##VIDEO ID:Ywl5d9Z7gac## we are recording please go ahead thank you good evening it is October 21st 2024 this is a regular meeting of the Town Council the open meeting law allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at the meeting location while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting this meeting is accessible in Real Time by Zoom by phone and as a live broadcast on Amis media channel 9 and live stream there are in fact eight counselors in the room tonight and there are four people in the audience um and at this PO Point only one person on Zoom given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the October 21st regular Town council meeting to order at 6:31 I'll call upon each counselor by the name they have indicated they would like to be addressed at that time please unmute your mic and say present this will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us please remember to mute your mic again Patty Angelus pres I'm sorry pres thank you honor Dev Goan present whoo okay sorry my microphone is very loud councelor councelor ET is not here yet yet okay Lyn grimer is present councelor hanii present Bob hegner present councelor Lord present Pam Rooney here count uh Pam you need to put your mic up a little more or lean closer thank you here here is that better that's a lot better thank you so much um councelor Ryan present Kathy Shane here Andy seinberg present Jennifer to here and councelor Walker here thank you uh there's no chat room for this meeting if there's technical issues please let Athena and me know and uh we will decide what to do with that at the time uh there is no serious change to the agenda order the discussion regarding the town manager's goals will follow the action items and during the meeting there will be one General comment period and one special public comment period related to the amoris black reparations committee charge uh councelor ET would you just press the mic and say present present thank you so much okay um under announcements I just wanted to call your attention to the de to the fact that we are officially beginning the town manager evaluation period uh this is a p process during which we collect feedback uh from chairs boards and board chairs of boards chairs and members of boards and committees and commissions our staff and the public all responses are due by midnight October 31st and at that point all counselors will receive the responses and have an opportunity to do their own evaluation we have two meetings scheduled in November for the council one is November 4th it will start at 6:00 p.m. with the financial indicators presented to the budget coordinating group it is also a regular Town council meeting but will include representatives from the library Board of Trustees and also the school committee uh on November 18th we will have a reading period starting at 5: for the town manager evaluation and a public forum on the FY 26 budget at 6:30 uh there are committee meetings scheduled as well uh that are on the calendar uh I want to call attention to the fact that there is a district meeting for District 5 scheduled tomorrow night at 6 o'clock it is virtual and the link for this can be found on the community calendar on the town's website there's no hearing uh tonight and so we'll move to General Public comment any W anybody wishing to speak who is in the town room if you have not signed up please do so with Athena if you are on zoom and you would like to make a public comment please raise your hand at this time okay uh let's the people are still coming in so I'm going to wait just a moment on the um Zoom again if there's anybody on Zoom who would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time okay then let's begin with the uh those people in the room Athena please Vino Conor let me let me just I'm sorry there's a few other things I'd like to say public comments on matters within the jurisdiction of the Town Council residents are welcomed to express their views for up to two or three minutes in this case we'll go with three minutes the council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on matters raised during general public comment public comment comments are not reflective of the opinions of the Town Council uh I also want to call attention to the fact that there will be a 3 minute period with clock on the uh Zoom as well uh the First Amendment broadly protects individual rights to address the government to speak and to express themselves including their rights to say hateful and offensive things I am generally unable to shut those comments 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 a particular individual or incitement of emminent Lawless activity if a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging in inappropriate speech I must defer to the practice of freedom of speech so we will start with those people in the room and then move to zoom and then back to the second person in the room thank you vce o Conor do we have a clock thank you yeah uh can you um enlarge the clock so that I can see it if you're going to hold me to the three minute limit I would like to be able to see the clock do do you see it here where my cursor is say again do you see the clock where my cursor is right here yeah that's a it'll turn yellow when you're getting close to your time is it possible to to alter the locations is that better and enlarge the clock so that it's actually visible to me is that better um here yes okay much better yes go ahead please state your name and where you Vincent oconor 175 Summer Street Department um so I was surprised um but not that much when I read in the paper that the project at 4555 South Pleasant Street had been altered to become a dormatory of emis college so I listened to the video of the Wednesday night October 16th meeting of the Amis planning board site plan review is uh conducted under the provisions of the zoning bylaw uh section 11.2 and it it has very specific requirements and as you can see from the paper in front of you the counselors who were here um during the video contrary to the statements of the bylaw directly um the chair of the bylaw Mr Mr Marshall uh initially said how difficult it was to um to turn down the site plan review and then twice at the at point between 145 and 150 um a minute 45 and a minute 50 of the video he made a declaration that it was statutorily impossible to turn down a site plan review that statement is not correct it should not have been made by the chair of the planning board and as far as I'm concerned this body which has Le which has an oversight function as well as a a function about finance and laws ought to call Mr Marshall before the appropriate Committee of this Council and ask him why he made a statement that directly contradicts the Amerson bylaw um and I will refer you to the end of the thing Mr it says um the board's written decision shall consist of either approval 11.2 501 denial of the site plan based on and so forth absolutely contradicting Mr Marshall's um statement and so what I would say is that he needs to be held to account as the chair of the planning board for making a statement that is definitively false and misleading both to the public and to his fellow board members thank you for your comments Jeremy Anderson please enter the room state your name and where you live hi Jeremy Anderson 34 High Point Drive in emerest I just wanted to thank the Town Council for bringing forward the motion tonight to create school zones for the high school and the middle school this is a wonderful action that will keep our kids safe it promotes traffic caling throughout our town and it sends a great message to our families that we are encouraging our students to walk to bike and to roll to school each day thank you all for your time and your efforts thank you for joining us Jeremy Athena Jen J Jen thank you please come up and make your comment and please state your name and where you live before you make your comment uh I am Jin Jan patham pong 1040 North Pleasant Street Apartment 355 and my question is whether whether there's a way in which we can still have a balance between college student housing and the housing needs for other residents in Amis in order for us to still remain as this you know quote unquote leader of affordable housing like in 20121 we had a comprehensive housing plan that was unanimously voted by all the counselors here yet the yet it was left out that we that the lot sizes were not mentioned leading us to have a massive sprawl and in extremely high House housing prices when I lived here last year I experienced an a sudden spike in rents like I don't know how many percent it could calculate it it just like exceeded $2,000 a month when I was living here one time so my question is is there a way we could adhere to the 2021 comprehensive housing plan while still balancing the needs of other residents who need affordable rental housing thank you thank you for joining us we're going to move on to the consent agenda and let me note that one item was inadvertently left off and unless there's any objection I'm going to add it in and if you object you can add ask that it be taken off it's the proclamation uh these items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy to remove an item to remove an item from the consent agender for discussion later in the meeting ask that it be removed when I've listed all of the consent agenda items that does not require a second the motion is to move the following items and the printed motions thereunder and approve those items as a single unit 6A Proclamation recognizing the 2024 Asian Festival of Lights next item waiver of Town Council rules of procedure rule 8.6 for agenda item 9 A1 and 9 A2 that's wrong here um Town manager appointments to elementary school building committee and Community preservation act committee 8D authorization of town council president to sign a letter on behalf of the Town Council in support of equital approaches to Public Safety please note that I'm more than willing to accept additional changes to that as we before we send it off 9A one to4 approval of town manager appointments cultural Council Evan figuro and William Murray for terms to expire June 30th 2027 Community safety and social justice committee Erica pad for a term to expire June 30th 2027 and Angelique Ferguson for a term to expire June 30th 2025 Elementary School building committee Dr Z Zora Herman ah a r PS Amber Regional public schools superintendent of schools for a term to expire at the completion of the project Community preservation act committee planning board representative Lawrence Kitz for a term to expire June 30th 2025 Mandy Joe hanck excuse me councelor hanii I'm not pulling anything off um just so you know um I want to clarify you said 8 9 A1 and two but I believe those are three and four on the agenda but I also want to clarify that on the motion sheet itself they're listed as a b c d so Athena on the motion sheet you might want to change them to 1 two 3 4 thank you okay are there any other comments or questions is there a second second D gothier thank you we'll move immediately to a vote Patty Angelus I Anna Devin Gotham I councilor r i Lyn grimer and I councelor hanii I Bob hegner hi councelor Lord hi Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer Todd yes councelor Walker yes thank you uh with that I'm going to ask Anna Devon gothier vice president of the council to read the last paragraph or two of the resolution thank you I mean of the Proclamation absolutely and this is the town of ammer proclamation recognizing the 2024 Asian Festival of Lights Council sponsors were myself councelor ET and councelor grimer Community sponsors were Shin ball and the Pioneer Valley Indian association and the sponsors were the town of ammer diversity equity and inclusion Department the Human Rights Commission and the ammer recreation department so last just the last two highly encourage everyone to read the whole thing now therefore we the ammer Town Council recognize the religious historical and cultural significance of dwali the festival Festival of Lights and its message of Tolerance compassion and the Victory of good over evil which re resonates with the American Spirit and be it further proclaimed we the amoris Town Council express our deepest respect and best wishes for South Asians and all Americans in our community who celebrate the Festival of dwali on November 1st and extend the invitation from the Pioneer Valley Indian association to join a celebration on November 10th from 4 p.m. to 7: p.m. for cultural performances and dinner at Wesley United Methodist Church 98 North Maple Street in Hatley thank you um we are going to move on to the um presentation and discussion items tonight uh we have the opportunity to have the Human Rights Commission um here to make a brief presentation about their report which is in your packet and an opportunity to answer questions I know we have two members well we have a member of the committee and the staff in the room if you'd like to come forward and in the audience we have uh Ronnie Parker and I believe if you would bring Ronnie in that would be good Ronnie is one of the co-chairs thank you welcome Ronnie hi wow I think this is the first time I've been able to be seen um at a town council meeting and it really does feel different it does make you visible and important human right on this for this discussion thank you for that um could I check to see if Liz hag good is in this group and she's the co-chair if she's not I'll just go forward we do not see her either in the room or on Zoom okay okay great so I'm the hold on hold on she's coming in the door so if you would just give us a moment Liz come on [Laughter] up welcome so um Liz we have Ronnie Parker on zoom and we've introduced the fact that we're going to talk about the Human Rights Commission report and so for you and Ronnie as co-chairs and also Deborah is one of your members please go ahead um M were you ready to start or do you want me to I would appreciate it if you started and I can I was thinking my brain okay so you all have the report and in the scheme of things it's fairly short it's just three pages um we provide an introduction which is a little bit deeper than what we usually go into particularly with regard to what human rights are and this is because it's reflective of other discussions we've had in our commission meetings this past year to increase understanding of it for ourselves and it's establish a foundation for what do we mean by human rights when we talk about it in amist um then there's a section on um what we did this year uh there are two parts to it one big part is the uh complaints section which I'll go to next but we did have lots of events as we've had every year in the past I'm going to let Liz talk about that a little bit later but a big accomplishment this year that we did on top of that is to finalize our bylaws and this is something that had been started before I joined the Human Rights Commission uh it just took a long time there was a lot of debate discussion and this year we sat down with the town manager and also the town's legal council and we believe have gotten it to a point where it is certainly ready was ready months ago for a Town Council vote and we urge you to vote and support that um so we can have that formal backing um regarding the um complaints we had 10 um this year the important thing to note about this is that it is not we do not have much to do with the complaints the complaints go to the Dei office and they manage it so that confidentiality can be maintained and we have found this to be very difficult in terms of acting as a commission so but on the other hand we do understand the confidentiality aspects and we have some ideas about how to deal with this um going forward next year and I ask Deb colodne to talk some more about that uh as soon as I go over this whole thing um yeah and I just so we also have a proposal for the next three years so we can do something more than have events we feel that this is really when we think about what we do and people ask me what do you all do in the commission it seems like we don't do anything because we have no interaction on the uh complaints process and uh the events are all pretty much run by the DI office and really should be run by them or cultural office of some sort um I couldn't tell you what our budget is if you ask me and I have no idea you know I mean not that we should we're not an operational entity so what I'm trying to say is that it's been very challenging to figure out what do we do and how do we impact on human rights in amorist so that they're respected and so that violators are called to account and so that's what puts us into the way for forward which I want to ask um Deb to speak about but maybe first um Liz did you want to say more about the events no one of the major things please please lead in and make sure the mic is green it's green oh that sounds better um one of the things that we're looking forward to this year is instead of having so many mini cultural events we want to do one major one and then um some smaller on based on Need for instance I'm fully aware and I will fight to the tooth for Quanza and Martin Luther King based on the history of African-Americans in this country and so but we want everybody to share in the experience of other cultures so that's one of the things that is one of our proposals one of the things you also might need to know is that on November 17th is going to be our Retreat where we're going to be putting a stab at taking a stab at um things for the next year and possibly beyond the next year so given that I'm going to pass the mic over to my esteemed colleague thanks Li hi I'm Rabbi Deb kadney I am a member of the Human Rights Commission and um thanks Ronnie for your overall report um I'm just going to be speaking a little bit about the way forward um the commission has designed a three-year plan so that we do more than just receive complaints or the Dei office does more than receive complaints um and we thought it was critical to do some education in the community around what human rights are what they mean and there's this wonderful model that we have when you join a commission or a committee where you have to take this incredibly boring video on what a conflict of interest is and then you take a quiz but boring aside we thought well there's a technology that we use already that the Community is accustomed to we could create a video that describes what human rights law is what human rights violations are what a culture that honors human rights diversity or human rights and diversity would look like um that has a self test at the end of it and so in our first year of our upcoming plan Our intention is to write a script produce that video and then ensure that um all Municipal Employees and School District employees watch it all members of committees watch it um and then if we can invite or really urge all business members business owners um also to watch it um gosh if there was a way to make it a condition of Licensing or ongoing licensing that would be amazing um right but I don't know if that's possible so that's year one of the plan and then year two launch a data collection process which is not about asking people to submit complaints to get resolved but just asking people what's your experience in the community we could even have both sides of the coin we could ask people where what businesses are just doing an amazing job at being respectful of diversity and welcoming an inclusive and um honoring and inviting um participation and what Municipal entities are and what school districts are and where are you having a rub where are you having a challenge to the extent that the town would be responsible for things like I think there was a case where um there wasn't an accessibility ramp outside a public building and so that got addressed it could bring to our awareness things that need to happen um that aren't coming to our awareness because actually calling up a municipal entity and saying this is an issue um might be a heavier lift for some especially those who don't feel included and aren't don't feel aren't people of privilege to like take that step but you know if you've got an ongoing survey that's just on the website and anybody can log into it at any time it's more accessible or it should be more accessible and finally accountability once we've gathered some data and we have a sense of what's going on and maybe get feedback from the video about the education um we will then have to explore what kinds of abil of accountability are appropriate we're not a legal entity that's going to you know resolve dis so I'm not talking about anything punitive like or like that but it might be that follow-up education might be necessary um there there might or it might be that you know accessibility needs need to be met that's to be determined based on what kind of information comes to us so that's the plan it would be um some funding would be required for the production of the video in year one but good news about surveys is are that you know Google survey fre so that wouldn't be a heavy LIF all right sorry I took a lot of air time so um so then I want to close by saying that you know this is a really special opportunity for us to present our report and not just hand over a piece of paper to the Town Council because I think we think that you all have a very crucial role to play in making this happen sort of at the higher level like we do and and um so far one thing we've noticed this year is that we've had no interaction with the Town Council you've had no questions or consultations with us we asked for a representative and nobody has the time for us all of which I understand everybody's busy um but I do want to point out that we're very keen to have um a closer relationship because we think that um in order for human rights to really be important in this town we need that policy level connection or lens or advice ourselves whereas we in turn can advise you I wanted finally to thank the town manager for helping us to fill all our seats we have only one vacancy and we're really privileged to have an amazing group of Commissioners now the the range of expertise is really quite impressive and I think if any of you chose to work with us you would benefit a lot just from those interactions so with that I'm finished Liz did you want to have any final words I do not have any final words I also want to thank Ronnie for taking such a critical leadership role in debth for putting this report together um I also want to say that we all as different people don't always agree on everything but we always have a common goal and that's about human rights so it doesn't matter matter what our own personal biases are we often put aside some things we challenge each other respectfully and we move forward that would benefit everybody in our town y thank you all for being here and I just want to recognize that uh there are three other members of the committee uh I did check the audience and at this point I don't see any of the other ones there um so I'm going to move to questions from the council uh counselor hanii it's not really a question for you all I it's more of a thank you to you all um but a question um thank you for the report I was surprised to see in there that you had been working on the general bylaw that governs the Human Rights Commission um and that you had expected Town Council action because I haven't as a counselor seen that review in all and that you seem to be thinking it was in front of us so that's not your fault and that's why the question is not to you the question is now to Paul and Lynn and those that sit an agenda setting if the commission has has a draft that they want us to review and adopt and they thought that we were there months ago why have we not seen it for referral to presumably go yet no we do have a draft from the Human Rights Commission it's gone back and forth with the town attorney of the Dei Department I think you I think the HRC has finished with it they've said we've and so I need to put together the memo that puts together the uh Town attorney's opinion and the human rights commission's um recommendation to bring to you so that's in my court when do you think we'll see it by PR hope hopefully the end of this month it's it's it's all put together okay thank you and manager that was my question too because it's first I realized we were supposed to be re reviewing this but I ected as the town manager has just confirmed that it's going back and forth with legal review which is just as good that it does that beforehand are there other questions um let me just observe a couple things oh I'm sorry Jennifer please just a quick question and thank you all three of you for the report and for uh all your service on the Human Rights Commission into the town I just had a question with um all the complaints that were referred often it's referred out to State commissions do you does the Human Rights Commission res when those issues or complaints are acted upon by the state commissions do you hear back I mean do you get a record of how those what the disposition we get a Dei report every meeting so sometimes it could be a month before we receive one but we do get updates from the Dei office every time we meet are those public just is that no our meetings just the dispositions on the complaints no we don't always know the final conclusion in fact we've been going back and forth about what should go in a public report like this uh because of the various confidentialities but one of the things I've really wanted to see is what was the conclusion and I would like to see less recourse to law and more of the uh there there is the um the right to a conference uh so more of an opportunity to have informal uh conflict resolution but I think it's you know I'm being told that it's more comp it's complicated to bring people together and again because we don't know what it is and who the parties are and you know we know so little about it it's one of the parts of the report that makes me very uncomfortable actually as being part of the human rights report but I think what we were trying to do looking forward is really uh to own up to what we're doing so it's it's what we are ourselves doing and can take responsibility for and can direct in the future one of the things that makes it more difficult oh I'm sorry Ronnie do do you want to finish f a final thing is that people residents have asked me well what happens when there are repeat offenders well we don't have a system for tracking that per se but the numbers are so small the DI off office probably knows off the top of their head but we don't know so these are things that need that we need more data on and I think that the work that we're proposing in the future will give us sufficient information that we can tackle some of these difficult questions one of the things that makes it a little more difficult and this is one of the things we went back and forth with with the um our legal council when we looked at our bylaws was on the issue of confidentiality and the more people that know the more likely it is for somebody to um be put in a difficult position based on somebody leaking and I don't that's not a good word but leaking out information that shouldn't get leaked out so that's part of the struggle that we have one of the things that we are very much wanting to have is at least a tally of if there was three complaints from about I'm not picking on anybody so leave me Al loan so three complaints about housing so okay there's this complaint about ly's housing and then another complaint about ly's housing and a third complaint about Lin housing now we what do we do about that and who do we um push that forward to who do we factor in what what are the factors how can we be of help and sometimes we don't have that information based on the confidentiality so that's a struggle for all of us as Commissioners when it comes up I just want to say that um all of us totally trust the Dei office and how it um and its dispositions or the way it assists people who make complaints I think as an attorney who's done policy work that there's just um there's a bit of a misfit people think the Human Rights Commission is responsible for this and we're not we just get very um well we get say redacted reports and so there's a gap between expectation and assumption and reality and so I'm not sure fixing the confidentiality problem is the issue I think fixing the expectation and assumption is problem is maybe the way to go okay pamy thank you I totally appreciate the work that's been done it's it's it's always very interesting to see the report and to understand what goes on in the background because your public face is is these wonderful events that are typically Outdoors that are community building and those have been so popular I but I understand that so much of your energy goes into or organizing and managing those that you feel like you maybe aren't getting to the heart of the real work that you're supposed to do so your decision to back off on the number of events makes a lot of sense but I my hats off to you for the work that you do thank you councelor um hi um thank you again for your work and pigging back off what was said in the last comment I was wondering if you have any general criteria on the kind of events that the HRC would consider co-sponsoring in the future because that may be more important than a figure like two or three if you know what the criteria is that could determine the events that you're interested in I want to jump in and say that we're extraordinarily expansive about co-sponsoring if an organization in town is going to hold an event that's uh uplifting um the culture or experience of our variety of you know residents we're right there I don't even know you know as long as it's positive and it promotes human rights right you know so um I can't even imagine here in the Happy Valley something else happening the real issue was um how how many events the Dei office and the commission would sponsor and do the lifting for right because we were finding that you know we would have like I don't know 15 events a year and some had three people and some had 500 people and there was no intermingling and no learning from another so you're basically speaking to the choir like the Latino event you know Latinos came too and we were hoping to bring together people together to learn and to Rejoice together so um but it looks like Ronnie you were gonna say something you want to jump in um I think you've covered it we did I did want to emphasize that we did speak in a fairly organized way about Partnerships and doing more with other organizations and um Deb's point about the cross cultural aspects and the benefits of that oh and I want to Echo sorry what Liz said earlier about K Quanza and um there's several uh I mean the Frederick Douglas speech come on please speak to the mic please so we was talking about um MLK Quanza black history month and it doesn't have to be a huge thing like when we do the flag raising for Black History Month we have always been a part of that could be something as small as that or something as large as when we're down at M River and we co-sponsor with the basketball program and our youth hero Awards so those are the kind of things that we don't want to lose but we're also um as a smaller Commission of the Town a very taxed for doing a lot of larger things um so we want to piggyback on other things like the Frederick Doug reading in juneth and things like that the other thing that I think is important for you all to know that I'm sure that we all forgot until just now is that some of us also um attend um other Town meetings like CSS JC and affordable housing and we update each other on what's going on and how can we help those other entities be as productive as they want as they can be with the town and support them in their missions as well okay um Pat thank you um one of the things I had the privilege of working on one of the first years in Council um was the development of a wage step bylaw and it is supposed to be um uh monitored by the human rights uh director and the Human Rights Commission and I'm wondering and one of the proposals in it is that there would be education for U businesses Etc about wage St and whether any of that has happened and also there are reports that we have not gotten um because it doesn't seem to me that the commission has known about this no shame or blame at this commission Works incredibly hard um but I'm very interested in what's going on around the wage theft if anything I think that I think that what's not clear is that we're there's a human rights through director who is also the Dei director and then there's us and I don't think any of us have heard of this before but this is part of it that a lot of the work I mean to be honest you know we get credit for all these events but we just show up I mean sometimes some of us volunteer but the Dei office two people carry that whole burden they do a ton of work that's connected to rights in addition to other aspects of Dei um so I of course I want to say we don't know about it but more than that I want to say that it took me several months before I found out who was the director of Human Rights and that there was a Director of Human Rights but actually the DI office does all the work and they probably know about this and know what's been happening thank you and this was not a criticism of the commission but it is please speak to the Mike P oh I'm sorry I thought you were done Ronnie I am done it seems to me that that something I need to talk to the town manager about about this bylaw because it's not clear that it's ever been implemented so as Ron said and not just this section of it so no there's so obviously some things that we could work on and do better and I think that with Deb's um proposal that we've been trying to flush out for the the last five or six months um that some of that would come up the other thing that um I want to just tweak in a different way for Ronnie's assertation that the Dei office does because we do a lot of leg work when necessary um when it comes to these events and I know for me personally um with Jennifer from last year you know I was behind the scenes with Quanza I'm behind the scenes with I write all the speeches and things that we have to I flush out all the um applications for the Youth hero Awards and condense it into a smaller statement so that you get the gist of who we're presenting as a a youth hero and um Ronnie does a lot of lifting Deb we had the um Southeast Asian event at Crocker Farm we co-sponsored that so they took the lead on it but we met with them talked about them and fleshed out some things and so yes and then we also um some of us were on the crest director's um search search um hiring committee I know that I was on the chief of police hiring committee so there's been a lot of things happening behind the scenes so I don't want to say that Ronnie's not correct that the DI Dei takes the lead but we also sometimes way behind the scenes and sometimes in front of the scenes do a lot of work to support all the work that the Dei does and sometimes yeah right right yeah are there other comments from counselors uh let me just say I I've really enjoyed you the events you've done and it's clear that a ton of work on behalf of your part and our staff have gone into those events along with maybe co-sponsors that have been doing them um and it's I they have brought together people across the community that identify in certain different ways so it'll be interesting to see uh how you come up with a solution that still attracts that uh cross um group of people in our community that don't otherwise engage uh I mean people would come to those events that we never see any place else and that's something that I think has been valued but I also just have to say having gone to several of them the amount of work that goes into them the amount of effort to get donated food and to set up and to have people's speeches written and everything else um the awards are just astounding so I'm not at all surprise that you want to step back and say what can we do reasonably and do it well so and you won't have to wait long mark your calendars April 5th mega event okay all right yeah yeah we're working on it okay are there other questions from the council thank you all for joining us so thank you for having us and thank you for listening and understanding what we do for the town and to support you all in your missions as well when it comes to bringing our community together thank you thank you so much thank you okay we are going to move on to our action items um the first action item is regarding the University of Massachusetts request to place campus vehicular directional signs in the public way uh this was reviewed by the town services and Outreach committee so I'm going to call upon Andy and then we're going to move to a motion well I'm not going to speak at any length at all because uh we provided a written report and uh there was some additional information that we requested that was uh provided and uh is made I noted through the report where you can find that addition those additional items that the university provided in answers to some of our questions um we did our best to um take account of questions that were asked last time this was before the council and to present those questions and make sure that we not only received an answer but included the answers in the reports to the ones that uh we recognized as being uh need uh needing that kind of uh response and I hope that all of your questions were answered if uh not um then please uh um ask and uh hire another member of the committee will do our best to to further respond uh but hopefully um the report uh is inclusive enough that covers um all of the questions were asked ultimately I think the one thing that we noted at the end is that you know there was a question of uh the number of signs most of them are going on the University property um and we gave difference to the um university uh just because they are the ones who feel the need for the signs that is their project um but we didn't think that it in any way interfered or affected US public way and is actually as U we recognize that the town has done a good job of trying to have directional signs so that people aren't wandering about burning up extra gasoline providing extra pollution and uh we appreciate the university thinking in the same way well I read the motion please bring Guilford Morin in our superintendent of Department of Public Works uh so the motion is to approve the installation of seven in parentheses 7 vehicular directional signs in the public way as directed in the memo from Paul bacham and town manager dated September 19th 2024 in quotes use of the public way University of Massachusetts ammer directional signs End quotes on page 11 to 10 to 11 of the this motion sheet and authorize the town engineer to make adjustments in the field during the inst installation process as necessary is there a second second thank you are there questions or comments yes councelor hanii so we don't have a time limit on this and I'm not going to propose a motion for a time limit because I believe when we did the original non on the common ammer College signs we did not have a time limit in that motion either but my question is do we ever as a town come back and review these allowances for whether we they're still necessary whether we want to uh continue letting them use the public way or are we never going to see this as a governmental legislative body that approves public way requests again what what's the process for is this B basically if we approve this it's in perpetuity or is there in town a regular review process and timeline for review of these things Town manager please so there is no review of um permissions provided to the by the council uh for sign signage occasionally you'll see a sign that's not no longer needed and the you know DPW can go out and make that make the adjustment um but there we most of the signs are in public ways tend to be Town signs that we are in control of they're either directional they're uh traffic control signs or something like that you could put a time limit on it um you could probably in the future if the council chose to resend the permission you could probably resend that permission um I don't know legally um if someone invested a lot of money into a sign if you could go out next week and S we send that or not Guilford do you have any thoughts on that Gilford we've never actually put a time limit on it okay um but as the town manager said if we decide we'd like a sign removed somebody could come in and request that yes uh councelor Ryan it's uh dangerous to rely on my memory but my memory tells me that we did actually put a time limit on the college Amis College request for a sign uh or did just the one on the common I'm sorry just the one on the common they had like seven other requests so your question is about any sign anywhere time limit as opposed to on the comment okay are there any additional questions or comments George you have your hand up okay okay then we'll move to a vote uh and I'll start with Anna delin gothier I councelor ete I Lyn grimer is an i councelor hanii i Bob hegner hi councelor Lord hi pamy yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg I Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes yes Patti Angeles I it's unanimous uh the next item is a proposed establishment of a school safety zone at amrest Regional Middle School and amest Regional High School rather than read the motion I'm going to ask Anna Devin gothier and Kathy Shane who were the primary authors of this if they would like to um comment at this time sure where's Kathy Kathy's right ahead of me um Kathy do you want me to go first or do you have anything okay so this was brought to um our attention from some members of the public who were saying why don't we have school zones at some of our schools and part of the reason was that up until relatively recently as we said in our memo uh the Massachusetts amendments to the manual on uniform traffic control devices uh had specified that school zones were only at schools serving first through 8th grades or grade within that span uh the last time the council Andy informed us the last time the council has approved a school zone was in 2017 since that point the mutcd has been that acronym should feel shorter to say than the whole title but somehow it doesn't uh has been updated and has allowed for establishment of school zones at schools serving anywhere between kindergarten and 12th grade if they're approved by um it's it's not any any establishment that claims to never mind I'm going down that rabbit hole so what we're doing here is uh requesting that we place um school zone signs at the middle school and the high school and these signs are extremely narrowly dictated by the Department of Transportation they specify um I wrote it down they specify the look of the sign they specify the verbiage they specify the color they specify the limit of speed it has to be 20 M hour they provide guidance on location uh meaning it specifies that it should be between 200 and 500 ft from the school grounds and it uh they specify whether it flashes um sorry we get to decide whether it flashes or not uh the sponsors of this wanted it to flash but it specifies when it will be permitted to flash and it specifies that it be um that you if you choose for it to flash and that the language that you use for when it is to be flashing the sponsors wrote this memo for Council approval and um specifically because there is so much already specified in the manual uh on uniform traffic control devices that there is very little left up for decision we did not believe that this should get bogged down in a committee approval process because there's very little for that committee to discuss other than the hours that children arrive at school and the 300 feet foot span that these signs should be placed according to the uh traffic control DPW are the ones who have the best guidance on where to place these signs for us to send this to a committee to confer with another committee to come back to recommend would add weeks and weeks and weeks to this process when we know that DPW is the group that should be able to say this is where the sign goes and place it should be consistent with the way we've placed other sign which DPW has done so we are hopeful that the council will approve this uh motion which is specifying that the time we set be reviewed by committee after a year uh and that the DPW be the uh body which determines where these signs should go within the guidance of the um Massachusetts amendments to the manual on uniform traffic control devices Kathy do you have anything to add just just briefly um we met in an informal way over Zoom with the safe roots to school person based in the schools and uh and a leader in Tac and one other Advocate who has been worried about this for a while to most of the discussion was um if they're flashing which hours of the day should they Flash and when how early in the morning when should that end and we thought that would involve a discussion in the school and the school should be involved in it so I just wanted to add to what Anna said that we uh you may remember you may not but in the capital Improvement plan we voted for uh the technology to put um speed signs or signs signage in so I don't know whether some of that money could be used for this but the idea of the flashing when it's when school early hours late hours uh was brought to us as definitely needed because right now some of the time uh doesn't cover the after school time or people coming in early in the morning so really slowing down so uh as Anna said we thought this could be expedited because some of the decisions are going to be made with the schools on placement and times of day that it should be flashing if we'd go the flashing route and Lyn you did not make a motion and I'd like to um so that we are discussing the motion if that's okay um I'd actually like to hear from a couple people I don't think there's no motion on the table for us to be discussing so shouldn't we make the motion please go ahead thank you uh I moveed to establish designated school zones in accordance with the Massachusetts amendments to the manual on uniform traffic control devices at the ammer Regional Middle School and ammer Regional High School with flashing indicator light to be placed at the discretion of the superintendent of Public Works and to be illuminated between the hours of 6:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. and between the hours of 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. with a review of this timing by the town services and Outreach committee one year after implementation second okay so there's a second there was one other change that appears on the motion sheet Onna and it says on all streets that provide access to so was a way of provid that's fine but that is part of what would be considered under the Massachusetts amendments to the manual uniform control devices yeah it that's something that they specify so in order for the motion to be in accordance with that it would have to be on it but if if that is uh an amendment folks insist on being in the actual motion that's fine okay uh councelor hanii I'm going to move to refer this to go with a report and recommendation to Town Council by December 2 or TSO um sorry TSO thank you uh so they you're going to put the second motion on the table well I moved the first motion to be referred to TSO because there's a motion already on the table I see okay thank you um is there a second to I will second Ryan all right uh may I speak to it please so I disagree with the report or memo that says it's a simple motion to approve the establishment um at both locations this does not require a benefit of a committee referral it's missing a key required information that the memo itself said is required before school zones are created which is um item three of the mutcd conditions not provided plan of student routes and limits of school zone the motion that was made before my motion to refer said say just leave it up to someone else that is bad legislative practice to not actually know what zones and what lengths and where you're voting on the access to the high school including two 300 to 500 feet from school grounds includes portions of triangle Street all of maton street over various things Taylor Street um gry Street Cottage Street streets that may not be streets it is a very unclear motion to know where it's going and then when you're talking about the times the school has not been consulted on what times and the motion itself that was made includes definitive times that could not be changed unless it comes back to the council school begins at 9:05 in the morning and the motion that was made says 6:30 a.m. 2 and 1 half hours before school begins while school ends at 3:30 5 in the afternoon and the motion says 300 p.m. that ignores the fact that at the high school there is a flex block that begins at 2:55 p.m. that the handbook allows and gives permission to seniors and many do to leave the building at 2:55 p.m. it does not include while there's arguments that says 6m to include Sports it ignores that there are many evening events and does not say whether they should be on for evening events in other words we need to talk to the school before we vote on where and for how long during the day they need to be flashing and you can do that through a motion to refer uh George you made a second did you have want to speak to that yeah I my question was along those lines Mand is I think focused it with her motion um I support this I think it's a good thing to do I think probably everybody supports but there are a lot of moving parts we do have a process that we follow TSO um in terms of Consulting the school and Consulting DPW Consulting APD um yes it does take time but there are just some pieces here that need to be figured out and at least in my mind it's unclear how just passing this tonight as the original motion proposed would resolve those it seems it wouldn't resolve them it'd be left up to whatever and then a year later come back to TSO so I know it's going to take more time um but I think it it's prudent for us to follow the usual process and have the the appropriate parties weigh in including the schools in this case along with DPW and probably APD okay Pam roone thank you I was actually going to speak to the motion itself the original motion and the concept behind this um in in my mind there aren't a whole lot of choices on where something of this nature would be placed and I believe that Guilford moing certainly is equally aware I will say that there are lots and lots of students Crossing the the bottom of Cottage Street at by and before 3:00 so um if we are going to tweak a time frame it would be probably at least 2:45 um to start in the afternoon my feeling about having uh flashing lights in the evening I don't know that a lot of people walk to the school in the evening for events so that to me is much less of an issue but um triangle Street itself is is very busy um we have yet to change the speed limits in that area and can I continue talking about the original issue are we still talking about sending it to committee here uh the motion on the floor is now to refer to committee okay to TSO but there's no reason you can't talk about the motion okay the original motion I I probably would not support sending it to a committee um just for the reasons that there are not there are not that many choices and where some of this uh instrumentation would be placed uh I am I am delighted that this this topic came up it has long been a concern of mine um to have this an extra long pedestrian crosswalk at the top of matun street right at the top of the hill at triangle and it's very unnerving as a pedestrian to be walking that so especially during school hours it would be very helpful to alert people well ahead of that thank you okay Andy I'm going to George you have your hand up but I'm going to go to Andy okay yeah I uh support the motion to refer and I guess I'm going to say several things one is that as a member of the select board uh Paul and I are probably the only two people in the room who are around when Fort River was added as an elementary school with the school zone up until that time it was the one Elementary School that didn't not have a school zone and the process was very different um and it's and the major work was done uh by Jason skills at the Department of Public Works and then sent to Guilford and Paul and onto the council and it was a comprehensive study of the traffic in the area where the signs should be placed that you're coming to a school zone where the school zone itself should be um and it was very impressive report I uh found it and sent it to the sponsors of this motion um on the over the weekend and can send you the link it's it's actually it's just a link on the uh town website but I think that it gives you the kind of detail that really ought to be coming in so that when we're voting we vot we know exactly what it is that is the location of a proposed school zone where the signs are to be placed and um why that determination was made there's another issue that I think needs to be explored and I don't know if uh uh Guilford or Paul have any information on this but the um uniform uh traffic manual provides that uh school zones have to be in um on streets AB butting the school property um and I'm a little bit troubled by it because most of triangle Street does not abut school property it abuts the uh Community Field which is not actually owned by the schools it's owned by the town and uh there's just a little teeny portion of the playing field that I think may be buting the actual street but it is inconsequential and it is not a location where the signs are so I'm not sure U what we can do on triangle Street and before jumping into it I think that we need to we as a council ought to be knowing that information and uh there's no way we can get there without um making sure that the time is spent in referring it to committee uh the uh other thing that I'd been thinking about a lot is that uh the hours um should be very easy for the elementary schools we already have school zones but the hours for elementary schools probably ought to be different than the hours for the um Regional Schools because they operate on different schedules and uh so I'm a little bit concerned about the way that the motion is framed to just set one set of hours for all schools as if they that is what is needed and appropriate for all of the schools and uh I really would urge splitting out the elementary school hours from uh Regional School hours assuming we can do the regional schools there hasn't been much mention made of the middle school because Middle School probably has uh doesn't have the same need that the high school has so for all those kinds of reasons um I would urge that we um adopt the amended Amendment to the motion made by Council hanaki to refer to committee I need to uh take a pause in the meeting Athena I've been informed that the uh Zoom link on the agenda and on the town website is expired I'm looking into that thank you we're uh in pause for the moment it was suggested that this link that was there was the one for October 7th can we take a five minute recess please I'm sorry I can't hear you can we take a five minute recess yes we are in recess for five minutes you can turn your mics off and your um video off thank you for e for we've resolved the issue okay as soon as people are back please put your video back on to let me know you're here we we have resolved the issue George you're back Kathy you're back councelor walker are you there okay um the link gets published in multiple locations in one location it was incorrect it does not require that we terminate the moving uh Anna so what I'm really struggling with here is why we are insisting on bogging this down in bureaucracy and forcing it to be held under discussion by a committee when what DPW will submit to that committee is a map Andy I looked very closely I read thoroughly the memo that you sent it is a half-page memo and then a map with sign placements Jason writes incredible reports Jason's very smart we like Jason a lot gilford's also very smart all that they are going to do is send this to the committee and then the committee is going to sit there for weeks and discuss it TSO does great things I'm not bashing TSO but TSO would not be the ones to recommend specific locations of the sign and I would argue that it would be inappropriate for TSO to argue with our Department of Public Works on where the placement of those signs should go so much about this is dictated by the uniform traffic code we have discussed items regarding the public way at the council level without sending them to TSO before and I think that what I would like to make sure both my co-sponsors Kathy and Lynn also Lynn I know you haven't had a chance to speak to this yet and I welcome uh your thoughts as well when we wrote and decided on this memo but when we wrote those hours we were thinking first off with the morning hours of folks who come in early for practices and also teachers who might walk to school and those teachers do go to school at 6:30 a.m. we were also I'm open and and my if my co-sponsors are also open to ad adjusting the memo to read that the uh afternoon hours could start at 2: PM or that we um say that the rewrite the motion to say that the hours be determined by the school superintendent but I think what is really frustrating to me in this moment is that we are adding multiple level of discussion that are not happening by the experts instead of saying we defer to the people who do this for their job to determine the placement of these signs what TSO would be talking about is placement Mandy those are great points and I'm sure that Guilford knows all of them and we'll make a smart decision I don't think TSO is going to come to a different conclusion than our DPW would and I'd be concerned if they did so that's why we wrote the motion as we did we are deferring to experts in house Jason Guilford whoever else they've got down there who talks about all these great things um and I I think it's just disappointing that we're bogging things down when TSO has enough other things on its plate that it actually should be truly weighing in on okay um I as one of the people who signed on to this I'm going to speak to it and that is one first of all the 6:30 is appropriate because of the morning movement program that takes place at the high school 4 days a week and at the middle school one day a week it starts at 7:00 and many of the students that participate in that program walk to school to it as well as a few that as well as many who come by bus with regard to the actual motion the one thing I rais to the two other sponsors was I wondered if this should be referred to TSO so there we have the difference of opinion thank you uh and Mandy Jo I'm not expecting TSO to question DPW I'm expecting to be able to vote on a plan where I know where the signs are going and to ask me to vote on something that has no indication definitively with a plan on where those signs are going is just wrong your memo itself says four things need established and they are in an order item one the facility is a school item two children walk or bike to and from and for both of those you've you've said they're true we we understand that item three the school facility or municipality provides a plan showing the routes that students will use to walk Andor bike to the school and shows the limits of the proposed Zone you admit in your memo that has not been met and you're asking us to vote to adopt a school zone when one of the requirements has not been met you did not provide a plan showing the routes that students will use to walk or bike to school or that shows the limits of the proposed school zone in fact the motion you ask us to vote on doesn't even include anything about the limits of the school zone it just says around the schools the fourth item is that the municipality provides written documentation of their support and approval of the school zone you say that will be met by our vote but our vote will not have the map even near it or the limits of the school zone near it that's what needs to come back to us and that's what DPW can provide to TSO to come to us the other one is the times that the three sponsors have decided on the times without consulting the superintendent of the schools it is in my opinion that the superintendent of the schools should be consulted on the appropriate times because the super superintendent of the schools and the principal are the best people to tell us when those signs should flash not us in a committee debating on whether it should be 6:30 to include the morning movement program or not or whether it should be 2:30 or 2:45 to include the early Flex block opt or not we don't even know when Sports practices end that is not our decision to make we should be seeing and receiving that information from the school schs that has not been done and that's why it needs to go to TSO Andy yeah um the other group is that's very important is the transportation advisory committee and I know that you said you consulted with the chair but I'm not convinced that the chair is necessarily uh consulted with the committee yet because um the uh uh commit has several members who have been working for years on safe roots to schools and um that is one of their major areas of focus uh so I uh feel like um one of the things that always in the TSO process is to make sure the TA Tac is consulted and has the opportunity to respond um as a group because all members bring different to the table in that that committee um the other thing a conversation I don't want to go very far but um had several uh proposals one that we acted on and accepted and is uh complete for construction on Heatherstone and the other on Southeast Street which have met with a lot of uh comments so um it's it's a process that obviously concerns the community a lot and um it concerns the entire Community not just the users of um whatever um roadways are involved U so I think that there's a real reason to make sure that there is um an opportunity for broad public uh comment even if it's uh not always something we agree with and I think of that because um if we um restrict speeds on um triangle street it's not going to be an issue that's going to be viewed lightly and the last thing that I was going to just um report haven't had a chance to even talk to the committee about that but was approached About a Week Ago by the chair of Transportation advisory committee about establishing a joint GRS TSO Chief and number of questions Andy your microphone please number of questions were suggested to POs to Chief Ting including um enforceability of school zone uh speed limits so there are a whole lot of moving Parts here and um that's one of the major reasons I think that this is important to do um and I guess I will add one thing if it's a simple matter we move quickly because we just a few minutes ago approved the university sign request which was essentially uh one meeting of uh our committee and a report back in Action by the council uh councelor Ryan so again this is a good thing it's some I agree with the sponsors is something we need to do but I think we should do it in the right way uh we should do it in such a way that we actually know what we're voting on when we vote um so let's take our time we'll move with all deliberate speed but I think we should refer ref this to TSO okay so the motion's been made and seconded to refer to TSO okay that's the motion we're voting on councelor ET I Lyn grimer is an i councel hanii i Bob hegner I councelor Lord I Pam Ro no councilor Ryan I Kathy Shane no Andy Steinberg I Jennifer to no councelor Walker no Patti Angelus I Anna Devin goth here no motion passes to refer it is eight in favor and five opposed we're in order I think since it was an amendment to a motion do we still go back to the original motion a motion to refer supersedes the motion to adopt and that disposes with the motion so we don't need to there there doesn't need to be another vote thank you thank you for the clarification uh it is 8:00 we're going to take a real break this time okay and uh five minutes and we'll be back please turn your videos off and your um sound thank you for oh e for e e know that e wel okay we need to begin to re assemble thank you Andy Joe you have the copies okay yeah and by the way she knew you were bringing them so she didn't [Music] make all right George you're here anna you're here uh Pat is we're waiting and uh councelor ET you're here waiting for Pat e e is there a second second thank you and then Athena I believe that you have copies of that that you're going to give to people or to people who are not in the room you are going to send it to them and you are going to post it on our website immediately it's posted on our website and in SharePoint as of right now okay and so th for those of us in the room um and then as soon as man as soon as councelor haniki speaks to a motion then we're going to take a 15minute reading period okay thank you and and I had brought copies to hand out to people who are in the room if they want printed copies instead of just online um the goal goal of this it it is a motion to substitute because it is generally fully Rewritten um and the goal of that is there's a couple of goals as follows um one of its goals and main goal is to Center the committee um to and connect it to the repairing of harms for past actions those caused by support of slavery and post Recon construction attempts to continue slavery's effects and the harms suffered by those individuals who were enslaved um the go proposed charge did not mention slavery at all and the purpose statement was rooted in dismantling racism which is a forward-looking action not repairing the harms for past conduct which is what reparations is doing to Look Backwards the go proposed charge did not require proposed areas to be connected to identified harm and the goal is to keep all funding discussions and allocations directly connected to the repairing harms that have been identified um in a hope that it might help insulate the town from any legal challenges relating to reparations because it's connecting those funding decisions to harms that have been um experienced it expands the committee and designates appointments to better mirror the framework of the CPAC Model Seven members with some non-affiliated members and some Affiliated members related to the top two funding priority areas identified in the ah report youth programming and housing and to the overarching mission of reparations which was be why the Human Rights Commission is identified as a sending member it clarifies the steps and procedures for getting to adopting priority areas um and identifies that the ah final report named four funding priorities it requires the council to vote on the priority areas to mirror a CPA framework which is the equivalent of the state law that sets CPA priorities at Recreation historic preservations conservation and affordable housing and it requires the committee to to establish feasibility thank you um legality and connection to harms before making recommendations on priority areas to the council it clarifies the process and necessary steps and procedures for getting to the council allocating funding funds from the for getting the council to allocate funds from the reparation stabilization funds with a focus on that CPAC framework that's the funding section of the charge section um and it intends to clarify that this committee is for elements of reparations that relate to the reparation stabilization fund um the ah was tasked with proposing a municipal reparations plan and providing a final report they provided a final report that included elements of a plan but haven't provided an actual plan um and so what the council's been doing is sort of adopting these elements without actually adopting and considering a full Municipal reparations plan um so these are all possible elements but we haven't yet adopted a plan and we should do that at some point but um because that plan has not been adopted we need to establish the funding priorities um they would typically have been adopted as part of a municipal reparations plan um and the other and it it tries to clarify that the ele elements of a potential Municipal reparations plan um that may include actions outside of this committee um that it's not the committee's job for those elements of that potential plan um for example the additional means of repair that was referenced in a plan to be included and proposed by the H um for anti-black structural and communal racism including public events and activities that prioritize truth-telling and Reconciliation this amended proposed amended charge is um not intended to have this committee deal with those potential elements of a reparations plan and to be clear that it is not this committee that would be working on those we are also going to after our oops thank you I just pressed the wrong button um after the 15-minute break for the purpos of reading we are going to also have a period of special public comment uh so we're going to begin now with a period of reading and then we'll move to special public comment and then uh Council discussion and motion and debate and for the counselors in the room you've received the the charge that's in front of you that was um on the floor from the last meeting and then this is the clean and markup copy from uh Mandy's motion okay Anna you have your hand up is there a clarifying question I was I think it's sort of a clarifying question um after the reading period I'm wondering if it would be permissible to invite Michelle Miller and a m Carabas into the um panelists room to discuss this as they were Central and pivotal to the disc discussion of the go uh level uh as both the former co-chair and a former member of the uh the reparations group yes um one other thing yes what's been shown the recreation committee should refer to the Recreation Commission I okay and counc Walker do you have a clarifying question yeah I'm just wondering um counselors who are not in the room how are we accessing the document hi I'm sorry I didn't hear that because of a cough go ahead again sorry how are counselors who are not in the room accessing the document it is on the website both in SharePoint and on the town website for the general meeting notice it is posted now can't we just send as an attached F and I yes I thank you that was my next request and I will also ask the town clerk of the Town Council to send it to you directly okay to those of you that are not in the room so we will reconvene at 830 we're still in session I'm sorry we will begin the discussion at 8:30 um I had do you want a copy oh I have it there was one left over thanks m e e e then I have a uh question where is Mandy's statement that she just quickly read off uh if that is Germaine to our to our consideration of this document that would be very helpful to have um it was taped but not apped um well then how can we use it okay Athena has is out of the room for the moment let me just wait till she gets back and we'll figure out how we'll deal with that okay thank you e I don't Norm right councelor Walker um is it possible for the track change version to be made available for us yes I will make that available to you immediately thank you okay I thought it was in the packet but I guess not okay good yeah could you it is in the packet it is in the packet but we will send it to you um councelor hanii is going to send it to councelor walker uh Pam Rooney counselor Lord and um Bob hegner thank you e for and I don't see her I didn't let her I didn't let her in I don't see her on there though I don't I think it should be I'll make thanks just e I e e for e yeah e this was in the door okay thank you Pam you're unmuted okay as you complete uh please turn your video back on so as you complete please turn your video back on so that I know you're ready okay um councelor hanii you asked if you could would um have another word thank you go ahead I made an error in forgetting to thank those that I met with um in drafting this um so I spent some time with uh counselor Shane um who had some comments and had reached out to me but I also spent some time with some former members of The Well members of the former ah I guess it would be um Dr Amar shabaz had some comments we did not meet in person but he was um aware of this um Michelle Miller um and Deborah Bridges along with her daughter an eops so I want to thank everyone who was willing to meet with me and talk to me about my concerns and this proposal okay thank you um the floor is open for comments there the floor the discussion at this point is about the amended substitute if you will charge okay while we're waiting for that I'm going to move to General to a specific public comment if there is anybody who is in the room that wants to make specific public comment to this please make sure you've let Athena know if there is anybody like alacar or Michelle who are in the room but on Zoom and you want to make gen make public comment let me know and if there's anybody on zoom in the audience if you would like to make public comment regarding this please raise your hand now okay we're going to begin we have one person in the room please come forward Alex can't please come on up okay and alacar and Michelle I'll be with you in a moment okay okay please state your name and where you live thank you my name is Alex Cox I live at One East Pleasant Street in ammer primarily I would like to thank the council and the councilors who took the time to revise and specify the scope of this charge for this incredibly important commit please speak to the mic um I would like to thank the council and the counselors who took the time to revise the charge to narrow the focus for this incredibly important committee however on my primary read through I had two points of question that I hope will be answered through the the discussion here today um in the amended charge it says arc's mission is to implement reparations but then it does seem that most of the implementation Authority still lies with the council in the charge as amended um so I'm curious if implementing reparations is truly the charge or if recommending reparations is the charge of the arc um further it says as defined by international human rights standards but then fails to Define which standards of are the definition that is being adopted thank you thank you for your comment uh Michelle Miller former counselor and co-chair of the ah uh committee please make your comments and we'd love to see your face if you'd like to turn your camera on not tonight I'm sorry that's okay but it's good to see all of your faces um and I I thought I saw Dr shabazz's hand up I wanted um to give him the opportunity to speak before me but it's gone down so I'm just going to go ahead and then um I want to uh thank go for uh working with Dr shabaz and I on such a what I thought was a very strong um charge and uh had a lot of the elements in it that I think we need to move this forward um I also want to thank Mandy and I think Kathy um for delving in a little bit deeper and um taking the time to put together um what I think is a very thoughtful charge um I really appreciate um from my perspective that more counselors have gotten involved and I appreciate sort of the level of um of thought that went into the The Substitute charge there are a couple considerations that I would just um you know ask you to to think about um the first being the makeup of the group I I really or excuse me the makeup of sort of the the folks that would be consulted in the community um I really appreciate uh the Integrity of and and agree with centering the the most the two inner Circles of the concentric circles that we outlined in our report and I suggested to Mandy that if possible I think it would be important to find a way to incorporate into the charge some uh Outreach to that third circle um I think that we um in the work that we did uh envisioned that ammer would have an inclusive lens when they were considering reparations and again I do agree that the focus should be those innermost circles but I'd like to see something that would at least um at least you know give some guidance to the committee to do that broader Outreach as well and then the only other um consideration I have right now and I I'm really curious to hear everyone's thoughts is um the the makeup of the committee just considering that if you do identify people from those three other committees to sit on this committee um you're you're looking at a potentially different composition then you would be if the town manager were simply uh accepting applications um you know from the community so you just have to kind of think about how that might work out in terms of composition um and and who you want this committee to sort of uh you know what you would like how you would like this committee to look based on their lived experience so those are my comments for right now and I do see Dr shaz's hand is up as well thank you thank you for joining us Michelle and for all your work on this uh Dr shabaz you have your hand up as well so please go ahead thank you uh and I uh also uh agree with uh all of the thank yous and points that uh Michelle Miller is raised I just will um jump straight to a a couple of things to think about first of all I I want to really say that uh through the two years on the ah uh all the way from the very beginning I was always very mindful of the the model of the community preservation act committee I particularly uh Advocate on the Statewide level with uh uh Senator Miranda with uh representative Bud uh Bud Williams and and others in the uh Black and Latino caucus who've been a real spearhead uh as well as with our own uh rep uh Mindy Dom and Senator Joe cumerford to really take a look at that as an ex um as a way in which the as the state itself considers how to implement uh uh reparations uh the that the Commonwealth of M massachus might look at that same uh program and in fact think about how they can support Municipal communities that Embark upon uh uh reparatory justice initiatives to draw support from the state in the same way that Community preservation act initiatives both uh involve a mix of local uh local funds and as well as State uh State support so um I'm very mindful of of the history of the Act and the the implementation of this particular way um of uh of supporting communities in the the four uh priority areas the four areas of the community preservation act we did not um completely uh recommend that as an element of the plan we uh and the final report of uh in our in our planning process because in some ways it does wait on the state I think it we really need to see where the state government goes before we can fully say that a CPA model is is the way to go I think we ought to be thinking about it we ought to be mindful and prepared but I don't think we should exactly uh uh try to Fashion our uh local uh Arc uh Amorous reparations committee on the CPA model until in fact we see how the the state uh uh moves in this upcoming uh legislative period um but uh but but to be mindful of it and and and being prepared in some ways to uh to align ourselves with that uh should it come about um part of that is that right now the and and one of the things is this um local communities may not find it appropriate uh at this point to um specify three or four or five areas and say this is it you know and if there if the harms if the initiatives you want to work on don't fit into these three four or five areas then we're not we don't want to hear it you know there's no there's no framework for addressing it uh in the case of of Evanston Illinois which we studied in detail we met with uh and and brought to amers the um former counselor alw woman that uh led the whole initiative in Evanston Illinois Robin Ru Simmons in the case of Evon as we studied as you know their planning process and their work started with a single initiative itive in the area of housing but a single initiative they are now have multiple other initiatives based upon Community uh uh needs and Community input uh that that are going in other different direction some very specific very localized uh some sort of similar to our uh ancestral Bridges initiatives uh that that they're supporting some are in other areas uh uh and and I think that's that's uh to me is still a great model because it puts in the driver seat uh the black community to be able to again uh bring forward uh their uh what what they're experiencing what they're feeling what they believe that uh again may not have been things that came up in our two years of consultation and work in the community I think we did arrive at some important areas but again there may still yet be areas of of importance for example in the health area okay we talked a lot about that we didn't name that as a specific area but uh there are serious mental health needs that are not adequately addressed that uh definitely respond to Historic Harms in the African uh descendant community that you know may come forward specific needs for support of initiatives in the in the area of health and me mental health and and other uh uh Health needs that that might uh come forward from the community and but if we've already straight jacketed things to three four or five areas that that we name tonight then you know that might be ruled out and we have no room then to you know or or we Face a problem then of of uh of an issue uh and going to the community and saying oh well you know that's that's not what we what we said we're doing um so I really suggest uh not going down that path and not and therefore uh given that argument not going down the path of expanding this committee to seven with uh seating people from housing from Recreation and from the Human Rights Commission because again I think that um a small Nimble committee uh that is entirely focused on the work at hand able to to bring forward um uh prop uh proposals that meet all of the other language and criteria that's been presented here tonight uh I think is the better way to go than to right at this point try to uh uh you know limit the the framework of of initiatives so um that's that's essentially it I can answer any questions or try to expand any further but I don't want to talk take up too much time or or or space here but I I really suggest that piece a lot of the other language here and and modifications are fine uh uh you know that's good word smithing on that that part but uh but this particular piece I would say um that uh uh you know I I would retain from the previous draft that came through go staying with the five not putting people in from these other groups you know and I and and I just add one final thing on that if um in the two years that I was on with ahra and at some point going weekly in our meetings if someone had then came along if you all on the council had come along and say oh we need a delegate from the ah to sit over here on on uh the the the ammer Human Rights Commission or this I would have to say whoa I've got enough on my plate as a as a volunteer community member uh making the ahra meetings I don't think I can also add to it uh going to the meetings of another of another committee for what may be a just a limited scope of where their work dovetails with with uh with our work and I and so I I I also am mindful of that as a concern to to go to people who are volunteering their times to do the housing work or to do the recreation work or or human rights work and then tell them oh and now we need you to send someone over here who will also uh uh have a have an additional set of meetings to go to I I just think it's a it's too much to ask and and so I do ask that you retain from the previous draft the the five member and uh an understanding that I'm sure the arc will will as appropriate check in with Recreation check in with uh uh uh these other these other areas as as needed around whatever is the particular proposal being being worked on thank you Dr thank you so much for your comments and again also for your hard work on the uh document and the work leading into this so the floor is now open uh we're closing public comment uh and the floor is open for questions Bob hegner yeah I uh I agree with um the comments made by both Michelle and Dr shabaz I also was concerned that um expanding the the committee or expanding the groups so that you're only getting a certain you know Recreation housing um human rights it it it is constraining in some ways so I do I do agree that we shouldn't be doing that and also the idea that we identify very specific areas um and I don't I I I also found those to be constraining I think the commission can decide itself what the priorities are and as Dr shabas stated they may change over time so let's not let's not try to identify specific areas where we can spend money uh versus uh you know giving the the commission the authority to come up with some good ideas and then bring them to the council so and I I agree with the commenter that this is a we're really making uh the committee really should make recommendations it's not a decisionmaking body the councils is one that has to decide how to spend money thank you thank you Anna I want to preface that s is so loud I to preface this by saying there are certainly things where I've highlighted and said oh I like this so know that that does exist generally I do need to say that as the chair of go I find it frustrating that feedback from these counselors was not provided to go if they had thoughts about what this committee should look like and instead a full substitute motion was proposed uh we had multiple rounds of committee discussion and did not receive com comments from other counselors so just as a general practice if folks have feelings about how something should look please tell your committees and if you didn't know what those feelings were until you saw our charge fine um okay it is wild to me that the world word black does not appear in this charge once and the only time African Heritage the words African Heritage are mentioned are when referencing the ah there are certainly other groups who have uh been enslaved in the United States and deserve reparations the harm that they face may be different right the the structural inequities may look different the report and the research done by the ah specifically focused on those of African heritage and to expand potentially expand this charge by removing those words uh I think I I just want to note that that could expand the charge um I believe we absolutely need to strike the membership from other committees we just heard today from one of these committees about how overextended they are we can't keep placing additional work on these committees and I understand that the intent with adding those was to mimic CPA but this committee isn't functioning like CPA functions yet right this committee is creating all of the things that CPA already has so maybe at a later date this might be revised this charge might be revised and Revisited to add those in but right now I think it's far too big a lift to be asking of someone who's already serving on another committee when some of those areas may not end up being addressed uh by this committee um Consulting is it okay if I keep going no one's telling me now okay Consulting only with those in eligibility groups one and two is one not enforcable uh we know that there's such the we know that there's so much behind proving uh ancestry and it also ignores the uh so this is in the priority areas it says consult regularly with the descendants of enslaved amoris residents and residents of ammer whose ancestors were enslaved in the United States regarding ammer reparations program to inform the program and recommendations made to the council citing eligibility groups one and two in the ah final report um this also ignores structural harm that has occurred as a result of long-term result of uh of slavery in the United States I do appreciate the ad of um adding connection to the harm being repaired to the piece around Prior areas uh but those were three things four things that stood out to me right away thank you councelor Walker um thank you Lyn um I agree with much of what Anna said so I will try not to be repetitive but I you know some of the comments I took was that this is a successor committee to the H as much as it has a slightly different purpose that is where this work is coming from and so I also age strongly with the removing of the word black or African Heritage from the charge completely um I also agree with everything said about the membership I I think it doesn't make sense to add those members but maybe you know they can consult those members and I don't I mean those other committees and I don't think that that necessarily needs to be in the charge I think they already have that option to consult those committees um there were I I just feel conflicted because there were some suggestions that the wording was fine and didn't feel like I don't feel strongly about removing it but there was a lot that I feel strongly about changing and so I also just wanted to point out similar to what Anna said about the process I feel like I didn't have enough time to process this and I don't necessarily want to continue to drive this out um but this feels like a lot right now and so I'm slightly overwhelmed also um there were a lot of other things that I think were unnecessary to add the connections to harm being repaired is nice but I think if we're looking at the H report they made all of those connections to the those areas that are suggested in the report already we have the full history outline in another report and so maybe if they're going to suggest a priority area that wasn't recommended by the ah we might ask for them to point out the connections to the harm being repaired but I think all of that has already been done um I also feel like some of this was written as if this isn't going to be an ongoing committee right like we want your recommendation and then this but I don't think it leaves it open enough for things to change over time this will be a standing committee and so a lot of the way that this was written it sounds like they're producing you know one report one set of recommendations and so I didn't like that either um and I also think the CP the recommendation for this to be set up like CPA could just be a personal recommendation I don't think we need to require them to set it up like CPA I think that's an option but I also think we want to leave this open for the members of that committee to recommend to us what they think it should look like and for for that to be open for them to decide um and yeah I I have a few other things but I think basically it's getting to the point of like I could go line by line and say I think some of these words should be changed I think this is not needed and so I I don't really know how we go about that in a meeting with I'm sure all of the other counselors have a similar thing going on right now so I'm feeling pretty conflicted thank you for raising that councelor Walker let's get through the comments and then see how we proceed okay Kathy I I think what Alicia just raised is that we may need a working group to have a line by line discussion of this but let me just uh say what I think is the motivation of trying to restructure what we originally received I see these as tax dollars they're public tax dollars and the more we have a couple places we're not saying which areas might be repair um the HRA had a long list and they narrowed it to a few high priority but I think without some initial and to the is the initial set of three to five carbed in cement not necessarily but it allows you to be clear when you're going out and asking for proposals and how else do you make comparisons of proposals if you have 20 proposals and each is a one off how do you judge them cluster them do anything with them so it's spending I saw this charge as starting to think of how do we spend the stabilization fund we've put up for reparations and trying to link it back to the harm and the resolution we originally passed which very much anchored it in if we need to put the words back in to slavery and the post reconstruction uh discrimination in housing and employment in a long list of things that happened here in amest um and trying to think of that and the report already identified some areas so I think you know the two steps of saying narrow to a set of three to five six areas because then you've got to do you've got to say why are these feasible how would you do them and then solicit proposals people have to know what areas they're proposing in and then you have to have some way comparing them and coming them back for potential funding so those three three elements I didn't find in the original charge of trying to first come and I do think we never had I kept hoping the council would have an hourlong discussion about the report we received and take a vote on some specific areas that we thought would work that were feasible um we can't do individual Awards based on uh race um so which kinds of things so that we would get some Buy in we never had that discussion we welcomed all the hard work that came into the report so we've missed that step so this is written in a way that this successor group whether it's five people or seven people maybe it goes back to five comes with we read the report we like the four or five priority areas that were selected and that's our starting point that come back to the council and say this is our starting point we say that sounds like a good idea where they've created some this is why we pick them and then the second thing would be the way to set up a process of getting proposals CPA is probably just one model but it is a model we have in town with a post we're open now for proposals you have a simple little form you fill out fill it out without a lot of things and say how much money you want and why and then the committee has a very open discussion about the relative merits and I'm expecting that the proposals will come in for more dollars than are available so there's got to be some way of saying relative merits and coming back so those are the two main steps that were outlined in this memo that I in this charts that it didn't find in the original one narrowing it to a few areas whatever they are and come back with a justification of why those on the same wording that was in the original draft charge of feasibility and why why this should be a priority with some description you know it's having said as a leason to CPA it's been very helpful for the members to have a definition of which are the areas they can fund just a working definition because they can bounce it off like this fits this doesn't fit and it helps them get to an eror group of saying it doesn't fit and I do want to step back that that was set up by legislators and then it was voted by the town of amers the CPA dollars so there was a legislative process that said these are areas we think of preservation they could I think the state should expand it to climate and some other pieces but it's not in the state legislation so we can't spend dollars in those areas let's stick to the so I'll just I'll just so that's the reason for narrowing it and coming back and saying this is the areas that we're going to solicit proposals in and then a process for how do you decide and come back with the proposals so I I think some of the whether it's five people or the expanded the expansion was mirroring CPAC which is bringing in someone to know someone about housing from the Housing Coalition so if housing isn't one of the priorities maybe that doesn't make sense so I just want to say the two pieces of trying to identify areas and why drawing on the report we received and then talk about a process on how the decisions would be made before it comes back to us for funding thanks thank you uh Pat I'm going to ask councelor a to go first and then I'll follow him okay councelor ete I actually think this replacement charge is a better charge because the focus is more limited and what is more limited means there's a greater probability that you could find if it works or it doesn't work one of the things about the previous charge that I had was that I imagined what would the town look like in 5 years if we actually voted yes on that charge and no image came to mind but I think with this particular charge with a more limited scope it's this this room to see what failure or success would look like is it perfect as it is absolutely not I think therefore some of the concerns that have been raised are concerns that if they if this replacement were sent back to go with comments from counselors we could work both in terms of the scope and in terms of the language that is used so my question would be is there a way for this to be sent to go and how what would that look like okay P thank you um I also uh like this expanded charge but I have some questions in my first question is why didn't you reach out to go I think Anna's comment is important particularly after um the frustration some of you felt because um it it wasn't being you know the charge about the safety zones wasn't done in a certain way I find that frustrating um that you didn't come to the committee the but I do I do find much in this that I like uh to me and you know I am a white person so I see I have limits to what I am I can notice um but it it is interesting to me that I don't have a problem with the word Black coming back into the title but it interest it's caused we're we're talking about harms caused by the support of slavery and post reconstruction discrimination by the town I have a question post reconstruction how far does that go forward does it go into the 50s does it where uh housing mortgages were denied to people in am black people in ammer um how what do we mean by that and I think that's an important thing I also feel that I agree with Kathy that and there there does need to be a beginning process and I think modeling it on the CPA model feels okay I would like to see healthc care re be one of the priorities and not youth programming per se but education because that would Encompass youth programming and I see those issues as issues that still today affect people in our community I'm thinking about a close friend who's whose grandmother died because she didn't receive the medical care she needed because the doctor was ignoring her headaches and she died of an anism this was a woman of color so that there is consistent even now discrimination in health care and that feels to me like it needs to be a priority um you know Dr shabaz I have great respect for you and for Michelle and the work that has happened but I also want to say you've set some limits uh you've set some initiatives and I don't have a problem with starting with certain areas when you talk about what happened in Evon we're it's clear they started just with housing and then they changed it as and they expanded it as they discovered from the community what they needed um so I don't have a trouble I don't have trouble setting priorities as long as there is a sense of flexibility about that um it feels incredibly important to me that were Consulting regularly with descendants of a slave um ammer residents and and all members of the black community in Amis because they face regular discrimination um based on the color of their skin we know that we know that and it happens every day in ammer it happens no I'm not going to say some of the stories that I know um so I don't have a problem with creating a beginning a process and also setting areas um I don't get the sense that this is going to die at the end because it says she'll report annually to me that means it's ongoing um I feel strongly that it would be good to expand um this um committee to have members representing committees that f focus on the PRI the initial priority areas uh I'd love to see people from housing I'd like to see somebody from the health department um I think if this is a real priority of the Town people will re come forward um to meet and work on this committee um and I think it is a priority I think it's a really important priority I think that's all of what I have to say right now councelor Ryan my sense in Reading at least some of this is that it may have been motivated by by a desire to protect this from possible legal challenge so some of the the language changes may be connected to that and that might be something that would need further discussion um I appreciate very much the addition of the of harm in the purpose section and I think that's important and I'd like it to stay I do have a question about the word Implement um I think but this this gets into wordsmithing but I do appreciate that aspect of the proposal there obviously are a number of very specific uh proposals made in in the sections providing guidance if you want to call it that or Direction um trying to narrow the the scope um all I think meant in in uh for good purpose but are complicated and I think perhaps the question before us this evening is if the majority of us feel that at least some of that direction providing and narrowing of scope is helpful then this definitely needs to go back to go and needs to be looked at in Greater detail if you don't feel that way then perhaps we should go back to the original charge um but I would feel that that we're certain not going to word Smith this tonight so um if we're going to move forward it would be a decision of whether you feel that this is something that go should look at much more closely obviously we'd be getting comments from everyone as well and I want to Echo something that Kathy said that uh I think others may have alluded to it that we've never really had the conversation that we should have had on the ah report and I for one would um not that we need to add to our agenda but I think that would be a conversation that would be well worth having I'm going to skip over Kathy and go to counselor Lord who's not spoken yet thank you um I want to um amplify or lift up and second um what Anna and counselor Walker said a lot of their points I'm in direct alignment with I also do think it should stay or go back to the five member committee and not adding other people um when we the two years we were on the ah we reached out to experts when we needed it whether it was the Donna Hugh Institute whether it was housing and I'm very confident that the committee members can do that without having somebody be at every meeting um and then yeah I would like to see black get in there as well because then you could have a committee of nobody who's connected or descended to any of that harm um so we had it in our charge I don't know what it would look like but um in terms of some of the residents and oh what was that one more thing I don't know enough about this but I thought we passed a home rule which would then we wouldn't get in trouble for legally having specific funds based on race when I was on the committee I think we came to you and I don't really know how that works legally but I thought that we had done that so that we wouldn't be in legal trouble and there's more to say but I think right now that's where I'm at thank you yeah um I'm going to ask uh Dr shabaz to speak again before I have a comment uh aralar go ahead thank you uh Lynn I I this is a very good point that that holla raises that I wanted to come in on you know um we don't have a home rule um measure passed yet uh not for ammer in particular and not at a Statewide level in my discussions with uh rep Dom and and Senator cumerford and others this is the the Crux of the matter um you know besides the fact that we've kind of got other things in the queue for home rule uh from Amer such as um you know rank Choice voting and and I think something else uh even besides that that issue what the representatives the Senators have raised is why just ammer if we're looking at it on a Statewide level why don't we declare reparations as a public purpose for any community in Massachusetts rather than just starting with ammer you know I I came back with the argument well ammer starts with an A so let's start with amers and then we'll make the case for Statewide well it's kind of gotten tied up there that's part of the discussion at the state level around um the two bills that were in the mix last year that didn't move forward is this is this uh you know and that we look to perhaps move forward this year but until it is declared a public purpose we are restricted in what we can do so why restrict the scope uh uh in answer to councelor fre that's why it's not a good idea to restrict to two three whatever you know areas right now because we don't because we're very Limited in what we can do right now until reparations is declared a public purpose in the way that Community preservation has been declared a public purpose so for example the Goodwin Memorial Church can get money through a CPAC Grant to do electrical work and fix up that historic black treasure in Community from tax dollars because Community preservation historic preservation and Community preservation is a public purpose but we could not do it through the ammer uh reparations committee or amers black reparations because reparations is not yet a public purpose same entity in the community but we can't do it we or rather we'll face legal Challenge from somebody saying that's that's racist you know and you shouldn't do it you shouldn't help you know they could they could go to court take us to court if we did it as a reparatory Justice measure but if we do it as a community preservation measure we're perfectly fine because it's been immunized at the state level that that's a public purpose so I do implore you don't straight jacket this thing right now to two three limited areas because right now we're already straight jacketed by the fact that we have not uh immunized this process yet by getting reparative Justice as a public purpose so that municipalities can make grants to individuals or to groups or to institutions uh uh for that purpose so I just wanted to to to mention that again or bring that out thank you um I'm going to just make one or two comments I don't want to get into the debate I do think there's a possibility that we need to refer this back Anna um but before that I also want to ask um and that is this uh charge has as did the other one has several references in it and I know we don't tend to put links in charges but it seems to me that we should at least put some footnotes here so that people know which documents we're referring to and that there's no debate as to as to those documents having said that I'm I'm not going to get into any of the other comments at this point I'm going to go to Jennifer who has not spoken yet thank you so I was just going to say that I was prepared to vote to approve the charge at the last council meeting is that still um the motion that's on the table is this charge yes okay the motion that is on the table at this point the active one is the amended charge yes um Anna okay uh my notes are in seven different places all right um I at the last meeting when there was a vote to send this back to go I did not vote in the affirmative because it was a vote to refer without specific language suggestions and comments go had discussed it had written a charge had sent it to council um I am comfortable with this getting referred back to go because there are concrete things for us to discuss Beyond just what go brings up with the with the folks that we have in the room um and I want to thank Kathy for forwarding me a memo that she had written last term of the council regarding uh the ah successor body um that was not in the this is like a bigger picture of how we do carryover memos because this was not I had never seen it so it's something that I think we need to figure out how to include feedback like that if an item is being carried over um because otherwise future committees are in this vote so learning opportunity here for all of us uh and Mandy if you also sent comments I didn't receive them so know that that was not an intentional oversight on Go's part we didn't know um George brought up uh questions regarding legal and that is something that go could seek on a committee charge I don't know if that's necessarily uh required in this particular instance as much as it would be if we started to pursue the public purpose route which would be a separate issue altogether um and then I I really do this is something that if this and I'm prepared to move to send this to go um but I would once again strongly recommend that for this iteration of the charge we remove the representatives from other committees once there's a process and this functions more like CPA it makes sense to bring them in but until then I do think it's an overburdening uh of their uh time and it may not always be relevant to them I would like to make sure everyone has a chance to speak um and but folks just know who are lined up to speak that I'm prepared to make a motion to send this to go whenever you'd uh indicate that to me thank you um and I I'll come back to you to make that motion um we now have people who have all spoken so I'll go on to councelor E I think councilor walko had her hand before me um I'm going in the order that the hands appear to me so so in that case I would first of all I think correct um counselor Devin got goer I don't think we had a votes to refer this to Joel We at the last meeting there was a vote to refer it back to Jo there I made the motion and it was and it was defeated It Was Defeated yeah okay yeah I'm old um but hey you got to stand up and be prepared to be shot down but um I I don't think what is being discussed is a straight jacket I think there is a spectrum in which you could have a straight jacket and you could simply be so completely free that anything goes and if we look at the previous charge it speaks of just it it's it's so broad that there's no way to measure what success would be and I think what we could go do is in for one and then expand as the case may be to others as they come I don't think there's anything in the replacement charge that limits that scope in that way so I am in favor of sending this back to go in favor of getting the comments from counselors and the public who will be able to I think enrich what we have as a starting document for something that'll be better councelor Walker um thank you I have a couple of process questions um just because I've never seen this happen in my time engaging with the council is it possible to change a committee charge once a committee is already established yes and is that as simple as proposing like proposing a motion about it and then we just vote on it and then it's changed or is it a different process it it can happen in a couple different ways somebody could bring It Forward uh from the council the committee itself could bring It Forward there have been times when we have asked in fact we try to regularly ask uh the council committees to look at their charges and come forward with proposed changes so it's an option okay and if the thing that we were looking to change was something like the member composition would that pose different difficulties or challenges that's that would be part of changing the charge that could okay um and then I'm also wondering just because I've also only been able to engage with go when they're discussing a resolution that I'm sponsoring because I I don't really have a lot of time to be going to all committee meetings um but if I wanted to engage with this process am I able to attend uh go meeting and participate in a way other than just public comment yes okay um uh there's a way to do it we can always post it as a general meeting or we can always make sure there's not over a quorum of the council there's ways to do it you may I interject as the chair of GI for a moment yes uh Alicia I also would welcome any written comments and I'm happy to sit down with you individually to capture those thank you um thank you Anna yeah I will send in my written comments the only thing and you know this is not for just only this motion but I think lots of things we do is it's hard because I then can't comment on other comments that were sent to you um and so then how do really come to a consensus if the people sending written comments aren't able to communicate um so I think that was my only I thought I had something else but I forget so that's we have to figure out the best way to do that without breaking an open meeting law at any time okay one of the ways is to provide some written comments councelor hanii I also want to go to Michelle Miller who has her hand up I will try to keep this short um Anna I and I believe councelor Steinberg were also people who submitted comments to go before this transition on this matter when go discussed it and I think we had all assumed that go was taking them into consideration in this last round of discussions so please resend sorry about that n you're good um I want to affirm um what councelor Ryan said about an attempt to um or a thinking about potential legal challenges to a charge and why certain words were removed and certain connections were brought forward as Clarity um obviously I don't know what legal challenges might be but it was certainly in part of my discussions with with everyone and in thinking about this draft that potential for legal challenges particularly with regard to recent Supreme Court decisions on um affirmative action and responses to that in terms of referencing particular um racial categories was definitely a consideration in terms of language that was used here um so I just wanted to state that as one of the reasons for removal of things and and but then re-referencing prior actions of the council um at at this point that's all I'm going to say to move this discussion along okay Michelle yeah one of the things that I that I think is important to think about is when we were naming the priority areas we were really thinking about feasibility in the context of reparations not being identified as a public purpose yet so if we take healthc care for example which has come up a couple times in this meeting and I think many of us agree is a really important um priority we thought about well where could tax money in ammer right now go to alleviate the harms related to Black residents and healthc care so if we just think through that question like is it the musanti center is it like where do you put the money in a way that would you know um actually work to to to address the harms that have existed for and and exist up until this day so I just again theory and practice are two different things I think you know we have a lot of theory right now um but when we get into the practice and I think this is why Evanston really they still they continue I just looked at their most recent agenda they've been working on this for two or three years and they're still limited to housing because they have found a way to to really be able to justify taking tax dollars and using it for housing purposes so I think that we may while I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and I think that this charge is something that we are going to get to eventually I just encourage us not to overthink it right now like at this point I think what we need to do is is is is is get in there and start doing the messy work and as as best we can you know what I mean and I think that really thinking about feasibility um with respect to where these dollars can go without there being a named you know that reparations is not named a public purpose right now and so we have to consider while it may seem more like we came up with programmatic or or sort of more General uh priority areas there were reasons for that given uh you know the limitations that we have so thank you okay thank you Anna yes I'd like to REM uh refer the proposed amendments to the charge for the ammer black reparations committee to go is there a second I'll make a second Rea has made the second okay we're now the discussion is only about the referral unless you have additional messages you would like to send to the committee councelor Walker um I just have another process question so we don't have to vote on the amendment itself like the other motion is just completely off the table now because we have a new proposed motion we're we're not everything is now being referred back to go referral means we don't vote on anything else just like the previous thing that we did with the speed zones right so I'm just trying to understand then what happens with what was the proposed motion or charge before does it just disappear or do both go back to go it all goes back to go okay and go will come forward with a proposal to the committee for a charge okay nothing's lost but there's no motion on the table except to refer okay thank you okay all right if the referral fails the motion to amend is back on the table if that fails the original motion would be back on the table correct thank you um are there any other further comments or questions okay this is a motion to refer uh we start with Lyn grimer it's and I councelor haniki hi Bob hegner hi councelor Lord hi Cam roon yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Patty Angeles hi Anna delin gothier hi Council r i thank you it's unanimous and I want to thank all of you for first of all coming forward with a substitute motion which has in led to an enlivened discussion the next motion is not relevant because it was to vote smme status um we're going to now move to discussion of the F of the 2025 Town manager goals and this is Anna okay so uh I'm going to talk through the report that I sent in because I sent it in so late and I apologize for that I'm get I'm getting better I included the members in this report so we're getting there um so one of the things that go is uh was was working on is the process and establishment of the 2025 Town manager goals and we talked about you you introducing the purpose of these goals George would you would you like to do that or would you like all right say something George George wrote something down that he's gonna read and then I'm gonna read what I wrote down so take it away George so we thought it might be helpful just very briefly to um think about why we do this um I think actually this is something setting of The the goals performance goals for the town manager is one of the most important things we do as a body is my personal opinion I don't think it's easy but I think it's important so the committee thought it might be useful just to begin with a brief statement about the reasons behind why the council goes through this yearly exercise so in our discussion at the last meeting um we identified four reasons we thought were most relevant the first is this exercise is crucial on helping the 13 of Us come to some consensus about the council's top priorities for the coming year it focus it forces us to think hard and think collaboratively secondly in providing these uh performance goals these priorities it assists the town manager in allocating limited staff time and resources in support of these priorities he has said on many occasions that this document that we create is a document he shares with all his department heads third it's a public document it's available to everybody spelling out what matters most to us as a body and where we want to focus our Collective energies and efforts I don't believe that I'm the only one who shares this document with constituents when they ask me about the council and what it does we are the policy-making body and this is our key policymaking statement and finally it serves as a historical record of council commitments which can be consulted over time and against which we ourselves For Better or Worse can be measured both in the long and the short term so for those four reasons they're probably others um just to remind us of why we go through this process thank you George so one of the things that I have noticed about the goals that we tend to establish or that we have used for the town manager is that first we establish them in a narrative form but second they're not consistent in the way that they're presented some of them are very actionable and specific some of them are broader directions that we'd like the town manager to go so what I proposed to the committee was a new way of organizing the town manager goals which would allow for increased Clarity of actionable items as well as objectives meaning the direction that we want to go the committee agreed to provide the full council with an update uh and seek your feedback on both the direction we're going and the goal areas as we continue we will discuss this feedback at our next meeting and continue to seek your input on objectives and action items for 2025 in including considerations of items from 2024 to carry over so the way that the the framework works there's a table um in the in the memo that you were provided we would be able to track specific action items and differentiate them from bigger picture object I want to pause for a moment and ask the clerk to put the table up on the screen thank you uh differentiate the action items from bigger picture objectives it also allows us to note whether goals are new carried over from a prior year and if they're in progress or complete lastly it more clearly specifies the number of objectives and action items per goal area allowing the council to set a reasonable number of goals to be accomplished in the coming year like George said the the town manager goals while they're called the town manager goals also reflect the priority areas of the council so the way that this uh the I'm calling it a framework that's just a fancy way to say table right now so it's just a table uh the way it what it includes are the following the first is goal area these should look pretty familiar this includes uh broad topics of both legislative and management goals these have stayed relatively similar year-over-year and are The Umbrellas under which the objectives and action items fall these communicate the areas of priority for the town objective outline the direction of movement the council would like to see within that goal area these are not necessarily tangibly actionable but they provide direction to the council and the town manager and they also serve as those priority priorities and then action items the action item column represents the tangible actions that the town manager is to move on in the coming year or within a longer time frame as noted these should be specific items that can undoubtedly be completed within the given time frame it's possible that for some years an objective may not have a specific action item but it's not necessarily removed as it's still a priority action for the council or the town manager is determining the action item within it on his own and then lastly status the status column allows the council to note whether a goal is new or a carryover from a prior year whether it has been started or not and what uh would also be the appropriate place to note if an item is to be completed in longer than just a year so what I tried to do is give you sort of an example of what this would look like um and the reason why I didn't go further was the way that our our current goals are written half the things that are numbered as action items aren't actionable right um or aren't actionable in a specific way they could be interpreted in four different directions so I tried to pull just in one area I just pulled a couple things over to show you the difference specifically the difference between an objective and an action item so under climate resilience the example that I gave the object the big picture would be to continue to make progress on the council's climate action goals and to prepare the town to be resilient in the face of climate change that's something that is a broad area we had that listed as our objective before uh and then the example of that could be complete the joint Powers entity formation and implementation of the CCA right so and we would note that this was a carryover and Paul eventually would tell us it was complete the other one of the other areas I pulled over um into the objective column was support the development of climate action focused bylaws that's not a tangible when we then go on to specific to specify which Bas we want them to work on so if that's the objective if that's one of the the directions we want to go meaning we want to write more climate action focused bylaws the action item specifically would be prioritize staff time to developing a waste Haller bylaw and priori prioritize staff time to developing a solar bylaw these are all things the council needs to vote on every single thing on this the council should be signing off on at least a majority of us need to agree so these these two examples are not these are in the 2024 goals these were voted on I didn't make these up um but I wanted to to differentiate between an objective and an action item so that when we're going through and evaluating Paul's work we're able to say he made progress towards this objective through doing XYZ that we asked him to do not our interpretations of what that objective means it's not fair that we if we all have different interpretations of an objective and what it looks like to complete it um and then the last thing was that this we Paul was at our go meeting and we discussed this with him one of the things we talked about um I started counting I got to like 36 and then I was called on uh the number of action AC of of numbers the thing the number of things we have here for Paul to do that's a lot um and while Paul is extremely capable and his staff are extremely capable we talked about trying to limit our number of objectives and so we're going to think through go will think through the process by which to do this but what we'd like to get to is no more than three objectives and again an objective is a big picture Vision like what direction do we want to go in the coming year uh no more than three per goal area that's still a lot to be very clear and we still will want to limit the number of action items because action items are different in scope we are not setting an a set number um for of action items at this time but once we get whoa sorry once we get feedback from the council we'll go through and we'll talk with Paul about what is feasible in the year versus how many long-term goals do we want in there so we're trying to bring this a little bit more towards best practices and goal setting but also to get a bit more clarity when we then go back to say what have we done in the past year of the direction for for Paul and the council and the action items for Paul and I'm happy to take comments the other thing that I would like folks to consider and individually send me as go chair feedback on is are these goal areas still what you want to keep as the goal areas I'm not offering my own inter my own opinion on that but that's Step One is are the goal areas still true and again goal areas are not a perspective on where we want to go it's just sing saying these are the umbrellas within the that will have the objectives go folks did I miss anything about our conversation that I should mention that was my monologue I'm happy to take any comments people have about this uh you can you can take the screen down now uh Kathy uh first I like the direction conceptually uh I did just a really quick as you were talking and there are 14 goals although one seemed to be repeated just a line was exactly the same so we need to focus on whether we really have 13 10 distinctive as opposed to some of the goals or a subset of something else sorry Kathy to clarify do you mean goal areas yeah the just the big the First Column you know the very first so racial equity and social justice appears twice so I don't know whether you meant it to that gets probably not that's probably a typo there there are 13 total there are 13 so if you multiply 13 times you're trying to limit it to three we're still at 39 right so so take when you're thinking about what's in them some of them subparts of our goals seem to me to repeat in another goal so when that happens it means they're the goals aren't distinct from each other and I don't know where to group it but just think about what the umbrella is when it's a goal so that's just you know I'm not saying which ones but when I found when Lynn gave us this little exercise of rating and then pieces of it I said I'm finding pieces of a goal in another goal and I'm trying to figure out whether I rate it higher when it appears in this goal than when yes so just you know trying to limit it so I think a limited amount of things that we think are really high level and then your your effort to get it down to something called an action item may be a challenge when you look at some of these goals I'm prepared to take it on you know so just it works better with climate because we had a couple specific things that we were hoping would get done once they're done you're going to have more difficulty populating it so just thinking it through it's not that the goal's wrong it's just the action item may be less clear thank you Kathy and I think that's why that's why the introduction of the objective and limitating to three well on the face of it seems like a lot is so important because if there isn't a tangible if there isn't a tangible action we need to consider why it's in there what purpose is it serving and then is it in fact an objective that we're trying to reach and we need to think about what is the action step towards this and then I think we're going to find we have way more than three I agree with you three is probably too many but we're going to start there uh Pam Bernie thank you um I I like the format I like I like the the idea of creating this kind of framework um the action items I think that we've been talking about are we we've sort of argued back and forth between broad objectives broader objectives and then these action items and I think we were told last time that we didn't want we didn't want very specific little actions because that was too limiting and it sort of filled the airwaves with lots of little stuff so um I think there are always action items that are associated with an objective an objective is um specific it's measur able it's actionable and it's timely so yeah they're going to be a bunch of things that serve that purpose you know that create the The Filling behind the objective um but but again um I'd be I'd be interested in sort of helping sort and plug things in but I like the I like the direction it's going thank you councelor Walker um so I wanted to thank both Anna and George for bringing this forward because I think in my time on the council this is one of the important things that we all take part in but it's hard to actually get meaning or value out of it because of the way that I think we all interpret it differently um and so I think that this helps at least us to align our interpretation um and so basically uh some of the things I'm wondering and I I think you all are still working on these things so I don't expect any answers but just how are we deciding what the three action steps are because I think part although I don't think we would all exactly agree on the broad objectives I think we might agree on the objectives and then not agree on like what are the three action steps that would point us towards what those objectives are and so how are we deciding what those are um and then when we are looking at doing the actual evaluations are we then asking counselors to only take those things into consideration when writing their evaluation or are we allowed to consider things that maybe other counselors didn't think or didn't make it for some reason into the three action steps and how do we plan to account for those things are an eval in our evaluation um sorry excuse me I think those are my main questions but I do think that this is an incredibly important step in the the right direction towards becoming a lot more organized with this process um and so I really appreciate that you all are taking this on um and you might have said this Anna I apologize if I missed it but if there is something you all need from other counselors to help move this along can you please repeat what the ask was there yeah so to repeat the ask right now there will be many other asks to be very clear right now the ask is to look at the 13 I'll send a revised version where there's no typo so sorry um but uh the 133 goal areas and to say are these still the areas that we want to focus on remembering that it's not a direction that we want to go underneath them it's just those are the areas um kind of the priority areas and then really quickly if I can Alicia we will absolutely be coming back to the council with a process for deciding what those action steps are go is not going to be saying this is what we're doing right like this will be 100% built by Council and we will'll have I I'll bring forward a proposal for how to kind of decide on which ones go in the final um version thank you councelor hanii thank you and that's a thank you to Anna and George councelor Ryan full go credit but but everyone I I this is my first year not on go and it's the first year I haven't had to deal with this problem and so I am thrilled that there is progress because I know how hard it is I know um yeah and and it will continue to be hard but but I want to especially appreciate Anna and her bringing her professional experience into this conversation um that many of us don't have that experience with and have been like floundering with how to move forward in many different iterations um I I already see two goal areas that can actually be objectives within other goal areas so I'm hopeful we can get this down to at least 10 if not more lower you know um my one of my concerns is well it's not really a concern but I guess it's more of a question and it goes along with councelor Walker's sort of question which is um not could we only evaluate the manager on the action items that are specifically listed there but how if we don't list an action item because it you know how do we limit them to a reasonable amount to give the manager leeway to do other things and not limit you know not sort of say this is not him end up being this is the only things you work on how do we meet that that balance between us wanting to say we think these are the areas you want to work on but we don't know what he goes through every day um so we don't know what the manager has in his head that and all of the department heads have in their head about what they need to work on to keep the ship running basically and how do we balance that and then how do we evaluate on that or how do we um ensure that we also don't get a response well it's not in an action item and so we're not going to put resources to it midy year what's our plan if that's a response we do get are we then modifying actionary action items and and stuff like that um so that that's just concerns and thoughts that I have immediately thank you uh Jennifer go ahead please um yes sorry I so I think this is a really good format so I I appreciate that I think it's much more workable format that we've had in the past and um I what I want to ask this did we have a special meeting at one point just to address Town manager goals so it wasn't done and will we be doing that we had a retreat yeah we did have but we and then we took the results of that Retreat and then I asked you to rank them again right and then we brought this back to the council and we had one discussion and when we brought it up for other discussions people said nah I don't want to talk about it so Will to put our goals and action items into this format will we do that at the beginning when will we have a special meeting to do that it seems that may certainly be something that go suggests seems like a lot to just to address in a council meeting right um right so I guess just picking up also what Mandy was councelor hanii said is there's all those items that the town manager and the staff does to keep the town running that you only are really aware of when they don't work and they they do work so yeah and then we're really adding on special goals and action items so there does have to be a way we can account for just everything the town staff does all day every day just to keep us afloat so one of the things that I wanted to point out was in fact we did spend a lot lot of time on the six priority areas and so don't lose sight of the fact this has been in your packet at least three times uh in terms of what people have already said were top priority areas um and uh I do want to thank Anna who actually looked at a couple different towns and our municipalities and I believe this was one that came out of some someplace up on the North Shore it's a combo of a couple uh conquered was one of them I can if people want to see my my research I'm happy to share yeah I think I think no one wants to see they trust the fact that you will my guy we've had a request from the audience um okay uh Anna what else do you need to do does everyone understand their homework that I'm giving you and you have a deadline you have a deadline yes you do have a deadline uh your deadline is October 31st you have 10 days because I need to know it in order to create it for the packet for go uh okay yeah so I think Jennifer to to your point about like us discussing our priorities and the goals it's I I to speak for myself only I find it really confusing that they get conflated the way that they do I sort of can understand the logic of it but I don't like it um but that's me and I'm going with what we've done so when we consider that that's that's what I want you all to pay really want us all to pay really close attent attention to the objectives column because that really is the priority Direction like there're the priority areas and then the objectives are where are we going within that um those should be things that and they will be things that are voted on by the council I haven't figured out how we're going to do that yet um I'm I'm wondering if I can Implement ring Choice voting within the council but uh well I'm Athena's not going to look up past her like she's like no Anna stop uh but um yeah we're going to figure that out but just so you know that is the kind of the objectives column is really where that priori prioritization of um where the council wants to go as well would be and yes not losing sight of all of the other pieces of their jobs was a big piece of this because if this isn't just about the Strategic Direction this is also the evaluation tool for the town manager and he should get good marks for keeping the town afloat right so and that is reflected in some of the management goal areas and so the but I think clearly articulating that as the objective is is really important as we continue okay any other comments or questions all right uh we've done appointments um so we're up to Committee in liaison reports CRC thank you uh the CRC met on October 8 and reviewed section 1703 of the bylaw that we received from the solar bylaw working group um and that was on definitions and we also started to walk through all of the staff comments so staff um pulled together and provided comments to one one member and those me those comments were Consolidated I do want to note that we have no meeting on November 5 um we were looking at that as a public hearing date and councelor hanii made a very good point that there's going to be no public watching our public hearing so um it's going to be on the 12 I wonder why the public public meeting the public hearing excuse me on University Drive will be held on November 12th and I think we've reported that previously that's it thank you little bit of humor there uh Elementary School building committee Kathy uh we didn't meet last Friday we are meeting this Friday and uh I don't know what Paul has in his report but we haven't finalized the bids on the school so wanted that we we've run into some bid issues so we haven't actually had a discussion of that at the committee level okay I think when we come to the town manager's report we'll ask him to talk about that okay that would be great excellent finance committee Bob hegner yes um Lynn and I met with the town manager and the finance director on October 9th to lay out the work plan for the finance committee um assuming that we get uh a whole bunch of new information um from the town manager on November uh 4th so um anyway uh the point is that we have a work plan uh scheduled out for the first three weeks of November and uh it's going to be pretty intense um um so um we haven't really met and we're not going to meet until until though that time so more to come councelor hanii you have a hand up um could I request that if you've actually picked meeting dates since I know there was a potential for changing of meetings and adding of meetings Could you actually send those dates and times to the committee members so that we can get them on our calendar CU right now I still just have the two Tuesday meetings in November on my calendar which I don't think are happening right well I haven't I haven't nailed down a couple of the members so I will do that tomorrow make sure that so I I think that's a plea to members to be responsive to whatever email Bob has sent out or Athena about meeting dates for finance committee okay um Anna go so talked a lot already but uh the only other thing we have not talked about is is that go is uh working on the other carryover one of the other carryover items that we have which was the legislative process guide um and I included an update on that in the written report uh but we are currently working on making a making a document pulled from that guide that will serve as a reference document it will not be something that is part of the rule as as it currently stands it will not be something that's written into the rules of the proposed as a rule change for the council uh more something people can use if they would like to thank you uh Jones Library committee Pam yes uh Jones Library excuse me Jones Library meeting was the day after the CRC meeting and it was a meeting not necessarily for the Jones Library building committee but it was the it was the Forum in which uh the beginning of the section historic preservation historic historic preservation section 106 uh began and there were there were um presentations five minute five minute presentations to the organizers of the committee or the review to um Express their concerns issues opportunities support whatever they each group wanted to bring to the table and uh there was a bit of time for public comment um but it was pretty much limited to what the um what the the parties who have signed up to be Consulting parties and it was sort of their opportunity to speak okay that Paul did you have anything you wanted to add to that okay uh Tso Andy well TSO U looking forward because you had the report about what we've done recently uh and it reflects the the goals going forward too I think that the there now five items that we're working on um one that's a very high priority for us uh is the intersection um suggestions for Southeast Street from Main to college streets in other words the area in front of the uh new Elementary School in the current Fort River School and uh we have uh um a goal and hopefully that by November we will have a response to questions that have been raised by counselors and others and uh that will be uh that compendium is going to go into the packet for Thursday's meeting that we have scheduled for Tso and TSO will then decide whether to adopt them as uh or whether they want to make any changes um and uh the packet will probably be available tomorrow and uh so you anybody who's interested can look uh the other one that is a high priority for our work right now is the transportation and parking commission charge and that's going to be the principle goal of our meeting on Thursday this week uh we're going to take um as many of the issues as um can be addressed and discussed um that were in uh councilor Ryan's memo to the committee which has been shared um also um so that's uh what I think a principal goal is of the meeting um the other two are the wasti huler program and at this point we're um sort of in a holding Zone uh because we're waiting for the town manager to come back with us presumably sometime in November um but it will quickly come to the council um and probably um needs the attention of the finance committee because it's a question of how to fund the consultant that we requested as a council so that um is uh kind of just in a parking lot for a very short period of time but we expect that sometime in November to us and of course the put on the agenda for Thursday's meeting um I put on the agenda for Thursday's meeting uh the that topic on an if referred basis so that um it it U we do have the opportunity to begin the discussion this Thursday I uh um and I think that um we have pretty good guidance out of today's discussion is to how to proceed with that and how to proceed with that um expeditiously and uh not let us bog down so we are um aware we have four meetings scheduled for the remainder of the year including two in November into December and uh we're trying to um Place those uh items within logical places within the agendas and we will continue to report on our our agenda's going forward and on our uh progress as we move forward thank you um Le's on reports seeing none we have no minutes uh Town managers there's no written reports but Paul there's a couple things you might want to comment on yes so there are a few things one I sent the um Council my self- evaluation for the performance uh for for 2024 um and so it's very long it I think that really reflects the kind of the amount of work that our staff has been doing the um as as Bob said this November is going to be very heavy on finances you're going to have a lot of appropriations recisions of borrowing items um presentations on financial indicators capital projects so think of November Well Finance has had a bit of a breather in October finance and uh the council will be very heavy on finances during the month of November and just welcome your time thinking about those things the um election is going to be on Tuesday we're prepared for that really well organized by the town clerk's office early voting has begun um I was here at noon on Saturday and they had already had 100 people vote in the first three hours of the morning which is how many people voted all early voting last time they had early voting so there's a lot of interest obviously it's a presidential election but um there's no excuse for people not to be able to vote there's you can vote early you can vote on the day and you mail in your ballot and as Kathy said with the school um bid um we I think we've talked about previously that we had received three bids for the project all were below the budgeted amount a company called CTA construction managers of walam submitted the lowest bid at $ 73.4 million the other two biders range from the 73. 48 million to 75.6 million so it's in a relatively tight range we've the execution of the contract has been put on hold pending resolution of bid protest filed by two construction industry organizations and one of the other biders and they assert that the CTA construction managers is not eligible to be awarded the contract for the project so bid protests are common on large Complex public projects and can often be resolved with the involvement of the Attorney General's office and that's where this bid uh is right now that the Attorney General's office will conduct a hearing next week to review the bid protest and issue an opinion as to whether CTA construction managers is eligible to be awarded the contract for the construction of the new school or not we have not signed signed any contracts uh with any of the venders so that's is where it is there's another opportunity if the AG doesn't resolve it to anyone's satisfaction they can also go into court and seek uh remedy there so you know we're unhappy that this is being delayed because we're in a relatively tight time frame where we need to get the school open in the fall of uh and two years from now and this is putting us this is we can't lose the time this early in the process and we've trying to convey that to the attorney general as well to expedite the hearing and uh the resolution of this thank you uh Pam you have your hand up um can you tell us if the bid the bids will hold for to cover this entire period yes we requested all the biders to give us in another 30 days um to hold their bids for an additional 30 days uh councelor hanii thank you thank you for that update um I had heard that sub bids were in for the library project could you speak to that sure so sub bids are the uh when you go out to bid for a big project you do you do SUB bids which is um like the specialty like the electrical contract Plumbing um HVAC elevator things like that so the way it works is you bid out those Specialties first and then a general contractor comes in and they bid the general project those bids came the subcontractor work which is the bulk of the work came in about $2 million below where they were last time we went out to bid so that's good news um in terms of where where the industry seems to be headed we will see what happens with the general bids those those bids are due I think October 31st and then and we use a system called bid bid doc so it all it's all electronic it comes in it's instantly knowable so we'll know what the numbers are again these bit Awards can be complex and the Contracting can be complex um but uh hopefully uh that gets done expeditiously as well we want these projects to move forward are there any other questions of the Town manager okay uh moving on uh I submitted a president's report it was sent to you on Sat on Sunday I guess and then I submitted an addendum and are there any questions uh then let me just mention a couple quick things and and also future agenda items we have a visit of six students and three chaperons from kanasaki our sister city we will be meeting in this room at 4 o'l on I'll be sending you a full schedule when you might like to participate I have mentioned already that we'll be meeting in this room at 4 o' on Thursday October 31st Halloween um at which point we will begin with kind of a ceremonial beginning if you will of the visit the students and the chaperons will have arrived sometime right around lunch and have spent most of the afternoon on the am on the Amis college campus uh and then um they will be spending most of Friday in the schools uh yeah Friday in the schools they will stay with our host families uh and then Saturday doing activities either together or again with our host families and we'll conclude with a um opportunity to partake of UMass dining uh by going to one of the cafeterias and ending with a dinner that people will go get their dining and then be in a uh room uh off of one of the dining Halls on Saturday before they leave uh and so both of our higher ed Institution have graciously stepped forward as um participating with us as hosts for these um people that are coming I'll be sending you more detail on that with regard to uh the next meeting Paul has already mentioned uh the financial nature of the month of November um the we will begin at six o'clock with a financial indicators um and that includes both the school committee and the um um Jones Library Board of Trustees and then we'll move on to a variety of uh appropriation and transfer recommendations I also count along with the fact that you've received the town manager self- evaluation uh today um you also received from me a email which includes the evaluation form that you use as counselors for some of you this is the first time and so if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be glad to by Zoom go over the format Etc um I'm also glad to do it in a meeting in addition to that as of tomorrow morning emails will go out to all committee members commission members board members um the uh public will be notified and um there's a uh various electronic means and website notifications of that and the staff will be the we reach out to the staff through the Human Resources Director uh all of those in inputs are due back to us no later than October 31st at midnight and then we get we provide that to you as fast as we can and your evaluations are back due to me and I have to just say I've trimmed as much time off this as I can I do not have time after Wednesday November 13th at 4 o'cl to chase you down I need you to really turn in your stuff on time because I have a huge writing project that I have to then do um so that's that Mandy Joe did you have a question on this particular area no I wanted to I okay I I wanted to add an additional comment on that area for those that have never done this before please go ahead it takes a ton of time much more time than you may think it will take to complete that document so I I just wanted to give a heads up that you might plan for more time than you think you need and then plan for more on top of that well and and one of the reasons I sent it out today along with the town manager's self-evaluation is even though you don't have feedback from staff committees or the public you can get started and starting means reading and starting in and so forth um I sharp and brief comments are welcome uh longevity is fine but then I have to readed through it uh so that's that Pam did you have a comment on the evaluation yeah um I looked a couple of times in our packet for that information I didn't see it um so I'm not necessarily looking in my emails for that kind of thing can they also be placed in the packet the okay the Town manager valuation self self evaluation was placed in the packet tonight and it was sent to you it was right before the meeting and it was sent to I then forwarded to all of you just about six o'clock or so tonight it came in by email too Pam by email addition to that I sent you an email earlier today sometime I believe this morning with the evaluation form don't worry you'll be getting lots of reminders okay got it and if and I'll send another one tomorrow um I several of you mentioned tonight that we have never had a real conversation about the ahra priorities and part of me is I I understand that and I feel frustrated with that as well part of me doesn't know how to frame that convers ation for this Council and one of the reasons why I think we've gone back to the idea that the um um to be formed committee would spend some time looking at the recommendations and the feasibility of is because that's part of the conversation that we need to have to have and that is what is really feasible under the constrictions of the law under the constrictions of how much money we have and all of that is wrapped up in who is the target audience in the charge so if anybody has a wonderful idea on how to engage the conversation with the council about the ahra priorities and report I am more than open to having that conversation it's not that I haven't tried to figure out how to do it it's just I haven't come up with a solution on how to do it that it wouldn't be a several hourong meeting um so with that are there any other counselor comments or recommend or questions or priorities for the agenda future agendas okay then um I'm going to make a motion to adjourn and seek a second second second oh everybody's always eager to Second the motion's been made and seconded we'll move to a vote um and the vote we start with councelor hanii hi Bob hegner yes councelor Lord hi pamon yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Pat Angeles hi Anna delin hi counc I Lynn grimer is an i and it's unanimous the meeting is adjourned it is 1018