 All right. Go ahead. Okay. Good evening. It is February 27, 2023. And this is the first of three meetings tonight. This is the public forum regarding an appropriation outside the annual budget, specifically for the centennial water treatment facility. We will use the same link for the entire evening. On November 7, 2022, an act was signed into law, which extends the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law. This allows us to hold meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at a meeting location while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. This meeting is accessible in real time by a zoom by phone. This is a live broadcast on Amherst media channel 17. And through their live stream as well. Given that we have a quorum of the council present. I am calling the February 27th, 2023 town council meeting to order at 531. I'm calling the public forum to order at 531. I'll call upon each counselor, although they're not required to be here for this meeting. I'm not sure that many of them are. So when I call your name, please respond by saying present. And we'll continue on when you're done, please make sure you mute your mic again. Shalini Balmille. Pat DeAngelis. Present. Devon got here. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Joe Hanakie. Anika Lopes. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Marini. Here. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Jennifer. Here. And is Alicia here and let's make sure we check the audience. She's not. Okay. Andy, do you have a quorum of the finance committee present? And I think you do. I believe we do. And I need to. Ask Bob Hegner if he can hear and be heard. Yes, president. So we have a quorum of the finance committee present in the finance committee is called order. Okay. Thank you. There's no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know. And to make a comment or ask a question, use the raise hand function. If technical difficulties arise, a result of utilizing remote participation will decide how to handle that situation. Discussion may have to be suspended in the minutes. We'll have to note that there was a discontinued. Effort. I see a hand up, Jennifer. I see Alicia in the audience. Thank you so much for letting us know that we'll bring her in. Alicia. Whoops. Alicia, can you hear us? Alicia Walker. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you so much, Alicia. So with that, we're going to begin with a brief presentation by Sean Mangano and billford mooring. Sean is the finance director. He offered is the superintendent of public works. And this regards. Financial order 23-09 a. Sean. Thank you, Lynn. So I'm sharing my screen to put the order up. Can you see it? Yes. So this is order. I'm going to go back to my screen. I'm going to go back to my screen. I'm going to go back to my screen. This is actually the third forum. I think that we've had focused on Centennial because of rising costs. So most recently there was $18 million that was appropriated for the replacement of the Centennial water treatment plant. When we went out to get construction bids, the bids came in about four and a half to $5 million over the prior cost estimate. And so in order to complete the project, we're proposing is rescinding the prior borrowing authorization of $18 million and replacing it with a new one for $21.5 million, which will cover all the project costs. So the higher costs are the bad news. The good news is that the state who is helping fund this project through the clean water trust fund has offered to increase the loan that they will give us. They're willing to increase it by the eligible construction costs that came in with the most recent bids. And so the benefits of that are that they offer 19.8% loan forgiveness. So with a higher loan, they're going to forgive a larger amount. They also are offering a 1.5% interest rate on a higher portion of the project. So that will help offset the cost. And they also offer a 0% sort of construction financing. So while the project's going on, we don't have to go out and pay interest on the portion that they are financing. So those benefits have helped offset a significant portion of the higher cost. And so there's a memo in the packet that has the order that's being rescinded, the new order, has some information on the construction bids. And there's also an estimate at the end of what we, we believe the additional impact to the water, the water enterprise fund from these, from the additional appropriation here. And I think you, I think you want to add. No, I think he covered it all. Okay. Thank you. With that, I'm going to ask, if people who are in the audience would like to ask a question, make a public comment. With regard to this issue only. The floor is now open until we close this session at 545. Let me just note there's four attendees in the audience. I also want to welcome Amy. Who is the assistant superintendent for department of public works. Again, if there's anybody in the audience who would like to make a public comment about the centennial facility and this appropriation, please raise your hand. You're going to get tired of hearing me say that. I'm sorry. I just wanted to mention that the finance committee has already voted to recommend this to the town council. Sub subject to any discussion this evening. And as Sean has explained, this is the third time. This particular facility. And borrowing has come up because of the ongoing increases in cost. So I'm looking for public comment. With regard to the centennial water facility. We'll remain in this session until 544. The adjourn and then we'll go immediately. Into the next public forum. This is a public forum on centennial water treatment facility. Required by the charter. At this point there are four people in the audience on zoom. But there are. Others that may be watching through Amherst media on channel 17. We'll go through their live stream. This is the public forum for the centennial water treatment facility. We'll have the public forum for this open for another minute or so. But don't go away because we'll be using this same link. For the next public forum and for the council meeting. Athena, I'm told that channel 17 is airing the February 21st meeting. And is not live with this meeting. So I'll make sure you check on that. Thank you. I'm checking. I say that they're not here. Right. We are going to. Be closing this public forum. I'm actually the council and finance committee will be in the next public forum. So I'm not. Do roll call again unless we have an additional person who joins us. So for the purposes of this meeting. This public forum is closed. The next public forum will open at 545. So this is actually the beginning of a new meeting. Good evening. It's February 27th, and this is the public forum on appropriations outside the annual budget specifically as it relates to the recommendations of the Community Preservation Act committee with regard to their allocations this year. This is the second meeting tonight and we'll be using the same link as we did before, as well as we will for the council meeting, which will begin. I do not see any additional counselors present. At this point, there are. We'll leave. 11 of us in the room. Andy, the finance committee is continuing to be in session. Yes, it is. And I assume that we'll have a minute at the end of the second forum to see if there's any member of the finance committee who has a motion to reconsider in light of the forums. Yes, thank you. All right. With that, I'm going to go on and I'm going to call on. Sam McLeod, who is chair of the CPA committee, and I want to take the opportunity to thank Sam and all the members of the CPA committee and the finance staff that are provided assistance and guidance to the committee as they've made their decisions this year. Sam. We're going to show the purchase order and if you'll proceed. Thank you, Lynn, and thank you all counselors for all the hard work you do. And thank you for inviting me to briefly comment. I've been asked to be very brief. And so I'm just going to focus on the slide that's presented to the actual order. The committee had a lot of projects this year and delivered aid very thoroughly. And what's going to be displayed is the slate of projects that is recommended by our committee for approval. We're asked for more funds than we had available and this is the output of our process. Essentially, you're looking at 11 projects here in community housing, historic preservation and open space. There was one other project that would be listed in a separate authorization for bonding of the Fort River school. There is a full report that we submitted as a committee to the town council and town manager. I believe that's in the packet that can be read by those who may or may not have interest. Separately, there was a presentation at the previous finance committee meeting on February 21. In essence, the total appropriation recommended by the CPA committee for fiscal year 2024. Starting next July is 2,793,419. That's in bold near the bottom here. That's the actual expenditures, not just the new projects, but funds from previous projects that have annual payments. Right below that, you'll see the total recommended from this year's project of 2,349,959. That's the sum of all the amounts above. And then the remaining balance is 443,460, which is debt service from previous projects. Again, the full delineation of the descriptions, the projects and the votes and totals are in the CPA report as submitted in this packet and in other town council meetings. I won't go into detail on each of the individual projects other than that. But I think it's important to note that the committee was in struggling favor of most all of these. One of them was a six to two vote, which was the last total. So that's it. Unless there are questions and thank you. Let's show the other order because that is related to the fields. At Fort River. And it's contingent upon the debt authorization. So that's the final order. And that's the final order on May 2nd. My comment on this would be that. The original request came in at $3 million and then was. Lowered to 2.2 million. The committee deliberated and the. Recommended total given the current constraints is for a total sum of 700,000. Two members. They were not being in favor of this particular project. There are reasons were based on fact that it was a private citizens. As opposed to town entities. That there were potential other sorts of funds specifically the override vote. And they, those two members thought that the. The, the annual expenditures might prevent future projects from going forward. I just wanted to reference that, but the committee voted six to two in favor of this authorization. Strongly in favor of it. So that's a 10 year bond to my understanding. Thank you. And Sam, I believe you mentioned that our finance committee meeting. That the schools in fact. Did voice their support for this project. Is that cool? Yeah. Yeah. I watched the school committee meeting. There was a deliberation and a four to zero vote by the school committee in favor strongly. It's a favor of this and the Crocker farm. Playgrounds. Project, which was withdrawn. In addition, the superintendent of schools, Mike Morris expressed his broad support for this project. So both. I think that's a great. Thank you. And I'm happy that those two members have, I'm happy that they've expressed and endorsed this. A specific project. Okay. Thank you. The floor's now open for public comment with regard to the community preservation act. Recommendations this year. If you'd like to make a comment, please raise your hand. It's required by charter that a public form be held for anything outside the. required by the forum that we provide as much time for the public to speak, as we have provided for introductions to the issue. While we're doing this, Shalini Balmillan has joined us. Shalini, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Sorry for delay. No problem. Again, I'm looking for public comment with regard to the recommendations from the Community Preservation Act Committee. This is the public forum for the Community Preservation Act recommendations, and I'm looking for public comment. About four more minutes left of this public forum before we asked whether the finance committee, as anybody who wants to reconsider our recommendation, at this point, we are focused on the recommendations of the Community Preservation Act Committee for the 12 projects that they have recommended to the Council. I'm looking for any final comments from the audience. We have seven people in the audience on Zoom, and we hope others on Amherst Media. I want to note that Councillor Mandy Joe Hannity has joined us. Mandy Joe, can you hear us? Yes. Thank you. It's now 5.58. We've had no comments with regard to this public forum, which is specifically related to the CPA recommendation. Andy, I want to turn it over to you and ask you to proceed with the finance committee. Yes, I'll be presumably very quick, but maybe not, depends upon what happens, but let me just make an explanation to the rest of the Council and to the public, because we are in a position as a finance committee to vote prior to the public forum, which is when the public has its final opportunity to speak on appropriations matters. It is our conclusion that the best practice is to have this as a joint meeting, and if there are public comments that would cause a member of the committee to rethink the position that they had previously taken and would like to have the finance committee reconsider recommendations, then that's what this opportunity is about. And for the public who are watching, there are four orders, two on Centennial, one withdrawing the prior financing and one approving new financing, and those were passed with four councillor members of the committee in favor of one member absent and the three non-voting members who are resident members of the committee in support. On the Community Preservation Act recommendations, there are also two orders that were shown on the screen, one regarding all projects except for the Fort River fields and a separate order in Fort River fields. It has to be separate because it involves borrowing, it has a different requirement for passage, and it was one that was, both of those were voted to recommend these orders to the council, and they were on the vote of five to zero of the voting members, councillor members, two non-voting members in support, one non-voting member absent. So having given that introduction, I'm going to simply ask, is there any member of the finance committee who wishes to make a motion to reconsider any of the four previous votes that I described? Seeing no hands raised, I am going to assume that therefore that there's no request for reconsideration on any of the four orders, and therefore I am going to adjourn the finance committee meeting. Okay, and the forum is now officially closed, and we are going to move on to the regular town council meeting. Okay, since we have been doing this since 5.30, I am going to go through the introduction. Good evening. It is February 27th, 2023. We, I need to just check with Athena before I start. What is the status of Amherst media? I am still waiting to hear back. I haven't heard back from them. Okay, but we are recording it and we are live on Zoom. That's correct. And that is sufficient to meet our requirements. That's correct. Okay, thank you. So on November 7, 2022, an act was signed into law that extends the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law. This allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a forum with the council physically present at a meeting location, while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and we hope Amherst media will be joining us on channel 17. Given that we have a forum with the council present, I am calling the town council meeting of February 27, 2023 to order at 6.03. I will call on each councilor by name. Let me know you are here. And then please mute your mic again. Shalini Balmilne? Present. Pat D'Angeles? Present. Anna Devon-Gothier? Present. Lynn Griezmerz? Present. Mandy Johanicki? Present. Annika Lopes? Present. Michelle Miller? Present. Dorothy Pam? Here. Pam Rooney? Present. Kathy Shane? I'm here. Andy Steinberg? Present. Jennifer Tobb? Jennifer Tobb. She's coming from very far away. She may have a bad signal. Right. I see that she's still in the meeting. Let's wait to see. Alicia Walker? Thank you. Jennifer, can you hear us? Let's just note for the record that Jennifer Tobb may be having connectivity issues. She is trying to speak but apparently we can't hear her. Okay. Thank you for letting me know that, Pam. Jennifer, can you hear us? You may want to log out and log back in. She says she can hear you. Okay. But we need to be able to hear her in order to have her recorded as participating. So I'm again going to suggest, Jennifer, that maybe you should log out and try logging back in and also check your sound to make sure you're not muted and that you're using the right speakers. We're going to proceed and just note that Jennifer at this point is trying to connect so that we can fully hear her and she can fully hear us. But at this point she seems to be able to hear us but we are not able to hear her. Okay. We're going to go do the announcements and just note we have a council meeting coming up in one week. We also have a full boat of committee meetings coming up and there are district meetings. There's already been one in district five just this last Saturday. I know that they're planning another one and there are a large variety of meetings scheduled both in districts and at other locations with regard to the school, the proposed elementary school. Okay. With that, Athena, are we ready with the hearing for the resource petition for the poll placement? That was posted for 615 so we can take care of a couple of other things before we get to that. Okay. Then why don't we go on to general public comment. This is the only general public comment for the evening. If you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. There are two people showing their hands at this time, three. Are there any other people who would like to make general public comment? Okay. You're welcome to express your views for up to three minutes and based upon the number of people who wish to speak. At this point I'm only seeing three hands. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on the matter raised during general public comment. The first person, if you'll bring them in, please, is Martha Hanner. Martha, please state your name and where you live. Martha Hanner, district five, speaking on behalf of the Amherst League of Women Voters Racial Justice Committee. We support increased stipends for town councilors and reimbursement for the cost of child care or other family care. Diversity in town governance is a key part of the town council's commitment to the goals of racial equity, justice and inclusion. Diverse perspectives within our governing bodies, including perspectives of working families with children, are important for representative decision making that will benefit all of our residents. However, many of our residents experience barriers to serving on the town council or other town committees. Participation requires a large commitment of time, as you all well know, long night meetings and the significant additional time to become well informed about the wide ranging issues that town council deals with. Time is a luxury for many working families that they do not have. Moreover, it can be expensive if members need to pay for family care in order to attend meetings and town events. Increased stipends and family care reimbursement can help reduce the barriers to participation in town government and provide more accessibility for all residents to participate. The league recommends that family care reimbursement and a small stipend be considered for our town boards and committees as well to attract more diverse members and allow them to devote the necessary time to serve well. We urge the council to move forward with this proposal. Thank you. Martha, thank you for your comment. I see that Jennifer Taub has now come in and through another means. So I'm going to ask Jennifer, can you hear us? I can hear you. Thank you. Okay. So please have the record show that. Sorry. Thank you. The next person to speak in public comment is Jennifer Ritz Sullivan. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hello everyone. My name is Jennifer Ritz Sullivan. I live in Goshen. I'm a former resident of Amherst and I'm the COVID Justice Leader for Marked by COVID Massachusetts. Marked by COVID is a grassroots nonprofit leading the national movement for pandemic justice and remembrance. It's founded by and for those most harmed. And we promote health equity and pandemic prevention. We are all volunteers. As a working class, disabled, immune compromised person with an essential worker husband and someone who is also COVID bereaved, the pandemic continues to impact my family as it does to the millions of others who have been marked by COVID. I am the daughter of early dawn Demetriatus, an artistic, compassionate warrior who dedicated most of her life to working with children. My 66 year old mom caught COVID before the vaccines. She spent the last two weeks of her life slowly suffocating to death, isolated in an ICU alone in December of 2020. I was separated from my family and friends and we were forced to carry our grief alone without the rituals of community and memorialization that bring us comfort in times of loss. HD 3821, which was introduced by representatives Dome and Blay, calls for the first Monday in March to be a day of remembrance for COVID in Massachusetts. And it's mirrored at a federal level by legislation introduced by Senators Warren and Marquis calling for a COVID Memorial Day on the first Monday in March. Additionally, over 185 cities in 36 states have enacted COVID Remembrance Day resolutions. The language is primarily written by the COVID bereaved community with the members being essential and from line workers, others long haulers, many coming from disproportionately harmed communities including people of color, low income, disabled and high risk individuals. We see this day as a day to unite as COVID has impacted everyone. We see it as a day to extend gratitude to those essential workers who continued to help our communities and also a day of remembrance for those we've lost to COVID as well as those struggling with long COVID. This day and remembering the losses that continue to happen will assist with future pandemic prevention. We cannot prevent what we are unwilling to acknowledge. We must remember the over 24,000 COVID deaths in our state and the over 1.13 million nationally to heal and I hope that Amherst will join us in that remembrance. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, Jennifer. Lauren Mills, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Good evening, Lauren Mills. I live on a long metal drive and my son would like to make a public comment. My name is Jamai Parker. I am a seventh grader at the Amherst Middle School. I like soccer, football, and I am currently playing basketball. I would like the time to consider plans for a youth center for kids like me, a youth center that is a place to build relationships, mentorship, and friendships. Through sport, culture, and recreation, life is not a game or a gamble. When youth are supported academically and in their goals for the future, sports can teach us a lot about life in ourselves and when mistakes and obstacles come not to. We need the time to use the funds that we set aside for a youth center to be used for that purpose. Thank you. Thank you for joining us this evening. I see no other hands for public comment and so at this point public comment is closed. Athena, it's still not time, right? I have 615 now so we can go ahead with the public hearing if you'd like. Right. Is there anybody from Eversource with us? I don't see anybody. I'm expecting someone but I don't see them right now. I can send an email and check. All right. Given that I'm going to go on to the consent agenda so if you could put that up on the screen please do so. Mandy, Joe, you have your hand up. Yeah. The consent agenda includes the petition so could we maybe just talk about the resolutions that you normally do first to hopefully finish the hearing before we do the consent agenda? Excellent. Excellent suggestion. All right. We're going to go on to item 6. We are actually referring the Tibetan National Uprising Day Proclamation back to GOL because the sponsors have asked for some additional language. GOL will discuss that at their meeting on Wednesday and it will come back to the Council on the 6th in time for us to have it completed for their event which is on March 10th. So with that we're going to go on to the other one which is relevant to one of our speakers this evening and that's the COVID-19 victims and survivors Memorial Day resolution. This was submitted by community members as well as Pat D'Angeles and I've asked Pat to read the last portion of the resolution. Yeah and I want to thank Jennifer and Mark by COVID for coming forward and bringing this to the town of Amherst. I'm going to go straight to the final therefore is what the resolution is about. Now therefore be it resolved that the Town Council recognizes the first Monday of each March as COVID-19 Memorial Day in remembrance of those marked by COVID, those who have lost their lives and in honor of those who continue to suffer from the impacts of this virus. Be it further resolved that the Town Council urges local residents to continue taking preventative measures as appropriate to protect vulnerable members of the community and to mitigate spread of the virus, contribute to essential workers and those who rose in service to protect the public. Thank you Pat. Tina I'm still not seeing anybody from Eversource. I think we should go ahead. All right. Do we need to vote on the resolution? No the resolution's on the consent agenda. Okay thank you. Unless it gets pulled off of the consent agenda is there anybody that's pulling this resolution off of the consent agenda? No. All right then I'm going to open the hearing for the Eversource poll petition. This is a petition where they are replacing one poll and adding one poll. You have in your packet a memo from them which includes a map and you also have a memo from Guilford Mooring. Are there any questions from the council? Andy? I just wanted to ask whether there's anyone in the attendee group who represents Eversource? No. I sent the representative a Zoom invitation and I don't see him either in panelists or attendees. I've sent an email. Right. Thank you. Okay. Jennifer. I mean Pam Rooney. Right. Thanks. So if the if the representative isn't here I'm not sure they can answer this question but the abandoned poll on the north side of Meadow Street says abandoned poll to Verizon cut down five feet. Is that poll just simply going to be left there? I would hope not. Guilford can you answer that question? Yes I can. We believe the poll is going to go away. The poll has a service which goes to the Rise Building but we don't think they're actually using that service so if that service is not being used then the whole poll will be pulled out. Pam is that any other question? That was a thank you. Okay. I'm looking to see if there's any other councilor questions. Anna? I'm having the same problem Pam was having of I don't know if this question makes sense to ask if there's no one here to answer it but I you know I mean I think and I apologize if I'm a bit of a broken record here. We should be burying as many polls as we can and I'd like to know if this could be buried and if not why it cannot be. Guilford do you maybe know? Yeah. Guilford. So this is actually a main circuit. It comes from the substation on Meadows Street or sorry 116 close to the Sunderland town line. The poll line comes from the north so it comes from the top of the page. There's two circuits, two primary circuits not residential circuits or secondary circuits on this line and all they're doing is trying to realign it and make it a little cleaner. Right now there's another the circuit gets to the road from coming to the woods and one circuit crosses the road and one circuit turns and goes down Meadows Street and that circuit kind of zigzags across Meadows Street by making this change it'll actually be a straight line down Meadows Street and you won't have to have a line crossing the road twice so it actually cleans it up a little bit but because there are primary lines and because this line actually runs through the woods it's not really a very good circuit or there's actually three circuits there they're not very easy to put underground. Are there any other counselor questions this time before I go to ask if there's any questions from the audience? Okay then I'm going to move in oops I see another one and that is Dorothy Pam. It causes my mind that we have the same questions one can the pole be buried and two will this be done in the leaving fewer poles or and it was some interest in what it looks like as well as being efficient. Could there be some kind of protocol? I mean why do we have to go through it each time? Can't we make a statement saying that we would like Eversource to consider these factors and to tell us if they can't meet them why and that would save a lot of time for everybody. So this is a real question. Yeah no Kilford are those questions that you discuss with them? These are questions I do discuss with them. I tell them it'd be much easier if you put it underground and then they can't tell me why they can or cannot. You're going to be getting a poll hearing and probably another couple meetings it actually is all going to be underground because the discussion has been to put things underground. They do listen the only issue we keep coming up with is there's different people assigned to different poll hearings so we talk a lot about it over and over and over again. Yep yep okay thank you. Okay Dorothy thanks for raising the question. I'm going to ask if there's any questions or public comment in favor or against from people in the audience. I'm seeing none and I'm going to come back to the council one more time. Any further questions? Then I'm going to move that we close the hearing. Is there a second? Second Hanneke? Thank you. Seeing no further questions or comments we're going to move to a vote. All you're doing at this point is voting to close the hearing. Shallonee? Yes. Kat DeAngelis? Aye. Anna Devon-Gothier? Aye. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Mandy Jo Hanneke? Aye. Nika Lopes? Aye. Michelle Miller? Aye. Dorothy Pam? Yes. Pam Rooney? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Aye. Jennifer Taub? Yes. Alicia Walker? Alicia? Yes. Alicia I didn't hear you. Are you voting yes to close the hearing? Alicia can you hear us? Alicia can you hear us? All right. Alicia's dropping out and trying to come back in so I will temporarily mark her as absent and we'll make a note. So the vote in this case is 12 in favor and none opposed and one absent. Alicia you're back. Can you hear us? Alicia can you hear us? Yes. Can you hear me now? Yes we can. Thank you so much. Okay. Yeah my vote is yes. Thank you. Thank you. It's unanimous and so we are now going to move on to the consent agenda. The following items were selected although I will be making a modification to the consent agenda. They were selected because they were considered to be routine and passed with no controversy. If you would like to remove an item please raise your hand after I go through the items and then we will decide and then we'll have, I'll redo the motion. So to move the following items and the printed motions they are under and approve those items as a single item. First of all remove the adoption of the of 6a the Tibetan national uprising proclamation. At the same time I also want you to remove all of the minutes at 11 a to e. We are not ready for those this evening. So the items that still remain on the consent agenda are 6b adoption of COVID-19 victims and survivors memorial day resolution 8f approval of ever source petition for pole placements on meadow street 8h authorization of town council present to sign a letter of support in support of the protecting community television act. 8i a proposed amendments to town council rules of procedure rule 1.4 2.1d 3 2.1d 4 10.6 and appendix a and the last is referral proposal for increased counselor stipends and child care costs to the finance committee. Let me just mention on the last one if you have any question as to whether you want this referred at all then please ask that it be removed from the agenda. Andy 8h the letter regarding okay. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments? Okay. I'm sorry 8h. Andy is the letter protecting cable to community television act. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you just for the clarification. With that I'm going to move to the vote pat d'angeles. All right. On a devil and got here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry when I don't think there was a second. Oh, thank you. Please. I need a second second devil and got here. Okay. Thank you. Now we'll move to the vote. Pat d'angeles. I'm on a devil and got here. I when grease mers and I'm Andy Joe hannity. I need the lobes. I'm Michelle Miller. I I. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Amaruni. Hi. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer top. Hi. Alicia Walker. Chalani Bonham. Yes. Thank you. Okay. We are going to continue on to our presentations and discussion. And Anna, you have put together a presentation regarding the role of counselors as non voting liaisons. Sure thing. Athena, would you be able to pull up my deck? So to give folks context while Athena is pulling this up, there have been a couple questions about the role of liaisons in the meetings that they are liaising that they're representing the council at in that way as a liaison. So I put together a quick outline. This is all pulled directly from the council rules of procedure. And I think one of the things that is really important for us to remember as liaisons is that when we are picking committees to be liaisons for it, it's actually less helpful if we're picking committees that we're very personally passionate about, because as liaisons we lose a lot of our ability to engage in certain ways. So for reference, you can look back to the rules of procedure, but the function of the liaison, the way, the reason we have them is that they're there to serve as a link between the council and the committee that they are assigned to. They're there to observe, to share information and answer questions to the degree that they can. They're there to make sure the council is kept appraised of the work that that committee, that body is doing. And they're not there, excuse me, to advocate or promote a particular policy or course of action or stance. Athena, if you can go to the next one. So I tried to put this together in a little chart in case, like me, paragraph form isn't necessarily your favorite. So first one feels obvious liaisons are not permitted to vote as a member of that body, pretty clear liaisons are required to say who they are before they speak the first time, they must say I am on a delinquent there I am the council liaison to this to this group. They are allowed to ask questions and make comments during discussions if they're recognized by the chair. They're not allowed to speak during public comment. So that's the shift there, not shift that's the differentiation there excuse me. They're not permitted to express personal opinions, and they're not permitted to commit the council to action. They also are only allowed to speak if the chair asks them to. So to clarify this Athena if you can go to the next one even more, I thought it might be helpful for us to look at what non liaison counselors can do if they are attending a meeting of a different public body versus what liaisons can do. So liaisons may share information and answer questions if they're asked to. They must report to the council on pending policy or budget recommendations in a timely manner. So you have to come back to us and if your your committee is working on budget recommendations or policy recommendations, they may not advocate or promote a particular policy or course of action. They must identify before first speaking, may not speak during public comment and may not express personal opinions. Those are things that apply just to the liaisons. Both non liaison counselors and liaisons may not speak on behalf of the council. They are welcome to attend meetings but has to be as a member of the audience. So on Zoom that means you are in the attendees not as a member of the meeting, not as a member of the panelists, excuse me. And if it's an in-person meeting, it means you're sitting in the audience not up at the front table and may not commit the council to action. Neither liaisons nor non liaison counselors can do that. Non liaison counselors, the difference is that they are allowed to speak during public comment as a resident. We've had some folks ask for counselors to announce that they are speaking on their own behalf. That's not actually written into our rules of procedure or our charter right now that you have to identify if you are not the liaison, if you are just attending the meeting. But you might consider if it's best practice or not, whether or not you personally decide to do that. So this is where I want to pause right now and see if there are any questions on this. For folks who have liaison committees, I'd ask you to keep these in mind. This is in your packet. You can pull it back up as we are engaging with the different committees that we engage with. Pam, go ahead. Have people been complaining about our participation? There have been a few times that have been brought up where folks feel that counselors are not following the rules of the liaison role, which is what prompted me to do this quick refresh. Did that answer your question? Yep. Michelle. Thank you, Anna. So are all of the rules that you outlined in the presentation and the rules and our rules of procedure, are they per the charter or are they rules that we as a council could change if we wanted to? Yep. These were all pulled from the rules of procedure. So they could, I believe, be shifted unless I am misunderstanding. And I will ask Athena to back me up on that if I'm wrong. But these are all in the rules of procedure. Yeah, I saw them in the rules and there is a reference in the rule on liaisons to the charter, but I tried clicking on it and it didn't take me anywhere. So I think it's good to distinguish between what the charter requires, if anything, on this and what we have control over within our body to change if we wanted to or discuss changing. Sure. Thank you. Athena, I see that your hand is up. Do you have a response? The charter simply says that under non-voting liaisons, the town council may select from among its membership, non-voting liaisons to multiple member bodies, the school committee and or the library trustees. This is in section 2.9B. Yep. Thank you. Jennifer? So a couple questions. So it seems like it is giving up a lot if a council liaison can't speak during public comment. So could they ask to go into the audience? There's still the liaison to that committee. So first off, they should already be in the audience as the liaison. So my question would be, you froze for a second. Could you repeat that? So I mean, could they, okay, so if they're already in the audience, couldn't they speak during public comment and just state that they're speaking for themselves as a resident? My interpretation of the rules that say liaisons may not speak during public comment would be no, that they are there as the liaison, that they can't necessarily switch back and forth. So that would be my interpretation because it pretty clearly says liaisons may not speak during public comment in the rules. But again, those are rules that people can bring forward to be changed if they feel that that's inappropriate. Okay. Thank you. But as of now, that is the rule until changed. And then if we won't start, I'm sorry. Could it be referred to GOL if we wanted to, you know, so that would be for another matter first to have a discussion. I don't know if it's that a retreat if we wanted to revisit this. Sure. So it would go through the same process that the other rules changes that GOL just worked through, went through in terms of bringing that forward. Yes. GOL is still working through those. So I would strongly urge that if you're going to, if you would like to send this to GOL, you do it as soon as possible and make sure that Pat D'Angelois, myself and Athena receive your request. Thank you. Andy. So I just wanted to share that I think that this arose because when the former form of government, the Select Board had liaisons to committees. And it was the conclusion of the Select Board at the time that having a liaison who's in that very special relationship, speaking to the committee, interferes with the appearance of the independence of the committee and the desire to have the committee have full deliberation and not feel that they are being pressured by the, at that point, the Select Board by having the liaison speak on an issue before the committee. And I think that, you know, out of respect for the committee is the amount of time that they put in. In fact, that a lot of times issues could come back before the Select Board as they come back for the council. Now that that was the reason for that rule. When the rules were originally adopted, I believe that former counselor Brewer, who was the other Select Board member in the last Select Board before the changing government, who became a counselor, felt that it should, that the rule had made sense. And for the reasons that I've stated. So I share that with you just so that you have that information as you continue this discussion. Thank you, Andy. Kathy. Having been on the rules committee, I missed the one sentence on, even though it's clearly always been there. So my question, and I will come to GOL tomorrow, is different committees have more than just a public comment period. So for example, the Community Preservation Act Committee has a public hearing before those proposals are closed. And that is quite different than public comment. You're actually people speak in favor, not neighborhoods come in. And I have interpreted, although I've rarely used it, that, you know, example is the Ball Lane housing proposal that was up in district one, and was strongly supported by people up here, when I say up here up in the north. So I think that is different than a public comment more generally. And I'm not sure that committee in particular does have a hearing, you know, so after all of their discussion, then there's a point at which they open it up. So I don't think it is meant to stop all conversations, counselors rarely come in to those hearings because we get a second chance. And, you know, we get to see them. So I just wanted to make that comment about that specific committee. And I would say the planning board sometimes, when they're holding a public hearing is different than when they're having a meeting. I think those are different. And I've never seen that rule of saying you can't open your mouth. Although when we haven't always had a liaison to the planning board, so. Thank you, Athena. This is helpful to have up as we are discussing. Okay. Pam. Has any, have you in this, in this reminder and refresher for us as 10 counselors, have you already thought about refreshing and updating the chairs of these committees that we're talking about? Because I think it would be appropriate if they knew that we are actually able to raise our hand during a discussion period, not necessarily a public comment period, but it would be helpful for them to know that when one sits with one's hand up for 20 minutes, you know, during a conversation that in fact, the liaison might want to say something. And that would be helpful. I think the chairs understand as well. Yeah, I think that's a really good idea. I, you know, I think it's something I'm happy to share this with, with committee or share it with Paul to send to, to chairs of committees with liaisons. I think that would be really helpful. I also think it would, it would be good practice for us as liaisons to share it with the chair when we start to in the beginning of that year long appointment. But yes, that's a great suggestion. Thank you. Any other questions on this? Dorothy? So I'm interested in what problem you're trying to solve with this. And it seems as if you're saying, I would think maybe you should just hire secretaries and send them in to bring a paragraph back. Why would you want a town counselor to attend a meeting at which when they're asked by committee members, they're not allowed to answer or to give an opinion. And when they give a report, they cannot give a opinion. That seems to me would, if you want a really objective report, have a note taker make a report on the committee. That is my suggestion. So I guess I'll answer that in two parts. The first part in terms of what problem I'm trying to solve, we had some requests specifically for this topic to be a refresher. Because there were there were concerns or complaints that that liaisons were not following the rules that we as a council set for ourselves. I think to your second point, that is exactly something that if you feel liaisons should be eliminated as a role from the council, that would be something to bring to GOL and pitch as a rules change. That's that's not the intent of this. The intent of this is not actually to get into what liaisons should be. It's merely just to remind of remind folks what they currently are. And if we want to change that, again, that would go through the process that we talked about just a couple minutes ago in terms of going through GOL to adjust the adjust the rules. I'm just going to add the human factor. A liaison has to attend extra meetings when there's already millions of meetings to attend. And one picks and chooses the committee's one that goes to beyond the ones that that one is on. Why would a counselor add yet another committee to go to if anyone could do it? Really briefly also I want to address liaisons do not actually have to attend the meetings live in person. They just need to be appraised of what's happening on the committee. So this is according to our rules. Again, if you'd like to change that, we can change those. I am the messenger here, y'all. I'm just repeating the rules. If you have to find out by watching the meeting, that's time. If somebody gives you a report, well, they could give the report in the first place without the liaison having to get involved in the middle. So I don't see the logic of how this comes together, because the counselor's time truthfully is pretty precious and very oversubscribed. We have many, many things to do. So if anyone could do it and they don't and our personal opinion thoughts or whatever or relationship with anyone on the committee doesn't matter, then I don't see why a counselor really would do it. Thank you, Dorothy. I look forward to hearing your proposals for the role changes. Thank you. Mandy. Thank you. It, you know, reading the rules. It sounds like the council is not in agreement as to the purpose of a liaison, which might be wise to send to GOL. These rules were originally adopted with the purpose sort of that Andy indicated, you know, a way to liaise between the council and those committees that bring items to the council so that someone could answer questions about when is this best on the council agenda? How do we get it to the council agenda? Things like that. They were not there to put in so that counselors would have a seat at the table would be intimately involved in the discussions of those committees. And but it sounds like maybe we as a council body or at least counselors coming to the table have different opinions on the purpose of liaisons. And that might be worth a discussion at GOL then. Thank you. Michelle. This is kind of a process question and I'm not. I'm a little hesitant, but I just, I feel like I just want to address it. Like you said, Anna, that you're the messenger and you said that there were certain complaints about particular counselors who weren't following the rules. And I'm just wondering like how we might have a bit of a more friendly way of like interacting with each other's counselors. Like did anybody call that counselor up? If you're the one who received the complaint, for example, did you call that counselor up and say, Hey, you know, I've gotten this complaint and, you know, I wanted to just remind you of the rules because it just feels like going from like hearing that there are certain counselors who violated the rules and which complaints came to, it's not even clear whether they came to you or to Lynn or if you heard them through some other channel. It just feels like there's some lacking of transparency and like friendliness in the way that we're approaching this like. And I'm just wondering like what that's about because I saw this on the agenda and I really had no idea what it was about. I didn't, I tried to look for something. I didn't, I couldn't find anything. So could you be more clear? Like did somebody come to you and complain and say that a particular counselor was violating the rules? Did they come to Lynn? And then Lynn asked you to put this together to remind people. And did you contact that counselor? If you were the one that received the complaint or did Lynn contact that counselor? Sure, so sure. I think, you know, one the, some emails have come to both Lynn and myself. I believe Lynn has gotten someone her own, but I'll let her speak to that. Honestly, I, this might be just a difference in our perspective and understanding of what's friendly or not, but I thought a rule refresh for everyone was the kinder option versus telling somebody that they had been, you know, had received their, there was, there were concerns specifically about their conduct. I thought that reminding all of us. And I think based on the number of questions, it seems clear that a refresh might have been helpful for more than just one or two of us. So for me, the opportunity to bring this neutrally as a reminder of what the rules are to the council instead of even privately having a call out of one person felt like the kinder option and felt like the more, more of the leaning into the learning opportunity from this. But that again is my perspective. And if folks would prefer these be handled differently. That's fine. I think that that's where the person, yeah, I guess I'll, I'll enter there. The confusion is not just what is your role as a liaison, but it is what is your role as a counselor if you attend a meeting and you want to make public comment. And so this was an opportunity to look at both sides of that one. Are you in the meeting as a liaison and if you are, these are the, these are the guidelines we go by. If you're in a meeting and you're there as in the audience and you make public comment and you're a counselor and you say, you know, I'm so and so counselor from such and such and I'm making public comment as an individual resident, not on behalf of the council. That's also your privilege. So it's a way of clarifying this. We actually usually do a clarification of liaison positions. Once a year, we did provide something in the packet when we did do the liaisons just back in January. And much of this has occurred since then. So it's not just issues of liaisons, it's issues of what can counselors do or not do at council, at other committee meetings. And it's not. Yeah, and I just want to respond. I'm not, I appreciate the refresher. It's not that I don't appreciate the refresher. And I don't think, you know, I think that the refresher is good to do. It just seems like there's something between what, like the origin. Okay, Michelle, I'm wondering if you could just give me it. Okay. There's no conspiracy here. It's a refresher for all of us. Okay. Sorry, can I, I'd like to just hear Michelle's question. I didn't think I caught it. That's okay. Okay. Shalani? Yeah, I think it was really helpful to me to understand this present, even though I'm not a liaison. So I was actually going to say thank you for a very beautiful presentation, which I think all of us agree that's not the disagreement here, but I just wanted to thank you for making that. I did want to say, though, that I think it is a disincentive to people who are really interested, counselors who are really interested in committee to not be able to speak not as a liaison. But I think the important thing, and that's when you're going to do all like maybe that can be clarified is that, you know, as a liaison, they have to be objective and they do play a role Dorothy more than a secretary would because they in case a question is asked about a process or, you know, a policy that only a counselor would know, I think they are there to provide that sort of be a resource to the committees. But then if they do want to make a comment, I think the ability to, you know, step back and be very clear that I'm speaking as an individual of the, you know, whatever that language is, I think so that option should be made available. Thank you. I think. Yeah, again, I would encourage folks who have, I look forward to seeing this discussion at GOL. It seems like there are a lot of changes folks would like to see. Alicia. Thank you, Anna. I do think it was helpful to have a refresher because some of those things were a reminder to me. So it was helpful. But I also think it might be helpful to establish some sort of process because I think a specific counselor might want to know if someone is complaining about their actions. I know I personally would want to know if someone had an issue with something that I was doing. And so maybe there can be a process for which that person can be notified if there are formal complaints being made to the president and the vice president about a specific counselor. I think that would be important for them to know. Yeah. And I think that could be possibly worked into the rules as well, if that were something that people wanted to see about violations of the liaison rules or something. Michelle. I'm sorry. I just want to, I think clearing the air on this is really important. And I feel like there was just a harm done and I just need to address it. And Lynn, I feel like you suggesting that my question was somehow conspiracy theory is so deeply upsetting. I don't, I don't know at all. I can't even imagine what you mean by that, but I, you shut me down completely when I was genuinely trying to address something that was important to me. I apologize for shutting you down. Thank you. Any other questions on this? Okay. Well, it looks like Pat GOL should be getting some exciting suggestions for rule changes and you're welcome for the unintentional, I swear it was unintentional, item for GOL to discuss. And thank you all so much. I'm happy to do other visual rules refreshes. We don't need to limit it to liaisons if folks would ever like that. And I know that GOL does them too. So maybe that's actually more appropriate to come from them anyway. Dorothy. Anna, what program did you use? Those were very gifted charts. I don't agree with a couple of the items, but it was really great chart making. And what program or how did you do that? Thank you. I, for those ones, I believe I used Canva. Canvas? Canva, C-A-N. Okay, thank you. Not a problem placement, not a Canva influencer, I swear. Thank you. Of course. All right, Lynn, I'm going to turn it back to you. Great. Thank you. On the timing and order of the agenda tonight, I suggested we would have two breaks. One of them is at seven. And so it is two minutes of seven. So we're going to take a break and reconvene at seven, 10. Please shut off your mic. And when you come back, turn your picture back on. Please shut your mic down. As you return, please put your video on so I know you're back. As you return, please turn your video on so I know you're back. And Dorothy, I think your hand is up from the past discussion. Thank you. And I just want to note that Alicia is having some difficulty. So she appears on the screen twice because she's using one for audio and the other one for visual. So we are going to go on to the action items. The first item is the elementary school building project. The first item is particularly the debt exclusion language. As discussed in the finance committee meeting, I'm going to call on Andy Steinberg and he can give that report. So I really don't particularly want to say a lot because we did a lot of work on writing the committee report and I'm assuming that we're going to get a chance to read it and ask questions. I think that the basic point that we came up with regarding the language is actually already presented to us in a prior meeting by the town manager and finance director. That is that the statute that establishes the procedures for debt exclusion is very clear as to what the language is and to the extent that it has some pieces that need to be filled in that the math school building authority does that and is very specific about what they are looking for. And the discussion at the committee meeting was about things we wished we could have as additional because we realized that this is highly technical language but we cannot put anything on the ballot and we've determined that in addition to not putting able to say anything on the ballot that the yes vote means this and no vote means this, but we can also not produce anything and have it distributed within the same zone or distribution of literature that would apply to a candidate and so it's really we have to rely on the campaign format and what we do in educating voters before the election. So I think that's the best quick summary I can give. Thank you. With that I'm going to put a motion on the floor seek a second and then see if there's any other council questions or comments. We move that the town council vote to place a proposition two and a half debt exclusion question on the May 2 2023 town special election ballot for Amherst voters which reads shall the city known as the town of Amherst be allowed to exempt from the provision of proposition two and one half so called the amounts required to pay for the bonds issued in order to construct originally equip and furnish an elementary school on the Fort River site located at seven southeast street Amherst, Massachusetts including the cost of architectural design project management demolition of the existing building and other necessary site improvements and all costs incidental and related to their of the ballot would then also say yes or no. Is there a second? Second. I'm sorry who? I'm going to use second. I also said it. I'm not sure. You can go ahead on that's fine. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments with regard to this particular motion? Sean please join us. Only because you you read it and I just want to make sure it reads exactly as it's been approved at the end I think you said there too of I just want to make is that in the version that you have again I know it's a minor thing but I just want to make sure demolition of the existing building yep it's there and then and then finish the can you just finish that sentence as you have it yes and other necessary site improvements and all costs incidental and related there too. Okay perfect that's what I have. I appreciate you're being very precise on the language because they were very precise on the language. Are there any other questions Kathy? It's not a question so much as a comment. As you can see in Andy's report we had a discussion that for many people you would read those words you go excuse me and so the staff is working on what this means is the following sort of a basic little information guide to this and I cross-checked multiple towns who are out for a debt exclusion and they all have the same what you would might call it arcane language so it's we're not unusual for this so I just wanted to make a comment that anyone who says you know how do I explain that you will we will have something simple that explains it. Thank you are there any other comments or questions? I just want to note that there's 14 people in the audience at this point in addition to those of us on the screen. With that I'm going to move to the question and in this case the question is are we placing this question this question on the ballot on May 5th as we checked the wording okay I'll begin. You said May 2nd yes. I'm May 2nd did I say May 2nd again? May 2nd May 2nd May 2nd. Thank you. Okay I'm going to begin with Anna Devlin-Gothier. I. Lynn Griesmer is an I. Mandy Johanicki. I. Annika Lopes. I. Michelle Miller. I. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. I. Jennifer Tobbe. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shanley Balmille. Yes. Patty Angelis. I. It is unanimous. We are going to go on to the rest of this discussion and have a motion thereof and it is regarding the actual issue relating to a special election date early voting and mail-in voting. Sue Adette our town clerk has joined us and so if we have questions of her we can ask them but for the purposes of this discussion I'm going to place them following motion on the floor and look for a second to call a special election in the city known as the town of Amherst on May 2nd 2023 for the purpose of seeking a debt exclusion and to allow early and mail-in voting for said election. Is there a second? Shane seconds. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments? Let me ask Sue in the past we've usually had early voting on the five days before in the week before that usually ends on Friday and there's also usually been one evening I believe it's Thursday that we've been open till around eight o'clock. Is that your intention? No actually the Board of Registrar's recommended four days a Monday through Thursday normal business hours which is what the law states that we have to do. It's changed multiple times throughout the years so it depends on what the last day to register to vote I think that's what you're referring to and that's when we would have been open until eight o'clock but that has changed to 10 days before elections now which always falls on a Saturday so those don't line up any longer. So basically the law just states that we do it in the town clerk's office during normal business hours which is what the Board of Registrar's stuck with but just Monday will be you be using the small meeting room down the hall from town clerk's? Yes. Yeah the voters are pretty familiar with that location. Right and signs can be posted outside. Yeah as usual we would do the normal thing. Yeah are there questions of Sue or anybody else regarding this motion? Kathy? It's not a question it's just could you tell me Sue with what you just said what would be the first day of early voting? I'm just looking at a calendar the second is a Tuesday in May. It would be April 24th it would be Monday April 24th. Okay thank you. You're welcome. Which is the day school resumes after the spring break? Okay I just I just wanted to know what exactly which day? Thank you. Okay. And yeah and I'm partly I'm updating the website for the project on Sean doing so just so that we can put information accurately. And Sue those hours would be eight to four? No eight to four thirty. Eight to four thirty thank you. You're welcome. Okay are there any other questions or comments Anika? Yes I have a question for Sue what would the ballots be mailed out? So once I get the language once it's been approved it comes to me and then I can send that to our vendor and they would make up the ballots so it's a process we have to go through so as soon as they get them to us then they start being mailed out but I need the language first which has been voted and and vetted and all of that so it usually takes the vendor from past experience about a week. We go through a back and forth of proofing process making sure everything is perfect so as soon as that gets to me I will get the ball rolling so it just all depends on what it gets to me. Okay yeah. So there's not a ballpark at this point? I mean if I were to get the language if it's finalized I would have to ask town manager but if I were to get the language this week technically we can't just mail the ballots out yet. The state actually is waiting on us to vote this date which you've just done. Tomorrow we can go and let them know okay the town council has voted the date and they haven't entered this date into the voter registration system. We haven't been able to enter applications for ballots until that's been done. Everything's been held up based on the vote of tonight so things are going to start happening quickly once we get back into the office so we have to input all of the applications we have about 400 of them right now for an early vote by mail ballot. Once those are put in the system once the ballots are arrive at our office then we can start mailing ballots out so I'm guessing definitely by the beginning of April hopefully sooner. Also note that in our census forms that were sent out there were blanks to request that you get mail in ballots and I know in our census form we got one yellow sheet but I went to town hall and they said you can just make a copy on a white sheet we accept that and you can submit it for any member of your family that wishes to have a mail in ballot. Pam Rooney? Thanks so in this mailing is there any opportunity to put in the slip of paper that says the yes vote means x and a no vote means y or is that also not legal? And that you mean with the ballot when the ballot goes out? I don't think it's legal town manager no because we can't provide red booklets and I think that might fall into the same category of explanation we'd have to check on that. We'll want to make sure that we determine I have to follow up then is there a plan to put something out as a general mailing for people to be informed not only that there's a vote what it's for what does it mean if we don't have a red booklet can we have a red letter? Paul you have your hand up. Yeah so the town can't expend funds to influence the vote in any way shape or form we can put information on the website then advocacy groups can take that and mail it to whoever they'd like if they'd like to use it but we can't do promotional and whatever we put people could interpret that to be promotional if we mail it to every resident on this so we're not allowed to be sending using taxpayer dollar to do that kind of thing. Okay Pam does that answer your question? Okay are there any other questions Kathy? It's not a question as much but if we can't give people any information and we mail them a ballot is I hesitate to ask this question but is a mail ballot for this does it make sense because when we're when we had our other ballots we got the red booklets Paul so complicated things you know I don't know we can't do that but we but from another from the state would come you've got these four extra things to vote on so we we just have to make sure that all of us can tell people where to get the one page where to go on the town website to explain this to them so that's that's my only concern about mailing you're gonna be looking at this wording so I think we can do a good job to have other people do this so I'll stop talking but it's to not be able to explain what you're voting on is difficult yeah it's not voting for governor not voting for governor I mean this is different. Paul you had your hand up again? Yeah so the red book is done by the Secretary of State's office and they get proponents and opponents of the two on the ballot questions about what does a yes vote mean what does a no vote mean in terms of and they the advocate groups get to define what that means so we don't really you know under under under prop two and a half that's a limitation I think we're so yes we're just limited on what the town can expend funds on and we don't want to you know we want to make sure that we abide by the law because very precisely because you know we don't want there to be a challenge to this vote. Correct yeah Dorothy so what about you're going to have a lovely web page somewhere what about if some of us volunteer to hand stamp envelopes with a little thing look on and with like the email address of where they'd find this thing on the town web page no money is expended and we've just referred them to a place that might have more information oh you're saying on the envelopes with the ballots in it oh interesting idea um I don't know the answer to that question I doubt that's allowed but we can we can certainly check with it okay so do you know um yeah we'd have to check on that but I just want to point out that that's only going to go to the ones that have requested mail ballots which is not everyone so now it's excluding a group of people yeah okay and right these are great questions any other questions okay seeing none I'm going to move to the vote uh I begin with Lynn Griezmer and I'm a yay Mandy Jo Hanneke hi um Anika Lopes hi Michelle Miller hi Dorothy Pam yes Pam Rooney yes Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer Todd Jennifer can you hear us yes I voted yes thank you uh Alicia Walker yes Shalini Balmille yes Patty Angeles hi Anna Devlin got here hi it's unanimous Sue uh thank you for being with us and uh thank you for all the help you're going to be giving us in these next busy weeks we appreciate that okay you're very welcome thank you great um earlier today we had a public forum on the community preservation act allocations there's two votes that we must take uh we'll put those motions on the floor we'll put one motion on the floor and then look for a second see if there's any discussion and proceed with the next one the first motion is in accordance with charter section 5.6 having been published on the town bulletin board for a minimum of 10 days on February 13th 2023 a public form held on February 27th 2023 and having been reviewed by the finance committee report of February 27th 2023 to adopt council order fy 24-07 a an order appropriating fy 2024 community preservation act budget as shown on page 13 to 14 of the motion sheet is there a second second Rooney thank you are there any questions or comments see none i'm going to move to a vote i'm starting with mandy joe hannity hi nick elopes hi michelle miller hi dorthy pamm yes cam rooney yes jathie shane yes andy steinberg hi jennifer tobb yes alisha walker yes shalini bell mill yes pat de angeles hi on a devlin goth here hi in grease mers and i it is unanimous the second is actually an appropriation and authorizing debt the emotion is as follows in accordance with chapter i'm sorry with charter section 5.6 having been published on the town bulletin board for a minimum of 10 days on february 13th 2023 a public form held on february 27th 2023 and having been reviewed by the finance committee report of february 27th 2023 to adopt council order fy 24-08 a an order appropriating and authorizing debt for the replacement and improvements of the fort river school fields under recreation as shown on page 15 of the motion sheet is their second second rooney thank you are there any questions or comments mandy joe just two um the first one is there seems to be a hanging and and i'm not sure if we're missing something wording wise at the end of the now therefore um and then the second was i thought the cpa committee uh recommended this contingent on the debt exclusion passing but i see nothing in the order that has that contingency so i'm curious um if if we are voting it without that contingency or if we want that contingency and if so where do we put it in this order um is shon with us still but i can answer too yeah i'm still here shon go ahead um i'm looking for the order just to see if there's anything missing um in regards to the contingency we spoke about that with a finance committee um and we consulted sonia who put the order together and and this is sort of a common thing that comes up which is there's a memo that goes with the order that describes the order and in there talks about the contingency um and i think the cpa report itself may even specify that there was a contingency um so we felt that because it's been pretty that the whole project is sort of based on this the school project moving forward um that it didn't need to be explicitly laid out um because there there really is no project if the school project doesn't move forward so the discussion of cpa is that if again if it doesn't move forward then this would be rescinded shon did you have a chance to look at the um order i should be able to get that in one second give me one more minute mhm mathy um yep mandy i asked the same question of finance and i didn't go back and check it but i was told that we did the same thing with the jones library that in the cpa wording it was clearly contingent but in the order it it was just the money um so it's linked to that allocation that they've made because i had also asked why don't we have a contingent in here um and was told we didn't need it manager i thought we added it into the order or at least a reference to the memo into the order because i worry our if we read our motion our motion just says adopts the order it references no memo no nothing other than the order and the order doesn't talk about the memo the order doesn't talk about anything and so i thought with the library money we had put it put something in the order that referenced the contingency or the memo that had the contingency in it um and i guess i'd feel a lot more comfortable if um either the motion includes the comma contingents on the elementary school building project going forward or whether the order says that because our motion itself simply says adopt the order which means we're adopting the language in the order and nothing else in my reading of it so lend real quick on the hanging and you can just delete the and and is there a period after it's just a comma and then if they're down there for and then it goes down to uh where you sign i see okay do you have the memo handy uh i i think it's actually a report sorry i think it's actually the cpa report that's in the packet okay and athena if you had a moment and could check what we finally did with the library that would be useful so we just ask for everybody's patience so um lin in the report uh under this project it says the funding recommendations contingent upon town residents voting to pass the school that exclusion override later this spring okay so the question then is do we refer to the report and that's what athena's looking at she's looking at what we what we did with the library this is this is actually the report for the library right yeah could athena scroll up to the before the now therefore because i thought that might be i mean i think the difference with this one was that there were two votes there's there's no dead exclusion i mean that's one difference is there's no dead exclusions for the library project so the funding sort of happened right after this vote either happened right before right after i can't remember uh the order that these votes were taken in but um there wasn't as much really contingency as it related to that vote and athena's now showing us the vote so it was as presented indy joe do you want to make a motion to amend i guess not as long as it's clear that it's contingent upon the dead exclusion passing okay all right are there other questions seeing none i'm going to move to a vote uh in this case i'm actually beginning with anika locs michelle miller hi dorothy cam yes cam runy yes gathie shane yes andy steinberg hi jennifer tov yes alisha walker yes chalene bomb mill yes bat d angeles hi on a deblin goth here i in grease mersen i mandy joe hannity hi it's unanimous we're going to move on to the centennial plant we also had a public forum on this today we have two actions we have to take one is to rescind our previous order and the second is to authorize a new order the motion for rescission is as follows in accordance with charter section 5.6 having been published on the town bulletin board for a minimum of 10 days on february 13th 2023 a public forum held on february 27th 2023 and having been reviewed by the finance committee report of february 27th 2023 to adopt appropriation and transfer order fy 23-13c an order rescinding authorization but unissued bonds as shown on page 16 of the motion sheet is there a second a point of order before the second yeah sorry i think i copied that whole everything before the two adopt to the wrong motion in the centennial i wondered if that doesn't have it should just start with two adopt and then the second motion number two should have all of that in accordance with charter section okay why don't you read the motion for the rescission the way it should be read so i think the rescission is just to adopt appropriation and transfer order fy 23 yeah hold on fy 23-13c an order rescinding unauthorized but unissued bonds as shown on page 16 okay um that's how we did it last time right yes athena is did you have any problem with that motion athena nope that motion is fine okay then i second that motion this motion that we're dealing with now is merely to rescind the previous financial order midi joe you have your hand up okay are there any questions regarding the rescission of the previous financial order okay in that case i'm going to move to michelle miller i dorthy pam yes pam rinnie kathy shane yes andy steinberg hi jennifer tov yes lisha walker yes shally belmill yes that d angeles i anna devlin goth here i win greece morson i mandy joe hannity i anika lopes i thank you it's unanimous okay mandy joe i'm gonna have you make the next um motion since okay i apologize for having put it into the wrong spot so in accordance with charter section 5.6 having been published on the town bulletin board for a minimum of 10 days on february 13 2023 a public forum held on february 27 2023 and having been reviewed by the finance committee report of february 27 2023 to adopt appropriation and transfer order fy 23-09 a an order approving and authorizing borrowing to fund capital projects bond authorization as um as shown on page 17 second is there any question this is the actual authorization and shawn explained uh the various pieces with all the financing and the loans and the forgiveness during our public forum and we hope this is the end pam rinnie so this is not um you know are we going to go with with um level principle or or level um payments that's not the conversation right now right that's no sorry go ahead shawn go ahead uh no um so with the the state revolving fund we can still pick which option we want to go to or at least um submit our preferences to the state because they will take that into account when they structure our loan with them as well um again because of the the higher costs and the higher interest rates we're probably looking at the level payment option to to moderate the the increases in any one year um but again that's that's ultimately a decision of the the town uh treasurer or the town manager okay yeah so at what point do we have conversations about um the costs that are projected for that uh i was looking at the percent that that's being charged for um the engineering fees and they're seem really high they're like seven almost seven and a half percent of the construction and i don't know when we you know when do we actually decide what the amount is that we're appropriating um so this order is appropriating the full amount of the project both for construction and for um and for design and engineering um engineering at least in my experience is typically between nine and eleven percent of construction costs that's sort of the rule of thumb um it's at times fluctuated higher than that i think now it's maybe fluctuating on the lower side because construction costs has gone so far up um but generally around that 10 is what we look at as a as a benchmark for design engineering costs but the appropriation in front of you is for all for everything okay but but those are those are this is we're only talking about construction administration we're not talking about design you know oh yeah if you're only talking about the construction administration phase then you're right it's much lower than the 10 percent yeah i mean the whole i mean the design engineering for the whole project is around 10 percent of construction right so this phase of it which is best construction gilford you may want to um weigh in on the design engineering fee because you've been going back and forth with um tate and howard is that fee set in stone or is it a budget at this point so the fee that you see in your in your um and the appropriation is actually not to exceed number and we're actually still talking to them to get the the construction oversight fees lower um and we have a couple of things we can do and then things we're talking about but um the s r f fund requires full time construction construction monitoring so that's why we have the number for full time construction monitoring in this number here and then we have the ability to adjust it down by either using our people or using their people and then actually reducing the number but we've actually accounted for it for s r f the state revolving fund oh okay thank you it seems very high well we're actually being told by some designers to look for 20 percent soon i'm in the wrong business yeah we retired too soon yeah are there any other questions or comments okay then we're going to move to the vote on this and i think i'm beginning with dorothy pam yes pam rooney yes gathie shane yes indy steinberg all right jennifer tov yes alisha walker yes shall we bomb them yes pat de angeles all right on a devlin goth here i in greasemors and i mandy johannike hi anika lopes hi michelle miller hi it's unanimous we're going to go to the water and sewer line ownership and um let me just introduce this but let me just take one more you're muted i know i i needed to ask that others in my household go off the internet because of instability on my internet um so um two committees in the town council have looked at many committees have spent a lot of time on these two committees particularly looked at this and voted differently with regard to the recommendation as to when and how there should be a change in ownership of the water and sewer lines covered by town owned property that are presently paid for if they break by residents i'm going to call on anika town services and outreach committee to explain their vote and i'm going to call on the finance committee andy to explain their vote so anika thank you um i was actually going to call i did uh spit the report but i was actually going to call on ana who chaired the meeting um to give us that update in depth thank you sure so thanks anika the way that tso approached this was that we felt um ultimately that we wanted to see the the major change in these regulations be that or we wanted to see the major change of the ownership in the line be from the town property line to the main that shift to the responsibility shift to the town my sentences are coming out backwards sorry let me let me fix that so the way that um tso discussed this we felt it was um you know folks can't necessarily control what happens on top of property that is not theirs and for them to then be responsible for the lines that run underneath property that is not theirs despite not being able to control the environment uh that might impact those types it felt like a miss for our town and we felt that the the responsibility and the change in ownership needed to happen um we also recognize that there's a lot of unknowns in shifting that amount of ownership and so we agreed that this should be something that goes into effect in two years um and that the that gives the town and our and our fabulous dpw staff time to really understand the impact of the decision where the discrepancy or where the difference lies is that and and and Andy will speak for finance but the way tso said it we would like this to essentially go into effect in two years unless acted upon by an outside source that outside source being council being town staff making a recommendation to council that this not go into effect um in some capacity finance um andy will explain had the the uh sort of opposite of it wouldn't go into effect unless the council chose to revisit this so i think that for us tso felt uh or tso voted to have it go automatically in so that um it would automatically be at least on the agenda right it wouldn't necessarily be up to an individual councilor staff to say we want to bring this huge idea back we would have the time to revisit but we are we are committing to the town that we're following through on taking this action to support folks only being responsible for the things that are on their property uh and at the end of the day that was really where that decision came through uh Anika is there anything that i missed i think you covered it and um thank you for sharing the meeting in my absence thank you sure and i also would like to just publicly and um have the council do a little round of applause or ASL applause whatever you choose for Amy Russecki who has completely shepherded this through from start to finish i can't i can't even describe how much work Amy has done um so truly truly massive thank you we are incredibly lucky to have you thank you and with that land i'm done so andy uh finance committee so i'm gonna actually um do two things tonight i'm gonna ask to be recognized later to um say a little bit more from a personal perspective in support but i want to try and limit the presentation i'll make now to be very brief because it was covered fairly thoroughly in the report and gives the the major reason why we think that the appropriate action is to not enact the any change at this point it's basically that the recommendation that we received from the town manager and actually started with the recommendation from the finance director but has now been also recommended by town manager and the assistant superintendent of public works um is that there's a lot of information that is not presently available that the reason for the suggestion of a two-year delay was because of the amount of information that is not now known and uh that it therefore to take the step of saying we adopted unless it's for um rescinded later seems backwards from where the idea that we need more information in order to make a knowledgeable decision and it was on that basis that after this was uh gone through um and we realized that there was a difference in the approach taken by the two committees that came back to the finance committee and the finance committee as reported in writing basically felt that it was uh more appropriate to assure that there be a review by the council at the time after there's more information available and that was uh a recommendation that it was not a vote and the committee changed that recommendation and we let the original recommendation stand and I will say a little bit more by raising my hand after now that I'm completing this report. So the decision before the council tonight is not about approval or not of the bylaw or the regulations it's merely about what it is we want um Amy and Guilford and Paul to come back with do we want them to have this to happen on a date certain July 1st 2025 with the option that the council that seated at that time could still change it or do we want to have it remain open and assume that in about two years they would come back and there might be additional information one way or another that would determine whether or not the council wants to move forward with changing who owns what so um I what I would like to do is not redo the debates in each of the committees have people express their opinions and then move to the vote the vote and the motion the way it's written gives us the way of going one or the other option so Andy you had your hand raised yes so obviously now you know that the two committees have taken different opinions both Anna and I are on both committees which puts us in a position where we've had the opportunity to hear the debate in both committees and talk and sort of have an ongoing dialogue about it that way the as I said a couple minutes ago in the report we the finance director raised some very important issues that need to be resolved the reason that I wanted the additional time is that since we've had the discussion in the two committees I have uh it's come to my attention that there are some major issues that we did not discuss in the committees we did not consider because we didn't even think to resolve them other than we do want to acknowledge or at least I want to acknowledge that um the uh Billford and Amy Seki had indicated very clearly that we needed to think about questions of fairness but there were several issues that arose starting with a letter I received from a constituent on a private way and she was pointing out that because she's in a private way that it was not clear in the regulation that if there was a change in ownership what the change in ownership would be or whether there was any opportunity to for her uh if something happened to the line leading to her house to know what benefit she would attain that she would have to pay the water rates and she was raising whether it was equitable to require customers in the situation of people being on private ways because the whole thing is worded about um starting the ownership starts when the at the point of the private way and that there's a lack of clarity about that and what it means but she would have to pay the higher water rates nonetheless um that caused me to think about two other situations that also raised similar questions that were not discussed in either committee one being apartment complexes but in apartment buildings because we know that that the rule was tied to the where the meter is and and where the boxes and Amy or Guilford can explain this a little better than I can but um there's uh it's unclear as to what happens with apartment buildings because the way that it is arranged and that there's at the same time lack of clarity as to whether there's if there's sub metering and there's direct payment of water bills by the or in sewer bills by the residents or if it's absorbed somehow into the rent that they're still paying the increase but it's not clear that they would benefit the third group is that we have residents who don't live in Amherst we serve some people um in how long and some people in Leverett with either water or sewer or both I think but in any event it's there's a lack of clarity as to whether they gain any benefit but they would pay higher rates and so that there's a whole group of issues that was not even considered by either committee and if we want to make sure that the next council because it won't be this entire group some of us probably are not going to be involved no will be new counselors and but whether that's true or not that it is important to assure that there'll be a full and complete investigation and discussion at the time and the only way you can assure that is to adopt the proposal from the finance committee that it not go into effect now and that requires that there be a a procedure in order to make the change that we're talking about and so for those reasons I think that it's really the appropriate thing to not make this decision now to adopt this new policy but to put it off until the information is fully explored and fairly explored and we're making sure that we thought of all customers who are being equitable thank you um I'm I do want to remind counselors to limit their comments to three minutes at most honor thanks can we restart the clock I want my nine seconds back um all right so thank you I you know I mean I I completely disagree with Andy I think that's pretty clear from the from the get go I think that if you look at the motions sheet here's where my concern lies you know uh Lynn you you said the word assume and I think that anytime we talk about making assumptions I I don't like it I don't like the I don't like saying we assume that this will come back up in in two years that people will want to revisit if you look at the motion sheet the way that the motion would be framed is that it's it would be to request the changes without an automatic service line ownership change there's nothing about revisiting it in two years I think it's important to say that it would go into effect in two years because it commits us to doing that research asking those questions and engaging on these topics that we haven't yet engaged on the other option and and you know I'm going to hope Amy can't reach through her computer and hit me is that we put this off until we've done that research none of us want to do that we would like to move forward the parts of the regulations that we can move forward so my ask is that we vote to um to have it go into effect in two years knowing that we have a lot of work to do between now and then and committing ourselves to doing that work I really am uncomfortable with the assumption that someone will be on this council in two years that will say hey remember that thing two years ago we should bring it back up I would rather have it be hey we have this thing kicking in in two years we really need to discuss it hey we have this thing that's kicking in in a year we need to look into these regulations and engage on them so for me I'm very uncomfortable just putting it aside and hoping that a council in two years has the wherewithal and the desire to revisit this thing that we've done a lot of work on which provides a more equitable opportunity for folks to not get stuck with these tens of thousands of dollar bills I think that there are answers to Andy's questions that we should be looking into in the over the course of the next two years so that before it kicks in we know what we're looking at and we can say whether or not it's still a good idea but to leave it out entirely is relying on hopes and wishes and while those are beautiful wonderful things they're not a solid foundation thank you. Shalini. So I was in TSO and voted with my fellow members in a particular way but since then I want to share some of the new information that I am receiving because of which I want to reconsider and it's more in line I think it's in between what Anna and Andy is saying which is actually to rewrite the motion but I'll come to that later the new information for me is that we made that decision based on the impact that this change would have on the water prices of water for residents and we were given that chart and we looked at that and we said yeah it's still below our neighboring towns but what I'm hearing now is that there could be additional costs which we don't know and so that's a new piece of information the second piece of information is that assumption I was making and what I understood was that when the pipe is in public property it is being damaged because of work when contractors utility workers are digging in and so it's not the fault of the resident and they are being penalized for that however the new information is also there a lot of these pipes are made out of Orangeburg or and the life expectancy of those pipes is 50 years so some of these pipes that the you know are going to deteriorate on their own and so is it the responsibility of the town it's like saying my roof is old and so now the town should you know replace it so so I mean having the distinction when it is being damaged by you know the town that's clearly should be the responsibility of the town but when it is naturally deteriorating should that be the responsibility of the town I don't believe we engaged in that conversation the third thing then is as Andy also alluded to you is like I was thinking of only homeowners but we also have rent rented spaces and apartments so are we affording the same benefit to landowners and nothing against landowners but again landlords but it is an investment for them which is very different from you know 70 80 year old woman living in a house who can't afford it's very different those two different situations so did we I don't remember having a conversation about who is paying what and the last thing I have also hearings that the staff is supporting the finance committee's conclusions and so I but I appreciate what Anna said that we shouldn't just leave it open to you know someone will open it up but could we have a motion that clearly lays out the path that between now and two years this is what we expect to see happen in terms of you know what are the what is going to be the cost of you know replacing these old pipes and blah blah blah so what is specifically make that more specific as a motion um thank you Jennifer yes okay so I um I would say I'm in Anna's camp I my concern about it being that our pipes are old and so it's the homeowner's responsibility like fixing a roof I mean the fact of the matter is if there is if the pipe is broken off the homeowner's property but between their property and where it meets the main line I mean how many of us can afford to pay for breaking up the street all the repair work that goes in in addition to you know replacing the pipe and then repaving the street I mean I always think of you know Dorothy um councilor Pam have this you know have had this happen to her she was fortunate to have it as part of her homeowner's policy but it cost $35,000 to repair and that's just completely not realistic that most any you know homeowner in Amherst could afford to shoulder that burden and I had what I would initially I think I spoke with Paul about this many months ago when the incident with one of the residents in town who I think had a $18,000 bill and again it was for a leak that she didn't even know her pipe was leaking but there are towns that offer their residents buried line coverage so if something like this happens you have coverage and I know after Dorothy's you know experience I tried to get it through our homeowner's policy and they don't offer it many policies it's hard to get but the towns there are towns in Massachusetts that provide it their residents can purchase it through the town and it wouldn't maybe cover a $35,000 bill but it would cover you know I think one covers up to 8,000 I mean anything would be helpful so I'm just wanted to ask again is between now and when it's revisited and or implemented in two years if offering some coverage so there's some relief we can offer to residents as a possibility thanks Dorothy I always have a hard time finding my little thing many towns take the responsibility for repairing pipes from the end of the homeowner's property to wherever the main is and it varies place by place I agree with Anna we need a strong motion the motion that was put forward is just nothing that I would ever put any hope on that somebody would think of it would remember that then you have to bring everybody up to date if they want to do it you start from ground zero I also agree with Anna that there's many things going on but an impetus to do the study and I agree there are a lot of things that need to be looked into is the two-year timetable if you want to make it three make it three but so I'm agreeing that we need to do this it's just we need to have a motion which commits us to this study whatever it is going to be that it doesn't say that maybe it's sometime in the future we'll rethink it not sure who the we is and I want to remind you that we have to do something for the homeowners the many things go on but we pay who's paying taxes in this town we as we know we have a very small commercial base most of our taxes are on residences homeowners apartments and whatever that's where the tax base comes from many of the people who are very high taxpayers in this town do not have children in the public school system they pay the school taxes because they believe in the public school system and they don't complain but I'm saying what do you have for the homeowners what do you have to help people so that they don't have to risk losing their home because they can't afford to do this but if you if your sewer pipe breaks you can't live in a house okay it'd be declared a public health emergency and the person is up the wall and we had an older resident who came to us originally with this case why do I have to pay pay for the street she said why and she had a big bill and it went on it was not something that she could do so it's not that we're trying to do something new many many towns have this coverage and they do it towns that have much lower taxes than we have we pay high taxes and sometimes you need to say okay and we have your back and that's what I see this as being something the town saying we will not let you get in a deep deep problem that you can't get out of so I really urge us to either support this or if you're going to redo the motion I make it a much stronger one make a commitment that we will carry through and there's not some kind of thing that maybe somebody does if they feel like it in the future at some point because I think it's a very important thing it's really to do with you know equity in this town so thank you Mandy Joe yeah um I don't think I can support I don't think if we put a motion and the motion went through today that there'd be an automatic future service line change that I could vote for the water and sewer regulations with that in there and so at this point I'm going to support a motion that doesn't have the automatic change I think Shalini and Andy they have brought up some very good questions that need answered some equity issues some cost issues a lot of stuff that that we need to know beforehand I don't know whether two years is long enough I don't know whether one year is long enough and with those questions unanswered I don't think I could vote for regulations that automatically put something like that into effect because you know automatic is great but if those questions aren't answered you still have to vote then not to put them into effect right and and the other worry I have is that if we put an automatic into it and we're presented in two weeks or three weeks whenever it comes out with the automatic effective of this ownership change and into the regulations that no one will repair for two years and then because they'll have a financial incentive to wait until the automatic change happens but then say we choose the futures council chooses not to put the automatic change into effect well we've just made everything more expensive for the homeowners and for the renters who and and everyone who has has done that and so I think the safest thing to do is to ask the town manager to come back to the council with regulations that don't have a future automatic line ownership change in there but that when we vote those regulations we vote a request to the town manager to continue presenting our finance and TSO with research on this issue so that it never falls off of our radar thank you uh Pam you've not spoken before thanks thanks um I was having difficulty actually understanding that um if if the water and sewer rigs are being proposed actually include specifically that the ownership um will change to the property line so I guess the question is can um I actually think I am I am on the side of not imposing a hard deadline for the enactment of the sewer or the the service line ownership change until we have some more of the questions answered not that I don't support it but I understand that um I just think it looks like there are enough questions that need to be answered so I didn't want to try to link I actually would like to look and support the regulations but I didn't want to necessarily link it to an automatic start point I would I would love to encourage town staff to continue to do the research perhaps with the uh the the opportunity for very regular updates or something of that nature so that it does not fall off the radar Shalini and Andy you've both spoken before is there anything you feel you need to add to this discussion at this time Shalini I was just I was just gonna ask Paul to answer the question about uh purchase of insurance because he actually had done research on it Paul yeah so um yes we have done research on it in my memo I mentioned that if the town council does not implement for two years we would certainly go out and seek a program that would allow us to offer that insurance it would be privately paid by the property owners but it would be available to every property owner if they chose to purchase it it does have a limit on the coverage of 8500 dollars I think that's the last time I spoke to them when we presented this a year ago to the council so we would we would repress that information but yes we could offer that program thank you I'm going to take the opportunity to speak because I haven't on this and that is first and foremost it is critical that we pass regulations we have basically gone for years with an understanding but not a written regulation and a bylaw and so um I I fall on the side of make continuing to look at this but not a date certain but most importantly I don't want this to languish in the council any longer I want us to pass regulations um Shalini anything else you feel you need to add to this I do um what I want to add is that you know I just want to be clear to the public as well that when we're making the statement that you know the that if we do take over if the town takes over the cost of repair it means that the town has your back and if you don't that means you know we're letting people go and having to spend all that money I think this it's not entirely true because when we say that we are taking over the cost that cost is going to be spread over the water bill and what we're really doing is and without that clarity what if we are going to apply this only to home owners properties or also rented properties and what we are doing is we are subsidizing or we are taking we're um subsidizing rented properties and their cost and spreading that cost over the water bill of every resident in town so that's a very important discussion and clarification that needs to happen the second thing is I I think I would like us to add to the motion a request to the town manager to do the research over the next two years to make a firm decision how to move forward with this change in an equitable way and what I mean by that is there are other options like creating instead of making it available to everyone having a special fund because there are many people in this town who are landowners and they can afford it and but like creating a special fund and that's just an that's what I'm saying that we could come up with out of the box options that there is a special fund to pay for homeowners who cannot afford it but let's not blanket make it for everyone included rented properties at this point so can someone make a motion to let me just say I'm going to put a motion on the floor and then if there's an amendment we'll let do an amendment Pam anything final yeah I think like I didn't state my question very well can we separate out the adoption of regulations without having to make the decision today about the ownership issue um that yes that is what okay so the following motion I'm going to place on the table Lynn sorry can I answer her question really quickly yes it's not really answered in the motion um you can't separate them out completely because of the the way that it trickles out you need to know whether or not that ownership line change is going to be in there so it's you can't we we talked about this Amy has to prepare a final set of regulations for us to vote on and needs to know about the ownership change in order to do that so we can't have like a part a part b where one is just the change and one is everything else in the regs because everything else in the regs is kind of impacted by that is absolutely impacted by that ownership change so now I can answer thank you Anna um okay so the motion is to request the town manager present the town council with water and sewer regulations without an automatic future service line ownership change is there a second that becomes hammocky okay shallony so I just want to clarify so if we if we want an adopt an edited motion that we have to say no to this and then no you have to say I'd like to amend the motion with the following oh I have to have a following you have to how do you how do you why don't we why don't we do this how would you like to amend the motion what would you like to happen just pull it in front of me first so I would like to um say that with um with a request to the town manager to do the research uh needed to to decide about the future service life's line ownership change in two years or something like that and I'm happy to have people make edits but that's where I was going with it um okay so right the way the motion I'm sorry Michelle you have your hand up yeah I was going to suggest um the town manager wrote a memo dated January 9th um and at the bottom of that memo it says future considerations and it outlines exactly what the town manager um is hoping to do and so it may help us to look at that and then include those bullet points as out with timelines um to to get to have more clarity and motion if we're going to amend it okay can I that Michelle thank you for drawing our attention to that and I think that there's a very critical list based on the conversation tonight there may be even some additions or changes to the list so here's what I'm going to suggest okay that we deal with a motion that has been put on the table we not try to amend it tonight but when the whole set of bylaws and regulations come forward we then have a well crafted motion perhaps including what Michelle just referred to and what shallony is accomplishing that asks that the town manager and his staff return to the council in two years having a direct with answers or responses to the various issues as outlined so that we I'm not suggesting we forget that I'm just suggesting that we finish this conversation tonight it allows Amy to go back and complete the drafting of the regulations and then when the regulations and bylaws come back to the council which is probably going to be either in the march 6th or the march 20th meeting that we also then have a well crafted motion rather than try to draw one up tonight that asks specifically for the town manager to follow up on the following issues and come back to the council in a two-year period would that accomplish what you're trying to accomplish shallony if would that whole wait with the next council to have a separate okay absolutely absolutely cafe well but you said what I was going to say Lynn I just want to separate them I want to vote this and then we can come back and have a very separate set of instructions but but get the regulations out you know and and I realize that there there are people who want to put a separate clause so we have to take a vote on this that you've put on the table and then if it gets voted down we've got an alternative wording on it so okay okay Jennifer can we get the buried line coverage somewhere in that so we feel like we can provide people I mean they would still have to purchase it the coverage but that's part of the package I think again when we come back with the final regulations would be the time to have a motion regarding that so in other words that the motion would be to you know ask the town manager to engage or provide a package that he has already investigated and we can have that as yet another motion at that time again remembering we're not adopting the regulations tonight we're just trying to deal with this one piece okay thank you okay but I'm now hearing the need for two additional motions on the nights that we do that Dorothy okay so this is where I get confused we have a TSO motion we have a finance committee motion when you talk about voting and then clarifying are you suggesting voting the TSO motion which includes this aim although it's not clear or you're saying you're suggesting that we vote that down and we vote for the finance motion okay and then somehow we're going to come later some other stuff is going to come so I just need to know which motion you think we're going to vote on first thank you um the motion that I made is not the TSO motion it's in fact the finance committee motion okay which I made was to request the town manager present the town council with water and sewer regulations without an automatic future service line ownership change okay during that conversation there have been two other suggested motions one is further study on some issues that have been outlined in the memo of January 9th and maybe even some other ones added to that the second one is that there in fact we go ahead and have the town engage in ability to offer through a third party an insurance capability okay and I'm suggesting that those two motions would come forward at the time we adopt the regulations so that we not sit here tonight and try to make up motions that would be better done in a thoughtful craft crafting way and that we do all of that at the time we adopt the regulations um can I make one quick comment please round of insurance that um Jennifer is suggesting would not cover any of the pipe the cost of repairing your own lawn the damage to your own property which is what your responsibility would come to more than that seven thousand dollars so the cost of repairing the pipe under the public street under the public sidewalk would still be completely uncovered um but I'm going to leave it to Anna to see what she says thank you Anna I sure I think that's terrifying um so I'm I'm not supporting this for the reasons I have already said and I won't say them all again but I think it's really important for everybody to just take a minute to remember we're not actually voting on the regulations right now we're we're voting on which version of the regulations we want to vote on which is a little confusing I will support whichever version of the regulations come forward but I want to see one and I believe what is the right move for our town and to demonstrate to our residents that we are we are showing up and you know Shawnee I disagree with your assertion that um that this is is not saying that I think that you know for us to say yeah we'll we'll we'll study it you know is is disingenuous to demonstrating the care and the the change that needs to happen so for me the right version of the regulations I would like to see has this going automatically into effect still gives us all of the things that we've been talking about in terms of time to study time to adjust and time to to continue to move that deadline as needed if we decide to do that um that's the version of the regulations I would like to see come forward not one that just ignores it completely and hopes we bring it back up again despite any um well intentioned motions otherwise thank you so the motion on the table is the following if you support that motion okay it is to request the town manager present the town council with water and sewer regulations without an automatic future service line ownership change if you vote for that that is how the regulations will come back if you vote against that then and if this fails then we'll bring up the other motion which is a motion that the ownership lines would change on July 1 2025 okay is there a question want to be very clear Shawnee so just to be clear that what will come up then in March will be the the regulations with with the additional language that we've been discussing so it won't just be that with an automatic no without an automatic future service it will have the language for research and no those the research language and the insurance language would be dealt with as separate motions at the same time so when you adopt the bylaws and the regulations that's one set of motions the next set of motions would be and we you know further ask the town manager to research the following and report back to the town council by such and such a date okay and then the third motion would be we ask the town manager to move forward on implementing a optional insurance policy with third party that individuals residents can opt into okay so can I raise another concern then that my concern with doing something like this is what Anna is saying that it will just get lost and but my concern in promising that we are going to have an automatic future service line change is that in case the research shows that the cost of absorbing the cost for rented properties damage is so large that we can't do it that I mean that's not been resolved right now the properties whether it's just home owner home owner occupied versus rented and and the cost of that can be huge for replacing all of those pipes that are so aged and so at that point when we say that no we can't do it there's going to be such a pressure at that point to go back on so that sounds disingenuous too to say that oh we will we will have an opportunity to change at that point you always have an opportunity to change and you in fact you always have an opportunity to walk it back entirely but the goal tonight is to decide whether or not we want to change the property line ownership up to the property line in two years or leave it open ended but then have other motions later on in March when we do this that deal with what other questions do we want to answer it and when and insurance my question is just that why can't we attach that to the motion that we are adopting this these red set of resolutions with this set of conditions if we do that it would be better to do that when we do the adoption of the bylaw and the yes we down if it let me just say it's much cleaner to just adopt a bylaw and regulations and then if you have other things you want done you want to put those in other motions they can refer back to the bylaw and the regulations that you've adopted if anybody has a different opinion please speak up I've been led to believe that it is important to adopt cleanly a regulation and a bylaw and then if you want other things done do that as separate motions okay I wait to hear other people speak first Dorothy I just want to say that my support of Centennial is linked to this with Centennial we agree to take on huge huge cost because it's something that we need to do it's right to plan for something that we may not need at this exact moment but we know that if we don't do it we will lose an opportunity and we won't necessarily might not be able to do it later and we might not have the water that we need so if we're willing to spend big bucks to do that which will be slowly repaid through water rates I think it also means that we should be willing to do something a bit a little bit here and there as it comes about they're not all going to go fall apart at the same time it will actually give the town a little more control over the quality of work and materials I see the two of them is going together so I mean nobody seemed to have a big problem voting for Centennial and yet when it comes to something that might do individuals there's a problem and I've got to tell you when you when you talk about oh let's have a fund for people can't afford it that's like the fund at school all the kids who can't afford the school trip come we'll give you a free ticket no the kids don't go parents don't let their kids sign up and how many people do I know who might actually have very little money are going to say oh I'm so poor I want to get it from the special fund they will always feel well maybe I don't eat somebody else is poorer than me so we do the big things and I think we also do the piecemeal thing so I think we should support the TSO motion tonight thank you thank you Pam I appreciate I appreciate hearing from everyone it definitely is a nuanced situation I we often have comments from staff and I feel guilty that I haven't all the TSO meetings or all the FINCOM meetings to hear the ins and outs of this conversation I would appreciate hearing some feedback at least from the from the town staff thank you Gilford do you have your hand up yes I'm waiting for a reply from someone else yeah because I'm making sure I'd say the right thing okay Amy are you giving him the reply so the regulations you have now are written a certain way and what you're being asked to do the way they're written now is the town will take over ownership of the other service lines right now so if you want us to wait two years and whether we study it or we don't study it or whether it's automatic or it's not automatic we have to change the regulations the question before you is do we change it for two years or do you just take what is written now which says the town will take over the water regulations upon approval that's the water services upon approval that's really what you're being asked we can talk later about whether you want the mandatory two-year review or anything else but before you get the regulations if you don't want the town to take over the services now we have to change the regulations so you have the correct regulations to vote on next does that make sense what I just said I think I just hope it doesn't it doesn't um I'm the two change the two options that are before the council come out of finance committee finance committee basically said we don't want ownership to change automatically in two years the right the information that came out of tso was we wanted to change automatically in two years Amy please raise you go ahead so yeah no all I was going to say just to kind of clarify what billford's saying is because of the initial conversations with tso we rewrote these whole regs for ownership to take place immediately so we're going to need to change with both of the recommendations with tso and fincom we're going to have to do some change to the regulations really you know I agree with you Lynn that the most important thing is that we move these forward and we just need to know what change we're going to bake into these because right now we've got two different committees that are recommending different things and so we want to ultimately put forward something that has the best chance at succeeding when we bring it back reality you could not you could take a third option and say you want to accept what's written now and do it immediately recommendations are this that recommendation so we just need to know how to write the rules so you can approve them okay um michelle you had your hand up and then you put it down I want to make sure you have an opportunity to speak I think I just was confused by what gilford said so the regulations as they stand right now um leave it to the homeowner the proposed regulations based on the tso's initial conversation was to shift that so the question is something has to be re rewritten either way right and it's whether to have an automatic two-year or to not include that and then have something that's distinct from that that gives a work plan to the town manager to evaluate over the next however much time the council decides is that michelle I think you have some of it but let me it's initially in the conversations in finance and then in tso there was a strong sense of needing to move and do this right away okay to change the ownership from the main line to the property line that presently is covered by the individuals home or the property to have that now be taken over by the town and then Amy with all of the recommendations and work that's been done and I want to recognize honest enormous work on this as well went and drew up regulations that right now the draft says that we will effective July 1 take over the ownership of the of the main line to the to the property owner that the town will take over that ownership that's the way the draft presently is written based on some of the various things that people have discussed tonight tso said nah let's implement it in two years okay finance said you know maybe we don't want to have the ownership in there at all change in ownership in there at all instead leave it go but you know as we've heard tonight come back in two years for reconsideration so that's where we are I'm going to try to do this by motion shallony question I have a question for Amy and gilford so in the current after all the changes you've made based on tso's discussions um would the would this include the apartment buildings rented homes as well as owner occupied homes and do you the second question is do you support because the finance committee reports that the staff supported not tying us down to this but allowing the time to study and then deciding but so I don't know which staff they were referring to so I'm directing that question to you do you support us locking into um what we have right now or would you prefer the space to study this in two years and um yeah so what is yeah two questions so your first question is yes and no and it's harder to it's harder to explain than what you just said we have private water lines that are considered services that are quite large and quite big you mass all the water lines on you mass property which was not discussed are private and they pay the same rate as everybody else all the water lines on amherst college are private all the water lines on hampshire college are private most of the large most of the large apartment complexes the water lines on those properties are private so these are the mains and these are the little lines that go to the buildings as well there are a number of smaller rental properties that are treated just like single family houses their service goes from the property all the way to the I mean from the house all the way to the main so it's it's it's a bigger question than you actually identified if you actually want to start looking at that and we kind of pointed it out that there's a lot of private stuff around town um amity place is a private condominium association they own the water line once it leaves the main on amity street all the way to the complex the hollows um which i don't know if that's the right name for it i think so there's another name the hollows and pine wood right they are private subdivisions they own the water line from the time it leaves old farm road until it raps back through the neighborhood and comes back to old farm road so there's there's different degrees of private and they apply to apartment complexes and condos they also apply to our public and private institutions so the question is much bigger than you've talked about discussed here the second part of your question is um we have no real preference taking two years to study this will answer a lot more of these questions and yes there are a lot of questions um but we just need to know the regulation that you're going to vote because we need to put some regulations in effect is the ownership going to be the property owner maintains ownership for two years and then we make another decision in two years if the town takes it over at the property line or if it stays the way it is that's really what we're kind of how we're doing this okay shallony does that answer your question mostly thank you Anna thank you uh i have a little bit of a bone to pick with the way that you keep framing this one because the way that you keep framing the finance committee recommendation is that nothing changes but that we study it and that's not part of the motion the motion is just to say that nothing changes about ownership if we decide that that's going to happen the studying is going to happen then that's a different thing that will not be addressed through this at this meeting so i just want to be very clear that that is not an automatic part of that motion that is correct however it can be a motion on the evening when we do the first and second readings of the bylaws yes but until we voted it i don't think it's appropriate to tie it to this motion it's fine michelle um do we have other regulations or bylaws that automatically adopt something in some timeline um or would this be a unique situation to include an automatic adoption i just i can't recall seeing any that have that but that doesn't mean they don't exist and to me a regulation um is not like a living document in the sense that you know it is but it's it's like you adopt it and i i don't i just i'm not familiar with other regulations in which we would have have that kind of automatic adoption of something in a certain time period call or anybody else my recollection is that usually when you adopt regulations they're effective either immediately or very soon after that but i think it's a good question michelle i think i think you're right is that typically they have a time time span which they become implemented 90 days immediately whatever it is yeah mean to show you had your hand up i was just going to say the same thing that typically you have an effective date and it's not half half is effective one day and half is effective a different day it's just an effective date yeah okay okay so the motion on the table is to request the town manager present the town council with water and sewer regulations without an automatic future service line ownership change it does not refer to research it does not refer to insurance it refers to what the regulations will say when they come back to us is there any further question okay then we're going to i don't even know where we're starting i think we're up to pam rooney i think i understand and i think i'm going to vote yes kathy shane yes andy steinberg yes jennifer tov i'm going to abstain because i'm still confused okay um okay uh alisha walker upstate shallony bone mill yes pat de angeles hi anna deblin goth here no lindy greesmer is an i mandy joe hannity hi anika lopes and i am i'm going to abstain out of need for more time thank you michelle miller hi dorothy pam no eight in favor two opposed and three abstentions that's what i have okay um let me just check one thing try to do the uh proposed snow and ice so that when we break guilford and amy don't have to stick around any longer so this is a first reading i'm going to call on uh gl since this originated in gl and pat do you want to speak to this or have someone else from the committee speak to it um i think that i can speak and i'd like mandy joe to chime in if i miss something uh we looked at this uh bylaw came to us from the bylaw review committee four years ago and was one of the things that we were looking at i think you can see in the revisions that are in the bylaw now are in your packet and i think they're quite clear um we have expanded this beyond snow and ice to look at other obstructions of public way which can be trash leaves tree limbs things like that and again i'm going to say that those things seem quite clear we have had one uh request which came in very late from the tree warden uh so it is not in the packet and the tree warden is very concerned that could someone could use the language of the bylaw as it's written now to remove a shade tree without approval so um he is suggesting uh a change and a creation of a b three which would say something like the tree warden shall assess public shade trees impacting public ways and sidewalks before they are trimmed or removed so that is the one thing that is not here yet and Athena do you need me to read that again Athena i i don't believe so Athena and i discussed that requested change earlier today and we um it can be added in when this comes back for second reading great okay i do have that language um and there was also one other small change um for inspectional services that should be inspectional services yes and and i'm trying to understand whether we need to add therefore the tree warden up in the uh enforcement but as you say that can come back on second reading so i guess i could Mandy unless there's something you specifically want to add i think we can open this to questions you covered it pap Kathy oh sorry Lynn no go right ahead Kathy my question is 24 hours um you know i have i'm fine with what's being proposed but if as i understand what this would get triggered and let me just think of a tree limb for example you know as opposed to shovel the snow off your walk um if there is a large or a few up here there if you ride your bike you realize you're being scratched by large bushes it's not a tree 24 hours seems like a short time period so it's just purely a question on 24 you know it it because if you don't do it in 24 hours then you face a fine so i i'm just looking for where 24 hours came from and when you've added to obstructions is when i perked up started looking at the 24 hours it wasn't so much ice and snow um so i presume that it gets triggered by someone complains that there is an obstruction so as opposed to there's uh obstruction police running around we're going to have council volunteers running around doing oh i'm getting knocked around here so so it's just it's a question on 24 um purely are you saying i don't have a suggestion like with 36 be better or before i'll record it as a question for us to go back and look at on wednesday at gol any other questions andy when i'm sorry please go right ahead okay andy so i guess i have a couple of observations and i'm not sure how they are really fairly dealt with one is the um sidewalks aren't really universal throughout the town and how they are whether they exist or how they are arranged there are some subdivisions including my own where when the subdivision was built a sidewalk was put in that nobody is really maintaining uh certainly the town is not maintaining and it only rides like one side of one of one section of houses and um so it's really in some ways a a sidewalk to nowhere and then the other thing that i that is that there's some sidewalks that the town is plowing because they've been determined to be of such significance that um that that's a decision that uh dpw has made and has used to sidewalk plow to plow them and that doesn't occur everywhere so i i think that the uh thing that concerns me about this and i'd like to hear more conversation as we go along um is aren't these inequities the um and what are we how are we addressing those inequities yeah and i'm going to pass this to Amy and Guilford because i feel like uh what i understand is there have been sidewalks that the town has been clearing but they don't belong to the town but it it was easy for them to do so there's a lot of confusion by residents so could you address that either one of you uh yes so the bylaw says that town the property owner is responsible for the sidewalk in front of their property um and back 2019 20 years ago um they wanted to kind of improve the service and give a little more service by having the town sidewalk plow which went by some areas just go ahead and stay on the sidewalk um plow these areas um as they went to the areas the town owns and that's kind of how this started um and then people said well this is an important sidewalk and it connects this town property this town property so that sidewalk got added and then this sidewalk got added and and really it kind of it kind of morphed and changed the bylaw negatively i mean the bylaw some people don't think it exists and that's not that they're not responsible and the town's just responsible so that's kind of what happened here so that's how we got that list of sidewalks that we end up doing and we really are only supposed to go through once and not go back again and sometimes we don't even go through once if we don't plow so it's kind of that's how that came about amy did you want to add something thank you gilford yeah no gilford kind of covered it i guess i just kind of wanted to reiterate the point that we certainly you know took on as a courtesy pass one courtesy pass certain you know certain sidewalks that led to a town property were going by there anyway and really what's happened over time is people have seen that as the obligation shift to the town so now you know unfortunately it's just gotten confused in a lot of people's minds and now they kind of approach us with you know my sidewalk hasn't been done not realizing that it's their obligation to get done and that we do a courtesy pass but that doesn't remove their obligation at all to do it so thank you um lin you want me to continue i'll go ahead thank you i gave me a chance to catch up on some notes for future meetings mindy jowl yeah um a couple of other things that we might want to add that um a constituent had brought up who's been following this and we forgot to talk about at the last gl meeting which one of them is exactly what kathy said for section a or b2 the clearing of debris extending the time from 24 hours to maybe 72 hours or a week a little bit longer which is different than snow and ice there are two different sections right um when i drafted it i just basically copied section b1 into b2 and changed snow and ice to something else um so that's where 24 came from kathy it's just copying the paragraph so i would support adding a longer time for those types of obstructions and then the other thing for b1 was a concern that people do their sidewalks but not the curb cuts um that they don't see the curb cut as part of the sidewalk and so potentially adding into section b1 in particular that curb cuts are part of the sidewalk obligation um so so are you suggesting mandy jow that perhaps um this should gl should discuss this bring back a second on a second reading a few changes and maybe that second reading won't happen until march 20th yes okay yeah or or if we read it on the sixth and gl doesn't have time um we can just amend at that time but it might be easier for gl to bring them back yeah i would prefer that gl look at it again and bring it back are there other suggestions pam yes thank you uh similar to what mandy jow just said um perhaps the time frame that's specified by the i'll call the officer in charge whoever it was that that um provides the notice to that property owner they can work out something just like they do with with um correcting issues in rental properties during an inspection they they specify the time frame by when it has to get done clearly if it's something that's block blocking traffic or forcing people out into a street it needs to get cleaned cleaned up pretty quickly um but that's perhaps another opportunity to put the time frame in without specifying it too closely okay Dorothy um couple of the suggestions about time frame in terms of greenery i was asked to speak to some neighbors about greenery and they said they've been waiting for three weeks already trying to get somebody to come and do it and they were bushes that were too tall for them to do i mean you can be say yes yes i'm going to do it and not be able to get the help or be able to you know climb up on that ladder about the snow and ice we spent a lot of time thinking about that because this came out just as we were having this little snow and ice storm and our service that we had didn't come and so my husband was out there doing things he's not supposed to do um but we have to renegotiate now with the service they said oh we don't come to do the sidewalks when it's less than something rather so in other words there's a discussion that has to be take place between people who do the service that people hire that needs to mesh with the rulings and you know i can't say what that should be now but on amity street on a hill we have to get our sidewalk shoveled it's too important it's major and it's really hard to walk up going on a hill so i the 24 hours thing to me is too long i think that people should try to get their sidewalk done certainly 12 hours the fine maybe doesn't happen until 24 but the way it's written it sounds like it's okay if you don't do it until 24 and you know so bob was out there in the dark and it was done way before 24 hours but it was way too long for anyone who's trying to walk up that street on an icy day so i i think that we need um some more specifics about this you know when is it when should it be shoveled and when does the fine start and um maybe some some indications of of some of the language that people that do this kind of shoveling uh think of um and there's you know this question of shovel salting uh ice free snow free i mean there's a lot of variables here um and it's very serious i remember living in hartford connecticut i was a little girl policeman riding our doorbell at seven six thirty in the morning and he said to my father who had was just getting ready to go to work your sidewalks not done because he lives on a big place and so he said to us kids go clean the sidewalk the policeman got upset he said i didn't expect your children to do it and he said well who else is going to do it i have to go to work uh and of course we did we shoveled those sidewalks didn't matter if we were eight years old or whatever but we knew we had to do it because when a policeman comes to your door it's pretty clear you got to shovel your sidewalk so i am for spending a little more time for the committee to spend a little more time in these rules because they're very very important but there are many distinctions i think in it as to when you should try to get your sidewalk cleared to what level and when the fine comes in because i don't think they should you should i think 24 hours might make some people think i don't have to do it for 24 hours and that's not what the the new legislation should be saying i think paul you have your hand down yeah so i just think one might as we're going to be making minor qualifications under section b2 it says um within 24 hours of receiving a known notice to remedy and i would suggest that we have that be notice ceremony from the town so it can't be a neighbor notifying you saying you've had i've notified you 24 hours ago it should be an official thing that the town issues a notice okay thank you uh guilford you had your hand up yes thank you um when we have brush our tree complaints of hanging over the sidewalk we usually send a letter and it's five days from the day to receive the letter that you contact us and tell us what your solution is and if your solution um if your solution is such that you have to bring a contractor in and the contractor tells you well i can't come in until a certain time that's your solution and we normally accept that for brush and stuff like that so if you wanted to try to work something like that and that's how we do it now if someone complains uh guilford i'm going to ask i know i'm interrupting that okay can you put that in an email for me or send the send what you have that you use that would be like we can do that please do it tomorrow yes we we've heard several suggestions uh for gl to look at before they come back with a second reading uh are there any other comments on this at this time okay see none um guilford and amy thank you so much for being here uh for this long and involved multi-tiered conversation about everything from sewer water ice bushes um sewer plants everything thank you so much and for the council we are going to take a break we're going to reconvene at nine twenty please turn off your mic and your picture turn your picture back on when you come back excuse me will we be um will we be doing the poll petition tonight hi mic i emailed you to let you know that it was voted earlier in the meeting okay so okay hello it was approved it was approved yes okay thank you walk Molly honey please turn your picture back on when you return please turn your picture on when you return so i know you're here uh michelle i know is back and alisha are you back yes i am thank you thank you andy and shallony athena when we start uh could you put the um motion for the special act extending voting rights to lawful permanent residents up on the screen please okay um so we are going to move on to the special act extending voting rights to lawful permanent residents uh the motion is on your screen i'm going i'm going to only read the part that's the beginning i'm not going to read the full act and seek a second and this is to approve the proposed special act set forward below an act extending voting rights to lawful permanent residents and to petition the general court for special legislation provided however that the general court may make clerical or editorial changes of form only to the bill unless the town council approves amendments to the bill before enacted by the general court and then it's stated is there a second second de angeles okay the motion's been made in second are there questions or comments i just would like to say one small thing yeah please pat um and i promised a friend that i would um use this quote by cesar shabas uh chavez um what he said when they were fighting for rights voting rights we don't need perfect political systems we need perfect participation participation and this allowing um legal permanent residents to be able to vote and run for office and in the town of amherst and creates that kind of perfect participation we a part of that perfect person of participation we could go further but let's begin here are there any other comments or questions okay seeing none i'm going to start with kathy shane yes andy steinberg yes jennifer tov is now absent uh alisha walker yes shallony balmille yes pat de angeles hi anna devlin gothier hi lindy greesmer is an i mandy johannike hi nika lopes hi michelle miller hi dorothy pam yes and pam rooney yes it's unanimous with one absent uh the next item is authorization of town council president to sign a letter in support of the protecting community television television act and andy you asked this to be removed removed from consent and would you like to speak to that at this time yes it really isn't that i'm opposed to sending a letter but i was a little bit taken aback by the um lack of information that we've received regarding what the legislation is that we're supporting having worked in the whole area of the our various cable goods and contracts in the last round that i understand exactly what the problems is the amherst media is having with financing their operations under the current arrangement but um i felt really um strange by not knowing and is there any information that anybody could provide that explains what it is that the marquis bill proposes to do anna sure so i had included a memo in the packet that i thought i hoped would clearly excuse me clearly outline what the bill does so i'm not sure if you had a chance to to read that andy but um essentially it's it's a very small bill but it it has a big impact so i'm going to just read from my memo really quickly it specifies the definition of franchise fee to read the term franchise fee means any tax fee or other monetary assessment of any kind and it used to say that it includes any tax fee or other monetary assessment so it's kind of locking in those those parameters um and and that it adds in the words other monetary so that's kind of what ties in the other element of the the franchise fee so i don't know if i can answer any other questions but basically it's it's sort of locking in that definition so that the um in kind contributions are counted as counting towards that franchise or sorry um the the in kind count contributions excuse me are um are included in that does that help at all andy i guess i'm not sure what the in kind contributions are and so sure so those are um in kind contributions include the money that it costs the cable company to um to offer things like amherst media to offer the public educational and government channels and so the the communications act of 1934 established a five percent franchise fee cap basically limiting the fees that cable companies can pay as five percent of their gross revenue um and then franchise fees are then they go back to communities oftentimes local governments can use them to maintain for example right of ways used by cable companies um and so by considering the hosting of those channels as an in kind donation cable companies are able to take the cost of offering those services and count them towards the five percent fee cap um because of this there's a significant drop in the actual franchise fees so it leads to a drop in revenue drop in resources for channels like amherst media and other public governmental public educational governmental excuse me um channels so it's it's trying to make it so that they are not able to sort of use the the money that they're spending doing something they're required to do to pay less in front in fees to communities i guess that uh this is what my thought is i'll be real quick so because i don't want to spend any more time on it but i think that one of the biggest problems that amherst media and other providers is such as them it faced is that so many people are cutting their services to cable because they're using the internet to obtain television programming that they like and that um because comcast is not responsible or any cable provider centers uh doesn't have to pay on the portion of the bill that it has to do with providing internet services and the other internet service providers aren't taxed um that it's created this tremendous decline in the portion of the bill that is chargeable and uh you know i just still haven't quite heard the words that um get there and i and i certainly support what senator markey's doing and uh we feel um adding a little bit saying and taking any other steps through with um enhance the revenue to local cable providers by expanding what um is uh taxed or something like that would have been better but i don't want to prolong the conversation or amend the letter so i'm going to drop it at that thank you thanks adi i i just want to note there is um state legislation that would that i believe and i'm a little a little less familiar with it right the second but i believe seeks to include streaming services in some way um and so that would be something else that we could look into supporting as well as a council there is such legislation india uh you guys just covered it with this legislation the mma is supporting that legislation okay um are there any other questions or comments on this then moving to a vote i'm going to start with andy stein i don't think we had a motion or so i'm sorry you're right we didn't uh to authorize the council president to sign a letter in support of the protecting community television act s 3 4 0 is there a second second nothing okay um now we're going to move to the vote um andy steinberg yes jennifer tov is absent lucha walker yes shall any bomell yes pat dangels hi on a devlin goth here hi lindy greasmer isn't i mandy johannike hi nika lobes hi michelle miller hi uh pan maroney i'm me sorry dorthy pan first yes yes then pan maroney yeah gathie shane yes the unanimous with one absent we did the um rules of procedure and so we're going to move to the proposal for an increase to councillor stipends and childcare costs it also includes a look at health insurance benefits i'm going to make the motion i will mention that this already i'm sorry the motion was a motion to refer and that motion passed in the consent agenda but i do want to note that the motion should have read uh to refer the proposal for increase to councillor stipends family care reimbursement and health insurance benefits to the finance committee for review and recommendation with report to the council by april 1 2023 that motion would be consistent with the actual memo that we received from councillors miller and walker michelle or elicia would you like to speak to um your proposal i'm sure um i'll just briefly go over it since there is a memo in the packet um and then i think elicia also would like to speak to it um so it's three parts um there's uh part one is to increase the councillor salary to ten thousand it's five thousand annually currently um this also includes uh for the council president to receive a bonus stipend of twenty five hundred dollars annually which is already the case now and then in in addition that is not um the the current case is that committee chairs would receive a bonus stipend of five hundred dollars annually for chairing a committee um the family care reimbursement is that uh councillors would be in reimbursed up to a certain dollar amount in the um proposal we have sixteen twenty five per hour and that was based on some um data from care dot com uh with respect to our um our area and that would cover any family related um care uh that would happen during council meetings committee meetings as well as um up to five hours per week for council related work and activities and then also to develop a reimbursement policy that is straightforward and timely part three includes um exploring the possibility of offering health insurance benefits to counselors um and this would be an exploration by the finance committee as well as through the town manager in terms of what the administrative aspects of that would be um just a quick background the the charter establishes two sections um that speak to council compensation the first is uh how council compensation can be changed either to increase or decrease it and that has to happen uh by a majority vote of the full town council during the first first 18 months of town councillors term um and then the second section section 10.7 are outlines um the actual compensation that councillors receive the reason for the proposal is twofold um first to increase diversity um as martha hanner spoke to earlier from the league and we really appreciate the support of the league of women voters on this proposal as well as others who have written in support um and I think we know that representation matters and that it takes a lot of time for us to do this work and that's time that we're giving up for something else um that that we may want to be doing or need to be doing and then also um against a benchmark of 10 other communities in the state amherst ranks lowest again you can look in the memo if in the public if you're interested in looking at other communities amherst ranks the lowest in terms of compensation so while we don't think this fully compensates councillors for the energy both physically mentally emotionally that is spent as a councillor we do believe this is a good starting point and we'd also like to add a rule and the rules of procedure that ask for the council to review compensation at the 15 month mark of each two-year council term and I think alicia's gonna take it from there alicia yes thank you michelle thank you lin um I don't have too much to add because I know michelle went over everything and you all had um hopefully a chance to review this in your packet um but I just wanted to speak to this a little bit more personally because you know one of the reasons why I wanted to become um a town councillor was to be able to figure out ways to make running for public office more accessible to more diverse people um and one of the largest most apparent barriers um has been equitable compensation for the time um that is spent on the work and being in the meetings um and then for me um as a young single parent um being able to find reliable child care for meetings that are so long um and so late in the night and having that not be an additional burden on those who choose to participate um we wanted to make sure that that was all encompassing and so including the language on family member care whether that be a child or any other family member who needs to be cared for and might incur extra expenses um in order for someone to be able to participate in public government um like michelle said surrounding communities with comparable population sizes are all compensated their councillors are all compensated at a higher rate um and many of those councils don't require their councillors to serve on additional committees which accrues additional time and additional work requirements um so I think that this is a very reasonable offer I don't even think that this um nearly adequately compensates councillors enough for the amount of work and time um that is committed to be able to be present and participating in public office however I think this is a great start and it at least places us to the next lowest uh community in line with the next lowest compensated community for councillor stipends in the area um I'm now looking for councillor comments Dorothy um I just want to congratulate them both on such a thorough job um I didn't know they were working on it I know that people have talked to me about this and we've felt the need um to do this to be fair um and yet hadn't had hadn't done it and yet so many of the needed things are there I want to comment on the health insurance um at least with the way I see it now most people would not need it but those that do should have it and they'd be able to I assume join in with the town's uh rates which would be much better than an individual trying to get health insurance on their own so um I just want to say I strongly support this people have spoken to me about this we want to have younger people we want to have people with children uh it's our investment in the future and and it's not just children that you might need care for my mother when she was taking care of her mother who was quite old had to hire a nanocitter in order to leave the house I mean sometimes people have to do these things and it adds up it also I think would kind of reduce strife between couples um in that when somebody says you're spending all your time on town council they can at least say well at least I'm making something I'm bringing in something because right now um most people when they talk to me about the job see it as too hard too hard too challenging too time consuming um and that just you have to give up too much so I think we have to really make this outreach in order to make the job more equitable and make it so that it's of course it this funds that she's mentioning don't in any way reimburse one for the real time but they help they help and I think it would be appreciated and we might actually encourage some people that we would love to have run for council to do so in the future so I totally support this thank you shellany yeah I also want to firstly thank Michelle and Alicia for a very thoughtful and much needed attention to this issue um and I had not even thought of the community chairs committee chairs I think that's totally deserving it is a lot of work completely agree with that um and family related care I think that I'm just thinking of this because clearly even 10 000 is not enough to support um the livelihood this could be a full-time job if you really want to do it well or at least it consumes many many hours so even 10 000 doesn't feel enough and so I was thinking more in terms of like what are the blocks barriers for people to join and so child care or is it high speed internet I mean child care seems like a clear like a no-brainer to me that would definitely be something that is obviously a barrier and I'm thinking of what are some other barriers that people may have whether it's high speed internet is it um you know ability to provide food that day I don't know what it is so I wonder if it would be helpful to get a sense of course I'd love to hear from other counselors with different you know different backgrounds to share what you think but I think it might be helpful to also reach out and maybe you already did that if you did reach out to the community to get a sense of you know what what can town do to remove the barriers for you to step into that role so has that question or something like that being asked formally or informally? Are there any other comments or questions or reply to Shalini's questions? I'll just say that I think that's a really really excellent suggestion Shalini and I would love to figure out a way that we can um have that outreach and and ask those questions of more people in the community so thank you for suggesting that I really appreciate that Michelle I mean I'm sorry Michelle you spoke Alicia did you want to respond to that? Yeah I just wanted to respond to Shalini really quickly I also think that those are great questions and I think that we're in a space where like we we definitely want that outreach to happen but it's kind of difficult because there haven't been many parents or people who have children like of at an age that need to be cared for on the council so to collect that data is kind of difficult but I can tell you what my experiences have been and that is what has sort of motivated me to work on to work on this memo and to work on this proposal is because it has been very challenging and I think you even did mention a lot of the other things is that you know making sure that the kids are fed on this night and if I do have a sitter I'm ordering food so that I'm not requiring my sitter who is usually a high school family member to be cooking for my kids and you know there are a lot of other things and so again I think Michelle and I think that this is the very basic first step and and we do hope that more can be done but we're hoping that this can serve as a baseline. Thank you Alicia. Pat. Thank you. Yeah I'm not muted. I have no problem at all with the idea of family care or child care being provided. I think that is a no-brainer. I also think that for some families for some council members it might be very important to have food provided. The place that I'm stuck in is we're limiting the amount of money that goes to each department and we have teachers and paraprofessionals who are underpaid in Amherst and I'll say that you know and I as a teacher I know about that as former teacher so for me I'm really trying to get my head around or heart around the idea that I'm going to raise my salary that's kind of where I'm stuck in in a way that I'm not allowing people whose work is maybe even more important than mine to have so I'm really stuck there and if there's any way not necessarily right now but you can help me think through that that would be helpful. Shalini. I had exactly the same thoughts that Pat was just sharing that I feel yeah there's so many people who are underpaid right now and for us to do and that's why I was thinking more that instead of everyone all the council is getting ten thousand I wonder if it would make more sense to direct focus the funds towards meeting the needs of you know of specific needs so it being need-based rather than across the board so providing for food because I know I've really not cooked enough because of council like I'm either buying or you know whatever so but not from like I don't I'd rather that money went towards yeah towards food and of people who like need-based sort of a thing and not in a way that it is because as Dorothy stated in the earlier discussion we had sometimes it's awkward for families to ask for especially I've heard that also in school that they will not ask for free leisure services even though leisure services is free to every family but sometimes families are hesitant to ask for free and they'd rather just not send their kids so I understand that's a barrier too but figuring out a way that you know where we can direct the funds in a more focused intentional way where it really has an impact rather than just increasing it across the board for everybody much as I would like to get 10,000 to say. Thank you I'm gonna Dorothy I'm gonna go to Andy and come back to you since you've spoken already Andy. You know several people now have made the comments in a way that I was I'm certainly gonna vote favor the motion on the floor because I think that it should be referred to committee I think we should have a thorough discussion the committee of the issues that have just been talked about and then go from there back to the council so that all of us can have the discussion once again after it happens so I think it is valuable and it's been brought forward and that we're going to have the opportunity there are some issues that I had outlined when I read it and I think that they've been talked about I think that the given what's happening with you know concerns about the Amherst professional public and public education association and their unhappiness and are about to go out to ask voters to approve that exclusion that there's you know we need to be thinking about optics and everything that we do and there are extraordinary pressures that are going to be in place as we adopt the budget for the year ahead FY24 the state aid amounts are not looking like they're coming going to come in favor of religious based on how the governor's proposal on municipal aid plays out and I think that the other thing that I was concerned about is that it's actually more expensive for us because we're an extraordinarily large council and as you compare to these other communities you know most of them are you know five or so counselors and you know we our charter commission decided that we would be best off the very large council but it means that the salary question plays out to a much larger number of people but those are questions that I think need to be explored outlined and then come back and be talked about again so let's say you know let's make the referral and you know we'll do our best to get it back and bring the discussion. Just to clarify we actually already voted referral to the finance committee I just wanted to clarify it included everything that was mentioned in the memo so we're not going to vote again on this it's already been referred Dorothy any final comment before we move on? Yes I think that we should not underestimate how difficult it's going to be to get a really representative and diverse council. We have to move quickly on this because there is a time frame we're not voting on our own pay we're voting on the pay for the next council and if you don't feel that you can vote money that you get then you don't run for that next council so that gets rid of that problem I don't agree with needs-based pay I understand the reasoning behind it and it's very well-intentioned but I think that for us for people to be feeling equal as council members the pay should be the same if somebody privately wants to give theirs back that's up to them okay but I don't think anyone should have to ask for it whatever the pay is that's what it is and you should just get it so I think this is very important and I'm glad it's come forward and we do have to move because I think it has to be done within 18 months is that right Lynn that we have so it has been moved on so I if anyone is worried about the councilor town council members not working hard enough I think that they should put that worry aside because everybody is and knows exactly how many hours it is and we want to encourage more wonderful people to run for the council okay there any further comments this has already been referred and we've actually asked that if possible there be a something come back to the council by April 1st okay seeing nothing then I'm going to move on to there's no appointments are there any reports for committee and liaison reports and I'm going to start with as soon as I find my notes sorry when we're in the town where my more room to spread out Mandy job um we continue to work on rental permitting and the referral on the proposal by myself and Pat on duplexes and more um the hearing for the duplex and extra zoning proposal is this Thursday at 435 p.m. and I'm assuming that neither of those are ready to come back to the council at least for the 6th of March no no we're looking at April that yearliest for at least the permitting and probably later for the other one okay elementary school building committee Kathy the um there is a list of meetings that has been set up and I want to make sure we can email it to everyone and we can put it we're going to talk about putting it up on the town website to present the project we had the first of them on Sunday at crocker farm in the middle of a snowstorm um so that one has happened already but these meetings people should really be thinking about them that they are district meetings but especially any of them that are in person other people can come to them this is where people can come to get information um the other the uh report that's required by the msba called schematic design was submitted last week so we are moving forward on all of this and we're updating the website with frequently asked questions where we now have the question with an answer rather than just a long list of questions and we hope to have that updated um so I really encourage all of you to let everyone know not just about your own district meetings but if you can say you know if you can't come to ours there's another one um and Michelle and I on the very last one the April 16th which is the last in the series that's a you all come to the mill district with an offer of food being provided in the afternoon so we that is not going to be just a district one meeting so I will get these out to everyone and I talked to Brianna about posting them where we can have people understand that there are multiple opportunities so people can come we got great questions in our small turnout on Sunday so that's not much else the committee's not going to be very active because the next piece is May 2nd the big next piece okay thank you and by the way that meeting was on Saturday during the snow right so not so right so see I don't even have my day right um I also want to just point out that anybody is welcome to go to any district meeting um if they're all posted on the calendars and uh you can if they're by Zoom you're also welcome to join by Zoom and I just you know Lynn I was underscoring it because as far as I'm concerned I'm doing a similar basic presentation so if someone says I can't make Wednesday night at seven o'clock or I can't make this just go say that take a look at the schedule and maybe you can do another one yeah thank you finance committee Andy I really don't have anything that I can add to the report that was already been provided to the committee certainly welcome suggestions and questions about it we have the meeting tomorrow and I think the most challenging discussion that we're going to be having is regarding the funding plan for the elementary school building and which ties into then the question of the amount of debt that the council would need to authorize which ties back to what we just approved and setting up the debt exclusion uh so um just wanted to remind you that that uh discussion begins tomorrow and there's going to be um a very difficult one and a very um detailed one um but anyway if there are other questions ask them if not thank you that meeting's at three o'clock right by zoom okay jace um gol pat you're unmuted thank you I think the memo that I presented in our packet is self-explanatory we are asking sponsors of proclamations even if there and resolutions even if they're annual months to really review the material to contact me and because we and have someone who is a sponsor be present at a gol meeting which are at 9 30 on Wednesday every other Wednesday March 1st is the next one it becomes critical we spend an enormous amount of time trying to make adjustments to resolutions and proclamations that the sponsors are really responsible for and so we really need that help and support so we're looking ahead to the Jewish American Heritage Month proclamation the child abuse awareness and prevention month and arbor month I've been in contact with the sponsors of the child abuse awareness and prevention month um so I know I think that's sort of enough we're going to be continuing in detail a look at the rules of procedure and obviously tonight a couple of things came up that will be added to that list and I think that's enough okay uh jcpc Kathy I understand uh your chair again I am um I'm not going to give much more than say we're meeting every week and the agenda tells you which departments are up so you can look for this Thursday and we um we'll get a report back to everyone the big challenge if you look at even the initial set of proposals we had from the town manager and staff is it's not quite balanced this year um the current coming year and it looks a lot worse when you get out a couple years in terms of our capital budgets so if anyone wanted to know whether the town has a money crunch the answer is yes okay um Jones library Anika I would like to refer to Paul please or an update on the last meeting Paul yeah so they are um just going through the basic design things right now and they have eliminated a couple meetings but sort of making progress on some of the areas like about where we need surveying work done to connect with town facilities and things like that so relatively short meetings actually lately okay uh TSO Anika okay so our last meeting uh they sewer and water regulations that we heard so much about were in discussion uh we also continued discussion on the street lighting policy uh with an update on the revised draft with discussion and continued on with the proposed waste hauler bylaw that we will continue and our next agenda for our meeting this Thursday at 7 p.m our requests have gone out for all um counselors if you have questions to please submit them by the first and uh encourage encourage anyone in the audience and spread the word um so we can have as many from the public who are interested uh attend thank you great are there any liaison reports Michelle um could I use this opportunity to give an update for AHRA absolutely okay great um so just to uh to update y'all on the survey um we had planned to retreat last week to kick off the survey but unfortunately we had to move it um so it's happening this Wednesday evening from six to eight Irv and I met uh today with the Dunahue Institute though to kick off the survey officially and um to give you a timeline on that we expect to finalize the questionnaire by uh the end of this month so 331 and then the survey will be open beginning April 4th it will stay open until April 19th unless we feel we need to keep it open longer is a very short window um we have a very comprehensive list of uh organizations and folks that this is going to go out to um and then the Dunahue expects to deliver the analysis to us by May 17th so if anybody um on the council here has any suggestions I would love to hear them really appreciate everybody following along with this um the other thing is um I am asking you all to save the date we are doing a screening of the big payback which is um a film that follows Evanston's journey of reparations uh Dr. Shabazz and I have a brief um appearance in that and we're doing that on March 30th at the powerhouse on Amherst college campus um we're doing this in partnership with the Amherst college student senate and former Evanston older woman Robin Roussimmons will be joining us for the screening and also be um uh hosting a talkback session um for folks who will be at the screening with us so please save the date and I'll send that out also in an email great thank you uh and do you have a time for that one yes it's going to be in at six o'clock great thank you are there any yes Pam Rooney great thank you um planning board but first um a question from Michelle uh are we going to be able to find the link to the survey how are you going to push that out to us so that we can distribute absolutely thank you as soon as it's um as soon as it's ready I will send the link um it's going to be on our engage Amherst site it's going to be on the Amherst our our um town of Amherst webpage um it's done through Qualtrics so there will be a QR code um and we will also be making physical copies that will be distributed throughout different locations in town um so that folks who do not have access to the to the internet will be able to access it great thank you my mind was quick uh planning board uh update uh the planning board had sort of an ad hoc work session that was a very fun conversation to participate in or listen to at least um where they looked at uh the opportunities of you know truly areas that could be focused on uh for development consideration and uh similar to what I participated in probably a while ago uh sort of some zoning bylaws that looked at mixed use development for instance that at Ken's corner this is the kind of idea where um opportunity to create some hubs or some nodes of development are a nice way to sort of approach planning so I was very pleased to see that that event thank you are there any other liaison reports okay then uh we don't have any minutes tonight uh to approve Paul town manager sure just a few things so first very busy on working on the budget we're doing the budget hearings department by department in preparation for delivering a budget a balanced budget to the council by May 1st um there's a lot of construction going on in town you may have noticed it but there's a lot of building projects and permits being processed through the inspection services so they're very busy down there reviewing cross uh projects that are coming through the door um a really good event yesterday and for Black History Month put on by the DEI department um Black History through music and Ben Harrington and Pamela and Jennifer all made presentations uh so a nice turn out there we're getting ready for the big night if you don't know what the big night is it's when the salamanders come out and sort of do their dance once a year and it happened and so we're working with the public works department the fire department and police department this happens up on Henry street where the salamander crossing is um and so trying to make sure the salamanders can get to where they want to do their dancing and whatever it is they do um safely and that the people who are helping to guide them are safe as well so working with the Hitchcock Center for that that's kind of a fun thing so that happens and we don't know when that will happen it will be some night in March when it's 40 degrees and it's rainy and that's what brings them out so everybody pays attention to it it's called the big night it's really kind of a neat thing another big night we're preparing for this weekend's activities this is the the event that will not be named so we will have you'll see police officers in town crest responders ready and you'll see a high high high visibility presence throughout the town on Saturday they start at 8 a.m. and are there most of the day and this is to make sure mostly students who are partying are doing it safely and the gatherings don't get too large or out of control um the uh and then also just to note that this is Sonia Aldridge's last week of work for the town she ain't going away she'll be back she'd be back um but um so this is her her uh swan song of being officially employed by the town full time and while the snow has begun so I'm anxious to go home um we have uh schools are closed tomorrow we have delayed the opening of town hall until two o'clock until 10 o'clock uh so we'll have delayed opening of town hall tomorrow and we have a parking van and there's a parking van that starts at midnight tonight yes okay um under town any questions for the town manager who would like to go home before he gets snowed in um right uh under the president's report I just a quick reminder you're supposed to actually get it to me today but I'll take it tomorrow uh any issues or questions you want to make sure that we ask senator comreford and representative dom to speak to at their next at the next meeting they will be essentially the first item starting at 645 so we'll be juggling a little bit to make sure that uh we get other stuff done before they arrive but they are um senator comreford is not available so then I did not do a president's report so I'll do a catch up report for next week's meeting uh and that's basically it unless you have questions uh under future agenda items michelle and I are working on the retreat and we hope to have more information for you by next week and other questions our future agenda items counselors would like to raise please continue by the way to hold march 25th from nine till about 230 any other questions or comments from counselors mandy john I just want to mention that uh the MMA appointed its policy committees and paul is on one andy is on one and I am on one so if you've got questions about state legislation that I think I forget what paul's is but andy's on finance I'm on the municipal and regional administration which is sort of a catch all for things like the bills we talked about tonight um and paul what one are you on public works public works so any state legislation anything like that just talk to us about those things and thanks to all three of you for that additional uh state-level leadership dorothy do we have a place for the retreat it will have to be in the town room because it has to be broadcast because it's open to the public so um we we had it we had one before and we did let the public in and remember I remember a couple of guys sitting in wherever they wanted but that was in the town that was before we did uh zoom um access and um athena do you have do you want to speak to this yes thank you um if counselors are participating remotely and we want to be accessible on zoom then the town room is the place to do it I think it would be a different situation if everyone agreed to attend in person and then we could do it like we had in the past dorothy but um in the situation that we're in right now with some counselors participating remotely the town room is the best place but if we are in we are all going to be in person and we don't take public comment can we set up in another place but still have amourst media televised the meeting in the past when we had we're allowed to have fully in person meetings in the past when we have had retreats at the hitchcock center locations we did not have amourst media come and set up especially us and we didn't have the meeting recorded so that's something that we can inquire about but that's not how we had done in the past dorothy thank you for raising that we will investigate and see what our other options are okay thank you thank you very much absolutely uh Anna yeah um mandy could you share with the with the council what is the way that folks who might want to get involved in MMA committees in the future how they should and andy too how they could or should go about that um I think it sounds really interesting and I'm not even sure where to start so I started with every year around December the MMA puts out a call for people interested in serving on policy committees and there's a short application it's basically who you are and sort of some of what your experience is and what committees you're actually interested in um sometimes they have they know what openings there might be if people are not trying to re-up or people are leaving and all um but that's how I started and then I think from me Paul put me in touch with someone where there was an opening um so you know I think keep your eyes and ears out to those if those weekly MMA updates and particularly the beacon um that talks about how to do it but it's on the MMA website um I don't know how Andy got involved but I sort of had filled out an application and then Paul pointed me to a specific person who had who was in charge of the committee I'm actually on thank you that's awful andy did you want to speak to that yeah there's not too much more to add to what Andy said the application process is towards the end of the year and they make the decisions and then staff makes recommendations to the board and the board votes and I think it's only been a couple weeks ago that they made the announcement who would be on the 2023 committees um now some of them are more competitive than others for and they're more careful um the fiscal policy one may be the most difficult one to get on because they're looking for people with variety of experience in fiscal um there's in the local level but they're like three counselors from the entire state three mayors from the entire state three select board members from the entire state so it's a uh you know it's not that large a group so that they have to make some prior choices um Paul yeah just um the good news is that they are always looking for counselors to serve usually there's a a surplus of select board members and managers who want to serve but the counselors they're fewer people who are willing to be at a statewide body so if you have an interest look at the policy committees if you have an interest I can let them know that you're interested they sometimes have a vacancy that comes up during the course of the year um and I'm always love to advocate for our our folks to be on committees I think Amy serves as a technical advisor to one of the committees as well so um so we're always trying to get people on them so if you're interested please let me know okay Mandy Jo did you want to comment further on that yeah I forgot a couple things I actually think there's an opening for a counselor on one of the ones that the three of us aren't on when I was looking at the list they just posted the full list of all of them I got an email about it I think was in the weekly notice of updates um and there was a link to see who all was pointed and if there aren't three people under the list for counselors there's an opening um but the other good way to get involved if you're interested is through the MMCA um association which is our Mass Municipal Counselors Association and every year um sometime in July they start asking for if you're interested in being on the board of that or on the board of WEMO which is the women's elected um municipal officers um and and there's a couple other sort of sub sub boards that are also good ways to get involved in the MMA um and those those applications and stuff tend to come up in time for the January um MMA conference because that's where the elections happen so they they start getting applications in the summer for that okay and I'm going to just suggest that if any of us see notices we just share them across the rest of the council okay um Pat you have your hand up thank you I'm going back to the retreat in the original two retreats of the original council there were people who came and sat in and watched uh they did not participate and there was no public comment period which and I do not wish to have on a time that I set aside to work on issues with the council to have to sit uh for public comment I think that's inappropriate um I don't mind the public although it does you know make it you know you know there's two things uh retreats basically follow and one is it's a special meeting of the town council therefore we do not have public comment and the other is that we don't take any votes yes about issues but we don't take you but you did say there was going to be public comment so I just want to know if I did I misspoke there great thank you thank you but it does have to be accessible to the public okay I didn't hear that last thing but it has to be accessible to the public yes absolutely in other words it has to be an open meeting yep but no public comment but no public comment yeah I'm sorry I misled you on that are there any other comments or questions from the council seeing none then it's the meeting is adjourned at 10 18 thank you