 Start today's October 3, 2021. This is the district advisory board meeting. Percentage of chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting might do so in the following manner via Zoom and the webinar ID 82414483355. No impersonal attendance of members of the public will be permitted and the public participation in any public hearing conducted during this meeting shall be by remote means only. So the first item on the agenda is public comment and there we have one participant, one attendee, who wants to make a public comment. I'm letting them in the room. Okay, you're in the room, Freddie. Is it me? Yes. Okay, I just have a question. What is the, what is the going to be the result of tonight's meeting? I mean, what, if you make a choice, what does that choice mean? Does it go, where does it go after tonight? So I cannot say after tonight, next Tuesday, we need next Wednesday, we need to submit to the town council a report and the proposed map for the town council to vote on it before. So they could have two meetings scheduled to discuss the map and then it goes to the state. Once the town council approves it, it goes to the state. It has to be at the state before October 30th. So there are two meetings scheduled to discuss the maps. Is this one of those two meetings? And then you, and then the next one is next Wednesday night, is that? No, so we vote, we choose one of the maps, one of our, our final product. And then we submitted to the town council, the town council has to approve the map. They have two meetings on October 18th and October 25th. So what you choose tonight will be voted on by town council? Yes. And there will be no more revisions after tonight. I mean, they could request revisions from us. They could say, they could say that they want to approve them or something and that they, I mean, I don't know what, how the council will respond. The council's agenda is pretty full, but it's up to the council to have a version of the map that they, a majority of the council members will approve. So hopefully whatever we give them will meet that criteria and they won't ask us for too much more. Thank you. If there's no other public comment, we can move for the next item that is that approved the meetings. So we have two meetings approved. Yes, Tracy. So I guess I would just suggest, especially with Marilyn not knowing how much she can, can we just, I mean minutes or I love minutes or anything, but like, let's get to the heart of the meeting and get that done. Okay. So I have, let's change the order. So there's two things I wanted to, so the next item would be two items not anticipated in the last 48 hours. And I wanted to bring in two things. One was the exchange of emails that you saw, as submitted regarding the town council proposal of having Mike and Dee be promoted to voting members to help us with the quorum. I, I didn't, we couldn't discuss it as a group because we were not meeting. As a person, I said that I didn't, that was right. It was setting some precedence that I didn't feel comfortable. That's why I requested everybody's to confirm quorum so that to make sure that we have quorum and we could proceed without having that being voted in the town council. So in the end it was withdrawn in the town council. But I wanted to, because there was, there had been a previous proposal and for my proposal that maybe to help us make sure that we had quorum was to have, to reduce the number of the members to seven after the last resignation to make sure that we had quorum and we continued to work. But that went against the charter, the charter required non-voters. So this was the proposal to stop it the gap. But I personally didn't see it was setting precedence. Mike is not a resident of Amherst and he's a staff. The, they were conflict of interest and conflicts that I saw. And since we could have quorum I didn't see the end in the news. Okay. So that's why I wanted to to put it a little bit in context. And then the other announcement was you also that Craig Meadows resigned after last meeting. There was, I think there was some, I think other people try to put the name for as Tracy mentioned to try to offer the service yesterday and they were not accepted at this late stage. Okay. So that's the updates on the member composition. Anybody has any questions about this? No? Okay. I just wanted, if I could, I just want to say I think that's, that was a very difficult decision, Irene face with those choices in the timeline. And I think as a chair from my vantage point, you made a good, clear decision. So thank you for leading in that respect. Okay. Thank you. The other quick announcement is that last week, and it's on the package, we received a map from the state with the 11 precincts. And that created a moment of panic. Because we send, we have 10. And then they say, call us. Okay, we call and then they said, oh, we weren't able to create the 10 precincts. But we share the maps that we had and they say they don't, they didn't see any much problems with the maps that we have with the shape and they've been so close to 4,000. But it was a maybe half an hour of panic on our side, because when they say call us, we didn't know what was going on. So they said 10 precincts was okay. And they were impressed that we had so many maps that did fit the parameters, being under 4,000, being within 5% and with the shapes, not continuous shapes. So that was like, okay. Yeah. So that was the other announcement. And since Marlene is still here, hopefully we don't know, sir, I wanted to propose when, whether people would be willing to create working groups for the next week, because we need to work, we're going to be working on the on the map and voting on the map. But afterwards, we need to make the presentation for the council and the final report. So I want to know if people would volunteer to work in one of the other have to maybe two working groups tackling those two things so that we make sure that we don't have problems with the open meeting though. And we have collaboration with them. Sure. Tracy. So I just have a comment about the presentation. As I said, I had started drafting a slide that just from the presentation I gave to the legal women voters steering committee. But I noticed that the council president's email to us, right, it said that we needed to submit our report by next, whatever this next Wednesday day, and that we could also submit a presentation at that time if we so chose. I feel like we could do the presentation in that time frame too, but I don't really think it's necessary that we can always provide the presentation even just a few days before the presentation or even after the presentation. There's no need that they need to see that. It's just a reader's digest version of the report. And so I think we just put our priorities on the report and we can revisit the presentation as needed. Okay. So do I have volunteers for the report? Peggy. Yeah. Marilyn. Yeah. I have a question though. Is this this would be done electronically, like be a Zoom, no face to face? Yes. Okay. Tracy. I mean, I'm happy to work on sections of it. Okay. So I mean, if there's ways we can split it up, that makes sense. And I think we can also keep in mind, right, that the last report, the 2011 DAB that the report was only like three or four pages. So I don't think we need to do something extensive. Though I think there are particularly since we're so close to 4,000, I think it would be nice to have a little bit of narrative about 40,000, about like 10 verse 15 and some of those little things. Yeah. Marilyn. I was going to say that I think both the drafts of the report and the presentation look pretty close to me. I think that there's going to be some tweaking, but most of the substance is already there unless it's something that we decide to add tonight. But I, based on what I saw from the last time, I would say it's adequate. Okay. Yeah. No, I know, but I'm the non native English speaker. So my English is not the best. So I appreciate this. Somebody I took a swing after you corrected things from last time. I added some things. And I think I added comments. Tracy added some comments and Peggy added some comments. So, but I think it needs another round of editing. I think that what it needs now is, I mean, it may be a little, but it's mostly grammatical and, you know, just sentence construction, things like that. But I don't, I think in terms of the substance, most of it is there. Okay. Unless anyone, you know, unless people have other recommendations. If you, what I'm hearing is, I think after the map today, what we chose, we're going to have to put the narrative on how we, that is going to be a section that needs to be written. The decision and based the justification of which one do we choose. That's one section that needs support. And probably needs here and there, there might be some extra support. I mean, for example, in the presentation, on the slide deck, you know, most of our report, most of it didn't focus on the decision that we made. It focused on the moments like up to the decision and the process. And so, I mean, I do, I think it is important, maybe we could talk about sort of our timeframe and, you know, what we would also expect for next meeting to that. But just in terms of, I mean, we could even talk now before we go down the map about sort of how we want to split up work on the report. If we do want to have a few different groups looking at different aspects of it. And then we could vote on the map. But I think as long as people are okay deciding on having working groups, I would like to move on and continue on the packet because I'm, I'm scared that we might lose Marilyn. And I think she should be there for the, so we're having the agenda is a little bit hopscotch today, but I would like her to be present and not lose her. Definitely. But at least we have an agreement for me working groups and it can be okay. In according to agenda, the, the, is there any other announcement besides the ones that we've been talking now. The packet material that is non map related. There is a lot of information. So we got information from the state of what has to be submitting and how and what's the process and sample vote. Everything is in there. And I think we should all have a look before next meeting to make sure we got the eyes and have the instructions. One important piece of information that they provided us. The state is that they can build the construction. So that's something that we all look I'm going to have to work before next time. If we give them the map that is voted today, they can build for us the narrative of the, the borders of each prison. But what they say is that the software is not perfect. So we have to make sure that the description matches the map. So we're going to have to go prison by prison looking at the description and the map. We, I think my understanding is that if we send the map tomorrow, they were hoping to have it to us by Friday or before that so that we can correct it before next meeting and include it in the passage material. Yes, Tracy. So do we have to have that full description prepared before we submit whatever we're submitting to the council on the 13th? Because I guess part of me is thinking what if the council members or some particular council members want to see some changes? And so I mean, I think it's really great that the state's going to do it. It seems like the council would be able to discuss it without those legal descriptions of the boundaries. I think it would be good to have the, from my point of view, I think it's good to have to make sure that it's clear which, what are the boundaries that sometimes is a stream, maybe a stream. I think put some clarifications. Definitely, but I'm just thinking about just about the timing of it. And I would not be surprised if some council members ask for some changes here and there or whatever. I think one important thing that we have to transmit in the document is that a simple change is not a simple change in this case. I think that's I think an important thing and not everybody realizes that changing one line here might mean changing 60 or 70 other things because the numbers are not, I can take a one from here, another one from the other side because- And they don't balance, right? I mean- They don't balance. Yeah. I mean, the other thing we can convey too is that the state, you know, based on your phone calls that you and Sue and Mike have had is that the state is feeling pretty comfortable with what we've done already and that they don't see problems with it. So, you know, if one of the council's goals is to like check the boxes, get into the state and things, you know, we don't need to, hopefully maybe we don't have to do a lot, but just to kind of convey that the state is happy with what we've done. And I think based on the email that Sue got, I think the instruction, the suggestion is to have the March process as soon as possible. That was my understanding of the message about the loan changing. That's correct. One from Michelle Tassenari. Yes. Yes. That's correct. We want to get this moving as fast as possible because I don't know if people saw that email. I don't even know the name of the attachment, but basically something was just signed by Governor Baker last week that could, if communities wait too long, it could shift in the order of getting their maps approved by the LEDRC. So, we want, if we're happy with our stuff, we should get it submitted as soon as we can. Okay. Do we still have the ability, once we do this, do we have the ability to change it even after we, you know, make a decision on submitting it? That was my understanding. I read it quickly, but my understanding was that we still have some flexibility if we do want to decide it for whatever reason that we want to change it. My understanding is we can change it if the LEDRC says that there's a problem with it. And then we have seven days, if they told us that there's an issue with the map that we submitted, we have seven days to fix it and get it back to them. Otherwise, they're going to make their own changes. But I believe once the map is submitted to the state that that is the only opportunity to change it, is if they have an issue. That was my reading as well, Marilyn. I will go with your reading. Thank you. Any other comments that people want to make about the non-map material on the package? So we should look at the maps. And the question I have is a procedure, how do we go about discarding maps? What are our basic principles? Because we have to finalize and settle on one map. I know we all like our maps and we all have our favorites, but we have to settle on one map. Yes, Marilyn? I was looking at the three maps, map one, version five, map one, version four, scenarios one and two. And when I looked at version one of map one, version four, scenario one, I looked at the totals of the population totals for districts three and five. And I think the math is wrong because they came in identical to scenario two. And clearly, I mean, the combination of precincts and districts is different. So when I added it up, I had district three rather than 79, 75 was 79, 10. And district five was 77, 62. Although the active registered voters was correct. It's possible I made a mistake in creating that graph. I can double check that. Okay. So as I said, it's the numbers, I've looked at the numbers and I said, how can that be? Someone did a really good job. But it's very possible that it's incorrect. I will double check that right now. And I know too, for the presentation I had worked on and some of the numbers I've mentioned to people, I definitely do want to double check all of our adding and subtracting and stuff because people will notice it. So that's great to look it over. Okay. So shall we go around? Yeah, Tracy. So could we, I don't know the order for this, but could we maybe briefly discuss that latest version that Peggy submitted? Just, you know, because we didn't have a chance to talk about it at the meeting and I, you know, she can either speak to it or we can also kind of discuss our thoughts on that. And if, if people, how people feel about potentially like substituting that for some of the other options. Peggy, do you want to, Marilyn? Well, unless Peggy wants to speak first. Do you have anything you want to say, Peggy? Well, I would, I would speak to those maps. I mean, we have three versions of one map. And we have one version of another map. And then we also have now Irana's updated version. I, yeah. So that one, I can clarify why I put that one. It was just to see about balance. I'm not proposing to move it forward. But it was just about how could, because that one had the shape is not, it would need work. It was about which numbers could, how compact could we get the numbers? That was my, it was a brilliant idea. Wait, Peggy's. Now go ahead. So what I would propose is to at least eliminate two of the three map one versions, right? We have three map, three map ones and one map three. And I think we should eliminate two of the map ones so that we are looking at two maps as a group and then we choose. So I would speak to that, but go ahead, Tracy. So I have one question just to clarify. So my understanding, you know, based on the synopsis I heard about the call that Irana Yu and Sue and Mike had with the state is that even though the rules say that we need to submit the map that has precincts and wards, that the staff was telling you that they really just care about the precincts, like the boundaries of the precincts. And so in that case, two of our map ones, version four, those are the same map and that it sounded like we can submit the map that's only precinct based and not district based to the state. And that the decision about the grouping of the districts would be a decision that might be just like in the council's hands, it wouldn't have to get state approval as well. Is that the understanding? No, it says that we have to, what they require on the list, it has to require precinct and wards or districts on the tabulated. If you need the requirements, I agree. They require both things. And then another thing is just in terms of the maps that we choose not to recommend, a part of me wonders about which of those maps we want to, if any, that we still want to share with the council as the ones that we discarded. Because I sort of think that we should do that just when I've heard that council debate, you know, things in there like option A or option B or something. And I think that some council members will ask for that information. I mean, we have provided in our packets. So maybe we don't provide a copy of that map, but we could still include some of the tables that show some of the maps that we chose not to go with or something. Just because I think those questions will come up. Marlene, Joseph, and then I have a comment. So I was, I mean, I was looking at the maps and I think I really, what I like about is map one version five, which is Peggy's latest, is that it has in terms of distribution of active registered voters, it probably does the best at representing the numbers as best we can, given the combinations of precincts. But I would vote for that one. Because it's never going to be balanced, but I think it reduces the high end and increases the low end, even though we still have quite a range of registered voters. So, Joseph, thanks, Marlene. I just wanted to speak to Tracy's point about submitting more than one map to the town council. Although I think like in concept, that would be a good idea. I think what Irene said early in the meeting about how I think giving them a lot of or giving them more than one map, that's like not the map we're submitting as a proposal is going to make certain, there's a possibility that certain council members will see something on one map and be like, I like this little tiny like change, could we put this on this map? And then it's sort of my, it's like we can't sort of do that. So I feel like if we stay focused with like our one map that we choose, we should give that to the town council as like this is what we've decided on. Like we're open to your insights, but like this is like what, yeah. Okay, I'm going to skip Peggy and then Tracy. Wait, didn't you have a comment, Irene? No, mine was about presentations that this tradition that you usually have many slides that you create, but expecting the questions asked. That's a good point. You don't put all the information up front, you always, you know, you know the questions are going to be coming and you have them as extra, but so that you can answer questions. That was a silly comment. That was Peggy. Okay, so what I want to say is I'd be happy to speak to the three versions of the map, the one that I just introduced plus the other two, if people would feel that is helpful. The alternative is to just go around like Marilyn just expressed her preferences for map, that would be another option is we could just go around and sort of talk about the pros and cons or pluses and minuses of each map and where we might, what we might think. And I would be interested in hearing also from if we do that from our three non-voting members, because I really think you all have a very, a perspective that I would really appreciate. So that's all. So Tracy and Marilyn. Oh, so I was just going to comment that I will back off my suggestion about including all the maps. I mean, the maps are available in our packets. We did make them available to the public. I would still, you know, to Rene's point, I do think it's good for us to have some of these tables that do show the different options, because that's a justification. Like I think when we make our recommendation, we will want to justify the one we picked. And in that vein, I wouldn't necessarily just, you know, show, you know, go forth with like two options, but maybe like three options or whatever, you know, whatever. I mean, the reason the three options that we had as of last meeting before Piggy created the new map, right? So there's the two versions of map one. And they are basically the same. They're just they just have the different pairing of the precincts. And one of those pairings is the current pairing, which is something I think that certain people will care about. And then one is our preferred, well, my preferred pairing of those two options. And then there was that other map, which is like much different. So I personally like the idea of just like having those three. And then of course we will vote on one of those. And well, I mean, I looked over Piggy's map and the changes that were made. And I prefer the map one version four over map five, the version five, I don't like two being shrunk more. Like I do, I mean, I live in a tiny, tiny precinct myself, but I think it's, you know, better when we have slightly larger precincts. And you do connect like more of the neighborhood. And I didn't see a lot of benefit. It does make the map a little more like stick out in terms of that one dorm area. And I was concerned about some of the other little changes too. I mean, there I think the whole thing changed about like 15 precincts. I mean, 15 census blocks, but I think I would have just left the map the way it was. So personally, but I appreciate all of Piggy's work looking at them. Okay, Marilyn. Sorry if I'm looking at the side. My only comment is that I think we do have to zero in on one map because that will influence the report. You know, we're trying to rationalize or present a rationale for why we selected a specific map. So I think we really do need to decide on what our first choice would be. And just mentioned that there were other choices, but this is the consensus of the group. Yeah. I have a suggestion. So I think if we go around, we could all choose and try to see if any of the maps at this point can be eliminated. And what I've been hearing so far is that one map one version four scenario two is one of the not preferred ones. Right. That's what I've been hearing so far. Oh, yes, scenario two is the current precinct pairing. And that's your preferred Tracy. You're muted. The reason I created that map was just because it's the current precinct pairing. That's why it even was out there. But that is my least preferred map of any of our options. Okay. I think if we go around, I think that's one way to go instead of the preferred one that we want to discard first. And I think maybe let's do by discarding. I think for me, it's also that one. I don't know if everybody. Peggy. Blackwise. Yeah. Joseph. I agree as well. Marlene, you would agree to discard that one map one version for this scenario two. Probably. Okay. It's close to five. Yes. So I'm closing that one on my computer. So now we are left with map one version four scenario one. Map one version five and map three version two. Right. That's one. Is there anybody that wants to defend and vote for keeping? Because I already heard two people that are interested in map one version five and map one version four. So is somebody interested in keeping map three version two? Map three version two has zero registered voters and precinct nine. Is that correct? That's correct because it's all dorms. So that, you know, when you look at it from an election or running an election standpoint, we still have to staff that polling place. We still have to pay all those costs and there are no registered voters. But there will be. But there will be what the students, somebody will register from the dorms like in advance of the election now. I know, but 20 people and they don't, they only come out in the presidentals and, you know, very few come out in the other elections. So you're concerned with the map that the state might reject it because it has zero registered voters? The state won't consider that. I'm just thinking about it from running an election point of view and going to all that work to staff a precinct and paying for it and then nobody comes out to vote. But I guess one question I have is, you know, in some of the other maps too, or like currently, right, we have precincts that have a small number of voters like 300 voters or 400 voters and, you know, but all these other maps too, they still have those as well. So, I mean, some of those precincts you could have almost no turnout too. I just, but yeah. I think historically Tracy Locke in one of the elections there were 27 votes in precinct three or precinct one in one of the elections. I mean, some of the, I mean, I know I've worked at the Cape Cod lounge for like a whole day and we've literally had maybe two dozen voters at the most and we staffed it the whole day. Oh, that was that was back when there were sub precincts, right. But how did it happen? It might have even been 10. I think we, I don't know. Okay, anyway. Okay, so it's 1000 purpose of time. Peggy, you got a comment. So the question on the tables, are we defending, do we want to talk, we're talking about map three? Yes. Okay, I just want to say that what I want to say about this map is that there are a lot of things I really like about it. And I really appreciate Tracy's thinking about it thinking and sort of creating this map. I don't think it's my favorite, but I don't want it to just get I don't know. I just want to say that that I appreciate a lot in this map. So well, I mean, and to that point, I mean, I was trying to create it. I mean, that was the one I created over a weekend, like after hearing looking at Arrhenie's maps and trying to combine the map one details and some of Peggy's map details and and some of what Arrhenie did particularly with South Amherst. I mean, I felt like it didn't I was sort of a little bit concerned about how the numbers would work out by putting Amherst Woods and Echo Hill on the same precinct. And as you see, like that does like make those numbers like 3000 voters. So that wasn't what I was hoping for. But I was happy to play with them up. I do know just and I did send an email late, you know, for inclusion in our packet, but in talking to one of my district reps, George Ryan in district three and precinct four, who would be he really likes this map like this is his preferred map. And he doesn't like the other the map one, he doesn't like map one. And he doesn't like them, he doesn't like them because he personally would be and I would be to which is why I like some aspects of map three, but is that he's concerned that his as a member of precinct four that he's like paired with precinct seven and the new pairings and that it goes so far to the south. And I mean, we are sort of spoiled in precinct four and these downtown precincts that they're so tiny and you can walk everywhere and you know everybody and hey, we only have 300 voters, right? Like you know them all and but it's really not fair, I think to the rest of the town. But he just particularly, I think, you know, I don't know if it's just his self interest, but he just he has a lot of complaints about map one, version four. And so he's he's told me that when it comes before the council, he plans to say that he endorses this other map. So I wouldn't want to make it like deleted off the planet, knowing that he feels that way, not that he has like an out I mean, not that council's work gives him or anything, but you know, just to the point that some people might want to see a different version or like we sort of keep it around in the background and we have a we don't show it a lot, but we have a table that sort of describes the differences or whatever. I do I do agree with Sue's point that it's not great that that one precinct which is all dorms and it has no voters. Yeah, but I think it has a couple of problems. One is that the one person with no voters and the other one is that two districts have 60% of the active registered voters. Yeah, so that is better than currently because currently, I know, but I think I think it's hard to make worse than currently. I think I think I look at what 75% almost the current voters in two districts right. It's hard to beat that one. So, so we still have the three one proposal I have is that we I don't like I don't know how hard it is to overlay. We have this boundary so that we can overlay it with minority population to see if any of the maps works better. Well, and I and I hadn't actually another request from Mike if it's not a super total pain. I do I do think Renee to your point we will want to have at least one table in our presentation that talks about like the racial distribution in the districts because that will come up and that is data that we did have access to. But because now that Mike I mean this is you know an ask I'm just going to throw it out there and but I would you know in terms of an argument for people such you know such as people in pricing for who are happy with the change that that the map one represents. So now that the voters are maps like you know as a GIS layer I was curious about so one of the things that I've been looking at right and I've done those calculations and I can add them to our presentation about like under each of these maps what percentage of residents are continuing to be in the same precincts and what percentage of residents change precincts and then what percentage of residents are in the same district and what change districts even though of course the underlying you know there are some underlying changes with the boundaries of each but just you know in terms of like if people have a certain identity about it like how many are changing their precincts and so and the districts and if you look at map one version four I believe 80 percent you know that is one of the goals right about trying to keep people in the same not change it too much. So if we do map three I mean it is so radically different because you know I was grabbing the ideas from I mean a super innovative map and but it changes the it changes the precincts for over like half of the voters. I mean it's a significant percentage of population and if we look at map one version four it changes the precinct for 40 20 percent of voters so 80 percent of voters are in the same precinct and then 89 percent of voters are in the same district. So if we're not trying to you know upend the whole world you know with that other map like I mean that is a argument we can make too for it. So my question actually sorry to get back to my question was just about if we do have the I mean similarly because if we've mapped if the voters are mapped as a layer then we could do the same sort of numbers about you know how many voters change precincts or districts like under the different scenarios. Mike do you know what I mean? Yes I know what you mean. And so and just to kind of show that so because I know like George Ryan is sort of upset that with the map you know map one that some of the for example this I'll just speak to it quickly but district five that it's like includes precinct eight includes precinct five so it goes all the way from Triangle Street like all the way down to Bay Road but then if you actually look at the data on the table that's accompany it. So district five has 20 not almost 3,000 voters and 2400 of those voters are in precinct eight. So that means that even though George is concerned council member Ryan is concerned that it goes up to Triangle Street that segment that goes so far north only represents about like a few hundred voters. So I just don't think that that's like a big concern. So Tracy I think we cannot satisfy everybody because somebody from Northamers, precinct one is changing, precinct two is changing in that map. Map three version two, precinct one is changing drastically, precinct two is changing drastically, precinct three is changing drastically. Not that we can keep one 35 one person. But I just meant if it wasn't, I just meant if there wasn't because I mean that was I think it would be useful to have that information in context because I think the closer the numbers come to existing precincts and districts I think the counselors that would you know that could sway the counselors and it may sway other people just to feel like they still have some sense of identity and clearly around the edges if it's going to change. I don't think that students are going to have a huge investment but we do have a student in the committee who can probably speak to that but as somebody said earlier students are moving all the time they're very transient population. So that's what my thoughts are. So okay D? So yeah I'd like to hear from Joseph because as you all are looking to plan this it's not just for this year or next year's election. What happens when we do have a national you know election is there going to be a polling place set aside for students who will at that point you know it shows that they participate. So don't you have to have a plan in place for the next 10 years. So I just want you all to consider that it's not just about the local elections that take place but it's a plan in place for you know the next 10 years of elections. Who were you saying something? We couldn't hear you. So I just you know which map considers that. I saw the map where there's zero in terms of you know that's included there where the students in the dorms but wouldn't it be necessary in planning to have at least one polling place set up for UMass and student voters. Again not for this election but for the next you know national election. Is that a consideration? Yes Sue thank you for your talk. Well no I'm just thinking on the last 10 years and I mean we have our polling places if we're staying with 10 precincts then we're going to stay with the 10 current polling places but there is early voting now and that's actually very close to being finalized where it's going to apply to every election going forward. So the way elections are happening from this point in time onward is different, very different than the last 10 years where everybody goes out to the polls. Now the the distribution of how people are voting has changed. There is definitely a much higher mail-in participation during elections. I think you know right now the students vote spread out. There's some in precinct one there's some in precinct three there's some in precinct four some in precinct ten so they're very much you know and they vote in those polling places they don't have their own polling place they never they really never the only time they had a polling place was when we had sub precincts which we did three times in the past and and three times it was asked to be stopped because it just they weren't getting the people out that they thought they would and the cost was too high. So you had said that they have the UMass students currently vote in five precincts right that's my understanding four four or five I forget how many it's five it's five yeah okay yeah they're spread out though they're spread. So Peggy and then just to speak to Dee's concern I think that's an interesting question. Sue if we move to mail-in voting and early voting is it reasonable to expect we could have a drop box on the UMass campus or something like that so that would make it instead of just the one at town hall we could also have one on the campus and that would really make it easier for the students to vote. The drop box requirements they have to be under surveillance so they have to be under camera there's a certain bunch of requirements that would have to be met before yeah I mean it can be definitely looked at we could look at okay and I mean UMass might be willing to do that but yeah. In time just to think of time so we still have three maps so I have questions for Peggy I'm looking at mentions one five and one four and Tracy had basically issued that this pressing two had shrunk considerable versions in five but I'm looking at the numbers and trying to figure out why because I think you could have the same balance of numbers between two and six and shift a couple of blocks between two and six. So can I speak to the maps yes so what I changed from version four to five well I'm losing track of the numbers yes thank you thank you was that I moved a dorm from precinct nine to precinct two yes and I did that in order to lessen the number of voters in district two and then therefore increase the increase the number of voters elsewhere so and increase the number of voters in four and decrease the number of voters in two so it was just a balancing of registered voters so you'll see that you know the the numbers of registered voters in five is a little bit better than it was in four that's what it was that was why no no I know I understand why but the the the pressing two is much smaller in map five than in map four even though it's at the top that probably they could be shifted more closer to map four the top not so easy it's actually not so easy I tried well I don't remember having those numbers and that right so by adding that dorm that's why there's that little kind of tail that goes down a little bit like into precinct I mean district four that wasn't there before yeah because that's that one additional dorm that had 394 people and that's why in order to make that balance then Peggy had to move like 10 census box out of precinct six into precinct I mean into precinct six from precinct two to make the numbers balance but it is interesting that on on map one version four so there's 3400 population right 34 I mean I'm sorry 3844 in map one version four and now um the map one version five that it's down in the 30s like 3773 so it's like that's that's smaller that's what I'm saying yeah and it's so by far it's like the smallest because every other precinct oh and precinct six and precinct six is 3974 so precinct six could give some to precinct two to balance between those two a little bit since they share I mean I had one super much well I yeah it's hard to balance so I had originally I mean I had originally wanted to change I mean in this map in you know in version five and version four like two and six are in the same districts but I but I had originally wanted to balance like flat hills road and those neighborhoods up there like the high point neighborhoods because they're currently in two and you know I feel like there are some neighborhoods up there and they feel like neighborhoods and make them all two um and I couldn't get those numbers to work because those neighborhoods that they're are pretty dense but at the same time you know speaking to what people have talked about before is that we also have the districts and so I I mean so they're still in the same district so it doesn't matter that much but I feel more comfortable not making precinct two so small personally so my vote would be for on the map one version four jc what scenario did we eliminate one of the scenarios you've got two scenarios yes we're down to scenario one scenario two was the first map that was one that had the the old precinct pairs got it okay I missed that we still have three maps that we're talking about though I know but I mean it doesn't seem like anybody favors that map three right so should we just eliminate that I mean we can we can share some data on it if you know counselors ask but I mean do any of us would any of us want to vote for map three my concern is the large imbalance otherwise are there many things I like but my concern is the large imbalance and how the large imbalance between the the districts we have two that are taking 60 percent yeah no of course yeah but I mean so map one version four still has like two that take 55 percent yeah I mean so I mean that I mean that was George Ryan's argument that one is 60 percent and one's 55 percent so what's the big deal like they're almost the same but no I know I of course I mean we don't have to I'm just saying the what I'm just explaining how some people might think about it but if it's nobody I'm I mean I worked on that map just as an alternative vision and I mean I'm not I would not vote for that map myself so I think we can throw that out and we can just we can mention you know Irene as you said you know in the presentation the report that you know we looked at other options and the items we looked we liked in each of them but like overall we felt whatever one we were recommending you know has the most positive benefits and the least negative and that's why we're going forward with that one so but I feel comfortable getting rid of map three except for if we want to show little data when we present it however I think it's gonna get busy if the more maps we have the busier it's gonna get I would say if nobody has a huge investment in it we should get rid of it because we have to get we have to start calling it yeah so can we do quickly um since we have the the demographic some demographic data it's like how hard would be to overlay it with map three and map one version four to make sure that we are not splitting communities I think it's going to make you guys sick like flipping back and forth between things um but it can be done if that's what we want to spend our time doing I don't know how people feel like whether we should look at I would like to look at it but I don't know how people think if we need Joseph um although I do agree with a lot of what's been said about map three I think in the interest of the time we probably need to nix one of these um and I think we can if we want to look at that data we can look at it with just like a smaller set of maps um just in the interest of like at the time we have well and I guess too like if Mike felt comfortable like that request about the voter you know just the voter data just like we have them I mean just the number of voters that would change precincts in districts like if that wasn't a big deal to run it even on the map we reject just so we have that information in our back pocket you know if that issue comes up like I would appreciate that even though but I'm happy like discarding it as something that we wouldn't want to be our recommendation my plan is to run that those stats on all 30 maps that we produced no please don't do that who's gonna write in that who's gonna write in that one yeah no but that yeah once once I get my methodology down for doing it it's going to be pretty quick to do it for each one of them so like whether we have two maps or three maps and even though we have one that we're preferring we could just like have that information there yeah okay thank you I I do so I'm chiming in as a non-voting member here I I do agree with Joe's comment that we should present one map this is our this is our map to the council um that does not mean that we shouldn't have other things ready to go to justify our decisions and data to back up those things so I can produce those statistics and all of those other metrics and have the maps ready to go just in case they get um you know we get asked to produce them so sure well thank you thank you um yes yeah so I I agree as well present one map and um I'm sure they'll have some comments and tweaks or whatever but a slide as Tracy indicated should have like the demographic data of particular neighborhoods and communities um where things intersect or where things are split up so that when because you have to predict what they're going to ask so certainly they're going to ask about race certainly they're going to ask about um you know apartments certain communities where students live that type of thing so I think having that demographic data on a slide or two um if it's too difficult to overlay and have several different versions of overlays um to me would help not only prepare you but give that information to the council which hopefully they'll ask those questions those are the questions that need to be addressed as as you configure the precinct in the districts okay uh Peggy and then Tracy okay two things um I think uh a slide showing the demographic data that we have um is it's overlaid on uh you know with the precinct boundaries and district boundaries would be really helpful um and I recommend it and I'm going to say that the reason that I ended up with the map drafting this map the way I did was because I was intentionally trying to make sure that we were not um distributing communities of color to every different district if there was a way to to group them in order to you know increase voting power I guess is is what I'm trying to say certainly not to cut communities with a line but also in addition to try to cluster communities um so I think that if you look at the map with the demographic data um at least the first couple layers that we have that you'll see that um so I want to say that but the other thing I want to say is that around precinct two there is a way I mean there's a way to add another 81 voters um fairly easily without breaking into a neighborhood anymore than I have already um it does leave one long tail going right into the middle of of I mean it's it's not pretty but it's doable so that's certainly something that we could do that's all uh Tracy so I was just going to suggest um with demographic data I mean Mike has provided a lot of uh to us on maps already um and maybe it's just because I'm like a data masked person but and I know we have a couple map requests for him that are still out there um but I would be happy to whatever you know whatever maps we vote for if we want to show the demographics of each of these like I'm really happy to do that all like in with the tables that we already have it's like pretty easy to um summarize that data in Excel or whatever so I don't think we need to add more layers to the map personally and I know that Mike's already works like so hard on all the different versions so the Marilyn and then I have a comment so I don't know if you all have thought about this or it's just not enough time um is there a way for you all to have um some type of public presentation like to set it up with the community and I guess we'd have to to find out is that you know you're able to do that as a committee um just to get you know a public feedback on what you have already and to explain the the maps or the map um to the public or is the town council meeting going to be your only opportunity to present this information to the public I think because of the timeline if we had one more month I think we could have a public and a separate meeting besides the the one that we had that we're going to have at the town council but I don't see in the current timeline how we can fit it in I think it's good that the meetings are now being broadcasted we've been requested public comment um trying to get as much traction as possible but I don't see how we can fit it in within the timeline that we have um I can just foresee that being problematic because last time this process took place people were able to meet in person explain see things you know visually and with this going on remotely I I do think it it presents a barrier to uh some residents in terms of their participation and ability to comprehend the information and the maps so that's that's my observation and what I'm getting uh from from particular community members and so once it's presented on the town council and that being the only only opportunity uh for for some people to actually see it possibly weigh in um I just kind of foresee some some challenges to that can I jump in real quick just to let everybody know that the maps did go up on um the library walls the jones library last friday so they're there with a big note um saying to please contact the town clerk with any you know questions responses every all of that so I haven't heard anything yet though okay that's good to know I know that the time has also been extended hasn't it the time for for submitting this to the state hasn't the time been extended no okay I might have heard wrong I thought there was an extension no what I think you would you're referring to D is the the governor's legislation which is um it's really confusing but um we received an email from the state on monday saying that it this does not change the governor's legislation does not change our processor deadlines at all okay all righty thank you for the clarification I'm Marlene and then Tracy I think we I think you know in order to move this along I think we really need to sort of quantify what demographic specifically what demographics we want to see I've heard population of color registered voters apartment residential residence halls so the kinds of dwellings that people look in and we've also discussed looking at changes in the district and precinct populations I don't know if there's anything else but let's try to nail these down so we know what we're doing Tracy I mean I think um that's what I was going to speak to but um Marlene we have most of that data already as I was saying like I've been keeping track of it the thing we don't have is owners versus renters and I mean some of that data comes out of the census the decennial census but it's not it hasn't been released yet and so I wouldn't really want to mix and match data sets very much and I think we have to I suggest we just use the other data the other thing we can do is we can also have some numbers like one one thing I wanted to calculate that I haven't calculated yet is for example like what is the total number of people who live in dorms for example you know as a percentage of our population and and I know from the 2011 report that was reported like in terms of you know you have like 30 the population living out in five percent of land or whatever and so I'd like to put that in the report um but I but I actually did okay go ahead yeah but what I'm suggesting is what are we putting in the report I know I know that the data are available but specifically what information are we going to present in the report and how are we going to get it and I know you've got some of it but how do we make that available to everybody yeah I mean I can I can add my tables and things and as I said with the race data ones were set on you know the map we're preferring and you know the final kind of version of the other maps it's it's easy to like run some of those numbers so and I think those can be add-ins I'd be happy to work on that section of the report and fill that in and I left on the slides I left spaces for those but I did want to speak just briefly I mean the reason I originally raised my hand was to D's comment about just having a public forum and public outreach and providing public comment I mean I realize that with remote participation you know our methods aren't perfect right but we are trying to do public outreach that we have had the two press releases and our meetings are now being broadcast and all the meetings are recorded I mean I understand not everybody has equal access and I mean the thing is and I know that I've you know reached out to a lot of people about the maps and tried to get common and I've tried to engage people I mean it's so like long fish and so data heavy that I kind of lose people right oh I was like ooh and you know you live in South Amherst how do you feel about this option or that option or whatever and not everybody engages in it um and so I mean I like you know I have been to I've I've talked about the maps at neighborhood meetings um and I've and as I you know I presented yesterday at the League of Women Voters Steering Committee meeting um where I created the slides for and I mean personally I'm happy to go out individually I think it's hard for like our whole committee to present I mean I'm not sure how much interest there is in the community in it because I mean I really have one I've hoped that we would get more feedback from people but I just like people are so busy and so on and so I mean I feel like some of those kind of informal outreach like if um maybe better to get input like if I mean if you did know specific communities that are really interested in this you know maybe you know I I mean I'd be happy to just like present it just you know as a factual type thing that or and I don't know if any other members would feel like they have the time to do that too but um I'd like to see what you all have posted at the the library because I think going to community rooms for instance and some of these apartment complexes where they have these open community areas and sometimes they even have like boards where you can post things might be useful in terms of outreach because there's an assumption that the Jones Library is the you know neutral kind of public space but even prior to COVID you know folks who don't have transportation for instance that's not necessarily the place where they're going to go for news and information although many people think that's the logical place right so I'm just trying to think of other ways to create outreach in the community to get the information out there to get folks involved and you know to get a different those those demographic groups that that we're talking about not splitting up and getting information out to them so um I'll I'll go and see what you all have at the Jones Library and maybe ask for help at Town Hall to replicate some of that in some form uh within these community rooms. I mean I believe what's posted at the library and at Town Hall are the maps themselves it doesn't have like the whole um you know reasoning and like the narrative. Right and that's what I'm saying so there would have to be without a person uh there would have to be some explanation let's say to follow it but I I can see what you all have and maybe figure out some short narrative or explanation but I just yeah I find it you know problematic but I think it's stuff that we're all dealing with in terms of doing everything remotely and and I'm happy to like help you D if you want to try to put something together you know to explain I mean the slide the slides were just like a primer right great yeah that's right all right thanks okay okay okay on the interest of time it's 722 and no Merlin needs to leave at eight we need to narrow down maps I know that we are not um so what would help everybody uh make a decision um Mike can you put them up on the screen so we can look at them side by side would that be helpful to everybody kind of yeah side by side by side three of them right I mean I guess you know we we spoke earlier about map three like can I mean I can make a motion to eliminate map three does anybody want to keep map three as our preferred map with second map lap three version two yeah we're just like I think we determined that it's better to just keep that for data purposes yeah exactly as much as I each time I look at it I like it more but I have no problem none of the maps are perfect right I just um the more I look at it it's like oh it has nice things but my concern is that it's going to raise red flags by having a precinct with zero register water and a big imbalance and it's also changing the precinct and the districts for like so many people you know half of the population the government has changed since last time so you heard me for me that's not an issue but for other people might be but I'm okay for me with the imbalance I made that motion in Maryland seconded if okay oh sorry so um Tracy so I make a motion that we eliminate map three version two is and maryland seconded so I was asking you vote so you vote oh we can vote yeah Tracy um yes I Peggy Shannon hi Joseph Gordon hi maryland last time oh she we just lost her oh she's not there oh she's back oh good she's just muted oh okay so Marilyn you vote the so the motion is um the voting is to eliminate map three version two you're on mute Maryland I read that as I I did too and right okay um can I abstain can it be you know you you can abstain I guess I'm gonna abstain okay because I have but the motion passes to eliminate all right then so we are left with two so can I speak to this um hearing people's concerns about the smallness of um precinct two in version five we can certainly boost that up a little bit I was trying there's a neighborhood that I was trying not to break up any more than I already had but I think that um the concerns are well put so maybe the thing to do is to boost uh precinct two a little bit in map one version five um which has a little bit better distribution of voter numbers and suggest that is our final map so I I can second and I was looking at the numbers Tracy um well did you just second it so we're in the middle oh I can we can I can take it about can I take it back no so one of the things too you know when I one of the things I didn't like that much with um that map I mean I did have concerns about um precinct two shrinking but um with precinct five there's um there's a census block that got moved from precinct nine to precinct five between high and Whitney street and um and that is a neighborhood that I used to live in and so um so it's a little bit up from where you are might get sort of on the boundary of the peach and the yeah the olive in this area and so I had been trying to keep I mean one thing I didn't like about you know when I was working on map one is like splitting that up at all because that also feels I mean that also feels like a neighborhood to me is like everything on one side of triangle but there is there are sections of it that you know have less of a neighborhood feel that have more population than aren't there a long term and so on and so I'm just trying to keep that as together as possible um so there's like um yeah piggy just moved like one single block it's right like right here it's 60 people but but I don't again it's like it's so hard with any of these numbers to like ever change anything um I mean my my preference is still for the map one version four but and and I would I have a few minor suggestions to like balance um that out along between strong and northeast street to like add those two polygons in that aren't green I make them green they're very small in terms of population right here yeah that one in the one above it above the little yeah and together those add up to um 43 people which is like almost nothing and I think it would make it like a little cleaner but um that's super minor um I had a suggestion in map five on the northeast corner you know the the way to increase it would be on the northeast corner of prison two to the northeast of prison two there are two census blocks that add up to 180 so the ones that go along is pleasant towards um pine street okay so in here somewhere yes that one and the one in between inside those that block adds 180 so that takes it to 39 but then it's taken out of six doesn't that shrink I mean yeah but it shrinks I see okay and you're still okay but it balances and increases it takes you to 39 58 prison two to 39 58 and then the other one gets reduced to 37 19 something so just so I'm clear you're talking about the two blocks right at the very top of precinct yes two it's 185 altogether I thought it was 180 maybe I'm wrong hold on yeah I'm gonna pull that up too and it's a it's a little weird some of the polygons are kind of weird but we can see it would have been great to have the two little other blocks next to yeah is this considered a neighborhood I don't know it very well off of east pleasant like this this neighborhood right here yeah I want to if we can pull up the actually interactive map that shows like where the houses actually are I'm trying to pull it up right now okay thank you how come in I was just gonna say I did look at those two little blocks there because I wanted to that thought oh yeah let's put them together this is one of those cases which happens over and over which is that the block the lineation goes down the middle of the street yeah whenever you pick a block you lose the people on the far side of the street and I just I didn't feel I could abandon them basically um no I mean that's a huge issue right like with any kind of neighborhood that then you yeah I would agree with that I wouldn't want to so what's really interesting here is the blocks that were that arena is talking about is this big block right here that has 150 people in it that snakes all the way around this neighborhood goes up to kushman market right here and then I believe you were talking about this kind of donut hole right here in the middle of the neighborhood right 35 so arena was arena was suggesting to add this block with 150 and this block with 35 into precinct 2 that's just such an issue though you know to pick his point about with this using the center lines because then everybody on the outside of the streets is like I yeah no well then the other thing is that it further amplifies like the separation of this neighborhood of grantwood grantwood colonial core blackberry because on version 5 this block of 40 and this block in 35 are in precinct 6 so if we made if we turned all of this green it would further break that and that out I'm not saying that's a problem I'm just pointing it out yeah I don't like it when that with the center line is like basically split in the neighborhood so I would vote to not make that change but right now the way we have it is like that I mean that's why I would stick with the priest the virgin four personally but it's such a it's so tough to do a trade-off here because I I hear you and I I really didn't I wasn't happy about breaking up that neighborhood in the middle of town either I think yeah it's really hard and and yet I'm I'm also not so happy about having precinct four district four have only a thousand something voters I mean I see it as better than the current district three that only has 730 voters yep so we made progress morning um I I lost you for a little bit but I might one question I have is are we talking about moving districts or just excuse me precincts because if it's precincts I mean we're currently in it for the most part in a district mode so if we're flipping numbers between within a district I don't see that as a huge problem is compared with someone moving someone to a different district and that's completely true and I mean that's why I sort of gave up trying to reconnect that neighborhood in the northeast like flat hills and um the high point neighborhood because again to your point Marilyn like it's all in the same it's all in district two so maybe it doesn't make that big a difference I just with that in mind I guess I just yeah I mean if we want to vote on which people prefer but I mean they're they're pretty close I mean they do change it a little bit you know to piggy's point about the numbers it adds up a little but um it's not a huge difference so and and also an answer to your question Marilyn the only change in district here is that block in the middle of town moving from district four to district five so that's 60 people that are 60 people right yeah and you know it's it's in a neighborhood and that's actually you did change some hold on you choose those ones on press on the edge of district four um Peggy so you changed um uh whatever sale in place so sale in place was in on on the format sale in place is in six and here it's like re it's reconnected with the center town so those move that's about um 118 no and sale no that's 500 so we've we've moved 560 people about right that's true Mike can we overlay the demographic data in these two maybe that can help us move in one or the other direction I let me get that started it's going to take me a little bit so I mean what you know one comment with either of these maps you know because they are close except for the 500 people um is um is it I mean you know it's possible that like some of our comments that we could get could be like that they hate like larger elements of of these things so I mean if people feel strongly on one map or the other I think we can um you know just go forward with we want to show hands which of these two each one prepared at this moment if they were like this or we want to see changes tweaking to any of these maps Merlin do you have any prefer of these two I don't think I do I'm just trying to remember which of the is it map one version four scenario one or two where the district boundaries change we have a couple of a combination two two districts that are different this one are the ones that the boundaries the district boundaries have changed because they have a better distribution or register voters with respect to the current but I guess what I'm saying is with the precincts within each district are they the same or different I think one of those is scenario one is the there are two districts where the precincts are different is that the one scenario one has some different pairs um and then scenario two has the same pairs but we had talked earlier about we dropped disqualifying scenario two because it created more imbalances with the voters I guess you know for I mean I'm just wondering how folks are gonna I think one of the things we said is we would put them two out but my guess is that if we were to look at the changes by district in version four map one version four we're going to see bigger discrepancies and I don't know if people are going to object to that so it's a balance so what's important to maintain your district boundaries as best you can or do you in favor greater more demographic um well it's not yes I mean I did I did I did remember originally I can look thanks I was gonna say in the interest of time I can live with either map I might have a preference I might have a preference for a tweaked map five but I can live with either map and it's now 22 minutes yeah so that's why I that's why I was thinking okay um I want to do a show of hands so Peggy has a preference for map five do we have a Joseph um my preference is version four map one um Tracy um my preference is the version four Marlin I think it's version five um arena you can't abstain no for me it's version five but tweaked so that the it's a better balance in pricing two and pricing six I could do that um do we before so this would be this would be the map that we would be moving forward before we decide make sure is there something that we want to make sure do we want to go over and make sure Tracy um so I just had a question do we so you know one of the changes with that map um was to um so that like where the dorm goes like down you know more right it's more of a tailor I mean the state wouldn't care about that Mike would they know because they would understand that it's because they understand that the dorms are so quirky right they uh Tracy they didn't even have that big of an issue with the tail that went down Northampton Road on version three that we were so concerned about last week so all right I really don't think that they would have an issue with that um Marilyn your hand is raised okay uh Peggy I just wanted to ask Joseph why he preferred map four um I think it really has to do with a lot of what Tracy said um like I honestly like both maps I think the um preference is tiny um I think like I could I'm extremely happy if we picked version five I'd be happy if we picked version four I think it's just more I prefer the um the drawing on precinct two in the version four and I think so if we could just I mean if if we are discussing it at all um just in terms of you know the question that came up about which um of the which of the census blocks change boundaries right change districts because I mean yeah so I mean part of it is the cosmetics of district six and what it looks like um but there is I mean right so there were those changes around that around sale in place um and then there is that one neighborhood in the center town right so that the total of whatever 389 around 500 voters um so one thing for me with that is that if if we go back to precinct not that anybody's going to change their mind I'm just gonna say but if we go back to um if we go back to precinct well I don't know Mike if you could just blow up one of those maps and zoom in on this section of um like um whatever main street and at the edge of like northeast street and yeah like over there and we don't need to have both of them yeah if we don't so we don't need to have them both open at the same time so I mean one thing with this is like right this is sort of considered the center of East Amherst um and like right to the south southeast of where Mike is looking that's Fort River school and so the other map the version four it's split it around red gate lean and north Whitney street and and then and there's also like a I don't know a power line or something there and so what it's saying is that so I mean it had come up a couple times about east the east village center is if we keep them if we keep them map on the right then those those the sale in place and stuff are connected to the east village center and if we don't we're like drawing a line at southeast northeast street but Tracey I think the one on the left map five that's a better job um but if you but I'm saying if you think that that's the center because the village center so the corner of Pella road and northeast street or east street what our four river is yeah so then you have the school yeah there's one so on one side you have the old common right so today east you have the on the southeast corner is the common so it's a bit of center but actually there is not much of a center because on one side you have the common on the other side you have the school and there's one business and the corner on the other side is empty land on the north north yeah I mean those are the same the part where Mike is the only change is the one between red gate lane and and stuff yeah I think red lane and going east I think the red lane I think between strong and east pleasant street to the west to the east we're having problems there are a couple of houses there well I mean there's 500 people in this little section that we just changed arena yeah yeah that that section yeah there's not much link to I think there's not much of a I used to live there there's not much link to the to the other side of north north street there is two or three farms okay there's populations I don't think that but I think in fact there's more connection to the west than to the east um yeah I mean I mean I was that that was there are many condo there's more connection well there's that condo I mean that's why Salem places 330 people no but there's also there are a couple of condos along north east street okay yes that's true so I think it makes more connected to downtown that makes sense yeah yeah and so then really then the only change that it's like significantly in the neighborhood would be those 60 people that got changed over in in like closer to the high school between high and Whitney so it's just 60 okay yeah thank you for explaining that okay so Mike you were showing the demographics right yes I was trying to spin something up quickly so this is um map one version five um right here and they're not showing it really in the pdf okay okay you have to share the other screen yep you share like how many windows do you have a lot um let's see how do you see it yes okay so this is map one version five the district and precinct combinations and then I have the demographics broken out by different um different groups so do we want to just kind of turn them on one at a time and kind of zoom in and take a look at things or do we just want to take like a high level um it's really hard like this gets it gets really tricky on the eyes so and are we looking at districts are we looking at precincts of where things would be divided I think we look at the districts right and we start with I think one at a time I think we can go so here's Hispanic and Latino um and let me see so do we just want to look at districts because I can turn off the precinct boundaries now leave them in the background I think it would be good to leave them is everybody okay reading the background or yeah so I have a question I have a question though so when we're looking at the layer then are we you they're not translucent or anything right it's not like coming the underlayer isn't coming through they're solid on top of the layer well what I have is I have the uh the precincts are here and they're they're translucent so that you can see through them just it's really difficult to see all the different layers kind of super imposed on one on top of one another um got it so what I have here is this is just kind of this is the district breakdown um of and this is Hispanic and Latino population that we're kind of seeing so you know there's a pretty good group of group here in three um with Hampshire College being the only place it's broken out and put in five along with Amherst College and a little bit in the center of town uh Colonial Village and then um like Rolling Green in Echo Hill and then it also has this is Village Park and it looks like some of the dormitories and stuff here no and um Olympia Olympia Olympia Olympia right Olympia Drive right and then there's a big cluster up here in north northwest okay uh four would be the only one that looks to be a little low and I mean we can zoom in here and see a little bit splitting okay and now so I mean this is real this is really hard because this is the most dense area of town so just with the colors um not too complicated but like what are the difference the what what are the so you're doing it based on absolute numbers not on percentages right correct correct percentages it gets crazy no it gets and I kept them and I know that I had to keep them at I kept them at the same scale um because otherwise it just gets so hard especially for people who aren't comfortable reading maps it gets really really really hard to compare one thing to another so for all the different groupings I kept the scale the same okay um got it so I mean I guess you know I was thinking like if we're doing a presentation that to have some kind of maps just displaying like just a quick snapshot not with all the numbers but just to show like here where the pockets and the they're kept within the districts and then like here's the next population and I mean that might be a nice way to show it okay so this is Asian can you can you zoom out a little bit yes and and Mike so I know you and I it's spoken about this one I called you about some other aspects of the data but you were saying that anybody that these are not mutually exclusive groups right so that the Asian would include anybody who identified as Asian only or as multi-culturally Asian with Asian being one of the categories is that correct it's it's both correct that's what I'm saying so yes anybody who included Asian at all correct like every set okay correct so in in that way like when we were to oh I'm sorry okay I'm just wondering is there a way you we could get an unduplicated count of people of color that we would define so I know that there's more than one option you can say I think there are two questions one of you Hispanic or Pinot yes no and then you can specify um I don't know if the in the census it was multi-racial or you had to specify which races you identified with you specified which races you identified with okay so but you could also choose other there was always an other category okay but discounted other you know what what's questioned we want to know the distribution residents or residents of color and how are we defining residents of color so I know in some instances Asians are not considered well there's a whole question of underrepresented minority or Asians considered underrepresented minority and I know Asians comprise many different you know that's a very large group in terms of geographic origin and things of that nature but what's what's the question because you know we're we're not talking about what generally speaking we're not talking about large numbers and do we just want to represent areas with as a large minority population I mean I think what we're trying to show is that we're not breaking up populations of color right so just through like a snapshot of it and not looking so much of the numbers and we really didn't have so much flexibility right just like giving all the other constraints on the total population so we're just trying to show that they we aren't intentionally you know as somebody else had brought up you know like distributing populations of color in such a way as to disenfranchise people or something so if I could just make a suggestion in terms of you know that's a really good question Marilyn what are we talking about when we talk about racial minorities and ethnicities and different groups within the town of Amherst so you're talking about also language groups so and nationalities so for instance I'm sorry I'm forgive me for doing so what what we're talking about for instance when you talk about Asian American communities you're talking about like the Cambodian community and in certain apartment complexes there are larger numbers of Cambodian community Cambodian residents for instance that are in certain apartment complexes and we could probably just figure out which one has a larger propensity you know or larger populations same thing like colonial village is the example of it's a black community a black and Hispanic community but they're also Cape Verdean so you know it's not like just a an easy type of dispersion of who lives where and that's why I was suggesting that it's economic or socioeconomic class considerations having to do with the apartment complexes so I think like it might have been Tracy that had said we need to have those considerations like these are things you all consider in creating these maps it's not something that you ignored and in an authentic way not just symbolically like you did pay attention to and what is it district two for instance and three you know that lower yeah district two and three in those lower areas sure you have those apartment complexes staying together and therefore those socioeconomic groups that could be students it could be you know again renters of different ethnicities different racial groups but you try to keep them together assuming and we're all assuming a lot here that some some of their interests might align more so together as opposed to you know other areas within the community other populations within the community I don't know if that answers it but that's that's how I look at it so I mean so one of the things D and I think we had talked about this early on right is that I mean you know anecdotally and you know from being on the ground about which Asian communities or in which complexes or you know how it breaks out by nationality um and you know countries of origin um but we don't have that data for the 2020 census because it hasn't been released yet like it will be released later and so we wouldn't have any figures on this I mean I recommend you know I mean I'm just gonna throw this out there especially you know as we get towards eight o'clock is that I think it's nice to show these maps I I don't think we need to focus too much on them there's not that much we could do with them and we can talk a little bit about the limitations of what they are like including the fact that they group all Asians together kind of thing um and just you know visually just show that we're we were not doing anything to disenfranchise these populations and I know and Peggy and Peggy's mentioned right that she was explicitly looking at that as one of her considerations you know when she was making the tweaks to the map one so I mean I'm just gonna I mean do people think that that would be just showing visually you know a couple of these different for the larger of the populations including African-Americans, Asians and Hispanic um and just you know showing that those are what those look like the other populations are just so much smaller. Marilyn? Marilyn we can't hear you. I'm looking at the clock but I think it was crazy I think there's some hard data that we have and then speculative based on anecdotal evidence or whatever and I think we just have to make sure that we differentiate between those. Yeah. However we do it so you know. I wait go ahead sorry. Peggy and then I want to be cognizant because Marilyn said that she had to leave at eight um so I've got about four minutes. Yeah. What are we ready to come to a vote? So what are we voting on? On which map to move forward? Oh okay. So that somebody has to make a motion but I didn't want to make a motion until uh it has from Peggy and then they heard everybody saying that they're ready to make. I thought everybody the majority likes map one version five if we tweak it a little or something. We have a magic Melanie joined the meeting so we should get her voice as well. Go ahead. Okay can I speak? So I yes I also heard that the majority of people at least before my joined um we're going to go with version five but we said tweaked but we didn't actually decide on what the tweak would look like I just think that we need to make that clear um so I don't know if I can share my screen but I think you can. Can I? Okay um so let me just uh show you which what I think it should be um so maybe Mike needs to stop sharing. Oh yeah yep and then I usually do this on a different map actually so I'll put the mess here. Should you share it yet? Oh no I haven't okay actually I'm going to share this one because it's just already done um okay so this is um this is not the precinct builder map it's the other map but it shows you what this would look like um so I'm I'm taking of any suggestion of putting these two blocks at the top of precinct um what was in six into back into two this little one here could also go into two but I'm kind of inclined to leave it with its friends here um only because we're splitting a neighborhood right down the middle doesn't feel great and I think that giving some putting a little bit more population into this group allows these folks to to feel more still uh uh cohesiveness than if we put this little block over there um similarly with this block down here we could move it over no problem but then um I think these are railroad tracks yes they go up feels to me like there's more of a yeah and I mean and in this neighborhood in defense of this in this neighborhood Grant Wood Drive is like one of the major roads yeah so you are keeping stuff on the same side of Grant those three little my name has her hand up I have one comment and then I I absolutely have to leave I would say if they're still in the same district I'm not sure that it makes a huge difference because I think people are more apt to identify where I think that the goal is for people to identify with the district more so than their precincts okay so I do have to leave so I'm you want to leave your vote before you go I thought we had voted but I will reiterate that I will version five is my vote okay thank you thank you and um my heck you have a hand up yeah I was just about to say that I'm sorry is my background too loud no it's okay okay okay I was just about to say that I absolutely agree with Marilyn's point about people identifying more with the district rather than the precincts which is why I would also vote for version five okay so do we have a motion to vote and would they modify version five so they want the two maps that are on the table right now is version five tweaks with the changes proposed with Peggy and version four so marlaine um I second that motion thank you I'm I'm rusty marlaine I've lost it voted for map five my head granny uh I would vote for five Tracy I'll vote for five Peggy Shannon five just I've got them uh I survive okay I'm the five so we have map so I guess I would suggest um because I would suggest you know if we are going to show other alternative data um I'm just thinking in terms of our data whatever data we're pulling together with the report that like pre um version four and version five are so similar that I guess I would just drop four I agree you know in terms of showing any kind of data in a chart and maybe we want to show that you know change the world version like map three or or even the one that we had eliminated where we have this map with like the different precinct pairs you know just because some people are going to feel really attached to the current precinct pairs and those could be the three if we do show any data not that we're going to show the other maps but if we do show any data that those would be the three that we would present that's of mine that's a radical we can show I mean I would we should definitely show you I I think we should put them in the presentation just to show that we were really like thinking I mean you're just so innovative so I would put it in the presentation I agree I told no I told I think it's really important for people to see that we were really thinking about voter distribution and but when you do that this is what you get are these long precincts which right and and we could show all the maps in the presentation we just won't put them in the report I think I mean and say that we recommended the one you know we have only a certain amount of time we have to be careful no absolutely I I wouldn't spend a lot of time with didn't they went to after midnight actually that was a little scary at 10 30 I gave up about staying for the vote because I had to work this morning and I so I actually heard them Lynn I mean she when they finally got to that item she said oh she was here earlier tonight and now she's gone and it was literally like 11 30 or something so okay so um next steps okay we have this map we should post it down hall and so we will take we will take down the version five and we will just post I mean sorry we will take down version four and we will post this new version five yes so this is the map moving forward and right now what we have to do is write the report try to get some feedback within this time for tonight we still need to separate how we're gonna write the report what information we want to see on the presentation that can be tweaked next time I think we have time we have one more meeting before we have to submit the report but I would like to spend the time making sure that the report is solid and we have covered on the basis um okay for the report because that's our final product the presentation I agree we have some more time so we could do it in parallel but on the back burner and as we go adding information to the report we could be added some I mean I think they can go back and forth right if they can go back and forth and something so they have too much no I think the timeline for now is that I don't know if we want to have work two working groups that they take a first pass at the report and then another working group takes once the first group decides that maybe by Friday that they have one version of the report another group might take over and just for on permitting though we cannot all work well I get so I have a question procedurally about whether we want the same pair or whoever's working together to like work on the whole report or only to work on like part of the report like is a report splitable into like two sections or should it just be like one pass and then another pass I'm all for the suggestions I just here's a proposal for the report that everybody can participate in it if they all send their comments to one person and we don't then send the comments back so I mean we could do a working group because we could also just say everybody as you did this past week contribute and then one person will you know okay so I have a suggestion afterwards the so is it going to go about with the is it going to go about with the google doc process that we did for the press release I don't think we can do that we can't do that with our report it's got to be offline okay I had a suggestion because sometimes to combine all the comments that might be if everybody has comments and one person is trying to manage all the comments there might be contradictory so I'm going back to the working group because two people work on combining so they go one one person but maybe two people get together and try to make sure that they are no contradictory so there might be five six comments coming in five comments coming in but they don't match so there's going to be having to be in some editorial being made so that's what I'm saying instead of one person taking that to split the work or share the work of if there's some contradictory between the comments that we did from people so for me for the workload and especially because I had offered I do think that some of the data is helpful like to show some of the numbers and so I want to check I will check like the quantitative numbers and also run you know check the numbers with map one version five in terms of okay percentage and with the race numbers like some of the race stuff and so on and and I'll prepare that and then we can insert that into the report or into the presentation as needed great so you're in charge so I will do that piece until like Saturday or something to go on a ship of data gathering that could be inside the report it can be an appendix right okay all part so I'll look at that section of the appendix but I won't work I mean I'm happy to do some narrative too but I'll just I need to I'll just focus on the data now because I feel like as Marilyn was saying the narrative of the report is pretty good this is after this is after the tweaks get made correct like right now yes yes okay and who is and who is making those tweaks so Peggy only changed you just changed like two or three yeah I'll send them to you perfect yes I would like it okay I'd like it documented otherwise I might go rogue so so do we for the report going back to report I cannot work on it on Monday so I'm clarifying this I have I'll write it I mean I'll do whatever needs to be done I just don't so thank you to me it works best if everybody tells me what they want okay Tracy does the stuff with the data I will write something and I will send it out send a draft out before next meeting and if there are um I'll send a draft out as soon as I can people send me comments I will try to I can do that right so yeah yeah you can send me a draft I'll put it in the report folder right okay and then you can then people can send me comments as long as you don't talk to each other about it is that correct I mean at our meeting right we could kind of have a final pass and maybe appoint somebody right like two people to do like super final and submit it by Wednesday so great thank you that's fine so thank you Peggy so everybody do you want to put the deadlines for getting comments on the current version or do you want to yes yes so I want comments on the current version by Thursday noon Thursday I don't know Thursday evening okay Friday morning Friday Thursday evening Thursday evening you get comments on the current version that that's the 10 five I sent today I think okay so yes Thursday evening send me comments on the current version I will write more and incorporate whatever I hear and then try and send out a draft in order for people to read and make comments before our next meeting thank you Peggy now um one thing I wanted to do before we go um we start to close the meeting um we might have to schedule a meeting after the 18 right now we don't have any maintenance schedule after the 18 just in case we get comments from either one or two meetings after the council meeting so the council is meeting on the 18 and then I don't know if Wednesday because I can send a poll but either Tuesday or Wednesday either the 19th or the 20th um to have a meeting I'm going to send a poll to see which day works better but I think we have to have a meeting scheduling because we might get comments maybe they will have comments they're going to have comments but um and then yes I have to figure out how we handle it we have comments and says change everything I would say no I mean I think I think that has to be part of the presentation like how hard it is to change things and stuff yeah and that the seat is happy but yeah okay yeah so um I think we have to have a meeting in the 19 and 20 just in case and we have to put it in the books and if we don't have to meet we cancel it but I think we have to we have to okay I'm gonna send a poll about that okay and I guess one question is what do you see for when it goes to the council do you want to give the whole presentation or what do you think who wants to come we can go on the committee or have a group going to it would be better that it's not just me um if there's somebody else there Peggy when we did the um rank choice voting our chair did the initial presentation though does not have to be the chair but I think one person does the initial presentation but then if there are questions they can be referred to other people so for example if Tracy isn't doing the whole presentation but there's questions about the data that she ran she obviously would be the one so okay okay so I'm gonna ask I don't know I got an invitation but I don't know if somebody else got D you have a comment so my my comment is that um yeah I could see you Tracy and Peggy um being the presenters to also you know such as explain the rationale why this map which will be the logical question uh why did you choose this map and and you know have some rationale to it um I don't think three is overkill you know um trying to figure out between you and Peggy and uh Tracy how to present and dividing it up and into that you know the three you know when when it comes to the data maybe Tracy presenting um Peggy presenting about you know the boundaries or or what have you how it was set up the precincts and the districts um anyway I just think it would be more representative of your group as well Tracy um so I have two comments on that one I'm not sure I'm available that night I'm trying but we'll see um two uh oh so I do do have you I guess we should or somebody should check with the council uh and the council president about how long we expect to be given to talk because I've noticed that there are other items on their agenda they just met last night and they went to after midnight and there were some things that they were planning to discuss at last night's meeting and they didn't get to it and they said oh we'll discuss those on the 18th and they also have other agenda items that are already slated for the 18th so we really do need to hear I mean I do hope they make I do hope that they make it a priority um I just I mean just to be aware like we I mean we should probably ask for at least like half an hour or something I just okay I can tell you all these other items will go so long I can ask for half an hour and ask that is at the beginning because if not last night I was waiting for two and a half hours and then then I give up there was one item the reason I stayed on late is because there was an item that I was actually waiting for for most of the meeting that I had sent a public comment on and they decided at midnight to say oh we're going to push that to next time but um they could have told me but uh yeah okay sorry I just I mean I'm just saying they push a lot of things and so I just I feel like that meeting could already be filling okay so I'm going to send an email and I request that we go at the beginning if possible and fix time okay but then okay thank you so are we we have uh I don't think we have anything else on the time on our meeting but we have one attendee for public comment with a hand race if she wants to speak again you're in the room again thank you yes I've been sitting here waiting good thank you all for your hard work um there's just one question I have is I never could see a really good map of is version five map one version five or is it map five you kept referring to it as map five or version five yeah it is map one version five and in fact I guess one one thing can we just call it like map a or our map or yes I was even thinking and even the other maps you know like if we even want to acknowledge that they exist like the one George Ryan likes we could call that like map B and map B that they were rejected I would advise that because and that it's just too I agree it's too it's too complicated so but the map we but the map of map five that you showed tonight were sort of these little little um they did not look they did not have the same format as your other maps unless you met maybe you showed one that I didn't recognize you you can find it in the packet it is in the packet okay yeah it's map one version five but we but we just made edits to it so we wait and Mike will make the changes tomorrow and they will go in the new packet for next week's meeting okay that's great and I wanted to say one more thing I'm from precinct 10 and you you said that you had not really split any any precincts out of their districts but we have been split out of our district so um yes forget that yeah and that's a big change that's a very big change so I just want to add that um okay it's yeah I think you may be hearing more about that I don't know but okay well thank you you I have great stamina okay thank you I think we're done now all right thank you thank you I move to adjourn so so I'm sorry just before we adjourn I would love to adjourn um so if we're looking at any data we're looking at so I'll make sure and Mike if you just want to send me the mapping like the the blocks with the precincts just to make sure like I have it all right for the map one version five and what we're gonna call it are we gonna call it map A or something sure sure map A fine fine fine fine so um and then when it gets rejected it'll be final final final version one final really final okay maybe map A and then it could be one two three um yeah uh yes Tracy I'm gonna Tracy I'm gonna if we're gonna include any of the other ones it would be that map three right just as a comparison and do we still want to keep the one that Marilyn had like the well I don't know because or maybe we do map one version five with the original precinct pairs just like throwing it out there because people do feel so sentimental or do we just have the two versions I think that's simple two versions Tracy Tracy the moment you offer more things now of course if things are there they say oh but I like this one and I like the other one well we could just everybody George is George Ryan is gonna bring up the map three and other people so we just have the two why don't we just have the map one and map three because I have 10 maps if we want no no I don't want to I mean as Joseph said we don't want to show the other maps but just to kind of show that's how how our map does it better than other maps or whatever now I don't think so because then it keeps the impression that this still a contestant and so we keep that data in the background yes and we don't have it in our slides or anything okay not on the main representation we have my habit of supplementing information that you don't show if somebody asks and that's part of the reasoning if somebody asks why they got discarded why we come up with this one is yes I understand okay okay so Peggy had made a motion yes I second it I second okay uh Tracy Sophia uh I yeah Peggy Shannon hi my head got any hi Joseph Gordon all right you didn't have any eye meeting culture all right thank you thank you all all right bye bye thank you