 A little white cloud should. Yeah. And now above it says we're recording. So we are. All right. Have a great meeting. Thanks. Sure. Thanks, Angela. Thank you. Before we start, I will remind us pursuant to governor Bakers. March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. General law chapter 38 section 18 of this meeting. So we are obligated to take a roll call. Naming each individual. Which I will. Do now. Kathy shame. Here. John. Pesky. Here. John page. Here. Liz Larson. Here. Holly. Here. John page. Here. Liz Larson. Here. Holly. I'm here. Make gauge. Okay. Calling the meeting to order at three 34. It suggests in these instructions that if you're going to have a lot of background noise, you mute yourself, except when you're speaking. And let's jump right in and look at the agenda. I want to just say, first of all, before we start this, I see this as a meeting to get to organize our plan for going forward. What's our plan with the memo that we're writing? What's our plan in terms of getting input from both key town and committee leaders as well as from the public. And the timeline for getting this done by beginning of June. So I also not on the agenda, but related to that, I want to plan our next schedule or next two meetings, which we can get to when we get to topics that shared and not reasonably identified. I think we'll probably only, well, let's just do that right now. I think we'll probably only have. One meeting in December. Our next meeting in December is the, oh, is the. 10th. Two weeks after that is new year's Christmas Eve. So I suggest that we don't have that one. Hi, John. I was there for a second. Now I'm going again. Oh, we see you. Okay. I don't see you, but I will in a second. There you are. Hello. Yeah. You're here for us. Okay. So we meet, we keep our schedule of December 10th. And the next meeting would be January. Which is because of the holidays in there. So that means between now and January 7th, we would have this meeting in one in between. So. That does that make sense to people. What's the date again? I'm sorry. January. Just do it again. December 10th. December 10th. Yeah. 10th. December 10th. And that's the date we picked. And actually missing a meeting last week and having it this week instead means we're having our next meeting in two weeks rather than in three weeks. So keep that meeting we'd schedule because I know some of us have busy Thursdays and we've planned on it. Two weeks after that is Christmas Eve. So I'm suggesting that we have our subsequent meeting after December 10th on January 7th, which is the first. We don't have to decide that this instant, but I think it's helpful for some of us anyway to have meetings ahead on the calendar so that we can plan around them. I don't know why there's so much going on on Thursday afternoon. But. Okay. At this meeting we are not going to, we are not going to approve the minutes. We'll do that at the next meeting. We'll do that at the next meeting. We've had a really high standard for minute taking, especially for a committee that were the volunteers to do their own minutes. And many committees and boards have not done that. So we need to be a little, I think we should be gentle on ourselves. We're all very busy. John McCabe has agreed to take minutes at this meeting. Sure. Thank you. And number three on the agenda. Let's take a look at the agenda just to review it and see if it's okay. Okay. Thank you. I see three goals. Discuss and amend the consistent. The consensus. The outline. Yep. Thanks. I'm going to do that. Oh, you'll see my comments to myself in here, but that's okay. The red is my. My notes to myself. Okay. I'm going to do that. The document that we're. It's moving along that Kathy's. Shepherding. Helpfully. To start planning the conversations with key town staff and committees. My feeling is that we need to start planning that. So we get on people's schedules. And I have a proposal. Think that Kathy actually made. For how to do that efficiently. And then to just rough out a timeline. We have plenty of time, but not if we don't. Well, I mean, suddenly it's going to be January. And so. Does this so seem like reasonable goals for this meeting? Sure. Hearing no objection. Are there any other comments on the agenda? I just have one Meg. I think. I think the timeline is pretty important. To have a discussion on as is. This idea of how we go out to town staff. So I'm wondering if we want to. Talk about those two before we go to the draft. You know, just so we don't run out of time. If we get bogged down with. Sentence massaging. I love that. We can massage sentences right up until May. We can do that. We can do that. We can do that. I'm very happy. Is that okay with people? If we take. Five and six and move them up. To four. Hearing no objection. Any other comments? This is really helpful. In on the agenda. Okay. So thank you, Kathy, for that suggestion. So shall we. So let's talk about. What we're going to be doing. We're going to be doing that. We're going to be doing that. We're going to be doing that in between now and April or something like that. Because we obviously can't wait until. Then. But. Just nevermind. I won't be editing that. Kathy made a really great suggestion, which is helps us be more efficient and would take. Less of our collective time. We can do that. We can do that. Which is instead of having public. Meetings with key town staff and. Maybe committee chairs and different key people who are related to budget work. That we identify to, or it could even be three. It has to be a, not a quorum of our group. To carry out those. Conversations and bring reports back to the committee. Kathy, do you want to say more about. Do you want to say more about this? Yeah, we just. It's a, I think. I'd say at least two. So they're, they're. Two people hearing the conversation, not just one. We did it with a, the percent for art bylaws. We started working on it. We got permission from the larger group. To go and make sure we work through some details with Sonya. And then brought back with Sonya had that we're around financing. And then we did it with the city council. And then more recently with the wage. Wage theft bylaws. We were asked by the larger council. We had, in this case, there were sponsors of the bylaw. To go meet with town staff to find out how much work, you know, how did they think what we were proposing was feasible for them to do. Were there any concerns they had in terms of their own functions. To the council. So we didn't have to invite in the human research director or procurement officer to a public meeting. And we just took notes and reported back. And, and made. In that case, you, we were talking about authoring bylaws, but the changes in them were made only in the public. Meeting. Of the group. You know, it was coming back. We think this sentence is problematic and here's some ways of changing it. So we did all of that. Back as a group, not separately. You know, so it was going out, getting information, getting reactions. So I had thought. We've got different people. So the example would be the resident capital request. The key person there is Paul. He's the, he's the, and it's probably Paul, Paul, Sean, because they staff the capital requests and Paul has complete control over the capital budget. And then the other one. Community participation. Group. There is a chair of that group. And then there's one person, I think, on that committee. So I'm not, so it might be the chair plus. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. In this case, it might be Sonya or Holly, you, you know, the, the staffing and the people who know the law really well. So it's like to get the committee view. On CPAC, but also get the, you can't do this view. Or, you know, the law would stop, you know, so it's like what key town staff person would that be? So it was the idea is that it's only meeting with a couple other members of the committee. So it's like, yeah, I'm going to go to the first reactions. And I have no idea. And I have no idea for the, the last potential source. But I just started with those two in my head. Yeah. Holly. Do you have your hand up? Nope. Sorry. My microphone is up here. So I'm trying to mute and unmute. And I, when I put my hand up, it's for my microphone. So do people have questions about this approach or what? Yeah, I think it, I think it makes sense and certainly when it comes to budget process and or CPA that those would be things where I can certainly help out and volunteer to do those ones because I have a little inside knowledge. It's an advantage to the same two or three people doing all of them, because they would have consistency and they would have. It's also important to have at least two or maybe three, who maybe don't have the same perspective, although I think we're reaching consensus on our document. Well, like this first of all this approach of having a subcommittee of us meet with a subcommittee of the committees and the end or with the individual in case of Paul. I like the idea, but I think what we need to do is have to, we need to, we need to figure out a way to pair up into each each of us will take. So we need to have overlap between the committees, it can't be the same three people doing all of this work we need to have overlap, just to really spread it out to make sure that all of our voices are are heard and included and as long as we're all coming up with, we come up with the same kind of questions like we did for the, when we were talking to the other cities the other towns, you know, if we come up with something like that. So let's talk about what Liz just said because it's a little different from what I proposed and I think Kathy proposed the, which is I'm just going to distinguish the two points and we'll discuss them. One is to have the same people do all of the interviews because they would compare them in a similar way use similar language. There would be less chance of misunderstanding on the other hand, having all of us participate in different combinations would be more participatory would give everybody a chance to have their perspective reflected in how these interviews happen. So let's discuss those two approaches. Does that clear what they are. Yeah. I just want to put one in either scenario. My thinking would be that before we sent the team out. We would come together and say what key questions do we want and asked and we would frame, we would frame the discussion. So, you know, and it would be different for all just resin capital requests is like, you know, Paul would you ever in your wildest dreams dream of something, agree to something like this, you know, I'm that's not frank phrasing it quite right, but, you know, brainstorm about four or five things that we actually want to specifically be asking, and then the conversations will flow so I think in either scenario I think we should do that. You know, whether it's a difference for one purpose and a different team from the other. I have a question about, you might call it mechanics or logistics. Would we have to set things up the same way this meeting set up and have recordings, or would these be informal zooms. They'd be informal zooms the advantage of not having a quorum is that you can have a more back and forth authentic conversation you don't need to have an agenda or minutes. Okay, we could record them if people wanted to but my opinion is the advantage of having them not recorded is there's more opportunity for candor. Let me let me add right away one thing, one disadvantage I see to the dedicated subcommittee as opposed to Liz's suggestion of having various overlapping groups is it would mean an awful lot of work for that dedicated subcommittee. I would say that while I presented one of the one that's different from Liz's I'm neutral on this question myself. Kathy. I was just to say the, when I, you know, since none of us almost none of us are seeing each other in person anymore. One of the things that town has used is Microsoft protocol teams, and it comes with a mic, you know so it's, it feels a little bit like this and that you're seeing a face. But it's a lot less formal. So it would be a way of having a conversation with two other people, two people having a conversation with two other people. Because, you know, it's in the world I was talking about we could actually go into the room with the people and sit with them across their desks but that that time is not here with us anymore. Any comments on these two approaches. Okay with delegating it to two people. I mean, John, I don't know how much work it would be. Am I remembering right Meg, didn't we do a couple of these, just you and I with a couple of academics somewhere, and it wasn't a big deal, we know we met with them for an hour, what an hour and a half, an hour and a half like that, and quickly took notes and I think it's important that everybody have input on the questions for sure. But the actual, how many people are you talking about meeting with. You just mentioned a couple. Well it's probably more than a couple. Would it be help. Do we feel ready to make a decision about how we're going to do this or should we go to what the questions might be and could we initially list the, I think I saw a list of these people somewhere, but you know could we name the various people or groups of people you think should be interviewed. Okay, I'll do it again, at least off the top of my head so for dollar source number one on the resident capital request. Hold on a sec can I suggest that somebody do a screenshot and then right type these in so that we're all looking and and we're all making sure everybody. Sure. You're recording this right. I can go back and do the minutes. Do we just use email me a copy of it. Okay, I'm going there. I'm opening up a blank word page I can do it. Oh, well, thank you. Oh, did you do it Meg? Yeah. Okay, then I'll come back to zoom. Okay. Okay, so for the first one is resident capital request. I thought of the two key people or the, the one key person is Paul Bachman. Okay, because, because even for the council, so a resident capital for even for the council. He has the final say over the capital budget. So it goes through JCPC. The staff person on capital is Sean Magnano. So whether Sean also has to be, and I would, and I wouldn't, and it's SCAN but I wouldn't, I wouldn't meet with them separately this would be meet with the two of, you know, get the two of them. Is there anyone else in that group, Kathy. I don't think there's anybody else. I am chair of JCPC the committee. But as I said, you know, we can't, there wouldn't be, it could at some point come to the committee and say what do you think of this idea but the committee could not make this decision. In any way. They could have their input and whether this is a good idea, or how it might work or how the public could have more input. Well, JCPC has two people from schools, two people from libraries, two people, three people from the council. It's staffed by Sean, and it's not meeting until February. It's a public meeting. I see no way to do individual interviews with the school representatives, the library representatives, the town. So I just don't think I would even talk to anyone on JCPC, because it's the key, there is a key group called the council at some point this is going to have to go to the council. I wouldn't put it down as a place to go Meg, in my opinion. Okay, I'm just putting it here. I'm wondering if there's any way we can have a conversation about how the public might have input into the joint capital plan I mean for this. For example, I am 100% convinced that they had a referendum on the full capital projects. There would be a broad consensus about this priority of the schools for example and just so you know the four big projects are not going to come to JCPC at all. Okay, I'm just I'm just I wouldn't even make it a number two because I don't. I think it would be a very committee to the town manager that's on things like roofs. But yes, if we tried to make the resident capital request more robust, have some constraints around it, it would have they would have to at some point go through JCPC but I just, I don't, I think it'd be a waste of time to try to talk to that committee per se. I wonder if they might have some insight into how you know right now it all has to go through Paul and Sean or you know goes there but if they have some insight of, you know, what would be better, like how we would prefer to see it that we could then incorporate into our recommendations so if there is a way that you know you could have brief conversation with someone from the library and someone from the schools. So what I'm suggesting is Liz, it's written into the charter that JCPC sits and meets and puts out an advisory report, and then the town manager pulls together the capital budget and brings it to the council so. But what I'm suggesting is that they might have some feedback on, you know, how that doesn't work so because we're doing something that's, you know, if, if down the road, there would be a new PBC written, we would want to incorporate what wasn't working at the JCPC because it was written into the charter and make sure that it's not written into, you know just looking further down. So that's what I'm suggesting is because it might we're not necessarily changing governmental structure. I mean we were trying to get creative ideas about how the public could have meaningful participation. And some of those, I think they might have some ideas. What other people think, john. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Sorry. John page. I was just going to say, and we can, we can put JCPC maybe at the bottom of our list and come back to it if it's going to be a sticking point but my question for JCPC which maybe Kathy can explain to us in a meeting, or, but also for CPA and for CDBG, just for us to discuss how they make their decisions. I know, for example, CPA uses ranking as an initial step CDBG uses an elimination process to narrow the pool so I just think maybe one of the questions for those committees that's valuable is, how do you make your decisions because I think that's actually a question I would I would be curious. You know what matrix do you use or what process to use to make decisions. So for that reason, I, it might be complicated to do but I think it might be valuable to ask them that question. Okay, so the them includes me, I'm the chair of the committee. Well, that would not include you at the moment. No, no, no, so I'm just, you would get. I think that's a great idea and a description of how it's done. And just to give you the very quick thumbnail quest is the people proposing the capital requests, whether it's the fire department or the police, rank it by very high priority priority. And so the first set of screens is to look at the very high priorities, and then the individual members come back with some we only have so much money and some ideas. And then went and then wait a minute let me I'll give you the last thing because Alex Lefebvre who's the person from the library. The first time I just sat through this, then the town manager comes in at the next meeting and throws that out and says here's the here's the list and we get to spending all the money this way and I go, whoa, and Alex said welcome to JCPC. You know that, you know, what, you know, if, if we were always going to spend 2 million on roads and we weren't going to buy these trucks and these vehicles, you know, then why did we go through agonizing about this truck versus that truck versus these things. So Alex might be a good person to talk to about this because she's been on it for a number of years. It's L E and then F E B or E I think but you know we can fix up this spell. These are notes, but you know I put that, but as I said it's, it's a group then you've got the two people from schools who who this, they were just they've only been on it one year and we had a totally different year this the one year they were on it, where we didn't rank any projects, because we didn't have any money, you know, so schools wouldn't be worth talking to right now, Andy's been on it for years. Sean was the financial director for the district. And Sean is, yes, he does have some background. Yeah, you know so Sean is completely the right, right person because he was there when it was coming out of the schools, you know and how did the schools feel as they put up capital things on the decisions that were made about their capital request so Sean, Sean is a perfect person Liz, particularly for that because he's been on both sides of final decisions and shepherding them through. And Andy Steinberg on the council has been on JCPC and his past pre council life, as well as continued on now. And just one word on it he came close to but it didn't go that way of suggesting we drop resident capital request. They opened it up as experimental and let's try this. And that was, well, we don't know how to handle these so maybe we shouldn't do it anymore so you know his perspective on resident capital request would probably be a good one to get. Absolutely. You know how you know. So, so he'd be a good person to be talking to. Okay. Doug Slaughter still there. Doug Doug is not. He is now the finance person for the schools. Right, right, right. You know so he. He would be the shown Magnano perspective now on how does it work when I'm coming up with. Yeah, he's on the other side of the table now. Yeah. So the second one I was going to do instead of the, I mean, if you can put a two under the resin is CPA. Right. I had a two there originally. Okay, so the CPA I thought the chair, and that's Sarah Marshall. And then finally on staffing you staff it. Anthony steps it Sonya comes in when we need her. It's like we've got, and then last few meetings john has been listening in on it but is, is there a Sonya the one who knows CPA the best. Sonya is the one who knows CPA the best she has really been on it the longest and is much more familiar with the laws and the rules than the rest of us. You know me and Anthony have sort of been tag teaming that committee, depending on what else is going on in our, in our other work. So Sonya really is the best and I would probably suggest her. So, also, we have three people doing the interviews. Holly shouldn't be one of the people we interviewed because technically that would be a quorum of our, our commission. Okay, so I was just going to say one more person on CPA Sam McLeod, who's a CPA member. He, and he's there. What is vice chair I think. Well, but the key thing about Sam is he's heading the outreach committee trying to figure out how they can get more proposals coming in from residents how they can use a face, Facebook. And I just noticed more, you know, to not, not have almost all the proposals come from the same sources all the time. So he's been thinking about that on behalf of CPAC. And so he has a that perspective on it. So that's why I thought of the current members. And I forget who else is on it's a little subcommittee. Holly you may know but I know Sam is he opened week reopened up the Facebook page. You know thinking of thinking of things like if a project is funded by CPAC put out the way the concert, the way the biggies the parks say this land was brought to you by so and so you know your tax dollars at work trying to get the word out what is this committee and it's your tax dollars so I just would put him. And that's, that's not quite the way he spells his name but we can fix it. I can remember it might be. And it's got an e somewhere in it doesn't it. That's right we'll think. Yeah, we'll get these. These are just our. Next, then the next, the next one, Liz you know the next one better than I do because your husband's on it the community, the block grant CDBG. Yeah, yeah. Community development block grant. Yeah, so it would be Nate Maloy, who is the staff person and sort of the, our resident expert on that. Yeah, it's Nate Maloy and. Dale Lansky is the chair. Dale Lansky. Dale Lansky. Oh cool that's very cool. And, you know, there are there are recently some new people on it. So they may not be the best to talk to. I know that Andrew, who's last name I don't know but he's Melissa's husband. Yeah, Grant Thomas. Yeah, yes, yes. Thank you. Wait, who's who. Andrew Grant Thomas, you know, as you know well right. Yeah. So that was the old husband I was going to say, no it's not. I missed a missed a beat in there I got distracted by this amazing sunset. Sorry. Andrew goes here. I'm just wondering whether these two are Nate and Gail enough, you know, I was probably. So I wasn't trying to get a ton of names. The only reason I put through Sam in is because he was supposed to be thinking of how to do outreach. You know, get, get it known out there and, and Jen up some more proposals. But the reason to have Andrew is he's somebody who will care about this. Okay. In other words, if we, depending on, you know, we're, we could just meet stone walls. But we want to have conversations where people are going to be thinking creatively about what's possible not fantasizing or delusional ideas but trying to be creative the way it's okay with me. If he, if he, if he both knows it well enough, and might be supportive of thinking of alternative ways of doing things, I mean they will. Gail and Nate would certainly know what the processes, you know what, what the process and what the rates are. And this is the one by the way, even though I way back when wrote it down in that memo. This is the one where I see the most barriers and challenges to thinking of opening it up much more because it's so narrowly confined and it goes through a state, it has to be approved by the state as well, you know it's just got a series of screens on it that doesn't lend itself as much. It's nice to get an idea of their process. Yeah, because whatever process we have, or is eventually, you know, recommended, you don't want to have four different processes for four different. If there's a way to streamline it and make them at least, you know, similar. Yeah, so that would be a useful thing. Yep. There may be things they haven't thought of. I mean, we're, you know, we're not going to propose this traditional participatory budgeting program that asks the town to shell out a lot of money. There may be, for example, interest in a non binding referendum, especially because of some of this technology we know about now that doesn't require all the rigmarole of an actual official election. They may be open to different ways of gathering opinions and input that they haven't thought of. Yeah, I like I should. I agree. Yeah. We should remember that that free software that's available from Berkeley for voting. This is two, two groups for me. And I don't know how how much time I want to spend with each one, but the community participation officers, we've heard from them. But we might want to go back to them and then I'm not sure how but maybe we incorporate the schools that the higher education institutions. I'm not the best person to start that conversation with but somebody from the university or Amherst College or even even Hampshire. I think that's a great idea, John. You know, the other question is where who's how do you get in. I mean, maybe, maybe start with external relations and then see if you get some academics that are interested. I think that, you know what Liz, Liz has said, as we went through this, some of this with the first three is, how do you make your decisions how do you rank so we're collecting how to and how, if you can do it differently what what would you think would be a better process, you know so we're not just talking about a money source so that then works. These are, in my mind that we're, I'm starting to think there are different kinds of questions we're asking there's some that's around the source and there's some about how do you go about doing something if you wanted to talk about ranking and then this last is how do you get public input. What are different ways of getting public input so there are different clusters of questions. To me to that I would add once you get once you add in higher education to beat my hobby horse a little bit, ask them if you know try to try to elicit from them are there ways that ways or people that they can identify who might want to be part of some of this whole thing. And, and perhaps even support it financially on some level. But, Eric bill you used to have a position with some like neighborhood liaison, the town and the university. I don't think he's in that anymore do they still have that positioning you mass or is that been taken over by someone else. I don't think that rules plays that role a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think they filled their exposition, but Tony for sure. And, I mean just throwing it out there is a Paul must grave, who serves as one of our earths, or did he move. He's one of our licensed commissioners, but he's a political scientist and he's got some interesting research on I think polling and information like that he might be someone to pick his brain from the academic side. His name again, Paul must grave. Oh, Paul must. There are some famous economists whose last name was must grave I wonder if he's a relationship to them. Reach out to to. It wouldn't just have to be policy but but that's a good place to start maybe public policy to but reach out to chairs and see it is there anybody in your is there anybody in your full time group that's that's pointing in this direction on the first place. I mean who knows. I mean, for you mass they've got an, they've got an enormous number of full time faculty sometimes I can't believe as a former administrator at CUNY. I can't believe how many people they have. But that's, that's a good thing for us because there's bound to be somebody who's interested at Amherst college. Well, Molly Mead, I've spoken her class and she's already been in touch with me this year. She'd like to have her students involved in local politics so I'll put her up here. What were you going to say Liz no I'm trying to remember her name is Sarah Sarah bar and she I don't know if she's still at Amherst college and she may not be exactly the right person but she's something I can't remember but whenever I have a question about reaching and reaching into the the student body there she's a friend and so I always reach out to her, but I can't remember what her position is other than she, her office is at the student center. I think she's community outreach so if we can. I think she's the right person. Okay. I wonder if she's never mind. I answered my question I was going to ask. Okay, so, going back to the committees up here. What do we, we have a resident capital request is there anybody else who would be helpful in the conversation than Paul and Sean. Nope. CPA Sarah and Sonya and Sam. And CBD, CDBG, Nate Gale and Andrew. Are there other. Any other places where there's the possibility of public participation in something related to that to a budget. Well we have these charter mandated forums. I think that's the requirement that the public speak at least as much as the, as the town town officials. So this is Maggie, you know just I just think this is like the topics down below as opposed to the people, you know. So, you can note this way it's fine because it is a people do or don't come, and they do or don't speak. There's one tonight, for example, on a budget forum, a budget forum tonight. Wow. And so meeting and a Human Rights Commission meeting and a Democratic Party meeting all at the exact same time. Tonight. Yeah, no so and so that's, that's problematic but the very first one was really painful because all the council set up on stage with Paul and several staff. And we were not supposed to talk for very long, and more than half the time was supposed to be used by people. So we just sat there and we had to sit there for half. In silence, I mean it was, and then one or two people thought this is ridiculous in the audience and they just started asking quest, you know, but it wasn't burning questions it was like, they're, they're literally just going to sit there. It's gotten better whenever there's a big issue. You know, an issue that has some level of controversy around it. The reality is that people show up if there's an organizing body that lets them know these groups, the newsletter. I mean this is another whole approach from talking to towns people maybe we don't even want to go there but you can get people to meetings but you have to do have a community organizing approach. Let them know what's happening, let them know why it's relevant, what, what time the meeting is. And that whole area isn't happening, but that may not be our mandate. I think that's right. Yeah, the CPOs it could be you know outreach. I, for past project we identified something like 12 or 15 neighborhood email lists for example. Amherst Woods has one. Echo Hill has one. Overlook drive area up there has one and people communicate with each other some some of them have game night. And so they're just, and then there are something you know 20 or 25 different organizations, as well as senior center. Let's think about what are the questions. Yeah, I think what our questions would be. There are some groups, community groups that we might want to reach out to like the League of Women Voters or something like that. But let's look at what our questions would be and see if those are the kind of thing that would be appropriate. Excuse me though there was, I looked at the timeline that you had sent out at one point, and you mentioned their town council president, does that make sense. Sure. Well, what do you all think. Well, let's cut it out. I'll defer that one to Kathy. Here was my initial thought. We've got a draft of a memo. And it's got three parts to it so we've started going into parts two and three and some of these things which is fine, because you'd ask different questions about how do you do public referendums how do you get the university involved those are different. But the, the initial part of start the ball rolling with some money is the identified sources were one to and or three. And we need to know sooner rather than later, whether there's any possible way to do those, and know what what the, you can't do it, or, and to know what the roadblocks are, or that whole first part of the memo is going to be recast. You know, so I had that as something that we had to, you know, suppose we go out to the public and they just love it, you know, or something, oh, you're great, wonderful ideas but we, we say, Oh, except that we can't do it would not be a good way so I thought those first three things is trying to figure out both, how do they do what they now do, would there be any room for carving out some money. I'm interested in more residents coordinated even the times they're open for proposals. Then there's a whole another set. It is the set of questions that of how do we get more participation. How do you do referendums is their role for academia. It's a whole set of questions, the league. I get involved when there's an issue that they can have an impact on as you've said, you know, have some voice. Tonight's is how much money do we have. You know, there's no decisions being made tonight it's it's kind of a briefing it's, you know that at 101 that the town probably needs and how much money do we have where does it come from how do we spend it. This, that's what I initially thought that the initial set of going out but I like the idea of also going out on our other topics. You know, and then it lends to Liz's idea of different subsets of us are going out on different are going out to talk to different people. So, John. I just had one more I think the building on Kathy's point of, of is this realistic is at some point Anthony Delaney and I know he's involved with CPA, I believe so he might we might talk to him in that capacity but as procurement officer he might say, Oh, that's never going to work for CDBG or that's never going to work for CPA, but this might so Anthony Delaney might be a good person to check for a real like reality check. Good. So let's just tell the fascism I love it. I was in my front yard for the last month but I decided to I had a roofer coming over I didn't want him to leave a couple of holes in my roof, you know. Yeah, right. So I'm trying to move us want to move us along because we also want to talk about our timeline and who's going to be these outreach people. I just someone want to take. So we've got here a good list of people to talk to. We just barely started on the questions. Before I forget, can I, can I throw this out there for the questions. I love what Liz just said about talking to the committees and I think that a really important question and is to ask, like, what works and what doesn't work because I think that the committees are going to be our experts on that so I think that's a, that's a great opening question. Right. I would say more generally it's it's good to start with a blue sky open ended question to let them tell us what they think in the general area of participatory budgeting makes sense or what they'd like to see or what creative idea they might have. And then drill down into the specifics. And then if I may add, I think if I'm understanding Kathy correctly, we want to for sure to have a focus on questions that will let us know whether we can go ahead with section a with the three areas. And then we can think about the things that might be useful to elaborating sections B and C. Is that right. Yeah, that's what I was thinking and, and I think but Holly was also say what works and doesn't in that different of them CPA is one where they get usually more proposals than they can fund not every year. You know so how do they rank, how do they go about making a decision. Do they feel like they have enough information, how, how do they wish they could do it, you know, those are great just on fun, you know the functions of them. So, I have a suggestion. I just have a suggestion. And I am not volunteering for this. If we take this framework, Meg that you've just put up there and then questions to ask with someone like Liz, or some two people want to pull together. These are questions to ask of CPA and in some of them it could be the same question number one is the same of each of these committees 234. And these are questions we want to know from the higher education people from league like places you know that could, you know whatever else so clusters of questions would someone want to take a beginning stab at that that we could then all have to brainstorm over them once they're clustered. I was just going to make that same suggestion, Liz. Do you want to do that with someone else or not. I'm happy I'm, you know, a Virgo who's an organization that so yeah. Can I color code it to. Yeah. Now that we see how many people we're going to talk to I'm totally not in. I'm totally think we should have everybody involved. It's too much work for two people. Okay, let's come back to that decision before is there someone who would work with Liz. I'm happy to be a sounding board or two. If that would be what with you, someone else want to do it. I'm happy to do that if you do the draft. Unfortunately, but it's budget season is starting right now and I unfortunately just have way too much on my plate to. I was thinking I, I may, but I can't. I'll take a stab at it and then if there's someone who I can bounce it off of that would that's fine I just someone's going to have to write up exactly what it is I'm taking a stab at so that I can do that. But yeah, I can. I'm happy to do that and then bounce it off whoever decides to do that. Well, I'm happy to do it if there isn't someone else I have, I think some of these questions. You'll do a great job Liz. So is this something we can have a draft by December 10. You think the first draft. Of the questions and yeah. Now I'm going into budget season two but mine is not nearly what Holly's having a deal with so. Okay. Great. Okay. I'm going to go back to our group. I'm going to stop sharing. Maybe go back to the okay let's thank you everybody that was great. Do we have consensus that we'll divide this up among all of us in different combinations. But we'll have a framework for reporting back so that we're. We're reporting back apples and apples as much as possible. Does that make sense. I think that's what we decided. Yeah. Just checking that because, okay, I don't think we have to vote on this. I'm seeing no objection. Great. So, shall we now question as a framework for any of these discussions. You're going to distribute the draft of our report to them first. And then use that as a launchpad for the discussion or some other method. Well, one. One, one possibility would be if we can get it down to the one page, maybe one page on two sides. Yeah, you know, we're, we're thinking of, you know, a three pronged thing and prong one has these elements and we're here to talk to you about this piece of it. You know, prong B has this and we're here to talk to you about that piece of it, but not the big document, you know, just. Yeah, I would, I would plan to do a basic executive summary of and I would really try to keep it to one page and just say, you know, let's let's assume nobody knows what PVC is. Give a basic, you know, here's three lines on what it is here's why we're looking at it and here's why we want to talk to you about it. So, but yeah, so I'll do that in the draft of the questions in the organization. So I'd like to share. So I'm moving along here because it's already almost 430 I'm really glad we're doing this in this order because we wouldn't have gotten to this. I'm going to share the screen now of our timeline. And we've had we've had this on our agenda for a few meetings and haven't gotten to it so I would love to have this conversation our goals to complete. The recommendation. So December and I'm going to go through the, the bulleted points, because the points underneath fill it out but the, it's really about these, I mean not bulleted the highlighted phrase so December to February we can confirm the sent confirm the set consensus points and draft the memo. To we engage relevant committees and individuals. To test blah, blah, blah. The ones that I brainstorm, but let's don't focus just on the bold and three we plan the public forums. So between December and February we're doing these three things. August go over the whole thing then March refine our proposal based on all this great input, but we still haven't held the public forums we're just planning them. And the reason to plan them in December to February is because the outreach that we want to do takes time and getting people to attend whatever form we have or whatever method of input we create maybe we can be creative about how we get public input. So let's just start showing demonstrating different ways of participation. Then in March, we refine the proposal. So we're taking to the public, the refined proposal not what we start so the proposal that goes to the public is one that has had feedback from our town's people. April and May we build support for it here feedback. And rewrite the final proposal. We lose Meg planned it up in here. We should do it. Yep. So I can't see who has their hand up or spoke. We lost. Oh, you lost me. Okay, I'm on a wife. I'm on a hot spot. I'm actually in Maine. You can do a thing. If you go up to where view options, you can have the people go down the side of your document. One of the view options up at the top is so. Okay. I also, I think I just. So let's, let's discuss this draft timeline. I'm not worried about the bullet points underneath because those we might fill in or not fill in differently. Although talk about anything you want, but I want to get some agreement on what how we're going to pull this off by June 1. Well, I'm assuming you mean February 2021. Yes. I already missed that first step line. Go, go, go, that was good. You can put a 20s. Okay, so I have a question. Oh, I'm not about what things have to come before something else. We need to begin to plan a public forum. And get the league or someone else interested. Do we need to have at least a two page document that we're feeling is not going to change all that much on what we're thinking of doing to share with them. Or can we, or we can do it with a one sentence. We're going to be ready by March to have this. Can you commit the time so that's, you know, so. So it's a question of the, in that first part December through February, Meg, you know, we, the parts that we haven't done, we've just done some nodding our heads toward is. So here are the ideas we have, you know, on what stands and so we talked about an appendix a how do these, what is the legislative authority for each of these things now what hurdles do we have. Do we need to be on firmer ground before we go out with ideas, or does this. That's that it's chicken and it's a chicken and egg thing. You know so we might. That's that's all I'm asking you very actively. Yeah. Yeah, so very active in the league and having been really the manager of the public outreach around the Charter Commission, you can book meetings or rooms now we won't be using any rooms probably but to discuss a certain topic when that document isn't finished yet but you know that it will be. That happens all the time. And if we want the league to, for example, I mean we just have to be the league but if we want them to put some major energy into public participation in this forum or whatever we want to whatever it turns out to be, they need some time lead time, they're slow. The league is, you know, to its credit really is meticulous and they'll have to that'll have to go to the steering committee, which only meets once a month. It's a slow process. Question, I periodically get, I signed up for some town email list now get announcements about forums and water bills and so forth. Is that going to happen automatically in our case or do we have to plan for that to have a town, an official town announcement go out. We have to plan that. It's important also if we want people to come as we might want to reach out to some of the organizations in town that want to that might have an interest in it to spread the word. I'm not sure how many people get those town emails and when you get them you don't necessarily either open them or you open them and you see there's something you might want to do but you don't put it on your calendar. It's a very light. So it's, it's what it is that's but so answering Kathy's question I feel strongly that we don't have to have the final document until March, but we should be trying to plan these events or whatever they are. I want to ask it a little bit. I agree with you that we do we need to know. Not that we have the final document that this because I will feel. Since I feel like I steered it into the, we're not a full blown participatory budget but yes we want to carve out some money out of these sources. What if we can't. What if we're back to the drawing board and we say would be a whole lot simpler we just want to carve 50,000 out of somewhere town find 50,000 proposal. Our proposal might be that we want to increase the robust participation and the things that already exist and here's how it could be done, but we can cancel a forum we can cancel. Okay, okay, so that answers my question that we could come back to say, you know, we're not going to go this route but here's some gestions on way to go another route. That's fine. You know just, I wouldn't like to say cancel because content just disappeared. Right, right. Okay, also we might have controversy from these town officials they might not agree with each other. That would be interesting. John, I don't dive into it too much yet because I think it's, it's in that plan public forums and other public outreach but I was always impressed by John Hornick's like fall housing forum, which I helped him plan last year. He just asks every organization that he can find to he called it sponsor it but there's no it's not a monetary it's just, they bring somebody to it. And so I'm sure, but structurally, what I should have said is it the beginning was information and then all we did was break into smaller groups which is a lot harder electronically but I think we only have to be specific enough as in, we explain our draft proposal and then we say who wants to talk about higher ed, and they go to a group, and they and I think we so it doesn't I agree that doesn't have to be finished product because I think we want that input at that level. It can't be finished product because we're just being input. So it's not the final it's not the final it's it maybe our, you know, working draft as we are thinking it's we want to present it and hear public what do you think of it give us feedback so we can can come up with our final. I really like that idea john. I think it sounds great. And I think that zoom has a capacity I have never been on a zoom did that it breaks out meeting rooms. Yeah, I've never done that I just know there is that capacity. And so if we can't be physically, you know, like, you raise your hand to go, and then I don't know whether you go into a different zoom meeting and then so you're automatically, I've done it. It's, we don't have to talk about it now but it's, it's tricky, though, because it ends at a certain point and you just boom back into the big group, whether you're ready or not. It's not like a real meeting where the facilitator comes in and says, one more minute. You're just taken back. The other that's, I think that's what John said is really important. And one of the outcomes one of our best outcomes would be of this whole process that the public the Amherst public participates more in CPAC or right since you know submits more proposals or knows about it. Most people don't know about it at all. Yeah. So we don't know our impact. Yeah. I love, I love that idea, you know, just the every organization is bringing people to this. I can't even imagine a zoom meeting with more faces on it than I'm already seeing a council meetings but I won't worry about that. It looks like the senior center, they are passionate about town stuff and things like the dangerous sidewalks and the senior center is a very important political group that hasn't flexed its muscle in town yet in my opinion. Anyway, let's keep do people agree with generally this time line. Yep. Given that it's 20 minutes to five. I'm going to suggest that we not go over each of these bulleted points or do you want to do that. I just, the very last item on the April one, can you go up I. The underhand and this is build support for that is assuming that I that people, I don't feel comfortable with saying that our goal is to build support for it. It's our goal is to get feedback from it for it, rather than to build support and public. That's what we're doing is getting feedback. We're going to go back down to so. Excellent. Maybe Liz, then it still ends with and revise proposal revise the draft or whatever. You know, yeah, so again, it's finalized proposal which will then go to council. Yeah, yeah. We do want a proposal that we support as a as a commission. We do want to get to that point. The thing is, you could, unfortunately, in this situation, we could have something that the public just all really loves, but, you know, it doesn't work within the framework of our current current town government and so even if we build public support for it and, you know, and it doesn't work. That's, that's something to keep in mind. There are all sorts of things that we can talk about that might be a middle ground like the public non binding public referendum and the anyway. Yeah. We have general agreement on this is that correct. Yeah. Yep. I noticed that some people. Anybody want to add to our to help Liz add to our list of people to outreach. Anything here under number two. No, I don't think so. You know, I think she's at least as I understood Liz's current task for next week is some next meeting is is to make a turkey. For some clusters of questions. So some of the questions may work for multiple people. Okay, good. All right, I am going to flip back here to the agenda. Did that work on the screen. No, are you seeing the agenda to close this one first. Okay. Um, share. So what we haven't done yet is discuss the participatory budgeting concepts. I want to. Do we want to do that now. Given the time, or do we want to. I'm going to flip out. Thank especially Liz and John Fenske for contributing to the draft and thank Kathy for continuing to kind of muscle it through. Did we do the brainstorming of the questions that I'm going to then be organizing and tweaking. I think so. We came up with a couple of them, but okay. Okay. So we want to end the meeting at five, which is in 17 minutes. How do people want to spend the rest of this meeting? Well, let's just send a second just to make sure that Liz has something to work. Okay. Yeah, maybe we can focus on the questions. I'm not sure I have a lot more to add to the draft until we talk with more folks. I just want to say a word on the draft Liz, Liz sent me. She, she, she phrased it very nicely, but she went, yikes. It's got track changes all over it because I didn't, I didn't send out a clean version. And it's got. There were some comments she dropped in that I didn't address like move a whole section up because I wasn't sure. But what I can do, unless people have an objection to it, I can accept the track changes and I can make a couple more things she suggested, and then the draft will still be the same draft you see on the seventh. But it will be clean. So with, and I may do a, if there are margin questions Liz's were comments and questions. I'll extract them and do a cover page on here were some areas that we need to complete, we need to focus on. So that's the document, but on the questions to ask, I have some I could add now. And I'd also be willing to buy what's today is Thursday by the end of the day tomorrow when I think about this a bit more, send more so we could also say, see how far we can get now, and then everyone send more. Okay, so let me see if people agree that we'll spend our next 10 minutes or so. We'll be helping the questions and we'll follow the procedure Kathy just outlined for getting more feedback on the memo. And it's December our next meeting is December 10, not the seventh and then the meeting after that is January 7, just to, if we all, I think we all agreed with that. Okay, so here I've managed to somehow get this document back up that I hadn't even saved yet. Here it is David Mag save it. But I was so busy flipping to the other document I'm going to save it that's for sure. Save it. Okay, I'm ready to take some more. What it makes. What it makes sense to have a question. Because so far, if we're just asking for one of. These groups to volunteer to provide funds for this. If the short answer is no, then we're then we're done but should we have a question that asked to pick people's brains about how other ways to find money for this effort. I wouldn't agree with that because even if the answers no they could give us useful feedback on processes and how they work and where to go. I mean that I just mean is there's not we're assuming we're going to carve out something from these these existing sources or should we be asking folks if there's there's something we're missing if there's another. If there are other other other sources we should be looking to I'm sort of thinking about universities in that particular, whether it's through philanthropic. Grant writing or, or perhaps the colleges would would just love to see this effort on their own. Unlikely but you know. I have some questions now rather than discuss them because we have a short amount of time. Okay, I'll start, I tend to think in clusters so I'm just going to put questions I'd like to ask of the resident capital request that that a Paul, Paul or Sean, you know with, you know I think we've said some little pro you we're here because we're dealing with ever on one would be. So what do you think are the current positives or negatives of the resident, having a resident capital request. Okay, next. And then second, could the open period, the open longer. I think that's something that's important to ask all three committees. Yeah, yeah so some of these I would do. Right, so that's just. I'm going to ask you, could the community participation officers help residents proposals. And then what I would do, Megan that same, or, or other staff, you know so it might be this, you know so if it's, we had we had one from a North Amherst person for a crosswalk. So what about costs, Guilford will know the answer to that so could some, you know is there a way of, you know, or other staff. Right. Got it. Okay. So these are questions for, we're going to go back and pull some out for other groups to. These are for Paul but we're also getting some others. Okay, okay, keep going Kathy. Would it be possible. In your opinion. Announce a commitment to fund at least or up to, you know, or up to, and then X dollars a resident capital requests. You know, make that as an announcement that the, and then why or why not. Yeah. Good. And I think those are my biggies. You know, you've got, and then, you know, I open with that. I clearly the first question follows some lead in but the. I'm not sure the town sees this as to its advantage and one of the answers I'm anticipating on be is there. If someone proposes something and it gets funded, or it gets approved. I think people who did it feel like they have an ownership of it, even though it might now be the schools are executing it or DPW is executing it. And then I think this is a positive that people feel attached to it. But it's a pain in the neck for the other side on because they keep getting calls you haven't done it yet one you're going to do it. How are you going to do it, you know, where, where if it's repair the roof, they don't have. So it's that positive and negative I like. So I just, I don't want to make I didn't want to add that to that sentence. I just I don't want to lead in positives and negatives. Wait, take this out. I'm being okay we're just we're brainstorming and I know what she's saying. So I'm just saying I did that open ended because I think there are some concerns about it right now and I want to leave it positives and negatives. So I didn't have. I didn't have anything else major for this. I guess the other could be is how it's, what is the current process of ranking. That was going to be mine. Yeah. And deciding priorities. So. Another I have, I don't know if it's duplicative is, could the town do this is not necessarily for. Paul, but for the CPA for sure. Could the town do a better job. If I'm not helping residents understand both the process for applying for, for example, CPA and the requirements. Can you just move that over. Could you move it to a new if we're going to do, move it CPA, can you make a CPA list, because I have a short. I, it's just the way my mind works. Okay. Good. Okay, because I like this question that you're doing. Okay, so could the town do a better job. Or the CPA committee, could we do a better. What other questions. I want to repeat the, could the open period be open longer. Okay. And the other thought I had is I don't understand why the open period for resident capital and for CPA couldn't be open. At the same. No overlapping time, because maybe something comes in as a resident proposal that could fit CPA or rice versa. Be at least at least overlapping time periods. I'm right now they're completely separate time periods. Yep. Right. Okay. Up here also this another thing, better job of helping this. I'm just going to add another thing, which is knowledge of. Which town agencies. Need to be consult consulted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you just said, When you just sent to three different agencies with your one historic project. Yes. I think at least, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I just had an experience. I'm in the, you know, it's obviously, I don't think we're going to be successful. With CPA, which is neither here nor there. I think, but it was an eye opener in terms of somebody who knew what the CPA was because of. A very sophisticated understanding of how to work systems. It was pretty difficult. You know, and I can't imagine anybody. Just applying for CPA funding without. And succeeding without. A lot more support. But anyway. So then the other one I would have. And it may, maybe this goes in both is what I was impressed when we looked at these other cities and towns. Is some of the tiny things that people came up with. You know, so could, could CPA provide examples. Of low cost. Projects that had been funded in the past, or that could be potentially be eligible. You know, so, you know, question I have, I mean, Holly, you know, CPA, but if we did the North Commons. And we didn't, and we came back for a second time, could people. Could the stone bench. Those were someone to sit on in the comments via CPA funded bench. You know, so getting really small that we just want a bench in a different place or we want a table. So, you know, if you look up by Puppers pond, there's a really cool place to sit. And I have no idea who funded it, but it's way up the North end of the pond. And I thought that would have been something that would have been a good resident proposal because of. Someone can't sit on the ground. They can sit up high. So it's examples of these small projects. Low cost. Yeah. Okay. So. Yeah. I think we have a couple of minutes to five. I appreciate we could go longer if you all want to, but we agreed that we'd try to stop at five. Do people have. This gives me something to work. This gives me something to work with it. And also I'll read through our draft and see if there's other. Blanks in there that, that I can pull out and propose some, some. Question topics from there. And Liz, I would vote for the block grant a similar kind of some of these work for them too. Yeah. But just the, the first things are different. Yep. I would just add an open ended question and it might be a good one to start with of if you had a magic wand, or if you could do, if you could run your committee differently, your outreach differently, what would you do? Or. Just to get them thinking really broadly. Yeah, I think that outreach questions are definitely important and asking them what types of outreach they do. And what types of outreach they would suggest or something like this, because you know, the only requirement for most of these is an ad in the public paper. In your general area and, you know, sure that works great. Who actually sits down and reads the paper every day anymore. Not very many people. So, you know, I know with CPA, we've done things on our website. We've done things on our website. We've done things on our website. We've done things on our Facebook page back up and running. I think that asking what they use for outreach and what they, you know, think could be utilized for outreach is a good question to ask all of them. Okay. All right. So make send this to me. And I will. I'll take a crack at it. Okay. And I will, you know, spell check and all that. Great. No need to. I'll change the wording anyway. Okay. Thank you everybody. So now is the time for public comment. Let's see if I'm. No attendees. Okay. So. Hearing none. We'll put it in the notes. We have no public comment. I hope someday we have public comment, but. Oh, well. Are we any other business before we adjourn? Just quick question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Are you going to, how do I get a copy of this recording? Do you send it to me? Is that how it works? Yeah. I will ask Angela to send it to you. Okay. I'll send a link. Paul told me and unbeknownst to me. The town has a YouTube tube site. The town of Amherst. And all these meetings that have been recorded. We're posting them there. I mean. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And that could be sent back to all of us. But you can go to the YouTube site. All these zoom meetings are being put up. If someone remembers to do it. Interesting. If I know I'm not, I would have called my hair. That's what I was thinking. Oh. Yeah. You know, I missed a CPA one and Anthony said, oh, it's up, but here's the, you know, I don't know. So I will find that link Paul sent to me. So are you going to do that, Kathy? Cause I was going to ask Angela that you're going to do that. No, well ask Angela. There's, as I understand it, ask Angela about that. Meg. You can just send me there. I'm happy with this zoom format. If she can just send it to me. It'll just make it easier to do the minute. Yeah. So I'm going to send it to me. I'm going to send it to me. I'm going to send it to me. I'm going to send it right away when we stopped the recording. It goes into something. And then they have to move it over to YouTube. So the YouTube business fast. So Angela will have it before. She often sends it to me the next day. That's great. So. Yeah, it's coming to the end of the semester. So I got, I've got a lot of stuff going on, but I'll get this done. Yeah. We have till December 10th. So. And so if, if anyone can read the message. So on the document, the windows are still open. If you have anything, if you just save all the current edits, and you want to send otherwise, nothing will be new other than me trying to address some of Liz's excellent comments that I didn't do. So it'll be the same draft, but if anyone feels moved to do something more. Feel, feel, feel free. I won't get to it till next Friday. Okay. Okay. Okay. Anything else? So do we have a motion to adjourn? John moves. Kathy seconds. Do we have to go around and everybody. No, we can, you can just say the chair can say, therefore we're adjourned. Hearing no objections. We're adjourned. We're doing that in every other thing. Okay. Okay. Therefore we're adjourned. Thanks everybody. See you on December 10th. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanksgiving. Bye. Whatever that turns out to be. Bye.