 to introduce Sean Hannon, who is the IT director for the town. Hi. Hi, Sean. How you doing? Thanks for joining us, Sean. Yeah. It's much a little smoother, I think. Yes. So we're just missing Jesse. Oh, Jesse. Hi, everybody. So as I said, we're recording now. Thanks, Stephanie. Hi, everybody. I was Sarah, Sarah joining today. Sarah short. I haven't heard from her. Okay. Okay. So. We'll definitely take some time to talk. And debrief about what happened at our last meeting. The other meetings over the weekend. We'll be back in a minute. But let's just go ahead and. Do the sort of procedural stuff we need to do, which is starting first with reviewing the minutes from last week and. Last time, excuse me. Voting on those and then assigning a new meeting taker, which I believe this week will be Sarah Durr. Based on alphabet of order. That's okay with you, Sarah. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining the June 18th meeting. Do you have the minutes up or the agenda still? I have nothing up. Agenda. Agenda. Okay. Did you want me to share the minutes or is everybody looking at them on their own screen? I'm just putting them up now. Okay. I can never tell if you have them or not. So just let me know. Yes. Got the minutes. Okay. Thank you. It's frustrating because I can't tell. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have no other questions. I'm sorry. I have to motion to accept these minutes. I'm motion to accept. Second. Okay. You need a roll call vote. May not be in order. Sorry. I'm just going to go by my. By my screen here. So do you want. Yes. Dracker. Yes. Breger. Yes. Roof. Yes. But I should note that technically my appointment on the committee has expired as of yesterday. Expect. I'm expecting to be a reappointed based on what I've heard from staff. The paperwork yet. So. Minutes look fine to me. If I'm not allowed to vote, that's okay. We're going to assume you can give. And we know that you're being reappointed. So. Okay. I'll just roll with it for now. A provisional ballot. Yes. There you go. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think I did get you, Jesse. I'm sorry if I didn't. Did I. I don't know. Yes. Okay. You moved. Okay. So we're good. Great. Sarah. Sarah, do we have you, Sarah, Der? Great. There you go. Sorry. That's okay. Ravi Kumar. Yes. All right. Did you get Jesse? Or just. I think I did. Did I get you, Jesse? I'm sorry if I didn't, did I? I don't. I don't know. Yes. Okay, so there's no public. I believe art. No, I'm sorry. We do have one. Oh, okay. Public person. Andrew Glace. I'm going to allow him. I do know him. I do know Andrew. Andrew, I'm allowing you to, um, to speak. He's still muted. How's that? Oops. Oh, I had him unmuted and now I've muted him. Hold on. Sorry, Andrew on the camera too. Um, I could actually, I do know Andrew, so I will happily do that. Andrew, I've promoted you to a panelist. So you can actually. Speak. You may have to unmute yourself. I can't. So Andrew, you have the, um, Control of muting or unmuting yourself. There you go. How's that? That's great. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Andrew Glace. Um, long time resident of mammors. I'm the president of GNL energy services. We work with businesses and institutions to cut their energy bills. And I'm very pleased to be sitting in on this committee. Mostly listening. Thank you, Stephanie. You're welcome. Thank you, Andrew. Welcome. Okay, Stephanie, staff updates. Um, so Art Keen, um, sent an email that he wasn't going to be able to attend our meeting tonight, but that he was willing to publish an update and summary of what we're up to. If anyone's interested in providing him with something, he'd be happy to publish it. And he said, if there's anything that we think he should cover, we can let him, we can let him know. Um, and that was all. And then I just wanted to also let you all know that, um, again, that Sean Hannon is here, the IT director and, um, Post what happened Sunday, um, with our meeting with our zoom meeting, um, I've been in contact with Sean and Sean, not to put you on the spot, but I don't know if there's anything you want to say about steps we're taking to try to, um, ensure that as much as possible, we can prevent that from happening again. Yeah. I don't have a whole lot to add. We're, um, we're strongly encouraging people to join through the link just so we don't get end up with essentially people joining his imposters. Um, and we're also just reviewing. Um, we're looking into what other options there are out there. People, um, members of the public who want to participate in their video, if there's a, um, a better way to do it than bringing them in as, in this panelist. Um, it's frankly, just a little cumbersome. Um, It's a little cumbersome to do and it opens us up to, uh, problems like what we experienced this weekend. Sean, has there been any guidance from the state about how to handle this? No, there haven't. In particular, but it just feels like we're being both hindered by open meeting law and also hurt by it in the situation that has happened to us twice now. Um, and I know it's happened once with the town council and it just seems like there needs to be, I mean, this seems like the forfeitable future are these remote meetings. Um, and, and just wondering if you're getting any support from the state. No, we, and, and I've reached out to, uh, there's a listserv of IT directors basically in western mass. Um, and what we've found is that the Amherst is kind of on the, the forefront of a lot of this, a lot of other communities are not allowing any live public comment at all. Um, none of them are allowing, um, none of them are allowing public comment remotely with video. Um, talk to Aguilom, Westfield, um, west side, and they're all, they're all kind of, um, they're either allowing call in voice only public input or they're not allowing it. Basically their public input is you send an email or, um, you know, or a letter, um, to border committee members ahead of time. So, um, we're kind of on the forefront of it here. So we're still, I think we're still trying to figure out what we can do to, to allow the public input, um, allow people to participate. Um, but obviously keep, keep the bad actors out of there. Um, I think all along we've, we've been comparing what we do in a, in a online zoom public meeting to what happens in real life. And so we've kind of, you know, we've talked about if, you know, if this happened in person at a council meeting or a committee meeting, what would you do if, you know, if somebody got up there and started, um, saying something that was out of, out of order that, you know, depending on what it is, the president or the chair may, may gavel them, get them out of there. Um, and so we've, we've used that comparison in most cases. The problem with this is that there's, there's certainly a barrier to somebody coming and being disruptive as at a public meeting because they, they have to be there at that time. They have to walk into town hall or wherever that meeting's taken place and be disruptive there in person. Um, and with this, with the public meetings, essentially you're, you're, you're expanding that, that number of people who can do it to essentially the whole world anywhere or anybody within internet connection can now come and be disruptive. And it's, it's much easier to be quasi anonymous in doing it. Um, so we're still, we have the process down as far as if it's a meeting and we're not bringing people in with video. Um, and we, we stick to public comment, um, or public input with audio only. Um, we have that process down the, the challenges bringing people in and allowing them to present video or to show their face and or share their screen. So. Ashwin, did you have a comment? Yeah, just to clarify what happened, because I'm a little confused about just the series of events that transpired. What I understand is not just that we had, uh, members of the public coming in to make comments as they are allowed to do and encouraged to do in public meetings or, or welcome to do rather, but that, uh, people came into the meeting and then somehow hacked it and seized control of your hosting capabilities so that they could share screens and stop Stephanie from controlling whether or not she can mute them. Um, because normally it's fine to have members of the public in, uh, the host simply has everyone muted by default and then allows people to speak, uh, on a discretionary basis. And if something is said that, uh, if, you know, like hate speech starts to come out, they can just mute them. Um, so am I right? Did they hack the meeting or did they just, or yeah, yeah, what happened? Um, and kind of technical level. Yeah. Can I, I guess I have to speak to what my experience was. Yeah. Um, so when this happened, and I think I'm pretty sure you were present when it happened before, um, I was able to just remove them from the room immediately. This time, um, I wasn't even getting to muting them. I was just trying to get them out of the room and remove them like I did the last time, which happened pretty easily and quickly. I could not get them out of the room every time I tried to get them out of the room and hit remove their name kept popping up. So I couldn't, I just couldn't remove them. And then I had to just end them. And then when. Graphics started coming up, I just ended the meeting. Um, because I was trying to, and there was more than one name. There were several names. Uh, they all came up all at the same time, pretty much. Um, as I was letting people into the room. And I think what happened, the reason why they were able to share is because they were let in the room. So panelists, any of you right now have the ability to share, um, your screen because you're a panelist. So they were, when they were allowed into be into the room, that just gave them the ability to share. What I don't understand is why I couldn't remove them because I didn't have that experience last time. And like I said, the name kept popping up. So to me, that was like, they were able to take over somehow. Um, so that's what I wanted to say. Um, I'm just going to interject. This is because he, um, I don't have video tonight. Um, but I just wanted to mention, as we continue to discuss, uh, since this is being recorded, none of the community leaders have given permission for their names to be discussed tonight. So just please refrain from specifying any names. Thanks. Um, Jesse, did you have a something to add? No. Um, Sean, I know if you had any, any answers to Ashwin's question about. Yeah. I know you weren't there, but yeah. Was there an exploit or hack that they were taking advantage of, like a security breach or is it just them playing by the rules and taking advantage of the rules? Yeah, I don't know. Um, well, so the meeting wasn't recorded. So we, we don't, um, we can't go back and see that. Um, but then zoom gives us pretty limited, um, insight into, into the connection. Um, it, there's not, there's not a lot there. There certainly have been security bugs with zoom in the past. And I would, I would guess that there are some that still exist. Um, so it certainly, it sounds likely that they could have, um, taken advantage of some, some security flaw. Um, if Stephanie was unable to, if she was unable to kick him out of the meeting, um, I would say the most, the most likely scenario is they took, it took advantage of some security flaw. Um, zoom. Zoom is not perfect. Um, where. Other than things like this, we're a little less concerned with, um, these, the vulnerabilities of security in zoom, just because for the most part we use it for public meetings. So most of the meetings that we hold are public by definition. So we're, we're less concerned about people basically gaining access to the meetings, the meetings we hold internally within, within the town. We use Microsoft teams just because it gives us, it gives us a lot more control over the security of the meetings, but for our public meetings, we use zoom because it's, it's more accessible for people. Just one follow up to that. Um, is, uh, are you getting support from, from peers at other institutions? I'm just thinking that, you know, I know the colleges and universities, the higher ed institutions have done a lot of work and are pretty well or extremely well resourced, uh, to investigate and prepare for a variety of security scenarios. Um, probably maybe more well resourced than the town of Amherst, Amherst is. And I wonder if there might be a way to reach out to them and get support from Amherst college from UMass, uh, to try to work through this, to try to do a kind of autopsy on what happened and figure out how to make sense of the different options. Yeah. So, so we're actually pretty luckily one of our, um, somebody we hired basically two, three months before the whole, um, pandemic started, um, actually comes from Harvard business school. And one of the things that he was, uh, very involved there was their implementation of zoom. Um, so they, he left there before they started having to use it so extensively, but he's, he's been kind of leading the charge within, within the town, within IT and I know he's been, he's been talking to people, um, there to, to get help from them. We, we have reached out to zoom, um, directly for support and their, um, their support is frankly overwhelmed because of the, the explosion of their growth. Um, so it's been difficult to get support from them, but, um, we have, we have been talking to other communities. We haven't talked to Amherst college or, or you mass specifically, but we certainly could see what, uh, see what they're doing. We changing how we run meetings going forward then. Well, we have, Sean, will you be present in meetings to be back up to Stephanie so that we feel a little more like we've got coverage or what is that? Has that been a conversation? Uh, we haven't talked about that specifically. I'm here on this meeting and I think IT is going to be, um, um, helping support some other meetings. We've, we've been supporting the, um, council meetings just because of the, the complexity of, um, the presentations and everything that go on there. Um, we're, um, we're probably not staffed well enough to be, to be. Online supporting all the meetings we are. Um, there's always somebody on call and the, um, I'm available to jump in with pretty much any of the meetings to help. Um, but obviously things, things change so quickly that, uh, you know, if it takes me five minutes to get connected, it's, you know, probably already missed it, but, um, we are looking at what we can do to, um, to, to maintain order within the meetings without, without requiring somebody, a staff member to be on every, every meeting. Is it possible or would even be helpful to have someone be an emergency co-host as backup, just in case Stephanie's internet is too slow to shut, you know, the meeting down or something. Um, yeah, we can, um, that was, um, we can definitely have someone be a co-host, uh, going forward. And I was going to suggest actually to Sean that maybe not so much these meetings, but, um, as we move forward with the task group meetings, um, there's three, well, there's three, two hour sessions for four different groups, which is like a total of whatever number that is, um, meetings that we're going to have moving forward. And it would probably be good to maybe have someone from IT help us with that. And I can reach out to you about that, um, after, you know, tomorrow or another day to talk about that and see if that's possible. Yeah. Yeah. So, so IT is always able to jump in, um, so in a situation if, if Stephanie were unavailable, um, and somebody reached out to us, we certainly could, could get the meeting kicked off. Um, what we've done in, in most cases is, um, with other boards and committees is the, the staff liaison kicks off the meeting and is, is co-host or co-host. Um, and then oftentimes the staff liaison will, we'll make the committee chair, um, host or co-host. Um, in that case, the committee chair has, has the same level of, um, technical abilities as, as the staff liaison. And we're, we're still kind of getting used to it just within IT because there are so many different, um, boards and committees and they all, they all have their way of operating. That's a, some, some much more formal and some much less formal. Um, so I think we're, we're still getting the hang of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for these responses, Sean. Um, I know you're doing everything you can to address the situation. Um, I'm, I'm feeling, I, maybe there's nothing you can do to help me here, uh, but I'm not feeling as reassured as I want to feel right now. Um, cause you know, basically, basically what happened the other day was really, really bad. You know, it was a group of, uh, community leaders, uh, a lot of them black folks, a lot of them Latinx folks, uh, who were exposed to just incredibly violent, hurtful language. Uh, that just did really tremendous damage to the basic operations of town governance. Um, and for us, what I, what I, what I was, what I'm hoping to hear is we have thought about this. Uh, we understand the gravity of the situation and here is what we have already done and here is what you can do to ensure, uh, pretty much beyond the shadow of a doubt that this won't happen again because we can't convene this group of people again without certainty that it's safe. We can't proceed with the essential functions of town governance without a really clear and certain answer to this question. Um, and maybe between the lines of what you just said, answers to my concerns are in there, but I just, I don't quite have a, some of them as explicitly as I want. So can you help? Yeah. Yeah. So here's, here's what we do know. If we hold these meetings and we, um, We limit panelists to panelists and attendees to attendees. And we keep the essentially that however, however you want to, um, vet or pre because the challenge with open meetings, but whoever you have, whether it's through a freeze registration process, um, however you control who is in, who is in as a panelist, so we would back up a little bit and explain how, how, how the zoom webinar part works. And then I think I can answer your question is we're using the zoom webinar and basically where it's zoom with the webinar add on. And the wet, what the webinar add on means is you can take essentially your normal zoom meeting and you put all the people in the normal zoom meeting in to a group and they're the panelists. And that, that's what your normal zoom meeting where you, you know, it's just, it's people you trust. It's, it's a, I don't want to say it's a free for all, but it's, it's what we have right now. You could share your screen. I could share my screen. Um, it's, it's pretty open process. Um, what the webinar does is it adds on essentially a room for attendees and the attendees by default are, um, read only or, or they can, they can view the meeting. They can listen to the meeting. And then the additional part is they can raise their hand. Um, when they have a comment or question, they can type in a question when we, when the, um, Q and A feature is turned on. And, um, they can, their microphone can be turned on essentially by the host or co-host. So that's with the council meeting. Somebody wants to, um, make a public comment. They can raise their hand in there. Um, the, somebody goes into the attendees sees that their hands raised, that the president recognizes that person. And there's a, basically they're allowed to speak. And then when they're done speaking, that the microphones turned back off. So that keeps it very orderly where we've run into problems. Um, is the desire to also allow people to participate more than, um, be able to participate more than just being able to speak more than just audio. So in order to get somebody who's an attendee. In so that they can show their video. Um, so that they can, they can share their screen so they can show their face, whatever it is. They need to be brought in as a panelist. Once they're in as a panelist, it's much more open as to what they can do. They can share their screen because we have sharing your screen turned on for panelists. So then it's, it's on for all panelists. Um, they can mute, they can unmute themselves. Um, they have a lot more control. Um, So the simple answer is. Um, People, we want to have meetings where people just participate with. Uh, audio only. We've got that. We have that nailed down. Um, We have not experienced any problems. Um, We haven't experienced any problems with that with anybody. Working around that. Um, the, basically the problems we've had are when it's a meeting, when people are brought in as panelists or early on, when we had the chat feature enabled on the first, basically our first Zoom council meeting, we had the chat feature enabled and it allowed, we couldn't lock it down. Um, well enough that basically anybody could chat to anybody. So we, that's why we shut the chat feature off just because it was, it, it was a vulnerability. Um, So I don't know if that it's. It's a long way it went away is saying that we're, we have the audio part down. It's a video part that we're struggling on. We don't know what the solution on that is yet. Um, and unfortunately we can't. I can't tell you for sure that, um, If you bring somebody in with video. That it won't create problems just because. You have, they're an attendee or they're a panelist. Um, and we, we, there's no in between with Zoom right now. Um, and so that's why we're, we're trying to find, we're trying to find something else. And I, I fully realized that we've gone from meetings where. Somebody wants to come and make a public comment. You're able to see their face here. You know, there's a lot more. Um, there's a lot more to what they have to say and, and kind of understanding their passion when they're, where they're speaking about something. Then, um, then just hearing their voice. So I, I fully realized that there's, there's a desire and, and that there are also. There are meetings that aren't just. Committee meetings, board meetings that there's, that it is more, more of a public dialogue. Um, and I think it's, it's, it's a challenge that, um, you know, one of the, one of the answers is some sort of pre-registration process and, and vetting people. The problem is, I think there's a, there's a concern that that could be violating open meeting law because you, when you have a meeting in the town room, you don't require people to register in advance. When you have a meeting in the town room or, or another room, people can just show up. Um, and so if you require people to register in advance, you, you may be, you may be shutting people out. Thanks, Sean. So. And on that point, I mean, I, I, I agree with Ashwin. I think that we need to maybe take what you just said and think as a committee about how we move forward with our task group meetings and our meetings with our community leaders, because I also don't feel like. We have a solution that we'll make it safe for us to reconvene those in a way that actually allows us to get our work done. I think we've got to be repeating things, which is getting our work done, doing it safely and doing it within the open meeting law. And right now I don't see a way that those three things actually can work together. Um, And on that point, I've, I have reached out to Mindy and Joe. About. My personal concern that open meeting wall is, doesn't work. In this current. Framework. Um, Cause I think to your point, Sean, about, you know, Comparious to what if it happened in an in person meeting? If what had happened to us on Sunday happened on an in person meeting, it would be national news. Yeah. Yep. So like, I think that, um, We need to. So like the preregistration or the, you know, I think there's just a lot that now that we know that we're going to be in this virtual world for, At least the next six months, if not longer, I think that hopefully, and I don't think you as a, as, as time to be, or as this town of Amherst can solve this problem. I think it's a statewide. Challenge. We also don't want to, I think the further lockdown that we do of the meetings further exasperates. Reduction of participation from people. Um, you know, for, for, for us to bring people in who we know, we would have to know them and we want more people to be joining public meetings. Like, so I think. Um, there's just a lot of things that we'll need to figure out as a, as a committee about this. Um, and I think. Your point is well taken that. And I think we all feel thankful that Amherst has been so proactive and moving forward with virtual meetings. Particularly this committee, particularly Stephanie, thank you for pushing to get us started. I know many other town committees haven't even met yet. Um, but I think because of that, we're also sort of have been. A bit of a tester on. On sort of how to make this work out. So. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, this is the heat. Hi. Oh, thanks, Sarah. I just was raising my head and I had another question. Um, is there a reason why we have to follow open meeting law right now and other towns are not, do they not have open meeting law? Or. You mentioned that Agawam and a few other towns. Were. Yes. No, my understanding is that they are, they are all following open meeting law where. What they're not doing is they're not, um, Allowing live public comment. Um, and I don't know. I don't know enough about open meeting law to say whether that's violating it or not. Um, But I know that they are, um, They're not allowing live public comment. Um, They're not allowing live public comment. So that, that is a difference. One of the differences between what they're doing and what we're doing. Okay. So to me, it sounds like we need to get more information about. If they're open meeting laws, the same as ours. And if it is how we can also use those options of. Allowing, you know, Just the voice only, and I'm wondering if there's a reason why we need the video. Um, because it sounds like you're saying that introduction of video is what makes things more vulnerable. And I'm also wondering if the issue was only that the attendees were made panelists. If they had been kept attendees, would they have been able to speak or screen share? No, so attendees would not be able to. So the only. The only times we've experienced this problem is when somebody is a pan is in as a panelist. So if somebody's in as an attendee, um, and this is how they, they stay when they're at, um, town council meetings. The attendees have no, um, no ability to speak, share video, share their screen. They can't even see, um, I don't think they even see the name of the panelists. They don't see the names of the other attendees. It's pretty well locked down. Um, it's, it's not much different than what you would see, um, when Amherst media broadcasts. So they, it's, it's you only for them. It seems like there would be an option then for any chair or host to have a better system in terms of the steps they take prior to making someone a panelist. Is that correct? If they were to let's say require that, if you want to come to a meeting, you have to send an email to the chair in advance. And that person makes a phone call to ask you about what your plans are. I mean, I know it's not foolproof because someone might be a good manipulator, but it seems like that would be a helpful step. Yeah. I think that would, would potentially cut down on, on the ability for people to abuse, to abuse it. So if they, if they remain an attendee, then there's, as far as we know, there's, there's essentially nothing they can do, um, to be disruptive. Um, I think the worst they could do as an attendee is be. Offensive with what they use as a name because you can put, you can put whatever you want for a name in there. Um, but that's kind of the. Sean, I just want you didn't, um, we lost Stephanie and she's going to log on and we're going to need you to let her in, I think. Okay. Yeah. She should be back in, um, with her link, but if not, I'll, I'll keep an eye. Um, um, but yeah, so that, so your idea of only bringing in panelists that you have, um, vetted in some way, um, works from a technology perspective. Um, I think that that's more of a, a decision for the, um, the committee chair, um, or, or the committee as a whole is how they want to, to deal with that. And I know there's a, um, a desire to be as, as open and, and as inclusive as possible. Um, so I think there's, there was some concern about that. Yeah. So I think, um, I think that, oh yeah, Steve, go ahead. I had a question on a separate topic, although it was related to the meeting, it seemed that perhaps some of the community members were concerned about being publicly identifiable in the session. And I wasn't, I'm not sure if that's the case, but can we offer the people that they're participating that yes, they can remain anonymous or no, they can't. It might be useful if we state one or the other. So people know that, um, they are anonymous or they won't be anonymous if they participate. Yeah. And Steven, I think that's where sort of we need to put our heads together and, and kind of, um, figure it out because I think one of the challenges that happened in the meeting, um, so Stephanie just texted, she had a thunderstorm, so she got knocked off. So hopefully. Um, but one of the, one of the challenges is that people were joining and Stephanie wasn't exactly sure if they were community leaders or not. So I think what we'll need to do, if we're going to use zoom in this platform. And we're going to have it be a public meeting. Then I think, um, which I think are all questions to be asked. Um, then I think we would have to be very sure of, of the panelists names of the, of the people that are joining their names. And I think that does create another level of, of challenge because what if you're joining from a partner's phone and they have a different name than you. And I think it's just adding a little bit of an extra layer. I don't think it's insurmountable. Like I think we could figure that out, but I think like Stephanie would have to have a list of names and be able to check them off. Um, and question the people who aren't on that list. Um, so I don't think it's impossible. I just think it's going to require more, more upfront work. Yeah, Laura, I think that that is a, that's why I'm asking like, was it because Stephanie made the attendees panelists or was it because back to us when questioned, did someone actually hack? Because the plan was for if Stephanie did not recognize a name for her to text me and us to identify the individual. And I'm not sure if just in her. Um, Desire to try and get people in quickly. Uh, that. She let people in that she didn't recognize or what, but it would not be difficult for me to confirm identities. Because he hired that is what happened. So if they had been left in attendees. Yeah, Jesse. Oh, sorry. I'm, I'm, I guess it would be helpful to understand too. And I think this might be part of what Steve was asking. Is. Is this the best medium for what we're trying to do if, if we're trying to create a safe space. For open dialogue. Is, is the notion that there are invisible people watching. Um, whether they yell, you know, whether they bomb or not, is that okay? And, and the second part, and I don't know if we need to unpack this right now. But I do want to plant the seed of we have many months of, of what should be more mild weather than the winter. And we have so much open space in this town. I just want to ask, are there ways that we might think about having some of these task group meetings outside? Is that a. Is that a safer space potentially that we could be creating. Um, to have these meetings. I think that's a helpful idea, Jesse. Um, and we did end up having guys. You were there. I know. One of the MVP grant meetings outside totally. By accident because the school was locked. Um, and I don't think it was particularly allowable because there was in bathroom access or something. But anyway, we did it. And it was really nice actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The bathroom is the issue. Jim, I'm wondering maybe if you or Lauren have experience. With people doing MVP grant. Sector work or work in general that have not. Done open meetings for those. Sessions. Um, yeah, the, so three things. Um, Two, I think there are ways to do this. Which allow people to participate. Maybe asynchronously. So in other words, maybe not alive. And that helps that potentially helps. Second and a half thing is we can. See people's names in signing up, but no, you're back. Sorry. I don't think it was your fault. The third is it or a second and a half is that we can see those names, but it's totally possible to set the. The settings so that the names don't show up. Um, On in panelist mode. Um, maybe we do that. Maybe we don't. But, uh, the third, the third thing is, um, it's, I, it's, I think that the real question about doing sector group meetings. Sort of in a more contained structure. In other words, you know, in a more locked down setting. Um, Is that there's a couple of things that, and I'm sure Stephanie's way more on top of this, but. If there are people. You know, if a couple of committee members are on the, in the group, then we have to have to follow the laws. However, We can move to something more like in those settings. More like what I go on is doing where. If somebody wants to participate. They do it ahead of time by email. The rest of the meeting doesn't allow it. Um, and we just say, okay, that's the model we use for those meetings. It's a much more contained thing. Um, We are in this situation where we, the outreach to bring people in has happened ahead of time. And so it's not so much that those particular meetings need to be. For the process purposes, more public. Um, I think that's a totally viable model. Uh, and one that is much more controllable. Does that answer your question? Um, I think this sort of leads into our kind of discussion about. Um, The task groups and, um, And how we might, might organize this meeting. So that was helpful. Can I jump in? And I'm sorry, I missed all that. Um, we're having a very, very, very intense thunderstorm here right now. And, um, I had to switch on the computer. Um, I'm using the computer, which is why I'm on my phone. So, um, two things. I just want to, um, say, Sean, I don't know how to be able to do anything with the meeting. Now that I'm on my phone. So, um, I can't. End of our stop, um, the recording. So I'm kind of looking to you for that. And the second thing is. I want to thank you because, um, everyone should know. I kind of. the way he just was so I really want to appreciate that you took the time and to answer everyone's questions Sean and thank you and I hope that was okay because I think it was important for us to have this conversation with you so I just want to thank you for that. Yeah no I'm happy to be here it's I don't want to say this this part's exciting but it is you know I mean it's what it's what we're here for so if we're done talking about things that are relevant but you have to stay on you know there is a host but they're just go off and do something until the end. Yeah you can make one of us a co-host just in case something I don't know. Yeah I'm looking at it right now and it looks like when Stephanie got kicked off Sean did go ahead and make me co-host and so it looks like Stephanie and I are both co-hosts and I can see how to stop the recording and I can see the attendees. Great. Stephanie you are still a co-host so you can probably do it somehow on your phone by swiping but I'll stop to remind me and I'll stop. Yeah yeah I mean I'd have to literally like figure out as I go here so I think there weren't many things to share. I did have one thing about the summer calendar to share but that's it's not that's minor I can wait. Okay Are we feeling like we have time to I think also deep a little bit more just on the context of context of the meetings that we had on an agenda item five and then I think that will lead into more talks about task report but just if there's any ECAC member updates we good. Is the building electrification on the agenda? I'm sorry I don't have it. It's not so if you wanted to speak to that this would be a great time. Well Steve, Stephanie and I were all on as well as Felicia Madden, Nick and Chris Riddle from Amherst. It probably would be good if we had some other community members as a part of the team because every one of us has questions about how much time we'll be able to put in you know I'm not sure I'm gonna follow through it all so you know Steve had some questions about that so if you know people please mention it to them it does seem like it's gonna be very interesting but they are expecting a lot of you know conversation outside of the monthly meetings and reading and so it'll be involved. It does seem very relevant to the building task group so Chris Riddle will be in the building task group. He could be the liaison but it would be better if Jesse or Lauren were a part of the team. I mean Sarah were part of the team ideally you know that but doesn't have to be. Do you want to see? I'm still trying to kind of wrap my head around exactly what this activity is. It does seem like they do ask us very specifically that we're committing to participating in these monthly workshops and at least once monthly coaching meetings with a local expert that they they connect us with. Do the work they're estimating that's about 10 hours a month for each member of time to prepare and they're asking us to commit to launching a program and introducing a building's electrification ordinance or bylaw by 2021. So they're asking up front for a fairly substantial commitment. Now maybe we can ride along for a while and without fully making that commitment or back out if we decide to. My sense is I think this will be a good thing to try to go for. I think it'll be a pretty big effort. I think if we decide to do it including a fair number of other citizens on taking part I think it would be good for the ECAC to sort of make a commitment to make a discuss it and to make a decision as to whether this is something it is going to support and help move through the various levels that it would need to become a proposed building electrification ordinance or bylaw that we press. So I think we're going to have to discuss it in some more detail after we learn a little bit more about what's involved. My take too is that you know what they're asking is that we make the proposal by 2021. It doesn't specifically say the time would necessarily adopt it. So I think it does make sense on many levels something like that would come from this committee. Given the charge and the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 that's very lofty so on some levels. Yeah it seems to me without doing any kind of an analysis that this would dovetail nicely with the the CCA proposal moving towards renewable energy on the electric grid and requiring buildings to be electrified. So conceptually it seems to be a very good match. I don't know the details. I haven't yet tried to do any kind of analysis as to how much this would reduce carbon emissions. I think some of that information is in the documents that I've just gotten access to but I'll try to take a look at in the next week. So we might have a better sense as to assuming we can get an ideal electrification ordinance proposed and passed what would the impact be towards achieving our goals. I think it would be useful to try to get a handle on that. You know if it's a 20% of getting us 20% of the way to our goal that'd be great if it's only going to get us two or three percent then maybe it's not something to put so much time and effort into. That's a good question. That's a good point Steve. Darcy yeah. Wait a minute. I just was wondering if you could share the documents with the rest of the committee and if there's a model ordinance that is already in the materials that would be really interesting to look at. It's a lot like the campaign for a net zero stretch code. Basically the same thing I think but it sounds a little nicer. Sounds a little bit more like it could be sold to the public. Electrification. As long as it doesn't get confused of electrocution. Yes there are model ordinances. Brookline and Arlington and one of those was the first and the other was the second to have a template and several of the people that were involved with those campaigns are the coaches for this program. So I will grab those there on a shared document platform somewhere. I'll see if I can get those and share my guess with Stephanie and Laura then to distribute to the rest of the committee. Great thanks. So it sounds like maybe what we could do is put an agenda item about this particular topic on a future meeting and Andrea, Steve or Stephanie or all three could present this so we can kind of decide. I think my summary of what was just said is that the moving towards this type of ordinance or this type of thing is probably what we're going to need to do but whether participating in this group and spending the time with this is the best use of of our time as a committee or you know should we be trying to recruit and maybe the first building task group meeting recruit other building sector members to join. Sound good? Yeah it seems like with Chris Riddle who's very interested perhaps he's someone that could take a larger role in this where me and Andrea maybe are members but not taking a leading role so we can look at those options and Andrea you know the other person Felicia I don't know what her interest or background is whether she might take a leading role as possible. Felicia, she doesn't have area knowledge. She doesn't have knowledge of building the building sector. Okay well I'm interested in I think so far willing to take a leading role on this I would want to do so with sort of the endorsement and support of the ECAC so yeah Laura I think good idea maybe next meeting we can talk a little bit more about the goals and the time effort and the payoff. I'll just quickly add from the building group point of view I think a key person to have in this conversation is gonna be Rob Mora whoever's gonna ultimately be administering this and early buy-in from the from the building commissioner would be huge on this in my opinion I don't know if we've had any luck getting him or Dave was gave it's on to our group I'm I'm doubtful but yeah that's not really how this is working this is more organizing for the vote to make it happen it's it's not really might be better not to try to get too much town buy-in because it could be shut down too early you know let's find out more yeah my suggestion was gonna be to you know get to a point where we have more information and something is more solidified at this point it's just way too kind of vague and Dave Buskevitz would not be the person specifically we want to reach out to about this and it's not likely we'll get staff to participate in these task group meetings I think I gave you all an update not sure but the town manager stated that we can really only invite department heads and it's up to the department heads if they want to allow staff to participate and that has to do with some union issues regarding time so you know yes Rob is the appropriate person but I would say this is not the time to try to bring him in I I don't recommend it yeah I think what under was saying is this is sort of designed to be a community grassroots initiative and at some point I'd imagine the process would be getting feedback from Rob Mora or others in town government but they are not expected to be helping to develop the plan is my my guess is at the process so yeah we'll come back next week our next meeting I think I can have probably have a better overview after reading the templates from Brookline and Arlington and have a little bit better sense of how the game plan would be great any other eCAC member updates so let's move on to to the next agenda items and I'd like to talk about our meetings in sort of the context of things that we learned things that we want to bring into the task group meetings and I before we start that maybe turn it over to Jim and Lauren I don't know if you all have anything to frame your thinking on that or or the best way to do that yeah we put a few slides together just to talk about next steps in the process we can share those is that what you're thinking Laura yeah okay great by the way Laura you can mute people who are making noise yeah you're good it's working yep okay saying sharing is paused but okay yep all right so we are sort of switching gears a bit here and talking about moving forward and before we do that I do just want to sort of check in and see how everyone is feeling if everyone's feeling ready to move on to this part of the conversation thumbs up awesome I'll thank you all for being here I know it was a rough experience this weekend truly just horrifying and saddening in a lot of ways but we are continuing to move forward and I'm really excited for what's to come so I'm gonna pass it over to Jim to just set the stage here I move the slider is it stuck so okay yeah it's looks like it's stuck okay okay that'll do okay so it was you know part of what has become clear ever more clear as we sort of head into this process and you know you the committee has done a huge amount of work getting to this point and you know as we know in the last two weeks is like the amount of work is just exploded and really it's just it's awesome that everybody's been in it been making it happen and you know been really checked in and I think it's important for us to think about us this you know it's like we're a team we've got stuff to do we know we have to make a plan we've got really specific goals that we got a hit we have a fired up community who wants to help along and make make those goals a reality and and we've you know now had a sort of weird shared experience and I think one of the things that we we you'll see when you when you take a look at the at the briefing that we put together last night is that there's this sort of model of what is it that we're actually trying to do what we're actually trying to do right is we're actually we've got really important results which is we've got to we got to make the town stronger we've got to make the town more resilient we got to essentially decarbonize the town those are big results those are big actions this is not child's play this is serious stuff we also we are building a new process and that's why this is so bumpy we're building a new way for committees to work ECAC was already doing that right the whole model of ECAC was already building a new model and now we're expanding that new model kind of agree this like okay here's where we're gonna go let's go there and so that's important and then we're also building relationships and that's something that's been very clear in the whole ECAC process and it's become ever more clear with the work that because Ikea has set up working with community leaders is it we're really really working on building relationships and all three of those are really important none of them are not important so as we sort of look at that as a okay we got a lot of stuff to do how do we do all those things then we can look at all right how do we do that what is it what does that mean in a meeting and one of the things we know about the meetings is they're gonna have to be kind of structured we know they're gonna have to be contained it's gonna be a lot of people we're gonna have to figure out how we make sure that everybody participates at a very high level it's not gonna be able to be that you know unfortunately the ECAC has been able to be relatively conversational in its year-long history I think in these settings that's it's not going to be able to be quite so conversational which is too bad but we have the opportunity to really move the process of getting to those results move it along pretty intensely so this is just sort of a description of how we think about how we're thinking about what those meetings look like that there's some opportunities for us to just do a little things to get us out of our heads and into the topic at hand there will be interpretation and translation in the number of the meetings which means we'll have to be very aware of that we're working on ways to make that a little less intrusive and a little more smooth and in the flow but the I think but I think that as we get better at it and we sort of professionalize that process it'll get much better and it'll be fun it's gonna be a sort of a fun new way of engaging with people that's probably a little out of some of what we've been doing part of what we want to do is we want to set context and we call this storytelling and that is that there's a ton of context that the committee and that the MVP work and that all of you and like the the electrification committee there's a ton of context that's being built that we need to convey and engage everybody in and they come everybody else comes with a ton of context as well so I think there's an opportunity to set that context in the meetings through kind of in a story more narrative structure that allows that those ideas some of the work that's been done already to have a life and to and to be alive in people's experiences so that they can become real results and then we'll use a draft agenda the meetings will be pretty structured all of that material be ready ahead of time so that it can all get translated so that there's all the you know there's this there's a lot of layers that go along with that so we want to make sure that we make all those layers easy and then we'll talk a little bit today about the next steps for the facilitation teams as we go on so this is sort of talking about alright how do these things go what is it what's really going to happen here how do we do this how do we feel that we're gonna be a team how do we make the whole team part of the team that's making this happen and then what are our steps learn awesome thanks Jim so the first thing that we wanted to touch on was this idea of why why are we taking the time to do icebreakers I'm sure many of you experienced this weekend the the feeling that comes with not knowing everyone in a room and trying to achieve a common goal and you don't have that that baseline built yet and so part of what we're trying to do here it's not just doing icebreakers to get to know each other it's it's creating the space to make things feel more interpersonal and less virtual and try to you know work within the medium that we have here to to still give people a sense that we are in a shared space and that in that shared space we can get to know each other we can become more familiar with each other and people can relax and feel comfortable sharing their views which can then lead to a group culture developing rapport hopefully some more conversation within the structure that we're providing which can then hopefully develop real team relationships and lead to the development of a community of action in Amherst that's going to carry this plan forward as we move forward and even beyond our time so it's a bit of shifting gears from the conversation so far but we thought it might be worth doing another icebreaker all of us together both to practice what it's going to be like in our sessions to be mindful of stating our name and pronouns as we're starting conversations and then also to get us into the mindset of getting down to climate action work so just super quickly I know we actually don't know how much time we have but I think we have enough time we're not a ton we'll take a couple of people's reflections yeah sounds good so what we'd like you to do first is just we're gonna take a minute to think about the first time you learned about climate change or the first memory you have of learning about climate change or something related to that if you don't feel comfortable or don't want to share that particular prompt but first time you were exposed to the concept of climate change so let's just take a sec we'll give you about 30 seconds hang for a sec think about it 30 seconds is a long time isn't it I love it you should have played that Jeopardy yeah so the reflection in this case is try some a little we'll do this take two people because we want to keep moving but the reflection is okay you just sat down and thought about the first time you thought about climate change it has that had an effect on how you're thinking about what the meetings are going to be going forward what's that effect look like don't tell us about how what you your first time thinking about climate change I got a whole story of myself but when I think about it what is what how does it change what I'm doing right now so two people maybe volunteers pronouns and Steve hi I'm Steve he him pronouns and what I remember is as a graduate student back in about 1988 or so at Syracuse University in geology and having a discussion of a group of people and to me I thought climate change was was real a big deal but one of the other professors one of the older established high status professors was a petroleum geologist and he just sort of looked he says no no you know that that's just not proven yet and that same response however you know 30 years later is still I think often what we're up against I think back to that a little progress we've made in terms of trying to convince at least some minds that it's real and it's significant and it needs action so I think about that kind of resistance when I go into public meetings or other sessions how do we overcome that or how can we overcome that kind of resistance nice great reflection see some similarly a few years later maybe 93 academic setting geologists but I close my eyes and I what I saw was white people and academic language and I can picture the abstracts I can picture the reports I can picture the the the science of it all and it feels at this point in my life I it feels very disconnected from people's daily lives the sort of room full of white guys talking about science and I think it's just that's because you said related to how we go into these meetings so that's beautiful I I love that it's all geology the perfect thank you thank you for sharing thank you reflecting thank you for thinking about the question reflecting on what it means Lauren why don't you keep rolling yeah so as Jim was saying earlier we wanted to just touch on the issue of interpretation and translation and more broadly time within these meetings because I think as we all experienced this weekend we're going to be need to be really intentional about how we allocate time especially in groups with individuals who have accessibility needs but more generally to make sure that everyone's having the chance to participate and is being accommodated and doing so so we are going to be having interpretation continue on a separate audio channel or video screen for ASL we're working out ways to make that happen now in a way that will hopefully be smooth and work for the folks who need it and one of the things that we're just gonna need to be keeping in mind as we go into these meetings is that this is going to require participants to be mindful of speaking slowly and pausing at the end of sentences so I think all it means is that in groups with those needs we will definitely want to do a bit of leave some time for a group education and just some flexibility within that to make sure that those accommodations are working and then for translation we will be also translating written and visual materials in advance whenever possible so that's just a note about all of that and then I wanted to go more deeply into what Jim was talking about around setting the context for these conversations so we have this approach that we want to try out with related to storytelling we're calling it storytelling it's really setting the context so we've done and the ECAC as Jim mentioned and the MVP planning processes gathered all of this great information about what's going on in Amherst have what people's priorities are what issues they're interested in seeing further explored that's what we've heard and then what we know the the science degree have gas emissions and other local context we want to be able to bring all of that to bear in these conversations and one way that we've been thinking about doing this is starting with stories starting with some simple contexts that can bring in that background information and frame a conversation around a specific topic area and sort of be the catalyst for a conversation that can then go more in depth on that topic so this slide and the next slide have just sort of an example of that I'm going to walk you all through so this is a sample story of waste in Amherst and I put this together just based on the greenhouse gas emissions inventory and the outreach results from MVP and the ECAC outreach so waste accounts for 2.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Amherst and getting to net zero by 2050 means getting to zero waste however this number does not consider the emissions associated with the production transportation and consumption of the goods we consume and many of those goods come packaged with materials like plastic which some tech well sometimes recyclable require a lot of energy water and fossil fuels to make and should be eliminated Amherst can do its part by moving toward compostable packaging creating a municipal composting program and instituting a local plastic bag ban on its way to zero waste so this is just one story that came out of what folks were saying in the MVP and ECAC outreach that we could use as the basis for a conversation about this issue and one of the things that I wanted to note here and this is totally just an example that I threw together for this presentation and it's something that we're going to want to work together as facilitation teams to identify and and flesh out further but it may be that some things like this end up being recorded in advance just as a general point of interest that because of the interpretation and translation needs we may end up wanting to record some things in advance to help the meetings go more smoothly. So the next slide basically goes through what a sample agenda could look like for one of these meetings and here's where I'm going to go into a little bit more detail about what the how the storytelling component fits in. So with every meeting we probably want to start off with a bit of a Zoom tutorial that we will offer before the official meeting starts just for folks who are less familiar but then we'll have just a brief welcome and go over the agenda. We'll want to mention interpretation and translation needs at the beginning of the meetings. We'll do introductions and a nice breaker and then we'll go into those areas of focus. So starting with things like stories say that the waste story that I just told you all. What's missing from that story in terms of perspectives, relationships, history, values, potential actions, where does the story go next? What are the objectives, the visions, the direction that we want this particular area to go into? How will we get there? What are the pathways? What are the relationships that we'll need? What are the different actions that we want to take? And what are the co-benefits? What are some of the additional positives to the actions that we're taking since co-benefits are something that the committee has expressed interest in highlighting throughout the final plan? So we're really trying to target these sessions in a way that will both build the relationships that will support climate action moving forward, but also in a way that drives us toward what we will eventually need to put together a plan. So this is sort of how we've been thinking about how we can structure those meetings to get targeted feedback, make sure that all of the context gets incorporated, but still be efficient with our time. You'll notice that the bulk of time for the agendas is dedicated to the areas of focus. So it's almost an hour and a half and we want to give that conversation as much space as possible. And then wrap up and look to the following meeting. I think this is, well, I think I'm going to stop there and just see if anyone has any questions before moving on to next steps. Darcy? You're muted, Darcy. Sorry. Just wondering when we would show the list of all the actions that we, where would that come in? Yeah, great question. I think one of the things that we were realizing as we were thinking about how the meetings would go and how we could efficiently use that time, we were thinking it might make more sense to use those previous actions as the basis for developing the stories. So we have them as the record of what was gathered and we bring them into the process by embedding them within the context setting that we do so that we're not reinventing the wheel every time we host a new meeting. We don't have to cover that context again. We can say, here's what we already know. What do we need now? Where do we go from here? What's missing from this context that we already have? Where do we want to take this next? So I think Darcy, to answer your question more succinctly, those previously developed strategies, actions will be used to craft the context for the conversations to say this is what has already come up and where do we go from here? Does that make sense? It makes sense and I like the way you're using the storytelling. I just am not clear on you know those we had a fair amount of detail in in those plans or in those actions. Organize them into subcategories, etc. and looked at the ones from other communities. I'm assuming that that they will still go into our analysis of what's going to be in the final plan because community members and other people won't necessarily, you know, the story won't necessarily trigger the different things that are in those actions. I guess I feel like they should be the baseline of what's already been suggested. I guess I'm just wondering how we're going to factor it in in the end. Yeah, so that's the whole concept of developing the stories and the stories don't have to be simple. There can have a lot of things involved in them, but part of our concern and I think you probably share this concern is in looking through those lists, they're hard to navigate. They're hard to navigate for me and I know what they say. And so we were thinking about it and talking to other people and sort of talking about how do you do this and trying to think about ways to take that information and make it more understandable is the wrong word, more relatable. And so I think that the lists themselves and those activities, once there are stories around them, those lists make a lot more sense and that then they're available to participate to think about and use. I think it's very tricky to take a list with 75 things on it and hand it to a group of people and say, okay, make your way through this list. Now, which of them do we think are important? We've tried that and it's very tricky as opposed to trying to set up people with a sort of narrative that says, well, here are the six things that fit within this topic. Here's how they relate. How do they relate to you? Where you get to essentially to the same point? Yeah, and just to clarify as well, this is just for meeting, this is just the agenda for meeting one. And we have three meetings. And so my thinking or what I'm reading into what you presented, correct me if I'm wrong, is that we don't want to overwhelm them with the list. And I think this is our opportunity to be a little bit more creative and open about what may be missing. And then I think as we move forward through the process, we're going to be narrowing down a list of action items. Definitely, Laura. The second meeting is intended to be more about prioritization and we'll have more targeted action items that will be associated with the outcomes of meeting one. Jesse. Just in order to interpret this agenda, does anyone have a sense yet of how many people are going to be at these? Is it too early to ask that? Yeah, I think the answer is it'll be at least 12 and potentially 20. Have we got RSVPs from most of the people we invited? We have a bunch of RSVPs, but it's not it's still a moving target. Are there going to be phone calls, follow-ups? It's probably not for us to answer. Yeah, so yeah, so the there's going to be additional outreach about the first sector group meeting and more targeted, active trying to engage and involve people. So there will be there'll be emails and there may be phone calls. I'm not going to call everybody. I don't think we're necessarily going to call every person, but I think there will be some folks that we will be engaging directly. Just from an organizing perspective. People may not see their emails. They put it off. They forget about it. The way to get people to a meeting is to call them. And we can be what we do for our own task groups. Yeah, I was going to say, you could you could do that. I mean, we can we can take the list. And I don't know that we have everybody's phone number, but find it easy enough to find. Yeah. Well, we can. Yeah, I think that is actually and that's one of the things Lauren, why don't you go to the next slide? I think Ashwin has his hand. Oh, sorry. Oh, oh, wait, I think it might get answered in a minute. OK. Yeah, so this is just to cover our next steps for getting into the task group meetings. And the first step we saw was to set meetings between basically the facilitation teams. So the task group co-chairs, the sustainability coordinator and the consultants will all probably want to meet in the next week or so and talk about what are the areas of focus for your specific task group and how do we want to craft this context when we're thinking about storytelling? And yeah, and this would be a great time to to talk about the attendees and and who's who's ours or beaten who hasn't. And maybe let's go after getting them and and and that kind of activity. It's perfect. That's the whole idea is to gather that facilitation team together to really plan for those meetings for the first one. Plan for what gets said, give everybody enough time to craft that material and get gather the troops together to participate. Exactly. And then from there, we'll go on to schedule the first task group meeting. I have a note on here that says scheduling survey is linked in the chat, but we don't have a chat. So I'm going to send those to Stephanie to relay to the rest of the committee. Great. I forgot about that, but so we have four separate surveys for one for each of the task groups that we're going to be using to schedule. But first, we want to get the co-chairs schedules before sending them out to anyone else, just so that we have the sort of parameters that we're working with and then we'll send those surveys out more broadly once we know who's going to be in each specific task group. So, Ashwin, did you get your question answered? Yes, I did. I was just wondering how we would figure out how to craft those stories. I was getting scared that I was supposed to already know how to tell the story. Not at all. We're here to work with you on that. I don't know. I think you need to come up with the first story. You know the story, Ashwin. Cool. No, all good. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah, so I see Stephanie has turned up. Just really quick, in terms of scheduling and availability, I put together an Excel, actually, it's not an Excel chart. It's actually just a calendar listing the same format that I used for the committee last year, last summer, which has the dates and the names of who is not available during those specific days. And it goes from basically it's July and August in a little bit of September, but we could include September as well, if people have dates that they know they can be available. It's more just about vacations, not specifically other things that might conflict, but it's at least a place to start. Yeah, and you'll see when you get the surveys that there's also there's a space for general availabilities and then there's space to indicate your specific times that you're not available. So if you are going on vacation, you can add that in there. If you already told Stephanie, that's fine. You don't need to repeat it twice, but we have that in there in the survey as well, just in case. So that's it from us. Any other questions before we move on? Yeah, I do have a question. I and then I see Andra has a question as well. I liked the way that you framed the icebreaker to like bring it back to the meeting. I still don't think even with 10 people, we will be able to do icebreaker in that way. So I don't know if there's a possibility and this kind of comes and I know we're up against both not wanting to be too tech heavy and the limitations of our system, but I don't know if there's ways to do like polls where people can put in their icebreaker and you call on one or two people, kind of like what we did then or, you know, other ways that we can get people to type and and do things as we're going. So we're not relying always on people speaking. Of course, without a chat, that's hard, but I don't know if there's other means to do that. That works well when I'm on work webinars where people can have the, you know, some kind of way to collect thoughts or comments or do word clouds or, you know, there's links and stuff that people can use. It all gets a little complicated. But I guess I'd like to say that I don't think with more than 10 people will be able to do an icebreaker for everybody. So I would love to come up with a more creative solution to that. Yeah, I think that's a really good point, Laura, that that we're we're we want to thank very carefully. We want the effect of bringing people in and changing the perspective and building relationships. But we also got to be really careful about how much time it takes up. And really, we can only take five minutes. Yeah, Jim and I were talking about this earlier today. And I love the idea of polling. I think, you know, since there are more things on the IT side of things that we're still figuring out, some of those other suggestions may or may not be possible, but we should certainly keep them on the table until we know what the final time that will be. Yeah, but even things like, you know, a chat depending on how the the meetings go, we may or may not have that available. But we are we are also talking about sort of more succinct icebreakers that can be done like more, you know, one or two word things if if we do want opportunities for everyone to participate. So we'll definitely be very mindful of that. There may also be an opportunity for people that want to that it can be self selected in a way to to put their name and something about them in a doc that we share. So that at least we know people's names before we start our as we can we can look down and see them. Andra, did you have a comment? Well, along those lines, we can have bios for everybody that helps people learn who each other are. But really, if we're only going to have three meetings, we're not going to develop a group culture. This group took about six months to develop a group culture and we're small and, you know, not so diverse. Really, I see, though. Yeah. So. I think that it's going to be on the task group leaders to reach out, do one to one conversations to just know who the people are. But that's that's how I can imagine doing it. So at least that the leaders have a sense of who's who's there and and who might have something to suggest or even plan ahead of time. You know, you have a really great way of putting this. Could you do it? And, you know, if we're really talking about inclusiveness, it's going to take a lot of that kind of work. Totally, totally agree with that. One of the things we were thinking about is that, especially as you get to the second and third meeting, that those sort of that story telling might actually be come from other participants in the in the task groups. And then we set those up ahead of time and, you know, tape them and, you know, do the whole thing so that there's a sort of tight story that somebody tells that informs the next step of the thing so that it becomes much more about sharing perspectives and information. So what I was going to say is the idea of preparing things ahead of time, videos, presentations, you know, the what's it called flipped classroom. You know, you get the the. Dump in, you know, video before the class and then the class can be more of a workshop and interactive. I don't know if we could do something along those lines with some of the content, but I was thinking in particular with the CCA information that would be very appropriate because it's just such a heavy lift. Because it's so technical and deep. Yeah. Azukaya and then Dwayne. Thanks. I was just going to say I think that Andrew makes a good point that it's really going to be especially now where folks who were going to be appropriately guarded before are probably going to be even more so in whatever participation they are able to offer. And I think that the the relationship building piece right now is going to be mostly in terms of how how just communication and interaction goes in the meeting and that actually developing like you're saying close relationships of understanding who people are and where they're coming from is much longer work that hopefully will go beyond this committee. Very good point. Dwayne. I just wanted to add just as you'll you'll probably start thinking about the stories to tell. And what I found that the one on zero waste was was well crafted. I really think it would be in my sense. We also want to use this sort of as an education opportunity and to some extent set the stage for some of the discussions and and prior priority setting and challenges and conflicts and tradeoffs that we're going to have to discuss in the second and third meeting with folks. And so I would try to my my recommendation is to make it a bit more of a story about why these things are so hard and what the challenges are and what the tradeoffs are so that people can start. I mean, because everybody's going to say, yeah, I want zero waste. Obviously, I want all solar, obviously. But why why is it hard? Why is it hard? What are the challenges? What are the tradeoffs stories about that so that we can lead that into the second and third meetings to really talk about not just what people want, but what they're willing to give up to some extent to get there. And so I would sort of try to bring that into these stories at the early at the onset and but take other people's that's just my thought. I mean, I think that's a great thought. And I'm glad you showed that with the whole group because I think a lot of that will probably be hashed out in the facilitation team meetings. But I think that's a great thing for everyone to hear. So thank you. Yeah, Jesse. I'm also curious about some if there's a unified way that we are articulating to. The groups. What is the end goal of this piece of the process? Like we are asking for your voice. Where are we going to where are we going to put your voice? Kind of thing. And if there's a way, I don't know if someone can. Give us some language about, you know, Sinkly. So we're all telling the participants the same thing about where their voice will be held and amplified, hopefully. Yeah, sorry, I thought I was muted there. I think that's a great point as well. And probably something to to discuss as a group. I mean, I think we know that. We know that there's a plan to write. Exactly. We know that there's actions that are associated with that plan and we know that. The committee, the ECAC takes a. A lead role in creating that plan. And we also know that part of the goal of this whole process is to invite others in to shape the plan. And so I think that's, you know, that's where it's not so much people's voices as it is the people's thinking and ideas and experiences that help shape the plan. As opposed to somebody listening to people and then doing something. I think it's a little more direct than that. But that's sort of the idea. And, you know, hey, we've got a ways to go between here and there. So let's see how we do. And that's the part of the building. So, because you guys are here perspective, that's part of the building of the culture, right? It doesn't mean building a super tight culture of like, oh, we all do this on Friday nights. It means we can work together. We can generate ideas together. Here's how we do it. We know how we do this because we've built this process to do it. That's what we mean by shared culture. Yeah, Stephanie. I'm just wondering, you know, we're bringing in niche engineering and they're going to sort of come in at a specific point. And I'm just wondering how that, it's like bringing new faces in and new energy, new very specific ideas, how you envision incorporating that, their piece into this work. Yeah, that's a great question. So for everybody on the committee, niche engineering is part of our team, specifically around infrastructure adaptation and vulnerability and adaptation. And we've thought a lot about this and we had a whole bunch of different plans. There was a whole bunch of different things and so all these different things that we're going to do this. We're going to do this. I think the ultimate, well, at this point, I think that our vision is that niche engineering checks in with the ECAC and in that conversation there may be and hopefully the first test group meetings will have happened and that there's, we kind of task as the ECAC task niche with figuring out some things that feed the task groups. I'm not sure it's going to be appropriate for them to participate in the task groups at this point. It's just the task groups have taken on a different life and I think we want to respect that life. So that's kind of how I'm imagining that process to work. But again, happy to listen to thoughts and they're sort of experts in a particular topic that I think will, that the committee is not particularly and can provide some of that expertise. And that was the whole idea. Yeah, and just to follow up on that a second, for the rest of the committee, Stephanie and Jim and Lard and team have been offering or niche has wanted to meet us basically. And two meetings ago we were sort of had a really full agenda and I didn't think it was the right time. They were planning to come to this meeting. I, Stephanie and I agreed that based on what happened over the weekend, definitely not a good time to bring them in. So they're going to be on the next agenda and they're just an opportunity they'll come for 10 minutes or something just to introduce themselves. And introduce themselves and just start to talk about where their expertise lies so that we can as the committee can charge them to look at things. A classic example of where we might charge them is a lot of towns have developed a forward-looking storm size for sizing infrastructure. And that's something that they can do, right? They can develop the background, the base information, the scientific studies to develop that that helps the town to have more resilient infrastructure. It's pretty technical part, but actually it's pretty valuable. There's other things like that that we might charge them with after talking with them. But aren't a lot of those things like pretty obvious? Like the staff started out in the MVP process identifying all the things and it seems like TPW should be the ones meeting with them and figuring it out, not us. We don't know anything about it. Yes, but remember, Andra, this committee is in charge of this plan. Yeah, but we need the experts in town to weigh in. No, I think that that will totally happen. But I want to respect the role of the committee in being the place where these things start. And don't forget that you may and hopefully will have department heads as part of your sector groups. And so they should be in on that conversation anyway. That's the hope. I mean, it happened during the planning process. I think the thing that complicates this is, that we're in a virtual world now. In some ways it makes it easier, but also harder. So I know the town manager is doing what he can to sort of encourage their participation. So, you know, letting them know that he thinks it's important for them to be involved. Would it be helpful if we reached out to, I don't know what town staff would be a part of ours. I don't know. I mean, maybe let's think about that. You know, we can always sort of talk offline about that. And right now. And when we start planning for the sector groups to really understand, oh, okay, this is what we need. I think that's part of those, you know, those separate meetings that we're having as teams for each task group. Those are the times to have that conversation. Okay, so I want to be respectful of time. We've got about nine minutes left. So was there anything else, Lauren or Jim? I know Lauren, you said you were going to send around through Stephanie to sign up for the meetings. So it sounds like the intent over the next two weeks before our next meeting is to have those task group. I forget what you called them, but the meeting of the... Usually team meetings, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely to have those and ideally to have the first task group meetings scheduled at least. So I did just send Stephanie an email that she can forward to everyone on the committee that has four links again. So please only fill out the one that is associated with your task group. And I did put in there to fill it out by the end of the weekend, please. That would be greatly appreciated. And that's... It's just been sent. Thanks, Zoe. Yep. So in terms of the next agenda, we've got the intro to niche engineering. We've got... Let's put the building electrification work on the agenda. And then I think just sort of continuing debrief from our meetings that we're going to have in the next two weeks and maybe hopefully we have task group workshops on the schedule. I think also sort of continuing the conversation about how we host those meetings in a safe way and make them as safe and supportive of our work as they can be. Yeah, Darcy. And then Sarah. Somebody remind me of the timeline. When are we supposed to have accomplished the first three of the three task group meetings? We kind of adjusted a little bit. So the engagement meetings that we just had in June have already happened. And that's fulfilled the requirement for the portion of the grant that covered FY20. So we've done what we needed to for FY20. So now we're in FY21 and we don't have a timeline to meet. I mean, we certainly have a, I mean, we have a timeline as part of the, of the grant we've kind of identified a timeline, but we're not, it's not as, should I say necessary to be really strict about it, the way we had to be in this last month because we literally had to pull something together over like a month and a half, which Linnaean so adeptly did. But are we trying to have them during July and August or? Yeah, July, August and September and maybe even to the beginning of September, early September. Yeah. And we're still, I guess my main concern is just the desire to make sure that our timeline coincides with the town budget. So that when we, when we end up in that original timeline, we had prioritizing items in the fall, late fall or something like that and that would coincide. Yeah. I think we're a good shape. Yeah. And Darcy's a good point. I think we should continuously just keep that in mind so that we know, so we can focus in and make sure that we have something ready for that timeframe. So yeah, I think keeping kind of that in the back of our minds and if we have to adjust things as we go to make sure we have something to present, to contribute to that, we do. Sarah, did you have a comment? Yeah. And now, oh, back to the beginning, topic in the beginning of our meeting. Is someone or has someone reached out to the community leaders since the events of the weekend and are we, I just want them to feel like we're talking about it, we're discussing it and we're not going to just let that happen again and kind of what are keeping them apprised that we're taking it very seriously. Is that happening? I can answer first and then Stephanie can follow up. This is Gazie Chaya. I've been in pretty much around the clock communication with community leaders to be really frank. It's been very heavy lifting that I'm not necessarily skilled to do. I've shared this with Stephanie and I believe that Stephanie is working on a response from the town to offer some sort of offering of more, what would we call, trained response for those individuals including you all who have experienced a traumatic event and it is my impression that you all as a committee and town council, town councillors and the town are responsible for responding to acknowledging that this was not just a difficult situation but that it was a hate crime. And so that's what I've been doing. Thank you, Gazie Chaya. Well, is there something specifically that we should be doing as a group beyond that and in support of that? And Gazie Chaya, thank you so much for taking that on. I don't know, I don't even know what to say in as far as gratitude and yeah, I'm at a loss for words. It would be helpful, I think, and Stephanie, maybe you can speak to that. I think that we're probably all, we got several emails telling us not to do anything, not to talk about it. I think we all would like to be able to understand how we can be supportive. I think we all, Gazie Chaya, as you said, we all experienced it. I've had anxiety joining this call today that I've never had joining any virtual call that I couldn't put in place. And then I realized it was because of this experience. So I imagine many of us are feeling that way and that's coming from my place of religion as a white person. So I know that that's not the experience for others must be much worse. So I just don't want us to not do anything and I don't want us to do something that's that we're not supposed to do. So I guess I would just say we don't have a lot of time today but it'd be helpful maybe to get some guidance on what the committee can and should be doing. So I just wanted to let you all know because I have been in touch with Gazie Chaya and I've only, I mean, a few community leaders have reached out to me that I already previously know. So I was able to respond as well to them but I've reached out to the town manager and requested that we do some kind of formal acknowledgement to everybody, all of you, all of them. I mean, I feel like everyone who was on that call. Sean was on this meeting today. That was my reaction to having to do as a meeting today. I was feeling petrified of being zoom-bombed again. So that's why I asked Sean to be here today and also because I think it was good for him to be able to sort of you all to speak to him directly. I thought that would actually in some level help to at least be able to talk that through a little bit with him for the future. And then I don't, you know, as far as the town manager I really think it would be really great if you all also crafted a request and maybe it can go through you, Laura, but just to craft something to reiterate the need for some kind of acknowledgement about what happened. You know, maybe it can even be from something from Paul and Lynn as, you know, council president. It just seems like it needs something at that level. Like people need to know that people understand this was really traumatic. And I've expressed how I've used the words, violent, intense, damaging. I've used all kinds of language when I've spoken to people about it. So anyway, that's- I'm just gonna jump in and excuse myself. I'm so sorry. I had committed to follow up with one of the community leaders actually at the close of this meeting. So I appreciate you all talking about this subject. I think it's important. And I will follow up about what's discussed. Thank you so much. Thanks, Kazikaya. Darcy, did you want to say? I just wanted to mention that the town manager called the two counselors about it. And then he sent an email to the whole town council just very, you know, generally describing what happened. Just F1. Okay. So I think that we should all, I don't think we need to necessarily coordinate a response. I think we should all feel empowered to write to Paul and tell in our own words how it infected us and what we think that he should be doing. Is that sound good for everyone that wants to and is willing to? I think that they should do that. Okay. And we'll follow up next time with more steps because I think we don't want to let this go. I was so excited to see all the community members there and the nuggets of discussion that we did have as painful as they were after the incident just made me so excited about the opportunity moving forward to work with them. And I hope we get that opportunity. Okay, friends. It's been a week. So let's call it quits and we will connect soon. Okay. Thanks everybody. Thanks. Bye.