 So I just want to welcome everybody to the Amherst Community Chat for Thursday, December 10th. Today we have Superintendent of Public Works, Guilford Mooring, joining us and your town manager, Paul Balkaman, myself, Brianna Sundred. Thank you all for tuning in today. So before we get to Q&A and I'll just remind everyone you can use the Q&A function or raise your hand and zoom. I'll give Paul a chance to report out and then Guilford a chance to introduce himself. Thanks Brianna. So yeah, the big news for us is that the university announced that they were going to be providing asymptomatic testing to the general public at the Mullen Center, which is, I mean that happened last week but it's pretty important development for us. They have been doing asymptomatic testing of all university students in the affiliates and for many of our first responders, including some DPW inspection services, police and fire. But this is for the general population. It's free. It's by appointment only and they have a website set up that you can go in schedule the appointment. It literally takes two or three minutes. I've done it. Brianna's done it. You're allowed to get tested once a week. It's an important tool and they fight against the COVID virus and that's about time that we got one set up in Hampshire County. It's been needed, but comes at a critical time as there's a lot of people who traveling and just gives you a piece of mind. Now the likelihood is that this may surface asymptomatic people who have COVID that didn't know they have it but that's an important thing to find out. And so that's why it's why it's important. I think they can they have 3000 slots and at this point about a third of them have been filled for next week. So I think there's plenty of opportunity for people to go in and get tested and schedule a time and this is available. You know, until mid March, I think it's beyond various schedules. You have to go on the website. They'll be closed during the last two weeks of December. They have a modified schedule because of the holidays. And then when students come back in February, they will reduce the community side and expand the student side, but it will still be available to the community side. So that's the really big news for the town. I think that's really good news too. If you want to find that link, obviously directly at UMass pages but if you're more familiar with our homepage is under the news section it's also at our Amherst COVID-19.org our standalone page for community COVID-19 information. Okay, so I want to welcome Guilford Guilford if you wanted to introduce yourself and give a little report out about what's happening in your department. Good morning, Superintendent of Public Works. It's been a very interesting season this year, the construction season. We're wrapping up now. We've done a few things we didn't plan on doing, like a waterline on West Palm Roy Lane, but we got the paving done and we're doing a few other little odds and ends and wrapping those up. We're going to go away for the winter and transitioning over to winter operations at this time. And that's about where we are we've, we've had a little bit of some small issues with COVID as far as employees go but we haven't had any large issues so far with COVID. So just let you know how we're holding up. And we do come to work. Every day we're scheduled to wear a seven day a week operation, and we're got 24 hours standby as well so we're still operating the same way we were before the pandemic started just so you know, when you say we you're still you're talking about water sewer highway parks and grounds of wide range of services and pretty much anything outside is under you. The transfer station is open as normal hours. Vehicle maintenance is going on street lights are being repaired, all those things are going on. Great and I'm going to just take a quick chance to remind the folks in the room feel free to raise your hand star nine from a phone or use the Q&A button to pop your questions and live. We've got some that were pre submitted so I'm going to start with those, but I encourage you to chime in at any point. Any questions that that came up as in relation to some of the work that was done downtown to for shared streets. And this question is, are you going to be restriping the downtown streets back to normal now that the barriers have been removed. We're actually not going to restripe it to where it was before the barriers are put out. We are going to go in probably it's supposed to be a warm day tomorrow, if they're not out there today one of these are the warmest days of the week we're going to be repaying the black lines the black out the old lines and make sure they're gone, and then the new lines will stay. We have to put the barriers back out in the spring. So, painting not paying the smallest amount of paying we do is the best for the lines show through so that's what we're hoping to do. So the intention is that all those barriers that were there were anticipating that cove is not going to be gone by April May so we're going to be putting those barriers back up to help the restaurants come out from hibernation and be able to be active again so that's the purpose of that. We have a question here that came in from one of our elected officials. What is the town doing for wastewater testing and how are we monitoring that. So what we're doing right now is a lot of communities are doing is we just have one testing site at the wastewater treatment plant and we're sampling the wastewater as it comes in. And they're keeping track of the flow and the, you know, the rate of infections and the rate of the virus that comes through the system. There are three different channels that come into the wastewater plant so we do. We can kind of break it down as this is coming from Northamers this is coming from Southamers this is coming from UMass, and then we can put it all together as well. But they are, they are testing the influence coming into the plant and they are looking for COVID virus. It is there. It's been pretty, pretty constant. Since we started doing this. It's the University, right? Yes, and the University is actually doing it as a way to test some newer protocols and how to test your wastewater for COVID more than to track the fact that it's there or not there. All right, it's pretty interesting. Do they share any of that information or numbers out or is that more of an in-house operation? Every once in a while it gets some updates on the numbers, but it's mostly an in-house operation. Got it. Okay, I want to take a moment because your assistant superintendent, Amy, has asked me to kind of spread the word about this and maybe I can have you talk a little bit about the increase, the uptick in fat oils and grease and wipes and, you know, masks, single use masks and gloves showing up in the sewer system. Fleshable wipes. What's wrong with fleshable wipes? There is no such thing as a fleshable wire. Yes, we're seeing an uptick. It's not really an increase above normal, but it's an increase in the residential areas because more people are staying home. We actually have a decrease in greases and oils in some part of town because those places are closed down mostly around the universities and colleges. But we're seeing more people at home who are actually pouring grease down the drain, which you should never pour grease down your drain. They're cleaning with flushable wipes and depositing them in their toilet and flushing them. Those are not very good at all. They actually combine with the greases and will make blockages in your pipes. We've had about four backups in the last week. We've had two backups in the last week from grease clogs and wipes and mixed together. So it is a concern when the pipes do back up, they back up into the lowest part of the sewer. Many times that's somebody's basement. So it's very important not to flush things down the toilet and don't go down the toilet, which is very important. So pay attention to what you're doing and what your kids are doing with their wipes and stuff like that in the grease. I saw some communities were circulating a pledge to share with their community members. So maybe that's something we'll talk about. You won't flush flushable wipes. That's great. Yeah. And other things that don't belong there. Actually, you should get the YouTube videos from England when they do the cleaning in their sewer lines. Those are the hugest globs of grease you'll ever see. But what happens is these things, what you say is they congeal and then they block the sewer line. And then the next time, you know, somebody's house gets backed up into their basement and it's really nasty. So inexpensive. Yes. All right. Well, that was my little plug for that. We'll be putting more information about that out in the next couple of days as well. So if you have any questions about what that means, just let us know. So one general thing that we wanted to ask, because it's kind of, you know, we're looking at some warm days coming up, but are we ready for winter? And can you talk a little bit about getting prepared for the inevitable snow? So we are ready for the winter season. Our equipment's ready to go. One thing we've been refining is how we're going to staff for the storms. Normally we have a crew and they just work through the whole winter, but we're trying to make sure we bring in more people, train more people. We don't know, I mean, one of the things we do know is as the winners go along, the employees get worn down and worn out and tired and they get more prone to sicknesses as the season goes on. So we're trying to put more people into the system to plow so that they can stay a little more resilient and a little healthier. So we're still trying to figure out how to do that and get it so it's balanced, but you'll see different people plowing and sanding and treating than you normally do because we're trying to rotate around a bit. We do remind you that if you have a sidewalk in front of your house, sidewalks are the responsibility of the property owner to clear. So please shovel your sidewalk, keep your sidewalk clear of salt, I mean, ice and buildup like that. You can get sand at the DPW, but you can, that's your responsibility is a property owner to keep the sidewalk clear. We do have a route where we pass once, but we only go down that route once. And it's just to help you out. And you want us to stop doing it? Please let us know. We'll stop going down your sidewalk if you prefer to clean it yourself. We do have people who do that and ask. With the winter coming as well, fire hydrants, the fire department and the DPW also go out and clear fire hydrants, but if it starts snowing, if you have a fire hydrant in your yard, it's always nice and safe. It's extra protection for you and your neighbors to clear that fire hydrant and make sure it's accessible to the fire crews if they have to come in. And then that's basically it. Just remember, hopefully traffic drops down and we're not supposed to be out past 930 now so traffic should be calmer during the busiest times of snowstorms but remember to always slow down. And don't tailgate the plow trucks, don't try to pass the plow trucks, and don't try to think the plow truck can stop. The plow truck when he's out plowing is now probably two to three times heavier than it's been in normal operations. It's going to take it three to four times maybe five times longer distance to stop. So if you're used to zipping around a big truck and they're able to stop quickly. And he's loaded with salt and sand material and he's got a plow on the front of the truck he's a lot heavier and he's going to take longer to stop. So please respect the treatment trucks and the plows and stay back away from them if you can don't get too close. So it sounds like we need a hydrant adoption program. I'll work on those certificates if anybody wants to adopt their their local hydrant and keep it clear. The other thing I wanted to mention or ask about Guilford is parking ban I mean we're we're still going to be utilizing that and explaining to people how they can find out if there's a parking ban but I wanted to encourage anybody who's not yet signed up for our alerts. And you can do so at Amherst and may duck up slash prepare you can sign up in your native language or decide how you want to get those alerts to yourself your email. You could also simply text join parking to 30890 and you'll be automatically added to that alert system from the device that you are using. All right, quick call to the. Alert system and how that works. DPW makes a call when they when they feel like there's going to be a significant snowstorm and there should not be parking on the streets. Right. Yes, anytime you see a forecast for snow, where the lowest amount of snow is two to three inches, you can expect a parking ban to be placed in placed on the town. You're like going to be two or three inches you probably may not see it but if it's two or three. It's two inches and going to be up to six inches you're gonna probably get we're gonna probably call a parking ban. We try to call the parking ban before noon. So we'll try to have it in that window right there in the morning so you have time. Usually before the storm gets going good to get your car situated off the road and put some place safe. And beyond the texting or the website, we also have the blue lights at major intersections that go flashing and that's when you know there's a winter parking ban in effect. Yes. Yeah, we'll put it on our on our website we put it on our social media we have a banner across all the pages of our websites the flashing lights, the press gets it so hopefully you're in tune to one of those methods when when that happens. And we also do a parking ban after big storms if we have a big storm and we have to come up and clean the downtown area and pick snow. We'll do an isolated parking ban for the downtown area just to get cars off the road so we can clear snow off the sidewalks and the shoulders of the downtown business area. So you could see the flashing lights flashing. There wasn't a prediction of snow and it's after a storm has already happened and you're thinking oh they just forgot to turn them off. Well, no we didn't forget to turn them off. We're coming into work that night, and we've cleaned snow up between 11 o'clock and seven o'clock in the morning so if you're out downtown and you leave your car on the main streets downtown will tell your car if the blue lights are on. All right, so I have another comment that was submitted from a community member over on Shearman Lane, and she wrote in urging action on the East Pleasant sidewalk East existing condition survey. She couldn't make the meeting today but she wanted to make sure her comment got read. So she lives on Shearman Lane and appreciates greater access to town via walking for herself and her children sidewalks along East Pleasant could not only improve our town aesthetically but would allow for better community health and improved access to downtown businesses which is sorely needed. So any comments on on that. The project isn't going on we do need to get the survey done and we're working on getting a survey or hired we have actually several projects for surveyors right now. And there will be an ad going out shortly for for surveying. We do expect to have that surveyed shortly before sometime in the spring. The project we're working on for sidewalks right now is the North Pleasant Street sidewalks which was something that's been in the works for many, many years, and we'll start seeing work next year on repairing and widening sidewalks and along North Pleasant Street. Thank you. So this is a topical one. So with with so many sports not being played currently does does that mean our fields have received received a much needed rest. I know that was a big, a big conversation last year. They have received a much needed rest. There has been a few exceptions with the university being closed. They have not allowed students to use the facilities at the university so they've used our facilities. You, if you're a college student and you want to go play football or something on the town fields, please don't do it. Go to UMass use their fields tear up their field not our field in the mud snow season. You paid tuition to them not to the town of Amherst. But on the general mostly all the fields are doing much better right now. So we have recreation outside so this person makes mention that they saw a photo of Puffer's pond being cleared for ice skating in the past. Does that still happen or will we have some sort of skating rinks outdoor skating rinks in town this winter. Puffer's pond I don't think has been cleared for ice skating a long time as a town thing. There are some people who will go out there and clear it off and skate themselves. They've actually sanctioned that and contributed to it in a long time. We are been talking about putting up an ice rink in town somewhere. The only issue we're having in the last few years about doing ice rinks in town is the weather's not cooperating. We don't get a hard freeze it doesn't stay frozen. It's freezing and thawing and the ice comes and goes and it causes a bit of an issue for keeping it that way. So it's up to mother nature mother nature is going to be nice to us we might be able to do something but it's up to it's up to the weather. And where would that be what if you if you if the weather cooperated would you have an idea where that might go. Sure. We did it we've done it at Kendrick Park we've done it on the South Common we've done it at at the community field. I'm not sure where we'd want to do it this year but I'm sure people kind of have an idea where they want it just throw it out there and let us here and we'll probably look around. So these are rinks that you build and then fill with water and then it freezes hopefully freezes sometimes it doesn't. Do they get much use Gilbert. We don't stay out there all the time to see how much use is going on but we do get some use. Good. Okay. Yeah I think there's a concern about people not having you know kids in the house, all the time doing school and not being out and then looking for different ways for people to engage. I mean outside and that's why I think we've seen so much use of our parks and our trails and things like that much heavier use than we've seen in the past, which is a good thing, you know. And I mean that was a question that we had here too just that uptick in use of our of our trails. Is that just merely an observation or is there any way to tell is there any where extra wear and tear on some of these things or trash or any any issues that you see coming out of that increased usage. What we see is the trash issue trash has been trash has been a big issue trash issue big issue. Yeah trash has been on the increase this year. More and more people are using the facilities more and more people bringing trash, and they're leaving it behind. Is there household trash. No just trash, trash in general, they have parties they have cookouts they, they bring something a game to play they'll leave the box the game came in. There's just leaving stuff behind when they bring come they're thinking that will will empty the trash can and we'll take it all away for them. People have birthday parties and leave, leave the cake that wasn't eaten and leave the leftover food sitting on a picnic table thinking someone, someone will like this cake and eat it because it's just sitting here. And we have to clean it up. There has been a very, the park usage is up. But if you come use the park, bring your trash or bring your stuff and the trash pack it out. Don't leave it in the trash cans. You have a lot take it with you go back home and dispose of it that way of parks are not meant to be the trash receptacles for everyone. We have some extra grocery bags, plastic bags in your car and pack out your trash if you're adventuring outdoors, I think. That's what we try to do anyway. So I'm just going to give another call to the folks in the room that if you do have a question or comment it doesn't have to be related to public works we welcome you to come in and do so by raising your hand and zoom or by putting your question in the Q&A function within Zoom so please do that before we wrap in a little, a little bit. I do have some more questions here. This one, it seems so far away but it's, it seems like every summer there is a drought, but not an air moist. Why is that did we, did we have lots of water this summer compared to other communities. There's two things that go on when people say drought. One thing that goes on is a, what we call regulatory drought, where communities around us like Hadley has a water permit for their system like we have a water permit. But in their water permit, they have a little clause that says if precipitation and water flow in a certain place is at this level you must declare a drought. And that's what we call regulatory drought, the regulators have said that you should be using less water at this time. It doesn't really, it sometimes doesn't really apply to the community very well because the place where you measure the water flow or you measure the rainfall may not even be in the community it may be three or four communities east west north and south of you. So it's not an accurate indication of what's going on in your community. But first, our permit right now doesn't require us to do anything for when the state declares a drought, we're required only to monitor the situation and look at the resources we have in town. Our water portfolio we call it now. We have the wells in the south in the town. We have the Atkins reservoir, the Centennial reservoir systems actually offline right now. We look at our resources we have and see where we are and how much water we have. And based on those two information pieces of information will say whether we need to conserve water or not. So last year, we got close but we actually have plenty of water to use because we didn't have a lot of students here, and we didn't need to put any water restrictions in place. And we have a lot of water now, because it's been raining so much. I just need more customers to sell it to. It depends on what you're looking at for drought and what's going on as to what really is the drought and why we may not declare a drought or water restrictions and another communities around us may require water restrictions. That's helpful to know because you always think that it's, you think that it's going to be all the whole area but it depends on your permit from the state what it said what what requires the drought. And then we make an assessment just in terms of watching water flow and what the usage is and, you know, and then having the university closed and students not taking two showers a day has lessened the need for water. So, interesting. I have another question here so we we saw the state of the town address that Amherst got received an impressive amount of grants in 2020 and many of those came from public works is there a particular project or grant that you guys are most proud of or excited to work on. That's a good question. I don't think we ever looked at that way. They're all all the grants we kind of apply for have a purpose and have a need and we like them we enjoy them all. Some of the smaller ones are actually the ones we enjoy the most getting and doing. We actually, we actually have applied for a few more if we get those are kind of really kind of funky techno nerdy geeky things which will really be excited to do all amount grants, but still a still a big impact and some some respects I would imagine. Well they all help, especially the smaller ones actually are usually something to do with technology and how to change processes. And those are, those are, they have a small impact when you do them but they have a larger impact over the operating life and what you're doing like with water plants we've had a few few grants that are very small but they saved us tens of thousands of dollars a year and operating costs and those have been good grants. Yeah, it's, we can't do that now but I always I think we do like a video tour of the wastewater treatment plan it's just a remarkable facility. There's a full science lab in there that where they test things or that you know there's, there's technology in there who are analyzing the left foot that's going out and coming in. It's a real very technical location and it's pretty impressive. I'll sign up for that tour. So we are coming up on our half hour I wanted to give Guilford a chance to leave everybody with something that he didn't get asked or we didn't talk about yet. Is there anything that you didn't get a chance to say. We've talked about greases and oils and fats talked about the drought snow plowing. Now that the one thing to think about is you know your public works department is here, it is working. If you have a question I have a concern. You can call we will take care of it. Things take longer than other things. Sometimes a street light street lights out it's a changing a bulb or changing the photo cell. Sometimes we have to get the utility company. Western. Ever source ever source. I've been here. Ever source involved and that can be a little more challenging to get ever source involved. So we're here doing things and just reach out to us there's C click fix which is online. You can put in a concern on C click fix. You can email us, you can call the main number and just call the main number 2593050 push zero. If you get sent to the voicemail just leave a voicemail we'll get back to you. But we're here we're doing things and carrying on the way we normally do. Great. Thank you. And as I was saying, last call, we got a question and a comment come in from one of our attendees with the new mass works grant. Is Pomeray Lane getting repaved or is redesigning the intersection the only work we got money for she also a comment here that they appreciate that leaf bags were picked up this fall twice instead of once so thank you for your work. So the mass works grants, we're going to look at what we get to decide what type of intersection improvements to do, and then based on what we have and how much money there will be will extend how much of that section of the roadways get paved. West Pomeroy, a section of West Pomeroy will be paid repaved next year because we did the waterline work on it this fall. It's a little torn up now, the water lines in good shape, the pavement needs a little work will probably repave that next year anyhow. Yeah, that mass works grants really exciting. It's a big, it's a big grant and so congratulations on getting that Guilford. And, but you know, it sounds like a big number but we know with these construction projects it doesn't go very far so I mean, it was everybody worked on that grant I mean planning worked on it and that's how we got it all together so yeah, just team effort. Yeah. All right, well we are we are at our time. Paul, do you have any parting statement. No, I think we're good. Okay. So we're doing another one next week right. We are and tomorrow we are having I want to put a plug in for tomorrow we will have a virtual cup of Joe tomorrow at 8am. It's on our community calendar and on our social media channels if you would like the link will will have special guests from the Amherst area chamber Amherst bid and the middle district to talk about resilient and creative business local business and so tune in great. All right, thank you so much go for next next Thursday. Yes, next Thursday we have another community chat with members of our internal working group town employees working towards equities our core equity team so that should be interesting and exciting as well. So tune in. Cool. All right, thank you all take care. Have a great day.