 Okay. So the first item is Michelle is asking me to share my screen. I think people know this, but we'll see. We have a new map in town of districts. And can, can everyone see the screen right now? I can see it. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So let me just see if I can minimize this for a second. Okay. If I do it for starters, we don't have precinct one and precinct three anymore. We're now precinct one and pre one a and one B. And just people will have to think of one B as being the old precinct three. But the big change. And Nancy sardinson, I can see you're right on the edge of some of that. I think we've seen that before on the screen right in this area. So, so we, we will be the town will be mailing out information. To people on where their polling site is because of these shifts in the district borders. For us, the where we vote has not changed. So everyone who's in what used to be precinct one. We're not going to be in the same place. We're going to be in the same place. And that's where we're going to be. You know, we're going to be in the same church and everyone who's in precinct three will still vote at the Emmanuel Lutheran church. And I don't know whether I'm just going to stop there. This is actually the town clerk has revised this to show where everybody's polling places are. We made, we voted on that on the council on Monday night. And the. but it affects people in Lynn in district two and Lynn is on the phone. There, Wildwood used to be a polling site and instead of Wildwood being a polling site since there's no bus route to it, the wild wild will be re voting at the Amherst regional high school as will three other of these precincts. Everyone who lives right near the bank center the Anne Whalen house and this whole area which is Amherst college and Whalen will be voting at the bank center and then when you get to the south the Munson library and the Crocker farm school again all of these if you see B it's what used to have another number and we decided there was a decision that it was confusing to people because the old precinct numbers didn't go with the district numbers that we just would go ahead and change it. So I'm going to leave this up but just see if anyone has any questions comments when will you know what kinds of information on this and just raise your hand or we're a pretty small group just talk I don't I don't see any right okay I'm not seeing anything you know so what what we will try to do is one of the things the donor group the neighborhood association group had started to do with some sort of block party some picnics that they would host in different neighborhoods and also try to get out the word to the voters where they're going to be voting so doing that over the summer when we can go back to outdoor meetings but right now that is about all the information we have on the the new voting there will be to the extent people really want to know where you got asked am I still in district one or not the the booklets that the town puts out which lists every street and everybody's address will be available within the next couple months so we will have those as well great thank you so I'll move on then to North Amherst updates and we have a few so starting with the east pleasant street survey a contract has been signed and the survey is going to go from Olympia Drive to pine for new sidewalks and we understand it will take 12 weeks and Paul says that the survey will help to establish the scope of for construction as well as the impact on neighboring properties and they hope to be able to also get some sort of budget information out of that as well so it will take some time but it is in process and then we have the North Amherst library it's our understanding that bids will be reviewed with the architect this week I think there was a bit of a delay on getting the bids but that will be happening this week and then we have two Amherst specific CPAC awards were given to the pickleball courts which are going into Mill River and then the donor group put forward a proposal for the Mill River history walk and that was also approved so those are two great updates as far as CPAC is concerned Kathy did I miss anything no I just you might want to um on the on the pickleball courts and Lynn is on here and I know her husband is a pickleball player as are several people in town the proposal was to put them in at Mill River it has been approved as pickleball courts in Amherst but the what I heard verbally not so much by Sarah Marshall who is the chair of CPAC but from Dave Zomac is there still will be a decision on where they go so I think those of us who would really like them up in at Mill River should continue to advocate for that site and for those of you who know the recreation area they the proposed location of them was as you come down the driveway at the entrance way into the recreation area there's a small parking lot off to the left outside of the basketball courts and that has enough space for two to three pickleball courts so and and it's already paved over which was one of the advantages of it so if you put courts on it we're not adding pavement to grass anywhere so it was an attractive site for that reason so it's just that I don't know when that decision will be made and sometimes things get approved and it takes a long time till till they happen and we don't always know in advance so we'll try to at least keep tracking that okay I'm admitting Meg is joining us I was just going to say I think I had a feeling someone might be there yeah great great welcome Meg you know Meg we just we just did a quick announcement on the CPAC awards and you might want to say a word or two about the award for the history walk um if you're if you're able yep I'm right well just unmuting and I'm you hear me yep yeah I'm gonna start my video and I'm gonna walk somewhere where I'm not bothering anybody and Meg we'll bring you back also if you're oh if you're still here toward the end just to give an overall donut update but um given that we're just talking about this now it would be great to hear that so I apologize for not getting on right at 130 we're in Delaware right now so I'm just gonna move to where I can be have won't bother anybody so we were delighted that our proposal for the uh Miller funded by CPAC with $12,900 and this is going to enable us to hire an architect who will do the preliminary research on the uh cellar holes and some of the uh remaining remnants of the many mills that were on Mill River the uh the goal of the project in the end is to create an interpretive trail that goes from the uh Mill River Recreation Park to the Cushman Common so it gets a little bit into district two I see Lin is here um and it'll have an interpretive signs and a link to through a QR codes to a website and a lot of people aren't aware of the history there were dozens and dozens of mills along the Mill River um from early colonial time until the early 20th century in 1775 there were six already so this is an exciting project we're creating it well I just ran up the stairs too fast going to catch my breath here um we're creating a neighborhood we're doing this in the style of this in the tradition of community archaeology which involves the community and overseeing and managing and monitoring historic sites um and we're creating a neighborhood committee if you know anyone who wants to be on it or if any of you want to we should probably have someone from district two since we're going to touch district two when we get to the Cushman Common a lot of the best the most uh interesting sites are between Cushman Common and Puppers so we're creating a neighborhood committee it'll meet probably once a month David McBarrington is chairing the committee and uh he'll be uh he lives on Pine Street he'll be managing that neighborhood process this neighborhood committee will keep going uh permanently as we you know as we as part of North Amherst culture there'll be this ability for people to participate in the trail the four sites that we're going to look at this first time are the dam and canal at the Mill River Park so if you're at the Mill River Park and you're at the basketball court if you look north you'll see a big hill like a and that's the canal that used to take the water up to the Gris Mill we're also looking at the Cushman Clam Club which is just to the east of Cushman Common which was a man's club and there's still a midden of clam shells that you can see and the two Roberts Mills that are just uh before the rent on both sides of the Robert Francis bridge so very exciting yeah congratulations and it took perseverance um what we're going to we're going to feature and we're going to I think we will be shifting back to the later Sunday afternoon just to feature this but the CPAC definitely is trying to solicit and be welcoming to community um proposals even though they make it extremely difficult to get to yes but we're going to be featuring Sam McLeod would like to come on so probably at the next district meeting just on what it takes to make a proposal what kinds of things they're they're interested in um beyond what has been funded so I think that's it uh Michelle for announcements and yep you're right so um just uh I guess moving in you can go ahead Kath and move right into the school building project update that you have okay so I was going to do I'm chair of the school building committee and at least one person meaning Tony has been to I think virtually every one of our meetings well before we had a designer and others on board and has been following this for years um so I'm going to be showing just a few slides of where we are and I'll try to be super brief because what I'd like to do is come back to this in if we do another district meeting in May or in early June when we're going to be further along with some decisions um but basically let me get my uh let me sure I can from the beginning is that showing up on everybody's screen you know so for those who few who have not been following this um every minute of the time uh as some of us have we are in the midst of talking about a new elementary school and this would be either a renovation with an addition or a brand new building um that would be would have several features that I've listed here including daylight filled classrooms and outdoor space for education but it will also be the first large public building built in Amherst under our net zero bylaw which I'll describe a little bit more what that means but basically we're moving away from fossil fuels that um it would be an all electric building well insulated energy efficient and then we'll use photovoltaic panels to generate renewal energy that will literally should reduce our utility budget to very little or nothing we are we're the school committee voted a while ago to move the sixth grade up to the middle school so the school that's being talked about will consolidate two schools wildwood and fort river and it will be grades k through five for around five hundred and seventy five students the location of those is still up for grabs it's going to be either at wild river or fort river and we're working with a granting authority called the massachusetts school building committee the and that actually dictates our schedule a lot we have to work around what they require for each step when they're meeting we are it where we are in the process as we submitted a preliminary design program which said what are we going to study in the next phase and the school committee came did an education plan an education program which also dictated directly influence the space allocation how many classrooms do we need a gym where our special education kids going and that space summary then determines the size of the building so all of that had to happen to be able to do cost estimates the phase we're in right now that we're hoping to finish by the end of june is going from four choices wildwood or fort river new new or new ad renovated down to one choice or preferred choice and with that we would have new estimates that will have to be approved by the granting authority before we can move from that stage to really designing the building and figuring out exactly what the costs are going to be right now this is scheduled because the school is expensive once we're through that it would come to the council and the council would determine how it's financed but we're expecting this would be a debt exclusion override vote a debt exclusion vote by the voters in town we don't have enough internal ref resources to fund the entire share of the amour share of the project so the point that's not funded by the grant as I mentioned right at the beginning we finished the preliminary design program we're moving into this preferred design choosing of a site and we're hoping to get all of this done in time to get it to the msba so it's a tight deadline by the end of june a few things about the building and then i'll show you a few pictures um any any site or any way of building whether it's new or ad reno will will include certain features um the classroom and program spaces have to meet the educational program so we're building to a certain size of classroom space every classroom will have daylight in it we will have educate outdoor space for both playing and education you know moving to study the outdoors but also have classes outside there will be a safe way to enter the building to drop off children with traffic plans and it will be ad assessor and we're planning for a design of the building that allows community use after hours which means secure entry that not to the whole building but to parts of the building and one notable thing about this building is it will have a what's called a cafeteria and it's going to have a stage in it and the new buildings that i've seen with these are gorgeous so we expect this to be a real resource to the town for small performances during the summer as well as after hours as i said at the beginning we're building a net zero school it's sustainable which means it will be extremely well insulated with user zones so we won't have to heat near conditioned parts of the building that we're not using at any time it will be all electric no fossil fuels and it'll be on site PV solar panels that will generate enough real renewable energy to offset the electric use we see those of us who are super excited about this for climate action and for the aspects of the building is that this building is going to provide a real opportunity for the kids in town as well as all of us to think about climate and learn about what we can do in the few schools that have been built like this and there are several across the country they talk about the excitement in town and visitors come to the town but the kids come home and one beautiful wonderful video as the mother said our child is coming home or third graders coming home and they're unplugging devices all over the house and turning off the lights all the time telling us we're wasting energy and then they come home excited on how much energy the sun generated because they have dashboards in the school so it's a real learning opportunity for kids and given what we're spending now on these two buildings we're going to save well more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year in heating electrical on our school's work off of coal not coal but oil and gas right now so it may be more than that if you think of the escalation and prices I'm going to go just quickly through a couple pictures we just saw on Friday and I'm speeding through these because there's no decisions being made but as I said earlier we have to choose where is the school going to be built and whether it will be an addition renovation or brand new so what the designer is doing for us is saying what might a two-story what might a three-story look like we don't specifically have to make that decision but we are likely to because it influences the cost of the building for the next round of cost estimate but it's to be able to look at them in the context of either of the two sites so to be able to think of where the building might sit on the site and what does that look like there are clearly a lot of other issues on choosing the site on the traffic patterns getting on and off of the property how much space there is for play space um water table levels fields so um I'm zipping through this one but one of the things they've showed us is that they have to think of where the hallways are and where the community spaces are so in in this the designs they're showing us they color coded these where classrooms are always some sort of a blue and the shared spaces like the cafeteria on the gym or the um uh or the library or not blue so there's something there's some other color and then they've done designs on here's a possible way the three floors might lay out to give us a sense of what this would be and we're going to be doing a lot of this over the summer once we choose the site because the groups that will be involved in this are the kids in the schools now the teachers in the school the staff and community members thinking of how you enter the building where is the gym where's the cafeteria and what they've done in terms of showing us this um I'm hopefully everyone can see this as I flip through them is sort of with a three-story building one of the advantages and what they're seeking to do is the kids stay in the school while they're building so we're not going to be moving children and that means they need enough space on the site to build next to the existing school and you can kind of see the little black outline of the existing school right in here on Fort River or over here on Wildwood so there's a just enough space to build another school there while the existing school so they would build the school and then take down the school this designer said they built like this on a very tight site with eight feet of space between the old school and the new school then they took it down and recreated and I saw this one what they recreated was green fields for people to play on you know so whatever was there before so they're looking at where does the driveway come in where's the parking lot if it's three floors then that was uh there are a couple different designs they've given for three-story this one is just a little bit different on where you enter so it's giving us a sense of what would three stories look like two stories takes more space on the ground because we have to fit the same number of classrooms in it so you have to think of a first floor and a second floor and here's one possible design that they were looking at how would that fit if you did two stories with Wildwood being a tighter site they really have to manipulate it around and one of the other things I'm going to go on more than maybe people want me to but I'm totally into this so is what they're thinking of the sun north being north south they'd like to keep the orientation of the building that way but they have to work with the site and on Wildwood they have Fort River they have to worry about where the water planes are and on Wildwood they have to worry about there's a hill right here you know so they can't just build down into this field so they have to fit it in so two stories fits better if you look at this at Fort River than it does at Wildwood but they're just showing us these pictures right now without making judgments when they're looking at the renovation in addition to an existing building this is what the existing building looks like this entire middle section has no windows it's a great big building of 80 000 square feet so the windows are around this to extent not at the gym on the outside edge so what they've come up with is narrowing out hollowing out this and their design has a green area in the middle so that the classrooms can be all around this in here and then the new addition would be attached to the renovated addition and somehow but I haven't heard exactly how they they have a plan to do this again while the building is occupied so to be a first floor and a second floor of a new addition and the way this looks on a site where you don't get to see all that nice first floor and second floor this is the old and this is the new and so that's on the Fort River site and this is on the Wildwood side and one of the things you can see on this is there's no choice anymore of north south orientation you have to live with whatever the building is so this is all in in the works right now and we're being asked as a building committee to make a decision on both the preferred place we're building and the preferred method new or ad renault so this is a very long and we can anyone who wants to see all these dates I can send them to you we're meeting every two weeks as I mentioned early there's a community community forum scheduled for May 5th which will be well before we make a decision when I say well and the time zones were in its well we will be near to a decision by the beginning of June and we'll be doing a community forum before we make a decision and this was one of the things we assured people is that we would provide information well in advance before final decisions were made so participation is really important get people to come to these meetings the community forum particularly if you have views on either site or ways of doing it so we're meeting every two weeks we're hoping by this end date in June that we will know enough as a committee that we'll be able to vote and we've got a series of criteria on a plus and minus on different options or advantages disadvantages and we'll have cost estimates new cost estimates based on all of what I've just described including what is the building envelope the actual structure for including whatever Hivex system we choose whether we're either going with ground source or air source heat pumps and I'm going to stop there because it was a whirlwind to what Hilda said she had to leave so I'm going to try to do this again Michelle I mean we can figure out when we went Scala district meeting because we'd like to get this out to the districts not just do a community forum on news we're nearing that initial decision which will then drive the design of the building on where we're building it and how we're building it whether to add new and these are not the only drawings they're doing they're trying to update the testing of the soil traffic patterns looking at what they can fit on these sites and they will be updating all the costs and if we do decide to have our next meeting in person somewhere which we hope to be able to do potentially right we'll have to be able to get some sort of screen or something like that that we can make people do this again well and I and I think Michelle in the next one will be down to enough information we can say here's our two or three main comparisons with some looks really good here looks not as good here so we can do something a simple poster maybe to just to let people do as a visual so I know Kathleen you had written in about how much is all of this going to cost she Kathleen had written me with some questions about taxes as well as where's the ARPA money going and we are not prepared to talk about any of that today because we won't really know what the airmer share of the school is until late in this year that we first have to get up with the final cost then the granting authority tells us and at the finest committee level hi we have we have someone who cares about this school is anyone in these schools and you know what for for those who people who are listening one of the really interesting comments on the principle of one of these schools who had visited a three-story school one of her comments is we're living right now in these enormous schools that are half empty because of the enrollment drop and then with COVID we've split up and made walls so when you visit some of these classrooms they have living room space they have project space they have children's space so looking at normal classrooms to her was my goodness they're not they're in 2000 square feet for 12 kids in some of these classrooms so and we're talking about a lot of space right now but so some of this will be decided cost will not be the only factor but we need a final cost estimate over the summer and into the fall before the granting authority tells us what their share what they will do and that will tell us what we need to do from either internal financing of money we've gotten reserves and the finance committee will be looking at modeling this again as before we discuss to what extent what will go out to the community for for debt exclusion and I think I'll just stop there because we I can't give any update on that information just on Kathleen on your questions more generally the finance committee is starting to meet tonight is April beginning of May we will be meeting on every department because the budgets for 2023 the next coming year are coming in we know already what the tax revenue will be the property tax revenue we will get new new those are being regularly updated on what the retail commercial revenue is but the town is living off of very tight budgets because most of our money comes in from the property tax we we do not have a lot of commercial revenue coming in and there's less than it used to be and although we've been helped out a lot with ARPA funds and federal and special state grants a few years down the road those those funding sources aren't going to be available either so we're looking across the board on a multiple year level on issues of affordability across the town and I'm going to stop talking because I know Kathleen Kathleen you wrote me a series of questions and people should just jump in and Meg's hand is going up too and it was on questions so Meg's hand is not handy Tony's hand is up so Meg did you want to jump in and then just quickly Kathy thank you for that report it was not too long and I want to thank you and everyone on the committee for how hard you're working and I urge everyone to encourage people to pay attention right now between now and may because because people get this has been a sort of a third rail issue in Amherst and it doesn't have to be people need to pay attention now early while these decisions before these decisions have been made and we all of us who care about this process as well as the outcome need to do everything we can to encourage people to go to these meetings participate give their input because if it comes later it's it's so much harder and it feels unhelpful once preliminary decisions have been made and the committee has done an amazing job of trying to get input and we just need to think more deeply about how to make sure everybody's paying attention right now to this process and this this my particular excitement is in whichever location isn't picked that we could have a new senior center preschool and maybe a teen center which I think are three constituencies that are really good together and it's sort of embarrassing how awful our senior center situation is in Amherst and I know that's not helpful to raise that right now and we have so many other costs but it's really time for us to think more deeply so I'm excited about what might be possible with the site that's left in terms of seniors preschool and teens you know just I'm going to let Tony talk but on the site that's left a guy named Tim is the one who's been doing a lot of work to look at our current state of the buildings and the current state of the site and in one as he was reporting on this at some point I said so Tim is one of these buildings in better shape if we were going to say let's keep the one that's in better shape and he said what do you mean I said well one of them is going to be empty and he said I wouldn't say that he said remember if you whatever you're going to want to use them for you're going to have to do some work on them and the issue is most of the systems the the write-up of them referred to the highback systems the electrical and plumbing as vintage which was an interesting term and that it's they hadn't seen any like that for quite some time and that our crews have been our crews have been amazing that they've kept them going you know so it's it's not that you have to tear the building down but it's just that there isn't there's a need for some not unsubstantial money to to do whichever building it's not like one is better or worse on that and they're identical in terms of the layout so so Tony hi yeah thank you um thanks for raising that Meg I couldn't agree more on the need to think now about what we could use an 82 000 square foot building for and actually my child who you saw she is in one of those 2000 square feet rooms right now I think there's 16 other kids in her class and two full-time teachers in the class so I feel like she's getting a private school education for free and they have done a lot of renovations already to the buildings because of covid so they did put up full walls to separate those rooms and doors the doors look like solid wooden doors and there's natural light in all those spaces so we have 12 2000 square foot spaces ready to go for another use and totally agree with Kathy that we would need to replace the HVAC system in whichever building is remains and ideally get it off fossil fuels so I think that's something that the town is looking at for every town owned building the police station they're looking at moving to vrf and I'm sure whichever building remains that should be a jcpc part of the jcpc plan to get them off fossil fuels and I know the fort river roof is in worse condition it needs replaced right away I think there's less or fewer leaks in the wildwood building right now but I thank you Kathy I echo some of Meg's comments to appreciating the committee and the thoroughness and I know you are working so many hours for free on this so I really appreciate that I just wanted to to say Kathy I've really appreciated in the past how you always think beyond the project itself like I know when when downtown development projects come up you're always asking like well what are the town costs that may be triggered from this is there going to be a bus stop needed is there going to be new water infrastructure or any other impacts of a project and so I think it's important for everybody to understand that these sites have other impacts and for example the traffic study indicated that wildwood would probably need a second driveway and entrance and it may not be viable because of cost there is a backing up on strong street and a backing up at the entrance there could be a knock on impact of a need to improve the intersection with these pleasant and strong street whether that's around about or signalized that's a cost that needs to be built into and then you mentioned the water at Fort River the geotechnical also outfound water at Wildwood two to five feet down and it has the same soil challenges that Fort River has as far as fill they put in like temporary not temporary but soil that you can't put a two or three story building on at both sites so so both sites have a lot of the same soil and water issues that will add cost and as far as the climate stuff goes I know geothermal definitely the ground source wells definitely lower the energy of the building so I think if we can in any way the town should strive to for ground source and it looks like Fort River has a lot more space for that than Wildwood and as Kathy mentioned Wildwood is a very tight site and the limitations on the space mean you really can't go to two-story as as Kathy showed it's like a t-shaped building to make it fit whereas at Fort River there's a lot more room that you could put a two-story building with the correct orientation and then just on the green space in the play space for kids like right now um obviously with the pandemic we really value the kids being able to be outside we don't know what the future holds we may need space for outdoor learning and Fort River has acres and acres of outdoor space whereas as you saw from the drawing on Wildwood it's pretty cramped there I don't know how many outdoor classrooms could be accommodated on that space at the one time so from what I've seen so far I came into this with an open mind but from what I've seen so far Fort River to me looks like a better site for the school and then thinking about if that was the case Wildwood would be the leftover site and all those ideas that Meg suggested seems like a good fit for example if you had a BIPOC youth center at Wildwood the middle and high school kids could just walk up the hill um after school you could have intergenerational programming which I know the senior center is striving to develop and then there's a there's a community action um head start right on the Wildwood campus already um so it's it's a complimentary you know use there so um the other thing was the two and three story um like I said Wildwood seems like it's going to force a three story choice whereas if two story I don't know what the pros and cons are it seems like two story would be easier access to outdoors a larger roof area for PV and perhaps Fort River is preferable in that way too because it gives you that choice um so yeah there's just some of my comments thank you thank you yeah thank you Tony that was really helpful I follow up on with a can I ask you a question Kathy as a follow-up oh absolutely you know ask questions and um you know just just one assurance that the types of things that Tony just mentioned in terms of costs that are related to any decision those are going to be priced out um so you know to the extent there is a somewhat of an issue at Fort River not as as much of an issue on the exit out of Fort River is really near the intersection right now so you know I'm not uh left hand turned so that looking at things like that do we knew a different signal and Fort River building up the foundation um so the estimators and the designers are trying to address to help us make the decision by building up it's do we want it to be more expensive no but if there are related costs we need to be looking at all of them um when we're when we're making this decision so those will be part of this next round of cost estimates so Michelle go ahead yeah just a follow-up on that and just for clarification so it's the building committee that will vote on where the site will be is that right okay yes and then is there some criteria that is you know already been established in terms of how that decision will be made and I know you're doing a lot of community outreach but what are the ways that as people are following along as like Tony has sort of come up with her own ideas based on what she's seen what are the ways that community members might be able to provide other than you know is it sending an email to you as the chair or but more more I'd like to understand like what criteria is going to be used to make that final decision by the committee an excellent question we have a criteria it's called an evaluate evaluation criteria matrix that was a draft of it came from the designer really early on and we're looking at it um to make sure um and that first draft we redraft you saw Tony is not at all final we're Phoebe and I are going to go back and look at it we were trying to avoid duplication on rose and we realized some things got knocked off that shouldn't have but we're trying to set up things that would allow you to say this is a bit better on this and all four are viable okay so we eliminated a couple that look like they don't work period so now all four of these new either site ad reno either side are viable choices for us and they're not bad choices so now we have to is this one a bit better are they about the same is this one a little worse so we've got criteria like the traffic entry and movement on and off the availability of outdoor space to play and green space and you know a few others that will allow you to do a you know if you color coded in green is looks really good you know uh white is not better or worse and uh orange is a little less good you know kind of looking at it and then it's going to be uh there are 13 people on the committee um at some point we'll have to vote because at this point I don't think anything is going to come out with all all positives and all less good it's going to be on the one hand and on the other hand kinds of issues the price tag will matter um we're very conscious of trying to make a cost effective decision but and just to give you some of the tradeoffs here with um with ad reno um you you have less choice of where to orient the building and you have to do a bigger envelope for the building the way you saw that outside room which makes it inherently less energy efficient not because of any fault so it needs more of and name whatever the more of to heat and air conditioning it and then the pv system to offset those costs so we're going to have all of that information to look at um and then weighing in I think we will be well hopefully it's the beginning of May by the by the beginning of May it's been in April by the beginning of May that matrix will have stopped moving and we will have started to fill it out so that May 5th the meeting you're going to be some seeing some of this and then between that and the June community meeting we will be filling out more of that and I think we'll figure out a way to get information out push it out on a more frequent basis this is we meet Friday mornings from 8 30 to 10 30 and all the meetings are on Zoom but it we shouldn't be asking people to hang out for a two hour meeting to wait to do comments at the end of it as the only way to getting comments in so we will be looking for how do we get additional input just for the others who are on the call who don't know the composition we have principles of both schools on the committee um we have a school committee member we have the maintenance staff the facility director so we have people that know these buildings and these sites really well um and the superintendents on it and then we have our finance director and town manager and two counselors and three other people on who have kids in the schools you know and two architects so we have a nice mix of people in terms of two of our two of our members have children in two of the schools so it's a you know interesting perspective where one has them one Crocker and one Fort River the other is one Waldwood and one Fort River so that will be a perspective but this choice um to me feels uh a lot of weight on my shoulders is one way of doing it a lot of responsibility and I would like to make as informed a decision both by what the outside world thinks as well as the information we have so it's a terrific question it's my personal preferences I'd like to make I would I would not want to have a decision that 15 years from now people said actually with Waldwood and Fort River they said it two years later why did you build this way you know I mean they literally they after we built school number one people said don't build another and we built a second one with the same design um for I wasn't here as a voter then I don't know why I think we got a cheap architecture drawing because they're identical you didn't have to redesign a building um but but I think in informed input and Lynn will probably I don't know Lynn whether we we don't have time to probably schedule a council meeting before this but the counselors are going to be aware of this too just on people getting their views in so we don't have just the few dedicated souls who show up every Friday morning at 8 30 thank you there are we have a group and Tony's one of them and Maria's one of them they are always there and they have come to every net zero meeting so Tony can probably tell you as much about ground source versus air sources I can on what these things are and why one might be better than the other or not as good as the or they're kind of equal um but but all of that is is under a very condensed timeline so um and if we don't get to this point by end of June it's not like the sky falls down it just means we miss an MSBA meeting and then we push the construction off by you know half a what the building gets open to half a year later you know I mean it's it's that kind of if we don't do this now we lose time on the other end so we're trying to stay on this tight timeline so I just want to say that because we're using the chat function I know some some districts don't um just some um shout outs to you Kathy for your amazing leadership on this and um really just uh it's it's a lot it's a lot resting on you and you're doing a fantastic job and I think we all really appreciate that so um and just one little comment if it's not in the matrix and maybe it's not um you know appropriate for the matrix per se but I think what Tony was talking about in terms of the building that's left is a really important consideration in terms of the decision itself um obviously the town will decide how they're going to use whatever you know is going to be left but I think Meg made some excellent points about the possible uses and I think that should be something that's considered I mean just to connect the dots that Tony talked about you know with students being so close and being able to access um from the middle school or high school to the Wowwood location for example I mean I think that's really important to think through not only what's the best building for the new school but what's what are the sort of factors then with the with the space that's left I think so too you know and and I actually had that initially as one of my criteria I wanted to add and we did have it up as a priority and we're trying to figure out do you all things considered we'd go this way or that way and that's the tipping factor you know on you know because you don't want that to be the first factor we look at um so it's like it's the tipping factor that if we're kind of on a seesaw on the one hand on the other hand and then is it you know so when we bring that in but that it's just come up on a regular basis in both directions I mean there's good things to think about on the Fort Riverside too as if it was the vacant site so it's it's just trying to you know in terms of access and parking spaces and community fields um so so in any case it's it's those are the pluses and minuses and your Fort River has natural gas as its utility so if we didn't completely upgrade it runs on half the cost of a Wildwood on just the heating because one is oil and one is gas I didn't know why it was so much cheaper and they said because gas you know you don't want to keep it long term but it's it's they're different they're subtle differences so Tony yeah I just wanted to follow up on what Michelle said um and I totally agree Michelle I think it would be great to get that conversation the potential uses of the vacated site into the prior to the decision on site because I think it is a factor and I agree with Kathy like that tipping point like if there was one site that was much better for a school that wouldn't change that right that wouldn't change it but um I just wanted to say about the another piece of climate action is transportation and so I was just my own I love digging through data so what I spent yesterday morning doing was going through the bus routes and how many kids live where getting on the bus and how many kids live within a half mile of each site so they can walk or bike pretty easily and it was with the current routes this is um Fort River and Wildwood there's 19 kids within a half mile of Fort River currently and 11 within a half mile of Wildwood currently and I'm thinking about okay what we you know we're always looking at developing housing if we were to develop housing where would it more likely be and and I heard Chris Breastrop say at a recent planning board meeting that they're considering a chapter 40 r for the east village um which would make it attractive to develop housing in that area and if you think about the east village which is right next to Fort River there's a lot of like single story commercial strips there there's the bank on the corner there's the the strip with like Kelly's and and uh so this seems like and there's the one with the yoga studio in the north hot pot so it seems like there could be potential for development there housing development that may you know may bring in more school age children who would be able to walk to the Fort River site and I know the wayfinders I asked for the bedroom breakdown of the wayfinders developments there's because the east street schools literally across the street from Fort River and it's going to have two three and four bedroom units which will be affordable so potentially there could be school age children living there also so it's just another factor to consider and as far as when to bring it in one of the early community meetings the designer Donna Donisco the lead for the design firm said that something they learned from other projects was the future she called it the disposition of the vacated site that that the feedback later was it got talked about too late in the process and her recommendation was talk about it early get community engagement early because if you wait until after you've picked the site then it's not really a choice it's kind of the default and so yeah just a few more points there thank you. Thank you Tony. All right Kath would you be ready to move on if there aren't any other questions on this okay great um and I so we plan to just give quick reviews of the committees that we are on and I think Kath talked about finance already to say that we're going to be delving in meeting very frequently this next month in May I think it's twice a week for three hours to review the different departments within the budget and Kath I don't know if there's anything else to say about that particular committee right now other than that. No I don't I don't think so um no especially anything that's left to say on that is nuances and you'd have to care passionately about some sub piece of it so yeah um and I'll just give a quick update on so I chaired the governance organization and legislation committee and I was hoping that Hilda would be here for me to say that she is sponsoring I believe you're a sponsor on the Jewish American Heritage Month proclamation but just to point out that GOL is sort of it's a committee that not many people come to um if anybody um but it's actually a really interesting committee and um we've been working on a lot of proclamations and resolutions and finding that it's a great way to engage community members so um having community sponsors for particular proclamations like the Juneteenth Proclamation for example and bringing those sponsors um in for the review of the proclamation and then it sort of just gives a more um a deeper and richer context for the proclamation so um anybody is welcome to suggest a proclamation if you find a counselor that was willing to work on it with you um and like I said Hilda is sponsoring one that's um just coming up um for the Jewish American Heritage Month and um so just just to say about that we're also working on an equity lens review process this is a process that GOL hopes to develop um to be able to use across all of our um committees in our work in the town council to make sure that we're using an equity lens um as we're reviewing and making decisions and then I'll give a quick update on the African Heritage Reparation Assembly I'll also pop something into the chat one of the exciting pieces of work that we're doing right now is um we just received the deliverables on our African American Black Census um we partnered with the Dunahue Institute at UMass to do that and it was very interesting information and we have some great visuals also so I'll pop a link in into the chat for that if you'd like to take a look and it's also the most recent census data um is available to to see there and we'll be using that in particular for community engagement so that we can identify areas where Black or African American community members are living and be able to reach them as we move through this process. Kath did you you have a hand up? Yeah I was just going to say that Michelle that you might want to um we could figure out how to get some of this out through Dunahue also because in that report the summary I saw of it what was striking is the makeup of the town of Amherst yeah I know out of 39,000 people that the census is counting 23,000 of them are students and 14,000 live on campus which gives you a sense of how many don't live on campus um you know so it was just a striking update and reminder of how the the face and composition of Amherst has changed over time um and and it it's part of the thing that has segwayed into we're starting to look at what happens in neighborhoods um when those when a formerly a family house turns into a student house um because it was vacant and the investors bought it but it it was just a really interesting updated statistic that I hadn't seen um yeah yeah I think you're absolutely right and the the indie actually did a nice coverage of it if you just want something quick to look at um Kathy is absolutely right out of our 39,263 residents 23,000 are students 16,000 living in dorms um and then 9% or 3450 residents identified themselves in black or black in combination with another race with 900 of them living on campus so yeah very very interesting that information came from the latest national census in the American community survey so I'll pop the link in and and I'll talk to Dona about that that's a good I think if I we're actually working right now on a mini press release with the town to get this information out so I can forward that and they could potentially be able to get that out okay um and just a couple more updates um with the African Heritage Reparation Assembly we are developing a community survey right now and this survey is going to go out to all community members we're hoping to identify some stakeholders in sub-communities throughout the town to be able to really get boots on the ground and get um get get the survey out to as many people as possible um and the survey is going to look at um what people believe a reconciliation process should look like in the town it's going to ask people about what they know about reparations what they know about the historical context of anti-black structural racism and amorphous so we're in the process of developing that and um maybe at a at our next meeting we'll be further along and be able to talk about ways to get that out um I know there's a lot of surveying happening in the community right now so um but this is we're really excited about that and then the last update there is the town council I want to say a month ago now um unanimously voted to ask the town manager to begin drafting special legislation um which would define reparations as a public purpose for amorphous and this is um to give us a legal pathway for distributing reparation benefits when that time comes and to also give the most flexibility as possible to the african heritage um residents so those are the updates there and maybe just pause to see if there are any questions because I know we did get a couple emails about that and then um we could move to a rental registration update before opening things up for discussion Maria hi am I unmuted yes okay great um so I'm really interested in the survey and Michelle if you are going to be involved with that at all or indeed with any surveys it's you mentioned that there may be other surveys happening I really think it's imperative that we ask we get demographic data on respondents so that we know who are we reaching who is responding to this survey so we know that we're not just getting upper middle class white people that are responding to it so I mean I think we I think we need at least uh race age and um some marker of socioeconomic status to be sure who are we reaching and if we're not doing a good enough job reaching a broad uh swath of our community I think we need to you know question the validity of the survey but more importantly do better to fix that thank you thank you so much for bringing that up absolutely we plan on sort of the the beginning of the survey will ask for basic demographic information for people who are willing to share it but one of the the ways that we really hope to reach folks in all the pockets of our community is by identifying these leaders or sort of stakeholders that can help us to get into the different areas of our community that we've struggled to get into for any community engagement uh but I absolutely agree with you if we're not able to to to say who is responding to these then in some ways you know there are the same people that respond often to things and we need to be able to expand and and make sure that we're reaching as you said a broad swath of the community so thank you for bringing that up and it is absolutely very important to the committee to do that as well and just to follow up Maria you said you were interested do you mean that you are interested in being involved in the process of the survey or you just were making that comment it was more of a general comment on on all surveys I mean I think it's I think getting the input of larger amherst broader amherst on any number of different topics is extremely important um and so I I was just feeling encouraged about the fact that you were uh looking to to do that on at least this issue so it was it was really a general yes yes to asking people directly and yes to making sure you're reaching people great okay good are there any other questions on the African heritage reparation assembly or the reparations work all right and Meg I see your comment in the chat so I'll definitely respond to that um I think Meg was asking for the link so but maybe that went direct to me so yeah um okay so uh a quick update on the rental registration work um that that the council is looking at so um a group of sponsors came forward I am one of those sponsors um to put a permit fee structure in place it's not a permanent permit fee structure it's temporary um until a new bylaw is established and that has been referred to TSO um TSO is having some really good conversations about that and um we'll make a recommendation before it comes back to the council to be voted on um I think the biggest sort of piece of feedback that I've been hearing and that TSO has been presenting when they're discussing this is how so the proposal gives a discount to owner-occupied landlords but some of the feedback we've been receiving is that there are landlords in the community they've lived here for many years and they may have a rental like a condo that they used to own and should they you know also be entitled to some discount or should they fall into the category of a landlord who owns many units or is doesn't live in the town of Amherst so I think that's something that that's that's being discussed further um and then with respect to the bylaw itself it has been referred to CRC um and the chair of that committee has created a work plan that will give us the opportunity to work on it um throughout the next several months and invite in folks from the community whether they're experts whether they're staff whether they're um residents who are interested um so there will be a lot of opportunities for input there and I think this is something that is uh really um on people's minds and something that we hope we'll be able to have a full and robust discussion with our community about um um I think that was all I had for that so if there are any questions on that we could pause um Kath yep yeah no I just wanted to make a comment so um Kathleen Carroll's on and there we met a couple years ago meaning the we then was Sarah Swartz and I um with a neighborhood around Fisher and Harris where a lot of the homes it's one of these tipping point neighborhoods where a lot of the homes are now rentals that weren't before so part of this we looking at the bylaw is saying um can we when and how should we treat different properties differently based on um they're well maintained nothing ever goes wrong with them the police are never called at the property the neighbors are happy with what's going on versus problem more problematic um and then the second issue that we're hearing from is treating mega complexes large investor-owned chain like lots of units versus what you just said Michelle um a resident who owns a few units or has a few so try into um in in addressing some concerns that neighborhoods have had not paint everything with the same paintbrush um so I think it's going to be important for people to stay tuned to this because it's really difficult um and my my own background from years ago is the only thing I can draw in and it's not particularly relevant but when I was in the healthcare world and people were thinking nursing homes there were some nursing homes where you really wanted them to be inspected somewhat frequently because they were regularly starving there in the people who live there bed sores for the people that you know whatever complaints versus others that you knew were operating and they all were supposed to buy by the same standards but just think differently about them if you know something so try that's where the council is and the CRC group and this exploration is going on can we strengthen what we have already on the books to be in a meaningful way um so I I think neighborhoods we we got um emailed from two different neighborhoods and their groups forming that are concerned about what's happening to their neighborhood and then there's neighborhood groups that are broader that have been working on this for a long time that they know one of their recourse this is to call the police and that shouldn't be the only thing that happens if there are are issues so so it's it's opening up something that we realize is tricky is I guess a real layperson's term on this tricky also you know involves staff and so the staff has to really be the the people that administer the rental registration program enforce the inspections and all of that so there's a lot more that's being considered maybe than meets the eye just to somebody you know looking into it looking in on it so yeah absolutely okay kath did you should we pass it oh yeah I think we should just open it up for any other comments you know we see we had a better participation last first time but last time we did it where we had a later afternoon slot a three to five and that one just turned out to not work this time and then five to seven didn't work for several people who ended up actually not coming so we're going to try to find us the sweet spot for for meeting times and topics but we would definitely like to hear from D1 district one neighborhood association but just any questions kathleen I think we you had emailed me about taxes and ARPA money and we didn't put it on this agenda but things for future meetings that you would like to hear or have us focus on this is a time for both hearing from meg and and what our neighborhood association hasn't worked and for anyone else who's on the call and tony's hands up and meg's hand is half up meg do you want to do a quick donor report or do you want to first talk about future either one yeah either one either way you do a quick donor okay um this is uh thank you kathleen this is helpful uh i'll be really quick we have a bunch of exciting plans for this year for district one neighborhood association um we've discovered that a lot of the things that people are concerned about are related to transportation and planning so we're creating a we're taking the planning committee that we had last year and expanding it and we're creating a sub transportation component of that planning uh looking specifically at uh speed calming speed what is the traffic calming i think is the term on the montague road summer and pine street uh looking at the possibility of a crosswalk at pine and harris and uh we're going to have a summer uh i hope at the park at the pavilion workshop for everybody to come with maps and kind of draw on them what they would like to see in terms of speed traffic and so on and of course the big kahuna issue is the main intersection where there are five roads coming together so we really want to get on top ahead of that because the town is going to make decisions and whether it includes public input will depend on how prepared we are we're monitoring the library uh project uh hoping very much that there will be some north amherst library presence during the construction uh we're monitoring and pressuring really hard on the east pleasant street sidewalk which we've been told two weeks ago that the survey is now happening although i haven't seen any evidence of it but we're really pushing for that it's horrifying especially in a snowstorm to drive up east pleasant street and see the number of people who are walking basically inches away from the traffic because buses letting people off into snow banks because there's no sidewalk. John Gerber's leading a really cool project to create a nature trail that goes from the renaissance center and they've given us permission for parking it goes east over to the agricultural learning fields in center of the beehives and the field experimental fields and so on down to simple gifts along simple gifts across the street to mill river and through the mill river trail system to puppers and to kushman paralleling the uh new history trail that i already mentioned john has just taken this on and done a fantastic job working with david zomek and uh so it'll what it means too is that while we await the east pleasant street sidewalk there'll be a trail that'll kind of go up the the the pathway between the north pleasant street and east pleasant street and get you to the renaissance center so almost where the sidewalk is so it'll be a web walking uptown from north hammers that uh doesn't require going on north pleasant street or the road we're going to have a whole bunch of backyard parties this summer instead of big huge we have probably have one barbecue but we're going to have in order to meet more neighbors we're going to have what we're calling pop-up parties and we have a it'll include everything from voter registration to eating pizza and meeting each other and finding out what people's concerns are we're also uh having hoping to have a session which we may actually might want to do this with kathy and michelle instead of us doing it is so i'll suggest that we think of the best way to organize a district one briefing and conversation about the impact on district one of the various zoning proposals that are being discussed uh whether they affect us or don't they're mostly organized developed around the downtown but be interesting to see what impact they're going to have on district one we're uh also doing some other things that are i don't need to go into strengthening or we're getting tax exempt status strengthening our website and north amherst is a designated historic town center and we want to get a sign that says that as you enter so that we're trying to we're very worried that uh people in town not see the north north amherst as a part of town that we the purpose of which is to drive through as quickly as possible uh but it's a place to you know stop and buy things and hike and recreate and so on not just a uh it's pretty stunning how huge the trucks are ramble at very high speed up and down montague road and up and down fine street um it's really amazing so we're love to hear anybody's ideas of what you think we should be doing and that's what we think we should be doing that's what we're doing so great how much you do as a community association it's really wonderful and we're we're very blessed to have dona in our community doing all of this amazing and exciting and culturally we you know relevant work so thank you meg i'm thrilled to have such awesome counselors just just one no i i echo what michelle just said on the crosswalk michelle michelle meg i know you're going to try to do a petition and get some signatures uh you need to once that's done push hard at the attack level the transportation advisory committee to get it uh sort of like rubbers green stamped with a great idea important so that you can come with a resident proposal to jcpc and not be told that you should have gone to tack first yeah thank you very good because and to be and you know because it's the the root in is really important and it's it could be financed at a pretty low level unless you're told you know you get you're going to get a price tag really high from dpw because somehow it's more expensive when they hear about it in theory than when they do it in fact um but but it has died just so you know it's died twice before that crosswalk well that's a good example of that is the we wanted the smart light which we got we were told by dpw would be 250 thousand dollars and it turned out it was 50 thousand dollars yeah I'm just saying that this uh Nicola brought this a while ago that that exact crosswalk pre pre the existence of the council when it was still town meeting but it just never went anywhere because it didn't have the oomph so just going I would just strongly advise going that route um I wrote it down thank you and Meg before you got here we talked about the survey and that that is under contract and according to Paul's latest town manager report it's going to be at least 12 weeks of a process but it sounds like it's underway so and so Tony's got her hand up too so I didn't mean to jump in right away Tony but oh that's fine no it's actually a perfect segue because I was going to say that I have seen the survey guys out on East Pleasant and there's some like paint at the end of my street with TOA I imagine that's town of Amher showing the property line and so it's very exciting to see them there I hope none of them get hit because they're right in the road with their little uh you know stands so um but I just wanted to thank Michelle and Kathy for getting that to happen because it was a few years ago and Dona as well Dona has really been very supportive about that so I was one of the petitioners to get that survey funded and then it just you know sat in the shelf and nothing happened so really thank you thank you to Meg and Michelle and Kathy for making that happen so now the pressure is for the next step how do we get the construction budgeted um so whether that's a grant that needs to get written or whether it's money that needs to get earmarked in the JCPC plan um it'd be really great if Michelle and Kathy both of you could keep that keep the pressure on there because I feel like the survey can happen and then you know it'll be 10 years before anything gets talked about with construction so um you know money's just going to get tighter over the next few years when all these building projects that repayments start to fold you so anything you can do to keep that front and center while the survey is fresh would be much appreciated thank you you know just Tony had a thought on that um I agree that I an example that we just got a payout from the state for the poor state of our roads because our legislators brought it home we need some payout of state money for sidewalks I mean they're extremely expensive so trying to think of where we can work our state legislatures what our priorities are and argue safety and pedestrian and green you know put it in this climate piece I it's not just the east pleasant street road sidewalk but that's it's going to be a big issue because money is tight as an understatement on on what we've been looking at uh as as uh multiple claims on the same dollars um so so I I think that's right trying to think larger and mag is we you know the the intersection the unsafe intersection has stalled forever because unless we get a big state grant it's just not going to happen um and so uh so we could build consensus about what we might want and it it sits on a to be continued when money becomes available so so I think they're building yeah we just have to come up with a plan that we agree on and push for it oh no and and a plan we agree on and and then making sure that's the plan that's been submitted to the state so I won't go I won't go around the we should be glad we didn't get the grant last time because it wasn't for what we thought it was for up here in North Amherst but yes um and and I think you know we're I have to double check with Guilford DPW the smart light was supposed to come with a counting capacity counting not accounting meaning counting trucks cars people and bicycles so one of the things I've noticed and I know uh Jessica and others who haven't been on the phone but in that intersection there are more period so as COVID has gone away and the north village the beacon apartments are now full and people are out and about um we're back to a traffic flow that was pre COVID but also I think more intense and that was one of the issues why we didn't get the grant last time you know that the state coming out of Boston to take a look at our intersection and they said you think this is a problem and they showed up during the summer and didn't see any backlogs and whatever but you know trying to make sure we get the counts and on the big trucks I'd like to count on the big trucks so I'm just going to find out if we can know those because they're they're rooted through an area that is more congested than it used to be yeah so any we we don't have a huge group here right now but um I would urge everyone to send in ideas issues um the Kathleen Carroll who I saw logged off she'd asked me about taxes and where they're going and where are we spending on the ARPA money and I thought that's a larger discussion but we could make you know that how much money did the town get from ARPA and where are we spending it we can put we can make that an agenda item but if anyone wants to send in others and we'll just come prepared including we'll bring people in who can talk about it in a more informed way than perhaps we can I know when Lynn and Pat held their district meeting they brought in some town staff so we we can figure out what topics people would like to know more about and want to be partly a presentation partly a discussion exactly what you mentioned a resident Sam that was going to bring Sam McLeod McLeod if I say his name right he is on the community protection preservation at committee and he is an outreach they developed a website a facebook page but they would like to describe how to apply for a resident proposal you know so not it's resident proposal is over at JCPC this is just a proposal to CPAC and it has to fit in different categories but they have an open period that'll be coming up opening in the summer so they want to make sure they come out to district meetings and it can't it has to fit but it can be things like a playground area adding something for recreation or an open area that has no recreation so recreation is one and it can be very small or larger and they don't get a lot of community-based proposals so Meg squeak squeaked its way in through a lot of work a lot of work yeah we will feature that and we will try to do more advanced notice with probably a three to five sunday slot unless we hear differently from people that seem to be a better time slot one of the things that I've been interested in is trying to find ways to engage district one when it comes to voting days on voting days I think that trying to sort of brainstorm and think about together ways that we can engage not only on voting days but to sort of get people in the district more engaged overall in in what's happening here so that's something that I would like to find a way to talk about some point sounds good so I think we don't have to we're down to a smaller and smaller group as people log off so I think we could say that we have finished the district one meeting for today do you think yes thank you for being here yeah thanks everyone thank you all thank you enjoy the rest of your weekend bye bye bye um kath I think it will stop recording when you get off but it just can you just check it because I want to make sure that we get it under the cloud so I go up do I click up and just do a stop yeah what happens if you do a stop