the uh tape we are recording okay um good evening it's March 27th 2024 and this is a special meeting of the Town Council in fact it is a retreat however because we are meeting as a body we have to have this as an open meeting but we are allowed to do that by not having Quorum physically present and this particular meeting is accessible by real time via zoom and by phone and um we will continue given that we have a quorum in the Council present I'm calling the March 27 2024 special Town Council to meeting to order at 6:14 I apologize for the delay but frankly we decided that some of us wanted to eat some dinner and we didn't want to do that in front of an audience um I'll call upon each counselor by name they have the name they have indicated they would like to be addressed at that time please unmute your mic and let us know that you are PR present um and then remember to mute your mic again Patti Angeles present honor devil and Goth present um I'm sorry I was distracting councelor ET is we're still waiting him he's on his way Lynn grimer is present councelor hanaki present uh Bob hegner present councelor Lord present Pam Rooney here councelor Ryan present Kathy Shane here Andy Steinberg present Jennifer to present councelor Walker present thank you there's no chat room for this meeting and if you have technical issues make sure we know and if we have to we'll disrupt the meeting um and or and discussion may be suspended uh given that this is a special meeting of the Town Council for the purposes of retreat there is no public comment period um we do not have any announcements but I'm going to suggest that we pause briefly um while until counselor ete gets here I'm not sure he will he will get here that quickly okay then I'm going to ask an Athena who is going to do a opening exercise with us thanks for indulging me in doing this I um I really like these opening exercises because it gives us a chance to pause and sort of enter the room fully um and I thought it would be appropriate to begin with this poem I'm going to give you a a very bite-size version of um a little introduction to what's called Council practice it's a an ancient practice that was I mean you can think about people gathered around a fire as being the original form of council practice um and it has been practiced in um First Nation peoples and continues to be practiced all over the world today notably um in the California prison system in maximum security prisons with men serving life sentences and those practices included victims incarc ated people and those working in the criminal justice system it's been transformative in schools nonprofit organizations hospitals law enforcement agencies uh faith-based communities and jails so the essence of council practice is to just listen fully to each other speak from the heart be spontaneous and let things arise and be lean of speech and consideration for how much time we have considering that we started the meeting um a little bit late I'm going to ask us to move kind of quickly through this exercise and it's going to be very brief so this is really just to get us thinking about listening to each other and taking time to fully listen to each other I think when we have these meetings on Zoom there's a strong tendency to raise your hand before the person who's speaking has even finished speaking which indicates to me that you know you can't listen to someone and think of your own next words that the same time and so um I'd like to take a moment to really slow down and think about what listening means so um giving yourselves a chance to reflect on these questions like to go around and um if you can be lean of speech um and listen from the heart to each other speak from the heart about what is touching you with these words speak spontaneously you don't have to rehearse what you're going to say and whoever is moved to speak first please go ahead you can raise your hand when a thought arises the person in my life one of them who is an excellent listener is Willie Meyer I met him in prison um at in prison in Connecticut um where I was going to participate in an alternative to violence project uh he was one of the inmates and was one of the facilitators um you share personal things in these workshops and I talk I'm trying to be lean um I talked about some of my growing up which was violent and ways that I felt like it marked me and Willie heard me worldwide will was his acronym he heard me at such a deep level um that I was stunned during the break when he spoke with me and eventually I became one of the facilitators because of his willingness to really listen thank you for sharing that councelor Lord I have a a friend I'm not going to name her name but um who is a very excellent listener um I know because she looks at me her phone can go off and her head does not turn and I tend to pause I need to think and take time and a lot of other people jump right in with a response and she gives me all the time I need I think those three things really tell me and then um she really hears me even deeper than my words sometimes because I use them to not express a harm or a pain or a struggle and um because she takes the time to really listen she can uh excavate those things thank you Anna uh I have a friend who recognizes that sometimes my brain goes faster than my mouth and when I'm speaking or when I need her support she's able to recognize my intention as well as my direct words um and she can push back in a way that sees that um and that's something I deeply value is it's not just a kind of tcid agreement there's uh she demonstrates understanding by sometimes challenging or asking questions that show she was paying attention even when I am not lean uh and I have been going around in Les for 5 minutes um and she pauses or stops me and I think that for me personally is something that is really helpful for the way that my brain engages in conversation thank you counselor Walker I'm recognizing that you're on Zoom is there something you'd like to share you don't have to yeah thank you um I'm thinking of my sister um who is an excellent listener and I feel like uh part of it is because she really knows me very well um and has known me for obviously my entire life um and so I think a lot of the times when I'm talking to her um she can dissect what I'm saying as as it reflects deeper in just the moment but as it relates to my past into things that we've experienced before um and something that I really love about talking to my sister is that she usually sort of lets me go first cuz I will go and go and go and then she says um what do you want from me do you just want me to listen do you want me to give you advice do you like how do you want me to answer this and I really appreciate that from her because sometimes I don't want someone to say anything I just want someone to listen and sometimes I need guidance and that's what I need but allowing me to choose that um is something that feel that makes me feel really heard um and it also makes me feel really understood because sometimes I go into things without saying what it is that I need or want as an outcome um and so again it's just like she makes me take the time to think about what it is that I'm really saying and what it is that I really need in that moment and that's really um special to me thank you Paul and Dave I'm also recognizing that you're in our Circle if there's anything you'd like to share or if anything else anyone else would like to share something Lynn so one of the people that I have always seen as an excellent listener is a former colleague at the University of Massachusetts and one of the reasons I would know he was listening was because he would ask me to think about something in a different way by asking questions and I never completely realized the value of that until um I was actually doing a case study at the Kennedy School and it was because somebody dared to ask questions differently that our nation was actually prevented from being affected by swine flow so thank you counselor Ryan I have a good friend uh we don't do this often but we will go for long walks on the bike path and um we just talked for about hour or so trying not to get run over by cyclists and roller players um like Anna I know he's listening because he asked some good questions um um is someone that um very helpful for me so I'm due for another walk on the bike path thank you all for sharing and for taking the time to think about this I'm G to leave you with a quote by Marshall Rosenberg who is an American psychologist who helped develop non-violent communication and I invite you to bring what you recognize in other people who are good listeners into the meeting tonight okay thank you um counselor at are you connected yet no okay take your time but why don't you just push your mic and say present and that way we know you're here present thank you and if if you would like to catch up and have some dinner just stay off video okay um so uh the next agenda item I would like us to spend 20 minutes max if possible um it's agenda item called meeting management and it's intentionally broad there are many issues the counselors might want to bring up uh but among them I hope we will focus on the last few meetings of the Town Council when we were confronted with a whole series of challenges to Our obligation to ensure a Peaceable and orderly process we regularly anticipate that public comment section of the meeting might be challenging and have part have put in place clear procedures to ensure that members of the public can express their opinions without interruption or contention in my view this has worked reasonably well except for offensive public comments like we had last week or two weeks ago and some audience responses following comments that take away from other speakers time at one of our recent meetings when it came time for counselors to do their work this to do our work the situation deteriorated and what should have been an orderly discussion of difficult choices facing the council became a confused and chaotic scene I have already made some adjustments in my own meeting management but look forward to making more they include asking people if they need a reading period if particularly if something has been added into the packet at the last minute calling for a recess when people could not hear and seeking a motion and a vote to adjourn I've heard many concerns expressed by members of the council and the public about how the council will ensure this scenario is not repeated it is a matter it is not a matter of the Public's interest versus the council's interest if the council cannot carry out its responsibilities in a thoughtful and deliberate way then the public cannot be served so as you might imagine Athena and I and others have discussed this at length and so we want to begin this discussion with some clarification about how the council can utilize and um our rules rules and our procedures during meetings so Athena is going to start out by addressing Peaceable and offensive public comments so what the rules don't include is really what to do in each scenario because there are so many scenarios that can come up and the rules don't say if this happens then here's what we do there are motions you can make and there's rules about what people should and shouldn't do at meetings but it doesn't say if this happens then here's what we all do and so I'd like to clarify some of those ways that you can address these situations according to our rules according to the council's rules so in rule six code of conduct There are rules about counselor's code of conduct in 61a and audience code of conduct and 62c and both of them refer to being um order behaving in orderly procedure um and not being disruptive during the meeting both of them say that if the um presiding officer finds that the meeting is being disrupted that a recess can be called if any counselor finds that the meeting is being disruptive disruptive they can request the president call a recess or they can make a motion to recess um I'll get later on we'll come back to what to do if you can't hear but I think there were certainly counselors at the meeting um earlier this month who couldn't hear what was going on I know Lynn couldn't hear what I was saying and so on so there's a motion in the rules 7.1 that says raise a question of privilege and the rules don't really explain what that means but a question of privilege is there's so much noise in this room that I can't hear what people are saying or you could raise a point of order that you can't hear what's going on or you don't know the motion on the table or you don't know if what what's happening in the meeting um and counselors can raise that as an issue to help the president manage the meeting at that time um to address some of the offensive public comments go took this up very recently because um we had the Supreme Judicial Court reading about the south buau case um and so there was some conversation at go about public comment but it I don't think the committee really got into um First Amendment rights as in depth as what we've been dealing with now um and first I'm going to say something that was said originally by Abraham Lincoln um referring to the First Amendment nothing but the very sternest necessity can ever justify abridging the Liberties of the people a government had better go to the Very extreme of Toleration than to do a that could be conru as an interference with or jeopardize in any degree the common rights of its citizens the courts have been very protective of freedom of speech which includes hate speech there are only certain certain categories of speech that the First Amendment does not protect which include fighting words true threats harassment and incitement of imminent Lawless action calling an individual commenter a derogatory term particularly if that comment threatens violence or harm against them can be regulated as hate speech violent words directed to an individual or their family can be regulated as hate speech and inciting violence what can't be regulated is uh commenting about people as a group and so it's very difficult to regulate the content of speech without getting into issues of First Amendment rights maintaining a neutral dispassionate tone and expression and treating each speaker equally will discourage attacks at meetings and will help protect the council from legal challenges claiming an infringement of constitutional rights um there was a lower Court ruling about regulating the content of speech in terms of matters within the jurisdiction of the body and because that was a lower Court ruling which allowed a body to restrict comments only to matters within its jurisdiction as a way to manage its meetings um that hasn't been challenged to a higher court and so my advice to the council president and other chairs has been to restrict merely the time place and manner so if someone is not shouting out during a meeting that can't um and they're just taking their two or three minute public comment period I've said they get their two or three public comment period that's how they exercise their freedom of speech and that's really the most regulation that we can do without being challenged so one of the other things and I did mention this earlier and that is that on a periodic basis new material is introduced at the meeting and what we really want to do is encourage people if the person who is presiding doesn't suggest it to just say I need a reading period or can we recess while I read these materials so that people don't feel that they haven't had time to absorb the materials Athena um I've already touched on uh what counselors can do uh if they can't hear during the meeting or if there's something else that's disrupting the meeting that the chair isn't addressing um and I just want to highlight the fact that it's the 13 of you who are participating in this together and if you feel that the council president or the chair of the meeting isn't uh paying attention to the issue that's going on then the the other 12 of you can raise a point of order or a point of personal privilege to address that issue um the next thing Lynn had asked me to speak about was the best way to consider par parliamentary questions during a meeting and in conversations with Lyn and other chairs um several times I I've advised that we slow down a little bit because at meetings sometimes it can feel like an emergency to make a decision and to figure out what we do next and sometimes we just need one minute or we just need 45 seconds to think about what to do next or confer with someone to figure out what's going on before we take a Next Step so my advice in any question of parliamentary procedure or in terms of following the council's rules or anything else that we're unsure of in a meeting is to take a brief pause and collect ourselves and answer a question before we move on so I see several hands and we'll move to that in a moment um I recognize that the responsibility for an orderly and thoughtful process ultimately resides not just with a person presiding but with the whole body are there other thoughts that you would like to offer offered to me as the presiding officer of the council or to chairs and to the council at large regarding the conduct of our meetings please feel free to do so now or in the future proposed rule changes should come as proposals to the council so I'm going to go ahead and call on George Ryan I see it as two separate I see it as two separate issues um the first has to do with obvious hate speech which is what we encountered the last meeting it's not addressed to anything we're doing it's it's just hate speech and I wonder if we're just too afraid of being sued to Simply say that that kind of speech is just not acceptable um so that's the first thing it's just you know people get angry upset I mean I looked at the Southboro case I'm sure many of you did as well it seemed to me pretty much a no-brainer um and the Court ruled correctly but I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that if someone comes and just starts uttering hateful words that's somehow an exercise of their First Amendment freedom it seems like content has to be I mean there has to be something they're trying to address to what we're doing and what's in front of us as a matter and clearly that's not what was happening at least in one or two cases the last time what if somebody comes and wants to just utter pornographic words because they get off on that sort of thing is that we just sit there for two minutes while that happens I realize this is difficult I guess I struggle with the idea that somehow because the lawyers have said there's nothing we can do and we just sit back and I wonder if we just didn't don't invite a suit I mean what's wrong with being sued I'd like to see a Southboro like decision by the Supreme Judicial Court where they quote the words of the person who right they did it in the Southboro case and we all read it and we thought yeah they're right the the presiding officer was out of bounds their rules were way too extreme it made sense I'd like to see a similar case where someone does what would happen to us two weeks ago and put the words in there decision then I'd like to see that if they're willing to do that fine anyway that's one the other is what happened to us in other words there's the issue what happens when people come and do and speak hateful ways and how do we deal with that then there's the issue of what we do when a meeting is out of control we actually did recess took a while but we recessed then we came back and it was still out of control and we never adjourned so I need to hear from my colleagues whether they share my sense that we should have adjourned that meeting was out of control we needed as Northampton council did we needed to stop come back and do it in a manner where we could hear each other and talk to each other but we didn't we went ahead we had votes we made a decision so if people think that's okay they need to say so I think think that it was very much not okay I was upset by it then I upset by now so I need to hear from you because I've spoken enough on so I'm going to be lean and stop but it seems two issues one is what happens when people do hateful or say hateful things to us how do we deal with that the other is what do we do about our own behavior when the meeting is out of control P Marone I wanted to react to the uh the comment about we could always have a reading period if something is is has been presented to us um that's that's an alternative I think but um in in a setting where there's a great deal of emotion and engaged in the in the process seeing something for the very first time in in the face of great emotion I think it puts everyone at an unfair advantage and I don't think we should ever be discussing something that we had never seen before there was no hard copy for us to look at um I I didn't see it until it was you know part of the words were being read or um it just was not it put us in a really bad spot to be reacting to um what was being presented and I think it puts it put it puts us in a bad light but it also um um it doesn't allow us to do our best work and I think we could have we could have responded in different manners had we digested what was being presented okay uh Bob hegner I'm going I was going to bring up a separate issue so I'll just pass for now okay Andy yeah I glad I'm following what bam just um said because uh what um I found very difficult about the beginning of that meeting and I think haunted throughout the meeting was that uh changes were made to the motion before the motion was offered but we didn't have the mo so we didn't have the motion that we were going to be um dealing with and uh that's unusual for us um as a council we um I can't recall an occasion where a motion has been so sign significantly changed U between what was posted and what we then were discussing which then put me in an awkward position because I had um prepared a Redline version showing Ban's editions to a motion that I expected to be coming forward which was not the motion that came forward so I was in a very strange position of trying to uh explain motions and pieces that were um really needed to be looked at as a whole to and judged as a whole to understand so I think that there were just sort of problems that right from the beginning and um I um I think it was uh a variety of reasons that that happened um obviously there were some members of the audience who were uh very engaged in a disruptive way there were um some uh there was confusion for the reasons that I have just stated and uh there was a uh lack of uh ability to really focus on the discussion of what uh was uh the the we couldn't discuss the motion on the floor as noted because we didn't have the motion on the floor so there were uh it was uh whole lot of different problems that um came about um and um I gonna conclude by uh say reflecting on what I heard about how North Hampton handled a similar situation over the same issue at its council meeting um and it adjourned the council meeting without making a decision and reconvened after 48 hours notice on zoom and uh it was able then to have an more orderly conversation and to actually reach a result that belonged to the council um and I just don't think that we were there um it was not we didn't end up we did end up with a motion um and uh it is what was voted and I accept that but uh I think that the process really was problematic and uh I'm not convinced that the motion would have been the same had we been in this room it with the technology that's available to us in this room and had been able to proceed in our normal course of business councelor hanii a couple of things um amendments are part of our job amendments night of or part of our job to suggest that we should never discuss something that we have never seen before um potentially means we should never amend anything or we should delay every time there's an amendment on the floor um I can't agree with that we have had substitute motions presented by Kathy Shane in the past 5 years that are completely different from what's on the floor uh that we've had to deal deal with night of to say that what happened on that night was unique is not the case it's selective memory in my mind of what this Council over five years has done at meetings um during motions um I think when a motion is potentially a motion to amend or a motion is a potential surprise taking time and a recess to get it on everyone's screen so everyone can read is the right thing to do not to to take the time and if it's still there then there are methods within our rules that can be used to need more time um we could also potentially take advantage of court dicta in Prior cases that has indicated that if opinions are posted to the public first that they can be put in the packet and distributed to all council members we've never really taken advantage of that I know Kathy has pushed us to do so with memos she's written and all um our Clerk and our president had every motion that counselors wanted to make before that meeting but did not put it out to all the counselors or many of the Motions because they asked for them if they had been put in the packet by a certain deadline all counselors could have had that and court dicta has indic at that that might not have likely does not violate open meeting law and can be done so we can rethink our procedures as to George's two issues we're government body and the first amendment is Broad it's very distasteful to have to sit and listen to that but we need to because if we start regulating some speech what where does it stop do you have not have to listen to what you don't want to hear even if it's not hate speech what is deemed hate speech different people believe different things on what hate speech is I think there are other ways that we could con consider dealing with it um if it continues to happen and if that type of what I believe is non-resident speaking continues to happen there are other ways to deal with that removing Zoom public comments not necessarily ideal I'm not arguing for it but it's something to consider if it keeps happening pre-registration like is required in Cambridge or Somerville serious pre-registration like by 5:00 pm web forms pre-registration is potential you know there are other ways to deal with it and as for your other um um counselor Ryan your other question the recess is what we should have done another recess on that night not a journ and tried to get it under control through Tak taking breaks George I'm sorry Robert Bob do you want to come back to you or should I go on to Anna no you can you can move on Anna so to Pam and Andy's point and well addressing Pam and Andy's point but I think echoing what Mandy just said what councelor hanii just said we have always had the ability to make edits and make amendments I'm curious about exploring the idea of specifying a limit on edits but I'm really even uncomfortable saying that because then it is limiting our ability to do our jobs um in the instance we that that's being discussed we did have the uh the motion in the original text and Andy like you said folks brought amendments I think to say that the sponsors can't bring amendments to their own resolution or Proclamation is now privileging non-sponsors of Any Given Proclamation or resolution because to your point Andy I hadn't seen your redlined version how is that any different than the sponsors bringing amendments um not allowing them that privilege as a counselor I think would be inappropriate we can't send them ahead of well Mandy's got some fancy new thing but until tonight my understanding was we can't send them ahead of time without violating open meeting law printing them out ahead of time and distributing them to the council would have also been a violation I we need to have the ability to make amendments and I prefer those amendments to be thought out ahead of time um and then able to be discussed as we do um George I think the I like the idea of saying we're not scared of a lawsuit we're going to stand up for what's right my concern is that we'd be the next Southboro but worse and that's something we really didn't want to have happen would suddenly become protected I'm not saying that is the reality but I think that's my concern with it right is is that if we did it it would go all the way through those courts just like Southboro did and then become another thing that we can't regulate in any way and get and get worse um one of the things that I am curious about is if there's a way to work uh with our state delegation or with other folks to look at open meeting law and what open meeting law says about public comment to see and and Public Access and uh consider how there might be more protections against hate speech in that way without violating the First Amendment it's a vague thought but open meeting law governs a lot of what we do and does talk about public engagement and public comment so I'm curious about uh that as an Avenue as well I'm done thank you uh Jennifer um yeah I I was the only um counselor that was remote so I wasn't in the room so I feel like I did have a different experience than everyone else I mean I was sort of more looking in from the outside seemed to me that we the where things went off the rails is that the well there was a respon reaction from the audience and I think from the spon council sponsors that there was resistance to the council making any amendments so that's so just the fact that amendments were made and that then ultimately they were voted on that that wasn't again that that that's when things I think the audience became angry um and when so I had a a resident um at a district meeting raised the question and then he wrote again today because I guess he had gone to look at the rules of procedure and the first recess what the what are the sponsors asked for the recess and when the came back from the recess indicating that the council sponsors if the Amendments I guess the Amendments have been voted at that point I can't that they no longer wanted to be sponsors and is it true that uh rules of procedure 8.8 say that if the sponsors are going to take their names off that has to be on the agenda so I just wonder if there's different points at which we you know because it we were we're on I guess new territory um that we our rules of procedure might have directed us to go in different directions but we you know didn't go back and look at them Athena do you want to speak to that Council rules 8.8 State at the request of any sponsor or sponsors of a measure a measure shall be withdrawn from consideration and the council and in all Council committees to which the matter has been referred provided the withdrawal is on the agenda of a council meeting no V shall be required however if at that meeting sponsors of the measure do not unanimously agree to withdraw a matter the matter shall not be withdrawn at that time upon request any counselor shall have their individual sponsorship removed or added the rules don't address this specific situation in my opinion and if the president had asked me at that time I would have said if the if a counselor calls a point of order and states that the motion that is being considered and or is being voted on is out of order then the president could have ruled whether the motion to adopt the resolution was in or out of order or to amend the resolution was in or out of order and the council if they disagreed with that ruling could have o voted to overturn the president's ruling does that make sense so it is a question that's not clearly defined in the rules so the council gets to decide nobody raised a point of order at that time that the motion that was on the floor was out of order it was stated that it was out of order or that one counselor thought that it was out of order but if a counselor raised that as a point of order the motion that's being voted on is not in order because there's not a sponsor then the president would have add an opportunity to rule on that point of order and if there were a counselor who disagreed with that ruling then a vote could be taken by the Council on whether or not the motion on the floor was in order I know that I'm repeating a lot of the same words again and again and so that can sound like a spiral and I apologize for that but I'm happy to answer questions if that's not clear Kathy I also want to just point out that we are at almost 30 minutes now okay I'll be really quick Mandy brought up an instance who knows whether it was our first year our second year where I had literally a substitute Amendment and since I wasn't allowed for the whole thing um a whole different list it threw one out and I wasn't allowed to give it to any counts and one in the council before I came but we it was substantive enough uh one counselor and everyone agreed we needed 10 minutes to read it and so it showed up on the screen everyone had it in their hands so I think um and I'm talking about not a motion but actually a Subs piece so as opposed to the motion so in this case if we had had that time people could have crossmatched um things that they had scratched up um so I think in general if there's a sub substantive change in a document that we had received in our material that we should just have uh a five minute 10 minute you know if it's if it's two paragraphs it doesn't have to be that long but people need a chance to read it you know so it's just that would have made enough of a difference so people wouldn't have had to say well which word which words change know I like that change you know and we we never had that time and then finally we got it on the screen so the one time I did do that we took a pause I also think it's very difficult um and I'm I'm talking looking forward if we've got a Subs this is I finally had the lawyer say if I have something substantive and long to say as long as I speak to it for 2 minutes for 3 minutes then I can submit a r written document which really works when you're not voting on it that night um but I had something on a housing policy and there was never any time to say everything I need to say in two to three minutes so our attorney said if there's something substantive and you summarize it you can put your document in the record so that wouldn't apply to what we were dealing with a resolution but we do we did that okay that we're not violating over meeting law by showing we think something needs significant changes so I just wanted to hug back because it was it promoted a a good discussion I completely lost um that way back when but it was a good discussion P I'll try to be lean I want to address um an inaccuracy no I can do it oh um I'm getting help old old ladies need help um we did not say we would not accept amendments we also accepted uh Jennifer's Amendment passed by the group it was not taken out as far as I know what the sponsors and I'm speaking now for Mandy and Alicia but they can speak for themselves as well we could not not accept the Amendments that Andy was putting forward that included a reference to Hamas when we were talking not about Hamas we were talking about the Palestinian people and what was happening to them since hamas's Dreadful horrible attack when I tried to get Palestinian people simply mentioned in the uh October I believe it was October 16th resolution I was voted down I accepted that didn't like it but I accepted it it was not possible for me as a sponsor to accept Andy's amendments that is why I withdrew my name not because I wasn't willing to accept any amendments and that's people need need to uh remember that it they need to remember things a little bit more accurately sometimes myself included I'm going to go to Bob and then to counselor Walker yeah I just wanted to um suggest that if we're faced with a a situation like we were faced with we just adjourn the meeting and reconvene in 48 hours and reconvene on Zoom so we can have a a discussion the way that we should um the one the one question I wanted to pose to Athena is whether it's possible to uh cut off someone after two minutes in other words we give them two minutes to talk if they're going Beyond two minutes can we actually cut them off or do we have to ask them to stop so in the memo that I wrote to the council when this issue first came up at a council committee meeting my advice was that a chair shouldn't do something in a zoom meeting that you wouldn't do in person and if you wouldn't forcibly silence a person in an in-person meeting then we shouldn't mute a person on Zoom so my advice has been for the chair or the president to ask that person to wrap up their comments and not to use the mute button as a way to silence people did did that answer your question yeah yeah I realized it's difficult to to stop someone who's in the room it's easy Tech with technology on Zoom but that would be unfair to people on Zoom so it most people are pretty good about it but there are some who just keep rambling on and it just extends the meeting with very little new information for us to to deal with that's all and the other thing that I would caution as a chair would be that if you're going to limit one person to two minutes you just need to be consistent with everyone who speaks and make sure that you're not letting one person go over and not everybody else councelor Walker you not spoken before um thank you I wasn't going to raise my hand because I was essentially going to say everything that Mandy Joe already said but I just thought that I might also answer George's question in how he would how he wanted to know how uh colleagues might have wanted that a situation to be addressed and I just also agree that we should have or could have taken a recess um and I think that uh at our last council meeting there was um an in instance where we couldn't be heard or we couldn't hear each other uh because of the audience and we took a recess I think that was extended and extended until we could hear each other and we got back to deliberation and I think that that was a similar course that we could have taken at that meeting um and I would hope that that's what we would do because I would prefer unless we're taking really long recesses and not getting anywhere then I think a joury might be appropriate but I don't think we should have jump to a joury I think we should start with taking recesses um there's three counselors that have spoken once I'd like to go ahead and have an opportunity for you to speak again and then we're going to end this and move on to the original purpose of this Retreat uh Jennifer yeah no I just wanted to clarify I I think when I S put in my friendly Amendment it was had already been stated that the that I heard that the the sponsors that we could make amendments because I think Mandy addressed it this was before Andy had made his amendments it was just there was the whole issue of whether amendments would be entertained and that came up before I had put out my Amendment or and Andy had so there was I I felt like that we were sort of a little off our game from that moment because it was we whenever something comes before us we discuss it we make a amendments but there was a it the discussion started with some caution about um not amending the resolution before anybody had made one and I I thought that kind of set all of us a bit off our game councelor I'm going to go to you and then on to the other counselors that have not that have spoken um So speaking about the the meeting that we had or the vote for the resolution I think and this discussion we're having this evening it's important to realize that we have a duty to ourselves as members of the council and also a duty to ourselves as a council speaking to and with the public and I think something that we should be emphasizing and I think we've done that tonight is stress the importance of discussion and deliberation I think what was lost that night was that we were held captive by the desire to have a decision that night and that limited our ability to discuss and so um I'll just use this opportunity to um speak to the public um there are votes that are made and decisions that we can arrive at but we can use the proper channels and avenues to get to those decisions and that usually is going to involve um speaking just like we're doing and having um amendments friendly or unfriendly as the case may be there will be further opportunities where disruptive behavior will OCC cor but if we can remember that within this space we have an opportunity to again speak among ourselves and that not just arriving at the right results but using the right process to get to that result I think um that will save us a lot of the trouble that we had from then up to the present moment thank you Andy yeah I'm just going to keep it to one very brief um observation and suggestion to think about for the future but not for discussion tonight and that is when we deal with complex issues like bylaws and uh policies it goes through a committee and the committee has a fairly complete discussion and uh really works through what amendments it might think appropriate and uh so what maybe initially suggested within the referral to a committee by the council or initiated within the committee is uh substant can be changed um and fairly significantly changed we have an odd thing that we've done with resolutions and that is that it only goes to go go has uh a limited charge of saying is it clear consistent and actionable which are not clearly defined terms but certain but I think that is understood to not go to the substance of what is um there uh and uh so the go does not look at um and consider whether there are significant changes um and I this was the first time we've had a resolution maybe the second because I think Pat actually raised another one that um is was fair point to raise um but is there a time when a resolution really ought to not come directly to the counil as a whole but should start in a council committee and let the committee um have some of that discussion and make sure that um it's fully understood that whatever is getting to the uh council is going to be a council action not an action that's recommended by an outside group that initially sponsored uh or advocated for the resolution the bylaw or the policy so I I I just jge us in the future time to think about that question as to whether uh we ought to be having a committee process that is more rigorous than in uh the one that currently exists of just is it clear consistent and actionable okay George final comment as you can see I'm not a First Amendment absolutist just because I think it's a fallacy actually to think because it's difficult to draw a line means you can't draw a line I'm going to raise this with go and if anyone else is interested in the idea of trying to draw a line be happy to hear from you but I was intrigued by Mandy's suggestion of Zoom does seem to be a particular Challenge and perhaps we you could instruct T if the ccil so wishes or ja can just take it up on its own should we look at some of the stricter regulations that some communities have related to zoom would that be helpful okay thank you um we're going to move on if anybody needs to take a break please just get up anytime you want um so um the sheets that I sent out to you initially um were actually developed with input from various people and frankly we got distracted and didn't get as much input what they pointed out for me is this was absolutely not a perfect system but more importantly it pointed out to me that our goals are not perfect goals so um what I would like to do is explain the sheet I sent you not because it's perfect but just so you understand it and then uh we're going to actually go on and um both the Town manager and the assistant Town manager uh with working with staff have uh various time places where they would like to comment on different goals and we're going to make sure we have that opportunity at the end of the evening I would like us to make sure we agree on some next steps um so that we go forward so the sheet that Athena passed out to you at the beginning of the meeting is similar to what was sent to to you but frankly it's different um it's different because I had to make a correction because of a snafu in receipt of material um the the initial the actual numbers that appear are what were on individual counselors um counselor Walker have you been this is what was sent to you earlier today I just wanted to make sure it's the the email where you said take two I'm sorry the email that was titled second take take two of the take two thank you yes that is the one thank you um so basically um and I also I really want to stress this is an initial take this is not final um I know I have things I would change so the actual numbers are what people put in The Matrix and those were rankings within goals okay and then with a desire to say well if you look across the sub goals are there sub goals that you would rank in any order I think this is the most important sub goal okay okay and if you said it was the most important sub goal and it was one of your top five then you see a double or you see an X in the box if it was one of your second five you see just one slanted thing in your box um this is not you know um this is not what I would call anyway uh and then at some point today somebody suggested that I then take an average and I did and basically it didn't change anything the yellows s are based on the numbers only they are not based on any of the slashes and the yellows are except for one place I think I made a mistake are for anything that had was an average of 2.5 or lower and or 30 and there's one I made a mistake on and that is basically within goals and out of goals having said that when we get to certain pages you'll see that the X's tend to be very consistent with where the highest important rank was and sometimes it's not and again I just want to stress that when we're done with this whole conversation the goal is to have counselors rank based on some guidelines we all agree on so with that we're going to start with the climate action goal and it has five subparts sub goals and I think if unless the Council would like to ask okay let's ask questions Pam thank you um I never got the impression that I was supposed to prioritize the the five six primary goals nobody ever said Pam is climate is climate more important than than Community Health if was Pro how would we ever how would we ever and I'm I misled you okay it was to prioritize the subg goals within not the goals the sub goals so you might have said I believe that uh using a climate lens is the most important sub goal not that climate is the most go important goal Anna so Lynn heard my rant about this earlier today um but I will repeat it for the rest of you lucky ducks who didn't get to hear it uh my main takeaway from this exercise and I just wanted to say it on the outset is that go is currently discussing the town manager evaluation process and it is very very abundantly clear to me that we also need to examine our expectations around setting goals uh as I looked at these and as I went through and prioritized I would prioritize things that were maybe broad because I felt they included some of the more specific goals for example if we're looking at the front page uh taking action on portions of the climate action adaptation and resilience plan that includes supporting development of climate action bylaws and so um I just wanted to note that this is so imperfect and it's our own doing um because we've created goals that are all over the place in terms of their specificity in terms of their um demand all of it so this is a challenging exercise and and I'm hoping that it also will lead to some clarity in the process of creating goals going forward and go has that on our on our list absolutely councelor hanii um one question and one comment the question is um you alluded to maybe the manager having surveyed staff about their potential priorities or thoughts on all of these goals is there a document that we will get that has those thoughts so that counselors can see them or is it just going to be all reported orally um and the second one was when I was doing these rankings one of the things I found was um it was hard for me to rank things that fell only sort of within Town staff purview uh looking at climate action something like complete the jpe because the council no longer has anything to do with that um versus something that would eventually come back to the council and how do I rank those too because I I want us to be able to act on some stuff that are within these goals but if I don't rank those High we'll never be able to act on them unless we're doing them themselves and the last discussion seems to indicate maybe there's some disagreement as to whether counselors should propose stuff um but um but yet I don't want the other things that don't ever come back to us lost so that was also a hard thing to yeah score within the rankings yeah uh Jennifer yeah what I also um I I feel like some of the rankings don't really that's a reflect like like where I have a five doesn't mean it's not a priority so for example I um activities at that were already in process like supporting the elementary school building committee and the Jones Library building committee I didn't even rank those because those are happening I mean clearly the elementary school is going to happen and even with Crest like we just h a new director Crest is happening but like the resident oversight board and reviewing the public safety protocols I rank those higher not because I think they're higher than Crest but just I want to see those happen and the others so yep um there you're each of you is getting many nodding heads because we all confronted the same problems Kathy so if if not that anyone wants to stare at the grid to see how many blanks there are but you'll see that Kathy has lots of blanks because I decided I would only rank one or two within the categories unless I thought they were all important and then I found missing things that were in our financial category and we're in our things so for example um bringing in more money from the colleges and universities um you know trying to um so I had a few that I added when I did my overall ranking um that weren't even on the list you know so what of a general comment on this exercise um is I think it would be good to do this before we cement next year's goals um because um we could winnow down you know things that either you know no one would think that the elementary school building is low on my priority list but it's moving right along so I didn't give it a rank you know I didn't feel like I needed to draw to anyone's attention so being really careful about what we do because when you count them up otherwise they're an amazing number and then my last comment is although I sometimes gave it at a high the general use a climate lens whenever making budget d d I like those but they're hard to they're not particularly actionable M you know so that is a statement of what we want to do shouldn't be you know so now the only exception I make on that one is what I've seen um the most recent example at at jcpc is this uh talking about replacing some tiles in town hall with a different kind of tile that doesn't require toxic substances to be cleaned was brought up as a climate action and sustainability so someone was thinking in terms of the substances we use not just the materials so in that staff is doing that but some are not as actionable as you know specific so I think this exercise is a good one for us to do to get to a a narrower group of where we want to put emphasis on in the coming year thank you Andy yeah must of most of what I was going to say has already been said so I'm not going to repeat it uh but I did have a question and that was we had two documents we were asked to fill out the other one was a Word document and I don't see that how that was reflected in what we had feedback on so I was curious to know it is no it's reflected in the page so for example Andy in um climate action one of your top five was goal one subgoal three okay that was one of your top five so it got an X okay another one of yours was in your second five and it got a slant one slant and that was using the climate lens it was just a way of trying to put everything on one sheet which is you know I'm literally I I like to W wake at night trying to figure out how to depict this back to people so all of your feedback except the written feedback is here okay and whether it's useful or not I think the most useful thing at this point is in fact to hear from Paul and David uh and AA and Athena although I atha were you involved in these conversations I think she's been too busy doing the budget um but Paul and David uh why don't we start with the climate action uh goal and proceed thank you so um we did go through all these goals we talked about it with our staff and what we I think we came to some of the similar conclusions that you did some of them were doing them they're ongoing uh they're they're not going to we didn't give them a priority because you know looking using a climate lens to make decis ISS we're doing that um and I think what we're hoping is that you'll see that those kinds of actions reflected when we develop our budget and we identify those things in the budget process the goal from my perspective is that the excuse me Council sets goals the town manager receives those goals incorporates them into the Staffing plans but also in the budget you see the budget you see are my goals reflected in the budget and then those um come out in the budget and then you evaluate me as to whether those goals have been delivered on so um how would you like us to move forward we what we and what we've done is we've sort of put a time frame in our just a general time frame um and where we would prioritize them in terms of when things could get done because we've learned a lot over the last few uh couple years about how long things take and uh we realize things take a long time and it's a legisl especially legislation um and then we're trying and these are rough things and I think we this is an iterative process we really look forward to a conversation if the council is saying whoa this really is something we want you to prioritize we would then relocate some other work right we want to emphasize that our staff have a lot of Duties to do in addition to the goals that the council sets so the council's you know we are building buildings we are um reviewing uh permits for new developments for new buildings um there's a lot of work that's being done on a regular basis and we also recognize the importance of the council's goals to achieve things going forward what I think that we've come to realize is that um the council setting broad goals is crucially important for in when you set a goal since climate action is the first one as a climate action goal we have internalized that as Cathy has mentioned it people are thinking about that every time we look at products or purchase things or um come up with ideas on what we want to go to you where we are seeking grants and things like that but um so I I think that setting those big goals and then also saying we wouldn't this Council wants to accomplish these things this year or I would actually think you should go to a two-year goal setting time frame but um that's up to you in terms of how you want to set goals um so um well could I yeah go ahead is it possible for me to just jump in yes I think that was an excellent summary I think when Paul and I were thinking about this we were really wanted to emphasize that this should be a conversation um we want to hear from you obviously some of the the rankings help but um there's a lot here there's in Paul's goals and it can be a little overwhelming I think as we look at what can be accomplished between now and the end of uh this calendar year and I agree it it should be um ultimately a two-year process um but I also wanted to you know part of my job is to balance workload and workload I'm only speaking really for conservation and development tonight but my area our functional area touches most other departments in town so we work closely with the health department the recreation department the DPW and the list goes on and it really is that Balancing Act of as Paul mentioned kind of uh at least in CN D the regulatory responsibility that the planning board zoning board uh daac Conservation Commission all of those boards and committees have while at the same time working on goals of buildings and parks and and the list goes on you know uh I thought about Fort River School and Jones library and you know we are well on our way on both of those projects but to some degree the work of as an example Inspection Services is just beginning they worked very very closely with the building committee the designers the OPM on getting let's take Fort River School the wonderful event we had this week but now inspection services takes over from this point forward raking ground moving dirt uh setting foundations all of that work Falls to Rob Mora and his team well at the same time we're hoping to launch rental registration which has been in process for 18 months so that's the kind of balancing act I think that's a really a real example for me and the staff that that does such wonderful work in CND D is um yes we have a wonderful New School in process but for inspection services their sleeves are are rolling up and wow 24 25 and Beyond is going to be a lot of work while at the same time we hope to launch if the council moves forward on rental registration so just that's a really example for us so thank you looking forward to the conversation tonight and Beyond it'll it'll this is just the start I think so we're going to start with climate and just go down those initial thank you so yes and what was really informative I think it's actually your your exercise that you've done I haven't really memorized all the priorities but but but I think it was really useful to sort of help us frame this a little bit so um and I'm when when I call something ongoing I just sort of I'm not going to really address it it's ongoing like the first one is used climate lens I think it's ongoing it's a it's what we're doing uh the second one is the joint Powers entity I think we have reported that that's on hold and that's a low prior very low priority because they're taking a different tack with the CCA and that that that is moving forward but this particular goal is not one that will be a priority for the town staff um the third one is you have two and I was a little confused about how you rank them because there was the waste hauler bylaw and the solar bylaw and I'm not sure how count I'm actually very curious how the counselors you know if you prioritize this did you mean both did you mean one or the other uh because this is important to us um and I think that that's this is probably a crucial one for you to discuss um in terms of where your priority is when we've looked at this um for waist huler we think that that's about a 12month process um um a the to get something up and ready um a proposal to the council and I think what we would look to is get something if there's going to be a new waste huler bylaw we'd be optimistic about getting something prepared for a the budget discussion in FY 26 um for uh the solar uh it's already been in process for 12 months Dave 18 18 months but I think there's a long knowing what we we've gone through with rental registration this is just now coming to the council you're talking about a fairly substantial conversation about what this is going to look like so I think we would say you know if the council's ready to initiate on this I think the staff are prepared um I don't think the council the staff are necessarily prioritizing this as something that's urgent uh and Dave can talk to us a little bit more if you'd like I can jump in on on that um we had a very good conversation I think last night at CRC a couple hour conversation on this um I think Paul's category you know the way he he characterized it is Staff do not see this as urgent but at the same time staff and and uh the working group have invested 18 months in moving this forward I think it was a very fruitful conversation last night about trying to uh tease apart what is bylaw what is regulation and I think that's what thec ident ified that was a big takeaway for all of us I think last night from CRC and I think once that is done we'll have a better idea of how long might this take to move those parts through the CRC and and hopefully make a recommendation to the council so I think there's a commitment from staff I know there's a commitment um um at some level from the council I think what I heard last night from council members of Representatives on the CRC was you wanted to have a or or it might be helpful to have a conversation this evening about how high a priority that is so I would defer to all of you as to how higher priority is that and then staff can take that back and I think last night I also talked about um pacing ourselves on that so I would refer to the chair of CRC or other members of CRC to fill a in on on where you think that is in priorities I'll address the next the last two in this section uh so the ensure the town can fully utilize state and federal funds targeted at sustainability initiatives we see that as something that we're doing on a regular basis but if if we're misunderstanding that we'd like to hear from the council you know the counselors who really felt this was important um we just feel like that's a get yes we're always doing that we're looking for funds but if there's something that someone says no here's what I really had in mind for you to do um we'd like to know that and then the last one is to take action on the portions of the of the carp that have been prioritized and I think that that's again something that's honor what that says to me is that we could give you an update on all where we are on the carp and I think that might be an important conversation or report to you on what we have prioritized what's working on that okay so let's pause here for a moment is there anybody who wants to discuss one or two Kathy one or two sub goals one or two okay then let's go on to three where I also tell you I want to just split this in half um Andy yeah just in general terms the way that I was ranking the highest may have not been what everybody else was doing but I was looking at it from what is the highest priority for the council recognizing that staff are working on these goals but they have may have different sense of what are the highest priorities and uh they're working on things where they have the opportunity to get success I'm looking for what is involved for the council and development of bylaws therefore ranked um extremely high because they're bylaws that have been discussed have been a lot of time has been spent on them and uh bringing those bylaws to a conclusion becomes therefore in my mind a high priority for the council um so I'm speaking in my role as a counselor thank you um first of all I I'm going to speak to the solar bylaw and I understand there was quite a conversation at CRC last night I look forward to hearing more about that although I've heard from some people today to me the issue of the solar byw goes back to um its origination and the fact that we have had a group work on it whether it's regulation or not I also uh reflect on the fact that the chair of the zba suggested we needed this but more importantly we need something where we can stand up to the state and say we control our own land that does not mean we don't support solar it just means I personally and many people I know in amest do not want the state coming in and saying Thou shalt do this to your land it's our land it's not I I I I we have discussed this with our legislators and it is an ongoing issue and while I totally support support the establishment of solar I want to do in a way that protects our land and the safety of our resident um councelor Walker um thank you Lynn I'm just having bit of a hard time with this conversation because I'm trying to understand what our goal is here because I know like I priority I limed my priorities for our goals but these are already all of our goals so like are we trying to change what our goals are as a council were we just trying to determine what our priorities are but does that change anything because they're all still generally our goals so are we saying these goals are more important than these goals is that like a definitive determination we're making it making right now because I thought that the the the r was just for purposes of the conversation we'd be having tonight but if we're not using the rankings for our conversation I'm just trying to understand like what are we trying to get out of this conversation what we're trying to get out of this conversation is the prioritization of our subg goals within our goals so it's not to say climate action is more important than this but within climate action where do we see things importantly but when we are doing like the town manager evaluation and I know Anna said like we're re relooking at that process but typically we go through each one of these things and make notes as to like what progress we think we've made throughout the year on each goal so does prioritizing these goals help us at all or are we just trying to tell the town manager we hope you do these things first it was a discussion that was back and forth between what goals are most important over say a two-year period and what can we reasonably expect to happen and that's one of the reasons why for instance um uh Paul and Dave have already said the uh development of a uh waste huler by law is probably a 12month process and the first time we would see anything in the budget would be FY 26 a year from now so it's an iterative process like if this is a goal let's make sure we understand when we can accomplish it and what it's going to take to accomplish it and later on we may hear some additional things that you know are clearly around what do we need in the way of money to accomplish that so it's it's really an opportunity to go back and forth and understand what's behind each of the goals and there what is our priority does that help Alicia slightly but is it okay if I just have a follow-up cu the way I'm looking at it even if we say that that's a 12 Monon Pro process to see it in the budget there are still steps that should be taken during those 12 months to get to the point of us seeing it in the budget so would we not still be looking at are we taking the necessary steps to be able to see this in 12 months and that's how we measure this goal but that doesn't really change the priority level of the goal it just changes how we met measure the progress of the goal it it does and so for example when the town manager then submits his self- evaluation if in this conversation we've already understood that the most progress we can help to make on waste hauler is X then that's what we should expect to see not in other words it's not going to all get completed by the time we do his se he does his self- evaluation uh this fall it gives us a sense of timing as well as expectations and in some instances I think you're going to hear the question what does success look like in this what what how would we measure this so a lot of this is not as cut and dry as we would like it and I think all of us felt that when we were trying to fill this in sorry just one last thing and so I think that CU I also had the same experience of like really having a hard time reading them because a lot of them were overlapping and some things I think are equally as important so that was really hard but I think that this conversation for me at least is leaning more towards like this is a conversation we should have had before we determined what our goals were and so again like a process thing like we should have done this a little bit earlier because now even if we say only this can happen we can't change what the goal is so this is the goal as it's going to read I that's why I believe someone in the beginning said it would be good to do this before we finalize our goals Kathy I credit you with that yeah so I'll say it again it absolutely Alicia would be good to it first I mean this is a good one to focus on because way back when when I saw the goals I said I haven't seen ways taller I don't know how strong I want to push it because I want to know whether it costs the town a lot of money to do it whether it's going to toss the taxpayers more and do we have the staff to do it so I had a question mark and to make it a town manager goal I thought before we'd had it's been in subcommittee so I know there's been a lot of work on it but I haven't seen it because I've not been on that committee so so that was my and on solar we had a lot of discussion on this and this would move to a bylaw so I feel differently about the two of these but I left it blank because I didn't know how to rank something where one of them I had questioned from the very beginning that if we haven't decided to do it we shouldn't tell the town manager it's a top priority so I wanted the decision to have a 13ers discussion about it first so this one has two parts to it we're on solar we had a pretty robust discussion on what we hope to get out of the committee and I haven't I know I should have seen what came back but I haven't paid attention to it so I'm ready so it's it's a good one um and I think Elicia you're right this is an exercise we should be doing first rather than saying we gave you these goals but it's a two-year goal or it's a three-year goal it's not as important as a b or c okay uh councelor haniki so I ranked this one low um um um I agree with Cathy on waste Haller um I'm not sure we should be having staff spend a lot of time on something we don't know whether we'd adopt or haven't had a good conversation of if this costs more money are we still going forward with it you know that that doesn't mean we're not necessarily for looking at things but but I think we're missing parts of that conversation um for solar I look at who needs to do the work on the staff and that is our planning department and frankly I just have higher priorities in different areas for planning department than the solar bylaw especially when the planning department says they don't think this is a priority compared to other things so that's one of not compared to other things but but they said that our current bylaw um could potentially manage this um I would like to see our planning department focus on measures related to Economic Development and housing before solar um especially having seen the draft solar bylaw and believe that it has a lot of issues um solar bylaws are still in major upheaval across the state um but there's also the other potential bylaws we're only focused on two but there might be other bylaws out there that would better focus climate action then these two um that we're not even having a discussion on or asking staff about or giving them their own thoughts about what that is and then the other thing I wanted to push back on is I actually want to just put out there that I disagree with Lynn um regarding her advocacy to the state about I think her quote was we can we control our own land um I disagree with that um this is where we're seeing the solar laws but heads with 4A chap chapter 4A Section 3 of not regulating And if every town is left to their own saying we support having solar and moving to non-fossil Fuels but letting every town regulate no large scale we're not going to move there I just like with housing and affordable housing and we say it's a regional issue solar is also a regional issue so I just needed to put that out there so it didn't stand alone Jennifer yes so as one of the uh I guess now we're three one of the three Council sponsors of the waste holler bylaw um we I would that was voted out of the council refer that to TSO um there are many community members um for whom it's a high priority uh tomorrow on the uh TSO agenda after um many months we are seeing report a request for information went out um last summer um and for information on pricing and services uh that will be that was received in October and then TSO will see the report for the first time tomorrow so it is moving along but we we can't the starting with the information we'll we'll see tomorrow we'll begin to have some idea of what the services that we can obtain are that are out there um and just you know and some more information on pricing at um an MMA session in January we there was a session on um towns Contracting themselves for Waste taller services and they said absolutely when you the fee structure the pay as you throw fee structure in town after town they have seen that that very much reduces uh it's it's a very good waste reduction strategy and that that is um something that's you know important among our climate action goals so I hope we can continue to move forward with the waste huler and um you know just we totally I think the sponsors understand that this will take time but I hope that we can continue to move forward with it cam thank you I wanted to speak to the solar which is the other half of the of number three um in our meeting the staff did not say that solar is not a priority they said that it was not urgent because there were no proposals coming in that they were aware of beyond what was already in hand um and that it takes quite a while to get organized so that we would be aware of new projects coming in um I think what Lynn was referring to for the state is that they are making an effort to collect information and propose um streamlining processes for solar regulation and permitting and that um there would be something like you know sort of the state EPA would manage or D Department of Environmental Protection might manage some process of that sort and I would concur with Lynn that I think it's important for us to get our ducks in a row and to understand what is of of key interest to ammer in terms of a balance between the solar and the working lands or the working forests um in a way that um kind of gives us a win-win so I don't I don't want to cut off that conversation and I would put it in fact it was my it was my number one priority so um I'd love to see that conversation going forward Andy yeah I'm going to start with waste holler but it's really what I'm going to say is going to have a broader uh cover than that uh waste huler is something that we've had as a discussion in this town for a long time going back to before this form of government when there was a refu and recycling management committee that developed a long-term strategic plan and what the bylaw is doing and it's sort of that uh committee is morphed into an independent organization uh zero was dammer but it is the same set of priorities and it is the same set of priorities that was very clearly stated at that MMA conference session uh which um was gratifying because it really did put flush on the bow on on the bones of what it is that are the reasons that you would have a plan plan like that and uh it is also consistent with the state which has its own plan and uh so that the state is mandate is going to be mandating that communities move in this direction so there there are lots of reasons to do it but ultimately for that bylaw and any other bylaw we have to look at what is feasible what our goals are what is feasible and then then when we develop a plan we have to step back and make a decision as to whether it can be implemented whether what are the economics of uh the costs and benefits of implementing the plan so whether it be rental registration or be waste holler um we can't make that judgment until we have uh developed the bylaw to at least as far off along that we can assess what are the benefits and what are the costs uh because that's ultimately what the council's Judgment ought to be Pat yeah I'll try to keep this lean uh the solar bylaw uh is a critical uh piece of legislation uh it may not be urgent because we've had a group of people working on it for over a year there was work on it done before that um and offered to both the planning board and the zba via the moratorium so that's something that we've been working on for quite a while the other thing is that the projects that are in the works there are real critical issues going on with them uh uh pure sky and the forested land off shutesbury road and other forested land here uh could very much affect water because all of those households are on Wells so we really need to think about what we're doing and how we're let you what our uh guidelines and boundaries are the other thing the Hickory Ridge project they've included battery storage that's a project Ur that it this one actually does feel urgent to me which makes this whole thing urgent that there there's a consistent flooding on that site now and I said this in the meeting there it limits access water has damaged battery storage units and caused fires that that literally the leakage has caused the chemical action so that they explode and burn and with the flooding at Hickory Ridge it would be almost impossible to get emergency vehicles there so it is there's a level of urgency but there's also we can take good steps steps because we do have to keep aware of what the Attorney General's office is allowing because they're making shifts and also the shifts that the state have made around preserving forests and the the really the need for that for because of the sequestration thing so we need to keep working on it pulling it apart RS and bylaw great idea needs to happen there are a lot of good things in the bylaw pieces so I don't think it's going to be this overwhelming incredible project that is going to take so much staff time uh CRC is going to need to come up an understanding of the issues and and we really need to pay attention and I'm saying this for myself to people who um have differing opinions because I would like us to find a really collaborative solution to this but the health safety and Welfare of many of our residents is at stake with just two potential projects right now in town and there are other things we can look at to do so enough said that wasn't lean sorry Jennifer yeah just quickly um no I just hope that I'm getting concerned that you know that we'll have uh patience with each other and the process because I feel it's a little like well waist holler's been kind of you know there for over a year so do we still want to keep it a priority but since there many of these take a long time to go from being referred to a committee to actually being a bylaw that I hope can be patient and part of the reason they take time is we understand staff and committees have many things going um priorities competing or not competing but happening that have to happen at the same time so I hope you can just be patient and even if things seem to be moving along slowly that we won't say oh you know we're going to bump it off we have another priority and then all the time that's been put into it you know for year 18 months was for not um so the next one as the town manager said is kind of ongoing you know whenever we find funds we actually do a very good job of going after them in amest um and then the other one is the climate action and we provide regular updates so I just want to pause for a moment before I'm sorry um Bob yeah I just wanted to ask uh Paul whether he has the resources to go after every potential uh federal state and federal funds because if he doesn't have the resources then we can't do that we can't meet that goal Paul um we um we could always use more resources um the you know we have a a are using arpa funds we have a capital project projects manager who's been working on the school and the library among other projects as well um he's he has educated himself about a lot of the U resources out there especially Ira um his tenure with the tal well we're going to keep trying to keep him engaged on different projects so um we probably would have to engage some Consultants to help us with some of the stuff and I think there are people out there who are developing expertise in this um including um consulting firms but also legal firms as well so we probably have to add allocate some funds to really set us up in the right direction especially for the bigger projects Anna what Paul just said is exactly why this was one of my higher ranked goals um we need to the town manager goals feed into the budget guideline everything feeds each other right um this is a big ecosystem of we're going to try to hopefully get done um and for me this this question is a matter of do we have the resources are we allocating the resources necessary in order to be able to pursue these things and for the town manager that resource might be staff time it includes staff time and then the council is saying in putting something like this in the town manager goals that we are going to also back it up in our budget guidelines and that we want to see it in the budget that someone like our capital projects manager is able to do this exact thing as part of his role so um this is one where there it's a really vague and opaque goal on paper and it's one where I go back and forth because I don't know that the council is in Athena and I have had many conversations about this that um because I struggle with with where the council is overstepping in putting some of these goals on paper and where we're not um and so keeping this vague we still need a way to communicate what this means to us without necessarily assigning it to be done in one specific way um but yeah the least lean comment sorry I I want and there's there's another side to going after money and that is once you get it you need to be able to manage it and I've heard from time to time that not only is it tough to put the staff on for writing the proposals but then when you get them you know you have somebody committed 150% FTE and I'm going to excuse me we don't have 150% FTE for that so um uh full-time equivalent I'm sorry I shouldn't use acronyms like that um could I jump in for a second l so no I think this is a very interesting conversation um to Paul's Point sure you you know could we use more staff to to to chase grants and Chase funding and administer that funding and Carry Out project manage absolutely I I think who would turn that down but I do want to kind of dispel the myth from time to time I do hear at certain meetings that you know someone says well why didn't we go after Grant X or Grant Y and I will tell you we have a very a our staff is very very aggressive about going after funding we have literally some millions of dollars in the pipeline right now not even withstanding arpa money and CPA money and so to Lynn's last point about we then need to manage that money manage those projects manage those contracts um those are all things we do it's great to get the grant it's great to get the the check in Boston or wherever we get it here in town but how do we manage the projects once we get it so we go after every dollar we think um makes sense we do uh after serious discussions sometimes pass on some things for very good reasons this week alone I've had some interesting conversations with community members about um uh Municipal vulnerability uh program dollars and in fact the town has gotten a couple of nvp grants in the last few years but there's a couple of projects that we floated with the state and the state said they just didn't think those were fundable so we made the decision not to invest hours and hours of Staff time to write those grants it doesn't make everyone happy and sometimes people question why did we do that but that's the reality um but we're you know Northampton and ammer we kind of U you know kind of bounce off each other challenge each other I mean we get a lot of funding on this side of the river Northampton does as well but I just want to say we go after the funding in all departments so uh there are times when I have conversations with our superintendent of Public Works and we you know Gilford might say are you going for that Dave or are you folks going to go let's team up let's put our our staff together Jason skeles and Stephanie chorell and Aaron jock and and Nate Malloy and say let's go for that money so we we are aggressive about going for funding at the state and federal level in all categories housing you know Mass Works Etc so but there is a limit to how much we can manage once it gets here uh then any comments at this point on number five take action on the portions of the climate action carp so let me just pause for a moment I want to make sure that we are not here till midnight I'm not going to be here till midnight I don't know about the rest of you uh Anna's already told me she's walking out at 10: so um i' I'd like to use that as a goal uh but when you look at our discussion here tonight number one we've said is kind of ongoing should we spend time ranking that or not I'm not asking to answer the question right now number two looks at this point like it's a nogo it's we're not going this way somebody else is not going this way number three on the other hand we feel like we need to split into two or three parts number four there's a Nuance with it that isn't actually in the statement and that's the issue of Staffing to go for it and Staffing to make it happen happen once you get the money and then on number five it's you know some people spent enormous amounts of time putting together a huge and very important uh climate action adaptation and resilience plan for amoris not unlike comprehensive housing and it's a guide book how do we rank that we certainly don't want to lose it I'm just throwing this out so that as we think about how we rank goals down the road and how we think about how we write goals down the road like maybe it's we do this goal by doing this or in addition to this goal this is some of the ways in which we could get there just to before we with that let's move on to uh community health and safety yeah Pam can you can you give us just like a real quick summary of what we do with the information that we just talked about do we give it our own personal rankings of the very most top priority on this sheet and somehow we're going to relay that to you later or do we just keep talking till 10 o' no I assume we're going to um have another round of some kind of input I'm trying to visualize what that looks like and I know other people are too but it will not be done by the time we finish tonight okay very good to thank you know what the end result was trying to be okay thanks yeah um all right Health Community health and safety there's five um any comments before we ask the town manager and assistant Town manager to discuss see none go ahead thank you um so first one is facilitate the implementation of the residential rental bylaw um that one we're prepared to move forward on we have laid out what it would take to implement we know it would take probably six to nine months to actually Implement with the expectation that we could um have something in place with staff hired by the end of the calendar year with the first inspections likely to happen in January of 2025 it doesn't have the in implementation does not have to be tied to a fiscal year as long as funds are in place so once the council acts on this then we know what would I think we've shared previously with you what the implementation would look like and just to pause for a moment this will be on the agenda for the first reading on April 1st and the second reading and vote W if all goes as it might is April 8th and that gives the manager time to make sure that it's in the budget okay yeah uh the second one is the continue the implementation and assessment of the communities responders the crest program The Crest department so I think there's two pieces to that we're continuing this it's a multi-year effort to get the crest barment up and running we're making good progress as you know the new director will start on April 8th um the implement the assessment is the piece that we're also working on and there's been some work done by the interm leadership team um but we sort of hit a a a Slowdown on that but that's an important piece of it but I just want to communicate to you that this is a long-term investment by the town that we continue to invest in to get it up and running it's not you're not going to know in three years whether it's working or not it's going to take multiple years to De develop a new Department I think where you have the same kind of situation with the uh resident Inspection Services with the residential bylaw it's going to take time to build it up and to establish it in the in the in the community but we're committed to that and that's being funded uh the third is the proposed to the town council plan for the creation of the resident oversight board um this is something that is a priority for the Dei um we've have a so so it's in prog process the RFP was issued and uh for um a consultant to do the next phase of development of the uh of the resident oversight board those are due on April 9th um we think that the DI director feels like this the new the board would could be operational early in fiscal uh in in early in fiscal 25 um it'll take about 120 days uh to move it towards where it needs to go so um so I think that's a this calendar year thing resources are available it's just going through the processes now so I think that's a that's been a a priority for the council um and for the town so that's that's in place the third one is undertake a review of the public safety protocols consistent with the council's November 14 2022 vote that's looking at police policies and that's something we've have consistently told you we will wait till the new Chief is hired so I think that that's will be one of the first uh a top priority for the T new Chief when he we have two finalists so they're both him men so it's it's when he when he gets appointed uh develop program from for Youth Empowerment so this is one where we have a set aside ARA funds and we've had Recreation Department working um on different programs and I can get a more thorough update on that it's something that they um uh are working on and continue to develop and offering new programs in fact there anything you want to add on any of those Dave Takes a Minute um perhaps I'll wait till the questions okay if there are any on that sure okay questions and comments um I do have one um and that is I assume there's some action that the council will have to take to to form the resident oversight board is that correct yes it's not unlike for instance when we approved the board of license Commissioners okay well you didn't approve the board of license Commissioners that was in the charter but we would we would come to you with a I don't know if it's gonna be assuming it's a bylaw I think we're G have to have some teeth in it so okay yeah okay councelor Walker um I was just also wondering you said um it take 120 days for the resident oversight board which just sounds really specific so I was hoping you might elaborate more on why or where that comes where is that that is coming from yeah so some people talking months and that's what we've been saying before um this the information I received was I think that really is meaning four months um I could have said four months more likely um so that's some people put it in 60 to 121 day 120 days versus you know two to four months that's the only reason I put in days it's not that spe I shouldn't have made it that specific but the feedback you got on that came from the Dei Department yeah yes okay does that answer your question Alicia yeah I just wasn't sure if there was like a specific mandate that we had to wait this amount of time for some certain reason so that was helpful thank you okay thank you Kathy uh yeah Paul on resident oversight board and maybe Youth Empowerment um on the first I've never quite understood whether there's a staff implication in terms of Staff hours if we have one of those and I think it would be really good if the council itself knew that requires more Staffing you know but when we're saying we like the idea on programming for Youth Empowerment a similar question you know what on is the money for running programs is the money for physical location when does it run out and I don't need answers for this right now but I think is what Dave's point about juggling people's time that if the same people are doing multiple things that we have on a priority list um or we need more people on climate I didn't speak up because Bob already said what I had said that I I know how much time the person we have paid by orpa money is figuring out how to get the federal money for for our solar installations so and sometimes we have to invest in staff to get money but sometimes if we do a program it requires more staff and I know the rental registration we've we've seen staff numbers for that and we're trying to figure out if the revenue would cover the staffs so in this whole bucket of things Crest we have staff but I'd like some sense from you not right now on the Staffing implications sure no I think those are good questions um I'm referencing the resident oversight board we have our funds dedicated to the development and uh establishment of it there will be ongoing cost in terms of stiens for the members of the resident oversight board um right now we anticipate that existing staff can uh support the resident oversight board but if we get a lot of action then it might become something different but I can put together what our projected costs might look like over time are there any other questions or comments on this one before we go to the next um okay the next one's economic Vitality there's four subg goals um any questions before we move to the discussion with the c with the town manager assistant Town manager uh not go ahead so this the first one is work closely with local institutions and businesses entities business entities to promote diverse neighborhoods affordable housing new growth in downtown and Village centers so this this is a broadly stated goal and um we are looking at this in many different ways on how to meet it many of the things are things that we're already doing so if I were to report to you on this goal today today I would say here's what we're doing if the c one of the questions for you the council is that if you had something in mind specifically that you would like to see happen that would what the success look like the answer is what what the success look like question um that would be helpful for us tonight um review and revise Town regulations to reduce barriers to operating a business in in ammer um I think this is one there's a couple different responses to this um but I think the primary one is that um this is something we would be looking at working on during the summer um with dedicating some of our Economic Development arpa funds to um bringing in someone to help us evaluate our processes so I think we would look at this as a summer type of um project um propose revisions to the zoning bylaws to increase and support Economic Development throughout the town um Dave can speak to the work that's being done at the planning department on some of these things um and um in terms of um how long things are going to take or when we can start them we can be more specific if you want to talk about that um and then revise review and Revis policies to support increased year- round population in town I don't really know what I would what what that looks like to you in terms of what does that look what would be something that you would expect here's what here's what I want you here's what I would expect you to show on on my town manager report on that this has been accomplished that's it um I'm gonna ask can may ask Dave if you want please David go go ahead yeah sure I I can elaborate a little bit on on kind of one through one through four or so um and a lot of these you know touch on other other topics you know like housing and May capital projects but you know under number one just thinking about the the range and and kind of diverse number of projects that that our staff are working on with private developers in our village centers right in downtown some of you know some of these projects they're they're beginning to to make their way through the permitting processes here we've heard quite a bit about uh South Pleasant Street and the Hastings block some of the ideas that are percolating there through local development expanding housing stock Etc um AMD Street and U Drive um we have local developers looking at some very creative options for uh down in that region of town also the planning board uh really focused for for the last number of months on an overlay district there um with a focus on increased density for uh housing and also residential um U broadening our residential numbers um also we're our staff is looking at um the East Village we have a new wonderful school going in in the East Village wayfinders as you know will be uh coming before regulatory boards this summer and fall with a 78 unit uh uh proposal that uh we are partnering with them on at the East Street School in Belchertown Road we're working with other developers down in the East Village to really look at Redevelopment so there's a number of those kinds of initiatives that are going on um in terms of Paul mentioned uh you know focusing on our kind of reviewing and revising Our Town regulations um I guess the emphasis I would put there is that there's regulations um and there's there's are processes that staff work with developers work with homeowners work with folks coming through processes for new restaurants for instance things like that but then there's also constant work on you know some of the things we talked about with zoning so how difficult is it and how long does it take to get through a regulatory process here in town so those are kind of ongoing things that we're always looking at um let's see zoning bylaws um I would just highlight a couple obviously the uh University Drive the housing and economic development overlay um we're also looking at uh East Village and then we're also looking at temporary use I know the board uh in you know during covid coming out of covid really look creatively at kind of temporary use what what could happen downtown with with uh a business X wanting to use a parking lot for food trucks or or um a farm wanting to do value added um um uh activities like weddings like teaming up with a micro Brewery to have something like that all of those things um can can broaden opportunities for all all types of businesses in town so I know that our Building Commissioner our planning director and staff are looking at those I think I'll stop there okay for now Kathy you have your hand up um I just want to thank Dave for what he just went through because I thought one of the things when you I think when you look at this list and then you look at the next list wherever housing comes in they interrelate and they overlap a lot so he just went through a long list of impressive housing developments that are happening that is quite diverse and I I do think the effort on University Drive is very interesting you know to to look at a particular place so I I just think we have we have to as Echo something I said even when I was reviewing these we have to be more careful when we write these subcategories because if if they're sort of saying the same thing with different words we should just avoid that you know if they're really distinctive that if we have something specific in mind then we should be more specific but number one alone is a very nice broad get stuff going wherever you can that say Vitality but it it also talks about housing um and housing is in the next one so so so my overall ranking was trying to pick something on what where I thought housing had the best chance Jennifer yeah well I um I guess maybe Paul or asked um in terms of yeah I'm sorry in terms of um number four um review and Revis policies to support increased uh year round population in town I mean I sometimes think of that as like using a climate lens is under climate action goals you know that that's kind of a general lens or policies or bylaws helping to support that or work against it and I mean what comes to mind is if we adopt the nuisance bylaw that would be one way of of supporting that um even the university uh Drive overlay District could if it takes less you know pressure off some of the single family houses converting to rentals for students um and could be rentals for you know non-student households um um uh I was going to say I also think ways that if we support you know certainly um build you know uh the projects with Wayfair East Street School belter toown Road ball Lane that's all helping to uh sustain and expand our uh yearound population um and even I guess supporting the Amherst uh Community Land Trust I mean one that comes to mind to be really specific um U mlen Street in District 4 uh that is mostly uh rental houses for students between Kendrick Park and beston street but from beston to Lincoln it's been a you know 250 year old 200 year old um residential neighborhood and a house went up for sale a small house on a large lot and uh it um I I immediately when it went up for sale contacted the Amis Community Land Trust and they very quickly the house the open house was on a Saturday they said they were accepting bids until that Wednesday at the end of the day so they were you know clearly looking for um a developer to purchase it the land trusts tried to get um financing together they actually put in a bid and they were hoping to you know I think their long-term um goal was to work with a Habitat for Humanity to build two houses for year round households but they um had contingencies on the offer and it went to a developer who made an all cash offer and it was actually about $350,000 so that's under the median price that house I mean it would have been perfect for the land trust but it's hard to compete with an all cash offer so I think anything we can do to try and help a land trust or help you know to have retain that property um and then a house two doors down uh is is now going the people want to move out and convert it to a in part because of what they expect is going to happen next door so that's um I'm I didn't mean to digress and go into that detail but I mean anything we can do to try and help like a land trust or to be able to develop housing for our long-term population Lynn could I just add three other quick things again these these kind of cross categories but just to mention to the to the uh Council um you know I think Paul has mentioned that we're very interested we're committed with the university with some of our local development Partners to uh submit a mass Works grant for emity Street and this is more than our goal is for more than a roundabout roundabout is wonderful it will move it will move cars it will safely bring pedestrians and and uh uh cyclists to the university to University Drive businesses but we also want to go South on University Drive to see what else a mass Works Grant can unlock so it's more than this is part of the planning board's vision for unlocking some development in an appropriate place which I think many of us believe is um uh you University Drive other things we're doing you know working you know DPW has an initiative right now with some funding through CPA to uh look at the war memorial area of War Memorial Pool so we're talking about building Community Building uh neighborhood um uh Vitality so we're looking at how do we redo the um bath house and the surrounding area around War Memorial Pool to make that a vibrant Active Space for children families uh just like Kendrick Park how many of us seven eight nine years ago when that visioning process was going on would say well a playground in Kendrick Park what's that going to do it has activated a space that really was quite quiet and and not very useful in many ways um so things like that I also forgot to mention one initiative that the planning department has already uh launched which is um looking at the downtown design and streetscape um uh guidelines and this is we've heard from the community we've heard from the council um that that is a high priority and so um we have a consultant on board and and the public process for that effort will be launched very shortly so that's ongoing that's going to take many months to do I presume many of you will be involved in that effort so how do we get more clarity about what we would like to see in downtown businesses in our facades in our street skaps Etc downtown so lot I could keep going there's a long list but I just want to give you a quick smattering of what we're working on Mandy J um I'm going to Veer for what I was going to say for a little bit because of what Dave just said for war memorial I encourage teen use there's a playground for pre-teens children a block away a block and a half away at Kendrick so I would really want this the Departments and all the planning to make sure there is stuff for teens to do at war memorial playwise hanging out wise um skate park what fine stuff um it's right next to the the schools and all it would be a perfect place for teen uses um but that's not what I wanted to concentrate on um what struck me in this one is item number two subgoal review and revise Town regulations to reduce barriers to operating businesses in amorist um four five six eight of 13 counselors put it in their top 10 subg goal overall list and I think that is extremely important there are only five subg goals that more than a a majority or more of counselors put in their top 10 and this is one of them three of them all relate to the fire in DPW that should tell you something when we get there but so there's only two others and this is one of them and so I think we cannot ignore the fact that this Council wants to see the regulations and the barriers to actually opening businesses and operating businesses substantially reduced whether that's how much time it takes to permit whether that's bylaws that reduce what the permitting um requirements are whatever it is we want to see it and I think this shows that's where some of the department staff time needs to be spent Bob yeah I want to Echo that sentiment um the reason I put down U number two as number one and in the um the top 10 is I've spoken to couple of people who have a a business in ammer and a business in Northampton and they said started getting started in ammer was like pulling teeth getting started in Northampton was simple so we're doing something wrong and we need to figure out what we're doing wrong that's that's you know discouraging people from opening up businesses I it's more I think opening than operating although again expanding businesses is very difficult as well yeah um fre I'm sorry councelor ET it's when I read excuse me it's when I read um number one is your mic on thank you is this better better yes I'm a little scared of okay excuse me um what I wanted to say is that when I read number one the obvious response was about how housing but that has been traded somewhere else and so I was thinking that the focus is actually more on um how the town is working to get um businesses here to diversify the business base and so I'm just wondering if um the town has made a sufficient effort to um encourage businesses or at least business ideas from the University and from Amis College these are world-class institutions intellectual property um and perhaps there's a space that could be tapped um from those uh entities okay at this point we'll it's a great question I don't see anybody re jumping to answer it for the moment um I'm sorry George right so before always puzzled me and I mentioned that back when we talked about this in January but I think it's a little clear in my head today I'm asking myself what's the what's the problem this is supposed to be uh that lies behind this what's the issue and when I think of it I think of rental conversion rental conversion in other words houses that are flipping from home ownership to rentals certainly something I heard a lot about while I was campaigning it's something that other counselors have talked about in the past I'm not completely one one way or the other but I have tried over the years myself to try and get a handle on just what is the problem get some data so one question is can we actually get some data about this issue the second then is can we think about what possibly could be done assuming the data shows that there's a problem it's all anecdotal you talk to somebody who just has a house that's home owner occupied flips to a student it's the end of the world but if the reverse happens silence so I think this is an issue that certainly I've heard a lot about could we look into it at some point how would we do it I tried to get data I still keep trying to get data um about this issue and then see where it would take us second thing quickly um love what I'm hearing from Dave just I would say we would be saying to staff and to to Paul keep talking to partnering with and working with UMass and with ammer college in the area of Economic Development and housing just constant constant constant sounds like that's what you're doing I know some talks are going on with amers college but please that that's the other elephant in the room as our our educational institutions and our relationship with them and partnering with them for these areas of Economic Development and housing um okay uh and Pam Bry thank you I'm going to build on what George just said and um councelor ET and that is again working with UMass just for instance um because the first comment was that number one was very was very Broad and do do we have any specifics a number of years ago there was the off-campus meal plan which allowed folks to come in and spend dollar Dining Dollars in downtown restaurants I don't know if it was successful I think it was probably halted at the request of UMass because it drained money out of their dining halls and allowed folks to to come downtown and and eat that's an that's I think is a really good example of where that needs that kind of thing needs to be re reestablished um because so much of be because so much has been drawn into the university internally rather than um encouraging and and forcing them to be more outward facing Paul thank you so I think I had the same um looking at your rankings and how you've um prioritized things was very important I had the same reaction Mandy Joe had to looking at this ranking for uh item two that that was a I saw that that was one of the universal um high priority items along with the public you know the um public construction project so that really was informative to me um in reviewing all of this data quickly this afternoon there any other questions on this I'm going to suggest a 10-minute break and then we're going to come back and decide how much more we're going to get done make sure you turn your camera off and your mic e e e e e e e e e e e e thanks all right when you come back please turn your photo back on your video yeah so as we move forward and keeping in mind I hard stop um I'd like to suggest that we take advantage of the fact that we have the town manager and the assistant Town manager here and we hear their feedback on each of the goals for each of the sub goals if you will for four five and six and then to the extent we have time tonight we'll go back and have discussions but that we could hopefully start putting aside a small amount of time at least at Future Council meetings to have that conversation as well is there anybody that disagrees with that approach okay so Paul we're going to go on to and David I'm sorry we're going to go on to affordable housing and let me just also say I I don't think we've said enough thank you to the staff and to the two of you for providing you know the input and I I understand at this point it's conversational um but for many of us it's just really good back and forth and good conversation so thanks so much so we're going to start with Goal five uh four this one is loaded yeah um and Dave is gonna lead on this and Dave is gonna lead okay sure so thank you Lyon and thank you for the conversation I mean I I find this very helpful as well and I'm sure Paul does too um it's nice to have the conversation and dialogue about these things and and have this give and take so under this goal we have objectives number one ensure the operation of a seasonal and year round shelter you know I think um Paul and I and and our Police Department fire department Crest Inspection Services spend a tremendous amount of time supporting Craig's doors and the shelter at the ilc um it's been been operating extremely well over the past few years we're very pleased with the way our partnership is going with uh Craigs doors and of course as you know uh you utilizing arpa funds one of your goals was for the town manager to move forward on a permanent shelter we're doing that right down the street at the VFW we'll be hiring an architect very shortly and then launching a public process for visioning on a permanent shelter with Supportive Housing above uh in the coming months so that's number one would you like me to just keep going Lynn keep going and you know again we'll come back to the extent that we have time tonight so number two I think we all recognize we have a housing crisis in am there's a housing crisis in the region and it extends to the entire State we're not alone we can only do what we can do but we do need to be part of the regional discussion and Regional Solutions I think all of us have been on panels we've attended workshops we've attended um panels I remember the one not too long ago at ammer college with some of the some legislators and and and the governor staff and so I'm very proud that we're working with great uh uh collaborate collaborators Partners like Valley CDC um wayfinders um and many more but um you know the the uh 30 home U home ownership project up on ball Lane just uh made its way through the permitting process that's an extremely exciting project in my old neighborhood in north amorist um and then of course we have wayfinders coming in with 78 units of rental housing deeply affordable rental housing at East Street School and um Belchertown Road we're also combining funds on both of those locations we're putting in cdbg funds at the same time to extend sidewalks and do new sidewalks in front of the East Street School which will benefit not only the the future residents of those those apartments those units but also children and families who are utilizing the new Fort River school and then we're extend we're using cdbg funds as well to extend the sidewalks all the way um all the way up to um um the corner of Old Farm Road uh East toward belur toown in front of many of the apartment complexes there if you've ever walked on that stretch is a very challenging stretch with a very narrow old sidewalk so these are ways where combining housing funds and housing Partnerships each of those projects I don't have the total in my head but I'm going to guess it's probably on the order of $80 million between the two of those projects so um we're putting in cdbg funds CPA funds arpa funds to leverage those projects so really happy about those um so that c i kind of Blended two and three I think we can do more on the home ownership front I think if any of you have um been part of some of the discussions with Valley CDC as they've come through the um the various processes in town they have been very successful at getting tremendous funding for that project those those units are going to be deeply deeply affordable in the home ownership category that is extremely challenging how do you build those units in this in this economy in this climate when when units to build are between five and $600,000 $600,000 per unit and then you're able to offer them on the order of somewhere in in the 200 200 225,000 range that's an incredible project on the home ownership front we have challenges we have the cost cost of raw materials we have the availability of subsidies and tax credits we have land a limitation on land and time and I think that's where we can partner staff can partner with you we need to be advocating more to the state for more resources through dhcd for those kind of deeply affordable home ownership opportunities um we can move these projects I think we've proven with 132 Northampton road with the ball Lane project um wayfinders is yet to come through the process I think we've proven that we can move we as a community our permitting process can move fairly quickly to get these through the through our process but to get the state funding sometimes takes years some of these projects might take seven years from Vision to cutting a ribbon that is a very anything specific I'd like more information on number five I think that's something to be talked about I'd like a little more definition on that one um and then I think number six we are going after every possible dollar we can in a for affordable housing I think we're working closely with our affordable housing trust as you know they're a great repository for CPA funds for private dollars they may be the recipient uh in the future of dollars uh coming from a you know possible downtown project um so I think working with the Housing Trust is a key element of our of our collaboration to get more units in the pipeline um and we're always trying to keep uh planes on the tarmac if you will have things moving forward and I think the other piece of this is what properties in ammer what properties does the town owned that we can keep moving through that process so we've got East Street School was a essentially a surplus property a property that we didn't have a use for it is now going to be repurposed as affordable housing we're going to be looking very closely at the South ammer Campus which is a piece of property that has been unused by the schools and now by the town for some years we're going to be looking at land we have off of um Strong Street um and then of course we still have the frontage on Hickory Ridge to look look at so my goal is to always have projects in the pipeline ready to go in predevelopment so I think I'll stop there and any questions or Paul if you wanted to add anything if I missed anything um Paul did yes thank you yeah so one of the you know we're working on a lot of the different projects and one of the um projects that will take an enormous amount of time uh presented it itself as a solution was sort of an opportunity that uh Town staff had identified and sought out and that's the permanent shelter and that's going to be a multi-year project that's going to require significant investment of funds and will Town funds as well as mostly State we hope long term but I think that's one of the things we want to make sure we're on the same page as a council that that continues to be a h a top priority because we are de dedicating a lot of time an effort into moving that project forward um so just want to say because a lot of these things are are sort of moving on their own and this one is going to be propelled by the town staff specifically I think okay uh quick comments on this so we can at least cover the input for the others Pam thank you I was was pleased to hear Dave mention Hickory Ridge and I think one of the I'm not sure where it's covered but um providing information to us and to the public about sort of the status of the planning for Hickory Ridge a April 8th I will be giving a PowerPoint to the council ex thank you that's very good news um this this sort of the status of Hickory Ridge the status of the other quote unquote Surplus Properties or just the policy for dealing with Surplus properties um I think is is a really good step in the in the motion absolutely so just I will uh uh during agenda setting today talked with Lynn and and Paul about giving a presentation on everything that's happening at uh Hickory Ridge including opportunities for reuse of the frontage and I do want to before Athena kicks me under the table I I misused the word Surplus earlier we need to keep keep in mind we have a draft Surplus property policy but that is when the town wants to dispose of that property I more was speaking about repurposing there are there may be Surplus properties but there are also properties we want to repurpose and I saw Athena looking my way and I knew that I had veered into a a danger area so no yeah and yes I am yeah that policy has already come out of the finance committee and I think it this point it's on for April 8th but we were trying to balance agendas so there's not too much on one night yes and I just mention clarify that the Surplus property policy that we discuss only applies when Town manager has decided we don't we no longer need it for any purpose thank you in other words we are now declaring it Surplus okay yes and I meant keeping it and repurposing in this case for housing there could be other potential uses that we look at as well and we'll talk a little bit about that at Hickory Ridge we know it's been mentioned in the context of a South ammer Fire Station and perhaps we'll have time to talk about that in a minute in another section okay Kathy I want to go back to a uh Paul asked a question about the permanent shelter and as I said earlier I didn't really follow the instructions for our exercise which was to use all my numbers um I just went for my ones and twos and I never put a four five and six but what I noticed is many rated it less than a one 12 or a three and my understanding is um this is potentially Paul you said it's time and effort but it's time effort in dollars um in terms of before it becomes a reality so tonight is probably not the time to have a longer discussion of this but I um I am not sure we thought considered the entire cost of the project when we had what seemed to be free Opa money to buy a building so I just want to go back at some point to take a look at that because I thought it was striking how many people gave it a relatively low score among the housing issues that that's my only comment on on this issue councelor Hani um two quick comments the first one is this is the other one where subg goal 3 received a majority of counselors in their top 10 ranking um beyond the major capitals where we'll see the other five um the other three of the five that got a majority of counselors so I wanted to point that out and that is proposing measures to retain promote and increase home ownership opportunities for low moderate income residents um and first-time home buyers but my other comment is um it was great of you Dave to rund down projects regarding housing but items two three and four are about measures um and I see that as legislation um and none of that was discussed and so I I think we've done as a town a great job at supporting outside developers and their projects but what we don't do a good job at is planning to promote through zoning and other measures Tiff bylaws other things like that housing um and and so I I would love in a future discussion to hear the planning part the zoning part the other part of how we can promote housing and how the Town Council can help do that by passing measures okay yeah happy to do that at a future date I will say zoning to promote home ownership that piece of it is a lot more complicated than say but I did mention certainly the initiative in East ammer and you drive is really all about that frankly it's more about how in than it is about commercial and Retail development because we know some of the challenges with that but those initiatives by the planning board particularly the one on you drive which is more further along the one on in the East Village is more in a staff development certainly speaks to some of that um but yeah the home ownership piece relative to zoning is is a bit more of a challenge absolutely if I could just um the one thing I wanted to make a point on the the um shelter is that our goal although it's not fully um uh designed process yet is that yes there would be staff res or excuse me town resources put into that project we know we're putting arpa funding into the acquisition uh the a conceptual design demolition but very quickly after that our goal is to RFP the site for a developer to come in and build a shelter with Associated um housing so we you know we've Paul has made it Crystal Clear we know we are not in the Sheltering business this would be very similar to other affordable housing projects where we would RFP the site and we've already had some preliminary conversations broadly with a number of developers who might be interested in such a project they're Happening by the way all over the state so this is not a a new model many other communities are using this hybrid shelter with permanent Supportive Housing in the same complex so that's our our goal undoubtedly there may be an ask more additional asks of say CPA funds cdbg funds Etc but it would not be you know we would not be the central funer on a a a multi- multi-million dollar project like that okay Jennifer yeah again responding I think um there was a question of what could the town or do uh in terms of number five and again I would say well one thing they could do in conversations with the university I mean this is perennial ask is to um students having to move off campus P puts a lot of pressure on the local housing market and certainly uh drives prices up for home ownership and for uh rental um dwellings so encouraging the University univers to build more housing on campus and you know maybe even to build Camp uh housing off- campus for its faculty administrators and other employees that would help to expand our uh you know long-term year round population and of uh households that also send children to our schools and we'll use our new library um University Drive is a measure that the planning department and planning boorder and that helps to stabilize neighborhoods and then there's um we can not make changes that help destabilize neighborhoods like um I think maintaining the the four uh occupant limits for um non-related uh um members of households because um you know like an effort to increase that number just makes um it more profitable for investors to purchase the single family houses because it makes it that much more income that can be generated so there's things we can do and things we cannot do to help to um stabilize housing for our long-term residents P yeah the reason I ranked um home ownership so high was that it really is the only way to um for people to you know increase their opportunities for intergenerational wealth transfer and renting doesn't do that uh renting is great but it's not the same thing is home ownership um the one thing that I'm offering to you as a as a thought is um other communities where housing prices and land prices are very high uh the opportunities for younger people for new homeownership is is through condos and Tow houses and we don't have a whole lot of those in amorist and I think if we could encourage more of that kind of development that would ease that would make it more affordable for people thank you uh counselor Walker um thank you Lynn um I also just second what Bob and Jennifer just said um one of the uh other barriers that I would like to see addressed um and I know I've mentioned this before but a lot of surrounding towns have down payment assistance programs for firsttime home buyers that Amis does not have um and I know we have the affordable housing trust but it only offers one large down payment to one family and so I would like to see something a little bit more um encompassing that firsttime home buyers might be able to access because for in order to increase opportunities for lwi income and moderate inome residents even if the the house itself is a bit more affordable or there's more condo opportunities like down payments are still a barrier um and so I I would like like to see us explore that option um and also um I think it was number five stabilizing um housing for long-term residents so I was thinking about it a little bit more in terms of rental rentals and renters just because that's what I'm more familiar with and um what I've seen is that people who have lived in their units for a very long time are still facing increases um like my mom's rent is increasing every single year um by hundreds of dollars and so like is there a way that we can monitor that or incentivize landlords to not do that or provide more assistance to families that is not just emergency assistance when they're behind on rent and facing eviction but just again with the goal of stabilizing housing and I know that ammer Community connections uh was looking to Pilot a program that would do such a thing but they didn't get enough funding to do so um and I think looking into those kinds of things is what part of the reasons why I ranked those to a little bit higher than others thank you uh councelor Ryan I'm hoping that the the low ranking that item number eight got is just a reflection of the fact that this is a long five-year process that's going to involve many pieces but I this is my marks are address to my colleagues here because I think Town staff has done a really superlative job and has worked really hard on this but it will require our continued commitment to the goal of eventually creating a permanent shelter in this town uh homelessness is an issue that I think we cannot ignore it is a regional problem we cannot solve it ourselves but this is our I think a very important attempt for us to to to say this is something we need to do and I understand that it's a long process and it's got many moving Parts but hope that we will never lose our commitment to it thank you I and I just as councelor Ryan has pointed out number 58 is the same essentially not completely as 41 U they both deal with the homeless shelter uh Pat D Angels uh like Bob hegner I support uh the development of duplexes triplexes tow houses condos and um several of us work very diligently to address zoning uh and we're Often styed by the work of the planning department so I guess I'm looking to the town manager and the assistant manager to help me understand how we can motivate the planning department let alone the planning board but the planning department to address in this kind of housing which they've avoided a for a variety of reasons Anna I wasn't sure did David you wantan to David I it's I would take that under advisement it's it's a great question I think it's for a longer discussion I'm not sure I would agree with the characterization of the the planning staff and their approach to that I think I would characterize it as what was proposed was not deemed to likely show as many results from that zoning change that the proponents of that change thought it might so that's that interpretation well that's fine that's fine yeah I'm I you know I'm basing that on the advice of planners with Decades of experience so that's the best I can do this evening Anna uh sorry I got distracted okay um yeah I wanted to clarify I looking at goal four subg goal one operation of a seasonal yearound shelter I put that as number three for a similar reason as some folks when they looked at the elementary the same reason Kathy that you talked about when you looked at the elementary school because when I looked at that goal I said yes absolutely I think this is important but we've made such significant progress and I know that that one of the next steps would be to put out and seek bids for someone to develop it and they would run it right and so for me I this is why I think it's important to not just look at the numbers and for us to explain some of the rationale um I absolutely do think that's critical I didn't rank it as my number one priority because I felt that significant progress had been made and I wanted the town manager time to be spent more so on sub goals two and three thank you Kathy one last comment then I'm moving on uh yeah I just want to jump in on duplex Triplex tow houses that I think we've got Market forces that were contending with the price of land the price of construction because and you look at towns around us that there's no barrier to building them it's just they don't come in very cheap anymore you know up in sundland they have an entire it was astonishing what each of them sold for so that's one of the things the whole region is contending with that even where you're zoned to allow something you'd rather build a big apartment building than uh three person so I think at some point we shouldn't jump to that we've got a barrier in our EGS we should be able to get some kind of analysis of what these Market forces look like so it's and and just Mandy you said you look at the word measures and it means policies I think measures meur can be interpreted by each of us in the way we want to so I think actions are measures as well as policies but I just I don't want us to think because I'm looking up in our area why don't we have more adus um we allowed adus anywhere you want them and we haven't gotten very many so it there's a market out there and a construction cost that's um working against us okay I'm going to move on to Major Capital Investments um there was some clear consensus here probably the most clear consensus among all the goals um and I think some people like myself said well I want this before I want this or I want that before I want this and I would give it one or you know a couple here and a couple there uh and at the same time I'm just echoing what I heard earlier most of us having been at the ground breaking yesterday or saying hey that elementary school's Moving on but as David has reminded us the staff still has a lot to do the library the same thing I'll take my double X away when we break ground there okay I want to just keep making sure it goes for so is are there comments um that Paul and David you want to make on the items here yeah so I I will group them numbers one and two they're ongoing we know we're committed to to those as as Dave mentioned Lynn just mentioned that planning DPW inspection services are all going to continue to do dedicate significant time to these two projects they're big projects the largest projects in the history of the town so um but the we've broken ground on one and the procurement is a huge piece of it um so that is moving forward as well uh especially for both projects um three four and five are the ones that you just identified and it was consensus in my reading of your document as the highest priorities for the um for the council and hearing that loud and clear so the way we're prioritizing these is that I want to work on a financing plan for you be while we have the um skill set of uh Sandy puler with us um and that would be targeting a July first date by to have that ready something like that ready um in terms of identifying a location for the DPW um we're hoping to have something for sure by the end of the summer um and then in terms of a location for the DP for the Fire EMS we're putting a deadline of October one on that so we I want to put dates out there so you can start to look at it and start to hold us more accountable then I think you have some frustration for that and I think we want to start to Target some deadlines for ourselves um um the um youth center and the senior center those are uh the banks Community Center is an arpa driven deadline so that is something we have to have designs for and then a way to set aside funds for by the end of uh this calendar year um and then for the Youth Empowerment Center where're there work there needs to be work done in terms of identifying potential the needs and available facilities and there's more than one way to create if we if the town wants to create a Youth Empowerment Center we we want to come up with different options available um the year and then this is the one where the development of the year round shelter really came up that it was in the previous goal but this is the the actual construction and one of the things that the reason one of the reasons we brought it up is that it re received a relatively low ranking of 5.75 at least the so that's I want to make sure that we were we're dedicating time and energy to this project I want to make sure that we're on the same page as the council yet and councel Ryan's already identified it and other counselors have said yes it is a priority so we're working under that assumption if we're wrong please say something because this is a project that as Dave said once we get it into a situation we get an RFP which will take time and effort we want to give it to a developer who will then um move it forward so um and when we say a developer what we really mean is probably a nonprofit developer and there are plenty out there as Dave said who are really interested in this so that's how you skipped six I don't think it was on purpose six roads and sidewalks oh yeah so um yeah so that that's one um I think with the idea on this is to pres present a um multi-year plan and that's something we can we're not going to be able to do that then the we can sort of d do what we did last time but to develop the multi-year plan is going to take us a little bit longer during the course of this year but it'll be before the um bids go out in this in the winter typically we go out to bid in the winter for next year's roads yeah uh I'm going to just jump in and say if I hadn't used up all of my rankings on the fire station and DPW and the financial plan I would have had some left for those two others which two others roads and sidewalks and the um um see again I'm thinking the senior center is a done deal the youth center we need more information I probably would have given more for the yearound shelter okay but just you know I used up three right on that solid block as did many other people um uh Kathy uh Paul I heard you say you were going be potentially coming to us with a plan on DPW you um one of my questions um that since these have just been working out in background is the current site of DPW um can't we just rebuild there and a DPW and so I'm going to have a lot of questions on whether we have to purchase another place and I know that's been we going and I don't need you to answer now but I just think of the property we already own can't we make use of it and can we give up the thought that everything DPW owns has to be in the same place cuz we have another place we can store some of the vehicles so just thinking through um what makes sense there and the financing plan clearly is what order we we do these things in so just on the one other we we had the beginning of a conversation Pam and others when you're saying the word Surplus but if we talk about reuse we're going to have it's not ours yet but at some point the Wildwood property will become available and putting it into the mix and we can't put it into the mix till the town has it and I understand that but trying to think of would that be re redeveloped and one of my thoughts and it'll be among many could be could the first floor be public use and could the upstairs be Apartments so we do a different kind of mix juice where we get something we want to keep we want to keep the gym we want to keep some piece of it but upstairs people can live because it's got 14 acres and it's got it's got um land it's got land it's got a parking lot so I just think you know these are one-year goals but trying to think of over the next three or four years what's possible with what we already own and the other way to think about Wildwood if DPW needs to partly move it could be swing space for DPW while something is being built you know but just it's it's a mix of a complex set of issues and I don't know whe the council can grasp I mean it it takes a lot of people thinking about it so what I don't know is how much staff time you've got to really you know get into the nuts and bolts of this and that's that's a question I'm just going to leave with because I don't think there's an answer right now Andy yeah I just want to comment on how I came about the priority ities because it partly answers the question Paul was Raising about the seasonal and year round shelter U that one I was one that I felt was uh no longer something that required a lot of attention from the council because I felt that we were in a phase now where uh we owned the piece of property and uh staff you guys were working on uh what the how to use and how to make that happen within the property and therefore um you'd come to the council when action from the council was necessary but it wasn't one we were going to spend a lot of time on um the reason that I put um finding a location for the fire station and U for the DPW so high is that I can't help but reflect that um I uh recall being on the finance committee back when John michanti was uh Town manager and Sandy puler was in his first uh run at being the uh Finance director and we were already working on that question how do we get those how do we get those poor projects done how do we get them financed and how do we get them done and it seems like we we so close on some of these things we just need to keep moving them along because uh you know I've uh now in my third term on the council after two terms on the select board and uh some time on the finance committee and I feel like we're talking about the same thing and uh so maybe it is time in my book to move it along before I uh while I'm still on Earth um the uh um and which brings me to the last thing I was going to say was um I really think that it's important that we think about that Pomeroy property um I think that there was a feeling that we finally had a good location for the fire station and we really could move forward with it um and I don't understand why it has taken so long to close out a decision on that that it's either the right or the wrong place because it just seems like there was this broad consensus that it was a place that worked was uh on but it was uh enough and uh that we could make a very usable and accessible uh spot there U and so I just uh sort of a little bit of frustration is in my thinking about why I put that as to such a high priority I just think we can close it out and be done councelor hanii um I want to Echo Kathy's comments about DPW and and um Andy's comments about making a decision on fire um I know that I've heard there's disagreement ment amongst whether we should move forward at pomoy with fire or whether we should hold out for DPW so I I assume that will be part of reports coming in but but um I want to urge it's clear these are the other three that got of the five that this is extremely important to this Council um uh many of us a majority of us I think have been on this Council five years and it's been important for five years and I think we're getting tired of waiting um and I think these rankings show we're getting tired of waiting um I I would like and to encourage well five for just this Council I encourage um creativity with DPW I know there's been a desire to keep it all on one site but after decades I don't think we can ignore the possibility of needing to split it up or needing to make the footprint smaller by going higher uh so that you don't need as large of a piece of property um or ignore the possibility of looking at our zoning and seeing if there are proper zoning changes that could be made to make more properties feasible to put DPW due to increased potential increasing lot coverages or um reducing parcel you know something about loot coverage maximums or impervious surface maximums in certain areas for Town Services um I think we it's time it's past time to get creative about how to put a DPW in this town um George uh Paul you set a deadline on my notes say for the Fire EMS is October 1 I just didn't catch the deadline for DPW September one September one thank you and then mention the multiyear plan excuse me you what you said was that the amount would be a little smaller than it's been in the past is that correct or did I missere you I'm in no I said two things one one was we can do an educational session like we did a couple years ago to the TSO committee that talks about how we prioritize and then this this this goal identifies a multi-year plan and that wouldn't wouldn't happen until later in the calendar year right I heard him say it'll take a little longer um but that's okay we're going to move on um to goal six and why don't we start with any updates sure so um goal six is racial equity and social justice the first one is use a racial and social justice lens when making decisions again we see this as an ongoing thing uh goal just like we did looked with um um with climate action um part of this includes uh re taking an a review of town department policies and decisions using the equity lens um we actually began this conversation with departments um back in 2022 um the uh we've got a little bit sidetracked because the key people from the um Dei director were involved in the interim leadership team for the crest Department um and then they're also looking at securing actual assessment tool they think that having a common tool that we can apply to every department is important the second is to support the work of the town and repairing the damage of structural racism so um one some of the efforts of the Dei Department are about um having a series of events aimed to engage community members in learning and dialogue about Dei topics many of you have participated in some of these um the I the initiative of becoming a Beloved Community led by Dr love and would build on the national day of racial healing that has happened uh the next event is on April 4th and there's a number of other events that are already scheduled to have that it's it's a conversation it's a dialogue um on that number three is provide training regarding racial Equity rights and other options to the Town Council employees and members of the public so the Dei Department continues to provide month workshops and and targeted training specifically through by Department um the um thei department does offer trainings to the Town Council if it chooses to uh Avail themselves to those trainings they're available to help with that the next one is begin to identify and propose revisions to policies bylaws and regulations to dismantle structural racism so this sort of already addressed this a little bit in terms of the overall goal but one of the specific goals that we're having an active discussion now is about marijuana uh and cannabis um regulations and bringing uh a social justice lens to to all of our policies on the permitting and regulation of cannabis um this is also a goal of the uh cannabis Control Commission they're issuing new guidelines our planning department and Licensing group is are actively looking at this and what it means for our town and the last one is to incorporate input from bipo lgbtq plus and other marginalized communities and appropriate Town committees when reviewing and revising policies and regulations so the Dei Department really sees the their main conduit of hearing from other from groups as because they staff the Human Rights Commission the disability access advisory committee and the community safety and social justice committee and they depend on these volunteers and people who serve on these committees um to help guide their work we have not made very much progress with an English-speaking population non-english-speaking populations um they're aware of the challenges that that presents um and so again this is where the equity assessment tool will become come in handy because I think this will be something that where we can judge how the town is doing um across all of our departments okay George you have your hand up just uh maybe try to explain some of my um rankings such as they are I mean like many of these I struggled uh to try and put numbers to this question mark doesn't mean that I don't think it's important um I think what it means is that I'm trying to make princi number one is I assume simply a given that we use a racial and social justice lens when making decisions um so I don't know you know Priority One I guess but I mean it's just a given um number two likewise question mark because for me a lot of what I think of as um racial Justice is involved with actual concrete actions so home ownership um the new school uh a thriving Crest program um programs related to Youth Empowerment and we're still waiting to see what will happen with reparation so those are the kinds of things I Look to um the other items you know they have value I think forance number three we have asked staff to do Dei training seems that the council should do this um so that would be my thought there um so just brief comment about my sort of strange numbers okay uh councelor ET so number three says provide training regarding racial Equity rights and other options to the Town Council and I'm wondering what other options mean um Paul I did not write this I would like to the council to say what they meant another one of those vague references at the end of a sentence um you if you'd like to fill in the blank perhaps you have an idea Pat wants to fill in the blank ah no councelor of Lord wants to fill in the blank well I read it as um like trainings around wait what what number is it again number three thank you um racial Equity rights and other options to me would be like maybe the history and strategizing different ways to dismantle the oppression as opposed to like not trainings but just other things that would help Propel us to actually use a lens deeply deeply embedded in equity and stuff Beyond just racial equity and uh what was the second thing rights quote unquote rights so it might might be events as well okay Pat you have your hand up on this one too I'm sorry uh one of the things that um I've been talking to um the folks from Embrace race um Melissa jro and Andrew we can't hear you Pat and Andrew um Grant Thomas and they have a program called Drawing difference uh we've been taught to be silent