 So I'll reconvene our open session. We just finished it with an executive session a few moments ago. We're coming back to a regular meeting. And as I said at 6 o'clock, when we convened and then immediately went to executive session, I'd come back and we'd do our opening remarks announcements and agenda review. One of the things I will mention first off in opening remarks is we had originally scheduled to have a joint meeting with the Amherst Housing Authority to do an interview process and appointment of a new member to fill an empty seat on the Amherst Housing Authority for a variety of reasons. But primarily because of a posting issue, we were not able to do that tonight. We'll reschedule that and have our candidates come in on another night. When we can meet, the Housing Authority can be there. Candidates can be there. We'll go through our process at that point in time, hopefully fairly soon because we do need to fill the seat on the Housing Authority. Other things I will point out regarding the agenda. If anyone that's coming forward tonight has handouts and whatnot, our clerk is right here so you can just hand them to our clerk and he'll pass them around while you can bring things forward. And let's see, is there anything on the agenda that any of the members need to mention or alter in any way right off the bat? If not, then what I will—was there? It can wait. Nope. Okay. So what I will do, just to sort of frame this a little bit, I'm guessing we have some folks here for public comment. Can I get a sense of how many with a raise of hands of who's here for public comment? Looks like one, two, three, four, five. It looks like five people. We general limit public comment to three minutes. Yes. Right. If you're here for an agenda item and you want to make a public comment, we'll do that at the time of the agenda item. So I don't know if that alters any of those that raised their hand. Let's do a raise of hands again or do you just have a general—so we'll have a public comment that's not related to an agenda item. That would be one, two, three, four, the five. All right. So what we'll do is we'll limit to about three minutes each. We'll take each in turn. Generally the select board will just sit and listen carefully to what you have to say. We generally offer comment, question, or suggestion, but we may—but I wouldn't expect that from us. But we do take it and we do make notes of it and take it seriously, so we do want to hear from people. And so I think what we'll do—we'll start at the back of the room. So if you would like to come forward and, yep, come on up. You got to come to the mic. We are on our local cable TV. And so we— That's right. So just announce who you are and then we'll try to keep it to about— My name is Bill. I live at the end, Will, and I—among minutia, if that's how the term is produced. This is probably the all-time—what Mr. Cussner called dog tagging. The Amherst ice cream has fallen back into the hands of Bart's ice cream, and it is the grayest situation. It has been painted gray. It is so gray that it synergizes with the heavy action across the little walkway of the ice cream. Extrapolitively, I wouldn't want to speculate on what it implies in terms of the contents. Given your deridai and predisposition, I doubt that would concern you. But if someone could go down there and just examine for one moment the ambiance of this ice, allegedly for children to enjoy themselves in and have the circumstance painted, I would appreciate it. That's it. Thank you. So moving forward, I think that's—Mr. Riddle is next. Hello. I'm Chris Riddle of the town meeting coordinating committee and its subcommittee on policies and procedures. I first need to apologize for my failure to appear on the 16th, my fault entirely. I would at least touch on what I would have said on that Tuesday regarding our town meeting coordinating committee proposal for a new town meeting committee called the town meeting advisory committee. For many years, we've benefited from the town meeting finance committee, which has provided detailed analysis and recommendations on issues relating to the town budget. And it's been a very useful process, but it's been limited to the town budget, the town's economic issues. We think there are other issues that we, the town meeting members, would benefit from having a report on issues other than town finances. We have a listing in the handout, which is referred to other pros and cons, benefits and impacts that would be independent of the town budget and would also be usually very useful for a committee, for a report, I'm sorry, it would be very useful to have a report on issues which are complex and detailed in the same way that we have a report on complex and detailed budgetary issues from the finance committee. And some of these impacts are benefits and impacts to specific neighborhoods, benefits and impacts to particular economic groups of taxpayers, benefits and impacts to specific populations, children, families, elderly persons, benefits and impacts to the streetscape of the town, benefits and impacts to town history and culture, benefits and impacts to public safety, benefits and impacts to the town's economic vitality, that's distinguished from the town's budgetary vitality, benefits and impacts to the environment. It's always seemed to me that there have been comments about town meeting and its inability to get its hands around, its mind around complex and detailed issues. And it would be welcome to this town meeting member, myself, to have a report where a group has investigated the details and can give me a recommendation, not a recommendation, but a pros and cons statement, that's the essence of this committee. Somebody go out there and sweat the details and give me a pros and cons statement on issues other than the town economy. And we're sorry that this board has chosen to recommend against it, but we feel it would be of great use to the town meeting members to have such a committee and that's what's in front of town meeting in a few days. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, Ms. Adams, please. Maureen Adams, I'm also a member of the subcommittee on policies and procedures, not a member of TMCC. I need to say first that I watch very carefully the interaction and discussion on the 16th. And I really did regret some of the things that were said about town meeting and about us and are not having the benefit of the doubt being led by someone who is in the middle of creating the production of My Fair Lady. So it's really, I'm very sorry that you weren't able to agree not to make a recommendation rather than to recommend against. I was also distressed and sorry that you saw this effort on our part as an attack on you or a critique of the work you do. We probably had not represented our views well enough yet. I'll represent my own views by saying I would like to strengthen the legislative branch of government. And I know that other legislators have their own, legislatures have their own committees that are in conversation with the committees from the executive branch. From my point of view I have never felt that there was bias in the reports that I had from the select board. Sometimes they were more complete than other times but that often had to do with the pressure of time. Nonetheless, I think it's very valuable for the legislature to have its own core committees because it's not that we're talking about bias, we're talking about different perspectives that come from our different life experience. I remember, for example, that the Butterfield Terrace vote was a very good example of the planning board that thought it was a very good development model. And people who were a butters and residents had a different view of that. And the planning board did not present the point of view of the impact, let me just put it that way. I'm not even saying negative. The impact that such a project might have on neighborhoods of butters or the precedent that it might set. So I do think that the relationship between the legislature and the executive would be strengthened by having such a body. We've been very moved by the Brookline, in fact, envious of the Brookline model, which is why I gave you the handout that I did. And I think, and this committee, at least as I imagine it, would try to reach the high level that the Brookline Advisory Committee has achieved. So I would have appreciated at least the statement, we have no view on this, rather than taking it as a critique of your work, since you are working on the executive level with people who have stakeholders and interests that we share clearly as residents of Amherst, but we may be bringing perspectives to it that are different and we would hope that such an advisory committee would take those issues into account. We know how hard the finance committee works. We would intend to work every bit as hard. We would not be throwing things in the lap of staff and asking them to do it for us. The point is to strengthen the work of town meeting and not ask every individual member to do that kind of research, because not everyone can do so. I understood the chair's point that it could be seen as an insult on the ability of individual town meeting members to find out everything for themselves, but we have committees and subcommittees to help individuals do so. I hope that you will reconsider and thank you for your time. Thank you. Hi, folks. As most of you know, my name is Steve Conner. I am the director of Central Hampshire Veterans Services. In our district is included the town of Amherst. I'm just passing out a little poster. It's an invite, and I'm here to invite all of you to join us. Veterans Day is pretty typical for the years that I've been here the last seven, eight years. This year, Veterans Day is going to be a little different. Rather than starting at 10.45, we're going to start at 11. The ceremony will take place out in the North Common by the flagpole. There will be a speaker. Now, that's what's going to be a little different. He's a very good speaker. He's a poet. His name is Preston Hood, the third, and he is a Vietnam combat veteran. He has been published. He's a very bright man. He did spend 20 years in the Boonies of Maine raising his family off the grid. He spent most of that time suffering from PTSD. He took part in a documentary that I passed out to you all named Hunters in the Darkness. I believe that's, sorry, I have so many things in my head right now. The Blackness. The Blackness. Yes. Okay, Hunters in the Blackness. Thank you. And it's a about a half-hour documentary that right after our typical ceremony that ends about 11.25 to 11.30, the plan is with consultation with the town manager to actually come back into this room, have a little time to meet and talk, and then we are going to head over to the Amherst Cinema who is sponsoring this screening of the movie. The movie is very good. It's intense, but it's all about hope. So those folks that have spent the fall watching the Vietnam War documentary where a lot of it has been painful for a lot of my veterans, this will be a moment to give them hope. And the idea that there is recovery. The seven veterans that are speaking during this documentary include Vietnam veterans but also veterans of these current conflicts and what they've gone through and how they've come out on the other side and have hope. So right after the screening of that movie will be a panel discussion that will last 20 to 30 minutes. It'll be members of, it'll be Preston Hood, the director of the film, the head of the Ward 8 program. So the screening of the movie is about Ward 8, which is in building 8 at the VA hospital here in Leeds. Folks may not know it, but it is one of the best programs dealing with PTSD in the country. I have people who have come from Idaho, Wyoming, down into Texas to go to that particular program because of the success rate. So that's the focus of the film and the recovery, and the head of that program, Dr. Scott Cornelius is also going to be on that panel. And Professor Katherine Basham from Smith College is also on that panel talking about how it's a family venture and that it's not just by the veteran alone and how it affects everybody and how there's help for all folks. So it should be a fascinating day for us on Veterans Day, a little bit outside the norm. Hoping that you folks can go and we spread the word. It will be going up on the town website probably tomorrow or the next day. I'm going to get all this stuff to MIS or IT, and they will put it together and post it up. So thank you for listening to me. Thank you. So I think that was it for folks for public comment. Not related to an agenda item, obviously. So next up on our agenda is action discussion items. Is Ms. Moore here? Yes. Okay. So we're going to start with our sign regulation update. That may not be the perfect title, but it will do, I suppose, for tonight. It's partly that and partly some other things, so if Mr. Moore will take us through what you have for us. Sure. Good evening. Rob Moore, Building Commissioner. Last time I was here a couple months ago, we talked about moving forward with sign regulation, enforcing some of the sign regulations. Specifically, we were looking at the temporary signs that are placed out in public ways, the stick in the ground type signs at intersections or public areas along the street, and then also building facade signs. So we started this early September after a couple of meetings. We met with the bid. We met with the chamber, talked a little bit about it to try to make people aware of what we were thinking about doing, and we began by removing signs and contacting the owners of the signs that we were beginning to find out in the public ways. We ended up removing well over 100 signs at this point, and then also just talking with some of the sign owners, they removed them themselves in advance of us having to go take them. So I heard very little actually in response to that, so I think it went fairly well. Most of the calls or questions I got were about signs that we actually didn't take that we're missing, that the owners were looking for. So we felt like that was in a good place and started to move into the building facade coverage that we talked about last time. And just to remind you what that is, it's a piece of our zoning by-law that limits the amount of coverage on a building facade to 10% square footage of the size of that front of the building. And what we did was take a look at the obvious areas, the town center, the East Village, Pomeroy Village, and North Amherst, and try to evaluate what we have for a condition and identify those worst conditions, the conditions that really need to be addressed first, which just for, I guess, visual purposes, 80%, 90%, 100% coverage, the ones that really were extreme. And we began talking to those business owners. So we have done that just at the very initial stages so far. We do have a couple of good examples of compliance, voluntary compliance, out in North Amherst and both in the town center. But we're going to continue that effort. We've gotten a mixed response. In some cases, the business owner has been happy to hear about it, want to talk more, learn more about it, and understand what needs to be done. In other cases, a little more resistance, wondering how they can get involved with talking about what the regulation should be, possibly needs to be from their perspective. And we've tried to make them aware of what we expect the process to be moving forward with that possibility. Really, what we intend to do here or what we have done is about five steps. So evaluate the conditions, identify the worst cases, make the in-person visits. And what we've done when we're making the in-person visits is bring along a photograph of the facade and just some rough measurements. Now, we're not going out there with tape measures and really getting exact precise numbers, but we're showing the business owner that what 70% looks like versus 10% and just trying to give them some sort of an image to follow along with the bylaw language that isn't very friendly to read. And then the steps would be to follow up another in-person visit to check on progress. And I think that's the point, and we're at that point in some cases right now, that's the point where we feel like we know are we getting a response that doesn't need to move into any type of formal enforcement action or are we working towards something. And that's really where we are in some cases. And if I didn't mention, really, we're going at this a couple at a time. So each inspector is out in the various locations, taking the worst couple of cases, then taking a couple more cases. And I think we'll continue that effort through the winter until we feel like we have a condition that's satisfactory. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, could you ask people to take their conversations out in the hall? It really is incredibly distracting. So if you do need to chat about something, if you could, that would be great because it is a big room and it does tend to sort of carry a little bit. So we do pick it up and the mics pick it up and that sort of thing. So if you could, that'd be great. So just to finish up so far, there isn't really anything to report as far as negative feedback so far, but we haven't taken any formal action in enforcement. We have been communicating with businesses that we're normally maybe not communicating with for any other reason. Maybe they're not licensed through us normally. So that has been good to get into, to visit some places that we're not normally visiting annually. So that's the plan continue as we've been moving along slowly, but a few at a time to make progress. Thank you. The board have questions for, or does Mr. Rock want to have anything else you want to add? Yeah, I just want to compliment the billing commissioner and his staff for the progress on this. It's been something that's been on your radar screen for a very long time so we're glad we're able to put attention to it and place attention on it. Now, from my experience, I think from the billing commissioner's experience, this is one of the items that is fraught with danger in terms of generating a lot of negative public input, and we haven't experienced that at this point, and I think that that goes to a lot to the sort of careful process that the billing commissioner has established and is rolling this out piece by piece and using education as the primary format for our conversations. So I thank the department for their work. Thank you. So questions from the board? Yes. Thank you. And thank you for saying that because that's something we definitely tried to make clear when we started having these conversations even before you got here, which is that we didn't expect anyone to go in with a stick and say, don't do that anymore, but to have conversations and you clearly have pursued that path. So thank you so much for that. In terms of one specific, I have one specific question and then something about planning for as this continues to unfold. So in terms of one of the questions that comes up is as new businesses open, there are these light up signs that say O P E N and they go O P E N, O P E N open. And at one point we were told those aren't legal. And if that's true, then why are brand new businesses buying them and putting them up? And you know, that's unfortunate for them then if that's true. So could you talk a little bit about that? Sure. The bylaw does not allow those to move in that pattern. The sign itself can be set three different ways that moving in the O P E N flashing open or just stationary. So I guess I don't think that it would change their mind about purchasing the sign, but we do. And it's interesting. We do talk about this all the time in the office. If somebody's working at night and has a few minutes, we'll take a walk around. And you know, it is something that we have been getting into the habit of doing to talk to those business owners, but it is a very common sign that we're seeing more and more. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I appreciate the outreach you're doing for that because again, we don't want them to buy something. But like you said, they can just set it for the other way. And it works. But we are some of us are here at night. We're seeing a lot of those signs. So thank you. And then in terms of planning ahead, for example, any number of aspects of this, especially signs in the public way, because we have that weird antiquated thing in the town bylaw from the 1930s that talks about the select board giving out permits for certain types of political signs. And then it's kind of tied into some other stuff. And do you think that there's, at this point, is it reasonable to consider we'll be looking at something for annual town meeting, or do we need some more time to sort out some more, because there are a lot of different pieces here. And you focused on the ones we said we agreed were most important. But I know there's some weird arcane things out there too. What I do know is the planning department staff has been looking at the zoning bylaw in particular. And I think they're at a good place with understanding what our bylaw currently says and where it has to change to be consistent with changes in law and where maybe it could be looked at to be changed with discussions with a larger audience. And, you know, it is still the intent to bring something forward to annual town meeting by way of amendment to the zoning bylaw, amendment to the general bylaw to make the pieces work better together or work together in general as they don't currently. Thank you. I remember the boards with questions. Ms. Krueger. More of a comment. Thank you for the update that we got in our packet and tonight. And I know that you had gone and talked to the business improvement district people, and I think where I was present and something to the chamber where I wasn't present. And I'm just, and maybe you're already going to do this, but just having the idea that going back to them and maybe a month or two in giving this kind of update, because they were very concerned about enforcement and had kind of conjured up maybe worst case scenarios and were very appreciative that you had reached out and explained what you were doing and it was, you know, transferred back and forth. So I thought that was good. And when it works out and when there's your, maybe just a little further along doing that again, like you did with us, probably be great. Okay. Other questions or comments from the board? I just, I kind of have one a little bit if you could be, and you may not have the specifics of the share you're talking about sort of next steps you're going to take or sort of time horizon you're thinking with regard to that. Would it be such that I'm just thinking in terms of what you just said with regard to, you know, amendments to the zoning and or general bylaws, both of which are involved with signage and trying to sort of shape those with the subsequent conversations you're continuing to have with current business owners be impacting that. And so what's your timeline on those, you know, sort of follow up with getting compliance, but also getting from them information about how you might alter them in the zoning bylaw and how those fit together and getting toward an annual town meeting. Sure. You know, one thing that, you know, decision that had to be made going into this, are we going to go out there with TAPE measures and measure the 10% and we're not going to. So, you know, we're looking at efforts to reduce the signage in the locations where it's just excessive amounts that are being posted. What I think I feel pretty confidently about is that through any zoning amendments that will come forward, we're not going to significantly change the building facade coverage requirements. It might be 15%, we might change definitions that tree promotional or advertising signs differently from your name and basic business information. So it could adjust the amount of signage, but I think what we're looking at, you know, is getting a handle on the signage that is really far 25, 30, 40, 50% coverage of the building and just will always be too much. So I don't think that's going to cause us to go backwards, but what it does offer, I think an opportunity for us is to convey to the planning department staff what we're experiencing and what we're hearing and hopefully those individuals will also participate in the process and be able to talk about how important some of the signage is and what it means to their business. So I think we'll learn through this, and we've already started to learn through this, what does 10% look like, you know, and how different that is from 70 or 80% on a building. Right, right, right. And the board have other questions or comments for Mr. Moore. Yes. So just to, as I'm sure Mr. Moore indicated, he is indicating out to the public. So, of course, planning staff is incredibly critical to this, but the planning board will have hearings about this and hopefully some outreach will be done, you know, as we get way further into this, the outreach will be done specifically to the different groups that you've already been working with. Hey, there's going to be a hearing and because the planning board's action is going to be really important on that. Any other questions or comments? If not, thank you very much, Mr. Moore. Thank you. I appreciate you're updating us. So next up on our agenda, we're getting into, there are four petition articles on the current warrant for the special time meeting. It starts on November 6th. And we're going to take those up, I believe in order, if possible. And so we'll start with Article 14, designed for improvements to the North Amherst Library. I believe Ms. Holland is here. So if you come to the mic, introduce yourself and take us through your article, please. I'm Patricia Holland and I'm a member of town living. I live in Precinct 1. And I have some slides that, can you do that? Who do I give this thumb drive to? I'd ask that. Oh, you have it. Great. Thank you. We're totally incompetent. I'm going to read my statement to you about Article 14. The Friends of the North Amherst Library are sponsoring Article 14, which asks for $50,000 from the town for an architect's design for improvements to the North Amherst Library. The North Amherst Library, which is owned by the town, not by the Jones Library, has been in violation of the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, enacted in 1990, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. When the law took effect, Amherst promptly began to bring town hall into compliance. However, for 27 years, the North Amherst Library has remained inaccessible for the disabled. The North Amherst Library was built in 1893 and the only entrance requires ascending seven steps. We get to the next two slides and the next one after. Thus making entry impossible for people in wheelchairs and difficult for those using walkers, canes, or strollers. ADA regulations also require a wheelchair-accessible bathroom and water fountain. Unfortunately, the North Amherst Library bathroom is down a steep, narrow stairway and is not open to the users of the library. The building has three floors. The attic has a pitch ceiling with full height in the center of the room and would be a good spot for community meetings. It has two rounded windows. The basement is of full height with windows and houses books along with a huge oil tank. An architect could explore alternate means of heating and cooling that would free up space and be more ecologically sound. A wheelchair-accessible elevator constructed at the back of the building would provide access to all floors, all three floors. The North Amherst Library building is owned by the town and staffed and managed by the Jones Library. And I must say the staff there has been very kind to people who have disabilities. They are happy to bring books out to them in their cars, but that doesn't mean that people who want to come to a library to browse can get in. In the past, both donated monies and town funds have been used to make improvements to the building, but it is the town that is responsible for making this library accessible. I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you. Are there questions or comments from this report? I guess I appreciate the presentation. I want to start by asking, I think, the town manager a question, and that is I was wondering if you can describe the normal process for considering a building renovation and expansion in the nature of the work done by staff in development of the proposal, including the use of consultants. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to first start by saying that this building is not in violation of the ADA. It doesn't comply with ADA. The ADA Act does not require you to bring a building into compliance if those services can be offered someplace else, which is how the library complies with the ADA. So you can't get into the building in a wheelchair, obviously, but any services or books are available in other ADA-accessible buildings that are offered in the town, and that's the requirement of the ADA Act. Typically, a proposal like this would come to the town through the board or citizen group or department head, and it would be presented through a normal budget process, would be presented to the Joint Capital Planning Committee, which includes representatives from the library, from the schools, from the finance committee, and the select board, and they, as a group, would weigh this capital proposal, along with all the other capital proposals that are placed before it that the town is considering. And as it's considering this group, and based on recommendations from staff, from the town manager and from our finance officers, we sort of plot out what we can do and when we can do it, and it's through that sort of highly disciplined process that the town is able to say, here's what we can afford to do, here's our schedule for doing the projects, and then present these items to town meeting at the appropriate year. When the year comes up, it says we're going to buy a fire truck in three years. In three years, we present to the town meeting. It's time to buy the fire truck. We've looked at the life of the fire truck. It's time to advance this project. And I think town meeting has historically recognized the process as a well thought out process that people participate in. It's a highly participatory process by all the decision makers in the town. So that's to answer Mr. Steinberg's question. That is the normal process for having the town consider capital projects. So I'll add a little addendum to that. One of the other pieces of the puzzle, having served on joint capital planning and my colleagues on this board that have served on that as well, one of the other component pieces in capital planning in weighing sort of the merits and timing of things is also about staff capacity to execute projects as well. So sometimes, and this isn't to, just to paint the picture a little broader, I guess is the best way to describe it. So sometimes, if there's a proposal for hiring a consultant, or as we think about a number of different building projects and when we can do them, there's also the amount of staff time, even if we hire designers or architects or that sort of thing, there's staff time that's necessary in order to get together the proposals, execute the due diligence that the town staff owns and so that's part and parcel of the thinking as well as we go through that joint capital planning process is can we, you know, is now the right time to ask for the money, can we actually execute on that in a timely way in an appropriate efficient way or should something else be ahead of it? Now granted, there are other criteria that joint capital planning uses as well in the process, but I did want to put that piece in there as well as part of that planfulness that is going on with regard to joint capital planning. Ms. Gruber? Well, I think my question concern is in a similar vein. I was trying to remember back and I mean, I don't doubt that this building needs to be looked at. I don't think that's the question. It's about how and when and how it gets done and similarly to my colleagues, I'm kind of oriented towards the joint capital planning committee process, but I think one of the, and sometimes I think it can seem like, well, it's taking forever. Why haven't they done anything? And I think we've made it clear this is a need. This is a legitimate need, but there was a recent land purchase to the north of this that opens up design possibilities. There are general intersection, reconfiguration and planning efforts that could impact optimal ways to design access to this building. And so I think for me, one of the timing questions is the reason this may have not been approached yet is waiting for some of these pieces. So we have a piece of property that's critical, but we don't have the sort of associated intersection surrounding area work. I don't know if there have been conversations with the manager about entering in to the joint capital planning process. It is a discipline process, but I think for people who are citizens or active residents, it's not always clear how you get into that queue. And so I would, one, want to talk about the timing around these other components, and then what you're thinking was, Mr. Buckleman, about when and how this would go into a JCPC process if that were an alternate track. Sure. So as you mentioned, the land north of the library was purchased just a few months ago. We closed on that parcel of land, and that's a very critical parcel for a number of reasons. One, it's important for the library because any expansion for the library is going to require expanding the footprint of the library. And secondly, it allows for the reconfiguration of the intersection as you described. And then we can review traffic flows, parking requirements for any addition that we've put onto the library or for the library itself. Typically what these things get generated because the board in charge would say, we have a programming need, and this is how we want the building programmed. We wouldn't just go ahead and build an addition on something without understanding what is the desire, what do we want the building to hold. I think the Warren article identifies some things that the petitioners have identified in terms of, you know, English's second language classes and community rooms and things like that in their proposal. But we'd be looking at the board of library trustees to say, how would they like to see the building used, and then have an open community process to hear what the community wants to say here, see in this building. So those are all things that would have to, in my mind, would have to take place in order to figure out how long, where it can be placed on the JCPC capital plan. Mr. Seberg. So I'm glad you mentioned programming needs. Mr. Bachman and I turn to Ms. Holland on this too. The article does make certain assumptions about programming suggestions which have not been as I understand it discussed with the trustees, though I don't know, and you can let me know if they have been. But anything you do in the nature of programming has operating cost effects. And there are certain aspects of the design that is being suggested which haven't been developed through the kind of process that Mr. Bachman describes that could require more staffing in order to cover more entrances and protect the kind of security that a building might need. And given what we know of the pressures on the town budget always and probably only getting more pronounced in the future, unfortunately not less pronounced, it is a imperative that we not design a building that we then can't adequately staff and that we don't have the capacity to support through an operating budget. So I don't know if you've had any discussions with the trustees along that line since they're the ones who propose an operating budget to the library director. No, we haven't had any discussion with the library trustees because we felt that this is a matter of the physical aspect of the library that doesn't have to do with the operation much of it. We're not asking for an addition to the library except for an elevator at this point. Now if, you know, if the trustees wanted to make more of it than that, that would be interesting and exciting, although they haven't expressed any interest in it today. So this wouldn't, what we were hoping is simply to have a bathroom that's accessible and an elevator so people can get in. I just will point out that an elevator at the back would suggest an entrance at the back which would then possibly expand staffing needs. That's something that would have to be examined, but there could be just in the design itself operating cost expenses that are related just to the design. Mr. Wallen. I wanted to amplify what some of my colleagues have said. As you know, I appreciate this and I know what Ms. Holland has done for the library and the library community as a whole. As a trustee and as a citizen and as a North Amherst resident, I've heavily used that library and I love it and it was transformative in our child's life. So we all know the problems with it, but I think I want to make clear if we're raising questions here, it's not because we think the needs are not legitimate or tangible, but where it's about the process and we don't want to harp on process for the sake of process, but it's about, as Mr. Bachmann said, a certain rationality and a certain transparency and a certain fairness too. I think there's some danger that a proposal such as this for the reasons that have been cited either makes certain assumptions that will color the outcome or just could be much richer if done in the context of the larger questions of the intersection or library needs overall. And of course it's regrettable, the library has not managed to take a stand on this and as I understand the trustees will take it up on the day of town meeting, which is a little bit late for our purposes. But I'm concerned a little bit too that these things as has been suggested are becoming so political, not you, but this in general, that people get a sense of sequencing and fairness when for example in recent years the library had a chance to apply for a large state grant and the schools had a chance to apply for a large state grant. Some people thought they were metaphorically cutting in line ahead of the other kids, the fire station, the DPW and so forth that people have been talking about for years and years. So it's a very difficult thing to handle as a public process and I think the more it's integrated into the existing process, the more support it'll have. The other thing is that I think it'll make it a richer project. I'm trying to think of a comparable case in which a local group would suggest a significant addition to a building. One wouldn't do this with a school, one wouldn't do it with a police station or a fire station, so it seems somewhat anomalous that way too. And again, I served on JCPC, the Joint Capital Planning Committee. It's a very robust process, but you're performing a service here also by reminding us that is in a lot of cases, whether it's zoning or something else, we have on the one hand a very open and participatory process, everything is publicized, people can make public comment, and yet citizens find it hard to insert themselves into that process and to share their concerns. So I would hope that the outcome would turn less on the up or down vote for this particular article than a conversation about what we can do to improve the North Amherst Library in the context of larger library services and facilities. So appreciating the frustration of just how many decades will it take before we have a bathroom there or something else, and also understanding all the different piece parts, including whether or not anyone would go on record as saying we have to do the intersection first or we have to do the building first and the intersection is going to cost a fortune, obviously. At the same time, while $50,000 doesn't sound like very much in light of our large budget, the problem with funding anything to do it that way when there's absolutely no possibility of funding doing anything with that study for another five years puts us in an awkward position. So years ago, for example, we spent money on designing Kendrick Park. We've done nothing with that, and so obviously we would redo it, but and at the time, we obviously thought some money might be coming our way and that's why we went ahead and did it. So things happen and don't always work out the way we intend, but although, like I said, although $50,000 doesn't seem like very much to just sort of get something going in the pipeline, if the project itself is going to end up in a joint capital planning committee report five years out from now because of all the other priorities that have been established over time, then I'm not sure how valuable it will be anymore to have done that study in terms of getting it into the process, though I am really concerned about that and I brought this up at four boards meeting when we were here and I was talking to colleagues and former colleagues on JCPC since I have dodged that assignment for some time now, is that there needs to be a way, I am firmly convinced, there needs to be a way that almost nothing comes from elected bodies in that process. It almost all comes from staff and although frequently elected bodies are saying to staff, these are our priorities, that's why we're coming forward, you know, similar to when we give you budget policy guidelines, the vast majority of things like mowers and stuff obviously don't come from elected bodies, they come from the staff who need the equipment and so we tend to spend a lot of time on what staff needs to do, the jobs that we've asked them to do and they do an excellent job but there really isn't a place in the same way as something like a community preservation act process where the larger community can say, you know, I've had this great idea and I have, maybe the theory of JCPC is that you have to have a sponsor. Maybe it is, maybe it is, if you can't convince the elected body that this is a priority, you don't get on the list but there's nothing written down about that so it feels like there needs to be a discussion that either with this next cycle of JCPC, not someday but like in a couple months, that's either to make a decision, either people have to get a sponsoring group somehow or they need to be able to have their own way of coming into the process and then, you know, how some of the things that end up on the five-year plan are on the softer side. Like we're pretty sure we'll probably need to put some money into as best as abatement in one of the schools but it's not really a firm number and so maybe something like this, even if it's not the priority of the library trustees at this point, it can end up on the list so again, we can start to see what the whole picture is because we've obviously known and we have had things from North Amherst Library on the list before but beyond this particular article, which if I'm not being clear, I'm not going to recommend Detail Meeting because it's out of the process for capital planning, I think we do need to address a capital planning. How is it that we can pull in the things that are like this that aren't necessarily, you know, if the library trustees have to say, well, this is my main priority, well, they have some other priorities, too. So how can those also make it onto the list or even if they say it's not, what can the community do about that? I think to that last point, you know, it is, you know, the Joint Capital Planning Committee is made up of two from the slide board, two from the finance committee, two from the library trustees, two from the school committee, which makes it an eight member. So we have to figure out how not to end up with a tie on things, but we've seemed to manage that fairly well over the years. But nonetheless, I mean, it is part of how those are supposed to bring things forward through those different bodies. But I think you're right, around the notion of a sort of citizen-led process or project, I should say, that they want to get in front of that group, there's not a real clear way to do that. I mean, it technically would be through, say, the library trustees for a library building, but nonetheless, it could also be through the finance committee select board. But at the same time, I don't think it's obvious how one might go about doing that. And so for us to think about that a little bit, I think it's important to take away in the short term, just having this conversation is valuable in that regard. And because I think there are other things that other times people have thought of and mentioned in conversations and wouldn't it be great if we spent this on this or that on that? And not having an avenue to sort of bring that forward in a good way is probably stymied. It's probably some great projects, to be perfectly honest. So I take that point as a valuable one that we can learn from. Are there other questions from Ms. Holland or other comments from the board about Article 14? Don't believe so? Okay. So we need to take a motion now or we could wait until later and do them as a group. Sort of. Yes, Mr. Sider. The one alternative to taking, to discussing this further tonight and voting a position for the select board is to wait until after the library trustees meet on the 6th. And since we don't, we aren't going to be publishing a report anyway, taking it up at that time when we've had the opportunity, if they do something, for example, to make a decision, and I have no idea, I haven't talked to any member of the trustees, but it's like a mid-motion, decided to make a suggestion of referral back to the trustees so that they have more time to discuss it than it would be helpful to know that. So that is an alternative for this board. Sure. So I think at this point, then we'll wait unless someone's dying to make a motion. So I don't see any rush to make a motion, but thank you very much. And I'm guessing we'll probably take some. Can I just say one quick final thing? Sure. You were mentioning, Mr. Slaughter, you were mentioning that this is a Jones Library building, but it isn't. It's the town. And for all that, it's true, I take it, that being part of the library, it means that it doesn't have to be handicapped accessible, but surely, this serves a lot of people and a part of the town, not everybody can get to the Jones Library, not everybody is mobile. And so I think it's, that is still the right thing to do to make it handicapped accessible. Absolutely. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Yes, please. So they're not actually meeting until the 6th, and so they're meeting right before town meeting. We may not even have time to find out what they decided Monday night, but we may not get to this until Wednesday the 8th. So can we put it on the agenda for both nights just in case? We may as well, rather than just putting it under the lump of any key updates, I think we should specifically mention this because we know we still need to take a position on these. Yes, I think. If we've made that decision, which I'm not sure. I thought that decision was just made. Somebody has to get it from there. I heard the suggestion that we wait, but I'm not sure. I suppose that, but I don't know. We made that decision. And how we would orchestrate that waiting. There's no motion. So personally, I think we should we should wait. I'm cognizant of what Mr. Simon was just saying about the trustees and letting them sort of take their position. I'm inclined to let them do that and then have us take it up again at that point. I mean, of course, it wants to take that differently. I'm open to that as well. That opposed to that, but rather than putting it on two agendas and then the petitioners have to watch and see when we're. We know that it's article 14. We know the trustees are meeting on the 6th if we made it specific to the meeting of the 8th or maybe the 9th. I think more likely that that would be the case because I think on the 6th were. No, yeah, they're they're not likely to have taken a position till the 6th and then getting that communicated. We won't know it. We will take it up on the 8th as a courtesy to the petitioners so that they know the night. Right. The only thing I would suggest is if we're going to take it up on the 8th, I would encourage the chair and the vice chair to give careful consideration to the amount of time we're going to need for the meeting that night because that is when we're electing a new member to the Housing Authority Board and we just want to make sure we have built an ample time for all we seek to do. I assumed they would do that. So as Mr. Slaughter mentioned earlier, we are doing that election another time, not tonight. He had not mentioned, but you just heard that quite possibly that Wednesday night, quite possibly at 5 or 5.30. And we would not, although the petitioner obviously would like to know the result of our discussion, we in no way are implying that the petitioner is required to come back to us. We are simply finding out what the library trustees told us. So if they told us an answer at 6.20 on Monday night, then we could be all set Monday night, which is why I'm asking it to be on the agenda for them too and we just postpone it. The other thing is we never have any reason to know one way or the other, because someone is going to stand up at town meeting and say they want to consider article 14 first. So we just don't know. And so that's why I'm just asking us to cover our basis. So I think to those petitioners, it's likely the 8th, but I wouldn't want to guarantee the 8th. You don't have to come. And we'll, I say keep an eye on our agenda setting, which is what will happen. I think we'll see if we can get answers from the library trustees in a timely way on the 6th. But I think, again, no need to present to us about it. I think that it's mostly we'll be taking our position and giving what the library trustees decide in their recommendation may make a big difference about what our choice is as far as what we recommend as well. So I think next we'll take up article 15, the petition article, general bylaw, net zero energy for town buildings. And so the presenter would, did you give us a handout by the way? Okay. Okay. And all those like where members have a copy of that handout that was left for us. Okay, great. So make sure to identify yourself when you're ready to go so that the folks at home that are watching on TV or watching this broadcast later will have a sense of, of you are and why you're here. Thank you. So please, if you're the presenter, is that a PowerPoint? So the little chevron on the far right, just above the scroll bar on the right, if you click on that, it'll make that go up. And that will give you a little more vertical space. So hoping for one of those headphones so I could pace around like a TED talk. Here I am. My name is Lee Jennings. I'm an Amherst resident on a landscape architect and a mother of a six-year-old and a two-year-old. been working with a group of mothers out front and climate action now volunteers on an idea that we wanted to tell you about tonight. As members of the select board we know that you have a lot of expertise and care deeply about this town and its future. So I'm sure you're going to be interested in this. This is a really great opportunity since you have many new building projects that might be happening in the next few years. So let me ask you a few questions to see if this is a good fit. Are you planning on selling the new town buildings. No. Okay. Good. Because the opportunity does cost a little bit more but you get all of your money back and then you start to make money on it. The town is a good candidate since it doesn't need to make its money back right away. Next question. Does the town pay its own utility bills. Good. Then you're really going to like this. The opportunity lowers your utility bills about 80 percent. I know you're thinking this sounds too good to be true. Why isn't everybody doing this. Well this financial opportunity hasn't always been so strong. But now that the technology is being used more widely and because of other market factors the costs have come down. In fact there was a 74 percent increase in buildings taking advantage of this opportunity from 2015 to 2016. You're probably wondering if this opportunity will work for the buildings that we want to build in Amherst. Are you planning on building a hospital a hotel a restaurant or a supermarket. I didn't think so because those are difficult to build in this way. Are you planning on building schools. Oh no problem. There's a lot of those already done. Fire stations. Yep. We know of a few examples of those as well. Department of Public Works. Well I don't know of one of those but if we break that into the parts that make up a public works building I think we'll find that if it's going to have offices locker rooms storage. Yes. Can I interrupt you for a second. So generally we don't allow photography during the course of a meeting. So if you would be so kind partly because it's distracting sometimes the presenter sometimes us and so it's not that we don't like photos we don't mind photos it's just it tends to often be distracting that sort of thing. So sorry to interrupt you that way. And we are on Amherst TV. Okay. Well I was I was going to ask you if the DPW building would have minimally heated vehicular storage space and will it have a muster room. Well I I googled that for you so you don't have to a muster room is a meeting room. Do you think it will be more than three stories. No the plans so far show it one or two stories so I really think that a DPW building is no problem. But I can tell you're still not convinced that we can do this here in Massachusetts. Guess what we recently did it at four buildings in Amherst and that's not including residences. Okay so you can do something that saves money is becoming more and more popular and is feasibly done right here in Amherst. I bet you want to know what it is. But wait there's a few more points that you should know this opportunity makes buildings more comfortable more healthy and more resilient. Are you ready to recommend it to our town. Not yet. OK there's one more thing about this opportunity and that's really why we are all here. If we do this our new building won't use fossil fuels and it will contribute much less to climate change. I know that you're concerned about climate change. You may even be alarmed like me and others here in this room which means that we're looking for ways to take individual consumer and political action to address climate change. Are you alarmed and ready to take meaningful action at the local level. Great. Then you can't pass up this opportunity to build zero energy buildings also known as net zero buildings. What is a zero energy building. It's a building that produces as much energy from renewable sources as they use over the course of a year. And this isn't rocket science. You start at the very beginning. You decide that zero energy is the goal. You hire the right people and you design a building that uses much less energy and gets the energy that you do need from renewable sources. Still think it sounds complicated. We have a letter of support from 20 local architects builders and officials who know it's feasible and recommend that we build this way. Well let's talk about cost. We know that this is an important consideration. You do make the money you spend on zero energy back but you probably still have to borrow some additional money in the beginning to pay for it. We know that based on recent local experience we can expect an 8 to 10 percent additional cost premium to build zero energy. For the generic 10 million dollar building used in this graph after 16 years the energy savings are equal to the additional debt service at which point the building begins to make money for the town. And it's important to note that we are using conservative energy cost increases and have not concluded state and federal incentives. We believe that zero energy is the fiscally responsible choice and you can't afford not to build this way. Look at the great range of architectural styles that ZE building in New England can have. We aren't mandating an architectural style. We are mandating a level of building performance that has clear benefits. All of these buildings achieve ZE in different ways. Right now our town does not have any agreed building standards for our town projects beyond the stretch energy code. Many towns like Amherst have lead requirements for buildings. Let's not go in that direction at this point. Let's skip right to the heart of the most critical problem of our time. If not the most critical problem in human history. Let us commit to creating the next generation of buildings in our town so that they do not use fossil fuels. Let us harness the power of renewable energy to reduce the carbon footprint of our buildings so that we are giving our children grandchildren and future generations the best chance at a livable climate. Let us make this commitment and work together to do it for the least amount of money which starts with a clear mandate from the start of a project. Let us better use the resources we have and count on the willingness of the smart people of Amherst to be willing to pitch in for this important cause. There are several Amherst residents who are here tonight and 40 town meeting members that have already signed a letter pledging their support for zero energy town buildings that would be happy to share with you tonight. We encourage you to vote to recommend this article and I'm hoping that you've also already received the motion with the amendments in your packet. If there's any questions about that be happy to answer them. Thank you. Thank you. So I believe I think we did get that in our packet. It was attached to article 16 even though it's actually article 15. That's why it's confusing. It's similar but not the same. It looked like this. Right. Yeah. Yeah we did. We did get that. So it well it may be helpful to talk about a few of the main amendments. Yeah. So since we're running up on our five minutes I wonder if we know already whether or not the moderator has found these amendments to be within the scope because that wasn't mentioned within the handout. We did. We do. He did. That's good to know. Thank you. I was wondering whether because there's no indication here that whether or not the motion was within the scope of the article and so I appreciate that we have you have told me now that it is that the moderator has found it to be so. So that's very helpful to know. Thank you for that. Are there are there any questions or comments from the select board? Several questions actually. Thank you for the presentation. You mentioned at one point the distinction between zero energy and lead certification and they're different as I understand it but I'm not as a full expert to tell you to know exactly what the differences are. The fire stations the few fire stations that were cited on your website were listed as lead certified. They were not listed as zero energy and well you can be both. It can be both but we don't know that they are zero energy. Well any building that we put on our website we got from a source that said that it was zero energy. What source because I guess I'm a little bit mystified as to how in a facility where it is being opened and closed all of the time in order to bring equipment in and out and the equipment is usually been outside in the winter time and therefore it's going to be cold when it's brought in and the possible needs to keep the door open for a period of time after it is brought in how how we can be certain that it is feasible to build such a facility that is zero energy. Well only because we know that other fire stations in cold climates have done it and when they plan the building they'll be they ask questions to understand the use of the building and model the energy use accordingly. There were only two that were cited and when I looked at one of them it was a small substation that did not have the kind of equipment and the kind of frequent ambulance usage that we would describe for the facility that is currently being considered for by the fire station DPW study committee. Right so I think that every building is unique and there's going to be design solutions that may have not already been realized in other projects that would be applicable. And if there are no design solutions we can't build a building and then we're stuck with an old fire station that is much more energy consuming than anything that we might build making the best possible effort that doesn't quite meet the standard. Well I think it's more important to set the standard and then if for some reason it's determined to not be feasible then let's talk about it then because if you don't start out with this as the goal it can't feasibly be realized. I appreciate that and because I I agree with the goal but I guess that I'm concerned about is the way that even the motion is currently worded it's not clear to me that there's an ability to make that determination that you just described. Ms. Kruger. Since we're getting into this and that's what we're here for I think I'll I'll take a shot and kind of expressing my concern just similar to Mr. Steinberg's but I worry the sort of rhetorical tool you used at the beginning I want to be really clear I support the overall goals of reducing climate change reducing use of fossil fuels what I have what I've really struggled with so I don't want us to get polarized around what our values are they're the same the question is how do we get there and the problem that I have with this article and I went back to double check the amended language is the mandate. Mandating zero net energy use to me is too extreme for some of the reasons Mr. Steinberg spoke about but you're sort of to me it's sort of a straw man kind of thing if it's zero net you lower your energy bills by 80% well if it's 95% to zero what would we save so I see our energy vision for our future town buildings as aspiring to get as close as is practicable in that situation with the money that we think politically we can achieve for overrides and what all and this doesn't give any space it by law requires town buildings be zero net energy and I'm not willing to be the first community to mandate that because I think it's a death toll for some of the projects we're working on right now I am in support of it as an aspirational goal and having some standards to get us there but them I am really stuck on the mandate of zero and I would like to be able to get past that but I haven't yet in my own thinking is my first chance to talk to my colleagues to see where they're at other comments or questions from the board say right there may there may be people who also worked on the by a lot of us to call on you so I'm we're going to definitely take this group first but then I will definitely there are people in the audience will we'll get to them in a moment but I guess the other analogy I put forward to it because I is zero waste our recycling and refuse management committee worked very hard on developing a plan for waste disposal and recycling and set the goal of zero waste which we heard from them and agreed is a goal that we should do everything we can to get to it or to is close to is to the extent possible which would mean if it was ever achieved which is going to take a lot that we not this we not have anything that is not recyclable or compostable and therefore putting nothing in landfills whatsoever but we and that committee recognized that it is a goal and the process to get there and they are now engaged in a very thoughtful process on steps that we can take to move in that direction and I guess that's the distinction that I see between setting the goal and making a serious commitment to achieving the goal and setting a standard that is so stringent that it could have unintended consequences because you can't meet the standard that is stronger than can be achieved with technology at the time in place and that that's the struggle that I'm having as I've looked at this and why I've given this much thought to it. Mr. Wall. Just to echo what my colleagues are saying we're very grateful but I think the nice thing is we're all on the same side here somebody called me up and said what do you think about this and I said we haven't discussed it my ideas are still evolving I've got to study the document but I said who could possibly be against it we're all concerned about climate change we're all concerned about sustainability saving money and saving resources is obviously a no brain or two and so you know so the conversation is not you coming to us and us saying no this is a dumb idea it's us saying we agree on the goal can we find a way that's mutually satisfactory to get as close as possible and so I think as Ms. Krueger said you know I'd be happy with 90 percent here 95 percent there if your point is zero to make a goal to make a statement that's nice but you've got a balance against numerous other needs and none of us here are architects or environmental specialists energy tech specialists but we do have a lot of experience in town government you know we understand the process we've been through building planning projects before we've looked at finances and so forth and so if we're not trying to be negative but we see some of the pitfalls or the obstacles that could get in the way of the you know the greater good we can achieve in the aggregate here you know so my I think you could summarize our views maybe is saying if it's mandatory it's problematic and if it's advisory it's superfluous because if you look at the town manager goals they call upon the town manager to initiate green efforts this in turn comes out of the master plan the chapter on natural and cultural resources and the goals and policies they talk about sustainability they talk about green buildings they talk about educating the public about the environment and energy conservation so all these things are there and I realize I think there's a strong impulse in the part of citizens who are desperately concerned about the fate of the planet to try to make us do something and make you know both for the sake of making a statement and making progress but I I'm hoping you can hear our concerns also that you know I don't want to cite the hackneyed phrase about the perfect being the enemy of the good but that's what that's what people will tell you have been through this process we can get very close to it I think and to try to mandate it might have unintended consequences that wouldn't really serve the goal this article or the town as a whole rather comments or questions I'd like to know what conversation staff have had associated with this because obviously we have Mr. Carrella working on so many so many green prop we have Mr. Carrella working up this is for yeah okay you might want to move closer we have Mr. Carrella we're not talking to you guys we're talking to each other and but we need you need to be able to hear us so it's like it's a balance working on this along with many other people she being the focal point so has there been some opportunity in their busy days for staff to have thought about you know how this might play out given some of the projects they've been working on thank you Mr. Chair so I've not had a conversation with this chickarella who's our sustainability coordinator but I have had conversations with people who are involved in the building projects which are the current building projects are being considered seriously are the DPW and the central fire station both would be anticipate to be new buildings and the concern there was just that what the other members of the board said is that a it hasn't been done not that that doesn't mean it's a samurse we were not unusual doing things for the first time so that's not the only thing that would prohibit us or inhibit us from moving forward but that the the two buildings that we're discussing are it hasn't been done for a reason perhaps because these two buildings because of what they do are very challenging I think Mr. Wald's statement about unintended consequences are such that you could in fact change the requirements of a location for a fire station if this were to become the law which it is the law it would be the law that we would have to comply with it if for instance you would have to find a site that would be able to accommodate enough or off-site or very close by enough solar to support the activity which would might mean that you need in addition to the three acres that you have need for the fire station you mean you might need another five acres for PV so and so I think that that's that's one of the concerns for for people and I think also established integrating this into the cost of the building is going to be high which the proponent you know has mentioned but that over time it will be paid off and that you will gain actually going down the the pike after 20 years there will be a net gain so that's something the town the fear among some people is that when the price tag goes up the town will be less likely to support a project that the folks on our staff feel are very important so I think that that's a concern in terms of anything that adds to the cost of a project because we're hearing from that when you're building a building there's lots of things that you want to balance you want to balance safety you want to balance comfort you want to balance location you want to balance the energy needs and the operational needs so all these things come into play and what this does by making this a law which we then are sworn to uphold is that this puts this primarily the most important thing that we would consider and that might be what the proponents intend but it really drives a lot of decisions that might have unintended consequences so at this point unless you guys had anything else to add at this point I think there are some audience members that might want to offer some additional comment on this article so if they if there are a couple of folks so let's start with riddle and have him come up and and offer comment and then we'll so we have mr. Riddle we have this person is there anyone else besides those two all right great so we do want it I will suggest this though is that we don't hear the same thing every single time but anyway but I do you know if you haven't you know certainly new information is is is helpful to us as far as our deliberations are concerned so surely and just please identify yourself again Chris riddle I'm on report on my experience with the Hitchcock Center I was the owner's project manager for that project and I had a lot of exposure to the current center which was being built at exactly the same time and both of those projects have a lot of more than 20 more than eight hours a day activities they're both heavily used buildings in the evening and that and the current center is really a 24-hour building it seems to me that to go if you can get to 90 percent or you can get to almost net zero then you can get to net zero because it's just a matter of buying some more PV and and PV is very cheap these days it's getting cheaper and cheaper and so I don't know it seems to me that you know we certainly toyed with the idea of having it be a just a recommendation a recommendation the town meeting that the that the town consider a building to net zero standards for all of its new buildings but you know we don't have time to consider we have I have we have children and grandchildren and their grandchildren that will suffer and may not have a viable future if we don't solve this thing now not not well when we get around to it or if we can afford it or next year after we deliberated maybe we'll do in the next building we felt the need to set a set of standard put it in the ground and and and and ask the town meeting whether we should in fact abide by that standard and I want to say one more thing in order for us to put this standard on the on the in the in the town bylaws we had to get a hundred signatures and then we can put it on the bylaw way if we get down being to pass it we can put it on the by law that cannot that means that that bylaw next next time can be amended it's nothing the bylaws are are very amendable their laws then laws are are amendable we're putting we're putting a stake in the ground saying we think we should try to do this and if a future town meeting thinks that we should back off and say well almost is good enough then that's what will happen it's it's this is not this is nothing in the Constitution this is in the legislation thank you thank you so go is it for her all right this really feels like the hot seat thank you my name is Ann Perkins and I am been part of the committee that is promoting this article I have been going to DPW fire station advisory committee meetings since last spring so I'm well aware that they don't that they're worried and I see that what we've done is create something that has you all worried whether you're on that committee or on the select board that and nobody likes to be told what to do I become very aware of that but I want to try to offer you a different perspective which is nobody's going to move to Amherst because we have a new DPW building or a new fire station you know and I've been in these old ones and they're awful and they really need to be replaced and what we want to do is support them getting replaced but in order for the town and town meeting to support the money for these buildings there needs to be vision there needs to be something that's visionary and if Amherst was to build the first central fire station as zero energy and the first DPW building as zero energy I think you're going to find a lot of support in this town thank you Mr. Samberg I did excuse me before you go that there's one thing that I wanted to respond to and I but I wanted to do it with giving you an opportunity to respond to me that's why I didn't want you to leave you brought up a good point about people won't come to town because of fire station but I worry that we have a very high tax rate right now and it's the complaint that I think is I have gone around the community I hear a lot and I hear it in particular from two groups one is elders and the other who are living a fixed income and the other is young families who are choosing between us and neighboring community but they live in Amherst they'd like to live here they like the idea of Amherst but they just can't afford it and tax rate is part of their factors so when we add to the cost of a building we have to add to our borrowing and which adds to the amount that we have to ask our taxpayers to pay an additional taxation to pay back the bonds on the building and it will increase the tax rate and that affects those vulnerable groups that I mentioned and I curious how we respond to that and if you've given any thought to that question because I know that came up at the DPW fire station committee meeting when you were there and I didn't know if you had any opportunity to ponder that question how to respond I'm certainly in one of those groups elder on fixed income but I'm also a grandmother and I just I don't know when you just every day when you read the news and you see what's happening to the climate you know I saw a whole graphic today on the post about the carbon dioxide increase in the environment and I I guess the other thing and Bill Mullen said this beautifully at the DPW fire station committee meeting is that we cannot be acting on climate change nationally right now the that you know we've been swept off our feet to do to work nationally the only place we can really work is locally or in the state of Massachusetts and so this is our opportunity to try to combat climate change here in Amherst I don't know what to say about the taxes and and people not coming I don't have a good answer for that it's not what drives me you know I'm doing a deep energy retrofit on my house right now I will never see in my lifetime the the payback the money payback it's not why I'm doing it I'm doing because I want there to be a planet appreciate the previous speaker's comments and the attitude and your recognition that we don't we don't feel under attack don't worry we're trying to engage you in a good debate but I was actually struck maybe a little more for ill by something you said and I tried to write it down accurately and you tell me if that's right or check the videotape whatever they call it nowadays in order for town and town meeting to support these buildings there has to be a vision I would think you'd support a fire station because you don't want to burn to death or die of a heart attack before you get to the hospital I mean I think that's very problem it's a very problem maybe it may be as unintended rhetoric but it's a very problematic but perhaps revealing way to put this it's a it's opposing these different goods we're talking about buildings that are essential for the well-being of the community for the quality of life and human safety we also want to do justice to the environment and fight climate change but I think to say that people will not support a building that is not zero net energy or doesn't have a vision is it's it's disturbing and I think that symbolizes part of the problem we have a symbolic politics here in the town right now I apologize for giving that impression wasn't my intent thank you thank you so I think you're next my name is Tim Holcomb I'm a resident of Amherst and just briefly wanted to address two points Mr. Steinberg that you made point number one was is you presented a very thoughtful and well researched question challenging the feasibility of a what a means of heating fire station that opens and closes its doors and that's that's exactly the kind of of thinking that we have to challenge because the answers are out there and I think that I am a I'm a builder and I've been involved in green building for now since two thousand and six and that that that question is really technically solvable it's very solvable and and that's exactly what we need is something that will drive drive innovation your concern about the the the political aspect of this and that we need something that is less forceful in terms of being a mandate I look I I I site our inability to be one of the only towns not to have solar on their landfill that we have somehow not been able to accomplish that you know those things those we we have a lot of resistance we have a lot of opinions and we have a lot of issues that are constantly in competition with each other so I find that interesting that Amherst is the only one and then finally to address unintended consequences what are the unintended consequences of the gas development I mean part of the issue here is to get us free of fossil fuels what are the unintended consequences what is what about the unintended consequences of gasoline rising in cost in this town because of a hurricane that is of unusual magnitude of five hundred year storm in Houston the less the less we are dependent upon outside sources of energy the more secure our community is going to be and I think that addresses Anne's vision need for a vision of of a town that is looking toward the future rather than being fearful about resistance to to investing a little bit over the long haul that almost guaranteed is going to provide us with a return screw usually do back and forth but since Mr Steinberg started with that couple things I'm going to be really clear we're not of opposing values or vision we differ on the mains to get there on balance we may see share the value and find a different way whether it's political or financial and I think if we start to polarize that would be a really big mistake around not sharing a vision I think we share the vision as Perkins and I go back we worked on a women in solar energy project and I think nineteen eighty so we don't need to challenge each other's credentials and commitment to alternative energy or reducing use of fossil fuel or climate change and how seriously we take that you know and I think it's even to say I'm a grandparent you know and if you care about your grand I'm a grandmother and I care about a fire station that can respond to my granddaughter who lives in South Amherst who has in the past needed help from our EMTs so how to get that to happen is it zero net or is it ninety percent or is it making sure all town projects examine the possibility of doing as much as possible with the technology in the front so for me being the town that sets its sites on trying to innovate the best technology it would ever cost that's just not my goal right now because as Mr. Wild said I'm balancing a whole bunch of things that we're trying to do so I just please don't polarize us with saying if you care about your grandchildren you'll support this I do care about my grandchildren and I have a different means of how I would like to get us to the same goal up I I haven't heard at least it was not my intention nor do I think I did I impugned your commitment to a green and just and sustainable future and I forgot on the landfill I was ready to go to whatever length to see solar on both of those landfills the reality is much to my surprise a rare bird species was found this is the truth this is not something that had to do with the resistance to those projects and I think to be fair to the town and to this board we were ready to take on whatever resistance there was to see those projects forward there is still a project in the offering for the new landfill things happen when you do the next step and the next step in due diligence who knew there was a nesting rare something bird in those grasses so I think we have to be really careful again about dividing we don't have all the information to more sense about the solar to because I think you think you're quite right we all fought for it very strongly we went to all sorts of public meetings we advocated for it we had a kid town meeting but to fill in the rest of the story it wasn't just that a rare species of endangered bird was found there residents of butters who didn't want the solar there because they couldn't walk their dogs in the landfill or they're worried about toxic waste and who knows what brought lawsuit against the town and eventually among all the pieces they threw against the wall they found this environmental reason which is quite a legitimate one about the grasshopper sparrow but you know it was it was it was a lawsuit by residents of the town that stymied this thing it delayed the process enough to eventually killed it so we you know we were out there on the on the front lines and it's a difficult fight so that's why you know we want we want to come together and find things we can actually do and so as you saw Miss Kruger said there's an article in the paper recently describing the progress on the new solar on the on the other landfills I have I have a question for the petitioners however you want to manage that but I also have a question for the town manager and so start with that one for me so be the easier one for the town manager are you familiar with and obviously we didn't talk about this at the time but one of the things that that's been coming out of this conversation is this idea of a way that we would be required to analyze this sort of information as we were going into a process separately perhaps from an actual by-law existing what would that look like does any does anybody in Massachusetts I mean do is there a model out there for how to make that happen because that was certainly one of the criticisms associated with schools project right is that they talked some about green energy but they didn't have a defined thing and this is a defined thing that says you'll do this is there is there anything out there that's a way of setting up that guidance that yes we would commit to doing maybe not within this warrant language but because we share the values and we'd like to know the answers based on the technology that exists at whatever point we're at associated with that versus the perhaps draconian nature so thank you Mr. Chair the and the model I would look to is the city of Cambridge which has a very robust sustainability program and climate action goal that they they have oriented their entire community around it's it's it's a it's very attractive and it's something I think that it's a model that we would try I would think that we could try to emulate a Cambridge is a different animal they have more money than anybody they have a stab they have did try and I don't think they they were successful and they wanted to build a new school the King School is a net zero energy building they had the greatest architects going I don't think they achieved it and I'm not sure I don't know enough about it but I think they they they were using geothermal they're doing all all really good I mean it looked really incredible but I think that they have a regular reporting requirement as part of their sustainability plan I think that's one of the things you will hear us talk about more I think Mr. Steinberg referenced some of the work being done where we will be moving more into integrating sustainability into all of our decision making the town you know you've already the town has done so much already but in in terms of saying this is our goal this is how we we seek to achieve it how have you integrate how are you integrating these goals into your decision making process that's the path I would seek I would I would hope the town would follow I find go off on a tangent I find that this is a law that that we are we'd have to be sworn to uphold there isn't any leeway in terms of if it doesn't meet the requirement after a year there isn't anybody to go back to and say well we didn't quite do it and I'm not sure what the consequences are for this if we have to shut the building down if it fails to meet it because it would be out of compliance with the law there's no appeal process there's a lot of questions about how that would hand how that would be handled okay oh yeah thank you thank so I think before you respond to that but I think you had a question which would be addressed to you too so yeah right so why don't you come up we're going to get her question and then come back to that I think there is actually a point on the failure to comply in the in the motion but we'll let Ms. Brewer ask her question first and right now it just ends it says every year you'll talk about it it doesn't say what that means in terms of the strategy the completely separate question before we get back to arguing about compliance is why the Jones library was removed from the motion okay the first well the first thing about the compliance that the intention is not to punish the town if it's building doesn't comply the intention is that you they take steps to work towards compliance which as Mr. Riddle pointed out most likely would mean adding some more energy savings or some PV so that's I mean this is the town putting strict guidelines on itself in a way and we want them to be successful so it's not about finding or punishing this is a group effort and in terms of the couple other things with the amendments should be noted that from the original warrant we've added that in cases where there isn't sufficient solar or wind exposure that offsite renewable energy is allowed as long as it's part of that building project so we think that that allows for a level of flexibility in terms of when we're citing buildings and in terms of the Jones library we struggled with this and in the end the Jones library owns the building incorporated not the town the Jones library pays their utilities and so showing that financial incentive isn't the same with the Jones library in addition they were already through their concept phase and had a budget for their project which makes it much more difficult to be ZE but I certainly know that I'm going to be there advocating that they have a much more sustainable project because since we have no town building requirements in terms of sustainability we don't have any type of lead standards our past two projects that have gotten to the concept schematic phase have had really disappointing levels of sustainability in the projects and I'm not quite sure why we're letting that happen but this would be one way to not have it happen anymore. So are there other questions? Yes? No. Okay so then we have books in the back that wanted to speak as well so I want to get. My name is Darcy Dumont I'm on the steering committee of climate action now and climate action now is strongly supporting both articles 15 and 16 I'm also working with mothers out front and we have put together the letter that Lee mentioned earlier which is a support letter that's been signed by 40 early supporters of article 15 I just wanted to quickly read it to you. To the Amherst select board we the undersigned Amherst town meeting members support article 15 the zero energy town building's bylaw we ask that you recommend it to town meeting we believe that any new municipal buildings built from now on must be zero energy the planetary climate crisis demands it the urgency related to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is increasing each year Amherst must be bold in planning for resilience in the face of the environmental and economic disruption we want our town to take the lead and model a commitment now to buildings that will use clean energy for the 50 plus years of that utility of their utility. The arguments against the bylaws based on financial concerns are important to consider but must be looked at differently from other expenditures in the town budget. ZE buildings may for their small extra cost pay pardon me ZE buildings pay for their small extra cost and energy savings over time. Additional building costs can be minimized through design choices grants and creative financing options. We have the talent and ingenuity in Amherst to build ZE cost effectively concerns about possible increased cost now must be weighed against future savings and compared to the financial burden we are leaving to the coming generations due to continued use of fossil fuels building for reduced and stable energy costs in the next two decades is forward thinking and more likely to stabilize property tax rates in the long run then to add to rates. And finally when carbon pricing begins the buildings will save money immediately compared to those using fossil fuels. We ask you to sport and remit recommend this bylaw because of the economic and environmental benefits it will produce for all residents and businesses. And then it's signed by 40 town meeting members and there's a comment page where some of them have added their opinions of why this is a good idea. Thank you. You can just give it to the clerk he'll pass it around so you get a trouble. You only give it to one person. So the this I'm going to keep going to other folks haven't spoken yet there's another person in the back that wanted to use to to provide public comment on this. I'm going to let him speak first. I'm Rudy Perkins. I'm a town meeting member from precinct to and I work as an affordable housing developer. You guys know me from that and I have to say as a developer nothing gets your attention like a requirement. There's a lot of things out there that we can do but don't have to and those tend to get cut from projects when we get into budget issues. But code requirements things around the ADA for example. We build those in even though they they raise the cost of the building. You know we've made our town safer over the years because we've improved the building codes. We had fire crises that ravaged our municipalities. And yeah we built fire departments to sort of take care of the fight like mitigation I guess you could call it. But we also made our construction costs much more expensive but much sounder by changing our building codes so that fires would be less likely to happen. And at one level you could look at it like that. In terms of the urgency of the crisis and the advisory approaches we've been doing haven't gotten us there. And it's been very frustrating to me to go to town meeting for our two last building projects that underwent a lot of debate they were going to be fairly costly to the town and they were both going to be powered by fossil fuels. At this late date we were designing both both the schools and the library expansion to be fossil fuel powered heating oil for the school. And that started me thinking I think I made the comment at town meeting around the library that it's time to be building all electric buildings that can be integrated to a renewable grid. It's time and the advisor we've got good policies in town but they clearly weren't motivating our building designers to come up with a school and a library that even had you know significant solar renewable energy component. So I just think at this point in the climate crisis we have to raise I thought it was a good point that if it's mandatory you know that's a dictate and you drive the design by that it won't be the only thing they'll still be ADA they'll still be fire codes and all these other things but it will be elevated to a level of importance so that when the architects go in they know this is one of my top 10 design items I got a hit I got to hit this target or this building doesn't work for the town and I don't know as we've ever maybe you can correct me we've ever given our architects for feasibility designs for our buildings a requirement hey see if you can do this as a net zero building. So I'm not sure we really know that it's speculative that we can't hit this we there are some examples that we can there's examples right in town for some types of buildings and I think it's time we did this and our in terms of if we had to make an amendment to a bylaw we all know these building projects are kind of slow moving trains and if we got to the point where the architects threw up their hands and said this just isn't going to work that could come back to town meeting at the time you you're you're coming in for borrowing or whatever else say we need an exemption for this building but I think we need a mandatory you know if I saw the sustainability goals and all the things we're doing getting us to the point where our buildings were we're coming up close to you know this 90% level but I haven't seen that and I think we need to drive it to the level of importance that a code does and I don't think we have time to wait the federal government is not going to do it we know that and the towns are going to have to take the lead on this as well as the states so I think it's we should go for this and we'll figure out how to make it work I think it's already well underway here with the amendments and so forth so thanks for considering it Mr. Simer and just a couple of comments that I just have to make one is the idea that if we build the requirements in it will force us to consider them and move in a direction that fear is that if we build the requirements in we'll come to the conclusion we can't build the building at all if we can't build the building at all and we have to face the consequence that what we're doing is deciding that because we can't afford or can't figure out how to build the new building we're going to we're going to continue to operate with inadequate and much worse energy sucking buildings and that that's an unintended consequence and even if it's a period of time until it can be solved whatever that period of time is we have to figure out what the cost is both to the community and to the environment that we're also concerned about by that delay and continuing to use that horribly inefficient building and I appreciate the references to some of the buildings that have been successfully built in Amherst I'm extremely proud of them I'm very proud to live in a community that has had the success in building that kind of a building but they aren't fire stations and they aren't be DPW facilities they're essentially office and classroom buildings that can be designed in that as zero energy buildings more easily in one last point and then I want to get to the more process you part of to conclude and and that is that if the answer is that we have to be prepared to add more PV photovoltaics or solar cells we have to make sure that we have the site that can do that and so we get into then the question of whether site selection has to add this factor in and what additional costs that has to add to the project which probably is going to be much greater than the 10 percent because a lot of times I mean that's been our biggest challenge in getting these buildings up and running to some extent is just figuring out whether place them and where we can afford to place them because of land costs. So those are all factors that I think the town meeting as the legislative body needs to be encouraged to consider and and which is I guess what gets back to the town meeting process that because town meeting meets twice a year we need to work very hard to figure out a solution that can make a process work so that these issues can be dealt with in an orderly fashion that meets the town meeting schedule of having to meet when it meets and it's one of the frustrations because I think the one thing that we're all in agreement is the goal and the imperative of trying to achieve as close as we can to the goal if we can't achieve it in totality and I think that's what almost everybody here is saying to some extent or another but I feel like we're not quite there yet and a little bit frustrated personally because I would like to be there and I would like to have a process that could get us there. That's been said and I am not persuaded to support a bylaw that I think is flawed with the idea where you can go back and amend it later. I don't take actions based on we'll pass it now but if it doesn't work we'll just come back to town meeting and get it changed I think it's our obligation to act on what's in front of us and that's what I will do for whatever little influence it might have. So I'm still struggling with a couple of different issues here. One is that I'm finding myself strangely attracted to this bylaw which just makes no sense to me whatsoever given my usual concerns about process and tying our hands but I remain stuck on a number of issues and one is the compliance issue because I realized what the words say I'm just trying to understand what that would actually mean. So you say you're going to do something and then you go ahead and you build it that way and then it turns out it's not actually working out and it turns out that you didn't set aside any money to put extra PV on a different site because you didn't think you would need to and so then okay there's no real buying or punishment it's just that's too bad. But then I'm wondering what the expectation is associated with site selection to begin with because then how do we get, how do we ever feel like we've chosen the right site when we don't know if all of our plans are going to work out associated with this and in many cases we may need particularly for some of the projects we've been talking about. We're talking about very small sites for those projects. We will not have Hampshire College fields that we can turn into solar fields just at our leisure because we have those space. So that makes me really concerned about how that will affect our site selection process to begin with and then also how we will actually be able to compensate for it. I mean it's one thing to say we know right now if we designed to do X on X spot then we're going to need a little bit extra space someplace else and we'll design it over here but if we just think we can do it all or we're trying to tell ourselves real hard that it'll work out and then it doesn't I'm not understanding the compliance requirement for now you got to go find another spot to make it happen because you didn't include that in the initial project which was all supposed to be part of the original project cost. And the other part that's confusing me is when it comes to changing the bylaw which I am totally low to we've had a lot of those conversations over the past many years let's just try it and see what happens which is not really a great way to do things but beyond that is that it's not clear to me how it would change so that if we said you know what given current technology we can not figure out how to do this fire station we just we just can't do it. So we go back to tell me and we say what write the words except the fire station. I mean I don't see an obvious way to alter this bylaw without just saying we junk this bylaw when a particular project has a problem there's not like a nice little cut and if this happens then you do that. So I don't know how to deal with that and it's one thing to say yes we'll go back to town meeting but go back to town meeting to do what to say asterisk fire station asterisk DPW building I don't get it aside from the whole twice a year calling a special town meeting sort of process. I had a smaller related question about the compliance because when some of the advocates were trying to persuade me just in formal conversations you know there was it was a good measure and it was feasible they would say well it's okay if you don't make it you know you just try try try again and so I guess I'm not sure how that's mandatory I mean it seems to be mandatory in imposing these these goals and restrictions on the building plan but as far as getting to actual compliance I don't see a mechanism there. I mean I'm not sure I would want to draconian one but for example we have in the case as a recent issue involving affordable housing $100 a day fine for cutting down a tree it's $300 a day this just says keep on trying and Ms. Brewer then points to some of the other consequences that could follow so I guess the compliance mechanism just in general strikes me as I mean it's not it's certainly not draconian but it's also not clear. I have a question for you Mr. Bachman regarding you know one of the things is town of Amherst buildings building addition shall mean all new buildings new building addition built by and for the town of Amherst and its subsidiary agencies it does things under the control of the Amherst housing authority fall within that category as well or or other buildings and projects of that sort so if we go and build if the town contributes significantly to the development of a single you know an enhanced single room occupancy building how does that fit in with this to your reading. I don't know about the housing authority I don't think that's a subsidiary agency I think that's actually sort of an arm of the state government. So that would be independent that would be independent and I think the if we're contributing to a project this would not apply to that's not a town owned project. Did you have something else you wanted to add. Yeah we all want to move on and agree that we all have a right to die peacefully. But the the point about Cambridge is well taken and I encourage folks to I don't know if you're going to decide on this tonight but if you are going to think about it some more read about what they're doing because they're saying that all municipal building should be net zero by 2025. So you know we're maybe a couple years ahead of the curve but at the rate things are going you know these buildings are going to be in the 2020s and we need to be thinking about the building that we want for 50 years and that's really what this is about. Thank you. To this point my colleagues have other comment. We need to take a motion or we could move on to another article. I'm open to either either option. I don't know if someone wants to make a motion relative to this one or we want to listen to the other articles and then come back. Just to suggest maybe we could at least go ahead and do the other energy issue and the petition issue that's not a bylaw and then perhaps just out of general kindness to the petitioner we could do the final one and then talk more about everything that we want to. So in that case I'm fully in agreement with that as far as process. So let's so next up would be article 16 the resolution in support of 100% renewable energy and so if you come forward identify yourself and tell us about article 16 please. Technical details here. Hi my name is Andrew Rose and I'm here to present the resolution in support of 100% renewable energy and I also want to thank you for giving such thorough consideration to the zero energy bylaw which I was also a part of putting together. This one is easier to support for lots of reasons but that's not the reason to support it. I think that you've already verbalized a lot of the reasons why you already want to move in this direction. So but I also do want to say that what we do here in Amherst does have an impact and we already are working with people, citizens of Northampton and Pelham on similar proposals and North Hampton and Pelham will look at us and say oh okay then let's go in on it together and that's really our goal that we don't just change Amherst but that it goes farther. And of course if it goes statewide we all know that as Massachusetts goes so goes the nation so we have a lot of power here. So I'm doing this for that child seven generations later beyond me who's looking at me and saying so you're going to end the era of fossil fuel dependence right? And I have to look back and say yes because looking back at her and saying I'm sorry I couldn't isn't really something that I'm capable of doing and I know that you feel the same. So what the 100% renewable proposition is to put climate change right in the center of the table of all of our decisions and if we really set our sights to it I believe we can get there as quickly as possible and as locally as possible which is an important part of our proposal. So the group of people who have put this together from climate action now and mothers out front and Amherst as well as the we're working with people in Northampton and Pellum. And we want not only the swift move off of fossil fuels but to do it with our other communities and we've I'll talk about a way that we have been researching and that's been very successful in California which is called community choice energy also known as community choice aggregation which is slightly different from the way it's usually done in Massachusetts. So we don't get to 100% renewable or zero energy by building renewable energy resources. We get there by doubling down on our energy use through energy efficiency and through electrifying everything and that is an equal part of it and I think that's been a real misconception of the idea of going 100% renewable it's equal parts reducing our energy use and in a zero energy building force that's the main way that the energy savings come and it's that intention to make it as tight as you know high performance as possible and that's the same with an entire communities energy use. So there are already five communities in Massachusetts that have declared they're going 100% renewable and more than 40 cities and their counties and the state of Hawaii have all committed already and a number of those communities in California that are on the map there are doing it through community choice energy and the reason that it works so well in so many other communities in California are piling on to join that movement is because it's a very economical way to reduce greenhouse gases very quickly what we would propose is that the town speak with the other towns that we have been working with and develop a plan that does initially cost money because it requires a consultant with particularly broad expertise in energy resources with producing energy and energy efficiency and distributed energy resources such as electric car chargers as two way solar not solar storage uses and many other possibilities for storage so it does cost money before we start getting revenue but very quickly once the process has begun energy is producing a revenue stream so the basic idea is to start with bulk purchase of electricity and some community choice energy or CCE or CCA community choice aggregation the other way it's known also try to promise rate reduction and that's been the main focus in Massachusetts our focus is on reaching 100% renewable and that's why we would want the town to do it is to green the grid so the way that the revenue stream starts coming is through the bulk purchase of electricity but over time we are able to use that to reduce our energy use through energy efficiency that's targeted to the high use the peak users during peak times and building out local energy resources such as solar on a building where it can be used while the building is in use rather than putting it out onto the grid and that at first goes very slowly because you're still building up a base of capital in order to do these projects but over time they actually start to pay back into the community choice energy system by reducing creating savings across the communities and gradually you know the renewable energy actually paying back the costs so that is the basic idea of community choice energy it's economical because it has a stream of revenue and pays for itself in the long run except for that first year before you have some revenue and that just like for zero energy we are confident that there are grants and that there are some local financing mechanisms that we can use and there are a lot of us who have the energy and passion to do the research and to support these processes for reducing the initial costs so that they don't have to add to in any significant way to the costs of new buildings or planning for a hundred percent renewable future so I'd ask you to recommend both these articles because they really are the same idea that we are going to go forward together with our leaders taking that leap into the unknown but trusting that we're behind you to actually do hard work to make sure that the costs are within a reason or even not cost anymore at all so thank you Questions? Ms. Brewer? So I actually wanted to start with the town manager actually and get to do that a lot tonight and it's all surprises isn't that fun is when I when I look at I have a bunch of concerns so when we look at this actual petition article we look at the warrant article all of it rather than just at the handout at the bottom of page 16 and the top of page 17 are some specific actions and again they're part of a resolution you know so they're not mandated they're just strongly encouraged and what I'm trying to understand is what's the difference aside from the specific community choice aggregation or CCE program which I will admit to some cynicism associated with this is the best electricity program two years later no this is the best electricity program no no no the way you need to do electricity is this other way and we've not really found that there is this magical solution so far so that's interesting and I'm willing to consider it but I'm a little leery of those sorts of things but in particular looking at you know continued energy efficiency upgrades in municipal levels promotion of energy efficiency upgrades in private homes and businesses then there's the specific about the CCA there's additional class recs there's adopting the comprehensive energy plan which is the thing we're talking about that costs money associated one of the things we're talking about that costs money talking about a plan so what's the difference between all the things we're doing now and what's outlined here because it feels like we're already addressing a number of these issues where do you see connections or disconnections thank you there are a lot of things being done I don't think we're doing them as robustly as I said earlier as we could and I think that that's where we will want to be refocusing more of our energy pardon upon on this community choice aggregation which is which I think is one of the recommendations of this and then there's a proposal for specific way to do it I think there's multiple goals that are being articulated in this resolution a lot of communities have done that the aggregation of of load where you basically tell everybody in town we're going to sign up to sign you up for this program and you get two or three choices or you can opt out and then in the goal of that I believe and you should correct me if I'm wrong on this is to say perhaps we get a lower price but also perhaps we drive everybody people are not making informed choices at this moment in time they're just buying off often times just from ever source but maybe we buy some green energy or encourage people to be in purchasing more green energy using this this technique so there's some things that we aren't doing that this would say please look at this and we encourage you to do that and create a plan to make that happen I think the consultant piece is really about creating a local locally driven aggregation program that would look at buying not just buying Rex from a solar farm in Texas which we could do right we can oh that's just money and but trying to say we want to harvest and we want to produce and harvest the energy within our local economy and and and look at that as a many planetary structure where we're holding on to and I think that's really where where the proponents want to go on this other questions or comments from select board members no that is not who to ask the question to the can we come up with a plan that is going to enable us to purchase the energy from locally produced green sources just given the challenge that we talked about earlier this evening about what it took to get to the limited amount of landfill solar space that we have it's good when I'm struggling with I mean this brewer honed in on I think also Mr. Stenberg your question I like all the you know continued promotion consideration and then we get to the specific almost mandates not that this is in the same category of mandate that we talked about the prior article but it's what to purchase then it talks about a plan and then it mandates what the plan has to say and so my perspective when you do an energy plan a comprehensive energy plan the group that's working on it might be some of the same people are in the room here decide what goes in the plan and would would say well we really should have community choice energy that was the best thing or we should really so I'm supportive of this up until the point where it says what you have to do and what has to go on the plan and that's what I'm struggling with was there anybody in the audience that wanted to offer public comment on this article could I address the concerns you can if you would please okay the word consider is very important in that introducing that part and we have been I have to admit very enamored of the process that's been initiated in California to the great delight of some very big cities like LA is going CCA as soon as they can so it has been studied and tried in different forms there and I think we can learn a lot from their examples and we have a number of examples on a website that we could point you to and there was something I wanted to say to Mr. Steinberg but I already forgotten. One of the other things that and I realize we're probably going to move on to the other article shortly and but I want to say now I guess is that we talked in the past and recently about the possibility of not necessarily having a recommendation on particular articles particularly items that are resolutions rather than things like bylaws and yet this resolution while again resolutions can't mandate action is rather specific as to the actions at once and those specifically will use staff time and so I feel like it would be appropriate for us to weigh in on this one rather than to say hey that's a cool resolution do whatever you want but I see this as directly impacting choices as to how we spend resources within our community in terms of what we already do and what we would do in the future. I'd like to just clarify that the bulk of the work of putting together the CCE is done by consulted and then by the staff of the CCE which is a separate power joint powers authority or other inter municipal entity that is governed by the representatives of town. Can I ask a clarifying? Sure. So you're saying under this particular specific recommendation were to come to pass an entity is formed so another committee as such or another structure within municipal government to manage the energy. Sort of like a public business really. So but there's an entity that gets created somehow. Okay. And it's self funding through the revenue. That sounds like an enterprise fund but not because it's most likely involved multiple communities to be participatory. So it's more like the Hampshire cog. Right. Right. Except it's ours. Just wanted to make sure I knew what it was. Hey. Right. So if there are any other questions or comments from the slide board was there anybody in the audience that had a public comment relative to that particular article? Mr. Steele, the only thing I would add is to the extent that there is a staff time or other cost to the town requirement that town meeting when it's making a choice as to whether or not to pass such resolution to do something like that has to recognize that the cost has to be paid for some place and that it has to be built into a budget that has a limitation on the revenue side and therefore it's got to come out somewhere on the expense side. And those expenses, you know, you have to start to start thinking about where are our major expenses and where are our expenses that we can make that choice with. And I would venture to say that for everything we do there's a constituency that will argue that we can't touch that one. So the town meeting, I hope, will recognize that if it's committing to do something that is going to involve expenditure funds even in the short term, it's got to figure out as it does with budget how it's exactly going to pay for it and just reality. Yes. Come up to the mic, please, because we'll want to make sure that it gets picked up by the audio of the TV. Thanks. Lisa Selkirk, precinct nine. My understanding of this resolution is not that the town is committing to anything in particular, rather it's committing to explore the possibility of thinking about something like community choice aggregation. And it's quite a process, actually, to do this. I mean, there's a sort of simple way that this is done in many towns, which is that simply that basically the population of the town can buy their energy together. The utility companies do all the company or whores will do the billing and so on and so forth. So it isn't really that in a simple version, in this kind of minimalist version, that there is a commitment on the town. But the idea about the community choice aggregation models that have come out of California in particular is that by having aggregated this electric, this purchasing, then you basically put yourself in the position of operating like a business, a slow growing business, where you can work towards greening your local supply of energy and so on. But this is something that really might happen slowly and over time, depending on the kind of revenues that are made available by the lower energy costs that the town has. But with the segregation of communities, can then make use of these whatever portion that might be made available for other sorts of spending. So it and OK, the towns themselves haven't taken on the administration of this aggregated energy. Rather, when these joint powers, agreements that are made, there is an independent institution that gets established that is like a local municipality supported, but the municipality isn't engaged in the actual administrative costs and stuff like that. So really, what I think we're looking for is a commitment of the town to entertain the possibility of reconceiving the way in which energy is delivered and sourced in the town. I mean, my thinking about this is that the wave of the future is like having a sewer system. This is ultimately looking in the future or providing water that energy provided locally is going to have to be the name of the game if you're really going to liberate yourself ultimately from fossil fuels and find other ways of dealing with this problem. So it's really a question of, you know, would town meeting put itself on record as being interested in exploring this possibility? And it isn't. There's no mandatory anything. It's really just OK. The next report to the town if it's exploring this interest may be, I mean, there may have been some intervening, you know, independently arrived at sort of consultant or funding for a consultant who would then enable there to be a feasibility study to see how things might work out and that this could be brought to the town and so on. So whatever. I mean, I think the mandatory language of that kind of concern is out of place at this particular point. The other thing about this is that for town meeting to actually make, you know, a commitment of interest to this would be very useful for, for example, Northampton. I mean, Northampton is also city council is entertaining this possibility. Having a positive word from Amherst on its interest in exploring this as well is something that might help, you know, some things get get off the ground and, you know, the cooperation between the sustainability coordinators in the two, you know, in the two municipalities could result from that. So anyway, I guess I have nothing more to say about this, but. Thank you. Ms. Brewer? So to be clear or maybe we are talking about a variety of different things in this article. This article is a resolution. We've already agreed. It doesn't mandate anything. Yet it asks for several specific things. Things like continued energy, efficient upgrades in private homes and businesses costs money. It costs money for Ms. Ciccarello to do another public outreach campaign associated with that. It costs money to think about hiring a consultant. It costs money to go and talk to Northampton. Yes, it doesn't have a price tag on it, but that's what I'm referring to as resources. I'm not simply referring to. Yes, the wonderful CCE can manage itself and after a bunch of upfront money that comes from many magical places, including grants, then it can be self-supporting. That's great. But in the meantime, there's lots of staff time and not just one person's staff time to make any of these things happen. So for town meetings to go on record saying, wow, this sounds great. I want some of these things to happen. The expectation is they're going to have to pay for it, is what Mr. Steinberg's saying. Because as I understand, although I don't want to speak for him, is that none of that is free. And so talking about how the CCE or CCE is eventually funded is irrelevant to the rest of it from the standpoint that staff time still is taken up dealing with all the other piece portions, including getting to the point of doing the CCA. The other thing I wanted to ask about is we have in the past sometimes funded plans through the joint capital planning process, since that seems to be a theme tonight. And in theory, would that be something that if we were to choose to do that, is that one way if there wasn't an obvious grant program for it, where somebody said, oh, hey, by the way, here's a grant specifically for this. Is that the kind of place we'd end up putting it to consider it? Well, there clearly need to be an appropriation. Whether this would go through JCPC or not, I'm not sure if it's necessarily a capital type thing, but it. We've done that with the master plan. Yeah. Yeah. So it depends. I'm not sure where it would land, but it definitely would require an appropriation of some sort. To do the actual plan, but then the legwork prior to the plan and for the less specific things also. Right. I mean, to your point, our sustainability coordinators a part-time position. And obviously, she's full up just doing the work she has now to take on some more would require additional hours, which if talent support set, that would be great. Are there other questions or comments from the board on this? If not, then I think we should move on to Article 17, the petition regarding the resolution and support of the End of Life Options Act. Thank you for your patience, by the way. These things take a while, needless to say. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Nadine Shank, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak about Article 17. I'm a long-time resident of Amherst. And some of you may know me through my work at UMass, where I've been a piano professor since 1980, or particularly in the town meetings. And people may know me from local gyms, where I teach aerobics and spinning classes. So for many years, I've been a firm believer in allowing medical aid and dying to people who are terminally ill and are also desperately seeking relief from unremitting physical pain. Like me, many of our local citizens wish for and seek legislative action to permit this. In a short time, I gathered 142 petition signatures, and many more people wish to be added to the list. In 2012, Amherst voters voted over 72% in favor of a statewide referendum to approve medical aid and dying, feeling that no one should be made to suffer needlessly and should be allowed a death with dignity. Two weeks ago, the Northampton City Council unanimously approved such a resolution. My 98-year-old mother, Jerry, who lives alone and has survived breast cancers at a stroke, actively worries that her life could end slowly in terrible pain and with no quality of life, and that her only choice would be dehydration and starvation. Dying from such self-induced renal failure could take five to 15 days. Regarding the Hippocratic Oath, some doctors feel that patients are harmed when they are forced to endure unrelenting pain while waiting for an inevitable death. If this end-of-life options act were made law, doctors would be able to end the continuing harm to their patients by helping the mentally capable patient die in her own time and on her own terms. Annual public health data in Oregon and Washington shows that of every 1,000 people who die, four have requested and been approved to use this option. But out of that four, a third of the people don't end up taking the medication, but are greatly comforted, just knowing that they have this option. So if you have any other questions about the issue and the bill in the legislature, I and North Hampton resident John Berkowitz, who's the coordinator of our group, Pioneer Valley Death with Dignity Action Group, would be happy to address them. I've made quite a few copies, 300 copies of the article, which will be available, I think, through a bulk mailing or on the back table at the November 6th town meeting. So I and my fellow petitioners and countless others hope you will vote yes now or at the upcoming town meeting for those at the meeting and show our state legislature amorous support for this end of life options act. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Ms. Brewer. I have a question back in September, after you had collected all your signatures and done that all very quickly, you had suggested that potentially you might rather do this at a different time. Is there anything in particular that we should be aware of in terms of timing issues here or you just decided no, that's fine. No, that was fine. No, I was just. All right. Thank you. Do my colleagues have comments or questions? You seem like you're ready to speak, Mr. Timer. Yeah, no, I was just saying I appreciate the presentation very much and, you know, my personal feelings about it, you know, when I get the opportunity in the floor of town meeting to vote as a member of town meeting. It's something I would be very much inclined to support for all of the reasons that you so clearly articulated. Ms. Brewer, in reference to a prior presentation, referenced the position of town meeting of the select board in making recommendations to town meeting on resolutions. And what we articulated last year for the annual town meeting earlier this year for the annual town meeting was that if it is a resolution that does not have a direct impact on the administration of the town or a financial consequence for the town as an entity into itself that we would not make recommendations on that type of a resolution to our town meeting but suggest that they should just vote as they deemed appropriate and strikes me to my fellow select board members this might fall into that classification. I would suggest I agree with you in that analysis of this particular article that it, like you say, does not sort of impact the administration of the town and finances, et cetera. And so I think that, like you said, we typically in those circumstances tend to not take a position, not to sometimes in no position is a majority of sort of thing. That's not the case. But I think we all have our own position to vote on this particular on the floor. Tell me, however, if members of the board have other opinions, I'd love to hear those. So because this article may seem to resonate in particular with many of us as individuals, I think that we need to figure out and perhaps not on the petitioner's time. In public, though, how we might manage this in terms of what that physically means at town meeting, in that we may well want to say this is the last article. And it may, depending on how this goes, this conversation goes, we may want to tell the moderator, we have no select board position. Some of us want to speak to this article as town meeting members. Where should we sit? So that you are not calling on us because there's that confusion, right? You know, you can't, you really can't take the hat off when you're a select board member or a school committee member, library trustee or finance committee, finance committee tries to do that sometimes. It doesn't work. So if you, but conveniently, it's the last article on the warrant. So arguably, if he wants us to go sit in the back or so that we're just out in the crowd with whoever, but I feel really uncomfortable having a select board member sit at the front table and say, I'm speaking just for myself, not select, no, I just physically, I really need to see that separation. But I think we can work that out. It's just not something we've had to do before because I many times with resolutions, we say, yeah, that's interesting, but it's not really an executive function. So to speak, it doesn't have a financial impact. So therefore we'll just let it go. But when it's something that one of us or more of us feels really strongly about, I just don't want us to feel like we have to go in the box of having the select board have a position, but instead be able to have our own positions, but we just can't do them from the select board table. Ms. Kruger. I'm agreeing with Mr. Steinberg about this is something that's a pure resolution, I think, in the way that we've described it and in that way I would be comfortable not taking a position. I have very strong personal affinity to this article and I would express that not by speaking at town meeting where I don't think it matters where I sit, I'm still a select board member, but by my vote, which so I can vote and I can say right now in public that I support all the principles of this, but I think there's wisdom and merit in us in general deciding not to take positions on resolutions and letting town meeting have that discussion and then we of course have our vote. So I'm not sure I'm in favor of the vacating the seat to speak, it's an interesting concept. I would be happy, one, casting my vote and two, letting each member decide how they wanted to handle that if we were still seated. Sure, so one thing I will ask my colleagues is that do we have any questions for the petitioner? Because if we don't, I'm gonna let you go home because it's 9.20 and you've been sitting here a long time. So if we don't, thank you very much. We may continue to talk about this and you're welcome to stay. It's not like we're trying to run you off. I wanna give you an opportunity to go home if you need to. I also wanted to specifically thank the petitioner for ensuring that a handout went in the town meeting packet. It's incredibly helpful when petitions arise. Absolutely, thank you very much. So I think we're now, we've heard about these articles. I guess I should say, did anyone else have anything they wanted to add regarding article 17 before we move on and deliberate a bit further on these? Can we start with something while we're still on it? Yeah, absolutely, no, absolutely. We can work backwards from the end. We'll take them up as members make motions. We'll take them up. But if people have a particular inkling to make a motion, feel free. I just have a process question for the board as a board. Should we take a few minute breaks so that, or do people just wanna get up and take a break on their own when they need to? It's good, I'm good with that. But just take a break when you choose to? Or you can just send me away and vote how you want while I'm gone. Well, I guess, Vote you off the aisle and re-freeze. Exactly. I'm not speaking to any of them, so I don't care. Recess, because we can certainly take a re-freeze if that makes sense. Super, super, super, re-freeze. Yeah, let's take a quick. I think some people wanna see the final decision. Sure, so we won't take too long because I don't wanna keep you guys all night, but it's certainly fine. This is just the facilities break time, sorry. Just stretch our legs and... Come back to our meeting from our slight recess. So we have four articles that we've heard about this evening and should take action on, not necessarily positions on, but action on. So I'm hoping that we're at a place where we can make motions and have debate and discussion and then vote. So if someone would like to offer us one, please, yes. I move to take no position to state no position to the November 6th, 2017 special town, meaning article 17, Resolution and Support of the End of Life Options Act. Someone to speak to the no position, no, that won't be necessary. Yeah. Please, there's a second, second, all right. We have a motion and a second regarding no position relative to article 17. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. So it's my understanding, you can just tell the moderator and Ms. Puppel that, put it in the script and then we won't have to say anything. That's right. I thought you could put the initials NP and have her try to figure out with it. Oh yeah, it goes on here. But moderator doesn't work from this one. I'll pencil it in my own jargon. All right, so if we're ready for any of the other three, I'm willing to entertain those as well. So are we still not working backwards anymore? You can jump in. Jumping around? So in regards to article 14, I thought we were coming to the conclusion that we were waiting to hear back from the library trustees on the 6th or the 8th at 620 or you know, whenever. So we're good with that. We can hold off on that one. So that's just a postpone, right? Right. We are not compelled to take action. Not at or not at tonight, but we're not taking. Deferred to town meeting, I believe, is the code she likes to use. Right. But it doesn't, but we will get them. We will take one, but we just wanna make sure we hear what they say because Mr. Steinberg made an excellent point if they asked for a referral to themselves, for example, that would be worth knowing. So it was 15 and 16. All right. Anyone? It's got your name on it, Mr. Steinberg. How did that happen? Yeah, I mean, 15 is problematic is I think the hardest one. Maybe we should just go ahead and tackle it. And I think that the problem that I have is that I would like to support something, but I don't think that I can support what is currently being proposed, even the motion that it has because there's, it is a bylaw, it is binding on the town and therefore, even though it has lots of places where we can think about creativity and flexibility and how to achieve something, just the fact that it's a bylaw kind of makes it hard to exercise all of that creativity. It leads instead towards a strong possibility of not doing anything and then having the consequences I've stated previously of continuing to operate a facility that is wholly inadequate and is much more wasteful of energy than something that we could achieve with good faith efforts in a new building that wouldn't be zero energy. And I can't escape but and I think that that's why the DPW Fire Station Advisory Committee after struggling with it and a divided vote with one member taking a contrary view voted to not recommend this to town meeting was because they felt that it may lead to a result of just not being able to build the buildings that they are so committed to getting built at all. I think for that reason I'm gonna make a motion that we not recommend to the special town meeting Article 15 Petition General Bylaw, and that's zero energy town buildings. So I'll leave it at that for now and then speak to it a little bit more if it's seconded. Second. Okay. And I guess the additional piece that I was saying is just to repeat what I said I think earlier in the evening, I find this very painful because I think that a good process would allow us to work together collaboratively with the petitioners and other people who've spoken so articulately and offered expertise to find something that would be workable and not carry that risk but given what we're presented which is the article in the motion. I think that we have to be there. Yeah, for me, and I didn't speak earlier on this very much but I think it's getting close to what we need but not quite there. A few question marks for me regarding given that it is a bylaw that make me uncomfortable. Some things that I think we, scenarios that people played out that some are more, hyperbole than not, so I don't wanna be too overly dramatic in some of that but at the same time there's some real concerns given that it is a bylaw and what ramifications and implications that has for us and so I think that personally I think there's there's potentially a way to build from this to something that would be workable but as it is right now I don't think so for me as well. So I have a theory, a theory, what if we referred it to ourselves? We was thinking about that as Mr. Seimer was speaking as well but current motion is to not recommend. I understand that. But we could do a separate motion of course to refer it. Right, we could do the not recommend. This is the discussion associated with that particular motion. Because arguably the last thing we need is a different extra committee but I did think of that associated with both these articles but one of the reasons not to have a separate quote energy committee is that which we have had variations of in the past is that it's supposed to be intertwined with everything we do, right? Rather than putting it off on a separate committee so that's actually good things, the way I prefer to look at it. But given that there are many strong points here and the things that we talked about like when I'm particular asked about examples and we talked about Cambridge and how Mr. Brockman talked about more robust ways we could be evaluating things up front if we forced ourselves to versus being forced to by a bylaw. I think there's a lot of potential in there without having to yet to get to the point of a bylaw or maybe to develop a bylaw that has the more wiggle room in that we talked about. And it feels like here and then working with the petitioners would be the place to refer it to. I couldn't think of a different body that would be a better place to refer it. Did you volunteer to work on this? I'm kidding, I'm just kidding. Mr. Wald. Yeah, that's an interesting idea because I think we all feel this. Again, I'm completely sympathetic with the petitioners what they're trying to do and believe me I understand the frustration too from the other side of the table if people want to require something and we say no you can't do that but we can make it a goal and they're legitimately worried that things that are just goals without teeth then end up sitting on the shelf and nothing happens. So that's a dilemma we're always in. On the other hand, we've seen time and time again inadequately crafted petitioner articles brought forward by people with one particular interest who don't have the larger picture who haven't been involved in government and crafting articles. And so we're trying not to be negative but to do our due diligence here and saying this is a good article or this is not. As Ms. Krueger said, we under very few circumstances in life would you pass something and accept it on the promise well, and fix the problems later. You don't buy a car that way. You don't buy a house that way. It might be the house you do. But, you know, that turned out for me. So I think that this is an interesting idea. And again, even Mr. Bachmann gave us a suggestion earlier implicitly when he said that Cambridge had a target date. You know, I think part of the problem here is this comes out of nowhere with an immediate requirement. If there were a sense that we had a date by which we would like to have a concrete plan I would feel much more comfortable with that because then you'd bridge the gap between the mandate and the proper process and everything else. So I find the idea of referring back sympathetic. And again, the last thing we want to do is to discourage citizen initiatives or efforts on behalf of climate change and sustainability. Ms. Krueger. Well, I think the referral's interesting. You know, referring to ourselves. We don't have another place to put something like this because some communities do have like a sustainable energy committee or something equivalent. We don't, I'm not saying we're ready to form that but we don't have a citizen policy group in between petition articles and these actions. So we don't have good places to put it. We're not, there may be a whole number of things around sustainability and energy issues that we need to evolve on really quickly in terms of how we handle them. That's almost like a conversation for another time. You know, we don't get to rewrite the petition articles to make them like, well, I'll support it. Sometimes there's a negotiation when things are brought early where there's an early kind of back and forth. Well, we've had that with some of our other articles. They weren't petition articles but with committee same way. Could you change this? This is a sticking point for us. That tonight was really the first exchange like that. So we're all kind of handicapped. I don't know if there was any sentiment for the petitioners to want a mend or compromise but here we are. This is what we got for our own process. I am not willing to be bound by the mandate. I would like to have a way to realize this as a goal. One takeaway I got from tonight's conversation is there are a number of people. I don't really know how many that were disappointed with the two building projects we've been working on so far. It was the school and the library because it was not seen as a robust enough in moving the energy goals to the higher priority in the development of the building project. So that's something to think about how do we do that without compromising other aspects of the project. It's not enough to say, well that other committee is the school to blame. Well they were doing their thing and we don't have that unifying statement about how we put that in the right part of the priority order. But for some people that was critical in making decisions about those projects. I think that's also something we need to think about more and address. But I will support the not recommend motion. Yeah, this has been an intriguing discussion that we've been having because what I said in support of the motion that I made was I can't support the article is written in the motion as it is now written and because that's all I have to work from. And I think that that stands on itself and we can vote on that and then separately somebody can make a motion that we ourselves make a motion to town meeting to refer to ourselves. I think that it would be unprecedented and highly extraordinary because I don't recall a select board coming up and moving to refer something to itself and being willing to take on that work which in themselves does speak to the fact that we're struggling with this but we really believe in the goal. And so I think that a second motion might be in order and nothing precludes the select board if that were to pass from creating some committee that could include members from its own body or others to take on that issue and then bring it back to the select board before it goes back to town meeting. So, but it creates a process. It's a different motion than the one. It is a different motion. So are we ready to come to a vote on the current motion that we have? I believe so. Hearing no other offerings for that. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor to not recommend article 15 as it stands now. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? So it's unanimous. Did someone want to offer an alternate motion? Could we talk for a minute first so that we don't end up with too many different motions? So I can see this going a couple of different ways. And so one is that I can make some kind of motion and nobody seconds it. Let's take that off the table for a sec. So what I see is two possibilities. One is, as Mr. Steinberg said, what I would consider the unprecedented move of ourselves making the motion, that our motion, that we would make a motion on an article that isn't ours. We occasionally do move to dismiss other articles, although generally we tend to do things like we support dismissal. So if somebody else makes the motion to dismiss, we support it. We rarely, although we do occasionally make motions to dismiss. And I don't remember us ever making a motion to refer it elsewhere, much less to ourselves. Because again, if it's not yes or no or no position, it's more the fallback position. Well, if this happens, then we might support this. So we are faced with potentially a motion that would say if a motion is made to refer to the select board, we're fine with that as opposed to there have been known motions to refer to other places that we've thought was a bad idea. And so that would be a purpose to having that as a potential motion, even if nobody ever makes it, then that's fine. Another, or if somebody makes a motion to refer to another place, then we could say, well, we thought it was actually a pretty good idea. We could support having it sent to the select board. The other option would be to go ahead and make the relatively unprecedented move, I'm not sure what all the ramifications of that would be to refer it to ourselves because we've all expressed significant interest, not necessarily in spending our personal exact time working on all this a lot, but on moving this discussion forward. So if this article passes a town meeting, which it very well might, even despite us saying not a good process thing, that process argument really doesn't hold a lot of water sometimes at town meeting. So we could lose the vote and then we have a bylaw. If our recommendation is followed, it's not recommended, people are gonna remain frustrated that they wanna move the discussion forward in terms of having at least a more formal process of analyzing these issues, rather than just saying, sure, we'll think about it. But we thought about it with the last two projects, but not in a more formal way. So how are people feeling? That's correct. One complexity for me is if we're gonna take the route of supporting referral or making a motion to refer back, I'm beginning to think that article 16 is in a similar category. I have different, my objections aren't as strong where I have problems, but if there were an initiative spearheaded by the select board at least to begin with to look at these issues in a more serious way, kind of feel like throwing 16 into that too. So that's just, you know, I'm just thinking about it. Because the answers and the activities are gonna be the same. There is a difference because one is a proposed bylaw and the other's a proposed petition. And the fact that it's a proposed petition, once it passes, then it's incumbent upon the select board to do the best that it can to try and implement the desire of town meeting as expressed by resolution. And so we would have that opportunity to come back and have this full discussion on how we can go about implementing something. And so I do see a distinction. The other is is that if we're going to say that we're supportive of referral back to us, I think we should just come out and make the motion to refer back to ourselves. First of all, because it's unprecedented and it emphasizes our real belief in something. And I think it is unprecedented, but it has a better chance of creating a resolution that people will feel that they can come together on because they know that it's not a disappearing act. Mr. Olm. I was gonna ask a question too because there are two articles at stake. Though I could see how even, I mean, the fact that the one is advisory would, to me, suggest it could be addressed in some, if we craft things properly in the same time as we're addressing article 15 because they do go together in a certain way. I would just take minor issue with my colleague about the importance of town meeting resolutions. I don't feel they're binding at all. For example, town meeting asked us not to build a roundabout when the plans were well advanced. They'd been through the entire process and we said thank you very much and the roundabout is there. So fortunately, in this case, we have one mind with the petitioners. We support the idea of zero waste and efficient energy and we're trying to get to the same place, but I would caution us against saying that the fact that town meeting thinks we have to do something means that we have to devote our full energy to acting upon it. Just to respond to that one point. On the roundabout, I can only speak for myself. I did give consideration to the question town meeting. I did ask the superintendent of public works questions based upon his responses and information he provided. I agreed with all of you that we needed to go forward with the plan for the roundabout, but as I said, I'm just gonna give it to myself. In the interest of going forward, as we could go off on that, I'm wondering if we were to take the action of referring back to ourselves for 15 if when we discussed whatever action we take on 16, we mentioned that we saw the activities we would be doing after the referral back to address much of what was suggested or recommended by resolution that we saw. We might not have to take that same action of referral, but we might describe a robust process that would then work on whether it's finding funding for an energy plan and all of the things that need to be identified and refined. So are you ready for a motion? So I could make a motion and we could see how it turns out which is I move that the select board make a motion to refer article 15 petition general bylaw, net energy, zero, that zero energy, sorry, town buildings to the select board. That's not really referred back because it's not our article, but to refer it to the select board. How second? The motion is second. Is there further discussion? Well, I'd like to ask the town manager, it is somewhat unprecedented. It's like one more project we're taking on, maybe it's worthwhile to do that and how, which anytime we take on something, it means you're taking on something, it's not. Quite a fact, and it's sort of in the goals that were mentioned tonight, but so how do you see us having a role, we're volunteers, limited time, how do we do this? No, I think it's important to refer it back to the select board for this article in particular, but I think both articles are gonna come into play as we work through the budget process and through the next six months, eight months, whatever it is, but in terms of this article in particular, I think if the town meeting is willing to have people come together and give the people time, who the proponents and the select board and town staff have more time to review it, I think that would be a really positive thing because it doesn't preclude this from coming back in the spring with 10 signatures. And not only does it not preclude it from not coming back with 10 signatures, it doesn't preclude us from putting it on the warrant ourselves and it doesn't preclude us from calling our own special town meeting, which is highly inconvenient for all town meeting members, but in theory could also happen if we were able to get going on it quickly, although things always take a long time. So we all dislike doing specials, but if people are concerned, there is an underlying current of distress in town meeting that when you refer something, it's that you're sending it off to die and that is not what our intention is with this article at all. In fact, that is why we're talking about making this unprecedented move, which is to say we really wanna work on this and we really wanna try and make this work in some fashion, whether it is a bylaw or it's something else, but to accomplish the things that we wanna accomplish with all the necessary parties at the table. So I don't want people to think that we are saying this because what we really intend is to just kinda spin out some time because that's not at all what we are attempting to do with this. We're just trying to get it to be a real thing we can work with. Mr. Simon. I guess the other thing is to just also remind everyone and including ourselves that this doesn't preclude either the DPW facility or the fire station if they go forward from being part of this, where those processes are right now is that they're kinda stuck in site selection and so that there hasn't been any movement towards actually going any farther than has happened some time ago in conception and design and it's not anticipated. I think it's, I could almost say it's as close to certain as you can have that it's not gonna happen before we get around to the annual town meeting so that proponents really have no, nothing that they're risking in us going forward with building something that would then be excluded. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, we have a motion that, we make a motion at town meeting to refer it to ourselves for Article 15. With Mr. Steinberg. I'll speak to it. Who luckily volunteered for this last week. You did? No, I didn't, no. Not for this. Your name's on it. Yeah, they did put your name on it, but anyway, we'll take our vote now. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? And so that's unanimous. Thank you everybody for working through that weird situation. And so, brings us to 16. If someone would like to make a motion or discuss it further before we make a motion. I'd like to ask Mr. Steinberg how he'd like to handle this. And I'm really not being entirely facetious because of the way Ms. Krueger talked about kind of how it flows and what makes sense to you at this point? Or do you want to keep it? I think we should have a little bit more discussion about it, my inclination right now but not quite ready to make a motion is to support this because it will then be incumbent upon us to bring it back and as we create a process, if we're given that opportunity by town meeting to work on Article 15, it would, we would use, could use that same process to talk about Article 16 if there, if the result of that is that we think about changes in the resolution, that could be a part of what would go back. It doesn't, it's not like a bylaw. So, you know, and I think it's a matter of additional good faith statement of support for the goal which is why I would be more inclined to say we should support this one but I'm not making that motion yet. I would have to say I kind of concur with that. I think that given this resolution and I think it also augments sort of what we're thinking about regarding 15. And I think it, you know, it helps provide some underpinning relative to how we're starting to think about what we would do relative to 15, I think. I don't think it's conflicting with what we would do under, if 15 is referred to us. I don't think what's in 16 would create conflict that would make getting 15 to where we really want it to be. There wouldn't be a conflict there that would prevent us from getting to an appropriate resolution around the ideas in 15. That's the way I see it. Mr. Wall has something. Just a question. Again, I'm sympathetic too but I thought I heard us say earlier that in general we don't take positions and resolutions that are not binding except when maybe they have an actual impact such as finance and staff time. And I heard us say this one had such an impact. So I'm a little mystified here as to where we're going with this in light of the previous conversation. Thank you for that reminder. Well, I thought that we decided this was within the realm of taking a position because it did have those impacts. So it was different. Negative rather than positive on that level. I mean. Concern about financial impacts of staff time and so forth. I didn't hear that wrong. Because you're talking about on the one hand, do we take a position on resolutions? And the answer is on this one, we take a position because of staff time, executive branch, finance, but those particular things also seem to indicate that the position we would take would be a negative position. Right, that's what I'm asking. But now we're flipping it around because we're considering it in context of what it shows with Article 15. I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah, so I think we would be saying there are cost implications and staff commitment implications, but because we've made this set of actions a priority, we accept that, but we don't know, some of these things will cost money and we'll have to figure that out, whether it's a study that's a capital project or whatever those things are. When I went back and as the presentation was being in when I was following the language of the article, it wasn't totally clear, like you could say everything that was real specific was under the word consideration, or you could say, so I think there was enough wiggle room just in the kind of ambiguous way it was written if you did a close text reading, you could probably interpret that you could do whatever you wanted. So that might be enough for a reason because it wasn't really clear and a couple of speakers tried to clarify that but it's just asking you to consider and promote, et cetera. Even the part that was the sub bullets under that we said, well, why would it be that plan or that, I think that could get sorted out by the actions I think we're gonna take it if there's a referral back to ourselves on 15. I think there's enough room to interpret that is not mandating that the plan actually does X, Y, Z or that we have to do X, Y, Z. So maybe it's just getting too late and I'm just rambling but I think I could support this because I think my concerns about it being too specific are kind of balanced out by the language doesn't really say that or might not really say that. You're, it seems like you were concurring. Now is the question all along but also again I just wanted to make sure that our earlier conversation in this one were not totally. Right, the way I think about it is that taking a position on it and taking a position in affirmative suggests that we are supportive of expending our resources in that way. Now we're gonna do it. Exactly. But in the broad sense of supporting this direction for the town of seeking ways to be 100% renewable, et cetera, et cetera. So it is a little different than we usually do but at the same time I think it is a statement of support to spend our resources and our efforts in that way. Just really quickly. I'm wondering just in terms of strategy the way we've talked about these two together if whoever's gonna present on the board's behalf maybe talk about all of these actions together. Like I'm not gonna, I'm gonna talk about these two use your time to talk about 15, the motion to refer back and 16 together and in talking about 15 which comes first say it's like what is gonna offer this motion or this during the discussion 15 so that we lay out the whole thing and our thinking and it's one, it's like one conversation we don't like jump up and do one and then the other and the other that we integrate all of this into one presentation. More likely we would be and I think the moderator would require this whoever speaks for select board would need to make their motion when they go to speak and then they'd have to speak potentially about both just to give the context of why we made our choices on each of them and then subsequently sort of augment when we get to 16 about that presuming we have a motion on this one because we have not yet made a motion on this one but Mr. Wall. I just want to remind us that we have to be very careful because there is a question of the scope of the motion is what you can speak to and the town, the moderate gives us a certain amount of leeway but it's a delicate thing that has to be done. Thank you, so one of the things that I can, if this was out of context, if article 16 was sitting by itself I would be more frustrated with it because of the bottom section which is very directive and consider as a word that's in here but what it says is and be it further resolved that the town of Amherst will strive to take actions to promote clean energy and reduce fossil fuels including purchase additional class one wrecks. It's like that's not a think about that says you're gonna do it. Now true, it's a resolution and in fact the legislative body cannot compel the town manager to do anything when it comes right down to it just like technically we can't either but it's very strong in that respect which makes me nervous but given all of this and given that I believe that the town manager is not going to turn around now and tell me well it says purchase additional class one wrecks so I know that the select board said it was fine to vote for this thing and I'm going off to buy to go purchase some wrecks now. I think that he's more likely to discuss all the different aspects of it with us and I feel especially more comfortable with repeating something I mentioned the other day which is that since he's become our town manager it's been much clearer to me that when town meeting takes an action that is a resolution it actually gets followed up on as to what does it actually mean? What can we actually work on? What will we actually do? And so I feel confident that if we didn't have article 15 on the table at all and I was kind of uneasy about some of the specifics on article 16 it would come back here and we would talk about it and he would say well we think we should do these things based on what staff thinks and what do you think about doing these other things and we would figure that out and we would figure out if we needed to talk to more people or whatever. So I feel more comfortable with it despite initially being against those specific things being called out. And I guess I would ask if you have any specific concerns about the direction we're heading with us. But sending you mixed messages or something. No I mean I see it as a resolution it's not directive. I think it's in line with where things that you have articulated in the past and your goals for me in terms of looking at more sustainable practices in our operations. We don't have any specific goals and I think that that's one thing in our town and that's something that I think this could help us lead to. I don't, I think it is prescriptive in some ways which I think is, it's still a resolution. So I would, you know, it's saying go in this direction and then go in this direction. I think you guys already identified that that is a little bit problematic because there are some things that we may need to look at in terms of does it comply with law and things like that. But that's all part of a larger conversation. The fact that's a resolution I think is, I think if you supported this as a resolution I think it would send a message to town meeting that this is something that were as a town that's been more careful attention to. So I'm gonna make a motion. It is that I moved to recommend to the November 6th, 2017 special town meeting article 16 petition resolution in support of 100% renewable energy. And my other comment that I was gonna just make is in addition to what I've said before is that part of the presentation we received is the importance of us taking this action within this town meeting to send a communication to other communities that we want to work with them in cooperative arrangements to achieve goals of the resolution, including energy aggregation and. I feel like energy aggregation. Energy aggregation. It was close, it's like, but we're aggregating, not aggregating. And so I just put that in as an additional reason why I think that it's appropriate to make this recommendation. Are there other comments? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? It's unanimous. So I have a technical question about the script, which I guess you guys are working on tomorrow, probably. And in addition, all the work's already been done on it by Ms. Pupple and moderator, et cetera, is so when it comes to article 15, the way it would normally work is the petitioner would make the motion for the article. They'd speak to the article and then normally the first group after that, since it's not a financial article, would be the select board. And so our thing to do, rather than saying, we don't recommend this article, our thing to do instead is that we're going to make a motion to make the actual motion refer it. And then that will be the motion on the floor. And then that will go however it goes. If that motion fails and town meeting does not agree to refer it to the select board, then the main motion's back on the table and then the select board's position is not recommend. Is that right? That's correct. Hopefully the script will remind us what we're doing and we can do it. That's my point. And I guess in my final comment to the audience that is still here who are proponent to this, I hope that it's understood that we really do want to work with you in a cooperative fashion and I'm not asking you to make decisions now because you have larger constituencies you're dealing with, but you could also consider either supporting such a motion or letting us know that yourselves might be interested in making the motion yourselves as an indication of the positive cooperative step and that those are all options that are available and but you have to make those decisions at an appropriate time. And tonight isn't that, so thank you all. Okay. So, I think that was fast. Now that we've taken care of, I believe we're taking position on all the arches, correct? So we're, we have to sort out who does what which we may need to and we've done a fair number of those but we have done, we have done all of it except for if we're going to argue it, we literally did all of them last time. We did, oh yeah we did. Okay, and except 16 because at one point we thought that might not, so would Mr. Steinberg be willing to do 15 and 16? Or does he want somebody else to jump in? I probably, I mean I'm willing to do them, I may as I have with my other ones want to just have known back, known ability to do go to a backup if I need to but I don't anticipate needing to. I could be your backup almost. And as far as the, just to let everybody know that once we get done with this we have two motions we have to make that finish actions of prior town meetings that town meeting directed us to do and so everybody's leaving but you should know that the final actions we're taking tonight are follow-ups on town meeting to incorporate their results. Great, that's absolutely right. So Mr. Steinberg I'll back you up on 15 and 16 and that way if schedule's conflict or whatever then I can fill in or provide some more. Did the board take positions on articles six and seven? Yes. Okay, so it's just not on the sheet? Oh, we didn't, you left it for Mr. Brewer and I to work it out. No, that's not what he's asking. He's saying that the position to recommend the articles or not is not listed there. Oh, okay, because, oh I see. Yes and yes. No. We voted against the moratorium. If the zoning didn't, if the zoning passed. That's probably why she didn't want to fill in the pass. If the zoning passed we were opposed to the moratorium. If the zoning failed we would support it. So that was confusing. Article six is definitely yes. Article seven. The no yes, depending. Is a no yes. No yes. It's contingent on the. Does that make sense based on the minutes discussion that we had? Yes. As clerk of the board I actually wrote up the motions on the marijuana thing and I sent them only to Ms. Brewer because I didn't want to do deliberation and then sent them along to Mr. Zomek afterwards and so that those motions are actually already done if we need them. I can just say where it says A, B, C, K, and I think five of these, we can propose, we know which one of us is gonna do which one, so I don't know if you want to. We could quick circle those. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead and tell them what, you're first up. So I'm doing three, four and five, right? And I'm doing five and six. Six and seven. I mean six, right, six and seven. I keep thinking of one through five and it's not because there are five articles, but I'm doing article six and seven. Okay, got it. That's how it's gonna break out. Okay. But in terms of the script, it might be worth double checking what Mr. Steinberg sent to Mr. Zomek in terms of making sure we get that absolutely right in the script for article seven because he wrote it up for the minutes but just turn that into script language. Ms. Pupple has those because I've made sure that she did have a copy after Mr. Zomek had finished reviewing it. Thank you. And for the script we talked about that I would give a brief, kind of very brief intro kind of framing what we were doing with these five articles and then introduce Mr. Kravitz. So I don't know, we have to get that in there so that the moderator knows that, oh, we talked about last time. Article one is. So under reports, article one, select board is gonna give a report on recreational marijuana and then we're gonna defer that until the action on article two and then, because then we get to the series on marijuana. That's when we give the report, which I will give, which will be sort of a framing introduction and then Mr. Kravitz gets up. So it's a little. I think there's some confusion because I think his interpretation was that he was supposed to do the framing and he's confused about what the two were. We had just spoken to him a couple of days ago about this crew. He was confused, but I think he's not, but maybe he is again. He felt like it was redundant and he didn't wanna be redundant. And so if you're gonna do it, does he have to do it? And that's for sure. He showed us a presentation where he cut that part out already. I was gonna work on that. Just as long as you're touching base. I haven't done anything we met last week when you were still at ICMA. This came up today. Oh, okay. Well, then I'll touch base with him and if it's confusing. Appreciate that. We do need to coordinate because if there's something he thinks I'm gonna do and it's important and I don't say it, so we do need to work with him. And I haven't been able to think of it yet. There's time, there's time. And we're just trying to be clear that we're not asking him to repeat his town meeting coordinating committee work at town meeting. But just so you know, as this gets put into the script, at least that's how we're conceptualizing it, is bring it up under reports, give the report after article two and before Mr. Kravitz. And then after Mr. Kravitz, Ms. Brewer will get up and speak to article three. I will make the motion for article three because there are our articles. Right, got it. It's a little, again, something we never done before. We're just having fun. Yeah, okay. Do you have something, Mr. Simon? No, I'm just ready to make a motion whenever you are on the Curious Russellville Road. Okay, well we have that next, the acceptance of deed for the Curious Russellville Road assessors map for B parcel two. So if you would like to make the motion. I move pursuant to the vote taken under article 12C of the April 26, 2017 annual town meeting as continued to accept for conservation purposes the deed to property located on Russellville Road containing 2.73 acres more or less and being a portion of the premises described in the deed recorded with Hampshire County register registry of deeds in book 5002 page 216 with the conservation commission having care custody and control of said property under general laws chapter 40 section 8C and execute any and all acceptances and other documents necessary are convenient to accomplish said acquisition. Is there a second? So a motion and a second. Is there a discussion, Ms. Brewer? I just want to clarify that I really appreciate that Ms. Pupple's been adding the list of documents down at the bottom of the motion but the reality is we did not, again, see the quick claim deed in this packet. So it would be nice if it's, well, but I mean, it's not something we have in our packet and this says it's available in the online packet. So it's fine if it's in the online packet because having it be in there would be great but it was in last week's, I was gonna say originally it was in last week's packet. She wants to link it again, I mean, no big deal but I just, the reality, I was writing here that there was an additional article 15 item that was handed to us tonight but the quick claim deed is not actually something we're examining tonight because we looked at it just last week. And you fixed it. Well, I didn't fix it but I pointed out that it was the property wasn't adequately described and I appreciate the work of staff in the last week to reframe the motion to get it adequately described and so. Is there further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? It's unanimous. So that's five C. Next up is the Amherst Half Marathon update which is this a couple weeks? Yes, so November 11th and 12th, you had previously given permission for the Amherst Half Marathon to take place. The actual Half Marathon is on Sunday November 12th. It starts at 8 a.m. at UMass and ends at UMass. On Saturday November 11th, there's a kids, fit kids fun runs starts at 12.30. There's a 5K at 11 a.m. These are located on Amherst College's campus. So things that I wanted you to see the documentation that we have that shows the actual route, the water stops, the sort of planning that has gone into effect. There aren't anticipate to be major road closures for any significant period of time except for president's drive on the campus. And then it follows a route. There's a meeting tomorrow with all of the key participants which includes police, fire, and DPW and Jeff Kravitz from our office as we continue to work through some of the details. The one thing that they have called out for is entertainment as a couple key locations, one being the South Common and the other being the East Common. And we need, we're trying to get more information about what that really means to them in terms of whether it's gonna be amplified or not, how they, what kind of music they're intending to do if it's gonna be music, just we don't know much about it except that they have it on their map. And so that's one of the reasons for tomorrow's meeting is to go through more details like that. And if there's anything else that you wanted us to bring up in addition to the outreach we'll be doing, encouraging them to do outreach at the church on the South Common and any other places of worship. I think Ed Cushman's, the owner there is pleased about having this come through. He feels that it will be a good, I'm told. He feels that this will be a good for his business. It's a relatively short period of time when people will be going by but he thinks he likes the activity. So if there's anything else that you want us to bring up tomorrow based on the information that we've given you, I appreciate letting me know. And the trail, the path just so people at home know it starts at UMass at Haggis Mall basically and it comes up, I guess that's actually Triangle Street or North Pleasant, it comes up North Pleasant Street to South Pleasant Street goes through the center of town and that time going through the center town it's relatively quick. It's all the runners are bunched together and they usually are going pretty fast at the beginning. And then it goes down West Street and then turns left onto Shays Street. It hits the South Amherst Common and then goes down Station Road and then starts to track back on the rail trail until it gets onto Southeast Street and goes through East Amherst, goes up Northeast Street, turns left on Henry Street and down Pine Street and then down East Pleasant Street to Eastman Lane and then back on North Pleasant Street and ends back at UMass at the Haggis Mall, President's Drive again. So that's the path that we'll be taking. They'll be doing a lot of publicity on this or trying to get them to do it if they don't, we will to get the word out so that people understand. It's really important for people to understand that there'll be some disruption and people can adjust their schedules or they wanna know if they start to go out to the store or something and they see these people running by, people say, what is this? We'll try to get the word out for that. So I have a quick question. So they're running on the Nirwani Rail Rail, which is not under our control officially. Correct, right. Have they gotten appropriate permission from those folks? From DCR, I think so, yeah. And we will have an ATV there with paramedics on board for people who are, if they experience issues on the rail trail, all the police and paramedics will be paid for by the Hartford Foundation, whatever the entity is, Hartford Marathon Foundation. Good questions, yes. So this should be added to our list of documents, speaking of things at the end of list of documents and uploaded and then perhaps. I think it is uploaded. Good, it's just not mentioned on the list as having been done so. But, and then perhaps since they so thoughtfully decided this was our traffic announcement, we could put this up, news and announcements, do a news flash, say go look. Not everybody looks, but we do have a number of people who subscribe, so. Wouldn't you say you're meeting with them? Tomorrow, I won't be at the meeting, but we'll have people there. Okay, yeah, I think the. The outreach you mentioned is important, so thank you. Yeah, I think it's critical. They've been less than responsive on that, so that's why I said we might take it into our hands and just do it, but the first thing is to get them to do it tomorrow, especially where they're gonna have water stations and just go to the neighbors and say we're gonna be here. Right, well I think there's a few of those, I mean, many stops and different pieces to this that just being good citizens to those neighbors would be helpful. Let's move the water to an advance. Any other questions for the manager on that? Okay, next up is an easement to Eversource, I believe, at the transfer station. Correct, so this is for the cell tower that Tom, you previously approved to have, and you approved to put on the land adjacent to the transfer station. This would provide electricity to the cell tower, it follows our path of electricity to our transfer station, then it goes farther up to where the cell tower actually exists. So if I may? Yes. I move pursuant to the vote taken under Article 31 of the April 28th annual town meeting is continued to grant to Western Massachusetts Electric Company doing business as Eversource and electric easement in on and under a 15 foot wide portion of the town owned property located to 740 Belcher Town Road for the purpose of serving the telecommunications tower and related equipment installed on the property by Verizon New England, Incorporated. Is there a second? Second. All right, any further discussion? Questions, concerns? All right, hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed? So it's unanimous. So next up, I think is under resolutions and proclamations, we have a Puerto Rican proclamation and flag raising. Mr. Bachman, do you wanna walk us through this? Yeah, so typically this is presented to you by people who bring it to you, but given the circumstances as staff, I guess brought it and brought it up to the chair and he encouraged us to draft it up. Mr. Wald has created this Puerto Rican day proclamation that builds on the previous proclamations and our intent is to then fly the flag starting on November one and fly through the course of the rest of the month. And this would coincide in some ways with the meeting that's being held on November 2nd at 630 at the Amherst Middle School Library where we'll be talking about how the town can be supportive of families who are being forced to move here because of the devastation in Puerto Rico. So we often actually read these before we take a motion on them. Shall I? Or shall we make Mr. Wald? Because we usually make Mr. Wald to it, but I'll do it. Puerto Rican day proclamation, whereas Christopher Columbus arrived in Puerto Rico on November 19th, 1493 and whereas Puerto Rico was colonized by Juan Ponce de Leon and his crew from Spain in 1508 and whereas Puerto Rico became a possession of the United States of America as a result of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and whereas Puerto Ricans became citizens of the United States of America in 1917 and whereas Puerto Rico has participated in the defense of the United States in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Lebanon, Granada, Panama, Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan and whereas Puerto Rico became the commonwealth of Puerto Rico in 1952 and whereas the residents of the island of Puerto Rico have contributed much to the rich history of the United States whereas the residents of Amherst wish to express our concern to the inhabitants of the island of Puerto Rico having withstood the ravages of Hurricane Maria leaving thousands without power or access to food, potable water, and medication and offer our support to the families evacuating to the town of Amherst. Now, therefore, we, the select board of Amherst officially proclaim November as Puerto Rican month. In witness whereof, we have hereunto voted and set our hands this 30th day of October, 2017 and then we'll all sign it. Thank you, Mr. Wald for your efforts on this along with staff as far as getting that. So, was that a motion? That wasn't a motion. No, because we have a motion. Because we have a separate one, which is just what we were proclaiming by virtue of a motion. Well, I was actually going to make a different comment but sure, I raised my hand. So move to proclaim November, 2017 as Puerto Rican month and in recognition thereof permit the Puerto Rican flag to be flown below the UN flag on the North Common from November 1st, 2017 through November 30th, 2017. Your second. And in terms of pointing things out and I really appreciate that people thought to bring this forward because for many years we'd been doing this year after year and then a particular community activist wasn't bringing it and so it wasn't getting done and so thank you for that, making sure the flag gets flown and then we have been inconsistent in the past but I know Ms. Puffle's wonderful about getting things up on news and announcements in a news flash and I think this would be valuable even better perhaps if it could also link to the November 2nd event because people are excited about going to that and getting people out for that so thanks everybody for working on it. Are there other comments or questions? The other comment I have is very minor. I appreciate the work done on this. The word and probably should have been inserted in the second to last whereas clause to be parallel with all of the other whereas clauses that preceded. If it's impossible to make that change at this point in an orderly fashion, we should just forget about it but if it's possible I just want to point it out. Along the line of minuscule possible corrections I wonder the very end after 2017, should there be a period? Yes. When I was reading I noted that there wasn't an end and I was like, I wonder if that's on purpose but I wasn't processing. So this is one of those things where we sign it and we hope that what our signatures get photocopied onto is the answer. That's right, I'll tidy that up. So we do have emotions. We'll cross it out and fix it. It looks great on the website though. See, there's a further discussion. Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. And I doubt there's any post. So unanimous, I believe. So at this point we're taking care of the sort of actionable things we have I believe on our agenda. So now we're back nearer the top under reports and comments and so Mr. Bachman would you like to share with us your manager's report? So I emailed earlier today and it'll be in your packet but I don't expect you to have read it. I realized next week is a town meeting day and that's when I'm supposed to deliver my monthly report. So I gave it to you early and we can talk about it next week if there's things that you read about it and we wanna bring up a few things that I wanted to mention briefly. One is the, I've talked previously about working on a better employee engagement and so that those sessions begin this week which I'm really excited about. And as one staff member told me there's a buzz about it because people aren't really sure what to expect and I don't either. And so it's gonna be a work in progress and it's gonna be a time for me to sit down with a bunch of employees and hear what they have to say. So it's gonna be really fun I think. The parking changes are coming. November 5th is when a lot of the changes will be accomplished. The new parking machines that are in the lots have arrived and are installed and are being tested. The park mobile parking application is ready to launch. Those stickers will be placed on the actual signposts of the parking meters and locations on that Sunday, November 5th. The parking meters will be reprogrammed and new stickers installed on all the parking meters on November 5th. Signage will be installed for the parking lots on November 5th. The plan for enforcement of time limits is ready. The parking enforcement officers will be working to educate visitors and those utilizing the parking machines during the initial stages of this. We really want this to be a friendly welcome to Amherst. This is a good thing. I think this really is a good thing for the town because I think we are crafting the parking arrangements to meet the needs of the townspeople. And we're finalizing the educational material that will be on the website. We expect that will happen by probably Wednesday or Thursday. There's a map, there's information material. The, I think Ms. Krueger and Mr. Malloy, Mr. Kravitz are going to be attending the Business Improvement District Forum on Thursday, which where we will talk about this. We also have our parking enforcement officers going out to businesses and talking to them about it so they can educate their customers about what it means. There's a lot of sense that most people will come in and just sort of read what's in front of them and then start to, you know, that's how you do it when you drive into a town. You sort of look at the meter you parked in front of and say, well, how much do I have to put in? How long do I get? And there's some, you know, I think it's important for us to educate people, but there'll be a certain amount of just people learning it on the fly. The parking machines, the treasure collector did, and Jen Reynolds, our parking enforcement officer, had it at the farmer's market. They had it on the sidewalk in front of the bid for a day. It's Dolly. Dolly, whatever. And it was at the senior center and just asked people to come up and try it. And it's really interesting to watch people try it and how they navigated the keypad. And I think I mentioned last time that 100% of the people hated the old machines and about 60% of the people liked this machine. So we're hoping to get that other 40%. A lot of people just don't like machines, but so there's a lot of things that we will learn in the process. The signage that most of the signage we're putting up is going to be on laminated sheets. So if we learn that we have to change it, we can change it on the fly. So I think we're hoping that this will go off and so November 6th will be the first day where the new rates go into effect. Everything will be happening. The representatives from the Park Yon Machines, I met at my conference actually, he said he was gonna make an effort to be here on that day. So he likes to be here on the day that they go live so they can help fix any issues that pop up. There are a couple of little things that are still popping up. We need a kiosk for one of the machines because of some changes. Some of the lighting, they thought the lighting inside the kiosks, they're standardizing that. We anticipate that that should be finished by the end of this week now that the machines are in place. So I think this will go well. We're hoping that when people on our website, it'll be one site, you'll go to AmherstMA.gov slash parking and you'll get to the site where everything is held. And then you, for instance, IT felt like if you like, put your hover your mouse over a particular parking lot, it'll tell you how many spaces are in there and how many handicapped spaces are in there. So it'll give you more definitional information about the parking lot that you're looking to drive to. We've tried to keep the map that's being prepared by IT as spare as possible with just the bare amount of information. We're trying to keep the clutter off of it. We've kept putting more on and then we realize the more stuff you put on, the harder it is to understand. Like I was hoping that we'd put the number of parking spaces on every lot and it's just like, it's, people don't know what that number means and they're gonna say, well, what's that 37 mean? It's like, oh, it's not intuitive. So take it off. There'll be some handicapped notifications but as you know, people with handicapped parking stickers can park in any parking space. So that's not gonna be a high priority. We'll just make people know that we have an adequate number of handicapped parking spaces. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes and we'll listen for feedback and adjust as we need as we need to. In terms of winter parking ban, the equipment should be here sometime during the month of November and we'll get that installed. And that's the next phase for us to start to educate people about that. It actually is a relatively small number of people who are gonna be impacted by that and it's mostly downtown people. People will park downtown overnight, which is a relatively small subset. Almost all of them have permits. We know how to contact them but we'll be doing general information sharing as well. The police chief has been meeting with us about and he's prepared and has educated his staff about the parking enforcement officers about time limits. We're going to initially really focus on the key parking center, which is North Pleasant, South Pleasant, Amity and Main Street for really enforcing the time limit because we feel like that that's the place we wanted at the downtown parking working group wanted to have turnover. And so that's where they will be very diligent. His impression is that most of people who are abusing it they already know and there's just gonna be and there's a question that came up today whether we're gonna give warnings. And he said, nope, we're just gonna start ticketing. People learn much faster if they get a ticket and they get a ticket or two and then they realize, oops, we should have moved forward on that. So that's where we are on the parking thing. It's a big project. We're coordinating everything at the same time and it might be too much to coordinate at once but we'll see how it goes. Quick question if you may. You're noting that the change is going on 11-5 which is a Sunday, there's no parking fees due that day so you are gonna have staff working that Sunday. We are having, that's the reason we're doing Sunday because there's no parking, nothing is due that day. Right, okay, great, thank you. Other things you wanna mention? Just to follow up, that's great. I didn't know there wasn't a warning period but it's good to know. I just wanna remind us that when we made a decision about setting the meter rates for Olympia Drive for I think the seven meters that went in and then more is supposed to go in later. It was recommended that we go with the rate that we had at that time which was 50 cents an hour and it's to be revisited, I believe, by the select board once, maybe once all the rest of the meters are in but now that, as of November 6th, we're gonna have the new rates. Still want us to forget that we're just to go back and take another look at Olympia. Thank you. So the police and fire last weekend which was the weekend before Halloween which is tomorrow night, that was the last weekend that they staff up and there's no vacations permitted on the fire and the police department, fire brings in extra people. It was a busy weekend, not as busy as the weekend prior in terms of transports but nothing unusual but it was important for us to have been staffed up that weekend so that they anticipate that most of the house parties and things that happen will sort of drift off as it normally does at this time of year. And as you know, the town of Hadley issued a request for proposals for ambulance services beginning July 1, 2018. We've been reviewing that. There are provisions in that request for a proposal that we cannot meet. For instance, if they take over the ambulance service they would like us to give them our ambulances which a private company may do but we are not allowed to do that by, you know, from procurement law we can't just sell to a specified individual. So there are other pieces in it too. We've already communicated that, I've communicated that with the chair of the board and the town administrator there. We will, they have extended the deadline to November 15th and have an FAQ out on top of that but we will be sending them a letter of what we can do for them in terms of, but we can't meet their RFP as it's written. It requires a check that goes with it for instance, we can't do that. Coming up before your next meeting is the senior center's 50th anniversary celebration which is Friday, November 3rd, Friday, yeah. Yes, veteran state, you heard all about that tonight. We've issued 300, we've given 308 flu shots during a very concerted outreach effort by the health department and offered flu shots to town employees which helps reduce our costs for health insurance. They're also offering flu shots to other key groups like restaurant workers who work in town and also on November 1st and 2nd they'll be at the homeless shelter to offer flu shots there as well. So they're really doing interesting efforts to reach out to people who might not otherwise get a flu shot. I'm very pleased to report that we've concluded our negotiations with Amherst Media and we now have a fully signed and executed contract and I'd like to, you know, Mr. Steinberg, Mr. Slaughter we're both instrumental in bringing this to conclusion. It's a really good, I think it's pretty good and it's a good contract. It takes the sort of capital money that has been, that the board negotiated with Comcast and has divided that up both in terms of the amount and also the timing of it so that it meets both of our needs. It recognizes our requirement to replace the INET which Comcast will be abandoning in a couple years which was part of the agreement. So and some of the capital will be retained by the town to replace that. There's some language in there in case the town decides to change its form of government it's premeditated in there that will be reopened so we can adjust whatever needs to be adjusted we're not sure exactly what, but at the time we were negotiating this we weren't sure where this was actually going but it just is sort of generic language. And I think it addressed many of Amherst Media's concerns that they brought to the table in terms of how many requests for coverage of meetings that they've been getting and how that's being processed and how that can be managed in a better way from on the town side. So all in all we tried to stick pretty closely to the previous contract and also I want to thank Sean Hannon, our IT director in Sonya, Aldridge our Comptroller who participated in all the negotiations. It was a very respectful, productive negotiation I was very pleased with the outcome. Mr. Slaughter, Mr. Steinberg, anything to add? We're ahead. I just would like to also express my appreciation to Amherst Media's participants in the process because their staff, board and attorney who were present throughout the process worked with us cooperatively and in a very respectful manner that involved all communications being within the people at the table and not outside and because we could work together so effectively it made this possible so I want to also recognize Amherst Media. Absolutely. Another thing that's popped up or not popped up is Beacon Communities. As you know, they were not funded in the last round that they submitted. They have resubmitted and are very hopeful for getting funding for the project in North Amherst. So that is still living on and we are still working on the final tax agreement that will be presented to you for your review and signature. The Craig Store's shelter is scheduled to open on Wednesday so this year it's been remarkably smooth. In the last year, there were a lot of conversations being had in advance on a number of issues but our inspectional department, our health department, police and fire have all done their inspections. Everything is very smoothly done and I think the clarity of the number of beds that they have is really good. So we're looking forward to that opening up again. Where there's a CD Beach project off of North Pleasant Street near where Barts Ice Cream is that is on, which has been awarded. We are hoping that that can still get done this fall. If the contractor can't get it totally completed this fall we won't start until the spring. We don't want there to be a half constructed project. They're all winter long but we would really like it to get started this fall and have the concrete and everything that has to be done cured properly. Back in a couple of years ago or I'm not sure exactly how far back the University of Massachusetts agreed to conduct a study of the students that live in students meaning students in Amherst public schools who happen to live in university owned housing to gauge the impact of that on our town finances. So they have are about to contract with the Donahue Institute to conduct a study and they anticipate it will take about three months or possibly four months to complete the study and that which they will then return to the town and to the school department and that will be information for us as that moves forward. The health insurance trust, I'm gonna report this to you all every week it's something that we're paying attention to. We've sent out, we've put out an RFP. Those responses are due on Wednesday, November 1st. We anticipate at least two responses from insurance companies who will respond to that and then we will evaluate that and keep you up to date on that and we're preparing the FY19 budget preparations. We're issuing, we've received the finance committee's guidelines, we're looking at the guidelines that you will be reviewing and then be getting the departments to start to work on their projects. They'll be different this year because I'm pretty much know that I do know the department's better. There's not a orientation session for me which happened last year where everybody wanted to say, here's what we do, they don't have to do that anymore. We're gonna be talking more about goals that they set for themselves. How did, did they meet their goals and what are the goals of the department looking forward and how do they want the budget to support the goals that they're articulating. Tina Swift from the library, her retirement party is Saturday, November 4th at Hickory Ridge and she's retiring after a long career with the library and for the town actually. Ron Bahanowicz, his last day is tomorrow, officially on the payroll and Ron brought a unique set of valuable skills to the town and we all have, we had a leadership team meeting today that just said, who's gonna be hard to replace? No, he's gonna be impossible to replace. He's that type of person. We are searching for someone to try to fill his shoes and that process is gone going, being led by the school department because Ron is a school employee. Firefighter Dave Martel was promoted to captain. He was competitive process, it's an internal promotion opportunity and he was the one who came out on top on multiple levels, it's a very rigorous process. And then lastly, I'm just really pleased to announce that I've named Barb Bills to become the permanent director of LSSE, effective November 1st. Barb has done a tremendous job as the interim director and I believe she's really earned the right to serve as the LSSE's director. The LSSE commission voted unanimously to support this. The chair, Meg Rosa, just wrote to me and she said it's been a pleasure to work with Barb on a variety of issues relating to LSSE and other town recreation programs while she served as interim director. She has brought new energy and responsiveness to the department. As a committee, we feel more connected to the department and have been impressed with her efforts in leaning LSSE towards the future. So, you know, I was at the Halloween thing I did this weekend, she was, I'm sorry, at Atkins at like 7.30 picking up the donuts. But she's brought a real camaraderie to the staff which is really going well and an openness to reviewing things like Cherry Hill which is one of the things that was her baby but she's open to having very frank discussions about the future. So I really feel that she's earned the position and I think she's going to continue to be really good. So that concludes my report. Are there any questions or comments from the manager? Yes. But I talk really fast. So on page three, under public safety, when you write the letter back to Hadley, I know that there's lots of RFPs that we don't get involved in and lots of bids and different things. We don't get, this is kind of special. So if we could get a copy of the letter. Oh, sure, absolutely. So that we know exactly so that when we see our friends from Hadley. Yes, I understand that you see them a lot, right? That would be helpful. And similarly, I don't know how many pages of boilerplate the Amherst media contract is and how much of it is the little paragraph that says how many meetings they have to do. And I know that wonderful email went out that said people need to go through the town manager's office to get their meetings scheduled. But it seems valuable to have that up on the website someplace too, now that it's, once it's done. The contract. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be in tonight's packet actually. There isn't a place, but there will be a place. It'll be in tonight's packet. How exciting for us. Okay, great. It's a scintillating read, I'll have you know. And it's just one of those things that's happening. And the, thank you for emphasizing the Veterans Day Ceremony and I want to emphasize that it's on Saturday. Because usually this doesn't happen. Usually it happens during the week. But it just so happens that the actual, even though town offices as you say are closed on Friday, the actual ceremony is still on the actual day, which happens to be on Saturday, a week from Saturday. And the other thing is, and I just don't know a nice way to say this, so I'm just gonna have to go ahead and say it. When it comes to the school study and UMass contracting with Donahue Institute, one hopes that the schools are talking with school committee members and figuring out a way that one of more of them gets a chance to talk to the Donahue Institute about what it is they're studying. This body, the select board, has way more experience in town politics than the school committee members put together. So it would be really helpful if they checked in with the chair or something, although with your school position, I don't know how that's working. But with the town side of things, because what I fear is what I always fear with studies, which is I know the Donahue Institute will do a great job and I know the schools are awesome. But there are questions that townspeople will have and they will say, oh, you didn't address that question? Well, then I don't care about the results of the study. So if we could try and maybe head off some of those questions, because we know it's not just counting, because counting wouldn't take three to four months. We could all do that by walking around. So we know that it's gonna be a more extensive study than that, but please ask them to check in with somebody. But I just second that, and also because the Donahue Institute is UMass and it's UMass, I know it's separate, but it may not be perceived as that, that it's really important that there be good communication and interaction around what's being done. All of that's very sensitive. Yeah, no, we all had the same concern about the public, the perception of it. Even though they're probably the best people to do it. The only connection is that the president's at Bernie Meehan's office, otherwise. Perception. Yeah, but the perception is still there, yeah. And one of the things that the consultant said is that we wouldn't risk our reputation for something for this a relatively small contract for them. However. It's the Amherst town of Amherst. Yes, I understand. Any other questions for the manager of comments? Yes, there's some. Just real quickly on the getting back to the parking thing. A lot of the people who park on the streets are people who are in rental housing. If there was any way to use the rental registration program to notify tenants of the new rules, it would be helpful and upset. Yeah, so we've had that conversation actually. We can send a blast to everybody and but we thought that's only for real emergencies. We don't want to do it for informational purposes. Although one of the members of the committee said in their community, they get a phone call home when the school lunch changes. They use it for anything. We're not doing that. But if you signed up for alert, you'll learn about it and we'll try to publish it. And that's the one where we'll be a little more lenient on enforcement at the beginning. So if there aren't other questions for the manager, then select board member reports. Does anyone have a member report that they need to share? I already reported for the DPW Fire Station committee meeting I attended. I'll do my talk fast thing again. Mr. Steinberg and Mr. Slaughter also attended. Mr. Slaughter was an invited guest to the Working the Amherst Housing Puzzle, a community problem solving forum that was sponsored by Liga Women Voters, Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, UU and Valley Community Development. We learned a lot about possible SRO and which we've talked about before in the setting, but it was great to have more community members here about that, a bunch of communities members showed up at UU last Wednesday, that was great. And I'm not sure what the upshot was, but I expect that as a member on the trust that you will eventually tell us I had to leave before the end. But the conversational groups were a little uneven after they broke up from the panel, as is usually the case when one breaks up self-selected little groups, not really clear where some of those went, but it was interesting to see, not necessarily all the usual suspects and to talk about various aspects of housing. And I also went to the, as did Ms. Krueger and Mr. Bachmann to hear the Lieutenant Governor speak at the chamber legislative breakfast where we would have also heard from Eric Lesser, perhaps, except we got started late. And so, nope, that didn't happen, so he had to leave. And Solomon Goldstein-Rose, we heard from briefly and John Cybeck, we heard from briefly, but we heard from Lieutenant Governor Pulido at length. And she also remembered us from when she came about the community compact. So that was great. But many interesting things were said, but I think always a valuable opportunity to not only go to the event, but also to hear what the current thinking is coming out of the Twitter's office, so it's good stuff. So I'll add one quick thing. Just the Affordable Housing Trust will be meeting from 9th, although I need to remind Mr. Hornick that that might be a town meeting night, so it may not happen. But nonetheless, primarily one of the things on our agenda for the coming meeting is to sort of debrief from that workshop. And then I know that the subcommittees that are being formed are looking to get together in short order as well to sort of pick up on the topics from that workshop forum the other night. I think that's it for me as far as, I just want to add to that, but that's it for me as Mayor Scott. Yeah, well, you were at the housing event. I was, I couldn't go to that, or the Conservation Commission. So I went to the Historical Commission, which had a very lively discussion, which shall go down in the annals of something or other. One of the issues they were discussing was the revising the regulations that are associated with demolition delay. The ultimate idea is to take that measure out of the zoning bylaw and put it into the general bylaws, but they have to work on this first. There's also, again, continuing concern that the building inspector has been, all of a sudden, or that department, whatever individual, that section of town hall has been enforcing the demolition delay in bizarre and unheard of ways, requiring reviews for minor changes whenever considered as such before. So they, he will, as I understand it, appear before the Historical Commission at its next meeting in the other conversation, trying to work it out. Some members also, I mean, partly this goes to the fact you have new people who don't know the history of the institutional memory and don't know the history, and so there's concern about the appearance of a cemetery, lack of understanding of the medification plan, which can be explained in part because of lack of coordination between planning department and DPW. So that'll be an issue they can take up. They're trying to work through the CPA balance of unspent funds. Again, there's not much institutional memory there, so part of the question is tracking down what these things were, because I guess CPA is trying to get things that are older than two years off the books, but it was pointed out that sometimes that's not possible because you were waiting for something else to take place, a certification or something that is not the fault of the body that originally submitted the request. So that's what they're taking up. Dog Park Task Force is working, and right now, as I mentioned last time, the reason I mentioned this, there's a hope that a good site can be found. Mr. Zomek and others are working on the exploration of a site, and just want to say to that end, there may be then be a CPA request for funds for the site if the option is purchased rather than townland for the spring town meeting, but that would go into the CPA request process in December. And I think that's it for the main committees, except that then several of us this past weekend, Mr. Steinberg, Ms. Krueger, Mr. Backelman and I were at the event at Amherst College, Markham, John F. Kennedy's birth centennial and the speech he gave at the groundbreaking for the library in 1963, shortly before his death, and that was a very well-attended and appreciated event, and Representative Joseph Kennedy also came and spoke at the end, so I think it was just the Amherst spirit in all sorts of good ways, a successful time. Ms. Krueger. So I'm glad you brought up the Kennedy event because it was, I thought it was really outstanding and I wanted to appreciate Amherst College for thinking to include town officials and that was certainly appreciated by me. I just wanted to let you know that the downtown parking and working group had formed a subcommittee of people who really wanted to work on the parking garage issue, sort of research it, look at demand data and move that forward and we haven't been able to take that on as a major agenda item in the main group, so today was the first meeting of the subcommittee on a parking garage or potential parking garage and other people came who were also interested, not just the two downtown parking and working group members who are that subcommittee, so that was kind of nice and as Mr. Bachmann said, a couple of us are gonna be speaking at the bid form on Thursday, I had been asked to come and explain to people what demand-based parking was, what that theory was. So I would give it a try. I just wanted to mention that I've been in touch with the chair about finding a time when we could get back to our conversation about how we deal with art in the town room, minor issue, but it's one of those things that just kinda flops around until, you know what I'm saying. So I think we're gonna have, we'll find a time so we can at least have a process for that discussion since I've been bringing it up from time to time. I wanted to mention somebody I know had gotten in touch with me to talk about if they could do a proclamation for the 50th anniversary of the Amherst Skating Club and I said, well, we do proclamations all the time. I mean, they're different ones and then I suggested they get in touch with Ms. Pupple but the anniversary event isn't until 2018. So I suggested they may wanna work on it and have staff work on it with them so they could come soon before the event to get that extra sort of publicity by coming in like they did for the hunger action proclamation. So that's just out there and if I'm missing something and I didn't give them good advice, tell me. And then this isn't a committee thing but I just wanted to mention I've been having trouble with my iPad, it's like three and a half, four years old now and it's not holding a charge. And I don't know what the procedure, if I go to IT and talk to them or if I tell the town manager and if other people were having that problem, I know there isn't a super, I don't know how much longer I'll need it but it's not performing well and these things do get kind of outdated after a while. And I don't know if other members have had that problem. I use them out a lot. So let me know what to do to bring it in for a checkup or something. That's all it's got, thank you. I'm incredibly uneasy about the proclamation for the Skating Club of Amherst. That's why I'm bringing it. And that's not because I don't believe skating, my kids actually both used to belong to it many, many years ago but we don't. I mean, we could change our minds as a culture, as a board but we've worked with the legal and voters, we've worked with CHD, we work with agencies we generally work with. I know that there's not exactly a bright line there but we have been asked to give proclamations to house painters and student businesses and we have chosen not to do that. And although this is not exactly the same, I personally quite fond of the Skating Club of Amherst but I don't see that as anything to do with us doing a proclamation on their behalf. So just saying. So I would say that we need to have a discussion before we tell them to do it or what we're gonna do. That's not more substantive than we can do tonight because I think it's a totally different category than the student painter but it's not because it's someone I know called me, they're just looking for info. I think we should have a little more discussion because it is an Amherst based institution and so I think we should at least have the conversation if we decide not to do it. Tell them fine and have a reason but. Yeah, I hear you. I agree, but we probably need to figure out what our policy is. Giving you the heads up so they don't come in and say right, I'd be embarrassed. We just need to figure out how to do that or find an old policy that we didn't know we had. That's right, maybe the public could find another one. She's gonna dig it stuff up. Okay, great. I mean this, not at all facetiously he said but it might actually be easier to get a proclamation from our state representative or state senator because I mean. Because they get them all the time but that's not what they ask. They get a nice folder. But seriously, I mean our reps have been great in the past at getting these kind of statements for organizations celebrating anniversaries so it's one thing we could suggest as an alternative. I thought I'd tell you, but that's a like and also a ramp, I mean they could go do that but that doesn't, they have to withdraw from our. I thought the state was more impressive than Amherst but this is me. So. It depends, I'm gonna be quick, I guess. So are there any other member reports? I'm guessing not. No other members. I mean. You don't even know. If not, I believe we've taken care of the business on our agenda so I would be entertained in motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn. Second. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We're adjourned at 1104.