 All right. You're all set. Go ahead. Thank you. Hello everyone. I think everyone is just five of us right now. But. Hello, welcome to the regular schedule of TSO meeting. This meeting will be conducted via remote meetings. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so. The public will be permitted via Zoom or telephone, no in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. Okay. So I will, as we're waiting before at least another one or two, I think members to show just do a quick roll call to make sure everyone can, oh, here's Shalini. Hi, Shalini. Welcome, Shalini. Hello. Hi there. Okay. So we're just going to do a quick call. Make sure everyone can, well, we know Shalini can be here. So Shalini is, yes, she's present. Okay. I'm here. Anna. Present. Okay. Paul. Present. Okay. And Athena. I'm here. Okay. Wonderful. All right. So, before we go into a public comment, I just wanted to give a quick frame of the hopes and actually necessity for tonight's meeting that we, as a committee, we'll be able to close the meeting with the decisions on what TSO, what we intend to do, what we intend to do if anything intends to act on. By the end of this term and what we intend to kick to put on the carryover memo. With the goal. That by the next meeting, we would have a draft and we would really be able to have a detailed, robust carryover member that, would be able to close the meeting. So that would be the goal of the members. So it's very clear. For the next TSO committee and council. So I just wanted to give that kind of overall framework. And hope that we can all be on board to feel really accomplished that we leave this meeting that way. So I like to, I do not know if we have any. Okay. All right. So we do have. We have a public comment. We have a public comment. We have manager with us. We have both manager and Tracy. Thank you both for being here. We're going to move on to public comment. If we have any public comment. I'm looking to you, Tracy. Please raise your hand. There you are. Okay. And then we can. Welcome. Mandy Joe in as well too. Okay. Am I in the room? You are. Hello. Hello. The floor is yours. Great. Okay. So I just wanted to be here for public comments. I had misunderstood last time. And I was under the impression I would be a panelist for the street lights discussion, but. And so I didn't make a public comment. So I just wanted to, I'll try to be brief because I know you have. I just wanted to say, actually, we do have a long agenda, but also so for last meeting, like, I was understood that you want to have a longer public comment. So you may do so. I'll still, I'll still try to keep it short. So I am the chair of tack as everyone knows. And so we're currently short of member. We did meet to, we were going to meet to discuss the street lights policy last week, but we didn't have a quorum. So we didn't meet. We just didn't have a quorum. That we didn't have a quorum. So in other words, tack doesn't have any formal comments. Except for the comments that we made way back months ago when the policy is released policy was much different. So therefore the comments I'm making tonight. Here are mine alone. And they reflect my background as a transportation safety researcher in the many studies and reports that I read on roadway lighting in nighttime safety. to get the proposed street lights policy to where it is now. And we are very appreciative of their efforts and the meetings that Councilor Hanna-Kee had with the Vogels over the summer and the revisions that they made to the policy to include more consideration of transportation safety at night than was part of the original proposal back in August, 2022. So although one may get a different impression when reading the memo that they had submitted to the last meeting and I didn't see any materials in the packet for this meeting, but I do think that there's more common ground and agreement between the sponsors myself and Eve Vogel than it may appear. And Eve is not here tonight, so I'll try not, I don't really want to speak for her so much, but as she wrote in her memo, you know, both Eve and I do approve of reducing the glare and having more shielded lighting and more lighting that's pedestrian friendly. And we feel like good lighting reduces light pollution and glare and has benefits for transportation safety and not for just for dark skies in the environment. And we agree with the proposal to replace Amherst LED street lights, which based on the memo, I understand have currently memo that the Councilor's son currently have over like our over 5,000 K lighting with lighting of a lower temperature, such as lighting in the 3000 or 4000 range the lower range lighting is better for safety dark skies in the environment. And we also support the creation of a street lights task force to help implement the policy, which including the second part of the policy which wasn't included in this iteration. I also think too that there are some places where even I don't fully agree with the sponsors, but I'm hoping that the Councilor's, I mean, the street lights task force, if the if TSO and the Council agree to create it or can address some of those issues. So just a few other comments is that in the sponsors memo, they said that there were some of our recommendations that they didn't support because they, for example, they thought that they would increase harm to public health, I mean, to human health. And the memo cited the American Medical Associations 2016 guidance that said the general maximum for street lighting should be 3000 K to reduce the harmful health effects of LED lights. But after the AMA came out with that recommendation, a number of experts, including the IES, which I know they like to cite, questioned the AMA stance on this and the IES board issued a statement saying that the AMA's recommendation lacked scientific foundation and does not assure the public of any certainty of health benefit or risk avoidance. I mean, more recently in the last few years, there's been studies from the National Academy of Sciences in the US Department of Energy that found that generally that roadway lighting has no negative health impacts regardless of the CCT because the lighting levels, the dosage that people are exposed to you from roadway lighting is too low and that the main impacts of the artificial lighting is in indoor settings. But we do know that there are health benefits of having good nighttime lighting in terms of safety to reduce fatalities and that better nighttime lighting can encourage more walking and biking and other activities that we wanna promote as a community. I mean, there is some disagreement too with the sponsors and with Eve and I about the maximum lighting levels that should be considered on arterial roadways. I won't get into those details there in my written comments. But I guess I'll just say that in general, I tend to err on the side of caution with safety and recognize that with the population that we have, which is transit dependent, I mean, there are a number of transit dependent people and people who walk and bike at night and in New England, sometimes night is at four or 5 p.m. So, just by necessity, sometimes people are walking or biking on arterial roadways and even if they don't have sidewalks and so on. So in the memo, they had mentioned to that it seemed that Eve and I were basically trying to overlight the town and use street lighting as the only traffic safety measure. I disagree with that. I'm really happy with all the different measures that Amherst has undertaken in recent years to improve traffic safety around town and the measures that are still coming up. And I 100% agree that there should be, that we should be doing other work as well. I mean, they make the point that, with certain types of roads that you also want to look at speed limits and road withs and traffic calming and sidewalks and bike lanes. And I am 100% behind all of that. And so I think that the challenge though is that, I mean, there are roadways that people have been concerned about for a long time and they're not always getting fixed in a timely manner. I mean, some of it is budget, some of it is other priorities. And so in the absence of those and Erin on the side of safety, I tend to think that we should continue to support like more street lighting until we have those other measures in place. And also, as I had mentioned earlier, just that if the town's current lighting is, the LEDs are currently at 5,000K and above. Like even the recommendation that even I make to have 3,000 or 4,000K lighting is an improvement. It's improvement for safety and for dark sky. So thank you. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you. I see we have Dorothy is joining us. Dorothy, can you hear? Could you? Yes. Yes, I can. Thank you. All right. Thank you. You can read. But Dorothy has joined us at 7, 12, yeah. Okay. So with that, we will move into our, into the street lights policy. There are some more people who've joined us in the audience. Might want to re-announce. Oh, okay. Let me see. All right. So before we conclude public comment, is there anyone else who would like to make public comment? Will you please raise your hand? If so, and we will happily bring you into the audience. Okay. I see no hands. So that will conclude our public comment period. And we will move on to the proposed street lights policy. Before I ask any questions, we have both Mandy and Anna with us, the sponsors. And so I'm going to welcome you both back. Thank you. It's been so long since I've been at PSF. Anika, are you looking for us to kick off? Yes. Do you have anything that you would like from our last meeting to, you know to share, to overview before we begin discussion? Mandy, do you have anything specific? Not particularly. No, I think we're looking to continue the conversation from last time and figure out really what the reasonable next steps are. I think that, you know, I think one of the things that we often seek to do is I think sometimes we seek consensus to a fault. And at some point we need to move on things. And so I'm looking forward to some sort of movement on this in some way tonight. Andy, you have a question? Is this nearly a question and I continue to extend my remarks and comment from last time because I think there's some level that I probably didn't state things as fairly as I had wished. Unless I had an opportunity to talk with Mandy since the meeting about some of this. And basically the idea of having a streetlight policy I think is important. We actually have a streetlight policy. So it's a question of improving the streetlight policy that we have, which is really outdated and has a lot of deficiencies to it. And we have heard from various people in the community about the reason for wanting it. The things that I was raising last time that I'm still struggling with were about the amount of detail that should be placed in a policy and what should be left for implementation decisions either by the committee that we're forming or by the staff that are required to implement it. So that I still am a little bit uncertain as to use of the highly technical standards. The other thing that one of the things that I had raised as an additional issue that didn't come out in the last meeting because it was one of those add-on things that I referred to at one point that I had some other issues I've prethought about after talking with Mandy in particular. And that is whether we needed another new committee because I get worried about Amherst committeeing itself to death and continuing to create new committees instead of using the committees that it has more fully and that it seemed like we were yet again creating another committee, which calls for staff to supervise it calls for Paul to take the additional time to find members and appoint to the committee. And I think that we really need to be very cautious about adding committees and supposed to using committees more efficiently or subtracting from them. It is a discussion that we want to have, but I think that Mandy made a very good point that I want to acknowledge. And that is that I had said, what can't it be tack? And the point that Mandy was making and she might expand on this is the street lighting is not just a trade traffic issue, but involves other areas of expertise that are represented by other standing committees. And so pulling it out as a traffic issue for singular focus may not be one that looks at the full range of issues. So I wanted to alert sort of raise that issue again with a little clarity and if there's interest in it to follow through and hear a little bit more from Mandy about the various different interests that she was expressing, then need to be considered as far as the expertise that we would want to bring together. And she was analogizing it to the solar working group when we talked as a committee that was trying to bring together people with a large variety of expertise. So I think we need to just come to an agreement on that and then be able to move forward as Anna said that there comes a time where we have to draw things to a conclusion. So I guess the last thing that I was going to say is that I had raised an issue a long, long time ago about the need for consideration of street lighting for public safety purposes. And that was the whole thing behind a concept that was discussed for back to even before the council called SEPTAD, which is community policing through environmental design. And I think that our expert in the department if I'm not mistaken is Bill Laramie. And I would hope that we insult with Bill and get his input on what needs to be considered as far as those kinds of issues. But regardless, the purpose of SEPTAD is to have safe streets, not safe skies. So I think that they aren't entirely in conflict with each other, but it's just a perspective. So those are the points that I wanted to bring forward and I really was trying to narrow it down so that we could move forward. Thank you, Anna. Amanda, did you want to respond to that or do you want to continue to take questions? I mean, I guess I can. Yeah, so I'll address the committee charge and the task force first. When we brought the street lights policy back to TSO it came with a draft charge for a committee to create a committee that came out of conversations with Tracy and Eve. There have been a lot of comments on that draft charge and yes, as I explained to Andy, I think Anna and I are always also hesitant to create new committees or ask to create new committees for exactly the reasons Andy indicated, but this is not necessarily an item that any one committee has the expertise for or would be appropriate in even though it seems like street lights and transportation go together exactly, but as this committee has sort of watched this policy evolve because of discussions between concerns for health outcomes of people and animals and darkness and all of that and also ensuring safe transportation corridors the expertise and the knowledge when talking about what streets and what they border in terms of what appropriate lighting levels are remain with multiple people or multiple types of expertise. If you're talking about trying to minimize the danger and damage to wildlife in conservation areas the expertise for where those are and what types of animals are there don't necessarily sit with members of TAC as just one example of why a new task force might be best. Lighting design, like lighting design expertise does not necessarily sit with anyone who happens to be on TAC as a transportation issue. And so the request is to, the proposal is to create a new committee for that purpose. That committee, as I said, the charge has had a lot of comments. I wonder if, and I'm just gonna put this out there for TSO, there could be, the charge has not been reviewed by TSO really at all today would sort of be the first time really looking at it yet there has been a lot of comments about whether we even need a street lights policy whether we would propose, whether the council whether the council should adopt a new street lights policy and an updated street lights policy not necessarily do we need one. And so part of my thinking personally is and as a sponsor is find out whether the council will adopt a new policy before spending time on getting the task force charge exactly right recognizing the time that exists and remains in this council just a thought. So we have not proposed any changes based on comments to the task force. Onto some of the other things Andy said and I'll just try to be brief. Location and placement standards we've tried to add a little bit of leeway there. Well, we've tried to write it so that it is leeway and leeway similar to what is currently written in the current policy to which would in my opinion address Andy's concerns about SEPTED and that type of community policing lighting matters. We've been operating under the current placement standards for 20 plus years and SEPTED has been in place and instituted during that time where I believe Andy has said some of those lights may have been added at that time. So mirroring the current placement standards of where lights go and all I think addresses the concern about whether the policy is flexible enough to allow for SEPTED type lighting installations because of those concerns. The biggest change in who makes some decisions is right now under the current policy the select board is the one that makes the final decision on other locations as deemed necessary for additional illumination. We don't have a select board anymore. So this policy is drafted that the town council would make those decisions. Right now there is no body making those decisions if a placement and request for lighting, street lighting falls not under any of this specific location. So I would just say that given that we've been operating with it for 20 years, the current draft provides the same flexibility for location that the policy, the current policy provides for those concerns. Thank you, Andy. Shall and I believe you are next. John. Yes, could you just have Dorothy? I'm just, I was just getting coffee and I was hoping Dorothy can go before me. Thank you. Dorothy, please go ahead. Well, I want to say that the job of a town counselor is very complicated and we have no staff. So I have been very pleased to have the use of Tracy who's a professional in the field of transportation and traffic and safety to give her comments. And I think that from the last word that I saw that there was a lot of agreement except some difference in terms of some lighting at some point. And I also want to remind you that I as a counselor was voted by people who live in residential neighborhoods and are concerned about their safety. For me, and not just as a person, but for as a woman, lighting is extremely important. And number one, to walk safely without falling given the condition of our roads which you know are not in good shape and won't be for quite a while to avoid falls and accidents but mainly it's because dark spaces are frightening and seem to invite criminals. And I can, I speak from experience, okay? So I personally have no opinion or any way to have an opinion of whether we need a task force or not. I think Andy's questions about how much detail are really valuable, but I can't answer those. And I just think that we need to pay a little bit more attention to the fact that this is complicated. We are just people who've been chosen by other people. We are not experts and that we're gonna have to leave a lot of things to our staff. So I would imagine they would have some suggestions as to what goes in. I mean, we don't want to have a bylaw so specific that it has to be amended all the times. And I know you've said that you don't want that either. So the question of what goes in the bylaw, what doesn't I think should be done in consultation with staff. And that we should realize that we can't fix everything but that we are a government elected by people. And one of the things they're really concerned about is safety and that involves residential streets and traffic streets that go to our homes. So I am not an expert. I'm not gonna become an expert. And I don't want to vote on things that only an expert can vote on. So that's what I'm saying. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. Shalini. So going along with Andy and Dorothy said, I have a more specific suggestion which was that, I think what Andy was implying with respect to the policy that if we could separate out which other general guidelines towards creating a darker sky that's healthy and also maintaining safety and then have regulations which are more going into specifics and could also be potentially changing over time as we have newer fixtures or newer type of innovations and lighting. So I just want to offer this as an example like with D2 in the policy where it says nuisance, no street light luminaire shall create a lighting nuisance in the form of glare. Glare is declared to be da, da, da, da. And then going towards the end, it's like this determination will be made by the superintendent of public works or the designate through site visit and visual inspection, full stop. And then maybe we didn't include bug rating for glare which should be higher than GI bug rating values of G3 or above. Those could go into the regulation and that can be decided by the task force. And I really do think we need a task force because of the reason Dorothy just said that counselors are not experts but we have two counselors who have done a lot of work, the sponsors and done the research and so forth and having them in a transparent process through a task force work with people like Tracy, other experts, but also I would like to include in the task force residents, especially those who use biking and walking as their main mode of transportation that I think it's really important to have the lived experiences of people like we, while we need the experts and the sponsors and different committees like TAC wing in, but we also need residents because as we know it's hard to always get access and feedback from public throughout our process but having some residents who have a lived experience be part of the task force would benefit us in that way in providing a more holistic approach to that. So those are the two main points that I was gonna offer. And then the other one is a smaller one which was highlighted in Eve's memo about including IESRB handbook as the reference guide in the thing given that that manual is updated each year and it's very expensive so that not no one has really referred to it because it's so expensive. So is that reference really important or could we include the other, maybe include that but also include the other handbook or something that have been suggested. I just had a comment as well and a question for the sponsors also before handing it over. So I just, I wanted to share like and also to your point Shawnee in terms of involving people with lived experiences who use walking and public transportation for their main form of getting around and navigating town. I'm one of them. So I do appreciate how that was brought in to the report and I also just wanted to share again, I said this a million times but just I really appreciate really seeing that difference in the lighting and how the examples do highlight and light up dark areas. We know that we're starting to get dark earlier. I just last week ran into a resident of Chestnut Court another early woman who was coming back from doing her errands. She had been walking to the senior center and she fell on the sidewalk in broad daylight and she had what seems to be perhaps a broken nose. I mean a big egg on her forehead and cushion, knee banged up. And so this is something that happened in broad daylight just on the sidewalk and the area that she walks on with the street lights and you can see the street but they do not light up the sidewalk. So that same area where she would come back and forth to run errands will be black, pitch black probably by 4, 3, 5 o'clock shortly soon. And that's not as if that's late at night. So but then I had just also a broader question for TSO, I'm not sure if I understand correctly Dorothy it seems like you are saying you're not ready to vote. Shalini, you're suggesting some edits and either your comments have been very clear. So my question again with the time that we have is also to the sponsors are we saying we want to go through this policy? Are this an edit? Are the sponsors open to that? Have you heard things that you feel like would easily work in this policy? So really for the, where do you all stand right now? With the comments that you've heard. Good job. I echo Dorothy, good job. I didn't realize that was. No, you did a good job of summing it up. You did a good job. No, I know, I agree. And Dorothy, I'm sure like I have said where's that and I'm, you know you never know when the mic is on or off sometimes. So that was a nice thing to get caught on a hot mic with. So I mean, I think I can understand it going in either direction, honestly. I think that would, and so I'm curious to hear Mandy's thoughts. I think that at some level it's, at this point I think it's really tough to completely split it out between regulations and kind of a more of a philosophy based statement because I think that what we were trying to do in the purpose of this and what we were trying to do in the introduction was to get at that idea, but we also have found that level of specificity sometimes is necessary, otherwise it's a lot easier for something to get dismissed. And that whether it's a bylaw or regulations it will still need to be updated. And so regularly, and that was part of the thing that we were trying to bring us back in the process of doing with this was, we shouldn't go this long between updates. This is one of those things that it's a technology, technology we know changes so fast and we need to be able to stay on top of it. It will need to be updated no matter what and the council as keeper of the public way will be responsible for doing that in one capacity or another. And I think Dorothy I wanted to just say something that your comment raised for me is, I know that your district much of it is downtown and I think my district is interesting because it spans a lot of different types of all residential neighborhoods, right? Like are all residential areas, whether or not they're neighborhoods. And it's interesting to me to think about the difference in expectation that people have about their lighting based on where they live. I live closer to the outskirts of town because I wanted that, right? Like I wanted to be, I didn't want neighbors right on top of me. I wanted a little bit of space and that was one of the reasons why, okay, the biggest reason was that I found a house that was really cheap. But it was a nice element of that because that's what I wanted. And I think while you are hearing from residents that want their much more densely packed neighborhoods to be lit well, I'm hearing from neighbors who are saying, please don't bring this into a space that I have enjoyed the night sky. I've enjoyed the quiet. I've enjoyed the dark for years and years and that's why I wanna be here. And so I think that what I wanna articulate in that is one that there are a lot of different things that are up for interpretation in terms of what we want, right? But that what we actually need is better lighting. What we actually need is safe lighting. And that's what this policy is trying to do. We are not trying to create more dark corners of the world. We are not trying to illuminate comfortable dark corners of the world. We're trying to create lighting that is, it's again, we are not taking away any of these lights. What we are saying is we need lighting that is doing what it is supposed to do, which is illuminating those sidewalks to Anika's point, which is making it so that it's illuminating the sidewalk, not the entire yard of the house next to it. And so that's the intention. And I know that it's a lot of technical jargon. So I am asking for some trust that the standards that are written in there, the technical ones, are getting at that intention of we are making healthy, safe, good lighting, not that we are trying to eliminate all lighting. That is not the goal here. We're trying to change the lighting that we have to be, to still be safe and to meet those needs of what good lighting can do. So that was my small soapbox for the evening, if that's okay. And Mandy, I'd love to give Mandy a spot because I just talked for like 17 minutes. Mandy, did you- It was not that long. Yeah, Anna said things very well. You know, as a counselor, we voted on very technical things. And I like to point to the water and sewer regulations that were quite technical with technical terms that none of us really understood the difference of or the meaning of until we asked the questions. That's what committee meetings are for, to get an understanding of what's going on and what things mean. And this committee did a very good job with that with sewer and water regs, with things like, I don't even know, something with stop was in the terms, and things that, you know, we didn't even know what they were until we read technical definitions. That's what policies and regulations are. In some sense, this policy proposal is probably a combination of a policy and a regulation or if we wanna equate it to the rental permitting bylaw, a combination of what would in rental permitting look like a bylaw and a regulation. The council's writing the regulations for the bylaw to go with rental permitting right now. You know, could they be split out? Maybe, maybe not. This has always been as keeper of the public way. We structured it as a policy because currently there is a policy and we're looking to replace that policy. Technical definitions and things like that are there to aid in applying the policy and the regulations. If we were to split these up, we would have to decide who has the ability to create the regulations, who has the ability to amend the regulations and is that a public body or is that a department head? You know, who's doing that and all. I will say, giving this specificity that also has flexibility in it that creates outer bounds allows for that implementation. I think someone said, the implementation decisions of to what to choose and how to choose. I think even Eve and Tracy in their memos or public comments said, you know, in the end, some of these statements and decisions being made in the policy are those outer limits without necessarily saying it must be a streetlight on a utility pole and we can't come off of utility poles. You know, it's giving or it must be at 25 feet. We're saying it should be no higher than 25 feet but maybe we can come off utility poles. Maybe we can have three foot high walking lights if that is more fiscally feasible and logical for where the sidewalk is and who's walking on it versus biking or what the use is. But this allows for those implementation decisions to be made while complying with things like color temperature, making sure there is no glare, making sure everything is shielded and making sure it lights the parts of the public way we want lit, you know, without being too prescriptive as to what it does. Yeah, so I guess that that's much of, oh, Shalini asked about the IES. Having a standard and referencing a standard can be extremely important, whether that be an outside document or you put the standards into the policy, it's important to have standards. Otherwise, you get kind of what we have now, which is no standards. And when lighting is happening, in an informal conversation I had, Anna and I had with the superintendent of Public Works, we said, well, how do you determine what lights go where and what their strength and what their brightness and all is? He says, well, I go to my supplier and they tell me what to do. We don't have standards and we don't know what the supplier is using, we don't know what standards the supplier is using or whether the supplier is just, what have they referenced, what haven't they referenced? And so putting standards into a policy and saying, hey, this is what we want you to follow makes perfect sense because then people know why decisions are being made. Dorothy. Well, Mandy has put her finger on why I'm uncomfortable. When we did water and sewer, Anna acted as a facilitator and we had Amy Rusecki there. I never felt that Anna was telling me how to do the water and sewer. I felt that she was organizing a system where we could ask questions of the experts, the town people who do this work. And I'm sure she added some things here and there, but it wasn't that she was making the suggestions that she was facilitating a discussion that we found organized and satisfactory. So that's really what the problem is. I just feel uncomfortable about it. So I really wanna ask Paul because we're coming down and saying, shouldn't some of these things be decided by town staff? And that's our question. So I think when you do ask town staff, the answer is we talk to our supplier. I mean, we do have, the way we handle this, we have an electrician who's up on a bucket truck fixing things and he knows a lot about our current systems. I think town staff, they've reviewed this, the superintendent has at least, and I think they would welcome the sort of direction of what the council wants to achieve. And right now, the council sort of saying a couple of things, I think we need having that direction, it would be helpful to the DPW as they start to implement managed requests for street lights or requests to remove street lights. There's no clarity on that. And I think the council and it's, and we can't make it a one-on-one as requested type thing, but that becomes a little bit chaotic. I think it's okay to have exceptions, but I think it is trying to standardize things is a good thing. I think one of the options is to just, you could, if you're not gonna get into the level of detail is to give that level of detail to the DPW. But I think having some sort of standards is helpful because that is the policy decision by the council. But to be honest, we don't have the level of expertise on staff that we have for water and sewer. We put a lot of energy and expertise into water and sewer. That's Amy's sweet spot. We don't have a light person. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Should I go next? Okay. Yes, go ahead, Sean. Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing that imagine doing this without Amy being there. So similar point, but also hear what Paul is saying that the staff would welcome the research and that Mandi Jo and Amy have brought forward. But also want to then reflect what was suggested in Eve or one of their documents saying that we need actually a lighting consultant because even TAC does not or maybe Tracy and, I mean, they can offer some, but even maybe having a consultant is needed. So that aside, I think that having standards is good, but coming back to that point is, but having standards that no one can access or use, like none of us have seen them or can afford to see them doesn't make that much sense to me, but what about the other handbooks that they said, like the FHWA 2023 lighting handbook? And so it's not like there would be no standards, but could we also include those other standards offered by those other agencies or resource materials? So that's one question. May I answer? Please, Mandi. So it's possible to add them in. I will read to you the description of the lighting handbook provided by the FHWA. So their own description of their handbook. It's to provide recommendations to lighting designers and state, city and town officials concerning the design and application of roadway lighting. It is not intended to be a detailed design guide, but serves primarily as a resource for policy makers in the design and construction community to evaluate potential needs, benefits and applicable references when considering a roadway or street lighting system. The primary goal of this handbook is to improve safety using common roadway lighting applications with a focus on how best to apply roadway lighting in various applications and is therefore educational in nature. So it is designed that that's the quote. It is designed as a handbook, not as standards. The IES is designed based on that handbook as standards. And in fact, the handbook itself identifies the IES RP-8 as well as a couple of other different standards as standards that should be used as the standards and referenced as the standards not necessarily the handbook. So yes, we could put into the policy a reference to this handbook, but it's not intended for the same purpose that the IES RP-8 is intended, which looked at the IES RP-8 is the Illuminating Engineering Society's recommended practice for lighting roadway and parking facilities. So they took, for example, one of the handbooks, as even Tracy said, the FHWA handbook is updated much more frequently than the IES RP-8 is. And they took some of the most recent handbook guidance and all and said, okay, with that guidance, here are some standards to follow. So I guess we could potentially vote. What are we going for? I guess that would be my question to the committee of, are we aiming for standards provided by lighting and roadway designers that are based on the handbook that talks about design and application of roadway lighting, or are we just saying, look at the handbook that's meant to be educational and come up with our own standards based on an educational document. I, you know, there's a difference there. Yeah, no, no, I get you. So I understand what you're saying is that that is a handbook and doesn't offer a standard, but it's more educational. The other link that they provided of FHWA, that one does say it is quality assurance statement that this provides high quality information to serve government industry in a manner that promotes public understanding standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, integrity of its information. So anyway, all this to say that if you think that the others are not providing standards, of course, I mean, we're looking to provide standards and not just random ideas and suggestions, but if we can find anything that is more accessible that our DPW staff or anyone else in the future can use as a guideline for standards, then I would suggest that we, you know, include those along with the one that you have. But if you think that if you've done your research and you find you find that, like, I haven't read this whole document, of course, I just looked at briefly. And so it does seem like it's providing standards and policies. So yeah, I'm trusting you all to find the appropriate standards that are also accessible. Regarding the separation, I don't think it should be too complicated to separate out. I think I learned that from you, Mandi-Joe, what is the difference between a by-law or a policy and regulations? And the regulations do go into more specificity and are easier to change. And I mean, I learned all of that from you. So just so that we can have some consistency across, like even as we go into waste haul a by-law, you know, I can put in, I did a lot of research into what is a pay-as-you-throw model. And I can include the specificity in the by-law, but then again, it begs the question that are we sure that is the best way to do it? And, you know, does it belong in the by-law or should that be go into the regulation while the by-law should just provide the guideline that, hey, we want a rigorous, robust pay-as-you-throw model? So that's kind of the parallel I'm trying to see between that and this. Thank you, Shawnee. Andy. Yeah, so this has been an interesting conversation. Some of the points that I was gonna make, have been raised by others, so I'm not gonna repeat them, but it still seems to me that if we get more specific, like as I was getting around about bug ratings, and councilors not understanding bug ratings and assume that they have to do with the mosquito count, and then you say, a future council can change. Well, if we're not understanding, and we have to assume that at some point, that Mandianana won't be on the council, how do we know we're gonna have a council that is capable of doing the kind of research or interested in doing the kind of research that they have done? And I'm not confident that that is necessarily something we can assume, which is why policies get frozen in time and then forgotten, never amended. And I think if they are enforced to the letter, they, if they're not well thought through at the time of adoption, it can actually be dangerous. And I worry about that happening. The, I still am not clear as to why there isn't a way of saying that we direct the department public works to obtain the best lighting possible that achieves the following goals. Does not provide glare, does not provide more or less lighting than is needed for the purpose in the location for which it is placed that considers cost that assures that it is focused to the street and not upward to the sky, that it serves the purpose for which it's desired that you put those kinds of standards in and then leave it to the department to exercise judgment based upon the standards and what the suppliers say meet those standards as opposed to just saying, well, whatever the suppliers' advice, this is the best choice. We're giving them some standards which I think is really important. So I'm still not convinced that the best approach isn't to trust the department, just give the department some better guidance. And I guess the question that I have for Mandy and Anna is, have you looked at other policies, bylaws, regulations passed in other municipalities, seeing other municipalities that have similar approach taken and detailed taken to what you have and have you consulted those communities as to how long they have those policies if they exist have been in place and whether they have achieved the purpose for which they were intended and so I'll leave with that question. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. So in reverse order, and I know that Mandy will give more detail about this, but yes, the answer to your last question is absolutely yes, we have. We would not pitch something that we didn't do our homework on. And then, and Mandy, I think we'll have better examples pulled up in front of her of the exact cities and towns that we did talk to. But I know we spoke to, I spoke specifically of the folks in PEPREL at MMA last year about this because we were working on this even last year when we were at MMA. And they've seen really great success from these programs. They have not seen an uptick in their accidents. They have not seen, all of the things that we're talking about valuing, they are seeing this function in a positive way. And I'm sure Mandy will give more detail on that. Maybe Mandy will give more detail on that. To the middle point that you made, the reason why we don't just say all of those things in the ways that you framed it is because they are still incredibly subjective, right? Upward to the sky can mean all of these different angles. And so when we are thinking about policy that folks in DPW specifically are gonna have to uphold, we don't want to add stress to their lives by saying, you get to decide on this street what upward to the sky means. And then this person who's, wants their lighting changed outside their house is saying that it's too upward to the sky but it's the same angle as over here. And so what we're doing is we're creating consistency and we're eliminating the ability of privileging some folks over others in terms of how the lighting functions in there where they live or where they are. So we're trying to really eliminate as much of that language that leaves it up for interpretation because as we know, when things are left up for interpretation, often what can lead from that, what can stem from that are inequities and how services are rendered or not, again, not by any way by the actions of DPW intentionally at all but because of one person's opinion versus another leads to that possibility for inequity. And then lastly to your first point and going in reverse order, I think that, yeah, there absolutely will be a time I am sure where our streetlight policies need to be updated and Mandy and I aren't here. And just like with water and sewer, it is the responsibility of the council to serve as the keeper of the public way. Part of that means recognizing and being able to update policies and they should work with town staff like we have on this and others to make sure that folks are on board or to ask questions about the things that they don't know. But I do trust future councils to recognize that that is part of their responsibility. And I don't think that the answer to that unknown is to not pass this. And I worry that if we focus too much on what we don't know, we won't focus on what we need to do now. And so I hope that we'll trust future councils to also do their homework and learn. And I will let Mandy fill in all of the gaps that I have left, I'm sure. Mandy. So Anna touched on some of the things. Andy, you mentioned, well, why can't we just say something like minimizing or meeting the light necessary or desired, I don't know how you worded it for whatever purpose. You talked about something about meeting light levels or illumination levels, well, who's illumination levels? When I stand on the sidewalk and I say, that's way too bright and someone else says, that's not bright enough, who's do you go with? If you haven't set either a maximum or a minimum, you don't have one way or another. If I say, if you just say something about shall not light trespass on someone's property, who determines that and who determines how much light trespasses too much or shall minimize light trespass on a property. Well, I currently have light trespass on my property that I think is excessive. And if I go to DPW and say that and they say, well, it's not excessive, the policy says we should just minimize it and we've minimized it. And I say, no, you haven't. Well, where is my ability to point somewhere to say, no, you haven't followed the policy when there isn't an actual standard for what minimizing light trespass actually means. So that's a little more specific than Anna said. So to your question about where we've consulted, we have talked to clearly the international, the Massachusetts representatives of the International Dark Sky Association. Our initial draft of this that has been modified extensively based on comments from not just themselves and other experts from that are also members of the Dark Sky Association, but Eve and Tracy was based originally on the model bylaw and the model code. The purpose of model codes is for experts to get together and draft something that can be used across the nation as a standard so that people who are not experts can know that they are receiving expert advice on how to draft and what to implement if that's their goal. We used model bylaws for the technology surveillance tech that was passed by this council where I think Andy may have also brought up similar technical issues with that, but the council found it okay to pass even though it was very technical. We used model bylaws for wage and tip theft. Amy probably used model regulations for water and sewer regulations. That's how things are done. People, legislative experts get together and use model, but you wanted towns, peperal, Northampton, Lewiston, Maine, Santa Barbara streetlight design guidelines, Minneapolis streetlight design, lighting policy, flagstaffs, municipal code, Nantuckets bylaw. Those are just a few. Others on my list include Pelham, include the County of Hawaii and their ordinances that I looked at. Morehead, yeah, those are some of the other ones I looked at. Many of the policies are 30 plus pages long. Lewiston, Maine, as sadly has been in the news today is about the size of Amherst. They have about 40,000 residents. So similar size to us. And their policy is nine pages long with specifications on things like this. So we have looked at others. The experts, we've emailed experts and flagstaff. We have had email conversations with the people who drafted peperals who are lighting experts who advised Nantucket and all of that. And so we have gone to experts. We have reviewed other bylaws that are in effect and policies, lighting policies. Call it what you want. Sometimes do it as bylaws. Sometimes do it as standards. Some do it as policies. Some do it as ordinances. It's all over the map as to how they've enacted them depending on what they're doing. But we've reviewed them all and most of them are as technical, if not even more technical than what is sitting in front of you today. Thank you, Manny. Shalini? So I think this is a really helpful conversation with respect to separating out between policy and guidance and regulations. I think what I'm hearing is that we want some of these things in a policy to provide more guidance that the town staff needs, which even Paul has asked for. So could that guidance be provided in a regulation? So it's not like we're just leaving the, like everything that you have here, could you move some of it? I don't know if it's possible. Like in my mind with the waste, I'm just doing the bylaw with a waste hauler. I started out with a more comprehensive bylaw and then I'm trying to now separate out and say, okay, that can go into a regulation. So you're still providing the guidance to the town staff and the regulation, I think, I think that's the struggle many of us are having is that it's so specific without having an active Amy person from the staff to guide us. It's feeling very like, how do we vote on something that we're not getting? So if you removed that and put it into regulations and that could be then looked into more detail by the task force and so forth, then it takes it away from our plate and then we feel more comfortable. We're all behind everything that's being proposed here. So that's, I mean, that's just to say that there will be guidance provided, specific guidance provided to the town staff through the regulations. That's the only difference. The other thing is when consulting, it sounds like the dark sky association provided the model bylaws, but the dark sky was not looking at the safety aspects. It seems like they were focusing on the expertise around dark skies. And so I don't think that on its own would be sufficient. However, you did say you looked at other towns. So that's helpful to know. But just saying that dark sky, because being an academic, I know how focused and narrow we can get. We're experts in a particular field, but it may not include other aspects of safety which requires then people who study safety, road safety and so forth. So I don't know if the dark sky model, at least it sounds like when we started out, it did not include many of the things that Tracy and Eve have brought in a reflection of. So to me, that signals that the dark sky models were not providing a comprehensive look at it. Nosh? May I respond? Yes, please, go ahead. So the dark sky association is an association of people who are looking to, as the name suggests, improve the sky situation in town and minimize lighting pollution. In no way does that suggest they don't consider traffic safety. They do. The main person we've talked to is extremely concerned with transportation safety as a regular biker commuter throughout the year on roads. And in fact, is part of some of the same listservs that Eve and Tracy have gone to for their support when they've talked on the transportation network. There is not one of the misconceptions that's been implied in this conversation is that dark sky lighting is not transportation safe lighting. And so we refute the statement that the dark sky association is not concerned with transportation safety. They are trying to provide guidelines that do both, that say you can have a safe transportation lighting system while also minimizing light pollution. That's their goal is to figure, to recommend and find ways to do both. On the regulation issue, I will just ask this committee to talk about who adopts the regulations and then whose job is it to monitor those regulations? The task force we have proposed would be a limited time body looking to add stuff to this policy and propose changes to this policy and then the task force would disappear similar to the solar bylaw working group who will propose a bylaw and then the working group will be dissolved. So, Shalini, when you talk about can you do a policy and then just move lots of this into regulations? Who are you envisioning adopts the regulations? Is the question I have for the committee. I think the town council would just because there is no other committee but the town council would know that we've had a combination of experts from tax on disability advisory, the sponsors, residents, all of them have looked at this in a deeper way than we have been able to. I know you both have studied this to death but the rest of us are still grappling with some of the issues. I know you've done immense amount of work. I really do appreciate all the changes and everything that's happened along the way but I think it would just be more consistent around how we do a lot of the other policies and it would allow us to vote on this part and then allow the task force to do the rest of it and then it gets taken over by the town council that is in the future is gonna monitor or do what's needed. But Shalini, the town council is the keeper of the public way so they are responsible for updating and passing these regulations and so it doesn't, regardless, it's gonna come to the council and regardless of how many people look at it as evidenced by this committee having questions about this that are the same questions that we've been answering for months now, they're the same questions. I don't know and I'm genuinely curious how to explain it in a different way that these committees have looked at this. We have emails from tax members saying that they feel tax is now overstepping. We have emails from tax members who still have really long comments. We are now in a point where people are commenting as residents which is absolutely they're right and we appreciate that but we have asked these committees multiple, multiple times and we've gotten their feedback. And so I think that future councils can go back to those committees and should when they update regulations as we should when we update any regulation but I don't think, I think regardless any good town council is always going to have questions about this. I'm struggling to see what changes by separating it out because regardless both of them have to come back to the council at any time that they're updated and council will discuss them at length and pass them or not update them. So I think that that's what I'm challenged by is that we have done the things that you're saying we needed to do. We have done them. We have consulted experts. We've consulted committees multiple times. And so I'm stuck on kind of where's the checkbox here because we want to move on this. And yet it doesn't seem to be enough that we have consulted these committees. And so I'm a bit stuck on that. And then in terms of the divvying it up I think, again, I don't think that we are creating any more or less work by splitting this into two for future councils because as keepers of the public way they are going to have to deal with this regardless when it comes back up for updates or review. Thank you. Dorothy, you have been having a good time back. Dorothy, it's on your hand. Well, here are some figures. Pepperol and Amherst are not the same. Amherst has 23.9% poverty compared to Pepperol's 6%. Amherst has 14% people with no car. In other words, we're talking about pedestrians, talking about people walking on the streets and walking at night. So it is very, you know, they're not identical. So we're coming down to the fact we're talking about pedestrian safety, biker safety on the streets and wanting that to be really forefronted. The other issues are very involved too. So I just feel that this is really strange that we're talking about the town council getting into this kind of detail. That does not seem to be appropriate to me. I understand making goals and statements and I understand the research on that. Trying to find a sweet spot between human health, animal health, insect health and pedestrian safety, I think is essential. But, you know, I will still think of people first. Dorothy, I think to that point, then I think that what I'd recommend that you bring forward then is that we figure out how to not make the council the keeper of the public way. Because this is kind of the reality of that part of our responsibility is that it has incredible specificity in it. And so I think that if we don't wanna get into the specificity of some of these regulations, then that's a larger issue that we should talk about about why is the council, the body that is the keeper of the public way and does that make sense? And Andy, I know you're gonna tell me exactly why the council's the keeper of the public way and give me the big whole history lesson on it. I was asking slightly rhetorically. But I think that is the reality of that, right? Is that as keeper of the public way there are responsibilities that go along with that. And I think I also just wanna highlight, we are very clear that Pepperle is not Amherst, which is why Mandy also referenced a number of other towns that are both larger, the same size and smaller. And again, we've have that information and we've discussed it before, I know, but she spoke about those other towns for a reason. We didn't just consult one other town. We looked at many other bylaws. I was gonna say that two things and all the, one is that we have delegated public way of responsibilities to the town manager. And second of all, the town manager did propose an alternative for our consideration, which was to create a commission. So... Parking, right? Parking in streets. No, it was a transportation commission. Oh, yeah, okay. Okay. So, Shalini, just hold on for a second. I just wanted to try to focus a little bit here, make a suggestion. So, speaking actually, this is personally, and as a counselor, so like Dorothy and Dorothy and I are the same district, I'm downtown moving home. There was no other place I would be. So, I definitely appreciate and it resonates with me just the difference of like in town lifestyle, pedestrian foot traffic, we need light, right? And so I also trusted this lighting and seeing it that it would give us more light. I think one of the, just speaking for concerns around this district concerned with lighting are definitely, we need as much lighting as we could get, as long as they're not, we have some areas where they're glaring into people's homes unnecessarily. But, so my question for TSO, for all of the members, are there specific questions or recommendations that there are for the sponsors? Where individually, you would be pleased or not? I think that we know that the research has been done. And if there is something specific that you would be satisfied with this policy are there those questions or are you at a point or you do not see yourself voting for this? So we can start to get to a consensus of what action that we do or do not want to take as a committee. I think that we have heard to the sponsors point, we are asking, this has been a great discussion but some of the questions that we're hearing now have been asked over and over again and we're hearing the same answers. And I don't want to speak for the sponsors but I don't know if you all have a different answer for us. So with that, I'm going to, and I don't know if the sponsors, if you would like to say some last, I want to go to Mandy first and then after Mandy Chaloney, please go right ahead. No, I would like to say, I would ask that TSO remember what the referral was, which was to review and make a recommendation on this policy and to remember one that we have a policy that was adopted in 2001. And so a recommendation potentially is a choice between the current policy that was adopted in 2001 and this one or some recommendation in between potentially, right? But that we're not starting from scratch. It's in consideration of what is currently in place too. But the council, when we proposed this as sponsors, deemed it worthy enough to ask for TSO's time and efforts to make a recommendation on what's been proposed. Thank you Mandy. Chaloney? Well, I think my proposal coming in was to separate out the policy from the regulations. I just want to mention a couple of comments that were made just clarify from what I have heard. We're saying that TAC has already sent but what I have heard is there is a lack of clarity amongst TAC members also to the extent they can, they have the authority to speak. And I'm just saying this with, this is not something to be resolved now but this is something we have not yet clarified and that's coming towards the end. I want to bring back the community engagement process again with respect to how we are working with committees because my understanding is that there isn't, just like the town staff may not feel completely comfortable in speaking up, there is a sense that the TAC does not have complete clarity around how they're supposed to and when and what, what is their role with respect to when a town, town councilors are providing, are asking for guidance, I don't know, when it's already done, like it comes in as a done bylaw and we go to TAC, like they're not clear. So I think that's a discussion we need to TAC and hopefully we'll have it before the end of our term but I see Paul's hand up, so if he wants to say something. Yeah, so I will venture in here. So I think what you're trying to do and because like, where are we on this? And I think like the options are available is to say, the TAC can say, we recommend, we like this, we recommend it and we send it onto the council. Option two is to say we don't recommend it or do nothing in which case the existing as Anna said, the existing policy stays in effect and when we're comfortable with that, it's status quo. And then I think of the third path, I think Mandy Jo talked about was, do you want to send it to a task force to start to dig into it? And say yes, we think it needs to be changed but we're not gonna, I haven't really heard a lot of people dig into like the actual policy in the regulation say, I want to change this sentence or that sentence. It's been more sort of general discussion. I think that's what's frustrating a lot of people and did it go through the right processes and stuff like that. So I think this committee really does need to decide what it wants to do and you work by motions and votes. And so you've put a lot of time into this and the sponsors have put an enormous amount of time into it. So there's some, I think you as fellow counselors, you should respect that work, whether you agree with that or not. But I think that it's just out of respect for everybody's time. It's, you know, it'd be helpful for the, this committee for someone to make a motion so you can vote on it. And maybe there's a fourth option. So I always think in threes, but if somebody has a fourth option, they can throw that in there. I think Paul, the fourth option was to do a little bit of options one and three, which were part of it goes to the task force, part of it goes back to the council. That was, which I guess is the proposal. So just to be clear, I wanted to clarify that that's what the proposal is. It's the proposal still does have the task force in it. So you were saying that, sorry, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess the other one is to say, hey, we sort of like this, throw it to staff and have staff bring something back. I mean, I guess that's another option, whether we can actually add value to it or not, I'm not really sure, but I guess that's another path forward. Can I ask a clarifying point, Paul, because we are by the charter not allowed to assign work to your staff. So if you are giving us permission to do that, I think that that would be, I will speak for myself as a sponsor. I would be fine with that, we would welcome that, but we aren't allowed to do that without your... Sure. I mean, of course, I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise, if that's what you think is the best option. Well, no, I want it like on the record. Yes. A Backelman blessing, which is the official term for that. You got it. I don't want to get in trouble. I guess I'll confer with, I mean, it's weird to like publicly confer with the other sponsor, but I'm happy to make a motion. And so I want to just check in with my other sponsor as to Mandy, if it's okay, Anika, if I can ask Mandy, what options are on all four options? Gosh, and I have to remember what the four were. One was recommend, two was not recommend. I don't think we're super in favor of that one, just as the sponsor. Three was send it all to a task force, and four was send it to town staff to develop and come back, likely to the next council with. Yeah, so I guess one of my thoughts would be, a vote on a recommendation is definitely something we've been searching for, right? That's why we propose this, get it to the council, so the council can vote on something. And send it all to a task force, and I would be hesitant with that, and I'll say that's because our proposal right now is sort of send half of it to a task force, but in the meantime, here are some standards for the lights that are going in now that are not 23 years old. Let's give some guidance now. And so in some sense, I see the send it to a task force is almost recommend this policy, which also includes adopting a task force charge and creating the task force. I don't see those two options as too different. I will say that I would be supportive of directing Paul to direct his staff to come back with a policy on street lights that covers all of this, if that's what the, and then I would support if they want us sending all of our research to staff for that purpose, I don't have a problem with that. And I'd even be willing to talk to staff about where we were and everything, including the, and I guess my question around that one would be, what would staff be doing, both what has been proposed for the task force and what's in this policy or just this policy part? Because from a sponsor point of view, the purpose of the task force was to try and bring in the expertise that Paul has said may not exist at staff level for things like lighting zones. So I think if the committee decides to make a motion to send to staff, it should be clear what staff, potentially what part of this staff would be working on. Paul, did you wanna respond to that? I agree with that. I mean, I think we want specificity in terms of, I mean, I think a vote to send to the staff is saying, we want to update our current policy. It's like saying, yes, we wanna update it. There's a ton of work and we want to see what this looks like from the staff's point of view. If you had to go to implementation almost, I don't think it'll get to the level of detail that this task force would do. So. Dorothea, I'm sorry, Dorothea and then Anna. Dorothea. I was just going to move that we send the recommendation to the town staff to get their input. And it may turn out to be very simple. You know, but that would. Sorry, I think we may need to craft it slightly differently Dorothea. Right. And I would go ahead and ask you to do so. I think Athena has her hand up for that reason. Athena? Hi Athena. Hi. I think what you're trying to do Dorothea is make a recommendation to the town council that they pass this to the town manager. They request the town manager spend some staff time because the committee can't refer something to staff themselves. Thank you. And there is a, this was postponed to November 20. So it would be on the, it's on the agenda for November 20. And I think we could probably work in something about the input from finance and GOL when it comes back from the town manager, because that was part of the referral back in August when this came back to committees. I think I got it if folks want me to give it a shot. Please. Hang on one. I want to make sure I got it. Okay. So, yeah, these motions. Okay. That's like a maze of words. All right. I move town services and outreach committee to recommend to the town council that they direct the town manager to direct his staff to develop an updated street lighting policy based on the policy titled street lights policy version 13 from the town services and outreach committee packet of 10, 12, 2023 with input from GOL and finance committee upon its return to the council. That's good. I don't think you need to direct the town manager to direct his staff. You just ask the town manager for something. Okay. And then because I had to do it. Yeah. I would just take those words out. Okay. I'm going to read it again. I'll just, just because I'm proud of it now at this point, okay. I move for TSO to recommend to the town council that they direct the town manager to develop an updated street lighting policy based on the document titled street lights policy version 13 with input from GOL and finance committees upon its return to the council. Dorothy, did you want to second that? Yes. Okay. All right. So just before we, yes, before we move on to a vote, Shauna, your hand was up. Did you have anything that you want to add before we move on? No, I mean, we can do this discussion on this vote. I'm done. Yeah. But I can speak to this vote. I think what I'm hearing from Paul is that the town staff does not have the level of expertise of sending it to them. I think the sponsors have already solicited information feedback from them and they've gotten, we've gotten what we needed. So I don't think that is the right thing. I think I'm more interested in a task force where the sponsors work with all these different in a transparent way and they have the public forums and get feedback from residents and all of that to finalize. But that's why I was hoping it would be separate that we can vote on something that they've already done as a policy. And then the regulations is something that we send to the task force to finalize and take everything that's here, you're not starting from scratch, but because this has already been done, but then we would have a more robust look at it and get feedback from residents, to the public forums and all of that. And that can be done by the task force. Can I clarify that the policy that we will be voting on includes the creation of the streetlight task force? Thank you. It's in the paper. So it's still there. Okay, Shalini? It's still there. What? It's still there. It wasn't taken away. Okay, all right. Did you have something else, Shalini? No, not for now. Okay. Okay, so I'm going to call it. Dorothy. Yes. Andy. Yes. Shalini. No. Anna. Aye. And I am an aye. So that is the four in favor and one opposed. Thank you. Mandy and Anna for all of your work and TSO for this engaging conversation. I'm not sure if you want to stay with us, Mandy. Thank you for spending this time with us and sweet dreams. Thank you, Mandy. Okay. So without further ado, we are going to move right on. We're going to move to propose amendments to bylaw 3.3 Refuse Collection and Recyclable Materials. I'm sorry, before we start, Dorothy, your hand is up. Yes. Could we please have a five minute break? It's after 8.30. Yes, we will take a five minute break. So we will be back at, I have 8.37. Okay, so that will be 8.42. Thank you. Anna, are you ready? I can't believe you didn't hear me shouting from my kitchen as I was filling up my glass of water that I was here while I was on mute. That's shocking. All right, okay. Welcome back. We are going to move right on. I know we will, I'm not sure between Paul and Shalini. Paul, do you have an update or Shalini, do you want to begin speaking? Hope you want to do it. Paul, please go ahead. Sure, I can give an update. So where we are right now is we have received, as you know, the responses, three responses to the RFI. Guilford is looking at them. What they did not provide in the RFI, we discovered is, we asked for them to send contracts that they had with other communities. Guilford has assigned one of his interns to track down those contracts because we think that's a pretty important function versus what they say on their response. So the question was, will this information be made public? And the answer is yes. I think we have to, you know, we really want, the staff would really like to go through them first and get the report to the TSO committee. Whether he's going to, the sort of raw responses are one thing and then sort of an analysis of the information is a second thing. And I'm not sure where Guilford is on that, quite frankly, in terms of if they are able to get the contracts or not. Susan Waite, and just as another update, has, you know, continues to be engaged with this. So that's a huge source of expertise that we, and doing it more as a town resident than anything else. So we're really appreciative of her commitment to that. So that's where we are on the waist taller stuff. And I thought, oh, and then the last thing I think, you know, Shalini and I had talked about putting together a roadmap, you know, so the, you know, it's not going to get done, this council, you know, whatever it is and just sort of like, what are the steps? Where would, and sort of try to prepare something for the TSO to look at? I think that's what your intention is, Shalini, is it? So those are my updates. I'm sorry, could I just real, Athena, could we bring in Jennifer Taub, Jennifer Taub is in the audience. Thanks, Anita. Go ahead, Shalini. Yeah, so I'll just wait a moment for Jennifer to come. Can she hear us while she's transitioning? Yes. No, okay, yeah, no. Okay, so she's here. Thanks, Jennifer, for being here. Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So I think what we are looking to create is a memo that will offer a pathway for the next TSO, I mean, to send to the town council to vote on for the next TSO to take over and have a clear pathway not to start from ground zero because we've done a lot of work. So ideally what I'm, I'll share what I'm thinking we can include in the memo, but I'm also open to the committee's feedback, what you would like to see included in the memo in addition to what we are proposing. So one, it would include a proposed bylaw. And so we already have a bylaw that we had that had come from Zero Waste Amherst and the town's councilor sponsors had put forward. So taking that a lot and we, you know, spoken with Zero Waste Amherst members and we're working together to recraft what that bylaw is taking that along with some best practices and everything that we will learn. So to come up with a very robust bylaw that the next TSO can look at and then along with that explain, have a document explaining the proposed changes and what information is needed to adopt the recommended changes because there are specifics, like, you know, for example, if we are including compost, what will be included in compostables? And that would depend upon maybe waste haulers feedback, what they're willing to pick and maybe, and the cost. So maybe there'll be a basic pickup, including organic waste, but if you want also yard waste, then that might be additional. So those are the kind of decisions that the next one council TSO can make, but we will provide the basic bylaw, the document report on the proposed changes, what information is needed and analysis of the RFI outcomes and additional research on the contracts for haulers without the towns that Paul was alluding to that we will be getting soon. And then we can provide a history of the waste hauler bylaw and the work with mass DP in the last round and this round, what we've done so far and where we are right now based on what we know. And then the last recommendation was the creation of an ad hoc committee too. So that is something I'm hoping that we can discuss today. And that was actually a suggestion that Athena and talking with Athena that she proposed. And I think I really agree with the idea, but I wanted to run it by you. So the reason why I think sending that bylaw to an ad hoc committee created by the town council would be a good idea is one it would, that ad hoc committee would include members of zero waste amours, town councilors, residents and board of health, maybe one board of health member and apparently the board of health had passed something like that wanted to create something like that. So I think they're on board with it. And I think the advantage of doing that is that we, as a sponsor, I found it was difficult to reach out to different people and then kind of navigate that. But if we had a task force that included all of these different stakeholders to go through what is being proposed, what are the best practices and they would be able to really focus in on the intricacies and they would be a group of people who are really committed to doing this the right way. So those were some of the reasons for suggesting an ad hoc committee. So I'm open to comments. I can see that Andy already has his hand up. Andy? Yeah, I guess to be clear to the rest of the committee, the sponsors have not had an opportunity to talk about that. We had hoped to do so today but it didn't happen with everything else that's going on at the same time. But I think that it's important that we have a transfer memo and the transfer memo be as specific and complete as we possibly can. I would like to incorporate the goals that we had long agreed to as principles that we want understood with as much detail as we can provide. Because I think if we're gonna set a direction for the next group, I think it's important that they understand what that is. The additional question about how to involve an outside group, in this case, zero way, Stammer's, I think we should get their input but I don't think that it is the committee's decision not and I don't think we should give anything to another group. I think it does belong back to the committee and probably should come to the committee through the council sponsors. I've really been pretty consistent on the council sponsors having a specific and larger role. And of course, we just don't know what's gonna happen because we are an election year and all of us are in contested elections. So of the current sponsors, we don't know who's gonna be present after January and who's not. So it is important for that reason to be extremely thorough and thoughtful about what the transfer recommendation is. So tonight's not the night to do it but it is having this discussion. So thank you for bringing it up. Can I just respond to one thing that the ad hoc committee would not be just zero ways. It would have one member from zero ways, Board of Health, the town councilors, a town staff member, a resident, which could actually be me, because I'd be a resident then. So it would be a combination of people that would be able to do a deeper dive. But again, I'm not attached to it, I'm just offering that. So the question really is, do you think the next year so is the body that can do a deep dive into it based on all the information we're providing on and you think because I've known that some of the things that came from last carryover, we're doing it now at the end of the second year and it was, so do you all feel that the TSO is the body or maybe TSO can decide when they get that information to consider creating an ad hoc committee? So that's another option. Yeah, and I would tend to do what you said at the end, which is not create a task force now but leave it to a decision of the next TSO because as I indicated, we don't know. Some of us might be back, some of us might not be back. We didn't know if there were a few of us who are back and we might just be able to pick up where we left off. Task force is just creating another body and it goes back to the point that I've made in the prior discussion that I think we need to be extremely cautious about doing that because we're just creating, we create too many separate committees or whatever you wanna call them. Task force's committees, I think that it just goes for more and more difficult about who supports and coordinates it and it can actually get lost or kind of less efficient. So I'll let Jennifer take over and I'll. Thank you, Andy. Jennifer. I, well, I tend to agree with Andy. I was just wondering who would the task force, the task, it would be a task force of TSO or of the council? Of the council. Or wait, Athena has a comment because she's the one who suggested it. Yeah, my suggestion was that the council create an ad hoc committee like they did for the solar bylaw working group. So it would just be a specific committee to work on developing the changes to the waste-heller bylaw. So then it would come out of TSO or it would be referred back from the task force, just TSO and then to the council. Right now the referral sits in TSO. TSO could recommend the council create an ad hoc committee and that could be TSO's recommendation, but it would be the council that creates the ad hoc committee. But like Andy said, that suggestion could also go in the carryover report. There is, and we'll know I think by the next meeting if there are sponsors who will be on the next council because the carryover works a little bit differently if there are no sponsors of a measure that are gonna be on the next term. I think it disappears. I think the charter actually says that. No, it doesn't die. It's that everything is carried over unless there's not a sponsor left. And so to not carry something over, the council votes not to carry something over. But in this case, if there were no sponsors left then the council would vote to carry it over. Oh, okay. So they can, so they can carry it over even if they don't know. Or they can decide not to. So it's automatic unless there's no sponsors left or unless it's with the negative recommendation and then the council would vote to carry over. Okay, so I still have a question if I could. So if this went, the recommendation was made and it was like the solar bilateral working group, then would the task force report, it would be like the solar bilateral working group reports to the town manager, right? No, they're gonna bring the bylaw to the council. Okay. But I would tend, I think that's, I would think that's not a decision we have, that TSO would necessarily have to make now. I mean, we haven't- No, it also doesn't have to make it now. TSO can include that idea in a carryable memorandum if you feel like that's something that you'd like the next iteration of the committee to consider. But they wouldn't have to, it could just be part of the summary of the committee's conversation about this. Can I ask one more question? Yeah. Yeah. So Paul, do you think we'll have the analysis of the RFI responses before the end of the council session? I would hope so. I mean, I'm making all these promises because it's not me doing the work. So, but it seems like it would, I mean, yes. I mean, I think everybody who's, I would say yes. I mean, it's two, you've still got six weeks or two months. I mean, for sure. Thank you. Can I say a hand go up? Yeah. I just had a kind of a technical question. So in terms of timing, couldn't, so we'll know on November 8th who will be seated in the next council and hypothetically speaking, if such a weird hypothetical, please bear with me. If a counselor joined as a sponsor who would be in the council in the next term, but was not an original sponsor, would that still count towards the carryover? Just to- Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. I think- It doesn't matter when the sponsor signed on as long as they are, right? This is the council passing what exists in council and committees to the next council. And so there wouldn't be a new councillor sponsor before it's passed over. So this council- Not a new councillor, sorry. I apologize for your turn. Okay, all right. Okay, all right. It's going to be a councillor. Oh, oh. Yeah. Yeah, I think we should put a pin in that until the next meeting and we'll know for sure and then we'll figure it out. Yeah, sure, I see. Okay, okay. Because somebody has been elected, they still can't serve, they can't volunteer, they can't do anything until genuinely- I was not suggesting that at all. I meant hypothetically, if I signed on as a- Hypothetically, because I know that I'm going to be on the next council, hypothetically, if I signed on as a sponsor now, regardless of what happens to the other sponsors in the next term, this would be carried over. Will you sign on? Hypothetically, I was just asking for clarity on the process. So we can, do you have a new councillor? Not new, I mean, a current TSA? No, I'm talking about you. Can you sign on? Basically, yeah, I can invite you to sign on as a sponsor right now. It doesn't need to be me. I was just curious, because even after November 8th, we'll know, right? So I was just, I was kind of curious. But you were guaranteed and given your interest in- And I'm not trying to talk to anyone anything at this moment. I just was curious after that point. Okay, so that's good. So we have that option to have a sponsor to carry it forward. So that's good to know, because that was one of the concerns for it, but- Even without a sponsor, the council can just vote to carry it over. You don't need to have another sponsor. So, yeah, I didn't want, just wanted to make sure we're on the same page. If there's not a sponsor that will continue on, the council can still, the council would vote to carry it over rather than not to carry it over like it does with things that are automatic. Okay. So I think again, I just want you all to think about as having been on TSO and the work that we do, and if we, let's say we were the same group going to be in the next council, would you like to do the work of going through each of these by-law recommendations and doing the community engagement and all of that? Or would you prefer that there was a committee of different stakeholders like Board of Health, all of them doing the deeper dive and then coming to TSO with their recommendations? Which option would you prefer? Can you repeat that, Sean? Yeah, sure. So just given your experience on TSO and imagining that if we were the TSO moving forward, the same TSO, and you had an option that we can be the ones who will now take this RFI analysis, take the by-law proposal with the pay-as-you-throw model options, the different composting, the town contract that potentially we would like to move towards, all of the details of that, do you think the TSO has a time and bandwidth to do a deeper dive into all of these pieces? Some of it is going to be by-law but then to really make it work, there is no other body like similar to lighting. There is no other body. Technically it's a Board of Health but they have already said we don't have the bandwidth to go through the regulations. So they will need a support to get the regulations done. So regardless whether the TSO does it or should we have an ad hoc committee or task force to go through and finalize the details that would, most of them would be part of the regulations. Anna, your hand is up, go ahead, I'll chime in after. I mean, well, I have strong thoughts. I think, I mean, I've said this before, I really would like to not be navigating some of those more nitty-gritty decision-making points in committee. And so for me, I would be much more supportive of a group coming up with those decision points, like making those decisions and then bringing them to TSO to say yay or nay or have questions on. But I think for me, I think the best use of the committee's time is not necessarily spent getting into the weeds of crafting something and if I'm understanding your question correctly, right? So that would be my, if you're asking for our thoughts. Yeah, and I think, well, the way we've been doing things and how legislature works is that there's an expectation that they will be a bylaw crafted based on best practices and to the best of, and yet there are some decision points that will need to be made by whoever, like I said, in terms of what exactly will the pay as you throw a model entail. And that requires the feedback of the waste haulers. So, and also our town staff, what is their capacity? And at some point we'll involve the finance committee to look at, do we need additional employees or what is that gonna look like? So that's a, I'm not even going there, but just in terms of the, like there is gonna be a proposed bylaw that is coming forward, but even within that, there are gonna be decision points. And so what I'm hearing you say is that you would rather have a committee look at or a task force look at those decision points and then send their recommendations to TSO. That would be my personal preference is that how committee would do those, those, yeah. I don't agree with that. You're done? It's okay, I would agree as well. I think that this is, this bylaw, this is something that impacts every single resident. And I think that if you go back to our initial conversations, that was, I think this was a concern. It wasn't that anyone wasn't in support of the idea, but it was just looking at the time that we have within TSO, like how do we, how does this happen? Just within the time here and in the event with, and this is why I think was, when you had John in January, asked to be able to lead this effort and work with the sponsors. But even so, you have, you have counselors that are on many committees. So I think that having a group that can really, has dedicated time to really dive in and figure this out, consult with who they need to consult with, making sure those educational components really go through, they're able to keep up with times. I mean, things change so quickly with options. So, I think that that would be the best, in my opinion, the best service for the residents of Amherst the best way that they would deserve. I think more than the time that TSO alone or any committee rather could give along with everything else that comes down the pipeline, especially for TSO. Yeah, thank you, Anika. And that's exactly Anna and Anika, that those were exactly my thoughts about why I was thinking that I had at our committee when I recommend, I'm like, yes, that makes complete sense. And then especially as a sponsor also running and trying to get a hold of different people and making sure that I'm hearing everyone correctly and they're hearing me correctly. They were definitely some gaps in our understanding along the way, but making it a transparent process where there are five or six, five members who are at the table at the same time and then doing the public forums and community engagement and all of that and then sending the final recommendation to the TSO to discuss. Jennifer? Yeah, my question was just, I guess, to Paul, so there would have to be a staff person. Or we'd have to have a contract for someone to do something. We'd have to get money for it. Okay. Just that that's it. Yeah, I mean, it depends what the level of staffing. I mean, of course, taking minutes and all that kind of stuff, that's a pretty high demand for it. And it depends if you're looking for clerical support or if you're looking for someone with subject matter expertise. So I think, again, we will wanna think through what that means for our staff. Right, right. That's sort of the stressor on a lot of our staff right now. And we just lived through this older by-law which took a lot of staff time. And so we sort of learned from that a little bit about what the commitments are. So. Right. What would, what, like, if you were to move forward with an adult committee, Paul, what, and what, what is the limit? Like, we don't want to make it an additional burden but just what is the minimal because we, I believe we do need it stop first and I guess for the minutes, but. Well, no, I mean, the committee can take its own minutes. There's no requirements. Yeah. So we don't really. So it's just a matter, we would have to, I don't think it's worth talking about here, but I think that that's, I mean, I think there's different levels of staffing, if any staffing, you know. Okay. What the expectations are. Okay. I think that's, you know, getting into the weeds a little bit. I think it's helpful to know if the committee wants to make a recommendation to the council on an ad hoc committee before the end of this committee's term, or if the, this TSO wants to include that idea in the carryover memo. I'm sorry. Athena, my, I don't know what's going on. I'm just, you like went out, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, you know, getting into the weeds a little bit. I think it's helpful to know. I'm just, you like went out right in the middle of what you were saying. Could you repeat that? I think the, the. Rather than getting into the weeds of a, an ad hoc charge right now, it would be helpful to know. If the committee wants to act on. An ad hoc committee charge, make a recommendation to council in this term, or if you just want to include that idea in the carryover memo, that would be helpful to the next TSO, because that'll help inform what happens at the next meeting. If, if somebody's going to be drafting a charged, or if somebody's going to be working on that part of the carryover memo. Right. Just doing a time check. It's almost. Yeah. So yeah. So that it is, it's, we have, we're coming after, we're at 10 after. So if we could come to that conclusion, that would be helpful. Sorry. That would be super helpful because for the next committee meeting, TSO meeting, then I can, I mean, the bylaw is already pretty much written. So all of those pieces are going to be in it, but then we'll have this additional. If we are agreeing today, then they could be a draft of the committee charge. That's what we would need. Yes. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But we will need this before because the draft, the draft of the carryover will be for the next meeting. So this won't. Right. So right now we have. So we have all of the information. So anything additional. You know, that, that you would want to be included in that draft. Yeah. So we can look at the draft together and, you know, make sure everyone's, you know, we go, we go from there. Right. So the draft of not the memo you're saying, but the draft of the bylaw, or if there's a charge for the new committee, all of that needs to be sent to you. Is what you're saying. Yeah. Sure. But can we decide today whether we feel ready to. You know, be included in a carryover memo that then the next year. So we'll hold on. Yeah. So I think just, can we hear what from, from you and Jennifer as sponsors? Just what do you think? Which, which are you thinking as sponsors? I'd like to know. Jennifer. I mean, I was thinking that would be a suggestion for the carryover memo, memo, not that it would be formed before that. That would be my thinking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the pros and cons, I think. Doing that as a carryover memo, then it just delays it more that than the next TSO is going to have a whole conversation, a couple of maybe meetings and then decide to vote on it. And so it's just. Like if we are going to include it in a carryover memo, then I feel. That we are agreeing with and we should do it now because then the next. When they start, they'll, they can just get going right away without wasting more meetings and voting and all of that. And it allows the. Us to start. Pretty much. As soon as possible. So I'm feeling good about it. I would say I would include, I would, I would like to act on the adult community charge, but I also want to hear from. And it's also a question of, you know, for clarification. I tend to just first off agree. Just from the past conversation with, with Jennifer's suggestion, because. If we haven't seen, you know, a charge and there's a lot that we haven't seen. So if we were to. Move on something now, right? So. But anyway, you mentioned Andy, did Andy, did you have your hand up? Or Sean, I had just asked for your. I did not have my hand up. And just in the general terms, I would like to see what we're talking about with a. Task force of any kind. Is to what the charge in the company. Who's on, who's proposed to be on it. Before I say whether we could recommend it or not. This is not something that has been subject to. Discussion thought. I'm. A little bit hesitant. To jump into. Decision. Quickly as to. Whether to recommend it or not. But I think what is most important for me is that. We come out of it with a strong recommendation that this needs to continue. And. The reasons why and. A structure that. Sort of guides that to happening. And it seems like we're. Moving in that direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does the town manager goal that wouldn't change. Is that correct? Paul. The council hasn't voted. On the 2024 goals yet. That's in GOL. But. Yep. The council hasn't voted on it yet. It'll come up before the end of the year. Thank you. Yeah. I just, I was just looking at the packet. We haven't seen it. Sorry. It's past nine and it's been a long week. Yeah. We haven't seen the charge for this committee, right? I think. Cause that's, I'm not comfortable voting the committee without seeing the charge. Like type down right now. But I am comfortable putting this on the. On the carryover. I'm just a menu. Memo. And if that I am comfortable with, but I, again, like, I'm not, I don't want to get any work list to approving a charge that we haven't seen. Right. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would make sense if you all would want me to draft. A charge for the next meeting, or if you don't have time for that, then. Then we just included in the carryover memo. And Athena. And they got. Yes, please. Um, it sounds. My suggestion would be that. You take on the work of that part of the carryover memo and bring it to the. Committee at the next meeting. And if you want to draft a charge. To include in the carryover memo as a suggestion and the committee can look at it. And as part of the carryover memo. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Great. Thank you. All right, everyone. We. Oh. Yeah. And whatever something agenda items. Can we also include bring back the community engagement? We had a first conversation and I need edits and changes based on what we talked about. Can we bring that in the coming. Whenever, but in the coming TSO. Things. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we are, we are here. Thank you. Thank you. Great. We do not have appointments this evening. Unless anyone has. An announcement. I think, you know, be fitting for us to close. Many of us, I think most. Of you that I see here, we all attended the celebration of life or. Demetri Shavas. And so, you know, we can close thinking of her. And we are adjourned. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.