 Welcome to the Tuesday, April 16th select board meeting. We are meeting on Tuesday this week because of the Monday holiday, and it would be impossible to proceed with this meeting without acknowledging the terrible tragedy that happened yesterday in Boston. So I think it's probably most appropriate to take a moment of silence for those who died and were injured and were otherwise impacted by this horrible event in our capital city. Thank you very much. Because of the scale of this tragedy, what it really means to the Commonwealth, to the United States and beyond, it seemed appropriate to mark this. And Mr. Wald's suggestion, I've written a letter on behalf of the select board that I hope we'll be willing to sign tonight. And this is from the select board on behalf of the community. So if you don't mind, I'll just take a moment to read it. It's addressed to Mayor Thomas Menino. It says, Dear Mayor Menino, the Amherst Select Board wishes to convey our community's deepest sympathies for this horrific tragedy. Amherst shares your shock and grief for the outrage committed on one of Boston's most magical days at one of its most beloved events. Despite all the sadness and fear, your city has inspired us. The selflessness and true heroism of first responders, marathon staff and volunteers, hospital personnel and countless regular folks makes us all proud. The reports of great kindness, like people opening their homes to runners and their families, help heal our broken hearts. We hope city residents find comfort in the support of Boston's extended family spread across the Commonwealth, the United States and the world. Through your magnificent colleges and universities, hospitals, museums, sports teams and athletic events, historic and cultural attractions and more, the web of people with enduring ties to the city is vast and all of us stand with you now. Wishing you continued strength and courage as you lead Boston through this trying time. Sincerely, the Amherst Select Board. Thank you very much for doing that. Thank you. Okay, so we will make sure all to sign that before we leave today. Could we stick that in that folder first? If there's one in there, is that the second one? I'm not sure if they're all on letterhead or not. Okay, so we will start with some untimed items. We don't have anyone here for public comment tonight. So we might as well start at the top. The top item is setting the fee for liquor licenses at agricultural events. We had a, and I'm sorry, Mr. Al-Sasha, would you like to make some public comment this evening? Certainly, please come forward and introduce yourself for folks at home. Mr. Al-Sasha, at the Anne Wilan. Last year I was at the, moving toward the survival center from the main corner of North Amherst. And there was a pall of smoke such as I had rarely seen in my life an acrid scent. And the entire area was impacted in ambiance to such a degree that I almost literally fell off my feet. And there were two large yellow vehicles with the insignia Gallagher on them. They were flames pouring out from underneath the vehicles. It was like some mephitic vision and someone informed me, a flag lady, that this was saving the town of Amherst 80% in terms of budgetary wherewithal for resurfacing the roads. What it was doing is literally impacting the entire environment of the earth. Do I know any more than that? I do not. Thank you very much. I appreciate your feedback. Okay. Thank you for coming in tonight. Okay. So the untimed items. Setting fee for liquor license at agricultural event. We do not have an application before us at this time but we expect to receive one. We have once before given a license to a meadery in fact, a winery that makes mead to sell at a farmer's market. And at that time we charged those folks $50 for that license and I don't know exactly how that was determined but since then there has been a state law regarding such things and that state law now requires that the select board set a fee for the liquor license and in fact it caps that at $50. So before we get an application which is anticipated, the office would like us to make sure that we have set the fee so we have a formal motion here to take care of having set that and that will then be on our fee schedule going forward. Anyone have any questions or comments about that issue? Ms. Stein would you like to make the motion? Yes. If I were sure where the motion was I would be happy to read it. Here we go. Special license fee for sale of wine. That's the one. I move that the select board vote to set the fee for a special license for sale of wine produced by a licensed farmer dash winery for off-premises for off-premise consumption at indoor or outdoor agricultural events should be an S at $50 for each license granted. For the discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Mr. Hayden I'll mention that when you were absent last week we just we barely could proceed without having your seconds. And then it- Making motions and it would just be dead silence. Then it was really terrible because we were afraid we couldn't adjourn without you. So- We almost didn't. That's right. We almost didn't. We almost didn't. Okay, next up on untimed items. Seasonal liquor license renewal. We have only one seasonal liquor license these days and it is for Cherry Hill Golf Course. Ms. Stein. I move that the select board renew the seasonal wine and malt liquor license for Cherry Hill Golf Course, 323 Montague Road, manager Barbara Biltz for operations from April 1st, 2013 through January 15th, 2014. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Ms. Brewer. I am so sorry but could the minutes please reference in the previous item, the MGL? Section that that new license is under? Sure. Just so we'll be able to find it again someday. Very good. Okay. We've got a couple more minutes so we might as well do the parking and street closure requests. Ms. Stein. I move that the select board approve the reservation of metered parking spaces on the east and west side of Boltwood Avenue between Spring Street and College Street on May 8th, 9th, 13th and 14th, 2013 for events at the Lord Jeffrey Inn. Second. For the discussion. Busy, busy. Indeed. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. Ah, let's see. We've got minutes. Are folks ready to approve the minutes from March 4th, 18th and April 8th? I am. They were very clean. There are a few very minor changes and they're editorial rather than substantive. Very well. Does anyone have a problem with approving the minutes today? All right, Ms. Stein. I move that the select board approve the minutes of March 4th, 2013, March 18th, 2013 and April 8th, 2013 as amended. Second. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Please put me down as an abstention. Oh, certainly. I really do agree to be. No clue. For an in favor one abstention. They are lovely. They really are lovely. All right, so we are, I believe, fully caught up on minutes, which is wonderful. Thanks again to Ms. Roussell in the office for keeping us current with that. I think our last untimed item that we could do is the committee appointment. Okay. I move that the select board approve Nancy Pagano to the Conocozaki's sister city committee to order to missing for a term expiring June 30th, 2016. Or the discussion. Mr. Moussanti, would you like to comment on a staff member being appointed as a voting member? Sure. This is really to address a, there's a couple of vacancies on that committee and like the ag com, I believe, they were having difficulty achieving quorum and Nancy's been a long serving, very hardworking staff support. And so as a practical matter, I was comfortable with the notion of her being appointed so they could actually execute committee business as opposed to just talk about it endlessly. Thank you very much for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's four in favor. One absent. Okay, Ms. Brewer has stepped out of the room for a moment in case anyone is wondering why suddenly we have an absence. Okay, let's see. So did she vote or? No, so we'll just put that down as four in favor. One, that's technically absent rather than an abstention. Okay, so it is 644. I believe we're out of untimed items. Is that right? I think so. I'm missing anything. Okay, then we will say that as we like to say here, 644 is the same as 645 and is everything okay? Okay, so 644 is the same as 645. Our 645 item is our post-election reorganization vote. This is something that the select board does after every annual town election, every election, other election that has a select board members seat up for election or any time select board member or an officer on the select board voluntarily resigns. So since we had the annual town election last week and Mr. Walden, Ms. Brewer were re-elected without opposition. Thank you for your continued service. It is time for us to have another reorganization vote. So as we do this every year, I will hand this over to Mr. Musanti for our election. Thank you. And so it's pretty straightforward. I'll ask for nominations and then we'll have a motion. So are there any nominations for chair this time? I move that we elect Stephanie O'Keefe as chair again because she does a much more stellar job than any of the other of us could do. You got that right. Okay, that nomination has been made and seconded. Are there any other nominations for chair? Okay, hearing none. So we'll come to a vote. All those in favor of Stephanie O'Keefe for chair of the select board, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. I held my breath for fear that she would vote no. So the motion carries. Congratulations. It would be against her will. Again. Thank you very much. And I appreciate very much the select board's continued faith and trust in me in this role. So thank you. Okay, so then we now have nominations for clerk. Yes, Stein. I nominate Aaron Hayden as clerk because I hate to see things change. This is the second one that I do yet. Yeah. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is abstentions. Opposition. No, sorry. Okay. Did you decide to vote or abstain? I abstained online. Yeah. Okay. And so then we also have the question of vice clerk, vice chair rather, which is something that for many years the select board has rotated. I'm not sure how much awareness into this the outside world has, but the select board has for a long time rotated this monthly and alphabetically. And while that might seem a little bit weird from the outside, certainly seem a little weird to me from the outside, it actually works very well. So at this point we need to either reaffirm or vote to change that rotation. Ms. Stein. I move that the select board continue the current practice of rotating chair, vice chair, position monthly. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. All right. So everything stays the same. We are such a stable select board, I tell ya. All right. Very good. So moving along. The battery's dying in my recorder. Okay. Anybody have any announcements or anything that they would like to talk about before we get to the 650 item? I'd rather not start that early. Anything upcoming that folks should know about? Well, yes. Ms. Stein. There is an open house on Saturday the 20th at Craig's Doors from one to five. So that will be at the first Baptist church in the shelter area. Correct. The door is one to five. Thank you. And I'll also remind folks the same announcement that we made last week and that was also on the town website that on Monday, April 29th at 5 p.m. preceding the select board meeting we will have a coffee hour reception for Harrison Gregg honoring his long service as town moderator. The public is more than welcome, very invited to attend and express their great fondness and appreciation to Mr. Gregg for that service. So I hope that, I hope all the select board members can make it. And I hope that many of the public can make it. So that's from five to six, essentially on the Monday the 29th. Ms. Stein. I have another announcement. Thank goodness for calendars. On April 29th, people who have pharmaceutical type drugs to dispose of and want to do so safely there is going to be a collection at Wildwood and I can't tell you the exact time but the box at the police station is not accepting anymore. So people who do want to dispose of these safely should check on the 29th what the hours are. Thank you very much. Ms. Brewer. We need to put something about that on the town website because I just got my sticker on Saturday and I picked up a flyer that said to take things to the police station. So if we're not doing that anymore then that needs to be changed. And I know that that was, we were lucky to have that service here in town that you could do it anytime or as lots of places you can only do it on these irregular things. I tried it down there with my little bag and I saw the sign. That would be good for the transfer station to change that flyer and also to put a quick note on the town website that it's no longer possible to do it. Okay, perfect. Now we're at 650. Thank you. Okay. So now we have our personnel board recommendation on the FY14 non-union COLA that's the cost of living adjustment. We have human resources director, Deb Bradway here to talk to us about this. This is an annual recommendation that gets made to us. This is actually the town manager's recommendation after he has coordinated with the personnel board. We have an excellent memo explaining the situation as well as a historical COLA chart in the packet and that is available on the website for folks following along at home. So before I turn it over to Ms. Bradway, Mr. Musanti would like to introduce us to this. Sure, and I want to start by commending Deb Bradway for her ongoing excellent work as HR director and it shows itself every day in some new initiative or improved upon practice related to working with all of our staff. So very briefly for the non-union portion of the workforce at the February meeting of the personnel board, the personnel board endorsed my recommended 2% cost of living adjustment for non-union employees for the fiscal year beginning July 1st. The personnel board also encouraged me to consider additional sources of compensation for non-union. The 2% figure is based upon our best judgment of local and statewide labor cost trends and my assessment of the town's ability to pay fiscal condition of the town which I articulated in the budget proposal I presented back in January which is basically hasn't changed in terms of the status. This recommendation was endorsed by the personnel board and then as we do each year in a more formal way we had a non-union employee meeting with myself and Deb and the personnel board members in late March. We shared this information and got questions and comments from that. I also announced at that meeting that we would be implementing a health insurance premium holiday for the month of April because of our continuing positive health cost claims in comparison to budget. We're in a position where we can forego withholding of premiums by employees for the month of April. It also saves the town and the schools and library money in our budget for our share of that month's premium. It saved every employee who was on a health plan anywhere from $115 to $385 during the month of April depending on what plan they were on. So that was a very positive thing. Also, I explained in the memo and the personnel board will be involved in this as well but as we get into the summer and fall working on a compensation study for a non-union group we haven't done a comprehensive compensation study since an in-house version back in 2007. This will allow us to really look at the marketplace in a more detailed manner by job title and we'll look at the structure of our compensation plan as well and that would be the basis for recommendations that would come back to me and through the personnel board for consideration later in the calendar year. And Deb is here to fill in all those blanks that I left out of that summary or answer questions. Good evening. I really don't have anything prepared for this. I really do think I was just gonna be here to support the town manager and I'll just add that I think that the compensation study is a very important thing to embark on for the town. I think it's important to do an arms-length professional analysis of the entire plan. There's 75 people on the plan, 48 different positions and it's time to re-look at the whole structure. I'm hoping that we can get some quotes from professional consultants in early summer, execute a contract, conduct the study during the late summer and early fall and have something for the town manager and your review mid-October, early November, certainly before the end of the calendar year and in good preparation for the next fiscal year budget. Thank you very much. Questions or comments from the select board? Ms. Stein, as our representative to the personnel board, don't you, or liaison rather, would you have anything to add? No, I think the study is a really good idea, both because as Ms. Radway pointed out to the personnel board, our system of multiple steps within a position level is kind of archaic and so I think this makes a lot of sense and also I think it's important for non-union personnel to know just how their salary fits into a bigger overview and I think that'll be a healthy outcome. Thank you very much. Other questions or comments? I'll meet tomorrow. And they meet tomorrow, very good. I appreciate the information very much. I think that the recommendation is just as fair as it can be given the circumstances. We continue to sort of struggle to come out of the recovery, the economic recovery, particularly at the state level and with the state aid made available to communities. I think that while folks of course would prefer to have more than 2%, considering the compensation study and considering the fact that there is a no increase in the health insurance premiums for next year, I think that like I said, that this is just as fair as it can be considering the circumstances that we're in. So I'm fully supportive of the recommendation. I have done a pretty exhaustive survey of comparable communities and other communities throughout the state and of the 40 that I surveyed, there's really only a handful that did more than 2%. 2% seems to be the norm throughout the state and often coupled with health insurance increase of between 3% and 12%. Thank you, that's very helpful context and that will be even more helpful going forward once we have the compensation study, so that's great. This is something that we try and do every year before we get into the operating budget because obviously the operating budget depends a great deal on what salaries are. So this is something that we do like to have settled beforehand. We have a formal motion on this. We did. Yes, okay. I move that the select board authorize a 2% cost of living adjustment COLA for all non-union step levels effective July 1st, 2013. For the discussion. Mr. Reed, no. Comment from a new. All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, and that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in and thank you for the good materials in our web packet. Okay, so 6.59, same as seven o'clock. So our next item is accept Atkins corner altered road layouts for West Street Bay Road, West Bay Road and two new roads built for the project. We have Mr. Guilford morning, morning superintendent of Department of Public Works and the newly elected select board member for the town of Hadley with us tonight. Welcome. Hi, how are you doing? Good, thank you. Congratulations on your fine victory. Thank you. So we have in our packets information about why we are doing this now and that this needs to be done in advance of town meeting considering the article 10. This is tied to article 10, right? So we do this first and then we'll get into all the other street acceptances. There is information, I just said that in our packet. So go ahead and tell us what you'd like to. Actually, I was thinking the best way to talk about this and I can't separate the two without talking about articles 10 and 11 as well. So I'm gonna talk about what you have to do now and then articles 10 and 11. So if you remember way back, we started Atkins corner project. So we're now at the last thing that we need to do. The project is within completion. Construction will be done in the June. This is the final paperwork wrap up for a good part of the project. So, and we did the road, we actually moved the road over to the west or to the east and we adjusted some layouts and we widen the road in some places. So to do that, you've authorized several times the town to take easements for drainage and for the public way and so forth. So now what we're doing is we're gonna do the final paperwork wrap up and accept those as public ways. Technically, they haven't been public ways yet. They were under construction. They've all been donated to the town or gifted to the town for some amount of money. And now the process is that we accept the roads and bring it into the fold as a true town way and then we own it and we maintain it for the rest of the world. We also, when we move the road, we move the road out of its current layout and the current layout is now in the middle of Atkins parking lot and we need to discontinue that layout so that it can be owned by Atkins corner and not owned by the town. So that's the whole process we're going through here. So they all go together. The first step of accepting it is that as our town attorney says, select board will vote at a meeting it's intention to lay out the Atkins corner right away and that's actually the item that's before you now. You have specific language that was laid out by the town attorney which states that you are laying out this roadway and you'll send this, once you vote to do this, you'll also send a notice to the planning board and they'll weigh in and make a decision as well as what they think of accepting the road layouts and they'll forward that to the town meeting as well. So the select board has to, what you're gonna do tonight is give your intention to select lay out the roadway and then we'll go to town meeting and then we'll actually go through the process of actually taking the layouts and making it in public ways. That's what we're doing tonight. We're starting the final process of the project which is great. That's great. Questions or comments about this for Mr. Maury? Mr. Aiden. There's a state process in the name. It looks like the right thing to do. All right and to elaborate on Mr. Hayden's point. So this was in fact a county road previously and so the layout had gone entirely outside the bounds of the county road. So to kind of start more of this process we had several months ago a discontinuance hearing by the Hampshire Council of Governments who had sort of authority over the road so they discontinued it to us and now we have to go through this process. So anything else we need to know about this part? No, but we're actually so excited. We're having like a mortgage fire after this project. So. I say hands over here. I was just going to make the motion in the terms I think that are appropriate and if it's not somebody can correct me but if Ms. Brewer had something first. Sure Ms. Brewer. Aside from the fact that I thought that the town attorney told us to say it that way but I'm sure it'll be fine is this item, the layout modification then you know this is the first step but then the actual town meeting articles are 10 and 11. Right. I'll make sure I have all the connected dots. All right, correct. Okay, so Ms. Stein. I move that the select board vote its intention to alter the layouts of portions of Bay Road, West Bay Road and West Street as public ways to include within said layouts the parcels of land shown on a plan entitled quote plan of land in the town of Amherst, Hampshire County Bay Road, West Bay Road and West Street altered and laid out by the town of Amherst end quote dated December 2011 and that the select board forward the alteration of layout petition and plan to the planning board for its comments and recommendations pursuant to GL chapter 41 sections 81 G and 81 I, 81 I, all right, that's what I was having trouble with. Sorry for the discussion on say or say I, I that is unanimous. Thank you. So that just for clarifications on that was the language that came to us separately, the move that the select board vote. Yes, that's the correct language in the town and council are in sync on that. Okay, so now we are going to get into voting and assigning select board positions on town meeting warrant articles. And just so you know what the plan is, our goal is basically to get as far as we possibly can through taking positions on these tonight. So, so article 16, which is the operating budget is on there and we will see how we can do that. And we will see how far through that we get. We have incredibly packed agendas for the next two meetings with even more complicated articles. The next meeting is going to be zoning and in the school and library budgets and the rental regulations and the rental petition. Then the following meeting is going to be all of the other petition articles that weren't attached to either zoning or the ones that we will have dealt with already. So we really have a ton going on. So what we're going to try and do is go through as much of these as possible. And at 830 we'll see where we are. We'll see if we want to continue to give it, you know, X amount of more time or if we want to stop and continue with the operating budget. Assuming we get that far and I'm confident we will next time. So oftentimes we use this, we use our discussions as a big kind of educational opportunity for folks who might be watching this. I don't think this is the best opportunity to do that this year. I think that folks will need to be paying more attention, especially for the operating budget stuff. We're not going to review that in huge detail. All of that information is on the town website plus there have been various, you know, lots of meetings that folks can review and get questions answered. So we'll see how far we get through this tonight. But anyway, that is the plan. Okay, so article six is a street acceptance for Olympia Drive and we have Mr. Zomek and Mr. Perkins here from HAP to talk to us about this. Welcome. Thank you very much. As you stated, I'm joined by Rudy Perkins, the project manager from HAP to talk about one of your favorite projects, Olympia Drive and Olympia Oaks. And given your packed agenda, we'll try to be brief and give a very quick outline and then respond to your questions. Discussion of article six. And again, in your packets, I believe, or at least sent to you by Mr. Perkins was a very extensive summary of the project where they are from HAP's perspective. And I think Rudy is here tonight to take questions on that in just a few minutes. Ms. Brewer is gonna note that that wasn't in our packets and that's true, but we did get it by email by select or email, maybe a week or two ago. I think it was over the weekend, actually. This weekend? I thought it was a previous weekend. No, this weekend. Oh, okay. Then I think a lot of that information I think a lot of that information is supplemental to the warrant article. It's more about the project in general. So let me just note that if the select board doesn't feel that they're ready to vote on this tonight, then certainly we can put that off at the same time. This is sort of a very long and expected step in a process we have been following for a very long time. We almost did this in the fall, but because there were still technical things that needed to happen and the town didn't want to to have taken possession of the road or taking possession of the road as opposed to giving up the road, whatever it is we're doing. Accepting the road is a public way. Accepting it, right. We didn't want to have that responsibility over the snow season, et cetera, when there were still other moving parts going on. So, okay, go ahead. So the town meeting did part of that in the fall. You recall that some of the road acceptance itself was essentially, we pulled that back and that was deferred until spring, if you will. But there was, the town meeting did authorize the Select Board to acquire easements from UMass for the utilities under the main road, the access road from East Pleasant Street to the site. And you may also recall that legislation has been filed by Senator Rosenberg's office to move that piece forward. And my understanding is that's in committee right now. The article six, so following up on some of our actions in the fall, we're revisiting the road acceptance. We believe we're ready for the road acceptance. And we did add one piece to that, which is the need to grant utility easements on the site itself. So not on the roadway between East Pleasant Street and the Olympia Oaks site, but actually on the site itself for Womiko, Verizon, and a few other utility easements. So that is essentially what article six accomplishes. It accepts the road as a public way and it gives the Select Board the ability to grant easements for utility work on the site itself, not on the roadway. So that's article six. Questions or comments from Select Board? We can't let this opportunity pass without asking what the status of the project is and how things are going. Righted over to Mr. Perkins. Well, one of the reasons I'm sorry I didn't get it to you earlier, I put together a quick update, well not so quick update report and probably the most important piece of that is a summary of the status of the funding because I think that was the main concern in November. Since November DHCD finally agreed to go back as you may recall, there was a long period of time we were trying to restructure this as a 4% tax credit and bond deal at DHCD's request, went through a long period of time, decided that couldn't work, asked them to let us go back to a 9% and as of the town meeting, we didn't have a definitive answer from them about that and as a result, a lot of the funding was up in the air. In late January, we got word from DHCD, they let us go back to a 9% deal. We proceeded to structure that and they changed it again a couple of times but we finally got it nailed down. With them about the structure, we have one of their three, well we have two of their four letters, DHCD's four letters on the funding. We have the HSITF for 1.715 million and an extension on that that carries us now to this new period and we have the project-based Section 8 subsidies. From the private tax credit syndicators, we have a letter which I included in here, a commitment letter for the tax credit equity portion, that's about 8.4 million dollars and for the construction loan from the life initiative which is 6.3 million outstanding balance and 7.1 million aggregate. Basically we've been told that the other couple of letters from DHCD were on the relevant person's desk being signed, we still haven't gotten them in hand. I should have them before town meeting and can update staff with the remaining letters. But once those come in, let's see, did I miss any that I attached? Oh, interfaith housing had also pledged and we got a renewed letter committing their $100,000 in commitment for construction financing. Wemiko actually significantly upped their energy incentive commitment. About, it was over 100 grand increase and that letter was attached $4,000 per unit energy incentives. So with the remaining DHCD letters and the permanent funding letter of 460,000, we have gone through the whole discussion and picked the lender for that. They've given us terms and they're just in their internal process for finalizing the commitment letter. I should have that before town meeting forward too. But with those pieces in hand, as you can see in the attachments, if you haven't seen them yet, that makes all the funding that we need. So unless there's some surprise in the two remaining state letters that they're different from how we've discussed them with staff and what they've told us were coming, we think all of the funding is now committed or will be written down and committed shortly. And we're ready to go in the closing process. Now that process will take a few months, as anyone who's done one of these complicated things knows. And these are commitment letters, so I just want to make clear there's a lot of conditions in them before the funding is absolute. They, you know, in a typical commitment letter, a lot of things have to come true before they give you the money. So, but they are commitment letters and the conditions are not nothing unusual or unexpected. I can't guarantee that the funding is absolutely there, but this is about as good as you get at the beginning of a closing process. You got the commitments to do this if everything goes as expected. So that's where we stand. We've made the building permit application, the construction plans were finalized. I think that might have, that actually happened slightly after the town meeting. And now we're just, I'm getting very busy, which means to me the deal is coming together finally with many, many documents, but it looks good right now. And so, as you know, we've asked the town to accept the road and hope they can do so at the spring meeting. Thank you very much. It's certainly as an exercise in patience and it certainly does demonstrate why it is so very complicated and takes a very long time to create affordable housing with public funds. So it's a lot different than private investment. And thank you for shepherding this low these many years, Ms. Brewer. So in theory, if things go approximately the way they should, timing for. I've pegged it at August 1st as a closing and construction start date. Our general contractor is like, he's already been asking me where can I start? When can I start? So we will start construction the day we close. If we could, there's even a chance we have to wait for some, there's some preconditions, the HUD environmental review and the subsidy layering review, which we have yet to launch because we're waiting on something. But once those are complete, we might even be able to do some preliminary work before the final closing, although I don't want to commit to that. My hope is that certainly by August 1st, well, I should never say certainly. My hope is that it will be August 1st. I'm actually hoping we can get a start in July. But that would be things going real smoothly and HUD turning around their review in the time that I've heard should happen. And then it's a 12 month construction process. We were just talking today, if we needed to accelerate the time when the road work was done, put that towards the beginning, rather towards the end, I'm sure that could happen once we're in construction. Thank you very much. Other questions or comments from Sluck Point? Mr. Aden. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt. I think particularly on the legislative action, just expressing through our representatives the importance of this getting high priority in the time in the legislature, that will help. I think, and I don't know what moves HUD, frankly. I don't know if there's any way any of us can move HUD faster than they're going to move. Thank you. Did you want to say anything? Just, yeah, and staff and I are fully in support of the article to accept the road, but also based upon our initial review of the very detailed summary that was contained in that email over the weekend about extending the land development agreement. I think what makes sense is to encourage the board to take action on the article tonight and we can get you the full text with all the attachment of Mr. Perkins' explanation and we can prepare the appropriate motion, perhaps for your next meeting on the extension of the land development agreement through August 31st. Thank you. Sure, Ms. Stein. We can do that next Monday. So we'll go ahead and make the motion about article six, that'll be separate. Right. Right, okay. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article six, street acceptance, Olympia Drive. Second. For the discussion. Favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming in, appreciate all your good information. All right, article seven, street discontinuance, Eastman Lane. Mr. Moreing is here, and this was also part of that same county hearing that Mr. Hayden and I attended several months ago about discontinuing what had been a county road layout to the town, and now the town is looking to discontinue it further. Mr. Moreing. Yes, UMass came to us probably a year or so ago and talked to us about the fact that what everyone knew or everyone considered to be a UMass road, Eastman Lane, that there was actually a right away for Eastman Lane that was owned by the county. And the funny thing was, is that the pavement for the road wasn't always in the right away. So UMass had this paper right away across their property, which was impinging on some of their abilities and do things because they couldn't really, you couldn't really put a parking lot in the right away. So they asked the town to go to the county, which is what's required and asked the county to discontinue their layout, the county layout to the town so that the town could then discontinue the layout to the UMass. And that's the process we're in right now. So the county discontinued the layout to the town. It's now a town layout and I guess technically that means part of Eastman Lane is the town road now. The parts that are not in the layout that are on UMass property are UMass roads. So to clean up the whole mix now, we're trying to discontinue the county layout back to UMass and that's what this article would do. So the vote would be to discontinue the county layout back to UMass. And so you're saying that parts of the, that it's primarily UMass property anyway with parts of the road actually now falling in town property because the- As we go on the county layout. As we go on the county layout. Okay, thank you. Mr. Hayden, I'm sorry, for Ms. Burr. The spars addressing its effects on the town. But there's a great deal of emphasis on moving parking and traffic off of campus. And I think only one place that ends up is no longer on campus. This road, while Eastman Lane is not slated or even not even a hint of it's being disconceded as part of this plan, giving it up certainly couldn't allow that to happen as part of Tulsa Farms, a disaster. And I think we just need to keep our eyes on the ball. And we should read this and understand it. Mr. Moore, do you want to respond to Mr. Hayden's concerns? Mr. Hayden, I have talked a lot about his concerns. As he said in the study, Eastman Lane is a vital part of the UMass master plan. UMass is talking about moving all of its facility support people to Tulsa Farms. So they have the Fire Department, they have their police department and all their public utilities and all their facilities maintenance people will be at Tulsa Farms. And the only way to get in and out there easily is down Eastman Lane. And that's why there's no mention that they're gonna close Eastman Lane. In the master plan, there is discussion about closing and restricting flow on some of the roads on campus and some of the roads that are off campus, which is North Pleasant Street. There is discussion about that as a long range thing. It's not an immediate change they wanna do, it's a long range. So Mr. Hayden's correct is that there is a 50 year master plan the university is working on. People should look at it, people should take an eye at it and look and see how it impacts the town and make constructive comments. Constructive comments to you, Mass, and say this is something the town thinks should be done and as people and residents, this is what you think should be done. But there is really no plan in there to close Eastman Lane right at this point. So for the next 50 years, which is what that plan says, Eastman Lane will stay open. Thank you, Ms. Burr. So just to spin that out a little longer with hopefully not belaboring this to death, because this is a little different. I mean, usually these are very much whatever. You know, I'm sure we looked at it, we understand it, it's all fine. But this is a little different. And so if we own it, if we own it versus they own it, what do you see the difference as being in the next? You know, they don't have, they have the option to use it, obviously if it's theirs, you think they would want to use it if it's theirs. So am I understanding that we're talking about a leverage point versus an actual function of the road? If we still own the road, they're gonna use it the same way they use it now. We don't have to maintain it if it's not our road. So we don't have to pave it, we don't have to plow it, it's their problem. Correct. The one thing to realize is because the road, the actual pavement is not in the layout and crosses on the UMass property, they could close it. But they could close it. Because it's on UMass property. They could say, well, we're just gonna close it and reroute it somewhere and disconnect it from the pavement that's in the layout. So no one really has any leverage here. It's all, it's all the way it is. Eastman Lane's always been considered a university road. It's been maintained by the university. They've upgraded the road, they've moved it as they needed to for the campus. But it's always been there and it's always been a vital link on the campus between the east side and the central part of campus. So it really is nothing that I think is gonna change and there's nothing in the master plan that says it's gonna change. Ms. Becante and then Mr. Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Bray have a follow-up. So then I think what I'm hearing is that really, actually this is like all the other road discontinuances we do in that we're really not, we're not going to be doing anything different because of the funny way it's been laid out with that paving on and off, et cetera. So we haven't been plowing it, we haven't been paving it, et cetera. So that none of that's gonna change. Correct. Yeah, just a couple of summary points. UMass has made very clear throughout their planning process so far. They have no intention of closing or discontinuing Eastman Lane. It is and will remain a very important connector road. The town discontinuing its acceptance of portions of Eastman Lane ensures that as has been the case that it will be the university and not the town that expends funds to maintain and upgrade the road as needed going forward and do the annual maintenance such as plowing. The university master plan and some of their transportation planning makes reference to North Pleasant Street a desire to improve pedestrian access, safety, et cetera. The town, going back a couple of years now, has made very clear to the university that we believe strongly that North Pleasant Street through the campus should remain open through traffic. And we have all the leverage in the world on that one because that is a town road. And any change in its status would require town approval. And then I think the third point is really, I think where Mr. Hayden was focusing on was we need to do some additional, have some additional dialogue with the university about the impacts of their, potential impacts of some of their transportation related master planning about off campus traffic. So that's an ongoing discussion whether it's Tillett's and Farm or some of the other changes they're contemplating. Thank you. Some of which could be covered by the town ground strategic planning we're about to embark on. I'm gonna call Ms. Stein and then Mr. Hayden. Well, I was just going to say, I can't imagine that they would wanna close Eastman Lane given fire safety. I think it's the fastest way to some of their dorms. And so to me, I can certainly support this without any concern. Thank you, Mr. Hayden. So my concern, of course, the university would ever wanna close it. It's true, they would really not be wise for them any way to close it against fire trucks and their service vehicles. The objects of this plan would close it to views and other kinds of regular traffic. While that may not be a huge concern that they would do that, it's something that would really need to be mindful of. Part of it because it's my mind because we've made some mistakes in the past until let things slip by which have impacted our neighborhoods. Thank you. Could you be more specific about that part? I don't wanna go on with this forever. It's 7.30 already, we've got two articles. But what do you mean when you talk about having been failing to pay close attention to things in the past? Are there university roads or properties that have changed for the worst from our perspective? That's only the closest in a further way which are similar to that. So it's not only in Avenue, but Lincoln Avenue, Amity Street and all things are affected by that one decision. Similarly, in traffic on San Fuego, there's all traffic that was displaced on one place. Most communities have pleasant journeys as it is now, but there are more places again. Let's say... Okay, I guess I'm not really sure about the university's role in the decision-making on some of that, along with the town's role and how some stuff could have been prevented. So we cannot change history. I appreciate your points very much. And I think that the point of staying aware and engaged in helping them be circumspect about their decision-making is a good one. But I don't think I'm gonna apply that by objecting to this, but okay. Okay, anything more we wanna talk about with this tonight, or we'll be here all night long. Okay, Ms. Stein, would you like to make a motion? Sure. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article seven, street discontinuance, Eastman Lane. Further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, opposed. Abstaining. That is four in favor. One opposed, zero abstaining. Okay, thank you, Ms. Stein. You need to assign, or we need to decide who's speaking to article seven and six so we can go on filling out. Thank you very much. So Olympia Drive, that's kind of in Ms. Brewer's Bailiwick. Yeah, I guess. And Eastman Lane, I'm gonna speak to Eastman Lane. I'm Mr. Hayden, she's sweet. You're gonna speak to it, even though you opposed it. I don't know if we want it. Okay, so you're not gonna confuse people with who's speaking to it. Okay, unless somebody wants to steal it, Ms. Brewer. I don't want it, but did you oppose it or abstain? I opposed. That's what I thought, except the first thing, okay. Okay, so we're all comfortable with him speaking good anyway, right, whatever. Okay, moving right along article eight, Southeast Street. So article eight is Southeast Street. This is actually a section of sidewalk that people have been talking about since before I came to the town. We actually submitted this project as a community development block grant project. We don't know if we're actually gonna do it, but we do need the easements to do anything out there. So before you, you have actually a set of plans and you actually have the actual takings we need to do. So what we need to do is be given permission to take these easements so we can build the sidewalk. And as always, if someone comes back to us and says, well, we'll give you the easement, so we need to be paid for it. We would come back for them authorization to pay for the takings. Thank you. So this is permission for the easements to negotiate the easements basically to take them and compensation would be a different issue in the future. And this is for sidewalks on Southeast Street. This is primarily connecting colonial village down to. Down to route nine. Which would be very valuable and terrific. Questions or comments? Ms. Reed. It would be a good thing that was live. All right, Ms. Stein would like to make the motion. Sure. I move that the slick board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article eight acquisition of easements, Southeast Street, CDBG sidewalk project. Second. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I would like to speak to Southeast Street sidewalk project. Okay, thank you. Article nine, Western mass electric easements for Woodwalk. So in front of Douglas funeral home, there's actually a transformer vault under the sidewalk. That vault has some serious issues that actually shorts out from time to time. And when the vault shorts out, it actually causes Douglas funeral home, Super Bowl and a few other places in that area to lose power. And it'll be the only place in town that has no power. The lights at Kellogg loses power to Kellogg and North Pleasant, they lose their power. So the property owner has been talking to Wimco and Wimco's agreed to actually take the transformers out of that vault and put it in what they call, it's an underground feed still, but it's an above ground transformer. So there's a little green box as you see around town, mostly in the subdivisions. It's an above ground transformer, but it's not on a pole. So in order to do that, they cannot put the transformer in the middle of the sidewalk where the vault is. So the transformer vault has to move onto the grass. They're gonna put it on Douglas funeral home property, but they may need to also cover part of the town property, which is the walkway, which goes from North Pleasant Street back to the parking garage. It's called Boltwood Walk, or is actually, when we were building it, we like to call it Starbucks Walk because the guys always got their coffee right there and they enjoyed the coffee place. So there may be a need for the town to grant an easement to Wimco to place this vault and the above ground transformer on town property. And that's what this article will do. It will give the town manager permission to grant that easement to Wimco when they decide where they're gonna put this transformer. Questions or comments, Ms. Stein. How big is this vault compared to the existing one? I mean, it looks little on this, but I thought from the dimensions, it seemed kind of large. It's actually could fit in between the, right in the middle here where you're sitting. The vault is about four feet in diameter. It's a round circle and the above ground transformer is four foot by four foot by about two and a half feet tall. Is the existing vault that size? No, the existing vault is probably eight foot wide by 16 foot long and it's eight foot deep. Okay, so we're not going bigger. That's, that was my concern when I read this. I wasn't sure. Ms. Brewer. So just to place it in my mind because I didn't go look before I did this, like you said, Starbucks walk. Currently, that's where the greats are. Yes. That are just this one unusual place that we have these greats, okay. And then, and so who cares how big it is because it's underground, but when we put this new box out, obviously you've thought about this in terms of, you know, what's the sidewalk access could be impacted, but I mean, it's not gonna be narrowed so much that it's going to be, it's not gonna turn it into an alleyway there. I mean, it's not gonna turn it into an Antonio's alley. It's gonna still be wide enough, you know, wheelchair access, stroller access, that sort of thing. It's not gonna be on the sidewalk at all. It won't. We own a section of grass space beside this sidewalk. It'll still be on grass. Okay. So it won't come into what the current walkway is at all. It's just that technically we own part of the grass and they own part of the grass. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. Ms. Rean. Maybe we could get some public art out of it. Okay. Further discussion about this one? Ms. Stein. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, Article 9, grant of electrical easements, both would walk. Good discussion. Well, in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Mr. Hayden seems kind of engineering-y. All right. Yeah. Okay. 10 and 11, back to the conversation we started with at seven o'clock. Mr. Murray. So the only thing I'd like to add is in your packet, you have the plans for layout for Atkins and then you'll see they're color-coded. The yellow is actually the land we're giving, we're discontinuing. So just so you know, and if there's any other questions, I'll be happy to answer. Any other questions? This is all the Atkins corner acceptances and the conveyance of the discontinued. So they're just related. These are things that are not rights of way that are necessary anymore. No further comment or question. Ms. Stein, Article 10. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, Article 10, accept altered layouts of rights of way Atkins corner. For the discussion, no favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous and we'll pair it with 11 and then we'll do the assignment. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, Article 11, conveyance of discontinued rights of way Atkins corner. For the discussion, no favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Who's speaking to those? Thank you. We're looking for the information. Yeah. Are you not doing it? Yes. Okay. You're that guy. I've lost track again of who's doing what. I'll get it. All right, we'll fill you in. Okay, so Article 19 now is capital and we have Sandy Pooler here, finance director. In our town meeting packets, we have the joint capital planning committee's report on all the capital items. So folks should have had the opportunity to review those. Have town meeting members received those yet? Does anybody know? First mailing. Yes. Yeah. As of Sunday, they hadn't been received. Do you know when they, did they get them? My husband got it before Sunday. Yeah, you got yours in your packet. I was just wondering if we knew of any town meeting members who don't live in our houses. So you're saying who has been, who has a town meeting member got this? Who just came in the mail, like, oh, maybe not. Yeah. Question unanswered. Sorry. Moving right along. Oh, it should be. I know. Mr. Pooler, thank you very much. So I don't think we need to go into a great detail on this stuff. Ms. Stein and Mr. Wilde have been giving us excellent updates on all of the capital stuff as we've gone along through the JCPC's process. And we do have all of the information in our, in our select board packets. So this information is in the select board packet online as well as us having received it in our town meeting packet. So does anybody have any questions about article nine, or do you want to introduce this before we go kind of topic by topic? Are you good? Okay, good. We all know how this works. Sure. Yeah. So equipment, does anybody have any questions or comments about the equipment part of the capital recommendation? Very well, Ms. Stein. I move that the select board recommend the May 6, 2013 annual town meeting, article 19, capital program, equipment in the amount of dollars that will be filled in. In the amount of dollars? I just realized it's not, not in our motion sheet. And I would like to speak to, how's that? As soon as Mr. Cooper- Is the amount in the warrant or do we have a, do we not have an amount for that yet? Let's see. I've got the warrant right here and- It is in the warrant. Yes, it is. So then I can- And it matches, right? Nothing's changed. Let's see, no. Wait a minute. This is 19- It'll be in 118,955. Okay. Further discussion? In favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. And as I said, I would like to speak to that one. All yours, Ms. Stein. I got it, right? Article 20. You can never take your JCPs here. Okay, now I can fill in the money. I just had to get organized here. Shall I go ahead and make the next one? Certainly. All right, I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 20, capital program, buildings and facilities in the amount of $464,500. Second. Further discussion? Questions on buildings and equipment or buildings and facilities? I don't know, in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Ms. Stein or Mr. Wald? I'm happy or if Mr. Wald wants to do it. Or... All right, I'll take that one too then. Perfect. 21, capital bond authorization. That's not very complicated. Okay, so I make the motion. Sure. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 21, capital program, bond authorizations in the amount of, and there are three amounts here, $400,000 for a pumper truck, $425,000 for purchasing two large trucks and a bucket truck for the public works department, and $400,000 for replacing the boiler and making associated repairs at Wildwood. So there are three under the bond authorization. Further discussion? Mr. Poole or anything else? We need to know about bond authorizing. I think it's a good time to borrow because interest rates are low. And you need a bunch of money to borrow at one time for it to be monetarily sound. I'll be happy to speak to that one. We have to vote first. All in favor, I'm sorry, Mr. Heen. Yep, we do. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. And article 22, this was one that we actually had information on last time, but we didn't deal with it because it hadn't been on our agenda, but this is capital debt rescission. And so if you didn't look back on your material from last time, this is debt that was authorized in 2007 for handicap ramp and other alterations to be made to the East Street School. And those alterations did not happen and that debt, the ability to borrow for that is no longer necessary. So it is considered good accounting housekeeping to clean up your debt authorizations periodically. So we're looking to rescind that authorization. Is that about right? Excellent. Further questions about that? That's fine. I move that the select board recommend the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 22, capital program debt rescission in the amount of $80,000. Further discussion? Ms. Brewer. I'm so sorry, I don't recall and I'm not seeing it here in front of me, but it probably is. What are we gonna do with the money? Nothing. Nothing, it's not money. It's the ability to borrow. Exactly. So yeah, exactly because you can't apply it to something else, right? Thank you. I knew it was there someplace. Thanks. Further discussion? Favor say, hi. Hi. Hi, that's unanimous. One of our capital people. Mr. Wald, do you want this one? Mr. Wald, okay. Who was speaking to the previous? Oh yeah, bond authorization. Whoever, Mr. Wald, do you wanna do bond authorization also? Go together well. Excellent. Okay. Jim is doing the bond authorization? Yes, 21 and 22. Okay, so that's the end of capital. We're now at Community Preservation Act. And did we have anybody coming in for this? Do we know? My understanding was we were expecting the chair. Maybe he didn't think that we were gonna move along so fast. So the CPEXA, we could, sure we could do other things and maybe they'll come in. Ms. Brewer, yeah. While we're thinking about that, just to let everyone know, I really appreciate that we have the assignment sheet in here. There is a mistake, however, on it, and so we'll go over that at agenda setting tomorrow or something. But it showed that we already did article 19 and that I was gonna speak to it, which isn't true. So, whatever. But we're keeping this up for you, and we'll sign it a lot again. Good, please do. Because I have enough pieces of paper. No, thanks again. It'll all be fixed up. Okay, then, we'll be right along. So we'll skip over article 24 right now in hopes that someone comes in for that. And if they don't, then we'll decide what we'll do with it. So we'll do article 23, which is water and sewer debt. And this is for the borrowing that needs to happen for the sewer expansion stuff that we dealt with. No, this is for work on Pine Street. Oh, that's right. So it's to replace the water and sewer pipes on Pine Street from Henry to... North Pleasant. North Pleasant, thank you. Even better, that's right. When we talk about water and sewer debt authorization, that's just water and sewer debt. I just go into the sewer expansion mode. But no, this is sewer maintenance and replacement mode, water and sewer on Pine Street, which will be just a magnificent improvement, the beginnings of road improvement. Questions or comments about that? I'm having a problem that I have to share with you all. Sorry. So if I'm going to make these motions, it better be clear to me. I've got article 22 is water and sewer debt. But when I look on the warrant, article 22 is debt precision. So... So we just did that. Which we just did. So this is 23. And the motion sheet gets wrong, correct? The motion sheet is wrong. The warrant is right. The agenda is right. Yep, it's article 23. Okay. And there are two parts. And there are two parts. One's A and one's B. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Go right ahead. Okay. I move that the slack board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 23A, water and sewer debt. Part, well, sorry. Take out the A that I said. 23, water and sewer debt, part A, in the amount of one million dollars. Second. For the discussion. They were saying hi. Hi. That's unanimous. Who's going to speak to it? Let's do part B first. Okay. I move that the slack board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 23, water and sewer debt, part B, in the amount of one million dollars. For the discussion. All in favor say hi. Hi. Hi. That's unanimous. Mr. Hayden, this is looking sort of engineering-y also. What do you say? Okay. Debt for engineering, you know. Okay, thank you. Next up, FY13 budget amendments, which is article 12. And we've got information in our packets. Yep, memo here. Mr. Pooler, tell us anything you want us to know. So we've just got a couple of budget amendments here. What do you want us to know about this? We've got the memo. So I think the most important thing about the first one is when you see the motion on A, it'll be for a lesser amount than is in the warrant. As we kept reviewing some of these accounts, the comptroller pointed out that of this 43,000 that was sort of excess in our debt service account. And just by the way, the reason it is in excess is because when we sold our debt, we had savings and there was some money in there that was very appropriated in case we wanted to issue upon anticipation notes. We didn't issue those. And so we had some excess money. Some of that money was money from the school department. We were reimbursing the town for some of the debt on one of the school projects for that. South Campus. South Campus, yeah. It's a split project sort of that we agreed with the school department that we would do some of it and they would pay some of it. And so then when Sonya looked at the specifics of it, she said, well, that kind of reimbursement is not really there to reappropriate to something else because it then screws up all of the reporting. So we took that out. So it means that there'll be 35,910 dollars when you see the motion on A. And since that's a lesser amount, that will be within the scope. And so that money is being transferred into community services to cover. What we know right now is looking at a deficit in debt-debting services account. It's always a tricky account to figure because people come and go from the roles between now and the end of June and we don't know what the exact deficit is, but we know there's gonna be something and we know we have this excess in debt service. So that's what A is all about. And then B and C are about moving money into the OPEB fund. B is as a result of the health insurance holiday where we're not taking deductions from employees or matching that with town employer contributions into the health insurance trust fund and instead taking that money and moving it into the OPEB fund. C is about taking the reimbursement that we get from the federal government for Medicare fees, benefits that we provide to retirees for drug coverage. We get the inverse from the federal government every year as sort of an incentive to make sure that these employers continue to offer that benefit. We've traditionally put that money into the health insurance trust fund, but now that we have an OPEB fund, we think it should go into the OPEB fund. B is an insurance recovery when there was a leak in the leak here that's actually an equipment up there that ruined that insurance recovery that's more than $20,000 has to be appropriated by town media. You can't just take the money and pay off your claims. So that's why we need town media action on that. The total cost of that is actually more than $20,000, about $29,000. So at some point, we're afraid we're gonna have to go to the finance committee to get a transfer out of the reserve fund for some portion of the remainder depending on how much money is left in the IT's department's budget at the end of the year because they went and spent the money to have that nice new TV day. And finally is the overlay deficit. Every year we set aside money for overlays. You all know to pay abatements. And each year's overlay is a separate account. The 2009 account is in deficit because basically because of a case called the Verizon case for the taxing of wires and poles. There was a case that the city of Newton and Boston brought all was appealed to the appellate tax board and said that the city's towns had jumped the gun by starting to tax those things. We do tax them now going forward from 2009 going back. Hundreds of communities tried to tax including Amherst. That case was lost in court. And so we had to pay Verizon an abatement on their taxes more than had been anticipated. And so that will be funded from a declaration that will happen tomorrow night by the assessors of overlays surplus from surplus from all other years we have surpluses built up in other years. And we will use some portion of that to put F2009 in balance. We're required every year by the Department of Revenue to have these accounts in balance. If we didn't do it now, we'd have to do it on the recap sheet and put it on the tax rolls next year. So we just wanna get it cleaned up now. Mr. I'm curious about the overlay account. Each year we put a certain amount into it. But this is the first time I can remember us actually having to use it, am I wrong? And how much money are we talking about? We always use some of it. We get it. But usually there's enough. To cover it. To cover this because the Verizon case was a very big case. Okay. There wasn't enough. Okay, so, but we'll be all right from the other years where we had the excess to pay it off and still be okay in the future. That's exactly right. And periodically the excess in the overlay account accrues to the free cash. Well, yeah, once the assessors declare that they are done with this money and it's safe to let it go, they declare what's called overlay surplus. And then at the end of the year, that becomes free cash. Thank you. Ms. Brewer. How much money do we overize and all together? I don't need to know that the second, but I think to give people an idea of the scope of what we fought for in the legislature to get this to happen, now we have to give some of it back for that certain time period, but that it's money, it's real money moving forward that we do get to keep. So it would probably, so because this balance, this 41814 is to cover what couldn't be covered in the overlay account already, but it doesn't tell us what the total is that for the actual Verizon problem. I will find out the answer to that. It's just some time before telling me. Yeah, but I will tell you, it's probably about in that range from what I remember, but I will get you a precise figure. In other words, it's about in this 40 to $50,000 range. It is roughly all of the Verizon problem is costing us, but that's just 41,000. We don't normally have in that account. Okay, but that would be good again, just to have the scope over how many years it covered. Other questions or comments? Just in case anyone is really paying wrap detention at home, just so nobody gets the idea that it's a $29,000 television, it's not, and the memo makes clear that there was a great deal of electronics equipment that's all housed in that closet behind those walls there that were very damaged by the roof leak. So the television was the most obvious part, but everything else is like it wrecked a new sound system that we got that is used for meetings that aren't broadcast on ACTV, so it's got great microphones and an amplifier for stuff and all kinds of other things in that closet that I never go into, but it's the closet that runs the room. Okay, for the discussion on any of these. Ms. Stein, would you like to make this motion? Yeah. I forget exactly where I am. Article 12. I'm going through 12 parts. So you start at the bottom of page two. Okay, got it, thank you. I was marking things, so I got lost, sorry. I moved that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 12, FY13, budget amendments, part A in the amount of 35,910. Are we going to do it parts A, B separately, or do you want to meet her? Is this going to be separate motions under the article, or is it going to be all? It looks like it is, so I think maybe we should just vote that one first. Second. Okay. For the discussion, Ms. Burr. Alyssa's just going to volunteer to take all these because they're finance committee articles and she's just going to say, uh-huh, except for maybe the Verizon comments, so. Just a thought. So Alyssa's going to do this and let's vote. Right, but a bunch of these. For the discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that's moved. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 12, FY13, budget amendments, part B in the amount of 376,253 dollars. For the discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 12, FY13, budget amendments, part C in the amount of 78,270 dollars. Second. For the discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 12, FY13, budget amendment, part D in the amount of 20,071 dollars. Second. For the discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Okay, just one more, I guess. Or did you know? Yeah. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 12, FY13, budget amendments, part E in the amount of 41,814 dollars. Second. For the discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. Mr. Aiden. Yeah, it's up to the moderator. He's taking comment on that. So if you're interested in suggesting that to him. Which is what, then people would take it off the consent calendar. Right, because you can't have questions and answers on something that is on the consent calendar. So either people would support it and accept right that you weren't going to do questions and answers on that, or five people would say, we're discussing it, pull it off. There's that. All right, speaking of Raptor, now we have article 16, the town operating budget. This is the town portion and the enterprise funds as far as we get. As I mentioned at the beginning town, no, school and library budgets will be considered next week. We have been having ongoing discussion or ongoing opportunity for discussion of the town manager's budget for since January, as well as before that, as far as our guidelines, et cetera. We have had a number of questions submitted and answered. If anybody is not, certainly we can continue to ask questions now, but if anybody is concerned that they have further questions that don't allow them to vote for any of these either that they want our vote deferred or they want to abstain or object or whatever, that's all fine. So procedurally, if you have any issues with this as we go on, just let me know. Otherwise, we shall start with article 16 and the operating budget. The operating budget is divided into many different motions or different budget categories and different motions. Mr. Poole, do you know if the finance committee has determined the order that they're going to go for the different budget areas yet for their motions? They haven't, yeah, very good. So they will determine that and so how that proceeds at town meeting will be up to them. Okay, so then, what do we start with? The first part is debt service. And debt service is in the amount of $1,959,603. Mr. Moussanti? Yeah, just the dollar amounts that are recommended in the various motions for the operating budget are the identical to the budget proposal that I recommended back in January with two exceptions. Debt service being one of them because of the bond sale in early March which included a very competitively low interest rate and savings resulting from refinancing a piece of our old debt. The dollar amount is slightly lower by about $2,000. And then the other spot is in the, other spots are in the general government and conservation and development budgets. They include the staffing related costs to the rental regulations by law that assumes a January one implementation date. So the conservation and development budget for an inspector in a permanent administrative position and their associated employee benefits that are budgeted in general government are those dollar amounts are slightly higher as a result. Okay, all right. So starting with debt service and knowing that this is all the same as the budget book that we have been pondering over these many weeks and months. Any questions about the debt service recommendation? All right, it's time. Would you like to make the motion? I move that the select board recommend the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting article 16 FY 14 operating budget debt service in the amount of it's gonna be somewhat different but $1,959,603. Further discussion. So Mr. Musanti, you're saying the number is different than that? No, that's the revised lower number. Oh, I see. Okay, so it's different from the book. Yes. Yes, thank you. Okay, further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that is unanimous. Who would like to handle the operating budget articles this year? Like Ms. Burr was saying before the, these are finance committee ones. They speak to everything that's complicated and you just say, yes, what they said. And also if select board has throughout any of its budget process raised other points that we thought were worth referencing that finance committee didn't mention, then of course we have the opportunity to say it as part of that statement as well. So were you volunteering? Mr. Hayden, thank you very much. Okay, next up we have, where am I? Conservation and development. So again, you said this is a different number. This is a number that's $1,010,848 and that is the corrective number. Yes. Okay, questions or comments about the conservation and development budget? Ms. Hayden. Just one, it's a little bit of a stretch, but I was looking at the report that we get on enforcement actions by this department that we got yesterday or this evening. Right. And I just noticed how many more items there are on it than have ever been before. And that's supported by this number. Is this the same? Through the safe and healthy neighborhood working group process I learned just a tremendous amount about what that department is doing. It's just, there's a huge shift in priority and work direction in that department now. And the complaints are being very seriously tracked proactively and reactively. And they're doing great work. All of those reports end up in the select board packets. They also are on the safe and healthy neighborhoods web page and folks should check those out. So those are reports from the code enforcement officials from inspections as well as health. So, and at some point that will be more automated. It's gonna be part of munis or something like that. So they aren't gonna be kind of like PDFs of weird spreadsheets, but better than nothing. And really wonderful to be putting out there to the community what exactly is going on there and the status of these things. And how they're being resolved. Right, thank you. All right, other questions or comments about conservation and development. And Ms. Stein. I move that the slack board recommend the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, conservation and development in the amount of $1,010,848. Second. For the discussion, I'll in favor say aye. Aye, that's unanimous. So Mr. Hayden, I don't know if you were intending to volunteer for all of them, but that's typically how we do the operating budget is one person takes it. If you wanna take back your volunteering, that's okay. Okay, so we will stop asking and just know that Mr. Hayden will do all the operating budget. Yes, thank you. Okay, next up then the community services budget in the amount of $1,708,238. And this was the other one you said that has the, this is the corrected amount. Yes. That's changed slightly. Questions or comments about this budget? Hi, Ms. Stein. I move that the slack board recommend the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, community services in the amount of $1,708,238. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. Next up, public safety in the amount of $9,099,000, $99,025. Good, Ms. Stein, would you like to make the motion? I move that the slack board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, public safety in the amount of $9,099,025. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. And I'll just note, because it does sort of feel like we're going through these quickly, a point that we make periodically, but it's always worth repeating, is that not only have we had this budget for a while, but this is actually just the same budget that we've been working with for many years. We went through several years of cutting, cutting, cutting, and now, in the last couple of years, we've been lucky to just be maintaining. So there aren't significant differences in these budgets, and so we're very comfortable with them and know them pretty well. Okay, next up. I move. Public works. Shall I? Yes, ma'am. Shall I move? I move that the slack board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, public works in the amount of $2,020,127. Second. Further discussion? Any questions or comments on the public works budget? This is not directly related to this, but a conversation we were having earlier, oh, about capital and the memo, the JCPC report noted, which I thought was a good one, that we're not actually making an article, we don't have an article on chapter 90 this year because where we have traditionally had a chapter 90, which is the road money article on the warrant, we learned that we don't have to do that, that's grant funding that does not need to be appropriated, so that's not there, which is not part of the public works budget, but it did remind me that I had wanted to mention that earlier. Okay, anything else about public works? And all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, general government in the amount of $6,0400,243. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, water fund in the amount of $3,813,478. Second. Further discussion about the water fund? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that is unanimous. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, sewer fund in the amount of $3,767,404. Second. Further discussion? Sewer fund. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, article 16, FY14 operating budget, solid waste fund in the amount of $535,895. Further discussion? Solid waste is all in the news these days. So do you have anything interesting to tell us about solid waste fund? Anything that's changed since the town manager's budget recommendation? This is the fund that is in danger of a shortfall in the future and we have solid waste management issues in sort of the short term. Anything we should know? Something needs to change. I don't know what it's going to be. Landfills are closing and there, so. But there's nothing that has changed with those stories you've read in the paper that's affecting the operations of the fund this year. It's on target to be in balance partly because we've cut back our expenses as much as we can. But so outside of the budget process is a whole discussion about what to do about whether to maintain a transfer station or close it down or create our trash and recycling differently than we do. But there's none of that included in the budget recommendation. And is there any sort of a timeline expectation for when that will be an issue? Is it potentially a mid-year change, something we deal with at fall town meeting or a budget adjustment next spring or are we looking further out? Well, there are some fundamental operational decisions that have to be made that go beyond budget issues as to whether the town wants to stay in the business of having a transfer station. That's going on in the Refuge and Recycling Committee discussions now and my understanding is that they do not have a consensus yet as to what direction to head in on that. So I think we sort of limp along with the Solid Waste Fund. I don't anticipate we'll get through this year. We may even get through next year. We may even get through the year after that. But the day of reckoning is coming. And so again, I think what you'll see next are some recommendations about different ways to handle Refuge and Recycling before you see a different one. Thank you, Ms. Burr. So I'm thinking timing-wise, we're looking at town manager goals for FY 15 in terms of starting to report out on what my, I mean, when we have the conversation about FY 15, to start to report out on what the process might be. I mean, it isn't now. Yeah, I think that's, I can envision with SAF and with the Recycling Refuge Management Committee coming to the select board with some preliminary recommendations and getting feedback from you and the community. Yeah. Thank you. Further discussion on Solid Waste? And then I'll in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting, article 16, FY 14, operating budget transportation in the amount of 907,599 dollars. Further discussion? I'll in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. Okay, that is the vast majority of the operating budget, short only the schools and libraries. How do folks feel about dealing with the CPA recommendations tonight? We do have the whole CPAC report. Again, this is something Ms. Stein has kept us very informed of throughout the CPA process. And more than that, I don't know when we're gonna have another 20 minutes or half an hour to give them to come in and present this to us at our upcoming meetings. So do people feel comfortable with the CPA recommendations or how would you like to proceed? Let me see what the warrant looks like on this so that it's clear. That's article 24. Just wanna see how it's set up. I wasn't prepared to speak to this so I'm trying to equate the motion sheets. I see this, part B is 156,000. I know what that's for but the numbers seem different or more spread out over the Brunel property. And that's something I don't really know. I'd be happier I think if they presented this. It's really not that complicated for them. So I'm not sure we have the option of that. So it's more of a question and I don't expect you to present the whole thing but it's a question of will the select board have questions that we can't answer such that our recommendation should be deferred. If we're satisfied with the recommendation from the Community Preservation Act Committee as is and or we could get our questions about any of this answered to our satisfaction and we can deal with it tonight. I mean, I can do it. I just would feel better not being in charge of something. I'm only a liaison too, but I can do it. We can pretend Mr. Poole is in charge if it makes you feel better. You wanna be in charge, Sandy? You haven't even been to the meetings. No, I can pretend. But Sonya replied. So again, I will do it. I will do it. I will make, I will move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting, Article 24, Commit Community Preservation Act Part A in the amount of $282,395. And what you can see here on the warrant. We need a second first. Second. Mr. Hayden, second it. Thank you. Oh, sorry about that. Is that there's $15,000. This is money that they have in hand. Okay. So it's not money that they're borrowing for. All right, 15,000 is for this helping the people in Echo Village with rental deposits. And that sort of thing, if they have to move because in their Eagle Crest property apartment, that was not a requirement previously. Okay, then the historic preservation, you see 195,395 dollars. That includes the conservation of Emily's stress and storage equipment for the Historical Society, Amherst Media historic recordings being preserved. The Unitarian Church having their Tiffany window restored for 106,000 and the Jones Library roof repair, 14,000. And then open space from this is $10,000 for surveys and appraisals because we're actually borrowing money for open space. The recreation is 60,000 for the Mill River recreation area. There's a leak that needs fixing. They want a shade structure and some lifeguard chairs because the old ones are splintered. CPAC administrative expenses, that's a standard $2,000 that we really need to pay for CPAC keeping us informed, et cetera. Okay, so that's the first part. Thank you, that's much more detail than we expected you to go into. That's the easy part. That's the easy part. Questions and comments about this, Ms. Brewer. So the idea is that under the first item, the 15,000, that family outreach and Amherst Housing Authority would work together to administer that program. Right, and they're actually hoping to use that 15,000 to leverage to more. Because 15,000 is not gonna take them very far. So based on their other work, they might be able to combine that and start with their other sources. Okay. And this is the same story of more being requested than could be given for the full of part A also, right? There are unfunded requests that came into CPA, so after going through the whole process of weighing everything, these are the recommendations and CPA has a very thorough and robust public process on all of these considerations. So plenty of information was available at those meetings and on the websites. Mr. Wald. Yeah, I mean, again, the reason we can do it is in part because certain things fell out and the annual can be bonded, things like that. But in fact, they actually have leveraged some money because there was funds that were raised in the Love Notes Benefit Concert from the Amherst Club. That, for example, go to these organizations and we'll help to pay some of those rent differentials also. Great. So that's, again, the process is working very nicely in this case. Great. For the discussion. And now on favor, say hi. Hi. Hi. That is unanimous. Ms. Stein, you wanna speak to the CPA stuff? So again, this isn't gonna, you're not gonna need to present this. The CPA will be presenting it. You're just gonna say it's like we're supported it. No, really. Yes. Okay, then I moved to record, I moved that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 Angle Town Meeting Article 24 Community Preservation Act Part B in the amount of 156,000. And what's written out here in great length, I haven't had time to absorb. It's basically to purchase outright the Brunel property. That we were at one time hoping for a grant. But in order to get this property and secure it, we really need to buy it at this point. So this is going to be borrowing under CPA. So this again, this is on the Town's Open Space and Recreation Plan since long been identified as an area of interest for the town. All right. We already did vote to support to acquire through the grant. I think I'm wrong. I think this one we're gonna pay for out of CPA, right? Okay, there is borrowing coming, but I jumped the gun there. This one is to pay for out of CPA. Sorry, so we're sending the borrowing. I said it was complicated. Okay, so, but again, so the acquisition of this property has been supported by us and by town meeting before. It's just a different funding source. So, okay, further discussion on the Brunel property partly. I'm not sure Mr. Heaton actually seconded this motion. Did you second this? Did you second it? Thank you. And all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. All right, I'll speak to that. Then the third one. Okay, let me just write this down so I know where I'm at. Okay, I believe that the select board recommends to the May 6th, 2013, annual town meeting article 24, Community Preservation Act Part C in the amount of 125,000. I think this is borrowed. Thank you. Good. I wanna say. How do you make the motion? We need a second. Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry. I think the address is supposed to be 650 and not 650 to 652. Do you remember about that? There was some 650, right? So the 652 I think doesn't really belong there. That's on the warrant. I know. That's what I'm telling you. It's less than the warrant. Yeah, okay. It's not more than, it's less than. For purposes of tonight, we're okay. We'll make sure that's correct for when we do the motions. Okay, good. And basically, as you recall, this is for the purchase of the rock farm, South Amherst property, and they've put together a package and 125,000 still needed to be borrowed. Mr. Wilde. I could elaborate a little bit. This is rock farm as a new name that people are not familiar with perhaps, but it was also the Nielsen property or Strawberry Fields. It was a subject of planned housing going back many more years and I've been involved in town politics and there was a long time among some residents of the area an attempt to buy that or preserve it. And so part of what's going on here because of the large size of the package is that, Miss Stein can correct me if I'm wrong, we, the Kestrel Trust is involved to try to help leverage funds. They're gonna sell off two house lots to fund part of it. And then we have the 125,000 dollars here. And so this package between the sale of the lots, the town money and private donations is supposed to bring the total up. The Kestrel Trust is actually contributing 100,000 dollars to maintain the scenic views from the rail trail. Right, and what's interesting is it turns out the state, DCR, is in favor of this because they were worried about the possibility of degradation of the landscape if the area is more developed and they think it's, I think if I recall correctly from the CPA meeting, they thought it was cheaper to pay 100,000 dollars to buy this outright than to have to deal with the annual maintenance if the area becomes built up. So that was an interesting twist. And that I think also brought the conservation staff on board because this was not a long-term priority, unlike the Brunel property. I would just add that it'll also be, the article also creates a conservation restriction. Restriction indeed it does, Miss Brunel. So just a couple of things that I'm not sure how I can string together effectively, but I'll try. Building on what Mr. Wilde said. So although it says in the CPA report that it's a high priority for preservation, I don't think that's a fact associated with our open space and recreation plan. I think that might be someone's high priority, but I think it's an unfortunate choice of words for CPA to have said that because that's what I consider to be our priority is what's in our open space and recreation plan as a high priority. This was not particularly, but that doesn't mean that opportunities don't arise that where perfect things come together in jail, but it's not that it's been high on our particular list. I have expressed reservations before because of the argument that was made against the housing units there, some of which would have potentially been affordable, which has been disappointing to see the changeover. However, seeing that two house lots would be made available there means that's two more houses, although they certainly won't be affordable, that will be contributing to our tax base in their own way, so that's something. And I want to also just assure myself that the 125, that is just the final piece of this puzzle, I believe you've indicated, and it's not that this is early stages and it might change, it's that this is our portion, if this is it, this is 125. Ms. Stein. I will say in defense of CPA saying this is a high priority item, the public came out in large numbers in support of acquiring this property. They really felt between vernal pools and the proximity to conservation areas, et cetera, et cetera, that this really was worth preserving, that the views, et cetera, would be marked by a 17 house development property and so the turnout supporting it was surprisingly large. Ms. Stein. I have a question. That was their consultant's recommendation. That very same DCR, can you imagine? So I'm not personally gonna support this article, I have a lot of issues with its history, I don't know where that brings me for its present, I'm willing to let town meeting make a community-wide decision about whether or not this is its priority, I'm going to abstain from the recommendation, if it comes to a tally vote, then I'll personally vote against it, but I won't vote against, I won't make an opposing vote for a select board recommendation because I'm happy for the community to decide its own priorities. Anyone else any comments before we go? Everyone has a comment? No, I have no comment. Mr. Walz. I was just wondering though, there is a motion on the floor whether it would make sense for us to take no position on the article. Right. Since there is a motion on the floor, people can make their vote, I don't know, how would people like to proceed with that? We can do whatever we want, we can proceed with the motion as is, we could discuss whether or not we should vote to make no recommendation. So procedurally on that before we get to what other, anybody else's reaction to what I said or how they might vote. So procedurally, Ms. Stein. Well, I just feel having watched the whole process, the local support for it, the arguments that were made at the time that I will vote to support this. So you'd rather just like or take a recommendation? I would grab that. And you'll support it. Okay, Mr. Heen. We're required to take a position on this. One way or the other. One way or the other or not. Mr. Walden and Ms. Burke. So procedurally, if one wanted to achieve that outcome, one would have to defeat the motion in favor of the current? You know, we're a small body, we could decide that. The tide is going against the motion on the floor and we'll just have a new motion. Ms. Brewer. Pass. Okay. So I think taking no position is in line with the vote that I, the meaning behind the vote that I would be looking to take. So I'd be happy for Select Board to take no position. I don't think that town meeting really needs us to take a position or not. I mean, this is clearly gonna be, this is just gonna be one of those things they're gonna vote for. So to defer to no position, I think would be a fine thing for us to do. So I am inclined to side with the gentleman on the board and going with essentially vacating our earlier motion and going with a no, not taking a recommendation motion instead, Ms. Brewer. If I may have my term back again, which you so kindly just gave me back. I'm trying to think of, you know, what's the Select Board's role in this? So to step back from it, because I think a bunch of us have been involved somewhat in the history of this process and may have our various reasons for our concerns. And so the Select Board's role on CPAC, I mean, we make recommendations town meeting on everything because, you know, we're supposed to be able to see the big picture. And I think we have some concerns with the big picture at the same time as we have support for the CPAC process and how the process actually works. So I think it actually makes more sense for us to take no position than to have some sort of divided vote or, you know, a no vote. I'm not even sure I'd like it to be a no vote at this point. I'd like it to be a Select Board is not really completely all together on what we see as this item fitting into the big picture of the town. So whereas the other things seem quite simple. Okay, so since there really is no way to defeat the original motion, it doesn't really get defeated. It's a motion to recommend or not. So you could have one person recommending and I suppose you could have four people abstaining, which would be the only way to defeat it. Do you mind essentially withdrawing your motion and just moving on to a new motion? No, I think I'd rather I had one vote four and four abstentions. Okay, we could do that. So that will still register. And then we can then we can make a new motion to not recommend. Or whatever anybody. And that would be basically the. But I would sort of feel having sat through all of the meetings on this and felt the urgency and the feelings of the people who really supported this and watched, you know, the process over the years too. I'm not sure that I would have wanted a different outcome than the outcome that we're going to get. So I would still support it. Okay. So Ms. Stein would like to go on record supporting this and she did make the motion. So I would recommend that we proceed with her motion that the best vote to build up for the next motion that will come will be abstentions by anyone who wants it to not take a position. We'll then have another motion. So then we'll say basically the select board had had two votes on this. One was one in favor of recommending and four abstentions and one that was presumably four votes in favor of no recommendation. And I think that town meeting can deal with that, Ms. Brewer. I'm going to show my full level of ignorance at this point since we don't do exactly Robert's rules. But if one, there's one vote for it and zero votes against it, doesn't it pass? You don't have to have a quorum to have a vote. Right. Well, that's what I'm saying. Well, I believe that if we voted one, zero, four, it would pass as a recommendation to town meeting against rather than taking a position. Okay, that's putting a finer point on it. So this is why I was saying if you want to withdraw the motion. So we're actually going to end up with a motion to not recommend this based on proceeding with your motion. It's going to be one in favor and four opposed. And what's the alternate? The alternate is to withdraw that motion to have a motion to not recommend or to take no position, which could then be four in favor of taking no position and one opposed because it was a supporting motion. I think you would rather go into this. I understand that you want to go on record supporting this, but what will happen is your support vote will be overwhelmed by our objection vote. And I don't think we want the select word. I would draw my original motion and we'll vote against yours. Okay, yeah, that's fine. That's fine. So just so you understand where. Yeah, I do. We absolutely could go the way with your original motion, but then it will look like a stronger opposition vote from the select board than any of us want to give. We don't want to all vote against it. We want to take no recommendation. So what else made the motion? Yeah, so Mr. Walts. I move that the select board, do you have to read off the motion sheet or just to? Just add lib. You can add lib. I move that the select board take no position on this article. Further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That's not it would be you. Abstaining. Oh, I was looking ahead to the next one. Four in favor, one opposed. There are abstentions for taking no position on this section of the article. Okay, thank you. All right, now we come to the last part, part D. We still have to see. Oh no, I'm so sorry. Of course we don't. Of course we don't. Okay. I was looking at the wrong line. I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th, 2013 annual town meeting article 24, Community Precipation Act, part D, and the amount of 110,000. Thank you. Further discussion. So this is the borrowing article. Mr. Hayden. Thank you. This is the Amwayland Apartments Kitchen and Kitchen Repairs and Electric. I don't know the appropriate. It's on page three of the CPA report. Okay, there you go. That's what it is. And I would like to speak to it or cancel it. Or I'm not gonna vote for this. I'm going to abstain. And I should report that CPA, CPAC was divided on this. There were two people who voted against it. And it concerns, it concerns the verbiage in the CPA act, the Community Preservation Act. And I don't wanna go into it now. I think we have had two letters from the lawyers. And I think the second one is not convincing to me. And I'd like to research it further. So at this point, I am not going to vote for it. And I'm not going to vote against it. And just so you know why. So bottom line, this boils down to some CPA members think that this is not legitimate, a legitimate use of CPA funds. Town Council has been consulted. And the CPA has been an evolving act through the years. And in fact, they just broadened it. Was that a year or two ago? Time flies. So all the advice from Town Council is that this is well in the realm of what is allowable under the act. So I understand you still doubt that. But our advice from Town Council is that it is sound. So that's just a little bit more elaboration. So Ms. Brewer and then Ms. Stein. I am familiar with this article only from the exposure to it associated with housing issues. And this is of course only half the money. The other half of the money is supposed to be coming from the block grant. And so that just goes to show you that it's a large need and we don't have any place else to put it at this point, which tends to make me err on the, go ahead and trust Town Council even though we've had some differences of opinion in the past. And obviously CPA, as you say, is an evolving thing. It's hard for me to understand how we could be so opposed to what Town Council's interpretation of this is. I would like at some point, if we could get a copy of Council's indication on this that obviously Ms. Stein still has concerns about just so that I could see if I shared them right. But normally there are assurance that yes, based on our understanding of the evolving nature of CPA, this would be an allowable expense. It's hard for me to imagine they'd want to put us on the hook for something that they didn't really feel comfortable with. Okay, Ms. Stein. There are, you have to take the whole package and I haven't had time to study it, but there was a letter number one from our lawyer, then some letters that have been put out by CPA got sent to our lawyer and then there was a second letter from our lawyer. And that's the letter that I'm just not totally comfortable with at this moment. Now, I admit I haven't had, I didn't expect to present this tonight. So I caught a little bit off guard or I would have studied that letter a little bit more and talked to some people about it, but it's just not as crisp, shall we say, as I would like it to be. Thank you, Mr. Walden. I have just partly a question and a comment. I think Ms. Stein can correct me if I'm wrong. But I'm not mistaken. This was something that was taken off the table because of questions about its viability. And I seem to recall it had to do with it a little bit like the soccer fields. The question is to whether the housing was created with CPA money, right? Whether what? Whether the housing was created with CPA money. That is correct. Are we creating or restoring something? That is correct. That turned on. You know, that said, I'm not a lawyer. We pay someone who is, so he answers these questions and I think I'm perfectly happy to defer to town council on this one. Right. I've reviewed this and I know the CPA committee voted, I think it was six to two to recommend this to town meeting. I have reviewed the opinion from town council about whether or not this type of expenditure is meets the eligibility criteria for an affordable housing expenditure. And I'm comfortable with the opinion that it does. And I think the CPA legislation was filled with all kinds of common sense language about, you know, this allows us, makes clear that an expenditure to fix 40 year old kitchens in an affordable housing development are an appropriate use of preservation funds so that we can make these remaining units, those people live in dignity with the renovations that are made. So I was comfortable with the opinion. I hope we can get this done. It's a complicated case because the act says no rehabilitation if you did not build the housing with CPA money. Okay. So it's a question of if the buildings are in such bad repair that they wouldn't be usable, which you could almost make that argument about the electrical work. Then maybe that would be in a different category, but I don't know that how the community Persevation Act people would feel about it or if they would feel we're over the line one way or the other. I just don't know. And I, that's why I'm going to abstain at this point. Okay. Mr. Wall. Yeah. Well, on that point and to pick up on what Mr. Mazzanti and Ms. Brewer said, maybe first this CPA people being Community Preservation Alliance. Pardon me? There are no CPA people really. There's the state and what the law says there's the Community Preservation Alliance, which is an informal organization. It has no binding authority, but has a record of trying to interpret the law and give advice. So, you know, it's not that the CPA office you can talk to in Boston is going to answer your questions. As you said, it's evolving law. The other thing is I think what Mr. Mazzanti said about dignity is important. And what Ms. Brewer said about housing in general. We've been a very poor job in some ways of taking care of affordable housing for our population. And, you know, safety. This talks about ground fault interrupter. You know what those are that's you don't get electrocuted when you have outlets next to sinks. I mean, the combination of dignity and safety and the fact that we are periodically threatened with a shortage of affordable housing. Mr. Wise come and talk about that about the 10% rule and so forth. So, you know, if there's something I want to take a chance on, I think it would be affordable housing. To elaborate a little bit more on Mr. Wald's point, not to speak for him, but this isn't like if we pass a bylaw that is not legitimate and the attorney general's office turns us down. There is no body to turn us down. We would pass this and then it would go to court. That's how it gets challenged. That's what happened with the situation in Newton. Was it Newton? The playground's there. So if, so counsel and obviously anybody can sue anyone for anything at any time. That's just a given. Counsel's interpretation is that this is fully defensible in court if we were to be sued. So that's kind of the bottom line of what we're talking about here. Okay, further discussion on this item. All right, then. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? I'm abstaining. And abstaining. So that's, Ms. Brewer, did you vote? I voted yes. You voted yes. So that's four in favor, zero opposed, one abstention. Okay. And I do think it would be helpful if we could to Ms. Brewer's point, get further clarification from town council about why exactly he's comfortable with this. All right. There are two letters from town council at this point. Yeah, we'll forward those to you. Great. I'm just gonna talk to all of us. So I don't think we need, how will we do this? So we've, this is one article. Because they'll do them and I'll just report, so. Okay. So how do you feel about part C? Would you rather speak to part C or would you rather have someone else speak to part C? This is. It doesn't matter. I mean, how do you guys feel? Who would like to talk to it? So I, you know, I'm perfectly comfortable with you speak to it just like Mr. Hinn speaking to one that he opposed. So you'll report. Right. So you're representing the select board's perspective, which I think you understand. We simply didn't want to oppose it. And yet you can speak to your, Right. Okay. And so that lets you, that lets you capture everything. Okay. Good. If you're comfortable with that, then that sounds good. All right. We're waving our hands wildly. Yeah. All right. So we covered all of the articles that we had on our list tonight. Hooray. Hooray. That's amazing. Too bad the CPA folks missed all our fun. And did, have I missed anything? Is there a part E here that we missed? No, I think the CPA. The agenda says A through E, but maybe that was just my mistake. I think we've done everything. It's only A through D, is that correct? Yeah. I don't think there is. Okay. Don't check. I wonder why I put A through D. A through D, you said. Okay. Good. All right. Well, you think that was fun? Wait till next week. Okay. FY14 budget discussion. So this is really mostly a status update and any other questions or comments, folks. And status update, I'm sorry. I meant to say status update on state budget situation and any questions or comments. Folks have that they didn't get asked when we talked about all the different divisions of the operating budget. Mr. Poole, thank you very much for coming in. Mr. Musanti. Yes, and I'm looking for my notes. Okay. Story of my life. Yeah. So, you know, you've taken action on the entire town budget proposals with the exception of schools and library operating, which you'll do next week. So that, that is, you know, great, great progress. There's two items about how the state budget deliberations impact us that I want to update you on briefly. The House Ways and Means Committee in Boston has released their recommended FY14 state budget. The full house is expected to debate and vote on that budget next week, the week of the 22nd. So we should have a house budget enacted by the end of April. The Senate Ways and Means Committee will come out sometime around May 15th, I believe. Again, with the objective of the full Senate acting on their version of the state budget by the end of May, they'll spend a portion of June reconciling the two and vote on a final budget to recommend to the governor who then have 10 days to approve or line item veto and then the legislature with a two thirds vote in both branches can choose whether or not to override some or all of those vetoes to the extent the governor does that. So magically on or near midnight on June 30th, we'll have a adopted state budget. But in the House side, the budget is in terms of revenue sharing to cities and towns, there's a little bit more money coming back to communities. There is in the unrestricted general government eight accounts, there is, I believe it's a $21 million line item was recommended for funding. The governor had recommended 31 million. That would distribute to Amherst using the existing funding formula, about 168,000 more than the governor recommended and more than we assumed in our budget. There are a handful of other areas on both the revenue side and on our state assessments that are different in those cases lower. Lower a couple of the revenue accounts by small amounts and then the assessments are roughly 68,000 higher net. From the governor's proposal that we had factored into the budget. So the net effect of all that if the house budget was to become the final budget in July, would be about 93,000 to the good in terms of net revenue. We have a gap of about 60,000, or 68,000, 69,000 hand signals to have a truly balanced budget. So the first 68,000 or 69,000 of that would essentially cover that with no action necessary. And the consensus recommendation back out to the boards and committees from the budget coordinating group at their March, I think it was March 28th meeting and you had the summary points, I believe in last week's meeting packet, basically said if at the end of the day our state revenue sharing is higher than we assume that we should first retire whatever small gap we have, which is what I just described, and then we should resist the urge to expend or appropriate any additional dollars from that and that that'll just help us out in terms of remaining conservative and prudent on our revenue estimating and might even help us a little bit on our reserve growth at the end of the next fiscal year. Yeah, so that's where we're on the house and they'll be voting next week and we'll have a house budget. And you wanna talk about the new developments and the transportation. Yeah, the transportation bill, there is very active debate and action going on in Boston. The house had recommended, approved a $500 million package per year in new revenues that by 2018 it'd be up to 500 million that had additional monies for a variety of transportation needs, but the ones affected cities and towns are regional transit authorities would receive substantially more monies. They would be forward funded so that PVTA and others wouldn't have to borrow their entire operating subsidy from the state and then have the state pay us back the following year. Borrowing to pay the operating budget, kind of crazy. So that requires an infusion of money to make the leap year, which next year would be. So that's a good thing and then there would be additional monies built into the base aid from the state to allow preservation of existing service, the need to push off for some indefinite period, the need for fare hikes or service reductions and then may in fact result in targeted service improvements and the PVTA would intend to complete an exhaustive system-wide root analysis by early next calendar year and we'll be very engaged on the Amherst side and I'll let you know when there might be opportunities for Amherst input on service levels for that. So that's in the House bill. The Senate bill is similar to that but a larger amount for local road money. Their package looking at, also looking at a cigarette taxes and a three cent increase on the gas tax, which is then indexed to inflation would generate by 2018 a net increase of about 800 million a year. So that would also be very positive news for the regional transit. Both the House and the Senate proposals would, according to the House and Senate ways and means chairs say that our local chapter 90 road grants would see a 50% annual increase. The amount allocated each year would be 50% higher than the current number. That would allow chapter 90 funds coming back to the town of Amherst to go from roughly 800,000 in the coming year to a little over 1.2 million and that would be each year over the next five years. That's a huge step forward and allows us to address several million dollars more of road repair needs in the town of Amherst over the next five years. And so we're very encouraged by that. The House and Senate, because their versions of the bill are different in some cases, although the revenue sources are the big ones are the same. They'll be reconciling those differences and then voting a final bill and we are encouraging our legislators to support the higher amount and roughly along the lines of the Senate version so we can get on with the work as soon as possible. So that's a big deal. That's a long time coming and we'll make a big difference. So as you noted that all this still remains in flux. The governor had originally been threatening to veto kind of basically anything that wasn't his proposal but there's been a lot of movement on that. Yeah, and he's, the governor has signaled much more openness on the Senate, the path that the Senate has gone on and we heard that Senator Rosenberg's municipal conference in Northampton a week ago Saturday from the Senate Transportation Chair, Senator McGee, you know, even though there's a lot of passion particularly in our area about the positives related to a more progressive state income tax structure, it's really about the art of getting any bill through the legislature and there just wasn't sufficient majority support on the income tax piece. So they've come up with some alternative ways to fund a very significant investment in transportation that gets about 80% of the governor's number. And so I think we're on the cusp of a deal here that I hope we can actually implement because I'm very much on the implementation side of this and want to put the monies to work to fix up a bunch of our streets that badly need it. Thank you. And so before I go to comments the Senate bill, Senate recommendation also includes education funding which had sort of fallen out of the House bill. Yeah, much less prominently reported but there are education dollars that the House and the Senate for that matter there's higher ed money, which would be of help to the UMass system and help hold the line at least in the near term on additional tuition and fee hikes. There's also, we're curious to see what the Senate does in their budget. They might allocate some of those funds for higher ed and also K-12 education and pre-K. Thank you. Questions or comments for Mr. Mr. President? All right, so basically stay tuned is the bottom line with state stuff because it's always changing but it's basically all moving towards the good lately. So that's a plus. Okay, Town Manager's report. Town Manager's report. Okay. Okay, first another milestone. We have our Town Hall Emergency Generator that was funded through the capital budget process is installed, has been commissioned and is operable. And you wouldn't know by walking by there when it's operating because you can't hear it. And it became operational on April 10th and I wanna just commend the team of staff who worked on that. Ron Bahanowitz took the lead on that as our facilities director with the support of the Capital Joint Capital Planning Committee and Town Meeting. But our electricians at the DPW, Fred Hartwell and Mike Moore, this and other projects did a great job because it was a very complicated electrical job to make the appropriate testing and connections into the Town Hall system and to natural gas generator. So it's quiet, there's no odor and puts us in very good position if and when we have our next extended power outage in terms of operating our communication system, our computer servers and those kinds of things. So that's a good thing. Questions or comments about the generator? All right. Next, staff recognitions, we talked about the marathon and the tragic incident at the end of the marathon but Amy Versicchi was here earlier at DPW. She ran in the marathon, very competitive time, so competitive that she was far away from the finish line by the time of that incident, but she's doing great work for us. I just wanted to recognize her and that's another aspect of her life outside of work that is great. The recent and upcoming activities, Civil War tablets. Here we are in the sesquicentennial year, anniversary of the Civil War. We are working very hard, again, through Ron Bahanowicz to do the necessary reissue of a request for proposals to allow the engineering and other work for the installation of the Civil War tablets that have been restored with CPA monies to be installed in this room on the opposite wall. We are putting the finishing touches on a grant application to the state. There's a small grant program that would be used to fund up to $5,000 and our grant application will be to create and install interpretive materials that would be a company of the tablets. So it would tell the amorous story and we think, in addition to being in the room here and perhaps in the foyer out here, but probably kind of a path from the main entrance of town hall up the steps and tell a little story along the way with the interpretive signs and be another very nice complimentary piece that brings the tablets to life and tells the story of the amorous citizens who were active and who are represented on those tablets. Do you have any sense of what the timing would be for the RFP about what the goal would be for installation? The goal is to have those installed this calendar year. So the grant app will be submitted any day now, literally, and we'll know quite soon. And Stan Rosenberg is co-chair of the legislature's Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and alerted us to this grant opportunity. So we wanna take full advantage of that. Any questions or comments about the Civil War stuff? Mr. Aden. Sesquicentennial, a third time. Yeah, there you go. And if that's the last. Okay, any other questions or comments from Mr. Musetti? Oh, sorry. Anything we should know from the weekend? How did things go? The joint patrols with UMass? How the ambulance situation is going? Overall, a pretty good weekend. It was our second really full weekend with those additional resources that have been contributed by UMass. Monies for two additional ambulance crews, paramedic level ambulances through detailed ambulances. That allowed us to have a total of six ambulances out on the street available to respond. So I don't know if we had any particular moments in time where all six were in service, but we were adequately covered over Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, period. We also had concert events at the Mullen Center, both Saturday night and Sunday night. Again, in cooperation with Mullen Center, Management and UMass, there were additional ambulance personnel paid for by the Mullen Center on duty and they were put to good use, meeting the needs of medical needs of concert goers. That again has a domino effect on our ability of our on the street ambulances to be able to respond most quickly all over the community. The joint patrols with the University Police and Amherst Police also were in play. Again, this past weekend, particularly in the Fearing Phillips Street neighborhoods, there were, I'm trying to remember the count, there were I believe a total of about 21 arrests or summons, mostly related to alcohol related calls for service. And again, we thought that overall went pretty well and we're actively planning for this coming weekend with all of those resources and the state police. Thank you. Questions or comments about that? I'll just note, I did the walk this way thing overnight Saturday and in doing that, I saw lots of UMass police both in their own cruisers as well as riding jointly in the cruisers with the Amherst Police and I was just so grateful to see that and I think it sends a really strong message about the town and the University working together on this issue, take it very seriously and really being a team to address it. And certainly the more cops you have on the streets, the bigger deterrent impact that that has and I think that there's no question that the presence was strong, the visual presence was strong and that hopefully contributed to the weekend being successful and we just hope that continues. So just want to make sure that we really appreciate UMass taking part this way. This is a change, it's a change for the better. It's a change that we want to encourage. So to encourage it, we must also appreciate it. All right, you're all set? Yeah, the number on the police summons and arrests was actually 12. 12, it's like 21, it's just backwards. Yeah, okay, sorry about that. Very good. Then moving on to member reports, liaison and representative reports since we last met. April 9th, the AgCom met, they had a quorum despite having two resignations. They got caught up on minutes, they discussed the summer farmers market and bringing it to its full potential for Amherst farmers. Possible consultant might be hired for what the market should be like. Then they discussed a number of ideas from the forum. They had what's growing on. These were ideas that would help the farmers move their products and possibly have the establishment of an Amherst farm. On Thursday, April 11th, from three to five, I went to an exhibit that was very interesting. Seniors and Amherst College students collaborated and researched Amherst College previous students right up through the modern day and they made a book. Showing the history of these Amherst people. And then the exhibit was full-sized, oh, maybe four foot high by three foot wide poster board, pages from the book. And it was very interesting, many of course, of the early Amherst students went on to become missionaries and so they reported on their lives from disparate parts of the world. And I suggested they were not selling the books, they were strictly for the seniors who had participated and students who had participated in this collaborative project. But I suggested they put one in the Jones Library because it's really amazing work that they put together right through the modern era where somebody comes out as gay and so it dealt with a whole range of issues from missionaries to, so that was interesting. And then one, two, three, four of us were at the Pi Kappa Phi dinner that night. And this is, I shouldn't talk too much, but basically this is a very interesting fraternity that really is participating in a number of good things, but their main emphasis is on helping disabled people so they build one wheelchair ramp per year for various buildings that need them where there are wheelchair-bound people. And that was a very interesting meeting, this dinner. They were very gracious and they also participated in the cleanup and will continue to do so every week, helping the town in that way. Friday I went, I represented the town, I hope that's okay. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Atkinson Family Practice, that building that was built on, sorry, Research Drive and that was a very interesting, very festive occasion. And then I had promised last week that I would try to explain about the audit committee report. The financial statement, page 17, seems to show that there's a $1.85 million excess of revenue, but that really doesn't take into account expenditures that have to come out of pre-cash for the snow and ice deficits that were excessive for the grant match for War Memorial Pool. And that's just the way the audit people do the accounting. That figure simply indicates that that amount can be used to cover those deficits. It really is not cash sitting around. In fact, in July 1, 2011, our reserves total $4,167,028. In 2012, it was $4,326,501, so our free cash only grew by $159,473, according to Mr. Pula. So that's the best I can explain the audit report. We simply do accounting to a different set of rules. Thank you, thank you for going back into that. As you said you would, that's much appreciated. Questions or comments from this side? I'll just note a couple of other things about the fraternity dinner. Oh, just to clarify, the cleanup is every other week for the rest of the semester, not every week, but that's perfectly fine. And I just wanted to note that I sent around the PowerPoint presentation that they gave to us that night, I sent it to the select board so that we would all have it and be able to pass it along potentially as a resource. And one of the folks I passed it on to, I should have copied Ms. Brewer on this, it was the chair of the Disability Access Advisory Committee. Oh, did you, okay. Well, I wrote to him about it. So I had spoken with one of the members there and they had some contact with Nate Malloy, who's the staff person, but really not contact with the committee. So now we're kind of closing the loop on that relationship. It seems like a really good relationship to develop there. I mean, the great alignment of interests and advocacy with big strong labor as the gentleman of the fraternity indicated to us. These are the same folks who went during the snowstorm, Nemo, and dug out the Chestnut Court. So really it was a great evening. It was great to make their acquaintance. It was great to have conversations over dinner with them about kind of the issues of the day. Really great to get their perspective on things. And I really commend them for their outreach to the town to invite us to come there for that. So that is all. Okay, other folks, please. I'll report to Ms. Brewer. Absolutely. It was a great dinner. It was really great being in a purposefully built building. It was built as a sorority, but it's now a fraternity. And aside from that issue, it's not just cramming a bunch of people into a little tiny house. It actually makes sense in terms of the layout and stuff. And so that's nice to see. And they were just all very charming and very helpful in terms of us trying to understand some of their perspectives on things. And I heard over and over again from the members that they were all people who, before they came to college, thought I'm not gonna join a fraternity. Not a fraternity, that's a frat. But instead they joined a fraternity. So they make a big difference between what those two things are. And I should also mention, it is funny with the DAAC situation because they mentioned to us this film that they're bringing, Pie Capify is bringing to town and they wanted to talk to DAAC about promoting it because it's a film about people in wheelchairs using cameras. And it turns out that because a couple of the DAAC members are already heavily involved or employed by Stavros. Stavros is the group that they work with to build the wheelchair ramps. So I mean the circles are connected but just not quite in the way that they could have been. And so strengthening that connection. So some of the people on DAAC knew all about them and some of them didn't. And so it is really fun to be able to keep making those connections all the way around. So thank you for that because I was gonna do that but I knew that Nate was working on it as well. Thank you. In terms of other reports, the community development block grant advisory group met last week and I went to the tail end of their meeting because it was right after the dinner. And, or had started before the dinner really. And they had reports from the various agencies that they funded and they have put out the reports as to what's happening so far with the money that went to those particular agencies. So it was a nice chance for a report back. People to understand what's going on. Of course the big question of the day is what's gonna happen in the future? And so I know they're planning to talk to the town manager about what his vision is for future. Is that we would assume that we're not coming back to being a point off on many entitlement which the theory may be at this point that the state maybe doesn't wanna do many entitlement communities anymore. And if we're going to go for a competitive grant, there was certainly some support on the block grant advisory committee member's part to say if it's going to take us longer to be competitive so to speak for a competitive grant that we might have to skip a year in application that that would be something that they would understand that perspective and that they looked forward to talking to town manager. After we got through town meeting and we found out what the state said this June since we won't have any idea until June for sure what's gonna happen. It's just too unclear what's happening at the state level but then what their role might be. We had obviously discussion last time as I looked toward the table for the petitioner who was here talking about well when we have a social service agency item again which we may or may not ever have again. So just what might they function and so they're just trying to get their arms around what that might look like. And they also have a little bit of money that they may need to reprogram from previous capital expenditures which is always kind of a good problem to have except that it has to be spent quickly. And so they might have, you might see a little bit of information about that out there. And I don't think anything else has happened since last week because it's just been so exciting. We've just met. Although when we were talking about announcements so that I don't lose sight of it there's a thing we were all invited to next week as well associated with this wasn't a particular fraternity this seems sort of like our coffee hour but it's their version of our coffee hour over at UMass next week. Yeah, so there's a student achievement reception and then student achievement awards. I would really like to be able to go to it. It's the same time the awards part is the same time as the warrant review. So I've got to see what the deal is with whether I need to present any articles at the warrant review or not. So I got to be that up, Ms. Stein. That invitation come by email? Yes. And it came to all of us by email, but yeah, we actually got multiples of it. Some of us are so far behind email by the time I find it or miss. We've got a few days still for the RSVP. Right, but what my point was going to be is that behind the fact is a little exciting more and more things we get to go to on the spring. I appreciate they invited us. Also, if there is, if you won't be there to represent us, we always look to you for all the UMass things to let us know so that somebody shows up for this thing because it's on an odd night, a Tuesday night. I think it's Tuesday night, yeah. You have a 23rd, I think it is, yeah. So I'll definitely go to the reception. I hope to get to go to some or all of the awards and I'm not sure, but it really is, it's a good community opportunity to be able to see really the best side of students. I mean, these are their achievement awards. And so again, it gives us new messages to carry to the community about really what students are like in Amherst in the majority. Okay, other liaison reports. Mr. Hayden. It's great, quickly. It's great. Other liaison reports, Mr. Walden. Briefly, to underscore what everyone said about the nice evening with the fraternity and the point that these people said they never thought of joining one, it's not a social fraternity. It's not a drinking club, it's an academic fraternity. Engineering in particular, though not all the members are engineers, so we should underscore that. There are these professional organizations and they really stress academic achievement too. They require people to keep a certain grade point average. They provide assistance for those who need structured study time and so forth. So it's really quite rewarding to be there. And I second everything you said. Just two very brief things. The public arts is this Kickstarter campaign going on to acquire the portal sculpture in Kendrick Park. And I gathered this in issues about how to facilitate or even just arrange at all the transfer of money from that to town coffers. But that effort is underway and I think they really would like people to contribute. And Historical Commission met on April 9th when Ms. Brewer and I were at ACTV, so I was unable to go. But the upshot of that that's most relevant here is that the commission voted unanimously to make a formal request to select board to set up a committee to study the possibility of a local historic district in the Sunset Pleasant Street area. This is something again, an expression of neighborhood concern about deteriorating quality of the area, demolitions and things like that. So that'll be coming our way at some point. But the decision was basically made in November but they wanted to wait until other things were in place like the Dickinson District Committee underway and the North Emmer Study Committee appointed. So that'll be coming to us at some point. What and when the action will be of course is another matter but just so we have that on the radar screen. Okay, thank you. Questions or comments for Ms. DeWalt? Ms. Brewer. And you probably don't wanna tell them what I'll say now which is like, yeah, wait in line because we haven't even started appointing Dickinson group. I mean, the not Dickinson group, the North Emmer's group, we talked about maybe the next time having Dickinson do it. Yeah, it's all important. I'm just not sure how it's all gonna get done. That's also why there may be ways to accomplish some of the same goals more quickly. I don't know as a substitute or as a preliminary step there might be other measures we could put in place that would achieve some protections. But yes, that is an issue of staff time and then just sort of sequencing how long this all takes. So I think town staff which has to carry this out is very aware of that. Other leads and reports. I'll note, campus community coalitions I already said that I did the walk this way thing Saturday night. Great group of volunteers, students, administrators from the university. I'll be doing it again next Saturday. I'm not sure how effective it is, I gotta say. I don't think we were terribly effective in rerouting students at all but I do think it was effective in kind of spreading awareness about, remember when you're in the neighborhoods especially when you're coming home tonight A, try and avoid the neighborhoods but B, if you're in the neighborhoods try and keep quiet, quiet down there are families here, et cetera. And I don't know just kind of having an adult presence out there then kind of felt good and the students, a lot of them thanked us. They thought we were a community watch and they thought we were kind of looking out for their safety and stuff. So it was interesting. We had a whole range of reactions but it was interesting. So they're doing a kind of formal feedback on how this is working or not formal, informal feedback on how we think this is working. The final weekend of it is next week Saturday. I'll be doing it again. Anyone wants to join us? A lot of fun, get a bright green T-shirt. So there's that. Not exactly campus and community coalition related but just part of the UMass stuff is last night I was a judge at a Greek week event. There's a very massive event that happens in Mullen Center. It's first time in Mullen Center. It's been in different places in the past. That is they do a lip sync contest. They call it lip sync. It's actually much bigger than that. It's like a giant choreographed dance routine and lip sync that there were, I think there were like seven teams. Yeah, there were seven teams that must have had 30 to 50 kids each on the teams and fraternities and sororities together in each group. And so it was both that big choreographed lip sync dance routine that was just impressive beyond all ghetto and also what they called the Greek God and Goddess competition afterwards that was answering questions and talent. And it was a lot of fun to participate. And so I was a judge along with an administrator from UMass, someone who works in student, university programming council. I think that's what they work with. And Sam the Minuteman. So that's three of us were judges. So that was a lot of fun. And the green team won. So yes, they were great. So there's that. I think those are all the things lost this week. I'm gonna read my writing. Yeah. So I think that's all we meet again in six days. That is the 22nd of April. So I have no chairs reporting there. This is just all kind of one and the same. When we did all the untimed items, we already talked about the coffee hour. So the public is invited. And again, reminded about the coffee hour for Harrison Gregg on April 29th at 5 p.m. in this room. I think that's all. Anything else we need to talk about before next Monday? Mr. Hayden, we're so glad you're back. And without objection, this meeting is adjourned at exactly 9.30 p.m. Thank you very much.