 Well, it's Friday evening and it's 8 p.m. so this must be byline, a public affairs show co-sponsored by Amherst Media and the Amherst League of Women Voters and this show is in its very early stages of development but we've had a number of guests already and our purpose is to help you get to know better those people who are newly representing you as legislators at both in our town council and on Beacon Hill and both Mindy and Joe will join us as we move along further down the road but right now we've been counseling, focusing on the town council and tonight we have a treat because we have two counselors here and this is the first time we've had two guests on the show at the same time and you are the two district counselors for district three and you both have very interesting backgrounds and so first I just want to give you each a chance to talk for a couple of minutes about your background where you came from and the kinds of things that you've done that have prepared you and given you skills and perspective and experience that are part of your background and portfolio as you sit and serve on the town council and one of the things that I found so interesting was that you both are actually teaching at Hullio Community Village and but tell me George more about yourself well I've been a resident of Amherst for over 30 years and raised both our daughters here done a lot of the things that typical parent does in Amherst and sports and that sort of thing as coach but my I've served in town meeting for 12 years and before that for 12 years I was on the board of Habitat for Humanity and so my engagement in the community has been largely with well basically it's called NGOs I mean basically non-governmental it's you know working with Habitat on the board addressing the issue of affordable housing and I served as vice president eventually as president I was mentored by very lovely George Goodwin and it was something I really really enjoyed working to a I mean there's a product that you created in the end there it was it was a house we were basically running a not-for-profit at the beginning all volunteer construction company so it called on me to work with people from a vast number of different backgrounds and experiences and get them to work together to this final goal of creating a home and getting someone to getting a family to live in it so I found that deeply rewarding and I'm hoping that that experience will help me on the council in the sense that it was a job where I wasn't the one who knew how to build a house or do the the the legal requirements I didn't do the work of the lawyers I didn't do the work of the construction people but my task was to get all these people to work together and to keep everyone on the same same page and it opened my eyes to all the many wonderful things that are done in our community so I enjoyed it in large part because it exposed me to so many different people so many different experiences all aimed towards a common good common goal and I kind of see town council that way the common goal is to continue to make Amherst the kind of town that we want and and hope for and so collaboration listening that's the skills that I hope I can bring to the council right well that's terrific and I also understand that you help out with community breakfast and some other things I've tried to yeah I do try to I find it that hands-on experience is really what first of all you're doing something that actually you see the product right there so you and we have the community breakfast at the Unitarian Church every Wednesday morning and I've started to volunteer there I also do meals on wheels and where I engage with the senior community and I just find it very satisfying and also grounds me you know town council people think wow what a big position this is and it is in a way but this is I enjoy that kind of hands-on direct experience of volunteering so yeah and I as I recall again both you and Dorothy have a similar experience in town of having been part of town meeting for a period that's right yes I served for 12 years very good and how long were you on door oh just the last town meeting last time yes okay I was really taken in the opening statements when the council was first convening in its very first meeting when you made your opening statement that you you talked about your ancestry and I found that really fascinating tell us a little bit about where where you came from and and you're also about your civic engagement well my mother was the family genealogist and New England has had a very big role in our family history ancestors came over from England and Scotland in the mid 17th century and came to Massachusetts and the Smith that's my maiden name Smith Smith went up to Wisconsin Maine and actually when I was a young girl I was able to still see some of the descendants of those Smiths that went up to Maine a long time ago but my ancestors were immigrants and they came because there was a King Charles was being despotic and the Parliament had been ended and they came here and they set up town meetings and representative and direct democracy which was very important to all of them and they came because they were escaping economic bad conditions and they wanted more freedom and bad harvests and a variety of things and actually the same things that my husband's family came for when they came from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century so we have a lot to look forward to and to look back to I mean I think New England's heritage is very important and I think that we're playing a very special role right now in that we're more I would say forward thinking we're paying attention to climate change we're very concerned with the quality of life and here in Massachusetts very concerned about the quality of public education so that our students are some of the best or maybe the best in the country so I'm very happy to be back to New England after many years in New York City great and while you are relatively new to politics here in the Valley you have a long history over time of both civic engagement and political engagement where in different places where you've lived what kinds of things other than town meeting are informing the way you think and the way you engage well it's kind of like just walking around as a young mother a fire erupted in the street and that was tied to a proposed jet fuel pipeline that was going to come straight in front of our elementary school so although I was either pushing a stroller or carrying a baby in a backpack I got involved in community politics and I ended up being elected district leader twice Democratic State Committee woman twice delegates of the Democratic Convention and we worked on many things including making our community a planned community preservation district to protect it from having all of the green spaces turned into little private parking lots and we go back to that community Sunnyside Gardens and Queens every year and it is now historic district so I'm very interested in communities and the quality of residential neighborhoods and the role that individuals can play in keeping them strong so it sounds like planning and development and visioning and long-term taking the long view are all things that you're you're in the moment and you're looking for opportunities in the moment but you're also looking down the road long term about what the impact is going to be of the decisions that are made today that's correct and I mean we in the town council we have there is no town meeting anymore so we have a dual role we do represent the people as the town meeting did but we're also the legislators so it's it's a heavy responsibility but we're all busy learning on how to do it your pioneers yes in the long history of this community we've never had this structure and a council of 13 people who hold a legislative office and who are responsible for providing leadership and navigating and we've gone from open town meeting to representative town meeting now to 13 select people in the community who are chosen to be our leaders and so and that's part of the reason for this show is that we know that as people were coming out of the charter vote and moving toward electing a council probably all of us were paying attention to all of the at-large candidates because we were all going to be represented by them but we focused probably most of us focused at the district level only on those who are from our own district so thank you for giving some introduction to the viewers for of your backgrounds and who you are where you came from so we're now in the next phase of the work of the council some of the committees have now been set up and both of you on standing committees and one of the purposes of the show is to help people understand the new structure and what these various boards and bodies are going to do within the council so I'd like to shift the focus in that direction now and so George let's talk about one of the standing committees that you're serving on another of our guests previously is on the same committee and explain the appointments the appointment side right and area of the communications outreach and appointments so could you focus a little bit and help the people in town understand what does it mean what is the communications and outreach side of that committee yeah yeah well one of the mandates of the charter is that there be district meetings and town-wide forums district meetings were required at minimum two each for each district Dorothy and I were already talking about our first so there are these two going to do them jointly that's that's I guess I have to do them I don't think so that's a great sign well you're going to do them together no I think yeah no absolutely yeah bravo and I think that may be the model all these will follow we're not sure yet but that's right away we felt this was the way to go and so you have district meetings they'll be at least to we perhaps will have more than two because in our district we have a large student population and one of the things Dorothy and I agreed on is trying to reach out to the students and in this recent election we had the highest percentage of student engagement we had a candidate who was a student so that's something that we might make a third district meeting so the district meetings and they need to be organized and coordinated and then their town-wide forums my understanding is one on the budget and one on schools yes and so those are town-wide so we need to that's a part of the outreach aspect are you as members of that committee responsible for making sure all of those forums occurred you have to help organize yes yes sure that they happen I think we it's a part of that is I think going to be decided over the next few weeks but I'm pretty clear oversight but it could also be well certainly yes definitely organization making sure they happen and coordinating I think the biggest thing is coordinating you have 13 individuals and whether they meet in pairs or where they meet individually and then the town-wide forum so that is and the idea of engaging the community the communication side part of what we're doing with you is is that and so we'll be thinking about ways to better better further that we have the community what is the community participation officer I get these titles right officers it turns out we're going to actually have three it's right and they're already town employees so it won't involve expenditure and they all bring a lot of experience one of them speak Spanish all of them have kids in the schools they're engaged in this proposal they the hope is that they will broaden a great deal the the pool so the other part of outreach and communication but particular outreach is is working with the community participation officers work with those two people among others on the inaugural planning committee they're very calm boy what a highly yes very talented very skilled and very engaged yeah so that's the hope yeah yes we are and by the way in general the town staff is yes really really strong so let's shift to finance and this will be the you're the first member of the finance committee on our show so talk about how you see the function of the finance committee well first of all we have a very fine civil service of people or professionals who work for the town and we have a town manager who is doing an excellent job so that they there's all kinds of work that has already been started in preparing the budget which is going to be one of our major items this spring so what is our job on the finance committee well as they say we do represent the people of the town so we're to look at the budget and to think about the impact on people on neighborhoods on our overall financial ability to carry out these projects and do them well and there's decisions that have to be made there will be we have to prioritize and we have to think about how to efficiently spend the money to make sure that we get what we need maybe that's not all that we want but we definitely have to get what we need it's kind of like having a house full of teenagers all of whom have to go to college at once I mean we have these major capital projects which there's strong reasons that we have to do them schools public works fire library and it's going to be a very challenging project so I look forward to working with the committee we have our meetings are getting started this next week and we will be working very closely with the town government the town manager on looking at the budget examining it and bringing it to the council for I vote I think that's in May so as a member of the committee you are the last stop before the council vote is that correct that's right so the this journey begins with the town manager and the town the department has yes putting together and agreeing on a budget and submitting that budget to directly to the finance committee it goes to the finance committee one of the areas that is kind of confusing at this time is that when we get the budget formally the council cannot add or increase any allotments so the the input that we as council members because of provision in the charter I believe so okay so you can only reduce you cannot increase that's right and you and so that means you can't create a new program at the council level or increase the amount that's been being appropriated for something that hasn't come to the finance committee from the town manager so we need to in the finance committee working with the rest of the council have our input to the budget before we've reached that state now that's kind of where how it is different from from town meeting very different and but there are also a couple of other panels that intercept yes and I'm not going to remember the names of them and I'm not going to put you on the spot thank you have you thought about how these four different panels are going to interact and what you will expect as a finance committee member in terms of how how this work is going to go on well the committees have finance members on them okay as well as other representatives of the town so that's how they will interact okay and so the town council will have a voice in each of those yes and so the product of each of those panels will include the voice of the council and then when it gets to the council the I'm sorry are they all finance committee members who are on there are some council members who are not finance committee members and also be yes and it's all spelled out in the charter okay so there's going to be sufficient overlap yes in this alphabet soup panels that there's going to be a lot of organic given take that's right throughout the process so that by the time the budget gets out of the finance committee a lot and probably the majority of the counselors will have had a voice in getting it to that point just simply because of the number of panels the number of counselors who are spread on those panels okay that's very interesting well one of the community forums so back to the idea of participation in town involvement also one of the community forums is devoted to the budget so also the voters will have a say they will be welcome to come to and this forum and make their contributions so they also will have a voice in the creation plenty of opportunity yes there are many up so there should be few surprises we hope that's that's our hope and we are but also if if a counselor is asleep at the switch here they're not they and their district and their seat is not going to have the full impact in the process because you can't add you can only subtract that's when it gets to that's a big difference so that's a very robust engaging process for the public yeah for the town counselors and a bunch of folks who have been selected to sit on these panels from the public and from the town staffs so it's going to be a very very robust and open and transparent process yeah which I take note in looking at the charter how much emphasis transparency and civic engagement is embedded in their values that are very significant to the community over a long period of time and a lot of people who feared a charter a charter change and a change in the town government worried yes they would lose their voice and their access but the mechanisms that have been built in and the way the town council has begun and the way the town administration has begun show that the adherence to these basic values that have been in town forever are reflected in the charter and they're actually being used and actualized as you move forward so are you you're both feeling comfortable with how that's unfolding I think it's early to say I think the spirit is there you've described it very well Stan and the commitment is there I think from the council but there's many many moving parts there's a lot of distance to go yes I think well it's going and I think the voters will tell us we also have some extremely well-informed people in town yeah we have people who have been very concerned and involved participating at all levels of this community government who contact us give us their opinions give us their thoughts so it's like we are not here inventing the wheel all by ourselves that's right we're part of a very informed community and everything that I've seen so far in the meetings because I've been watching the meetings online and everything that I've heard and seen so far suggests that everyone on the council is taking seriously their responsibility as a leader but they're also following the spirit of what the town voted for and people feared that there would be a lot of division and it feels like it's coming together one step at a time one meeting at a time heading in the right direction so let's see there's another committee that you're on governance and legislation yeah governance and that's a good question Stan these are all good questions and I that committee will also be meeting for the first time on Monday I think more of a technical committee more concerned not with setting policy or anything like that but simply making sure that for instance a bylaw that's being presented to the council is in the right form that has been vetted by the town attorney and also the internal rules of the council making sure that they you know overseeing that we have an ad hoc committee right now who's creating the rules but eventually that will come to this committee and then it will come to the council is my understanding so it's a more of a technical committee dotting eyes and crossing T's not designed to create policy or make advice in that sense at all but simply making sure that things are in the right form okay and what the legislation refers to local legislation yes yes as strictly internal setting an agenda for our state legislators although there will be interaction yes with state legislators as you bring home will petitions forward and as you need this committee definitely is not in that's not it's mandate no yeah great now you've got a forum coming up a retreat February 2nd I think is the date yes what's the intention of that of that event one of the things we first of all it's we're still working on team building and I think we've been doing very well on that but one of the items that we're going to be talking about is the committee that we call the committee that has no name so and I'm very interested in that committee and observe that you've been very active in that debate yes and it deals with planning the master plan economic development communities neighborhoods quality of life it's kind of where we see what are the impacts of these various things that are happening what is the overview so it's it's kind of tricky pinning it down we've been working on it and I hopefully after the retreat we will all come out with a clear sense of maybe the name because it's a very it's a it's a very important committee yes it is everyone wants to be on it is my impression which is another issue but yes yes a committee of the whole well that may be a possibility I don't know but yes right now we need a name your name well let's see form follows function yes names follow the function as well so well that's that's going to be a very exciting committee because that's that's part of the nature of Amherst and the for those of us have lived in town a long time who have been concerned about how narrow the tax base is the decisions that are made around planning economic development are really critical and not only because it can create additional revenue but also because it speaks to the values of the town the types of enterprises that that occur in town and it's been it's been really difficult to get economic development things launched in the community and the community is also still quite divided and up in the air on the question of where housing is being placed style of the housing that's right yeah but then I'm really excited that people are not talking about economic development and planning and housing and all of that in isolation from sustainability that's right so incredibly important to the values of the community and the fact that we stepped out on that zero building was a tough decision at town meeting and select board because it obviously costs more initially but on a life cycle basis you can end up saving money and you're also helping the environment but to make that leap is a very very big leap and so there are a lot of leaps ahead of us as you talk about trying to balance sustainability with our economic and housing development needs in town well what a working title for this committee could be community and economic development and sustainability because all of our decisions from now on will be including the sense of how do we stay as a community and how do we be a sustainable community I think that's one of our the special missions of New England at this time in terms of our becoming independent in terms of power and food intellectually we're fine so we should we're all working on this well it's very exciting and believe it or not our time is up and I want to thank you George Ryan well thank you Sam our district three counselors for joining us today to introduce yourselves to the whole community and we hope that you've enjoyed tonight's show and that you'll join us again if you'd like to see this show again you can see it Monday at 6 p.m. and in between now and Monday you can see it on YouTube Amherst Media YouTube and Amherst Media online and thank you to the legal women voters and Amherst Media for making this show possible to help us all understand more about our newly elected legislators thank you and good night