we're recording thank you thank you good evening it's April 8th the day of the eclipse uh this is a regular meeting of the Town Council the open meeting law allows us to continue holding these meetings remotely without a quum of the council physically present in the room uh while providing the public with ADD alternative access to the meeting this meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom by phone phone and as a live broadcast on ammer media and live streaming just to be clear however there are one two eight counselors in the town room and at least three others at this point online and there'll probably be others okay um given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the April 8th uh regular Town council meeting to order at 6:31 I'll call upon each counselor by name they have indicated they would like to be addressed at that time please unmute your mic and say present and then make sure you mute it again uh we'll begin with Pat d'angelus present an Devon gothier present counselor ET present Lynn grimer is present Mandy uh counselor hanii I know you're there because I can see the phone councelor hanii can you unmute present thank you we're working on it gotcha Bob hegner present councelor Lord Hammer is not here yet uh Pam roone here thank you uh councelor briyan pres C uh Kathy Shane here Andy Steinberg present Jennifer to present and councelor Walker is not here yet so we'll keep an eye out for them um hold on [Music] um okay um there's no chat room for this meeting if you have technical issues please let Athena and me know to make a comment please use the raised hand button um and if technical difficulties arise as result of utilizing remote participation we'll decide what to do at that time um if we have to disrupt the meeting or or just U take a recess um there will be a general public comment period at this meeting immediately following the announcements um the order of I'm sorry at this meeting immediately following yeah the announcements um the order of the agenda is is the same as posted except we've eliminated one item from the posted agenda and that is the proposed amendment to bylaw 3.26 nuisance property first reading that has not come out of committee yet so we're not ready at this time to have the council deal with it okay with that uh just very quickly uh I want to make a couple announcements and then actually call on somebody to make one announcement okay uh first of all we do have an April 25th public hearing uh scheduled on the regional school budget that meeting will be at 5:00 it will be virtual it is a meeting of the finance committee however Town counselors are also able to attend we will post it as a committee of the whole and if we have a quorum of the councel we will call the council to order as well on April 29th we will have a special meeting of the Town Council we only are calling it special because by that point we'll have had three meetings this month and we only have required to one um and in the process of that um we have a variety of agenda items we're still trying to catch up um I wanted to just mention a couple other quick meetings and then we'll have one other announcement and that is there is a for towns meeting on April 20th at 9:30 a.m. it is in the Middle School library at this point that's the way it's scheduled we have absolutely requested that it be available for virtual attendance by both counselors and audience I've not gotten a response on that the north ammer Library ribbon cutting is tentatively scheduled for May 2nd at 3:30 that will be confirmed and the Jewish American Heritage Month Proclamation reading is scheduled for May 7th at 4:30 at sweetzer Park which is right across the street I'd like to Now call on Kiko uh Meen our Public Health director to come forward she'd like to tell us a little bit about the kindness campaign please use the use the mic and make sure the buttons on thank you uh good evening every thank you for allowing me to be here I just want to make a few comments about the kindness campaign my name is Kiko melan I am the public health director um on February 29th which was deemed leap of kindness day the town of amoris recreation and Public Health Department launched a kindness campaign the Campa campaign slogan is be kind it's good for your mind we launched this kindness campaign to foster a culture of compassion generosity and Goodwill throughout the community I'd like to encourage all members of the amers community to learn more about the campaign and to join us in committing to practice kindness in all aspects of Our Lives as the public health director I also want to underscore the scientific evidence behind the notion that being kind is actually good for us studies show that exhibiting kindness and helping others can reduce stress there's a strong body of evidence showing that stress has a negative impact on mental and physical health being kind can also boost our mood increase self-esteem promote happiness and even help us live longer there is so much happening in the world world that we do not have control over but we can control how we are with each other and how we approach each day and each human interaction kindness is something that can be built into business decisions government policy and other official systems in a way that supports everyone's mental health and also reduces discrimination and inequality I've been thinking a lot lately about how we could initiate a discussion in the town about how we can have productive and um respectful dialogue about nuanced and controversial issues I'm aware of a recent talk given by Elana Redstone in which she spoke about the concept of social trust social without social trust we will continue to see events through the lens of our own social identity and personal experience disregarding or demonizing those who see things differently I would propose that one way to rebuild social trust is to express genuine kindness towards each other and to take a minute to truly think about what it might be like to be in another person's shoes the kindness campaign aims to achieve this kind of change if we all make small adjustments in how we treat each other we will be able to experience the power of collective action and responsibility in addition to providing an opportunity for people to share what they're doing to spread kindness in their Community by uploading examples to the campaign's interactive website the campaign has also featured a free mental Wellness speaker series on topics such as how to build mindfulness skills or how to support someone who is struggling the series continues this month there's information on the website about these mental Wellness workshops we are also hosting a food and diaper Drive benefiting the Amber survival center and the Early Education Center at cro bar we are accepting donations of non- perishable food items toiletries and diapers to support individuals and Families in Need donation boxes are at the ammer area Chamber office the town hall mezzanine the amoris recreation office and the bangs Community Center the kindness Campaign Will culminate with a community cleanup day on April 27th Saturday there are also kindness campaigns buttons I'm wearing one of them right now which can be picked up at the recreation department the bangs Community Center the Town M and also the Chamber of Comm the Campa campaign officially ends this month but we are continuing to plan activities to keep the spirit of the campaign going well cast its end a we hope the Amis Community will join us thank you thank you for joining us we're going to move on to public comment uh anyone wishing to speak who is in the town room make sure you have signed up with Athena over here uh if you are on zoom and you would like to make public comment please raise your hand Bob you have your hand up yeah I just wanted to mention that um on the finance committee hearing on April 16th or meeting um we will be discussing the regional school budget I know that people have um in the past or last meeting have um describe that they didn't understand or that we would be talking about the regional school committee uh the regional school budget at that time so I just want to mention you know publicly that we will be discussing it on the 16th and that that is in addition to the hearing on the 25th at 5 okay thank you uh if you are in the audience and you would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time okay Athena how many people have signed up I have two did you say two two two I'm seeing one person in the audience will'll begin with the room and you want to call the first person please if they Thomas Crossman uh before we start though let me just say public comment on matters within is on the matters within the jurisdiction of the Town Council residents are welcomed to express their views for up to three minutes uh the council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment public comment comments are not reflective of the opinion of the Town Council in addition to that I have now added this to my standard statement and that is the first amendment broadly protects individual rights to address the government to speak and to express themselves including their right to say hateful and offensive things I am generally unable to shut those enters Down Under the First Amendment to the US Constitution unless their level of speech Falls within an exception articulated by the courts such as fighting words true threats to a particular individual harassment of an particular individual or incitement of imminent Lawless activity if a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging is in unprotected speech I must defer to the principles of freedom of speech we'll Begin by recognizing our first speaker in the audience we can we confirm that Alicia okay uh Alicia can you hear us um yes I can thank you Len and Athena thank you Thomas Crossman please come on up state your name and where you live before you make your comment please um good evening Thomas Crossman I uh um work and own property in ammer um I want to start by iterating that although we may disagree on things every town council member is loved and cared for tonight I'm missing pickle ball for this pickle ball is important to my physical health my mental health and my general well-being but this amendment to the existing bylaw will impact my livelihood as I mle over the amendment there are many points that I can try to iterate to drive the point that changing the bylaw in this manner is more destructive than it is constructive the thing that keep returning to is how expensive this will be at first glance someone might say that this is only a few extra dollars per month over the course of the Year i' challenge you with this question what is the most expensive commodity in the world it is not Lumber it is not copper it is not silver or gold the most expensive commodity in the world is time because we cannot afford to buy any more of it the property managers and landlords of this community sit here and try to express the cost that this amendment will impose on our operations it has to be understood that we have to take into account all of the costs when weighing and determining rent levels to charge our residents we have to weigh the costs of taxes Insurance water sewer and building materials we have to weigh the cost of laborers including landscapers handy people electricians plumbers HVAC technicians to name a few we have to set the rent prices in anticipation of the cost to develop these properties to maintain them and to replace the building materials since they have a lifeline and continue to break down over time with this by law we have to increase the cost of administration to take the time to coordinate these additional appointments to make sure we have the appropriate staff on site to meet the inspector and inspect we will be pulling our most talented repair people away from work to walk through the property to make sure everything is in good working order we have to account for the cost of that person's time as they have to make it a living as well we can't expect someone to do this for free the pool of candidates that we can select from that are knowledgeable enough to understand enough of the building science is is limited and now we are going to pull them away from their most productive use of their time for them to walk through an apartment doesn't seem to be a good use of their time that comes with the cost of doing business the revenue to operate a productive and efficient business is collected through rents there are no grants to support the cost of time for these inspections there are no hidden Revenue coming from somewhere else it is literally the rent that is collected is what will cover the cost of the administrator and the handy person whether there is something to address or not from what we have heard from the surveys and feedback from the town it sounds like there are between a dozen to two dozen units that are in dire circumstances that need immediate attention so why are we looking to implement a program that is going to be inefficient uh is going to be an inefficient use of our talent and only increase the cost to our residents which includes the most vulnerable populations in our community please understand that I am only scratching the surface on one problem with this amendment and I can imagine my colleagues will cover more issues but I'm trying to drive home a critical unintended consequence that that this program will have it is not a good use of our most valuable resource which is our time please vote no for this amendment to the existing bylaw thank you thank you for joining us I'm sorry you had a Miss pickle ball it's a good sport uh we're going to go to zoom and uh Arash hashami Arash hashami please enter the room state your name and generally where you live in town hi good evening Arash shami South ammer I um I appreciate everyone on the Town Council and the work that you guys are doing um but I'm curious if this if anyone in this Council believes that the state of our roads is actually acceptable two years ago the town paid for a study that showed two-thirds of our roads are either at fair or poor condition and I can only assume that that figure has only gotten worse and I suspect that figure is closer to 3/4 so the first question I think we need to ask ourselves is is that figure acceptable and and are we doing enough about that now a Hot Topic has been brought up today in over the recent course of the last few months about the inspection of rental properties and I'm curious to also know just why we believe the town is the authority to provide others with recommendations and corrective actions when its own behavior in managing an area that is most fun fundamental to its Citizen and the most basic area of responsibility has been neglected for years two years ago the town was provided a report card that we wouldn't accept or tolerate in any area of our town yet we continue to be distracted by Vanity projects and projects that are only going to score political points you know the most basic fundamental 101 in economics dictates where things will go if this actually gets adopted and this isn't a conversation about inspection of rental properties but I did want to drive that parallel here we're wasting our time resources and energy on things that are nice to have but that are not critical someone's going to get hurt on these roads there are craters scattered throughout town and we are collec going to be responsible there are reports that have formalized and documented that the town knew about this and didn't do anything there are multiple cases of multiple citizens raising this time and again and the town isn't doing enough about it that's the definition of negligence when someone eventually gets hurt because their town roads look like a war zone or an obstacle course and people are are constantly swerving traffic to get into oncoming Lanes pedestrians cyclists that's an accident waiting to happen so we need to stop getting distracted by these Endeavors that are beyond our reach that are only going to strengthen the hands of Hadley South Hadley beler toown and continue to deteriorate the economic standing of ammer these roads are safety hazard and I'm not sure what else we can do thank you for your comments so and I know this isn't a dialogue we need to have a meeting about this thank you um Vincent o Conor Benson o Conor 175 Summer Street I thank the chair of the finance committee for his uh statement it was very unfortunate that the the similar thing was not made last Monday um and I do support Mr Crossman who I see on monthly basis um in his comments about the inspection thing which I put in writing um regarding housing um I want to say a couple things about the handling of the Regional School uh budget first I'm again thankful for the chair's comments um but I think it was equally unfortunate that prior to a public hearing uh members of the council who sit on the finance committee felt so free to express their opinions about a subject which in my opinion the council knows very little um and I was also quite disappointed that a senior member both of the council and of the finance committee made reference to a town program which as far as I know has never been discussed as a matter essentially saying how much the program costs and essentially maybe threatening members those who support the regional school program that it's either your budget or this program I think that's a very unfortunate comment if a school Committee Member had made reference to the athletic program of the Regional Schools I think it would have been equally unfortunate and they would have been rebuked by their own colleagues finally as I read the story of what happened at the finance committee meeting I was very distressed by the fact that a person who is not a lawyer was allowed to make a decision for the committee as to who could speak as a member of the regional school committee I believe that the opinion that was rendered was inaccurate very unfortunate and that if in the future um I think you need to get an opinion of a partner in the law firm that represents this city to make sure that uh non- lawyers are not essentially shutting off elected officials who are attempting to speak on behalf of a regional budget not an elementary school budget I think that was unfort forunate and the way to solve the problem is to get an opinion from a law partner in The Firm that represents this city thank you thank you back to the audience that's the end of the register okay that's the end of public comment we're going to move on uh I just want to note that um councelor hanii appears to have lost connection uh somewhere around 6:45 and not been reconnected I believe she's might have been in a place where she just couldn't be connected okay um we are now going to go to the consent agenda uh the consent agenda is on the screen and the reason it is on the screen is because it is different than what was posted there are only two items on the consent agenda there are more stat of okay thank you um and the so the consent agenda basically is the two proclamations there are no minutes on the consent agenda um so to move I'm moving the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit uh 6A adoption of the Children's Mental Health acceptance weak Proclamation 6B adoption of the Jewish American Heritage Month Proclamation is there anybody who would like either of those items removed seeing no hands or no comments I'm going to ask for a second second Shane thank you uh we're going to move to a vote Anna you're first I thank you uh councelor ET I Lyn grimer is an i Mandy joh hanaki is absent for the moment uh Bob hegner I councelor Lord is absent uh Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg Andy Steinberg you're muted Andy yes thank you uh Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Pats hi it passes unanimously with two absent uh we're going to move on to a presentation I'm sorry we have two resolutions Andy Steinberg would you please read the last portion of the resolution on children's mental health acceptance week yes in just second and I have a problem with my computer and so I have to get the uh document on my screen if I can and uh the last paragraph is now therefore the ameran council hereby proclaims May 5 to 11 2024 is Children's Mental Health acceptance week to help cultivate awareness for all residents of amorist and urges residents and organizations to work toward meeting the mental health needs of every child in ammer and to promote acceptance of children with mental health issues and their families thank you and uh Jennifer to would you please read the last one last portion on the Jewish American Heritage Month yes thank you um now therefore we the ammer Town Council do hereby proclaim the month of May to be Jewish American Heritage Month in the town of amorist and encourage all to celebrate the history and contributions of Jewish Americans to our culture and Society thank you uh we're going to move on to presentations and discussions uh assistant Town Manager David Zac is going to update us on the Hickory Ridge property thank you very much Lynn appreciate you having me here tonight and um what I'd like to do is is uh with Athena's help run through a set of slides uh it's been a while since I've addressed um the Council on on Hickory Ridge and we've been very busy out there and and wanted to take the opportunity to to show you around a little bit and tell you what we've been up to all right out of the gate I wanted to thank a few staff members uh who have been instrumental in moving us forward on the project um Aon jock uh from the conservation department Nate Malloy from planning Rob MOA our Building Commissioner and Bob parent who's our special uh uh capital projects um uh employee for uh for the or a number of projects that many of you are familiar with um and I want to assure the council that this is the first of many updates so please you're probably these slides are going to elicit a number of questions we may have time for all of them but if you come up with questions please you know get to me uh uh by email and I promise we will be back with updates as as things progress out at Hickory Ridge so for those counselors who are new really a quick summary Hickory Ridge we purchased the property a few years ago it is a former golf course 150 Aces uh it is a stunning property with uh kind of deep ecological uh significance in town the fort river runs through the property uh it is uh on one hand an ecological gem with rare species Wetlands vernal pools uh other tributaries of the Fort River um but those those ecological resources can create challenges for us for other uses of the property the goals of the property going in the goals of the acquisition uh first and foremost um we we pre-acquired the property with solar already uh planned on the on the on the land and I'll talk about that in a minute but the other major goal was connectivity to connect residents thousands of residents who live north of the property and south of the property to this incredibly beautiful piece of land uh formally called the Hickory Ridge Golf Course um so starting off with one of those beautiful slides and then jumping right into solar so as I said solar was a a part of the project that we basically inherited from the previous owner uh there will be about a 20 25 acre solar array on the project on the property it's already under construction as we speak it is uh being permitted through various Town boards and committees and currently uh if you go buy the property you will see some of that work underway um that that project will include battery storage um it will also include a required um emergency access for the property given flooding that we're seeing happen more uh more consistently uh with the Fort River over topping its its banks um this solar project which is uh being built by pure Sky energy um will bring in approximately $80,000 a year in a pilot a payment in Le of taxes every year once it is completed um I expect the project to be fully completed and operational with all uh with any luck by the end of this year so uh we are permitting this we are overseeing the project staff are out there on a weekly basis and while it's being built we're also trying to safeguard those natural resources David I just want to pause to note that councelor hanaki has been able to rejoin the meeting thank you next slide please um as I said and and I'm going to go through these pretty quickly I apologize because I know you have a full agenda there will be more time I will come back uh anytime you or the town manager requests I I love talking about this project it's it's a pretty stunning project um so Trails Trails will be an integral part of the project um as you can see in Blue on this um on this image uh blue and pink are what we call the uh connecting Trail North South in the lower center part of the um uh uh slide are the in kind of that dark color Clubhouse and then right to the right of it is the existing parking lot um the uh clubhouse will eventually be demolished it was a kind of a non-starter for us it was in terrible condition when we acquired it so we knew that um and then to the left of that or to the West is the purple Trail and the purple loop trail all of these trails that you see here on this figure will be fully accessible six feet wide they'll include informational and educational kiosks resting areas benches very similar to the Conti Trail if you will over in Hadley on Moody Bridge Road so it'll be a wonderful resource for local people for visitors Etc uh the trail will also connect um via the uh I guess it's a gold and blue uh Trail over to the right hand side of this image over to West Street street so so residents of uh any of the neighborhoods to the north of East Hadley Road will be able to get over to West Street and and get something to eat or pick up some groceries or uh take a walk down to the Village Center and vice versa you'll also be able to walk all the way to gruff Park through these Trails so next slide um as I said the property is um a very special ecological uh uh uh uh parcel and uh pure sky as well as the town is being closely monitored by a number of state agencies who whose job it is to safeguard those resources so this gives you an idea just in uh charcoal the darker charcoal and gray those are the two solar arrays the Central and Western solar array about 20 25 acres and then as part of that project pure sky has to do ecological restoration on 17 acres in the yellow uh part of this slide all along the Fort River so again we're monitoring that we're working with them that is all part of the requirement of their project and if you will the town of ammer as the owner of the property next slide so I'm not going to go through all of these in detail but um I did say at the outset that we've been very busy we've completed a number of studies of the property we've mapped all of the wetlands all of the vernal pools all of the resource areas we've created an ecological restoration plan um for the property we've designed the multi-purpose accessible Trails um we've also designed secondary Trails which will be for things like cross country skiing running I've already had inquiries from various College cross country teams even the high school uh cross country folks um we've also developed a a land stewardship plan and we've made Partnerships with local or organizations and the federal government we've also looked at possible sites of course there will be a solar array but in a few minutes I'll show you a couple of the slides that we developed as we've done assessments for a possible South Hammer fire station um affordable housing and municipal buildings I will say that one of our challenges here is the although 150 acres sounds like a large property when you actually begin to take out those areas that can't be developed you're really down to the frontage around the clubhouse in the parking lot on West pomoy Lane um and in total that's probably five six acres we don't know yet because there are no proposals but in in the future we'll be working toward that as I said solar is underway construction of the multi-use paths will begin actually our our our local uh contractor Taylor Davis was the successful bidder uh so were excited to be working with a local contractor and they'll begin uh building the multi-use path in the next couple of weeks they were out there today getting started um restoration will include removing culverts uh trying to address some of the damage that was done um through um armoring banks of the river uh we'll also be removing the extensive irrigation system that was there to support the golf course luckily the US fish and wildlife service and the state of Massachusetts uh teamed up with us and they were able to get a $3.5 million Grant or a couple of sites restoration sites in Western Mast and ours was selected to be part of that so those part of the the funding in that $3.5 million Grant will be coming to Hickory Ridge to remove old piping and restore some of the damage along the Fort River over on the right are some of the grants that we've received um working through our cdbg program Park grant us fish and wildlife service and we just put in a Trails grant for another 110,000 so we're doing everything we can to seek funding outside of the Town um to make this a special place as I said multi multi-purpose path accessible Trails will be part of U the the the future there again I want to make it clear we've designed the trail so that what happens on the Frontage is flex flexible in the future nothing we're doing on the land um in any way negatively impacts the potential for something happening on the Frontage mind you the I will say the solar is a 20year lease and we you know that was locked in four or five years ago so that 20 acres is locked in for solar when that lease comes up um folks in leadership 20 years from now we'll determine whether that is something we want to uh continue with next slide please um I mentioned other opportunities there this is an image of uh potentially an Amphitheater there for Community presentations performance space we've already kind of mapped out a site where this could work um you may recall um a few years ago working with Brian sunred uh we did um an engage ammer page where we came up with dozens and dozens of ideas the community did um and this was one of them could could we develop an an informal inexpensive Amphitheater uh the possibility exist to do that out there next slide please um Community Gardens came up as a very strong component of Hickory Ridge we have a tentative site picked out on the north side of of the Fort River again out of resource area out of wetland area um and closest to some of the apartment complexes on the north side we're currently having dialogues with those apartment complexes about what their residents might want in Community Gardens or small playgrounds something like that next slide uh ecological restoration I I found this kind of an interesting slide that we worked with one of our Consultants on succession is taking over out at Hickory Ridge and it's a little hard for golfers to watch succession nature take over but this kind of gives you an idea of what Hickory Ridge might looks like now five years from now and maybe 20 years from now as the flood plane forest and the ecology there restore to something a little bit more natural again I want to make make make a point of saying we are going to keep some of the land in we plan to keep some of the land in early successional habitat open field habitat for those species and people who like to go birding go hiking go running and look out over pastoral settings so those are part of the restoration next slide um again I think I've covered most of this but this is a nice drone shot showing the area of the clubhouse and the parking lot the existing parking lot to the left and a small out building over to the right but that is really the developable land it's right on West Pomeroy Lane I'm sure you've gone buy it in your uh in your travels um but again what we're dealing with is these layers of um regulation and to some degree limitations on what we can do with the whole property and trying to zero in on those pieces of the property that that we think have potential and making sure that the uses are compatible um next slide so um we had our Consultants look at some different things and this is one image that they came up with this is approximately um where the clubhouse and parking lot are now and the town manager asked us to look at um the feasibility of a South amoris fire station so I know you've heard that from me and from Mr bachan and we'll continue I know I was part of your uh Retreat and in your your um goals for the town manager and his staff uh clearly uh finalizing a site for DPW and fire our high priorities so we know we have a site Here We Believe it'll fit quite nicely um and we'll I believe be back to you in the months ahead with with some more details on that so fire station we also looked at collocating something there could there be a fire station and a community building X whatever that might be we didn't put a name to it because we don't know but we do know that there is likely depending on the square footage of a South Hammer fire station and the square footage of a community building to be determined we could do something like that and collocate them on the Frontage again it's a long narrow uh strip on West pomoy Lane so we can't go too deep into the property because of the flood plane I'm sure you've been by it in the last couple of months and seeing the the flooding and it is real and it is probably not going to go away given climate change so we looked at a collocation of a fire station in a community center we also looked at housing and we know that some housing will again fit on the Frontage and again um we're we're kind of looking more deeply at at some of these options and we'll pivot based on the community's needs so if it is determined that a fire station should go on the property then we'll really get more into the weeds into the details on that these are just kind of conceptual drawings to say well based on the available square footage the topography the zoning Etc what could go there and I should mention zoning is a challenge um so um zoning is I believe outlying residential so um that mainly calls for uh single family homes so that's that's a challenge we'll face in the future is how do we work through them but these these um some of these options can fit next slide please site complexity I won't go into the detail on this but these are kind of some of the layers that my staff and I have been working with then things like estimated and priority habitat for rare species Wetlands flood plane uh the topography out there the the flooding and As We Lay over layer those those down you know we come to some conclusions about what is what is compatible and what is not and that's why we've tried to kind of focus our efforts on West pomoy Lane and then as you're going away from West pomoy Lane what is the experience of the user if you're taking your bicycle you could bike bike on these Trails you could take a stroller with your your young children or family you'll be able to take a wheelchair if if if you do have uh if we do have visitors with wheelchairs or Mobility challenges um and we want to be able to get people from where they live to where they might want to go one is to enjoy this beautiful property to go bird watching to do yoga to go fishing um but it also means getting people from uh Orchard Valley if if you want to take a half day hike you'll be able to get all the way to the spray park um at grth Park for the most part without going on a road um with you and your children which would be pretty cool um and likewise if you live North up on East Hadley Road and you want to walk down and and get a a meal at Mission Cantina or elito you could do that um so all Offroad and not go on you know for safety sake so so here's our part of our map we have many more I won't bore you with them but it's complex and we're working through it for a little background again not going to go into this but this slide will be in your packet it is in your packet and this gives you a little background on some of the grants that we've received some of the in kind uh significant in kind resources we're going to get from the US fishing Wildlife Service uh the the Mass fishing game they will be saving us tens of thousands of dollars by removing these massive old failing culverts some of them 48 in in diameter these are huge huge uh infrastructure that'll be removed and then finally I think that's it thank you I know I've gone quickly um but I wanted to stay within your time limits and take questions if if there are any thank you thanks David uh and thank you to the many staff that have worked on this um we'll take question from the council um or comments at this time and I'd like to limit the period of time to probably 10 to 15 minutes Kathy thanks Dave um that was a tour to force uh thanks very much for the beautiful pictures um you know I as always I want to focus on the money side of this a little bit um because from the first day we did the purchase um when we were on the finance committee we were asking about um not just the initial investment but the additional money that the town would be putting in and to what extent part of the property would uh eventually be paying property tax be paying something back to the town so that front strip has was looked at initially but I have a question and you don't need to answer right now on how much money we have put into it so you showed an impressive list of Grants and I could go back with the initial purchase I know before the joint Capital uh planning committee there's 150,000 to take down the clubhouse um and then some of the park grants that you got you were able to get it because you got additional money from the community preservation act as seed money and matching money so I'd just like to have an accounting not right now um on how much we've invested um over time and then my my question on the Frontage is the clubhouse had water I don't know whether it had sewer but is it is there a lot of infrastructure that would have to be put in to have a fire station or a community or or housing any of the above I mean is is it on sewer was it on septic is it already got electrical wiring so how much of it is is kind of ready ready should we decide what we want to do with that fundage so that's my main question on the design I can send some of my questions on the design but the fire station um on the square footage of its footprint um on how much of the acreage it would take if it's got the fire engines and the ambulances just on terms of how deep it has to be and whether some of it could be two storage for the upstairs to to limit the amount of footage so I don't need to know that now but just thinking in terms of the use of the land um because with all the water on it you probably want to avoid covering it as much as possible to allow per permeable because you're going to have to have BR driveway and parking lot too so my first is our investment in it and with that um the cival con Trail gives us a sense of what is um since it's been up and running and it's wonderful how much does it cost to maintain the kind of trail system you're talking about um it's gorgeous and sville County someone's been out there making sure it doesn't revert to Nature the way the golf course has you know on the trail system when it first comes in five years from now 10 years from now so just a sense of you know where would that money how would the town budget for it and right now I don't need an answer but I'm just thinking in terms of sometimes we when we take on a project we don't get a sense of the total potential cost and the cost of operating it over time or maintaining it so thank you very much David are there a couple of those you want to provide some quick answers too um sure I'd like to get back to Lyn and the Council on what we've invested to date um I think you'd be it it depends on the category what you consider I mean very little capital money I will say that um very little operating money um but yes we have committed CD cdbg funds uh through the federal government and CPA funds to some of the particularly the matching without that you know we would not be able to leverage some of those those large grants the park grant for instance um you know of about $280,000 you know we we put in another 30% so I can get the I can get the the figures for on that infrastructure I will take that one on so the the building uh the former Clubhouse and area around the clubhouse does have water sewer and full electrical um um service um I believe someone on the council ask me well when when we take the building down will all of that be maintained absolutely we're not going to you know U the most complicated thing there I think is electrical service um in terms of M maintaining that um so in terms of paying for it right there's nothing's necessarily free with with with those connections But Water and Sewer is there when we take the building down and we uh regrade that area we will make sure we don't limit ourselves in any way in that that area I will say the parking lot is just a really large parking lot over 100 spaces and I neglected to say that when I was talking about um kind of compatible uses we will make sure that there is whatever the town does there or future infrastructure we do want there to be a compatible parking area as well because this will be the main parking lot for Hickory Ridge we have not designed nor do we plan to design parking areas to the north to the east or to the West they're just too complex with a rare species habitat and wetlands and whatnot so this will be the main entrance to uh Hickory Ridge um ay asked an interesting question about you know the comparison with conti and I think we'll look at some of those expenses what are those upcoming expenses going to be over time I will say with Crush Stone mostly Crush Stone it is much less expensive than some of our other trails that have you know there'll be a few small bridges on this one but by and large um you know will be in pretty good shape uh U pure sky is actually going to rehab one of the main bridges on the property and then through one of the grants we're actually planning to take out one or two of the bridges uh simply because it makes sense ecologically but frankly it's two less Bridges we have to maintain over time I think the Ki numbers if I'm not mistaken annual visitation to KI over at Moody Bridge Road in Hadley is somewhere in the order of 35,000 people a year now again they may be obviously there lots of people go over there on a you know regular BAS so those are not unique visitors but that's a pretty good number so we anticipate that this will be kind of a a real attraction regionally to come and experience itre Ridge and I can get back to the council with the other questions uh Pat Angels thank you I am blown away by the quality of work that has gone into this thinking about this project the the potential designs for housing or fires station the all of the work that the conservation department has done um so please hear um any any other things with a real recognition of how beautiful this whole project could be I am I just as leaz on to Daka disability access advisory committee I have to ask the question uh about the accessible trails are they going to be contacted so they can have some involvement in the decisions about those Trails because often decisions are made without quite fully understanding the impact on somebody who has mobility issues and I hear that you want to have accessible Trails but I think they need to be I have my hand down I think if the light's not on it's yeah is that better so much thank you can I jump in there and then I have a just a couple other thanks so actually we've been to all the permitting and other boards um um in boards and committees in town we've been to to the daac we've been to the drb the planning board the Conservation Commission I'm Wrecking my brain but I think we've we've been to all of them we've gotten comments we've gotten Direction guidance input so um yes we have taken all of that into consideration as we've designed this Trail the seating the kiosk the parking it's going to take us a little time to get all of that in place um because at the same time we're managing a 65y old building that's still there it's it's an eyesore we all get that I live in South Amber I drive by there many many times a week despite my wife saying could we take a different route I still want to go by Hickory but um anyway um so yes we we have been to all of those boards and committees including the daac and gotten their feedback that's thank you for doing that my next issue that I want to hear a little bit more about is the uh solar you've said it was locked in and I know that because one of the first things we did on the original Council in executive session was to support the purchase of Hickory Ridge which included the development of solar and so I stand by that decision it was an excellent decision however battery storage was not included into that lock in and I'm very concerned with pure Sky's um willingness to continue to use batteries that have caught fire mostly because of water damage and have uh caused horrendous um impacts on the areas where solar panels were where there were um large scale ground mounted photo deic so I'm not feeling yet like I'm really hearing anything you said oh well we're going to talk to the fire department the area floods repeatedly and that's what's triggering the battery storage fire so why are we fighting to have battery storage there ly happy to answer that um so I guess first off we we the town are not fighting to have battery storage there the zoning board of appeals and the Conservation Commission um through their processes did allow pure Sky to consider adding battery storage you are correct the in the original um project did not have battery storage we are now in a very uh thorough and and complex uh process with pure Sky to do two things one uh we're working very closely with the fire department they have the authority to approve or not of what batteries are used on the project there are many batteries out there in the solar world that have not experienced the the problem with fires uh that a certain kind of battery um has has had so the fire department I am in constant contact with them we are having multiple meetings on that they have made it crystal clear that um they want to see all the evidence all the data um when pure Sky proposes what they want to do out on the site so that is still very much in process and we are not there part of that was emergency access if the main access to the solar array pads floods and we know it floods from West bomy Lane the main flooding is on the uh south side of the Fort River there's some flooding on the North side I want to assure though the the the um Council that the batteries and the um arrays themselves are quite a bit higher in elevation topographically than the rest of the site so we have been through rigorous you know uh analysis of that and I think we're confident that where the batteries are and where the where the solar arrays are is out of the flood zone um but we have to there will be no approval there'll be no building permits uh there will be no fire permits there will be a no fi final sign off by the Conservation Commission until P Sky um completes an emergency access to the North and which is the way we've we've all um determin it should be and they also um present a battery option this that is accept acceptable to the fire department so that's where we are that is some months of work we have ahead of us to get to that point Thank You P anything else okay George let's go with one final question and then I just want to say the do is always open for additional questions and we want to make sure that uh we have that opportunity George again just uh I can say the residents of District 3 are very excited about this and looking forward to it very much I want to just Echo Kathy's question about the cost of to maintenance and upkeep and at some point if you get back to us on that it sounds like it may not be that serious an issue but I'd like to hear your answer to that and then I'm just wondering long term if there's ever if there's any model or any path for Community involvement volunteer involvement any the upkeep and maintenance of trails this is something that touches at least three large neighborhoods and I'm wondering as I do Outreach district meetings whether you think we could talk about this another time but is there any kind of place for community the involvement in the maintenance and upkeep of of a of a system like this just a question so I think the answer to that is yes there is the challenge I think we always face at the Town level is is uh that time and energy and resources it takes to cultivate and recruit and cultivate volunteers and there are times when you know the conservation department gets a lot of inquiries about Trail maintenance and and and similar work and the challenge always is I feel like once we bring Volunteers in can we support them I I'm challenged by that we're challenged by that because of just staff time and sometimes I hate to say but it is easier to to push forward and get something done and we don't have that time to put together a work party Etc not to say that we don't do it but I think you know in conclusion on that I think there's no question that we want to include the abutters to the South and to the North when we did the engage ammer um we got a lot of people I think we had over 250 people come to the two um open houses we did at Hickory and I think as we get done with some of the the quote Real Construction with big equipment and whatnot once that is done I think there's a real opportunity to get volunteers with with uh rolling up their sleeves and and work gloves and get out there and help us because there's many more trails that we are proposing to to to create out there that are not um don't require construction to to put together these will be single track Trails like many of our Conservation Trails they'll just be paths through the woods or through the fields so I think that's an opportunity and then maintaining things like making sure the educational information is up Tod dat uh doing like a trail adopters out there I think would be great I think residents to the north and residents to the South would adopt Hickory Ridge I know they would because I've talked to many so I'm optimistic about that um I'm just a little hesitant at this stage to get a lot of people out there because there there's a lot of moving Vehicles right now on the site so um anyway I I guess the final thing I'd say is um in certain parts of the country golf courses are not doing well and they're going out of business and we're kind of on the Forefront of restoring a for former golf course to a more natural habitat while at the same time adding some other uh checking some other things off with our Municipal needs um whether it's a fire station whether it's housing but it is Trails connecting people that historically have um let's be honest it was a fence to the north all along the northern um the northern section of this golf course and that didn't really invite people living in mil Valley and the boulders Etc to to enjoy the property it said stay out of the property that fence most of it is coming down and now we're going to invite folks from those communities down to enjoy this beautiful beautiful land well thanks thank you David um that was um useful and always insightful and exciting so uh with that uh and again if counselors have additional questions please make sure that you send them either to Athena um myself or to David who is at this point um acting Town manager um the uh action item that we're going to go on to at this point is the bylaw 3.50 residential rental bylaw regulations and fee schedule um the there are actually three motions required with this uh I believe we um mentioned when we discussed this last week that uh this is I believe the third time that this has come to the council and it um has gone back to CRC for additional work this time as it comes to the council not only it doesn't come back from CRC with additional changes that were discussed last week but it had also gone through go and legal review so I'm going to place the first motion on the table and it's a resend and replace it's to resend General bylaw 3.50 residential rental property and replace it with General bylaw 3.50 residential rental property dated 20 24- 03-12 as shown on page 11 to19 of the motion sheet is there a second second deangeles thank you are there questions or comments point of point of order yes it begins on page 10 I'm sorry what did I say you said 11 okay I'm sorry page 10 to 19 thank you I appreciate that uh thank you any other questions any other Corrections Andy you have your hand up yes so I have one question that I've tried to get an answer to to various members of the committee and um I really appreciate all of the work that has been done and I appreciate the addition of a section after we discussed it some months ago and talked about uh making sure that um the rights of uh a resident um if they object to being in having their unit inspected while they're um tenants and there's no other problem that is evident that that has been recognized um what I had been um wondering and about was there seems to be from what I can tell a lack of clarity about um if a tenant has if a property has not been inspected whether we can have a requirement included in the bylaw that during the point of vacancy between tenants it must be inspected and that there's a responsibility of the management to notify the town that the vacancy has occurred so that it can be scheduled during that vacancy period and uh it um I I can't find that there's anything along those lines in the um proposed replacement and I was wondering if it if I'm wrong on that and if I'm not wrong on that whether um it doesn't have to hold up passage today if that's the will of the council but can an amendment be offered later to adopt such a provision okay I'm going to just Mo mention that Pam Rooney who is chair of CRC and has been part of CRC uh during this entire uh deliberation is here as well as David Zac and also Rob Mora so uh Pam you have your hand up I'm going to call on you because perhap you're wanting to answer that question yes thank you um in response to and and I would also encourage Rob Mo to speak up as well in response to Andy's question it is it would be ideal to schedule uh inspections of units during the vacancy period and the turnover time uh it's it's quite likely that given the huge numbers of these units and the turnover all happening relatively um in the same time period I suspect that the town would not be able to have staff to take advantage of that full period of time um and I'd like I think Rob can probably speak to that better Rob thank you yeah I would agree with that um not knowing that you know the uh the amount of um requests that we would receive uh might make that number really very difficult to schedule in any particular month or month so I think the the the standard um you know thought would be that if we were attempting to inspect a unit that couldn't be replaced by inspecting another unit on site if it's a smaller property where the goal is to inspect the unit uh we could look at you know not only that year during a change over tendency but future years and be able to schedule that and maintain uh that outside of the bylaw requirement just so it's more manageable for us uh going forward into the future years Andy did you have a follow-up question yes um and that is I would encourage us to check with other communities that have has have similar bylaws as to what their practice is and I say that because um just a couple days ago where I am right now out of town um I saw an old friend who is very engaged in community government and several different communities including Lawrence Kansas home of the University of Kansas and I used the opportunity to ask him several questions including this one and he said that that is their policy and practice so um it seems that it's doable U but and that we just need to at least before we answer that question with certainty make sure that we have consulted other communities with similar bylaws but I'll um it is a concern because I think that there's a question of whether um certain If a landlord I'm not saying that there is one but if there were a landlord who is trying to discourage tenants from allowing inspections we're escaping our ability to get in there if they aren't notifying us at the time of a turnover in a unit and we're not taking advantage of it I'll leave it there okay Bob hegner I know a lot of work has been done on this bylaw and I appreciate everyone's efforts I can't support it however I think it's just overkill for a problem that to my to my knowledge has not really been defined we don't know how many rental properties really are problems and we don't know where they are and until we know that it's very difficult for me to support a program that's basically built on raising uh rents on tenants um so I I I mean I realize I'm in the minority on this but I just can't support it Jennifer okay um Kathy uh you're not in a minority meaning only one person um I'm also there I I have been from the beginning um asking whether we can't have a much more targeted approach and I had hoped that the nuisance bylaw would be before the council before this or simultaneously because I think we could with the nuisance bylaw if properties have trash have cars on the front lawn have noise in any kind of repetition it could trigger an inspection you know a porch falling off the front um I can show you some in the area and that way we'd have a much more focused and my understanding is the inspectors do have the right to go in if there's a concern about what they've seen But particularly with the nuisance bylaw if it triggered inspection I think think we would get a sense of how much of this is going on as opposed to building up what I see as a manyi bureaucracy of inspectors to uh be inspecting places that right now we don't have any major concerns and I understand that we don't have a list of problem properties but I'm talking about building one and I am sure many of us could walk around certain neighborhoods and create a potentialist I also think it's it really important that we have a tracking system that when a home goes from owner occupied and the sale is to an LLC that we pay attention to who is buying it and what their history is because just get it right away on the radar screen including do they take out a permit so I I'll stop there um because I do think and I appreciate all the work that's going into it and the committee members on fees and other things where I've been looking at can I lower the costs can I decrease the number of inspections can I get the Staffing down um I think a lot of work has been done to address all of those so it's it's much improved from when we first saw it and you know I will repeat what I've said from the beginning I see no reason we should even have the potential of inspecting places that are already being inspected um by the federal government of the state government I would just make them exemp and I understand the reasons given why not but I would just take it off might at the discretion I would just move them on and the towns I've seen that have inspections almost all of them put them on the exemption list so I will stop with those comments again I wish we were doing nuisance first and doing it with Let It Ride for a few years a much tougher nuisance law triggering inspections and see how much we start to address the problem thank you George so this is an issue of public health and safety it's an issue of quality of life certainly in my conversations with inspectors and in my listening to the work of this committee over the last two years and more um there's a definite need uh to address this issue it's sort of a catch22 you say well we don't know that there are any problem properties and you can't find out where the problem properties are unless you can inspect them and the only way we can inspect them is if there's a complaint so I think that there's a need for this by law the main concern I have and the question I have has to do with the fact that the cost is clearly going to be passed on to the renter and I'm just curious what the committee says in response to that concern was there any attempt to try and calculate what that cost might be that might be very difficult to do but I would think that's something that and perhaps you did do that and I missed it um and just in general what do you say to people who say look um it's not the landlord who's going to pay for this it's the renter um either Pam broney or jennif Pam go ahead please sure I'd like to I'd like to address the cost and I recognize that in fact there will be a fee however we've been we've been requireed re iring a fee for the last 10 years and the fee was about $100 a year per property so a property could be uh puffton village with let's say 400 units a property could be a duplex with two units but the fee was Associated just with the a property so the the fees actually were adjusted for many things around town uh in 2023 and and they have for this proposal settled back from the high the high fee that was suggested in 2023 to $150 per year per parcel so again it could be a whole variety of um numbers of units um the inspection fee would be new and that is $150 every five years so the ability to set aside $30 a year knowing that that a fee would be charged when that inspection occurred um I think is probably should not should not be passed on to the tenant uh so I long story short they're already they're already uh required to pay a fee for this um we did we did put into the wording that uh if a property is already subject to inspections that the the need to inspect may be waved it may be waved um if they can provide evidence of the inspections being done by other entities so it's clearly acceptable could very likely be that they don't need inspection but it's but it's an opportunity especially if uh if it seems that there is a need for a little bit closer um scrutiny thank you Jennifer uh thank you and um I think that uh Rob MOA might also want to in on the relationship between inspections and a nuisance property because I think for for the most part a nuisance property doesn't trigger um an internal inspection um and you know Rob has addressed that we really and I guess Kathy acknowledged it too we I think somebody mentioned that this is all to address a dozen or two dozen dwellings in town but we have I think the building Commissioner's Office really doesn't know how many um units um are not code compliant and meet our health and safety standards because they've never been um inside and a a nuisance I'm not aware in most instances that a nuisance house call if you're calling because there's a party um or other nuisance issue that would trigger a call um from um a butter is that that that would result in an inspection inside the property and I did you know just want to add I know you all know this but this is in many cities and towns in Massachusetts inspections are just a normal part of of what happens to rental units it's seen the same as inspecting kitchens and restaurants um I mean in Salem which has a State University inspections are every three years in L um it's every uh uh 3 years and then it can be every five years if no problem is found during the three years inspection um Boston also um has an inspection every 5 years and every time um there's a vacancy the units are inspected so this is something that is kind of routine in a lot of cities and towns both in our state and as Andy said you know speaking to someone in Lawrence Kansas where there's the university that this is not you know unusual or an overreach or you know even results in a particular bureaucracy and I did want to add that at the University at UMass they do regularly have you know workshops or seminars for students in how to advocate for themselves as tenants so I think they have they've seen that there's an um enough instances that it's it's actually something that that the um dean of I don't know if it's the dean of students office but the campus regularly addresses and hears from students who are living in um conditions that are really um not up to anything that we would consider health and acceptable health and safety standards thank you uh rob you have your hand up I assume you wanted to address something that was raised thank you just the relationship between nuisance calls and response by Inspection Services there's a couple different types of nuisance calls it could be something that uh APD is responding to that's noise related Gathering uh and that may be something that we would never even you know respond to although we you we get weekly reports of of the activity and communicate regularly with APD there wouldn't be necessarily any reason for us to respond unless uh an officer was in the building and saw something concerning that they wanted to report to us then there might be a nuisance call you know from a neighbor that would be related to trash or uh cars parked on the lawn or you know something on the exterior and uh although we're responding to that we don't in fact have the right to inspect the interior of the unit our current bylaw does not authorize us to do that uh and we would have really no reason to we could ask if there's a reason you know there's you know a a deck that has some some visible uh issue that we want to uh look into further we could ask for an interior inspection but we don't uh necessarily have the right to that thank you uh Alicia I mean sorry councelor Walker uh thank you um I think George said almost everything that I had wanted to say so I'll try to keep it a little bit brief but I did just want to offer some uh just things to think about in terms of perspective so just as someone who is a renter and who has also been a college student I think that like a lot of things can be true at one time and so something that I did experience more so as a college student amongst myself and my friends was that rentals are in poor shape like it is hard as a colle student to find a rental that is in good shape um or that they do regular maintenance on that is a huge issue that I experienced um in college and a lot of my friends um and people not in college experience it because it's just it's in the town of ammer um also I think you know while I again think this is important I understand what we're trying to address with this I also St still have the challenge of um being okay with something that will pass on on an additional cost to renters um as someone who is a renter I know that any additional fee or anything that comes up for my landlord is passed on to me because I live here um and that will just happen it's going to happen um and as a body of majority homeowners I think it's important to understand the impact that that has on the people who will be most affected by this change um and that like I personally wouldn't be able to support anything that would further increase rent other than what has to be already increased like we're we already have taxes that will continue to drive up rent we already have water and sewer rates that will continue to drive up rent like rent is going to continue to go up and up and up and I think landlords do take into consideration what additional fees there are and so I'm not saying that like this is not something that other places do other places might do this regularly we might have already had a fee um associated with this but an increase is an increase and so that's already asking people to pay more than they already pay and we're already seeing people really really strained and struggling to meet their their rent and their basic needs as is today without any additional increases and so that is something that is like very concerning to me um and I know that there in this town particular there are I know there are a lot of landlords who just own like one unit but we also do have a lot of landlords who own multiple different properties and so thinking about the impact on those landlords and how they might take that into consideration and how much they need to increase rent in order to make up for those things I think is really important um and so I think something I'm wondering because I know we can't do rent control but I'm like what can we do to ensure that this is not going to be passed down to renters is something that needs to be a little bit more seriously considered and I saw a a comment come into the council email asking about like what happens if we just do this when someone is like moving in or moving out is that something we've thought about and then also um WP up yeah also we had I think Pam touched on this really quickly about um other properties doing inspections about outside people and I'm wondering if that still applies to properties that inspect themselves because I know a lot of landlords do annual property inspections just already and so can they submit those things if it's not an outside person like if it's just cayman's inspecting Cayman like can that be submitted because I know that they do that thank you are there any comments to that uh Pam yes I I appreciate those comments actually let's let Rob MOA go first and then I'll follow up okay Rob okay uh a couple of those um you know one way to kind of I guess um the understanding of the landlord or property owner that has multiple properties uh that I've already you know considered is that we will pay attention to how we schedule those over the fiveyear period so you know the goal would make sure that we don't have one property owner that owns five properties having those all inspected in the same year we can split those those up intentionally to make sure that uh that happens that way uh I think the move in move out inspection that we see in a lot of communities just won't work here the numbers are too big we'd have to have too many inspectors um and and probably bring in outside services to even attempt to accomplish that and just as a reminder the inspection is probably the easy part it's the followup it's it's the ongoing months of uh working out a plan and developing a way to improve the properties that need Improvement and seeing that through um and that's what really takes the time um the self the um the landlords inspecting themselves that's what is called the self-certification uh process in our current bylaw and unfortunately uh although I think when we started the the the program 10 years ago uh there was a great deal of effort by Property Owners to uh take that seriously look at their properties understand the laws uh but the properties that we go into have proven otherwise uh you know when when we are inspecting we're finding that self-certification were just recently submitted and very obvious things that uh show that you know it wasn't a uh a failure that just happened it's something that's been going on for a long time so you know enough years of that experience have brought us to the point to be able to say the self-certification isn't really enough uh and and um the outside uh the idea of an outside inspector uh can work for some things uh the the uh housing authorities use Section 8 uh program through the Section 8 program uses uh inspectors uh for their properties uh there are other services out there but they are not certified to um to be building officials to be Health officials and would only be able to cover a a certain um set of the uh inspection checklist requirements and we'd still need our town inspectors to take over at a certain point so that seems a little inefficient uh with the numbers that we're talking about and why we we stayed with the idea of uh if there is going to be an inspection program that we really do need to staff it internally Pam did you have anything to add covered that than okay Anna I've got three Post-its in front of me with lots of wavy lines trying to draw my thoughts together so apologies if this feels a bit scattered um it's frustrating to me I'm not going to get on a soap boox about capitalism this is not the time or place but I get frustrated when there are so many reasons why landlords can increase rent and ultimately um this is a for-profit industry right um that's not to say that they all landlords are evil humans right but it's a for-profit industry and so I get frust frustated when there are legitimate reasons why we may need to impose a fee and that is something that would drive up rent because this is a market where folks are already charging what they can charge for for units right that's how capitalism Works um I'm not an economics professor please don't quote me on that being how capitalism works but I I get frustrated when we need to do something whether it be a debt exclusion vote for our schools whether it be this and that suddenly the town is the reason why rents are going up when the reality is that there are so many other reasons rents are going up and I want us as a council to also be thinking about to Alicia's Point um you know I recognize the limitations on on doing anything around rent control but I'd like us to think about what are other ways that we can advocate for tenants in our community because it's not just us that is driving up rents we're also going to see increased pressure on our community we've seen tuition and fees go up at the University in the past two weeks to the point where this is it's it's so expensive to live on campus if you can get on campus um which is also incredibly challenging so this pressure is going to continue and for me this bylaw and the work that has gone into it has highlighted that we need to get out of this sort of catch22 chicken and egg situation that George referenced um we need a more rigorous system and and this bylaw is is doing that so we don't know where those challenging properties are because not to what Rob said earlier many of the things that are dangerous aren't visible from the street um we need to be able to to know that we're providing safe housing for folks in our community um and the hang on post it number two um right so many of those problems identified are that have been identified by folks as why this bylaw is challenging to implement right now are exactly why we need this bylaw we don't know how many properties are might fall um might be something might come up during that inspection right uh once we have this more locked in no bylaw is carved into stone future councils can adjust this or adapt this as we learn but we need something to start us off and to get that Baseline um that is reasonable and doable for our community we can't do it on turnaround because we would need every inspector working all summer and then doing something else for the rest of the year right that's it's not feasible we hear that from our staff so I think this byot is a step that is not to say it cannot be Revisited once we learn but we need to start somewhere and this is a great start thank you are there any other comments okay the motion's been made and seconded seeing no other their hands I'm going to move to a vote uh we begin this vote and this is the actual bylaw it's a resend and replace councelor ET no ly Gree is an i Mandy uh councelor hanii I Bob hegner no councelor Lord is absent pamone I councelor Ryan I Kathy Shane no Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker no Patti Angeles I Anna dein gothier I uh the vote is eight in favor uh F four opposed and one absent the vote requires a majority thank you um we're moving on to the next next vote is to adopt regulations for General bylaw 3.50 residential rent or property dated 20243 D12 as shown on page 20 to 23 of the motion sheet is there a second second d'angeles thank you are there any questions at this time this is the regulations that go with the byw Kathy uh I believe this the regulations are the ones where it says may inspect properties that are already inspected rather than um exempt so I'm just pointing that out to people I believe that's in the regulations as opposed to the bylaw we just did was there any clarification on that without my trying to search for it Pam or Rob or Jennifer I believe it is in the regulations but I'm I have to be honest and say I haven't memorized them um okay are there any other questions George just a reminder to me um these regulations once they're put in place can be Revisited by the board of Licensing Commissioners so there's a great deal of flexibility over time so what we agreed to tonight is not set in stone that is correct thank you okay any other questions or comments then I'm moving to a vote we begin in this case with Lyn grimer I'm an i councelor hanii i Bob hegner no councelor Lord is absent Pam Ro yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane no Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker no Patti Angeles I Anna Devon gothier I councelor ET no vote is eight in favor four opposed one absent the final motion is to adopt the fees for General bylaw 3.5 residential rental property dated 202 24-02 d27 as shown on page 24 of the motion sheet is there a second Ryan second uh George you have a question thank you are there any other are there any questions from the council then I'm moving to a vote and begin with councelor hanii I'm sorry C I'm sorry m Jo there was a hand hold on Kathy okay for some reason my little hand symbol doesn't work I have to do something different but I raised my hand um I just I do think these fees are better than the first fees I saw but just so people know what they're voting on the first unit so if I'm talking about a place with three three Apartments the first year the increase is $300 it's $150 for the rental permit and it's another 150 for the inspection so yes that 150 might not happen again for 5 years but in year one that's the increase in the second unit the increase is 250 because the the permit fee is just 100 so it's 100 for that the big places the 20 400 it is capped so that can be spread more easily across the buildings with 30 or 40 um so it's capped on to Total Rental permit fees and there's a um sampling so my main point is this is real money so I'll stop there so when people look at the fees just be thinking about what they are thank you Jennifer um correct me if I'm this is not right but the the inspections will happen the first inspections over a six-year period so you may well not have an inspection during the first year and incur that $150 cost so it so it could potentially be just if it's the first unit 150 or just 100 you know so I I do think this is a much better fee schedule than when we first saw it but um at some point uh that's the increase and so Pam made the point that you can kind of Bank the ins if it's a good if it's up to Snuff place it's only going to happen once every five years um so it could be spread it's just it's better than our current one which is 250 for the parcel for the small places because that was invariant to if you just had two units or you had 20 so it's a somewhat fairer Fe schedule and my only other point about the fee schedule is we can't do much about it if we put the bylaw in place because this is designed to pay for the inspectors so you know we we can't make these a lot of places the inspection fee is $50 not $150 but that wouldn't pay for the volume that were at least what I was told it wouldn't pay for the volume of inspections okay are there any other comments motion's been made and seconded we'll begin with Bob hegner no uh councelor Lord is absent Pam roone yes did you say no no I said yes yes thank you I didn't think so but I wasn't hearing properly councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane no Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer Tod yes councelor Walker no paty Angeles I Anin gothier I councelor ete no Lynn grimer is and I councelor hanii I the motion passes eight in favor four opposed one absent we're going to take a 10-minute break and reconvene at 820 please turn off your mics and your picture and turn them back on when you return e e e e all right help keep go I will pick you up at nine I did this because my sister started texting Pi the 20th pick and your address 125 I'm sorry 125 mon 125 mon okay Road okay and I'm going to pick you at 9 I'm going to the farmers market that day put 9 pm. yeah great am there we go got it got thanks absolutely anytime yeah that's that's I really love to hear the discussion I think this I need an education in school and it's and I'll tell you I'm probably just getting to 75% understanding you can believe it I do but I I I don't oh is that right I didn't know that I like I like the company you I didn't I didn't know any the um Pi of window that I don't like try not to drive at all yeah okay all right in other areas you you're doing well you know what I was curious we were in Brooklyn i h not behind bring it up a lot of oh my God yeah we make it work know she was we need to get Reed and convened thank you break was nice we're going as soon as you're back please turn your video on so I know you're here is here David okay um thank you uh we are going to move on to the next I'm going to read the motion seek a second and then Stephanie chello who is here along with Dave Zac are going to be providing us with some information about the Valley Bike Shi okay the motion is to authorize the town manager to reenter the town of ammer into an intermunicipal governmental agreement in accordance with Mass General Law chapter 40 section 4A with the municipalities of chape East Hampton Holio Northampton Springfield South Hadley West Springfield and such other municipalities that join l and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and the University of Massachusetts ammer is there a second second thank you so Stephanie I'm calling on you and David and whomever else but I think it's David you want to introduce it and thank sure thank you very much um I am going to turn it over promptly to Stephanie but I think um I want to call your attention to the memo that Stephanie and I put together which was in your packet I think it clearly outlines the history of the this program it's been a very successful program since 2018 uh as you know there were some bumps in the road shall we say with the program and we no longer have the valley bikes on on the streets of amrest which is a huge loss for commuters for students for for everyone in our community and I think Stephanie has worked extremely hard uh with our town manager to try to uh come with a solution with the other communities that we're working with and that solution in this multi-year plan and agreement is outlined in the memo Stephanie and I have worked with with um Mr Bachman on on this and um encourage you to consider everything Stephanie's going to say and uh we're here to answer your questions tonight so I'll turn it over to to our sustainability director who has worked very very closely on bike Shear from from its reception thank you thank you Stephanie you need to unmute there you go okay great thank you um thank you Dave and my apologies for doing this from the road um well as you know uh we have had a very successful program with Bike Share and at this point now we have a new vendor that we are trying to create a contract with the town of uh the city of Northampton is the lead community in this effort and in order to execute the contract the other communities that are all the participating valy bite communities need to sign the memorandum of understanding before the contract with the vendor can be signed that contract is under negotiation now but is closed to being completed um ammer is the only community that hasn't signed um other than Springfield and the City of Springfield it's just our two communities out of eight I believe and also the University of Massachusetts has also signed um I think there's a lot of information in the packet and I'm um willing to and here to answer questions if you have any um I will say that the bik you know the Valley Bike Share program was successful I just want to be clear about that the the demise of the program was not really the program itself it was the vendor that we were using who had networks worldwide and systems worldwide that went bankrupt um the new vendor has a different business model and we think that we will have much more success with the new vendor so I'm happy to answer any questions okay thank you uh George so I'm struggling to think of any reason why we wouldn't do this um but my question I guess is just we've sort of come to be close to last in actually signing this is there any particular reason why that is other than just bandwidth and staff time um have there been concerns or issues that that you'd like to tell us about or is it just we just happen to be a little slower off the off the block um that's my only question is um why we're I guess there only there's only one of the community that has not signed this um and so I just wonder why it's taken us so long and otherwise I can't think of a single reason why we shouldn't just go ahead and say Yes Stephanie is I will just say George yes go ahead we got it on the agenda as fast as we could how's that for and and I I think that's a very good answer also I think um because this had to come to the council I think that might have been one of the issues in terms of timing uh you know Mayors for other uh communities municipalities have been able to sign directly so I think that was part of part of the the delay on our part but also we really didn't get the final draft until mid-march so we're not really that behind I think um others reviewed an earlier draft and we really wanted to make sure the draft we were looking at and proposed to sign was going to be the draft thank you Andy you have your hand up yes uh take two things one is I very much want to get this done for the same reason that George does and I want to uh uh say that I worked with Stephanie at the very beginning when I was on the select board and we were creating this program and those was one of the things that I was most proud of in our accomplishments and while I was in the selectboard was our ability to get this created and going and I worked with Stephanie on the uh creation of the first memorandum of understanding but exercising due diligence which is also responsibility of a counselor I do have one question for Stephanie or Dave and that is that there was a reference to sustainability funds in as the source of the money that would pay um the share of our financial responsibility during the next years and um so I was uh curious about a couple of things one is what the is that sustainability funds just part of the budget for uh the um work in sustainability that uh Stephanie is otherwise engaged in and um or is it uh from some Grant source is this uh money that's U included within the town budget for conservation and development and then the second part of that question is um what other uses of the money would we be uh otherwise using funds for that we should know uh what um the effect might be of making this allocation D do you I'm happy go ahead Stephanie um actually I'd be happy to address this because um I think first off there were multiple layers to the question so if I can break it down a little bit I will say that um when we when we mention and reference sustainability funds yes we're talking about funds that have been allocated for sust sustainability projects and in my in my mind Transportation fleet vehicle purchases those things um to me uh and and I think the way that we've been addressing the sustainability funds are the the projects that we most often allocate the funds for so any kind of um building renovation that has to do with efficiency or um more efficient equipment or weatherization or studies those have been the things that we've been using the sustainability funding for but also we've been using it for uh Vehicles such as the ambulance that we that is now in high hbd ambulance and we used it to purchase technology that would make that possible so we do use these funds for other things than just the buildings so in my mind and I've been advocating for using funds for Bike Share for a while because I think it's just in my mind it's an opportunity that um we don't often get to address Transportation needs um and especially as this is an alternative emissions free option this is a very rare opportunity to use those funds so that that is the the advocacy for using sustainability funds for that purpose and I think it and in my mind this is just as important as any other any other reason we would use the funds but I do want to also say that the 82,000 that's referenced for operations for years two and three and 25 and 26 is very very likely to be much less than that because it doesn't include any of the revenue from memberships or sponsorships which we are very likely to secure so um and advertising as well so there's no offset for that at this time because we just don't know what that will be like but we definitely anticipate that it'll be a much reduced operations cost so I just wanted to say that as well okay Pam Roney thank you and thank you Stephanie answered actually most of my questions um is there and I'm looking forward to this program reestablish is there a sense though that the town will need some money to keep it rolling offset by user team by but and to maybe and to what amount je do it like we might be asked to put money in in the long so I'm sorry you were breaking up a little bit but I think the question was um do we foresee that those funds might be anticipated in the long term yes is that the question okay um yes I I do believe um at this point we feel that operations will require some form of commitment from the municipalities we are also working with our uh State reps and legislation legislators to see if we can perhaps access some State funds Transportation funds uh for this network our network is growing um as we all know we don't have the MBTA out here in Western Massachusetts so we really feel that for this part of the state to have something that is a transportation a valid Transportation uh necessity really for a lot of our community members without an mpta system we feel that we should be somehow being able to benefit from the state coers as well for transportation issues so we are um hoping to be able to use you know use the state or ask the state legislators to use some of the funds to support this effort as well which again we hope will either cover or reduce that long-term commitment um and the other thing is if we if we miraculously get an entire network sponsor similar to what Boston has with blue bike um where they have Blue Cross Blue Shield sponsoring the whole system they cover the operations cost completely so in that scenario we wouldn't really have to provide anything so that would be you know the gift that would keep on giving that we would love to have happen um I noticed that count um councel Lord has joined the meeting I want to make sure that you can hear us and we can hear you great yes I can hear you can you hear me thank you yes Lynn could I jump in please one second I I think the the spirit of the questions I've been hearing you know uh in general I think it sounds like the council overall is supportive of the program Stephanie and others have done a wonderful job over the years and and again we did hit this this bump as she described with the the previous vendor um I guess you would characterize it as getting overextended and here we are trying to jump start the program again um we have talked to to Paul and and to the finance team including Sandy Pooler and as has been identified tonight the challenge will be year two and three and then beyond this is just a three-year agreement uh I I don't want to sugarcoat this this will potentially be challenged ing for us as Stephanie has outlined uh between uh essentially sustainability which are capital funds that are coming through through the council through the through the budget to sustainability we can we believe sustainability funds Andor a combination of sustainability funds and transportation funding from excuse me Transportation fund dollars can cover year two and three Stephanie has outlined the hope is that through sponsorship and and other means that number can come down um but I think it will be incumbent upon the town manager to update you through Stephanie uh over the next 18 to you know 24 36 months to tell you how it's going um but I think we all believe in the program it was very popular and we'd like to have it on our streets uh again thank Kathy uh starting with Dave just said I totally support this program and I think the ridership numbers are really impressive for ammer when you look at it so um in addition to if the state would step in that's great I'm wondering whether some of the large properties in town um that of that 40,000 ridership I would bet a lot of them are UMass students that if you Mass could participate or some of the large apartment buildings so I'm not I'm no problem with theou is it's sitting but really to start seeing for some support for the program and I know um a year or so ago Stephanie will remember this we in uh North ammer uh there was an offer to actually pay for an additional station up near the The District apartments because bikes were coming up there and being left on the lawn and then they had to figure out how to get them back to where they were supposed to be know that there wasn't any station so it's like you put your bottle down wherever so trying to think of um ideal places and we'll have this condo Development coming in um where we're support because putting a new station is is expensive too but we're support to install a new one um so I think we could as counselors we could help uh it shouldn't be just Stephanie's job to be trying to think of how to sustain this program over time thanks councelor edte believe this question is just for my education and it is that according to the document UMass is already a party to the memorandum and I'm wondering is does the town liaz with UMAS on this program or um are these independent so we don't really have any discussion with them about [Music] it David or Stephanie thank you I I'll jump in on that one um so we have an Advisory Group that meets monthly and UMass is part of that group and even though ammer and the municipality the well UMass amers and the municipality handle our stations and our financial obligations separately any of the decisions that are made about the system is really made collectively as a group and and I do actually speak quite frequently to Ezra small who is my counterpart at UMass who's uh representing the program for the University of Massachusetts thank you I have one question when will it start um excitingly um the hope is to start this uh this season this spring so once theou is fully executed and the contract with the vendor is executed they will be launching almost initially we won't be we don't anticipate starting with all of the bikes it'll be a a smaller um smaller system initially because we're trying to work with the equipment that we already have and some of those bikes may not be in great shape because they've been in storage for a little bit so the first um objective of the new vendor is to come in and do an assessment of all of the equipment that we have to see um what's feasible to use and what isn't um so but it will launch in the spring great thank you George just a quick followup uh to Stephanie's answer to counselor at um did I understand you that ulas with UMass on sustainability matters across the board one of which is this Spike share program is that on a monthly basis is that roughly what you were saying our our conversations uh about sustainability issues are not the The Bike Share uh meetings occur once a month they're monthly they're specifically about Valley Bike um Ezra and I will some times discuss other programs or opportunities but um we don't specifically coordinate on everything that that we are doing but we do uh try to collaborate when there's an opportunity that uh makes sense for both the community in the University okay thank you George any okay any other questions see none I'm going to move to the vote I believe we're at starting with councelor Lord and the vote is yes in favor yes Lord I Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Patti Angeles hi Anna Devon goth hi councelor ET hi Lynn grimer is an i Mandy uh councelor hanii I Bob hegner yes it's unanimous um our next uh thank you for joining us Stephanie and uh for getting this program back up and running great work uh the next motion thanks uh we're dealing with the North Pleasant Street pedestrian improvements between Pine Street and Eastman Lane uh I noticed that Gilford moing has joined us Gilford we keep putting you on The Late Shift I'm sometime I'll reverse that um so I'm going to make the motion seek a second and then move to the discussion to approve the conceptual plan titled North Pleasant Street pedestrian improvements dated April 1 2021 and consisting of four four pages showing improvements to the side sidewalks crosswalks and bus stops along North Pleasant Street from Pine Street to Eastman Lane is there a second Ryan second thank you um Guilford or I guess we'll start with you David David you want to start with Guilford or you I think I'm gonna hunt this one to Guilford right out of theate there you go Guilford it's yours well thank you have everyone seen the everyone seen the plans I understand there's questions uh to keep this short we'll just start with questions if you don't mind okay floor is open for questions pamon I did not actually see the drawings I looked in my packet and and even at the time of the meeting I have not yet seen it whether I somehow am being blocked from our packet um then I'm going to ask the um Athena to now put it up thank you these are the same plans that were presented um back in February or early March they were in a different packet but thank you for asking uh would anybody like uh Guilford to go through the plan to refresh our memories Kathy is that why your hand is up no I know the plan actually quite well I'm call I have questions and concerns about it so um but I'm not sure everybody else who anyone who wasn't on TSO probably hasn't been walked through it walked through it I'm going to suggest that you we just quickly do a quick orientation if we could enlarge it that would be helpful and uh go for just a quick reorientation since it's been a while okay so the plan actually goes all the way from Eastman Lane all the way to um Pine Street and u meow Street on North Pleasant Street we've done a section of the project we did a little section from Pine and Meadow back to there's a little Brook it's kind of uh it's it's a brook uh we call it Mary's ola's house we went to Mary Z's house it's not Mary Z's house anymore um but it's right next to puffton the puffton property line we did that little section actually Fisher Street's better from Fisher Street to Pine that's been done um with exception of one piece of sidewalk um the concept here is to put a multi multi-use path along North Pleasant Street where you can have enough room for bicycles and walkers at the same time and to rehabilitate the other sidewalk so the multi-use path if you're staring at UMass will be on the east side of the road and it'll go to the Crest View Apartments and Crest View Apartments they'll turn cross over to the road and the multiuse path will go continue North on the West Side um and then as I said the other sidewalk will be repaired it will go from a three foot sidewalk to a five foot sidewalk or to five foot sidewalk and the multi-use pass will be an 8 foot sidewalk this came out of a project which is decades old which was to put a multi-use path from the campus all the way to North amorist um that didn't work out very well to be an off-road path so we've moved it on road at this time um we're adding some crosswalks uh we're adding some we're making some better improvements to some bus pull-offs um and I think there is an option in the plans to put a roundabout at Crest View um but that um we're really not pushing that issue right now we just want the concept approved for the sidewalks and the crosswalks okay Kathy thank you um so let me just stay on this diagram a bit uh to point out I there is a the memo didn't point it out but you're moving a bus stop and you're where you're moving it to will change the driveway access from North Pleasant to exit on Oldtown Road and this had been questioned by some of the people living around there um because of what Oldtown Road was and I thought there had been an agreement or at least it had been acknowledged that it didn't have to be there it could be um and I can't point on the screen to you but it's up there you can see the word bust up and it can be moved slightly further north to allow that driveway to come out so so one of my concerns about the conceptual plan is by approving it I think we are in fact saying we like all the pieces up it um to say we have problems with some of the pieces of it how do we raise them so I'll start with just the bustop then the multi uh Lane multi-use path um I went out and took pictures of what exists now um and one of the things that's been going on is there's been very little maintenance of the existing sidew work particularly on the east side so plants have grown over it some grass has grown over it and I've got some pictures I can show you but it's not in terrible shape and it's not8 feet wide it's 5T wide the stretch that is designated on the West Side there's a cdbg grant proposal for a quarter of a mile $542,000 a half a million dollars for a quarter of a mile so I think we're buying into an extremely expensive pro project that sounds good without a funding source so um The cdbg Proposal I think got accepted and when I raised this concern uh the people who were on that committee said this was the only Town proposal they couldn't question whether there's a better use so I'd like to just show a couple pictures Lynn if I can you have to send them to Cena uh I sent them to great today thank you thank you so this first picture is the quarter of a mile that's $542,000 and the picture on the left is the existing sidewalk which is actually in pretty good shape as sidewalk goes my assumption on why it's so expensive to make it instead of 5T wide 8T wide is you have to remove move all the telephone poles you have to move all the electrical walls when puff in Village you can see that stone wall That's the entrance to puffton Village you have to move it back otherwise you can't get the full amount so you're changing entrances um and this is just for that quarter of Mile so when it crosses over and has to go all the way down to UMass and I don't understand why this is a major priority for the town as opposed to potentially you Mass because this side Works in pretty good shape now go down one more set um would you like me to address some of those before you want to do all yours and then let me answer okay so the second set is what I mentioned on the other side of the road and along some of it the 5 foot wide path is actually not 5 foot wide because there's grass there's trees there's PR I walk on this and I ride my bike like if we would clean this up this is not in terrible shape so next picture in contrast if you get just north of the light this on the left is the sidewalk that people have to go down to get to the North ammer Library it actually is dangerous and I've walked a mother with her child with a bike try to figure out how to do this you have to go through this to get to the crosswalk and it gives you a pretty good sense of what it looks like on the other side next slide and then on the other side of the street by the Zion Church this is what the sidewalk looks like both in front of the church and going to the church it is a mess and actually needs to be repaired so I'm just questioning if we say yes to all of this does that prioritize it because I totally agree with the crosswalks the signalize I think all of that that's excellent but it's like we're buying the whole plan and I'm worried that we should prioritize what things actually need repair I think these need repairs and not call a repair a taking an existing sidewalk and making it wider and I'll stop there and it's the expense that I'm worried about it's not that maybe multi-use would be great most of the people I watch today get on the bus with their bicycle and they go down they don't ride their bike all the way down so there's a lot of people waiting at the bus stop so so I'm just concerned and this got flagged for me when I saw the 542,000 for one quar of a mile just to give you a sense of how expensive that was um Gil uh I'm gonna go to George and then to Guilford George okay um we've had a fatality at this on this stretch of road this area serves a large number of students pedestrians bikes buses um I'm sorry about your sidewalk up at the corner there I can get pictures of my district of also appalling looking sidewalks but this has been in on the books for a long time there is a real need we just built the university has just expanded and built its new graduate housing in area you have Hobart Lane you have a very dense student population that moves back and forth on a regular basis often at night we need to address this stretch of road we can't do everything I'd like to go out there and fix that sidewalk right now but the issue I think is with the large number of students um traveling back and forth to the university on that part in that part of town and the fact at least in my mind we've already had one fatality that's one too many so this is an attempt at long overdue to address that issue Gilford can't address the cost I can't speak to the cost um what I've been told is that everything costs when it comes to roads sidewalks Etc it's expensive and that's just what it is but I'd like Guilford to address the issue of cost I would like to focus on the desperate need to address this area sooner rather than later um for just the issue of safety student safety and and George I totally agree on the crosswalks on the better lighting and cleaning up the sidewalks I'm just saying that that should be a priority not necessarily the really expensive fix because there are sidewalks on both sides of the road if we clean them up they are passible the problem is they're dark there's no lighting you can't see and when the student was crossing it um the car was speeding and yes we need much better crosswalks with visibility with flashing lights that part I think is a no-brainer go for um so first let me talk about the fatality um the fatality the car that hit the student was not speeding uh the car did stay and stayed with the accident didn't leave the accident so it was not a speeding issue the P the person who was struck did not cross at the the crosswalk and was also not dressed appropriately for walking at night um so as we talk about improving this area everything we may do with crosswalks and lighting may not prevent that type of accident from happening again but the goal is to try to prevent accidents um the cost you're going to see this is the cost um you're you're when we come and start talking about making changes at the intersections at Fort River School um you're going to think I'm building a DPW building there probably um that the costs are going through the roof um there is no utility relocation on this project the poles will stay where they are there is no change into any of the driveways we do have to move some walls back but the property owner is actually in agreement we can do it and he's uh helping with that a little bit some other things um we will have to take more property as the project goes along and most people it'll be an easement we probably ask for to put the sidewalk on their property um so as we move along the concept is to put these things in if you are if you want us put some language in that they can be adjusted that's fine uh the bus stop that was brought up we have agreed with the property owner that we can slide it back so their driveway doesn't have to move um so that has been already addressed we just don't have time to make all the adjustments to the plans every time someone uh makes a wants to make a change to the plan so the concept is kind of the concept there'd be a bus stop in that area and we can slide it back um the crosswalks are pretty much there where they're going to go um at intersections predominantly um and then the sidewalk what the five foot versus the 8 foot uh clearing sidewalks is a bylaw uh it's actually a zoning issue and is enforceable not by the DPW um we used to be able to talk to people and we got lots of push back but the Town Council has reinforced their view on sidewalk obstructions and has made that clear to the residents and yes that's something we should probably as a town be pushing on to talk to the residents about you need to not block and have growth in your sidewalks um so that's just that one the issue about the Northern end of uh Pine and Meadow that's and another project plus it's a little more difficult to meet the grades in ad ADA requirements we have to do there so we haven't started we've started but we haven't finalized how we would do that and that's also tied into what type of intersection you put there those sidewalks are right up to that intersection if you do a roundabout it would change how the sidewalks are placed if you do a conventional intersection they would stay where they are but then we'd have to work on the the actual grading which would um is doable but it's a lot of grading it actually will take that work down far farther north than what you would think um just because of the grading so uh if you have any other questions go ahead okay well Andy I I want to recognize that TSO has uh actually discussed this project and recommended it to the council so I want to ask Andy I don't know if that's why you have your hand up but yes it is okay good because it it responds a little bit to some of the things that were raised but not all the things that were raised um in your packet is the TSO report and it is labeled still draft and that was an error that was made it was the draft was supposed to be removed and it was not and I apologize that but it is a final report and U you know the question earlier about the um a lot of the strongs and things have you know we just made a point of steering people to the um TSO um packet for U the meeting where it was discussed and we made that point um and I may have even provided a link in the report to make it easy to find the uh so the drawings but everything that was there I think that our conclusion came came um through several meetings because in between we asked the uh the tack the transportation advisory committee that has um significant expertise on the issue and uh to review and make a recommendation and they strongly recommended going forward and there were a couple of issues that they raised and we pointed them out in our report but um did not in the end decide that um those things uh were stopping us one was um the question of the placement is of the uh crosswalks in relation to bus stops and um the um uh plan that um Guilford has presented to us and he can explain it if anybody um wants an explan is um consistent with what pbta recommends and um the other issue that came up where there um I think was a funding issue and that was additional lighting above the lighting that was otherwise envisioned uh and uh uh those were I think the two things that Tac had recommended but U we uh concluded as a committee in a for to nothing with one member absent vote that U this was a plan that addressed a longstanding issue that has been before the um Council for many years um it is uh you know this this actually goes back probably to the First Council and uh um that it was time to move it along and I I think that the last thing that was raised was um about UMass participating in funding and um you know Guilford again might respond to that a little bit more completely than I can but he has pointed out that um ums has been a partner in funding in these projects and has been involved in the planning in these projects so um anyway I wanted to just give a brief report and just assure you that the U item draft was in fact not a draft thank you thank you Andy uh David you have your hand up please sure Lyn if I could really briefly um and I have been involved quite a bit with with Guilford and his team and the planning staff um on this on this plan and I think a number of issues have been raised here um and I just want to point out a couple of them just for context um I think Guilford said moments ago that you know sidewalks are expensive I think we're all having a little sticker shock on what some of these things cost I would just want to point out to the council that it's my understanding that this is you're being asked to approve a design um we know as staff that full well that the funding for the full plan is not before you tonight we don't have the funding to make all of this happen um and I want to Circle back around to the cdbg funding but um sidewalks are expensive the infrastructure is expensive this is part as Guilford mentioned of about a 10 or 12 year effort to try to connect the university with North ammer we tried very very hard to do this off-road we tried to partner as you may recall with the university on their land and private land behind presidential and Brandy Wine and puffton and after a long many attempts at doing that we determined that wasn't going to work and we needed to go for Plan B and that's when Guilford and his team began to design something on North Pleasant Street um but it is very popular very well used it's the most outside of Southwest as I understand it is the most densely populated part of our town given all the apartment complexes that we have there so lots of users I think what's come together here is is a little bit of a um by coincidence this is before you and then the cdbg process is ongoing in a parallel tract and I wanted to just talk about that the key with uh why we chose this section there's a couple of elements there one is that this is in a Target area for cdbg there are only a few of those in town and so when Guilford his team and my team and planning get together we look at those target areas and we say what projects can we apply for cdbg funding in those target areas so this one stood out to us so it's eligible for cdbg funds um it was and to be perfect honest it was already well under way with design and here you have it tonight and the third factor and we said this to to Paul is uh from a bandwidth standpoint we chose it because it was in a Target area we had talked about improving these sidewalks for 10 years or more and we already had it designed and between Gilford staff and mine we didn't have time to meet the cdbg deadline and design and planned for something else so this was ready made it was ready to go it wasn't shovel ready but it was as close as it could be without being shovel ready and here we are tonight so it's a way to to chip away at a a larger plan to make North ammer more pedestrian and bicycle friendly yes 500 and some odd thousand of cdbg funds is a lot of money for a fairly short section of sidewalk but as Guilford has outlined there aren't a lot of bells and whistles we're not moving utility lines that's what that distance of sidewalk now cost so it's our goal to chip away at this over time I can't say I don't think Gilford can say whether whether we'll be back to you saying this is the highest priority for the available Capital Money in roads and sidewalks I think as has been pointed out here there are other priorities for those we can use Capital Money more freely on those other parts of sidewalks throughout town we can only use the cdbg funds in those target areas so that's why we chose um this section to do it was ready to go it did not tax our staffs even more we're managing between Gilford staff and mine I would Hazard we are probably managing 20 plus grants that's a lot we just couldn't do one more we couldn't seek other funding and we had to go for something we knew was was achievable that's why these two things are coming together at the same time George just want to Echo um what Mr Zak just said this is one of the densest places in our town guess who lives there 60% of our population are students how often do we hear from them or see them or even think of them this directly impacts them we need to have it are there any other questions or comments at this time the motion's been made and seconded we'll move to a vote uh and pamaron you're first yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane abstain Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councel Walker yes paty Angeles hi Anna De goth hi Council I Lyn gur's and I coun hanaki she's left the meeting thank you um Bob hegner I Lord Lord I it is 11 in favor one abstain and one absent we're moving on to the first reading of the proposed Surplus Property Disposition policy this is in your packet this policy has been discussed extensively by the finance committee on at least two or three occasions as I recall and so Bob I'm calling on you for a report uh I think the report is in people's packets from a couple of meetings ago um basically we worked with uh David Zac and uh Athena to revise the town the policy um the policy really was just needed to be updated primarily because of the change of uh government and it referred back to the select board and all that stuff so we had to up bring it up to speed uh with our current form of government um we had a lot of discussion as to whether or not when this policy comes into play and it really doesn't come into play until the town manager has declared that we no longer need a building for Town purposes it is truly Surplus uh or some other piece of property um and you know we we would otherwise dispose of it we could sell it we could do whatever whatever um but it's not something that the town can reuse productively um so um we had uh once we agreed that that was the case uh it took some time some con conversations um we then looked at the final version of it which is before you and we had some discussion about item number six in the list of information which is basically analysis of alternative uses of the property and the the discussion was basically this is a could be a very complex in um analysis if it's a big building or a complex piece of property um and we were assured that if we had such a complex building or piece of property the town manager would create a committee to study this and to make recommendations so we we believe that uh the the reasoning behind this is sound and we approved it okay um this is a first reading so there's no motion tonight but it's the opportunity to really ask questions Pat you have your hand up yeah what uh I guess one of the things I would like to get clarified for myself um it's naive question but uh a public purpose uh I'm assuming a school is a public purpose so or I can you clarify what public purpose means yeah it would be any real purpose that where the town would want to keep ownership of the property so would would of if we got rid of a school building like we did with the East streets would we use it for affordable housing would that keep it from being just simply well it there again there would be a committee who would look into this and make a recommendation before decision is made and the decision would still have to be made by the council in order to you know whatever future use was was envisioned for it so Pam Rooney thank you um having a committee is a is a good thing I understand that uh what struck me is that um this very much follow I I looked at most of the links to the Mass general laws and and this very much follows the procedures that are outlined in state law um so I was actually more interested in what is the procedure or the process of establishing a property to become Surplus or to become considered Surplus um the question I had is it necessary for the Town Council to actually authorize the town manager um to go and explore the potential of a of a of a particular property before this step of of naming it Surplus happens so is do we do we have to initiate and authorize him to move ahead in this process um as part of this I think it would be really benef beneficial to all of us since we're establishing policy to get a complete list of the Town facilities particularly the town facilities that that aren't being used um so that we can all kind of weigh in on potential uses and or space need assessments that ought to happen thank you uh David did you want to respond to that there's no reason we certainly can have a list by the time we do the second reading yes that is very possible I I may defer to Athena on the first question but my what I wanted to say was that I think you know the town manager has the authority he oversees he or she oversees all of the town's property so I think the decision to move toward Surplus which is when the town does not need or deems that it is a property that we no longer need for other another public per purpose that would be you know part of that calling part of that reviewing would happen at his his or her level depending on the town manager and and then it would you know they would seek input from staff and then it would either go toward another municipal use I.E affordable housing IE whatever it might be pickle ball courts whatever was deemed uh needed at that time Community Center whatever um or um for instance you know I am well aware there are pieces of property that are probably unbuildable that um really probably don't have another municipal use and those could be surplused and somebody who lives near those unbuildable lots may want to add them to their property simply to have a bigger backyard or more room to spread their wings or something so I I would add if Athena wants to jump in Athena I just want to recognize that both David andth and Athena worked hard on this process uh policy so Athena thank you I want to clarify that the town's not proposing to Surplus or request the Town Council Surplus any properties at this time so there have been conversations about particular properties especially the school property but there's no proposal to ask the council to Surplus that um the discussions that we had at finance committee were that if there were property identified such as the school and there was an interest in the town and using it for affordable housing or something like that if um we were to do a process like we have um with the Bel toown Road property that's a long-term lease so it's like a hundred-year lease that wouldn't go through this Surplus property process because the town isn't selling the property so um and then what we had talked about as well is that if the town manager felt that um a property didn't have a municipal use use that he would very likely establish a committee and that could be either advisory to the town manager which wouldn't be subject to the open meeting law or a public body that would have public input and so on um to advise the town manager about a use for that property they might recommend that the council declare the property Surplus or they might recommend that the town explore other uses for the property okay Kathy I just said what I was going to say but just build on it a little bit because we did press the issue on when is its Surplus in terms of it's going out for sale and the issue of Wildwood came up as the key thing people were talking about and so there was um a discussion because there have been other towns recently that had schools as a matter of fact that they said are there alternative uses of these and they set up a committee to think of what those might B before they went through the Surplus discussion that was uh a lot of involvement of the Town um Beyond just the council or town staff so um they had some counselors so the town manager did through Athena say in terms of a major one where we're really talking about what are the possible uses well before anything was declared Surplus we'd have that kind of conversation so then the small things you know so I became convinced that this was the right way to go because the small things we might have you know a a tiny acreage that can't use be used for something the more recent one with even the Fort River we declared Surplus in that we have no use for it some uh telephone some lighting poles some playground equipment so the construction contractor is taking those away from us but we first went through it was the school went through we don't have a use for it so the big properties would be coming through what Bob pointed out is there's a clause in there that's pretty interesting because it's before anything major should be declared Surplus we've got to do all sorts of thinking and an analysis so it wasn't sure who would be doing that but it would be anything major would go through quite a bit of internal thinking with a justification before came to the council if we're really going for sale as opposed to reuse Jennifer just had a quick question um if there is a committee that's working with the town manager to look at what would be Surplus or what has other uses does that the structure of that committee have to be in this policy no no because this is more that last step where you set something up I East Hampton was interesting because they worked on something for two years you know knowing at some point the building would be vacant you know what are we going to do with it so it wasn't a we know what we're going to do with it let's think of what but they I think they finally did declare them Surplus for a particular RFP and they actually got State money to structure it but but it was a long process that um was set up that wasn't defined by this Pro is this the short answer is no they don't the policy does not Lynn may I may may I add something here yes um Kathy just referred to um Surplus like playground equipment small things like that wouldn't go through this policy if we had a truck we wanted to get rid of it wouldn't go through this policy that's a little bit different for so this is specific to town property um and then one other thing I think Dave may have just promised that we'll have a a list of all Town property before the council votes on this policy and I think I don't want to speak for you but we might not have that by the time the council votes on this policy there's actually a it may not be updated but there's been one done and it's in on the town website I can find it and there might be one or two missing properties but it's actually a very decent assessment we we can find that for the next meeting but I'm not sure that we'll we're not planning on updating that any further before the next meeting and I know that's something think that'll be sufficient probably plan on in the future but not not as quickly as the next meeting it was that that report of surplus property that I was thinking we would make it available nothing more just to make sure that it's no bigger expectation David you're looking at me a little well L you just confused me L because yes there is a list of property but then you said the list of surplus properties I'm sorry no I I I didn't there are there are a list of properties the town want to clarify there is a there is no list of surplus property or property to be Surplus right in fact I will find it and I will ask the town the clerk to the Town Council to add it to this packet tomorrow and I don't sit here often so Athena is kicking me under the table here saying don't overpromise so I'm going yeah we can any reasonable expectations is what I whispered today yeah here we go no I think you know we want a full report no I I just want to add something I I I slightly misspoke in that I said that the finance committee approved this policy we just recommended that the C Council approve this policy thank you uh George you have your hand up yeah just to clarify um while it is the town manager's job to go through our properties and he could declare something Surplus as I read this in the end we decide yay or nay if we're not satisfied with his argument we could say no that is correct thank you um point of it wouldn't be the town manager that declares the property Surplus he would request the council declare the property Surplus and he would be providing the council with all of the materials listed in the policy along with that request so we have the final say the count it's the council's authority to declare the property Surplus and then if you wanted to place other requirements on disposing of the uh policy uh property just to complicate things we don't own school buildings they have to be given back to us first okay all right are there any other questions on this particular thing then we're moving on the next motion is regarding a letter on behalf of the council supporting a um H Senate 1836 and house 2963 uh a rela act relative to payment and L of Taxation for organizations exempt from proper property tax the motion I'm seeking a second for is to authorize the council president to sign a letter on behalf of the council in support of S1 1836 H 2963 an act relative to payments and du of taxation by organizations exempt from property tax is there a second Shane seconds thank you um I have sent a um let me just this is the second time actually something like this has come before this Council we continue to want to support legislation that would benefit us with regard to Pilots um I've um remained in touch with a group that's predominantly Eastern Boston based or Eastern Mass based um and they alerted me to the fact recently that this legislation is has been left open and still made something may happen with it I doubt it but I hope um between now and the end of April and um so I crafted a memo and a letter and since then have given to Athena another version which only has some edits in it based on some feedback I've received from counselors uh I had I'd already made some changes so you might want to show that on the screen one was from um a counselor who pointed out correctly that ammer college does pay taxes on B the in at boltwood and they pay taxes on the houses that they own and so in the letter i nuanced the issue of that [Music] um so I believe the changes from this the last draft that were posted are shown in purple here that's correct and then there were some other changes that I also receive from another counselor that um basically helps of the grammar George so if by some legislative Miracle this actually were to be passed it would not apply to UMass is that correct that is correct that is a different payment and L of taxes that I've also been following that's the one that Joe cumerford Senator Joe cumerford has weighed in on uh but largely with regard to the amount of acreage and uh we've had more than one discussion about the fact that uh you can talk about acreage but I want to talk about what's built on it and how many people come to it um and that one uh doesn't appear to be going anywhere except that last year when it um did come up they put more money into it at least that's a good thing um but anyway that's been part of it and Anna you've been following some of these as well so please jump in thank you uh George any other question no uh Jennifer I just want to say thank you for writing it okay should all right if there's any other changes I do want to get it off uh tomorrow and but we need to vote that I'm allowed to do this so um we'll begin with uh I think we're up to councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Pat d'angeles I Anna Devon Gotham hi councelor ete I Lyn grimer is an i councelor hanii is now absent uh Bob hegner yes counselor Lord Lord I 12 in favor with one absent did you call I'm sorry hi thank you did I miss somebody I'm so sorry oh I'm sorry pamon was an I thank you how did I miss that oh I see okay all right it's getting late that's the last motion oh no it's not no it's not we are now moving on to uh appointments and I'm going to call on CRC chair uh we have appointments for the zba and so Pam do you want to speak to do you want to place it in motion or would you like me to place it the motion I'd like you to place the motion because you have it written in front of you I'm sure great zoning this is regarding zoning board of appeals appointments and the motion is to appoint the following residents to the zoning board of appeals full member effective July 1 2024 for a three-year term expiring on June 30th 2027 Craig Meadows F member effective immediately for a term expiring on June 30th 2025 David sler associate member effective immediately for a term expiring on June 30th 2024 David alfield alfield and John Barner associate members effective July 1 2024 for a one-year term expiring on January June 30th 2025 David Al alfeld John Varner H the green a bomb and riswanda Khan is there a second second Ryan Thank you Pam would you like to speak to the motion yes it sounded complicated but it is simply because there are several existing vacancies and as well as one person who moved from being an associate member to a full member leaving another associate spot that we felt we could fill immediately so it's a little bit uh convoluted but uh would appreciate support for these fine candidates who are willing to contribute to the town serving on the zba thank you are there any questions or comments seeing none we're going to move to a vote uh we are going to start with Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer top yes councelor Walker yes paty Angel hi Anna Delon gothier hi councelor ET I Lyn grimer and I councelor hanii is absent Bob hegner hi councelor Lord Lord I Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi did I get everybody this time thank you it's unanimous with one absent uh we are now going to move to nonvoting Le on Anna this is wild um all right so in your packet from last week there was a list of um liaison appointment recommendations based on feedback that folks had sent in so as a reminder go had put forward 1 two 3 four five I think 1 two 3 four 5 six seven 10 am i counting right yeah 10 committees that um had requested Liaisons as priority to be approved for leaz on I then sought feedback from the Council on what you might want to liaz who you might want to liaz for um and so there a couple areas that you'll see um have multiple people that expressed interest um I tried to stay if if folks did say you know if someone else is interested I don't need to need to do this one I tried not to make judgments based on what you said in an email and you can say that again now and we can take your name off but uh I I thought that I wanted to make sure everybody was was on the list didn't want to accidentally interpret something incorrectly so um everyone is is on there with what you indicated interest in um and then I I figured in this meeting you can say oh I see someone else is into that I will take my name off which is likely why hands are going up um I think that's about it please remind please refresh yourself on the role of liaison uh I have linked it in past memos and I'm happy to email it to anyone who's who's interested but it's in our rules of procedure I'll take questions and also please note there's three committees we're still looking for leaon correct okay I'll start I'll take my inum off hold on Jennifer top um yes so George and I conferred and um George we agreed if everyone agrees that George would be the liaison to the transportation advisory committee and also make sense he's a member of the of Tso and then it would just leave me for coun on agent okay resolve that one just to confirm because I'm keeping notes here so you said George would be Transportation advisory and you would be Council on Aging okay thank you okay um Kathy I have I have a question as why my hand is up no said they want Community preservation act committee that's correct and I just want to speak to I think it needs someone and I'm trying to figure out whether I'm going to volunteer but you get to see the proposals when they come in and you can make comments and get questions answered as a liaison you you don't have an official role so it's a really early look where hopefully most years they have more proposals than they can fund um and they spend about $2 million a year uh so I I'll wait as people sort out all the other committees but I think it would be I I did it for two years in a row which is why I didn't put my name on it yeah Pat Angeles uh yes I am to stay as I think you lost your mic I thank you my finger was not in the right place um I would like to stay um as the Lea onto the disability access advisory committee U I've been serving on it for several years and established some really good relationships um if Hala would uh wants it very badly I would step aside but I would like to keep it the other thing is I did not put my name down for um Community preservation conservation or energy climate action because I can't attend the meetings and I know we don't have to that we can watch the videos uh but I find that it's very beneficial to be sitting in the audience and attending the meetings when possible if no one else signs up for Conservation Commission I would be willing to do that even though I can't make the meetings okay are you um one of you is keeping track of this got it I got it and I think I think it is uh Andy oh I'm sorry pardon me would you please call on councelor Lord because um councelor d'angelus just suggested that they swap it it it might be nice to tidy that up now sure councelor Lord um yes part of what I was goingon to say was please take me off of that I'm happy to and then I was going to remove myself from the HRC since there were multiple names and one of my committees only had my name on it so I'm happy to so we have you both on csjc and H H RC correct and we're saying do we serve on one should you take me off the HRC if you want to serve on two that's great okay I'll hold that thought while who there was somebody else for HRC Andy who hand is up okay Andy your yeah I thought I was REM removing my name from that one uh because i' said either that or Board of Health but not both so to take me off I think of the um the one so I just stay with Board of Health okay Andy's going with Board of Health and then that means that Hala would go to Human Rights Commission she she's yeah we're going to need some clarity because I think everyone has just taken themselves off of Human Rights Commission I'm still there I'm still there you are still there sorry to speak out of turn right okay uh so that we' have affordable housing trust uhan CPAC uh Conservation Commission um I had a question yes George did you want to stay on the affordable housing trust as well as the okay thank you okay answer is yes uh frea you have your hand up so I'm going to go to you for a moment moment how did I miss Jennifer no you got I've been gu PR I'm sorry councelor ET I think the energy is that still up energy and climate action committee yes I would express interest for that great it's a really good one Anna has served in that role okay uh so we uh uh so I want to ask for the CPA committee does that only meet a few times a year meets it it meets it meets just in the fall so they get that yeah all right Jennifer toab for CPA and then we that leaves us with Conservation Commission okay fine I'll do it yep okay you were like you were like doing this to me like oh know yes I will do Conservation Commission she's going back home Anna used to serve on the Conservation Commission before she came on the council can I confirm the finalist I think Athena has it up on the board as well um but I just want to read through it if that's okay okay why don't you do it as a motion please all right I to appoint the following councelors I understand got it um I move to appoint the following counselors to the following committees as uh Council Le aison for 2024 to the affordable to the amist affordable housing trust did I mess it up you're looking at me to the amest affordable housing trust George Ryan to the Board of Health Andy Steinberg to the community safety and social justice committee holla Lord to the Council on Aging Jennifer tab to the disability access advisory committee Pat d'angeles to the Human Rights Commission holla Lord to the transportation advisory committee George Ryan to the community preservation act committee Jennifer tab to the Conservation Commission Anna duin gothier and the energy and climate action committee fra second may I make a slight change in the motion and it would be for the remainder of the council's term so we would do this for this year and next year okay is that acceptable to you as the person that made the motion yes okay it's acceptable to me as the person who s just sorry just as a note though our rules of procedure do say that they indicate the liaison preferences annually so that's why I said for 2024 um do we have to override our rules first can I suggest that we keep it for 2024 and4 and then you're you're right correct thank you I have my moments every once in a while so the motion's been made and seconded are there any questions comments okay um Kathy Shane no did I start with you before they what yeah did I start with you before you you did start with me before you you can start with me again if you'd like I'm up to Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Pat Angeles hi Anna Devin gothier hi councelor r i Lynn grimer is an i councelor Hanah is absent Bob hegner I councel Lord hi Pam Bernie yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes it's 12 in favor and one absent thank you Anna for finally getting us through that one we've had to delay it so often all right um we're approaching witching uh counselor uh committee and leas and reports and let me just say that uh before we start this this is the point in time where we will also now include the the Committees that we have Liaisons to you don't have to report every week or every time we meet but if you have something you need to bring up please make that's the time you bring it up okay uh CRC pamaron Jennifer to thank you yeah I'm opening my I'm slowly I think you've heard enough from us tonight um appreciated the vote to finalize the vote on on rental registration um but we did especially want to say thank you for the vote tonight on zba members we met in a special session on April 2 to uh interview and and then put forward our recommendations um so that really was the gist of it uh and then just to remind people that the town manager did have the nuisance bylaw reviewed by K law and that is sitting with go which they may report on we don't know but they will not be discussing it until April 18 thank you Jennifer Thank you Pam the only thing I'd add is tomorrow we have we will be discussing at our meeting um planning board applications and vacancies there will be two so just if people want to we're low on caps right now so if people want to start getting the word out that would be [Music] appreciated um element School building committee uh our next meeting is April 26 we're only meeting once a month uh but the design team is uh actively working on the 90% uh cost estimates um so we are moving along and the plan is still to put this out to bid um by June so with the town manager opting to put additional solar they're also doing some additional design work on that so we can get a cost estimate and have some idea how much solar we can put on I think that's the main thing it's a pretty exciting time so um when the cost estimates come in at 90% the LA I think everyone knows the early site package came in well underneath what we had estimated and our estimates have been holding which means we've got a really big cushion of cons contingency money which is very I think excellent news for the taxpayers EXC right Elementary um I'm sorry finance committee Bob uh yeah we um we had a meeting last week uh to just do initial discussions of the regional school budget and the um Town audit um we want to wrap up our discussion of the Town audit uh at our meeting next week and we have prepared some questions to the superintendent of schools uh on the school budget Regional School budget that we'll discuss uh at our next meeting next week and then there's the public hearing which is later on Thursday of next of next week okay um go Anna so as mentioned before go currently has in front of it the nuisance bylaw I think there were more comments coming back from legal than go anticipated we were hoping to get through it in one meeting but there was there was more there so um we will be continuing to to address that at our coming meeting next week uh right yeah next week um we are waiting on the ah report folks have been asking some questions on that there is no delay in acting on it we just don't have it yet so as soon as we have it we'll be able to slot that in um we did our our attempt to get more Cals for the charter Review Committee by talking about it a lot at a council meeting was helpful because we did get a few more um calfs in after that meeting and we were able to vote the charter um the charter Review Committee pool sufficient at our last meeting so we'll be moving ahead with that process in um making recommendations to the council we do however still as Jennifer mentioned um first uh did you mention this who mentioned about CS two seconds ago yeah thank you okay for planning word um we also need CFS for finance committee um for the resident non- voting member um so if you are thinking about your ways you might get engaged that's a really good one as well as planning board um and then the other thing that go is working on right now is our examination of the Town manager evaluation process so go members are looking at other towns and their processes and bringing those back to discuss with the committee to see what Merit we might pull um forward and and how we do our own process here go meets again next week on Thursday uh Jones Library Pam ro oh I'm sorry George you had your hand up just a a small note on um the charter review we have 16 um current caps so and that we still can take more so please don't stop in any efforts you're making to encourage people to apply thank you Jennifer you at jand is this a time to ask a question about um so the Jones Library building committee should I wait till um I was going to ask whether there's any update from Pam sh her head no report that there has been no meeting um and what we were told by Paul bamman last last meeting is that they have signed a contract with 101 University drive for a new a new active library site for the interim uh during construction and that they were out to bid for um transportation of books to the to the new site and that's that that's actually what I read in the paper so the committee itself has not met Jennifer so I had a question maybe it's directed to Dave um we're supposed the bids for construction are supposed to be back by June we're supposed to have select the town is supposed to have selected a contractor by June 30th is that part of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners requirement I don't think I'm G to wait into that one tonight I'm just not prepared with those dates or that Pro I happy to get those answers from maybe at the next yeah meeting thank you um Tso and yes TSO um I mentioned earlier that the uh report that is in the packet today's meeting should not be draft it should be considered the final report and uh we've already discussed one major item out of it and acted on it which was the uh North Pleasant Street um proposal the other one where there is an actual recommendation that's been made by T so which we will have to come back to at a prior meeting was the emis college signed and U I think that the report is complete there's not much I can add to the report right now um but um I want to point to to acknowledge that we were asked to review that we did we spent some time on it and uh we um consulted did consultation in it's all reported that the other thing is that at the last meeting there were four road projects that were um referred to us um beler toown Road Heatherstone um being the first two that we dealt with and then the section of pom Lane and the The Proposal a roundabout at the corner of amate and University Drive those two um we did not give the priority to because the belter toown road proposal is funded by a very uh generous Mass Works Grant and that needs action um in um May u in order to have the Contra the work done um during the summer season and uh both the town manager and the PW superintendent made a very strong point of that um on that one and Heatherstone Road the decision of the committee was is that we really needed to have the advice of two committees uh the disability access advisory committee and the um transportation advisory committee regarding those two be was um the question of pedestrian and bike safety um was uh an issue in both and uh we felt that it was important that we hear from the Committees that um really think deeply on those issues of bicycle and traffic safety and safety of pedestrians U which is very much of always a daac concern um the last thing that I'm say want to say is about Heatherstone road that we had something that I think is extraordinary in all of my years in Tso and that is a tremendous turnout of residents of an area where something we were considering was being discussed and uh Not only was it a large number of people um who were addressing a large number of issues but quite frankly I found that they weren't always in agreement with each other but they all spoke very passionately about what their concerns were for a roadway that is very essential to uh either the street they live on if they live on Heatherstone or to their neighborhood and as a consequence um there was also pointed out that we had not U had scheduled our meeting at a time that was accessible to all um of the residents of the neighborhood or the street because we meet during the day there were a lot of people who work in the evening and are very concerned about um the same set of issues so that our conclusion was given what we know to be a large uh Community input that we want to schedule a listening session in which we can hear from uh people on Heatherstone and in the neighborhood echohill about um the same set of issues or other issues that they might raise so that we are fully informed in addition to getting DAC and TCT input on um the project and uh it will and I talked to Lynn about this I've not had a chance to talk with Pat because it is their district and um they U will have a strong presumably a strong interest in it and might be very helpful in Outreach um to neighbors that we might not otherwise reach in telling that we want to hold this listening session as a consequence if they're five members of our committee and two District counselors we already have a quorum of the council present so it may be that we have to request that this um meeting also be scheduled as a um council meeting um because of the fact that we could have a quorum um of the council present anyway so I just wanted to emphasize those points I think uh that and the written report conclude the report for tonight Kathy Andy largely answered the question I was going to ask on Heatherstone there is I assume you know there is an association um yes and and I know Lynn and Pat know but it's a very active Association so I was struck when I saw that proposal that the there was going to be a reaction and I didn't know what the reaction would be and I didn't know whether they been informed so it sounds like you're going a terrific route to uh find out what the people who live on the road think that's great yeah there there's been lots of conversations with people on Heatherstone um are there any other questions counselors on their committee reports we have no minutes any special words I'm sorry Pat ly I just have one um there's a committee that's not normally on which I think is fine but jcpc the joint Capital planning committee right ahead so it we're finishing our work this Thursday um I'm assuming we're finishing our work because we have to finish our work so this is a committee that reviews capital projects within the budget that the town has and then we make a recommendation to the town manager but the council will get a copy of that as it's going forward so it's the look at the capital plan and um we have a very tight budget that we were working within so you'll be able to see we had to move some things around and the staff was fantastic um including Athena who got us organized Against All Odds so thank you Athena let me also just mention that is not the large capital projects it's the small capital projects yeah it's it's building repairs roads sidewalks buying uh new stuff like it um and playgrounds yes so the the big projects are one of the reasons we have a tight budget David Lynn very quickly um and I'm sure Paul will have more updates when he returns but it is April it is it is time to get going full bore on construction projects um I'm sure the council is well aware of the north con common underway um we are very pleased with the progress to date that has a June 30th deadline so our contractor karacus construction is moving daily out there it's kind of interesting to see their progress and um I know Gilford moing and his team are out there every day managing the project and hopefully you know we'll we'll have a ribbon cutting scheduled at some point down the down the road a piece we will also have a ribbon cutting at the trails at Hickory at the appropriate time those are a little bit farther out one should be done by the end of June and I would imagine the other Trail would be done September October and then I did want to let the council know and Paul will have more information on this you know in four to five weeks but um from time to time the council does hear about the condition of the dam and Dyke at puffer Pond and I just wanted to let the council know that we are aggressively seeking funds for to address some of the issues up there uh we just submitt a uh $250,000 design assessment and design grant for the Dyke and Dam at puffer Pond um which will really help us look at the condition of both those structures the Dyke is in poor condition the dam is in fair condition almost every Dam in Massachusetts gets a fair very few get better than that um we're more concerned actually about the DK and so this will allow us to hire uh Engineers Dam Engineers Who special Iz in this uh if we're successful to come in and um uh assess the dams and then propose uh fixes for both the dam and the Dyke and I do have some Capital money we have some Capital money that we' set aside and I've asked for more in the capital budget for fy2 so I'm hopeful about that because we will need construction funds obviously in the future if we get the design done so just wanted to let you know we are beginning to address those issues and we should know more in four to five months once the grant comes back and then we get some Engineers on the ground so we'll keep our fingers crossed on that okay Andy I think you're gonna ask the question I am but go ahead well my question is uh you didn't say anything about drudging the pound yes so um in light of all the earlier conversation about um what things cost so uh this great will get us a little more than just design it will also get us a bimmetry uh of the pond in other words how deep is the water it will also get us the depth of sediment in the pond it will also get if we're successful it will pay for um sediment cores to take a look at what is in the sediment in puffer Pond um it will also get us some some um uh way forward with regard to um surveying up at the pond so it does move it does move the needle um Andy on on dredging from that information we should be able to extrapolate the volume of sediment that needs to be removed from the pond and then that will be another choice that the town has to make uh do we want to dredge the pond we we must do the repairs to the Dyan Dam um honestly choosing whether to rege the pond will be a community decision that will come through the council um via a funding request again we'll go out and do the very best we can if we get to that point and try to leverage local funds into state and federal funds but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it so yes we are thinking about dredging finally and we will get some relative cost estimates out of this work thank you Andy you Sav me from asking the question uh are there any other comments um our questions of Dave uh then uh let me just mention Anna and I both agreed that we would do our uh president and vice president's report for the 29th and uh on the future agenda items I just want to mention on the 29th this is what we know is on the agenda the first reading is for the Surplus property the Amis col College sign uh the planning board report for H ammer Hills um the potentially the nuisance bylaw and uh we Hope beler toown Road okay uh are there any counselor comments or requests is there a I'm making a motion to adjourn is there a second quickly we got to go through it um I don't care Pat yes hi Anna hi ET councelor Eton I Lyn griman is an i Andy Johan abson Bob hegner I councelor Lord I Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes we're join Jed at 959 that's why I was doing