 We'll record. Thank you. Good evening. It's March 27, 2023. This is a special meeting of the town council on November 7th. An act was passed that allows us to meet in this format. But I do want to call attention to the fact that this meeting is accessible in real time by a zoom by phone. And as a live broadcast on Amherst media channel 17. And on live stream at Amherst media.org. Given that we have a quorum of the council present. I'm calling the March 27, 2023 town council meeting to order. At 633. I'm going to first call on counselors and then I'll be turning to Andy Steinberg chair of the finance committee to call the finance committee to order as well, given that this is a joint meeting. So, when I call on you, just unmute your mic say present and go back. Shelly Balmille. Present. Pat DeAngeles. Present. Anna Devlin, got here. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Joe Hanneke. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. I'll wait for Dorothy. Pam Rooney. Here. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. Alicia Walker. Here. Thank you. Andy, would you please go ahead and call the finance committee to order? Yes, I call the finance committee to order. There is a quorum of the committee present. There are two resident members of the committee who are not counselors who are also present and I need to confirm that they can hear me and we can hear them. Bob Hegner. Present. And Matt Holloway. Present. Okay. And so I do know, as I did last time, we had a joint meeting that the president of the council is chairing the meeting. I urge all members of the finance committee to feel free to raise their hands. At any appropriate time with questions and comments, but it's really up to the president to determine who to call. Thank you. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know. Use the raised hand button. And if technical difficulties arise, we'll determine what to do at the time. I also want to note that there is no change in the order of this special meeting agenda as posted. There are no announcements that I'm going to spend time on tonight. We're going to go directly to presentations and discussions. I just want to note as we go into that, there is no vote taken tonight. The purpose of the special meeting of the town council, which includes public comment in this case. I just want to note that as we go into that, there is no vote taken tonight. I just want to note that there is no vote taken tonight. Which includes public comment in this case is to hear from the town manager and our finance director regarding the finances relative to the elementary school appropriation and bonding in the context of financing the four building projects. It's to hear from the public regarding these issues. In addition to the emails that we have already received and general public comment. I would like to move on to the public comment. So I would like to move on to the public comment. I would like to move on to the finance committee regarding their recommendations. About the elementary school appropriation and bonding in the context of financing for building projects. There will be no votes regarding the appropriation and bonding this evening. The vote of the town council must. By. Order of the charter. Follow a public forum regarding appropriations and bonding. I would like to move on to the public comment. I would like to move on the. Let me also mention we're going to have a presentation. Then there will be an opportunity for counselors to discuss. Make comments, et cetera. Then we'll move to public comment. And then we'll go back to counselor discussion. And conclude the meeting and adjourn. I also want to ask, since you've joined us. Dorothy, can you hear us? Thank you. All right. With that. Any other comment? Thank you. I was reading from my script. Alicia, you have your hand up. Yes. Thank you. I just had a few questions in regards to the opening statement that you just made. One of them being that my understanding was that the purpose for this meeting was for us to have more time to have. A conversation about this matter as a full council. And not necessarily to get another presentation. That was not my understanding of what this meeting was going to be. And so I'm slightly confused about why we're having another presentation before we have council discussion. And I also am slightly confused as to why we were having the presentation before public comment. Because again, my understanding of this meeting when we declared it last week at the council meeting was that we didn't have enough time to discuss the topic that we were already discussing. And so that we wanted more time for council discussion. And so I'm hoping that we could start with public comment and then use a majority of this meeting for council discussion. Alicia, thank you for that comment. Let me just mention that the presentation that you see tonight has additional information to that that was presented. At the finance committee meeting. And so I think it's important to go ahead and I think it's important for all the people in the audience, as well as the people in the room to see that presentation. And with regard to public comment, I think it's also important for the public to see the presentation and to resonate with the presentation and the councilor comments. So at this point, the agenda will remain as it is. Okay, thank you. But I also have another thing that I would like to challenge and that is that no votes would happen. I think it was also you stated at the last minute meeting that a counselor could put a motion on the floor at any time. And I would like to reserve that right as a counselor, even in this meeting. But I am okay to start with the presentation. So I would just like to make those statements and proceed with the meeting. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Okay. Paul, I'm going to start with you and then you can move to Sean. Thank you. So we did make a updated brief presentation. Some of it is some information you've seen before, but there's some things that counselors have asked about that we've added to this. So we'll expedite it because I know you really want to reserve time for the council to have the discussion. So Sean put together a nice presentation. I just turned it over to him. All right. So can everybody hear me? This is the first time being in the room for a while. So I apologize as I worked through the logistics of talking into the mic and managing this, the slides at the same time. So, so thank you. This presentation, the main purpose is to address some of the questions that were brought up last time and provide some additional information. It's a little disjointed because it really is responding to the questions that we heard. So as we go through it, it feels like we're changing topics. It's because we are we're kind of bouncing around from one question to another. Bless you. So the agenda, we're going to do a quick project update. We'll talk about how this project fits into the four building projects. We'll get back to talking about the reserve levels and the planning around that. We'll look at what the town has done to reduce the impact on taxpayers, and how we can support residents in need. We'll look at what else can be done. And then we will look at some additional information, some follow-ups from last time. So tonight's goal as I understand it is for the council to provide input to the finance committee for their meeting tomorrow. To help them make the decision on when they make a recommendation back to the council, how what level of reserves to include in that recommendation. Currently the debt authorization includes $5 million, but we know that hasn't been set. The finance committee hasn't recommended it yet and the council hasn't voted it yet. So the information tonight is to help give you some information so you can give the finance committee input. And then the finance committee ultimately makes the recommendation vote, which again feels kind of circular, but it'll come back to the council. And really specifically, I think the discussion has been whether to appropriate $5 million from capital stabilization or $10 million from capital stabilization to try to narrow in on the specific decision to be made . So project update. So last Monday, the MSBA and some town officials attended a project scope and budget meeting where MSBA went through the project budget. They looked at our reimbursement and they essentially set it in stone until they vote. So we don't anticipate many changes going forward unless there's some mistake that's found, but there were some changes relative to the presentation that we had from before. So I'll go through that quickly. The total project budget is at $99,222,297. And again, it's higher than the $98 million that we've talked about because it now includes the feasibility study. It doesn't increase the cost or anything like that. It's just previously we wanted to keep the feasibility study separate, but the MSBA wanted us to put it all together. So that's been added back in. So the real, the budget is this 99.2 million. The biggest change that came out of that meeting is that our reimbursement rate was updated for 2023. And unfortunately it went down based on our current demographics. The previous reimbursement rate that we had included a, so the way that MSBA reimbursement rate works is that you have a base rate, and then they give you incentive points for certain elements about your community, your income, your poverty, property values. So the one that changed for us is our, we were getting points under the old reimbursement rate for poverty, which is that they look at the number of free and reduced lunch students that you have, and they compare that to the state average. If you're above the state average, they give you points. If you're below the state average, they don't. And under the previous reimbursement percentage, we were getting points. And it turns out that was due to some special legislation that had been filed that allowed the MSBA previously to go back and look at a bigger span of time. And she was your highest free and reduced lunch rate over that span of time. That legislation has since expired. So when they updated the rate for 2023, they no longer can do that. And when they look at our 2023 numbers, we no longer above the state average. Fortunately, we're right around the state average. We're not way below it, but we're not above it. And you have to be above it to get the points. It seems like a flaw in the system. So we're not going to get the points. We're not going to get the points. We're not going to get the points. We're not going to get the points. We've communicated those concerns, but it's, it's written in the statute. So it's. It's pretty straightforward how they calculate it. We have communicated this to our legislators. It's something we'd like to see. Addressed at some point, possibly as our way to reinstitute the legislation that was in place previously. So we will update the council if there's any positive news on that front. But that's why our estimated MSBA facility grant has dropped from three million to one million. We can. Sort of set until the. The project is voted on. So this chart. So that, that's sort of the extent of the changes. So this chart shows three options. Option one is what we were looking at previously where we applied no reserves. To support this project. Option two is the five million from capital stabilization. And option three is 10 million. total project budget, last year MSB facility grant produces the estimated town share. From there, we subtract out whatever other funding sources are available. So an option of one, the 3.3 million is comprised of the 1.6 million and ever source incentives and rebates. It includes 700,000 from CPA and it includes one million for the feasibility study that will be repaid partially from free cash. We did an appropriation for pre-cash for 280,000 and the other 750,000 will be repaid as part of our capital budget. So when you add those three things together, it gets us to the 3.3 million. So an option one, the net amount that would be borrowed through the debt exclusion is 55.4 million. That increased the impact for the single-family home on average, I think it was 478 previously, reduced it to 496 or $1.11 per thousand. So that brings us to option two, everything is the same except for the other funding sources category now includes $5 million from capital stabilization in that number. So it's increased by 5 million. That reduces the net amount to be borrowed down to 50.4 million and reduces the impact on the ever single-family home to $451. And then option three does the same thing, but adds now another 5 million to get it up to 10 million and you can see the impact is $406.73 for the ever single-family home. So this again, these numbers, now that we have had the project scope and budget, they've been reviewed by the MSBA, they're set. Really the decision now at this point is for the town inside what it wants to do in terms of financing the project. So how does this all fit into the bigger plan for the four building projects? And I apologize that these column charts are a little small on the right, but essentially what it's showing is that previously that first gray column is the total cost of all the projects. So it's $30 million for public works, $20 million for the fire station, $46 million for the library and $99 million for the elementary school. So all set in total, it's $195 million. This has gone up quite a bit since 2016 because of obviously construction escalation and just things becoming more expensive. The next chart is how we proposed to finance it or what we've been working under to finance it. So the first green box at the bottom are capital reserves. So this chart here is based on if we went with option two, which is 5 million of capital reserves to support the school project. So 25 million from capital reserves is based on 5 million to support the school project and then still trying to raise 20 million or build a reserve up to 20 million to fund the fire station. The next chunk, I think it's 48 million would come from general fund debt. So this is repaying for the Jones library, the DPW out of our capital budget. And it also includes the CPA contributions towards the library and the school project because that's also general fund debt. Next is 17 million from private or other. So this represents the fundraising that is part of the library project and it also includes the rebates as part of the school project. Then we have state aid, which is in the $50 million range between the MBLC and the MSBA grant. And then the rest is the debt exclusion, 51 million. And so what we're trying to show here is again how critical the debt exclusion is to this financing plan. If you take out the debt exclusion, it sort of brings us back to reevaluating all the projects. And it's possible that we could lose the state aid. We could lose obviously the fundraising will not likely happen and it could leave us with just those bottom two green squares or about $70 million or so. And at the same time, the farthest to the right would be if we looked at repair options for the schools and for the Jones library, again, just ballpark, but the bottom line is we would not be able to address all the needs of all the buildings without state aid and without some of these other sources of financing. Any questions so far? So reserve use planning. So as since October, the plan for reserves has been to build it to a balance of 20 million to construct a new fire station without debt. And main primary reason for that is financing through debt is very expensive right now relative to where it's been the last few years. It just rates up into the 4% range. And so we really need to try to knock off one of these projects without borrowing because when you add in the additional interest cost, it takes a big chunk out of the funds that the town has available for capital. And so based on our current reserve balance and our capital stabilization fund, which is about nine and a half million and looking at sort of our historical averages for what we've had for surpluses at the year end, we estimate an option one where we don't use any capital stabilization funds that we would hit that 20 million dollar mark somewhere between FY 28 and FY 29. Option two where we pull out 5 million, we estimate we'd hit it in FY 30, FY 31. Again, if that 5 million is replenished, like the proposal is to replenish that 5 million with possible tax incentive repayments, then it would be the same as option one if we replenished it in a reasonable amount of time. And then option three is if we took out 10 million, we would hit the 20 million and FY 33. But if we replenish half of that, then it would be option two, which is FY 30 or FY 31. So this is to give you a sense of if we pull it out, when do we think we'd get back to that target of 20 million for the fire station? All right. So this next slide outlines some of the efforts that we and when I say we, I mean, the global we as a town, some of these things were driven by residents, some of these things were driven by elected officials, town officials. It really has been a townwide effort to reduce the project cost. But the number one way we reduce the impact on taxpayers is to reduce the overall project cost and reduce the amount that gets borrowed. And so we wanted to highlight all the things that have happened since the start of this project that have helped accomplish that mission. So starting right at the beginning, the original space summary for the project was around 113,000 square feet. Again, this is one that was driven in part by resident feedback, the building square footage was reduced by about 8000 square feet. And when you look at construction costs per square foot and the $800 range and total project costs per square foot, much higher than that, it adds up pretty quickly how much savings you have as a result of reducing the square footage of the building. The school building committee reduced the total project budget by $5 million to the value engineering process. The feasibility study costs, we decided not to put that through the debt exclusion but to finance that through free cash and through our capital budget. The increased MSBA, again until about October and November, that wasn't really on track to happen for this project. I think town officials moved quickly to articulate the issue and get in front of the MSBA to advocate for this. And as a result of that, they did increase the construction cap pretty quickly, which increased our reimbursement. The community preservation act request, that was from residents for 700,000, the MOU we have with ever source around energy efficiency initiatives for another 1.6. So even before considering capital stabilization funds, you can see millions of dollars have been reduced from the total project budget. If these things were not done, what we'd be projecting for an impact from the debt exclusion would be much, much higher. So one of the pieces of feedback we've heard was around the portability of Amherst. I think we all know that rents are high in town and a lot of that is driven by demand to live here. But the town has worked very hard over the past really for many, many years to make Amherst more affordable within what we can do. We can't do everything, but there are things the town can do and this outlines some of them. One thing we can do is promote increases in housing stock and increases in affordable units. So since 2015, including some of the projects that are underway right now, the town has added almost a thousand new dwelling units to its housing stock. Again, prices are driven by demand. So if we can increase the supply, that's one way to help offset the demand. Within that, over 12% of the town's housing stock is certified by the state is permanently affordable. We'll get you an exact number. We're trying to fine tune the final number. We think it's closer to 13%, but the town is doing well in terms of its percentage that certified is permanently affordable. We've been working with nonprofit partners to again create more units that are affordable. We have 132 Northampton Road, which includes 28 units. We have the Ball Lane project coming up, which went through CPA, which has 30 units, home ownership opportunities. The town has repurposed two properties that it owns to be developed into affordable housing, 45 units. And then we have the VFW site that was recently purchased to provide supportive housing and some other services. Some of that comes from our Community Preservation Act Committee, which has been very supportive of community housing over the last 10 years. They've recommended over $7 million of their funding for community housing projects. The town has adopted an inclusionary zoning bylaw, which essentially says when there's a new development that's creating more than 10 new dwelling units, a certain percentage of those units have to be affordable. And as a result in the last three years, 30 affordable units have been created through that process. And those are things that it's sort of hidden, but when a development has affordable units, it's not valued as high because the value of these developments is based on the income that they generate. So there's a permanent loss of tax revenue when we do this, but it's the town's commitment towards creating affordable units. With the American Rescue Plan Act, about 15 to 20 percent or $2 million was allocated for affordable housing and sheltering. The planning department provides tremendous support to the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust and we're in the process of hiring a grant funded housing planner to help with some of the affordable housing projects in town. So supporting residents in need. So if Kim is in the room, I will turn it over to her as Kim in the room. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. So some of the exemptions that we already offer are for seniors, for those who are legally blind, for veterans, and we have a hardship and a tax deferral as well. Just briefly to touch on what these are. The seniors, there's an income and asset based requirement for the 41C. The exemption that we offer starts at $1,000 and Amherst has adapted to be able to actually increase that by doubling that if you continue to apply and qualify. Many towns in Massachusetts don't actually adopt to be able to do that. So I think that's really important. So that is income and asset based and you also have to be 65 and own and occupy your home. For the Clause 17D, it is starting out at $175. Amherst has also adopted to increase that as well. So it will be $319 that you get. And that one is just you have to be 70. You have to own and occupy your home and there's an asset requirement for that as well. Blindness is a little more simple. All you have to do is be registered with the Commission of the Blind in Massachusetts and own and occupy your home. For the veterans, there are multiple qualifications. Minimum, again, is just to own and occupy your home. And the Veterans Clause, you have to be at least 10% service connected with a service connected disability. So there are different types of percentages and then different types of different amounts of tax that we can abate depending on your circumstance there. And then the hardship and the tax deferral. Tax deferral, you do need to be a qualifying senior. And the hardship is more for someone who has a actual hardship happening. It's meant to be just a temporary fix. There are qualifications for that as well. Being disabled, there's a number of things that we would go through with you if you feel that you're having a hardship. There's also the senior and veteran tax work-off program where you can volunteer your time to work in a town office depending on your abilities as well as the town needs. This is something that you would either go through the senior center with Haley or through the veterans, the veterans office as well with Steve. And you can get up to $1,500 off of your taxes. Also, if you are someone who is qualifying for those exemptions, but you can't physically do the work, someone else can do the work for you and volunteer that time and defer that to your tax bill. So that's an option too that we also offer. So any questions on those, I'm happy to answer. If you don't think of them tonight, I'm here all day. So please call me or send me an email. I'm happy to help with those. So Kim is our principal assessor. I should have mentioned that first. Kim, what is the email for the assessor's office if people have any questions and want to send those in through email? Sure. Email is assessors. So ASSESORS at amherstma.gov. And if you prefer phone call, that's fine too. Our phone number is 413-259-3024. Thank you, Kim. So the last bullet on here is for the resident emergency aid program. I know we've talked about this a little bit, but this was an ARPA funded program that's been in high demand. We're almost out of the funds that were allocated to it. And so the intent I believe is we're going to extend this program longer. And so this is for renters, but it's also for people in homes. Anybody with overdue mortgage rent or utility bills are eligible to apply. So what else can be done? So one question I came up last time was about the rental or the emergency aid program. And I mentioned how ARPA ends at the end of 2026. So one thing that could be done is community development block grant money could be extended for towards this purpose. It would look a little different because typically with CDBG we would find a nonprofit partner. We would work with them. And the application process might look a little different. But we could put funds towards a similar purpose once ARPA funds run out. The second one is state advocacy for adjustments to the pilot formula. So this one, you're going to hear me say over and over again, probably throughout the budget process and throughout every other meeting. Because this one to me is really the critical underlying issue that really affects everything we do in town. And it relates to Amherst having a large portion of its land as tax exempt. And the unique thing about Amherst is that on our tax exempt land, unlike many other places, we have 15 or 20,000 residents that live on that land. Many other places have large portions of tax exempt land, but not necessarily that level of residents living on it that then require services and require all the things that come along with being a resident. So you'll hear me continue to say this over and over again. We've started a process to work with our legislators to advocate for changes to this. And what we really want to do this is acknowledge that Amherst has a somewhat unique circumstance in this regard and to look at the formula and kind of highlight the ways it's disadvantaged Amherst over the years. So this one, you'll hear me continue to talk about. The third one, nonprofit funding and support from our community partners. So we have a number of community partners in town that we've worked with in the past. So far for the elementary school project, we have not been able to partner with any of these nonprofit community agencies or institutions. So this is something we will continue to look to do. And we hope to bring back positive news in the future on this. Continue to invest in affordable housing and growing all housing. I think it will continue to be a primary mission for us to maintain Amherst's affordability and to continue to expand the tax base. So one thing we've shown so far is the impacts of the debt exclusion based on the current tax base. If we continue to grow the tax base the way we have done in the past, that impact will reduce every year as we add more taxpayer payers to the tax rolls. So as we can spread out the burden of the debt exclusion, it will reduce the overall impact for the average single family home. And then lastly, maximize project cost savings. So we have a project budget within that project budget. We have X million dollars of contingency. One of the things the school bill committee can try to do is to manage that project budget as closely as possible. So much of it will be driven by the construction bids that come in for the project, but we can do what we can to try to bring that project in under budget once we have those construction bids. And again, anything we do to reduce the overall project cost can help reduce the impact for taxpayers and residents. Sean, I just want to pause for a moment. Councillor Pam, Dorothy Pam has her hand up. I just want to make a suggestion that our aim is to reduce the tax increase and or to lower it. And my aim would be to have it be around $350 more. And one way to do that would be for Amherst College to give us a gift of $20 million, which I think would solve a lot of our problems and it would allow us to move forward in a constructive way. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. So a couple more slides. So now onto the additional information section. So this chart is an updated version of one I showed either at the council meeting or finance committee meeting last week where we showed the reduction to the impact on a single family home from applying reserves. And there was a column missing last time that I've added. So the column that's been added is the second one, which shows the tax impact from the debt exclusion at each of these property values if no reserves are applied. So you can see the reductions relative to what the increase is. So yeah, there are greater reductions if we apply more reserves at the higher property values, but it's relative to them also having a higher increase from that initial, from the initial impact of the debt exclusion. And then this last slide is there was a question about how the debt exclusion may impact renters. And I think I've said at a prior one that we believe it would impact renters. It would be an annual cost and typically annual costs would impact renters. We don't know exactly how or how it will flow through with precision. So this chart is a rough analysis or rough estimate to give some examples. And this chart is actually, was actually originally prepared by a former town councilor George Ryan shortly after one of the meetings, that's probably several months ago. I've updated the chart to reflect the new tax increase because again, the new MSBA grant information changes that dollar per thousand. So I've updated this chart to reflect the dollar 11 per thousand. So what you have are different types of different properties in town, what their assessed evaluation are, what the impact of the debt exclusion would be this right now shows that there was no reserves applied. So it's just the full, the full dollar 11 per thousand. Then you have the number of units at those properties. And then you divide the impact by the number of units to get a rough idea of the annual increase for those properties and divided by 12 for, to get a monthly number. So again, this is just to give people a sense of what, how would this flow through to the rental properties and potentially renters in town. I want to take a moment to Kathy Shane has her hand up. When, when I go across, thank you very much for this chart. When I go across. This is the increase on the unit, not necessarily the increase in the rent. Correct. I mean, you don't know the extent to, to which it a hundred percent of it gets. Right. Yeah. So, so the reason I'm just, just so you've done something simple, like if there are 180 units, you, you've divided. Yeah, it's very crude. It does not take into account a one bedroom versus two bedroom. Right. Again, because we don't know exactly how they will apply. So this is meant to be a very crude analysis, essentially. I just want to provide a sense of if it was divvied up equally among all the units, what would it look like? Mandy Joe has her hand up. And that monthly or yearly increases based on the total. With use of no reserves, right? Right. This chart right now assumes no reserve use or option one. From the previous chart. Okay. Thank you. So that is the end of the presentation. So I will stop sharing. We're going to move to counselor questions and comments at this point. Bob Hagnar. I mean, I should say counselor and finance committee, Bob Hagnar. Please go ahead. Yeah, Sean. If maybe we could go back to the slide where you talked about. The delay in or the time element of. The delay in and the delay in and the delay in. Paying the 20. Regetting the getting the. The. Capital stabilization fund back to 20 million. And it wasn't there was a. It was the different options. When what the, what year we would get the stabilization fund back to 20 million. The question I have is the 20 million is for the fire station. Okay, yeah. Did you take into account inflation when you looked at this because FY33 versus FY28, 29, there's gonna be a big difference in inflation. Yeah, no, it's a good point. Again, so the 20 million right now, we have increased it from the original estimate for the fire station. So originally we were planning in the $15 million range, but you're right, as we go farther out, we they're gonna have to scale back what we can get further or increase the amount that we have to save up for the fire station. So it is a trade-off if we stick with that number and we go really far in the future, you're right, there will be again, we'll have to grow it more or really trim back what we can get. Okay, thank you. Kathy Shane. You can stay on this one. You've emphasized the fire station, but the building that my understanding is at risk of falling apart is DPW, and not just my understanding, I walk through it. You can see it. We have to draw on the stabilization fund for DPW if we can make a final decision on where it goes, correct? I mean, so we're gonna be needing it to pay off debt. So my question is that you're preserving it for fire station, but when I'm looking at the numbers, I think we need to draw on it for DPW as well. So the plan for the DPW, and this was part of the October presentation, is that we proceed with it when we have enough flexibility within our capital budget to proceed with it. So there's no set date for the DPW. We may, if we secure a site, it may open more options for us to build it in parts. There could be a way to do offices first or garage first. So there may be ways, once we secure a site where we could space it out in different ways, but the plan for the DPW has been when we have the flexibility within our capital budget, within the 10 and a half percent, that's when we would begin that project. So it's for the DPW, it's a little bit of a moving target over the next five to 10 years as to when that will start. I guess I'll just follow up because I don't think we have to solve all of this now, but I think with the focus on getting the school underway, I would advise we turn to the question of these buildings as soon as we can as a council. So whatever that is, Lynn, but a much more focused discussion about them. Thank you. Pam, Rune. Thanks. So this is the same slide as a good presentation of when we would build up the reserves again. I can't do the math in my head. How much percent, what are we building it up by annually? First of all, and second of all, what is the rough debt amount starting for these projects if we were to proceed? Because Kathy just mentioned that we would be borrowing for one of the other projects. We would be starting to pay some debt for some of those from these same reserves. So I'll answer your first question. I might need clarification on the second question. So for the first question, we looked at the chart we provided last time. I looked at the history of contributions to the Capital Stabilization Fund. Again, it varies pretty wildly from one year to the next, but we looked at the average over that 10 years. So the percentage doesn't stay fixed, but the dollar amount was in the one and a half to $2 million range per year on average. Can you repeat your second question? It was, what are some of the debt amounts that we're talking about? Kathy mentioned that we would be having to pay some of the debt from reserves as we started some of the projects like the fire station or DPW. What do those debts amount to? Rough dollars. So one of the downsides of being here in person is I don't have all my spreadsheets at my disposal. So you can blame Paul for that one. So I can send out the information on sort of what it looks like at its peak, but to your question, there's been two versions of how we use reserves in the past that we've planned for. The first version for how we use reserves was to finance all three projects that are not being funded through the debt exclusion. So the fire station, the DPW and the Jones library to finance all three of those. And then in years where the sum of that debt along with all of our other capital costs and years where that exceeded how much we set aside per capital which is the goal was 10% of our tax levy or 10 and a half percent of our tax levy now we would use reserves and only those years where we exceeded it. And so when we were very early on before construction costs went through the roof we had got it down to maybe five to seven years where we would have to use reserves to top off our capital budget to finance all three. And it wasn't a huge amount in any one year. It was in the $2 million range maybe per year and then it got lower. When construction costs and interest rates really rose rapidly, that's when we updated everything and we looked at it again and it became clear that using reserves in that way was gonna be much less solid of a plan because when we modeled at that at that time we would have to use reserves going out many years and there were some years were large. And so I felt uncomfortable with a plan that assumed we use reserves 14 years in the future 12 years in the future. When it was five, six years in the future I think we were more comfortable with that. But when we updated again the interest rates to go up to four to 5% and construction costs as high as they went, that's why we pivoted to this plan of building up the reserves for the fire station because it allows us to lower the overall cost for all the projects by saving interest and it gave us some predictability with the fire station it gave us a sort of a clear path for the fire station project. But I can send you some of the charts that we looked at where it shows how many years we would go out if we did it that way. Actually in the October presentation I think it was the first option in the October presentation and I put some of that in the finance committee presentation but I can put the whole presentation which has the charts there and then I'll answer that. Okay, thank you. Dorothy. This is just a clarification and I'm sure I should know the answer but is the library plan to draw upon these reserves? Not in the current plan. No, the library is being financed through our capital through our capital budget and we're not using reserves right now to supplement the capital budget. Thank you. Michelle Miller. I have three questions. They're a little bit all over the place. So in your chart, Sean, on page four in the column, Other Funding Sources, you said that there was 750K that came from the capital budget and I am wondering how that was determined. And then my second question, would you like me to go through all the questions and then? It might be best if I take them. Sure. So how did 750K get determined to come out of the capital budget? Yes, please. So the town authorized it through debt and we haven't planned for it to be repaid through the debt exclusion. So the only other source if we're gonna borrow for it to repay it from would be our capital budget like other capital projects that are authorized for debt. Okay. All right. And then the second question is where do the cost assumptions for the DPW and the fire station come from that you noted in your presentation? Yeah, so I think I've said several times that they are high level cost assumptions because we do not have schematic designs for either of these projects yet. So fully understand that. But where we got to the 20 and 30 million was looking at information we could find on other projects that are going on in Massachusetts and looking at the information on their cost per square foot and making some assumptions around, all right, well, how many square feet are we looking at for our buildings? How many square feet are our buildings currently? We know that they're in the past there have been, there was a planning process that produced an estimate for the DPW and an estimate for the fire station that were much larger than we can afford. But when you look at the square footage for those projects, they were also much larger than what we currently have now. And so that's one of the trade-offs we've had to make is we have to scale back on how many square feet we can build for our new fire station DPW to be more along what we currently have or hoping to still do more than what we currently have but not as much more as those earlier planning processes assumed. They assumed the much larger facilities than what we currently have. Okay, thank you, Sean. And then the last question is if the library project did have to go back to a plan B to do a repair which you noted in your report would be estimated at 15 million. Who would be responsible for the cost of those repairs? So currently there is an MOU with the library where if the projects the Jones library project does not proceed. The first, I think 1.8 million or so would come from the trustees and then beyond that, it would likely go through the town's joint capital planning process which comes from town capital funds. Okay, perfect. Thank you. That's all, thank you. Elisha. Thank you. When and who made the decision that the entire reserves were to be used for only the fire station? So the decision hasn't been made. Our modeling has went that direction but the decision ultimately is the council's decision along with the town manager. Elisha, do you have another question? No, thank you. I seem to have this thing where I can't raise my hand without jeopardizing being connected or something, I don't know what it is. So I want to ask a good question. Neither in any of this, we aren't accounting for repairs that we may have to do just to keep the existing buildings going. So for example, the fire station is 94 years old. Some serious parts of DPW is 105 years old and we know the walls are crumbling. And so even to stretch this out another 10 years, I can't imagine that we aren't going to have to put some money into just making those buildings habitable. Yeah, no, it's a good question. So depending on the level of repair, we do set aside anywhere from $100 to $200,000 a year for smaller capital projects and smaller capital repairs. So there are funds at the disposal of the facility manager to target little projects here and there. If it is a larger project that came up urgently, there isn't a funding source. So we would have to identify either again, those are the kind of things we use. If it was an emergency repair, those are the kind of things we look to free cash for. If it was a planned repair, we would have to work with JCPC and the Town Manager's Capital Improvement Program to build it in to the projects coming up. And so it would mean prioritizing the money that we have available for capital among those projects. And this would obviously be one of the highest priorities if it was an urgent need. And just along those lines, I'd like to ask in this model because the regional school is funded in a different way. It doesn't include the bonding that the regional school is doing that we also have to pay for. So the way it is included is when we project out our debts, one of the things we project out is our regional school debt assessment as well. So when we look at our capital needs, that need to come out of that 10.5% for capital, we do look at the region's capital assessment as one of the things that has to come out of there. Now where there is still discussion to be had is if you look at the region's plan for capital, it's robust as we go forward. And some of it depends on whether we get MSBA funding for their roof projects. They have a couple of roof projects and other projects. So we have projected an increase from what we're currently paying. We've doubled it. But if we were to go, if the region goes through and if this committee approves all of the region's capital projects, we would have to go higher with the regional assessment because it goes, if you look in their out years, it goes much higher. My recollection from our four towns meeting was that there's a significant wall we're gonna hit with the regional schools and things that prepare us. And the one caution I'll say with all capital plans that I've ever seen is that when you look in the out years, it's always scary. And that's because nobody wants to lose projects. You put them on the plan because you don't want to lose track of them. But as they get closer to the year in which they're supposed to be done, that's when you start seeing things get pushed back a little bit and the things that are truly priorities move forward. And some of that's just a mere, there's only so much capacity to manage capital projects. They require a lot of attention and a lot of direct involvement for many staff to do capital projects. And so when typically you'll see things stretch out as they get closer and the true priorities sort of rise to the top. Thank you. Mandy Jo, you have your hand up. Yeah, I think it's the next slide actually that is the planning. You had in some sense a repair of the library at 15 million and I just wanted to confirm that that was an estimate that has not now taken into account all of the cost escalation due to construction costs rising and interest rates rising and all of that. So that number is probably likely significantly lower than it would be if we tried to estimate it again. Yeah, so we've heard there's been different perspectives on what the cost would be if we went with a repair plan. Where one of the things we've heard is that it essentially be the same as what we would invest in a new building. That's sort of what this looks at. There is a group looking at a plan B that's more phased the total cost I can imagine will still be high but we're looking at how it can be phased over a length of time that may stretch it out. So that's something that we will have available for the council probably later this year is a more detailed plan B essentially for the library project. But total costs just as high. I think we are gonna get more detailed estimates to produce the cost. Okay, Pat DeAngelis. Thank you, I have a simple, I mean, Lynn brought up my concerns about the costs of doing nothing for the fire station and the DPW, et cetera. But I wanna flip back to make sure that I've gotten this very clear. If we do nothing and go for the debt exclusion override, we don't reduce the amount by five million or 10 million, we're gonna be people are gonna be paying a dollar and 11 cents per thousand. And if we put a five million in which we think we can get reimbursed we'd be saving 10 cents per thousand. And if we did the 10 million, we'd be saving, taxpayers would be saving 20 cents a thousand. And so I'm in that bracket of elders, seniors, I like the term elders better. My wife's gonna be 80 soon, I'm 77. We have very limited income. And so basically I'm being asked to balance 10 and 20 cents against the cost of rebuilding the stabilization fund and then having somehow or other having the money to reward workers with buildings that are healthy. And again, I'm gonna go back to DPW workers and the fire workers. These are people that do all the dirty work in town and we're gonna nickel and dime them and we will have to do that anyway to save 20 cents a thousand. I'm really kind of wrestling. Am I right about the 10 and 20 cents or? Yeah, that's correct in terms of calculating the increase from the debt exclusion. It's a dollar 11 with no reserves applied. It's a dollar and one cent with the five million applied and it's 91 cents per thousand with the 10 million applied. Okay, Shalini, Pat, did you have any further question? Not right this second, no. Okay, Shalini. Great, thank you so much Sean for showing the different ways that our town has tried to bring up the housing stock of affordable housing and also the different tax exemptions. I'd heard in the last finance meeting one of the finance committee members saying that initially that there was gonna be an override on all four capital projects. So it seems like the town has really been working hard to reduce that and have only one tax override. Well, my question though was that would those tax exemptions that was shown to us would those are those mostly for homeowners or would they also apply to people who rent in affordable housing? They're for the homeowner or it's for the taxpayer. Right, so I think one of the things we'd asked for if there's a way that we can create a separate fund instead of drawing from reserves where we actually you have that slide that shows the bigger property owners benefit $200 out of the savings if we draw 10 million. So instead of that happening, could we create a fund that specifically is for renters? And so that was one question. Yeah, I think again, that would be where we would look to CDBG to provide, to look to ways provide relief specifically to renters. I think we've done it in the, there's been programs like that here in the past and that's where we would look to continue it. Okay, and my other question was there was a statement made in the finance committee's report today that said and I was looking for an explanation for that and the statement was that using more reserves now raises the total project costs of the four building plan. And it goes on to also talk about needing the reserves for our other capital needs like potholes and meeting those needs. So can you address that or explain what that means? Andy, I don't know if you wanted to take that one or Andy, please go ahead. Well, I think in that section, we're including comments from various members of the committee. And one member of the committee had made that observation. It was not substantially discussed at the time. But I think that what we were, what the person was getting at and I leave it to the individual and bumper to decide whether to contribute to this. But we recognize and I think that that member recognized that when, if we needed to postpone things, the costs were going to go up and cost of repairs was going to go up. And that as a consequence, that there was consequences to actions that each action has a benefit and each action has a consequence. And I think, and so what was happening in that conversation was is that it started with a presentation about what the benefits would be. And then it was turning to what the flip side of it was and the flip side is that it would stretch out what we could do to lay what we could do. And in particular, of course, it gets back if we did do the fire station from cash as an example from the stabilization fund that as Bob Hegner pointed out in his question, it would delay the work and that there was just the natural annual cost of increase that has always existed in any construction project. You always assume that it's gonna be three to 4% that a minimum fire in the next year as it is in the past year. So that's, and then there's also the question of the maintenance of the buildings and keeping the building going and the risk that something major would happen to the building during that time. So those were the kinds of analysis that was going on. And I just wanted to actually, since I have a moment to do it and it's sort of along those lines, Alicia Walker asked the question as to whether there had been any action taken in October to say that an option in this case using cash for a fire station, that option was adopted. If you look in the report that the finance committee submitted for this meeting, it says very specifically that the finance committee did not take a position in October. And actually, since I was the one who was principally responsible for that report, I double checked to make sure that that was correct that the finance committee receives the report but did not take a position on any of the four options. Okay. Alicia, you have your hand up. Yes, thank you. I have a couple of questions. So going back to the making Amherst more affordable slide, the affordable housing units that are being built, because correct me please if I'm wrong, I don't think any of these are currently accepting renders, but my question for those affordable units is, do they have any criteria selection or is there any prioritization of Amherst residents who are being priced out of their units and who are looking for affordable housing or in what way are we guaranteeing that residents will be able to access or secure those affordable units? Alicia, I'm gonna, I am so glad you asked that question because that came before the council, particularly as we discussed 132 North Hampton Road and the council clearly wanted it to have a preference for Amherst residents. And we were told that that really wasn't our decision. It was a diss, I'm sorry. And we did put a preference on it, but we had to write a letter to the housing. The ZBA was the one that had the authority to do. And we had to tell them our preference. And we were very clear that it would be Amherst residents first. So is that, like that is confirmation that that is the case and is that for a certain number of units or for all units? Cause if we look at 132 North Hampton Road, that's 28 units, that's not that many families. So would we be offering all 28 units to Amherst families or just a certain amount of those units? I think we'd have to go, Sean, maybe you have- That's why we need to hire this grant funded housing planner. They could be here. I think we can get the answer to that. I know with the Ball Lane Project, I was also part of the discussion at CPA. Now the response we heard from the, I'm gonna get the name wrong of the company that's, this is a Valley CPC. The one concern we did have those, if you do restrict it to Amherst residents, you could be blocking some people from getting those units that may need them. So you know, you're kind of closing the, who can apply to live in those units by restricting it to Amherst residents only. So it's a trade off that would be part of the discussion. But I remember that was brought up with the Ball Lane Project as well. All right. Kathy, you have your hand up on this issue. Yeah, I was just gonna add, just because I watched the way it worked up in North Amherst when the Meakin opened up, the initial, there's a pool, it's live or work in Amherst. And the first time through, you got in the pool with preference. And then that came out. And my belief is over time, if things get vacant, not necessarily, but they were, they had 400 or 500 applications, four to one in terms of the slots. So it's that initial pool when it's opening up. And we can double check that. I do know, because I've seen postings up in North Amherst that a couple of places have vacancies for affordable units. So what I don't know is where you can find out that information, because I just see it on a bulletin board in the library. Thank you. Alicia, you have other questions or? Yeah, I have a couple of other questions. Okay, so that would be helpful to know, especially if we're going to be using it on a slide on how we're making Amherst more affordable, because I think, again, my argument with asking for the 10 million of the reserve funds to be used was to help housing instability and keeping people in Amherst who currently live here and whose kids currently go to the elementary school and who want to stay here, but will be priced out of town to be able to stay here. And so I'm looking for avenues to address that specific issue that's in my head. And so I'm trying to conceptualize how this will sort of offset that specific issue that I'm trying to address right now. So that would be helpful information to have. Also, in terms of like affordability and what that actually means, just because I do know that the Aspen Chase Housing was asked to open affordable units, which they do have. And I just want you all to know for reference that they offer three bedroom units for $4,000 a month. Their affordable units are $2,000 a month. And so I really want to know what affordable means for these housing units and how much a difference that actually makes for actual rental prices. My next question. I can answer that one quickly. And I think what would be helpful is we could probably have Nate Malloy, our senior planner comment and go into much more detail. But my understanding with the units that are restricted as affordable is a percentage of income or a percentage of your income that can be put towards housing. That's sort of how they come up with the rent amount. And there's a scale that they use. So again, Nate, our senior planner can, this is what he does on a daily basis. We could get him to one of the next meetings to provide more details on that. Could I just- That would be helpful because, oh, sorry. Yes, go ahead, Lynn. No, I was gonna ask whether there's any way with a short notice, Nate, could be available for the finance committee meeting tomorrow. We'll check on it. Yeah, so we can certainly check and just to add to that, I have asked Nate to do exactly what Alicia asked for, which is, where are the units? How many are available? What are the rental prices for those units? I think that's a really important question for the entire council to understand. And we always are having this push-pull with the non-profit developers who have a mission of providing affordable housing in the Pioneer Valley. We always argue that we are putting town funds into these projects. They should prioritize Amherst in there. They feel their position typically in their mission is to ensure that everybody has equal opportunity to be able to relocate to Amherst. It shouldn't be just for Amherst residents. And sometimes we win sometimes, but I think that's through the CBA process was the tool that we had through the Comprehensive Permit Process for that initial allocation of units. That's helpful. It's my understanding that there is a difference between affordable housing and housing which goes based off of your income and that is subsidized housing. And so subsidized housing is 30% of your income for your rent. Affordable housing is just lower housing rental costs, not actually by a percentage of your income. That's my understanding of the difference between affordable housing and subsidized housing. And so that's why I have that specific question. Are these going to be subsidized housing units like Village Park and Olympia Oaks where you only pay a percentage of your income? Or are they affordable? Just meaning they're a little bit lower than the regular rental rates in this town. So the answer, there are the units that are set at 80% of the median income or 60% of the median income. They could even be at 110% and still be thought of as affordable of the median income. So they're priced according to the median income of our area. So they are fixed rents. And I think there's a question, Alicia, on the screen as a combination of both. So we can get you which ones are which because I think your question is a good one, which ones are subsidized and which ones are just affordable. And I think it's a combination of both on here. Okay, great. That would be helpful information to have. And then my other question is the current resident relief things that we were talking about the, sorry, I'm trying to go back and forth between the presentation here. Supporting residents in need. I think I talked a bit at the finance committee about how ARPA funds don't support residents in this specific situation at all. But so what I'm wondering though is, are there cutoffs or limits to how much assistance one family can receive? For the resident emergency aid program? Yeah, which I think I know the answer to but I just want to confirm because I'm not sure. And then again, I don't think that this specific program even matters or has impact on this specific subject because it couldn't be used to just pay an increase in rent. Right, yeah, no, this would not be the program specifically for that. So yes, the resident emergency aid program has a one time or you're allowed to apply once for this program. Now, I have heard you comment on some of the issues that you've heard with this program. When we go, the funding for the initial round is again almost expired. When we go to look to do a second round through this program, it would be helpful if you send us your concerns of this program, we can look and see which rules are our rules and which rules are ARPA federal rules and see if we can address some of the issues when we do a second round for this program. But to your point, again, this would be, this is really supposed to be an emergency aid program and it would likely expire before the impacts of the debt exclusion really begin. Okay, yeah, I would be happy to send over some of my concerns, although I think I have already sent them to Paul and he should already have them, but if you all need me to send them again, I would be happy to do so. And then the last comment that I just want to make for right this minute is that I've heard a lot of people talking about this or my proposal in terms of like saving or not being in support of because they don't want to save a certain amount of cents per day, which doesn't make sense for them, but I want to explain and emphasize again that this is never about a savings because nobody is saving here. There will be an increase either way. So no matter what way we do it, people are paying more, nobody is saving anything. Okay, thank you. Mandy Jo. Two questions, one of which, if we could go to the renter crude calculation that you did, if I'm understanding things correctly, using five million saves approximately 10% on the total tax increase, it reduces the total tax increase by about 10% for each property owner. And using 10 million reduces the total tax increase by approximately 20%, that's the 111 to 101 to 91 cents per thousand. So when we look at this yearly increase, homeowners get a lot, even though the percentage stays the same, the dollar amounts for homeowners are a lot more than the dollar amounts for renters, even though this is obviously not exact. So we're looking at those that rent and Amherst in the large apartment complexes might save approximately if we use a full 10 million, somewhere between $28 a year and as low as $12 a year. And that's not to say that that is insignificant. And I don't want people to take my comment that way, but I think we have to keep that in mind as we're thinking about what a reduction or a use of our reserves does to those that we are hoping to have the most effect with if we're really concerned about affordability in Amherst for those that have the lowest income is the use of five or 10 million of reserves, the best use of that money given the actual savings, those that have those lowest incomes might actually see and given the concerns and the potential costs of reducing our reserves by that amount. I'm personally not sure it is, but I'm keeping an open mind. My next question is if we authorize a bond for the full amount instead of five million less or 10 million less, and in three years or four years, we bid out a DPW or a fire and for some miracle, either the state advocacy we have because for the public works building authority or we got by some miracle a lump sum payment from a college or university or the state advocacy around pilots has succeeded and we have more money than we thought, could we dump that into paying off this particular debt exclusion bond early that would then do the same thing that what we're debating here does, but give us the flexibility to see what happens in the future unlike what we would authorize here doesn't. Yeah, I'm not aware of anything that wouldn't allow us to reduce the debt in the future and replace it with another source. Again, the one issue being if we borrow, there are sometimes restrictions on once you borrow the money, there's you can only refinance it after a specified period of time. So again, I think we talked about this previously, the key would be for those sources to become available before we permanently bond the project. But the other point is with the debt exclusion, the debt exclusion does not require you to exclude all the debt for the project, it gives you authorization to if you have to. So in any particular year, again, to your point something becomes available, we could potentially to repay the debt from a different source than the debt exclusion, that would be an option. Again, we don't want to, we don't want to, because we don't have anything permanent or that we're competent in right now. We don't want to say that at this point that we have anything definite, but it just gives you again, the debt solution gives you permission to exclude the debt, doesn't require you to exclude all of it every single year. So the bottom line is, if we get more money from whatever, we can lower what we're charging taxpayers. Thank you. Jennifer. Yes, so just on to respond to that. And even if we were to take, well, let's say 5 million, which we expect would be replenished once the school is built with the energy tax savings, if we were also to take the additional five, which, you know, so five is, we expect to be replenished. So we're talking about borrowing five, if any of those other funding came through that, it's good either way, whether we take the extra five. If we get more money, it's good. I can say that definitively. Any more money for this project from an external source is positive. So my question is, and I apologize if you answered it before, but I just want to make sure I'm clear on this. Or so we're paying, we're anticipating out of the capital, the reserve fund will be servicing the debt on the projects. Well, it depends. So out of the general fund money that we set aside for capital, we'll be servicing the debt for the projects that are not debt excluded. Right. The debt exclusion, any project that's debt excluded, it's debt is sort of in its own path. So I wasn't clear since the library is coming from the joint capital planning process, but is that debt still service from the reserves? So the debt for the Jones library is projected to come out of our capital budget. That's within the 10% or 10.5% of the levy that we set aside for capital. That's where the repayment for the Jones library debt is projected to come from. And is that different than where the debt for the DPW would come from? No, same place. Same place, that's what I thought. Okay, thank you. Pam, Rune. Thanks. I just wanted to make a comment. Councillor D'Angelo was talking about 10 cents and 20 cents, but I think we also need to remember that the 10 cents and 20 cents is times $1,000 of house or property value. So we're really talking differences of $30 a year or $60 a year, not just 20 cents and 10 cents. Correct. Dorothy Pam. Jennifer, did you still have another question? Yeah, I guess just another comment. We had a district meeting this weekend. I was speaking with a lot of residents that even for people whose houses are at the average, the 478 range, to save the money that they would save on this would also be, I think, very important. So it's important for people across the board. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think sometimes we do this unintentionally, but the value of your house doesn't necessarily equate to your wealth, right? Or it helps, but it doesn't always equate to your ability to pay or your wealth. So we are cognizant of that. Okay, Dorothy. Just a comment about affordable housing. Yes, we're supposed to do our fair share, really, but it is, if everybody does their fair share in the region, then it's kind of supposed to even out. And it's if you live, work, or have a child who goes to school in the town. But just to remind you that at 32 Northampton Road, there will be no families there. No, there will be no couples there. It is an SRO for a mixed group of population, including some that'll be paying a higher rent, all right? But all of the rents are very linked to different categories of income. The 70% preference for people in the town of Amherst, or who live, work, or have a child in the school, we did have to vote for it. You have to fight for it. And it does, it's only for the initial choosing of who can get in there. The Belcher Town Road project will include family housing. And I don't remember the number of units, but it's a good number of units. So that is going to be very good. The Ball Lane will include family housing. But it's getting people, the affordable housing requires that you hire special staff. And it seems that it's not an easy thing, getting people through the qualifying process. There's lots of paperwork and lots of people who want to be on the list don't make it on the list. And then they put it in the lottery. So it is, there's just no guarantee that people in town who need affordable housing will necessarily get it. All we can do is build more and hope that somehow it'll work out better. But it's really a difficult process to be trying to get affordable housing. That's it. Thank you, Andy. So at this point, I just want to make it clear that I'm now speaking as an individual counselor and not on behalf of the finance committee. And Jennifer raised a question that I had been wanting to respond to speak to for a moment. And so I'm kind of following up on her, but also I was planning to do this individually. I am very conscious of the fact that there is another group that we have been hearing from, which is elder population who has been living in houses for a long period of time and are now retired and have varied sources of income often fixed. And that we've been urged to consider their situation also. And I have been, but what it really comes down to and I thought about it is that the proposal is to increase, if the proposal is to increase by $5 million, the amount that we're taking from the stabilization fund to do a further reduction. You know, it works out to, I believe $40 a year was the calculation that we came to. And that's well under a dollar a week. And the flip side of that, saving people who were in that average home, 80, I think it was about 80 cents a week is that we're pushing back on two projects that town really needs and out of the four projects, either the fire station or the DPW facility with high risks for additional expenses as noted earlier. And really essential buildings provide essential services that the same population relies on very deeply. So, you know, I'm not sure that in the end when that group of very conscientious citizens really looks at the numbers and thinks about it and thinks about what the difference to them is and what the burden is for 80 cents a week of additional taxation for that owner of the average home that how they would size that up. But I think that it's very important to focus on those kinds of realities. So thank you. There's two more counselors that have their hands up and I'm gonna take them. And then if the council is fine, I'm going to move on to public comment but Alicia, you have your hand up. Thank you, Lynn. Yeah, I just wanted to talk and Sean briefly touched on this but I had wanted to say that we should also move away from the assumption that renters are the lowest of the income and also that renters live in apartment complexes because people rent things other than apartment complexes and this will affect them also. And yeah, and so basically I was just saying I don't think the statement that the people with the lowest income will have the lowest impact is necessarily true because the impact of the increase is not based off of your income, it's based off of the value of the house that you live in which will vary. And I think it becomes actually especially gray when we're talking about renters because I actually like don't think we can use this chart at all to guess the monthly increase for a renter because that is 100% the discretion of the landlord unless we're going to be adding regulations on rental increases or be talking about some kind of rent control, we cannot control how much a landlord decides to increase their rent based off of their tax increase. And I think if you're looking at like Brandywine for example, because it's the first one is having that large of a tax increase but it's a building owned by a person it's not necessarily that they're gonna sit in their office and divide the increase by the number of units and apply that number evenly. They could just sit in their house and say well, I'm gonna just increase the rent $100 a month for every unit and call it that because I know I'll make my money back and then some. And I think that that would be more likely to happen than this what we have right here in front of us because again, that has been my experience as a renter and I do not rent in an apartment complex. And I think that makes it a little bit more gray because the housing value or whatever the value of the house that I live in does not equate the rent that I pay for it if that makes sense. And so I think that talking about the impact on renters is a much more gray area than this chart that we have here. There's clearly there's a lot more information that could be analyzed and thank you for that. Anika. Thank you. I'll be brief. I did just want to acknowledge and I meant to do this before those victims whose lives were lost in the school shooting that happened today, both children and adults. So I did just want to acknowledge that and back to topic. Thank you everyone for your points. Thank you, Sean, for this presentation. It's really helpful to have a lot of these numbers broken down, I'm a renter myself. I do not rent in an apartment complex and I have family members that have owned houses for hundreds of years who would be greatly impact because they're in areas that before no one wanted to be in and now there are spots that people wanna be in, there are spots that people haven't wanted to see low income housing next to and so their incomes very fixed not necessarily match what their increase would be. And I just wanted to point out to this conversation I know that we all have a lot to think of, but I hope we can keep this energy of consistency because we're having the same people talk about $50 of savings as if it is a huge deal when $100 of fees, $100 increase to people who would be in these same brackets was seen as, oh, we should just do it if it's for a different reason and statements were made as that $100 is nothing. So I hope that we can keep this energy and also amongst ourselves. We have counselors making statements that there's only one counselor that has experience with section eight. I know that not to be true because I did not make that statement and I would never presume that for the rest of us. So I hope that we can really do what we need to do to really buckle down and make sure that we're lessening the burden for all of our residents, all the residents here, especially in particular, those who will be most greatly affected by, and really think about it, because at the end of the day, and I'm just throwing this number out there, if $500 would make it impossible for someone to stay and retain their home, I don't know that $450 would allow them to stay. It may make a big difference in terms of medicine, food, paying a bill. And that would be greatly appreciated, but I'm really happy to know and explore more of these other avenues that could potentially help everyone, because who in this day with our global impacts, with our national impacts, we have looming around us, like who couldn't use the extra money? Alicia, you have your hand up. I was going to give us a break, but go ahead. Thanks. I would like to make another statement because that statement that Anika was referencing was a statement that I made. And so I really wanted to speak to that because it's really important to me. And I had one other thing I wanted to say, but anyways, I did state that I was the only person in the council at the finance committee meeting on the finance committee who has had Section 8. Like I have rented houses using a Section 8 voucher that was issued to me and my family. That statement is not incorrect and not untrue. I was the only person in that meeting at that time who has had that experience. And for someone to come out and say something about that in a meeting is very uncomfortable for me because that is very vulnerable information for me to choose to share. And something that is very uncomfortable for me to choose to share. And for me to choose to share it on behalf of my constituents who are in similar positions and who feel very uncomfortable coming into this meeting and into these spaces of privilege to share these situations. And so actually the other thing I wanted to share is that when I was doing outreach and talking to my community and the people who I grew up with who I know are in financial constraints, the feedback that I got from them is thank goodness someone like you was on the council because I could never stand in front of these people and make these statements which I also completely agree with. And they, none of them felt comfortable coming to public comment today. None of them. And I talked to 20 to 40 people, not one of them felt comfortable coming to public comment and stating how this would financially affect them. And so I'm trying to make these statements to bring awareness in a room full of people who do not have the same experience that I have. And I think it's completely inappropriate to say that that statement was not true because it was true. And if it's not true, then I would hope that there would be other counselors who have the bravery to also stand up and speak to those experiences and to support me and to make me feel like I'm not alone in this because this does feel very lonely to be the only one who has been in a financial situation where I cannot feed my family and to be sitting on a panel of people who do not understand that is a very lonely feeling. And so if there are other counselors who have shared these experiences with me, I would urge you to step up and share those experiences now because this is very vulnerable but also very important information. And I don't always want to be the only vulnerable one sharing these information to then be called out for that. I am not sharing this for purposes, for negative purposes. I am sharing this because I want my town to do better. I want my town to understand. I want all of you to understand what people in this town go through on a regular basis, what I have gone through on a regular basis, what I see on a daily basis. Some of the feedback that I got at the finance committee after making that statement was that they don't understand the need, that there aren't that many people who, like I was made to feel that I'm the only one who experiences this. There's not that many people in this town who would be affected by an increase of $45 a year, that we would have to do more research and more outreach because we want to hear from the people who that would affect because we don't have the proof that it's in volume, that it would affect people in this town and how isolating and dehumanizing to hear that, me myself when I'm speaking to things that I have personally experienced. I share these things because I think it's important and it's helpful for us to move forward. I'm not sharing these things because I want us to be stuck because I'm calling people out because I'm saying something negative. This is my reality and this is the reality for a lot of people who live in this town. And again, I asked to have this meeting today because I wanna see how we can help people. If this is not the avenue and we don't agree, this is the avenue, that's fine. My goal is to help people in this town who will be deeply impacted by the passing of the exclusion override because I also know and I also support the school. I also want the school to be built and I want my family members, my friends, my constituents, I want them to feel like I put my best leg forward in their best interests and I bought their truths and their stories to the table so that their experiences that are very real can be taken into consideration in a realistic way in this conversation because it is very true for me that I had no idea how Section 8 worked before I had it. It's a very confusing, very complex situation and so I'm sharing these things again for the betterment of this town. And I think it's very uncomfortable to have other fellow counselors or anyone in the community or anyone at that fact, to say that I'm making statements that are not true when I'm talking about my own personal experiences. Anika. Okay, so just briefly, the comment was made about the council and that's what I'm referring to and that's what I'm sharing as a member of the town council that was a brief part of my statement. I think that my overall statement was really about the overall council's awareness of as I shared in our retreat and numerous occasions before about the realities of how many live in this town. It is not a personal attack on anyone and certainly not yourself. And I think that in terms of sharing one's history, personal finances are now, none of us know have met each other's finances. And I think that to ask someone to come forward and speak it's a very personal decision. And there may be those here that just do not want to and do not have to but that doesn't mean that their actions and their responsibilities on the council cannot support those in need. And I think that many of us are. So again, this could be a combination of reporting from meetings. This could also be the way our local blogs report. Who knows, but just so you're aware the communication was that it was just in regards to being the so town council member. Okay, with that, I'm going to ask, I'm going to call a break. We will return at eight 20. At that time, we will take public comment. And I also just want to mention while people are getting ready for their break that there are 22 people in the audience on Zoom. There are others watching on Amherst media. Unfortunately, I don't have that number. And when we come back, we will take public comment. So turn your videos off, turn your sound off. Actually, it shouldn't be on. And when you come back, please turn your video back on. Thank you. You have two minutes to get back to your seats. Thank you. Let's please come back to your seats in about another minute. We're going to resume. Please turn your video on when you are back at your seat. So at this point, if you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. I mentioned before there's about 20 people in the audience. Okay, we're going to begin. Right now there are five people with their hands up to make public comment. Is there anybody else who would like to make public comment? Okay. Are you ready, Athena? Okay, Carol Gray, please enter the room. State your name, where you live. Carol Gray, I live at 815 Southeast Street. And we're going to start the timer for three minutes. Thank you, Carol. Go ahead. I'm incredulous that no one has said a word about how teachers are on work to rule. They're struggling for a fair contract and we're not giving it to them. The current proposal from the town is still under 3% increase per year when inflation rates are between six and 8%. The teachers are proposing 3.25% in year one, 4% in year two, 5% in year three, and 6% for Paris who don't earn a living wage. That is still a pay cut alongside inflation. The taxes of our town, we have the fifth highest tax rate in all of Massachusetts in our town. You said that we lost $3 million on the school grant because we have fewer students getting free lunch. Well, that's because there are fewer poor people who can afford to live in our town. And working class people, teachers, firefighters, couldn't even, many of them can't even think about buying a house in our town. Our tax rate is out of control. I was a member of town meeting and I could never imagine that town meeting would ever consider four capital projects totaling $195 million in one year when the teachers are on work to rule. This is incredible. I feel like you're on a runaway train and somehow you're just disconnected from reality and you really gotta get back onto the reality train. We have to fund our teachers. You can't have, if you have a family budget, you don't buy a new roof, two new cars, pave the driveway when you don't have money for food. The teachers are our food. We don't go forward with four capital projects. It's ludicrous. I don't know how this is going this far. In terms of saying that they're unrelated, there's a myth of scarcity that's being promulgated and it's just wrong. You say that we're giving 10% each year to the capital fund that comes out of the tax levy. I served on the joint capital planning committee for a couple of years and we gave between seven and 8% to the capital budget then. You're skimming 2% more off than we used to when we had town meeting just so you can fund the projects that you want to fund without taking them to a vote to the people. You should be putting all four capital projects on the ballot and put down the cost of it. Do we really need a $50 million library? I served as a library trustee for three years. If you, and both the library and the DPWR historic buildings, you could be getting funding from the Community Preservation Act Committee. It's ludicrous to be having these huge tag items when poor people are being priced out of town, middle-class people also. My neighbor is doing a GoFundMe application because they can't afford their property taxes. We can't live in a town. I don't wanna live in a town where only wealthy people can afford to live here. We have to do better, fund the teachers, don't cut any of those jobs, take it from the capital budget, stop these high-priced tag items. You're not representing the people well. Fund the teachers, bargaining demands. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. There is somebody with a phone number and so I need to have you enter the room and identify yourself and where you live. Good evening. Good evening. Yes, should I give my name and address? Please, thank you. Yeah, my name is Vincent O'Connor. I live at 175 Summer Street. Before I make the comments that I had prepared, I just wanna inform the council that you have two levels of affordability situations that I don't think I heard a clear understanding of. One, you have project-based affordable units that whatever the cost of a unit at presidential or any other place that those affordable units go to people who have qualified and who pay 30% of their income, regardless of how much the units cost. But if you have a Section 8, which I do and have had for a long time, and I'll be 82 in September, you can stay where you are if the rent for your property goes above the entry level for that particular five units. You can stay there as long as you're there, but if you try to move to somebody else where the rent is above the entry level for Section 8, you are shut out and that is what has happened for most of the rental properties in Amherst. Section 8 tenants are shut out from entry. So somebody who knows something about this needs to inform the council of it in writing. So to my prepared statement, I would like to say unequivocally that I will vote yes Tuesday, May 2nd, to exclude the borrowing necessary for the Fort River School replacement from proposition two and a half municipal spending limits. I will do so despite the fact that my landlord has proposed a $100 a month rent increase. That is $1,200 a year rent increase, which dwarfs any school debt exclusion related tax increase on single family homes and condos. If you want the school debt exclusion to pass with tenant support, which I was involved in mobilizing in the mid 90s for the high school debt exclusion, the second time around after the first time I've lost by 72 votes, what the council needs to do and address is to follow the lead of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and find a way to address our ridiculous rent levels and rent increases. All that housing that's been built in downtown and other places are at a level one, that entry level, not for section eight and two, it has signaled the older units in town that they can raise their rent to that level and one in one place in particular on East Hadley Rose has raised its rent $600 or $700 in the last five years. So finally, I'd like to ask that the council and the public deliver an unmistakable message to our community's single, unelected municipal executive, that if he, a Somerville homeowner, again presents an annual budget that proposes to reduce the elementary and regional school committee's budgets, recommended budgets in a way that puts them out of the reach of a council majority, we should need deliver the message that he will not get a third chance to do so in 2024. The school budgets are an essential part of any effort to get the positive vote on school debt exclusion and somehow the manager needs to get very convincing information from the council that he should not do what he did last year. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment, Vince. Jeff Lee, please enter the room. We are going to resume to three. I allowed that one to go over because Vince was sharing some information about the housing with us. Thank you for that. Go ahead, Jeff Lee, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Yeah, I'm Jeff Lee. I live at 815 Southeast Street. And I'm one of the people that Andy Steinberg mentioned who has lived in my house for many years and now on a fixed income. And Andy may think that the $40 savings is trivial being less than a dollar a day or a dollar a week, but the number I'm really focused on is the $496.12 that increase brought by the debt exclusion. And I'm really struggling to decide whether I can support the debt exclusion. I think the school plan is a good one. I would like to see it passed, but I'm not happy with the way the council is trying to fund it. And one thing you haven't mentioned conveniently is the fact that this $496.12 increase for the average home is on top of the regular annual increases, which have averaged more than $300 for the past five years. So I'm looking at like an $800 a year increase for the next 30 years or more. So that seems unsustainable. And I really urge you to look at any possible means to lower the debt exclusion so that we can get a new elementary school. And since I have a little time left, I'd like to look at Sean's building project slide. It has a blue box, $17 million in private fundraising for the library. I don't think we're anywhere near that. The memorandum of agreement with the library says they're supposed to be handing over the money as they raise it. I believe we only have $500,000 that's been handed over. So that tells me that there's a strong chance that the library is not going forward. And if that's the case, I think you should be factoring that into the debt exclusion formula. Take the money we could save by not going forward with the library and reduce the debt exclusion. I would also say that you have $15 million in repairs if we don't go through with a library project. That has never really been independently studied by the town. That figure comes from the library and of course they're gonna want as much money as they can get. And the other thing that troubles me is that there's no blue box for fundraising on the repairs side. The library has always been partially responsible for raising money for their capital improvements. And they should do that for the repairs as well. So thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us. Lauren Mills, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Yes, hi, good evening. Lauren Mills, a 12 long middle drive. Thank you for allowing public comment. Math is not my strength, but I did wanna share some of my thoughts about the new school. Firstly, I'll say though that not dismissing the changes that the town has made with Cress and the DEI, how will they bring improvements? How will the town bring improvements to the diverse needs of the town without properly funding these two departments? And I have three children in the elementary school in the school system, two in the middle school. And so I do not see my kids going to the new school. And honestly, I just feel like it's too expensive. It's too much. And from the presentation, it feels like there is still not a clear way that the town finance committee has said how they're going to provide funding for all four projects. And I think from this point, that should be more clear to the town and the residents. And I just think that the new school is, the perception to me is that it is defining the haves and the have nots. And again, I can't feel excited about a new school that costs so much when my kids won't even go there. I also just wanted to add that as a parent and a community resident, I am asking how the town is ensuring that everyone, I'm sorry, everyone regardless of where they live and what district they live in the town of Amherst, how will the social and economic status of those residents be addressed? And also, sorry, yeah, they are able to make a better, if we are able to make a better future for our children through the education system, it makes sense for people like myself and parents like myself who live in affordable housing to want to stay in the town. But as what's going on in the school system now, even the way our children are being educated is very frustrating. And so I just would like you to take into consideration those points in that perspective. Thank you. Lauren, thank you for joining us. Maria Kapaki, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Thank you. My name is Maria Kapiki and I live in South Amherst. So I hope that this conversation going forward focuses on the question at hand, which is, will you use $10 million of the $24 million that is now in reserves that represents 27% of the budget? That's far beyond the recommended five to 15 that you want to keep it in. So using that $10 million is absolutely feasible. It's for a purpose for which that money was designed that capital stabilization fund was created. And I would really encourage the town council to focus on what you can do. Yes, we would love for money to come from other sources. We'd love it to come from the state. We'd love it to come from Amherst College, let's just say their names, Amherst College and UMass and other places. But you guys have to do what you can do and your primary responsibility as town counselors is to your constituents, is to the residents. I was hoping that we weren't gonna go down this same path tonight that I heard at finance committee where a bunch of people talk about what they think is affordable for others, what they think is impactful for other people's lives. The people who are buying the lattes need to not be telling the people who are serving them the lattes what is going to be helpful to them. That's not what your job is. Your job is to make it as possible for people to support this school project, which I support and I'm gonna be voting for it and I want you to do things so that there is minimalized harm to other residents in town. Please, we can afford this. We can do this. That's what the money is for. Please help the residents in town support this project and please help them afford this. Don't make people come in front of you and tell you to prove to you that it'll make a difference. You have to listen to them and listen to the people who are representing them. Please use the $10 million. It will make a difference in people's lives. You can do that and you don't have to wait for the state and the MSBA and Amherst College and anybody else. Please. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, Maria. That ends public comment. We're going back to council discussion. Are there other questions and comments from the council? Michelle Miller. I like how you're using my first and last name tonight. Twice. Quick question on process. So the idea actually just could you tell me the process starting now? So the purpose of tonight's meeting was to provide an opportunity for more information to be provided. And I want to thank Sean and his staff for the additional information that you've brought forward since the finance committee meeting. I know we haven't answered everybody's questions, but we're trying to move it along. So thanks, Sean. And the other thing is and then the finance committee meets tomorrow, they have an opportunity to have additional discussion about their recommendation. That recommendation will be brought forth to the town council. On the April 3rd, we will have a public forum at six o'clock. The public forum is required by the charter. That public forum will have an opportunity for people to speak. And after the public forum, if the finance committee wants to reconsider, we give them time to do that. And then we will move on to the council actually looking again at the language and deciding if they're ready to vote on the language with regard to the appropriation and bonding. Lynn, can I just ask a follow up? What is the drop dead date that we have to make that decision by? Interestingly enough, we could actually do it after the people vote, but we feel that the people in Amherst, the residents of Amherst wanna know. So right now that is scheduled to be before our residents vote. Thank you. And let me just finish that by saying sometime in the first week, maybe beginning of the second week, mail-in ballots will be sent out for in the week. I'm going to give you the actual dates. On April 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th, we will have early voting available in town hall. And then the polls will be the regular hours starting at seven o'clock on May 2nd. Okay. That's the process, the way it stands now. Shalini. I just want to reiterate one point regarding what it's gonna cost us if we do take out $10 million from our reserves. I think that's the point that's not sticking in the sense that, yes, we want to reduce the impact of this on every renter, every home owner. And we're not disputing what is affordable, what is not because we can't. None of us can speak for anybody else. However, what we are trying to look at is what is the impact going to be of taking those $10 million in the future? So we may be saving some money now for people, but what I'm hearing, what Andy just explained earlier on is that by doing that, we are having an impact in the future on what it's gonna cost us, which is gonna come back and be borne by us eventually. Am I correct in my understanding? I can only speak for how I hear it, and that is how I hear it. The longer you put out a project, the further you push it out, the more it's going to cost. The sooner we can build and do the other things we need to do, the better off we are. That's how I hear it. Other people may hear it differently. Thank you. Okay. Dorothy? I wanna speak politically. You can be right and still be wrong. This is gonna be a vote. People have to decide to go vote, right? And right now we're beginning to see, as we talk to people, a definite enthusiasm gap. It's gonna be turnout is very important. People who are saying, I don't know, it's gonna be this, that, and quote, because we've given all kinds of reasons about the long-term effects, the short-term effects, and people have been telling the truth, okay? I don't think anyone's been making anything up, and I trust and believe everything you've said, but when people get confused, they don't go to vote, all right? So right now I'm saying, let's do one thing at a time. Let's show that we have the will. I mean, I would say that the building committee showed again and again that it had the will to reduce without sacrificing the qualities that we really wanted in the school as much as it could. And we the council have to show that we have the will to make this as affordable as we can, even though we know that delays and income and inflation will cause and affect things down the road. Let's do the school, and then we can talk about doing the next, because otherwise we'll have a great plan, but we'll end up with no school. We can be right, we can be wise and efficient and all of those things and not have what we need. So I'm really asking us to not be theoretically involved to deal this as a realistic problem of speaking and communicating to the public, which has to vote. They have to get up and do it, okay? And we have to tell them we have done everything we could to make this as less harmful, less difficult as possible. That's it. Thank you. Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. So just, I wanted to respond quickly to Shalini's sort of like, I know it was like a hypothetical question, but that's not actually the way that I see it. So I just wanted to share that again, the way that I'm looking at it is that as how we can help the residents and how we can offset the impact. And I'm not looking at it as the projects down the road and what delay, because all of those things are assumptions, none of those things are for certain at all, not even the cost estimates for the projects are for certain, not even the dates by which we will build them are for certain. Every single thing is an estimate. And if we go back into our planning and we look at how things have changed, almost every single thing that we have assumed from the beginning has not come to be true. And so I'm not saying that it's not a possibility that there will be a delay. I know that that's a very real possibility, but there's also a possibility that we will find another solution and we will find another path forward and that there won't be as much of a delay as was projected. There's also a possibility that we will have more funding. There's also a possibility that we can find better ways to rebuild our reserves. There's a lot of possibilities. The possibilities are not only negative. And I think that's the point that I'm trying to get across is I understand there's a possibility for delay. There's also a possibility that we come up with a better plan. Like things have to change. I think we have done that so far throughout this planning process the entire time. We get new information, just like we got the new cost for the library, we got the new cost for the school, everything is new and everything is updated all the time. And when we get this information, we come back to the drawing board. We sit with the information, we pivot. I think this is a time to pivot. We have heard feedback from the residents. We have heard the cost of the elementary school that even last week came in higher than when I even wrote this motion. It's even more than when I made this proposal. And so things are going to continue to change. And I think as a council, as a body who is governing this, we need to continue to pivot as things continue to change. Thank you. Shalini? I'm actually going to skip over Shalini and go to Jennifer since you've spoken already. Jennifer. So I have a process question. Is there a motion on the table for the... No. Right, so how does that happen? That motion will be on the table on April 3rd. And it will not be in the finance committee tomorrow. So it has to be made again. I think that's my question. The finance committee tomorrow will have an opportunity to relook at its vote. And if it wants to make a different recommendation to the council, it can, okay? At the time it comes forward with that recommendation tomorrow, then it comes to the council after the public forum and after the finance committee has an opportunity if they want to reconsider. And then on the 3rd, the council has the opportunity to vote. If they're at that point, there can be amendments from the floor to the motion. The motion would have to be made though. Absolutely. And there is no motion on the table. Lynn Kaye, add to that quick. Yes. And you may have said this, I may have missed it. So, oh yeah, sorry, I may have missed this. So tomorrow, so the finance committee made the recommendation around use of reserves back when I was discussing the debt exclusion. It hasn't actually made the recommendation yet related to debt authorization. So we will need a recommendation on the debt authorization, which will include a number. So they don't necessarily have to reconsider the prior vote. They just have to put the number in the recommendation that they want to make. Thank you, Sean. The actually the finance committee kind of got into this discussion before actually it had been referred to them. And that's how we got to the discussion about the initial five million and now coming up with the additional five million. I'm gonna continue to go to people that haven't spoken, Pam Rooney. Thank you. So I think I'm going to lay my recommendation for the finance committee on the table and that I would like them to strongly consider the use of $10 million from the reserves for the following reason. I had in my mind approximately $5,000 that I felt would be a reasonable number. That's 20% of what we have in reserves as the number in my head that I felt comfortable putting forward something that would take the edge off of this new ask for people. One of the attendees mentioned the $496 for the median priced house. This is starting to add up. We have water and sewer increases. We have a number of increases that people are facing. An effort to blunt that edge a little bit I thought was very appropriate. In addition to the five million that I thought was an appropriate number, another motion was made and discussed in finance committee that in fact much of a $5 million ask could in fact come back to us in the form of rebates during construction. So it won't be at the very beginning of the process but somewhere in the during the building construction we will get reimbursed. So we're really talking about borrowing from reserves the maybe $5 to $6 million and I feel comfortable with that. So that's my recommendation to finance committee. Thank you. Thank you. Anna? No, I'm going to people that haven't spoken yet. All right. So there's a lot of talk about assumptions and respectfully assumptions are flying on all sides, right? We're making the assumptions in all directions and I think that it's really important that we recognize that. I think the assumption that this extra five million on top of the... So we're talking about kind of two chunks of five million here, right? And so the idea that this extra five million off isn't going to get passed on to renters as an assumption or the amount of that savings understand it's not savings as in bonus money but as in a lower cost. I think that those are also assumptions. We know that folks who... We know that rentals are it's a capitalist society and I won't go on that soapbox right this moment but there's nothing to say that folks won't take this as an opportunity to raise rents anyway. That's a huge assumption, right? So I think that where I'm more comfortable is the assumptions that are backed in data and in knowledge and in study. And the difference is that we have that. We have that knowledge, we have those models. Yes, things have gotten more expensive. Inflation is crushing us and that's not going to change and that is an assumption that is a very safe bet as we've seen these project costs going up and up and up. And so my concern is that when we pull from those reserves in a way that's not going to get replenished we are just creating a big hole down the street down the road and that's not a pun about our condition of our roads but that we're just going to fall into, right? Because we've got a timeline for the fire station. We know what we need to do to save up to build that. I'm not clear on where folks think that impact is going to go and I'm not comfortable going out for a debt exclusion constantly. I think that that's painful. People should be able to predict and know and we should be able to use those reserves the way that we intended and built this plan on. What I think the better plan is is that the better way to go about addressing this impact is by creating systems and structures which actually support the people who are most impacted. When we pull from our reserves and we look at the amounts that are being saved folks like me who are in the lowest part or below that bracket of home prices, right? Are not that impact is much less than someone who lives in a $500,000, $800,000 a million dollar home. I would rather see support systems in place that are actually designed to help the people who need support versus a blanket pole that makes us all have a harder time down the road. And those systems are possible to build. We've talked about ways that we can use CPA money or community development block grant money or other structures to support the folks that need it. We got a great outline of the supports that we have in place. I'm very concerned that who we're actually helping the most in this is not the people who need the help the most. So I can't support 10. I can support five. I can't support 10 with good conscience. Mandy Jo. I support everything that Anna said and I just want to mention a few things. We had a, Alicia talked about flexibility and the ability to pivot, but baking an extra $5 million into this financial order that will draw down reserves, not the 5 million that's already there that has the potential and only the potential for that one to be paid back. We have not gotten answers that that's a guarantee. So we're already taking a risk that the 5 million that's already in there that we're pulling from reserves may never be paid back. If we put another 5 million in there that we never expect to be reimbursed. First of all, our capital stabilization reserve isn't even over at 10 million. It's not there. It's only at nine and a half million. But second of all, we lose the ability to pivot because we don't have that money in the capital stabilization fund. We lose the ability to pivot if costs continue to increase because we don't have that money. If we put that in this financial order we are losing our flexibility in the future. The flexibility we may need to build a DPW station, a building to build a fire station. We're losing that flexibility if we put it in there. That is a huge risk to take that flexibility away. So when we talk about the need to pivot we need to think about what we can do. And if we keep that 5 million dollars out of this financial order and keep it in stabilization but recognize that every year we need our town manager to come to us and look at what can we potentially use to pay off the debt exclusion? Can we use some reserves based on the new financial outlook, the new interest rates that we're looking at as we look at this project, the new potential state money or not? Can we put more into that and lessen the burden at that time for our future for our residents on the debt exclusion? We have that flexibility to do that at that time. And yes, we'll always have that flexibility but if the 5 million is gone we lose the flexibility to use that 5 million for the other projects. And what do we gain from that? We gain the possibility that we might need to if that 5 million is not there and we don't have the ability to pay for the other projects through our capital spending plan and the revenue generated every year we have to go out for another debt exclusion. Are we willing to risk the building of a DPW or the building of a fire station for the savings that might be found here? I don't at this point I haven't seen anything that is willing to make me take that risk. And that I think is what we are risking the need to get another debt exclusion for another project that this plan has, we've been finding a way to do it with just one. Thank you, Jennifer. I just, I wanted to respond to, I see the 10 million as the 5 million that we have every reasonable expectation that there are energy saving rebates. I have to disagree that it's iffy and that maybe possibly we might get some rebates. I mean, if there are programs that we, you know, if you're having solar on your house and there is a rebate program that that is something you can't expect to get. So I don't think this is high in the sky that the first 5 million or the 5 million that's already been recommended and approved by the finance committee, we have every reason to expect that that will come back to us. It's, again, not something that we're hoping might possibly happen. So I think if, and I, so I'm seeing it as the second 5 million is the 5 million that we're taking from reserves. And I believe that we have $24 million, not nine, we may have 9.5 in a bucket, we've called capital stabilization, but we have $24 million in reserve. And I think taking $5 million that we have a reasonable expectation at least that over the next five to six years, because we were told in the February 28 finance committee meeting that the next capital project, whether it's the fire station or the DPD was not anticipated to begin construction for five or six years. So that gives us some time to pay back the 5 million. I realize if we don't use it, that's 5 million that's there. But I think we need to look now that at every point in the property owners and renters, people are at the breaking point. And I think any relief that we can offer in a whole spectrum of price points would be very much appreciated. And I think what I'm looking at now is, yes, we may, I mean, I don't think we're putting future capital projects at risk, but if we're gonna say we might be by taking the 5 million, my concern is not putting the elementary school building at risk, because that's happening now and we need for that to happen now. Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. I essentially was going to say the same thing as Jennifer pretty much, but sorry, I just wanted to say that I support using the 10 million, the 5 million that would have the rebates and an additional 5 million. I think that as a council, it is our responsibility to do the most that we can to help our residents and our constituents. And I think that is the most that we can do. I do not think 5 million with a rebate is the most that we can do. I think that's a little bit of us being cautious and trying to reserve things for possible things down the road. And I think the only people we're hurting in this decision and making that decision right in this minute is our constituents, because regardless of whether or not we have to go for an authorization down the road, we're talking about right now and we're talking about later. So if we're talking about increasing costs for residents now with the expectation that we might later down the road be able to decrease it, what is the difference between doing that, decreasing it now, increasing it down the road if there is another exclusion override? Really, none of it even makes any sense. Like we have a project in front of us right this minute that is ready to go right now. And so I am also in agreement that this is the project we should focus on figuring out how we're going to make past. We have also, I think we have a mutual understanding that if this project doesn't pass, that actually jeopardizes all of the other projects. A lot more than using 5 million from the stabilization fund. A lot more from having to find 5 million extra dollars down the road than if this project fails and we have lots more millions of dollars down the road to find. I think we, again, we have this project in front of us right now, it's ready to go right now. And I think we should help the residents who are our constituents right now. Thank you, Andy. Yes, I ended up deciding to raise my hand again because people keep talking about the $24 million total in reserves. And we need to get back to the slide that Sean showed earlier that was break. And actually, I think it was in the, maybe it was in the finance committee report, not today, but it broke down the reserves into its components. Remember, there are less than $10 million in the capital stabilization fund. There's some money in the stabilization fund for reparations, but I'm very hesitant and opposed actually to touching that because I think that was a promise made. There's the general stabilization fund, which I'm gonna come back to last and there's free cash, which is sort of that checking account to keep things going so that there's cash flow. But the general stabilization fund, I have to go back again. And I think I said this in finance committee, but not before the full council. Having lived through 2009 and being on the old finance committee in 2009, which was a year after the 2008 crash, things were really bad. And there was this thing called 9C cuts, which is when the governor can make a decision that even though money has been appropriated for a purpose, it can be rescinded. We were getting rescissions of money that we had been told we had because it had actually been appropriated and that money was rescinded and it was not just one rescission, but there were several rescissions. So every time we planned for the first rescission, we had another one. And if I think about the miserable years of my life on the finance committee, that is it. And there is no guarantee that that won't happen again. We all know what precarious times we are in financially. And I will be very hesitant to say that it would ever be a good idea to touch what we have put into the general stabilization fund to take care of crises because from my experience, none of you wanna live through that kind of crisis either. Are there any other comments at this time from the council? Finance committee meets tomorrow at three o'clock. That meeting will be on Zoom. The town council meets again on the third of April. At that time, we will meet at six o'clock for a public forum on this particular issue that will be joint with the finance committee. So they will be called to order as well. And then as soon as the public forum ends, but not before 6.30, we will go into our regular town council meeting. With that, Andy, Alicia, yes, go ahead. Alicia, you have your hand up. Yes, thank you, sorry. Okay, hold on girl. Is there any reason that I cannot put a motion on the floor right now? There's really the process at this point is that everything now goes to the finance committee and you're on the finance committee. And so I'm assuming you would put a motion on the floor tomorrow. I am not available to stay at the whole finance committee meeting, which is always the case. And so I'm wondering if there's anything preventing me from making a motion now. I think we do not have action items posted on the agenda. So it's not what the purpose of the meeting was. But so does that mean that I cannot make a motion? That's what I'm asking. Again, we did not post this meeting as anything other than a discussion. That was the purpose. And Lynn, if I could just add for the debt authorization order for it to be a valid order, it has to have a finance committee recommendation. It also has to have the public forums. I'm not sure what type of motion was gonna be put forward but the actual debt authorization has to go through the finance committee, get recommended and through the public forum process for it to be a valid debt authorization. Thank you for that clarification, Alicia. Right, but recommending the use of 10 million in reserves is not a debt authorization, correct? Like that is not a complete debt authorization. And I wouldn't even have the ability to propose a vote on the debt authorization, correct? Cause that's not on the floor and that's a completely different document. So this is like one portion. I'm looking for- So the debt authorization order includes it. So that was one of the things we had to do in the version that was shared, I think with council a week ago, the debt authorization includes all the funding sources for the project. And it's actually the same order that appropriates the amount from capital stabilization. So that debt authorization does two things that appropriates the full cost of the project and then specifies the funding sources. And that's where we would change the amount from the capital stabilization depending on what the council wants to do. Alicia, do you have a further question? Yeah, so I can't move to recommend that the finance committee include that in their recommendation or consider that in their recommendation, the use of an additional five million because the use of the first five million came also from a recommendation. So I'm not understanding why the use of another five million can't also come from a recommendation. I wanna- So I'm going to just ask for a moment to clarify and we all agree that this is a good thing to do. Athena, you have your hand up. Can I ask Alicia if you would restate the motion that you're trying to propose? I think if we were doing this formally, Alicia would make a motion and then you would rule whether or not it's in order at that time. Okay. So can we hear the motion please? I recommend that the council suggest the finance committee consider an additional five million or the use of an additional five million dollars from the reserve account to be included in the authorization. Okay. So a motion's been made and the question is, is the motion in order? And I'm looking at Athena. Yeah, can we take just one minute to confer? Yeah. Thanks. And I'll formally make the point of order that I don't believe it's in order because we are operating under only presentation and discussion items right now. No action items were on this agenda and open meeting law requires that the council and the public be given fair notice of whether what actions or other discussions might take place. Okay. Hold on one sec. Thank you for your patience. We are back in session. Thank you. So Alicia, I'm going to call on Andy first and then we'll proceed from there. Andy? Yes. I wanted to assure Alicia of something that's to I think what her concern is partly expressed. I will recognize you at the beginning of the meeting or whenever you are available to offer a motion to offer a motion tomorrow because I understand your concern that if your time is not allowing you to be present for the entire meeting that you would be concerned that you would not be able to have the motion presented early. So I want to assure you that you will have that opportunity if that's to the ruling of the chair tonight. Can I turn it back to the chair? Okay. And based on the conversation that we just had and I'm certainly going to turn this to Athena who's weighed in on this and that is that it actually is out of order since we did not list action items on the agenda and a vote for an action item or a motion and a vote would be an action item. Athena, do you have anything else you want to add to that? So on the agenda for tomorrow Finance Committee meetings tomorrow they have listed a recommendation to the town council on the debt authorization and borrowing. And that's not listed on the agenda for tonight. Additionally, what I mentioned to Lynn and Andy was that Finance Committee is convened here tonight. So the discussion that includes Finance Committee members is being heard by them all and I'm sure we'll be taken into consideration during the meeting tomorrow. Alicia. Thank you. I appreciate all of those things but I'm actually not able to attend any of the Finance Committee meeting tomorrow and there are members of the Finance Committee who are not present tonight. And so if this motion is not in order because we're under discussion items can I wait until the things not anticipated within 48 hours of the meeting and make the motion at that point of this meeting? Please. I'm not sure that that quite makes sense. So your motion is to recommend the council suggest the Finance Committee consider the use of an additional $5 million. I think the Finance Committee has heard that and we'll take it into consideration tomorrow. So I'm not sure that it needs to be made as a formal motion. But is there a reason that it cannot? Like, is it not in order? Are you just suggesting that it's not necessarily necessary? I think we're suggesting both. And one is that we've heard, okay? From not just you but several other people on the committee. In addition to that and therefore the Finance Committee will clearly have that discussion. In addition, it's always a gray areas to whether something is actually legal under the 48 hours. The 48 hours are used for things that come up at the last minute. It's used for emergencies. It's used for things that aren't noticed. And since the whole meeting tonight was about this and was posted as a discussion, it really doesn't fit. Now, are you saying you will not be the Finance Committee meeting at all tomorrow? No, I will not. And I actually have a time conflict for all Finance Committee meetings moving forward at this point because I'm not even available for the first half any longer. So I would like to find out if it is out completely out of order and I cannot make a motion within the 48 hours within that section of this meeting. Point of order has been made, yes. A week ago, I believe the counselor attempted to suggest a motion and so I would argue it might not have been not anticipated within 48 hours and therefore not fall under the 48 hour rule. But the only the chair can deem whether the chair could have anticipated a potential motion from a counselor or not such that it's not on the agenda. Point of order. Can somebody please point to the charter provisioned and or the rules that do not allow a counselor to make a motion given the format of the agenda, please? You're looking to me, may I speak to that? I am looking at you. Michelle, it's the open meeting law that requires our agendas be detailed and sufficient that a person would know what the council would be discussing and voting on. And because there was no vote listed, no recommendation or anything like that listed on the agenda tonight, we're questioning whether or not that would be appropriate to take a vote. It's my understanding that a motion can be brought forward during a publicly posted meeting from the floor at any time. And so I just, I'm really searching, just coming back to our retreat on Saturday and just trying to listen to each other. And is there a pathway here for Alicia? Athena, you need to take Mandy first. I believe what Michelle is trying to say is that maybe she's challenging the ruling of the chair and might be trying to make a motion like that. If the chair has made a ruling, then I will appeal the ruling, but I didn't hear the chair make a definitive ruling yet. So thank you, Mandy. I appreciate that, because that's the trajectory. Let me, yes. May I make a suggestion? Yes. I wonder if there's a finance committee member present tonight that would make a motion on Alicia's behalf at the meeting tomorrow. I'm looking for the finance committee. There's Kathy, there's me, there's Andy. It's the fourth. Yes, Kathy. If this was helpful, I will make Alicia's motion tomorrow. Okay. I will make it as she originally made it. We did vote on it once, but I will make it again. I'm willing and able to do that. Sorry, can I speak? It's just because my hand has been up this whole time, so I can't like re-raise my hand, but is it okay if I speak? Please. It's Alicia, sorry. Well, one, I just wanted to speak to the fact that this, the assumption that this was not anticipated because I have made this motion, I actually literally just made that motion, the specific wording off the top of my head. I don't have that written anywhere and it's not the exact same motion that I proposed at finance, nor is it the exact same motion that I presented at the council meeting. So yes, it was something that was not reasonably anticipated within 48 hours of this meeting. And two, I would prefer not to have somebody present my motion who doesn't support it. That sounds really odd to me. And I understand that generally some of the finance committee members might have a general idea as to how some of the counselors feel in regards to the suggestion, but not every single counselor has stated whether or not they support or do not support this initiative and that's what I'm looking for. And I think that's what the finance committee needs because they actually don't have a clear idea as to how many counselors support this right now. I don't even. And so again, if this is not out of order for the 48 hour, the topics that are not anticipated within 48 hours of the meeting, I would like to continue with my motion. And if this is not the time in the meeting where we're in that bracket, I will wait, but I thought Lynn was about to adjourn the meeting. And so that's why I did this. And so if I'm at the wrong time and I need to wait a couple of seconds to move into that period of the meeting, I'd be happy to do so. But I'm just a little bit unclear as to what I can and cannot do because again, we were also told last meeting that a counselor can make a motion at any time. And so I'm just trying to figure out where this will go. And Alicia, I totally and completely appreciate the confusion around this. Sean, you have your hand up. Yeah, I was just gonna point out there's gonna, I believe there's gonna be another finance committee meeting after the public forum or the finance committee will get a chance to reconsider its recommendation. So I believe there's at least one more opportunity where the finance committee recommendation could be modified after tomorrow's meeting. Okay, so Alicia, for the time being, there's some other hands up. Let me hear what people have to say and then we'll come back to this, okay? Dorothy? Yeah, what Sean was saying gets at one of my areas of great confusion, which is when is the public forum? I mean, I will say, I just feel like I've been read around and round the mulberry bush a hundred times. No idea what's going on this meeting, that meeting. I thought we were gonna vote tonight. And so my first question is, when is the public forum? It's not obviously gonna be at six o'clock on the third of April, because that's just before with the vote that we take. So we have a finance committee tomorrow and then when is this public forum? The public forum is at six o'clock on April 3rd. The finance committee meet afterwards and discuss. He just said the finance committee will have a chance to meet after the public forum before the council vote. How can they do that? As in the past, when the finance committee is present before we move on to the agenda, the chair of the finance committee asks the finance committee if they would like to reconsider their recommendation. That's done on the third as well. Okay, so it is where I thought it was gonna be. I do wanna make a point of social justice here. The finance committee, which seems, and I was on it and enjoyed being on it for a number of years, to be the crucial committee for everything is at three o'clock in the afternoon when working people cannot attend. Now that is putting privilege, really, really putting it forefront. The major decisions that are made in this town are gonna be done during hours when people should be at work. And I really, how are we ever gonna get the diverse council that this town needs and deserves if we make it meeting after meeting so that you wear us down, you wear down the public, we don't get things done, and then you're gonna be very surprised and shocked when the vote doesn't happen. I want the school to go through. I don't wanna have this thing hanging over us. I want this to work. And you're getting messages. We're getting, I've been shocked to some people who told me they weren't gonna support the school vote. I was not expecting it. I'm telling you, there's something going on out there and you have to pay attention and you have to listen. And sometimes we have to deal with things, not exactly the way we wanted to do it, but in a way that'll make it work because I wanted to move forward. I want the DPW, I want the fire station, but first we've got to get the school. We've got to get over the hump. We've got to get that done. And I'd like to see us focus on doing that. And Alicia has been really trying to help us today and telling us some of the things that we might have to do to bring more people along. So just please. Jennifer. Yeah, I just, this is just not making sense to me. I, the motion couldn't be voted on by the, the motion couldn't be voted on at the last meeting and it can't be voted on this meeting. It's sounding like Alicia's motion can only be voted on in the finance committee. And then it comes back to the council. But why can't we vote on a motion that's made, like even at the last meeting, which was an action meeting, we were told we, Alicia, we couldn't vote on Alicia's motion. I don't understand that. The item is a referral to a committee, whether it's this item or some other item. If it's referred to a committee, that's where it sits until it comes back to the council. But she wants to, I was really under the impression that you, a councilor could always make a motion. It may not get second. Can I, can I just, I'm going to give further my analogy. Suppose you want to make a motion at some point about something that's in CRC, but it's at a council meeting. That's the item rests in CRC. That's where it needs to be made. We have had a counselor tonight who's on the finance committee who has said they're willing to make the motion tomorrow. I will tell you, as a member of the finance committee, I'm willing to second that motion for the purpose of discussion. Yeah. I mean, the finance committee already voted on it. So. May I help answer that question, Lynn? Please. So Jennifer, the, the finance committee made a, sort of a premature recommendation on that, because it hadn't been referred automatically at the point that Kathy and Alicia's motions were voted on. And I will also say that Andy, the chair of the finance committee at the time suggested that in fact, we shouldn't even be doing the motions, but there were so much upset about that that he went ahead and we discussed them. So at, at this point, finance committee has the order to make a recommendation to the council. It wasn't an action item at the last council meeting because we needed a finance committee recommendation and a public forum before the council could act. So it would have been our order to put a motion to amend the order because it wasn't, it couldn't be acted on at that time. And then a few people have said, councilor can make a motion at any time. Sure. But the emotion at any time might be out of order. So just like in this situation, it may or may not be able to be voted on at that time. Lynn, I'd like to clarify whether or not you've made a ruling on the motion. If it would help for me to make a ruling, I'm going to rule this out of order. Thank you. Now, an appeal to the president's decision can be made. That appeal could be voted on, if it were seconded, it could be voted on. And if it passed, then a councilor Walker's motion would be voted. Okay. So I'm making it go ahead, Michelle. Yeah, I don't know which order it has to be in, but we're learning here. I would like to appeal the chair's decision. And I'd like just a moment to speak to my interpretation of why that is. Is that allowed, Athena? After a second. Let me look for a second first. Is there a second to the motion to appeal the decision of the president? A second. Okay. So a second under Devlin-Gothier. Okay. Michelle? Yeah. So Athena said that a motion can in fact be made at any time from the floor. So I think that's part one that we've established that is true. And part two is then deciding whether that motion is in order. And I have, when you say whether it's an order, an order according to what? Robert's rules. And if that's the case, then please point us to where it says in Robert's rules that this motion is out of order. So Michelle, when I'm saying out of order, it's not just Robert's rules. We need to consider the council's rules, state law, federal law, and so on. The charter, all of those things to determine whether or not something is or isn't out of order. So at this point, the president has determined that the motion is out of order because I'm assuming, and Lynn, you can correct me if I'm wrong because it wasn't listed on the agenda, which is in accordance with the open meeting law. So the concern here is that a recommendation to the finance committee and any kind of action item on this topic wasn't listed on the agenda and the agenda needs to be sufficiently specific. And that is a little bit of a fuzzy area. So Lynn has ruled that it's out of order. There's been an appeal made and now the discussion is about the appeal. Yes, I understand that. And under the 48 hour rule, we still haven't determined whether this could fall under the 48 hour rule. And I haven't heard any evidence to why it could not be taken under that rule. I haven't heard an appeal to that particular ruling. I think what's in front of us right now is the appeal of the decision of the president that Alicia's motion is out of order. So I think we need to stick to that. Okay, but if it's about the agenda, if it's out of order because it's not properly posted in the agenda, then if I'm hearing you correctly, Athena, you're saying that we'll follow through with this particular appeal and then there will have to be another appeal at the 48 hour portion of the agenda. I think we're really, I just wanna say that this is, Alicia is trying to get a sense by way of action to allow the finance committee to have an understanding of where counselors stand on this and counselors can certainly abstain if they're not ready to make that decision, but I am very concerned that we are making this such a challenging matter. So the floor is open for the discussion and that is the only discussion at this point which is the issue of the chairs ruling and that having now been challenged. Shalini, are you have your hand up to speak to that? Yeah, could we just informally if the purpose is to get a sense and give a sense to the finance committee? Could we all just individually say where we stand right now? I mean, I wonder, yeah, and that would take care of all of this. You certainly, counselors are free to say whatever they wanna say. Lynn? Yes. The motion that's up for discussion right now is the appeal of the president's decision. We have to deal with that first before any other motions can be made. Thank you. Yeah, I know. So I'm not proposing another motion but I'm just saying if you have that understanding then we can just resolve this motion but with that understanding that that's a goal, we can achieve that goal. I appreciate that sentiment but the motion is on the table to challenge the president's ruling. Okay, Alicia? I have a quick question before I make my comment and that is my motion being ruled out of order because it's in, okay, is it out of order because it's not in the 48 hour section? Cause I'm not sure if it was clear to me whether or not that was ever answered. So it's not being ruled out of order underneath the 48 hour, underneath the section of items not reasonably anticipated within 48 hours. We're not even to the 48 hour rule. We're still in the meeting that is right following the discussion item. And so it's in the issue related to the fact that you made a motion, we weren't even to the 48 hour rule. Okay, because that was a specific question that I asked that nobody answered because I also said I'd be happy to wait for that but nobody gave me the answer as to whether or not it would be, okay, underneath that section of the meeting either. So again, it's just like very unclear to me as to like what is acceptable and what's not. So my comments or my understanding of the process is that I'm understanding why, cause I was not actually trying to make a motion at the last council meeting, I was trying to make an amendment to something that was on the floor, which I learned at the retreat was out of order because it was an automatic referral and that comes first. That makes complete sense to me. This however, makes absolutely no sense to me because it's a completely different motion in a different setting. I just am slightly confused. So if it's just the timing of when I said it, that's not acceptable, I understand that and I will accept and say it when we move on to the 48 hours, but I'm not even understanding why it's being ruled out of order, I think here. The only issue from my perspective is that we did not include action items on this agenda and it was not posted as an action item on this agenda. Like at all overall, not just my specific because we have had plenty of meetings where there are emotions that are brought up that are not on the agenda and we still deal with those motions. So is it because there was no action items at all period or is it because my motion was not on the agenda? I think I'm still unclear. Alicia, I don't believe that we've had motions. Well, I have to be very careful how I say this. We've had motions when we were in the process of discussing something for action. People have taken made motions, okay? Because the topic was there, but there was also a section and it was being discussed under action items or that it was later taken up under action items. So we've never taken up motions underneath the 48 hours. Only under action items can motions ever be brought up. I'm trying to think if we've even done a 48 hour one. But I'm trying to understand if that's a rule. Like is that part of the process? Cause that's not something I was aware of and I'm trying to understand. Like is that a rule? You can only make a motion underneath an action item. And if the item is posted under action. Point of order, motions have been made under the 48 hour rule in the past, particularly with respect to resolutions that have come up less than 48 hours in advance. But under the 48 hour rule, the topic has to be reasonably unanticipated 48 hours in advance of the meeting. Okay. Thank you, Amanda Jo. Okay. Pam. I was going to offer on that note that a new piece of information is the fact that counselor Walker is not going to be available tomorrow. I mean, that puts it in a different category and might be considered worthy of 48 hours within not known within 48 hours. So just offering that up. I appreciate that. So I don't think that constitutes sufficient reason for 48 hour Dorothy. Well, it's true that whoever sets the agenda controls the meeting. I thought we were going to vote and only when I find out the meeting turns out that we're not. So if you're going to have a meeting again in the future where we're not going to vote and we can't vote we can't make a motion. Let me know because I won't go. Dorothy, I sent you an email this today and I was very clear there would be no votes tonight. In addition to that, at the beginning of this meeting I also reiterated everything that was in that email. But that's too late at the beginning of the meeting. So I sent it to you in an email today as well. Okay. I'm sorry. I was working today. Okay. I didn't get to reading most of my emails. I was teaching. So I want to know what is the only way having somebody make a motion for a Herb who absent member that means her vote's not there. So obviously that's no remedy of any kind. It's just like wallpaper. I'm just saying, I just feel very boxed in and I don't think that's a good thing to do. That means that if we don't get a chance to vote on this issue, that the only way that we can express our unhappiness is to vote no on the debt restructuring. Is that the kind of position? No, that is not the situation at all. Let me go over the process one more time. How many votes does that need to pass? It takes two thirds votes. How many people? How many yes votes? Let me start from the beginning and go through the process. Okay. Tomorrow, the finance committee meets and they will at that time, two of us on the finance committee have said we will bring forward a motion to go to, okay? At that point, the finance committee can discuss that and they can decide or decide any number of things, okay? When the finance committee finishes their meeting tomorrow, unless they decide they need yet another meeting, when they finish their meeting tomorrow, that recommendation will come to the council on the third. At that time, anybody can make an amendment to the recommendation. Anybody, any counselor, not anybody else, any counselor can make an amendment to the recommendation of the finance committee. And at that point, the council votes, but in between there is the required public forum. Here, the forum, yeah. Okay, so this is not the last time. This is not the last chance tonight. Okay. I did understand that and I'm just saying that you know what I'm saying. And I'm very sorry to be the bearer of rules, but it is the job, okay? It's the job. Whether I'm in the job or anybody else is in the job, it's the job, okay? So you can be angry at me if you want, I'm used to it. Okay. Thank you. I remember when we talked and set up this meeting, it was clear that there was going to be no vote taken. It was created as a discussion. It was stated that way. And the other thing that, you know, when I proposed it, we discussed it and they said there would be no vote. The other thing that is happening is that counselor Walker, Alicia, decided and told people that she was going to make a motion. Didn't matter what she was going to make a motion. She said this at the beginning of the meeting. Yes, she did. And the rules, and this was really important when we were together on Saturday, the rules are there to protect the majority and the minority. The rules are there so that a committee can be independent. I don't want how I'm going to vote or not vote to affect Bob Hager or Hagner or anybody else on finance. I want his independent clear mind and the whole committees. I want them coming to me so that I have a recommendation to look at because I want it to be there because it usually opens up things I didn't think about. So I think counselor Walker, Alicia, that I think you're wrong that you cannot make a motion. I'm not great with parliamentary procedure, but there are no action items. We discussed not having votes at this meeting. Emails went out and guaranteed that. So it does feel like a manipulation of the process and that makes me uncomfortable. Jennifer. Yeah, I think it's been stated but I feel uncomfortable that counselor Walker is not going to be able to vote on her motion tomorrow. So that just doesn't seem right. I mean, so I'm just going to say that. The other thing, it's just feeling, I understood that there wasn't going to be a vote on the overrider, the language for the override. But I guess I just, maybe it's misinformed, thought that I was into the impression that counselor could always make a motion and the motion could be voted on. But it's just, in this case, feeling a bit like a catch-22 because I mean, what was publicly posted was that this home meeting was dedicated to discussing the school and funding for the school and the override. So if a counselor makes a motion on that topic, it seems like the public was well-informed, that's why. But then it can't be so under the 48-hour rule because we can't say it wasn't unanticipated. Yeah, it wasn't unanticipated because there was a publicly posted meeting on this subject and then during the conversation, a motion was made. And it just seems that if we vote on the motion, that that's just a recommendation to the finance committee. So it's just, it's going to be like a catch-22. I understand, believe me. I totally understand why it feels that way. I totally understand. Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. So yes, I did see the email that we did get today that said that this was not a voting meeting and that there were going to be no votes. And I was actually confused about that. Not that I thought that we were planning to take votes, but that we would have a meeting where we are told ahead of time that there can be no votes. I was slightly confused about that, but I did see it. So I did want to confirm, Lynn, that I did see that before this meeting, but today, not any other day. That was not something that was clear to me at the last meeting when we set this meeting, that there was going to be no action items, but I did see that meeting that this morning. And that's why I said that at the beginning of this meeting, because I didn't understand that at all when we got that email. I was also working today, didn't have time to like respond and have like ask you personally, like why is this the case? Is this something that can be challenged or cannot be the case? And that's why I said that at the beginning of this meeting. And when I said that at the beginning of this meeting, I would like to reserve the right that you said I had as a counselor to make a motion at any time. Nobody said anything. Everybody just said, okay, and we continued on with the meeting. And so I thought I was reserving that right to make my motion whenever I wanted. But I also thought that it would fall under the 48 hours rule. So if this is being ruled on as not in order because it's underneath the part of the agenda item where we're in the discussion, the discussion and presentations that I understand and I would be happy to withdraw and remake my motion underneath the 48 not underneath the items not reasonably anticipated within 48 hours of the meeting, but it's not clear to me that that's what's being said. So if there, if Lynn possibly, you can state very explicitly again for me, the reason why this is being ruled out of order, that would be very helpful for me because I feel like I'm still kind of confused. The reason it's ruled out of order, although the question on the floor is whether to overturn that ruling, okay, is because we did not list action items and therefore this was not an action item listed. That's the whole reason, right? So, but this motion can or cannot be made under the, I think I asked that question like three times already and I have not. I'm trying to get a straight answer. I'm trying to get a straight answer. I asked that question even before this was ruled as not in order. So that's the other slightly frustrating part is I asked that before this was ruled as not in order. Do you see this Athena as legitimate under 48 hours? I, I question that this was not anticipated 48 hours before the meeting because we received a number of public comments about the 10 million. I was discussed at a finance committee meeting 48 hours before today. So I have a doubt. This is a completely different motion. I literally just made up the wording. I don't have it written down anywhere. No one has it written down anywhere. This is not the same motion that people were public commenting to. People were public commenting to the 10 million. I am asking to include an additional five million. All of this is completely different, not reasonably anticipated. I don't know if you remember when you asked me to put the motion on the floor, Athena, but you could clearly hear me stumbling through trying to figure out how to word the motion. So I'm not quite sure how we would say that I had this whole motion planned because I actually didn't. Because I don't really, I'm still literally for the last like two council meetings and the last two finance committee meetings have been struggling to figure out when is the appropriate time to, to maneuver this. Like I've been constantly told, this is not it. This is not it. And I still can't figure out when is the right time. That's what I'm trying to do here. I understand the confusion. This frankly is a little bit of an uncertain area for all of us. We're all sort of looking around at each other trying to figure out how to, how to move forward. I think that what's going on is we just want to make sure that your suggestion is taken up correctly and in an appropriate way. So the public forum on the third will be a meeting of the finance committee and the finance committee will have an opportunity to discuss its recommendation at that point. So a motion to amend the finance committee's recommendation could be taken up at that point. I think the concern about this not being anticipated 48 hours ahead of time. It's not the specific motion that is the issue. It's rather the, the topic. So I totally understand that you made the motion up at the time and it wasn't premeditated or anything like that. And that's not really the issue. It's more that the topic was anticipated. So my suggestion at this point to help move things along is to vote on the appeal of the president's decision. If that vote passes, then the appeal would be overturned and the council could then vote on your motion, Alicia. And you had your hand up because you had come up with some reference. Yeah, I mean, I was looking at the attorney general's website page on the open meeting law as best I could. And they have a frequently asked questions section. And this does touch on that topic. And I won't read the whole thing unless it's requested, I'm only gonna read half of it. But if people want the whole thing read, I will do so. Although a public body may consider a topic that was not listed in the meeting notice, if unanticipated, the attorney general strongly encourages public bodies to postpone discussion and action on topics that are controversial or maybe of particular interest to the public if those topics were not listed in the meeting notice. Question is, again, that are controversial or maybe of particular interest to the public if those topics were not listed in the meeting notice. Since action was not listed in the meeting notice, then the question, if it's controversial, the attorney general's FAQ is discouraging consideration. There is a motion and it's been made and seconded. And I'm going to hope that the people who have their hands up are going to speak to that motion. Michelle? I am, yes. And I'd like to offer a different interpretation. I'm also looking at the mass.gov website on open meeting law and I'm reviewing what information must meeting notices contain. And there is nothing that I can find that states that there is a special topic that needs to be identified as an action item. What I am reading here is that it is essentially what topics will be discussed and then actions can be taken from the discussion item. So I would like to see where in the open meeting law it states that an action item has to be separated out in the agenda in order for a motion to be made on a topic that is being discussed in a meeting. I'm looking at our agenda and it says presentation and discussion, appropriation and debt authorization for the elementary school building project. So we're well within, Lisa's motion is well within the topic that's being discussed. And without there being anything that I can find in the open meeting law that states that it must be presented in the agenda as an action item in order for an action to be taken. I strongly appeal to my colleagues to overturn the chairs ruling here. Thank you, Anika. Well, first I would like to thank Christina for being prepared with us before we arrived on Saturday at 8.30 in the morning to go over so much of what we are talking about right now. And it was said in that meeting that because this was used as an example that we wouldn't be voting. We've heard it two other times. So I just would caution us when we speak to the public again like was brought up and we misinformed the public that we weren't aware of this and further aid into the divide that is brewing over this. So with that said, regardless of what happens and I do understand that some of my respected colleagues do want to know where we all stand, I will not be going there this evening. I was prepared to have a bit more time and look at more information and talk with more constituents that I have promised that. But again, I find what is really disturbing is this is so many of us were right here. We even received a packet from Athena to refer to. So I would just again, if there's questions, there's questions, but please let's just stop misinforming the public this way. Lynn, may I answer Michelle's question? Please. Michelle, you're absolutely right. The open meeting law isn't specific about how items are listed on the agenda. The open meeting law requires a list of topics to be discussed. So you're right about that. The council's practice has been to list presentation and discussion items and action items separately and that's what we've done consistently throughout our agendas so that the public would reasonably anticipate that this is a discussion item only and not an action item. So like I said, it does get into a little bit of a murky area, but it would be unclear to the public that the council were going to act on something tonight if it were listed as a presentation and discussion item only. I think that the members of the public who look at our meeting notice and see that something is listed as presentation and discussion could reasonably assume that there would be no votes taken. Does that answer your question? Michelle. I do appreciate that. It does answer my question, but a council practice is different than saying that something is out of order. Right, so it's a little bit threading the needle between the open meeting law, the council's rules and our precedent that we've set by listing things the way we have in our meeting notices. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think that if we were talking about taking the vote on the appropriation, that would completely make sense. We're talking just about a motion to that a counselor is making in good faith to recommend to the finance committee something that Alicia was elected across all political parties to represent a constituency that many of us don't have access to, that many of us don't, and I don't say all of us, I'll speak for myself that I don't have access to, that I don't necessarily identify with. And she is representing those folks here and we, I feel, I will again speak for myself making it so difficult for her to simply bring forward an initiative, a motion that she feels as representing her constituents. And it's just, it's, I don't, I do, again, I do not feel that this motion is out of order and that's why I've made the appeal and maybe we need to just take it up and a vote at this point. Alicia. Sorry, my hand is just up, I'm ready to vote. Okay, the motion has been made and seconded. Question on the floor is whether or not you agree with the president's ruling. If you agree with the president's ruling, then you vote no. If you don't agree with the president's ruling and you feel that we should consider this question tonight, you vote yes. Dorothy, ask your question. Okay, can we state it without the double negative? I really have trouble with these double negatives. If you do not agree with my ruling, then you vote yes. If you do agree with my ruling, you vote no. Okay. I have no problem making that clarification and I agree I don't like double negatives either. Probably because it's now 10 o'clock. All right. We're going to begin with a vote and I'm going to start with Shalini Balmone. No. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Yes, but I think you skip that. Yes, you agree with the ruling. Oh, wait. No. No, no, no. I agree with the appeal. No. With the appeal. All right. Let's get it straight now, okay? If the motion on the table is to appeal the president's ruling, if you agree with that motion, you vote yes. Yes to appeal. Thank you. If you don't agree with that motion, you vote no, do not appeal. Okay. All right, we'll start again. Shalini. No. Anna. I'd like to vote yes. I'm sorry. Is Pat next? Pat. Yes, twice in a row. No. Anna. Yes. I have to get my list out. Sorry. Hold on. Just give me a second. Since it's my decision, I'm going to abstain. Mandy Jo. No. Anika. Abstain. Michelle. Yes. Dorothy. Oops. Yes. Pam. Yes. Kathy. Abstain. Andy. No. Jennifer. Yes. Alicia. Yes. So we have six yeses, four noes, four noes and three abstentions. Who is the fourth no? I've got Pat, Mandy and Andy. Who is the fourth no? Shalini. Shalini. Thank you. Okay. So and the three abstentions. So does it pass? It passes. Thank you. And given that we just went through this about when do abstentions count or not count? Just for the sake of really bringing in what we all were in our retreat about. Yeah. In this case, abstentions don't count. That still doesn't make sense to me when we say abstentions count or don't count. This vote is a majority present and voting. Okay. The majority present and voting in this case were. And counselors voted. So a majority would be six, six voted yes. Right. So we are now going back to Alicia's motion. Alicia, your motion is to ask the finance committee to consider the 10 million. It's to recommend the council suggest the finance committee consider the use of an additional five million to be included in the debt authorization. The additional five million. Okay. That is all the motion is, is asking the finance committee to consider that. It's not saying you agree with it. It's only to ask the finance committee to consider it. Okay. Are there any questions about what we're voting on? Shalini. Okay. So I feel like we're going round and round. But again, my understanding was that we're getting new information from Sean and we're going to discuss it. And then the finance committee is going to discuss and give us a recommendation. So, but right now we are giving them a recommendation. So then they can give us a recommendation. This is a request that the finance committee consider an additional five million from reserves be used toward the school. That's how I hear this. It's just a request that they consider. And I think Alicia has done this because she won't be there tomorrow and she wants to make sure it will happen. Does it need a second? It does need a second. Change seconds? Change seconds. Okay. Are there any further questions or conversation? And I'll explain. This is a vote that the finance committee consider an additional five million from reserves to be used toward the school. Michelle. I appreciate you making that distinction. And I am certainly in favor of the finance committee considering it. And I think that the finance committee should, as it already has begun to do, strongly consider this and the political components of this. I think that Sean said it best when he said that this project is essentially, basically if this project doesn't pass, we're putting the other projects at risk. And I think we really have to weigh carefully whether what is a bigger risk here. If we have, there's always something when it comes to a town-wide vote in my experience in Amherst that has the potential to kill a really good project. And I think that we have to strongly consider what that something is. And if this is that something, and if this is the moment, we need to really deeply understand that votes, when you go to cast your vote, it is very emotional. And no matter how many charts we have provided to people, no matter how much we have told them about any of this as concretely as we have tried to do at the end of the day, it's emotional. And I think we have to recognize, really recognize the human aspect to this. And so I think the finance committee, I hope this motion will pass. And I thank them for the work that they've already done. And I thank Alicia for really pressing hard to have this considered. Mandy Jo. Basically for the reasons Pat and Shalini stated that seems like this is a circular request of the town council telling the finance committee what they want the finance committee to recommend potentially. And I know people can consider the words consider differently by definition. I'm going to abstain. I don't believe though that the finance committee should consider the political ramifications. That's what we were elected to do. I want a neutral recommendation from the finance committee about what they think is best for this town financially. I don't know what it is. And because that's the, because I want a neutral recommendation, I'm going to abstain. I don't want us and our political considerations putting a lever on one way or the other for the finance committee, which is why I'm going to abstain. Are there any other? Okay, Shalini. Yeah, I really do want to hear from the finance committee because they have the expertise in planning and making assumptions based on past trends and information. So I want to hear from them how this decision is going to impact the future projects. And then it's for us to, as Manny Jo said, to make the decision. And plus I again want to emphasize that I think all of us in council are very committed to our community, to hear what they're saying, where they're hurting. And I encourage all of you who are interested in affordable housing, we're having a next conversation in CRC with the trustees of affordable housing. So that's where those conversations live. And that's where that action needs to happen over there. And over here we're talking about a very well-planned process that has taken over 10 years of careful planning and building up reserves in order to ensure that all our projects go through. And it is, I know I keep hearing it's just about the school. No, 67 or what was it? 65.4% of the voters voted for the library. The South Amherst residents have been waiting for a fire station. The DPW we've heard is dilapidated. So all these four projects are part of this planning process. So I really am counting on no pressure or finance committee members, but we really trust you. And we want you to do a very thorough work of what is going to ensure that all four projects go through. And then it's on us. Thank you. Dorothy. I have trouble unmuting. Money is political. Money is always political. We need to do one thing at a time if we're gonna get anything done. If we can only have the long range plan we're never gonna get anywhere. So we have to think about the public. We have to bring the public with us and to do it successfully. So you can talk all the grand schemes you want but question, what did you do on the school? Did you do everything you could to make it clear to the public how we were trying to do our best to meet their needs and to answer their questions? That's it. Thank you. Is there any other comments? Seeing none, I'm going to go to the vote. Again, the vote in this case is whether or not to ask the finance committee to consider adding an additional 5 million against for the project from reserves from, yeah, reserves. Just let's leave it simple. Okay. Pat DeAngelis. Oh, goodness. I'm bouncing between no and abstain. I don't think it's fair to the public that there was an impromptu motion. I think the finance committee offered Alicia a chance to have someone speak her motion. I think they're certainly considering it. So I'm going to vote no. Doesn't mean I don't want the money but dammit, people stop playing. Anna. No. Lynn Griesmer abstains. Mandy Jo. Abstain. Anika Lopes. Abstain. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Abstain. Jennifer Tob. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. The motion passes. Shalini hasn't voted. Oh, I'm sorry, Shalini. Yeah, I'm with Pat between abstain and no. And so I'm going to say no. Did you say no? Yes. Okay. Six yeses, three noes, four abstentions. In this case, the motion passes. And the finance. Just a point of information. What was the voting quantum on this one? The voting quantum on this one was nine. Was it present in voting or just in voting? Okay. The quantum was nine. Okay. And it's, well. I was asking whether the vote required was based on present and voting or just present. Present and voting. Present. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other comments at this time? Andy, would you please adjourn the finance committee? Finance committee is adjourned until tomorrow at three. And the town council is adjourned. It's 10, 15.