 All right, you're all set. Thank you. I'm calling this meeting of governance organization legislation to order, saying that we have quorum this July 1st, and pursuant to Governor Baker's order of March 12, 2020, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. This meeting of GOL is being conducted via remote participation. There will be a time later in the meeting for public comment at that point. If there is public present, I will read the instructions for public comment. Today's meeting is primarily, if not exclusively, focused on a series of interviews we're going to do at beginning in a few minutes for candidates for the position of resident non-voting member on the finance committee. And that's going to take up the first hour at least of our session. Our plan at the moment is to then deliberate and come to a decision. If that's possible. It turns out that we do have a second meeting, July 15, before the next official council meeting. So just to remind everyone that when I first had the schedule in mind, my understanding was it would be an official. The next official council meeting would be July 13. It's July 20. So we do have actually a second meeting, at least planned, before the council meets. If we have time after that, I have one item, other item on the agenda. But it's not pressing now. At least I don't think it is, because again, we have another meeting before the next council meeting. But there is one zoning bylaw we need to look at briefly and declare clear, consistent, and actionable. And then Lynn has asked that she get a few moments at the end of the meeting under items not anticipated to speak to the committee about the town manager evaluation process. So that's what we have on our agenda. Before we open it up to our first interview, any questions from my colleagues about the format? Basically, I'm going to make sure the candidate can be heard and then perhaps introduce you all. I think in some cases the candidate will already know you all, but just make sure that you are all introduced. And then I was gonna go immediately to questions. And I assume that you all have at least one question prepared, but if you don't, then I will then turn to the candidate and ask them if they have any questions for the committee about finance or about anything really related to the position. And then I was gonna end the interview and then go on to the next interview. They're scheduled to be 15 minutes in length with a five minute gap between each. So it gives us a little bit of leeway, but not a lot. So I want everyone to ask the questions they wanna ask, but I also wanna all of us keep an eye on the clock unless you feel 15 minutes is not sufficient. But we have a few minutes we could run over, but I really don't wanna get too far behind if we can. Any questions from my colleagues about the format, Lynn? I just wanna mention that since you made your statement about public comment, the attendees have come in and several have raised their hand. So you may wanna remind people that we will not do public comment till the end. Okay, I will again remind people that public comment comes later in the meeting. It will come after, so item number five. So come after the interviews and after deliberation, there will be a period for public comment. If I could just mention yesterday, this phenomenon happened and it appeared, we had already gone through public comment before people started joining and it was all of this hand raising and all and within about 10 minutes, they all left. So I believe many of them could potentially be potential Zoom bombers. Yeah, there's a lot of names here that look pretty silly. Yeah, so I just be aware of that. It resolved itself in CRC because as we continued our meeting and they were not recognized, they all left. Okay, so that is for those of the public who actually take this seriously. As we do, we now see some of the challenges we face in trying to be fully transparent and still conduct our meetings. Excuse me. From Mercer Rowe. Sorry about that. Something I forgot to do. Turn off my phone. Any other concerns, questions, comments before we begin? We have our candidate present in our first interview. Candidate present. So if we're ready, let's begin. Bernie, I see you here. Yeah, I'm also here in two places. Yeah, I see two Bernie's. This is interesting. I think I will switch off my phone. I was getting an error message that I have an unstable internet connection. So I'm going to switch off my phone and hopefully, Mary, there's only one of me now. If things go south, I'll switch the phone back on. Okay. I want to just introduce everyone on the committee to you, but I believe you probably know most people here. Actually, I know everybody. You do know everyone. Okay, good. So in that case, I think we can dispense with the introductions. Everyone, I'll welcome your presence. And again, thanks you for putting yourself forward. And the way we're going to proceed is I'm just going to turn to my colleagues and each one has a question they may ask. And they have a follow up either to that question or to another question if they wish. And this should take us about 15 minutes. Near the end of that period, I'll ask you if you have any questions for the committee. So that's the format, okay? And so I'm going to start in alphabetical order if that's all right, at least for the first time out. So, Pat, do you have a question for Mr. Kuviak? Pat, you're muted by the way. You need to unmute. Yeah, sorry, I have a plumber working and I thought you didn't want to hear that. You need to be like, there's just left here. So. In your statement of interest, you said that you have made mistakes, but you've learned from them. And I was wondering what, is there a mistake that you made that really taught you a lesson that you feel would be a value for your work on the committee? That is a good question. I'd have some difficulty right now bringing any one particular thing to mind. There are no unmitigated disasters, which I'm proud of. But my, maybe the lesson that I took away from my experience in that is that you need to be open to all sorts of comments and all sorts of sources of information. You can't, it's a serious error if you say, well, I'm not going to pay attention to the sound saw because I'm not using it. End up using it, is that you want to make sure that you pay attention fairly to anyone who's affected. And some of those who aren't because they may have some good ideas that you're, but you end up re-enforcing projects on the fly if you don't pay good attention and pull a look to all the time. Bernie, you're breaking up a little bit. I know, is anyone else having problems with audio? Yes. Yes. So I wonder if you want to switch your alter ego if that will make a difference. Yeah, let me do that. I don't know if it'll help, but let's try it. Let me see. And we can see you fine on the phone. And I think that would make it. The phone works better. And Lynn, I was going to go to you next. If that's, if that's all right. Okay. Is there any part of that path that you would like Bernie to follow up? Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So Bernie. I don't know if it'll help, but let's try it. Let me see. And we can see you fine on the phone. I think that would make it. The phone works better. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard bits and pieces about your career. And you've certainly made yourself available to the town. And we totally appreciate that. But could you just kind of in a very brief way, talk about your career and not spend tons of time on it, but just a few highlights you think would be useful for us. And then I think that's going to be a. Municipal. Government junkie when I was living in Belcher town. And that was motivated by the train, setting my neighborhood on fire. Which got me to interested in town. Government. And looking at where things can happen in a more immediate. Fashion. So I've been a select man. I've been on finance committee in I've managed Hadley, I've managed Deerfield and Northfield, and I've been a county commissioner as well. All of the consecutive with that is that that's all municipal government. And it's where things can happen quickly and effectively for folks. Make a decision, you can put it into practice in a matter of hours or days, not weeks or months or in the case of the federal government, sometimes years. Linda, follow up. Not at this time. Fund. Mandy. Well, thank you. Hi, Bernie. We obviously have entered an age of budget uncertainties right now in a way we haven't seen in. Decades or more. We've had a lot of issues with the federal government, but we've had a lot of issues with the federal government. And it's a pandemic is really hard to predict anything versus an economic downturn of a typical sort. So I, I'm interested since we're probably facing a year or two or more of this issue. If you could describe how you would approach the guideline recommending that the finance committee does for budgets to the federal government. And how you would balance all of that, how you would approach those issues as we come into this era of uncertainty. Oh, I mean, you got a short answer to that. Short answer. Well, you know, I think in looking at what's been done so far with the budget, I think folks are headed in the right direction. Keeping in mind that a budget is more than a spending plan. It's a statement of value. It's a statement of. So you need to look at that and keep that in mind so that you, you don't end up. Setting aside things that are, you know, you know, I think in looking at what's been done so far with the budget, I think folks are headed in the right direction. Keeping in mind that a budget is more than a spending plan. It's a statement of value. It's a statement of. So you need to look at that and keep that in mind so that you, you don't end up. Setting aside things that are of importance. You need to look at what the town has to do. What's the, what's the bare bones minimum? The town has to do to keep services together. And sort of make sure that that's secured. And that's secured out of reliable sources of money, which is basically the property tax. And then you, you can then begin to build on that. And that's where you need to reduce temporarily or compromise. You make that very explicit. So that people understand that you want, you know what you're doing. You know the impact of this and you acknowledge that. Run with not a lot of fluff. And that may come as a surprise to some folks, but. Typically there are. So you want to figure out what you can do that. And where the, where, where, what you can do immediately, what you might do in 12 month increments. Where there might be opportunities. We're in a fairly low interest rate environment right now. So there may be some opportunities to borrow that wouldn't be there ordinarily. And that's not, I'm, I'm trying to come up with. More precise formulation for you, but it's a layered process. Look at what you absolutely have to do. And then began to build on top of that. There's some things. Let go of, I mean. Maintenance is deferred maintenance means broken. So you may end up. With. In a. In other words, I think that's a reasonable action. It's not like OPEB presents a bill that's going to come due tomorrow. The threat is it will squeeze out. Other kinds of expenditures in the future. The other threat from not putting money into OPEB is. If you're, if you're going to borrow. Having a. You know, making routine. In substantial open payments like the town has been doing signals to the market. That you're, you're a good risk. So those are, you know, those are. Those are two things that you can try to control. And. You try to do that with every aspect of the budget. Thank you. Follow up, Andy. Not at this time. Okay. Andy. Hey, Bernie. So. This is a two-part question. I'm going to make it be two parts. What do you think are the reasons that the charter commission. And recommending in to be in the charter. The provision. That allowed the council to. Create citizen. Participation on the finance committee. Is uniquely done. For that committee. So. What would you think are the reasons. I think that, you know, the charter really tries to respect citizen input. And values that. So the, the putting some non-voting members on the finance committee. Was one way to give. Folks aren't. Able to run for office or. Chosen not to. Some input into. Into the budget in the budget process. So I look at those non-voting members. Sort of a. Sort of a committee of. Citizens. Who can say to the elected officials on the committee. Oh, wait a second. You're, you're missing this or we should be doing that. Or this looks good. I think it's another way to just simply give. Voice to. Voice to people. And. The charter seems to do that well. So then the second part of the questions. Probably pretty obvious. What do you think that you have. Uniquely to contribute to. That particular goal for having. Participation on the committee. You know, as I said in my statement of interest. This is something that. I've had a lot of experience in both. Formal and informal experience. Including. Being on the finance committee. The original iteration of the finance committee for five years. So. That's what I think I'm bringing to this is the fact that I've got some good experience. I can look at this as someone who. Is a consumer of services in town. Not somebody who designs them or somebody who's responsible for managing them. I'm a consumer of services. We pay taxes. I've got. Three grandkids that are growing up in Amherst now. So I've got a skin in that game as well. And that's what I think I bring to the, bring to the group. I was a sudden statement of interest. I've been through. A variety of experiences. And. I can sit here and say, look, I'm a consumer of services. We pay taxes. I've got. Three grandkids that are growing up in Amherst now. So I've got a skin in that game as well. I can sit here and say, look, as, as a, as a citizen, as somebody who's dependent on the town for services, this is what I think is necessary. This is what I think would like to happen. But I also understand the mechanisms behind that and how that might happen and where we are. Where the town's constrained and where it's not. I'm really chunk of, there's a. Half billion dollars in federal money sitting out there right now. Hasn't been allocated yet. You know, what's Amherst share that and how's that going to get used. That would be a question. So I think that I think I could, I could begin to approach as a, as a citizen. My colleagues, any follow up questions or a second question that you wish to ask. Before I turn to Bernie and ask if he has questions for the committee. And just raise your hand or just speak up. Well, I guess it was just the one thing that, um, I'm just going to, um, Since I'm also chair of the finance committee. If you have questions for me about committee schedule, meeting times, workload or things like that. Feel free to ask. I don't have any questions that, you know, at the moment about times. I'm doing some consulting. And I think it's a good deal of flexibility in my schedule. So I think I can, my personal schedule can match what the finance committee is up to and doing. It's a, it's sort of a benefit. I guess of, of not having to, not having to work for a living. Um, and that's, you know, Yeah, I really have any questions for the committee. I'd like to thank everybody. I think. I've been reasonably active in town. I think folks know me. I would like to be helpful to the town. And if this is, this is one way that I can do that. Um, One of the things that I think I bring to the mix here is that, Um, I've had a reasonable, I've been on a lot of meetings. And I've had a reasonably diverse set of, uh, of experiences in municipal government. And so I, I'm not inclined to, um, I'm not inclined to panic. And I'm not inclined to, uh, to, to overreact. And I think that's, we'll be valuable as we go down the next, uh, the next couple of years. And look at what, what's emerging. So. Great. Thank you. Bernie, thank you very much. So hopefully I will be getting back to everyone sometime later today or certainly no later than 24 hours. Great. Thank you, George. All right, thank you. Take care. Thank you, Bernie. So we have just a few moments to catch our breath. The next candidate, I've asked people to log in minutes early. But it gives us a chance just to have some quiet. Format wise that is that acceptable people feel that works okay. Okay. Speak up if you have concerns if you'd like something changed. When we do the next round, I'm going to just have Lynn start. So I'll try to, you know, just have different persons start each time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, George. George. Yes, I'm sorry. Joseph Jane is next. And then Jane Sheffler. And finally, Mary Lou is last. So it's Cougar. Jane. Shuffler and. I just received an email from. Joseph Jane that he doesn't have an invitation. So I'm going to send him one now. That may be why he's delaying. Okay. I have a question. Can we can't. Like one of the questions I have is too. Can we ask about how you would ban up balance your work life and family life or is that a no, no. It's a no, no. Gotcha. I thought it was, but. Against affirmative action. Yeah. Trying to catch up on. Other. You're right. I am also doing some other things, but as soon as Mr. Jane joins us. We will. Right now we're still actually on schedule. But I don't think any of us thought we'd actually keep to schedule, but we'll see. We're not done. Don't jinx it. I know. If we're waiting a few minutes, if you want to go to one of the other agenda items, like what Lynn was going to report to us on. Right. Evaluation or anything else you might deem appropriate. We could use time. I can do that. If you want. Well, we are literally at the time of his interview. So I'd like to give him. A courtesy of if he can solve this problem. I don't know what he's getting. Since I don't see, he's not listed at the moment. He did in fact get, I'm sure a number of links. But I know the feeling sometimes where you can lose them. Especially if you have lots of email. But. It's to me all the time. Well, then why don't you begin? And if he appears, we'll, I may have to stop, but why don't you start. I mean, one item I just want to mention, and that is that we, I would very much and hope you agree that we are delaying the due date for people's response, except for counselors, of course, to the 15th and it's because we've had it delay and getting things out. One of the staff people who's assisting me had an emergency. And so therefore we're not able to get everything out today, the way we had hoped. So I want to go to the 15th, which is kind of a compromise between what we did say, which is the 12th and giving them a full on extra week. So I hope that that is acceptable. And the other thing is we are doing an adjustment on the email. For town council. It will make, it will still come to all of town council. What we're trying to resolve and what I was going back and forth with the city council. I'm going to go back to the city council. I'm going to go back to the city council. And here is, do we remove Paul from the town council general email address? We do have to remove. The CPOs and we have to remove. The Dave's omic. And if we, unless we create a special address for the staff to send their email address to the city council, we will have to remove that. If we remove that or once that's done, I will remind counselors that. If they are using town council. At. Amherst and any. Of that. They, and they want to include Athena or any of the other people. They need to make sure they address them separately. We did this last year. We suspended for the period of time when people are answering. So that the responses from the community and the responses from the city council. I think we will be able to, I think we will be able to go. To people they shouldn't go to. So those are really the only two updates. Mandy Joe was very kind yesterday and did an extensive. Review of the. Instrument. Once it went on. On line. If you will. you know, evaluation is not as time sensitive yet. So we're trying to do a trial run this year so it feels better to counselors as we do it. I see that Joe is listed in the attendees column. So I believe that. Okay, I'll bring them in. You can ask him to unmute and then also. Here I am. All right. Hello, all good to see you. We had some technical difficulties there and I'm sorry for the delay and getting it. It's all right. They never happen. Our systems flawless. I don't know what. Of course. I don't know if you know everybody on the committee, Joe, but I'm going to introduce starting with the council president, Lynn Grissimer. I know Lynn. Nice to see you. Good to see you, Lynn. Vice president. Joe Hanneke and chair of CRC. Steinberg chair of finance. And Patty. Vice chair of this committee. And we all are first of all, very grateful for your willingness to step forward. And the format's pretty simple. I'm going to have each of the, the committee members ask a question and they have a followup question. I'm going to ask the committee members. I'm going to ask the committee members. If they're at that moment or later, if they wish. And then after that's done, I'm going to ask if you have any questions for the committee. Of course we have the chair of finance here and Andy Steinberg and other members of finance as well. So I'm, if you have questions about the committee and how it works, feel free to ask those. We hope it'll take about 15 minutes. So that's, that's the plan. And I was going to begin actually with, with Lynn. Right. Yeah. I'm just really quick. I'm just going to shut my door. I'm in my house in Maine. So I don't want all the kids to get too crazy. So we understand. All right. Okay. Fire away. Thanks. First of all, the way we know each other, Joe is the finance committee liaison. To the DPW fire station advisory committee. Exactly. Andy was the select board liaison. So the three of us have met under different circumstances during that work. So instead of having you give a bio, because in NASC for that, and you've given us some glimpse of that. I'd really liked you to reflect on your years with the Amherst finance committee. And just mentioned two or three things you've learned. Yeah, I think it was a real learning experience because I moved to Amherst. I would say now about six years, five and a half years ago. And my in-laws have always said, my wife is from Amherst. And we moved out here with our two children. And of course we live in Amherst. And so I wanted to get more involved and really learn about, you know, just more involved with the town and its capacity. And my kids are going to the public school system. And I just felt it was a great way to learn about the inner workings of the town. Also my background is in finance. So I was in personal finance with, you know, Meryl Lynch and Morgan Stanley for 20 years in Boston. So that's why I sort of, you know, steered myself towards the finance committee. But yeah, I learned a lot in terms of, you know, how the sort of inner workings of the town kind of work and certainly how the politics of the town can get very convoluted, especially with town meeting. And we were working on some very big projects, right? So we're looking at these big school projects, the library project, DPW project and these big undertakings. And so I think I really, it was very valuable to see sort of how the constituency of the town members had so many variants of opinions about things. And at times, I guess personally I felt a little frustrated. And I kind of felt that the democracy of the town, the structure of that government maybe wasn't as effective as it could have been. And when the new town council thought, I thought, well, yeah, maybe a more concentrated form of government could get things and push things through and things happen. So I guess I was a geared a little bit more towards that vote, as opposed to sort of people like my father in law and many others I knew who wanted to keep that town council intact, but to keep the town meeting intact that format of government. But I learned a great deal also about the different departments of the town. Again, the DPW and the fire station and getting to know those folks and the issues that they're dealing with, not only in funding, but in other areas as well. So I just found it really interesting and I definitely learned a lot, but there's a lot more to learn as well too. So hopefully that addresses some of the questions. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I am interested in, I'm one of the members of this committee that doesn't actually serve on the finance committee. So I have to rely on the finance committee for a lot of things, including their expertise on recommending guidelines for budgets and all. And we're in a pandemic. We know things are going to be uncertain. So I'd like you to talk about how you approach that. You know, or an experience you've had in terms of budgeting and dealing with budgets during economic downturns, how you might approach the balancing act that that requires, you know, between maybe an operating and capital or not. But, but just talk a little bit about that and how you would approach stuff like that to. During the finance committee meeting so that it can advise the council and the manager. Yeah, it's a great question. And I really don't have to be honest with you a lot of budgeting and experience. Really. Again, my background is in finance, but it's in more personal finance. It's not so much budgeting departments or small governments. But either way, I think it's very important to hear everyone's side, you know, if we're going to sit there and make budget cuts to the school or something like that. You know, we really have to pay attention. And sort of model of, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, I really don't have to be honest with you a lot of budgeting and experience really again, my background is in finance, but it's in more personal finance. It's not so much budgeting departments or small governments. But I think I think we should sort of model that out and see what those small things that we may be cutting, what kind of impact that could have. So, you know, and scudding, cutting like a school program or a lunch program or something like that. You know, in the past, I don't think I've really looked closely at those ramifications. So that is something that I would really take into account if, if it was something, especially now, which I'm sure we're, we're looking at, you know, cuts in certain areas. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, sort of the kind of impact that that could have that we're maybe not thinking about and try to model that out in, in hopes of really making sure that we are moving forward in the direction and we're making the right decision. So hopefully that maybe sheds a little color on that. Thank you with that. Yep. Andy. Good job. So. I, uh, the question I was asking, uh, if all the candidates is, the charter commission, um, put something special in the charter for this committee that it's not, doesn't really exist in the charter for other committees. And that's the possibility for the council to choose to have citizen members of the committee of a council committee. And, uh, why do you think that the charter commission made that decision to place this opportunity in the charter for this particular committee? That's a great question. I, I don't really know. So if you could just repeat that again, so that what, how does it read in the charter that they, what was the charter committee, the charter. The charter. Specifies this opportunity to have resident members. Of this particular council committee. The finance committee. And what would, what do you think were the reasons that, uh, They might have chosen this particular committee as the one. Um, to create that opportunity. Um, Well, I think it would just because, you know, residents have a vested interest in the town. I mean, you know, we live here. Um, we use these facilities were impacted directly by, you know, our kids going to school here. We pay taxes here. Um, you know, I know I have a personal vested interest in the. In the overall fiscal health of this town. Um, to make sure that we're budgeting properly to make sure we're fiscally strong and sound. And I wanted to see it, you know, flourish, but also flourish in a balance, uh, you know, in a balanced way. Um, And that's as a resident, that's, that's very important to me. Um, So hopefully. Does that kind of address the question? Yeah. And then actually, you probably answered the second half of the question that I was going to ask, which was, uh, What do you bring to the table to meet that vision? I think you probably. Some of the addresses already. Yeah. I mean, I guess, um, you know, I'm, yeah, I'm very passionate about this town. Um, you know, in my, on my wife's family, they go back a long ways in Amherst. Uh, and, you know, again, my, my kids go to school here. Uh, and I, I want to see this town do well, you know, I live here, I live right by the high school. Um, you know, I want, I want to see this town advance, but I want to, I want to see it do, you know, do it in a, in a very, um, you know, Logical, you know, just a well balanced way, as opposed to just saying, Hey, let's build some more buildings. I mean, I think, you know, back to Mandy Joe's point, I think things have to be sort of balanced in terms of, you know, the things that we're undertaking the way we're spending the money. Um, to make sure that it's, it's the right decision for this town and make sure that stakeholders are. Um, I think that, um, I think that, um, I think that overall, you know, it's tough to get them all in agreement, but we're all moving sort of in the same direction. Um, and we're not pulling this town apart. Uh, because I know there's, there's a lot of passion in this town about different things. And I don't agree with a lot of it, but, um, but I feel like I love to be involved in this, uh, this community. Um, and I feel like this is a way I can, I can at least help. Uh, It's not a, it's a personal financial project. When question your background, you said is in personal finance. I guess I'm interested in how you would translate or what. Values or experiences. Uh, we'll translate to your work on municipal finance. Well, I think it's sort of like underwriting projects. Um, you know, do we have to put things out for a bond issue? And so, you know, I'm not directly, you know, I have never directly dealt with that, but indirectly in terms of, you know, understanding municipal bonds, understanding interest rates, understanding cost balance sheets. That's something that I'm very passionate about. I still do, and I still, you know, talking to the library, looking at sort of their endowment, how it's managed, the history of that. And that stuff is, you know, I still have clients, I still work privately with clients in terms of managing their money. So, I, you know, I still advise a lot of people and hire net worth people. So I'm very familiar with financial markets, how they work, what's happening economically, not just locally, but globally. I personally trade and help other people trade for currencies. And so, that's just a really area of interest for me. And so, yes, to your point, Pat, I don't have direct experience in terms of managing the municipal budget and, you know, understanding directly how we actually raise money and go to the capital markets but I understand generally, in general, that concept and how it can relate back to a town budget and how we can potentially, you know, hopefully, how it relates back to our credit rating, and how it can hopefully fiscally, you know, keep our town budget sound. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I just want to follow up questions from my committee members. Or a second question for Joe. And then you had a mute. You mentioned a couple times. From your experience being on the finance committee, and now just talking with us the whole issue of the capital projects. And I'd be interested to hear from you as to what else you feel the council should do to get citizen input with regard to the capital project. That's a tough one and we discussed that in the finance committee a lot right about how we could get citizens more engaged and that was a really tough conversation. It wasn't self conversation but I think it's a tough undertaking to and I don't in a way I don't know why but there was a lot of things we were talking about doing, you know, obviously I think we talked about this with the DPW to about posting more stuff on the internet to really get the transparency and the information out to the public, so they can make an informed decision I think even with the DPW when we did sort of an open house to try to enhance engagement with what's happening and the issues that the DPW specifically we're facing. The ability is just falling apart I mean when we toured that facility. That's, that's really impactful because I've you see in firsthand the, how that facility is just coming apart and falling apart and so getting that communication out there. I think was something that we talked about not only in DPW but also in the other capital projects, and it's hard and it's, you know, it's, it's not as easy as just saying hey let's post it because a lot of people seem to just overlook this but I, but I think it's just. It's a discussion that I don't have an answer for you right now, but I think it's a, it's a it's a very important discussion that needs, you know, further thought in terms of how we can engage the public and I don't know, you know, through the internet or social media or, you know, interaction with touring the, you know, the fire facilities and and really showing firsthand but I think a combination of all those things to try to make the public more acutely aware of of these issues is important but it's a great question Lynn and I think that's something that I would love to be a part of that conversation and but I don't have a perfect answer for you as of now. Thank you. I just want to follow up questions from my committee members seeing none. Joe, an opportunity for you to ask the committee including members of the committee who serve on finance any questions you have about finance committee. Yes. Yeah, so I really don't have any too many specific questions but it just in terms of sort of the operation of the committee does it. I know we used to put together for town meeting put together you know the budget and talk about all these issues. So the finance committee is just it just meets now with the council and it reports to the council. And is that how that works as of now. And do you want to answer actually we occasionally will meet with the council but most of the what all of our committees do is to provide written reports before council meetings on issues that are related to the council will come forward for council consideration. So we've actually been having discussions right now about what it is that we want to do as far as the finance committee. To the council after we have a series of meetings with department heads about their sections of the budget yesterday we met with the superintendent of schools and library director and how we went to have the whole committee involved in the development of the budget report that we will make and recommendations and but we I think recognizes that the big difference between the former former government and the current form of government is that the council received the entire budget. And the which didn't happen with town meeting. So the finance committee had the responsibility to kind of call the big budget down to a smaller readable piece. And that was what we're we've now have a council that has the entire budget. Spent some time looking at it. So we're trying to figure out what it is that we want to do after our meetings with staff and to be most helpful to the council. So it's a work in progress. Yeah, that helps. Yeah, no, that's great. And yeah, really, I think my in the counts the finance committee meets. Is it Tuesday, Thursday. Just for this very brief period of time we usually meet on Tuesday. Afternoon to 230. The twice a week meeting period is only during this the one month lapse the big another difference between former former government and the current is the time manager would give the budget to the finance committee. It was at the end of January and it didn't need to get to town meeting until April now under the current form of government. And this is true of all cities. This is not unique to us. There's a much narrower scope of time so under normal circumstances. The manager would have given us the budget on May 1. And we would have had 30 days to give the analysis back and make recommendations to the council so that the council could act and complete the budget before the end of the fiscal year. Because yesterday, yeah, we created a unique process this year which we're permitted to do, but we don't anticipate that that will necessarily happen again. It's more likely that in future years, we will be back to the old schedule so that twice a week meeting process will probably fall back to the month of May and not be happening in June and July as it is this year. Okay. Great. Well, that's very helpful. That's all the really questions I have. Good job. Thank you. The plan is for us to deliberate later in this meeting and hopefully we'll come to a decision. So I should be getting back to you later today or certainly within the next 24 hours. Let you know what the committee has decided. Okay, that sounds great. And on behalf of the committee, thank you very much for putting yourself forward and for making yourself available for this interview. We really appreciate it. Yeah, no, thank you all for your time. Have a great day. Good to see you. Yeah, great. All right. Jane Schaeffler is in the attendees column. So, well, she was maybe, oh yeah, she still is. So, Karen, that's no great. Are we ready? We don't, everyone ready to move on or do you want to catch your breath? I think we're okay. All right. Thank you. If you bring her in. Hello, Jane. Hi. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for making yourself available. I want to introduce the committee to you and just very briefly explain the format. Okay. You may have met some of these folks, maybe not. Lynn Grissimer is the town council president. The committee. Mandy Jo Hanneke is the council vice president. And Andy Steinberg is chair of finance. And Pat DeAngelis is vice chair of this committee. And I want to welcome you. And we can see you and we can hear you and that's important. Thank you so much. I think one of the things that works is that I'm going to have each of my colleagues ask you a question. They also have a follow-up question if they wish. At the end of that, I'm going to turn it to you. And if you have any questions for the committee, particularly about finance and that job, it's your opportunity to ask us some questions. I hope it will take about 15 minutes or so. Or a little bit behind schedule, but not badly. If I can find my list here, actually it's Mandy that I would like to begin the questions. Thank you. I'm going to switch it around a little bit since I'm the first one to ask. And I'd like you to, you know, describe more your experience with budgets. I know your statement of interest indicated you love budgets and stuff. And even though I'm not on finance, I agree with you. I find them fascinating. But if you could talk a little bit more about your experience with them, your, your degrees, you have a degree set in public administration and all, and what maybe use that for what that experience, how that's translated into something that, that might, and give us an idea of what you would contribute to the finance committee. If you were on it. Sure. So I have, I actually have two master's degrees. I have one in nonprofit management and one in public administration. And I have an extensive background in nonprofit leadership, working both in a healthcare organization and then in an arts organization. And so I've gotten used to on the nonprofit side of things. Trying to maximize the minimum amount of resources and get really creative with how do you make the most impact. Well, while reserving your resources for a rainy day. And a lot of that has come from a lot of the experience I have with budgets are budget creation and then budget management. And that includes managing large grants and, and with that also public funding. So there's different levels of responsibility that you have to both granting organizations and also the government. So understanding kind of the nuances of that and fiscal transparency. I also just think budgets are such a fascinating way to see the story of what's valued in a community and in an organization like where are you pouring your resources and how are you, how are you making those work for you. And so that's, that's one of the things I just love about budgets is they, they really tell you something that you aren't going to learn otherwise. As far as my degree in public administration, what probably the most helpful thing that that's done for me of late is I'm on the Amherst Historical Commission. And so it's been really fun for me to use that background to participate in local government. One of the things we're working on right now in the Historical Commission is revamping the demolition delay bylaws so that they're clear and understandable to everyone who needs to access them. And so that's been a really fun way to sort of marry my experience with both public administration and nonprofit management. And a way to sort of quench my urge for civic engagement. Good. Andy. The question that I've just been asking everybody is, I'll just phrase it a little bit different here, but the finance committee is unique in the charter because it's the one committee that the charters gives the council the ability to add resident members to that council committee. What do you think are reasons why it's good to have that opportunity for this particular committee? And how do you envision taking advantage of that if you're the one who chooses the person to fulfill that role? Sure. So I think there's a couple of different ways you can look at it. One I think is if you look at it from a community buy-in perspective, I think when you have a member of the community who participates actively in the finance committee, then if there are other people in the community who don't participate in the finance committee, that's something that happens in the budget or the way something is funded, you have a voice in the community to say, well, look, but if we talk about all these other things and everything that's important to us, really we had the best interest of everybody at heart when we made this decision. And I think that that can go a long way with people, especially one of the things they really love about Amherst is that people are very engaged in what happens in their community here and they really want an active voice. And I think that knowing that there's a resident member of a committee sort of helps other people feel like they have a voice. It's basically like a liaison in some regards. And I think it's also helpful because if there are concerns that other residents have, they feel like they have someone that they can go to to express that. And it's a bridgeway. I think it just opens a different line of communication and maybe makes things feel slightly more accessible for people. And I think it's just a good way to continue to keep the community engaged. Good. Pat. Yeah. I'm going to try to use your question a bit, Mandy Joe, your original one. We are in a unique situation in terms of COVID and its impact on all municipal finances, state finances. And I, so we have a great deal of budget uncertainties. What, how do you think you will approach or would you consider approaching to look at capital projects to looking at the day to day use of spending in town? Yeah, so this is, this is where some of my nonprofit experience comes in. I worked at Planned Parenthood for almost 10 years. And so basically our budget was under threat constantly. And then I went to work for a community music school, managing a music therapy program, which no one understood what it was or why it had value. And so a lot of what it is, is you, you have to prioritize. And there's, especially if you're dealing with capital projects, like you can't not rebuild, say a bridge, because someone really wants this playground to be rebuilt or something like you have to know where the priorities are as far as safety. And then what the best allocation of resources is, I think what with the fact that we have things like the historical commission and that, and other committees that we have throughout the town, we have the ability to take care of volunteer workforce to help with some various day to day things that if we get really creative, we've got an engaged enough community that there are ways that we can save some fiscal resources through taking advantage of that engaged citizenship to try and get people to help us with things. And that way you can, you can use, you don't want to cut corners. It's about, it's about trying to be thoughtful with the allocation of resources and ensuring that you put the public safety and the needs of the community above what might look pretty on a brochure, if that makes sense. Yes, it does. Hi, Jane. So I know this comes a little bit later in it, but you've mentioned that you work for Planned Parenthood and also the community music school. By the way, I do understand the relationship of music therapy. My son has been engaged with the Berkshire Hills Music Academy for many years now. And so, which is an absolute and complete core. So, and what, so what brought you to Amherst? My husband is a professor at the Eisenberg School of Management. He's a professor at the Eisenberg School of Management. He's a professor at the Eisenberg School of Management. He's a professor after he finished his PhD in Minnesota for him to take the job here. Great. And you are obviously studying our town and shown some of that in your answers. Are there other specific things about your background? You think we should know that would be particularly important for this committee? That, that weirdly, it feels like a tough question. I don't know if it's easy, but it's kind of hard to answer. I don't, I think. So the, probably the easiest way to explain it is my advisor and graduate school when I was finishing up my masters in nonprofit management was the former mayor of St. Paul. And he was also key in getting the VISTA program started. The AmeriCorps VISTA program. And so he really hammered it into our, and I think that. Engaged in active citizenship is. The best way to participate in democracy in some ways. And so I think. I hadn't. I hadn't really thought about. How. Fulfilling getting involved at the local level could be until. I had the opportunity to learn from him. He'd been on the city council for a long time in St. Paul, and then he became the mayor. And he still stays really involved with. Local and national politics. And so it's, it was. Seeing his passion for it really invigorated and me. An understanding. Of how fulfilling it can be to really participate in your community. And when we moved to Amherst two years ago. And I started to get to know the area. And I got really excited about the reality that this is a community that you really can participate in. And so I guess, you know, I would love to be on your committee, but if it doesn't work, whatever is best for Amherst is what's best for me. And I also think that. In some regards. I tend to be a lot younger than the other people that I see that are engaged at this level. And I think that there's some benefit to that. Just because I have a lot of energy and a lot of passion for it. And really, I'm just excited about living in Amherst and being a part of the community and being able to participate in any way that I can. Thank you. Follow up questions from any of my colleagues. The second question. For Jane. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing none, Jane, this is your chance to. Stump the committee. We've got a couple of finance committee members here. They think they're pretty bright. But, you know, we're going to put them to the test. But anyway, questions you have. For the committee about this, this job, this task, anything. Is your chance to ask if you wish. Okay. Yeah, I'm trying to think the information that you sent over with was a little bit different. But I think that the statement of interest was pretty thorough and giving me an understanding of some of the work that you guys do. It's, it sounds like you guys meet monthly, except for you meet by monthly when you're, or twice a month when you're doing the actual budget. Is that correct? Andy, if you want to address it, he is the most. Actually, it's a little bit more aggressive scheduling than that. We've generally been. Meeting every other week. Though sometimes we will skip meetings. And just be monthly. But that's sort of the minimum during the active period, which is one month out of the year. When the budget is actively under consideration, then we're meeting actually twice a week because we're on a very aggressive schedule. What happens is that the town manager submits a budget. For the council to consider. And under a normal. Year. That is on May 1st. And then. It's referred to the finance committee. The finance committee has 30 days to review the budget. And make its recommendation back to the council. And then the council has. Period. It's really only a matter of weeks after that to make a final decision on the budget. The council has the. Ability to. Not fund sections of the budget. That are recommended. It cannot add to the budget. The other. So that, that. Process is. When it's particularly difficult and we actually are meeting twice a week. This year. Because of the abnormal situation to the COVID situation. We postponed the budget process and we're. In that twice a week mode right now. The other thing that we then do during that course of the year. Is to try and use the opportunity. To provide guidance. To the manager as far and through the council. On. Giving some guidelines. As to what we're looking for. In priorities. And that's what. The kind of work that is happening. During the remainder of the year. And then I guess. Just thinking of putting my budgeting hat on. Do you guys get monthly. Reports on how the spending is going for the town? Like, do you get regular. Updates that you're able to evaluate to see if. The budgets. Starting to go wonky in one area or another or. You get quarterly reports from. Finance staff. How they're doing. Both on the revenue side and the expense side. Against budget as it has been adopted. This is kind of an in the weeds question, but now I'm excited to ask it. So when you get those quarterly reports, do you feel like. You feel like you need to make those adjustments. By the time you get them or is it sort of pretty well set in stone? And you just have to wait and see what happens. Good question. We don't really have too much opportunity to make adjustments. But we. I think we don't usually feel a need to. Because normally if there are variations. From a budget against. What was projected. They're explained well, and we have a. Really good management staff that is thinking it through. And that's very helpful for us to be. Engaged in that level and. Those reports are also submitted to the council as a whole. So we usually. Offer. Some comments. For the council to consider. I think the limit has supplemental. Yeah. I think what. I think the idea says absolutely correct. However, I think this is a year in which. We may have to. Exercise. A much more diligent oversight where we are budgeting into a vast unknown. For our schools, as well as the library and general government. And the upshot is that. We're not going to go through those reserves very fast. So that is going to mean. A constant dialogue. With the town manager and our fiscal. Outstanding fiscal staff as well. To kind of. You know, To kind of. You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, And. We don't put the fiscal staff as well. To kind of keep a check on what that budget really looks like this year. It's a. It's unusual. It's just. Leave it at that. Sure.Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. That was kind of what I was thinking. Is putting my nonprofit hat on thinking about when you're. you've got $50,000 less for your $300,000 budget than you thought you were gonna have to have and having to make some pretty quick decisions in order to try and save programming or save other things that are important to you. So that's kind of what I was wondering, especially with this lovely catastrophe that is COVID we're all dealing with. Okay, thank you. Those are excellent questions. What our plan is now is that we will, at the end of these interviews, we plan to deliberate as a body today and hopefully make a decision today. And if that does happen, I will be in touch with you either later today or within 24 hours with the decision of the committee. On behalf of the committee, I wanna express our again, our gratitude for you making yourself available to us today. And secondly, obviously for stepping forward, that we really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Take care, Jane. Thank you so much. One final candidate that I believe is known to everyone. I'm gonna take it just a minute or two break. Yeah, I need one too. All right, please go ahead. So we're gonna pause for two minutes. And when we come back, we will turn to our final interview. And Mary Lou, thank you for being patient. We're a little behind schedule, not too much. Mary Lou doesn't have her mic on yet. I'm wondering if she's having a connection issue. I'm gonna check in with her. Okay, thank you. Mary Lou does not have video capacity. So she will be able to, assuming everything works, she will be able to talk to us and hear us. She'll use her phone, but I think she's able to see us on her computer, but we will not be able to see her. This is how she joins the finance committee. Right, the finance members know this well, right. So those who don't, that's what we're going to have with Mary Lou. I'm actually going to make an announcement to the public that's in attendance. According to my screen, we have eight attendees. Since this is a regular meeting of GOL, we do have a provision for public comment. Public comment, however, will not come till at the end or near the end of this meeting, which will be in about an hour, give or take. Also, I see four hands raised. And I would like to point out to those people that when we do come to public comment, I will ask you to raise your hand. Having your hand raised at this point actually is a sign to me that you are not following our simple guidelines. Public comment comes at the end of the meeting in this committee. And at that point, I will ask people who are present in the public to raise their hands. So if you wish to speak as a member of the public, you should lower your hand at this point. And if your hand stays raised, there will be consequences. George, I'm working on connecting Mary Lou right now. Hang on. Thank you very much. All right. She should be calling in just a moment. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can, Mary Lou, loud and clear. Oh, good. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for taking the time to make yourself available. And I believe you know all the members of the committee, but, and I think actually you can see us. Is that correct? Do you have? Yes, I can. Okay, so you can see all our smiling faces. Right, and all the rooms you're sitting in. Well, yeah, I think everyone is actually in a room. Well, Mandy, what about, I never know with Mandy. She's- She's in town hall. She's in town hall. Well- I think, are you? I am not. That is just a fake background. I'm in my home. That's right. You've been also standing in front of town hall. Exactly on the beach. She was on occasion. I'm in my home. I'm in. Mary Lou, the way we're going to do this is I'm going to have each of the committee members ask you a question. They're entitled to a follow-up question if they wish. And once that is done, I'm going to turn to you. And if you have any questions for the committee, you have a moment or two, you're free to ask those. So that's a pretty simple format. And we're going to begin this round of the questions with Andy, actually. Andy Steinberg will have the first question. Hi, Mary Lou. So I'm going to ask a question a little differently than I've asked other candidates because of your experience. And we're going to actually hear what your thoughts are on something. And that is the council has a unique opportunity because of the charter. The charter singled out the finance committee is the one council committee that the council the opportunity to include resident members is on the committee. And obviously they best had a vision for doing that. The question for you is having been in that role for a year. Do you think that we've been successful in meeting the vision and using the resident members effectively and what could we do differently? Well, I'm only speaking for myself on this. I think we've been welcomed and you've listened carefully to what we've had to say and you've taken that into consideration as you've made your decisions. You know, I'm very comfortable with that. We kind of joke, can we vote to adjourn? Which we can't even do. But no, I think at least this present committee is very open to what we have to say and recognizes our input. So because of the charter, I don't know how you could change that. We are non-voting, but every committee will be different. This committee is wonderful about listening to everything we have to say and recognizing us. So I'm happy with that. But you can't write that into a charter in terms of how people receive non-resident voters. A resident non-voters. But it's hard to keep from writing. Andy, a follow-up or a second question? No, I'll take it. Pat? Mary Lou, I've been looking over your experience in town government and on the school committee and on the finance committee. And I'm interested in some time or what happens when you or the group you're working with has made a mistake? How do you utilize and sort of regroup in a situation like that? How do you make mistakes or failures valuable? Well, one would think you'd evaluate what you did, how you did it and how you could do it differently on areas where we've taken votes. We have moved to reconsider and then bring the new information into the discussion. But I think being on any of these committees, it's an ongoing process. You see how you can do things better and you improve. You're going to make mistakes first time around many things, there are things you could do better. Hopefully you don't make dramatic mistakes. But as you say, you learn from that. But again, my experience has been if you make a major mistake on a vote, you can go back and reconsider and bring in new information. I'm not sure if that answers your question. That's fine, thank you. Okay. Well, Vin? I'm actually unmuted. You are unmuted. So in full disclosure, Mary Lou and I first met when she in fact was Dean at Holyoke Community College and we worked together to help Russian immigrants who were educated as nurses who passed the nursing exam in English. Am I correct? You know what, Lynn? I'm sorry, I don't remember that, but there were Russian students, yes. Yeah. So anyway, Mary Lou, you've brought enormous amounts of experience to the Finance Committee and now you've had the experience to be on the Finance Committee, both with town meeting and with the town council. And I think it would be useful for me at least to hear you reflect on the difference of what you see as the role of those two committees or at our moment in history. Well, there were more people obviously looking at the budget and as was pointed out before, those members did not see a hard copy of either of the library, the schools or the town so that those Finance Committee reports had to be fairly extensive. This finance, this council, I think should see all the budgets in their entirety. And I gather from a meeting that they have seen the regional budget and they've seen the town budget and the library budget. And to me what was lacking is they didn't see the complete version of the school budget in order to make decisions. I think that the report now of the Finance Committee, the Council Finance Committee, that report to them and their recommendations on these three budgets doesn't need to be as long as the Finance Committee report. It doesn't have to contain as much information but it does need some obviously. I'm not sure, you have 13 members on the council if they all do their work that will be fine. I think the thing that to me is an issue is how closely all these meetings are to get the information from the various departments but that's in the charter and you can't change that. So there has to be a way that this Finance Committee can get out a recommendation to the whole council in that short a period of time. And as I was thinking about it yesterday, one of the things I think will be to think about a template that you can use every year and just insert the updated numbers and any additional information so that every year you don't have to be reinventing this report or the template for it. I think that would help just because it's for the counselors themselves, it's a lot of work in that short period of time in addition to all the other work. I've watched your meetings. You are overwhelmed with work. So there needs to be a way to help the Finance Committee make the job somewhat easier but yet get the information out to the counselors in time for their vote, which is due obviously this year a little later. Does that answer your question? I would just wanna say as usual you've offered an additional insight in terms of what our job is. And I appreciate that very much. Okay. Thank you. Mandy Jo. Thank you. And Mary Lou, thank you for all of your service for the town for however many years it's been. It's been a while and I know that takes a lot of dedication. And I wanna go to some of that service because I know you've been involved for a while. This budget year and the next couple are going to be like budget years we've never seen before because this is not an ordinary economic downturn where we can in some sense rely on past practices because we don't know what's gonna happen. And as we've seen this year with one month budgets that I'm not sure when the last time we even had to do one was if ever as a town. So we still don't know state guidelines, what that's gonna be. So I wanna, I'm interested in hearing what your approach to guidelines for the council, guidelines for the manager, the balancing of operating and capital needs and the funding of that. And the use of reserves is given how much uncertainty we have around everything. If you could talk about how you'd approach that in the committee, that would be fantastic. That's a good question. I think the town has always been conservative in its estimates. We do get the financial information from the manager early on what they see. Obviously we did not see COVID coming. But those figures are always conservative. So we've been fortunate. We did have that downturn in 208 as you, or yes, as you've heard. And I think at that point we wanted to build up reserves so that when something like this happened you could fall back on them. But it takes everybody, all the departments in town and in the schools and in the library to be willing to reduce their budgets and find efficiencies where you can reduce. Going forward, I think the plan is a good one. We'll see in the fall what happens if we can use some capital or if we'll need some reserves. But those things are always unpredictable. I think the best thing to do is be conservative with your projections and have reserves that you can use and not overspend them. One of the things the old finance committee came up with and Andy knows is that if you're going to introduce a new program it has, you have to show how in the long run that's going to save money. And one of the areas we gave additional money to was the schools when they closed Mark's Meadow because we knew in the long run that would be a savings. Although that particular year the budget exceeded the guidelines. So those are things I think you have to have people especially your staff in town hall and they are wonderful. They're very good at projecting. And so I count on them for solid information but then the committee has to be willing to make some hard choices and to make some tough recommendations. Is that helpful? Yes, thank you. Yeah. Follow up questions or a second question from any members of the committee. Seeing none, Mary Lou, this is your opportunity if you wish to ask questions of the committee and particularly of the finance committee and it's what you know obviously very well but still if you have any questions it's your opportunity to ask. I'd like to go back to what Pat had asked me. Would you repeat that? Cause I had a fleeting thought as part of my answer but it was after I went on to someone else. You remember your question, Pat? Oh, she's muted out. Pat uses sign language, a great deal. I apologize for not unmuting myself. I got distracted by my phone and a message that I can deal with later. If you would repeat your question I hadn't thought later and then I've forgotten it. Well, basically I'm interested in how you use mistakes to move forward whether it's a personal mistake around budgeting or a talent mistake around budgeting, maintenance, things like that. No, it wasn't on that line. I'm sorry, something I thought of later and now it's gone. I've been working on some other things. Any other questions you may have? No, I think I pretty much know the function of the committee and how it's structured. I guess I would put this out there because I think that there are the finance committee and the planning board, although I'm told the planning board it's a three-year term, is that correct? Planning board, yeah. Okay, but I think the finance committee is equally as challenging to learn about, to learn how it all functions and where we get our information in terms of revenues and how you come up with some of your projections and so forth. And I think a two-year term for the council members I realize it's only because you have two-year terms but I don't think, or it says, are you a limited to one-year term in reappointment? See, I just don't think you build up the knowledge that you need with the financials of the town. You're just learning all of these pieces and then you can choose to go off. And that's fine if you choose to go off, but let's say you get someone on there who decides you're gonna go off and you don't want to and you've done a good job. I think two-year terms make a lot of sense and to some degree even a three-year term because many of you will run for re-election hopefully. So I don't know, you can change the charter. I guess that's the issue, is that true? Well, the charter can be changed, yes, but it's a very cumbersome and lengthy process. And many can speak to that, it's a great length. So there can't be just an understanding that you will be appointed for two years regardless of what the charter says. But anyway, that's a real concern I have because the finances of the town are extremely important as you know, and we can do a good job or we can do a poor job. So people need to be on there from the council who have experience. Very good. So that's my little lecture. Okay, thank you. Mary Lou, on behalf of the committee, I wanna thank you very much for making yourself available to us today. We, our plan is to deliberate after maybe a few minutes break, we'll decide that in a second, but our plan is to deliberate together this afternoon. And then hopefully I can get back to all the candidates later today or tomorrow at the latest with the committee's decision. Okay, thank you. Thank you, all right. Okay, bye now. Bye bye. Well, committee members, we have accomplished two goals. One, we have completed our interviews, not completely on time, but fairly close. And secondly, we have only one attendee at the moment. And the name is quite familiar. So I think we need to make a decision. Can we move public comment up to before deliberation right now? We said it could. Oh, you got a window? I have a window and all the names that I was worried about have all disappeared. All the people had their hands up for the last hour have all disappeared. So I'm disturbed by this, but I guess CRC has had this experience and other committees had this experience. And I guess we just have to make do. So why don't I take a moment? And if there is anyone present in the public who wishes to make a comment, we do have one attendee. If that person wishes to make a comment, this is their opportunity to raise their hand and they will be recognized and their comment will be taken by the committee. So I'm going to take a look for a moment. I see no hands raised. I do have one member of the public present, but so that takes care of public comment for today's meeting. I assume, yes, I assume we're gonna go straight to deliberation. Does anyone need a break? Okay. I feel like I wanna clear my head, but is it gonna be rank choice voting or is it gonna be majority rules? I have no idea. I'm wondering if we can increase the number of members to this body by four. I thought it was a very impressive group. Many different skills, many different backgrounds. Some youth, which was lovely to see. A lot of experience, which is lovely to see. And certainly people who are new to our community, to individuals who bring a fresh perspective and are eager to serve. I'm impressed by the fact that all four are very eager to serve our community, which is what makes I think our job so difficult because that kind of enthusiasm and desire to serve is precious. And we can only choose one. So I'm not looking forward to that, but that's what we have to do. So we do have some selection guidance that we probably should have. I have it up on my screen, but I'm totally incapable of putting it up on your screens. So I can certainly read it at the appropriate moments or hopefully some of you have it available to you, but we probably should have it available to us and it should have been in your packet. Sorry, from our process. I'm just going to read it for a moment if people want to either take notes or just take a moment and dig it up themselves. Selection of resident members shall be based on relevant experience skills and policy knowledge with an emphasis on municipal and public finance. Qualifications might include experience serving on public finance or audit committee, training or expertise in economics, finance, policy or comparable areas, or experience or interest in municipal finance or consistently available for meetings, particularly during budgeting season, which is normally May and June. Two paragraphs that follow upon that. Ideally, resident members should represent a mix of experience, skills and perspectives, including knowledge of the world beyond Amherst. In addition, the chair of GOL or Designee shall solicit from the chair of finance input as to whether there's any preferred knowledge indoor experience that the committee requires. Term limits, we've talked about this and so we have the language in front of us. Where do you wish to begin? All these candidates certainly meet many, if not all of these criteria. No. Anything that stood out to you in particular, anything that you feel would make any one individual a better fit at this time? I mean, obviously one thing that's of consideration is that this is a very unusual time when we're dealing with an extraordinary crisis. So that might be an argument for going with someone with more experience that in a normal time, I would certainly be excited about new faces, new energy. That would really be something I would be looking to but this is a very unusual time. And is this the time for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience either with municipal government, financial background, town, matters, et cetera. Is this a good time to bring them into the mix? That's one thought I have, just the situation we're in at the moment. Lynn, please. So, let me make sure I'm on the image, yeah. I mean, in Georgia many ways you've partially said it. Right now, we have before us two people who have experience that is during a time similar to what we're going through. And at the same time, we have one candidate who brings a totally fresh look at how we think about things and also brings youth. And there is, it was an absolutely excellent group. I wish for all committees we had this kind of choice. But I really wanna make sure that we consider what you're saying about that, reflect on the fact that at least one member on the finance committee has been through the Bush, through the war. And at the same time, there is nothing like experience, also nothing like a new look. Could we clone two of them? Yeah, right. And into one being. All right. Manager Joe has her hand up. Manager Joe, please. Yeah, I guess every time I go through this and I get the backgrounds of the individuals that put themselves out there for whatever committee it is, I'm always so impressed by what our town has to offer. And yeah, it makes a decision and a choice extremely difficult. And it makes it hard to pick one over another or lean towards one because I think any one of these candidates would bring something necessary to this committee. I'm looking at what our selection guidance is and mix of experiences, skills, perspective, looking at what we've got already on our committee. I do, you know, my question to the candidates in general sort of gave away where I was looking, which is, you know, I think we need people who have dealt with some sort of budget cuts, budget uncertainties in the past and bring an experience like that to this committee because we are in something we've never faced before, although there are similarities to the 0809 meltdown. I think there's some similarities, but there's a huge amount of differences too that we just don't know what things are gonna look like. You know, and so I don't know what to do with that because I think at least two, if not three of the candidates have that type of experience and talked about that type of experience, in various ways, not always public administration. You know, so, I don't even know who I'm leaning towards right now. Andy, you have your hand up. Yeah, I sort of the same reaction that I think the rest of you have because we have two candidates who have a large amount of experience in municipal finance and sort of the things that are unique about municipal finance and two people who get a closer association with schools and our consumers of services in a different way. And it's a question that I think I'm gonna be interested in what Pat's observations are is a newer member to the finance committee about what it is that she would like to have in somebody in the resident positions and from that perspective. The comment that came from Jane as her background in nonprofit management, you know, I reflected back as she said that on my experience coming from the director of the nonprofit into the finance committee which was my first real role of the meeting and the one thing that I spent a lot of time having to learn was that there are differences between nonprofit management and government management, a lot having to do with law but also how the politics of taxation and the fact that you're asking people to pay taxation in order to receive services and you have the power to do that. Those are differences that it took me, I realized through there but then to learn it it was not a short learning piece which was what Mary Lou is getting at with her final comment. There's no good answer to Mary Lou's question because I think Oka had a good discussion about that issue when it came up before Oka and so they made the decision they made and I'm not going to go back and revisit that decision. George, why don't you say something? Well, I actually have said a number of things already. I mentioned, I think that we're in a time of crisis and so the question as Mandy's echoed is do you want somebody who's kind of been through the ringer? Now it seemed to be a reasonable thought that at this time, assuming a level, I mean, of these expertise or knowledge I think we do, given the fact that council members come from very different backgrounds and many do not have a strong finance background quite honestly, I think there is the sense that a very important criteria would be someone who has a good financial sense, someone who can read budgets and analyze budgets and is comfortable with that sort of thing would seem to me to be a very strong criteria or factor. Secondly, experience, especially dealing with crises. I don't know if that's as important but I guess the biggest thing is just whoever gets this position shouldn't need to need three months or six months to get used to reading these documents and used to dealing with budget type issues. In some sense, all these candidates fit that bill, I think, in terms of financial knowledge, expertise outside of Amherst, I don't know how important that is right now, but that's a factor. One thing that came to my mind listening was that one of the candidates clearly picked up on the idea of a member of this committee being someone that people could come to in the larger community, that there would be a kind of voice or a way of communicating to people who have questions about the budget or priorities and so on. I don't know how important that is that one of these three resident members be someone who's well tied into the community or is tied into a community that we would like to be more apprised of what the financial issues are. That's a factor. Is that as important as financial expertise? Is that as important as someone who's been through the ringer, who's had to deal with crises, which is where we're at right now? Another issue I guess up throughout there is term limits. So we obviously have a candidate who has served for a term and our guidelines state that there's a preference for a second term. How do we deal with that? Is that considered the most important factor? One of the things is a new member on finance. I feel I bring certain information, certain skills around looking at budgets and stuff and but what I'm interested in is somebody who really listens and is flexible. I think that the potential exists for that in each of the candidates, but I guess I'm leaning very specifically to two people, one of them more than the other. And I don't know how this works. Can I say names or, you know? Yeah, I think we're going to have to... I'm leaning towards Bernie because... I'm leaning towards Bernie Kubiak because of the experience he brings in a wide range of municipal situations, not profit situations. And I have a great deal of loyalty to Mary Lou for many reasons, but I'm also feeling like her experience while broad is also more focused on schools. And I'd like to see that opened up a little bit. I'm also interested in Jane because she brings youth and she brings... But I feel similarly to you that right now experience might be better. I think with Bernie, his experience wouldn't blind him. I know that my own experiences can blind me to seeing other opportunities, issues or being creative about certain things. And I think that, I think he has the ability to really rethink his positions and open them up. I think that's an important aspect of his experience. I don't know. So I'm leaning towards... Okay. Would someone else like to give us a sense of at the moment or do they want to continue discussion in terms of broader criteria and so on where they are leaning at the moment? Should we jump in or wait, George? I think people should all be unmuted at this point. And we should just scream whenever... But yes, I think you can just... I mean, I'm just jump in. Okay. I've got two people I'm leaning towards. And one of them is Bernie Kubiak, mostly for the same reasons Pat said, the huge broad throughout all, former town administrators and the experience of managing a budget from that perspective, I think gives our finance committee something we don't have yet. And that in this time of uncertainty, would be helpful and useful to sort of balance Paul's presentation of that. As Pat said, Mary Lou's experience is extensive but it's much more focused. So that's why I lean towards Bernie over that. But I also lean towards Jane. She and both Joe bring sort of a new perspective that Bernie and Mary Lou don't bring as much because they've been sort of in the trenches a lot longer. And that appeals to me. I thought what she spoke about with her nonprofit budgeting experience is something that could be valuable in terms of questions being brought up during a finance committee meeting. And just the perspective that she brings and how she would approach those issues could be very valuable. And then I go back to actually some the questions Andy was asking, why did the Charter Commission put these positions in? And it was so fascinating to hear what people thought. And so it made me think, why do we bring these? Why did we do this? And one of the reasons we did it was to be able to one reason was to be able to make up for potential deficiencies in a council because you could end up with a full 13 slate members who've never done municipal finance at all. And these three positions would then become potentially extremely important to bring in those Bernie's and Mary Lou's and those who have been on it or maybe even former counselors that counseled off the council, you know, cycled off the council but still have that experience. But the other reason we did it was as a low, almost a low impact way and impacts the wrong word but a low cost sort of barrier or low barrier entry into the world of the council for those who might think of running for council in the future is sort of a training ground for counselors. And yes, all of our other committees are also training grounds potentially for counselors but this one in particular gives people who are as the residents a really inside look because they're working with the counselors and doing council business almost even if they don't have a vote. And I see Joe and Jane as potentially serving that not that I put my hat on, oh, and they might run but as more likely to fill that potential role that the commission foresaw. And I just feel like between Joe and Jane, Jane is better suited at this point for the other things the committee will be facing. So that's why I'm having a hard decision between those two. That's why I would favor those two. Yeah, this is definitely not easy. I think this is really challenging. Either Lynn or Andy wish to weigh in at this moment with a kind of ranking or who they're leaning toward or what they think would be the most important criteria or characteristic or trait that you'd like to see were really stuck. I mean, also what degree should we think about who's currently serving as the resident members and how this third member would be a compliment to them? Would they be simply reduplicating what we already have? So I think it's probably appropriate to think about current membership and this is where I would defer to my finance committee colleagues but how relevant is that? So the present membership of the people who are not up for term. One is a previous finance committee member but not for many years, more recently, I believe not like 15 years back. And the other is a gentleman who is new to us though he's lived in Amherst a long time. He worked in the private sector. He has a fair amount of financial experience. And I think the thing that I have felt is that he comes with a different perspective. And I've always felt differences of perspective on committees is absolutely critical. It's people who ask questions in different ways who challenge you to look at your values, who challenge you to look at your rationale. And so in that regard, I just think he has made that contribution to having said all of that you know, just yesterday as we were meeting the experience that Andy and Mary Lou brought from the finance committee is helping us think about how we get the report done this year. And also I think Mary Lou even today would help me reinforce the fact that what I think helped the council last year through the budget was the fact that we had the introductions of all departments. And so we all had backgrounds about schools, libraries and the departments within town. So when it came to their budgets, we weren't in the dark because we haven't had a refresher course on any of that. And we never even had a full school budget presentation. It really places more responsibility on the town's finance committee, town council's finance committee to make sure that we've done our job and we looked at that thoroughly. I only use that as an example of her answer to that one question provides insight that I frankly hadn't thought about in that way. So I am totally stuck. The part of me that says, you know Mary Lou has spent one solid year with us. You heard the second term. There's another part of me that says I love bringing in fresh eyes and difference of experience even though yes, non-profit is not the same as municipal it still has, it brings something. And so I'm just kind of flummoxed at this point. And you know, at the same time, I mean, Bernie has been a town administrator. No, he's dealt with 112 budgets. I mean, you don't get that very often. And he served us already in the capacity of the transition to the new council. And I know Joe and you know, I don't frankly know him as a finance committee member. I know him as a finance committee liaison. So. Well, I was impressed by Joe only in the sense that for fresh perspective new to Amherst has kids in the schools but still has strong ties to Amherst in terms of family but also brings a broader financial experience and background, which is a different perspective. Though it sounds like we have a resident member right now that at least fits that bill in terms of that broader financial experience. I think that's very valuable. Somebody who has financial knowledge outside of just the immediate domain of say a town or right municipality but do we need two people like that? And that's again, a question to the finance committee members. So maybe in fact, I mean, Joe was at the top of my list and Bernie the second, but maybe Joe's would be they're all great, but maybe Joe, you know in a sense that one of the resident members takes care of that right now that kind of broader financial knowledge that I think is important is already covered. Well, look at Joe and I attach him in some ways to Sharon Povinelli who's one of the other current members because they were members of the old finance committee but relatively shorter term than some of the rest certainly didn't have Bernie's level of experience on the committee, but Joe does bring that back kids in schools, the consumer of services and therefore in a different level and some background on the finance committee but it's certainly not the depth of experience we've talked about with Bernie, for example and if you're looking for somebody who can identify the tough questions to ask Paul who's gonna bring the ability to sort of zero in on that probably Bernie who's above and beyond the rest of us because he's been a tenant administrator. I can come up with reasons to say that each one of them bring something unique to the table and that's what's so difficult about this. It's hard to match or maybe lose sense of experience with finance committee and town government. Sometimes I feel like I'm the other person who's kind of in that position I hate being the only person who's in that position but I am there. Right, right. I think another factor in back of my mind I guess I should state it hopefully it won't offend anyone but it seems like it's just a practical question. How do we look to future candidates if someone who served for a year doesn't get renewed what's our rationale? What's our defense? There is a preference for renewal and this is only one year term. What? No, no, it would be a two year term. No, the term that's going to be offered is a two year term but the candidate that's being replaced has only served for one year. And so one could make the argument that it's immaterial it's just not really immaterial. I don't think it is. I wish it were but I don't think it is. How does that look first to the candidate but also to the larger public that our stated guidelines say one thing but we are free to do what we wanna do and again we are in an unusual situation I think if this were just an ordinary another year and the ordinary life of our town it would probably be a no-brainer but to what degree does the crisis situation Trump what I think would normally be a serious consideration for someone who has served for one year and to all that I have heard serve quite competently speaks up. I guess the other thing that in the back of my mind do all three resident members speak up and I've never attended it. Well, I've attended I guess one or two as a council member but I don't have a broad experience with your meetings. I don't get the sense that any of the four candidates here would have any problems speaking up. They don't seem like people who would just sit there and just they would definitely be a presence. Mary Lou certainly is a presence. She's not right. I get the sense from all the other candidates who we've heard from today certainly Bernie given his lifetime of work. Joe seems like and certainly Jane don't strike me as people who would just sit quietly and that to me is important. They need to stay there. They need to have the confidence in themselves and to state their views. So I just put it out there to what degree do people feel comfortable basically rejecting a candidate who's served one year and is now asking for a full two-year term and I don't know what grounds would you make that? Would it be on the grounds of say someone like Bernie? I don't know. That's in the back of my mind. I mean, just sort of get to a different question that I've also thought about because yes, Mary Lou's only served to one year term but then she's probably of the people who are on the old finance committee who applied, she's the longest serving. If you put the two finance committees together is that an appropriate consideration to make too? When you start saying is the time to get sort of a turn over just in government itself which then gets me, you know I have to reflect on that on the personal side too because I kind of feel like after two terms on the select board and all the years in the finance committee, maybe I'm term limited out of existence soon in town government. I'll pretend I didn't hear that. The only defense I always come up with in the end to that one is it's voters make that decision. But that is so. Very clear. The council does not have a term limit policy. Right, that's right. It's right, but we do get into this question. If you're going to say that we don't have the term, we're looking to give people a chance for a second year then do you look at the prior finance committee that actually then falls on others who are on this too because we have several members who are former members of the old finance committee. Yeah, I mean, I was going to mention something similar. We have normally limited to three two year terms, six years. If we go with the way Alyssa looks at things not how many terms, but how many years and we're in a unique situation because if you count just from the council no one can have more than one year, right? But that's not necessarily why we as county appointed the resident members to this finance committee. We were looking at prior service on finance committees and everything. So I don't think it's appropriate to discount that and ignore that time as we talk about turnover and cycling in and out. So I respect that, but I've always had issues with this term limit section of our selection guidance because of these issues that we're facing right now. And if we look at total of six years, I think we've, I don't know what Mary Lou's timeline is but I know she approaches that. I don't know how much she approaches it but then we go back to two of our other candidates, Bernie and Joe, do we consider simply because they had a gap, do they start their time over or don't they and how would we look at that? I do think, if we wrote these guidelines to say preference is given but that doesn't ignore any changing circumstances and three months ago we came, something has changed that I think we can't ignore the difference in financial conditions and financial uncertainties from the state from the federal government, from our own budgets and enterprise funds and all of that. I don't think we can ignore the need for what that requires going forward and in a short period of time. So to what degree and people should speak up or just interrupt but to what degree does Bernie's experience in administration, his background, in a sense make him the favorite candidate precisely because we're in this crisis situation that with Trump, Mary Lou's broad experience with the town, with finance and all kinds of other areas and with Trump, the obvious energy and talent of the two younger, relatively speaking younger candidates who bring a fresh perspective, which we also value, is that where we're somewhat painfully and reluctantly headed or do people feel that no, given the makeup of the body at the moment, given the two other resident members, it's a body that really cries out for a fresh perspective, a new way of looking at things or is it a body that right now and at least the next two years facing the clear economic challenges that we're gonna be facing, it would be best served by someone who, as we said before, has been through the wars and can ask difficult questions and has a fair amount of experience having to make difficult decisions on a financial level. That seems to me to be the gist of it here. Maybe term limits is just for our purposes, given the situation, we're just not gonna consider it. It's in the best of all worlds, we'd certainly consider it, but right now what's most important, given what we're facing for the next year or two, is to put the three and put someone on this body, we only can put one at the moment, in addition to the two that are there, that would best serve the interests of the finance committee and ultimately the town and who of these very fine four candidates would be the best suited for that in this situation, which is unusual and really pretty much unprecedented. And getting to the unusual nature of the situation we're in, there was one answer to one question that was enabled the candidate to come up with something unique for us to think about in how we manage finances in these difficult times. It was when Bernie said we should look at the fact that this is an opportune time for borrowing and maybe borrowing gives us an option to do something we aren't thinking about doing. And it was such an intriguing statement. I was really tempted to apply him into a long discussion about it because was he thinking about the fact that we had to put off so much of our capital and that maybe we should address a number of the unmet capital needs by borrowing and could we package a number of significant backlogged capital purchases and spread them into future years and be able to do them and go ahead and meet those urgent capital needs. Was that what he was thinking or was there something else behind that statement? So that would have been the first one that I would have asked him. And then depending upon how he answered that one, he would have gotten into the question of if he was thinking about borrowing for operations, whether you legally can do that and whether he's running into an arbitrage problem. And I would have been able to have that conversation with him on that level. So that was just an intriguing element to the conversations that we had with the candidates. We do not have to make a decision today. At the time when I set this meeting up, I thought we did. I'm not sure that that would be wise to put it off. I'm not sure that would make any difference. I would not put it off. I just want to make the point that we can. But I am leaning towards Pat's view. It's just this is really, I mean, I think we're going to have to make a decision today. I think we're going to have to make a decision. Well, over time and maybe we're just going to have to keep talking until we've reached some consensus. I'd like us to reach a consensus if we can. We could just have everybody rank their candidates. One, two, three, four. And then see who is the. The one that seems to be, you know, like ranked choice voting basically Pat is what you suggested at the start. And we can do that. We can do that. We can do that. And then we can do that. We can do that. And then we can see who there is to see if we can come. To some consensus in terms of what we are looking for. We've raised some really good points. And. When I'm hearing at the moment. Is that this is an unprecedented situation. And so we can't choose to view it. As business as usual. Unfortunately, it's the first time we've ever done this. And so what we're doing is it is an unprecedented situation. And the sense I'm getting is that. The decision we make. Should be guided. Not so much by precedent or term limits is vague or whatever they are. But by what we think. Would best serve. The finance committee in this unprecedented time. And. We have two candidates with very deep. Experience. One, perhaps a little bit more narrow than the other. We have two candidates that. Bring enthusiasm and obvious knowledge. And. We assume a very different perspective. Let's rank them. What's up. Unless people. Have something really new to add. I think. I think we should move forward and at least rank them. I was going to say that from most people who've talked, what I've heard is basically. Bernie is either first or second for nearly everyone. And the other one is not necessarily the same. Candidate. Right. So. That I haven't done the calculations. We'd need to do them if we actually did a ranked choice, but I think we should be. We need to be, lean towards the consensus person under if we ranked them would be Bernie. Certainly Pat and Mandy have expressed. If what I've heard, putting Bernie in number one. And correct me if I'm mistaken, but that's what I heard. I still know whether it'd be one or two for me. But it's. I have not really heard from Lynn or from Andy. I am impressed by Joe. I'm impressed by Bernie. This conversation is very helpful to me. Obviously in the back of my mind, purely selfish. Is that I'm going to have to reach out to all four camps. And tell them and explained. I mean, I assume I have some obligation to, and I want to explain our reasoning. I'm not looking forward to that, but that's not my problem. So I don't know what you asked. Let me speak. I even ranking I shared like Mandy's struggle. I mean, I guess I'm leaning right now to Bernie because I feel that we need someone who's been through the wars. Someone who can ask difficult questions has, will have different ways of thinking about things based on his experience. I would say that's something I would like to know about. I would like to know what you think. In a more normal time. I might like to have someone who brings experience outside of Amherst. Who has strong ties to the community. And I feel like we would not be shy. We would speak up. And that would qualify for either Jane or Joe, quite frankly. I think under normal circumstances. I would think, you know, Bernie and Mary Lou. anything you could ask of anyone but now it's time for the next generation that's would be my personal feeling I often feel that way about myself actually but but in this situation I just I'm really reluctant to put people in that yeah so I guess Bernie and then after that it's it's a mishmash I don't know if either Lynn or Andy want to weigh in or maybe just from the perspective of what they would like to see most what's the most important thing for them on this body at this time or things it's difficult because I look at all four candidates and I can articulate the reason why each one of them should be ranked number one but in the end if we're talking about bringing expertise about municipal finance and bring some things to the committee that is going to be useful in the next year is we're dealing with very difficult decisions down the line have to go if you experience people on this Bernie and Mary Lou Bernie because he has the broader experience from all of municipal management may put some just a nudge above Mary Lou and Mary Lou has extraordinary experience about schools and a lot of times she will think about questions to ask in school budgeting that the rest of us won't ask or won't think to ask because she's had so much experience with it and also her role in sort of formulating reports to town meeting and how that might be helpful for us and is helpful for us right now actually I'm thinking about how to formulate this report to the council when you get down to Joe and Jane I think that you've stated George very good reasons for both of them and the one Jane for youth and diversity is very tempting I probably put Joe a little bit higher on the list because of Joe's family and a little bit longer attachment to the community and knowledge of the community and that you know to the extent that we said one of the candidates said early on that a reason to have resident members is to bring that tie in understanding of the community just a little bit of longer experience personally and much longer experience for family Joe kind of puts him in that number three place so I'm going to go back to the statement I made very early on and that is if you want experience I think either Mary Lou or bring that in different ways with different perspectives education in one case and in the other the town management experience nevertheless with all of that said I would go with Jane and she represents a voice in our community that we are not hearing she has a young she's been very involved in some of the more interesting and recent expressions about race and when we have the opportunity I think we need to seize it so here I am could you are comfortable ranking the rest or no because right now you have Jane is number one that I would probably go and I actually think both Mary Lou and Bernie bring very very wonderful experience and so does so does Joseph Jane but yeah I know it's right his his wreck his experience parallels some of the more recent you know the experience of bringing a blanking on his name the man that has come on finance committee so I'm not as and I know him I mean I this is what's tough about all this I know three of the candidates but that's well I'm gonna I'm just gonna push back a little bit just from the point of view again from your perspective given what we're gonna face for the next year or two the really it seems like a really difficult financial decisions capital projects borrowing what's going to be the best large large-scale financial approach do you think that Jane given her background in nonprofits given her background and you know not particularly related to municipal affairs or you know that kind of thing do you think that that is what this body is gonna need for the next year or two I mean my argument was that that under more normal times which is right this would be I would be very supportive of this perspective but I'm just asking I guess do you think that the the perspective she brings trumps in your mind made that word George I know I'm sorry do you think the perspective she brings is is more important at this stage more valuable more useful to this committee for me it's what's useful to this committee and that may be too narrow but that's what I'm thinking right and I understand who do we just lose I had to go so I'm taking over for minutes yeah I'm sorry Athena I told Athena she could leave at when we're done with the interviews and now she's here at one o'clock um okay yeah let me try to answer your question sure I actually think the not just the committee but the other members of the town council have expressed in a variety of different ways their own fiscal abilities to weave and look through this situation that doesn't mean any of us have a silver bullet here okay but as I'm looking at the broader picture of what we as a town need to be listening to that's where I'm coming in and we need to listen to that in every aspect of our world so I I'm just have to say it no no that's I'm just asking I'm just asking so and I really I mean I will just say I've done done the municipal finance committee the way Andy has but I have been through the wars Andy's been through the wars Mandy Joe is one of the people who constantly talks about watching our reserve levels I don't I'm not suggesting that we can't use more advice but I also have enormous confidence in the finance committee and the council in general around our ability to weave through this so in that light of that then I want to stand back and I want to look at the broader perspective of what is our community well I hate to do this but either okay I can just text and tell people I'm running late so I we don't have to you know I know this puts some of the members on the committee in a really bad situation I'm also for the I'm leaning towards Jane is my number one and Bernie is my number two um we we need a vote of some sort for a recommendation that vote can be split with an extensive report potentially as to why you know and I'm not sure what this vote would be but we don't normally I would probably argue see if we can get to some consensus where the vote would be unanimous um but I think we've dug down into two competing interests and all and so maybe our recommendation is if you're going to put on you know if you're going to put a preference on experience or this or that here's the recommendation but if you're going to put a preference on you know bringing in new members and this and that you know coming up with that and and having a vote that might be a split vote maybe even tie since I've heard that Andy might not vote at all um it might end up a tie vote and we send a tie vote or a non-tie vote to the come to the council as a whole it's not ideal I know it's not ideal um because it doesn't unfortunately give closure to anyone really um but but maybe that's our role as a go l and recommendations and saying here's the candidates here's who we believe would be best to serve this role here's who we believe would be best to serve this role and we as a committee sort of reached I hate to use the word stalemate but stalemate as to which role is more important right now um yeah so let me just throw in one additional thing about Jane and it gets back to actually what Mary Lou said and that is that my experience when I came from a nonprofit into the finance committee in my experience then from the number of years on the finance committee and bringing new members of the finance committee in was it generally took two years to gain a level of comfort and experience with both the town budget process the myriad issues that are town related and an understanding of municipal finance in the uniqueness of municipal finance regardless of what background one had if um you know I think that uh uh you know assuming that it's somebody who's um as we've described Jane extremely bright interested energetic person who has um nonprofit experience but not municipal experience and is not familiar with our budgets I think it is a two-year learning curve and I put that out there it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it we should know what we're doing and I don't think we have two years we're really in the soup and we're going to be in the soup at least for the next year and maybe beyond and um I'm really nervous about putting people in that position who are going to spend at least a year or two just figuring out how the darn thing works now maybe as Lynn argues there are enough other people around who know how the darn thing works I know it isn't me so it's other people on the council I have a go ahead I'm sorry um uh Andy what the other Sharon and Bob what are what are their um are they on for the next two years are they on for another year is there going to be an opening in to your terms I said with uh and we and so we had made this term it's a one-year term so that there'd be some staggering yeah no I understand but what's Bob's term and I didn't quite understand what the first part of what you said and what's Sharon's oh both of the other two terms would um end the year from now end the year from now okay that helps you decide who to vote for yeah and when I said that about Jane it wasn't that I was saying don't choose her um but choose her because you feel like there's an ability and a willingness to make a commitment to it so that she can put in the time to really become familiar and be an asset to a future committee I think that's possible but it's not it's gonna the first year will be a learning year and I want to just point out that the year from now even while we will only have six months left in our term we choose the next round of two people right it would be this committee that will make the recommendation the council will choose but this committee will make the recommendation it's possible that both will ask to be renewed it's possible that both will not we just don't know and then we'll be faced with the same problem again about term limits it's going to be a constant uh challenge balancing that against other seemingly important values that Lynn certainly has expressed some of them here um Pat um I feel strongly or I believed very strongly Jane's uh commitment to public service um and so I feel like she is a potential person to draw on in another year um and for finance for other committees um and every one of these candidates voice is important um and I think right now given where we are that I would prefer going with a broader experience of municipal government um so I that Bernie is still my first choice okay um at the moment what it looks like is what Mandy had suggested unless things change we have uh two votes for Bernie and two votes for Jane and Andy has signaled to a number of us that for understandable reasons though he may change he may he's the himek of his own mind he's a little reluctant to cast official ballot um by the moment it looks like two two and one abstention oh I'm still having a really hard time um I would be willing to make that a three one for Bernie um I've got other things going on my mind about maybe being able to recruit either Joe or Jane or some people for planning board I mean I'm like great but but what I what what I would say is I'm willing to make this a three one vote if um the report can really indicate um this this sort of um tension between experience and bringing on new people um and and everything in order to not send it back not send it to the council with a tie that that would be the reason I'd be willing to move because I have had such a hard time but but so not to send the recommendation to the council with a tie vote to send it with a vote that has at least an idea of an actual recommendation instead of throwing up our hands almost um just a practical question comes to the council with say a vote of three to one or even a vote of two to two whatever comes to but not a not a majority unanim not a unanimous vote what happens at the council do we then I mean again all four candidates are in play yeah basically it seemed to me that any one of them no one else but any one of those four could conceivably be and we'd have to the council would have to do what we're doing essentially and so my message to all four candidates would be um this was the vote but quite frankly there's serious uh you know divisions and it's going to be ultimately up to the council to decide I mean I'd tell them that anyway but if it's if it's five to zero um usually that's a pretty good indicator here it would not be that and so it basically goes to the council and any one of these four candidates in theory could um be chosen hey george I'm I'm gonna just go ahead when we finish the uh interviews I did ranking and I'm gonna say exactly what the ranking was at the time because I haven't changed um it was bernie mary lou joe and jane in that order and the reasons were very simple I was looking in the end for experience um at this time because I think that we are for the next two years and an extraordinary period if I thought f521 was unique I mean we were going to have to deal with this again f522 I might come out differently but we aren't we know that 22 is going to be really rough and I think the reason I put bernie above mary lou so I think mary lou is really good experience with schools but bernie's broader experience in um having actually been a town administrator um kind of gave me that nudge and as far as the other two are concerned I came to joe his third because of his more extensive uh number of years in amherst and his family connections in amherst giving him a citizen's understanding as well as the fact that he did have a little bit of time on um the finance committee and delay us on to the school building committee but quite frankly all four of them I think would serve well they would serve differently um yeah jane it's sort of recognizing that this is a tough year for somebody to come on to a committee and um being a learning curve I think this is a difficulty year for that but I think she could could do it better be a couple of years before she really had the level of knowledge so we're hoping for and I would only I would just hope that she would be willing to either run for council or serve another term on this on the finance committee if she was just in this time then I'm going to unless there's an objection either entertain or actually make a motion um and have us vote um I don't see the point of pursuing this at a future meeting I think that's clearly no one wants to do that and I think we've been at this long enough um I certainly have lots of notes um if there is a minority view I will run that my report by that minority person or persons um and make sure that their views are accurately reflected I certainly would do my best to try and reflect them but I've done that in previous situations I would do that again here so I'm going to entertain a motion actually I'm going to make a motion that the committee recommend for the position of resident non-voting member of the finance committee Bernie Kubiak for a term that expires on June 30 2022 I think I have my dates right is there a second for that motion second pat has seconded so we have a motion and it's been seconded any further discussion all right then I'm going to call the question and we'll proceed to vote and we're going to start with pat yes pat votes yes uh len no len votes no um mandy can you come back to me after andy uh mandy uh passes politicians voting sucks go ahead we'll strike that from the record um the chair votes yes um uh andy yes andy votes yes going back to councilor hannoky then I am a no she's a no so I will say I didn't want to send it to the council with a two two tie um all right so the vote is three in favor and two against no one abstains there will be a minority report obviously I will send it to both Lynn and to mandy and I know they will send me back helpful suggestions um I will try to capture the uh very spirited and I think very helpful but difficult conversation we've had today that now is extended to 115 um we're not going to do any more business today I only left the town manager waiting for me oh he joined the meeting oh I know I saw who's who's joined the meeting I would like to make sure that it's not stated as a negative vote against bernie I just think they're I've already made my statement not in favor but not negative well I think what what Lynn and I would go with is um we you know the way I would put it as is um the two votes were probably four a different candidate there were three votes for bernie and two votes for jane and I'll say that under different circumstances jane would have been my first choice but um I think I don't know I just I'm just feeling like don't never mind well maybe I'll send this report to everybody that's just to the minority we can all approve it at the next meeting before it goes to that that is correct so it will be available to next meeting hopefully won't take up too much time um I gotta go you know I do too actually I don't want to stick around for the adjournment or or adjourn us I will adjourn us I do have one really quick question just so we know um we have that uh order for the zoning bylaw amendment article for amending article 11 and um I have questions about that particular order but I don't think we need to do it today and I know I have another quickly um the order was drafted by kp law um at the request of christine breastrupt the geo the crc voted just the language on the change it did not vote to approve to recommend the order it voted to recommend the um the the modification or whatever I'll explain it more um but I told george to put the order in because it includes the full language of the amendment and we will look at that at our next meeting and that is before the next council meeting so we will have uh done our duty before the meeting so if that andy does that I think that's that's fine I put it on this agenda because I thought at the time the council meeting was going to be sooner but it wasn't it's the 20th so we're okay all right I'm ready to declare this meeting adjourned I want to thank Athena Lynn I'm sorry question no okay just waving goodbye thank you all you've been great it's not easy and we'll discuss this again at our next meeting I don't know what I'm going to tell the candidates but that's my problem I guess um Athena thank you for your patience and being with us you're welcome bye bye