 Okay. We're recording. Please go ahead. Okay. So I'm going to call the finance committee meeting of November 3, 2023 ordered 1 PM and welcome everybody. Remind you that this meeting is being held virtually by Zoom. It is now permitted by the current open meeting law requirements. Members of the public have access to the meeting via Zoom. But everybody who's in attendance and in the audience should be aware that this meeting is being recorded. And it's being recorded for both audio and video. So that notice has been given of that. And with that, I'm going to go through the members of the committee. Make sure that members can be heard. And we can know who's present. Anna, Kevin and Kathy are present. And I apologize. My internet has been acting up all day. So I'm going to keep my camera off so that I don't lose you. Okay. Lynn Grisha present Bob Hegner present. I don't think that Holloway is here. I'm trying to find out if he's coming. You doubt he can come. I'm trying to find out if he's coming. Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you for clarifying Bernie Kubiak. I'm present. Kathy Shane. Here. And I am present and. Lucio Walker is not yet present. So we have a quorum that is here. And so the first thing of note is review agenda is completion of this process and then. Go to public comment. I believe that their free cash has not been certified. Is anybody Holly? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, you can hear me now. Yes, actually free cash was certified on Wednesday. We finally got the approval from the DOR. I have some sort of rough estimates and I can, I can. I was trying to put them together in a quick little spreadsheet for you to give you a better understanding. And I can run through those numbers with you in just a couple minutes. If you like, I have to public comment because it's in the order of the agenda. Great. And then. I think that the other things are listed in order. As far as the depth surplus real property disposition. Policy, we had decided that there was no urgency that required us. To make a recommendation to the council. In this term, and that it could be listed as a carryover item, I put it on the agenda just so that if there are questions about it, and I actually thought of a few that would require. We could talk about it, but it's not for actual action at this meeting, or we're recommending it for carryover. So, and then of course we need to look at the work plan and the schedule. So that is the agenda. If, if anybody has any comments or committee has comments or questions about the agenda. Please let me know. Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. So, I am going to please ask if Alicia can hear you. Oh, thank you for pointing out Alicia. I can you confirm that you can hear. Yes, thank you, Linda Nandy. Okay, thank you. And we can hear you. So, please note for the minutes that Alicia joined the meeting at about 10 minutes after one and just as we're beginning the public comment session and public comment. We'll public comment on any issue that is relevant to the finance committee. It does not have to be an item that is on the agenda today's meeting just has to be relevant to the committee and I, as you try and find your comments two or three minutes and begin by identifying yourself and this will start with Tony. Tony. Tony, hi. Hi, thanks so much. Tony Cunningham. Oh, and drive. I heard you say there, Andy, that you're not going to take action on the surplus property policy today. So, so my comments can be just chalked up for future review when it comes up for a vote. But that is the item that I'm talking calling in about today. So I took a quick look at the revised policy in the packet and my primary concern to be clear is the Wildwood School property, which won't be coming up for disposal until at least 2027. So it's not urgent. But so as I read through this policy, it's Wildwood that I have in mind. And when I see, for example, the revised point for estimated cost of restoring the property to a usable condition. I wonder if that point could be fleshed out a bit more to ensure that similar wording to what's used in point seven, which says to independently prepared appraisals of the property's worth and a good faith estimate of the property's value to a prospective buyer to apply some sort of similar thing to point five, because I think if there is a desire to do one thing with the property, for example, to sell it to a developer, there could be a pressure to overestimate the cost of restoring the property to a usable condition. So just to ensure that that's beyond reproach to make sure that that's done in a way that that the public can trust and that it's a genuine effort to show what it would cost to reuse it. And as far as things that are tangential to this, I think the town would be would be great if the town did a space needs analysis of all the town services that need space. We often say that there's real a real crunch on space in in our public buildings and things like the youth community center, the empowerment center, a senior center, an early childhood center and many other things that we have said we need space for having that done ahead of time before a building comes up for disposal would be a good reference document so we can see okay well what are our needs and then what is this building that we're thinking of disposing of what could it be used for. And then as far as the timing that's proposed in this policy it says the town manager puts a request into the town council and the council shall hold a public hearing within 90 days. If this could be fleshed out a bit more to ensure more outreach to the public so the public know when this is coming up and have ample time to understand the pros and cons and the potential alternative uses and and to weigh in in a way that's that's you know substantive that would be really helpful so that the public can have trust that something's not going to get sold quickly without fully like getting involved and understanding that yeah so more ways and time for the public to get involved and thank you for the time to speak and thank you Tony. Appreciate the comment that was very helpful. We bring Renata Shepard in. Renata, you can identify yourself and then after your comments. Hi Renata Shepard from Justice Drive in Amherst. I'm calling about the rental registration that you're going to be discussing today and I'm calling to reiterate the need to make the rental registration fees fair according to my previous proposals which I hope to hear about today. Also would request that a fee you know maybe you consider a fee discount for low income landlords with households earning less than 100 or 150,000 a year in case the non-owner occupied fees turn out to be higher than $100 a year under the new or the old regulations. I based that on the fact that the current $250 fee increase created a surplus which seems unreasonable if not used to maybe help us out. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the comment and that is a topic we will come back to. So seeing no further request for public comment. Before you move on, Matt just joined. Can we confirm that he can hear and hear us, please? Matt, hi. Hey Andy, I can hear you. Okay, Duly noted and please let them reflect that that is here in time of his arrival and so we'll go on to giving back to Holly and the free cash certification or report. Okay, thank you. So hopefully I can share my screen here. And I just made that possible. Thank you. So I just want to point out that right now these numbers are sort of in draft format. Can everybody see that? Actually, yeah, we just see that portion. Okay, thank you. Is that better? Yes. Okay, so free cash was certified on Wednesday Wednesday by the Department of Revenue. The free cash for the general fund was certified at 9.19 million. So, and these are draft numbers, they will be very close, but I'm not going to guarantee to the exact dollar until a few more things are worked out. But what we're looking at right now is three things that we have committed to in the past is number one, the cannabis impact fees need to be set aside. So they fall to free cash each year and then we appropriate them into a special revenue fund so that we keep track of them because they can only be spent on specific purposes. The same thing is now the first year happening with the opioid set fees, they fall to free cash, but they can only be spent on certain purposes. So we will hope to do an appropriation to move them into a special revenue fund to keep track of them separately. Same as we're doing with the cannabis impact fees right now. And then the third one is the cannabis tax, which we have previously committed to moving to the reparations fund. So with those three things that we have committed to in the past and assuming we're going to continue to commit to them. That's 318,000 of the 9.1 million that is automatically going to be reduced and set aside. And these are sort of about 8.8 million. There is likely going to come an appropriate ask for additional monies to be put into roads and sidewalks of a million dollars. If that goes, and if that comes to fruition, that will leave us with about 7.8 million of the original 9.1 free cash. So our financial policies state that we should keep 5% of our operating budget in free cash sort of at the beginning. And then the goal was 10% to general stabilization so that would be 15% of the operating of the previous year's operating budget. And anything above and beyond that would be moved to the capital stabilization fund. So again, these are drivers. This is just a quick things may change slightly but if we follow the procedures that we have in the past and all of these other things get approved, we would have approximately 2.4 million dollars to move into the capital stabilization fund. I hope that makes sense. I put this together very quickly. So that's very helpful. Thank you for doing that. I see Lynn's hands is up so go to questions and start with Lynn. Yeah. First of all, reminding people this is a combination of what was left from last year plus this year. Okay. I think we successfully clarified that at the last meeting. Can you tell me the definition of what capital step stabilization fund covers. Do we have a definition. It would be for anything that qualifies as a capital. And I don't know it right off the top of my head, but I believe it has to have a useful life of a minimum of five years and a minimum cost of I don't have it off the top of my head but it would be anything that would normally fall into our capital. Capital plan, which I believe is a five year useful life and a minimum of a $10,000 cost. No, and the reason I'm asking that is, would we see roads and sidewalks in that category. Yes, we absolutely could. So again, that's what I'm saying this is a draft. This depends on what appropriations get moved forward to the town council and to finance committee. So, not all of these decisions have been or have been made yet that million dollars may or may not come into play. It could be taken out of capital. It could be taken off before it could be taken off after this is just a draft at this point. And I appreciate that. I'm just one more request and that is, could you in an adjoining column, maybe before the end of the meeting, provide us with the present balance in each of these special funds and then another that would show what the new balance would be. Thank you. I'm sorry just to clarify Lynn. For the enterprise funds you're speaking of. Yes, for example, what is the present balance for reparations and what would the hundred and five bring it to. And the same thing would be true for the capital stabilization fund, etc. Oh, okay, okay. Just to know what's already there and what the new amount would be. But when the transfers come to the town council in an actual financial order all that information will definitely be in there as well. Right, but I'll try to quickly throw that together and again draft. We totally accept that and appreciate your willingness to bring it forward this fast. Thank you so much. I want to clarify for everybody, the process is that town manager will make a recommendation to us, which is essentially a supplemental budget transfers and under the charter. That will go then gets automatically referred to the finance committee will be reported a council meeting that that happened. And then it comes to the committee again for actually a formal agenda discussion of the proposed transfers whatever the town manager does and town manager will at that point make a decision as to whether to make a direct appropriation to additional appropriation to roads and sidewalks. Or included in the capital stabilization fund to be done later but we don't have to discuss that today because of the discussion will happen when that occurs. And with that. Yeah, I just wanted to I have the same request that that Linda to see what the balances were. But I would make an additional request versus the capital stabilization fund and how I wouldn't expect it to be able to be able to do that today. But as we explore this further would be happy to know what we need in the capital stabilization fund to pay for the DPW and the fire station DPW facility in the fire station. Just so we have some, you know, some, some, you know, guidelines as to what we might be able to use for other capital purposes. Okay, I have to do a little bit of research on that my understanding. I'll, I'll, I'll look into that. I wouldn't expect it at this meeting. Yeah, thank you. Lynn asked the first part of my question. It's a request Holly last time you gave us what is currently in reparations funds so for each of these I'd like to know it for the general stabilization fund. So as we're looking at what what we've already put aside so that's just not necessarily in conjunction with where we're going to spend it but just frame of reference. Could you also quickly tell us you said cannabis impact fee has to go to a specific use and opioid settlement fees has to go to a specific use. I don't need to get a detail right now but it would be useful even if I just got a link to a place that tells me what it can be used for. And to the extent we are, are we building up funds in those accounts or are we, they're dedicated for certain things and we've been using them so just since it doesn't go into the general fund they're a stream of money. Actually, it's over $200,000 on these two lines that's been flowing into us and I know cannabis is on it. The opioid is on its way to decline. So just that sense. Lynn also referred to the road and sidewalk million is a question mark. And that to me is a decision do we do that now. Do we reserve 2.4 million into capital. If we think any of that is supposed to be could be used for roads. Would we want to use it for roads now and I think Paul we would just need a little bit more information because it's clear what those choices are. At one point you said we can only go out for so much at a time, or for roads, or you said if we go out for a bigger amount of money, we're more likely to get the attention of the folks were competing for more money. So that would help me think through. Given what we've already allocated I'm not even sure whether we've spent all allocated because we, we did a big allocation last year we talked about doing some out of ARPA. And we've done some out of JCPC so just kind of a sense if we build it up to be a bigger amount. Would we get more roads done because we would get the attention of one of the contractors that we provide for with states and other towns. It helps me think through what makes sense to do. Doesn't necessarily tell me what to do, it just helps me think it through. Just holler at Paul if you have questions about that request and you can always just kind of take Kathy directly to make sure that she's getting what she wants and additional information, leave that to you. Lisa. Thank you Andy. My question was similar to Bob's but I just wanted to bring up that I may recall having a conversation when we were talking about the reserves about earmarking stabilization funds for the fire station specifically and so I'm wondering if that is still something that we're considering. Yes, so that would be money in the capital stabilization fund. That's what that that's what that fund is for. It can be used for anything but we had designated it as building that fund up to be able to address one of our major capital projects. Thank you both for what happened to us and thank you Lisa for bringing that up. When Sean Vangana made a presentation I think in the spring about the capital projects one alternative that he brought forward was the idea of using the capital stabilization fund to take care of building a fire station. That was an alternative that he presented to the committee I don't think that it went beyond that report. But it was one of the things that he suggested that anyone has a different recollection of what that was said at that point. Bernie. Yeah, Andy, I think the general overview of this is we're going to build up the capital stabilization fund so that we don't have to go back to taxpayers on overrides and that would be for the that would be for the remaining major capital projects we have. I think we have the libraries for a squared way we certainly have no right for the schools to pay for the schools. Although there'll be some more votes to come on that I'm sure. So we're really looking to see how we can leverage construction of a DBW facility and fire station without going back for for an override. Lou. Kathy opened up the discussion that I think isn't just get back to a counselor with some thoughts. It's really a discussion that either we as a finance committee should have and or the council should have. And that is the whole issue of it if we were able to put together a multi year road plan and show and figure out how we're going to commit money in a multi year. Would we get more attention from the existing, or maybe new contractors, and that that's a bigger discussion it's not just an answer to one counselor. Okay. And that is where I was going with it. Not so it's not a one time decision but it's conceptually what's our strategy. Right. No, I didn't intend that the response should come just to Kathy as there was clarification about the question that that clarification could go directly to the leading member who raised it. And that's true of anything that we bring up today. Matt. You're muted. Are you muted? We're not hearing you. How about now. Yes. Sorry about that. This is more of a fun question. Thank you Holly for this presentation and appreciate the questions already. Will we see the new MS, the new state guarantee on the MSBA with that come into any of these accounts or will that be a separate account? And then Amherst college as well. Sounds like Kathy wants to answer it. The debt for the, the school is excluded from, from any of the calculations and it's always above and beyond. And it will reduce the amount of debt we have to take on and that the taxpayers had agreed to pay on pay for with the, with the debt exclusion override. The Jones library, the donation to the Jones library went to the private side of the Jones library. It did not adjust anything on the town's contribution. So that million dollars went to the fundraising efforts. The Jones library building, but it's, you know, as you know, the council allocated $15.8 million and that number isn't changed hasn't changed. Yeah, no, I actually, so the nine and change or the 10 from the state for the school that doesn't come through our accounts at all. Yeah, it will, but it won't be reflected on free cash or anything like that. Yeah, it doesn't have anything to do with those stabilization funds, the capital stabilization funds free cash, it's all going to just be revenue sources into the total costs of that project. Can I add just one more piece to that Andy. We will get more certain to end the exact number, it's a good number that we have right now it's potentially a little bit more, but it means that the state grant has gone up to about 50% of the cost. And at some point we have to go back, we did put out a chart which we told taxpayers what the impact would be on them. And that's a piece of work it's got nothing to do with the finance committee or our budgets. And that's still to come because we're also going to be looking at this in an interest environment that that will be the interest environments interest rate meaning whenever we go out but it's it's very good news in terms of the reduction and what will have to come out of a tax increase. And Bernie. Yeah, thanks to Paul for mentioning that they million dollars from Amherst College, which is nice generosity and colleges part went to the library trustees and not to the town because I've had a number of people say, Oh, you know, Amherst College has knocked down, but they did knock down the price of the library but not on the town side. That's one and the other thing to mention is million dollars I think triggered humanities brand so that that has a multiplier and it looks very good for the libraries fundraising. Anything else at this point. And any comments, I guess, and on the recommendations that we are expecting to have from the town manager, the request we're going to have from the town manager. I can come back to that question again later. I know that the next item is going to talk briefly about the African heritage reparations assembly report. I'm still trying to get all of the information that we need in requested and all is anything been done or Holly about staff work on any of the questions that raised or referrals to any of the sources for additional comment where that was on that list. So, in the last week, we really haven't had time to work on that. We don't have, but we were fortunate that Michelle has given us the question the legal questions that she had asked. She hoped to get answers to and will we working on those but we've been working on a lot of other stuff in the last week since you met last last Friday. So we just really haven't focused on that yet. I don't think you have Holly have you. I have not. I've been very focused on DOR, free cash and getting your report done. So, that's been my weekend. And just to mention, I mentioned this too early, Andy, I have to leave for a little bit and I'll be, but I will be back. So, when you see my screen, I'll stay online, but I'll be, I won't be present. Okay. Thank you. Julie noted. Unless gift to leave right now and just like a minute or two. Yeah. Let me just take a pause to whether there's any questions that people want to ask regarding rental registration, which is the next item before we. I'll be back. I'll be back. Okay. Thank you. So, um, Back to, um, The reparations question. Um, Is there any, um, Additional thoughts that any members of the committee have about information that. You would like to need or further definition of the need. That was, uh, As we have developed those questions in the last couple of meetings, I just, uh, Because I don't think that we're in a position today to. Actually have a really substantive discussion because we requested so much information and we really need answers before we can move forward. I'm sorry. Lynn. With respect to needing to get answers. Um, at the same time, the town manager, uh, usually in preparation for our meeting on what will be November 13th, we'll prepare financial orders consistent with, uh, recommendations are, you know, If you will pass practice. So with regard to the reparations, um, I'm assuming the financial order will be like we did last year, which is the hundred in this case, $105,000 to be put into the fund. And I guess one of the questions I have and want to make sure that we all know the answer to, uh, at the time when we had that discussion, which will be after the 13th. And that is that if we want that changed to reflect one of the other options, how I assume that's asking the town manager to change it. The second thing is that if we don't change it, does it prevent future councils to from going back in and saying, you know, we're fine if, you know, whatever the committee is that's going to look at recommendations for the disbursement of these funds. Uh, if they want to start spending X amount toward activities more before the fund is fully funded. So I just want to know at a minimum, I just want to be very clear at a minimum, I want to support that we do exactly what we did last year, which is to transfer all of the cannabis money. Which is 1.5, but I want to know where are the flexibility, given the options that are outlined in the AHRA report in terms of how and when we can do what they have requested. I maybe I'm not as clear. 1.5 though is not 105. It's 105. Yes. Make sure that nobody misunderstood that. Bernie. Yeah, two, two things. One, I would agree with Linda. The amount of $105,000 should be part of the part of the managers, financial orders. And the other thing, putting on my non legal hat, the actions of the current council can't find the future actions of the new council once it's seated. That's why we have a charter. What we're bound to do is in charter and it is in the in the general laws. So if the future council chooses to exercise another option or funding, they're free to do it so long as the charter allows them to take that action. But Bernie, I am correct and it still takes two-thirds of council to make any decision to expend money from a stabilization fund. Right. Yeah, but the council, two-thirds of the new council chooses to do that. They can do it. It's the actions of the current council can't buy the actions of the future council. Correct. Jaffee? Yeah, I think I'm building on what Bernie just said. Lynn, I think those are completely different issues and that if we can affirm or confirm a commitment to doing the cannabis this year, it leaves open what we might do next year. But I think we also at the next finance committee meeting or other ones between now and the end of December should look, be looking right at option A, B and C or I call it one, two and three in terms of because the adding $105,000 based on what we heard last time will get the current reserve up to a little over $450,000. And so you could, if there was a broader decision, be spending up to a hundred with a flow in, partly a flow in and partly a flow out. And there are many combinations of that that would work. And I think that should be a completely separate discussion. I don't think we're prevented from making a range of ones. So I would like today to whatever we do in a report back to the council, Andy, say that the earlier decision on cannabis stands, we are encouraging the manager to come back with a financial order, but we've not yet finished the discussion on option one, two and three. That's not the end of that discussion. That's my preference on the way we handle it today. I think I understand. Alicia. Thank you, Andy. My question just in response to Kathy's comment is, do we have say in whether or not there's a partial flow in and partial flow out, or does that recommendation, is that not supposed to come from the successor committee in terms of determining how they think the funding would be used, or is that in our purview during this current decision? I think that what Bernie's point was, we can come back to this if I misstated, is that whatever we recommend as a policy can't find a future council, so that a future council has to make the decision so that if the request comes a year from now or two years from now from a successor committee, if one is created to transfer an amount of money for immediate expenditure, that that's the decision that has to be made by the council at that time, it cannot, we cannot bind them by establishing a policy. Bernie, did I state that correctly? Yeah, it's, I think it's an overall general principle. Like I said, that's why you have a charter. That's why we have a constitution. That's, those are the binding rules, the actions that one council takes don't bind the actions of a new future council. So in terms of deciding, we can make any recommendation to choose, but it will be ultimately the new council that takes that up. And Alicia, does that answer your question or I don't? Yeah, it is helpful, but I'm still thinking about it. In reflection to like the choices that we have to make in front of us today, as opposed to like what the future councils are going to do. I'm like, I'm more concerned about what decision we're going to make right now, because I also think that that sets a precedent and a clear strong message. And so I think what we're going to do right now really also matters. And so I'm definitely in favor of the 105k, but I'm thinking about the long term plan in terms of like sustainable funding to the fund. This is an interesting discussion in that kind of may raise an additional question as to what it is that the charter and general law principles that Bernie was describing, if they affect the choices that we can make on the section three options that were presented by the AHRA. And Lynn, your hand is up. Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate that my goal was to make sure that we do at a minimum the 105,000 this year. And Kathy, I think, expressed that it doesn't mean we have ended the conversation. It just means that as we look at financial orders that are coming to us for the meeting on the 13th, that we don't back away from that piece. Thank you. So I don't think that we thought we could finish the discussion today, but I wanted to just try and get clarification because we are going to have to come back to this at the next meeting just on the 17th. Kathy? Yeah, so Lynn, I think it's good repeating ourselves. What I was trying to say is what you just said, recommendation on the 105, it wasn't closing the door on us coming up with what do we think about one, two, or three, that we're going to come back to that and have a longer discussion on that. And whatever we do, the council, next year's council, the council after, is the keeper of those funds. So what Bernie was saying, and it's whether it's the current flow in or the reserves, the council has to vote the use of tax money. So it's always going to be, that's always going to be there, but we could set a framework for how we think if the goal was up to $100,000 a year, how that might be achieved. And we could set that framework. But I'd like to have that discussion, a longer discussion around that, because I think it's totally feasible depending on what the overall goals are. So it wasn't to say this is the end of the conversation unless it was just to get, we're going to get a financial order next time. Let's get this one moving. Yeah, Alicia. Okay. So thank you to both Kathy and Lynn. I'm in agreement. And so I'm wondering if that's something that we can vote on today. So can we vote to commit the 105k to the stabilization fund? And to both that we recommend that the tail manager come back with some kind of wording like that. Is that correct? Yeah, we can only make it a recommendation to the town manager. The decision has to come in the order that town manager will make a recommendation for transfers from free cash. And it will be referred back to the committee. The committee will then make its recommendation. There has to be a public hearing prior to a council meeting and a vote of the council so that there's a series of steps in place. At this point, we're really right at the beginning. So the most we could do today would be a motion from the committee to recommend to the town manager that transfer and whether that's necessary and that's up to the committee. Okay. So can I make that motion now? Would that be the time for that to happen? I suppose so. Okay, so I move that the finance committee recommend that the town manager draft a financial order to place the 105k into the reparation stabilization fund. Would that be a decent wording for that? Yeah, I wonder if it should be the amount of the cannabis revenue for the fiscal year, which is approximately $105,000, but it's actually tied to the, I think the way that Lynn was putting it and the way that we have done it in the past is it was tied to the amount of revenue. And in the last, in the year end report that we received at the last meeting from Holly, there was an amount and it was 105 in change and that's the amount that she had on her spreadsheet earlier. I want to second the motion and just ask that we add the specifically specificity of estimated at present to be $105,537. Is that agreeable to you, Alicia? Yes, it is. Thank you, Lynn. Okay, so we have a motion on the floor to make a, I don't have the exact language, but you know, I'll provide that later, but it's a motion that the finance committee recommends the transfer of the cannabis tax revenue received for the past year, about $105,000, whatever the amount was, that Lynn read is correct. So we know what we're doing. I can put that together, but real quick, it's going to be a recommendation that the town council request the town manager. The finance committee can't make that request of the town manager on its own. We can't request, we can't recommend, can a committee make a recommendation that's non-binding, that's not binding. I mean, it doesn't bind the council. The request doesn't, the request is for the town manager to present the council with a financial order. And I think that request needs to come through the council, not from the finance committee. Will there be a council meeting prior to the recommendation from the town manager? No. We've done this before Athena where we've asked him to bring forth a proposal from the finance committee. I think we got into a little bit of a snarl when we did it that way last time because the finance committee can't take final action. And I think making a request of the town manager isn't something the finance committee can do. I think that needs to come from the council. Can I just ask a quick clarifying question? Is Athena saying that our recommendations should be pointed towards the town council to ask the town manager? The problem we have is timing, Alicia, because of the date sequence that the council won't meet again until the point where the town manager is actually going to have made the recommendation. So we may just need to leave it that he's heard the discussion that it can't be a motion, I think, as with Athena's raising. The motion would be a recommendation to the council. This body is advisory to the town council. It doesn't act on its own. Paul is here. He can speak to this as well. That's just not true. Paul is not here. Paul is not in the meeting at the time. I believe that we can make this motion. We can second it. We can vote on it fully realizing that the town manager is going to, first of all, listen, and second of all, will be presenting us with that, even though it never comes to a full vote of the council. So I would suggest we just move with it. Matt? So, well, this is germane to the topic, but I feel like we have a question of procedure here that we're waiting for. But I would just say my impression was that we were tasked with making a recommendation on funding structure for reparations fund. I thought that's really what we were debating here. So I was actually surprised to see us switch over to this year's financial order. And I actually thought that was the thing that we were supposed to be studying and coming to a determination on was the ongoing funding structure. And I was looking forward to learning more about sort of, you know, how much of that spend as you go model and the ABC models or one, two, three models. So, but I realized we have a question of procedure here and there's a motion on the table. So I will refrain from going any further. Okay. Thank you. The question of whether we can recommend any of the models is going to be at the next meeting and the which is where all of those questions were intended to help us with those issues, that one in particular. And I think the one thing that I added based upon what Bernie had brought up and I followed up on is whether the general rule that we can't find future councils affects how we put recommendation we make when we get to it next meeting. So, Alicia, your hand is still up. I want to make sure. Yeah, sorry, I did have additional comments. Yeah, just just because of what Matt just said, I also like I do agree that and I think it was already determined or established that we would have further conversations about this, that this wouldn't be the end of the conversation. And I personally would still like to see what I asked if Paul and Holly could bring back to us at the last finance committee meeting in terms of like the pros and cons or impacts to the budget of accelerating the full funding of the two million upfront. And so like I would still be hoping to explore that option and to get those answers. But for right now, I think that this is a good first step. And I would also like to move forward with Lynn's request and just wanted to point out that it still would eventually make its way to the full council before it could happen. You're talking about it happened. It as in the transfer of the $105,000 from free cash into the I mean that ultimately is a council decision we have we're going to only be recommending this kind of a preliminary happy. Yeah, I just are we meeting on the 17th next Friday? So next Friday holiday, two weeks from today. Okay, two weeks. We're meeting on the 17th. So in the normal course of events to extent there's anything normal. We get financial orders referred to us. And in the last several years, it's been what to do about free cash. So sometimes where we've had a discussion, and sometimes out of the blue, we get recommendations like setting up the stabilization fund, which was a great idea. So by November 17, we will probably have some sort of order correct, Glenn, because we could act on the 13th. So some of this this nuance of, can we ask the town manager to do something before he it comes from the council to ask him usually it's come from him to finance and we recommend it. So I think we're talking about it's always going to compete. It's on the same timeline as I guess what I was getting at, we're going to be seeing it on the 17th anyway. And I think, you know, when Holly presented to this to us, it was the assumption that $105,537 was going over to the reparations fund. So if our motion is not completely kosher, and I'm not sure I can use that word, but completely all the dots and tees. I don't think it matters because we're going to be seeing it at the same timeline. So I'm suggesting we take a vote on it. And then later on can determine that we've not got the wording quite right, but the message is clear. And then we can have the fuller discussion next time. So that's my suggestion on a way to end the circular circularity around this motion. To just go forward with the motion that's on the table. Yep. Okay. Lynn, could you very quickly put up the work plan and focus on the section that begins today around today's date? And I think it'll be very clear what we're doing. And then I'm going to call for a vote. But it'll be clarification for everybody, including the public. If you have that available. I'm looking for it just real quick. Give me a moment. Don't worry. I got it. Here you go. Okay. So go down a little bit on the page so that we have later dates available. Scroll down. Okay, stop. So what you see on the screen, just so that we're clear about it, is that the next council meeting listing is the 13th, which is the financial indicators meeting, which I'm also going to see if we can get posted as finance committee meetings so that resident members can fully participate. It doesn't list that now, but it should. But in any event, referrals, free cash transfers, other supplemental budget requests is there at the bottom. And so that is the item that we assume will be presented by the town manager. And then it will go back to the finance committee. If you look on the 17th, the second bullet recommendations on supplemental budget requests, that's where we will actually make a recommendation to the council for action. And on the 20th, I believe there's the public forum that is put there so that we can have a public forum prior, that's required by the charter. And then the vote would be at the council meeting after the forum. So that is the process. That's the sequence we're talking about. So I hope that's helpful. And if there's no other discussion, I'm going to call for a vote on the motion so that we can proceed. Seeing no others, I'm going to go ahead and start with Anna. Hi. Lynn. Hi. Bob Higner. Support. Matt. Support. Bernie. Support. Kathy. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Alicia. Yes. Okay. So the vote is unanimous for support of all three resident members of the committee. And I think that we, is there anything else that I think that you want to say right now about HRA? Otherwise, we'll come back to it in the next meeting. Lynn. Yeah, I want to clarify with the questions that we're providing to legal council or wherever Paul feels he needs to go to get the answer. Perhaps he has one. And that is that if, if at some point between now and the end of this term, the finance committee recommends to the council and the council accepts some way in which money is added and allowed to be spent by the successor committee to AHRA that that can be done. And that actually would carry over to the next council. So, I mean, they can always undo it, but unless they vote to undo it, it seems to me that it should stand. But I want to make sure it does. Okay. I'll put that back into the if Paul needs clarification that he should go back to the person who made the request for clarification, because I don't think we want a perfect language on it now. No. Kathy. Yeah. And I've just become aware of the request to legal council. And I'd like to make sure that we the council committees to whatever we need, that it comes as a collection rather than a few at a time for different sources. So I don't know how that's proceeding, Lynn, but I'd like to have a package and it shouldn't just come from AHRA. I mean, because there's some there's some things I think we all think need to be clarified. And I'm not sure which of them are legal issues. So, you know, Lynn, you you added one I hadn't even thought of. But, you know, framing that question in a way that it can be answered one way or the other would be useful. So, Andy, I know we don't have direct control over this. Paul has control and I'm seeing just Paul's picture right now, but it's something I'd like to convey to him. Got it. Yeah. It's just more efficient. I mean, we it's more efficient. Yeah. Yeah. Just so you know, this is also referred to GOL. And GOL has has questions that they have posed also that are different subjects remain to other parts of the AHRA recommendation. Bernie? Yeah, just very quickly, if if the council this this committee makes recommendation to the council and this council sets up a program process whatever that rolls forward until the new council chooses to change. Right. Thank you. That's where I was going. Yeah. So if there's a if there's a vote to, you know, have a successor committee make decisions and the council as a whole accepts that and passes that it stands until somebody a future council chooses to reverse it. And if that takes a supermajority vote, then that might take a supermajority vote if we're talking about spending money, certain monies. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Just a couple observations. Then let's try and go on to the next agenda topic. The original proposal to create this fund as a stabilization fund. Sean had recommended it to us and we acted upon it and have been going with it. But you know, he is the term act like an endowment. But the questions that are also out there in my mind is, has it been earning interest so far on this as the money has been in the fund? Because if it's acting like an endowment, that would be what it would do. And if the purpose was to create a fund that has an endowment level, it's usually that you try and not spend the body of the fund you spend the gain on the fund. And how that is to proceed. I think we may need clarification on how this can work and is working. Kathy? I think that's a decision on the table, Andy. It doesn't have to be an endowment fund. But my understanding of when the town is holding two or three hundred thousand dollars in a reserve fund, it's not completely an idle cash. Holly, you can, you know, it's, if it's not to be pulled on and so we can make sure that it's, you can do short term CD notes if we have to have access to it. But are you saying I can't imagine we would hold that much money and not at least get short term interest on it? So that doesn't, the two are not mutually exclusive is what I want to say. You can build up a fund, draw down some of it and still get interest on. I'm sorry. Are you guys there? I keep freezing up over here. Yes. I mean, the fund is certainly earning interest. It's all of the town's funds and trust funds and stabilization funds earn interest. These are invested. Again, this is the treasurer's purview, but these are invested like our larger trust funds like OPEB and stabilization. And they have been doing pretty well this past year. So there is certainly interest that is being earned on this fund. And I can probably quickly tell you what it earned in the past fiscal year. It's earned over seventy two hundred dollars in interest in the past fiscal year. I was just making the point they're not mutually exclusive. You can be spending some of your fund and still earning interest on it. So it's a decision to create some kind of permanent base. I worked for a foundation in New York, and when we had to we used our endowment. We drew on it. We didn't just draw on its earnings. There were a few years because of what the stock market did. We pulled it down. So yeah, though when you take money out of the fund, then you're going to earn less money in the fund to draw interest and other gains. So Bernie. Yeah, there's a so-called safe withdrawal that folks who are more clever at accounting than I am can calculate that tells you how much you should be able to withdraw from a fund and still leave enough to sustain it and continue to build it. That's one thing. The other thing is is we're doing rather well right now because interest rates are rather high under typical circumstances. Towns are constrained in where we can invest or where we can deposit monies. So we can't put it in a fund that knocks it out of the park to be blunt. You know, if you want to do that, you need to have a private entity managing the money. You know, we're limited to how you can or the trader could tell you in more detail than I can where the money can go. But it just again, it's dumb luck because interest rates have gone up. We're making more money now. If this was two years ago and we were hauling down 1%, we'd be overjoyed. So we have to have some serious discussions about is this going to be an endowment or not? What's it going to fund and how it's going to fund it? Because if you're talking about a $2 million fund that's invested with Vanguard on a private basis, you're probably looking at $68,000 a year that you can safely withdraw, assuming a 3.4, 3.6, somewhere safe with draw. That's, you know, if you want to run a youth program with $68,000 a year, you're not going to get much. If you want to do soft seconds or silent seconds to help people buy housing, you're probably going to end up doing maybe one, maybe two mortgages. So you really have to focus on what it is you want and what the primary purpose is going to be and not catch all hodgepodge of stuff. We made a commitment around $2 million and we made a commitment around a funding source, which is the cannabis money. So, you know, that's sort of the framework and early on when we had these discussions, I said we really need to peg a funding source. And I made that recommendation because we have a tendency to drift. You know, so we have an agreement about a target fund, we have an agreement about a funding source. And let's have that successor committee really hone what is intended for the funds. And then we can be in a much better position to say, and we continue with our target allocation, can we continue with our target funding mechanism for funding it? Do we have to accelerate the funding? What are we really looking at? So right now we're guessing. And I'm unwilling to say we're going to borrow or do anything to build up a $2 million fund until one, we know what the purposes are for certain or better, maybe not for certain, but better. And two, we have some basic legal questions that still haven't been resolved on this. You know, we still have to condone with the anti aid movement. So I appreciate the urgency, I appreciate the willingness to go forward with this. But I really think we need to have some better definitions and we need to have that successor committee in place can really focus on how, what the primary goals are here. I'll step down off the soapbox now. Okay. Thank you. Do we conclude and move on the reparate to rental registration? I think we can. So let's change journal registration. I just want to make one introductory comment. And that is that a member of the public who spoke earlier in this meeting had made several recommendations that I had said at the last meeting that I would see if there's numbers that she was recommending could be plugged into the methodology, the spreadsheet that was being used to determine the amount of money it would generate. And then I ran into a problem when I started working on that. It was basing part of the calculation on the number of bedrooms and the property. And I then checked with Rob Mora as to whether that information is in fact available. Because if you look at the spreadsheet itself in the underlying data, which is in one of the it's a it's a workbook to use the technical term of Excel and the fourth spreadsheet is the underlying data about the number of units and the sizes of units that are in the available to support this. And it does not include bedrooms. And Rob confirmed that bedrooms is not an available number at this point that there is no counting until we actually have completed the first round of inspections, which is a five-year process. We really wouldn't know how many bedrooms are in each property. I assume unless there's some change, it can be made to the registration form that requires that the next annual registration of that information be provided. But in any event, that's a barrier to moving to considering that I could not make that calculation. So I wanted to see what kinds of additional information that people would like to know and how we can move forward with this. Rob, I see your hand up. Thanks, Andy. I just wanted to clarify that what I what I mentioned was that we don't have an accurate count of bedroom, the bedrooms in these properties. There are numbers that we've been trying to check, but you know, based on the assessor's records over the years. And we did start asking for it as part of the application process. But we have too many examples in situations where the bedroom counts don't match up between the application, the assessor's records, and maybe even a special permit that we have on the property. So that's why I was suggesting to get that number accurately and that we can rely on it. It's one of the reasons why we need to do the inspection. Thank you. Okay, so going on to this, I think that there's some general questions. I know I've talked with just one other member of the committee about this a little bit earlier today. Had some plots that came out of it, but Bob, why don't you? Yeah, I have a general question and I'm sorry that I'm raising it at this particular point, but as I recall, I wasn't available at the original finance committee meeting where there was first discussed. And the question I have is why are we focused on a rental registration fee that's sort of property-based and not based on the number of actual units within the property. And bedrooms would be better, but if we don't have bedrooms, we certainly know that Building X has 12 apartments in it or something, or we should know that. And so the question is, it seems to me that a fairer approach to a rental registration fee would count the number of units or bedrooms if it's available, rather than just a single property with a property with one bedroom, a one apartment with a property with a hundred apartments. So I just think it's going to be skewed a little bit towards it's going to be a higher burden on the smaller landlords, smaller-scaled landlords, and a lesser burden on the landlords that have a lot of units. So I just don't understand the logic of focusing on properties versus units. Let's see if Mandy or Rob can say anything about the CRC recommendation and how it responds to that. Rob or Mandy? Rob can go speak first. Thanks. Yeah, so we're hoping that the inspection fee per unit is where it more fairly represents the work that's going to be happening associated with each property and not in the permit application fee itself, where the process is generally the same. Not unlike, say, a restaurant that has 10 seats versus a restaurant that has 250 seats, it's a restaurant permit fee. So we did, in the latest proposal, show an increase of units up to a cap. Now, one of the things we struggle with is of the 1,258 properties, 900 and something of them are one and two family dwellings. So trying to balance the overall revenue collection on that kind of a split between permit types makes the very small number of large unit properties paying $10,000, $20,000 a year in a permit fee that just didn't seem justified for the work that's involved with essentially issuing a registration card annually and renewal year to year. So I was really looking at trying to have the fee represent the work that's involved and hope that the inspection fee, that's the new added step with this proposed program would be, you know, would be where we'll see, I guess, a fair share of fees paid by those larger complexes. Thank you, Mandy. Do you have anything you want to add or shall I recognize Kathy? Rob basically covered it. The work from the town side, since these permits are issued on a parcel basis, not a unit basis, is nearly identical. It's not exactly the same when you've got one unit or two units or 50 units or 100 units, but it's almost the same. And therefore it was very hard to justify, as Rob said, charging some, a per unit cost for a permit fee when the work to the town and making that so different when the work to the town because the permits are issued on a parcel basis is very similar. Kathy? Yes, I think one of the things underlying Bob's question, and it's just we had a quick conversation a day or so ago, is that the rental registration fee was going to be carrying part of the cost for the inspections. And I think you're saying you're separating them, that the rental registration fee is only for rental registration and that the renewal cost of that should be quite low unless it's changed hands or morphed into used to be two units and now it's 20 because of something happened. So right now, my sense is when we went up on the fees, we are covering part of the cost of inspections because you don't have any other source. So that is going into a pot of money that can be drawn on either complaint driven inspections or I think your inspector inspectors if you had more than one, if they think there's a reason to go into the house, they could say there's a reason I need to go inside. They may not do that very often, but I think I've heard they have, they're authorized. So is the registration fee, should we be thinking about it? It's the paperwork side or the computer paperwork side of setting this thing up. And Mandy, I had asked you how much more information are, and you kind of given me a grid, but how much more information we asking for than we already asked for, because that means everybody's got to redo their registration, but trying to simplify that. So every year, if it's nothing change, I can say still, still accurate. I still have this many units, etc. So is it supposed, are you trying to bifurcate? So the registration fee is only covering the cost of registration, you know, and inspection fees are covering the cost of inspections is my first question just on a strategy. Then related to that, if some of the places are kind of problem free, they're clean places, and others are problematic. I'm not sure that I should think they should have the same inspection fee, because it's not just a reinspection, but it's a longer inspection because you've discovered there's something wrong with the wiring, there's something wrong with the insulation, it's got mold, they're there longer. So can we calibrate it? For example, you've gone in, there's a problem. And one thing might be the zoning law is not being here too. So there 10 people living in a place we're supposed to be for, and then I'll figure out what you're going to do about that. But if there's something that needs to be addressed, can the second inspection fee be higher? Because it's actually more people intensive. So it's what Bob was trying to get at the intensity of what you're doing. And at some point, do you say, I'm sorry, this, you're not fixing it, you know, do you get a one, two and three strikes you're out. So, but it seems like the burden is too equally distributed among places that may be completely problem-free. So the little guys are getting more hurt than we might want to. But some of the little guys might be investor owned properties where there are multiple properties and they're all problematic, you know, they're not owner occupied, they are problematic. So that's what sort of the strategy, because I'm thinking this has to be self financing, it shouldn't be pulling on taxpayers unless you mask and kick in a bunch of money to help us make this work fine. But I'd like it to be aligned with the work in some way. And Bob, that's I think what you were saying is, you know, trying is the registration fee carrying something else other than the price of registration. And I think you're saying, Rob and Mandy, no, it's just getting you into our listings. And then inspection will be separately priced and assessed. So yes, that and as you know, I've been trying to lower the number of inspections over time to a bare minimum for the places that long term, because I want to focus on the problems rather than on everybody. So trying to think of how those those properties bear more of the cost is the other way of framing that. If I'm I hopefully that was clear because it was a few parts. It was, Rob. Yeah, I think I think the the permit fee has to cover some of the other expenses. It's not it's not a clean split of what it takes to issue the permit with our staff versus inspection. So I think there's there's definitely some carry over there from the fees that will be collected for the permits themselves in order to produce this, you know, this program staff that's needed. I think your method that you're suggesting is great, but not really able to work until we get through that first five round five year round of inspections. And that's what I keep struggling with is I don't know the answer. I don't know how many properties are, you know, good with few problems. I know there are so they're out there. There's a lot of them. I know the number of properties that we've responded to and work through issues is a really small number of the 5000 units that are in the program. And, you know, our inspector all these years has really been there to respond to complaints. And that, you know, that kept John busy for all these years. And you're right, occasionally where we hear something from the police department or a really concerned report from a neighbor, we, you know, we inserted ourselves and, you know, went out there and asked for an inspection and they're able to do that. It's very rare that we had time to look for those types of problems. But every property we go into the small number of them that they are, every property has problems. And, you know, we hear a lot about it, you know, through the surveys that the CRC did about the conditions. And our experience has been that, you know, whatever we think, you know, of this bad condition of these, these certain dwelling units, whatever number of them they may be, it's actually a lot worse. And that's what we want to confirm. And that's what that that's what this program is going to allow us to do. And hopefully, you know, have a good conversation, a positive conversation in five years about, you know, what we found and probably even one in three years from now, what we're finding. And, and, you know, hopefully it is, you know, that there are a few problem properties, but just don't know. Thanks, Andy. As we look at this, what are the measures that we're going to have to basically see if it's making a difference? And when and are there is there going to be a way for an annual, I don't want to get too formal, but an annual look at how the program is going. And with the potential that even before five years, there might be some adjustments to the program, because clearly you'll be learning from the first day you walk out. Once you set the program up, it's it's a continual learning opportunity. So I'm looking for a way to have the public and the council, obviously, know how it's going. And whether or not we can make some adjustments midstream in the five years. Thank you. So the council can always ask for a report from the town manager at any point in time, a yearly one during the budget or anything like that. But the way this bylaw and regulations are written is the regulations once passed by the council will be the purview after that of the board of licensed commissioners and the board of licensed commissioners generally works fairly closely with inspection services and other departments for all of what they do. And so, you know, we can trust or will need to trust that the inspection services department will be able to work with the board of licensed commissioners to modify those regulations, each year or every other year on a on a basis as needed in response to what they have been doing or have found. And those regulations include frequency of inspection. And the questions asked on the application, those are some of the biggest parts of the regulations are those items that we thought might need revised more frequently than not based on current conditions being found. I also made a joke. Thank you for the reminder that it then goes to the board of licensed commissioners just per the charter, the board of licensed commissioners provides an annual report to the town council at the time of the state of the town address. So we have one coming up. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to put it sort of put my hand up to ask a question after Bernie. Bernie. Yeah, I'm thinking more and more about this. I'm understanding the challenge that Rob and his staff face in terms of understanding what's going on out there. And the fact that things don't remain static. What property was in the great shape when they first walked in may not be in great shape in four years, five years. And also the the rules around public safety and rentals may change. That might require some, you know, continue to require some some additional effort. And rules that can't be grandfathered in because they're, you know, they they're they're basic safety things. So I appreciate the challenge that you're facing. And I'm less inclined now than I was previously to say we need to change this. I think the things that have been the small amount of modifications that were made the intent behind this is really pretty much on target. And I really think we should be going forward with the whole the whole proposal. It's going to just it will it will be a burden on some folks, some maybe more than others. But unfortunately, it's a price we end up paying because we've got such a complicated and widespread rental situation here in town. So let me tell you what's on my mind and let Mandy respond to both. I guess we're being asked to do a couple things. One is to be confident about the cost estimate that has been put forward number of inspectors and the general cost estimate that has been made and presented. But we ought to be taking a little bit of a look at that to make sure that we're comfortable with the number. The second thing that is assuming the cost and Kathy alluded to this in her comment. And that is is there any plan to commit or possibility that the general fund might have to be used as a source of a part of the funds and how do we deal with that because we regularly as a committee that's one of the things that we do is to work with council to try and make sure that the requests for general fund usage represent the priorities of the council. And the third piece is that the $100,000 from the university for a rental housing program to assist with administrative rental housing programs should that be used for this program is sort of a base amount before you that pays for that portion of the program costs. So those are the three things that have been kind of stirring me along and I worry that we might inadvertently get into a position where we hadn't intended to rely on general funds, but we've passed a bylaw that essentially forces us to use general funds because numbers can't work otherwise. And so those are things that I'm sort of struggling with as I look at the program which I think is very well thought out and something that we need. But having vented that I don't know if there are comments about it, but I wanted to just throw it out. So back to you, Mandy. Thank you. I just wanted to add one more thing to my response to Lynn's and it actually kind of touches on what you just said, which is not just the regulations go to the board of licensed commissioners once we if this bylaw and everything else is passed. So just the fee structure and the fees. And so they are much better equipped. They've recently undertaken a full review of all of their fees and I think their intent is to do that on a regular basis. And so they are also much more equipped than we are as a council given where our council priorities tend to lie in terms of legislative action to regularly review that structure even after a year or two to see if it's working and not just the structure but the amounts if it's working is it covering what we want it to cover or what they want it to cover. And that can also be included in a report to the council on a yearly basis, but then they can look at that and potentially modify it more frequently than is likely the council would. It's not to say the council wouldn't but they might look and modify it more frequently than a council. You know, Andy you said we should take a closer look at the projected expenses. Rob, my understanding from a conversation I had with you at one point was we are in some areas below market in terms of hiring people. So in terms of your guess on what it would cost to staff this department on the extra inspectors we should have some kind of margin in it and I pulled down I know this is a nutty way to try to understand this but Burlington, Vermont has a pretty active registration and inspection. They seem to carry a lot of the program costs in the registration fees rather than the inspection fees. So they're more I'd have to look at how they structure it. They might be more in the way Bob was that the larger buildings are paying more because it's pretty substantial and it seems to cover the cost of operations you know when they've got two parts that here's where the revenues come from. So I think a better understanding of do we have the expenses are they good estimates going forward. You know I know you can't predict where salaries are going to go over the next couple of years. You can't predict where health benefits are going to go over the next couple of years. So these would be primarily in-house staff although Boston has a roster of inspectors where they seem to have some retired certified people they draw on when they are a little short on their own staff time. So they probably do contract basis might be cheaper but that's the holding the line because Mandy it's not as easy. It's isn't like the Board of License is over a fee that is running a town department in quite the same way they're over a restaurant fee or something else. This is actually supposed to be covering the cost of a town service. So that's where I get a little bit antsy and then I don't know whether it's possible to write into all of this budget permitting you know that gives us gives us a leeway that if if we can't operate this to its fullest extent we bring it back and say we have to modify this. We can't do as much as we thought we could do. We you know we're going back too often to certain places that never get any better and now we're in the process of condemning the property. I don't you know I don't know what you might run into that's time-consuming but it's protecting us on the the cost revenue side. Trying to find more comfort than Mandy's don't worry that we can reset the fees that's a little at the issue if you're running a department where our enterprise funds have to cover their costs which is why they build up reserves. So that that's where my concern is these projections with we have a hard time filling vacancies right now. Yes you're right there's there's very few certified inspectors out there even at retirement age you know the few that are interested in working have lots of opportunities as code consultants and you know other more interesting higher paying opportunities than coming back to work as an inspector. So we are definitely challenged by that. My projections I think are pretty good. I am estimating at the highest possible salary we can pay in the in the union pay scale with with these numbers that you've been provided it doesn't rely on the full hundred thousand dollars of the strategic partnership money that will give us a little bit of flexibility if say our legal costs are higher than expected or if there was a need to bring in a firm or some other you know entity for a one-time expense we may you know we may put some of that money into our tracking and publicly displayed system of licenses and activity. So you know I think it's not it's not down to the penny in fact that if anything I would have thought that someday that we would be talking about the fees coming slightly down a little bit once we got to know exactly what's out there. So I feel really good about the numbers I guess interesting of what your last comment was about I thought that's how I would approach I thought this how the program would work I wouldn't ever expect to to have to go to Paul and say you know what we need another inspector to do this I I see it as that's the limit of the program when we need to adjust and work within it but I feel really confident that with the things that we've built in such as not inspecting every single unit so there's over five thousand units we're looking at inspecting about three thousand of those over the five years so we're not going to be into every single property and I think when we take that into account and try to focus on those 600 units and still maintain the complaint response you know piece of it that we've had you know all these years and not give that up I think I think we'll be okay with the the projected numbers. Yeah I was thinking a little bit about what Mandy said about now the role of the Board of Licensed Commissioners and then dialogizing to other programs that they run that are fee-based and the sort of who are two pieces to the came as a result of thinking that through for a moment one is will counsel feel comfortable in once it's established initial fee structure having an unelected board perform that function given what we've noted already is the concerns that are out there in the second of all what is the experience with other inspections like restaurants restaurants done on a flat basis per restaurant is their size of the restaurant that's considered is their inspection period I mean how does that work Mandy? I can't answer the second question hopefully Rob Ken but the first one is I just want to remind this committee that CRC went to the council about a year ago asking the council what it wanted to do and who wanted who the council preferred having ultimate authority over both the fees and the regulations and we presented three options the council all the time the board of licensed commissioners all the time or the council initially and the board of licensed commissioners after that and the council came back to CRC and chose the option that is in this bylaw. Thank you Rob. So for restaurants we have a couple licenses that get issued the food license the health license is a flat fee that is the same for every restaurant the building and fire inspectors do an annual inspection prior to the reissues of the alcohol license every year in the restaurants and that has it's almost entirely one fee except for occupancies over 400 and we only have I think there's maybe two establishments now or two locations with those numbers so the 76 or so locations all pay the same fee except for those one or two exceptions. Thank you. I'll think about that a little bit later. Any other questions that people want to raise today? I think that the one thing that I just want to alert the committee to is that we do have a deadline this is one we we pushed a number of other things off into the list of things that we would recommend per carry over to the next council but this one is problematic because if the bylaw is going to be adopted and the program is going to be set up to start operation in the next permit year which begins with the program with the with the fiscal year that the town applies so July 1st then we really need to move forward and have something in place so this is one where we're not really in a position to put it off in the delay to the next council list if it is going if we do that we're putting off the year more of not doing the doing inspections and not doing rental registration in the improved fashion that we've really been pushing towards. Lynn? Thanks Andy and in fact this does have to go to GOL and at this point it would be highly desirable if it would come to the November 20th meeting for its first reading so that the second reading could take place on December 4th. Yes. You're muted Kathy. You're muted. I'm trying. My hand goes down after I click something. In today's packet do we have the latest fee proposed iteration because I'm not sure that's what I have so if I look at that one in terms of the fees there was a there was a rebamping just confirming because it is what we need to do look at the fees the registration fees the inspection fees as well if there's a section because as you know I have raised it more than once and Rob has answered extremely clearly why do we need to even have the option of inspecting places that are federally inspected so it's left as an option so is this the latest iteration on it owner occupied and the current fee is 250 is that correct the registration fee. So anything dated October 19th 2023 is the current iteration that the CRC voted to recommend the council adopt and Mandy is what is the current registration fee is it 250 it is 100 dollars for owner occupied and 250 for all other parcels no increase regarding additional rental units so it's a flat for non owner occupied no matter how many units are on the parcel per parcel and 100 for owner occupied so what we're looking at that's a no change scenario so we're we're looking at as new costs for the inspections uh no the new would also be the additional $50 per rental unit above one unit for non owner occupied parcels up to $700 is also a change okay so that Bob Hagner is asking you know to have some marginal increase in registration for the bigger ones and that is included in this recommendation from CRC okay up to $700 a maximum ceiling and so for the just looking at this for smaller with the up to six units owner occupied in the first year ish they would pay 100 bucks and then there would be an inspection they might not be inspected in year one but they could be ins expect to be inspected at some point during a five-year period is that a correct statement yes that is correct and I will say this this excel document may not be totally um correct here the the fee chart the word document that shows the fee has an inspection fee of $150 this chart shows that it's based per parcel um I don't know whether the fee chart does Rob has indicated it would I'm not sure which one Rob has indicated it would be whether it's per unit or per parcel it would be per unit yeah yeah so so Rob you're you do a if I'm a hundred unit place you wouldn't do all hundred you do some sampling of it and you wouldn't try to get all as I understand it we're no longer trying to get to a hundred and five years either it's a sample for the biggies um to not hit every one of them correct and then reins inspection is where you were a problem correct so that was one of the things if you're being reinspected it's because not all was well on on time one so one of the variables here is what a reins could you up the number on a reinspection and go easier on the first inspection so I'm looking at the and I don't have the spreadsheet I know I could play with this myself but a reinspection presumably is for something pretty major because you've given them a conditional uh unless you fix this you you're a problem property so it's a question I'm not asking you to fix it right now but that looks to me like you would only reinspect if something wasn't up to code as opposed to you didn't have window shades or Andy I'll respond to that yeah yeah you know really what I what I'm hoping we'll be able to do is you know conduct our inspection and provide a follow-up inspection and not have to charge for that uh you know I think that is the way I want to approach the you know the inspection process and help the you know owner and landlord make those improvements I think the reinspection is really for those that just you know aren't responding to that or following through with what was of reasonable expectation or timeframe where we could charge I think that's a very unpredictable number uh you know so we put that in there uh and I think if in at this point trying to rely on that is where is a way we can get into trouble for you know our earlier discussion about not being able to cover the cost of the program if we try relying on that you know I I think the majority of the time the the response is very good to what we're asking for and that one inspection is enough and and there's no need to go any further than that and that's what I would expect to happen and and we talked about Mandy I think you fixed the wording already a complaint inspection that turns out there was nothing to complain about um you know doesn't get charged or you know so we we had a couple worries that disgruntled tenants because of landlord tenant disputes might call in complaints and when you get in there what they're complaining about isn't of concern correct there was some wording put in that you wouldn't you wouldn't done these are all public comments or written comments that we've received worried about being not being held harmless for nuisance complaints if I may Andy yes a couple of things so so to get this chart just one thing on this chart to get this chart showing more accurate fees this was done really late at night very quickly to be able to hand it to you guys the day after in time for the day after we voted this at CRC C 11 should read 150 no no column C row 11 the additional fee unit above one unit should just read 150 just to make all the numbers more accurate than they are now with every unit having an inspection fee that'll update everything else in this chart including the next page of estimated fee revenue so you can see what that does to that just a little bit more accurate um so um you'll see that with that numbers there may not need any use of um or very little use of UMass's revenue um if you page up on this second one you'll see base revenue um required town support would be approximately $15,000 instead of higher um to answer Kathy's question we actually removed that from the proposed residential rental bylaw registration permit inspection fees or fee schedule it should probably have a new title um at Rob's request and suggestion we made all fees all inspection fees $150 just a flat 150 with Rob indicating that his department and does their own um uses their own judgment on whether to charge it and would always charge it on the required inspection for the permit and then uses their judgment on whether to require to charge the inspection fee on complaint inspections and reinspections and I think Rob could speak more to that which is why there's two columns in this in on this tab of um in column B and C of a base it's expected fee and a potential fee um revenue um on B and C lines I don't know 12 um row 12 of potential revenue if fees are charged for every single inspection line column eight or row eight those total revenue numbers B and C recommend B is the floor and C is potentially the higher amount if you charged inspection fees for every single inspection yeah so you know I really wanted to save those other types of fees for really the extreme situations as you probably can imagine it's really time consuming to try to collect later for a service like that so we're invoicing and following up and going through the steps to make sure the payments are made um you know isn't always easy and we we tend not to build our programs that way so I wouldn't want I wouldn't want that to be a big component of the system it would be really time consuming for a staff person to be able to manage that so again you know it's a it's a fee that's in the schedule if we need it for those cases that just aren't doing what they should be doing uh in a reasonable timeframe then it's it's an option for us to um to to impose that fee and it likely is a case where there might be court action or other things going on and it kind of gets rolled into that whole process as well uh on top of those issues okay so um whoever's controlling the screen we see all of the clips what do you want to see that's up to the committee I just thought I didn't know who's controlling it they might want to know that anything they show it's on the screen thank you thanks and so that what was just shown in Mandy had you change a cell can you just put I'm not going to look at in the packet now I don't have this I'd like to just make sure I see it so Lynn she made one change I thought in the Excel sheet or you made it as she talked yeah I'm going for this the sheet hold on that's a okay it's just you don't need to do it this minute you're multitasking in a admirable way well Lynn is I think for that I have to jump in I'm so sorry y'all I have a hard stop at three I I tried to push it off but I I gotta go now thank you so much okay thank you um let the minutes reflect that I left in meeting uh five minutes after three this is what you wanted to see uh yeah and Mandy had to change one of the uh right there that one right there so that was a change from whatever was in the package and it looked like you're working off the I'm fine with working off an excel spreadsheet so if you want to just save it as excel fine um no um I don't want to show my computer screen god forbid would scare most of you I know I provided this sheet to Andy to put in the packet so that everyone would have the excel version not just a PDF version it the excel version is what is in the packet okay so are we I think you have to add if it's if you made a change you should add this to the packet since you discussed it today thank you I will do so I'm going to take it down and add it to the packet as amended and you can just put today's data on it and then I'll know we're already in November we really need to move forward at the next in conclude this at the next meeting if we're going to meet the timeline even then it's I'm not sure we're meeting the timeline are we Lynn no we aren't um I I think we actually um should consider the motions today well I'm not sure that it went to the packet and because I don't normally place things in packets well you can save it because uh it's you know yeah just okay I think I think it's the most important so yeah I just asked the motion would be we're staring at a fee schedule and we're being asked what do you think and is the motion to accept this key fees fees be scheduled as proposed is that where we are on motions world Lynn Lynn when you said motions and then my second related question is the one part of wording in the current bylaw wherever it is is reserving the right to inspect properties that are being federally inspected and I've seen in several cities those are exempted so I would make a motion to remove that wording wherever it is and and I we've heard why that Rob would like it in and that Mandy has it in because Rob would like it in you know CRC considered it so I'm just asking what what we're making a motion on is it mainly the fee schedule I believe it's the fee schedule because CRGOL then actually rules clear consistent and actionable and CRC has already made recommendations about rescind and replace if I can jump in yeah I think the action by the finance committee is just on this is on the fee schedule I think the council still has to vote all these things and other changes can still be made at the council level right so Kathy you you are making a motion about amending that issue it's that one piece because I think that potentially drives up the everything I'm focused on is driving down the cost of operating the program without hurting hurting the goals of the program and I see that can you quickly find that where that would be and it's in the regulations but I would I don't know I would have the finance committee look at what its referral motion was for what it's supposed to be reporting back to the council that I need to a minute to look for sorry I did because I had to argue for it say it is the fee schedule and anything else in the more general that has an effect on the operations the cost of the operation the program so that's why I flag this one mandate rather than looking at any other language because I think it potentially has an impact on the cost of running the program so it was and other financial matters is I think the way we worded it Lynn because I know there was a suggestion that we not look at the wording but we just look at the fees if anybody has any idea of when this was referred I'm open to suggestions I can probably find it and Andy I have to step off as well you know I'm pretty sure that it is the fee schedule I think we I think we should entertain the motion and assume that if we have to we can correct the motion at our meeting on the 17th um but meantime I what I'm really trying to do is get this over just just go well this go well need to review the fee schedule just the regulation proposed regulations and bylaw just the proposed regulations and bylaw Athena I have the referral I can read I can read the referral language um to refer the finance committee the documents titled rental registration fee schedules and fee schedule samples for recommendation on the fees to charge under general bylaw 3.50 and proposed revisions to regulations to general bylaw 3.50 property on cost implications so is the fees get the fee schedule the fee schedule samples and regulations um regarding cost implications is there anything that prevents GOL from looking at this and by the time we come back next time we have the motions from finance worked out Athena. Mandy has a hand up. Okay. Mandy. If I'm not mistaken GOL already reviewed this um prior to CRC after CRC voted this in August um GOL already reviewed and made a declaration at that time regarding the bylaw and the regulations I'm not sure it was recent back to that at that time I can look I'm working on finding the council meetings to see if there was a GOL report on that um but we would have sent this off to them per the original referral from 2022 that when we made a recommendation it go to GOL. Um I has a change substantially though since GOL looked at it. No you can see exactly the changes that have been made since then in the tracked version that's in the packet. Right then I'm going to suggest Andy rather than you know but I'm trying to confirm that GOL right had a report I just have to find the right council meeting. And if we assumed a hundred thousand dollars would be automatically going to the UMass would automatically go into supporting this program could we make modest adjustments to the fees and where would we make those adjustments because I would I would if I did it I would want to make sure that we're looking at the smallest small landlords who we've had the greatest amount of concern about our discussion being the beneficiary of whatever we could do and I haven't gone back and looked at the calculations for that Lynn. My concern is that we're working on such a small margin that that's the kind of thing I would love to see the Board of License Commissioners come back to us or do something about in you know within a year or whatever. This is all about trying the program out seeing how it really works and making adjustments as we go. I think one of the things that we're we need to do in addition is if we really mean that we don't want to see the number that's not covered by fees exceed a hundred thousand dollars because I know we'd have to come out of the general fund that we say so if we think it should come out of the general fund we at least need to have our eyes open and be know what we're doing. Andy? I just want to follow up on on my last one about that so at the same meaning that this motion to finance was made a motion to refer the proposed revisions to GOL was made the permit the proposed by-law regulations and regulations was referred to GOL at that meeting in August going back since I sit on GOL GOL has not yet taken it up but there's nothing preventing them from doing so so hopefully it will be on the next GOL agenda. Thank you Bernie? I'm just I think I'm going to reiterate what Lynn said but I'll do a little bluntly none of this is carbon stone we do need to get moving on this if this goes forward and we look at the first year as a test the council can ask for feedback from the licensing people licensing board it can be monitored if it proves to be excessive in burdensome it can be changed I think the overall there's a feeling that you know that that revels do you really need to be better supervised and regulated in and unfortunately that scoops up everybody but I think like as I said earlier I think we should move forward with this and in test it. Does someone making a motion? I just have one more comment Andy on your question on the the issue of the small oops I got to take the sun out of my eyes wait a minute this this we're protecting the small owner occupied with up to six units but if we have a property owner that lives in their house and is running two other rental units we used to have this inside embers and we don't have that anymore because we didn't think it might be legal their fee is 250 and they're going to have an inspection fee which has a variable on the number of units so it's a fairly substantial increase on the per unit so that's where if we had one more row um for the smaller and then figure of the smaller we've got a real mixed mode of of groups out there and the inspection fee is going to if they have to be inspected and then reinspected is going to pick up some of that but I'm just looking at what it does because there's a variable cost on the number of units and it starts out at 250 so if I had I'm operating two additional rental properties or three units it's a jump up and an inspection fee which is potentially an inspection fee for more than one unit so I'm looking at the small one and it's where Bob was going on the margin could we have another line between five and six that's what I call the small guys that aren't owner occupied and what Lynn's comment was is you change any of these variables and everything changes you know you lose the revenues that you were collecting on line seven um some of them and so so it's a question and I don't have time you know I'm looking at there there's a fair number of properties there's quite a few in the only one unit and then there's two and three units we've got another 300 so I would keep that next tier smaller so Mandy you you all probably looked at hundreds of variations on this but this idea is could we keep it at the lower end and have it either you know the initial fee is 150 instead of 250 and then a 50 you know I'm just looking at something to ease ease it on the smaller without changing so I do you know every number seven would so be all above three if we went to two to three it's a question of the group and just for those who aren't staring at the schedule there are if there is 847 that are one unit 208 that are two and 78 that are three and of those some of that gets reduced because of the 847 110 are own occupied we've already helped them so so any I am responding to what you asked with a there's a line where we could do a variation that eases the first few years of this for what I would call smaller landlords and they'll only get they'll get hit hard if they're in a property that's a wreck but they'll only have that inspection fee once if all as well which would mean I get the calculations done today because you know Lynn I didn't mean and one is on our side because we've we've protected all the owner and five all the only occupier it's just the so just that second phrase you've got and one is only occupied yeah that goes out to hear do people hear what where I'm going or can we leave this like there might be a variation there that we'd like to see that might work where I'm trying to still bring in the same amount of revenue that's it yeah Bandy so CRC looked at I'm not the way this Lynn has worded this if this is what Kathy was going for someone who owns only a certain number of units CRC looked at that one and so I I guess the question is is that three different parcels with three units on it or one parcel so up to three dwelling units so up to a triplex three rental units on one parcel and and all number one it would need to be clear but number two when we asked Rob about this Rob favored simplicity because of administration costs so you'll notice that between when you sent the questions back to CRC CRC came back with a more simplistic fee schedule if you would change the base fee for all other non-owner occupied parcels to 150 instead of 250 for example the max fee charged would on this chart default to 600 I'd have to change a bunch of different different cells to to continue to default it up to seven and then do a bunch of different calculations to and it would be a harder calculation to make but so if it defaults to 600 instead of 700 because of the so still up to 10 units is is sort of where the max fee goes the estimated fee revenue decreases total such that the required town support would be above $100,000 just for an example so you so you know you might be able to split stuff off the other thing Rob had indicated was it's generally the more smaller units that have more problems and cause more time staff time not necessarily the 10 plus unit buildings that that do so so Mandy what you're saying is instead of adding a row you could play do something in column B and column C but you'd have to be careful of how you did it to still come up you've capped it at a certain amount you might have to go higher than the cap which is where Bob Hagner was talking you know collecting more money from the big ones yes so if you want to play with the numbers I would delete the new row six because it it's just tough in order for ease ease of playing with numbers and you can change the numbers in rows the now row six in B and C anything in yellow you can change and it will populate through all of the tabs except those tabs for the maximum fee charged are based on a maximum fee of you go up to no more than 10 units so the numbers in the other cells are based on a maximum of 10 units so anything that has more than 10 units is thrown into this calculation there so if you wanted a maximum fee higher based on a number because because the 700 came from the number of units 700 is any you increase the application fee until you get to 10 units once you've got 10 units any parcel size with 10 or more dwelling units is capped out at 700 so if you want to change that cap to a different number of dwelling units then we have to change some of the other cells but right now the cell changes are based on a cap at 10 or more units will pay the same fee for the application now that is clear so the other way of saying that is you've got you're collecting 354 000 so you'd have to lift the cap on additional units if you go down on one of the others if you still want to end up with 350 $54 000 collected where you've got a shortfall right so I see Bernie as his hand up I was just looking for a way of I would rather go up on the infection inspection fee for a problem place than a registration fee for everyone but that's just a preference for trying to target um so I I'll stop talking Bernie um and I'm at a loss as to why we just had this very lengthy discussion to try and protect a small number of individuals who apparently are fortunate enough to own three pieces of property in Amherst one of which they live in and also rent um I don't um they must have some substantial resource financial resources if they own three properties and I think this is getting on this is we're now getting unnecessarily complicated um uh I understand that some people will feel disadvantaged probably most everybody feel disadvantaged by this I also think that having uh as with the town of as with Burlington Vermont having some of the operating costs covered by the permit fees uh is a more sustainable way to run the program you can count on that the number of inspections is a variable uh and again my my feeling is is that this has been this is done stick a fork in it move forward with it try it monitor it watch it um and and see how the thing works I need to um note that Alicia Walker had to leave as well and I'm going to go back to my next suggestion since we've already determined the GOL can take this up without us doing anything today that they we were we will I will urge them to do that at their next meeting the second thing is that in preparation for our meeting which is weak from today uh am I correct today no it's not it's on the 17th uh in preparation for that that we look at what our motions need to be and if there's going to be any other amendments to this that it be worked on there we not try to do spreadsheet work as a committee I think that's right and that that allows all of this to come to the council on the 20th of November for a first read and hopefully finish it on December 4th so that means get any proposed motions to Andy I mean if there's a change so that we have a motion a draft set of motions to act on on the 17th is that what you just said Lynn that is correct the only thing I would do is add get them to Andy and Athena okay I'll point out that the only other alternative is to schedule a special additional meeting but we're trying to avoid that I I don't know how we're going to avoid it since we didn't even get to the issue of guidelines yeah so the guidelines we normally don't handle until after we have the financial indicators meeting right we put it in there in case there was any pieces that we could put away earlier policy issues like we want to propose to avoid overrides for example those kinds of things but I don't think they take that long so I don't think it's necessary because I was going to propose that we skip the next two agenda items six and seven after we complete this discussion so where we are then is the people who are going to work on it at home alone if they're in try and work towards motions so that anything that would a motion would first be motions to change the proposed schedule the schedule and then the second would be just the overall motion which is pretty obvious once we've done that is to recommend the free schedule as it comes from that meeting so that will happen on the 17th and we anticipate then concluding this recommendation on the 17th so that sounds like an acceptable and I don't think that we need to necessarily have further discussion of the real property disposition policy today it was put on there in case we wanted to draft budget guidelines because I already talked about so I'd like to come back to the meeting plan when we're done here Bob yeah Andy I just for the real property disposition policy I just want to throw out that I think the policy should state that we have a you know wherever feasible if we're disposing of a property or demolishing it we we attempt to recycle or salvage what can be done salvage from the the property we could actually probably get someone to come in and you know take in you know take materials and recycle them and we could charge a fee for that and that rather than paying somebody to demolish the property we could actually pay them to take stuff away so anyway just put that out there on I don't want to have a discussion of it right now but I just thought it was a thought that occurred to me that we should think about over time as we as we you know think about this policy thanks yeah actually I'm glad you mentioned that when I was meeting with constituents I ran into a constituent who had exactly the same suggestion but based upon knowledge of the quality of some of the materials that are in the schools that are being demolished to make sure that we're taking advantage of it and we're not until enriching somebody who's doing the demolition and not fairly not in there fairly compensating us for what's being taken out Kathy um I since we may or may not get to that next week next week two weeks or now I have some specific comments on the draft we got and it sounds like what Bob just had is a comment could I make the suggestion that if we send them to you and I would just send them to you in bullet format then if anyone else has any comments I very much like the process that East Hampton looked at use for example and I've got to figure out where it might fit in a policy so if if we could start with both the draft and having people thought about it the way Bob just did with a list of things that are either missing or need discussion it I think it would be productive just to remember that we had suggested that this be on the carryover policy for the next council and that what we're really just looking for right now is when we develop the carryover list what questions are that we recommend that the next committee look at um as it does as it takes up the policy again so that we don't lose our thinking about it isn't our time invested isn't wasted but it's not something we're going to discuss or consider within this committee term so I think that's perfectly fine so what I'll say I'll rephrase mine that if we have things that we want to accompany the carryover that were thoughts we had or questions or suggestions that they go in a document that we don't lose it because we've been staring and thinking about this for a couple months or we started thinking about it a year ago I just think it would be useful for the next council as well that we capture that and we don't have to have a long discussion just you can compile it so people can not know where these ideas came from or questions came from yeah Athena did you have anything else you wanted to add um there was uh one member actually Lynn had sent some edits to the policy that are shown in the version that's posted online the draft that's posted as red line changes so I just want to make a note of that if there are other specific red line changes then I can compile those into the carryover draft um but then other questions and issues I think are better sent to Andy for the carryover okay thank you so send them to me and I'll work with you or if you want to do them as amendments to the to the draft itself or comment boxes on the draft um anything that we can do to not lose our work in reviewing it and get it to the next MIDI so we have a plan we will uh reach uh SGOL to go ahead and do its work now we're in the here and um I'll work with uh Lynn and Athena to update our meeting plan the only thing that I wanted to alert you to is this question that was put forward is knowing the amount of meetings that and the amount of work that we have to do should we be considering a possible additional meeting um I think that that is in under 17th do we schedule a second finance committee meeting this week and uh it has to do with the amount that we're going to have because this is going to be post financial indicators meetings so that we're beginning the budget guidelines discussion and we put a lot into the 17th um so uh Athena had suggested that we raised that question as to whether we should be thinking about a second meeting as opposed to overloading the 17th and once we've gotten that done I think we're done for the done for the day unless there's other unanticipated business so anyone who has strong feelings on the question of a longer meeting on the 17th which could be a very long much longer meeting for two meetings and uh if we're if you want us to think about two meetings then um Athena and I have to get a memo out to try and find if there's a possible day Angela Angela has to putting it on her okay no it just just Andy looking at this and then looking at a calendar there are no Fridays so you're saying we'd have to find another day of the week somewhere that's right and I know that that's problematic for Felicia we have to recognize that well long meetings on Friday are also problematic um which is why we're running it it's not every long meeting there was just a three hour meeting this morning so some some days are harder than others um so I know yeah I was seeing this say anything come back to you Kathy I don't think we have enough I don't think we have enough members to make a decision about a meeting we're missing three people so I can I can send a poll I didn't say Angela I think that was on somebody else's mic um I can send a poll out to the committee and if we can find a big meeting date and time that works um after the 13th then we can do that and if not then then I guess we can that's fine there aren't we've got a quorum here but it's it's a question of whether we're willing to meet another date and so then um Athena is going to have to poll us if on if it's possible to meet another time um so I we've got a tight time on on guidelines between draft and final so it may be for guidelines we need to do that I I have no idea you know whether this is going to be a smooth process or not this year no idea so yeah I don't either I strongly I strongly urge us to look for another meeting time as well I think just to hold the date and we'll see if Friday is important for one particular member make sure the issue she cares about is on a Friday and then you know work be strategic about what the agendas are I guess would be the way of thinking about it if it can't be on a Friday since there are no Fridays left okay if that's a general agreement I think that what we'll do is send out a poll for alternative dates and see if we can get a uh give acceptable size uh for the committee uh present available for for any one of the dates that's available and uh the secondly we'll ask um just everybody the same question not just if you can't attend a meeting what are the most important issues for you of the list done that are for that week so is that agreeable and if it is then that's what we will do and I have no other business that's uh unanticipated does anyone else have any requests for an unanticipated business going once going twice I guess we're adjourned and thank you everybody