 Good evening and welcome back to Byline. This is a collaborative effort of the Amherst League of Women Voters and Amherst Media. It's a public affairs show and the focus of our work here on this 30-minute show each Friday evening and repeated each Monday evening is to introduce you to and dig deeper into the background and the thinking of all of our new legislators. We have a new Amherst Town Council. We also have a new state representative and a new state senator. So you're being represented both here in Town Hall and in Boston by a whole new crew of people and this is an opportunity for you over the course of the next year or so to get to know your elected representatives better and understand what's happening with our Town Council as it evolves because it's a work in progress. The charter was written, the charter was voted upon, the charter passed, the council's now been sworn in but it's a new form of government and we have a lot to learn and a lot to experience and tonight we're going to hear from our newly elected vice president of the Amherst Town Council, Mandy Jo Hennike. Now Mandy this is fascinating because when I think about you I'm trying to figure out what hat are you wearing at any given moment because you bring, you sit at that table as one person but you're wearing three different hats. You're the only person on the council that served on the Charter Commission and you were the vice chair of the Charter Commission. You are also now a newly elected officer of the council. You are the vice president and we'll talk a little bit more about what that means and you're also an at-large councilor one of three. How do you keep that all straight? It's tough, especially the Charter Commission hat because naturally if there's a question about the charter or is this in a charter or not, at this point most of those questions everyone turns their head and stares at me and says, well what do you think? I have to constantly say, putting my Charter Commissioner hat on this is what the Charter Commission was hoping and I take that responsibility seriously because as the only Charter Commissioner now on the council I have the sort of biggest voice potential for how to interpret that charter from all nine of the former commissioners and so I want to make sure I'm doing that in a good and true way to what we as Charter Commissioners intended and then there's the at-large portion, one of three of us, we were elected by everyone in town instead of a portion of town and so everyone on council is responsible for and responsive to the whole town but we're the ones that are elected by everyone in town and so we have to, that makes us more accountable to the entire town if some controversial vote comes up, we would be more looking at it as town-wide versus what do my singular constituents in one district want. That's not to say that no other councilor besides the at-larges are considering what's best for the town because everyone is but we're the ones. But their first obligation is to the people who elected them and that's the people in their district, two precincts, but in your case and Alissa it's the whole town. It is, it's the whole town so there's that sort of perspective to consider when when listening to residents and what's what's coming at us in public comment and all and then there's the vice presidency and there's only technically one job for me which is if Lynn Grissom or our current president isn't at a meeting I'm the one that runs the meeting but you know there's there's other responsibilities I think and that come with that that aren't written in the charter because the charter doesn't include everything. For example? You know I think it's my duty to make sure I know what's going on in case Lynn can't attend a meeting you know or a couple meetings you know I have to be able to step into that role in and be ready for that role and so I think there's a little bit more background. So that means even though you all have an obligation to read all 30 documents you were given for next Monday's meeting you have a special responsibility because you might actually end up having to take the gavel. I might have to take the gavel know what motions are coming but not only that if if she doesn't end up at a meeting or a couple of meetings I'm the one that has to set the agenda so I think you know my my other responsibility I think is trying to keep in track of what needs to come up what isn't coming up where things are going you know because the planning doesn't happen just for one meeting you know we're planning multiple meetings ahead and and so trying to I I think the vice president needs to be aware of what's going on so that if it comes up you know where things are coming in and are ready for that. So and to go back to your role as having been the vice chair of the Charter Commission and this jumped out at the December 10th meeting when I saw you pipe up and and you had a discussion about about let's see the approval of the rank choice voting work of the committee that will be formed it's in the process of now being formed and his meeting and is is preparing their recommendations on rank choice voting well I thought that was a very interesting moment because it was this big debate about council action versus a council approval and there was a third word which is escaping it also began with the D but okay it's that's not adopted adopted that's it's didn't begin with the DB got the D in it right okay so so talk about why why that point was important that you pipe up at that moment and at that moment you had your former hat on as Charter Commission member yeah but you were sitting there as another counselor about to make a decision about what to do going forward talk about that yeah so I had to put my Charter Commission hat on because I realized at that point that that the Charter Commission in creating we had set up in in the Charter two commissions that we wanted the council to create this ranked choice voting one and a participatory budgeting Commission and we worked on the language and the Charter Commission one of the things I can categorically say the Charter Commission agreed on 100% unanimously was the adoption of rank choice voting it's about the only thing we always agreed on and so when we wrote the language of you need to form that Commission we we as Charter Commissioners didn't think it was appropriate to write the legislation to adopt ranked choice voting so we said that that needs to go to someone else but how do we ensure that it be adopted because yeah we can say create a committee and then the council can just ignore it and we didn't want that to happen so we wrote into the Charter specifically since we wanted ranked choice voting adopted that the Commission would have to propose a measure and that the council would have to adopt the measure instead of just act on the measure where an action can be saying no or tabling it and never acting you know taking a vote that doesn't adopt and so we made that distinction in the Charter and at that meeting I realized the item we were the charge we were adopting to create the Commission didn't actually said act not adopt and I said wait a second that's not what we have to do by what the Charter says so yeah I was I was attempting to modify as a counselor what it said based on my knowledge as a Charter Commissioner as to what the Charter Commission wrote and intended the Participatory Budgeting Commission on the other hand just requires the council to act it doesn't have to adopt the recommendations of that Commission when that Commission comes back with a measure they don't have to and so we there were portions of the Charter that we made that distinction so there's a couple of really interesting things in that first with regard to ranked choice voting you made a policy decision as a Charter Commission but you didn't want to write the legislation right you wanted to leave that to a panel of people that would be appointed further on later on in the process yes and that group is going to be appointed and then they're going to prepare their work and they're going to submit it yes does the council have to rubber stamp that no it can amend it it can amend it okay and and yes and that says that in the Charter and and it may or may not it is one that hopefully the council will work with whoever's appointed it's it's an interesting appointment process that's the of the two commissions the ranked choice voting we as Charter Commissioners did not say a counselor needs to be on whereas the Participatory Budgeting that the council doesn't have to adopt we did put a counselor on and okay yes so so it has to adopt it but it could amend it and and the goal is hopefully they'll look into it it'll get potentially once the Commission comes back referred to an own council committee to look into it but the goal of having that Commission was create people who are experts in right choice voting to do that research because the Charter Commission was not and so these two things are examples of your ability as a former member of the Charter Commission to be able to explain and clarify the intention of the Charter Commission and that's a very serious responsibility because you because I'm the one that has the voice now to do that or the and you're the only one of those Charter Commission members who sitting at the table right which is why I take it extremely seriously when people ask me well what is that meant because there are some things in the Charter I didn't agree with but are in there and so I have to go back and think what did we as a Commission intend even if I don't agree with it or didn't want it in there or voted against it and then there's some things that I do agree with but maybe in a different sense and so I'm always trying to go back to what conversations did we have that caused us to put that in and then rephrase that and frame that for those that have to now interpret it and say this is what we were hoping would happen obviously if it's an interpretation it doesn't have to be done that way right and so when we're watching you struggle there with that hat on we have to be thinking about about the effort that you're making to fairly represent what happened over a multiple-year period a few years ago to the best of your ability yes okay now but another thing that sort of jumps out there and that is one of the things that move the community in the direction after four attempts over I think it's either four or maybe five attempts over 40 years to change its form of government was frustration that a lot of people had that town committees were set up with volunteer volunteers from the community who took their charge seriously they worked hard they did their research they did their homework they took field trips they did whatever they needed to do to try to come up with the best ideas sort through them come up with a proposal and then present it to the community and very often it would like go up in smoke yes so when I'm listening to you talk about rank choice voting and how the commission the Charter Commission made that decision and about the community participates participatory budgeting committee or commission when I hear you talk about those two they were conscious decisions made yeah by the the Charter Commission and they're going to be followed through on but how are you thinking about other kinds of panels and groups that are going to come forward with specific proposals sometimes the council will set up the committee to go and do something and sometimes it'll be an existing board or commission that's already I think you call them multiple member committees which are made up of people from the community and may have some councils on or may not and then some things that the town manager and his team will put together how do you as one counselor see that in view of that long history of frustration that people had of good work going up in smoke so I see us being able to better have conversations with those bodies whether it be a resident committee that has already been set up by a previous government the select board or town meeting or the manager or whether it be a committee we set up or whether it be town staff and when proposals are coming forward with the frequency of the meetings and the fact that the charter allows us to have non-voting liaisons on any committee we want and then on committees we form like participatory budgeting where the Charter Commission made it said we need to have a counselor on that committee and we can have those counselors to have that conversation to say and to the committee you know I'm not sure this might get this might not go by the council I'm not sure you can get the votes for it because they've got these concerns but but then the committee in the middle of their work on that can come back and present to the council while they're working and saying here's where we're going what are your thoughts because the goal is not to have committees do work but then as you said go up in smoke you know it's hard to recruit people to committees if they don't think there's gonna be a result taken seriously yeah so so I think the the reason the Charter Commission went with this form and what I think this form brings is that ability to have that two-way conversation with reports there's sections in the agendas that are just always there of presentations and discussions where committees can come in and say here's where we are we're not done we're not ready to propose the legislation or propose the change but this is where we're going what are your thoughts which will then better inform their discussions later on as they're doing the research and then they can come back with the legislation if we're still not comfortable with it it can go back and it can go back and forth within a two-week period because we're meeting pretty much every other week twice a month on a regular basis if there's something more important we can meet more so I think that's where the promise of this system lies in that ability to really have those two-way conversations and back and forth and say you know we really believe what you're doing is something we need we're just not there yet and so bring it back in two weeks and we'll put it on the agenda in two weeks and that was something that the prior government had a had a hard time doing because of how the structure was inside and so they were part of that group this is another group and they weren't communicating and the people who had to make the ultimate decision the select board in most cases and the town meeting they're basically there was no communication as the process of developing the proposal was unfolding and then also the other feature you mentioned was overlapping membership there'll be opportunities for town counselors to sit on various panels and for others who need to be involved in that decision people who are people who have a seat at the table can often work things out that if you don't have a seat at the table it's not going to happen yeah and even if you don't have a seat at the table if there's more communication which is what you're describing along the way you can find the pitfalls try to fix them before you get to the point of final decision yeah excellent very good so another thing that jumped out at me when I was watching I think it was the December 10th meeting of the town council was sort of an alphabet soup of of our finance structure so as best I I figured it out and I'm not going to get all the names of them correct but there's four different panels that all potentially participate in the budget making process where the town council has the ultimate vote and decision-making but we've got the finance committee we've got a capital committee yes we've got a participatory budgeting commission and we've got a one other help me the budget coordinating budget coordinating group so tell us how the how does that work yeah so so the finance committee is a committee of the council and that one deals with the budget so when that's the operating that's that's the whole budget the whole the whole operating and operating and eventually capital so that's the one that when the manager proposes the whole budget the budget goes to for review and for our investigation and all of that and then it comes from there with a recommendation to the full council to pass so anything dealing with appropriations I guess is a better way to say it if we're spending money if we're saying you have the right to spend a million dollars here that's where the finance committee comes in is that something we want to do and what's the recommendation and all of that that's the legislative body that's looking at the spending of the money the big spending you know not not line item but overall spending the budget coordinating group is an essential part of that in a sense because our whole budget that comes from the town manager is actually in a way five separate budgets it's a budget drafted by the library trustees for the library expenses it's a budget drafted by the Amherst school committee for the elementary school spending it's a budget drafted by the regional school committee for the regional school middle and high school spending it's a budget drafted by the town manager for town operations town hall spending and it's a capital budget the capital portion which can go over which goes over all of them essentially and so the budget coordinating group is the group that gets to its people from all of those areas that get together and say well where how much is each of these big areas going to have based on sort of next year's assumed revenue and state aid and all of that so they're the ones that'll get together and sort of hash out some of the really big lines and and see if they can get together and agree on those guidelines as the budgets are getting drafted and then work within those guidelines and if not and a school committee or a library trustees says this guideline you gave me is just not gonna work that's the group that it would come back to for discussion as to whether that guideline can go up and this one can go down then there's the joint capital planning committee which is the alphabet soup of JCPC budget coordinating group is BCG and and joint capital planning is a similar group library trustees school committee members town counselors and some from finance some from not that that will look at the capital program the capital improvement program which includes a whole lot of things it includes buying trucks that'll last more than five years buying police cruisers buying lawn mowers but it also includes putting a roof on a building or repairing the siting of a building anything that's long-term for it infrastructure related it includes also then all of the town sort of the big projects that were part of a number of different elections recently and where that's the group that's looking at how do we afford all of that what are we buying this year under that capital budget what we can afford and how are you going to pay for it and what we're actually going to buy because there's more requests than all money always so so prioritizing the small small capital and big capital you know because there's different levels of capital so that's what JCPC does the capital planning committee and then the charter has this ad hoc committee this year and a half two year study committee on participatory budgeting and that is a committee that right now isn't doing any budgeting work itself it's going to actually investigate whether within the capital program the town should set aside a certain percentage or a certain dollar amount a hundred thousand two hundred thousand five percent three percent it's part of what they'll be looking at to allow the citizens and the residents of the town residents and to pick what they're going to spend it on Cambridge has a program and they have a program I don't know what their dollar amount is but people residents can can propose projects whether it be benches on a street a water fountain somewhere a new furniture for a teen lounge or you know anything like that or something bigger it has to be within a certain dollar amount and and artwork in all sorts of things and then there's a committee that would potentially look at those put stuff on a ballot and then that goes out to vote of all the residents in town by strictures in terms of measure Cambridge allows anyone I believe aged 13 and older whether or not a citizen of the United States as long as they live in Cambridge to vote on the projects and it's a small pot of money that's set aside for that process which engages people in the process of thinking about how you spend public money yes so it's as much an educational experience and experiencing outside of government what the people inside the government are actually doing right to put together a budget and make decisions because there are too many too many initiatives chasing too few dollars and so you get to experience that but you also get a few things yeah done along the way and and you get to do it with with children you know it's it's a way so they get to learn about public file a little bit about public finance and budgeting which by the way they're gonna have to learn at home because they have to spend their allowance and they're gonna go off to college soon or start a business or whatever and they have to learn how to budget so okay so what I get out of this part of our conversation is it's confusing yes but the important thing is that there there is a system in place for deciding what our priorities are going to be to spend in our operating capital our operating budget which means the amount of money we spend each year on the services that we're gonna receive and what we're going to invest in terms of capital which are longer term projects everything from equipment to building buildings and maintaining those buildings right and so what you've described is although there are five different pockets here or five different panels they all have a specific job to do the result of which is a bunch of different people get to participate in the process some of them are elected some of them are appointed and they get to figure out how we're going to spend our tax dollars and if you watch each of the panels you're going to understand more about how our where our revenue comes from and how we're going to spend that revenue and the choices that need made and the choices that have to be because there are always choices that have to be right so in the final minute or so what's your philosophy of leadership because you're a leader I yeah you know my philosophy is to try and let everyone that wants to be heard be heard you know it's it's important to hear different voices those that don't agree with me along with those that might agree with me and so my philosophy is to to let it let it all be said whether or not it's it's something I might agree with or not my other philosophy I guess goes along with that which is try not to prejudge the people saying it based on whether I've agreed with them prior positions in the past that they have an open mind yes so I guess that would be a very open mind because you know you might not agree with someone here but something else that they're saying might be perfectly on point that there is something we need to do and so I try to always keep that open mind and not prejudge oh it's you know it's this person's the one proposing it so of course I'm not going to agree with it that's not that's not how I operate because I don't know whether I'm going to agree with it till I hear what they say so I guess that that would be my the sort of other side of let everyone be heard which is also keep an open mind because you never know where the good ideas are going to come from and your philosophy on representation would be roughly the same it would be and is there anything else that goes with that because representation and leadership are two different roles there right they are you know I I it what goes with it I think is being willing to put out their differences you know I as an at-large candidate I'm gonna have people urging me to do one thing and urging me to do another and you mean there's gonna be differing there are and and when I'm in a council meeting and making a comment sometimes I'm gonna bring those comments forward that that the public have said and I might not agree with them but it's something that hasn't been said to the council and you know putting that idea out there might spark something else or might say you know you know we've been talking about this issue and this one person in public comment said this and we haven't discussed that and so I think I see my job in representation and all of that as making sure all the points of view are put out there and not buried great well good luck to you in both your leadership role and you as a representative of the people thank you for joining us and you can see the show again on Monday evening at 6 p.m. and if you just can't wait until then you can go on to Amherst Media's website or their YouTube channel and watch it again and again and again until you figure out that whole budgeting scenario thank you for joining us