 Access advisory committee. Oh, it just said it was being recorded. Okay, start beginning the disability access advisory committee meeting for February 9, 2021. And we have five people present from the meeting. Elise, Link. Marty Smith. Xander Crowley. Who else is there? I'm sorry, Tori. Dixon and Myra Ross. I'm sorry. I'm not as quick as I should be. All right. So does anyone have any announcements? No announcements? Okay. Does anyone hear me? Yes. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. All right. So the first thing we under new business, we have a discussion of the roundabout at or the no, the intersection at West Pomeroy, Pomeroy and West street. And I guess I'll just give a little background. The last time we wrote a letter, the committee wrote a letter to the planning department and to Guilford mooring, I guess, expressing our concerns about this intersection, making sure that it's done properly because we have some concerns about one that was previously done and that transportation, I mean, that pedestrian access has to be the paramount concern. And there was a town council meeting on the 25th at which they had our letter. I made a statement, obviously not on behalf of the committee, but on behalf of me. And the committee was very, very supportive actually of making sure that this intersection is done with all attention paid to pedestrian access, which was something that the head of the, I don't even know what committee it is. Aaron Hayden is the head of it. He had spoken before me. He said pretty much the same thing. And I said it from an access perspective. And then some really amazing things started to happen. Pat DeAngelis, who is also at this meeting, sorry that I didn't mention it. Okay. That is our liaison to the, to the town council. She sent a letter to me, which she forwarded from a person in town whose name I don't know if I can give out, but so I won't unless you tell me I can. A person who is very interested in this kind of thing, who knows a lot about transportation and who she and I started up a long correspondence. She has sent a number of really worthwhile materials to read, some of which I think all of which the ones I decided were you were going to bother with, because some of them are like 150 pages, were sent to you. I sent them to Maureen the other day. In the meantime, I also reached out to some blindness groups, because I shouldn't be the one who decides what the right way to build an intersection is, but there are people who actually know about this from a perspective of visually impaired and blind people. And I contacted them. I contacted the woman who is the head of mobility and orientation at the Massachusetts commission for the blind. She sent me some materials. I contacted an advocacy group transportation committee. They sent me some materials and we have a lot of stuff to deal with. So I sent Maureen all of this and I asked her if she'd set up a meeting for us to talk to the town planner and Guildford Maureen, which she did. So this Thursday at two o'clock, there's a zoom between Guildford Maureen, Chris Brestrup, Maureen, me, and one or two people from the commission for the blind who are going to talk to them to talk about what visually impaired and blind people actually require to cross streets safely. So a lot of stuff has gone on. This woman from the community whose name I'm not going to mention has been unbelievable in her reason. It would be okay to mention her name. It would be fine. It would be okay. Okay. Her name is Tracy Zafian or Zafian. I don't know how you say it. Do you? I think it's Zaflan, but I don't know for sure. Okay. And I don't know whether she's a she or a they. Oh, I don't know that either. Okay. It could be that she is a he. For some reason, I just decided that she was a she. Okay. That is one of those names that could be almost anybody. All right. So anyway, this person, Tracy, has been amazing in what has been sent to me. And things that I've read, you know, and there are lots and lots of studies about how to build safe intersections, especially if towns are going to use roundabouts, and they date back to as, you know, 2005, 2006. The stuff is not new. There is new stuff, but a lot of the basic stuff and a lot of the research is predates the roundabout that was built at Triangle Street. Definitely predates all of that. And the stuff that they, you know, they didn't really do any of it at Triangle Street. So that's a whole other discussion, but we're trying to make sure that whatever decision they make in this very pedestrian heavy intersection in South Amherst is going to be safe. And so that's really what I have to report. I don't know if anyone had time to read any of the stuff that I sent in the last two days. I don't know if anybody wants to talk about any of it, but that's where the status of this is. And if anybody else would like to go to the meeting, I suppose that would be fine too. Especially Elise, because you're a low vision person. I don't know if you're interested in going to the Zoom on Thursday, but actually I think I am. Okay. I would think that we should send Elise, you know, the Zoom when we get it. I don't know if we have it. But just send it to me, please. I'd like to just listen in. Sure. Just, oh, was that Marty? Yes. Okay. Elise and Marty, sure. I can send you each a meeting invite. It seems like it should go to the whole committee Maureen. Well, then actually to time out, I'm sorry, I gotta think out loud here. We can't have a quorum there without an officially announced meeting. Yeah. We can have three. We can have three. What time is the meeting? Two. Two o'clock. Hi, Sarah. Hi. We have seven people on the committee, so we could have three of the people from this committee. And I just thought Elise has a specific interest because she's a low vision person. And perhaps somebody who uses, you know, a wheelchair, a scooter, I don't know. But I mean, this isn't the only meeting. This one is about visual impairment. And I got involved in it because they just didn't deal with it the first time they built a pedestrian heavy roundabout. And I just decided that they're not going to do it again without really looking into what they should be doing. So and they are on such a fast track with this that it's a little scary. They have a grant, I guess it runs out or something. Yeah. So I would like to give to touch on that, Myra, if you wouldn't mind. So, you know, this project is being funded through a mass works grant. The town was awarded this $1.2 million project in the fall of 2020 to provide vehicular and pedestrian improvements at the intersection of West Street and Pomeroy and West Pomeroy lane lanes. The town, as you said, did give a presentation to the town council. And no design has been finalized and won't be finalized until this June. So besides the town council, no committees have had a chance to review this because there's been nothing to respond to the the the town engineer and the the DPW are right now gathering data. And and going through sort of different design alternatives, the town council will take action on the implementation improvements. So they will be approving the design expected in June. And so there is something they have to approve in May. Okay, I'm looking at the project timeline that was given to the as part of the presentation that was provided on the June 25th meeting. And so and so there will be formal opportunities for Amherst members of the public and committees to provide comments through the the town council through the transportation advisory committee meetings, which is their acronym for that is the TAC and the the TSO, which I believe is a subcommittee of the town council. And so I will be, you know, working with Christine Brestrup, the planning director to keep track of when these meetings are happening and when there are materials given. So basically right now, there really isn't a lot of information about this project, other than saying the town has been granted this has been granted this funding to to provide internet intersection improvements. But again, there has been zero decisions about about what the design would include. So I think this is a great opportunity for the DAAC to get involved as you are, and you're being very proactive, which is wonderful. And but I just want to make it known, there's, you know, there has been no decisions made. There's nothing, you know, happening that that that we should be alarmed with. This is just this is the process. And so as as meetings are as more information is provided. And meetings are addressing this project. I'll certainly keep keep this committee informed. Can I make a quick observation about quorum? Yep. Anybody on the committee can attend as an attendee to the meeting that you're setting up with Gilpert. You're right. Okay. And so I think that if those of you who can that would be extremely valuable. And then you're right that they it's not a deliberation. And if you have participant represent representatives, that's fine. And then Maureen will they'll be in the meeting from the start. The other people would be attendees. They wouldn't be speaking or coming forward, but they would be you'd be listening. And sometimes it's better to get all that firsthand. Perfect. Okay. That being said, Pat, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Myra. Let me speak with the planning director, who is the one that has scheduled this meeting. So I don't want to speak on behalf of the the DPW superintendent. It's a public meeting. So it's subject to open meeting law, which means people can attend. And attending doesn't give you the right to participate in the meeting as an active person questioning Gilpert or anything else, but it does give you the ability to listen to all aspects. It's like what Marty said. Oh, I think I don't need to be representative of the committee. I just want to listen. And it's a public meeting. They have to have it open. So one thing I want to say is that in that report you're looking at with the timeline Maureen, there is nothing in there that mentions the DAAC. So whoever put it together didn't even think to bring it to the DAAC, which someone on the town council pointed out, and I wish I remembered who, that it's not that we're not even mentioned on that memo for the groups that need to see it. And I think when it was brought up, Guilford Maureen said, well, you know, that it would be once there's a design, it'll go to the DAAC and someone else on the town council said, it's too late then. And you can remember the people better than ICANN, Pat, I didn't take notes. But as I said, I did really appreciate the support of this committee at the town council. And I really did appreciate that. I'm just a little wary because they did it once without looking into a lot of information that transportation professionals should know and should know to look at. And they didn't. And so the fact that they didn't even put the DAAC on the list, on the timeline for this project until the town council said we need to be there is one of the things that makes me a little nervous. And so that's why I got all those people involved so that the expertise from people who are experts in this field would actually have a have some input in that that would have to be heard. So anyway, that's I just wanted to give the the committee a little bit of background about that. But if you look at that timeline, the DAAC isn't on it. And actually, the somebody on the town council didn't make a motion to include the DAAC. So technically, the DAAC still isn't on it. Although it was agreed by the group there, I think that the DAAC should be on it. Is that about right, Pat? Yes. Myra, that's a great point you're bringing up. I wonder if the town manager should be made aware of this. The design are coming to us after the fact. Yeah, well, I don't know. I don't know if, you know, when, you know, I mean, I think Guilford Moorings thing was I am going to, you know, work with the people I'm going to develop it and then I'll bring it to the DAAC. And, you know, some of the materials like for the that Tracy sent me sent me the minutes from the meeting from the DAAC from 2016, when the roundabout in town was approved. Not everything that the DAAC requested at that meeting even happened in that roundabout. So I think it's, I think we need to be a whole lot more careful and a whole lot more open because, yes, it's true. There is a lot of data about intersections that have roundabouts. They do have a lower accident rate. They do have cars moving in fewer backups. There are a lot of advantages to roundabouts, and they're a lot cheaper to build because they don't have much electronics in them, if any, like the one in town doesn't have any. But to make them safe, they need to have a lot of other things and especially there because there are school kids that are going to cross there. So whatever they build there has to be safe. Erin Hayden said it. And I think from our perspective, how quickly you can cross the street, you know, how you can get around whatever they're going to build depending on what your disability is. And if you happen to be an eight-year-old kid who doesn't have the best judgment, all those things have to be taken into consideration. Anyway, so that's why I brought it up. And Pat, if you think we can all go to the meeting Tuesday or Thursday, that's great. It's two o'clock. I don't know how to set that up. Again, I will talk to the planning director and I will, if she feels that that's fine, I will certainly forward the meeting invite with the Zoom information to Elise and Barty and to whoever else wants to attend. Tori, had her hand raised. I just wanted to also mention that there's Palmer and Lane Cooperative that is right behind there. So there are people there living there with disabilities. So that needs to be kept in mind as well. And they cross all the time to get to the shops. Tori, what was the name of that again? I'm sorry? It's Palmer and Lane Cooperative. Sorry, I'm writing this down. 34, Palmer or Lane. Tori and I met. So this is really good. I really think this committee needs to have a bigger voice in it than the plan was going to have. So, you know, and if we don't, it's built and then it's too late. So, right, we have to do something. And we don't want to be there just for a rubber stamp. Correct. Yeah. So I don't know if anybody wants to say anything else about it or should we move on to the next item? Move on. Okay. So the other thing is about the, oh my God, the self-assessment and Maureen very kindly, I asked her to send us materials. And they are very, very, very detailed. I didn't read all of them. I don't know if any of you did, but I read some of them. And it's quite interesting. And I don't know, Maureen, you said you were not going to be prepared to make a presentation today because it was something you couldn't do. So I'm not going to put you on the spot for it. But I don't know if you want to say anything brief. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I will say that I sent that email. And unfortunately, I got some sort of email from Outlook saying that a few of the emails didn't go through or they were still trying to go through. I think it might have been Tori's email. Did everyone get this email? It was sent on Saturday morning and it had the transition plan report and it had the accessibility audits for the bank center and for a few downtown, a few public rights-aways located in downtown Amherst, like Amity Street and East Pleasant Street and Main Street. Did folks get this? Yes. You did. So the documents, as Maureen said, are very large. And so unfortunately, I am working on a couple deadlines that I've never had this scenario before, but I had three things that major things that were due today. So I unfortunately had to say I need to take a pause on creating a formal presentation on this project until next time. But I can certainly talk about this at Egnosium without a formal presentation. So if memory serves me, the consultants came to one of the DAC meetings I feel maybe in September, October, something like that. And they gave a presentation to the committee about the project that walked you through the process of explaining the process up until that moment, which is getting into talking about that they performed on-site audits of various town facilities in Amherst, including buildings, parks, trails, and a sample of streets in downtown Amherst. And they also provided surveys to individuals and to Town of Amherst employees, as well as organizations that are geared towards working with people with disabilities, which is applicable to really any sort of organization. And then they also looked at the existing but very outdated transition plan, which was done, I believe, back in the early 1990s. And so with all these sorts of information using surveys, existing documents, and the in-the-field audits, they were able to provide their overall transition plan. And that gets into the website. It gets into public spaces. It gets into programs, processes, and procedures, such as hiring employees, working with volunteers, and posting meeting agendas, and posting all sorts of documents that are public documents. And then again, they also looked at facilities. So I wanted to give you a sample of what these accessibility audits look like. And I can certainly pull one up, if that's helpful, for some of you to look at. And so let me pull up the Baying Center accessibility audit. Bear with me for one moment. So unfortunately, Myra and Elise will not be able to... Okay, but I can at least describe what I'm looking at. So this is just the front cover. It's a picture of the Baying Center. It says accessibility report. It says the date that it was done, which was July 17, 2020. And it gives you the address. And it goes one... Each page goes one by one, assessing items associated with the property that are not ADA compliant. So for this page two, the top says Baying Community Center, categories, parking, parking space, accessible signage height, finding the bottom edge of the post-mounted signage designating the accessible parking space is not at the required height. They measured... They physically measured there that this was 55, this sign right here, which is a ADA... It's a sign that designates the parking space as an ADA parking space. And the height of the sign is 55 inches height. Their recommendation is to modify the height or replace the post-mounted sign designating the accessible parking space. The sign shall be located so that it's not... That it cannot be obscured by vehicle parked in the space. Recommendation at least 60 inches. So they're saying either modify the height or replacing it. Bottom line, they're saying make this sign higher. And that it's not compliant by five inches. And then they... The next... Keeping with this page, they also provide an estimated cost. So to modify or replace the post-mounted sign is approximately $158. And then they provide code references. So this is the Massachusetts AAAB section 23.6 and then ADA standards 502 and 502.6. And then this is a record number that... This is just a record number that is associated with this exact non-compliancy. And so if you go through each page of this 193-page document, this is a perfect snapshot of what it looks like. It provides you the finding of a non-compliant item in relation to a town of Amherst facility. And then they'll give you a measurement. And then they will provide a recommendation of fixing the issue with a recommended... If it's in regards of distance, they'll give you here that says at least 60 inches high. And then they'll give you an estimated cost. And then they'll give you a code reference to state and federal regulations and then a record number. And then they have a photograph. And so it goes page by page. They had an issue. The next page gets into the access aisle width. This part, the access aisle that I'm hovering with my mouse here is showing the area. And here you'll see that they... In reality, this is 94 inches wide to be compliant. It should be 96 inches. And so as you go through this, go through these accessibility reports for each of the facilities, you'll notice that some... You can begin to sort of come up with a priority list. So in my opinion, and this would be really important to get your recommendations and feedback, is a difference of two inches, a high priority of fixing immediately. Or is it something that is very drastically out of compliance? So the one thing that the consultants did not provide, which it is what it is, is that they did not prioritize the list of things that should be fixed. And so that is something that I and other departments... And I would certainly say this committee can start looking at these and coming up with a list of what are of the things that have been identified that are non-compliant. What should be the things that should be fixed immediately? Or perhaps in the next year or the next five years or the next 10 years. And there are things that... So then there are things that here to widen the width, theoretically, this would cost $250. I'm not sure if that's the reality because if you widen this aisle, then you're going to... There will be a domino effect. What will happen to the parking space and then the parking space after that and the parking space after that. So then you're thinking, well, this one little item may actually have a more financial impact and design impact. So let's see here. As I've said in previous meetings, I have me and other planning staff members have been referencing these accessibility reports from the moment they were provided to us. So for instance, very specifically the Bang Center, we just applied for a Mass Department of Transportation Mass.Grant just a couple weeks ago that will actually not address this parking but will address the sidewalk that's behind this parking. And we referenced this document for other components that are part of the grant. And there have been other grants that we have successfully have been granted in the last six months that we've referenced in our grant application. So this has already been very, very useful for the planning department staff. So you told us you applied for a grant for Kellogg Street in September or October. I forget. You had it earlier in the fall and it was supposed to have been decided in December. That's probably one of the things you referenced this for, right? It was. Yes. Unfortunately, we did not get the grant. We didn't get the grant. No. And you know, the Mass Office of Disability only has a certain amount of money and you know, Amherst was given a grant the year previous that we're still trying to finish and we need to finish by the end of this June. So perhaps they felt, well, who knows? I don't know why we didn't get the grant. It could have been that, you know, we already have a grant and they need to sort of spread the money out to communities that haven't received a grant in a few years. Do you guys ask about what the one that they're working on right now is, the old one? Sure. Yeah. Let me stop this chair. Give me a minute. I have that. So give me one second. So on behalf of the planning department, I submitted a grant to the Mass Office on Disabilities for a fiscal year 2020 grant that will be, include crosswalk replacements for two crosswalks. One that will be at North Pleasant at Cowles Lane, which is at Brueger's Bagels. And then one at the crosswalk in front of CVS that crosses over to where the old Starbucks used to be located. And then also the grant will also provide a sidewalk replacement of, it's called Pleasant Walk sidewalk, which is the walkway that's adjacent to the old Starbucks location that connects you to the parking lot behind behind there. It leads you back to the garage. It leads you to the bank center. It leads you to the Clark House, et cetera. It's full of potholes. It's full of potholes. And so I actually, I emailed the town engineer about, is there a design for it? Because the the DAAC would love to see that. And again, he provided me images of what it will look like. Unfortunately, Myrick won't be able to see it. But this is what it will look like. This is actually not brick. It's mimicked to look like brick. And he does provide a description if I can pull out that email. So bear with me. Let's see here. Looks like a crosswalk. Yeah. So that will be for the crosswalks. And then for the replacement of the walkway that leads you from North Pleasant Street to the parking lot behind that will just be a cement walkway as it is currently, but without potholes. But let me get his email out. Cement or asphalt? Cement. Okay, cool. Bear with me. I had it open, the email, where he describes it. But it's smooth, right? It's no. Yes. Yep. Yep. It'll be smooth. Good. So let's see here. So this is what he said in an email. So these items are being replaced relatively in kind, meeting that DPW will be doing it. So there are no, there are not any design plans. There are bid specifications and arc view sketches that spell out what is to be done and how. The only difference with the crosswalks is that they will receive a surface applied product to mimic brick. Pleasant walk, Pleasant Street walk that goes, leads you from North Pleasant Street to the parking lot behind Starbucks and all that. Will be replaced with a cement concrete walkway without the diagonal score lines or brick soldier course. The proposed score pattern will be a standard perpendicular score pattern and the concrete will receive a broom finish in sealant. And so when he mentions the arc view sketches, that that was, I then responded to him and I said, can you send me that? And that was the image that I shared with you just a few moments ago. So that's what they will look like. So it sounds like the crosswalk is a tactile crosswalk and not raised, correct? Correct. It won't be raised at road level, tactile. Correct. Yes, it will be tactile. Yeah. Hopefully it won't fall apart. That's that's hope. And I believe, I believe if you're familiar with the crosswalk in front of the Jones library that crosses over on Amity. Yes. That is the exact crosswalk, except I think that's raised. Is that raised? That's raised. But it's the same material. So the crosswalks at CVS and by Brewer's bagel, those won't be raised, but they will be the same material used for the Jones library. And I believe that DPW would like to use those crosswalk specs for all crosswalks specifically in downtown. Just for my design. Is that enough visual contrast? I'm asking Elise if it's enough. Let me pull the email up. Probably just as long as it has the white lines. It does. Oh, yeah, the contrast has to be pretty strong. Do you see this Elise? Yeah. Oh, now I'm on the left on the top left. That's what you're showing me. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's good. Oh, good. Yeah. As long as the color, because the color is different. Yes. Yep. Okay. Good. Yeah. That's, but so there's another process question. It turns out that what they were going to do is good. What would have happened if it turned out that what they were going to do was not so good? When would we have found out about it? That's, I guess, one of the things we need to talk about and it relates to the previous issue of being a rubber stamp as Seren put it. It turns out that what they put out there is good. But what can we do as a committee to make sure that we are included to make sure that we're involved before we get to the point where we say, oh, no, it's not good. Why didn't you ask us we would have told you X? Does anyone on the committee want to weigh in on this because it's bothering me? It bothers me too. Yeah. I agree, Myra. That's how I always feel that we put our, yes, go ahead with it after it's too late, just like it happened at the UMass design recently. I will say for this example, they have not put out their request for bid. And so there would be time for, if you did today have concerns about this design, there would be ample time to have that conversation to make any needed sort of design changes to accommodate your feedback. Once they put out the bid, isn't it too late for us to change anything? Without a change order, that's expensive, although it's an in-house job, so it's not the same thing. But if you're putting out a bid to an outside contractor, anything that isn't in the original bid is a change order. Yeah. So as I said, a bid has not been placed yet. And so there would be enough time to change that now. Certainly in the field, changes do happen. If it's minor, I don't think that that's a change order. If it is substantial, then that would perhaps be a change order. What do the curb cuts look like? So that we will, for the crosswalks at Burger Bagel and CVS, the ramps will be redone as well. Well, yeah, I figure they have to be. But what's the design for the curb cut look like? And I mean, we all have different reasons to care about what curb cuts look like. Sarah and Tori have to make sure that they are right for them. And I have to make sure that they're parallel and that they have domes and that I don't end up in the street when I don't know that I'm not. But can you see the crosswalks on the picture? Yes, bear with me for one second. I don't mean the crosswalks. I mean the curb cuts. Let me look again. I didn't see them. Here it's very gentle. Tori, I think there's a tactile strip on the other side of the road. Yeah, there are. Yep, there's tactile strips on both sides. Yep. Because my dog will, if she doesn't feel something and if I don't feel something, she'll just keep going. Yeah, no. And that would be included with both, with these improvements. So there's no step down. It's just a tactile strip. Correct. Okay. Maureen, I have a question about, I understand that you're saying that this brick-like material is flat and it's not brick. But I'm wondering what it would be like in different temperature in the winter. I would like to know what happens to it when it is exposed to extreme temperatures. That's a very good question. I actually recall having this conversation with Jason Scales, a town engineer, as I was applying for this grant a year plus ago. And they picked this product. So this is like a trade proprietary material. And they actually have a sample of it at their DPW building. And this specific proprietary material does very well in cold and hot weather with, in regards of it moving or going up and down, compared to other products that they have been sort of salespeople presenting to them. Okay. What does it do to snow and ice? This product, I believe, if I'm correct, is a product that they actually stamp. So unlike putting bricks down, it's not individual pieces. It's a complete substrate that's solid and won't move. You're correct. This is a stamp. It's a stamped product. Yeah, it's not going to give us the problems that we have with the brick and differential paving. Yeah. And so as I said a moment ago, they have a strip of this as their sort of experiment lab at their DPW facility on West Street. I have gone and taken a look at it and they refer to it throughout the year as they compare it to other materials. And this does very well in hot and cold elements. So is it also, does it get any more slippery in ice and snow than other things? I don't believe it does. Okay. I was just going to ask that as well. That's a great question. That's a great question. I don't think it does. I slip right. If it was wet or icy. Marty, am I basically, am I understanding you correctly that it's basically poured concrete that that's then got an imprint put in it? It's not a concrete, but it's I believe it's a cementitious material. Okay. Not exactly sure which one they're using, but yes. So it's poured as a strip and then they stamp it. Okay. Thank you. Oh. Yeah, as long as canes and wheelchairs don't get caught in it, you know. It's not a big stamp. Okay. The indentations are so, are so slight that I can't foresee getting stuck in it even with a or with a chair or a cane. Okay. The differentiation of height is very small. Yeah. And again, if I'm actually going to try to pull up the Jones Library, I'm going to pull up the Google map street view, which doesn't have the new crosswalk. Never mind. It hasn't been updated, but let me let me play around with it maybe from different angles. So nope, it doesn't have it. But if you are familiar with that crosswalk, I've been told that that that crosswalk also has that same exact treatment. Okay. So are there any other projects that are going to be built in the near future that we might want to know about? Sure. Hold on a second. So the the DAAC did review the redevelopment redevelopment development of Kendrick Park, which includes a playground. I believe that I believe the committee reviewed that in the last year or so. Memory is lap lapsing me. And so that is beginning construction now. Well, probably not today with the snow, but they're prepared. They have been preparing the site for the walkways and the playgrounds and the sitting areas. And that project will really, you know, get going in the spring. Obviously, the Pomeroy Village Intersection Projects. Let's see here. The North Common. I believe that I believe that did originally go through the DAAC like a year or two years ago for review. However, you know, that that's been a lot of touch and go of whether that's going to be acted on in the near future or if it will be revised. So my town counselors sent out a questionnaire about it just this week to find out what we want to do. They have, they're down to two designs. Apparently the council is considering two designs. But once they select, if they want it to be a parking lot, or if they wanted to have be all grass or what they want, we absolutely have to be involved in it because we need to make sure that everything they do is going to be accessible with no, you know, parking meters situated in the middle of the sidewalks such that people can't get around them with chairs and no shrubbery along the side of the street, such that if you cross the street and you veer off, if you're a blind person, that you don't end up hitting all the trees and ending up standing in the street with all the traffic. But I mean, all the shrubbery. So there, there are things that this committee needs to, needs to know, you know, as soon as the town council decides what they want to put there, then not after the design is created, but before the design is created, we need to talk about it. Do you know, do you know what's going to happen with that, Pat? Have you sent out the same questionnaire to your people? No, I have not sent out that questionnaire. We have a district two meeting this week. We're going to come up. And no, there's not been any reaching out to this committee. And I apologize for not noticing that. Well, I mean, they're not ready to come to this committee yet. I mean, that's not an apology needed. That one is, you know, I can send you the link that was sent to us for district four, but it's like there's a plan A and a plan B, and we're supposed to vote on which one we think is better. And they're very, very, very basic. It's not anything near anything. They're just trying to decide if we want to have parking there, or if we want to have grass there. I mean, essentially, that's what it is. And, you know, people are going to have to decide. But as soon as you as a council decide what you want to put there, then we need to be involved in it to make sure that the perimeter of it is accessible. Because right now, the walk along that main street there on the side of the parking lot, I don't know, can you do that in a wheelchair? I don't think you can. It would be valuable, I think, if the committee would write a letter to the council about those issues around North Common, because, you know, saying that it's coming out of looking at the two designs, but these are questions that we would like to be have influence in responding to. I think you should really send something to the council. Okay. Anybody want to write it? I'm sorry, what? Anybody want to write it? Well, I can write it. I actually wrote it on the form that I already sent in, but I have to rewrite it because I don't think I can reclaim it. Myra, I believe Xander has raised his hand. Did you? Okay. Yeah. This is a sort of unrelated question. This is an unrelated question, but it seems relevant. And maybe you guys know the answers and I just don't. So last night, there was an apparently an emergency town meeting related to the UMass disaster. But I only found out about it because a faculty member and I were talking about the issue and he mentioned it. How do people find out about things like emergency town meetings? They're posted. Go ahead. You have to sign up for, you can get emails. There's this thing. I can walk you through it if you can get as many emails on as many topics from the town as you want. Somehow I didn't get that one either, but I get a lot of them. Yeah. And, oh, sorry, continue. Go ahead. I was going to say Xander, I can hopefully help find, I can hopefully walk you through that, the notify me process if you need that. And so as Myra said, you can, so let me go back to the main page. So if you're on the main page of the town of Amherst website and this is top, then you scroll down, scroll down, scroll down. If you go to this calendar, if you click on view all events, you can select this button here called notify me. It might be listed in a more obvious place, but this is just how I know where it is. Thank you. My recollection is, I might be wrong, but my recollection is if you check them, that means you don't want them. And of course, we did it the other way. So we ended up getting everything. We had to redo the whole thing. You might want to, it wasn't really clear somehow we messed it up more than once. I will keep that in mind. Thank you. I just, I know that the issues that they were talking about last night are relevant to the communities that this committee serves. And because I've been working with other groups trying to get the State Department of Health to change their vaccine recommendations so that people with disabilities are higher up on the lists. So people like me who don't have a disability listed on the CDC list of affected disabilities that definitely have high risk for blood clots will get out of the last, because I'm currently in the last available category. Please. And should be in the, one of the higher categories. And so it was just, I just wondered how, I appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. You count as a person with one comorbid, right? But you're young, so you don't count as two. Yeah. And I've thought this for a long time, it doesn't so much pertain to me, but blind people have to touch everything. And blind people have to get, you know, really near people and blind people should, especially blind people who live alone, who go out and do their own things all the time. They're, I think in a lot of danger. And I think they're not, they're not on the list either as important. The conversation that we've, we've been having, the group that I'm part of that we've been having is it doesn't matter if the care, if personal care attendants get vaccinated, if the disabled person is not vaccinated, because we can bring it into their home and then they're at risk. So, as we sort of move into more vaccine vaccines and that kind of thing, it seems like it's something that this committee should be paying attention to how that's coming together and what's going on. Xander, do you want to write? It's going to become an access problem three months from now. I don't know how the committee feels about that, but I'd be willing to entertain a motion that we take a stand on this. And then Xander, you probably have enough written material that you could write a letter and send it to Maureen. She can send it out to us for approval probably before the next DAAC, because this is very timely right now. And, you know, so I think, I don't know if your, if the scope of yours is just about people who use chairs and have a higher incidence of blood clots, or if it's about people with all kinds of disabilities with all kinds of reasons, but you're absolutely right. Does anybody want to make a motion about that? Can I make the motion or is that not? Yeah, you can make it. I'll make the motion. This is Tori. I'll make the motion. This is a little seconded. So you're moving that the committee, you're moving that the DAAC send a letter to the State Department of Public Health, right, about the needs of people with disabilities to be vaccinated as quickly as possible, right? That's the motion? Yes, I believe. Maureen, I will send you something as soon as I have it together. It should be soon. Excellent. And at the following meeting, the, you know, obviously I'll email it to everyone and at the next meeting, everyone can review it and I think we need to do it before that. Okay. That's why I would hope you can send it around and get approval from the committee individually to send it out because another month from now is not what we need. Sure, I understand. Okay, that's fine. And it wouldn't hurt to CC the governor on it. Send it to the health department. And to Joe Cumberford and Mindy Dom, actually. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But, you know, if you can touch on the reasons that help, you know, that, you know, if you think about it from the perspective of people with a lot of different kinds of disabilities. Absolutely. That would be really helpful. Great. Thank you. Do we know if Stavros or if any organizations such as Stavros are writing letters similar to this? Good question. They should be. You know, Torias? Not that I'm aware of right now. I know that they're in conversation with our employees and where people fit in as an employee. So. The group of people that I am, not all, but some of them are former Stavros staffs. Okay. Okay. So that's great. All right. So, but somebody remind me what letter I agreed to write. Oh, about the North Common. The North Common. Right. Okay. Where, where is, I have no sense of direction and I'm a New Englander who doesn't know street names. What, what do you talk, what North Common are you talking about? I know it's very confusing. So it's actually. Landmark parking lot in front of town hall, essentially. Thank you. Yeah. All the way down to street. Got it. Yeah. I'm a New Englander. People will say street names and I'm like, I have no idea. The only reason I know it all is because our town counselors sent us this questionnaire that I did four days ago. Otherwise I wouldn't remember it either. Yeah. So it's the north part of the town common. From the bank. Yeah. Yeah. It does get confusing. I have to take a few minutes of your time just to tell you about something that happened. We had our, I'm a member of district five and our commissioners organized this meeting with a district five people. And it was a two hour long meeting after the first half hour. Our web meeting was hijacked. Two guys entered into our meeting and they said, your meeting is being hijacked right now. And we have your names, it addresses and everything. And there was all silence and I left the meeting. And then there were a couple of two people I know that was in that meeting and we chatted among us. And we just learned that this is something that is happening quite a bit. And at the bottom on the chat box, one person that left the meeting, she noticed there were lots of racial slurs there about that. This is happening. It's kind of a town meeting in Amherst. Yeah. Unfortunately, there's been what they call Zoom bombers hijacking meetings all across the country, if not the world. And unfortunately, the town of Amherst meetings, committee meetings, board meetings have been a victim of it as well. Our IT department has put a lot of controls on the Zoom program that I'm using. So for instance, we're not able to use the chat feature and perhaps some other features that I can't think of. And that's why out of abundance of caution at the beginning of these meetings, occasionally I see a bunch of random names that are attending and they keep on hitting the raise their hand feature. And some of their names are just typical names and some are kind of seem a little fishy. So earlier, I think before Saren, you got on right before you got on, I think we might have had a Zoom bomber. And at the beginning of these meetings, I have made announcements that if you'd like to talk and you keep on raising your hand, you'll have to wait towards the end of the meeting when we have our public comment period. And that usually inspires them to move on to the next meeting to interrupt. So, you know, that's sad. All right, we have so many minutes to do. September minutes, anybody have any corrections or additions? I sent you a couple more. And one is like my name is spelled wrong. And I forget I sent them. So if you could fix those things. But does anybody have any other ones? Or for September? Whatever date that was. September 22nd, I believe. Okay, whatever it was. Anybody have any questions, corrections, additions, anything about those minutes? All right, I need a motion to accept. Well, let's do it all at once. How about October? Did somebody say yeah? Yeah, I have one thing and I'm not sure whether it's the September or the October, but when I'm referred in the meeting, you got my name and everything where I would like, instead of seeing eye dog, I would like her to be referred to as guide dog. Yeah, I wrote that to Maureen too. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yep. Thank you for that. Yeah, guide dog. Yep. Yep. And the other, anybody else have any corrections on October? Nope. Nope. Okay. How about November? Nope. Nope. Nope. Okay. All the corrections that I have, I emailed to Maureen. So anybody want to make a motion about accepting all those minutes? I'll make a motion to accept the September, October and November minutes. Second from someone? I second. At least. Okay. So we need a roll call on that. So you call it Maureen? Oh, yeah, sure. I can do it. Yep. Okay. Myra? Yes. Zander? Aye. Saren? Yes. Tori? Yes. Marty? I'm staying. I wasn't on the committee. Okay. Good call there. Elise? Yes. And I guess that's it. Thank you. So that's one, two, three, four, five. Right. The only person who ended up missing is Ruth. Remember at the beginning you said that wasn't, Saren wasn't present? Yep. So you probably have to. Yeah, I'll fix that. No, she took. Okay. Any, okay. So we have, I think we covered everything. So we're going to be waiting for Zander's letter about, about health, about the vaccinations to come through Maureen as soon as possible. Oh, and I forgot to ask about whether the state, MAB had ever responded to your letter? They haven't responded yet. Maybe I'll give them a phone call. So I emailed them about two things. And the two things are one is about what is the process for holding public hearings and, you know, time limits, stuff like that. As I cite in the email that often the DAAC receives the variance request a week or two prior to the MAAB hearing. And sometimes, you know, it's even just a few days before their hearing. And we would want some clarification on that. And is there sort of room to, you know, postpone their public hearing. So there is enough time for this committee to provide comments. And then the other thing was, oh, and the other thing was about the, the section in the MAAB about continuous railings on both sides of a staircase. And that perhaps they don't need to provide comment on that, just the acknowledgement. But it would be a very useful to hear what, you know, are there state regulations that get into public hearings for variance requests through the MAAB? Thank you very much. Thanks for sending that. Or yeah, then we can see what we need to do about them because they need to involve us. They need to not make decisions before they hear from us on things that we are supposed to have input into. Yeah, I believe Marty might be raising her hand and also Tori. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah, I wanted to go back to talk about the transition plan document you sent out. I read the Bang Center very carefully. And one thing I, because I wasn't involved in it, but what are they using as a cost estimation tool? That's a great question. I would, it's either spelled out in their overall report or I would have to email them directly. They have a, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Exactly. But I think there's a, you can't take those reports and add up all those dollars and think that's going to get you anything. Because there's, I was looking at each of the specific problems. And one of them was, this was the one that struck me so, just in the face, were the ones about the elevator in the Bang Center. Yeah. Yeah. That, I mean, elevator technician alone is $425 an hour. You can't tell me you're going to raise and replace the control panels for $800. It's not even in the realm of possibility. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I mean, I've spoken with our town engineer and they've already, especially in context of applying for these grants where we need to include a budget. And they told me right off the bat that their cost estimates are inaccurate. So we're not going to refer to them. Good. As long as everybody understands, because in the parking lot, they talk about fixing the slope of one of the accessible parking spaces. Well, that's repaving the entire lot, not just for that little 400 square feet. Because you've got to redo the drainage. There's a lot of collateral damage. And this is a problem, because I've done these reports before. And that's just a standard problem with them. How do you do it? How do you contain it? There's actually a way. So they gave me this interactive software program, which is pretty cool. So I log into this software and I can see all the compliances listed. And then I can export it into Excel, PDF, maybe other ways. For the sidewalks and the roads, I can export that into ArcGIS, CAD, and Google Earth. And there is a way to, when exporting it to PDF, I can indicate to just remove the cost estimates. Just because it could be alarming to folks of either one way or the other of like... Yeah, people will think it's much cheaper when in fact it's probably at least four times as much. Well, and you look at the one with the stoplights, I read the intersection one pretty carefully about Main Street and Pleasant. And this is $900 is $150. And you're like, no, it isn't. You have to rip the whole thing apart. So thank you for that. A new stoplight, $1,400. I don't think so. You can't get the traffic engineers out there for that. Yeah. So what I'm planning to do, and I wanted to do this when I sent you the email on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, I had to work out on the weekend. But what I was going to say was I wanted to, as you've noticed, these documents are very large. And so I would like to give you copies to each of the facilities. So at your leisure or over time, when the town is maybe making renovations to Town Hall or making renovations to the Munson Library, or you are just curious, I would like to give you copies to each of the facility accessibility audits reports. And so I will, what will need to happen is I am going to provide you a link and that will give you access to all the documents. And it's through what's called the OneDrive. And it's a cloud based, I don't know, email sharing program. So the individual facility audits, I believe will not be put on the town website, but the overall plan will be provided on the website. That's good. So some of it, you're saying, some of it, it will be like, when they renovate Town Hall, this is what they need to look at. And some of it will be like, we'll look at them and say, whoa, that's one of those things that might need to go on capital planning. As one of the things that you said a couple months ago, we're going to get an accessibility line on the capital planning budget. And so even if they're not planning a renovation to X, Y, or Z, we think it's so important that they need to do it. Exactly. So that's cool. I like that. That's a good system. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I will provide you the facility audits in the next few days or in the next week or so. I would encourage you to download it. So when you open it, just there should be a button that says download, because the link is only available for 30 days. So if possible, please download it to your personal computer. So you just have access or you can come email me and say, the link's expired. Send me a new one. And that's fine too. Oh, that's cool. Thank you for sending all that. Tori, what was your hand up about? Is Tori there? Yeah, she's there. Where is Tori? Tori is muted. Oh, Tori is muted. Is Andy Bristol still there? Yes. Wait, phone number. There's a phone number. No, he left, but maybe this is. Well, before we go to the public comment period, I just wanted to make one final comment about the transition plan. So I know I didn't give you a formal presentation on the plan itself, and I will be giving you the reports and you'll go through those. But what would you, do you feel that you need a formal presentation? And if so, is there information that we haven't covered that you want included? I guess it would be important for us to know about any pending projects that the town is actually going to be looking into, like the North Amherst Library is everything that, oh, they didn't do it. Did they? Do what? They didn't do the North Amherst Library. They did, and I provided their architects a copy of the accessibility report. Okay, so, you know, they're building that addition, and I don't know if that necessitates anything being done to the existing structure, or if they can come up with any money to do anything, but maybe we ought to look into what they say might be done for the North Amherst Library. It'll cost $40, I'm sure, but we should look and see. Sure. That was a joke. Okay. Should we give this person an opportunity to, there's a someone that's called, oh, the person left. Okay. Interesting. They stuck through it for a full four, five minutes and then an hour and a half. All right. Is there anything anybody would like us to discuss on the next agenda? So, next meeting would be March 9th, and we know that, well, hopefully the letter for the Department of Health will already gone out. We could certainly recap and see if we get a response. Yep. A public health. I'm typing this down. And we can talk about the... What was the letter you're going to send, Mara? Mine is about the, just that we need to be consulted on the North Common when they make their decision. So it'd be a town council memo about the North Common. Yeah. I question whether that memo should be directed to Paul Backelman. You think it should or should not? I think it should technically go to the town manager's office and you could copy Lynn Grismare. Oh, Grismare. Yeah. Grismare, thank you. I think that would be the technical path. Well, it's... And we can copy Pat because she's our liaison. Yeah. So I'm going to say town manager, town council president, and our liaison. Okay. Pat. Okay. And then I'm sure the roundabout... Pomeroy. And perhaps the other round, the Triangle Street roundabout as well. To see what can be done in the short term about that. One of the things I found was interesting. I was reading one of those articles and they said that they don't really... Oh, no. I guess it was the letter. You even sent a memo to Guilford, actually, finding out the DAAC. He had told the DAAC that he was going to do a study and then he was going to get back to the DAAC about the roundabout. You know, about what, what, what, if anything they needed to change about the roundabout at Triangle Street. And he... I didn't get a response. I don't know if you did. But, you know, the thing about that roundabout is if you're afraid to use it, you don't. So there's not going to be an accident because you don't do it. You know, so it's really, it's sort of an interesting thing. But I don't know what kind of study he was going to do, but he said he was going to do one. Right. He did in that, in that memo. It did say that. Yeah. It was in the minutes from the DAAC meeting of that meeting. When, you know, when he went to the DA, it was before, I think the only people who might have been there are Tori and Seren because the rest of them were on the committee then. And I just cannot remember it all. I know we had several discussions on that design though, that I'm very sure. I can certainly reach out to Guilford and other staff and loop back to that memo and see, you know, what was addressed. Was there a study done? Is the town still planning to put in any controls there? Yeah. Well, you did send him a letter and he didn't answer you yet. So I guess it would be good if you wanted to revisit it. That would be great. Sure. Maureen? Maureen, could you, when you talk to Guilford, find out if they actually put in the conduit that they were supposed to put in? Yeah, that's what it says. Yeah, it says that it was supposed to be put in, but could you find out if it's actually there? That would be very helpful because that's a major cost issue to try and retrofit it unless the conduit's there. Yep. I will certainly, I'm typing this down. Yep. Will the town put in controls? All right. Yeah. Okay. So if anybody has any other ideas, it's not a violation of open meeting law for somebody to email me directly and tell me what they think should be on the agenda. You couldn't include Maureen on it, but it would be good for me to know too. I will say that planning staff has cautioned all boards and committees from not emailing each other and that you should be emailing the staff person. Can I say something, Maureen? I don't think there's a legal reason for that. What the council does is when Lynn sends out an email, she wants a response from everyone. She says, do not reply all. So the only person who sees the response is Lynn as president of the council. So I think it's appropriate for members of this committee to send responses to Myra as long as she's not sharing them. So that's the way the town council does it. So I only can speak with the board. This is a separate committee. So I think the committee needs to decide not the planning board for this committee. Yeah. So the planning department has advised committees and boards that are under our sort of that staff is providing assistance with is that sometimes it can be sort of a slippery slope and out of abundance of caution where there could be of course sending an email about a site visit or a meeting time change or things of that nature are fine. But out of abundance of caution, I've been told by my planning director that we should use the protocol that I described. I can certainly discuss this with Christine Brestrup. I don't think there's a legal reason for that. So I think it's worth discussing it with her because people on the committee, you know, if everything has to go through you, yeah, and it also, yeah, I don't think that's the right way to do it. That's just how it's done with the other boards and committees that are staff through the planning department staff. I can certainly bring this up to Christine Brestrup, as I said. The planning board though does not run or own this committee. The planning department. If Myra or whoever's chair wants to receive individual responses that only go to her about an issue that the committee is dealing with, you can do that. Yeah. So I think we do need to have a little bit more discussion about that. I think, and I'm sure that it is not against the law in any way, the ethics law or the open meeting law in any way for Saren or for Tori or for Elise to send me an email that says, please put on the agenda X. And then I would write to you and you would be CC'd on all of that. So it's not like it would be keeping anything from you. But it would be really helpful for me to know how to think about stuff. And it would just be a little more connection from the committee so that everybody is involved in this. I'm really delighted Xander's writing this letter. And, you know, I think we all we have a lot of work to do. I think we because we have, you know, as I said, the schedule, what do you call it the timeline for the Pomeroy intersection, which is a pretty quick timeline, does not even include the DAAC. I mean, it just technically, they didn't even think to put it down. So I think we need to have a little more vigilance than, than we, than we know. I don't know who wrote the timeline. I'm sure you didn't Maureen. It's not about you. But you didn't write that you're not involved with that project. You know, I mean, maybe you're involved with it, but I'm sure you didn't, you know, put it out. Yeah, I didn't draft that presentation. No. So I'm sure it's after one. Okay. So anybody want to have a motion to adjourn? I would like to present the motion to adjourn. Oh, okay. Roll call, please. Myra. Yes. Sander. Hi. Saren. Yeah. Tori. Yes. Marty. Yes. Annalise. I could see your melted. You're muted, but I think that's good enough. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, that's okay. Okay. Cool. All right. So March 9th. And, um, all right, and thank you, Pat. I'm really glad you're here. It's important for us to have some direct contact with the, with the council, especially right now. I hope I can be helpful. Maureen, I'm not trying to be a step, you know, a pain in the butt, but I think a couple of the things we just disagree about. So sure. Yeah. And I will start again, as I've said, I need to speak to my director. Would you ask Chris to email me about it as well? I will. Thank you so much. Oh, goodbye, everybody. We are going to hear something about the Tuesday meet, a Thursday meeting. Oh yeah. I've had off by Zander. What's Thursday's meeting? I think you'll hear. Oh yeah, sorry. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Thank you. Thank you for the reminder. Alrighty. All right. Have a great day. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.