, send the information for those who would like to protect themselves with interns tomorrow gives them that ability. I didn't want to jump in ahead of Dorothy so please. Dorothy, I think, I think you asked for opinions from members first. Well, if I believed that that would be acted on as honest suggests I could go with it but I don't. I really think that, you know, to use another cliche we have to strike while the iron is hot. I think that we've studied this we know what we're talking about. But that's my feeling. And I really feel the loss of momentum. And I would like to do this now, I think, I think it's one of the things that if you look back on things you're going to be proud that we did this, not because it's not easy, but it's right. Athena, I was going to ask for clarification on what your recommendation was but it sounds like you're not there yet so I'm going to wait. Okay, so in hopes of landing. Yeah, I would, would you like to, unless there's further discussion it sounds like people are kind of know where they might be leaning. Are you ready to make a motion on or did you have further questions for Athena in regards to how. I can make a motion but I don't know that we're going to be decisive any any I don't think I don't know that we're going to get a majority on it so what I'm hearing is that Dorothy wants to do it now as written like we initially said, Andy wants to do the finance recommendation of revisit in two years and offer insurance. I want to do kind of something in between saying enact in two years and less otherwise decided by the council, and he could where are you at where are you feeling. So I am, I am kind of torn on this one. I do see both perspectives you know and I know that's not is that's not helpful. You know, I also do trust that it is possible for us to, you know, keep this front and center so to speak, and whether that is, you know, ensuring that even here at a TSO we're scheduling updates to keep this going but you know, I also, I also don't know you know, for, for, I acknowledge it for you know, residents and members of this committee that would like this to happen yesterday. The fear that this wouldn't be placed on itself I guess I do not have that fear. I know that that's not as maybe that's not as clear as as what you were asking or concrete. But I'm also thinking our other another option we have Athena please correct me if I'm wrong is that we would and this might maybe it's not the best option but if we leave as is this will go to the council of a hole to make the decision am I correct. If the committee doesn't take any action tonight, then the council will be presented with the choice. I think is what when I had that conversation with Lynn was that if TSO doesn't amend its recommendation to line with finance committees then will will present the council with the two recommendations and we'll try and get a sense of what the council wants to do so that we can bring the two regulations and and bylaws in the way the council chooses. So we would we would ask the council to have an initial conversation to sort of make that decision before we finalize the bylaws and regulations at GOL. We just not take a vote if that was the case if that's what we choose to do we just leave as is or would we need to to vote to read to just keep what we have and and send that we have currently and refer that to council. It's it's up to the committee if you want to honor you don't have to know that there's going to be a majority you can make a motion and if it fails then you're done. And, and, or you can choose nobody, you know, if nobody wants to make a motion then then that's a decision to make a motion. Okay. Andy and then Dorothy, or on is your hands still up. Yeah, but it's after them I'm going to. Okay, Andy. Yeah. I'm going to support on this motion and then just inform the finance committee if it passes what happens and see what they want to do. If they want to clarify their regular their motion, so that they coincide and you know the biggest argument against doing what you're suggesting I know it's really stated by Paul and Amy as to whether just knowing that there's this change that is possible in two years will affect decisions made by homeowners to not repair lines to that are creating problems for the system and for the town. And if it's sewer for the health of everybody, including owner. And there's there is that risk. And I think that's the downside but now that we've put it out there. Whether you put do it the way of saying that it'll come back in two years for decision or it'll happen in two years unless a decision is made not to do it. I think it's going to have the same result, because it'll be out there that it's going to change as possible in two years and the incentive for people who like to procrastinate to procrastinate is not going to be known to the community and is going to drive behavior. And for that reason, I would, if you make the motion, then I will vote for the motion. Thank you Andy, Dorothy. I think I would like the council to have a chance to weigh in on this. So the finance committee made a recommendation. I suggest that TSO keep its original recommendation. And let the council, because we haven't had a public hearing. We haven't had public input. And I think that those things are necessary. I don't know where the public hearing would fit, but the council has not been thrashing through this whole council. So, I think it's a big topic. I don't want to preempt it. And so that's my thought. So it's, I mean, I understand I stand, understand honest but you know, if you talk about you're going to do something. No matter what it is, some people think you're going to do it and some people think you're not going to do it. And people make decisions based around that. I think most people can't necessarily delay repair. But there might be one or two cases but no. Things change rules change, people do things, but we have to go forward we can't just say we can't do any change, because then this will happen. I think we're going to lose the fact that we are still making an incredible amount of changes to a document that had not been updated since before I was born, I believe. When was the last time those were done. Like, I think it was in the 1970, like, yeah, these are like, So we have made an incredible amount of changes to the regulations in addition to this ownership change the ownership changes absolutely the biggest change that we made but there is still an incredible amount of I just don't want to I'm not and that's not at all what you're suggesting I just don't want to lose that at all. The iron is hot, I hear you. And we also have about 17 irons in the fire right now. And so I think that what this does is one of the this address is one of the concerns that was brought up consistently as we talked about making this change, which was that it doesn't know what we're looking at. It gives us time data, it gives us a time, it gives us a chance to get the understanding. I hear you that this does run the risk of folks not making the repairs, and while it may be painful. It is then on the town to decide whether we act on the on the way that we've updated these regulations to to notice when there are leaks and breaks right that's that's something that we built in here and if we're not ready to act on it shouldn't be in the regulations. So, you know, I think that I hear that that's hard and I, and it's easy for me to say that from here because I'm not the one that has to go do it right and so I also want to recognize that I am ready to make a motion if folks are okay with it. So, I'm going to Athena and do my darnedest here. Alright, can I just choose to do that. So, regardless, like this will still go to the council. Oh yeah, that was going to the to the council for the councils a whole to weigh it. And I know it was it was I was working on these sitting outside of Amherst coffee so I know that it was summertime. And a lot of edits and questions that did come from the council in the first round to so from finance. So, you know, I think that it's it's a revisit, and in their memos I'm sure that Andy and Anika will both detail all of the, all of the various conversations that we had. And it'll, it'll cover that I'm sure this council will have a really robust conversation. Ready. Okay. I moved to amend the TSO recommendation on the water and sewer regulations to not to not include the implementation of service line ownership change until January 2025. Did that make any sense. Athena. It looked like Andy was going to respond. Andy, did you have. I didn't. Sorry, Andy. The only thing I'd say is, do you want to make it a little bit more clear that we're recommending the adoption of all of the rest of the regulation except. Yes, yes. Yeah, I know. Kelly, you're looking for the exact words we're getting there. I'm sorry Kelly. So my, my question is, are you, are you recommending that the council adopt the regulations without the change in ownership, or are you asking the, are you telling the council that they should write the, approve the adopt the regulations with an effective date in the change of ownership because I know Amy said there, that change of ownership has ripples throughout the regulations it's going to be difficult to write regulations with effective dates throughout where that ownership changes so I'm just trying to get at what you're, what you're trying to do with your motion. I'm just trying to get a clarity on how those aren't the same thing. I'm saying that I won't. Sorry, could you say that again. So, I'm, I'm asking, are you recommending the council adopt the regulations without a change in ownership. Or are you asking that they, recommending that the council adopt regulations with a change of ownership, effective date in all the places and the regulations that that would. I'm just trying to do the latter, unless that's going to make Amy, not be here in two years when we do make these happen. So, that was my intention that was that the change in ownership would be what kicks in in two years. Everything else right away happens now. Well, yeah, as much as they can. Yeah, Amy. Do you need to talk about this for a sec? Please. At the end of the day, I will support whatever decision you guys make you guys know that this is my baby, and we're going to, I'll put whatever words in that being said like I wish that the ownership thing was something that was just referenced once. It didn't have a trickle down effect, but even stuff in like, you know, the end of the section as we're talking about like fees and costs and like just kind of, there's little, there's like wording that well gosh if the town takes over ownership, this is no longer relevant so there's Senate, there's sections that we, you know, or paragraphs that we took out later on that if the town doesn't own the line, they're now applicable and so it is. That's what Athena is saying like yes there's that section that we put in that was just ownership of the lines that's the easy one to just say effective this date, but there's trickle downs everywhere else where if the homeowner owns the line. So there's just different language that's going to be kind of throughout, but isn't that that being said, we can figure out a way, I'm sure we can figure out a way to, to make it work if that's what the recommendation is. I think the other way that you could make this recommendation is to recommend the regulations with without the change in ownership and a request that the town bring the town council. The recommendation plan or proposed amendments in two years and I'm looking at policy if, if that makes sense, but a request to bring it back to the town to the town council in two years so that the council can consider in two years. The whole financial picture and see where it is then and that way it's not binding the council to change anything to make a decision at that time, Paul. I think Anna's intent is to default that there will be a change of ownership in two years. Okay, the council acts otherwise. And I think, and I think I don't know there's an easy way to do that without having two sets of regulations unless Amy. Yeah, no all I was going to say is probably, I guess I'm thinking out loud here but probably the way to do it is you know we take our current regs which if this is what we want them to be in two years. It's at least written right so at least in two years we won't have to redo that portion. I would assume that yes in two years it's going to default to this but at some point there's going to be a conversation with the town council about adoption anyway, you know just yes we're still good with the cost right now we're going with these regs. So we can have a second set that changes the language and that's what we're recommending now, but we can right next to it have. This is what we're going to propose in two years unless somebody raises a flag. So it is to, but that might be the easier way rather than trying to put in all of this language everywhere that says effective this day. This is no longer applicable. I don't know if that makes sense, but just an idea. Anna. Thank you. You already will have to have to if we went with finances recommendation right. Correct. Who is happening with mine or with finances right now it's just a matter of instead of saying adding an implementation date we're saying we go to option one in two years, basically. Does that make sense like we go to the one that we initially approved and the one that so initially recommended excuse me in two years. But it's not. I think that's the cleaner way. Yeah, but it's the same. It's just the same amount of work like what finance recommended is still an entire run through of the regs to comb out the ownership elements. That would happen anyway if finance. Okay. So then what I'm saying is, or what I want to say is that we have. Yeah, and I don't know how to craft that. Okay. Because you're, yes, I do want it to be that we default to this in two years. Otherwise, because I, I still really strong. I'm not ready to let this go. I think it's the right thing to do. And I would want a future council to have to say no to it and not to have to say yes to it. I agree with you. I will support your motion. If I ever learned how to say it. Does anybody have any help for me here's how to phrase this mind to mind communication. I don't think we're allowed to do that in an open meeting. So while you're working on that, I can just throw out as you're thinking of like, gosh, this is going to be a lot of work and that sort of thing. Understand that the first set of regulations that we wrote had the ownership model as it currently was. And so much as a lot of other things have changed the language that I need to put back in, it exists. Like, I want to just throw that out there in terms of like this isn't totally reinventing the wheel. This is I'm going to take an old version and a new version and have to merge it and it's, it's not insurmountable. I want you guys to make the decision that you feel comfortable with and I'm willing to do the work because this is my baby. I just want to move forward. Okay. So maybe the way to do it is to say, we approve these regulations and an alliance with the finance committee effective whatever date the council passes. And then you say, said, have the whole second set that are that you've already approved say, and we approve this set of regulations effective January 2025. So you just have to start dates for each one. Okay. Paul, I have a question about that because you know there are notice requirements and publication requirements for changes in regulations and I'm concerned that putting that effective date. So far down the road is, is asking a future council to hold hearings on something that it hasn't made a decision about. You know, I'm thinking about how, how to do honest thing in a way that that makes sense down the road and my brains that my brains in a little bit of a pretzel on that. Yeah, here you go. And if we're in a little bit of a stalemate I would, I would say bring it to the council. Can we make a motion that captures kind of the idea of what we want to have happen. And not actually frame it as a as an amendment to the recommendation but like, I think you knew what I was trying to say and I'm not sure you had to capture that but can we can we say that like TSO recommends, you know, water and sewer regulations which do include line ownership changes until January 2025. At which point that goes into effect are you saying Athena that they would still then have to do all the hearings and notices at that point. I'm not a lawyer unfortunately, and we had to, we had to get an opinion about the publication requirement that we talked about last time so I'm, I'm, I can't say for sure that if we put an effective date two years down on the road and made that automatic that we wouldn't have to go through the process of amending the regulations and taking all those steps of noticing and public publishing in the newspaper and so forth and Amy I, I hear your suggestion to have two different sets and one goes into effect later, but we just learned that we have to publish the entire regulations and so I would say that would come back as an amendment in two years rather than repub re adopting the entire regulations. It's a sticky wicked. All right, I'm not sure. I mean I don't know how to. I'm not sure what the next step is then. Okay. The issue is that we would if if we did what I initially wanted to do the words to be implemented in 2025 would be crisscross throughout all of the regulations. Is that right. I don't know I'm like reaching around for a for a life raft here and I'm not sure where to find one. Yeah, it seems infusing as well that it's either that we it seems that we're coming back to either there are that we recommend to adopt with adopt without the change of ownership or we leave the TSO recommendation as is to go to the council. Is that correct and I simplify and go ahead Dorothy. Can we stick with our original motion, but with the same sense, understanding that DPW will need to do some things or something I mean, we're voting to do this thing that doesn't mean it has to happen tomorrow. It's just like a common sense understanding that some things may have to some some other facts or research or something may have to be done. I think we can't isn't it so can anyone think of an example of where we voted for something, but we knew it wouldn't happen right away because something's had to be done in order to make that possible. I think the issue Dorothy is that we want to approve something now, just not the whole. So, I mean, look, I think if we are able to capture, and I can try to think of something before we get to this comes back to Council. I think the spirit of this is that we're hearing what folks are saying about not implementing the ownership change right now. And I'll try to noodle how to how to best frame a motion on on that that maybe Council could do but yeah I'm stuck and I know it's 830 and so I want to be mindful. Yeah, it seems to me that there's a way to do this and have to pull the lawyer side out of me and go back and read the regulations again to see if I can understand what the extent of the changes are. But in most regulations that I've ever worked on, there's an implementation section that is a separate implementation section. And I would be curious as to whether implementation can be consolidated into one section and whether KP law would agree with that. So we may not be able to resolve this tonight but I think that we have a sense of where we want to go. So we can, we could, we could leave it as is and work on work on what this amendment of new motion would be for the council as a whole is that which is that what you're suggesting Andy. Yes, and I will take a look at the regulations again now with this in mind, because I haven't looked at it in that detail for the implementation question. And see if I can get to a better understanding of what it is that we need to be done to change implementation. And the other thing that I will do in the mean is we as that is going on, just go back to the finance committee and say, you know, we really weren't clear about two years. And this has been now raised to TSO. Is there agreement that it will can be written as to go into effect two years from now. And as opposed to revisit it to use now. Yeah, that's the fundamental differences that finance me said look at it in two years we promised to look at it in two years. And I'm not going to be saying that TSO is saying no we wanted to go into effect in two years and that's sort of the rubber and, you know, it's just I think that's just that's not that. It's a decision, right. So this was supposed to be on the agenda on the 23rd. Is that at our next meeting. It would be ready then because we still need a review by GOL I think what was wish for thinking that GOL would be done with that by the 23rd. I think their next meeting is the 18th. So it would, it would have, it would have depended on whether or not they could get through the bylaws and regulations in one meeting I'm not sure. Okay. So to be clear Athena they've already they've done water, the TSO version that's already been approved of the water regs and I think sewer regs, I thought they were mostly done it's it's they just kind of need the final stamp of approval I thought on on sewer. And then the bylaws which are pretty short and sweet. So, yeah. So I don't I don't know, but I'm trying not to delay this because we can't figure out the right motion even though I know that we need time to figure out the motion and I'm willing my brain to work faster but it's not. Andy so what you're saying is that if we come back to this at the next TSO meeting. Here's my other concern is like, when new committee assignments come down. I don't want to switch up. So, so Andy you're saying that you think that you might be able to come up with some language here that we could bring to council in. Is there an in the meantime I mean is there anything else we can do without some sort of motion that gets at what we're trying to do. I mean, you can do a sense of the committee motion now without it being final action. Sense of the committee motion. Okay. Right and you can write her report indicating what the committee's discussion was like, or you could make a very simple motion to say that the TSO is recommending the council adopt regulations with a two year reduction date of the change in ownership and water and sewer lines and then we'll just figure it out. The honest point is going to be committee changes. That's it's not that I think the council will act will, but committee people will change and in two years, some counselors will change. Things don't get done sometimes because because of necessary changes. So that's why I really think we should push forward if we can. Okay. So I'm going to make a motion that I'm worried isn't necessarily enforceable, but I'm, but I think gets at the spirit of this discussion so that this can keep moving forward. I have a beautiful motion figured out one way or another by the time we get back to council. If it's not possible, then it's not possible but so so if you know, right now I could make basically the motion I made before right. I don't think Kelly or I have it written out I can say it again. Okay. Okay, I am ready. Kelly. Okay. I moved to amend the TSO recommendations on to recommend all water and sewer regulations. Shit. Sorry. Sorry. I think I wrote it wrong. I moved to amend this. I wrote regulations like seven times. Okay. I'm going to move to amend the TSO recommendation on water and sewer regulations. With the exception of the change in service line ownership, which will be implemented in January 2025 to be implemented in January 2025. Could you read the whole thing. Just one more time. I was saying it so I'm hoping I can get it right. Okay. I moved to amend the TSO recommendation on the water on water and sewer regulations to not include service line ownership changes until January 2025. No second that motion. Kelly, did you get did that work. I'm going to read it back to you real quick just to make sure because it's important to get this down. Okay. So you moved to amend the TSO recommendation on water and sewer regulations to not include service line ownership changes until January 2025. Yeah. Thank you. And then. And Andy second Andy was second. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Dorothy. Are you calling the vote. I'm calling the vote roll call. I will say yes. Okay. Okay. Andy. Yes. Anna. And I am an I as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Honorary member Amy, and you're welcome to stay with us for the rest of the meeting. And if not, I know we will see you soon. We need TSO sweatshirts. We'll get any. Yeah, I know. Exactly. If we get like team sweatshirts, I'm in. No, I, in all honesty, though, I've been, I've been pushing to move these forward for, for many years and then COVID hit and a change of government hit and all of these things. And so I'm happy that they're moving forward. And I appreciate the time that you guys are taking to make sure that we're doing these right. I really do appreciate these conversations. So thank you. Thank you so much for all your work. Thank you. Good night, guys. Good night. All right. Okay. Now we're going to move here. So we're going to move on to town manager appointments filed filed with the town clerk and we have Stephen Kurtz, the water supply and protection committee. Paul, would you like to say something about Stephen Kurtz? Stephen Kurtz is, he does not say that he has any special expertise except that he's a willing learner and eager consumer of information is data driven and is hoping to serve on the water supply protection committee. We have a lot of experts on the water supply protection committee. And, you know, we feel like this would be or I feel that this would be a person who might ask the question that a regular person might ask that the experts might not ask. So that's why we're appointing him look for your support on it. Thank you. Any questions from the committee on it. I got a motion for you. So if Dorothy has a question. I have a very quick question. The storms in California have made people talk about how California has not prepared with water storage. And one of our town members, maybe Mr. Boothroyd, who likes to send us mail. I think it was he has also brought up that maybe Massachusetts hasn't done things in terms of storing water in major water events. You know, we've had them known then. So it may be that we have something on this score. I'm just kind of curious to know if we have, if a lot of water came all at once, do we have any place for it to go that we can save it. So we can use it, or is it just the quab and reservoir and that's that we don't. Yeah, go ahead. So I'm not sure if you're looking are you looking at where does storm water go or are you saying do we have enough drinking water. I'm saying saving good water in other words when in California they're saying yes they're in a drought but all this water is just going to rush out into the ocean. And they're not going to keep what they need. So we, we get most of our water either from the Akins we get, we, Akins reservoir will fill up that will get to a certain point, then the rest of our water comes from the Lawrence swamp for the most part. And so what doesn't percolate down into the Lawrence swamp would flow to the Connecticut River. Mm hmm. Okay. Bob and service Boston it doesn't serve anywhere in central. We did not float a quab and at all. Okay. Indy. Well, two things one is, I think Paul didn't mention the poem system, and which is a third system. And so the, there are a series of reservoirs and poem that are owned by the, by the town by our town. And so that water is the same thing would apply that would can't. Can't be stored in those reservoirs would ultimately fall into Amethyst Brook and then into the Fort River and out to the Connecticut River. So the same thing would apply. I think that there's so the question is there sufficient capacity in those systems with lost Amy, who's the expert on that too, but I think for my understanding the answer to that is yes. And the other thing I just wanted to say for partly for information probably disclosure is that Mr Kurtz is a neighbor of mine, he lives, maybe five houses away. I see him occasionally walk her dogs together so I've heard from him many times on a lot of issues I think that he is very scientifically based very methodical and. But so I, you know my experiences with him and having known him since he moved to Amherst, which is probably four or five years ago is, is similar to what Paul has reported. I don't feel it's a problem sort of conflict of interest for me to vote on it. Since I had personal experience. Thank you. Thank you Andy. I'm ready for me. All right. Are you ready. I moved to recommend to the town council the town manager. I screwed it up already. All right, I moved to recommend the town manager. Sorry, hang on. I'm sorry I'm trying really hard not to swear I'm going well. All right. I move I'm just going to say my original one and I know it's not right but I'm staying in anyway because I can't seem to rewrite it in my head. I moved to recommend to the town council the town manager appointment of Stephen Kurtz to the water supply protection committee for two year term to expire June 30th 2024. Second. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'll call the vote. Dorothy. Yes. Andy. Yes. Anna. Okay. And I'm in high as well. Okay. And then just for the sake of the minutes, could I get that motion one more time. Absolutely, even though I know it's not going. I moved to recommend to the town council. The town manager appointment of Stephen Kurtz to the water supply protection committee for a two year term to expire June 30th 2024. That time I saw how I could have fixed it, but that's fine. The water supply protection supply and protection committee. Yes. Anna and Kelly. For a term of two years. Two years to expire June 30th 2024. Excellent. Thank you. So we I'm going to suggest that we move also the approval of the schedule for the next meeting when we see what that the new makeup is I think so far what we've done is kind of agree that those meetings should be at 7pm. So perhaps we can, you know, the next meeting would be scheduled us as such and, you know, out of consideration verbally was tax me tax meeting time. And also for those at this point are coming over from, you know, CRC and other, and other committees and Anna. I have some wrenches for you. I am hoping to stay on TSO. It's the discretion of the president however, the old seeming what's seeming to be the only meeting time for the joint capital planning committee is Thursday evenings from 630 to 830. I think that is a problem if that means that I that meets February through March. I'd rather not skip TSO for two months. And I would like to be on it so I will I'm saying that to you as as chair and kind of putting a little bit of the problem in your lap. And I will also make sure the president knows that as well as she makes committee appointments. I think that's even more reason, in my opinion, we put that one off before and, and just so we know coming into the into that next meeting, which, yes, Athena, if, if I'm not mistaken is where is 26, the 26. So we would have our 26 meeting at seven, and then we'll hash that out there. Okay. Good. And assuming one of you will be on the committee I'd suggest just polling members for a new meeting time if this Thursday evening meeting time isn't going to work. So we have some information going into that next meeting to help schedule the. And then we'll look at dates for those coming year. So assuming that those here. Assuming that we're on TSO will seven PM work. Okay, after March. Just for the 23rd of this month. The TSO committee would meet to determine the schedule to determine the schedule for the new committee. So I have a question I have down written 630 TSO and I have school forum. So I was looking so either I was going to change that to seven. And I said, well maybe the school forum starts at 630. I don't know. What forms at 630. And I cannot do that. I think you mean the 26. Is that you. Okay. Okay. So next Thursday has so many clubs, but so many committees meeting, not just the council committees are all kinds of things that happen on Thursday nights, which it's, it's a really a traffic jam. So I don't know if there's any other better night, but like Wednesday night other lots of crazy meetings going on on Wednesdays. I think we should keep, you know, keep our suggestions and really, you know, have that for the next meeting we will know what the makeup is who's on it. Because we don't know will this be the same committee and what other schedules will, what other schedules will be. But didn't honestly she couldn't come on the 26th. I was just going to say, Anika, if you if you decided to do some sort of doodle poll or something like that, it might be that might be a more efficient way to get input. I'm also happy to share with you prior to the meeting my schedule so that you at least if I'm still in TSO then you can use that to inform decisions as you see fit. Okay, so we'll do that and send a poll. We're going to be in the next 48 hours. So does that work for everyone. I think we should wait and send the poll until after you know the new members. Right. We're going to keep that we're going to keep the meeting date on the 26th right. We'll keep the 26th and have the poll and negotiate after that. Right. Sounds good. Okay. So the next is everyone had a chance to look at the meet the minutes rather from the regular meeting on December 12. Yes, I did. And I actually have a suggestion, even make the motion that is to postpone consideration until next meeting. I have several corrections to offer, but there was one that I was hoping that Shalini would be able to join us today. Out of the country and obviously was unable to join. There was quoting Shalini and I was feeling a little uncomfortable with how it is stated and whether it accurately reflects what she said. And but I think that she will be the better judge of that herself. So for that, for both of those reasons. I think the best thing for me to do would be to send to whoever Athena advise us whether it be a thing or Kelly the things that I noticed and the section that I think we really need Shalini's input on. Yes, please send those edits to me and we'll have a new draft for the next meeting. Wonderful. So do we need to move to postpone or can we just. Okay, okay. So we'll postpone that and just quickly we have some announcements. First, on Sunday, January 15 the Human Rights Commission and the department will celebrate the life of Dr Martin Luther King from two to 4pm. We'll be at the town room at the town hall. And then we have Tuesday, January 17 the DI department will host an event in honor of the national day of racial healing from 630 to 8pm at the Amherst Survival Center. And then I also wanted to thank Paul again for joining District 4 that was Pam Rudy and I were also accompanied by Jennifer Powell, Tracy Zaffan and Jim Russell and it was WGGB news we had a walk about walkability and pedestrian safety. So that was great and I'm definitely encouraging others community and other districts to participate in and keep that alive as well. So, unless anyone else has any final thoughts or announcements. I have a question. Do you have recommendations that you would like to make from your walk. Well, you know, first it's just, you know, there's nothing like me. Let me just freeze here. It was a really good recommendation. I can tell. No, you didn't freeze Dorothy. Okay. Oh, her battery died on her computer. All right, so while we wait on those. Andy, did you have a question. I was in a question I had another report to make, which would be very quick on this latest on to transportation advisory committee. The committee met last week and it was very different kind of meeting in some ways because the subject is that the state in the region. To develop by federal law, do long range transportation plans, and there's a whole process involved involving part of transportation. And on that side, and there was somebody at the tech meeting to talk about it, and from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, on the PVPC side, and those presentations included a conversation and discussion about a surveys that are currently out there for public to take and the committee, the tech kind of went through the state survey itself. I wanted to report that along and suggest that I send to the chair, the email links for the two surveys and certainly the state survey. And then, but then she can make the decision as to whether to forward them along to the committee, or how, how to see that maybe something that council as a whole would be interested, or the wider community. I don't have those links with me to read them now and sorry to read links over a meeting, like meeting verbally anyway. Thank you Andy. All right, any other announcements before any good did just text me her battery died so she won't be rejoining but she'll share updates on her, her walk at our next, at our next meeting. I'd like to move to public comment. We have two members of the public with us today. If you'd like to make a public comment you can go ahead and raise your hand and Athena will let you into the room and you'll have up to two minutes to make your comment. 15 seconds to decide whether or not you'd like to make your comment. Alright, I think that might have only been 10 but I'm not seeing any hands so with that, there are no items not anticipated by the vice chair 48 hours in advance so I'm going to call that good. With that, I'm going to go ahead and motion to adjourn the meeting. Thank you so much. Thanks Dorothy. Got a lot done today. Thank you have a good night. Good night all.