 Oh, hi everyone, we are recording. Thank you. I would like to call this meeting of the town services and outreach committee to order it is September 14 time is 702 p.m. I'm going to go ahead and call on the members of the committee. Just to make sure we can hear you and you can be heard and that you are present and I'll also make sure that Athena and Paul who looks like he's in a Beyonce music video right now at the fan can can hear. Andy, Andy Steinberg. I'm here. Thank you. Shawnee Balmell. Oh, did you say my name? Yes. Hi. Yes. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Hello, I'm here. I can see. Yes. Paul Bachman. Present. And Athena O'Keefe. We know we can hear you. So if you want to say hi, you're welcome. Hello. All right. Great. So we've got a really excited. I'm going to say it's an exciting agenda today because we're covering all sorts of things. So we're going to begin with public comment. And we currently have two attendees with us. If either would like to make public comment, public comments on matters within the jurisdiction of the TSO committee are welcome at this point. You can express your views for up to three minutes and we to make a public comment you can go ahead and press the raise hand feature on your screen. So we'd like to have Jeremy be enabled to speak. And Jeremy, once you are able to unmute, you can go ahead and begin your comment and we will keep you to three minutes if that's okay. Thank you for joining us. No problem. Jeremy Anderson, 34 high point tribe in Amherst. And first, I'd just like to thank the TSO for taking the time to discuss the adoption of safety zones in Amherst. Amherst is a beautiful place to live. We've got many wonderful cultural and recreational activities available, fantastic schools, enriching activities for residents and visitors of all age. And I think because of all these wonderful things that we have in our town, families and people from all over the country are moving to Amherst and calling it our home. This growth coupled with just the fact that people are trying to do more things every day, especially after the pandemic is causing increased traffic congestion throughout our town. There's, there seems to be there's a lot more road rage and excessive speeding. And it's not a problem that's unique to Amherst. But it's something that that we, I think we're struggling with a bit as a community. And for 4 years, I've been working with first with Scott Livingston, our retired police chief and our fantastic acting police chief Gabriel Ting to try to find some type of trap traffic calming solutions specifically to protect children at Amherst daycare centers. At time again, we've come up with some ideas, and there's just been legal and other obstacles. But recently we've reached out to Mass DOT, and they've informed us about the ability to create safety zones where we can limit speed limits to know more than 20 miles an hour. So that Amherst and other communities can have the flexibility to protect our vulnerable members such as children are elderly people at playgrounds, people throughout our community where they might come together and congregate. And really just like to encourage the TSO and the town council to to authorize the establishment of safety zones in Amherst. And just thank you again so much for your time. Thank you Jeremy and thank you for your, your comment and your work on this issue. We have two other folks in attendees if either of you would like to make a to two familiar faces to counselors and the attendees list as well if you'd like to faces I can't see your faces but if you'd like to make public comment as a resident you are welcome to as well. Otherwise, we will move on, if that sounds all right to everybody. All right, great item three on the agenda we're going to get an update from Paul on proposed revisions to bylaw 3.33 refuse collection and recyclable materials Paul actually I believe this is coming from you but I also know that we have two of the sponsors and Andy are here, and then we have another sponsor in the audience as well Jennifer Taub. Paul, are you giving the update on this. I can give you a quick update that the RFI finally went out. And so we've given them three weeks to respond back. And I shared that with Shalini and I can share it with the entire committee if you'd like. It's a public document obviously. So we sent it to for the four major vendors who work in the town of Amherst, which we got from Susan wait if you remember her. And so we will once those responses get back, we will start looking at them, share them out. Great. Any questions or comments for Paul. Andy. Yeah, I did have one. Are there any vendors that she identified that work in Western Massachusetts or at least, you know, reasonably approximate communities that don't work in Amherst that should be included. I think she included everybody, any company of size that was working in Western Mass. I can share with you what those companies are. I think I can send them to you. Oh, yeah. Well, it was Republic services, USA waste, Cassella and waste management. Those are the players that she thought we would should directly RFI to. Thank you. Any other questions for Paul on refuse collection and recyclable materials. All right, Paul, thank you very much. It's exciting to see this next step being taken and continual progress being made on this on this work. Thank you. All right, so we're going to move on to item four on the agenda, which is speed limits and I know this is a broad topic to put on an agenda but this was something that we actually have been able to narrow down and I had asked. When he could have put it on the agenda for this meeting we've heard a lot about speed limits and you know there's a lot of a lot of variables at play when we think about how we can how we can influence and impact speed limits in town, all of which I believe I don't believe we have any streets left. I don't think without speed limits I could be wrong on that don't quote me but for for the most part it's been a challenge I think for us as counselors to navigate the speed limit issue. One of the questions that was on TSO's agenda from the prior council as a carryover item was the acceptance of provisions of mass general law chapter 90 sections 18b. And what this law allows is for the establishment of what are called safety zones, which would have, which would need to meet safety criteria but then would could mean a 20 mile per hour safety zone. And this is back to if folks remember all the conversations that people were bringing in around speeding around daycare centers and around other locations that have quote unquote vulnerable populations right. So, this is something that the town has not accepted the provisions of yet but that we could recommend to the council that we accept. I want to be clear that and I know that Paul will have more to say on this I just wanted to give an intro since I had asked for it to be on the agenda here. But this does not accepting the provisions is step one of many right there are lots of other things we would need to do in order to change those speed limits in front of places that if they meet the criteria are deemed safety zones. I don't want folks to think that if we recommend the adoption of this, these provisions of mass general law that automatically things will shift but I do want people to know that this is the first step that we would need to take in order to take all of those additional steps. And so Paul had a really great memo in the packet the two page memo on the safety zones if folks had a chance to read it. But right now before we turn it over for questions. I want to ask Paul if you'd like to give an overview of this and after that I will, I'm happy to make a motion. So Paul would you like to do. I captured it and I think the first action is to accept the statutes we checked with the town clerk who reviewed all this sections of the state laws that we've accepted this is not one. So we have to the council has to accept this is so that we can take the next step. That's the first order of business. Are there any questions from committee members about this, this statute or the process that we would need to follow or anything like that Dorothy. Is there an idea of like how many safety zones, one would have in a town of the size of Amherst, like we go to be like five, like around the schools and the, and the preschools or maybe around the senior center. Was there some kind of, you know, sense of balance of how these things go. So we, we haven't done an analysis of that we do know all the schools have safety zones already the last one was Fort River hadn't had one for a while, but to about 2 years ago, 3 years ago, I think. So that's, but that's under a different state law. We're allowed to do it because of a public school. So, you know, there, of course, there's Cushman daycare center there. There are other. Areas as well that have sort of institutional type daycare centers. The question will be, we, I have a family daycare. Do you want to do it for this section? You know, there's 1 on on snow street. There are others in other areas. So it'll be up a decision by the council where you want to put in these these safety zones. And it would have to meet the criteria. Paul, that's laid out, right? The minimum safety criteria of land likely to attract vulnerable users and contains areas that have potential conflicts between motor vehicles and those users. So it's possible that not everywhere would hit those minimum criteria. And the council would need to approve them as keepers of the public way. Which I believe. I think Paul, you had mentioned would best be done through a traffic study. Right. I think it requires an engineering study to begin. Yeah. Dorothy, did that answer your question? Yeah, so it's a combination of vulnerable population and features that might be complicated. So it's not how many people are there use it. It's really the combination that there are some vulnerable and the road has a problem or has a feature that could cause a problem. Right. Yeah, I would estimate like a daycare that's on a road that's, you know, way tucked back and doesn't have speeding cars wouldn't necessarily qualify versus it. Yeah. But again, the engineering study is a part of that process. And so we someone who wanted a safety zone established would, we'd go through that process with them. Yeah, okay. Good sounds good. Any other questions for Paul. Okay, with that, I'm going to, I'm going to attempt a motion Athena and I didn't send it to you and I apologize because I'm going to, I'm going to say it right from the head here. Right from the heart Athena. All right, I would like to recommend that the town services and outreach committee recommend to the town council, the adoptions of, or the adoptions of the provisions of mass general law chapter 90 section 18 B. It's just entirety of 18 B. And I need a second and then we'll vote. If I have a second. Second Shawnee. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and call the vote. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Thank you Shawnee ball mill. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes, and I am a yes as well. Yeah, I just, I didn't want to mix the two up, but I just wanted to point out that when the last TSO, which I'm one of the holdover members talking about speed limits. We were also talking about trying to spend some time understanding what our options are with speed limits on other streets. And I don't think that this council has time to deal with this issue. But I was one of my disappointments and was disappointed with a couple of constituents who reached out to me of the subject over the years. So I would certainly urge that it be put in the carryover memo, because I think we've been very neglectful of an important issue. Okay. Yeah, I think that's a good point, Andy. Thank you. Thank you for reminding us of that. Any other thoughts before you move on to. That was that was breezy. Dang, all right. Moving right along. We're going to move on to, we're on number five, five out of 11 y'all and it is 715 I don't mean to, to, you know, cast a spell here but all right town manager appointments Paul we have two appointments on the docket. Would you like to walk us through those two sets of appointments yes the first one is for the Community Preservation Act committee. Well, who has already served one term was uncertain about serving a second term, but then has come back and said, yes, I do want to take on continue serving, which is a great, great thing for us because she's already have one term. So that's a reappointment for the CPA committee. The other is for the DRB, which is these are seats that are held by members of committees. So the historical commission planning board have reorganized. They've identified the people they want to serve in there for their committees on the design review board. So it's Patricia off for the historical commission and Karen winter for the planning board. Thank you. Any questions for Paul on these appointments. All right, with that I will make a motion first that I move that the town services and outreach committee recommend to the town council the town manager appointments of town manager appointment of Katie's obel to the Community Preservation Act committee for a term to expire June 30, 2026. Do I have a second. I second it. Thank you Dorothy seconded by Dorothy, and I'm going to call the vote this time we're going to go with Andy Steinberg first. Thank you. Thank you. Keeping everybody on their toes today. Shawnee well known. Yep. Yes. That's fine. And Dorothy cam. Yes. All right, thank you. Second motion and I vote yes as well. Thank you. So I remember. All right, next up we have I move that the town services and outreach committee recommend to the town council the town manager appointments of Patricia off and Karen winter to the design review board each for a term to expire June 30, 2024. Do I have a second. I seconded second Dorothy Pam. Thank you. This time we're going to go to a vote starting with Shawnee ball mill. Yes. And Dorothy Pam. Yes. And Andy Steinberg. Yes. And I am a yes as well. Thank you. Done. All right, Paul nicely done. Thank you for getting those. Those are two really important committees so appreciate the work there. I'm six on the agenda. I believe Shawnee this is you on the community engagement plan proposal would you like to walk us through it. Amazing. Yes. So to refresh everyone's memory. We had made a presentation long ago for a process and a plan for community engagement and what I heard back from TSO was that can you give us an actionable item that we can then discuss and vote on. So I have a motion, which we can definitely edit adapt, but maybe I'll start with the bigger picture what the motion is and then show you the instrument or the checklist for community engagement. And then I can go in deeper into the plan why this is important and go through all of the steps that we can discuss then. Does that make sense. Are you saying that you're going to make the motion first or make the presentation first the presentation but kind of point out where we are heading with this. Does that make sense. Sure. Yep. That sounds good. So Tina, do you want to share or do you want me to share. I can pull it up. Thank you. So just the motion range. The motion not the plan. Correct. But it makes sense to give them a sense of the motion and the, and the checklist like a high level view. Yeah, if that's where you want to start, I'll grab it. Because the plan can be intimidating. It's like 17 pages long. So this is sort of kind of the motion that we recommend to the town council that we adopt a checklist for community engagement that would guide the discussion and engagement in each town council committee when drafting new bylaws of policies or making changes to existing ones and require the completed checklist to be submitted to the council along with the final bylaw policy being recommended by the committee. And so we can move down and this is definitely open to being changed or whatever as we discuss what, but that was kind of the idea. And then the, the checklist would look something like this so every, we're already doing something like this in the CRC where we have a checklist for, you know, who's being impacted and so forth, but this is just taking it. And then at the beginning till the end what are some steps that we can take. And of course, every committee has an option to modify the questions that are relevant to them. But it's just creating this process where we really start in a systematic manner of defining what is the problem that we're solving for and so then there are these recommended it's not that every committee has to go through every question. It's really like getting the committee to discuss what are the existing issues or challenges that we're trying to address are the specific pain points, clarify the purpose and goals. So is this a priority for the council is it part of the town manager goals, who's initiated this like is it coming from the planning board from the staff. You know that would get give us a sense like if staff is coming back and saying this is really important then it, you know, it's, it signals to us that are we really, you know, we need to really pay attention to this not that we should not pay attention if it's coming from a counselor but you know, gives us an idea. Oh, I went to the site and I printed out the community. Oh, yes. That's what was on the site and I printed it out and I read over it and I took lots of notes. Good. So, I think that many of the elements that are on this thing are in the big plan, but I don't receive this. This is, it's just part of that so what I did was the checklist is in the plan, but I didn't want to overwhelm everyone so I just wanted to say that this is what we are voting on. And then the plan is kind of like explaining and so the checklist is a part of the plan. It's one of the items in the plan. So, so, and I did see many, many checklists so I wouldn't say that my response to the whole thing was I, and this is some of this is personal. I have problems with some of the jargon, and like one of them is the use of the word stakeholders. I loved the questions that you asked. In the end, under the various stages there are maybe 100 questions. And really good, lots of really, really good questions. But I found that some of the terminology which I know a professional terminology is kind of off putting if like a regular person reads it. So I kind of want to discuss that a little bit. Sure. But I do. I could see there's, there's an awful lot of questions but if you boil it down to just a few questions, it's useless because there were so many very specific questions, which were the result, I think of actual work and experience, you know, do something and realize whoops we blew that one we should have asked. Right, we should have checked out that. So, I don't know. That's that's an awful lot of questions though. So, because this right now, if the blue is on the words post engagement so this is just the list. Maybe that isn't that maybe that blue doesn't mean anything. Okay, why don't you show the whole hold so I can see how many, but we know and not know okay. So this is pretty much some of the questions taken from the thing yet they're keep keep keep going so I can see is it. Okay, right. Do we need to and do we need to is the level of engagement of course we need to engage in so. But what is the level of engagement, because some issues like we discussed early and GL may not require a lot of engagement but then, as we have experienced ourselves that we think we don't need engagement but then we do end up finding that and whether the engagement is not just with residents but it could also be with other committees like tack or easy AC or, you know, so at what point. So just articulating which where where is the expertise it could be committees and later on I even recommend and that's something we have to build more systematically is our relationship with the universities and colleges because, you know, like the energy institutions institute is like a multidisciplinary pool of researchers with rain cutting edge research. So we need to be like in connection with them so when we're doing planning and all, who can we pull in from there or. Well, I think we have two we have two kinds of engagement one is what you're talking about. Contacting experts. A lot of it was really about contacting the people who live in the town. Yeah, and that's an area where we still have to do a lot of work because we have a lot of new technical ways which work for a lot of people, but. Meetings that going to where they live still is the thing that works the most. I'm just afraid that with that if you're in the context now that I just learned that this checklist that groups would be required to turn in with a proposal. That it's, it might be too overwhelming so there might be two levels of questions. I would never say throw out the ones that aren't true for everything because I really did. I liked a lot of those questions, but some can be bold faced and some can be. And bold face would be every project you got to answer this question and some of the others, it would really depend upon what's going on. They could be relevant they could not be relevant, but it's too overwhelming then some people are just going to check, you know, or just not take it seriously. And there's a lot of good stuff here, there's a lot of good stuff to avoid problems in the future, but you don't want it to be a roadblock. You know, right, right. Yeah, Dorothy, those are really good points so now that you have a sense of this, what might be the best way to move forward do we want to focus our time on. I think the purpose is important like just all of us on the same page so we can go to the bigger plan and focus on why are we doing this, and then I think I like your suggestion Dorothy that we highlight. The questions which we as TSO can see and many of us are in multiple committees so we can see from different committees point of view which questions would be important. And maybe we come to the realization that every committee might have to do that for themselves, like go through the questions and highlight okay these are the questions we're going to attend. There might be a place where we end up saying we would love to actually go and engage the, you know, the affordable housing or this or that, but we don't have the staff or to help us do it and I think even just writing that down in the report, we do have resources. Every time we're doing that it's letting the people know that we've thought about it, but we don't have the staff and at some point maybe there will be communication community participation officer who can be assigned once we find that there are a lot of projects that are requiring this. Maybe we do need a half time participation officer who's helping the town council to engage with the community. I was surprised that the title of this is called community engagement. So I was thinking, not really of contacting the specialists, which obviously is a good thing to do. I was thinking of contacting the regular people, the voters, residents who often they don't read the newspaper, they're not tuning in six meetings a week if we are, and they really don't know what we're doing. Sometimes they should know, because it affects them personally and how do we do the outreach so that the people who are personally affected have a chance to tell us what we might need to know. The community includes, I think the purpose is to have a decision making process that is holistic, that is including the voices of all the different stakeholders and also drawing upon the experience of the experts and so maybe the better title would be stakeholder because stakeholder just means everyone who's impacted but you don't like that. So I don't want to put that in there. So you know that's debatable what we want to put on top. Well, maybe you need two things but if you're talking about reaching regular people for their responses in a friendly way that's all. Okay, so let's put that as a, I'm going to put that in the parking lot is a question to answer and Anna you had your hand up. Yeah, I, I'm not bothered by the term stakeholders. For me, I understand it because I think, you know, I as a resident stakeholder and things that happen in my area right or that that impacts me. I also, I think when I'm struggling with Shawnee can you clarify for me that the proposal read. It was that the committee was going to be doing this. The answering these questions, not the sponsors of a bylaw. Is that correct. The sponsors can lead the discussions like many of these things might be taken on by the sponsors. But it's the committee that you, the sponsors have to be answerable to the committee, and the committee needs to have a discussion. So I'm going to run it by the sponsors and especially like in terms of like for instance with the waste hauler. You know, I'm going to take the lead on making sure that the survey there's a survey instrument that's created. So that will be on me but I'll run it by the committee for sure to get feedback, but to some of these pieces in the checklist led by or what was it, what does it say, I think it says lead person and complete by when you know sort of just that was suggested because in different items we might have different lead people and then the analysis. What I learned from CRC having done the analysis myself that it's better to have two people, but then without making it a committee or work group or something I don't know we'll have to ask Athena how to do that. I was thinking maybe the other person could be either a staff person or it could be a person from another committee, like a counselor from another committee. Would that be considered Athena or a work group if it's two counselors but from different committees. And if there are two counselors designated to do a task on behalf of the council then it's considered a subcommittee. If they if the council saying that, you know, you, you two counselors or three counselors go and do this thing for us and then report back, then you've created a subcommittee and they need to follow the opening. I'm not the town council but let's say TSA decides that I'm going to do the analysis and then I pass it on because you need like inter-rater reliability. So then I pass on the document to a second counselor and then they go over and do the ratings or maybe two of us do it independently but don't talk to each other and then finally it comes together. So where I'm struggling, I think what you've created is a really good list of kind of like ideal state. I think where I am challenged is I think that this would, it's so comprehensive that I think we'd get through one thing a year. And that's where I'm struggling is because I think that it's, it's an incredible amount of effort and work and I think that we've seen CRC do this in an incredibly robust way but CRC is also creating a new bylaw as a committee, which is not whatever committee does and they've been doing it and it's rightfully so I'm not faulting CRC at all but it's, they've been working on it all year and it came in. And that's where I struggle is like how do we make sure that we can engage our community effectively while still being effective and getting things done as a committee. And so, because I also think one of my, one of my challenges that ties into that is a lot of these things are subjective, right, at what point can you say, okay, we have reached out. And, you know, at what point can we say, you know, okay, we have heard from the community. Some people like this some people don't. We want to do it. And so we, while we've heard from this community, this part of the community we don't agree. And we agree with this but right so like, I think I am, I'm trying to figure out where's the, the, when is the box checked. Right. We're still get like how much time do we a lot to each of these things and I know it's not a matter of saying like I did one hour of community engagement I that is absolutely not the answer but how do we make sure that we've done our jobs in terms of community engagement but that we're still able to do our jobs in terms of getting things, where's that medium place. Yeah, so I think having like what articulating which we, you know, some of these questions as like maybe Dorothy van is saying some of these questions are just essential to every conversation and any bylaw that we revise or change we have like why are we doing this and even Paul will say like what is your ultimate goal. I think articulating what is the existing challenges that we're trying to address and you know these can happen pretty quickly because whoever sponsoring if the staff is doing it they'll come and say this is why we want this or if we're doing the waste hollow we have a specific goal why we want to do this. And I think it's important upfront to ask about, you know, do we have the town staff and time because that's where Paul, maybe maybe the staff can do it but Paul has to then let us know that realistically and I mean we still it's still a fairly new government right even though it's a second term, we're still pretty new in terms of and we're creating all these bylaws and processes and policies where I think there's a scope for improving so this plan has been created for the purpose of having us start a conversation about how can we be thoughtful given the limited resources and time we have. And, and even if we can write down that we've thought through like you said like how much community engagement is enough and so for something like rental registration that was a huge impact on many people. So of course it involved. Okay, we have to hear from the landlords we have to hear from neighbors tenants staff, you know so that required a very conscious reaching out and engaging stakeholders at that level. So waste hauler by law, we are like we want to hear from waste haulers, which we're going to hear through the RFI, and we want to hear from residents how what is and so we're going to create a survey and we're going to do have a listening session, for instance, you know so we can decide those are two ways and the committee can decide I don't know if that's enough. And it is sort of meant to be a reiterative process so maybe by December we're not done with it and we realize that we need a more robust reach out. We still have to then transfer, you know, it's kind of you. Sometimes we can start off with like okay this is all we need but once we hear from people we might realize, okay we do need to step back, and it may not end up done by the end of my term. But then, how can we leave it in a place that it can be then taken over by the committee and the next term. So, so then something like so so when you're talking about a listening forum. Sorry, my question. Do you mean, like, so I think this is what has come up in the past when we've talked about this, this plan is, like, are we talking about publishing a notice are we talking about that. Because when we, I mean there are financial implications for that there are logistical implications of that like I think that I'm curious what that means and if that's part of the process in a formal way. I think we need to understand how much is this going to cost us but also how much time it's going to take from our staff from ourselves as counselors for like I think that that's other kind of budgeting of time and resources that I'd like to see with this if, if that some of those outreach methods are happening in a really formal way, because I feel like I learned how much it cost to put one of those things in the Gazette the other day that we have to do for the. Yeah, so we're not calling it that's where we're not calling it a public forum because that has legal requirements and expectations. But that's why I think Athena told me for our waste hall and don't call it a public forum because that is very formal but a listening session would be more like we send the write up to all the district counselors and to the town staff so they put it on the website on the website where there's an engaged website created for that we put it on that we put it on social media and you know use the channels we have and the contacts we have to do it but it doesn't have to be a public forum unless it's legally required. Yeah, I mean I share your comment earlier. Probably the first reaction that I had to which is that well this is really fascinating and very comprehensive piece of work. If we do this, even the initial thought process that's required in step one. For everything that we're doing, we're not going to get very much done, because we're spending so much time we're making our job counselors so much more complex to get there. I guess the second thing that I was thinking through this is that some of the questions in step one are getting at things that I would like the council to be considering. Or it makes even a referral to a committee when somebody comes forward with a proposal. I said this several different time council meetings that council ought to just not be nice to the two sponsors or three sponsors, but ought to be thinking critically about whether this is something that the council and its committees are prepared and should spend time developing because of all of the obvious reasons that come forward. So I'm not, you know, some seem like it really belongs in a different place before there's a process whether there's a consideration of a bylaw. I think that that was something that and then I started thinking about it through some of the examples of bylaws that we've, you know, are now considering or have recently considered. And, you know, I just, you know, there are a whole lot of things that I was wondering about, because, you know, it's becoming obvious for the finance committee is to sit as hard as CRC worked on this. And as much as the CRC did and the amount of engagement that was involved and the listening that was involved, there are still constituents who are raising serious questions that have been really troubling the finance committee. And so I was trying to figure out why that happened and does, would this really address that problem and I don't have an answer to that. Because it's so complex and I just haven't had time to think through those steps and finances really just trying to grapple with the issues that have come up from various stakeholders on the bylaw that we're dealing with most strongly right now which is rental registration. So, for all the reasons I guess I am troubled by the motion which seems to make it more than a model, but in the requirement. And I'm a little bit concerned about, they have to go back to the motion, but I think the language that makes it that there's an expectation. In any way that committee has to do this, I think it's going to just weigh down our process to the point where I don't think that committees are going to be able to ever advance anything and get it through a process and get it done and back to the Councilor, as you said, on a year. So, can I answer respond to that. So they couple of things you said so I'm going to address the first point which was like some of these questions could be passed on as a package to the town council when a proposal is being brought forward either by staff or sponsors or wherever it's coming from and we send it off to a committee, you know what are the challenges and who's sponsoring this would clarify the purpose and then finding out do we have the staff and other resources to deal with this issue right now or should it be three years from now or whatever. So I think that's an excellent suggestion that that whole thing be packaged and put in as because I remember when we've had discussions in town council we all kind of say yeah let's send it and and the committee can decide whether they want to or not but then we never really have a process of doing that we just dive into it. So I think having this sort of questions allows us to spend at least like 20 minutes or 15 minutes or maybe 10 minutes to get a sense of what is the problem we're solving for do we have the resources to do it something like that or is it required legally or so if everyone is agreement I'm happy to separate this out and then that whole the responses that came from there can be just plugged in so now when the committee is discussing it. We already have the answers to the first set of questions that what is the problem we're solving from and I cannot emphasize how important that first step is because mostly even with community engagement we are jumping into solutions even when we're doing community engagement instead of asking people what are their challenges what are their lived experiences with what you know whatever we're talking about how often do they walk on that street or what do they feel safe or if you talk about waste hauler do you already want to compost or have you ever thought about it what are the challenges during that and like without asking what we go to commit community for is do you want compost universal composting or not and then if they say yes we want it and then we don't do it because we didn't have the money to staff someone to do it then the community is unhappy you wasted our time asking us these questions and getting a feedback and not doing anything about it. I think and asking the right questions what are we problem we're solving for first without jumping into solutions is a very important first step. And can I just finish the others. Did you want to talk to this specific thing. This is one other thing that I just going to follow up on and then, which is on on the spot unfortunately but in that is the street light policy. Very important purpose of bringing that forward, because the dark sky issue is a significant issue. I think there was also a question about whether street lights are affecting homeowners because if they are close to home particularly a bedroom what what what is the effect of that. But there was a lot you know as we have a delft into this consideration, what we've been hearing more about is what about the safety on the street level. And so, all of a sudden, through the process that we already have. I think that we've actually identified an issue that really concerned a fair number of people who are present members of tack and former members of its predecessor committee. And, you know, and we are paying attention and the cosponsors paying attention. Do we need this policy in order to move the street light discussion into that additional realm. Just before we did already, we got there. We got there after going back and forth back and for it could have been that we had reached out and I know the sponsors already did reach out to tack and and to the public generally and we received further information but it wasn't a formalized process. This is not for lighting itself this is has been an issue with all other committees where we are reaching out to whether it's easy AC or other committees we kind of reach out to them or sometimes the sponsors reach out it's not a set process where we're officially reaching out either the chair or the sponsor reading out officially to the committee, getting their feedback, having the discussion and then reporting back to the committee that this is what we accepted or did not accept and why is I'm not saying we should always agree with the thing but they need to be a formalized process where we are responding back to that committee and it's happening in the right order of things so that often we are doing it and then we have to roll take three steps back and so the and of course it may still happen because it's an iterative process so it's still possible we have a process and we're still going to go back. And the more we can systemize the pro the steps that we need to take and formally acknowledge the other committees that are working hard and make sure that we are responding by sending them. This is what we are finally doing and give them a chance to give us further feedback, the more we are going to be doing this in a smoother way, and it's being documented because it'll always be residents who don't agree with what, but we will have written down and we're not like in the rental registration we had a whole section on environmental that was one of the goals. And we even got the ECAC and their committees comments and so forth, what we can do, however, when we went through the process and the town told us how cumbersome and we heard from landlords, how cumbersome this is going to be already it's really cumbersome now you want us to fill all this data, then we decided okay we're not going to include it and the town suggested that we can get that sort of information, regardless of them having to do it. So that so you know but all I'm saying is that if we have a process it's just documenting it so that we can always come back to the community and there's this, the community knows that there was a process that was followed and they'll still be unhappy but I would feel much better that we did our due diligence we reached out, and it is endless, like Anna said how much is enough. And so but the more we can do it as systematically as possible and the places where we can do it we're still writing because of the budget deadline or blah blah blah we are meeting to cut it short and this is the extent to which we did it, we held meetings and you know community discussions. So, but wait so the first part was, do we want to finalize that for I'll keep that as a note that can we take a part of that that part one and put it shifted into town council discussion so that was one question. CRC you mentioned that you're hearing serious concerns now, Andy and so what is the point of doing this process. We heard those concerns, regarding what it's going to cost and what it's equitable and what not, even through the engagement process that was part we did hear it. However, it is a complex issue and so what the engagement did do is at least for me personally and I hope for other people as well it did create more empathy for tenants, who we realized that they don't feel empowered to complain and there were so many other things that were wrong, which is why we, I feel more strongly now because of that feedback that we do need a system where we're not relying on inspection by complaint. So, all that to say that just because we do a process doesn't mean that everyone's going to be happy they'll still be and that's because some of these issues are complex and they're competing needs of different stakeholders. All the more reason we need to have a systematic way to listen to landlords to listen to tenants to listen to neighbors and be able to balance those different viewpoints. Right. The last requirement or not. What's that. You're going to make me start using a clock. Okay, okay, I'll answer the requirement question afterwards give you a break. Go ahead. That's a good question do we make it a requirement or not I think the requirement is just that we use a checklist just like we're doing it in CRC kind of. And then it's up to the requirement and then it's up to the committee which questions they're going to answer me now I'm not saying every single question has to be knocked out, but we want to have a template and everyone of us is coming from very different places and I experiences and background and this is giving us a shared process and language, and it's up to the committee, which questions. They are going to address. Okay, over. I think you're getting at a question that I have around a crime and maybe a pitch to you. So my first thought was, and I'm going to really try to stay away from discussing policies that weren't on our agenda to discuss today so one of my hypothetical questions referring to any policy in particular is, you know, how do you who quote unquote wins when experts disagree with each other. Right, because we time and time again that and and who defines an expert. Right, because I think that we have to navigate these kinds of questions when we're looking at a checklist like this if it's becoming an adopted rule. If it's someone who gets to define an expert that's so and so I really, I'm challenged by that. And I also think, you know, what do you do when you weigh health impacts on one side versus health impacts on another side and I and so I'm challenged by that. I think that it's, it's, we already can go in those circles. So the next thing to, to, to propose to you is, this is an incredible one. I'm confused about how we as a council with our existing processes would adopt this. Is it something that our rules of procedure. Is it something. How do we, because this feels like it's a rule, right, we're saying that this is a rule we want the council to follow. So wouldn't it go under the rules of procedure as a as an engagement platform. And so then my, my question is, this is incredibly robust and I have to say I'm not comfortable adopting this as a rule because if it applies to everything that we are passing either a new policy or vision policy. We would, we would have to do this for things that we, we that are, are incredibly routine. And how we navigate that when it takes the amount of time that it takes and those are the things we need to do to keep the town functioning. So, so I think that there are there are questions I have about the applicability of this and where it doesn't apply. You know, I'm thinking about water and sewer regs right a lot of time on those and Andy you referenced street lights, even without this process we've been dealing with street lights for over a year. Right, so I think that there's, there's a lot of things that I have questions about how long, how long this takes when it's not something like street lights which are functioning now, in my opinion not well but are functioning now and how do we make it better because we need to update our water regs that haven't been updated in 50 years, and now we have to go through this checklist we can't take a year to do that. So, how to navigate it so I'm curious to be able to simplify this in a way that has a much smaller number of rules or a much smaller number of guidelines, and folks can look within it for ideas of best practice. So, the rules rule itself is not as cumbersome on the committee or the sponsors, because I worry about is that this is going to dissuade people from bringing forward ideas and that's, I firmly believe that that is our job, our job is to bring forward. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So how do we, hang on one second, please. How do we make work that we're not adding requirements to folks that they're not able to do in something that's not a full time job. Got it. So, in terms of the questions I've asked the last one I would say how do we make it work. I think we should just, I'm going to put that question at the end because I want us to really work through all the different pieces. Again, like not arrive at the solution before we've had a discussion around what is the purpose of this how can we use it. How can it help us make better decisions and processes. I'm going to hold that question because I'm totally open to how you know what, what's the language going to be for the motion that's where you're getting at. But I go back to the first question. I'm saying that the problem that I'm trying to solve for is that this is much time for counselors and that's what we will, we will edit and make it work. I think we have come to a consensus about what exactly can a checklist like this serve, and then how to trim it down in a way that it's going to be helpful and not demotivating people, right. Okay, so we'll come that's the third question so I'm going to come to the first one wins when they're competing, who defines the experts. We have two different experts we need to bring in all like we need to have the diverse perspective so it's not trying to say one over the other and the whole point is to give air to the different points of view that are there and create a formal. In terms of practicality, when we have experts in our committees, like pack or ECAC or CSS JC and all the idea would be that we do include their expertise in what we're hearing and it may be. And then the second level of experts is like which I'm hoping that we can build more formal pathways with is UMass and our colleges, where they have people who are already studying road safety or they're studying the environment or this like the ETI has this multi disciplinary group of people studying how to make climate change fair and fast and so forth. I don't think the idea is to push one set of experts the idea is to bring and the same thing with when they're competing help me. We need to like just because they're competing doesn't mean we don't ask the question. We have to ask a question, especially if it's competing we need to raise awareness of those competing things because what happens is we end up making a decision because we're seeing this one group is really getting impacted but then the other group is like but you didn't hear us. So by making that conversation, you know, bringing it to light, I think, at least we can in our conscience be able to explain that here is why we need this decision, even though it feels like and hopefully we can come up with a third way that is helping here and here. Okay, thank you. I would like to add an experience from the teaching world. After years of faculty trying to learn how to be scientific in their grading and giving points for their activities and making it fair. I have been attending many workshops this is going to be, I think the third year at HC on equity, and it's on forget the points that creating is actually an art. And that you have to consider all kinds of things and you'll consider more of this or some of that different different people. And this is very hard for some people who like the certainty of the points but of course when you give points you're already making decisions. You, some of the stuff that you've been saying recently sounds much more like what perhaps a consultant's firm would be doing. And Paul tells us when we need one. And when there's money for it and it gets in the budget and the consultant is not the same as the town counselor. But what's similar between a professor grading and a town counselor is that we have to make decisions with many, many small parts. And that we will each give different weight to different things because we are all in a way different, and we will, you know, consult. So I don't think that the requirement is going to work. However, I really like your questions. I find them very, very useful. And I think that if it's requiring it's going to cause a log jam that we can't that we just won't be able to deal with. But I really think that to, of course to consult and to, you know, individually read the questions and maybe decide to bring a few of them to the meeting. That's doable. But this having us do all of this. It's just not not something that we can do as town counselors I don't think. Yeah, I know I hear what you're saying Dorothy, I am not actually coming at this from a consultant point of view but more human centered approach which is being used for coming up with social innovations and how can towns and I looked at the, you know, the links to other towns and whatnot but of course, you know, I'm not comparing because we don't have the resources. And I think the idea is only to also in listening to stakeholders I think now I'm going to why this is important. And I spoke with I did send this out to a couple of different stakeholders and especially stakeholders as in people leaders in our town who think differently from how I think often on issues. So actually reached out to people who think differently to get their feedback and I did change a few things and one of the suggestions from them was make it a requirement. Because if you don't make it a requirement, then people are not going to use it. And so that was one of the feedback that came from the community, I mean just one person of course but I think that is a sentiment that I'm hearing from multiple people that have spoken with that we don't that we are rushing through things and I understand that time is important but then in that rush we're missing out steps and then we come back and we have to redo some of the stuff and people are not happier. Why not do it it's still going to take that time like, like, you know, I said it still took a year to do the lighting or, you know, the waste haul or any of these things that we're doing. So, I think the requirement doesn't have to be every single question the requirement could be that maybe the broader questions of what is a problem they're solving for. And then the questions there under that could be left to the committee with add suggestions, you know, whichever ones you want to answer or not, but maybe the higher level kind of checklist which is what we have in CRC as well already. And I think I know what you said about this competing things that was one of the obstacles and suggestions I had with balancing diverse perspectives and needs and competing needs. And that is all the more reason why we need a thoughtful process where we're really putting out the different points of view. So one of the proposals I have then is we look at this and see that can we maybe agree to the higher level and we can decide whether at the end whether we want to make it required or not and all of that but in terms of the instrument itself with the process itself can we agree to what we think should be required or is most important out of this. Can I ask it, can I clarify Shawnee when you said process itself. What specifically are you talking about. So this process includes like the committee who's discussing this and whether it's a town council or, you know, like, and you said maybe the page five of the document that you sent. Yeah, the checklist. Yeah. I mean, right. I think I'm struggling because what we're seeing on the screen is different than the. The checklist I think the checklist is the stops basically that's why I was just taking to the checklist because but if you know if you want to put up though, if you want to put up though. Should I do it. Can I do it. Yeah, the checklist or the whole plan. I think the plan number four. I did simplify after the plan number four. Yeah, if you can go down. If you go down to, yeah, let's just let's go through the purpose. Yeah, if you go through, like some of the problems that people mitigate delays conflict some of these things, especially in other issues that are more involved like zoning and stuff. If we can find create a process where we are engaging people earlier in the process, increasing awareness that hey with the town council is talking about this and trust me I know I have been to the housing buildings with Darcy in the first round where we went and had our district meetings in the apartment buildings and even then only three people showed up I went and knocked on people's doors hey we have the and we send the management. The management put up notice that your district councils are going to be coming we coordinated with the management and everything and even then three people came. And so, and when I spoke to them they were like yeah we just too busy and you know people are disconnected they don't care they don't have the time they don't even know why they should care. So there's a lot. So, in parallel that's why I wrote in the community engagement how we can increase some of the, that's one of the obstacles and how we're going to increase it is what this committee participation officers are already doing by hosting all these different community events. I need and I think the counselors showing up in at least some counselors showing up for all of these different events is another way for people to build trust that these are your local representatives and so making sure that all of these events we are announcing today we represent you we are here for you to take care of your needs and so forth so I think that's on the side that's an important piece of building that relationship with the community and getting them were involved. But in terms of the process itself, moving down a little bit more, you know, moving down this is more just the background human centered approach. These are some of the, we can anticipate these are going to be some obstacles how do we even reach the different stakeholders who are disconnected completely and so forth and the more we can start utilizing our connections with the community leaders and nonprofits and so forth. It's going to be perfect at the get go it's just like we're setting an intention to do it in that way. Okay balancing the whatever he's spoken about that, moving down. Managing expectations, I think that's another thing people keep, you know, many people like Oh, the community is a council is not doing it's not transparent so I'm doing enough job for community engagement. So putting it out there that we had this conversation and we tried and six people came to that listening session so we had a listening session and we've trying to do our best and so maybe utilizing some of the channels like we can do it in the community or mass live or does that but not as paid but more can they do a piece on it that the town is working as an article or something, you know, so those are just some ways we can try to. So is this the checklist. So this is not the checklist this is just the explanation. These are the up this was the purpose of why this plan is good this is some obstacles we can anticipate. Right, no, I mean I read this in the packet. Yeah, okay, okay, so going. Okay, so time is going forward, you know, the checklist is just that. Oh boy, that looks weird. Okay, yeah, because I've gotten knocked out. Okay, so this is the communication process and this is the step 12345. This. So this is the process. And the checklist is basically under each of these there are those suggested questions. So this whole thing is just in paragraph form and then I condensed it into a checklist. So that's. We can just go all the way down to the checklist, perhaps. So what you're saying is that you're not asking for all of those questions to be required. No, no, no, no, these were suggested the questions. That's what is explained above in it or somewhere is that the questions are just suggestions that here are some kind of questions you can ask the main question though that I would like every committee or sponsor or town council to answer is what is the problem resolving for and then how we and these are some questions below that can help us answer that question. But every committee can choose to maybe we just do a single thing the town staff needs it or like speeding like speed bumps is like, yeah, we've heard a lot of problem, you know, is safety issues around vulnerable population so it can be a simple answer. So that folks have brought things forward where they haven't clarified the problem that they're trying to solve. That happened in the rental registration rental registration by law where we went back and forth several times, because we started off with this is what we're doing but then what they were suggesting and at some point we broke off into nuisance by law and the rental registration and because people were like, yeah, so you know that's not what we are solving for in this by law, but that's an important question that we can. So, yeah. And then this helps to design the community engagement whether it's a survey or whatever is that we're not asking all possible questions about everything, but focused on questions that will help us make policy decisions related to the problem before. So, okay, so my recommendation was, can we adopt the main questions like step one, what is the problem we're solving for scrolling down step two. What do we know and not know. And so this will make sure that we are drawing upon like this so much like we did the charats and whatnot with the community engagement around the downtown development whatever. In other situations we have these older consultant reports and whatnot so this is just making sure that we have documented everything that's already done so we don't repeat what we already know. So what do we know and not know is about God. Maybe do we need to engage let's see there's that question for you do we need to engage the community it doesn't sound good because we and I remember you saying of course we have to we have to engage the community that's not even a good question. However, there will be points where we don't like especially if it's a simple. Maybe we don't say do we need to but what is the level of engagement with the community because even having an a public comment is a community to engage so it's not like we're not engaging but it's what is the level of community engagement we need. Can I ask a question. So what form do you see this taking is this something that you see as a format in a memo that folks bring forward something that I'm still stuck on how we adopt this not as a rule of procedure. And I maybe I guess I'm looking for guidance on Athena from Athena. Wouldn't this be part of the rules. Wouldn't this be part of the rules of procedure sorry I think I can wait until you're ready no worries. It could be adopted as a policy. It doesn't have to be a role if it's just a series of questions that that the committee is recommending the council put into like the requirements for committee reports. I think that those questions be included in committee reports that would be one way of approaching it. It could be a separate policy. But if it were to be a rule then you would want to recommend like a specific, you know, we want to insert these words into the rules of procedure, so that it's really clear to the council what action you're you're recommending they take. Thank you. Okay. So the next comment stand on this is, and then I'd love to hear from the other committee members kind of where they're at right now. I think that what you've designed it would be really good to share with counselors as general thoughts and, oh, sorry, I think I just froze. No, we can hear you. I feel like this would be, in my opinion, a good thing to share as general kind of ideas for best practice but I'm really struggling with the idea of making this a required policy for all of the reasons that have been stated but because these questions are so subjective and broad, and they need to be right for by the nature of this design, but I don't see how I guess I'm really struggling to see this put into a systematic practice the way that it's illustrated now. And I am, I'm going to keep thinking on it right I mean I read this prior to the meeting and thought into it but I guess I'm curious to hear from Dorothy and Andy and then I do want to wrap this up the next five minutes because I know a couple but I'm curious to hear from Dorothy and Andy kind of what what you would where you would like to see this go. In terms of what changes do you think need to be made it do you think changes need to be made, etc, etc, and do and and again what is the problem we're trying to solve for by implementing this process, Dorothy. So, the question list is a much shorter piece of work than the full report. I agree that it should not be a requirement. One of the reasons is when I said before consultants of consultants, there is the premise whether it's true or not is irrelevant that they are totally objective, and that they will reach the quote whatever the truth is right. So, we are representative. And that means that we may not all agree on many of the ideas or concepts that we come up with. So, we can't, I, we can't necessarily say to come to agreement on all of these would just take too much time, but I do think that they're really a good list of questions. So, the more concise form of the questionnaire. And for best practices. I think I think it should be, you know, something disseminated in the in the committees to say these are some some thoughts and ideas. It's pretty thorough that we may want to look at and think about before we deliberate, but I wouldn't go more specific than that. Because I do believe that decision making really isn't art, and that each of us come and bring other things and that's why we vote. You know, we very rarely. Well, not very rarely, but on certain issues, we don't all just wait till we have a sense of the meeting or the Quaker, everybody agreeing. We go ahead and do and the vote has, you know, it's going to go or it's not going to go right. So I'm very positive about your work here, but I don't think I want it to be a required checklist. That's my thought. Andy, do you have anything you'd like to share. I think that I'm in the same place of Dorothy just said it. I'm not comfortable making it a required checklist at this point. I think give a lot more consideration to the consequences of doing that and if we did when it would apply. There are things that has been pointed out that we are required to hit to address and we don't really have a choice. They usually come up to see most frequently. It seems in DPW is realm because whether it be or planning for that matter flood mapping is another one I mean we had to do mapping. It wasn't like it was a discretionary thing. The same with some of the stormwater regulations that the federal government is requiring of local communities. Those were just things that had to happen. We really need to give some consideration to. If we had a checklist when the checklist gets used and for what, you know, what purpose. On the other hand, I think that the entire piece is very helpful because it's worth sitting down it was worth my sitting down and I think it would be worth everyone sitting down and thinking about what community engagement is about. And I think this is really help formulate that thinking in a way that we haven't really dealt with before in an order in this organized a passion. Thank you Andy, and I think that the question what is the problem we're solving for that supposed to then tell us whether we go to the next steps like are they any legal or regulatory requirements. Or if it's coming from the staff and other resources to deal with this issue. So the first question itself is supposed to give an indicator whether we need to pursue the rest of the checklist or not. So it's not like in every case we have to answer every single question. The main question is like starting with what is the problem we're solving for and where is it coming from is it the staff who's saying flood plains or a legal requirement we have to adhere to this. And, and then, and then like Andy as he pointed out I think it's important to give that set of questions maybe to the town council that before they assign it to the committees to go through that process. So I think that's one big takeaway for me is like maybe we move some of these questions and then maybe I can send it to GOL because that would be maybe under their purview to look into something like that. So I can take this and send it to either Lynn or GOL, whatever, to look at how that can be incorporated as a decision making tool. And then, in terms of what I would ultimately hope to see is not the exact eight questions under each but just that the committees are acknowledging like what is information we have and not have even just that like I think that's part of a normal process we all should be having. If you're not doing this then someone is doing it right the sponsors are doing it generally like what do we know we look at other bylaws suggest documenting like hey I looked at San Francisco. I looked at Arlington I looked at these different cities and this is where I'm getting this information from. So just having a robust documentation of what we're doing and not repeating things. But I think the bigger question for me is definitely the what is a problem we're solving for because that guides the rest of the agenda and then who is being impacted. In that sense like which other committees that we need to approach, and having a system even if we don't agree with everything else I think for TSO and all the committees we need to have a very logical way of reaching out to not logical but official we're reaching out to committees, and then acknowledging and sending them a report back. Thank you. That sounds good I'm happy to yeah I think it sounds like we're relieving this is that it might make sense to break it up into a couple parts. But I think that the question of committee engagement is is almost could be its own separate question, because I think that sometimes we have committees sometimes we have residents who aren't on committees and yet. We want right sometimes experts. Experts are not right I mean I think that's to the question of, I mean I'll point to one of the one of the residents who's had a lot of significant input into policies that I've been working on isn't necessarily an expert in that field because of experience and so I think we need to be careful how we define expert. And so I think it sounds like it might be something that you bring back either to TSO or you bring to the Council to refer to GOL as a recommendation for a Council policy on on engagement. Generally, I don't I, you have a different motion that you wanted to make tonight I will I mean I'm not necessary I'm not comfortable voting on the motion that was presented to make it. I think that's your absolute your product. No, no, no, we I mean that was just to get it started but I'm hearing different things and I'm happy to speak with like bring this to win and see if she wants to send it to or I don't know what. Okay, break up. So, are you saying that you're going to, you're going to bring it back as a as a rule change or as a policy. I think that definitely not a rule change I don't want it to be complicated or anything but I was just thinking that the first part that Andy was suggesting that that could be a set of questions at the Town Council can use in deciding whether a proposal goes to a committee or not, because right now we're just sending all the proposals, mostly, they end up going to committees. So this could be a process of finding out from the town and the staff and you know what, how much bandwidth does this town have to take on this project and where can we put it on the priority list because everything that everyone's bringing is important, but it's just, is it a priority. So, I can speak with you Athena afterwards, if you. Well, I'm just, I'm wondering what you'd like the committee to do at this point and where you'd like to take it afterwards because if it's, if it's something that you want to consider, then that's not really their realm to get into a substantive discussion about outreach that's really. So then it is. So I'm just trying to figure out if you want to do something with it tonight or if you want to just folks to think about it and talk about it again next time or. Okay, so I think what would be helpful is one I will definitely reach out to the first part which Andy said to Lynn and ask her if that's something how do we bring that into Council for consideration before sending out that's just part one of that checklist that question one. So you'd like that that first set of questions to be considered by the Council before or at the time that they decide to make a referral. Yes. Is that something you'd like this committee to recommend the Council take up. Oh, so, yeah, I don't know. Is this something Johnny that you're bringing up as a committee member was this referred to us through the Council. I think that's what I'm also I'm stuck on that a little bit too of like, how to. It's coming up. Yes, it's coming up. What is the problem we're solving for and where did this come from. Yeah, I understand the problem that you're referencing but I think, yeah, we typically have a process for how we as committees deal with things and so I'm just trying to figure out. Yeah, got to us are we supposed to report it back to Council, or if it wasn't referred, should it be referred to the committees before the committee spends you spent substantive time on it. Right. Yeah. If I if I may. Yeah, yeah. Yes, Athena, go ahead. So it's part of the committee's charge to make recommendations to the Council regarding outreach. It's it's in your name and the Andy, Andy can tell you that the previous iteration of TSO didn't have capacity to really address that part of this committee's charge so my understanding was that Shawnee was bringing into this committee as part of the committee's outreach. Right side of their work. In my mind it would seem appropriate if the committee wanted to make a recommendation to the Council that they consider those questions beforehand but again, you know, just, just recommending that the Council think about those can get those questions before voting on a referral is sort of a nebulous action to take because you're not adopting something formal you're not, you're not codifying it or rule it's just think about this thing so. So if you want to chat before the next TSO meeting and see if we can kind of come up with something that the Council can act on, if that's what you're trying to do, then we can talk about that before the next meeting and we can take this up again. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Does that mean hypothetically that TSO could just start talking about any town service without getting it referred to us and advise the Council on it without getting a referral. In the committee's charge it says advise the Town Council on matters that broaden participation and ensure regular and transparent communication and outreach to residents of Amherst. So it's pretty specific about what that entails it's not like just talk about any town service it's, it's about communication and outreach to residents. I'm looking at the, I think I'm looking at the purpose not the charge. Right so in the charge under right under the purpose the very. The purpose has the purpose and I had to, I had to look good look good. There's a link to the actual charge. Yeah. So, so under the charge section of the charge TSO shall and then there's a town resource town services section, and then it's the first bullet in the outreach and community relations section. Right. Okay. And I didn't mean to speak for you I just figured you're a member. And thank you so much for that clarification at the end terms of what we need to do and all but again I suggest that we break, we think about two aspects of this the first question is, can we, would you all be willing to make some sort of a recommendation of recommending to the town council to adopt this first set of questions before sending things off to the committee and then the second thing I'd like to invite you all to think of just the broader level of questions to look at that. And the best of the questions can be we can offer them separately as a chat as suggested questions but just look at the broader questions the five questions that we have what is a problem, what do we know who's who's affected by it. And would you be willing to suggest that as a set of questions that all committees looks through because I have heard from several committee other town committee members and the public. There is a lot of confusion about how we're handling things so I'm not just making this up for the sake of making it up and because I love design centered thinking, or human centered approach but I think this is something we need to we still a new form of government and to create processes, not to make them cumbersome, but actually to streamline things. I'm going to create the list of channels tool so that it becomes faster. So I think yes streamlining sounds great. I want to take a couple questions and Athena will I'm going to defer to you first and then Dorothy. So Athena go ahead. Please let Dorothy you should have been ready. I know Dorothy thank you for being patient go ahead Dorothy. So I do think that the clarification of the role of TSO is important we certainly did acknowledge. I think I've been on this committee twice that we hadn't really done it. However, I agree with the comments that we that requiring it would present some insuperable problems for many committees. But I think it does behoove us to suggest that this is an instrument that you can use as you wish. It's a great checklist of questions and go through them and I can't I can't believe any committee would not find one or two things which they hadn't thought of and say, ah, I think we should do this. But that still leaves it very much in their hands. So, giving them a tool and they decide how to use it and I think that very nicely. They would be, they would be grateful. Thank you Dorothy. I happen to agree with you. So I do want to wrap this up Shawnee what do you need in order to move forward. So, I will come back with what I've heard and break it up into two different motions for two different things. And we can pick it up and then another meeting. And meanwhile I really encourage you all to read, maybe just go through the checklist because if the whole thing feels really cumbersome and really long the plan that's why I'd meet a separate motion sheet in the checklist. So just look at the checklist and see out of that. What do you think would be helpful, not intimidating, but helpful so we can pin it out maybe the checklist we can remove the suggested questions but it's separate, but just have that higher order questions that this is what Athena. Thank you. I got it. Thank you. Athena. I would just ask that if, if you have time to meet beforehand that would be terrific, but I think thinking about what action you'd like the council to take because yeah, Dorothy's suggestion was, I think, for the council to consider those questions and that's again, a sort of fuzzy, a fuzzy action. So if it's something that you're asking the council to adopt as a policy or to make sure that there's some sort of report about outreach or community engagement and committee reports then we would want wording to include that in the rules. So, I know that this, that's a very hard and fast. We need something to vote on, but you need something to vote on if you'd like this to be carried forward from council to council and not just presented like think about these things. And as you do your work, which I agree that it's terrific and would be really useful but in order to sort of codify that into a formal thing that exists within the town and we should do that in a formal way. Yeah. Yep. Thank you very much. Next thing, ironically, it's community engagement and we're not doing any community engagement around this plan and getting feedback from people. But, you know, I think that's another reason that we should like maybe send it out like, you know, we can send this package to other people that we know in our community and get feedback, maybe. Yeah, I mean, do you want to do you want to wait until we've kind of settled on like the two pieces of it and then totally. Yeah. I mean, well, I will try to send it out and if you all want to share it with, because it's, I don't think we, I really want us to get feedback and I wanted to be manageable I've been in this position so I don't want it to be cumbersome of course. But let's just stay open to different things and see how we can streamline it and make it minimal but useful. Thank you, Athena. One more quick thing. I'll stop raising my hands. I would suggest that on it if you're going to be writing the committee report for Monday's meeting with the recommendations on the town manager appointments that you could include a link to the engagement plan and and include that in your report to the counselor so they can take a look at it and give any feedback. So before your next meeting. Sure. Thank you. All right, great. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Shawnee for the robust presentation and looking forward to the continued discussion definitely great questions in there. We do not have the approval of the minutes tonight but we will have those next time. I do not have any announcements other than that. We'll be back at our next meeting. Does anyone have any other announcements. Yeah, Shawnee. I saw your actual hand. It's okay that you. Okay. So, wait, there were conflicts with two potential dates in the future, or at least one, at least where the League of Women voters. And so, can we do a survey and I know Nika is not here so we can do that now, but we may have to shift because I, we really need all the TSO meetings and can't cancel anymore so. Yep, so I believe that the League of Women voters has changed their dates of their forum. Oh goody. Okay. They have moved them and this is a good announcement. Okay. October 5th at 7pm will be the town council district candidates and at 8pm will be the town council at large candidates October 12th at 7pm will be the library trustees and the school committee trustees. So this should have resolved the conflict with town council committee. Okay. Okay. Thank you for raising that. Okay. Does that work? Good. Yeah. Dorothy. Okay, that was so fast. Okay. Okay. So this is October 12th. I have sent out, but I will, I will repeat it slower. The PSO is a meeting at the same time you have the library candidates at 7pm. Yes, unfortunately. I do not do both. I do not arrange the League of Women voters forums. I believe that they shifted it because before this, it was supposed to be town council candidates. But I would say that the candidates are now October 5th at 7 and 8pm. And the library and trust library and school committee candidates are October 12th. Right. What if I wanted to go hear my husband and it's a TSO meeting. Then you may have to be absent from TSO that day. Okay. But I would recommend I would reach out to Sue Lowry Susan Lowry is who I received the emails from I believe she was one coordinating. The League of Women voters events, but that is the, I believe those were the days that they were able to reserve the room that they're going to be in. Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, unfortunately our TSO calendar has been has been set for a for a while now. But hey, on the upside this year we don't interfere with block parties so block party is the 21st block party September 21st in the evening. Today it'll be downtown it is looking like it's going to be a pretty incredible event so lots of local restaurants. If folks missed it today we celebrated the opening of white lion brewery I am personally just very excited that there's a brewery downtown again. I was reminiscing over going to ABC as a kid with my family, but I never got to partake in any of the. I was downtown so because I was a wee child anyway. Those are my announcements breweries and block parties. Any other announcements from other folks, things coming up that we should know about Dorothy. Well, the UMass had a kind of student street fair for students and residents on Fearing Street. And despite a very slow start and ended up being very well attended. And by the time I left to come here, the music had gotten quite loud, and it seemed to be everyone was having a good time but there's some lovely young people, students actually went out and sought engagement with us residents, which was interesting. And Paul showed up there too and so was Jennifer Moisten and Chris was there with a good attendance and so it was it was pretty good I think it was a lot better than last years. So, the young guy Joseph Maspo perhaps had really worked hard he had gone he knocked on every single door. He really, really had worked very hard getting that thing set up and he had some good people. He works at UMass or is he. He's UMass. Yeah, he's been doing it for a couple of years and I guess you know sometimes you keep doing it and after a while they show up. He used to be a COVID ambassador. Then we're over to UMass. Okay. That's right. Yeah. That update anything else. All right, folks, we got a marathon of meetings in September, so I will see you all on Monday. Thank you. Good job at the meeting today. Thank you. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned at 838. Thank you.