 The tape, we are recording. Okay. Good evening. It's March 27th, 2024, and this is special meeting of the town council. In fact, it is a retreat. However, because we are meeting as a body, we have to have this as an open meeting, but we are allowed to do that by not having quorum physically present. This particular meeting is accessible by real-time via Zoom and by phone, and we will continue. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I am calling the March 27th, 2024 special town council to meeting to order at 6.14. I apologize for the delay, but frankly, we decided that some of us wanted to eat some dinner, and we didn't want to do that in front of an audience. I'll call upon each councilor by name. The name they have indicated, they would like to be addressed. At that time, please unmute your mic, and let us know that you are present. Then remember to mute your mic again. Pat Tangelis. Present. Anna Devon Gough. Present. I'm sorry, I was distracting. Councillor Ate is still waiting. He's on his way. Lynn Griezmer is present. Councillor Hannake. Present. Bob Hagner. Present. Councillor Lord. Present. Pam Rooney. Here. Councillor Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. Councillor Walker. Present. Thank you. There's no chat room for this meeting, and if you have technical issues, make sure we know, and if we have to, we'll disrupt the meeting. Or, and discussion may be suspended. Given that this is a special meeting of the town council for the purposes of retreat, there is no public comment period. We do not have any announcements, but I'm going to suggest that we pause briefly while, until Councillor Ate gets here. I'm not sure he will get here that quickly. Okay, then I'm going to ask Athena, who is going to do a opening exercise with us. Thanks for indulging me in doing this. I really like these opening exercises because it gives us a chance to pause and sort of enter the room fully. And I thought it would be appropriate to begin with this poem. I'm going to give you a very bite-size version of a little introduction to what's called council practice. It's an ancient practice that was, I mean, you can think about people gathered around a fire as being the original form of council practice. And it has been practiced in First Nation peoples and continues to be practiced all over the world today, notably in the California prison system in maximum security prisons with men serving life sentences. And those practices included victims, incarcerated people, and those working in the criminal justice system. It's been transformative in schools, nonprofit organizations, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, faith-based communities and jails. So the essence of council practice is to just listen fully to each other, speak from the heart, be spontaneous and let things arise, and be lean of speech and consideration for how much time we have. Considering that we started the meeting a little bit late, I'm going to ask us to move kind of quickly through this exercise, and it's going to be very brief. So this is really just to get us thinking about listening to each other and taking time to fully listen to each other. I think when we have these meetings on Zoom, there's a strong tendency to raise your hand before the person who's speaking has even finished speaking, which indicates to me that you can't listen to someone and think of your own next words at the same time. And so I'd like to take a moment to really slow down and think about what listening means. So giving yourselves a chance to reflect on these questions, I'd like to go around and if you can be lean of speech and listen from the heart to each other, speak from the heart about what is touching you with these words. Speak spontaneously. You don't have to rehearse what you're going to say. And whoever is moved to speak first, please go ahead. You can raise your hand when a thought arises. The person in my life, one of them who is an excellent listener, is Willie Meyer. I met him in prison in prison in Connecticut where I was going to participate in an alternative to violence project. He was one of the inmates and was one of the facilitators. You share personal things in these workshops and I'm trying to be lean. I talked about some of my growing up, which was violent and ways that I felt like it marked me. And Willie heard me. Worldwide Will was his acronym. He heard me at such a deep level that I was stunned during the break when he spoke with me. And eventually I became one of the facilitators because of his willingness to really listen. Thank you for sharing that. Counselor Lord. I have a friend. I'm not going to name her name, but it was a very excellent listener. I know because she looks at me, her phone can go off and her head does not turn. And I tend to pause. I need to think and take time. And a lot of other people jump right in with a response. And she gives me all the time I need. I think those three things really tell me. And then she really hears me even deeper than my words sometimes because I use them to not express a harm or a pain or a struggle. And because she takes the time to really listen, she can excavate those things. Thank you. Anna. I have a friend who recognizes that sometimes my brain goes faster than my mouth. And when I'm speaking or when I need her support, she's able to recognize my intention as well as my direct words. And she can push back in a way that sees that. And that's the thing I deeply value is it's not just a kind of tacit agreement. She demonstrates understanding by sometimes challenging or asking questions that show she was paying attention even when I am not lean. And I have been going around in circles for five minutes. And she pauses or stops me. And I think that for me personally is something that is really helpful for the way that my brain engages in conversation. Thank you. Councillor Walker, I'm recognizing that you're on Zoom. Is there something you'd like to share? You don't have to. Yeah, thank you. I'm thinking of my sister who is an excellent listener. And I feel like a part of it is because she really knows me very well and has known me for obviously my entire life. And so I think a lot of the times when I'm talking to her, she can dissect what I'm saying as it reflects deeper in just the moment, but as it relates to my past and to things that we've experienced before. And something that I really love about talking to my sister is that she usually sort of lets me go first because I will go and go and go. And then she says, what do you want from me? Do you just want me to listen? Do you want me to give you advice? How do you want me to answer this? And I really appreciate that from her because sometimes I don't want someone to say anything. I just want someone to listen. And sometimes I need guidance and that's what I need. But allowing me to choose that is something that I feel that makes me feel really heard. And it also makes me feel really understood because sometimes I go into things without saying what it is that I need or want as an outcome. And so again, it's just like she makes me take the time to think about what it is that I'm really saying and what it is that I really need in that moment. And that's really special to me. Thank you. Paul and Dave, I'm also recognizing that you're in our circle. If there's anything you'd like to share or if anything else, anyone else would like to share something. Lynn. So one of the people that I have always seen as an excellent listeners of former colleague at the University of Massachusetts. And one of the reasons I would know he was listening was because he would ask me to think about something in a different way by asking questions. And I never completely realized the value of that until I was actually doing a case study at the Kennedy school. And it was because somebody dared to ask questions differently that our nation was actually prevented from being affected by swine flu. Thank you, Councillor Ryan. I'm a good friend. We don't do this often, but we will go for long walks on the bike path. And we just talk for about an hour or so, trying not to get run over by cyclists and roller players. Like Anna, I know he's listening because he asked me good questions. He's someone that's very helpful for me. I'm due for another walk on the bike path. Thank you all for sharing. And for taking the time to think about this. I'm going to leave you with a quote by Marshall Rosenberg, who is an American psychologist who helped develop nonviolent communication. And I invite you to bring what you recognize and other people who are good listeners into the meeting tonight. Thank you. Councillor Ate, are you connected yet? No. I would like to take your time, but why don't you just push your mic and say present. And that way we know you're here. Present. Thank you. And if you would like to catch up and have some dinner, just stay off video. Okay. So the next agenda item I would like us to spend 20 minutes max, if possible. It's a agenda item called meeting management. And it's intentionally broad. There are many issues that counselors might want to bring up. But among them, I hope we will focus on the last few meetings of the town council. When we were confronted with a whole series of challenges to our obligation to ensure a peaceable and orderly process. We regularly anticipate that public comment section of the meeting might be challenging. And have part, have put in place clear procedures to ensure that members of the public can express their opinions without interruption or contention. In my view, this has worked reasonably well except for offensive public comments like we had last week or two weeks ago. And some audience responses following comments. That take away from other speakers time. And one of our recent meetings when it came time for counselors to do their work, to do our work, the situation deteriorated and what should have been an orderly discussion of difficult choices facing the council became a confused and chaotic scene. I have already made some adjustments in my own meeting management, but look forward to making more. They include asking people if they need a reading period. If particularly if something has been added into the packet at the last minute. Calling for a recess when people could not hear. And seeking a motion and a vote to adjourn. I've heard many concerns expressed by members of the council and the public about how the council will ensure the scenario is not repeated. It is a matter, it is not a matter of the public's interest versus the council's interest. If the council cannot carry out its responsibilities in a thoughtful and deliberate way, then the public cannot be served. So as you might imagine, Athena and I and others have discussed this at length. And so we want to begin this discussion with some clarification about how the council can utilize and our rules of rules and our procedures during meetings. So Athena is going to start out by addressing peaceable and offensive public comments. So. What the rules don't include is really what to do in each scenario, because there are so many scenarios that can come up and the rules don't say if this happens, then here's what we do. There are motions that you can make and there's rules about what people should and shouldn't do at meetings, but it doesn't say if this happens, then here's what we all do. And so I'd like to clarify some of those ways that you can address these situations according to our rules, according to the council's rules. So in rule six, code of conduct, there are rules about councilor's code of conduct in 6-1-A and audience code of conduct in 6-2-C. And both of them refer to being orderly, behaving in orderly procedure and not being disruptive during the meeting. Both of them say that if the presiding officer finds that the meeting is being disrupted, that a recess can be called. If any councilor finds that the meeting is being disruptive, disruptive, they can request the president call a recess or they can make a motion to recess. I'll get later on, we'll come back to what to do if you can't hear, but I think there were certainly counselors at the meeting earlier this month who couldn't hear what was going on. I know Lynn couldn't hear what I was saying and so on. So there's a motion in the rules 7.1 that says raise a question of privilege. And the rules don't really explain what that means, but a question of privilege is there's so much noise in this room that you can't hear what people are saying. Or you could raise a point of order that you can't hear what's going on or you don't know the motion on the table or you don't know what's happening in the meeting. And counselors can raise that as an issue to help the president manage the meeting at that time. To address some of the offensive public comments, GOL took this up very recently because we had the Supreme Judicial Court reading about the South Borough case. And so there was some conversation at GOL about public comment, but I don't think the committee really got into First Amendment rights as in depth as what we've been dealing with now. And first I'm going to say something that was said originally by Abraham Lincoln referring to the First Amendment. Nothing but the very sternest necessity can ever justify abridging the liberties of the people. A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration than to do ought that could be construed as an interference with or jeopardize in any degree the common rights of its citizens. The courts have been very protective of freedom of speech, which includes hate speech. There are only certain certain categories of speech that the First Amendment does not protect, which include fighting words, true threats, harassment and incitement of imminent lawless action. Calling an individual commenter a derogatory term, particularly if that comment threatens violence or harm against them, can be regulated as hate speech. Violent words directed to an individual or their family can be regulated as hate speech and inciting violence. What can't be regulated is commenting about people as a group. And so it's very difficult to regulate the content of speech without getting into issues of First Amendment rights. Maintaining a neutral, dispassionate tone and expression and treating each speaker equally will discourage attacks at meetings and will help protect the council from legal challenges claiming an infringement of constitutional rights. There was a lower court ruling about regulating the content of speech in terms of matters within the jurisdiction of the body. And because that was a lower court ruling, which allowed a body to restrict comments only to matters within its jurisdiction as a way to manage its meetings, that hasn't been challenged to a higher court. And so my advice to the council president and other chairs has been to restrict merely the time, place and manner. So if someone is not shouting out during a meeting, that can't. And they're just taking their two or three minute public comment period. I've said they get their two or three public comment period. That's how they exercise their freedom of speech. And that's really the most regulation that we can do without being challenged. So one of the other things, and I did mention this earlier, and that is that on a periodic basis, new material is introduced at the meeting. And what we really want to do is encourage people if the person who is presiding doesn't suggest it to just say I need a reading period, or can we recess while I read these materials so that people don't feel that they haven't had time to absorb the materials. Athena. I want to highlight the fact that I'm really touched on what counselors can do. If they can't hear during the meeting or if there's something else that's disrupting the meeting that the chair isn't addressing. And I just want to highlight the fact that it's the 13 of you who are participating in this together. And if you feel that the council president or the chair of the meeting isn't paying attention to the issue that's going on, then the other 12 of you can raise a point of discussion. I think that's a great privilege to address that issue. The next thing Lynn had asked me to speak about was the best way to consider parliamentary questions during a meeting. And in conversations with Lynn and other chairs several times, I've advised that we slow down a little bit. Because at meetings sometimes it can feel like an emergency to make a decision and to figure out what we do next. And sometimes we just need one minute or we just need 45 seconds to think about what to do next or confer with someone to figure out what's going on before we take a next step. So my advice in any question of parliamentary procedure or in terms of following the council's rules or anything else that we're unsure of in a meeting is to take a brief pause and collect ourselves and answer a question before we move on. So I see several hands and we'll move to that in a moment. I recognize that the responsibility for an orderly and thoughtful process ultimately resides not just with the person presiding but with the whole body. Are there other thoughts that you would like to offer to me as the presiding officer of the council or to chairs and to the council at large regarding the conduct of our meetings, please feel free to do so now or in the future. Proposed rule changes should come as proposals to the council. So I'm going to go ahead and call on George Ryan. I see it as two separate issues. The first has to do with obvious hate speech, which is what we got in the last meeting. I'm not going to address it to anything we're doing. It's just hate speech. And I wonder if we're just too afraid of being sued to simply say that that kind of speech is just not acceptable. So that's the first thing. It's just, you know, people get angry. I mean, I looked at the Southboro case. I'm sure many of you did as well. It seemed to be pretty much a no brainer. And the court ruled correctly, but I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that if someone comes and just starts uttering hateful words, that's somehow an exercise of the First Amendment freedom. It seems like content has to be, I mean, there has to be something they're trying to address to what we're doing and what's in front of us as a matter. And clearly that's not what was happening, at least in one or two cases the last time. What if somebody comes and wants to just utter photographic words because they get off on that sort of thing? Is that we just sit there for two minutes while that happens? I realize this is difficult. I guess I struggle with the idea that somehow because the lawyers have said there's nothing we can do. And we just sit back and I wonder if we just don't invite a suit. I mean, what's wrong with being sued? I'd like to see a Southboro-like decision by the Supreme Judicial Court where they quote the words of the person who, right, they did it in the Southboro case and we all read it and we thought, yeah, they're right. The presiding officer was out of bounds. The rules were way too extreme. It made sense. I'd like to see a similar case where someone does what would happen to us two weeks ago and put the words in their decision then. I'd like to see that. If they're willing to do that, fine. Anyway, that's one. The other is what happened to us. In other words, there's the issue of what happens when people come and do and speak hateful ways and how do we deal with that. Then there's the issue of what we do when a meeting is out of control. We actually did recess. It took a while, but we recessed. Then we came back and it was still out of control and we never adjourned. So I need to hear from my colleagues whether they share my sense that we should have adjourned that meeting was out of control. We needed, as North Hampton Council did, we needed to stop, come back, and do it in a manner where we could hear each other and talk to each other. But we didn't. We went ahead. We had votes. We made a decision. So if people think that's okay, they need to say so. I think that it was very much not okay. I was upset by it then. I'm upset by it now. So I need to hear from you because I've spoken enough on it. So I'm going to be lean and stop. But it seems two issues. One is what happens when people do hateful or say hateful things to us? How do we deal with that? The other is what do we do about our own behavior when the meeting is out of control? Pam Rooney. I wanted to react to the comment about, we could always have a reading period if something has been presented to us. That's an alternative, I think. But in a setting where there's a great deal of emotion engaged in the process, seeing something for the very first time in the face of great emotion, I think it puts everyone at an unfair advantage. And I don't think we should ever be discussing something that we had never seen before. There was no hard copy for us to look at. I didn't see it until it was, you know, part of the words were being read or it just was not. It put us in a really bad spot to be reacting to what was being presented. And I think it puts us in a bad light, but it also doesn't allow us to do our best work. I think we could have responded in different manners had we digested what was being presented. Okay. Bob Hagnan. I was going to bring up a separate issue, so I'll just pass for now. Okay. Andy. Yeah, I'm glad I'm following what I'm just said because what I found very difficult about the beginning of that meeting, and I think haunted throughout the meeting was that changes were made to the motion before the motion was offered, but we didn't have the most. So we didn't have the motion that we were going to be dealing with. And that's unusual for us as a council. I can't recall an occasion where a motion has been so significantly changed between what was posted and what we then were discussing, which then put me in an awkward position because I had prepared a red line version showing Solutions Editions to a motion that I expected to be coming forward, which was not the motion that came forward. So I was in a very strange position of trying to explain motions and pieces that were really needed to be looked at as a whole and judged as a whole to understand. So I think that there were just sort of problems that right from the beginning and I think it was a variety of reasons that that happened. Obviously there were some members of the audience who were very engaged in a disruptive way. There were some, there was confusion for the reasons that I have just stated and there was a lack of ability to really focus on a discussion of what was the, we couldn't discuss the motion on the floor as noted because we didn't have the motion on the floor. So there were, it was a whole lot of different problems that came about. And I'm going to include by reflecting on what I heard about how Northampton handled a similar situation over the same issue at its council meeting. And it adjourned the council meeting without making a decision and reconvened after 48 hours notice on Zoom and it was able then to have a more orderly conversation and to actually reach a result that belonged to the council. And I just don't think that we were there. It was not, we didn't end up, we did end up with the motion and it is what was voted and I accept that, but I think that the process really was problematic and I'm not convinced that the motion would have been the same had we been in this room with the technology that's available to us in this room and had been able to proceed in our normal course of business. Councilor Hanneke. A couple of things. Amendments are part of our job. Amendments night of our part of our job to suggest that we should never discuss something that we have never seen before. Potentially means we should never amend anything or we should delay every time there's an amendment on the floor. I can't agree with that. We have had substitute motions presented by Kathy Shane in the past five years that are completely different from what's on the floor to deal with night of to say that what happened on that night was unique is not the case. It's selective memory in my mind of what this council over five years has done at meetings during motions. I think when a motion is potentially a motion to amend or a motion is a potential surprise taking time and a recess to get it on everyone's screen so everyone can read is the right thing to do. Not to take the time and if it's still there then there are methods within our rules that can be used to need more time. We could also potentially take advantage of court dicta in prior cases that has indicated that if opinions are posted to the public first that they can be put in the packet and distributed to all council members. We've never really taken advantage of that. I know Kathy has pushed us to do so with memos she's written and all. Our clerk and our president had every motion that councillors wanted to make before that meeting but did not put it out to all the councillors or many of the motions because they asked for them if they had been put in the packet by a certain deadline all councillors could have had that and court dicta has indicated that that might not have likely does not violate open meeting law and can be done so we can rethink our procedures. As to George's two issues or government body in the First Amendment is broad it's very distasteful to have to sit and listen to that but we need to because if we start regulating some speech where does it stop? Do you not have to listen to what you don't want to hear? Even if it's not hate speech what is deemed hate speech? Different people believe different things on what hate speech is. I think there are other ways that we could consider dealing with it if it continues to happen and if that type of what I believe is non-resident speaking continues to happen there are other ways to deal with that. Removing Zoom public comments not necessarily ideal I'm not arguing for it but it's something to consider that keeps happening. Pre-registration like is required in Cambridge or Somerville serious pre-registration like by 5 p.m. web forms pre-registration is potential you know there are other ways to deal with it and as for your other Councillor Ryan your other question the recess is what we should have done another recess on that night not adjourn to get it under control through taking breaks. George I'm sorry Robert Bob do you want to come back to you or shall I go on Donna? No you can you can move on. Donna? So to Pam and Andy's point and well addressing Pam and Andy's point but I think echoing what Mandy just said what Councillor Hannake just said we have always had the ability to make edits and make amendments. I'm curious about exploring the idea of specifying a limit on edits but I'm really even uncomfortable saying that because then it is limiting our ability to do our jobs. In the instance that's being discussed we did have the the motion in the original text and Andy like you said folks brought amendments I think to say that the sponsors can't bring amendments to their own resolution or proclamation is now privileging non-sponsors of any given proclamation or resolution because to your point Andy I hadn't seen your redlined version how is that any different than the sponsors bringing amendments not allowing them that privilege as a Councillor I think would be inappropriate we can't send them ahead of well Mandy's got some fans a new thing but until tonight my understanding was we can't send them ahead of time without violating open meeting law and distributing them to the Council would have also been a violation we need to have the ability to make amendments and I prefer those amendments to be thought out ahead of time and then able to be discussed as we do George I think the I like the idea of saying we're not scared of a lawsuit we're going to stand up for what's right my concern is that it would be the next Southboro but worse and that's something that we really didn't want to have happen would suddenly become protected I'm not saying that is the reality but I think that's my concern with it is that if we did it it would go all the way through those courts just like Southboro did and then become another thing that we can't regulate in any way and get worse one of the things that I am curious about is if there's a way to work with our state delegation or with other folks to look at open meeting law and what open meeting law says about public comment to see and public access and consider how there might be more protections against hate speech in that way without violating the First Amendment it's a vague thought but open meeting law governs a lot of what we do and does talk about public engagement and public comment so I'm curious about that as an avenue as well I'm done thank you Jennifer yeah I was the only Councillor that was remote so I wasn't in the room so I feel like I did have a different experience than everyone else I mean I was sort of more looking in from the outside seemed to me the we the where things went off the rails is that the well there was a reaction from the audience and I think from the sponsor that there was resistance to the council making any amendments so that's so just the fact that amendments were made and that then ultimately they were voted on that that wasn't again that that that's when things I think the audience became angry and when so I had a resident at a district meeting raised the question and then he wrote again today because I guess he had gone to look at the rules of procedure and the first recess what did the sponsors ask for the recess and when they came back from the recess indicating that the council sponsors if the amendments I guess the amendments have been voted at that point that they no longer wanted to be sponsors and is it true that rules of procedure 8.8 say that if the sponsors are going to take their names off that has to be on the agenda so I just wonder if there's different points at which we you know because that we were on I guess new territory that we our rules of procedure might have directed us to go in different directions but we you know didn't go back and look at them Athena do you want to speak to that council rules 8.8 state at the request of any sponsor or sponsors of a measure a measure shall be withdrawn from consideration and the council and and all council committees to which the matter has been referred provided the withdrawal is on the agenda of a council meeting no vote shall be required however if at that meeting sponsors of the measure do not unanimously agree to withdraw matter the matter shall not be withdrawn at that time upon request any councillor shall have their individual sponsorship removed from consideration and the council will have a specific situation in my opinion and if the president asked me at that time I would have said if the if a councillor calls a point of order and states that the motion that is being considered and or is being voted on is out of order then the president could have ruled whether the motion to adopt the resolution was in or out of order or to amend the resolution was voted to overturn the president's ruling does that make sense so it is a question that's not clearly defined in the rules so the council gets to decide nobody raised a point of order at that time that the motion that was on the floor was out of order it was stated that it was out of order that one councillor thought that it was out of order but if a councillor raised that as a point of order the motion that's being voted on is not in order because there's not a sponsor then the president would have the opportunity to rule on that point of order and if there were a councillor who disagreed with that ruling then a vote could be taken by the council on whether or not the motion on the floor was in order I know that I'm repeating a lot of the same words again and again and so that can sound like a spiral and I apologize for that but I'm happy to answer questions if that's not clear Kathy I also want to just point out that we are at almost 30 minutes now I'll be really quick. Mandy brought up an instance who knows whether it's our first or our second year where I had literally a substitute amendment and since I wasn't allowed for the whole thing a whole different list it threw one out and I wasn't allowed to give it to any council and went in the council before I came but we it was substantive enough one councillor and everyone agreed we needed 10 minutes to read it and so it showed up on the screen everyone had it in their hands so I think and I'm talking about not a motion but actually a substantive piece so as opposed to the motion so in this case if we had had that time people could have cross matched things that they had scratched up so I think in general if there's a substantive change in a document that we had received in our material that we should just have a five minute ten minute if it's two paragraphs it doesn't have to be that long but people need a chance to read it so it's just that would have made enough of a difference so people wouldn't have had to say which words change I like that change we never had that time and then finally we had it on the screen so the one time I did do that we took a pause I also think it's very difficult and I'm talking looking forward if we've got a substantive this is I finally had the lawyer say if I have something substantive and long to say as long as I speak to it for two minutes or three minutes then I can submit a written document which really works when you're not voting on it that night but I had something on a housing policy and there was never any time to say everything I need to say in two to three minutes so our attorney said if there's something substantive and you summarize it you can put your document in the record so this wouldn't apply to what we were dealing with a resolution but we do we did that okay not violating over meeting law by showing we think something needs significant changes so I just wanted to talk back because it was it promoted a good discussion I completely lost that way back when but it was a good discussion I'll try to be lean I want to an accuracy no I do I'm getting help old ladies need help we did not say we would not accept amendments we also accepted Jennifer's amendment passed by the group it was not taken out as far as I know what the sponsors and I'm speaking now for Mandy and Alicia but they can speak for themselves as well we could not accept the amendments that Andy was putting forward that included a reference to Hamas when we were talking not about Hamas we were talking about the Palestinian people and what was happening to them since Hamas's dreadful horrible attack when I tried to get Palestinian people simply mentioned in the October 16th resolution I was voted down I accepted that didn't like it but I accepted it it was not possible for me as a sponsor to accept Andy's amendments that is why I withdrew my name not because I wasn't willing to accept any amendments and that's people need to remember that they need to remember things a little bit more accurately sometimes myself included I'm going to go to Bob and then to Councillor Walker yeah I just wanted to suggest that if we're faced with a situation like we were faced with we just adjourn the meeting and reconvene for 48 hours and reconvene on Zoom so we can have a discussion the way that we should the one question I wanted to pose to Athena is whether it's possible to cut off someone after two minutes in other words we give them two minutes to talk if they're going beyond two minutes can we actually cut them off or do we have to ask them to stop so in the memo that I wrote to the council the issue first came up at a council committee meeting my advice was that a chair shouldn't do something on a Zoom meeting that you wouldn't do in person and if you wouldn't forcibly silence a person in an in-person meeting then we shouldn't mute a person on Zoom so my advice has been for the chair or the president to ask that person to wrap up their comments and not to use the mute button as a way to silence people did that answer your question I think it's important for everyone who's in the room it's easy with technology on Zoom but that would be unfair to people on Zoom so most people are pretty good about it but there are some who just keep rambling on and it just extends the meeting with very little new information for us to deal with that's all and the other thing that I would caution as a chair would be that in a few minutes you just need to be consistent with everyone who speaks and make sure that you're not letting one person go over and not everybody else Councillor Walker you've not spoken before thank you I wasn't going to raise my hand because I was essentially going to say everything that Mandy Jo already said but I just thought that I might also answer George's question and how he would he wanted to know how colleagues might have wanted that situation to be addressed so I would agree that we should have or could have taken a recess and I think that at our last council meeting there was an instance where we couldn't be heard or we couldn't hear each other because of the audience and we took a recess I think that was extended and extended until we could hear each other and we got back to deliberation and I think that was a similar approach that we could have taken at that meeting and I would hope that that's what we would do because I would prefer unless we're taking really long recesses and not getting anywhere then I think adjourning might be appropriate but I don't think we should adjourning I think we should start with taking recesses there's three councillors that have spoken once I'd like to go ahead and have an opportunity for you to speak again to the original purpose of this retreat Jennifer I just wanted to clarify I think when I put in my friendly amendment it had already been stated that that I've heard that the sponsors that we could make amendments because I think Mandy addressed it this was before Andy had made his amendments there was the whole issue of whether would be entertained and that came up before I had put out my amendment or Andy had I felt like that we were sort of a little off our game from that moment because it was whenever something comes before us we discuss it, we make amendments but it was the discussion started with some caution about not amending the resolution anybody had made one and I thought that kind of set all of us a bit off our game Councillor Ate I'm going to go to you and then on to the other councillors that have spoken so speaking about the meeting that we had or the votes for the resolution I think and this discussion we are having this evening it's important to realize that we have a duty to ourselves as members of the council and also a duty to ourselves as a council speaking to and with the public and I think something that we should be emphasizing I think we've done that tonight is stressed the importance of discussion and deliberation I think what was lost that night was that we were held by the desire to have a decision that night and that limited our ability to discuss and so I'll just use this opportunity to speak to the public the votes that are made and decisions that we can arrive at but we can use the proper channels and avenues to get to those decisions and that usually is going to involve speaking just like we're doing and having amendments friendly or unfriendly as the case may be they will be further opportunities where disruptive behavior will occur but if we can remember that within this space we have an opportunity to again speak among ourselves and that's not just arriving at the right result but using the right process to get to that result I think that will save us a lot of the trouble that we had from then up to the present moment thank you Andy I'm just going to keep it to one very brief observation and suggestion to think about for the future but not for discussion tonight and that is when we deal with complex issues like bylaws and policies it goes through a committee and the committee has a fairly complete discussion and really works through what amendments it might think appropriate so what may be initially suggested within the referral to a committee by the council or initiated within the committee can be changed and probably significantly changed we have an odd thing that we've done with resolutions and that is that it only goes to GOL GOL has a limited charge of saying is it clear consistent and questionable which are not clearly defined terms but I think it is understood to not go to the substance of what is there and so the GOL does not look at and consider whether there are significant changes and I this was the first time resolution maybe the second because I think Pat actually raised another one that was fair point to raise but is there a time when a resolution really ought to not come directly to the council as a whole but should start the council committee and let the committee have some of that discussion and make sure that it's fully understood that whatever is getting to the council is going to be a council action not an action that is recommended by an outside group that initially sponsored or advocated for the resolution the bylaw of the policy so I just encourage us in the future time to think about that question as to whether we ought to be having a committee process that is more rigorous than the one that currently exists is it clear consistent and actionable George final comment as you can see I'm not a first amendment absolutist just because I think it's a fallacy to think that you can't draw a line means you can't draw a line I'm going to raise this with GOL and if anyone else is interested in the idea of trying to draw a line be happy to hear from you but I was intrigued by Mandy's suggestion of zoom does seem to be a particular challenge and perhaps we could instruct GOL if the council so wishes or jail can stick it up on its own should we look at some of the stricter regulations that some communities have related to zoom thank you we're going to move on if anybody needs to take a break please just get up anytime you want um so the sheets that I sent out to you initially um actually developed with input from various people and frankly we got distracted and didn't get as much important what they pointed out for me is this was absolutely not a perfect system but more importantly it pointed out to me that our goals are not perfect goals so um what I would like to do is explain the sheet I sent you not because it's perfect but just so you understand it and then we're going to actually go on and both the town manager and the assistant town manager with working with staff have various places where they would like to comment on different goals and we're going to make sure we have that opportunity at the end of the evening I would like us to make sure we agree on some next steps um so that we go forward so the sheet that Athena passed out to you at the beginning of the meeting it's different compared to what was sent to you but frankly it's different um it's different because I had to make a correction because of a snafu and receipt of material um the the initial the actual numbers that appear are what were on individual counselors um that you were earlier today I just wanted to make sure it's the email where you said take 2 I'm sorry the email that was titled second take take 2 of the writing thank you yes that is the one thank you um so basically um and I also really want to stress this is an initial take this is not final um I know I have things I would change so the actual numbers are what people put in the matrix and those were rankings within goals okay and then with a desire to say well if you look across the subgoals are there subgoals that you would rank in any order I think this is the most important subgoal okay okay and if you said it was the most important subgoal and it was one of your top 5 then you see a double or you see an x in the box if it was one of your second 5 you see just one slanted thing in your box um this is not you know um this is not what I would call anyway and then at some point today somebody suggested that I then take an average and I did and basically it didn't change anything the yellows are based on the numbers only they are not based on any of the slashes and the yellows are except for one place that I made a mistake are for anything that was an average of 2.5 or lower and or 30 and there's one I made a mistake on and that is basically within goals and allocals having said that when we get to certain pages you'll see that the x's tend to where the highest important rank was and sometimes it's not and again I just want to stress that when we're done with this whole conversation the goal is to have counselors re-rank based on some guidelines we all agree on so with that we're going to start with the climate action goal and it has 5 subparts goals and I think unless the counselor would like to ask okay let's ask questions Pam thank you I never got the impression that I was supposed to prioritize the the 5, 6 primary goals nobody ever said Pam is climate more important than community health how would we ever how would we ever I misled you okay it was to prioritize the sub-goals within not the goals the sub-goals so you might have said I believe that using a climate lens is the most important sub-goal not that climate is the most important goal Anna so Lynn heard my rant about this earlier today but I will repeat it for the rest of you lucky ducks who didn't get to hear it my main takeaway from this exercise and I just wanted to say it on the outset is that GOL is currently discussing the town manager evaluation process and it is very very abundantly clear to me that we also need to examine our expectations around setting goals as I looked at these and as I went through and prioritized I would prioritize things that were maybe broad because I felt they included some of the more specific goals for example if we're looking at the front page taking action on portions of the climate action adaptation and resilience plan that includes supporting development of climate action bylaws and so I just wanted to note that this is so imperfect and it's our own doing because we've created goals that are all over the place in terms of their specificity in terms of their demand all of it so this is a challenging exercise and I'm hoping that it also will lead to some clarity in the process of creating goals going forward and GOL has that on our list. Absolutely. Councillor Hanakie. One question one comment the question is you alluded to maybe the manager having surveyed staff about their potential priorities or thoughts on all of these goals is there a document that we will get that as those thoughts so that councillors can see them or is it just going to be all reported orally and the second one was when I was doing these rankings one of the things I found was it was hard for me to rank things that fell to only sort of within town staff purview looking at climate action something like complete the JPE because the council no longer has anything to do with that versus something that would eventually come back to the council and how do I rank those too because I want us to be able to act on some stuff that are within these goals but if I don't rank those high we'll never be able to act on them we're doing them themselves in the last discussion seems to indicate maybe there's some disagreement as to whether councillors should propose stuff but yet I don't want the other things that don't ever come back to us lost so that was also a hard thing to score within the rankings yeah Jennifer? I feel like some of the rankings don't really necessarily reflect where I have a five it doesn't mean it's not a priority so for example activities that were already in process like supporting the elementary school building committee and the Jones library building committee I didn't even rank those because those are happening clearly the elementary school is going to happen and even with Cress like we just hired a new director Cress is happening but like the resident oversight board they're not because I think they're higher than Cress but just I want to see those happen in the others yeah each of you is getting many nodding heads because we all confronted the same problems Kathy? so if not that anyone wants to stare at the grid to see how many blanks there are but you'll see that Kathy has lots of blanks because I decided I would only rank one or two within the categories unless I thought they were all important and then I found missing things that were in our financial category and were in our things so for example bringing in more money from the colleges and universities trying to so I had a few that I added when I did my overall ranking that weren't even on the list so a general comment on this exercise is I think it would be good to do this before we cement next year's goals because we could winnow down things that either no one would think that the elementary school building is low on my priority list but it's moving right along so I didn't give it a rank I didn't feel like I needed to draw to anyone's attention so being really careful about what we do because when you count them up otherwise they're an amazing number and then my last comment is although I sometimes gave it a high the general use a climate lens whenever making budget da da da I like those but they're hard they're not particularly actionable you know so that is a statement of what we want to do shouldn't be you know so now the only exception I make on that one is what I've seen the most recent example at JCPC is this talking about replacing some tiles in town hall with a different kind of tile that doesn't require toxic substances to be cleaned was brought up as a climate action and sustainability so someone was thinking in terms of the substances we use not just the materials so in that staff is doing that but some are not as actionable as you know specific so I think this exercise is a good one for us to do to get to a narrower group of where we want to put emphasis on in the coming year. Thank you Andy. Most of what I was going to say has already been said so I'm not going to repeat it but I did have a question and that was we had two documents we were asked to fill out the other one was a word document and I don't see how that was reflected in what we had feedback on so I was curious to know it's reflected in the page so for example Andy in climate action one of your top five was goal one sub goal three okay that was one of your top five so it got an X okay another one of yours was in your second five and it got a slant one slant and that was using climate lens it was just a way of trying to put everything on one sheet which is you know I'm literally I awake at night trying to figure out how to depict this back to people so all of your feedback except the written feedback is here okay and whether it's useful or not I think the most useful thing at this point is in fact to hear from Paul and David and Athena although I Athena were you involved in these conversations I think she's been too busy doing the budget but Paul and David why don't we start with the climate action goal and proceed thank you so we did go through all these goals we talked about it with our staff and what we I think we came to some of the similar conclusions that you did some of them were doing them they're ongoing they're they're not going to we didn't give them a priority because you know looking using a climate lens to make decisions we're doing that and I think what we're hoping is that you'll see that those kinds of actions reflected when we develop our budget and we identify those things in the budget process the goal from my perspective is that excuse me council sets goals the town manager receives those goals incorporates them into the staffing plans but also in the budget you see the budget you see are my goals reflected in the budget and then those come out in the budget and then you evaluate me as to whether those goals have been delivered on so how would you like us to move forward what we and what we've done is we've sort of put a time frame in our just a general time frame and where we would prioritize them could get done because we've learned a lot over the last few couple of years about how long things take and we realize things take a long time and it's a legislative especially the legislation and then we're trying and these are rough things and I think we this is an iterative process we really look forward to a conversation if the council is saying whoa this really is something we want you to prioritize we would then relocate some other work we want to emphasize that our staff have a lot of duties to do in addition to the goals that the council sets so the councils you know we are building buildings we are reviewing permits for new developments for new buildings there's a lot of work that's being done on a regular basis and we also recognize the importance of the council's goals to achieve things going forward but I think that we've come to realize is that the council setting broad goals is crucially important for instance when you set a goal since climate action is the first one as a climate action goal we have internalized that as Kathy has mentioned that people are thinking about that every time we look at products or purchase things or come up with ideas on where we want to go to you know where we are seeking grants and things like that but so I think that setting those big goals and then also saying we wouldn't this council wants to accomplish these things this year or I would actually think you should go to a two-year goal setting timeframe but that's up to you in terms of how you want to set goals so oh could I yeah is it possible for me to just jump in yes I think that was an excellent summary I think when Paul and I were thinking about this we were really wanted to emphasize that this should be a conversation we want to hear from you obviously some of the rankings help but there's a lot here there's in Paul's goals and it can be a little overwhelming I think as we look at what can be accomplished between now and the end of this calendar year and I agree it should be ultimately a two-year process but I also wanted to you know part of my job is to balance workload and workload I'm only speaking really for conservation and development tonight but my area our functional area touches most other departments in town so we work closely with the health department the recreation department the DPW and the list goes on and it really is that balancing act of as Paul mentioned kind of at least in C and D the regulatory responsibilities that the planning board zoning board DAAC conservation commission all of those boards and committees have well at the same time working on goals of buildings and parks and the list goes on you know I thought about Fort River school in Jones library and you know we are well on our way on both of those projects but to some degree the work of as an example inspection services is just beginning they worked very closely with the building committee the designers the OPM on getting let's take Fort River school the wonderful event we had this week but now inspection services takes over from this point forward raking ground moving dirt setting foundations all of that work falls to Rob Moran and his team at the same time we're hoping to launch rental registration which has been in process for 18 months so that's the kind of balancing act I think that's a really real example for me and the staff that does such wonderful work in CND is yes we have a wonderful new school in process but for inspection services their sleeves are rolling up and wow 24 25 and beyond is going to be a lot of work while at the same time we hope to launch if the council moves forward on rental registration so just that's a really tangible example for us so thank you looking forward to the conversation tonight and beyond this is just the start I think so we're going to start with climate and just go down those initial thank you so yes and what was really informative I think it's actually yours your exercise that you've done I haven't really memorized all the priorities but I think it was really useful to sort of help us frame this a little bit so when I call something ongoing I just sort of I'm not going to really address it it's ongoing like the first one is use climate lens I think it's ongoing it's what we're doing the second one is the joint powers entity I think we have reported that that's on hold and that's a low priority very low priority because they're taking a different tack with the CCA and that that is moving forward but this particular goal is not one that will be a priority for the town staff the third one is you have to and I was little confused about how you ranked them because there was the waste hauler bylaw in the solar bylaw and I'm not sure how am I actually very curious how the counselors you know if you prioritize this did you mean both did you be one or the other because this is important to us and I think that that's this is probably a crucial one for you to discuss in terms of when we've looked at this for waste hauler we think that that's about a 12 month process to get something up and ready proposal to the council and I think what we would look to is get something if there's going to be a new waste hauler bylaw we'd be optimistic about getting something prepared for the budget discussion in FY26 for the solar it's already been in process for 12 months Dave 18 months but I think there's a long knowing what we've gone through with rental registration this is just now coming to the council you're talking about a fairly substantial conversation about what this is going to look like so I think we would say if the council is ready to initiate on this I think the staff are prepared I don't think the council the staff are necessarily prioritizing this as something that's urgent and Dave can talk to this a little bit more if you'd like I can jump in on that we had a very good conversation I think last night at CRC a couple hour conversation on this I think Paul's category the way he characterized it is staff did not see this as urgent but at the same time staff and the working group have invested 18 months in moving this forward I think it was a very fruitful conversation last night about trying to tease apart what is bylaw what is regulation and I think that's what CRC identified that was a big takeaway for all of us I think last night from CRC and I think once that is done we'll have a better idea of how long might this take to move those parts through the CRC and hopefully make a recommendation to the council so I think there's a commitment from staff I know there's a commitment at some level from the council I think what I heard last night from council members of representatives on the CRC was you wanted to have a or it might be helpful to have a conversation this evening about how high a priority that is so I would defer to all of you as to how high a priority is that and then staff can take that back I think last night I also talked about piecing ourselves on that so I would defer to the chair of CRC or other members of CRC to fill us in on where you think that is in priorities I'll address the last two in this section so the ensure the town can fully utilize state and federal funds targeted at sustainability initiatives we see that as something that we're doing on a regular basis but if we're misunderstanding that we'd like to hear from the council you know the councillors who really felt this was important we just feel like that's a yes we're always doing that we're looking for funds but if there's something that someone says no here's what I really had in mind for you to do we'd like to know that and then the last one is to take action on the portions of the CARP that have been prioritized and I think that that's again something that's on what that says to me is that we could give you an update on all where we are on the CARP and I think that might be an important conversation or to report to you on what we have prioritized what's working on that okay so let's pause here for a moment is there anybody who wants to discuss one or two Kathy one or two sub goals one or two okay then let's go on to three where I also I want to just split this in half Andy just in general terms the way that I was ranking the highest may have not been what everybody else was doing but I was looking at it from what is the highest priority for the council recognizing that staff are working on these goals but they have may have different sense of what are the highest priorities and they're working on things where they have the opportunity to get success I'm looking for what is involved for the council and develop the bylaws therefore ranked extremely high because their bylaws that have been discussed they've been a lot of time has been spent on them and bringing those bylaws to conclusion becomes therefore in my mind a high priority for the council so I'm speaking in my role as a counselor thank you first of all I'm going to speak to the solar bylaw and I understand there was quite a conversation at CRC last night I look forward to hearing more about that although I've heard from some people today to me the issue of the solar bylaw goes back to its origination and the fact that we have had a group work on it whether it's regulation or not I also reflect on the fact that the chair of the ZBA suggested we needed this but more importantly we need something where we can stand up to the state and say we control our own land that does not mean we don't support solar it just means I personally and many people I know in Amherst do not want the state coming in and saying thou shalt do this to your land it's our land it's not we have discussed this with our legislators and it is an ongoing issue and while I totally support the establishment of solar I want to do in a way that protects our land and the safety of our residents Councillor Walker thank you Lynn I'm just having bit of a hard time with this conversation because I'm trying to understand what our goal is here because I know like I prior to I submitted my priorities for our goals but these are already all of our goals so like are we trying to change what our goals are as a council were we just trying to determine what our priorities are but does that change anything because they're all still generally our goals so are we saying these goals are more important than these goals is that like a definitive determination we're making it making right now because I thought that the ranking was just for purposes of the conversation we'd be having tonight but if we're not using the rankings for our conversation I'm just trying to understand like what are we trying to get out of this conversation what we're trying to get out of this conversation is the prioritization of our sub goals within our goals so it's not to say climate action is more important than this but within climate action where do we see things importantly but when we are doing like the town manager evaluation and I know we're re-looking at that process but typically we go through each one of these things and make notes as to what progress we think we've made throughout the year on each goal so does prioritizing these goals help us at all or are we just trying to tell the town manager we hope you do these things first it was a discussion that was back and forth between what goals are most important over say a two year period and what can we reasonably expect to happen and that's one of the reasons why for instance Paul and Dave have already said the development of a waste bylaw is probably a 12 month process and the first time we would see anything in the budget would be FY26 a year from now so it's an iterative process like if this is a goal let's make sure we understand when we can accomplish it and what it's going to take to accomplish it and later on we may hear some additional things that you know are clearly around what do we need in the way of money to accomplish that so it's really an opportunity to go back and forth and understand what's behind each of the goals and therefore what is our priority does that help Alicia slightly but is it okay if I just have a follow up because the way I'm looking at it even if we say that that's a 12 month process to see it in the budget there are still steps that should be taken during those 12 months to get to the point of us seeing it in the budget so would we not still be looking at are we taking the necessary steps to be able to see this in 12 months and that's how we measure this goal but that doesn't really change the priority level of the goal it just changes how we measure the progress of the goal it does and so for example when the town manager then submits his self evaluation if in this conversation we've already understood that the most progress we can help to make on waste hauler is X then that's what we should expect to see in other words it's not going to all get completed by the time he does his self evaluation this fall it gives us a sense of timing as well as expectations and in some instances I think you're going to hear the question what does success look like in this how would we measure this so a lot of this is not as cut and dry as we would like it and I think all of us felt that when we were trying to fill this in sorry just one last thing and so I think that because I also had the same experience of like really having a hard time reading them because a lot of them were overlapping and some things I think are equally as important so that was really hard but I think that this conversation for me at least is leaning more towards like this is a conversation we should have had before we determined what our goals were and so again like a process thing like we should have done this a little bit earlier because now even if we say only this can happen we can't change what the goal is so this is the goal as it's going to read I that's why I believe someone in the beginning said it would be good to do this before we finalize our goals Kathy I credit you with that so I'll say it again it absolutely Alicia would be good to focus on because way back when when I saw the goals I said I haven't seen ways taller I don't know how strong I want to push it because I want to know whether it costs the town a lot of money to do it whether it's going to toss the tax payers more and do we have the staff to do it so I had a question mark and to make it a town manager goal I thought before we had it's been in subcommittee so I know there's been a lot of work on it but I haven't seen it because I've not been on that committee so so that was my and on solar we had a lot of discussion on this and this would move to a bylaw so I feel differently about the two of these but I left it blank because I didn't know how to rank something we're one of them I had questioned from the very beginning that if we haven't decided to do it we shouldn't tell the town manager it's a top priority so I wanted the decision to have a 13 person discussion about it first so this one has two parts to it we're on solar we had a pretty robust discussion on what we hope to get out of the committee and I haven't I know I should have seen what came back but I haven't paid attention to it so I'm ready so it's it's a good one and I think Alicia you're right this is an exercise we should be doing first rather than saying we gave you these goals but it's a two-year goal or it's a three-year goal it's not as important as A, B, or C Councilor Haneke so I ranked this one low I agree with Kathy on waist taller I'm not sure we should be having staff spend a lot of time on something we don't know whether we'd adopt or haven't had a good conversation of if this costs more money are we still going forward with it you know that that doesn't mean we're not necessarily for looking at things but but I think we're missing parts of that conversation for solar I look at who needs to do the work on the staff and that is our planning department and frankly I just have higher priorities in different areas for planning department than the solar bylaw especially when the planning department says they don't think this is a priority compared to other things so that's one of the not compared to other things but but they said that our current bylaw could potentially manage this I would like to see our planning department focus on measures related to economic development and housing before solar and especially having seen the draft solar bylaw and believe that it has a lot of issues and solar bylaws are still in major upheaval across the state but there's also the other potential bylaws we're only focused on two but there might be other bylaws out there that would better focus climate action than these two that we're not even having a discussion on or asking staff about or giving them their own thoughts about what that is and then the other thing I wanted to push back on is I actually want to just put out there that I disagree with Lynn regarding her advocacy to the state about I think her quote was we can we control our own land I disagree with that this is where we're seeing the solar bylaws but heads up for the chapter 40a section 3 of not regulating and if every town is left to their own saying we support having solar and moving to non fossil fuels but letting every town regulate no large scale we're not going to move there just like with housing and affordable housing and we say it's a regional issue solar is also a regional issue so I just needed to put that out there so it didn't stand alone Jennifer yes so as one of the I guess now we're three one of the three council sponsors of the waste taller bylaw we that was voted out of the council referred that to TSO there are many community members for whom it's a high priority tomorrow on the TSO agenda after many months we are seeing the report a request for information went out last summer and for information on pricing and services that will be that was received in October and then TSO will see the report for the first time tomorrow so it is moving along but we can't starting with the information we'll see tomorrow we'll begin to have some idea of what the services that we can obtain that are out there and some more information on pricing an MMA session in January there was a session on towns contracting themselves for waste taller services and they said absolutely when you the fee structure the pay as you throw fee structure in town after town they have seen that very much reduces so it's a very good waste reduction strategy and that is something that's important among our climate action goals so I hope we can continue to move forward with the waste taller and we totally I think the sponsors understand that this will take time but I hope that we can continue to move forward with it Pam thank you I wanted to speak to the solar which is the other half of number three in our meeting the staff did not say that solar is not a priority she said that it was not urgent because there were no proposals coming in that they were aware of beyond what was already in hand and that it takes quite a while to get organized so that we would be aware of new projects coming in I think what Lynn was referring to for the state is that they are making an effort to collect information and propose streamlining processes for solar regulation and permitting and that there would be something like you know sort of the state EPA would manage or DEP Department of Environmental Protection might manage some process of that sort and I would concur with Lynn that I think it's important for us to get our ducks in a row and to understand what is of key interest to Amherst in terms of a balance between the solar and the working lands or the working forests in a way that kind of gives us a win-win so I don't want to cut off that conversation and I would put it in fact it was my number one priority so I'd love to see that conversation going forward Andy I'm going to start with Waste Hauler but it's really what I'm going to say is going to have a broader cover than that Waste Hauler is something that we've had as a discussion in this time for a long time going back to before this form of government when there was a recycling management committee that developed a long term strategic plan and what the bylaw is doing and it's sort of that committee is morphed into an independent organization, Zero Waste Amherst, but it is the same set of priorities and it is the same set of priorities that was very clearly stated at that MMA conference session which was gratifying because it really did flush on the bone on the bones of what it is that are the reasons that you would have a plan like that and it is also consistent with the state which has its own plan and so that the state is coordinating the community's move in this direction so there are lots of reasons to do it but ultimately for that bylaw and any other bylaw we have to look at what is feasible what our goals are, what is feasible and then when we develop a plan we have to step back and make a decision as to whether it can be implemented whether it is the economics of the costs and benefits of implementing the plan so whether it be rental registration or be waste hauler we can't make that judgment until we have developed the bylaw to at least as far along that we can assess what are the benefits and what are the costs and only what the council's judgment ought to be Pat I'll try to keep this lean the solar bylaw is a critical piece of legislation it may not be urgent because we've had a group of people working on it for over a year there was work on it done before that and offered to both the planning board and the ZBA by the moratorium so that's something that we've been working on for quite a while the other thing is that the projects that are in the works there are real critical issues going on with them Pure Sky and the forested land off Shootsbury Road and other forested land here that could very much affect water because all of those households are on wells so we really need to think about what we're doing what our guidelines and boundaries are the other thing the Hickory Ridge project they've included battery storage that's a project this one actually does feel urgent to me which makes this whole thing urgent there's consistent flooding on that site now and I said this in the meeting there are limits access water has damaged battery storage units and caused fires literally the leakage has caused the chemical action so that they explode and burn and with the flooding at Hickory Ridge it would be almost impossible to get emergency vehicles there so it is there's a level of urgency but there's also we can take good steps and we have to keep aware of what the Attorney General's Office is allowing because they're making shifts and also the shifts that the state have made around preserving forests and the need for that for because of the sequestration thing so we need to keep working on it pulling it apart, regs and bylaw great idea needs to happen there are a lot of good things in the bylaw pieces so I don't think it's going to be this overwhelming incredible project that is going to take so much staff time CRC is going to be to come up with a standard of issues and we really need to pay attention and I'm saying this for myself to people who have differing opinions because I would like us to find a really collaborative solution to this but the health safety and welfare of many of our residents is at stake with just two potential projects right now in town and there are other things we can look at to do so enough said that wasn't lean sorry Jennifer just quickly I just hope that I'm getting concerned that we'll have patients with each other and the process because I feel it's a little like well waste haulers been you know there for over a year so do we still want to keep it a priority but since there are many of these take a long time to go from being referred to a committee to actually being a bylaw that I hope can be patient and part of the reason they take time is we understand staff and committees have many things going priorities competing or not competing but happening that have to happen at the same time so I hope it can just be patient and even if things seem to be moving along slowly that we won't say you know we're going to bump it off we have another priority and then all the time that's been put into it you know for your 18 months whisper not so the next one as the time manager said is kind of ongoing you know whenever we find funds we actually do a very good job of going after them in Amherst and then the other one is the climate action and we provide regular updates so I just want to pause for a moment before I'm sorry Bob yeah I just wanted to ask Paul whether he has the resources to go after every potential state and federal funds because if he doesn't have the resources then we can't do that we can't meet that goal Paul we we could always use more resources the you know we have we are using ARPA funds we have a capital projects manager who's been working on the school and the library among other projects as well he's he has educated himself about a lot of the resources out there especially Ira his tenure with the town well we keep trying to keep him engaged on different projects so we probably would have to engage some consultants to help us with some of the stuff and I think there are people out there who are developing expertise in this including consulting firms but also legal firms as well so we probably have to allocate some funds to really set us up in the right direction especially for the bigger projects Anna what Paul just said is exactly why this was one of my higher ranked goals we need to town manager goals everything feeds each other right this is a big ecosystem of what we're going to try to hopefully get done and for me this question is a matter of do we have the resources are we allocating the resources necessary in order to be able to pursue these things and for the town manager that resource might be staff time it includes staff time and then the council is saying in putting something like this in the town manager goals that we are going to also back it up in our budget guidelines and that we want to see it in the budget that someone like our capital projects manager is able to do this exact thing as part of his role so this is one where it's a really vague and opaque goal on paper it's one where I go back and forth because I don't know that the council is in Athena and I have had many conversations about this because I struggle with where the council is overstepping in putting some of these goals on paper and where we're not and so keeping this vague we still need a way to communicate what this means to us without necessarily assigning it to be done in one specific way yeah the least lean comment sorry I went wrong there's another side to going after money and that is once you get it you need to be able to manage it and I've heard from time to time that not only is it tough to put the staff on writing the proposals but then when you get them you know you have somebody committed 150% FTE and I'm going to excuse me we don't have 150% FTE for that so full time equivalent I'm sorry I shouldn't use acronyms like that could I jump in? so no I think this is a very interesting conversation to Paul's point sure you know could we use more staff to chase grants and chase funding to administer that funding and carry out project manage absolutely I think who would turn that down but I do want to dispel the myth from time to time I do hear at certain meetings that you know someone says well why didn't we go after grant X or grant Y and I will tell you we have a very our staff is very aggressive about going after funding literally some millions of dollars in the pipeline right now not even withstanding ARPA money and CPA money and so to Lynn's last point about we then need to manage that money manage those projects, manage those contracts those are all things we do it's great to get the grant it's great to get the check in Boston or wherever we get it here in town but how do we manage the projects once we get it we go after every dollar we think makes sense we do after serious discussions sometimes pass on some things for very good reasons this week alone I've had some interesting conversations with community members about municipal vulnerability program dollars and in fact the town has gotten a couple of MVP grants in the last few years but there's a couple of projects that we floated with the state and the state said they just didn't think those were fundable so we made the decision not to invest hours and hours of staff time to write those grants it doesn't make everyone happy and sometimes people question why did we do that but that's the reality but we're you know North Hampton and Amherst we kind of bounce off each other challenge each other I mean we get a lot of funding on this side of the river North Hampton does as well but I just want to say we go after the funding in all departments so there are times when I have conversations with our superintendent of public works and we you know Guilford might say are you going for that Dave or are you folks going to go let's team up let's put our staff together Jason Skeels and Stephanie Doc and Nate Maloy and say let's go for that money so we are aggressive about going for funding at the state and federal level in all categories housing you know mass works etc so but there is a limit to how much we can manage once it gets here then to any comments at this point on number five take action on the portions of this climate action carp so let me just pause for a moment I want to make sure that we are not here till midnight I'm not going to be here till midnight I don't know about the rest to you Anna's already told me she's walking out at 10 so I'd like to use that as a goal but when you look at our discussion here tonight number one we've said is kind of ongoing should we spend time ranking that or not I'm not asking you to answer the question right now number two looks at this point like it's a no go we're not going this way somebody else is not going this way number three on the other hand we feel like we need to split into two or three parts number four there's a nuance with it that isn't actually in the statement and that's the issue of staffing to go for it and staffing to make it happen once you get the money and then on number five it's you know some people spent enormous amounts of time putting together a huge and very important climate action adaptation and resilience plan for Amherst not unlike comprehensive housing and it's a guidebook how do we rank that we certainly don't want to lose it I'm just throwing this out so that as we think about how we rank goals down the road and how we think about how we write goals down the road like maybe it's we do this goal by doing this or in addition to this goal this is some of the ways in which we can get there just before we with that let's move on to community health and safety yeah Pam can you give us just like a real quick summary of what we do with the information that we just talked about do we give it our own personal rankings of the very most top priority on this sheet and somehow we're going to relay that to you later or do we just keep talking until 10 o'clock I assume we're going to have another round of some kind of input I'm trying to visualize what that looks like and I know other people are too but it will not be done by the time we finish tonight okay so that's a good time thank you yeah gather a lot of the end result was trying to be okay thanks yeah all right community health and safety there's five any comments before we ask any questions thank you thank you thank you so first one is facilitate the implementation of the residential rental bylaw that one we're prepared to move forward on we have laid out what it would take to implement we know it would take probably six to nine months to actually implement with the expectation that we could implement it at the end of the calendar year with the first inspections likely to happen in January of 2025 it doesn't have to be implementation does not have to be tied to a fiscal year as long as funds are in place so once the council acts on this then we know what I think we've shared previously with you what the implementation would look like and just to pause for a moment this will be on the agenda for the first reading on and the second reading and vote if it all goes as it might is April 8th and that gives the manager time to make sure that it's in the budget okay the second one is the continue the implementation assessment of the community's responders the Crest program the Crest department so I think there's two pieces of that Crest department up and running we're making good progress as you know the new director will start on April 8th the implement the assessment is the piece that we're also working on and there's been some work done by the interim leadership team but we sort of hit a slow down on that but that's an important piece of it but I just want to communicate to you that this is a long-term investment by the town that we continue to invest in to get it up and running it's not in three years whether it's working or not it's going to take multiple years to develop a new department I think we have the same kind of situation with the resident inspection services with the residential bylaw it's going to take time to build it up and to establish it in the community but we're committed to that and that's being funded the third is the proposed to the town council plan for the creation of the resident oversight board this is something that is a priority for the DEI we have a so it's in progress process the RFP was issued for a consultant to do the next phase of development of the resident oversight board those are due on April 9th we think that the DEI director feels like the new the board would could be operational early in fiscal and early in fiscal 25 it'll take about 120 days to move it towards where it needs to go so I think that's a this calendar year thing resources are available it's just going through the processes now so I think that's a that's been a priority for the council and for the town so that's in place the third one is undertake a review of the public safety protocols consistent with the council's November 14th 2022 vote that's looking at police policies and that's something we've consistently told you we will wait till the new chief is hired so I think that that's will be one of the first top priority for the new chief when he we have two finalists so they're both him men so it's when he when he gets appointed develop program for youth empowerment so this is one where we have a set aside ARPA funds and we've had recreation department working on different programs and I can get a more thorough update on that it's something that they are working on and continue to develop and offering new programs in fact anything you want to add on any of those Dave takes a minute perhaps I'll wait till the questions if there are any on that questions and comments I do have one and that is I assume there's some action that the council will have to take to form the resident oversight board is that correct yes it's not unlike for instance when we approve the board of license commissioners okay well you didn't approve the board of license that was in a charter that was charted we would we would come to you with a I don't know if it's going to be a assuming I think we have to have some teeth in it okay council walker I was just also wondering you said it will take 120 days for the resident oversight board which just sounds really specific so I was hoping you might elaborate more on why or where that comes where is that that is coming from so some people talking months and that's what we've been saying before this the information I received was I think that really is meaning four months I could have said four months more likely so some people put it in 60 to 121 day 120 days versus you know two to four months that's the only reason I put it in days it's not that specific I shouldn't have made it that specific but the feedback you got on that came from the DEI department yeah yes okay does that answer your question Alicia yeah I just wasn't sure if there was like a specific mandate that we had to wait this amount of time for some certain reason so that was helpful thank you okay thank you Kathy yeah pull on resident oversight board and maybe youth empowerment on the first I've never quite understood whether there's a staff implication in terms of staff hours if we have one of those and I think it would be really good if the council itself knew that requires more staffing you know what when we're saying we like the idea on programming for youth empowerment a similar question you know on is the money for running programs is the money for physical location when does it run out and I don't need answers for this right now but I think is what Dave's point about juggling people's time that if the same people are doing multiple things that we have on a priority list or we need more people on climate I didn't speak up because Bob already said what I said that I know how much time the person we have paid by opera money is figuring out how to get the federal money for for our solar installations so and sometimes we have to invest in staff to get money but sometimes if we do a program it requires more staff and I know the rental registration we've we've seen staff numbers for that and we're trying to figure out if the revenue would cover the staff so in this whole bucket of things crest we have staff but I'd like some sense from you not right now on the staffing implications sure I think those are good questions I'm referencing the resident oversight board we have our funds allocated to the development and establishment of it there will be ongoing costs in terms of stipends for the members of the resident oversight board right now we anticipate that existing staff can support the resident oversight board but if we get a lot of action that might become something different but I can put together what our projected costs might look like over time are there any other questions or comments on this one okay the next one is economic vitality there's four subgoals any questions before we move to the discussion with the town manager assistant town manager not go ahead so the first one is work closely with local institutions and business entities to promote diverse neighborhoods affordable housing downtown and village centers so this is a broadly stated goal and we are looking at this in many different ways on how to meet it many of the things are things that we're already doing so if I were to report to you on this goal today I would say here's what we're doing if the one of the questions for you the council is that if you had something in mind specifically that would happen that would what the success look like the answer to what the success look like question that would be helpful for us tonight review and advise town regulations to reduce barriers to operating a business in Amherst I think this is one there's a couple of different responses to this but I think the primary one is that we're looking at working on during the summer with dedicating some of our economic development ARPA funds to bringing in someone to help us evaluate our processes so I think we would look at this as a summer type of project proposed revisions to the zoning bylaws to increase and support economic development throughout the town Dave can speak to the work that's being done and and in terms of how long things are going to take or when we can start them we can be more specific if you want to talk about that and then revise review and revise policies to support increased year around population in town I don't really know what I would what what that looks like to you in terms of what does that what would be something that you here's what I would expect you to show out on my town manager report on that this has been accomplished that's it I'm going to ask please David go ahead sure I can elaborate a little bit on on kind of one through one through four or so and a lot of these touch on other topics like housing and major capital projects but under number one just thinking about the range and kind of diverse number of projects that our staff are working on with private developers in our village centers right in downtown some of you know some of these projects they're beginning to make their way through the permitting processes here we've heard quite a bit about south Pleasant Street and the Hastings block some of the ideas that are percolating there through local development expanding housing stock etc amity street and you drive we have local developers looking at some very creative options for down in that region of town also the planning board really focus for the last number of months on an overlay district there with a focus on increased density for housing and also residential broadening our residential numbers also we're our staff is looking at the east village we have a new wonderful school going in in the east village wait finders as you know will be coming before regulatory boards this summer and fall with a 78 unit proposal that we are partnering with them on at the street school in belchtown road working with other developers down in the east village to really look at the development so there's a number of those kinds of initiatives that are going on in terms of Paul mentioned you know focusing on our kind of reviewing and revising our town regulations I guess the emphasis I would put there is that there's regulations and there's our processes that staff work with developers work with homeowners work with folks coming out for new restaurants for instance things like that but then there's also constant work on you know some of the things we talked about with zoning so how difficult is it and how long does it take to get through a regulatory process here in town so those are kind of ongoing things that we're always looking at let's see zoning bylaws I would just highlight a couple obviously the university drive economic development overlay we're also looking at east village and then we're also looking at temporary use I know the board you know during covid coming out of covid really look creatively at kind of temporary use what could happen downtown with with business x wanting to use a parking lot for food trucks or a farm wanting to do and then how you added activities like weddings like teaming up with a micro brewery to have something like that all of those things can broaden opportunities for all types of businesses in town so I know that our building commission our planning director and staff are looking at those I think I'll stop there for now Kathy you'll have your hand up Dave or what he just went through because I think one of the things I think when you look at this list and then you look at the next list wherever housing comes in they interrelate and they overlap a lot so he just went through a long list of impressive housing developments that are happening there's quite diverse and I do think the effort on university drive is very interesting you know to look at a particular place so I just think we have we have to echo something I said even when I was reviewing these we have to be more careful when we write these subcategories because if they're sort of saying the same thing with different words we should just avoid that you know if they're really distinctive that we have something specific in mind then we should be more specific but number one alone is a very nice broad get stuff going wherever you can this is vitality but it also talks about housing and housing is in the next one so so my overall ranking was trying to pick something on where I thought housing had the best chance Jennifer yeah well I guess maybe Paul or in terms of yeah I'm sorry in terms of number four review and revise policies to support increased year round population in town I mean I sometimes think of that as like using a climate lens is under climate action goals you know that that's kind of a general lens our policies or bylaws helping to support that or work against it and I mean what comes to mind is if we adopt the nuisance bylaw that would be a way of supporting that even the university drive overlay district could if it takes less you know pressure off some of the single family houses converting to rentals for students and could be rentals for you know non-student households I was going to say I also think ways that if we support you know certainly build you know the projects with Wayfair East Street School Belcher Town Road Ball Lane that's all helping to sustain and expand our year round population and even I guess supporting the Amherst Community Land Trust I mean one that comes to mind to be really specific McClellan Street in District 4 that is mostly rental houses for students between Kendrick Park and Best in Street from Best into Lincoln it's been a you know 250 year old 200 year old residential neighborhood and a house went up for sale a small house on a large lot and it I immediately when it went up for sale contacted the Amherst Community Land Trust and they very quickly the open house was on a Saturday they said they were accepting bids until the end of the day so they were clearly looking for a developer to purchase it the Land Trust tried to get financing together they actually put in a bid and they were hoping to you know I think their long term goal was to work with Habitat for Humanity to build two houses for year round households but they had contingencies on the offer and it went to a developer who made an all cash offer and it was actually about $350,000 so that's under the median price that house I mean it would have been perfect for the Land Trust but it's hard to compete with an all cash offer so I think anything we can do to try and help a Land Trust or help you know to have retain that property and then house two doors down is now going the people want to move out and convert it to a rental in part because of what they expect to happen next door so that's I didn't mean to digress and go into that detail but I mean anything we can do to try and help like a Land Trust or to be able to develop housing for our long term population. Lynn could I just add three other quick things again these kind of cross categories but just to mention to the council you know I think Paul has mentioned that we're very interested we're committed with the university with some of our local development partners to submit a mass works grant for Amity Street and this is more than our goal is for more than a roundabout roundabout is wonderful it will move cars it will safely bring pedestrians and cyclists to the university to university drive businesses but we also want to go south on university drive to see what else a mass works grant can unlock so it's more than this is part of the planning board's vision for unlocking some development in an appropriate place which I think many of us believe is university drive other things we're doing working you know DPW has an initiative right now with some funding through CPA to look at the war memorial area of war memorial pool so we're talking about building a community building neighborhood vitality so we're looking at how do we redo the bath house and the surrounding area around war memorial pool to make that a vibrant active space for children families just like Kendrick Park how many of us seven, eight, nine years ago when that visioning process was going on would say well a playground in Kendrick Park what's that going to do it has activated a space that really was quite quiet and not very useful in many ways so things like that I also forgot to mention one initiative that the planning department has already launched which is looking at the downtown design and streetscape guidelines and this is we've heard from the community we've heard from the council that that is a high priority and so we have a consultant on board and the public process for that effort will be launched very shortly so that's ongoing that's going to take many months to do I presume many of you will be involved in that effort so how do we get more clarity about what we would like to see in downtown businesses in our facades and our streetscapes et cetera downtown so I could keep going there's a long list I just want to give you a quick summary of what we're working on Mindy Joe I'm going to veer from what I was going to say for a little bit because of what Dave just said for War Memorial I encourage teen use there's a playground for pre-teens children a block away a block and a half away at Kendrick so I would really want the departments and all the planning to make sure there is stuff for teens to do at War Memorial play wise hanging out wise skate park what fine stuff it's right next to the schools and all it would be a perfect place for teen uses but that's not what I wanted to concentrate what struck me in this one is item number two subgoal review and revise town regulations to reduce barriers to operating businesses in Amherst four five six eight of 13 counselors put it in their top 10 subgoal overall list and I think that is extremely important there are only five subgoals that more than a majority or more counselors put in their top 10 and this is one of them three of them all relate to the fire in DPW that should tell you something when we get there but so there's only two others and this is one of them and so I think we cannot ignore the fact that this council wants to see the regulations and the barriers to actually opening businesses and operating businesses substantially reduced whether that's how much time it takes to permit whether that's bylaws that reduce what the permitting requirements are whatever it is we want to see it and I think this shows that's where some of the department staff time needs to be spent Bob? Yeah I want to echo that sentiment the reason I put down number two is number one in the department is I've spoken to a couple of people who have a business in Amherst in Northampton and they said getting started in Amherst was like pulling teeth getting started in Northampton was simple so we're doing something wrong and we need to figure out what we're doing wrong that's discouraging people from opening up businesses it's more I think opening than operating although again opening businesses is very difficult as well Freke I'm sorry it's when I read excuse me it's when I read number one is your mic on? thank you it's better yes I'm a little scared of excuse me what I wanted to say is number one the obvious response was about housing but that has been treated somewhere else and so I was thinking that difficult is actually more on how the town is working to get businesses here to diversify the business space and so I'm just wondering if the town has made a sufficient effort to encourage businesses or at least business ideas from the university and from Amherst College these are world-class institutions intellectual property and perhaps there's a space that could be tapped from those entities at this point well it's a great question I don't see anybody were jumping to answer it for the moment I'm sorry George Ryan so before always puzzled me and I mentioned that back when we talked about this in January but I think it's a little clear in my head today I'm asking myself what's the what's the problem this is supposed to be that lies behind this what's the issue and when I think of it I think of rental conversions rental conversions in other words houses that are flipping from homeownership to rentals certainly something I heard a lot about while I was campaigning it's something that other counselors have talked about in the past I'm not completely one one way or the other but I have tried over the years myself to try and get a handle on just what is the problem get some data so one question is can we actually get some data about this issue the second then is can we think about what possibly could be done assuming the data shows that there's a problem it's all anecdotal we talked to somebody who just has a house that's home owner occupied flips to a student it's the end of the world but if the reverse happens silence so I think this is an issue that certainly I've heard a lot about could we look into it at some point how would we do it I tried to get data I still keep trying to get data about this issue and then see where it would take us second thing quickly love what I'm hearing from Dave just I would say we would be saying to staff and to Paul keep talking to partnering with and working with UMass and with Amherst College in the area of economic development and housing just constant constant constant sounds like that's what you're doing I know some talks are going on with Amherst College but please that that's the other elephant in the room as our educational institutions and our relationship with them and partnering with them for these areas of economic development and housing and Pam I'm going to build on what George just said and and that is again working with UMass just for instance because the first comment was that number one was very broad and do we have any specifics a number of years ago there was the off campus meal plan which allowed folks to come in and spend dollar dining dollars in downtown restaurants I don't know if it was successful I think it was probably halted at the request of UMass because it drained money out of their dining halls and allowed folks to to come downtown and and eat that's an I think is a really good example of where that needs that kind of thing needs to be re established because so much of because so much has been drawn into the university internally rather than encouraging and and forcing them to be more outward facing Paul thank you so I think I had the same looking at your rankings and how you prioritize things was very important I had the same reaction Andy Joe had to looking at this ranking for item two that I saw that that was one of the universal high priority items along with the public public construction project so that really was informative to me and revealing all of this data quickly this afternoon are there any other questions on this I'm going to suggest a 10 minute break and then we're going to come back and decide how much more we're going to get done make sure you turn your camera off and your mic all right let's keep let's start moving back to our seats would you hit voice okay thanks all right when you come back please turn your photo back on your video so so as we move forward and keeping in mind a hard stop I'd like to suggest that we take advantage of the fact that we have the town manager and the assistant town manager here and we hear their feedback on each of the goals for each of the sub goals if you will for four or five and six and then to the extent we have time tonight we'll go back and have discussions but that we could hopefully start putting aside a small amount of time at least at future council meetings to have that conversation as well is there anybody that disagrees with that approach so Paul we're going to go on to and David I'm sorry we're going to go on to affordable housing and let me just also say I I don't think we've said enough thank you to the staff and to the two of you for providing the input and I understand at this point it's conversational but for many of us it's just really good back and forth and good conversation so thanks so much so we're going to start with goal five one is loaded and David's going to lead and Dave's going to lead sure so thank you and thank you for the conversation I mean I find this very helpful as well and I'm sure Paul does too it's nice to have the conversation and dialogue about these things and have this give and take so under this goal we have objectives number one ensure the operation of a seasonal shelter you know I think Paul and I and our police department fire department crests inspection services spend a tremendous amount of time supporting Craig's Doors and the shelter at the ILC it's been been operating extremely well over the past few years we're very pleased with the way our partnership is going with Craig's Doors and of course as you know utilizing ARPA funds we're looking for a future to move forward on a permanent shelter we're doing that right down the street at the VFW we'll be hiring an architect very shortly and then launching a public process for visioning on a permanent shelter with supportive housing above in the coming months so that's number one would you like me to just keep going Lynn? keep going and you know again we'll come back to the extent that we have time tonight there's a housing crisis in Amherst there's a housing crisis in the region and it extends to the entire state we're not alone we can only do what we can do but we do need to be part of the regional discussion and regional solutions I think all of us have been on panels we've attended workshops we've attended panels I remember the one not too long ago at Amherst College with some legislators I'm very proud that we're working with great collaborators partners like Valley CDC Wayfinders and many more but the 30 home ownership project up on Ball Lane just made its way through the permitting process that's an extremely exciting project in my old neighborhood in North Amherst and then of course we have Wayfinders we have great units of rental housing deeply affordable rental housing at E Street School and Belcher Town Road we're also combining funds on both of those locations we're putting in CDBG funds at the same time to extend sidewalks and do new sidewalks in front of the E Street School which will benefit not only the future residents of those apartments those units but also children and families using the new Orte River School and then we're using CDBG funds as well to extend the sidewalks all the way up to the corner of Old Farm Road east toward Belcher Town in front of many of the apartment complexes there if you've ever walked on that stretch it's a very challenging stretch with a very narrow old sidewalk so these are ways where combining housing funds and housing partnerships each of those projects I don't have the total in my head but I'm going to guess it's probably on the order of $80 million between the two of those projects so we're putting in CDBG funds, CPA funds ARPA funds to leverage those projects so really happy about those so that kind of blended two and three I think we can do more on the home ownership front I think if any of you have been part of some of the discussions with Valley CDC as they've come through the various processes in town they have been very successful at getting tremendous funding for that project those units are going to be deeply deeply affordable in the home ownership category that is extremely challenging how do you build those units in this economy, in this climate when units to build are between $500 and $600,000 per unit and then you're able to offer them on the order of somewhere in the $200, $225,000 range that's an incredible project on the home ownership front we have challenges we have the cost of raw materials we have the availability of subsidies and tax credits we have land, a limitation on land and time and I think that's where we can partner staff can partner with you we need to be advocating more to the state for more resources through DHCD for those kind of deeply affordable home ownership opportunities we can move these projects I think we've proven with 132 North Hampton Road with the Ball Lane project Wayfinders has yet to come through the process I think we've proven that we as a community our permitting process can move fairly quickly to get these through our process but to get the state funding sometimes takes years some of these projects might take 7 years from vision to cutting a ribbon that is a very long time to have loans to have staff attorneys and all the soft cost associated with this so I think that's something we can do at the local level we've got to do more advocating for more funding and a quicker turnaround at the state level let's see attainable rental housing I think we've talked about that we're also putting more ARPA funds into emergency assistance and emergency stabilization through family outreach let's see what else we're talking with Amherst College and our partners at the university about how they might be able to help us on the land front I think we all know that the governor has asked all state agencies to look at their land to look at any surplus land are the ways that the university could help us with the land based challenge I don't have anything specific I'd like more information on number 5 I think that's something to be talked about I'd like a little more definition on that one and then I think number 6 we are going after every possible dollar we can for affordable housing I think we're working closely with our affordable housing trust as you know they're a great repository for CPA funds for private dollars they may be the recipient in the future of dollars coming from a possible downtown project so I think working with the housing trust is a key element of our collaboration to get more units in the pipeline and we're always trying to keep planes on the tarmac if you will have things moving forward and I think the other piece of this is what properties in Amherst what properties does the town own that we can keep moving through that process so we've got east street school was essentially a surplus property that we didn't have a use for it is now going to be repurposed as affordable housing we're going to be looking very closely at the south Amherst campus which is a piece of property that has been unused by the schools and now by the town for some years we're going to be looking at land we have off of strong street and then of course we still have the frontage on Hickory Ridge to look at so my goal is to always have projects in the pipeline ready to go in redevelopment so I think I'll stop there and take questions or Paul if you want to add anything if I missed anything Paul yes thank you so one of the we're working on a lot of the different projects and one of the projects that will take an enormous amount of time presented itself as a solution it was sort of an opportunity that town staff had identified and sought out and that's the permanent shelter and that's going to be a multi-year project that's going to require a significant investment of funds and will town funds as well as mostly state we hope long-term but I think that's one of the things we want to make sure we're on the same page as the council that that continues to be a top priority because we are dedicating a lot of time and effort into moving that project forward so just wanted to say it because a lot of these things are sort of moving on their own and this one is going to be propelled by the town staff specifically I think quick comments on this so we can at least cover the input for the others Pam thank you I was pleased to hear Dave mention Hickory Ridge and I think one of the I'm not sure where it's covered but providing information to us and to the public about the status of the planning for Hickory Ridge April 8th I will be giving a PowerPoint to the council thank you that's very good news this sort of the status of Hickory Ridge the status of the other quote-unquote surplus properties or just the policy for dealing with surplus properties I think is a really good step in the motion so just I will during agenda setting today talked with Lynn and Paul about giving a presentation on everything that's happening at Hickory Ridge including opportunities for reuse of the frontage and I do want to before Athena kicks me under the table I misuse the word surplus earlier we need to keep in mind we have a draft surplus property policy but that is when the town wants to dispose of that property I more was thinking about repurposing there may be surplus properties but there are also properties we want to repurpose and I saw Athena looking my way and I knew that I had veered into a danger area so no yeah I am that policy has already come out of the finance committee and I think at this point it's on for April 8th we're trying to balance agenda so there's not too much on one night and I just want to clarify that the surplus property policy that we discussed only applies when town managers decided we no longer need it for any purpose thank you in other words we are now declaring it surplus okay and I meant keeping it and repurposing in this case for housing there could be other potential uses and we'll take it as well and we'll talk a little bit about that at Hickory Ridge we know it's been mentioned in the context of a south Amherst fire station and perhaps we'll have time to talk about that in a minute in another section okay Kathy I want to go back to Paul asked a question about the permanent shelter and as I said earlier I didn't really follow the instructions for our exercise which was to use all my numbers but a four five and six but what I noticed is many rated it less than a one two or a three and my understanding is this is potentially all you said it's time and effort but it's time, effort and dollars in terms of before it becomes reality so tonight is probably not the time to have a longer discussion of this but I am not sure we thought considered the entire costs of the project when we had what seemed to be free opera money to buy a building so I just want to go back at some point to take a look at that because I thought it was striking how many people gave it a relatively low score among the housing issues that's my only comment on this issue Councillor Hannake two quick comments the first one was the other one where sub goal three received a majority of councillors in their top ten ranking beyond the major capitals where we'll see the other five the other three of the five that got a majority of councillors so I wanted to point that out and that is proposing measures to retain promote and increase home ownership opportunities for low and moderate income residents and first time home buyers but my other comment was the other one where I wanted to point out that there are a number of projects regarding housing but items two three and four are about measures and I see that as legislation and none of that was discussed and so I think we've done as a town a great job at supporting outside developers and their projects but what we can do is promote through zoning and other measures tiff bylaws other things like that housing and so I would love in a future discussion to hear the planning part the zoning part the other part of how we can promote housing and how the town council can help do that by passing measures happy to do that in a future discussion. So I would say zoning to promote home ownership that piece of it is a lot more complicated than say but I did mention certainly the initiative in East Amherst and U Drive is really all about that frankly it's more about housing than it is about commercial and retail development because we know some of the one in the east village is more in a staff development certainly speaks to some of that but yeah the home ownership piece relative to zoning is a bit more of a challenge absolutely if I could just the one thing I want to make a point on the shelter is that our goal although it's not fully design process yet is that there would be staff resource town resources put into that project we know we're putting ARPA funding into the acquisition a conceptual design demolition but very quickly after that our goal is to RFP the site for a developer to come in and build a shelter with associated housing so we Paul has made it crystal clear we know we are not in the sheltering business this would be very similar to other affordable housing projects where we would RFP the site and we've already had some preliminary conversations broadly with a number of developers who might be interested in such a project they're happening by the way all over the state so this is not a new model many other communities are using this hybrid shelter with permanent supportive housing in the same complex so that's our goal undoubtedly there may be an ask more additional asks of say CPA funds CDBG funds etc but it would not be you know we would not be the central funder on a multi-multi-million dollar project like that yeah again responding I think there was a question of what could the town do in terms of number five and again I would say well one thing they could do in conversations with the university I mean this is perennial ask is to students having to move off campus puts a lot of pressure on the local housing market and certainly drives prices up for home ownership and for rental dwellings so encouraging the university to build more housing on campus and you know maybe even to build camp housing off campus for its faculty administrators and other employees that would help to expand our you know long term year round population and of households that also send children to our schools and we'll use our new library university drive is a measure that the planning department planning board and that helps to stabilize neighborhoods and then there's can not make changes that help destabilize neighborhoods like I think maintaining the for occupant limits for non related members of households because you know like an effort to increase that number just makes it more profitable for investors to purchase the single family houses because it makes it that much more income that can be generated so there's things we can do and things we cannot do to help to stabilize housing for our long term residents. Yeah the reason I ranked home ownership so high was that it really is the only way to for people to you know increase their opportunities for intergenerational wealth transfer renting doesn't do that. Renting is great but it's not the same thing as home ownership. The one thing that I'm offering to you as a thought is other communities where housing prices and land prices are very high the opportunities for younger people for new home ownership is through condos and townhouses and we don't have a whole lot of those in Amherst and I think if we could encourage more of that kind of development that would ease that would make it more affordable for people. Thank you. Councillor Walker. Thank you Lynn. I also just second what Bob and Jennifer just said one of the other barriers that I would like to see is the affordable housing trust. I know I've mentioned this before but a lot of surrounding towns have down payment assistance programs for first-time home buyers that Amherst does not have and I know we have the affordable housing trust but it only offers one large down payment to one family and so I would like to see something a little bit more encompassing that first-time home buyers might be able to access residents even if the house itself is a bit more affordable or there's more condo opportunities like down payments are still a barrier and so I would like to see us explore that option and also I think it was number five stabilizing housing for long-term residents so I was thinking about it a little bit more in terms of rentals and renters just because that's what I'm more familiar with is that people who have lived in their units for a very long time are still facing increases like my mom's rent is increasing every single year by hundreds of dollars and so like is there a way that we can monitor that or incentivize landlords to not do that or provide more assistance to families that is not just emergency assistance when they're behind on rent and facing eviction again with the goal of stabilizing housing and I know that Amherst Community Connections was looking to pilot a program that would do such a thing but they didn't get enough funding to do so and I think looking into those kinds of things is what part of the reasons why I ranked those two a little bit higher than others. Thank you. Councillor Ryan. I'm hoping that the low-ranking that item number 8 got is just a reflection of the fact that this is a long five-year process that's going to involve many pieces but this is more marks to address to my colleagues here because I think the town staff has done a really superlative job and has worked really hard on this but it will require our continued commitment to the goal of eventually creating a permanent shelter in this town. Homelessness is an issue that I think we cannot ignore it is a regional problem we cannot solve it ourselves but this is our I think a very important attempt for us to say this is something we need to do and I understand that it's a long process and it's got many moving parts but I hope that we will never lose our commitment to it. Thank you and I just as Councillor Ryan has pointed out number 5 8 is the same essentially not completely as 4-1 they both deal with the homeless shelter. Pat DeAngels. Like Bob Hegner I support the development of duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, condos and several of us work very diligently to address zoning and we're often stymied by the work of the planning department so I guess I'm looking to the town manager and the assistant manager to help me understand how we can motivate the planning department along the planning board but the planning department to address this kind of housing which they've avoided for a variety of reasons. Anna. I wasn't sure. David do you want to? David. I would take that under advisement it's a great question I think it's for a longer discussion I'm not sure I would agree with the characterization of the planning staff and their approach to that I think I would characterize it as what was proposed was not deemed to likely show as many results from that zoning change the proponents of that change thought it might so that's that interpretation well that's fine I'm basing that on the advice of planners with decades of experience so that's the best I can do this evening Anna. Sorry I got distracted I wanted to clarify looking at goal 4 sub goal 1 operation of a seasonal year-round shelter I put that as number 3 for a similar reason as some folks when they looked at the elementary the same reason Kathy that you talked about when you looked at the elementary school because when I looked at that goal I said yes absolutely I think this is important but we've made such significant progress and I know that one of the next steps would be to put up and seek bids for someone to develop it for me this is why I think it's important to not just look at the numbers and for us to explain some of the rationale I absolutely do think that's critical I didn't rank it as my number one priority because I felt that significant progress had been made and I wanted the town manager's time to be spent more so on sub goals 2 and 3 Kathy one last comment that I'm moving on I just want to jump in on duplex, triplex townhouses that I think we've got market forces that we're contending with the price of land and the price of construction because if you look at towns around us that there's no barrier to building them it's just they don't come in very cheap anymore you know up in Sunderland they have an entire it was astonishing what each of them sold for so that's one of the things the whole region is contending with that even where you're zoned to allow something you'd rather build a big apartment building than 3% so I think at some point we shouldn't jump to that we've got a barrier in our regs we should be able to get some kind of analysis of what these market forces look like so it's and just Mandy you said you look at the word measures and it means policies I think measures can be interpreted by each person in the way we want to so I think actions are measures as well as policies but I just I don't want us to think because I'm looking up in our area why don't we have more ADUs we allow ADUs anywhere you want them and we haven't gotten very many so it there's a market out there and a construction cost that's working against us okay I'm going to move on to major capital investments there was some clear consensus here probably the most clear consensus among all the goals and I think some people like myself said well I want this before I want this or I want that before I want this and I would give it one or you know a couple here and a couple there and at the same time I'm just echoing what I heard earlier most of us having been at the ground breaking yesterday are saying hey that elementary school is moving on but as David has reminded us the staff still has a lot to do the library the same thing I'll take my double X away when we break ground there okay I want to just keep making sure it goes so are there comments that Paul and David do you want to make on the items here so I will group them numbers one and two they're ongoing we know we're committed to those as Dave mentioned that planning DPW inspection services are all going to continue to dedicate significant time to these two projects they're big projects the largest projects in the history of the town so but we've broken ground on one and the procurement is a huge piece of it so that is moving forward as well projects three four and five are the ones that you just identified and it was consensus in my reading of your document is the highest priorities for the for the council and hearing that loud and clear so the way we're prioritizing these is that I went to work on a financing plan for you before while we have the skill set of Sandy pooler with us and that would be targeting a July first date by day of that ready something like that ready in terms of identifying a location for the DPW we're hoping to have something for sure by the end of the summer and then in terms of a location for the DP for the fire EMS we're putting a deadline of October one on that so we I want to put dates out there so you can look at it and start to hold us more accountable than I think you have some frustration for that and I think we want to start to target some deadlines for ourselves the youth center and the senior center those are the banks community center is an ARPA driven deadline so that is something we have to have designs for and then a way to set aside funds for by the end of this calendar year and then for the youth empowerment center where there's needs to be worked on in terms of identifying potential the needs and available facilities and there's more than one way to create if the town wants to create a youth empowerment center we want to come up with different options available the year and then this is the one where the development of the year round shelter really came up that was in the previous goal but this is the actual construction and one of the things that the reason we brought it up is that it received a relatively low ranking of 5.75 at least so I want to make sure that we were dedicating time and energy to this project I want to make sure we're on the same page as the council and councilor Ryan has already identified it and other counselors have said yes it is a priority so we're working under that assumption if we're wrong please say something because this is a project that as Dave said once we get into a situation we get an RFP which will take time and effort we want to give it to a developer who will then move it forward and when we say a developer what we really mean is probably a non-profit developer and there are plenty out there as Dave said who are really interested in this you skipped six I don't think it was on purpose six roads sidewalks oh yeah so that's one I think with the idea on this is to present a multi-year plan and that's something we can we're not going to be able to do that then we can sort of do what we did last time but to develop the multi-year plan is going to take us a little bit longer during the course of this year but it'll be before the bids go out in the winter typically would go out to bed in the winter for next year's roads yeah I'm going to just jump in and say if I hadn't used up all of my rankings on the fire station and DPW and the financial plan I would have had some left for those two others which two others roads and sidewalks and the see again I'm thinking the senior centers have done deal the youth center we need more information I probably would have given more for the year on shelter but just you know I used up three right on that solid block as did many other people Kathy Paul I heard you say you were going to be potentially coming to us with a plan on DPW one of my questions that since these have just been working out in background is the current site of DPW can't we just rebuild there and DPW and so I'm going to have a lot of questions on whether we have to purchase another place and I know that's been we're going and I don't need you to answer now but I just think of the property we already own can't we make use of it and can we give up the thought that everything DPW owns has to be in the same place because we have another place that we can store some of the vehicles so just thinking through what makes sense there and the financing plan clearly is what order we do these things in so just on the one other we had the beginning of a conversation Pam and others when you were saying the word surplus but if we talk about reuse we're going to have it's not ours yet but at some point the Wildwood property will become available and putting it into the mix and we can't put it into the mix until the town has it and I understand that but trying to think of would that be redeveloped and one of my thoughts and it'll be among many could the first floor be public use and could the upstairs be apartments so we do a different kind of mixed juice where we get something we want to keep the gym we want to keep some piece of it but upstairs people can live because it's got 14 acres and it's got it's got land it's got a parking lot so I just think these are one year goals but trying to think of over the next three or four years what's possible with what we already own and the other way to think about Wildwood is if DPW needs to partly move it could be swing space for DPW while something is being built but just it's a mix of a complex set of issues and I don't know if the council can grasp I mean it takes a lot of people thinking about it so what I don't know is how much staff time you've got to really you know get into the nuts and bolts of this and that's that's a question I'm just going to leave with I don't think there's an answer right now Andy Yeah I just want to comment on how I came about the priorities because it partly answers the question Paul was raising about the seasonal and year-round shelter that one I was one that I felt was no longer something that required a lot of attention from the council because I felt that we were in a phase now where we own piece of property staff you guys were working on what the how to use and how to make that happen within the property and therefore you'd come to the council when action from the council is necessary but it wasn't one we were going to spend a lot of time on the reason that I put finding a location for the fire station for the DPW so high is that I can't help but reflect that I recall being on the finance committee back when John Mishanti was town manager and Sandy Poole was in his first run at being the finance director and we were already working on that question how do we get those four projects done how do we get them financed and how do we get them done and it seems like we were so close on some of these things that we just need to keep moving them along because you know now in my third term on the council after you do them some slight forward and sometime on the finance committee and I feel like we're talking about the same thing and so maybe it is time in my book to move it along before I well I'm still on earth the which brings me to the last thing I was going to say was I really think that it's important that we think about that Pomeroy property I think that there was a feeling that we finally had a good location for the fire station and we really could move forward with it and I don't understand why it has taken so long to close out a decision on that that it's either the right or the wrong place because it just seems like there was this broad consensus that it was a place that worked but it was tough and that we could make a very usable and accessible spot there and so I just sort of a little bit of frustration is in my thinking about why I put that as such a high priority I just think we can close it out and be done. Councillor Hannake. I want to echo Kathy's comments about DPW and Andy's comments about making a decision on fire I know I've heard there's disagreement amongst whether we should move forward at Pomeroy with fire or whether we should hold out for DPW so I assume that will be part of reports coming in but I want to urge it's clear these are the other three that got over the five this is extremely important to this council many of us a majority of us I think have been on this council five years and it's been important for five years and I think we're getting tired of waiting and I think these rankings show we're getting tired of waiting I would like and to encourage five for just this council I encourage creativity with DPW I know there's been a desire to keep it all on one site but after decades I don't think we can ignore the possibility of needing to split it up or needing to make the footprint smaller by going higher so we don't need as large of a piece of property or ignore the possibility of looking at our zoning and seeing if there are proper zoning changes that could be made to make more properties feasible to put DPW due to increased potentially increasing lot coverages or reducing something about lot coverage maximums pervious surface maximums in certain areas for town services I think it's past time to get creative about how to put a DPW in this town George Paul you set a deadline I might not say for the fire EMS is October 1 I just didn't catch the deadline for DPW September 1 September 1, thank you and then excuse me what you said was that the amount would be a little smaller than it's been in the past is that correct or did I mishear you? I said two things one was we can do an educational session like we did a couple years ago to the TSO committee that talks about how we prioritize and then this goal identifies a multi-year plan and that wouldn't happen until later in the calendar year I heard him say it will take a little longer but that's okay we're going to move on to goal 6 and why don't we start with any updates sure so goal 6 is racial equity and social justice the first one is use a racial and social justice lens when making decisions again we see this as an ongoing thing goal just like we did looked with climate action part of this includes taking a review of town department policies and decisions using the equity lens we actually began this conversation with departments back in 2022 we've got a little bit sidetracked because the key people from the DEI director were involved in the interim leadership team for the Crest department and then they're also looking at securing an actual assessment tool they think that having a common tool that we can apply to every department is important the second is to support the work of the town and repairing the damage of structural racism so some of the efforts of the DEI department are about having a series of events aimed to engage community members in learning and dialogue about DEI topics many of you have participated in some of these the initiative of becoming a beloved community led by Dr. Love and would build on the national day of healing that has happened the next event is on April 4th and there's a number of other events that are already scheduled to have that it's a conversation, it's a dialogue on that number three is provide training regarding racial equity rights and other options to the town council employees and members of the public so the DEI department continues to provide monthly workshops and targeted training specifically through by department the DEI department does offer trainings to the town council if it chooses to avail themselves to those trainings they're available to help with that the next one is begin to identify and propose revisions to policies, bylaws and regulations to dismantle structural racism so this sort of already addresses a little bit in terms of the overall goal but one of the specific goals that we're having an active discussion now is about marijuana cannabis regulations and bringing a social justice lens to all of our policies on the permitting and regulation of cannabis this is also a goal of the cannabis control commission they're issuing new guidelines our planning department and licensing group are actively looking at this and what it means for our town and the last one is to incorporate input from BIPOC, LGBTQ plus and other marginalized communities in appropriate town committees when reviewing and revising policies and regulations so the DEI department really sees their main conduit of hearing from other groups because they staff the human rights commission, the disability access advisory committee and the community safety and social justice committee and they depend on these volunteers and people who serve on these committees to help guide their work we have not made very much progress with an English speaking population non English speaking populations they're aware of the challenges that presents and so again this is where the equity assessment tool will become handy because I think this will be something where we can judge how the town is doing across all of our departments so I think that's a good point George you have your hand up just to maybe try to explain some of my rankings such as they are I mean like many of these I struggled to try to put numbers to this question mark doesn't mean I don't think it's important I think what it means is that I'm trying to I mean for instance number one is I assume simply a given so I don't know priority one I guess but I mean it's just a given number two likewise question mark I guess for me a lot of what I think of as racial justice is involved with actual concrete actions so home ownership the new school a thriving Crest program program is related to youth empowerment and we're still waiting to see what will happen with reparations so those are the kinds of things I look to the other items they have value I think for instance number three we have asked staff to do DEI training seems that the council should do this so that would be my thought there but just a brief comment about my sort of strange numbers Councilor Ate so number three he says provide training regarding racial equity rights and other options to the town council and I'm wondering what other options mean Paul I did not write this I would like to do the council to say what they meant another one of those big references at the end of a sentence you if you'd like to fill in the blank perhaps you have an idea that wants to fill in the blank no Councilor Lord wants to fill in the blank well I read it as like trainings around what number is it again number three thank you racial equity rights and other options to me would be like maybe the history would be different ways to dismantle the oppression as opposed to like not trainings but just other things that would help propel us to actually use a lens deeply deeply embedded in equity and stuff what was the second thing rights so it might be events as well okay Pat you have your hand up on this one too I'm sorry things that I've been talking to the folks from Embrace Brace Melissa Jaro we can't hear you Pat and Andrew Grant Thomas and they have a program called drawing difference we've been taught to be silent