 start the meeting. Okay. Ready? Good evening. It's October 17th, 2022. On July 16th, 2022, an act was signed into law, which extends the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law, allowing us to meet remotely without a quorum in the room. However, I do want to note that we actually do allow audience to be physically in the room. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the October 17, 2022 special town council meeting labeled as a town council working session on residential rent-of-ine laws to order at 531. This is the first of three meetings tonight, all of which will be accessible on the same Zoom link through Amherst media and in person. There will be no public comment during this particular portion of the meeting. There will be opportunities for public comment in the next two meetings. However, please do not hesitate to send us written public comment at www.amherstma.gov slash council comments or through our email. There will be a public form on financial orders after this special meeting at 630 and a regular town council meeting at 645, both of which will include public comment. I'm going to call upon counselors. Please unmute and say present and let us know that you can hear us and we can hear you. Shallonee Balmille. I see Shallonee, but she's not answering. Pat D'Angelois. Present. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Trapped in the waiting room. Thank you. Sorry, I was just about to ask. Lynn Griesmer is present. Mandy Jo Haneke. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam here. Pam Rooney. Kathy Shane is absent this evening. Andy Steiner. Jennifer Taub. Present. Alicia Walker. Is not here yet. I'm going to go back. Shallonee Balmille. Yes, I'm here. Thank you. All right. So we have 11 counselors at this time. There's no chat room. If you have technical issues, please make sure Athena and I know and we'll figure out what to do if we have to stop the meeting while you reconnect. With that, I'm going to turn this over to the very hardworking CRC committee and Mandy Jo Haneke as chair. And we're going to put up some slides. Thank you. Thank you. The slides can wait just a little bit. But yeah, thank you all for coming. This is the second, I guess, working session, but the first one since this matter was referred to CRC. And we're going to be talking about rental permitting today. CRC has been working since March to come up with some draft language for what will end up being a repeal and replace bylaw because it's so big. But also in the course of all of that, we've been working on and just started working on a fee structure. We talked a little bit about that last week and regulations are now going to be involved with this too. Our work has encompassed nearly every meeting we've had. And we have had Rob Mora or John Thompson or mainly both of them at pretty much every meeting to help advise us. Regarding all of this, we've also held one listening session from the public in the middle of the summer and the next one coming up next week to hear from the public. And excuse me, we have been receiving many comments from the public also during meetings as well as email to us and through various communications we've had. We have talked to the board of licensing commissioners and ECAC and have had representatives from them show up either at our meetings or I've been to their meetings to discuss parts of this bylaw that involve them. The packet includes the current draft bylaw and includes a table that shows the current bylaw and a comparison between that and what our working draft bylaw is. At this time, Athena, can you put up the first slide? What we're planning on doing today is I have three slides that encompass parts of each of the sections of the bylaw. We basically want to hear from you on what you think about the draft specific language okay but mainly areas of concern, areas of likes, areas of things that maybe we've changed that you don't like or we haven't changed that you like or don't like, things like that. Questions you have, I will be taking a lot of comments, a lot of notes about comments and any questions you have. I've already received questions from one counselor today and I will attempt to gather all of them into one document to put in the next council packet with answers to the best of my ability that I can answer. So the first set I'd like to spend about 10 minutes or so on because I think these are sort of the least concerning in terms of changes and stuff that people may see but if we need a little more time we will. The slide after this deals with inspections and other requirements to obtain a permit and a slide after that is complaints violations and regulations and this is basically a copy of the chart. You see one thing in red and that's because at our last meeting at CRC last week during discussions as we go back through these documents the committee along with Rob and John Thompson believed that we should delete the requirement to obtain a permit before offering to rent instead of the advertising okay without a permit as long as the application is pending I didn't quite fix all of the working draft sections there and so I noted that in red there's another red section later on about some other things so that is one change from the memo that you got because of discussions that we had last week at CRC. So at this point I'm just going to open it up to the floor to see if there are any comments or questions with regard to what we've done with permitting requirements or the requirement to obtain a permit not the requirements for what that means. Exemptions so who does not have to obtain a permit who does not have to apply issue and denial that's how do you what do you have to do to be issued a permit which is different from that you have to have a permit and then consent and other requirements these are just sort of things that don't really fit into any one big section but it's things like in the current draft that a landlord consents to at this point inspections of the property by the inspection services division on application applying for a permit. I do want to say one other thing I put it in the packet we have out for legal review a lot of questions those do not have answers yet the town attorney will be coming to CRC's meeting on the 27th to have a conversation with CRC about a lot of those questions because they really do fall into a bunch of groups and so I can take more legal questions if you have them but you've seen everything we sent to the town attorney for that and that means some of what we might be discussing today could see a lot of changes if we get information that we can't do what we're trying to do and Lynn do you want me to be able to call on people or would you like to do that please go right ahead okay so the floor is open for these four sections when we get to the last we'll have time for just general comments to and questions Dorothy well you said in red deleting permit required before offering to rent so I'm reading the top boxes and all of them are talking about offering to rent so I've really hard to understand what you mean there so I cross I'm crossing it out but I mean the whole box has to go I believe almost everything in it if you're going to cut take that out which is fine with me I understand why you made the decision but so I'll answer that Dorothy thank you for the question quickly right now our by-law requires that you have to obtain a permit before you rent a place or offer to rent a place which means before someone occupies it under a rental or before you basically say and put out there in the world or hire a management company and say hey I want to rent my my apartment or I want to rent this house that I own before you'd even be able to do that in the current by-law you have to obtain a permit the working draft now says you have to have that permit before that lease goes active before the start date of the lease is what the working draft says so we had when I wrote this had that it was the same basically the same as what the current by-law requires which meant we also would put into that that you could actually put that advertisement out there before the lease started and as long as you'd applied for the permit even if you didn't have it in hand right so I understand why same people wouldn't like it but I have to say you know I haven't been working on this like you have but it seems to me a good time to get a permit is after you have gotten it ready it has been inspected and okayed I mean advertising rent in a property that has not been inspected and okayed for rent I think may lead to further problems but I'm sure you guys discussed that so just interested in knowing your reasoning on this um it became a question of and and the other CRC members can jump in if they've got anything else to say because this was just a recent discussion I believe it became a question of how is that manageable in terms of when are things offered to rent when our lease is signed versus when things are active and some of the other things we've gotten and so the the whole point is to make sure it's not occupied when it's not habitable when to make sure the occupation is there that doesn't necessarily mean you need that permit in hand in order to potentially six months before you actually start that lease say I want to rent this and and one of the things we know is some of the leases get signed in in October or November for June or July start dates or even September start dates of the next year and so it it was more of a in my mind a logistical matter that didn't change much of the operation of the bylaw that's an okay Lynn Lynn yes please Alicia's joined if we please confirm that she can hear us I mean did you I need to pause for just a moment and make sure that Alicia can hear us yes I can thank you Lynn thanks Alicia okay thank you Michelle yes thank you for all of this work this is amazing I have two questions right now so one is I see that the Airbnb types are exempted do we currently and maybe I should know this keep any sort of database or registration of homes or properties that are potentially being rented as airbnbs do you know so I don't know whether we do right now or not but I wanted to correct that not all airbnbs are going to be exempted from this bylaw only those you know and and I'd have to go look at the specifics I believe it's less than 14 days a year so if you are if you do your airbnb for two days over graduation weekend and that's the only time you ever do an airbnb you don't need a permit under the current draft but if you've made it sort of your business and you're doing that airbnb for three months four months one month of the whole year or all year you will need a permit under this bylaw got it thank you and then the second question is I recently received a letter stating that you know something to the effect of it appears you may have an accessory dwelling unit and you may need to register kind of thing which was pretty neat to receive that I do in fact I'm sitting in that accessory dwelling and I don't rent it so at least I I'm not renting it currently so there wasn't necessarily a way to obviously I can just send an email go find an email and send it and say hey I'm not renting it right now but I wondered if there might be a way to have some sort of easy form or something like that that would allow me to let the building department know that I'm not in the inspections people know that I'm not currently renting the accessory dwelling that's more of a comment no thank you for that I'll make a note there Lynn I'm sure this is going to be a topic we'll discuss later but I'm particularly looking at consent and other requirements and I this is an area in which I have the feeling we can't tighten it a whole lot more than we have suggested here but it's an area I know in my district and Pat's in my district district too has always been brought up that people will see seven cars parked out a parked outside of a house that is essentially meant for four people and yet they have to make an appointment to it access the house and talk to the tenants and I'm assuming nothing you've put here in J or any of the other bullets changes that it's still with notice so yes right now the draft is the tenants would have to be notified before an inspection if it is occupied and would have to give their consent on a time by time basis right now the draft says that the property owner consents to inspections under this bylaw upon application for a permit those are questions that have been asked to the lawyer to see what the parameters of those two issues and requirements are thank you for pursuing that seeing no other hands with that one can we move to the next slide Athena so this next slide is one of the bigger ones that represents a bigger change to our current practice which is the current practice is self-certification of compliance with all laws and regulations relating to habitability zoning and all of that and the draft is moving to inspection by town officials no self-certification of compliance of those health safety life safety building inspection type requirements that our own town inspectors would inspect properties in order for them to be able to obtain a permit much of the inspections some of that inspection and stuff would go under regulations but we've put some parameters into how often a unit would need to be inspected into the bylaw itself although those could be tightened more under regulations the current thinking is that the regular inspection for a typical property would be every three years and that that could lengthen up to five years depending on per regulations and the current sort of thinking although it has not been discussed is that if there aren't violations during those three years of which we're not sure what those violations would be because it hasn't been discussed then you could get five years between inspections also long-term tenants that aren't that have occupied the place for more than five years would not need to undergo an inspection every three years that subsidized housing right now that is fully exempted if they have regular inspections we would be moving that to a may be exempted from the inspections instead of shall be exempted and the the other one is that even though it's a three-year regular that time frame could be increased to more frequent if there are property if the property seems to be not passing inspection regularly and so that's the biggest those are sort of the biggest changes here there are other permit requirements that are being added or that are already there right now that are being brought over to the new working draft but the biggest change there is that there will be some energy efficiency standards added and this is the other one that has a change from the time I wrote this memo and that's in red we actually have received ECAC's recommendations on what that would look like it is not in the draft right now it will be in the next draft that is created for the November 3rd CRC meeting and some of those recommendations but basically they're recommending for one to four units that they have to do the the the ever source energy home check that free energy home check and that for above five units that the property would have to have a EPA portfolio manager aggregated energy use complete that program which is a free program and basically they just want to track for that one how much energy is being used in a on a property so those are the big changes from the last time comments and questions on this these two parts Dorothy I had a question before still lagging on inspection what currently is the law for inspections I'm just was thinking of the party at that fraternity I guess it was Allen Street where they did not let the inspector in what is the present law as to how many days what kind of notice is it doesn't have to be written doesn't that tie the hands of our officials town officials if there seems to be some problems going on or is that a separate category because some kind of nuisance complaint is going on as opposed to so I can't answer that question accurately I know Rob could but I don't is Rob is here so Rob take it away good evening yes so the the first thing we do when we're conducting inspections or want to conduct an inspection of a property is call for the lease language the by law currently does provide gives gives us the ability to ask for the lease and that needs to be provided to us within 48 hours oftentimes we get it right away or at least the language that we need right away and we tried to follow the lease language to give the notice that is offered to the tenant through that language now if there's an emergency situation we'll definitely ask the landlord or their owner to try a little harder to get access and arrange access quicker and as our last resort we would go to the court and ask for a order to enter the property at a time certain that's authorized by the court generally most cases we ask for an inspection the same afternoon the next day and it's usually accommodated by everyone involved okay thank you thank you Rob other thoughts on the direction we are taking regarding um inspections or anything else Anna you just had your hand up it doesn't have to be sorry my microphone is far away um I'm curious if you and I'm trying to scroll through fast but I'm gonna ask it because that's faster than trying to find it in the document um when folks excuse me are filling out their registration are you looking or are you collecting any information about other energy efficiencies in the in the rental so things like what the heat source is age of the furnace if it's a boiler if it's a heat pump if they have AC is that information that you're collecting and then the reason I say that is it can help us in terms of understanding where our community is at for efficiencies but also support um we could have a database uh that helps owners rental property owners with things like replacements or when incentives are available we know those are coming up through the um in the next couple years so I'm just curious about if that's part of this process or might be thanks so it will be part of the process um we just received a list of I just received and I have not again the next draft on November 3rd will incorporate these questions into the drafts and the regulations most of those questions will show up in the regulations not the bylaw itself because they can be modified more easily for flexibility when things change or we have the information like us to ask are and I won't go through the whole list but our has the building received an energy efficiency rating um are there electric vehicle charging stations and does it host solar on on on the thing but then about the building itself the age of building gross square footage condition space bedrooms bathrooms building envelope renovated um insulation types fuel types heating system types um age efficiency and who pays bills are sort of around what ECAC has been asking us to put in that and so that will show up in the next draft um under some of that thank you thank you thank you and good work these are y'all I know I've worked really hard on this Lynn um would you please share with us some of the discussion about occupancy limits that the committee's been having so the committee has had some discussions surrounding occupancy limits um both in terms of changing them and in terms of what to do when occupancy limits in the zoning bylaw are seen to be violated under inspection um in whether to change the occupancy limits that is peripheral in some sense to this discussion and this bylaw because that's a zoning bylaw matter um occupancy limits are listed I believe in two sections of the zoning bylaw under I think ADUs there is an occupancy limit that is different than the typical four and the four is listed I believe in the definition section of the bylaw under what a family means and so that's a little peripheral although we have had discussions about that as it somewhat relates to the work we've been doing in terms of the work we've been doing the discussions have revolved around sort of what does a violation of the rental permit constitute does an occupancy limit violation constitute a violation of the rental permit bylaw should it constitute a violation of the rental permit bylaw and if it is a violation what is an appropriate penalty um and so right now it's listed as a violation that you have to comply with those occupancy limits as a term of the permit um but the violation um is is not any specific violation any the penalty for that violation is not any specific penalty at this point there are prior drafts that had a specific penalty of revocation of the permit that specific penalty for that a particular occupancy violation has been removed and so it would go into sort of it would be up to the the building inspector or enforcement personnel to determine what penalty to ascribe to that violation if it is found um there are also legal questions that we've got out there about what we can do about that um including what lease terms can be and all of that that we've we've had to wrestle with because depending on how things go depends on you know people are living there right um and and there's been discussion about do do you kick people out do you not what's the purpose and all of that um so I I guess that's that's the way I would summarize the discussions I would um before I recognize Andy see if anyone uh else um I believe Jennifer and Pam are here um and Pat from the committee and Shalini the rest of the committee are there if they would like to add anything to my summary of sort of where those occupancy limit discussions have been um um uh Shalini and then Jennifer and then we'll move to Andy yeah I apologize I was not able to complete the analysis of the data that we received like over 250 I think responses from landlords neighbors and tenants and there was a lot of mention of the four tenant rule and how it impacts the tenants how it impacts the residents uh not much was said by the landlords so there will be a more detailed report coming from the perspective of what we're hearing from the tenants and how it's impacting them and the residents so I'm hoping that that's going to inform this discussion a little bit more um I don't think I need to say much more at this point but um but it does create a lot of anxiety and stress for tenants they talked about the cost factor how it's um increasing the cost of rents and um and how it's also being the four tenant rule is being used sometimes by landlords to prevent the tenants from ask complaining about what's wrong so I mean there's a lot more detail I'll be offering and then of course from the resident side they were concerned about the number of cars that are parked on the streets the the additional um the density the traffic all of that and so I think we may need to have another discussion once all of this information is brought before us thank you shalani jennifer um yes thank you so uh in the feedback that we received from um the forms uh you know both during the public uh the community forum and on the engage amherst um forms that the the non-student households feel very strongly that the four um occupant limit is essential um I am not aware of any college or university town that does not have limits on houses that are rented to students um many have three we have four it is definitely the experience that whatever the limit is there will be more people living in the house um so you raise it to six and then you have eight but that said you know there is the issue that you can't just evict people that legally and that's not what we're looking to do but um there is discussion that landlords need to be responsible and certainly if you're violating the bylaw that when you come to renew your permit the next year that's something that um may be taken uh into consideration but um and in terms of the rents uh it is landlords rent by the bedroom or by the person so it's not like a house is you know being rented for four thousand dollars and that's what it will be if six or seven tenants live there if if it's if the tenant if the landlord is leasing the house and knows how many people are there if the limits were to be raised to six let's say then each at four thousand you know if it's thousand dollars a bedroom it'll be six thousand dollars so um we're not you know if there was any discussion of increasing the limit that wouldn't lower the rent for the tenants you know for those that are legally living there and that are on the lease so but it's a uh it's it's um a conversation that we've had but there haven't been um since the as Mandy Jo said since it's the zoning bylaw right now that speaks to tenants and we're only working with the rental permitting bylaw thank you thank you Jennifer Andy so my question actually had to do with uh I think a related topic to occupancy limits and that's the parking plan requirement and uh because I think of what we've generally observed is that uh when you can tell if there are a large number of guests either for a special event a weekend weekend or on a regular basis just by the number of cars parked there I was curious about what has been done to to look at the parking plan requirement from what we currently have and what has gone well and what is not where it's complying with the zoning bylaw um what happens if uh the if if somebody submits a parking plan that includes parking on the front lawn and is that because that's I think not a lot by the zoning bylaw and what happens if it regularly occurs anyway and therefore people are parking in violation of the parking plan so I was curious whether you've had any of those discussions because I think that relates back to what Lynn was talking about earlier yeah a few discussions um we've relied heavily on Rob and John's experience with the parking plan to um and the current bylaw to to inform the the new draft basically we've moved nearly all the requirements into the I believe into the regulations um it's more of an enforcement issue than um in terms of then requiring different things for the parking plan um according to Robinall um and so it doesn't mean there's going to be a lot of changes in the bylaw itself versus another aspect of enforcing what's submitted in the application um Pam just raised her hand so she might have some more information on that and then I'll go to Michelle so Pam thank you um we have not actually talked about this in detail yet and one of the things as as everyone here has said the parking is probably one of the highest pension markers uh in within neighborhoods where we have traffic generated by the the occupants of the house and we have the the haphazard parking in front of the house so so right now um we look at I mean the the inspectors look at parking as something that is sort of generally covered under zoning and I think this what I hope to see happen is that we tighten up the expectations for a what the plan submitted is the plan reviewed and then the enforcement of that plan when when people meet the expected layout and the and the expected parking procedures there will be less conflict with their neighbors so it will become I think a fairly important enforcement uh and and potentially violation um issue just as over occupancy will become something that can be much more clearly and much more carefully managed because those are the two those are the absolute two most um uh largest causes of conflict within our neighborhood thank you Pam Michelle thank you um first I want to wholeheartedly agree with what Jennifer said about um if we were to increase occupancy limits I don't think that a landlord is saying I'm gonna um rent this house for X amount and then you know divided out by four five or six I think they're gonna say I've got five or six and I'm gonna charge them each this amount and that was the case for me here in Amherst as a college student um so unless we were to have some sort of ordinance and I don't know what the legalities of this are that would essentially create rent control or limit the you know create a maximum amount of rent that a place can be charged I think um or that a landlord can charge I think I don't think it would work in that way um and that is a legal question I would have um and then the other pieces way back when when we first started this work and I was able to join meetings more frequently I remember I brought the topic up of increasing the occupancy limit from four to five and I realized even early on that that was a tense conversation to have um but I do recall that Rob had talked about additional safety requirements that um were activated when you moved from four to five that maybe were pursuant to the building code or law um which could support overall safety more overall safety and then also incentivize better maintenance overall so I was just wondering if Rob recalled that conversation um and if that in fact is true that if we had moved from four to five if it does activate some additional requirements that the landlord um would need to partake in Rob uh yes that's true uh it's actually above five so at number six for occupancy activates a series of fire regulations that would include um you know very basic sprinkler systems fire alarm uh and and some other life safety features in the building uh you know for us we you know we really see an advantage of course having a sprinkler system but maybe most importantly to have a fire alarm that's connected to a monitoring service so that it's not so easy to tamper with smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors in in the dwelling units but that is correct it's above five occupants though thank you Dorothy um that regulation could be changed and that could be done for for occupants I understand that sprinklers are a useful thing but this past weekend we had the absolute chaos a free-for-all on Lincoln and Sunset with parking on both sides of the street uh driveways blocked fire uh ambulances unable to come to the aid of a person having a serious reaction to a bee string which bee sting which you know is life-threatening um the other part is people saying oh we'll make more parking spots so here we have a house with a small yard very small but it is space that tenants could actually use for themselves and we know they do they have their beer pong parties where they sit out and enjoy the sun but those spaces will be taken up by more and more cars if you add more occupants because the yards don't get bigger and these the places where all the students are they're not that big so yes sprinklers would be nice uh fire directly wired uh fire alarm would be nice you can require that increase in the occupancy would absolutely destroy the neighborhoods and we have said this again and again and if anyone went to Lincoln or Sunset this past weekend you would understand what it what we're talking about it was complete chaos so I I see that this people want to increase occupancy but I'm telling you it would be a very very bad idea thank you Dorothy we're going to hear from Shalini and Jennifer and then we're going to move on to the third slide um okay so I don't know how deep you're going but since everyone's talking about it I just feel compelled to then share more that um I at least having gone really deep into all of the data and all the comments from the resident sides and the tenant side I think the general sense is not from the tenant side also to increase the number of tenants universally across the town but the feeling was that if there's if the zoning if the space if the parking or if the the house has six rooms and six bedrooms and there's space for parking um and there's enough size we are wasting those two bedrooms when there's such a shortage of housing in this town there are two bedrooms in multiple houses that could be housing more res uh more tenants that should not go wasted so the idea was not that across the board it should increase in fact in certain areas the tenants themselves were like maybe they shouldn't even allow four in that house because it's right next to xyz so it's really I think it it requires a deeper more reflective discussion about um and and as Mandy Jo pointed out maybe it's a zoning issue and that needs to go but since we are looking at the um the application or the monitoring of it I think it's an important discussion for us to have also but it really does bring out the discrimination against tenants when you know there could be a family living with six people or eight people and that's allowed but if it's six tenants that's not allowed given that that house can allow for the parking and so so all I'm saying is that I think we need to have a more detailed discussion on that and parking definitely was the the second highest thing that residents were dissatisfied about you know especially parking haphazardly over the lawns the disarray and so I think that again how our bylaw is going to support um and making sure that um and there were other things like zip cars can those be allowed and so there were like other suggestions that tenants made to also offset some of those parking problems so I look forward to sharing the report with you all within a week we look forward to it too thank you Shalini Jennifer yes I need to and I just this isn't why I initially raised my hand but I have to respond um in terms of the extra bedrooms in a house it's not it's not like a family a family with four kids five kids doesn't have a car you know just in terms of cars doesn't usually have a car per family member um when they're rented to students you know that's it just exacerbates every issue that's already there I mean you have if you were to say well this is a house with seven bedrooms we could have you know some of the older houses have six and seven bedrooms you know they each person has four friends over and then you basically have a party and you have their cars coming and going you know well past the time that their non you know student neighbors have gone to sleep it's a very different situation having more than four unrelated people versus a family unit with the same number of people I mean it just uh we have to we we have to balance the need for housing for the UMass students with a livable neighborhoods for you know non-student households we just we have we have to do that but the I did want to ask Rob I guess as Dorothy said I know I believe it's a state requirement that if there's more than five tenants then there are you know sprinkler systems and a certain kind of you know a fire alarm required but couldn't Amherst have that be a regulation if we wanted to for four tenants that's the question uh no we cannot so that that is a Amherst general law it's enforced by the fire department and it complements the building code that we enforce as well in our sanitary code and the town cannot write a local bylaw that that alters or change or lessons or strengthens any of those codes and regulations it has been tried the fire services in Springfield tried it six or eight years ago and that that ultimately failed and and the courts ruled that to be not a legal regulation that could carry forward I also if it because it's appropriate we have so many examples over the years but I just wanted to mention one one reason why we we even consider this or continue to talk about you know the occupants in certain buildings we're dealing with a case right now where there are seven occupants that we became aware of through our inspections and the house is large enough it's in perfectly fine condition each occupant has its own their own private living space but we cited them in violation of the foreign related just as we have many times over the years and usually we can negotiate you know some resolution in this case the the tenants hired a lawyer and in response the landlord hired a lawyer and ultimately a restraining order was filed and we were called to a hearing with the court and you know one of the questions that came to us through the magistrate from the judges is the building safe are are there any health and safety issues within the building and we didn't have any it was solely a zoning matter so you know this is a really complicated you know not an easy answer to to the subject and how we're going to solve this but you know we we did not get a feeling of support from the court in that case and ultimately got out of that that setting and negotiated a an agreement with the tenants to leave by a certain day you know which was generous depending on who you're talking to I guess was generous we thought it was generous but they didn't think it was enough about three months so and this is still being finalized so I don't want to go into too many specifics about the property but that's the kind of thing we deal with over and over again so it's it's a lot a lot stronger of a case for us if there's a health safety violation and obviously that's our first goal and major effort is to make sure it's safe living conditions if they're not safe living conditions you know such as living in the basement in an unfinished basement with you know curtains hanging between spaces to separate them those are dealt with immediately but when you've got a really large building with multiple rooms that serve as bedrooms although the property card in our record doesn't show them as bedrooms it becomes really difficult to enforce a zoning bylaw certainly in any reasonable time frame I just want to call attention to the fact that we only have 12 minutes left on this section which is why we're moving on to the third thank you slide and so the third slide Athena could you move to the third slide yes so this is complaints and violations which is another section we're really trying to beef up in terms of clarity and what can be done and how you decide what is done and then I just put regulations on here because I think CRC we have not discussed the regulations that are in the packet they are right now a amalgam of and a conglomeration of just things we've discussed in prior things that said oh that would be good for a regulation what would we include in a regulation but we have not discussed after we pushed it over to regulation what we would actually do with that looking specifically at the regulations but any feedback comments questions on the complaint structure that we've gone with the possibility the biggest new thing and this would be creation of a designation of a problem property most of that designation creation is done under the regulations or is intended to be done under the regulations we'll find out soon whether we can do it under the regulations or whether we have to do it within the bylaw and then using that designation as a method of determining when to suspend a permit when to not renew a permit when to you know sort of deny a permit instead of renewing a permit when to potentially revoke a permit and things like that and so comments on the complaints and violations you'll see we've upped the fine from 100 a day to 300 a day per violation which is the maximum we can do and so any comments thoughts questions on the complaints violations the regulations or any general comments anyone has on the work we've been doing questions you'd like to see answered other things we might not have considered that you'd like us to consider no one seems to have any comments any final thoughts comments on regulations I will say before since there are no hands up CRC took its first stab at a fee structure fee schedule last week um that was a very good discussion we've tentatively settled on something that we will be able to work with to then get the information we need to run numbers on what fees might look like and how we could do it to ensure that the revenue is sufficient to fund the new bylaw particularly the mandate for town inspections to obtain a permit right now there are over 1100 parcels that are permitted under the current system um and so that would be 1100 parcels to inspect every three years um and so we are going to be as we look at that fee schedule and structure and run numbers and look at numbers looking really hard at how to make the new proposal sustainable from a from a revenue and staffing point of view and so Andy well thank you you actually answered the third thing I was going to one of the three things I was going to say saves time um I had several comments and concerns about it this in general to at least have us be thinking about and that was one of them so thank you second is that I'm a little bit uncomfortable about everybody always talking about students students even though we all do recognize that that is the largest number of renters with that exclusive I always think of the uh television program of many years ago friends um where you had young adults who were living together in sharing um and uh but they were not students and so we shouldn't be writing things to assume um a particular group even if we know that there is a predominant group because of who lives um who's our biggest customers in town what is our biggest business and the last thing that I'm hoping that you'll think about and is reflected in some of the questions that I had sent to me in the earlier is that I am concerned that this could increase costs to landlords to the point that they have to raise rents I'm very sensitive about rents I think it is really becoming very onerous on everybody who rents students and non-students alike that runs into us to take an action that drives up rents further is something that we should at least be thinking about thank you Andy Jennifer um yes I just I have to respond um nobody is uh anti-student but and I'm just talking about undergraduates because this is you think of I guess Andy gave the you know example of friends you know they kept hours the hours that were kept were I'm sure similar to the non-student household neighbors and I think what is different with not all but what people experience living you know when there gets to be a tipping point of too many houses rented to undergraduates literally is the hours that are kept which is you know when the bars close at two in the morning there's a lot of activity there's a lot of parties there's a lot of cars and you it is we just have to acknowledge it's a very different situation and you know there was some huge parties this weekend because of the football game and I know on one street there was real mayhem but none of the residents wanted to report it because everybody was like it's a beautiful Saturday afternoon of course they should be having parties but it it it did mean that other people on the block couldn't be out in their backyards enjoying the afternoon but you know it's just what you know kind you know how things are compatible in in a sense so I nobody um particularly those neighborhoods that are near the university people chose to live there because they love the vibrancy but there is a difference between the hours that are kept and and the lifestyles that just has to be recognized the other thing I did want to say in terms of I know that some of the feedback from some of the landlords on the on the forms was there was concern and I'm not I think anything should be done to make houses safer even if it is installing a sprinkler system but there was definitely some resistance to that and I guess it will only be an issue if it's more than five living there because it's so costly to install particularly in these you know larger older houses so I you know um so I wonder if there would be some resistance to having to install the sprinkler systems although they would have to do that given the occupancy so I just wanted to clarify that it's just not fair to suggest that anybody is being anti-student but we just you know have to deal with with what is and there is a big difference there's just totally different between the hours you know graduate students keep the same hours as everyone else but it's different you know we were all undergraduates and we had you know and we know you know what lifestyle is enjoyed thank you thank you Jennifer I want to give an opportunity to Anika I know she had her hand up and left it down um if you want to ask a question or make a comment you may but don't feel you have to because you did take your hand down but I wanted to make sure I asked oh thank you Mandy I just wanted to thank Andy as well for you know seeing the broad range of renters here because um and acknowledging the economy because the rents have yet in most places of the country to go down um and uh yeah so just it being inclusive of who our renters are thank you thank you um we are basically out of time um so what I would recommend or ask what I ask of my fellow counselors is if you have any other questions after you go through this even further um send them to me I will be trying to as I said earlier take some of the questions that we heard today to write up answers the questions that Andy sent me to write up answers um that can be distributed not only to CRC but to the council so that you see sort of where we are going I anticipate because we've been doing a lot of work that the next draft will not show up in a CRC packet until November 3rd at the earliest um which is the reason is the draft that is out there is the draft that CRC saw on the 20 on the 13th um the draft that we've been discussing tonight and end the draft that will be discussed at the next meeting the the listening session next week that CRC is holding at 7 p.m but it is also the draft that the attorney is going to be working with and discussing with CRC on the 27th of the month and therefore until we get all of that information back I'm not going to produce a new draft because I'm going to try and incorporate all of that I think it's going to be four different meetings into the new draft so don't go oh it's going to be on the 27th no you're not going to see something new until the third at the earliest um but so you've got time please send me any comments questions you have we'll try to incorporate them um and answer them if it's appropriate to answer them or discuss them at a meeting and potentially you'd see your incorporation of that comment into a further draft at some point um I think at this point Lynn I turn it back over to you great thank you again Mandy Jo and all the members of CRC who have been working so hard on this and our staff who have been serious assets to the work of this committee um this is a good discussion I hope you got what you wanted from it um and with that we're going to adjourn this and immediately go on to our next meeting um again it's October 17th uh we are um I'm going to call the council public forum together uh at this point at 8 30 it's the second of three meetings tonight we've already done a lot of checking with people to make sure they can hear us and hear them and we can hear them and so without spending any more time on that I'd like to go right on to Paul Backelman and finance director Sean Mondano for a very brief presentation on the FY 23 supplemental budget appropriations transfers and the creation of the stabilization fund and then we will move to public comment great thank you Lynn before the clock starts on our presentation um Sonia are you here I can't see you can you turn your camera on there son yeah son yeah so I don't know where anybody else was on January 20th 1987 but we had a new employee go up that day who was our new parking clerk and her name was Sonia Aldridge and she has announced that she will be retiring in the near future and I just wanted to let people know this because this is going to be a momentous change she has rose from parking clerk as you know to ultimately becoming our interim finance director and has done every job and the and the treasurer and collectors in the county and office in between she was keeping this I think she was keeping that that finance director seat warrant because she always wanted to have Sean Mondano take over that job and she was successful in making that happen so there'll be a lot more to talk to Sonia about but I just wanted to publicly announce that she had announced that her plans are to retire sometime next year so we have time to recruit her no one will replace her but someone does help with us going forward thank you so no Sonia thank you welcome it's been it's been a long time Bernie Kubiak said to me the other day that he thinks there should be a law that you're not allowed to retire thank you looking forward to it I know yep you've got that beautiful property to spend time on all right thank you so we're going to go on Paul and Sean and presentation Sean will do the presentation thank you okay Athena can you enable share screen for me all right hopefully everybody can see this on the screen so we just have one slide tonight sorry right there so we have a number of financial orders that have been recommended to the council and reviewed by the finance committee this table outlines I'm here and I'll go through them briefly so the first order FY 23-04B is a request to increase operating budgets for the town and school in the library by 351,938 or one-half percentage point from what was already approved for FY 23 the funding source for this would be state aid that came in higher than what was budgeted during the FY 23 process and there's really two reasons that we're requesting this one operating budgets like like everyone in the world right now they're dealing with a lot of inflation our operating budgets are particularly vulnerable in the areas of utilities and fuel and so this additional amount will help all the operating budgets deal with the impacts of inflation for this year that will hopefully subside in future years the second major reason is that the schools and the library in particular having some new initiatives that are being funded that many would like to see continue to be funded on a more permanent basis for the town it's the additional for firefighters and EMTs that were added last year and are currently being funded through ARPA at this elementary school level it is the arts and technology positions and the collaboration time that was discussed during the FY 23 budget process and at the region it's some mental health programming that was added using ESSER funds so all these things are things that we'd like to see continue and increase in our operating budgets will allow us to phase them in on a more permanent basis the next two orders FY 2305 B and 05 C are capital appropriation requests one for roads and sidewalks and one for the region track and field the the million dollars for roads and sidewalks is to address the backlog of repairs for roads sidewalks that we've all become aware of when we have additional free cash at the end of a year we try to put some of that into the identified need to the town roads and sidewalks being one of them we did this last year and we're looking to do it again this year the other one here is the region track and field this is to help fund the larger project the the council has already allocated 1.5 million to through the region debt authorization to replace just the track the council has approved an 800,000 CPA debt authorization and this is the third and final leg of the funding plan that was put together by the regional school district to help fund the larger track and field rehabilitation project that would turn the track and redo the field inside the track and both of these are also being funded through recash that was generated from the FY 22 budget the next order FY 23-15 is proposing the creation of a capital stabilization fund currently we just have a general stabilization fund that holds our reserves in addition to free cash and one thing that's always been unclear I think to everybody is what portion of those reserves are to support the four building projects and capital and what portion is just for economic stability and in case of a downturn and so creating this fund we feel will aid in the planning process for the four building projects by more clearly delineating what portion of our reserves are for what purpose going along with this fund we're also proposing a policy that would move any amount of reserves over 15% of the operating budget into the capital stabilization fund going forward after considering other commitments that have been made like the one for reparations the next order FY 23-12 a is the order to based on the commitment that the council made to fund reparations up to two million dollars per year and each year would be based on the amount of cannabis taxes collected or an amount equivalent to that which is what you see here 134,330 dollars this annual contribution is based on would only be made if the town was in good financial shape which this year where we are and the last two orders FY 23-12 a and 14 C are based on that policy that I just mentioned moving anything above 15% into the capital stabilization fund so the first order would ultimately leave 5% in free cash and move the difference into the capital stabilization fund and the second order would leave 10% in general stabilization and and move the rest into the capital stabilization fund so what you'd be left with is 5% free cash 10% in general stabilization to make a total 15% of the operating budget and then the balance which is roughly 9.3 million would be moved into the capital stabilization fund and happy to answer any questions this is actually an opportunity for people in the audience to ask questions and to make comments but before I just want to clarify it's 220,000 maximum per year for reparations am I correct about that so there's there's no maximum per year would be based on what we brought in in cannabis tax revenue but up to a maximum of two million dollars over 10 years yeah okay for as many years as it takes to get there I think right thank you thanks um Michelle you had your hand up was there about that it is directly about that yeah I think in the motion it did say that it would be a maximum of 200 and something or other so I think Lynn's remembering correctly okay thank you Michelle all right with that again this is public comment we have public comment open now for until 648 so if you would like to make public comment about the transfers and the stabilization fund the capital stabilization fund are any of the items that Sean has just gone over please raise your hand not seen in the hands this could be a long time public forums are a requirement of our charter and residents have up to half of the time to speak Tony Cunningham please enter the room hi thanks Tony Cunningham own drive I had a question about the capital stabilization fund the money says the source is free cash does that mean it will not be a borrowing and it will not show up on our capital coming out of our capital budget is okay if I go ahead and answer that one please yeah so the two orders for capital stabilization moving funds into capital stabilization fund those are taking funds that we already have and it's really just moving it from one type of reserve account to another so it's it's moving funds from a general reserve to a reserve specific to capital so there would be no borrowing involved that's it's money that's been accrued over many years okay andy before we go any further I just need to have you quickly call the finance committee meeting to order and recognize bob hegner I do so uh call those when you order and bob you and just confirm your presence I'm here thank you I think those are the only people that are not counselors all right are there other questions or comments there's 12 people in the audience on the zoom probably a lot more in the audience on Amherst media but we don't know what that number is these are questions regarding our appropriations outside the annual budget and this is done once a year at the time that we have free cash and it's been certified are there any other public comments we have six more minutes to go this is about it as exciting as the first time we had public comment tony cunningham please enter the room you need to unmute hi thank thank you just to follow on from that comment thank you shon for that answer um I'm just curious with the the track and field project when it goes ahead and the amount is borrowed in paying the debt service on that borrowing will some of it come out of that capital stabilization rather than I'm just trying to how will we see it you know as far as the capital budget versus this capital stabilization fund will the payments come out of both thank you right yeah that's a great question so for the region track and field project it's going to be a little more complicated because there's there's three funding sources and possibly a fourth depending on if there's donations and fundraising that that goes that's generated so for this this $900,000 that's being proposed tonight this is just this is from free cash so it's almost like cash capital so this will be a capital project that is created that will be called the region track and field and it will it's won't be a borrowing authorization it will just be a pot of funding for that project and those funds that $900,000 specifically will either be spent through bills being sent to the town directly for our share of that project or it may be a reimbursement to the region of some sort for their work will work on what administratively makes the most sense the CPA portion which was a borrowing authorization that will be it'll work in a similar way but that is a borrowing authorization that we would pay back over many years I think we're estimating 10 years for the CPA committee and then the region the first action which was the region debt authorization for $1.5 million that comes to us as an assessment each year comes out of the pot of capital money that we have and it's assessed to us each year so the region incurs the debt and that circumstance and then they give a piece to each of their member towns and we pay it through again through a capital assessment as opposed to our operating assessment so because this project has a variety of funding sources it'll be a little more complicated than a regular capital project but Sonya's here she does a great job of keeping track of all the different funding sources thank you are there other questions or comments it's 645 we have three more minutes that will be open for this public forum I'm looking for any final comments from people regarding the appropriations outside the annual budget Andy unless you see any reason not to I think in just a moment I'm gonna have you adjourn the finance committee meeting but just hold on a moment Andy you can go ahead I adjourn the finance committee meeting okay and the public forum is now adjourned but we will immediately move on to the regular town council meeting okay we've already gone through making sure everybody can hear us and we can hear them and as far as I can tell we've not lost any counselors in connectivity again this meeting is being held virtual given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the regular town council meeting to order at 648 we will have an opportunity for public comment during this time as well we're going to go on to the next item on the agenda which is announcements we have a lot of meetings come up coming up I want to just call attention to a few first of all on November 7th I'm sorry Pam you have your hand up hi just curious is there not an opportunity to ask questions on the the presentation of the finance report there will be an opportunity and if there is a specific item that you want to ask questions about then you're going to need to have it pulled off the consent agenda okay but there will also be a finance committee report toward the end of the evening okay so on November 7th we have a very variety of different meetings first of all the town council does receive the evaluations from each of the other counselors and we then also receive the first draft of the memo regarding the town manager's valuation that leads to a reading period if counselors want to have that reading period and they want to be at their computer all materials can be sent to you they can also ask that they would be sent to you are brought to your home are brought to you here in the town room in printed form and that reading period goes from five to seven at seven o'clock we'll actually have a special town council meeting which is joint with the library and library trustees and the school committee and that's to actually be our official kickoff of the FY 24 budget and financial indicators and then at about eight o'clock we will return to our regular town council meeting that council meeting will include a tax classification hearing although tonight we will hear a few items about the tax classification I also want to point out on November 21st at six o'clock we will have the official public forum for the FY 24 budget and then we will also have a regular town council meeting Mandy Joe mentioned this but I want to mention it again on the 24th the community forum is being held on the residential rental bylaws and that's actually a time for residents to ask questions and engage in that dialogue and this is one of two that we've had this year the other one I believe was back in August and then on the 18th the finance committee is meeting and we will be looking at all of the capital projects and the financial model again that is a joint meeting with the town council it's called so that if enough if there are seven or more counselors we will call that meeting there are two district meetings coming up one is on the 23rd at the immersed history museum that's district four and that's one for one to three the other one is district two which was rescheduled it's now on the 26th at 6 30 via zoom and if you'll go to the next there's also the announcement of the ahra listing session which is being held in person at the Hitchcock center from 6 30 to 8 p.m on October 27th okay I think you can find a meeting to go to if you're looking Andy of a question it's not a question I just wanted to uh say that tomorrow the 18th when we have the finance committee council combined meeting and major agenda item will be the uh as you said the four capital projects uh we will not uh promise not to reach that item until 3 30 will be handling other business before then so anybody of course everybody's welcome to join the meeting for its entirety but if you're trying to join just for the capital projects I just wanted to let you know the 3 30 is when we are intending to reach that item thank you okay we are going to um we do not have any hearings tonight but we do uh shall any you have your hand up can I just make a quick announcement for the south asian fall festival sure thank you and I will be sending a formal invite to the counselors and all our committees but I just want everyone to mark the calendars for november 5th saturday from 3 30 to 6 p.m uh been working with the community members to create a south asian fall festival detail and where will that be located what's that where will that be located it's going to be at the unitarian church downtown okay thank you all right um we're now going to go on to general public comment if you would like to make public comment please raise your hand now so far I'm not seeing any hands give it another minute okay we're going to go on to the consent agenda uh the consent agenda will be up on the screen the following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonably expect they would pass with no controversy to remove an item after you go through this I go through the motion you tell me which item you're going you want to remove and I will remove that as we look for a second so um to move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit 8 a let me just mention you don't have to remove the entire 8 a if you want to remove something under 8 a you can do so approval of the following financial orders f y 23-04 b supplemental operating budget f y 23-05 b capital improvement program routes and sidewalks f y 23 0 5 c capital improvement program school track and field f y 23 12 a free cash to stabilization fund f y 23 14 c stabilization to capital stabilization fund f y 23-15 establish establish a cap a stabilization fund for the purposes of capital 8 b authorization of the november 8th 2022 election warrant 8 c referral of proposed changes to recently adopted bylaw 3.39 street numbering of buildings to governance organization and legislation committee 8 d authorization for the town council president to sign the letter to the umass amherst chancellor search committee on behalf of the town council and 11 a approval of the following town council meeting minutes October 3rd 2022 regular town council meeting minutes i'll recognize dorthy pam at this time i'd like to remove um f y 23 0 5 c capital improvement program school track and field okay is there anything else or anybody else who has a request at this time um see none then i'm seeking a second for the consent agenda shown on your screen i'm sorry alisha alisha i think she's stuck in the audience were you seconding it you're in the attendees she's in the attendees oh can you bring alisha back over please thank you thank you len yes i was in the audience but i will second that also thank you and welcome back um okay no other questions we're going to move to the vote we're going to start with um pat de angeles i on a delin gothier i lin greece mersen i mandy johannicky i anika lopes hi michelle miller hi dorthy pam yes pam rooney yes kathie shane is absent andy steinberg hi jennifer tov hi alisha walker hi shelenie bowman yes it's unanimous 12 in favor and one absent oh thank you we are now going to move on to um um the tax uh we have no resolutions and proclamations tonight uh i'd like to welcome shon mangano back along with assessor kim use and they are going to do a brief presentation on the tax classifications that will are being proposed this year we will not be voting on this item tonight shon yeah thank you so um unlike lap past years uh where we just had the hearing and then the vote the same night we wanted to a because we wanted to do this a little earlier to sort of a workshop um and go through much of the presentation that you usually um receive and have some time for questions and answers and that way we can also bring back responses to any questions at the actual hearing um in november so i will turn it over to our principal assessor kim you who will lead us through the presentation thank everyone can you hear me okay yes we can okay thank you so um we're just going to quickly go through this i won't spend a whole lot of time on all of this since we'll look at this again um at the next council meeting but um just to start off what we will be voting on on the seventh is whether or not we do a single or split tax rate um whether we do the open space discount a small commercial exemption and a residential um exemption next slide please um so how this process works for those of you who are new to the council is um once we have our assessments finalized and once we get that approval from the state so we have our values approved uh we can have a public hearing where the council will vote on these items the split tax rate the residential exemption the small commercial exemption and the open space discount um and then once um we have this this um this vote then we can recommend to you um although it's not a necessity for the town manager and or the assessor and board to make recommendations we generally do make our recommendation to you next slide please and this slide looks like a lot of information um it's basically just the wording right out of the chapter um explaining the process of what this situation is so pretty much what i've just explained to you so we can skip right over this slide for now um and so this classification act has been an ongoing thing since 1978 um it requires that municipalities classify their property under residential commercial industrial and personal property and some communities also have open space here in Amherst we do not have that we use the chapter land instead and if you go on to the next slide i will explain what these classes are um so we have the residential class which i think is pretty common that pretty much everybody knows but basically it's uh any property um such as single family homes um you can do one or two two family three family so on and so forth basically any residence any place that um someone can live um this also includes vacant land um accessory buildings um things such as swimming pools and tennis courts uh basically anything that would be involved with a single or eight residents um then you also have your commercial class and this is uh businesses such as stores offices um hotels as you can see here um and it also includes vacant land and here's where your chapter would come into play and chapter land is farmland um and recreational land and then you have your um industrial properties and this is basically any manufacturing which Amherst has very little of uh and then lastly is your personal property this is anything basically if you can pick up the building and shake it out if it would fall out on the ground it's personal property um so this can be um any sort of um desks computers things of that nature um and so if you i just wanted to also note if you see anywhere in the presentation or anything that i've given you that says cip you'll see here it stands for commercial industrial and personal property can go on to the next slide please i just want to acknowledge kim excuse me i just want to acknowledge for a moment that uh two members of the board of assessors are in the audience the chair i believe is richard morris and uh lee hinds if you at any point would like to make a comment please raise your hand okay thank you thank you go ahead okay so you will see this graph here this um pie chart here uh so this is just a breakdown of what our town looks like um so we have 6938 total parcels and so you'll see most of those parcels are made up with our residential class um you'll see that's 88% you'll see the 6.5 under commercial 4.4 under personal property and then very very small less than 1% of the industrial parcels so um just keep this graph this pie chart in mind when we talk about the residential exemption um so you can go on to the next slide please and so this is one of the things that we're going to be voting on on the 7th and this is the split versus single tax rate um so basically what this means is that if we do a factor of one which means a single tax rate uh everybody will be paying the same rate so for example last year we had a rate of 21 27 per thousand um and so if we decide that we want to do a split tax rate um that would be a factor of less than one and basically what happens here is the um generally speaking with it with the factor of one of of less than one excuse me the the commercial class will pay a higher rate and if we do a factor of less a greater than one the the residential um properties would be paying a greater rate which is not very common you'll see in a later slide I have a little comment on that so but basically what I want to make sure that you know is that when you do the split tax rate you are shifting the burden of who pays more of the tax between the two classes so commercial versus the excuse me the commercial industrial and personal property versus the residential class you can go to the next slide and this just gives you an example um this is using last year's information because we don't yet have our tax rate set for this year uh so I figured I would use actual figures so I apologize for not having that information just yet um so for the average single family home from last year you will see um at a single tax rate the value the taxes would have been $9,593 whereas the average commercial um tax would have been 10,232 and 40 cents and then you'll see where I gave the example underneath of the split tax rate so the um average single family would have been just over just under 9,000 and the commercial would have been just over 15,000 so a difference of almost 600 and just over a thousand dollars in tax um depending on whether we want to do the split tax rate or the single tax rate um so you can go on to the next slide so just some facts about single tax rate there are 351 communities in massachusetts and 239 of those have a single tax rate as of fiscal year 2022 108 of those communities decided to do the single or the split tax rate with rates shifting from 22 cents to 21 dollars and 34 cents above the residential rate so again that's just saying that the commercial class is paying a much higher rate than the commercial I'm sorry than the residential and then there were six odd communities who decided to have the commercial and industrial and personal property pay a lesser rate than the residential class so and that was ranging from 29 cents to 79 cents higher for the commercial for the residential class um so something to keep in mind again thinking about our pie chart that I had given you generally when you're doing a split tax rate you want to have your personal property industrial and commercial class be a 70-30 ratio to your residential so hearing that and thinking about hours we're about 88 to 12 so we're not quite in the best shape to do that with so if you want to think about the difficulties that it could raise for the commercial class I know that it's important to think about the residential as well but we certainly don't want to push out all of our our commercial classes when we don't have very many as it is so just something to think about so with that being said myself and Paul the town manager would recommend that we do a factor of one meaning a split excuse me a single tax rate you can go on to the next slide please and this is the residential exemption so here's another vote that we'll be having on the 7th and basically this is a very similar aspect to the split tax rate so what this is going to be doing is specifically in the residential class this will be shifting the burden for owners who are non-owner occupied properties so again I just want to make sure that you are aware that it is not shifting to the commercial industrial and personal property class rather shifting inside of the residential class so this would have a higher tax for those that are non-owner occupied I know there's a lot of wording on here but basically it's just explaining that the highest percentage that can be given is the 35 percent of the average value of all residential properties and again just explaining that it's the shift of the burden inside of the residential class so if you go to the next slide please this next slide explains the qualifications for the residential exemption so as I had mentioned it's an owner occupied status to receive this exemption single family homes condominiums part of mixed use as well as two and three family homes can also be qualified for this exemption and what it means by part of a two or three family home or part of a mixed use property is if you have a two or three family home and you're the owner and you live in one of the units we would make a calculation based on that unit and your portion of the units would qualify for the residential exemption as well as the mixed use property so if you have a building that has for example office space as well as livable units and you live in one of those units you would qualify for that portion of the building something to keep in mind that is really important is the properties that would be excluded from this exemption obviously as I had mentioned non-owner occupied second homes and rentals which I know is important for people but also homes that are rented by family members but those family members are not necessarily on the deans so parcels that you'd want to think about are elderly people who have given their children their property their their residents however they still live there they still pay all the bills they just put the property in their children's name those people would not qualify for the residential exemption those who put their property in trusts would also not qualify it doesn't matter who you are why you did it who's the trustee it doesn't matter if it's a property in a trust it does not qualify apartment buildings and then nursing homes and group homes would also not qualify for the residential exemption Kim can I just add one quick thing yes while you're going to the residential exemption some of you may remember we did a very detailed presentation last year just on the residential exemption where we did a survey to get sort of best numbers on owner occupied versus non-owner occupied and we did some sort of scenarios of what it would look like and what it would mean and we will Kim and I will make sure that that presentation gets redistributed to everybody if you want to take a look at it thank you yes and so along those lines this information here on this pie chart is actually from that survey that we had done in 22 so you'll see that out of the residential class we have 66 percent that's owner occupied and 34 percent that is not so whether that is student rentals or just in general rentals for families that we don't know but at least we have this this percentage here and the thing to remember with this slide is that this is parcels or housing taxable housing units it's not residents right the residents and the non-owner occupied there's probably a bigger portion of residents in that smaller slice we don't know exactly how many are in that slice but this is just the parcel itself yes and you can go to the next slide please and so this is just a quick summary just again a reminder that if we do the residential exemption it is a shift of the tax burden inside of the residential class so again with the split tax rate we'd be shifting to the commercial industrial and personal property whereas the residential exemption would just shift inside of the residential class and we do want to keep in mind again about those renters those people who rent apartment buildings or not specifically the whole building but units in the apartment building anyone who rents condos anybody who rents at all this could affect their monthly rent based on if these increase and we also want to think about those again who may have their house in their children's name or their you know siblings or or any family members as well as trusts so this could put an increase on their their rent and then you can go to the next slide please and this would be another thing that we'll be voting on on the 7th so this is the small commercial exemption basically what the intention of this is is to give smaller businesses a break on their taxes and this is not something that I would recommend only because we have a smaller commercial class here in Amherst and so at this point it's shifting again the tax burden in the commercial class so very similar to the residential so I don't think that this would be beneficial to us particularly just because we have only about a 12 percent commercial class in Amherst and with that being said we do have many small businesses as well so this also may just keep in mind that this could potentially hurt the slightly larger businesses that we do have here in Amherst and I don't have a slide on the open space because we don't have that here in Amherst so the recommendation on that would be to not do the open space and so what I do want to mention is I apologize that I couldn't give you this year's figures on some of these slides because we don't have our tax rate set but what I can tell you is that I do anticipate our tax rate to decrease because we have had quite a bit of growth in Amherst this year so I am anticipating our tax rate to go down so with that said basically our recommendations this year are to adopt the single tax rate as a factor of one and not to adopt the residential small commercial or open space exemptions. Thank you so we're going to have a period of brief questions and then there will be some slight change in the order of the agenda Pam Rooney go ahead unmuting thanks in in this process without getting really into the weave but how is a commercial property actually evaluated or assessed is income included in that in that formula and then the reason for asking that is that we have lots of structures lots of structures in Amherst that are purchased for investment purposes and they're operating as a business they write off expenses can we treat them as a business and you all understand that I'm talking about rental units so when we talk about the definition of a residential building or business and a commercial business I would challenge us to think more broadly about what is a commercial business and I'd love to hear some pretty specific feedback on on why that could work yes so thank you for that question so the commercial properties are both commercial as well as apartment buildings can be used excuse me I'm sorry I'm having trouble talking today the income and expense can be used to create the value we do run that study to make sure that the value is not going to be a lesser value than the fair market values of using sales and comparable buildings so we do run both of those to make sure again that that we're picking the correct value when it comes to classifying basically commercial versus a residential unit that's being rented understandably that some people are using those for profit and that is their livelihood however the Department of Revenue classifies commercial property completely different than residential regardless of what the what's happening in the residential parcel for example a single family or two family it's a residence so if we were to use income and expense methods on two three four or even five families and what and single families we would have to use that method across the board so we can't pick and choose you know which which single families get that particular method and it's also extremely difficult to value a building lesser than four or more apartments using the income and expense method um I have actually heard this comment in the past and I've mentioned it to our rep from the Department of Revenue and I could feel the glaring eyes through the phone at me saying no this is not okay um so you know unfortunately that's that's a tough situation where we're very restricted to how we can value these particular parcels um I don't know if that answers Kim maybe you can just clarify for the but for the larger apartment complex as we do use the income and expense method um for their evaluations because there's not a lot of comparable sales to look at for for large um you know you know 50 60 unit developments yes uh Dorothy oh I'm sorry did you have a follow-up question yeah follow up um and part of the reason I ask is that is that there are literally websites out there that that teach people how to buy investment property and especially in college towns so we have this huge target of of investment dollars it is is exacerbated by the fact that we have 19 000 students that can't find housing on campus so they have to live somewhere and it is um it's such a different economic factor I really really would would challenge us to figure out how that non-owner occupied where it applies process could really take a different look at this issue I think it's it's something that um it's an industry in town it's an income base and I really would like some support on this I think it's really important thank you and and quickly following up on that Pam we have looked at that um I think I was the reason why Kim talked to the dor because I asked her to to run an analysis comparing the um the sales method of value and property versus the income method for some smaller um units and and the results varied pretty widely in some cases they were very close and some they were not very close and um and so it is something we've looked into a little bit and we'll continue to look into but um we can't really find anybody who's doing it uh Kim unless you've come across anybody since we looked at it last um can't find anyone who's doing it and the dor kind of gave you know this Kim mentioned um didn't seem overly supportive of it but it will continue to look at it is what I'll say Dorothy because you can't do what Pam asked you to do then why wouldn't it seem to be an obvious thing to do the non owner occupy to do the owner occupied exemption because I I believe that research shows that a town needs a certain percentage of owner occupied houses in order to have some kind of stability um of residence and um I think that would be something that would be good so that's my question why wouldn't that be an obvious thing to do so I mean I think you have to ask yourself why do you want to do the residential exemption so what would be the the reason for it um you know when we did the survey you know we try to hypothesize what might be the reason and one of the the reasons we thought would be to give um you know maybe lower income residents a break and what we kind of came around to is that there's no guarantee that's going to happen with the residential exemption in fact it might have the opposite effect so um the residential exemption does not take into account income it's just based on property value um so there's no guarantee we're helping those with the lowest ability to pay and I think we had legitimate concerns that it would really impact rents which we thought would be an adverse outcome for renters um you know there were some when we did the survey we looked at just a 15 percent residential exemption so not even the max and there were some um developments that saw a $50,000 increase in their taxes per year and that's like a not at the max so it could be much more depending on what would actually be put into place so we had major concerns that it could increase rents and that it would have the sort of opposite outcome for sort of the the ones in town with the lowest ability to pay so again that's why I've come back to if if that's something that the council really wants us to look into we'd want to know sort of what are the motive what are the the goals of the program or the the intentions of the program so we can kind of vet out whether it achieves those goals so just one follow-up um I could not follow the argument so I mean obviously the goal from from my point of view would be to um support owner occupied houses of all levels and you're saying that somehow this somehow would not work out to help them so I would just love to see some kind of more detail on how that works out yeah so just follow up again I would ask Dorothy is the is the intent just to support lower valued owner occupied homes if that is if that's the only goal of the program then the residential exemption would achieve that again if the goal was to provide some sort of relief to lower income individuals in town then I'm not sure it would achieve that outcome and if I may I also think something to think about that I had mentioned with those properties that would not qualify that our owner occupied would be those seniors who have put their property in a trust and or someone else's name to you know help them out in whichever way that was helping them so it's just if if there is going to be an outreach I think that might be one of the questions that we ask because how many of those people would actually be benefiting from this that are now not going to benefit and that's a real um that's a real scenario that actually happened when we did the survey last year we had a gentleman come in and say you know I you know I don't live in the home but I am on the deed and I provide the home for my family um you know would would this impact me and it would because in that case the owner the the residents did not live in the and the residents so they would not qualify for the exemption Michelle yeah I thought this may be a good um or a possible solution to some some of our concerns but um I really hear what you're saying Kim and just wanting to clarify that um the increase in rent comes because it would flow through from the landlord to the tenant correct that would be the assumption yes okay and that may be another one of those things that if we do another outreach something that we might ask those landlords if they would pass that on I mean you don't see why they wouldn't but certainly if if there is going to be another outreach I would say that that would be a great thing to add to it okay great and then the other question I had is do we have any data from other communities that are that have used this and do we know if it's been successful what sorts of challenges um have those communities run into and are they even you know similar communities obviously yes um I did an outreach uh last year around this time and I spoke with a couple of communities that had done this um one in particular actually had a very seasoned assessor who had been in many many communities um he honestly had nothing good to say about this but I can go into more detail I think at another time if we want to um just not to take up too much time but I'd love to answer your question um I'd be happy to send you emails with um correspondence that I had with this particular assessor and others as well but um but yes I have spoke with some um and I've heard not great feedback from the assessors on this particular just to sort of briefly touch the surface um you know to start this out it's a huge process um you have to think about staffing in the assessor's office especially hours where we only have myself and one other part of full-time person and then a part-time person um and then there's just the upkeep so do you need a new system to to track this um do you have to send something out each year um someone and so forth so just a few things to touch the surface of um what would need to be done what would need to be put in place to set this up thank you Kim okay Mandy Jo yeah um I encourage the new counselors to look closely at the presentation that we received last year for example um I pulled that presentation up 10% of owner-occupied parcels would actually receive an increase in taxes in their property taxes because of how this happens um because there's a break-even point um which was not discussed today but but there is so we have approximately from last year's presentation 4,300 or so owner-occupied parcels and over 430 of them would receive an increase in property taxes despite an exemption um of 15% and the only example they gave us was 15% um and then those non non non owner-occupied parcels all receive an increase and yes the bulk of that increases zero to a thousand dollars but some of them were over ten thousand dollars a year in an increase in property taxes as Sean said and so it's hard to justify um doing that when especially when we pretty much know that that increase in property taxes every year would go to on the non owner-occupied side to the tenants that we're trying to already reduce rent from because we heard when we went from 100 to 250 dollars on a residential rental permit what did we hear all the comments we've heard in that and anything we've heard right now as we discuss this are it's going to be passed on to the tenants it's going to be passed on to the tenants and so if you're increasing a property tax a thousand dollars a year three thousand dollars a year five thousand dollars a year fifty thousand dollars a year someone's gotta pay it and it's going to be the tenants and so our rental housing stock will become even less affordable if we do something like this than it is now okay are there any other comments or questions at this time again next on on the seventh November we will have a hearing on the tax proposed tax rates and then we will vote that night as a council Dorothy uh just point out that many homeowners have been saying they don't see what they're paying their taxes for and they're getting feeling they're being taxed but not being given or allowed to have safe and quiet neighborhoods in the enjoyment of their own property so there has been a lot of complaints people volunteering it so you should know that thank you thank you are there any other comments or questions on this item Lynn Richard Morris has his hand up in the audience yes Richard please enter the room and tell us what you'd like to say thank you can you hear me we can okay um you know one of the things that's happened on the board of assessors is that we look at um we in executive session look at the finances of people in town to provide exemptions on their property taxes for seniors and the blind and veterans and so and when you look at people's finances you can see how difficult paying their property taxes is for a lot of people in town or for a significant number of people in town so the assessors um have you know we develop a a certain degree of empathy here for taxpayers um but and I and so I'm sympathetic to what um Ms. Pam has said but we're limited by the the the the instruments of under the law that the state provides us and unfortunately the residential exemption is not an appropriate instrument to do what we really want to do which is provide some relief to lower income people in the town because it simply doesn't allow us to sort of carve carve things up in that way to provide to sort of shift the burden to people who are better able to pay because what we do what we would do on an exemption for owners of homes would ultimately affect pretty starkly I think lower income people who are renters so I there I don't think there's any there's no interest in ignoring the concerns that Ms. Pam has raised but under the law with the limited instruments we have we simply don't have a way to do it thank you okay thank you Richard and I want to thank all three of you um for your service on this committee I mean this board um is there any other questions from the council at this time okay we're going to take a very brief five minute break don't go yet when we come back we're going to move on to the joint discussion with the community safety and social justice committee item 7b will follow after the action items of which we only have one based on the item that was pulled from the consent agenda and then we will also do item 7b and 7d at the end of actions so a five minute break but don't put up the break sign because I want to use this time to bring in all of the members of the CSSJC who are in the audience okay if counselors want to take a brief break turn off your videos turn off your sound okay so um um Debra Ferrera needs to come in are you with me Athena okay Demetria Chabaz Philip Avila Avila Dee can you look at the attendees and tell me if I'm missing anybody please ah there's Pat on a Baku thank you that's what I was trying to do maybe not everyone's on here so miss Pat Debra um where's Allegra there's Allegra okay and Philip's there he's on he's on oh yeah and Freke so yes everyone is here okay is Freke in promoted to a panelist though he has been oh okay great I don't see him yet though you have to push the blue arrow because we're now to the point that we have more people oh got it on the screen thank you okay we're going to resume the meeting in a few minutes uh but welcome and when we resume the meeting we will have uh the chairs call the CSSJC committee to order and make sure that everybody can hear and be heard as counselors return from their very brief break please turn on your videos so that we can see that you're back as you return please turn on your video to make sure we know that you are back okay we're just waiting for Alicia just let us know that you're back with your voice yes I am here thank you and Nika you are back and Mandy Joe just let us know you're back with your voice I'm present thank you okay um we are have agreed to have a joint meeting with the CSSJC for one hour uh so that we will continue this discussion till approximately 840 because we have many other items to still do tonight on our agenda I would like to call upon Allegra Clark and Deisha Boz who are the co-chairs of CSSJC to call their meeting to order and to make sure that their members can hear us and we can hear them um this is excuse me a meeting of the community safety and social justice committee and it is 7 39 p.m um I'm sorry I'm going to take a sip of water um I'm going to call on the participants of our meeting to make sure everyone can be heard I'm starting with my co-chair D. Shabazz yes thank you D. um Phillip Avila yes thank you Phillip Pat on on Ibaku yeah thank you Deborah Ferreira here and Freke Ete present thank you um we have two reports that have been provided to all members of the CSSJC and the council they remain they are in the packet they are from chief police chief of police Scott Livingstone and the other one is an amend addendum to the initial report that was made by DEI director Pamela Young I'm going to call on each of them to give a brief presentation on their report um and then we will move to discussion of questions and discussions at that time so uh chief Livingstone thank you madam chair I believe everybody has the report would you like it read madam chair to get it on record officially or how would you like to proceed on that I can explain that that report that was submitted to the humans rights commission was in addition to the original finding of the investigating officer in the July 5th incident lieutenant Bill Menard and that was a synopsis and an overview of what had occurred and what we found out from the incident on July 5th but I'm more than happy to read it if you want to get it on record is there anybody who feels that the rate that the report needs to be read at this time please raise your hand I'm not seeing any of then we'll move on to Pamela Young hi so I would like to focus on a key points a few key points in response to some questions raised on the august 15th town council meeting that I feel are important to reiterate for this evening the first is that the Amherst police department officers work pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement and that that contract predates the DEI director position and as a result the DEI department is not authorized to conduct an independent investigation of the police department of its officers the initial report that was filed for the august 15th meeting was based on information that was provided by the police department the addendum that you received tonight is based on additional information from the police department a letter from one of the parents and two anonymous letters one from parents and the other one from the teens that were involved after I received the letter from the parent I communicated with the parent and offered to meet in person with that individual that offer was declined as the newly hired DEI director this incident has been a challenging one and very informative as well I think it's important for the council and the community to know that I take my responsibility assisting the town manager the town's elected and appointed officials staff departments and community members seriously I've tried to bring my personal values to the position a personal commitment to advancing equity integrity and awareness that the work is very complex that it's challenging it's emotional and it is ongoing and with that said I would like to read into the record my closing observations that are included in the addendum some of the use and families involved in the July 5th police interaction have expressed feelings of harm no one is in a position to die another's feeling we can all agree the patrolman's statement to the miners regarding their individual rights was incorrect as the town moves to be a safe and welcoming community based on mutual respect for all harm will occur but reconciliation is possible as a community we must have the courage to admit a mistake act to correct it the strength to do the hard work of reconciliation and have the capacity to forgive and show grace included in the addendum or as a footnote or the values that you as a community have voted to embody and I would just like to direct everyone's attention to those as we continue on the work that we lies ahead thank you thank you for your comments miss dr young the floor is now open for questions or comments regarding these two police reports and those would be questions or comments from either members of the cssjc or the town council uh d shabazz thank you i'm going to ask that people try to contain their comments to two to three minutes so that everybody gets a chance thank you yes thank you uh lin and thank you pam and chief livingstone for um providing more information um however i believe that both statements amount to the standard language we see used by police to protect their officers without real accountability or reform especially regarding the most vulnerable in our community which are our youth they're all our children and again to reiterate as the cssjc it's important to establish an independent civilian review board with subpoena power as we see pam young does not have the power to even review uh those types of of records uh due to the contractual uh due to the contract with the police so we also need an independent complaint process and what the cssg a cssjc has has uh suggested uh is the creation of a victim compensation fund that would go towards helping to make the police accountable and restore public trust so you know one of the things that i saw in the report where it says the department has deescalation instructors on staff the ria who are instructors at the the massachusetts police academy uh etc these are things that the cswg and um my group pointed out only go as far as the will of the police force and the community because training does not assure that these missteps or abuses won't occur won't occur okay but again a review board an independent review board that have would have some subpoena power they could determine perhaps appropriate disciplinary actions one of the things that is clearly um something that pam young's report and chief livingstone both point out is that one of the two officers spoke erroneously and that there was some type of harm as a result we've also confirmed that with the youth we have quotes from the youth we have a letter from the families as a group what is not clear is what will happen next to make these families and these children whole so while the principle for being made whole sounds real simple we know it's a process and if we want them to be made whole we need to ask first for forgiveness and work to resolve this hurt right and to make amends and what that amends amounts to should come from the injured party and they've asked for a victim compensation fund to take care of psychological needs any needs that they would have to make repair so i just want to in my statement with some of the quotes from our youth and these are their voices i listened to the police when they said we couldn't talk had no rights could not use our phones could not call our guardians and or our parents and so i just didn't move didn't speak and comply to not make anything worse i've been taught that if i speak respectfully with police it's okay to ask questions well i thought i could but i did not dare to and i was confused on why i could not call my home and i did not dare speak up to ask anything that really doesn't appear in the in the report will i always be punished because i have a tint to my skin and now even more with me speaking up will we need to to now be fearful or retaliation from the police these kids are scared i am not looking for any trouble i just want to live peacefully i worry if i'm okay to go anywhere especially alone i worry for my friends i worry about how much the experiences with the amherst police has taken my concentration on school and my studies because my safety and being of color was something i thought i would not have to worry about in this area d lastly i'm finishing the police were yelling power tripping they were yelling we were detained they were yelling we had no rights so i just want us to understand these are the voices of our youth these are all our children and we need to seek some way to have repair and reciprocity for them thank you i need to ask people to confine the remarks to two to three minutes maximum debra all right so i could sign everything that that d stated but for me it's really like lots of holes in both reports and lots of questions so hopefully chief living stone and and also pamela you all can take the the notes down because i really need these questions answered um thank you though for putting the reports together but you know lots of holes so basically the report for chief living stone your report does not address uh anything in terms of why those young people were detained and that was in the the video that they were detained when one of the officers stated that it did not did not respond to why they weren't able to when they asked the question about the guardians why they they didn't get an appropriate response like when when they said that they wanted to talk to the guardians and it didn't really go into any specifics it's really a general report doesn't really speak to any of the specifics that occurred that night um what were the questions asked you kept on seeing that there was there was protocol and they were asked appropriate questions what is the protocol right when there's a noise complaint i want to know what the protocol is because if that's the protocol that protocol is no good so i need to know that um why did you um why when when when those police right if they were veteran police or i don't even know they were veteran police but if they're police officers and they were both coming on two separate cruisers they get there they see that it's minors why and they saw that there was a flat tire i'm assuming they have the training right as police officers why is it that they wanted to aid and help as opposed to you know you know the route that they took that we saw in that little less than a minute video which was about making sure that they were detained telling them they had no rights and telling them they couldn't talk to their parents right so no type of help why is that and why is it that officers don't don't when they see a situation why aren't they there to help right and so for me as a black woman when i when i see a police person because of these incidents i don't think that they're there to help me right because of these situations that happen um let me see what else um so you you stated in your report that you regret that there was regret what does that mean i i i need to see an apology right from those officers not regret regret is like okay i regret that i didn't you know you know do my laundry yesterday you know what i'm saying i mean that's not okay for a situation where where young people were violated right i didn't see that in either of the reports that there was a violation there wasn't that that conversation right so regret no apology no accountability taken on the behalf of the police department around the situation which could have been a five minute situation if they had arrived to actually help as opposed to telling these these young people they had no right in intimidating them and traumatizing them um let me see what else so the this altercation like i said was was you know so stating that there was no arrests that you know there was no citation and no physical contact as if as if that's the end of it the fact that that they showed up two armed police right saying what they said and intimidating those young people that's the violation it doesn't matter that they didn't put their hands on them didn't matter that they didn't arrest them but the fact that that happened so again making those statements as if that's enough like that's okay you know what i'm saying again no accountability um so i i do i i understand obviously i i based on my jobs i understand that sometimes this confidentiality around you know what transpired with the police but but we need to know the community needs to know whether these police are going to be held accountable you know what does that mean an inquiry what does that mean you need to give more than that okay um you said that the police and then you know meet the the post requirements i need to know specifics i i want to you know you you should show up at a cssjc meeting you know maybe our next meeting and really break it down right and really let us know how it is that the police department is meeting all of these post requirements um then you said that you all have de-escalation folks i mean is this again no no no specifics was this like you guys had them and and and their de-escalation tactics were not used then because obviously what happened on July 5th shows that de-escalation is not part of the police department's everyday thing or is this something that you all just did after the fact right and now you all are gonna be putting into place and so what does that mean i need i need specifics again no specifics in your in your um record um and and i'm sorry i'm taking time but you know there was no none of these answers nothing was was answered in this report it's a very it's a two-page report with no answers um and then with Pamela's report it was more so kind of like yeah time for recon reconciliation how we're going to reconcile do reconciliation if there's been no accountability no apology no um um pass in terms of moving forward no healing no anything you know and first you have to take that you know to tell the community to trust and to stop building uh anything you have to really put something there to say that we we can reconcile because if not you're just putting the onus on on the community um and then there was and sorry there was one other thing on on the chief's report which was that you know around the the Spanish speaker and saying to the to the parent that the police felt that they were communicating well with them how do you know that you know no this was actually in Pamela's report it how do you know that you know just by stating that yeah you know the police felt that they were their understanding that doesn't say anything that's not communicating anything so i need to know i need to ask you to stop okay what one one last one one last one um you know just please look at the protocol right so if the protocol is that that was stating in in the diversity you know in this diversity report what is the protocol and the protocol needs to change thank you chief is there anything you'd like to comment to at this time i'm not sure of miss of here i was looking for answers right now to all of those questions okay i can certainly try and answer them all now or if she would like something further in writing or as she mentioned to attend a future meeting with the css jc group i mean if you have responses to some of them that would be nice chief livingstone did you want to respond to any of the questions at this time i'm sure there's some of them i can answer certainly would it be possible for us all to speak and then you could speak chief sure i'm sure there are other questions that the the css jc has and i'm sure the town council would that be possible sure yeah i'll try and keep track of as many of these questions as i can appreciate it pat on a baku please two to three minutes we have one hour and we're already into that time good evening all thank you miss uh young um for the report and your comments tonight i'll try to be brief even though i had a lot to talk about in addition to what miss shabazz and miss ferrera had said i agree with them um this is to the chief livingstone seriously i felt after reading your report that you did not have compassion to the youth there was no accountability there was no apology and i wonder why should tax dollars pay for your salary in this time i think you need to think about stepping down because you are not representing or i i'm sorry i need to interrupt this line of questioning it is inappropriate for anybody inappropriate to sit here and ask for a police chief's resignation in this meeting what i'm saying is for him to consider it because as a black woman in this town and for the report this is not report this is like putting pacifier into a crying baby to keep quiet okay i do not see how this town will move forward towards healing when there is no apology no nothing except for defense to me tonight this is just a show theater waste of people's time tonight nothing will come out of this so i'm two to three minutes is not enough i have more to talk about but this is not okay the kids are hurting they need to be made whole and we're sitting here asked for for a report for more than three months and this is what we this is what we got mediocre report really would a black chief police do this in another uh uh uh uh predominantly white town hell no that will never happen break it um thank you very much um this is an incident that's occurred and it's a learning experience and i think um one of the things that we could do in learning is um have a better sense of what exactly happened so it doesn't repeat itself um in that vein i have a few questions um for both um the police chief and for Pamela young or um chief livingston b first question i have is how many family members um were involved um since part of the report says that um two responded one affirming and one not affirming um the reports um from the police so how many family members and then um what would two fit in with the total number um there's also information about additional videos um my question would be how many videos were there how long were they and why was the request to look at those videos denied we already have access to one that's about a minute long so what about the orders and was there any reason given for um that request been denied um in the report it's also said that the second officer corrected the statement of the first officer um if you could expand on what that means um for us and if this is just a side comment it's not really a question i noticed that in the reports um the word through was spelled as t h r u which is short form i think it would just make sense to have it as something spelled through but again i'm not sure what the style is um for those kind of reports but that's something to consider um for miss young one of the questions i had was that in the disputed facts there was something said about the officer voiced an intention if you give me a moment i'll read that says the officers voiced an intention to discriminate against college students as the officers offered this as an excuse for their behavior this is among the disputed facts um if there's a way to flesh out what that means also in your reports it is said that the attitude of the officers arriving at the scene their continued presence after the arrival of two parents and the position of the officers cars while awaiting the tow truck escalated the situation um what beat that escalation mean in the context of um what's happened and then another question is the statements that was made or the reports of august 14 sales at least three of the nine individuals were BIPOC but this statement says that we have six BIPOC and some wondering do we consider the different numbers of discrepancy or is the information that came afterwards how would we know um the relevance of that information coming um afterwards i have an additional question but to keep it within time i think i'll rest now and thank you again so um with your permission i can answer those three questions now uh at the time of the first report the information that i had about the racial identity of the use was that it was at least three of nine i wasn't sure of the exact number so that's why that was phrased um following that initial report uh there was additional information that suggested that it was six of nine so that's why there is um the difference between the two reports the other questions that you have or comments reference to the the summary section of the uh parent's letter so i um did not have the permission uh what i spoke with the parent to include the parent's letter in its entirety and so i through communication with the parent had provided a summary of the key points and the parent uh expressed back to me that my summary was a good synopsis of the key points of the parent's letter so that is what appears in that first column of disputed facts so it is the parent who is alleging that that the officers made a comment which seemed to uh to indicate that they were trying to justify their behavior by saying they regularly have interactions with college students and it was the parent um who said that the um arrival of the officers and their behavior uh de-escalated the situation um so that's what's in that first first uh um in that first uh call call pillow did that answer your questions or did for you thank you very much thank you thank you pam hello everybody thank thank you so much my name is well bobula i'm a css at jc uh committee member as well as a co-chair of the human rights commission and so the line of questioning um that my colleagues have done so covers most of what i want to get into but more um and i will second all of what they have said and more so what i would like to get into is kind of the process for this report to come out or the investigation of this chief livenstone uh being that we as a human rights commission were the ones to put out the formal request it very much seemed us so that we were not given the due respect of at least being aware of an investigation happening an investigation continuing to happen the close-up of it and so on so i just like to understand kind of that process and maybe look at it to see if we need to change that process as well as the DEI department i understand that we didn't have one fully until july and so i would like to maybe make a request make advice i don't know what you want to call it but that the DEI department does have some type of seat at the table and i don't know if that needs to be done through the collective bargaining agreement or anything as such but i really do hope that we are taking that into consideration being that looking at that report we can see that there was some wording of discrimination happening and so maybe having an outside lens outside of the police department will give purview into structural racism and others that occur last i'd like to go on the comment of um my colleague debora that it very much does feel as if the police department is not really owning this issue right like the police officers were the one that said it and whether or not an apology at this point three months later is going to correct things or not it's a step in the right direction just to own it just own it it happened you know what our community can grow from this our community can move forward from this and i think that that is what we're really calling upon and looking for is to have the police department and the police officers the police chief everybody involved to own it and then we can start to discuss how we are going to move forward and what is going to happen because it really does and endeavor as words put the onus on the children and the family it makes it feel as if that if the police department is not going to own this issue then the families kind of have to be like okay now i guess everything has happened for three months this report came out the dei report came out and now i guess we should maybe go sit at the table maybe we should go and go reconciliation with the town why can't it be that the police department say hey we messed up and we messed up badly we are sorry we messed up how can we move forward and i'll leave that as my last comment allegra i just wanted to thank all the members of the css jc for raising such important points i certainly agree with everything that's been said so far tonight um and in reading both reports i was like other members have mentioned left a little disappointed and still a little confused about what exactly has happened um and so i just in in the police report i'm wondering what exactly it means saying that one family affirmed the police actions and one family disaffirmed the police actions and what actions are we even referring to when we're talking about the actions of the police um and i think just to bring it i guess perhaps this is more of a knowledge question for me um i was really struck and negatively so by the statement in the dei report saying the officer did not perceive a language barrier i again agree that i don't think it's up for the officer to determine whether or not that person understood what was going on especially in the context of interacting with a person who has authority in a town and and somebody that you might have fear around um so i guess my question would be what are the protocols in the police department when there is interaction with a person who's not english speaking are there officers that speak other languages in the department how many how often how are they deployed is that you know are they able to send a spanish speaking officer if they know that there's a spanish speaking person or or whatever other language capacity the department might have if any um because again i think the cssjc is really grappling with accessibility for all community members understanding that not all community members are english speaking so that is again translation services or bilingual capacity or things that we are thinking about and looking at and i think it would be helpful to understand what the department's capacity is in that sense okay are there any other comments from people that have not spoken that includes counselors michelle i do have some comments but i was wondering if chief livingstone was going to answer some of the questions before we sort of circle back to counselor comments are you uh talking about comments with regard to the reports um well to the whole situation really no i'm looking for anything with regard to the reports that's where we're focused for the moment okay okay dorthy i understand that this is a very complicated situation and i guess i was glad to see the word regret in the police report and i guess i'm aware that for in masculine culture which the police department is even if they're female officers even the word regret can be a hard word to say but i and i really do want to say i do appreciate our police department and i count on our police department to keep us safe i really do but i have been troubled by this incident and i would i would truthfully i would love to have it over in my heart i believe that the police department really knows that that was not their best day and that they want good relationships with the young people in this town but maybe aren't quite sure how to get there and i'm not saying i have any magic ones but um i i guess i'm counting on chief livingstone to um think of a way to bring this to a close and i did like the words of pamela lung young about reconciliation and grace but as some of the committee members said that takes two sides to be active and at the moment i think we need a little bit more we need to be moving towards each other we need to get together again so we need to have healing as the committee says that's it chief livingstone did you have anything you'd like to say at this time i mean i can answer the questions and i'll try and go in reverse order unless there are other statements or questions that anybody else has please go ahead all right um this let's see so mr legra um you asked a question about what it means that one family affirmed the police actions and one disaffirmed so when the officer that was investigating the incident reached out to all of the parents and all of the families to meet with him only two responded one was happy with the police response and one was not happy with the police response so the family that was happy with the police respond is the one that was affirming it and the one that was unhappy with it disaffirmed that so that's what that means um as far as officers that speak different languages and fluency in our agency we have officers that speak chinese portuguese many that speak spanish polish and of course english but as far as foreign languages uh chinese portuguese spanish speaking and polish speaking officers if there's an incident where um you know we don't have an officer working and we need that language sometimes we reach out to the university police department to see if they have somebody that can speak the language or amherst college police they do the same thing with us vice versa um if it's something that's not urgent where we need to have somebody that can come right to the police station through our victim witness associations and district attorney's office we have a number of people that can come to the police station let's say somebody needed interpretation in a language we didn't cover and it was a domestic violence incident something like that then we do have resources that we can reach out to to accommodate those folks i believe those are the only two questions that you had mr phil um you had a question about how complaint files go on and what is the process for a complaint so in the town you can file anybody can file a complaint in this case i think the complaint the complaint was filed through the human resources or excuse me the human rights commission uh after the fact but any any individual can file a complaint through your office they can come to the police station and file one if they wish um they can go to the town manager's office uh and do that as well in addition any any civilian any citizen can file a complaint with the post commission as well and the post commission will look into that as well uh excuse me one second hey can you bring those guys upstairs apologize for that my dogs are bark um let's see the next question i had written down i think was from miss jake excuse me i could clarification could you explain what the post commission is chief so the post commission is a is a new it's a new commission that was voted in in 2021 um through the state it was at the result of all the incidents and all the investigations that came out of the george floyd murder and it was a law that was passed by the state legislator that puts the um put all puts all of the training requirements and all the requirements for an officer a police officer to be certified in the hands of the state now so and everybody has uh every police officer in the commonwealth now has all the exact same training and all the same exact responsibilities so the first round of officers have been certified and they're going through it in a um a slow and methodical process so officers with last names that begin with a through h have all been certified in in the town of amherst and that means that every amherst police officer has met the requirements of the post commission for training for graduation um you know anything that covers anything to do with with policing across the commonwealth you know they checked all the backgrounds of every police officer make sure there were no past incidents of misconduct um i think you know if you've been following the news i think across the commonwealth some word of 90 officers have been decertified in other words they they can no longer be police officers um so again they're taking a slow process on that but they're looking at every aspect of every police officer in the commonwealth of massachusetts to either certify those officers and make sure they're legitimate and for the job and if they're not then they get decertified and the decertification happens they can no longer be in a police officer in the commonwealth of mass um that's what the post commission does and that's in a nutshell what their responsibility is there is a separate post commission that oversees that um and if it's easier to go on their website you can see who who's in charge of that um and it explains it in a little bit more detail than i was able to tonight um another question um how many family members responded to the internal inquiry two two family groups we responded to our request and to the investigating officer and i think i mentioned one affirmed and one disaffirmed the actions of the police officers how many the question was how many videos are there you know i don't know we were given access to the same thing the public was given access to we asked for additional videos that we were told were out there they were not turned over to us to view we were allowed to see one other video but only three seconds of it and there was nothing in that video um so we had to our access for the investigation what everybody else is seeing so there's no additional video that we we've been able to view or access at this time um i'm trying to find um miss debora's questions oh so one of her first questions was why were the individuals detained and not allowed to leave uh why weren't the officers there to help um when we first got the call for that it came in as a noise complaint um and the officers that responded you know we aren't told who's the complainant we aren't told who is the person making the noise all we're saying all they were told is there's a loud rowdy group in the parking lot of the 693 main street address and someone the officers came upon the scene um the protocol is to gather the individuals attempt to identify and that's part of what the bylaw says for the noise bylaw um part of our responsibility for responding and annoying noise complaints is identify identify the individuals and then the officers have discretion on what they can do with that they can either just give a verbal warning sometimes there may not even be a complaint but if there's a valid complaint and there's noise happening they can give the individuals just a verbal warning which is what happened here or they can give a town bylaw violation citation and that's the purpose of identifying them and in rare instances they can make a rest and that's all in the town noise noise bylaw violations for protocols on what steps police officers can take when they respond to noise complaints um so the officers did recognize and after conversation with the individuals with with the use there once they got everybody together um and we're able to identify everybody that they identified them as you know as youth as minors that nobody had a valid license at that time so um we couldn't allow them to leave at that point because they are all minors and at that hour of the morning which is now one or a little after one in the morning um there are responsibility so you know I think somebody asked why weren't they allowed to call their their parent or guardian they are all allowed to call their parent or guardian after the officer's got the information about who they were and so I think in the video it may say some it may show an obviously you can't you can't call your your parents and what he meant is you can't call him right the second let's find out who we are and what's going on and then we'll make a determination about what's going on as far as who we can get it for parents uh let's say no parents showed up that you know we would have had to bring the the youth back to the police station in order for parents to come and pick them up but we're fortunate that a couple of parents came down to the scene and and we're able to take everybody home that night um again being minors nobody being of the legal driving age they were our responsibility at that time um if we allow them to just leave on their own and and something happened to one of those individuals you know we would have been liable and responsible um noise complaint protocol so yeah we have policies on that misdab um and I'm pretty sure that the all the way back to CSWG has all of our policies that we we had sent previously so the protocols and the policies on responding to noise complaints should be in there but I can get copies of that for anybody who wants um I heard a couple of people ask what you know why was there no official apology um you know part of my intention was when I had reached out to all the parents um you know I wanted to have a meeting with all of them face to face with the officers and have a meeting um with them on either on their terms or wherever they wanted to meet or at the police station and you know I think I made the comment of we could get together and have pizza and I think a parent took that as I was being either sarcastic sarcastic or not you know heartfelt but that wasn't the case at all I was trying to give options to all the families to come in and have a discussion about exactly what happened and why the officers handled the situation the way they did and what protocols they have to follow in that process one of the other complaints or one of the other questions was after the officer the first officer the male officer on the scene told them the young youth there that he didn't have any rights again he regretted that immediately he told me he didn't know why he said that the words came out and he recognized it immediately the second officer on the scene the female officer recognized it immediately and if you watch the very end of that 53 second video you see her start to explain that's not what he meant and then the video that we saw and I think the public saw was cut off but she goes through a 15 minute discussion with them about here's what's going on guys and here's what's happening here's what has to happen next she explained the entire thing to them she's upset about it too and you know so you know it's not these officers don't they're not feeling like this is an empowerment or a power issue they felt horrible and still do to this day about about this call about this incident and the way it was played out and that their students now youths who are afraid of the officers and that's not what they're about you know they're both very young officers themselves they're in their mid 20s they're not veteran officers they're relatively new to the force so you know this is not some power trip they are on so and I think the last thing was you know Miss Pat you want me to resign yeah that's not going to happen so um that's about all I have I might have missed some of the questions but again if you have additional questions you can ask them now if we still have time I think everybody has my email address and if anybody ever wants to come speak to me in person I have an open door policy I'm always available I'm more than happy to speak with people there's a couple different hands up I'm going to I'd like to go to some people that haven't spoken uh and I'm going to start with Michelle Miller so I'm just I'm looking at the time here and I see that there are other community safety and social justice committee members that would like to be would like to speak but I am wanting to offer a possible pathway forward with the primary objective of reconciliation and I do truly believe that we can get through this as a community and that we'll be better for it what I'm hearing in this discussion is that there's a consensus that the officer spoke erroneously and that there was harm to the youth as a result there's a need to restore the youth and their families and to reconcile the matter and the social fabric of our town this is a key tenet of transitional and restorative justice just like with many matters that come before the council this matter needs to be unpacked further our process as a council is to refer matters to one or more committees to look more deeply at the matter including consulting with town staff and committees and obtaining a legal opinion 8.2 a of our town council rules of procedure states that the council may refer any measure to a council committee the town manager or town multiple member bodies which shall constitute a request for a report back on such matters so with that I would like to make a motion I have sent this motion to Athena and with your permission Lynn I would like to offer the motion please go ahead I move to refer the matter of the incident occurring on July 5th involving two police officers and nine youths to the CSSJC HRC and the AHRA to collaboratively review the incident with the input of the DEI department and other appropriate staff and in consultation with the town attorney for the purposes of making a recommendation to the town council to repair the harm and reconcile the incident by November 21st 2022 motion has been made I have to look to the council to see if there is a second I second that motion um walker thank you Alicia um you spoke to the motion beforehand and so I'm going to go on to other counselors Anika I'm sorry I couldn't unmute myself um I do agree that this should be uh moved to be able to be discussed where it is more appropriate especially where there is legal review um when I'm hearing through these conversations is each time there is something that they're added in and that's not complete with the reports and what Pamela gave in her report was what she was asked to do and seemingly what she had the permission to share um the other questions coming in terms of what is is someone's perspective I understand that that's confusing um the perspective is again not law and it also seems like for there to really be a solution to if you have two officers that go and deal with a group of youth and they're two and they're both English speakers unless they have some sort of translating services how is it ever out of perspective you know so I know that this is also what is being worked on but this is is just what we have and you know I'm sitting here and obviously there's a lot of pain and hurt that's going on uh from these from the youth from their families the one that have you know stepped forward and been able to speak uh but you know there is also a lot of confusion here and I have you know I have to um to get get my thought done on one hand you know we have as I said before we have Miss Pat who was holding this the youth um who has been declared their representative but it's not in capacity to do so at least in a way that is dealing with municipality this is your slowest course of recourse if you want you want this urgency it's not in our period to do half of what is being asked you know we're we're comparing this as I stated before we're comparing this to uh the little rock kind if we were at all on that level we the town council the town manager chief living stone all of us would have been asked to kindly hit the road pack the road and hit the road jack just like biden had recently asked and encouraged of the la city council so I'm hoping that we can after this do whatever it takes to get the right people connected utilizing the panel of bringing all of her resources where she would never have had to really step foot in Amherst to deal with this because unfortunately this is not a problem unique to Amherst or anyone else anywhere else rather but I'm hoping that we can actually get all combined all connected who need to be so we can actually deal with what happened with what happened with which we can actually uh show and prove happen deal with that and then put other procedures in place as Michelle has just suggested so we have a path moving forward because these things will happen again and they do happen and we need plans in place because us sitting here speaking what we believe is right and wrong is not within this case and what's being asked for going to move us forward or result in compensation thank you man Joe you had your hand up I've taken it down for now okay Alicia um thank you Lynn uh so I just wanted to say I am going to I support Michelle's motion because I also agree that this situation deserves more attention and a committee and people who can specifically focus on that and I think from what I've heard collectively that is the reason why we have not been able to address it because we don't have the time and we have so much going on and so I think it makes sense to refer it to a committee who can look at it and deal with it more urgently um but I also just wanted to say that like after listening to everyone's comments and reading the information in our packet I feel like the priority for the committee that has come to us is like very simple and what they're looking for is for town leaders and officials to come to the defensive and give support to the youth who are traumatized in the same way that Lynn came to the defense of the police chief tonight very simply um and it's that response like it didn't take any thinking like you knew it was wrong you you responded right away it doesn't take three months to consider and to look into and to figure out what happened for situations that are urgent to get a sort of response that is that we will support you and we are defending you because you are our youth and you are valued and you are valued community members and we care about your well-being and your growth and your support it doesn't have to be that political it really doesn't I think we have politicized it like so so so much and that's why we're at the point that we're at but if it was addressed urgently in the beginning it didn't even need to be like this um and then just thinking about our youth and thinking about our position as a town and being a college town and how much we value education and we value our youth and their growth and their education and we take things like this very seriously we think about their futures and we all know that trauma has a negative impact on development and significant effect on life circumstances especially if it is stemming from the poor judgment of individuals who are depart who are town leaders and officials who are sworn to protect them like that is a whole another layer of being traumatized and then while these reports I understand are a part of the process I feel like the bigger point is being missed and like loss in all of this like legal reports and and we're missing information and we're missing perspectives um but like we're missing the conversation about how to move forward as a town in reaching our goals because we do have that as a goal of the town to address white supremacy to foster a more equitable town um we need to really like in order to do that in order to provide restorative justice you need to look at those who were directly affected those are the only people who can point you in the right direction of restorative justice because those are the people who were traumatized we can't make things up on our own and say this is how we can help them and they have come to us and told us directly what we can do to help them so that's also not something that we have to figure out they have told us what restorative justice looks like to them and now it is our part to decide if we are going to engage in aiding and helping them reach that restorative justice point in this situation and I think the most frustrating part for me is that we have had a lot of things in front of us for over a year that could have helped us in aiding this process like we've talked about things that could be preventative measures for our community to help strengthen our community we talked about the youth empowerment center we've talked about helping to change the culture in our town and having the multicultural center where we can help bring community members together and we've talked about the police looking at their protocols and trying to figure out what changes can be made with the intentions of being more equitable we know we are not perfect we know we are all humans we know people will make mistakes and that's why we also suggested a resident oversight board so that when things like this do happen there is already a process in place and we don't have to spend all this time trying to figure out what to do it would just already be in place and this entire process is very much lacking victim support which should be the central focus of this entire process and so I am saying all of us not to point fingers at anyone not even to point out the inadequacies that we have but to say like look at all of this room that we have to grow and look at all of the harm that is continuing to be done when we do not act with urgency we have a number of things in front of us that are in our purview that we can do to address the situation we have set up a matrix about things that we have been looking into for over a year where we can address the injustices in our town so like it is not that we cannot do anything about this there are things we can do I and so I think we need to get on to that and so I think Michelle has the right state of mind because the council has made it very clear that we cannot make this a priority for some reason at this time and so we need to send it to a group that can because this is an urgent matter and the longer we wait to address it the more harm that is done and the harder it will be to come to a resolution when it wouldn't have been this hard if we would have just addressed it right away elation yes I am finished thank you Lynn thank you Mandy Joe under section 2.10 c of the Amherst home rule charter I am invoking my counselor right to postpone on the first occasion that a question is on adoption of a non-emergency measure is put to the council unfortunately that means that in invoking this it will be put to tomorrow's special council meeting and let me just make sure Athena a right to postpone is do I need a second no do I bring it to a vote no the right to the right to postpone using that charter section is an automatic to the next regular to the next regular or special council meeting okay so the counselor has exercised the right to postpone that means that this conversation will continue at sometime three o'clock or after on tomorrow afternoon on the 18th and that is not debatable okay um I want to thank all of you so does that mean we have to end all comments now yes it does that's the that's the charter so Lynn for us that I that don't know can you explain what just happened because yeah our charter has entered the provision for a anyone counselor to exercise the right to postpone a conversation if they do that it's automatic and it is taken up at the next council meeting because we called the council meeting for tomorrow along with the finance committee meeting and that will only happen by the way if there are seven counselors present that would be the next council meeting to the best of my knowledge there are no other council meetings between now and November 7th right Athena where it's a committee of the whole uh so if and at tomorrow's meeting if four counselors vote to postpone then it goes to November 7th and that is in the charter so um I so with all due respect and I appreciate deb you you asking for clarification um you know this doesn't mean this is going away and um so we have to figure out a way to resolve this right we know that and Michelle's uh you know motion seemed like a reasonable way to approach it I want to be very clear the motion not only postpones it but it stops discussion and that is our charter and I totally understand what you're saying D but I cannot I cannot undo a motion or the right to postpone that another counselor has said so Lynn just clarification again so do we go on the same link tomorrow at three I just so you can give us more information yes same link tomorrow at three o'clock tune in yes and it might be postponed again from what you're saying if four counselors vote tomorrow with the right to postpone I believe the number is four then the next time it would happen at the right to postpone would be on November 7th and that is the Athena I want clarification from you and you have your hand up I wanted to clarify that the link for tomorrow is a separate link from tonight yes there's a different link posted for the finance meeting tomorrow I'm sorry deep the link for tomorrow is not the same link as tonight the link for tomorrow is under the finance committee meeting and it is can that can that be shared with us yes as JC absolutely thank you absolutely and it brings it'll bring you into the audience and then the chair of the finance committee and I will work out how he wants to proceed with that okay so miss Lynn this is what white supremacy looks like this is what it looks like you have an issue that impacted BIPOC community a white counselor singularly postponed there what an insult to the BIPOC community in this time Pat I accept your comment I think the best thing at this point is to take a break and I just wanted to say as the chair of CSS JC that we actually in our meeting agenda that's posted for the public have a public comment period so I'm hoping that we can open our meeting to public comment before your public comment would have been the public comment of the council what they're not we didn't know that they're not public we're not doing any other public comment this evening you were posted to be a meeting jointly with us we did not post another public comment tonight yeah so this I have to agree with miss Pat and I think history shows what this council is doing unfortunately through the charter and how we are being treated and how our young people are being mistreated so we will follow your rules and I think we'll see that this is not going to bear good fruit for our community and it won't be because of us because we are trying to make whole and bring people together but it has to be transparent it has to be honest and we have to be committed to the truth and I confirm with miss Pat if I may very quickly yes I made a comment about the chief considering stepping down it should not shock people if it shocks them a few surprise because this is what folks are already discussing in our town some segment of our population who are not happy about how police is treating our people in this town so it shouldn't come as a shock and miss Lynn one more thing I want to say a woman in the audience in the last joint meeting came and insulted by black women you didn't say anything and then when I tried to speak tonight you you you try to shut me down to silence me I think you need to be consistent with your rules thank you okay we are going to take a break at this point we will reconvene at nine o'clock so did we adjourn our meeting though I'm sorry css jc needs to adjourn their meeting we're done oh okay what a waste of time and if css jc refuses to adjourn their meeting we're going to have to exit you to the audience all right I'm in motion babes you're being shut down yeah majority biproch town electric town canady is being treated with so much disrespect tonight yep exactly excuse me is the emotion to adjourn adjourn for what we're not done with this meeting for what other other items should should be postponed the item is postponed and the end you need to all adjourn your meeting so we can go on with our meeting I regret that is the way it is could I request that the co-chairs of the css jc give us direction on what to do because in the absence of that's giving the environment right now I'll simply leave thank you I am not going to motion to adjourn if another member of the group would like to that is that is up to you but I am not going to make the motion we will reconvene in 10 minutes and at that point we'll move on to the next agenda item I don't have any choice if I do anything else it is breaking the charter and that's a violation is there an open meeting while violation for not having public comment that's posted on css jcs agenda you shouldn't have posted public comment on css jcs agenda it should have been only that you were meeting with us jointly so is there an open meeting law violation because it's posted on our agenda no because this is a council meeting and you're part of the council meeting your meeting was posted so that you could meet jointly with us for this discussion topic I'm I didn't review your agenda it shouldn't have had public comment on but we're staying on yeah I am okay we'll reconvene at nine o'clock and move on to seven a I mean seven b the like or as our form for I believe so yes since we're being recorded and we still have a few seconds and we have not adjourned I'd like to just make the public aware in the audience that Manny Johanke is a council member out large which means that any town resident can vote her out next year if that is a possibility thank you for that Philip thank you thank you and I need to say it again I'm sorry you need to say it again you repeat yourself as you return please turn your video back on thank you as you return please turn your video back on so I know that you're here Michelle Miller are you back Dorothy Pam are you back I am but I I've lost the ability to moderate turn on my mic no we can hear your mic I think it's your picture that you may have right what I have is leave webinar if I click that I'll disappear but I've lost my open and closed picture and open and closed mic so I will say leave webinars so because I don't want to do okay thank you Alicia Walker can you hear us yes thank you in here Michelle Miller can you hear us yes I can thank you shall any bum ill looking at your video but there you are thank you and Dorothy you have straightened things out okay yes all right I'm going to adjust the agenda in the following way we're going to take up a seven I'm sorry I lost my notes item seven B we're postponing till November 7th item seven D the town manager's self-evaluation is in your packet um the uh that brings us to appointments there are none uh the committee liaison reports we can quickly go through those um CRC manager Hanakie oh I'm sorry we have an action item we do we do thank you very much we have an action item uh we're going to go to action item eight A three and I'm going to read the motion look for a second and then we will discuss with uh the counselor that asked that it be removed uh the reasons to remove it the motion is as follows to adopt appropriation and transfer order FY 23-05 C an order appropriating funds for a portion of the town of Amherst Capital Program school track and field rehabilitation recommended by finance committee on October 17th 2022 and shown on page nine of the draft motion sheet is there a second second Devlin got there okay Dorothy you asked that this be pulled just because it's important to speak up and say things even if you know it won't make any difference I will say that we should not use artificial turf because although people who like to win and people like to have the first and the best and whatever want it it is not only very expensive but it is dangerous to the students it can cause MRSA it has been proved that it can that things can be spread it can cause concussions it is very hot and it's also filled with chemical chemicals and PFAS Tony Cunningham sent a very good um letter to the town today with many links leading to research and I don't think that this research is unknown to you I just think that people get carried away with our Amherstian desire to always be get the biggest and the best but in this case it's not the best it's harmful to the students who will play on it thank you okay I'm looking for other counselor comments on this particular item Michelle Miller you have your hand up I wanted to also share support for that concern I really appreciated getting Tony's message and I've been out of the loop in terms of what research has been done regarding that and what our particular appropriation how it impacts you know that he's of the project not because I understand there's a natural and a synthetic so I also wanted to raise the concern that I am I have and that the Board of Health I believe is is also I I think looking at these um toxic materials um and and things as well so just curious if anybody has additional information about it okay thank you Alicia a comment on this particular item I'm not right now sorry thank you okay Pat DeAngelis comment on this item yes I'm calling on section 2.10 bylaws and other measures to postpone this discussion until the next council meeting okay um that means I I feel I I'm very angry I think it was a mistake um I think that we needed time to really think about Michelle's motion and because of the needing of time I was probably going to vote no but I feel like we truncated something and I and and I think it's really important so I may I don't know but right now I want to postpone this till the next council meeting because I don't think the damned artificial turf is as important as what we were talking about okay your motion was to postpone and now you've made a motion to postpone till the next meeting of the council both of those in fact are tomorrow at the finance committee meeting okay all right that's not debatable and so we will not deal with that until tomorrow um we are now we have finished with the action items we're going on to um council reports CRC Mandy Jo nothing new to report has announced earlier we have a community listening session on October 24th at 7 p.m one week from tonight on the rental bylaw work that we've been doing the packet is up the link is up everything is in that packet elementary school building committee Paul and Alicia actually Sean is also here is there anything Paul or Alicia that let's start with Alicia um thank you and for calling on me I actually appreciate that however um I have been unable to attend the past two meetings and just as a plug because um the time conflict with my new job and the committee's unwillingness to change the time frame to support someone who has a job during normal business hours uh so I don't have an update Kathy would be a better person to reach out or maybe Paul or Sean to figure out what the most recent changes have been and Alicia am I correct that the next meeting is scheduled so that you are able to attend um I am hoping that that may be the case I haven't yet gotten the new schedule of the times that we are meeting but I think they were looking to see if we can alternate meeting times so that I can attend every other meeting um I'm just not sure if that has been finalized yet I've seen a schedule I shall make sure I forward it to you and yes they are alternating that okay thank you absolutely Paul no I was just gonna say the same thing that the chair did start to reschedule the meeting so one would be in the morning what one was going to be in the afternoon because we're going to lose people either way and felt that this is a way to keep both all the people involved um no new updates on the school building committee continues to work through the design committee there's a design subcommittee that's meeting every other week on the off weeks when the school building committee is is not meeting the one thing that I do know however is that they did approve the uh design I'm not design I want to get the right name for this they re approve the change in the schedule for when it is submitted to MSBA and that is a decision of the elementary school building committee and that will be part of our discussion on November 7th right Paul okay um finance committee Andy I have nothing to add to the written report and the brief report that I made about the intended agenda schedule for tomorrow when we had the announcement thank you GOL Michelle I will not be offering a report I stand in support of Councillor DeAngelo's comments and I would like Athena to offer if possible the um reference to the motion to adjourn the meeting because uh I'm not willing to participate and I'd like to adjourn the meeting could Athena please provide that reference you can certainly you can just make a motion to adjourn thank you requires a second and then we can have a debate or we can move to a vote yeah I think um I am moving to adjourn this meeting second DeAngelo's is there any other comment or question at this time Alicia you have your hand up um yes just very quickly they um I really appreciate um Councillor DeAngelo right now and I want to speak that forward because that was a terribly uncomfortable situation for me and I honestly like being on the council is like something that I am very proud of because I worked very hard to be here and I feel ashamed right now like very deeply ashamed and embarrassed to be representing a council that would do that to community members when we fought so hard to get them this one hour um that they deserved and so I am in support of adjourning the meeting and I appreciate DeAngelo's confidence in moving that forward because I was feeling conflicted Dorothy I have to agree and I would say also that Alicia was extremely eloquent and when you shut things down when somebody has just been stating the issues so well for another time you you changed the momentum and I will say as a feminist that's what men have been doing to women for so long and I felt it all through my being I just can't stand being shut down like that so I think we should be ashamed I agree and Andy I just wanted to point out that under um rules of procedure 7.1 which is for motions to adjourn our motions to adjourn are not debatable okay then we are going to move to an immediate vote Anna Devlin-Gothier no Lynn Griezmer is a no Mandy Jo Hanneke no Anika Lopes yes Michelle Miller yes Dorothy Pam yes Pam Rooney yeah Kathy Sheen is absent Andy Steinberg no Jennifer Taub yes Alicia Walker yes Shalini Balmille no was that a no Shalini thank you Pat DeAngelo's I seven in favor five no one absent the motion carries the meeting is adjourned thank you Jesus there are three members of the public with their hands up I just want to note that although we have not adjourned our meeting yet so I'm wondering if they have the opportunity to speak I'm not in charge of the meeting anymore I've adjourned the council meeting okay so I see four hands up I don't have any authority to actually let them speak I don't think because I'm not a host of this meeting but by chance the council meeting was adjourned and but the CSS JC meeting was not and members of the public would like to comment and our meeting had public comment on our agenda as it was posted we're trying to clarify Allegra thank you pouring out we're trying to get the meeting adjourned clarify thank you Lynn may I speak Athena I can bring public commenters through if the CSS JC would like to take public comment before the adjourn yes please the CSS JC is still in session if there are members of the council who would like they are not part of this meeting and in fact we need to make sure there's not a quorum of us in this room one two three four five if I may the council meetings adjourned so counselors who would wish to stay I'll move to the attendees they would be moved over to attendees okay would you please move me over to attendee so Athena is going to stay and facilitate public comment for CSS JC and any other discussion until you choose to adjourn does that help clarify yes it does thank you okay thank you I see three members of the public with their hands up the first is Eva with a sunburst I am so proud of you this is what democracy looks like the representing the people representing the truth standing your ground that was absolutely unacceptable to be shut down that way in the middle of moving toward a solution for the well-being of our young people in this community I am so proud of you and proud of the counselor that's that spoke up and shared human feelings about the disregard and disrespect that was shown to this committee and to this community and to our young people that's representation this isn't politics because my name looks good on the screen because my name is all over town because I'm a counselor you are representing the people and the truth and the human experience of the disregard of the powers that be I am so incredibly proud of every single one of you that stood your ground it's not easy doing this online and how we're going to do it and how we're going to sit but you did it keep going we've got you let's go thank you thank you Eva um I see Vera cage has her hand up I hi yes hi Vera cage uh 12 pound letter drive apartment 21 Amherst math I a lot to process this evening I am not surprised by the comments of the police chief he is not my police chief and the chair of the town council is not representing me either this clarifies to the town and to everybody that may have that may not have been convinced that this town is not ready and prepared to come to genuinely engage with communities of color with underrepresented people in this town it was it is a statement to know that barely any family members would be willing to speak to the police there needs to be an intervention I'm very disappointed also in the town manager he is not my town manager so please intervene somebody intervene because this is such a strong statement that this town is not willing to give up it's false notion of white supremacy it is not ready to move forward with true reconciliation because it cannot acknowledge that there are victims who were harmed in an incident that occurred in our community because to recognize that there are victims is to be held accountable for your violations thank you thank you Vera I see page has their hand up hi thank you thank you all I just repeat everything that the first two speakers said where's the sit-in where's the revolution let me know I'll let people know that was atrocious it was the most atrocious thing I've seen in my 23 years in Amherst thank you for standing up thank you page I see Madeline gel net perhaps please apologize my apologies no worries it's a weird name last name from an ounce um I just want to say this is like legit my first public meeting that I have ever attended I thought there was going to be a lot more like public comments but that did not happen at all um I just want to say that I am so sorry what happened to you in that meeting with just getting shut down like that you guys should have had your voices I don't know it just it just seems so strange to me I'm a new student here and I just kind of I don't know I was supposed to attend this meeting to a school for a school project I had no idea that the town of Amherst was like this at all um so I just want to say I'm so sorry for what happened and I really hope at some point this town finds some sort of peace with each other that's my thank you Madeline um my there's um I see Brianna Owen hi everyone wow that is all I have to say for tonight I want to thank each of you for all of your brave your bravery and advocacy one thing that really set out to me is history continuing to repeat itself I hope that in the future the DEI director and CSSJC may have the capacity to look into the inequities embedded in the charter because these rules regulations and policies is what keeps white supremacy alive and silence is equity and inclusion thank you Brianna um I see zoo hi can you hear me yes hi I just want to simply well it's not simple and it's not simply but thank you all from the bottom of my heart for standing up and not standing down I'm a parent of one of the quote unquote Amherst nine and it's all extremely hard to continue to hear about but however it's really important that the subject and it's not you know lost and so every thought and every feeling as I am you know watching and listening to these meetings um and my next question and thought and feeling that comes up you guys are right on top of it and ask and and say so I just really appreciate you all and um um it's it's hard I hope it I hope things change because that's my main concern for my child thank you thank you for speaking out um thank you I see Eduardo hello there um yeah I'm here just to say that I have witnessed what happened in this meeting today I'm extremely proud of those of you who stood up for truth and for trying to move things forward in a positive way I I thought for a minute there I saw a little rain a little a little bit of sunshine at the end of the tunnel and like we were getting somewhere um and then it just got completely shut down and wow I just want to just really proud of you those of you that just really kept your composure throughout that that stayed in the meeting and that actually um facilitated um the opportunity for those of us who were witnessing this to be able to speak up and um and stay there and stay put and hold your ground um much appreciation and uh you know um Palante we we will continue and I'm not from Amherst but Amherst is my community as well and I love those of you who make Amherst a great a great place to be to live and to work at and anything I can do to help support uh I'm there thank you so much Deborah for being there thank you thank you um I see Jay tello hello um I just kind of I just wanted to further agree with what everyone's been commenting and say thank you so much for your hard work and for speaking up and it it was really painful at points to be a part of that meeting just listening and I'm just I'm grateful to you guys for being there and speaking up and yeah a lot of hard work ahead so thank you thank you um I see Anita sorrow hello um um it's a white woman who has lived in this town for many years uh I have never been shaken to my core the way I was by this meeting tonight um how sad that a student would have an introduction like what was displayed today I really I'm still shaken by it and I am looking and grasping for ways to address this and I'm going to be looking um to all of you good people who have the good sense to see and name what the issues are to help me find a way into this to be able to make it better um I look for action I'm desperate for action um this has has I have never seen a display like this and if there was ever a reason to to burn the charter down it's what we saw tonight so I am grateful to you for being here and for hanging in for providing the leadership that has long been missing in this town and I'll continue to be looking in this direction not to the elected leadership of this town but I will be looking in this direction to guide us on a proper path because we're going down a very destructive road if we look to our elected officials right now so thank you thank you for providing uh the leadership and guidance and know that there are those of us who are desperate to help thank you Anita thank you I see a milk car yes thank you I want to take up uh with you all just as an individual not as in the embodiment of the AHRA but as an individual member of that body um our chair we met today and our uh co-chair Michelle Miller was the one that was in the process of introducing the motion and as I understand the motion it was to refer further consideration of this matter to CSSJC to AHRA and to the Human Rights Commission as three independent committees with similar interests uh that may wish to discuss this matter and uh develop a proposal to return to the council I want to let you know that I have considered this matter just again me personally we haven't deliberated it as a public body we didn't deliberate this today as a public body but I am personally aware and I do um uh wish to talk with you all individually officially in a bilateral way like this I hope that the reparations assembly can talk you know all the way back to when our efforts were rising for reparative justice and when it was CSWG going on you know we haven't had certain parallel um uh goals let me say and from time to time I have felt there's a need for us to maybe talk about where our parallel goals may coincide uh and how we may mutually support each other's work because you know the cultural centers and the other may measures that were talked about tonight as perhaps could have helped to prevent uh the devastating effect this incident is having on our on our community and on our on our town culture that if we had those well part of what we're looking for is input for how specifically for black reparations measures like this maybe our areas our plan can and should endorse should embrace and should call for the the necessary funding and the necessary civic action town council action it's enough to deplore the elected officials it's a different thing to hold them accountable for what they're what uh for the CSWSG community working group recommendations CSSJC your UL's continued work it's imperative that you know we talk and see how we can support those proposals for where they dovetail and coincide with the reparative justice plan that we are developing and have a listening session coming up at the Hitchcock Center thank you for your patience and listening to all of this and thank you for your ongoing work thank you um I do see two hands up they are from people who have already spoken so I don't know if you um have something else to say or would like to lower your hands I see zoo still has a hand up sorry something I didn't have a hand raised my bad okay no I just wanted to make sure I didn't have anything else to say thank you thank you I believe that everybody in the audience who had a hand up has spoken if anyone else would like to see Jennifer top has her hand up hi um I just I'm speechless as you I just wanted to you know um extend my apologies I know that doesn't mean much for what happened this evening um I feel terrible and I feel especially terrible because the CSSJC came to the meeting to have this conversation and now I just hope that you can join us the finance committee at three o'clock tomorrow I mean you're all very busy and so I feel as you know um especially terrible that you you know that had happened but that you may not be able to join the conversation you would put all this time and I hope that you can be there tomorrow um um you know if if the meeting continues and um you know I know there are well there there are many of us on the council who want to work um very closely with the CSSJC with Aura and um you know to to come to be able to work through this situation you know as um you know we all express that we want to do on that uh what happened tonight is devastating and is not helping us to forward and um you know address the situation in the in the way address everything that's happened or community forward in the way that that we wanted to so I just um I didn't want to sit in the audience and and not say anything but um and I would also concur that we probably need to look at our charter and uh that that's and revisit that um and maybe we I don't know we could that's something we could work on together as well so thank you thank you for um you know all that you're doing to um make our community a much better place we we took a few steps backwards tonight thank you thank you Jennifer um Dorothy Pam I just want to say to miss Pat your answer was quick and accurate that is what white supremacy looks like you write the rules the rules are difficult and arcane and only some people know them and you use them it's like shutting off the mic on somebody it's like putting a gag in their mouth I mean I I just I think you're great Allegra I think you kept your composure um I could tell you were feeling very strongly because you got very very pink okay you kept your composure and you realized you didn't have to go you're right you had a meeting and all of you stuck together and you supported it so I think that was great I think that was really something um but it was a horrible moment and I'm sitting here thinking oh my god that's that young person's first experience of local government but it's a true experience folks it's a true experience those in power are in control so we have to figure out a way to get more power that's really what it is and I just think you're doing a great job and I applaud you so thank you thank you Dorothy um I see Pam Rooney also has her hand up hi everybody um it was going through my head that we we seem to have structures I was reflecting on this as we were listening to the police protocols and the the rules and we have the we have the charter rules we have the police procedures we have the police protocols and ostensibly those are all for making you know lawmaking equitable even handed and giving everyone the same opportunities so that everyone is you know treated in the same manner and but it is is very clear tonight that that those who know the rules can call them and um many of us have cased under some of those some of those types of control mechanisms um and you've got the absolute brunt of it tonight um I think we were I think we're ready to take that motion to refer this this the situation that really really wants to get resolved healed and and understood understood so so we don't approach groups of kids waiting for flat tires you know in that in a in a callous way it it needs to the town needs a humanity to it that isn't allowed under protocol structures and structures and so um look forward to working with you more on this thank you thank you pin alisha um hi everyone I just also wanted to take the time to really appreciate the work that you all are doing as a committee and to stress how significant and important it is and how much our town really needs it um and I feel really terribly that town officials and other town leaders don't always give you guys the recognition and support that you deserve um and I also am feeling very badly that I did not immediately stick up for you all um and so just wanted to say that I also share in the feeling singled out and intimidated by other town officials and sometimes it's really hard and so I also like appreciated that there were other counselors that supported you all tonight and it made it a lot easier for me to support you all which I really strive to do every time that it comes to a conversation around the CSS JC because I really believe in the work that you're doing and I really believe in all of you as a committee um you all are great individuals and great assets to our town and like the hard work is what is going to make the most profound impact and so I know it's hard and taxing um and so I just really want to give you like the most gratitude for continuing to do the work and for sitting through the really hard things and for not giving up so thank you all thank you alisha thank you uh there's Cambridge families of color coalition hi my name is Amara Donovan uh was born and raised in Amherst and now do anti-racist work in Cambridge um I also just wanted to affirm the work that you all are doing it's impactful it has made monumental changes for Amherst and for surrounding towns already with the work that you all have done um alisha and I often talk about the harm that it is to be a BIPOC person in the town of Amherst representing um the many BIPOC people who live in Amherst and so I just wanted to acknowledge the harm that was caused to you all tonight um and to say to folks who are supporting in the audience and supporting from town council in their positions that um it's one thing to say thank you for all your hard work it's another thing to support people when they've been harmed um and to be steady in your continued support um so I hope that people uh know also who are new to the Amherst community that um this is normal this is a lot of what the CSWG has experienced and the harm and the barriers and the blockages and the lack of information and the resource hoarding that exists in this town um and this group and many others in the town have been dedicated and have been sacrificing themselves um for this work for a very long time and so um I was proud to see what happened tonight um and I was also very sad to see the harm that occurred so I hope that you all get to take care of yourselves and that the community also cares for you thank you Amara um Vera hi Vera Cage I um I'm hoping that the counselors and the chair of the council could review the the charter um you know it says that um let me pull it up the right to postpone allows one counselor to require that a vote on a non-emergency measure be postponed until the next scheduled council meeting so the keyword here is non-emergency measure so that is a source of a contention right some of us feel that this is an urgent matter that has been stated clearly this particular council who evoked this uh right to postpone did not see this as urgent and so there is a divide in this community and where do we all land in that division so I would hope that the chair um look at the charter and see areas where the chair could suspend the rules if there is an opportunity to say that there is a vote already being acted upon and would this have occurred would this be allowed you know during when the vote was was being taken um or if it was just another motion on the agenda um that was not um put forward or in motion so though those are the clarification questions and interpretation I and I hope that the chair um could look into that and respond accordingly at some point after further research because the chair does hold power I believe um to do many things and that is to exercise discretion and when that word of non-emergency that should have been debated thank you thank you I see no new hands up I see a few council people and a few audience members who have spoken who have their hands raised still and I don't want to silence anybody who still has things to say Debra also had your hand up for a while yeah um yeah I just want to say that obviously today's actions was just you know despicable um but my hand my hat does go off to those counselors that stood up you know starting with pat the angeles you know so much respect for her um and others Michelle and others who just stood up and you know um and Alicia you know and obviously all of those um and adjourned the meeting but this is obviously a tactic that they used to shut us down and unfortunately even for me like tomorrow I can't right I work so I can't join tomorrow so I'm hoping that whatever counselors show up tomorrow that the same thing happens that they adjourn okay that it gets shut down again tomorrow because it's not going to be fair for them to to bring it up tomorrow because that's what they're trying to do to derail this this thing and this thing is not going to go away and if they think that they're going to derail this they're only going to make this get more and more of an issue and in terms of the healing that healing is not going to happen instead of them just owning up you know for the police chief all we were asking was for the police chief and others to own up to what happened and to remedy the situation and to treat our young people in our community as human beings with compassion and empathy and that did not happen and instead what happened was derail to try to derail and to try to divide even more so I'm hopeful this is the message to the counselors that tomorrow that gets shut down so that then we are able to be at the next conversation but most likely there's going to be more that's going to happen in between then in terms of you know possibly put the word out protest whatever the case may be to show that this is real and as we were said this is an emergency this is not something that they've been dragging the feet since July since this happened these are our young people or are they not that's the question I want to pose to the town like you've just sent the message clear that these young people are not part of the town that their parents and the families who are hurting are not part of the town but guess what they're part of my town and I'm going to continue to fight for them miss pat so I really want to thank the counselors who really were courageous to support us tonight by supporting us tonight you're also you supported the MS9 youth and their families thank you you know who you are I don't want to miss anybody's name I appreciate standing up and doing the right thing tonight so for our CS guest meeting for me I think we need to think very deeply how we continue to work with the town council we can't just like attend their meeting tomorrow I will propose that we come up with our own brand roles we cannot take this anymore they can't just treat us like nothing when they bring up their own roles we need to come up with our own as well as long as we're not breaking the law and that's what I tell parents who have case with special need I said that the school administration will always come up with their roles just ignore them sometimes as long as you're not breaking the rules and that's what we did tonight thank you for Allegra and indeed for your leadership with our committee for us you know standing on our ground tonight and in terms of moving forward I don't see the path at this point because the town has not the police has not on up what has happened no accountability until that happens an apology and we make the MS9 and their families whole there will be no community healing in this town it's not going to happen enough is enough in this town they've taken us for granted for a long long time the MS police department is not working out for all the residents in this town period thank you thank you miss pat phil I'd like to second the thanks many thanks to the town councilors we're in support of us and we're able to adjourn town council meeting and I do second and echo that I hope that it is continued tomorrow and so on and so on until this issue finally gets the attention that it deserves and needs and I'd like to say that possibly between the three committees that were suggested in the motion we all have our own meetings and we can all invite slash make agendas of our own time so as far as human rights commission I would be in support of any type of meeting conjuncture that we have we do have one coming up on Wednesday but if we need to make a meeting at a later date whatever it is but we can figure that out and we do have town employees in support of that as well to help us in the legality of what we just saw tonight I'd also like to say that again I'd like to echo that the town councilor that made the motion to adjourn is definitely practicing white supremacy she knew exactly what she was doing and she knew how to do it and again she is a councilor out large and everybody that is still listening in please please please next November is a vote