zation fund. So it just and it's a we can take this up later. But I like I like the idea of something like that. So it was the idea we would actually be creating one. Yep. Yes. And and so if that's yes, that should be part of the discussion. Yes. Stay tuned. That'll be a separate discussion. But so I guess they're very well happened before we filed this. Okay, it will come before the council before we file this. Let's put it that way. I can't predict what will happen with it. Okay. Shalini. Can I go ahead? When Sean reviewed this, he really liked the idea of stabilization fund for capitals. He liked the idea so much that you're probably going to see it coming forward as a referral soon. Shalini. Yeah, again, I think it's a brilliant idea. And as we move forward with studying it, I think what comes to my mind is looking at the impact of it. I mean, our intentions are obviously that we raise funding for affordable housing. But despite the good intentions, sometimes by laws like this, like I've seen that in this research on rent control, for example, is that it backfires. And because if other towns close by are not having a similar fee, then the builders or whoever are investing tend to move in those areas rather than building. So it just backfires that we actually don't end up having more of whatever we're looking for. I'm not saying this is exactly the same thing, but that's just something to look for is like, what is that amount that is not going to disincentivize people from doing that in our town? And what has been the impact looking at like in Martha's vignette since when has it been there? And what has been the impact of it? How much money was collected? Did it change the number of transactions? And so just looking at that notoriety. Thank you. Thank you. Question. Go ahead. Is that okay? Okay. So I can say that I know for Amherst, I was able to pull our data on housing transfers fairly easily from our GIS site. And so that data is accessible. If you wanted to look into it, I'm sure that you'd be able to kind of look at the trends over time. However, I also just want to reiterate the fact that doing this special act, and we know that it's tough to get a special act through doing this special act supports other supports bills like Joe's that are like Senator Comerford's that are working to make this a right to be able to do it so that other communities don't have to go through this process. And so it is, you know, ideally this passes, this could be hugely impactful for our town in really wonderful beneficial ways. However, even if it doesn't pass, the act of filing it and the act of pushing on it is supportive of something that I'll speak for myself. And I believe Mandy as well, we believe we shouldn't have to file a special act for. So we are doing this in support of those other towns having the right in the future, regardless of what happens with ours. And there may come a time where a document would come before the council and we vote to file a resolution about our support for the act once probably in the next session of the legislature since Joe will have to refile that bill. Mandy, Joe, did you have your hand up to answer a question? Yeah, I'll just answer yours, which is we already filed our support with a resolution from last last year to Joe's bill. But I wanted to point out that the special act as written is a may do it. So the bylaw would have if the special act passes, it doesn't automatically institute a fee. The council would then have to pass a bylaw to actually institute the fee. And and that reason is again, there are some special acts that were written where the fee goes in right at 2%, then you can never change the fee if you see it's having negative effects. You got to go back to the legislature here, we've gotten the May, the 2% is up to 2%. So we couldn't go higher. But if we enacted 2% saw negative consequences, we could we could come back lower, we could relook at it much more flexibly. And so that concern is more to my thinking is more of a bylaw concern than a special act concern, because getting a special act passed doesn't actually change anything other than allow us to pass a bylaw. Anika. Yeah, so I just want to thank you for the work you've done to bring this to the table. This is great. And I love how it's supportive of larger bills. And I think it's important. So at this point, I just want to express my gratitude to you both. Thank you. Yeah. Jennifer. Yeah, and we've um, I thank you for bringing this forward as well. We, there's been a lot of discussion for years about the fact that we that property that's rented that's income producing has never doesn't contribute any greater amount to the town than non income producing property. So this is a way to begin to address that, which I think is great and well overdue. Welcome. Great. Well, in support of that, let's do the motion and to refer the proposed special act on residential property transfer fees to the finance committee and the governor's organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation to the town council by October 27. Is there a second? Second, that one got there. Any other questions or comments Michelle? Sorry, just a process question. Does it have to go first to finance and get a recommendation out of there and then to GOL? Yes. You. We've handed Andy two different big chunks tonight. Okay. Any other questions on that? Seeing none, I'm going to move to the vote. Mandy Johanna. He's first. Hi. Anika Lopes. Hi. Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer Taub. Hi. Alicia Walker. Hi. Shalini Balmillan. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. Hi. Anna Devon-Goth here. Hi. Lynn Griezmer is in the eye. It's unanimous and thanks for all your hard work to get us this far. All right. We are done. Oh, no. We're doing the first reading on the soliciting. Yes. We are now doing the proposed amendments to general bylaw 3.36 soliciting. This is a first reading. It will come back to the council at the next meeting. And I'm looking to Michelle Miller for a report from GOL. I'm going to pass it to Mandy if she's okay with that. Mandy, would you offer it since you brought it forward? Thank you. So I think the GOL vote was unanimous to declare clear, consistent and actionable. But this is the companion change to the one that was just passed under consent tonight of license fees and heartless common victulers and launch carts. It's the only other bylaw in our bylaws that set a fee within the bylaw. And the plan here is to, the proposal is to change it so that the Board of License Commissioners is the one that sets the fee and it's no longer in the bylaw. Okay. So this, you're saying this completes the set of ones we have to pay attention to? Yes. Great. Are there any questions at this time? Okay. I'm seeing none. Again, it will come back to the council on next week. We are then moving on to the next D&A we're consent. We're moving on to the town council committee meeting format. And the reason this has come up is because the last time we voted on this, we didn't have any state law or it was about to expire. So the legislature has extended the ability of the town council to meet as we have been, but we need to now make a decision as to whether, how we are going to continue to meet. The, let me just mention before we get into motions, et cetera. Whatever we do, counselors would still be allowed to attend virtually. So that's not the question on the table. The question on the table is, do we continue to meet in person as we are now and have the virtual option? The next question on the table is, do we bring the audience back into the room and respecting town, expecting limits of room capacity? And then the third thing that we always have to deal with when we do this is, what will the committees of the council do? So with that, I've asked Athena to put the two motions up. So thank you. So we have two options. The first motion is moved effective immediately to hold all town council meetings in the in-person meeting format with the option of virtual meetings if the president declares 24 hours in advance of a meeting that there will be fewer than five counselors physically present and with virtual public access until March 31, 2023. This motion is identical to what we presently are doing and it is identical to the motion we did last time except to change the dates. The other option is effective immediately to hold all town council meetings in the in-person meeting format with in-person public access and the option of virtual public access indefinitely. And this one basically, all it does is remove the ability of the president to declare 24 hours in advance that we won't be meeting in person. I want to mention that there is a possibility that we could decide we need to meet virtually because of inclement weather and we never put that into the last motion. Because unfortunately with Zoom, you don't get snow days anymore. So I'm interested in some kinds of comments on either of the motions and then I'd like to move one of them. Eman, did you? Just two comments. I think inclement weather would be a better option than the in terms of adding into a motion instead of the if there's fewer than five councilors physically present. I'd more support an inclement weather one and I wouldn't say indefinitely. I would go to the end of our term to allow each subsequent council to make their own determinations. I would like to not have to face this vote even next March unless the law doesn't allow us to do whatever we're doing and then obviously we would have to face it. But I think what we've been doing is working and so let's just say we're doing that to the end of our term. Either Paul or Athena, is there any reason we can't vote this indefinitely? Obviously if the legislature changes something then we'd have to come back. You're asking if we could vote the first option indefinitely? Yeah or some version of the first option with an inclement. Well I would just change the second option to December 31, 2023 essentially. I know our terms like January, I don't know, 4th, 5th, something like that. I mean even though the law only goes to March 31, 2023, can we vote a motion that takes it to the end of our term? Our last meeting would be in December of 2023. Well the motion, that second one, the in-person meeting format with in-person public access and the option of virtual public access is within the open meeting law. So if that March 31, 2023 comes and goes and there's not new special legislation that would, we would just go back to the open meeting law provisions and that's what that is. So I don't see any conflict with doing that. Okay, I see hands up. Michelle? If we vote positively on the second one does that still allow counselors to attend virtually if needed or? Yes. Okay thank you. Kathy? I had the same question on both the first one and the second one. It doesn't say that and we used to have the rule that you could only do X number. Did we delete that rule? Paul actually, yes go ahead Athena. So please use your mic so that we can hear you. I'm sorry. So my understanding is that if the council voted the second option that we still wouldn't need a quorum present in the room because the special legislation hasn't expired the thing that would change after March 31, 2023 is that we would need a quorum in the room. So what would change if the council voted the second option would be that the public is now allowed to come in? Okay. And what the second option doesn't do is accommodate that there would be fewer than five counselors or inclement weather. We would need to change the language if that's what the council wanted to do to be virtual if there's fewer than five counselors. I think that my opinion is that that could be confusing if for less than 24 hours before a meeting we changed the meeting format. So I might suggest that 48 hours before a meeting we changed the format. Okay. Let me try this. Can I just say I don't think the wording allows us in either one allows the hybrid one that we've been doing and I don't see why in person I understand you're saying it allows us to keep doing but what we've got six people virtual right now if the intent is to do that why don't we write it there I don't see that it says in person format both of them say in person for us. I'm just I don't think it's clear to me Lynn and we have from the motion and yet this is the motion we voted consistently. Okay. Right. It's the issue of whether you attend virtually or not has not been part of the council rules it's been part of the town manager's memos and Paul changed the limit of four to indefinite. Correct Paul? Yeah but I think the state law allowed that the state allowed you to have these meetings virtually or in person. Okay. So that but that only that extends on March 31st. Right. Then it then it goes back to the you must have a forum in the room and then whatever rules that we established which require you to do all the advance notice and all that stuff if you're going to attend virtually but we've got just that. Okay. Athena? Right. So all of that remote participation request that wouldn't start until March 31st 2023. Right. Up until now so you don't have to request to be remote. I ask you to answer the poll but you don't have to request to be remote. Does that answer your question Kathy? It does. I just if I read this I wouldn't see that we could do the other and on our books we still have that special request but if everyone interprets it that way I'm fine because this is the way we've been meeting and it continues that's fine. So I do like legislative intent and we're having this. I just I think the way we're doing it works and so the big question is the difference between one and two is would there be people sitting in the room with us? Right. Mandy Jo? I was just going to try and explain it otherwise. A different way. Item two is basically pre-pandemic rules meaning pre-pandemic we were in person but there was always that remote option. Under state law we couldn't not have it because the select board had adopted it the manager had adopted it so that's what this one is is you're mainly in person but you've still got that remote option under state law the state law is actually now more flexible and more allowable than it was pre-pandemic. I would still add the I think to the second motion I prefer the second motion but I would add with I don't know how it would be worded with the option of virtual meetings in inclement weather or something like that. Something that gives we ran into that one time I think last January where it started snowing in the middle and half of us had problems getting home right and so if that was going to be the case it'd be nice to not have to cancel the meeting or or just be able to say look snow's being called for let's just do it virtually and the one the one time I ever did use the five was we appeared to be getting a nice storm and people kept saying I don't think I'm coming and I finally said well the none of us are coming so we didn't do it that night we did we had the meeting but we did it virtually. Do we want to say indefinitely or do we want to say through the first meeting of the next term? I would just say December 31 then that then that leaves the same question I had to run into last time and that is who decides how the next council is going to meet the first meeting that's why I'd say it through the first meeting of the next council so that you just the rule is there and then the next council meets and then they decide. Kathy you have your hand up forgot to take it Jennifer yeah so does this mean that then the next meeting we could have people in person here? It means at the next meeting we would have the people could come in person they could also attend virtually by zoom they can make public comment either way and they can also watch on Amherst media and then jump in by zoom if they want to. And so are there COVID protocols still for how many people? Yes Paul there is a limit on the capacity of the room right? We still have a capacity of 40 people in this room so if there's 13 counselors two or three staff maybe 20 people whatever could come in we would set up the chairs here somehow if we had to accommodate counselors counselors would probably have to gather we probably have the counselors all sit in the same location and eliminate the tables so that the proximity of counselors right now you're spread out that would go away because we'd have to be able to accommodate up to 25 people in the audience. Yeah I still imagine most people would rather zoom in. Yeah we don't know I mean okay that's on the issue too. Yeah you this was this beautiful podium was built for 13 counselors we used to have six more people sitting with us not at those tables right right um but although I want to make sure people are comfortable with being closer okay uh okay I want to say until through the first meeting of the next term okay so this is the motion. Michelle you have a question? I do I have a comment um so I really want to get to a place where we have people in the room I think the public I think we'll be surprised that the public may it's depending on the issue want to come to show support or to voice themselves um but I do have some concern particularly given recent events um and that have occurred um about security and I'm just wondering if since I haven't been on the council at any time when there have been people who've come into the room although I've been one at times um I'm just wondering if people have to register uh to be part of the public in the room or if there's some protocol or is it basically just anybody who shows up can if they're the first 30 or whatever Paul said um can come into the room Paul. Anybody can show up they do not have to identify themselves they can just be present and the only issue for us is that we would have to limit the number we'd have to have if we thought there would be more than the fifth the 20 people coming into the audience we'd have to accommodate either relocate the meeting to us to a space that could accommodate the larger crowd or have some kind of overflow or something like that so if we know that there are going to be a hundred people showing up we can't have the meeting in this room we have to accommodate that that space. I also want to point out that there's no other room that can accommodate both virtual and in person public comment this is the only room right so the second thing on top of that is that we're talking just about the town council meetings um there are you know 40 other committees that want to meet and someone to meet in person someone to meet remotely being able to support them we have our IT director here all night tonight with you to accommodate things um so it'll be based on our ability to deliver the service I think you know for us it's easier to either be in person or to be remote right these hybrid meetings are intense. Michelle did you have a further question on that? I'm just wondering if anyone else shares the security concerns or has anything that might ease my concerns but I'll just put that out there thanks. Dorothy our poll did you have a further question about yeah I mean I think it's a real legitimate concern there have been instances of and we can offer the council what we call Alice training which is training for a potentially violent situation and to teach you how you can respond we've done it for our town staff we continue to train staff on situations like this you know schools do trainings on this on this as well so we can offer it to volunteer boards as well if you'd like that right but Michelle I appreciate your concern and it didn't fall on silent ears okay Dorothy I feel that we've reached a different time and I do share the security concerns who who wants to be in the audience in person so many people tell me how much they love being able to attend a zoom meeting from their home when we do it in the meeting if you come in person these town council meetings last forever so that means people in an audience sitting close together even if it's only 25 that's close together for long hours and that's something that we try to avoid those of us who are trying to avoid getting COVID we don't stay seated unmasked with people for a long period of time the experience of being in person under the COVID circumstances for me was I really hated it I'm sitting there masked and I'm having to talk that way and then I'm using a computer and not dealing with the people in the room it seemed to be I feel much closer to the meeting coming from my own house with my face on the screen unmasked looking at other counselors real faces not masked faces I don't I think the things have changed and I think that there's a lot of bad things about COVID but I'm really happy about the zoom meetings when it comes to something like town council the only change and you did mention you were going to discuss this is that the audience has complained again and again they want to all know they want to know who else is in the room which means that attendees I see the attendees because I'm a principal of this meeting but when I go even as a town counselor to another meeting by zoom I have no idea who's in the audience because there's those that is not accessible to me I can't see that I don't think you have to bring people in and show their faces I mean that's something you can do and you do it selectively now and then but at a minimum list the people that are in the attendees because you can do it and you're doing it for those who are running the meeting so why not for the people in the audience too I think that the zoom meetings make it possible for so many more people to participate in the meetings when I go out amongst crowds and see a lot of people they're telling me they're watching these meetings I mean because they're commenting on what I say so I know they're watching the meetings and I don't think that was the way it was before you would come to a meeting if you had some issue that you were bringing before the board but now a lot of people do take the time to watch the meetings they watch the finance meetings they watch the library meetings and you know that's to me the good side of the COVID thing that we've learned how we could do this in a very democratic way Anna I just respectfully wanted to explain that the reason why the audience cannot see the list of people is because this is a webinar style zoom meeting if you are a panelist you can see the zoom folks who are listed as panelists who are in the room with their videos on right now can see the audience actually there is not a way for the audience to see the list of names uh short of screen capturing it. Athena you wanted to say something on that I just wanted to address one of those comments in at in-person meetings prior to any zoom meetings we've never asked people to sign in and then shared that list publicly and I I have a you know strong hesitation that there is an expectation that people who come to a public meeting where they are allowed to come and go as they please be expected to register in any way and then that information be shared publicly um I think there could be some serious concerns about doing setting a precedent for that kind of registration and then sharing that registration process. I understand that people have wanted this I also want to point out that we have no list of all the people watching on Amherst media and some people may watch on zoom because it's just easier than watching on Amherst media or they want to make a public comment at one point today we had 33 people in the zoom meeting and yet when we called for public comment nobody wanted to make it they just chose to watch by zoom um Michelle. I Athena certainly don't want to be in opposition to what you just said but I I remember seeing somewhere and I can't remember where I will try to find it that there are there is somewhere some some procedure around public meetings and having to you know register a spot um so I don't know where I saw it but um I what I'm hearing you say is that that's not something that you're aware of is that is that true? Athena. We can't require people to re pre-register before they attend a public meeting that may have been different at district meetings um but we can't we cannot have a pre-registration process to that is required for people to come to meetings when council meetings are taking place in the town room and the room is open to the public. This is a public space and people can come and go as they wish. We do have um a registration process if people wish to make a public comment so at that sort of person meetings if folks wanted to make public comment they would sign in so that the president could call on them when it was time. That's exactly what I was remembering thank you for it's for public comment purposes.  When you're in the room you just look around the room and you see the people okay so it's not that people were attending meetings incognito um we could see them and now people can't see the people and they can't see their names and um I think that's uh that's something that's not good so that's it. Pam yeah I'm not trying to prolong the conversation here but why is the first the first option crossed out now? I'm about to make the motion and it's going to be the second option. What if we don't want the second option? Then you can vote against it. So I so if we're going to talk about the second option it says that is that the counselors will be in the in-person meeting format it does not say anything about the counselors being able to be remote. Neither does the first option. In case I know because and that's what we pointed out is that it didn't include that possibility. If somebody would like to come up with a statement effective immediately to hold all 10 council meetings in the in-person meeting format with the option of counselors attending remotely. Lynn? Huh? It's not this motion that allows less than a forum to be present it's the special act that allows them in a forum to be present. So that's why it hasn't been included in the motions in the past that's why it's not in this motion. So once the special legislation expires then we will be required to have a forum in the room. So we just haven't put that in the motion because it's assumed that we're going to follow the law. Pam does that make sense to you?  So Athena I would just be adding after the in-person meeting format the phrase with remote participation as permitted by law. Excellent okay so the motion that I'm going to now make is effective immediately to hold all 10 council meetings in the in-person meeting format with remote participation as permitted by law with in-person public access and the option of virtual public access in the event of inclement whether the president may announce a virtual meeting will take place until the first and this will be effective until the first meeting of the next council's term. Yeah this will be effective and including the first and through the first meeting through the until and including the first meeting of the next council's term. Is that that is the motion? Is there a second? Andy? Yeah no I was just going to suggest that if you want to get to clean wording you would say effective immediately and until and then put that language in there until and including the first council the first meeting of the next council's term. I'll second the motion. Yes thank you we've now got a much more grammatically correct motion. After the word term I believe you need a comment. Yeah okay the motion has been made and seconded. Dorothy you have a question comment? Yeah I am finding it very strange to say that if we have inclement weather we don't have to do it and we don't say in case of COVID epidemic. I mean you know there's other things that make it so we don't want to get together in person so it's like it's like we had a big amnesia here. There will be other reasons besides inclement weather when you will say we can't meet in person so I would hate to I don't like the limitation that way just say good cause you can change it with good cause and that leaves it into common sense which you have so I'd find that fine. The motion has been made and seconded would you like to amend the motion? In the event of good cause. In the event of good cause including inclement weather and and epidemics or something I mean we have reasons why you don't want to have a public meeting that can come upon us rather quickly. We want COVID to be gone so badly that we're trying to forget it but it's coming back. Right the motion that I'm just trying to help somebody else could come up with better event of inclement weather or other or health emergencies or something like that or at the discretion of the president yes president may thank you yes yes good Pat do you have a question to comment? That motion was seconded by oh yeah is there a second to that motion? I will ascent to that change. Okay great that motion's actually what we've done now is accepted that as a friendly amendment to the motion. Pat? So let's vote. Okay Andy do you have any final comment? Yeah I think there's one clarification that I need and that is are we talking about council meetings or council and council committee meetings? This is town council meetings only. The next one we still have to do committee meetings. Any further comment? Question? All right seeing none we're going to go to a vote. This is Anika Lopes. Thanks. Anika? Yes. Michelle Miller? Hi. Dorothy Pam? Yes. Pam Rooney? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Hi. Jennifer Tob? Hi. Alicia Walker? Hi. Shalini Palmillian? Yes. Pat DeAngeles? Hi. Anna Devlin-Goth here? Hi. Lynn Grishmorsen? I'm Anika Drohaniki. Hi. It is unanimous. All right we're going on to committee meetings. The first one is to continue like we would be doing now where we basically hold all public committee meetings virtually and the second would move to an in-person format. Kathy? It says in person. Oh yes it does. That's my mistake. All right thank you. I think the first one was supposed to read in the virtual. Yes there we go. So now the first one basically allows us to meet virtually but in this case with virtual public access because you can do that easily if you're virtually okay until March 31st 2023. If we go back above we could pick up the comment about you know as long as it allows to the top one okay and then go up and pick up the other language about I'm sorry Kathy? On the first motion you don't need anything more it's all virtual. Okay. But but I do have a question. Joe did you have any comment on the motion? Okay. Okay so I just want to know. Pardon? Am I commenting? Yes. Okay my understanding on our choices here is that this is the only room on option two that that's possible. That it's that it's uh it can be in person and have virtual public access. If this is the only room that we currently can do that do we really have the second option is my question. If you have overlapping meetings you can't. Right I just you know if we have overlapping meetings town staff and I'm assuming when it says council meetings it's not including the elementary school building committee meeting or the Jones library committee. It is not. It's the others. So we would always be in this room would be and then we would have to make sure we don't have any meeting at the same time. Correct. That's correct. Okay. Mandy Joe. So I don't know what to do with this one. As many people know even before this council was was sworn in I have been pushing for us going back to in person for both council and committee meetings with sort of virtual public access. In the last two years or so even though I still don't really like virtual meetings even for committee meetings I see the benefit to counselors in terms of at least the flexibility of being able to attend meetings. If they're traveling or just the flexibility for those that have jobs especially jobs that might not be an Amherst to not have to travel up to Amherst to attend a committee meeting which I believe allows our counselors to attend meetings at times they might not otherwise be able to attend meetings. So I'm struggling with which I would support on this one. I have a feeling I'm a losing battle on getting committees back in person and that if we went that way that given the state of the state law right now that I might be one of only one or maybe two people that might choose to show up in person. So you know that leads me to probably I'd end up voting for whichever one is moved but I just wanted to say that you know my thinking on this given how strident I've been in the past my thinking on this is evolving. Pam's over there like whoa. She's actually said it. Andy. So with the reason I raised the question on the first one but now we're getting to it for real the second. I think that we need to be very concerned about staff time to man virtual meetings that are also in person meetings. We've already talked about that significantly. There was a push in the House of Representatives to do just that as a requirement and a really big pushback including from our own staff to that proposal. I think it's not a good use of our IT staff time. Therefore I would at this point as long as we're permitted to do it by statute just do our meetings virtual. I'm going to make a motion effective immediately and until and including the first meeting of the next council's chair I'm told all town town council committee meetings in the virtual meeting format with virtual public access. Is there a second? Second Rooney. Sorry I just want to make one more comment. I'm going to vote for the motion but is there a way we can think about if there's a particular meeting that we really think would be helpful to have in person to be able to discuss you know I don't know how to I wouldn't necessarily put that in this motion but I can foresee something where we might say you know there's a lot of big visuals that we want some interactive public you know community forms where you're like hey it would be nice to get public to put stickies on things and stuff like that that we can't really do virtually that figure out a way to have those discussions and maybe have some of those special committee meetings in person. I can't point to anything particular right now but as we get involved particularly towards design guidelines I can see it might be very helpful to have some meetings in person. And there may be special meeting access for that kind of thing. All right does this need something about being consistent with the law because once we once March 31st rolls around we would not be allowed to do this. It could say until the first meeting and that's council's term unless inconsistent with law with state law something like that. While she's thinking about that Kathy you have your hand up. I'm totally supportive of this however we amend it to get all those other words in but Mandy's suggestion I'd like to come back to not at this meeting because we just we're running into that with a subcommittee of the elementary school building committee by saying they have to be virtual we can't meet in person and there are some times we'd like to meet in a small group including the public in a room and we're in a tightjacket the way we've done this we don't have a in certain circumstances we can do something. So I'd just like to have some thought on how we can creatively on occasion decide differently. I'm actually going to throw this back to GOL to look at our rules of procedure to see if they can put something in there under your various different meeting options. I knew you'd love that Michelle. I don't think it's a rules thing right now because the only reason we're virtual is by virtual the state law. Yeah you're right. Let's just discuss it at a future meeting Michelle. Well that was kind of leading to my question so after March 31st there is nothing that we could do that would allow us to continue this format we would have that is correct. Okay so given that I'm just and given the concerns about staff time and not having enough rooms that could handle would it mean that beyond March 31st everything would have to be in person for council committee meetings so people and counselors there'd be no zoom whatsoever. It would mean that the a majority of the people a majority of the council would have to be in the room and the person presiding would have to be in the room and the note taker would have to be in the room. But if there was somebody who got filled up that you know the exemption how would they be accommodated they just I guess would have to go into the council room. Yes please. So after March 31st 2023 unless there's another round of special legislation members would need to request they would fill out and submit a remote participation request form to the committee chair as early as possible and the committee chair would approve or deny the request. Chairs would have to be aware that they would need a form in the room so if they're finding that there are more requests than would allow a form to be in the room they would have to make decisions about whether or not to hold that meeting or to reschedule it important. Wow. Work with members about trying to have people in the room. And if I could make a prediction the fact that we have a new legislature coming in on January and they're supposed to deal with this by March 31st they're going to just end up extending it again until they can come up with a better resolution. The motion on the floor is the following. I've accepted this is a friendly amendment effective immediately until the including until and including the first meeting the next town council's term unless inconsistent with state law to hold all town council committee meetings in the virtual meeting format with virtual public access. Was there a second? And do you accept those friendly amendments? Yes. Thank you. Any other further discussion or question? Seeing none we're going to move to the vote. Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Maroney. Hi. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer Taub. Hi. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shalini Belmillan. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. Hi. Devlin Gauthier. Hi. Lynn Griesmorsen. I'm Andy Jahanicki. Hi. And Anika Lopes. Hi. It's unanimous. We've no other votes tonight that I'm aware of. The next item is for information only although I certainly invite discussion and feedback. It is with regard to the town manager's evaluation. Earlier I guess it was at the end of August that I met with GOL. We reviewed the town manager evaluation calendar based on that. I have made a significant revision shortening the time. And the revised calendar and example instruments are in your packet. We are required by the charter to evaluate the town manager every year. As I've said in the GOL meeting, Amherst takes this beyond what most towns ever even would think about. I would love to see a way that we could not make this as onerous. But this is what we have at the moment. So we can pull the calendar up if you want. But unless people have questions, I'm willing to just keep moving on. This is something that all town counselors must participate in. You must submit a written evaluation. And it does become public. Okay. Questions? Seeing none. We have no appointments tonight. We're going on to committee and liaison reports. Mandy Jo, CRC. Thanks. CRC, back in early August, put out a bulletin board notice for the three ZBA associate vacancies. We do not yet have enough applications to declare the pool sufficient. So that is my first notice to the rest of the council. Keep working on finding people who might want to serve on the ZBA as an associate member. And the other main thing CRC has been working on is rental permitting. And we are getting close to having a draft of a full bylaw. That draft is very much in flux though. But I would say that we're getting close to having language in every section. So that means that chairs of TSO and finance will be hearing from me about discussions needed to take place regarding fee structures, regarding who does fees, and potentially regarding who does regulations and what they may look like. So I will probably be pulling at least for TSO and CRC after talking to the TSO chair the possibility of having a joint meeting to save some sort of meeting for someone. But look for that. I think we've got a council public dialogue or a council main discussion scheduled for October 17th. And CRC is hoping, although it has not set that we will have another community forum the week after on the 24th, that we'll be able to hear about specific concerns, questions, comments regarding the language that is out there at that time. For the manager, I'll be emailing you about some need for attorney consultation and potentially attorney attendance at CRC. Because we know we've got some concerns probably with the landlord tenant law and how we can write stuff into the bylaw. And then the final thing is we're still in the middle of flood maps. We're hoping to be able to get them to GOL by the end of our next meeting on September 29th, 29th, the meeting, right? But that all depends on getting the final firm maps and the report from FEMA before we can close our hearings and do our voting to get it to GOL. So it's going, the hearing is still open. So we're not under any 90 to day deadline to pass yet. But we are now currently counting down our six months deadline, which started in late August. And I have the possibility that the earliest of flood maps would come to the town council is October 17th. That is the earliest. Okay. Andy, you have a question? Yes. Can we have joint committee meetings if it involves quorum of the council and the council is ultimately going to have to act? So it might end up being a full council meeting between the three committees. Every single counselor serves on one of those three committees. So at that point, we might just on some of these do a full committee, a full council meeting. Or do you want it to be an item at a council meeting? So we, I want to talk to see with the chairs first on timing, but we may end up coming to you and saying we just needed on a council meeting. Thank you. And I appreciate that complexity. Okay. Andy, good catch. Uh, the elementary school building committee, Kathy. Yes. And you don't have a written report, but I will do one for the next meeting because I want to have everyone know our timeline on August 31st. I think you saw our, we did a press release. It got written up. The MSBA approved the schematic report unanimously and we had met with them a week or two before that with something they call a facilities committee where they could ask questions. And they basically praised us on a whole, on a range of issues and people came away going, hooray, you know, both in the education plan, the building scope. So it was unanimous support. What that means is we're now in designing the building with a lot more specificity than before. We had floor layouts, but now it's what the building is going to look like, what the exterior inside color schemes that allow us to get to a revised cost estimate that will be, you know, what are the materials and making those tough decisions that the library is now going through, trying to take things out of their building.  Is it mortar? We are in a schedule to be doing that over the next few months so that we can get another cost estimate either November or December. And I'm a little hazy there just because when we're target, we have to go to another MSB, the granting authority meeting with the final design. They have to vote on it. And that's when we get the official, how much their share will be. So that triggers a meeting with the council to vote this move forward with the debt exclusion, but also going out to vote for the town. The two potential MSBA meetings are March, but it would be the very beginning of March and April. There are fortunate two choices. So we're going to look at our schedule in terms of when we have to make decisions to get there because that first date, March, the beginning of it, we would have to get everything done by December 28th. It's weird the way they've set things up, which hits Thanksgiving and holiday. So, Lynn, I'm going to come back to you to just talk about because this is the council meetings and discussion. This is starting to throw off what I thought was the schedule. Right. So that's, it's, it's a potential revision, but we need to bring it to the committee because it's just what is, what is feasible. So it's exactly right. You know, and we, we can go out for a vote before we get the final MSBA finding on this. It's on you. It's not what most towns do. They usually get the MSBA determination first. So it's, it's, that's just a time, it's a timing issue. But in the meantime, last meeting, and I'll share this picture in a report I do, we saw the first 3D picture of what this building would look like. So it started to feel like a building rather than a bunch of floors, and it's starting to look very exciting with, you know, putting some flesh on the bones of it and what's the color of the brick going to be or where is it brick, what's the entrance look like. So stay tuned on that for some pictures that start to look like a building. Okay. We need to meet sooner rather than later and keeping in mind that we don't want to go out to the voters any later than about the end of April. I mean, because once you start getting into May, then you start getting, well, the university's not really in session and, you know, a bunch of other stuff. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, I know. And so that's the timing of this that the March meeting is like March 1st and the April meeting is April 26. So that's, you know, those are the, and then there's also the issue of how much in advance you have to set the ballot question. Yep. Okay. Got it. Okay. That's news. Finance Committee, Andy. The Finance Committee, you've thrown a lot at us and so I do need to point that out. We spent the entire last meeting on the library discussion and we are planning again to meet tomorrow at 3.30 to continue the discussion on library and hopefully get the answers to as many of the questions as possible. We have left the possibility in the agenda as it was written this time that we may make a recommendation or is action but which was not an option that we had on the agenda last time because we didn't want to go there. So that's a major piece and we, but you've also asked us to look at trash hauling as a town service, streetlight modifications, street acceptance of Hopper and Kestrel Lane, special real estate act that was referred to the committee that needs to go then to the legislature. So there's time pressure ultimately on that and we also have the standard items that need to be covered by the committee because we're getting towards the time when the council be receiving the projections for the next fiscal year and that kicks in process the whole beginning of the next process and doing a draft of the council guidelines. So I'm not sure how we can manage all of this, quite frankly, and we are going to have to discuss it as finance committee and we may have to come back to you and sort of throw a reality check on it. There are also a number of policy issues that we're aware of that might be referred to the committee in addition. So at this point, and one other thing of course is that once the free cash is certified, then there'll be decisions that have to be made about what to recommend to the council regarding any transfers to stabilization funds. So that's just one more item to add to that long list that I've talked about. So I just sort of forewarn you that I think that we as a committee need to think about what our capacity is and decide whether we need to come back to the council for guidance. That's a committee decision. I have not had the opportunity to talk with the committee about because in our last meeting we really just talked about library. So no other report at this point, but it's sort of a forecast of where we might be going. Thanks, Andy. GOL, Michelle. We have our work cut out for us as well. I think we talked about a lot of a lot of the items already, but we'll be continuing to do review of bylaws, our equity lens review process, the town manager evaluation, of course. And then when it's ready, the new special legislation, there will be proclamations as we are going forward as well. So there's nothing really other than that to add right now. Thank you. Anika Jones Library. As if we hadn't had enough. Yes. Well, you know, aside from the conversation tonight, which was also continued in the town manager report, I would say if anyone wants to dive into deeper, there is always the website and the newsletter that comes out is great. And I think, you know, the additional information that will come out, I guess, will be tomorrow, which will explain the additional cuts that were just made at the last building committee meeting. Thank you. As I move on to TSO, I want to acknowledge and thank Dorothy for her services chair of TSO. Dorothy had notified me and I have notified the committee that she is not able to continue in that capacity, given her other obligations, particularly to Holyoke Community College. So I will be opening the meeting of TSO this Thursday at seven o'clock. And our first job will be to elect chair and vice chair. And then I will also be setting the agenda for that meeting and be there to make sure that it continues as we help. Dorothy, did you have any other comments you would like to make? Just to alert people that we have changed the date. We originally had thought we were going to have the public forum on the Lincoln Avenue parking issue on September 15th. And then we discovered the block, the bid was coming up with the block party and felt that pent up demand would people would want to be having having fun on the street. So that will be rescheduled most likely to October 13th, but that will be done officially at the coming TSO meeting at seven o'clock. And TSO continues to be busy with, as I say, the parking issue. And they hope church parking request, water and sewer bylaws and regulations and the engagement and outreach policy beginning to look at then universal composting and the proposed street lighting policy and many more things that we've discussed tonight. So I do want to say that I am grateful for the chance to serve as chair and looking forward to helping elect a new chair at our next meeting. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Liaison reports, particular comments there. Michelle. If it's okay with you, Lynn, I wanted to offer a short report from the African Heritage Reparation Assembly, given I'm sort of in the role of Liaison. Thank you. So I wanted to announce some exciting aspects of our work.  So we're going to have a table at the block party. And our community engagement campaign will include an engaged Amherst page, which we've been working with Breanna on. And she's been so helpful. I'm really, really excited about that. It's also going to include a portal for residents of African heritage to include themselves to be notified and to participate in our process. So we're really excited about that. And then we will be engaging in some boots on the ground, canvassing, using the census that we worked on with the Dunahue Institute. So I would love to be able to share out that information with you all to share with others, particularly really wanting to get residents of African heritage to engage right now in the process. And another exciting piece of information is that we entered into a collaboration with the Student Senate at Amherst College. And they are going to be making a monetary donation to the fund, as well as participating in boots on the ground, like canvassing and taking our marketing materials out into the community, again, using the census. And then finally, I had an excellent meeting today with Senator Cumberford and Rep Dom about the special legislation. That was something that we had discussed as a next step that I would talk to them about strategy. And it went really well. I'm going to do a written report for that and provide it to the council. So those were the updates for the African Heritage Reparation Assembly. And then I also attended the Board of Health meeting this past week. I'm the liaison for that committee. And it's a really great committee and so interesting to listen in on. They just work on so many different things that are pertinent to the community. The town managers report covered most of the directors report, but I'll also add that they are entering into the third phase of their community assessment. They've worked with UMass public health students to do that. I think it's going to be really exciting. They also talked about done violence as a public health epidemic. And then they are approving multiple residential geothermal well applications, which is really interesting. A lot of residents are seeking that. So anyone have any questions about the Board of Health? Just let me know. But it was a great meeting. Thank you. Thank you for both. Jennifer? Yes, just very briefly that the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust met last week. And I guess the most, well, one of the items that was really exciting they talked about extensively was Valley CDC purchased acres in North Amherst. And they're planning to build 32 to three bedroom duplexes for home ownership. And I believe that they were at the Dona meeting yesterday. So people in District 1 are very up to date. And so that's very exciting. So that's one of the projects that was discussed. And the other announcement I wanted to make for the Housing Trust is that they are having a webinar and a forum tomorrow online, September 13th at 6.30 pm. It'll be on Zoom again, focused on affordable housing. And there should be, I can send it to the council, but there should be a link on their website to that webinar. And that's it. Thanks. Thank you, Pat. Thank you. The Community Safety and Social Justice Committee met last week and they are charged, as we know, with providing support and advice to all town entities, including the town council, town manager, town departments and town committees. And to do this, the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee needs an active seat at the table. The committee is concerned that there's been a lack of meeting participation by town staff, delays in requests for information, and a lack of responses to queries sent to the crest, the finance department, the town manager and the council. To be effective, the Community Safety Working Group needs staff help in expanding their understanding of and ability to participate in the town budgeting process, writing proposals for CPA and CDBG funds, and with grant writing. Currently, the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee is requesting direct information about the distribution of ARPA funds and regular updates from the DEI department and the community responders program about their ongoing work. In addition, CSSJC would like to work directly with the Chamber of Commerce and the bid to gather information about ongoing outreach to and participation by businesses owned by BIPOC and other marginalized entrepreneurs. So it's a very demanding group and a very exciting group to work with. Thank you, Kathy. I'm just going to do a quick report that the Community Preservation Act proposal window is open right now. So as Jennifer just talked about, the Valley CDC enterprise, they're going to be applying. So it's open until September 30th. And so that's been the meeting so far, just that it's been posted and seeking proposals. So you can go on the website to see the webpage to see how much money they have available, but this begins their process and deliberation. And for those of you who haven't followed this before, when they get proposals, they're all put up. You can see them and then the committee itself writes comments and questions and the answers to those are put up before they actually vote on the allocation of funds. So it's a good process to watch, particularly if there are specific proposals you want to follow and just to build on Jennifer's on the proposal for the housing development up in North Amherst. People were really excited on the Valley CDC and what was fun to see. And one of the reasons I like in person for some things is they had a giant table set up with the map and people could move the houses around to literally say what it would look like this way and that way, which was the two people who were on the trust were at that meeting saying this was so much better for them to get a sense of what this much looked like. So it would be a good piece probably for them to think about how they bring that ability when we're doing other community housing developments to really make it real to people. It was a great meeting to see that.  Yes, I'm also a liaison to CSSJC and I will say that Councilor DeAngelo's report was excellent. I would just add that there were concerns about not sufficient outreach to the BIPOC community with some of the ARPA money and continued concern about where is or where will be the funding for the BIPOC Center, the Youth Empowerment Center, the Residential Oversight Board and they are worried that DEI and Cress will need more funding. They also mentioned a Victims Compensation Fund in reference to the July 5th episode. But I thought that was a great report. It's a very strong committee and it's doing very important work. Thank you. Any other comments? Moving on to the town manager's report, Paul. Thank you. So you have my written report, just a couple of things I want to mention. One is we're doing a cup of Joe with the Board of Health staff or health director and public health nurse on Thursday at the Banks Community Center. Second is that thank goodness we've got a lot of brain and that really helped us during the drought. We're not out of the drought. That still exists. But our Akins Reservoir rose by about a foot. We haven't really had any stress on our system this summer and to date and even with the students returning, which is the time when we were really looking forward to it, to watching it, what was happening to it. We'll have a more detailed report that I'll share with you by the end of this week in terms of when we get our numbers through the beginning of the school year. And then the last thing I can mention and answer any questions that you may have is the block party is on Thursday and it's a pretty big event. It's the biggest one. They have organized for quite some time. Any questions or comments anybody has? Questions? Dorothy? As usual, I find the town manager's report fascinating reading. And I'm looking at the health department has started the childhood immunization program, which sounds like a wonderful outreach program. And I'm just wondering if you want to say something about that. Sure. Yeah. So it's a the strategy in the past had been to not providing immunizations to children in the hope or the expectation or the encouragement that it was more important for the families to connect with a primary care physician to make sure all their health needs were being covered. The prior health director felt that was a big sort of opportunity to connect people. I think the current health director saw that there was an immediate need. Students weren't able to go to school without the vaccinations and had the capacity with our new public health nurse to be able to offer that. And then and talking with the schools, they felt it was a very high need. So it's a really good thing, you know, there are certain requirements for you to be able to do it. But they mainly get the referrals from the school district where someone's presenting themselves wanting to attend the school. They need vaccinations. We can deliver their vaccinations to them. So it is a really good program. Jennifer? Yeah, just very quickly. This was actually a request that came from a constituent which was with the Engage Amherst portal. It's been so helpful with the residential rental property bylaw where people can just put in their thoughts if it was possible to maybe add that for any of the other motions or proposed bylaw amendments that come before the council. Sure, I think they are doing one. She is working on another one. It takes time to set it up and it takes someone who's going to be the manager of it and who's going to be listening to it and responding to comments. But Breonna can set up something if there's a targeted thing. We don't want to overload because it does take a certain amount of time. And these are active sites that have to be managed to be successful. So but if there's something that a counselor or the council would like to see, we can certainly look into it. Okay, thank you. Is it different if we just, I guess that would just be the Engage, the comments that we have now where anybody can write in, like about waste taller or street lighting? Yeah, so if there was something, there's a particular initiative that the council is taking on and want more direct feedback where we are gathering information, that's an opportunity to use Engage Amherst. The challenge we have is that we have just Breonna who's doing all of it. Thank you. Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, Paul. This was a great report. I have a question about whether we have a, the town has a position for a sustainability director? Yes, you know, and I apologize. I should have put that in the report. We, I did promote Stephanie Chickarello or we changed her job description to become sustainability director to meet, to reflect more what she was actually doing. And so that has already, that has been done. And I think what I need to do is provide an update on all the car sort of requests. And that was one of their primary requests. So we haven't done the announcement on that or anything yet. Okay, awesome. Thank you. So that was going to be my second half of the question. And was what their responsibilities were. So it's just updated. And then is there an updated job description as to what that person will exactly be doing? Or is it? I can show that out if you'd like. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, Alicia. And congratulations to Stephanie. Shalini. Paul, could we get an update on the community choice aggregation? Where is the town on that?  I'd have to ask our sustainability director for that information. All right, thank you. That's why she's promoted, so she can give the answers. Are there any other questions or comments at this time? All right, then let me just quickly do a couple of President's report issues. Just note that the budget coordinating group, as I mentioned earlier, is meeting this coming week. The members that we voted in to that group, that were appointed to that group, our counselors, Mindy Johannike, Andy Steinberg, and myself. It is a public meeting so that any counselor who wishes to attend can do so in the audience. I'll be doing a President's report for our meeting next week, and in it we'll give the summary of our most recent meeting with Joe Comerford, which included things like rank choice voting, which I'm waiting for an update from Mindy Dahm. She thought she'd have it today or tomorrow. We discussed library and school funding. We discussed cannabis legislation and recent actions on that. The upcoming library tour, the need for a list of town priorities and the residential transfer fee. But one of the most interesting parts of the discussion actually came prompted by Anna's question, and that was, are we hurting ourselves by filing special legislation several at a time? And the answer is no, that they each stand on their own. And in many cases, as was discussed earlier, issues like the transfer fee actually support existing legislation that legislators are trying to get passed as well. Going on, the UMass and town resources fairs, which have been done in the past. There's three of them coming up. One is Fairview Way, and that's on the 22nd of September from 4 to 630. Fearing Street, which is going to be held on Allen Street. Okay. And then also the Grant Wood Resource Fair, which will be held in Blackberry, called a SAC, on 929 at 430. Next, by next week, I hope to have a president's written president's report to you and a future meetings. And hopefully by October 3rd, come up with a proposed calendar for 2023. So, with that, under future agenda items, I want to mention, are there any questions for me with regard to president's report? Under future agenda items, please note that we meet at 530 next week for the master plan primer. This is a practice we started a couple years ago. Basically, Chris Breistrup gives an overview of the master plan. And then at 6 o'clock, we do the public forum on the master plan. And at 630, we have a regular town council meeting. Assuming any specific issues that come up, we do hope to have a hearing for Eversource with regard to Pomeray Lane. We hope to have a referral of various financial items and a brief discussion about the town manager's goals that GOL has asked for. And I'm assuming that you'll go ahead with that. We'll bring the Jones Library back. We have a gift of open space and the reading of bylaw 3.39 street numbers of all properties and various appointments from the town manager. Are there any questions? Yes. So, in an effort to shorten council meetings, you just mentioned that there will be a master plan primer. But our wonderful planning director, Chris Breistrup has done this now multiple years in a row. It's basically the same thing. And because we've been on Zoom, it is recorded now. Could we just literally just put that recording on as the recording to watch if you need a master plan primer and then start the meeting at 6 with the public forum? That would be fine. In addition to that, though, let me just say that public forums actually don't require councils to be there. I know, but if you're calling it as a council meeting. All right, we'll look into that to make to see what it looks like. But thank you. Chris may actually appreciate that. We do then have to have an official public forum on the master plan. Are there other questions? Jennifer? Okay. So, councilor comments, please go ahead. Yes, I neglected to mention that Dorothy and I are having a district three meeting this Saturday afternoon at two o'clock in my backyard, five nine Lincoln Avenue. You're all welcome. No pressure. I just learned that there's a football game that afternoon, UMass. So hopefully the two student houses behind my house will not be having a prep rally. You could just join them. Yeah. That's also the day that Joe Comfort's at the library. Michelle? Similarly, Kathy and I are having a district one meeting on September 25th. I could have said this next week, but early reminder at 3pm, we're doing it in person at the Pioneer Valley co-housing in the octagon there or inside if it's not good weather. I also wanted to just quickly announce that we had a representative from the Amherst Community Land Trust join us at AHRA today. And they have a $125,000 subsidy available for a qualified first time home buyer. It was a grant they received through CPA, I think a year ago, and the person they have fell through. They didn't receive a lot of interest in their lottery program, so they're accepting applications first come first serve and they're really encouraging black residents to apply and would really like to see applications. All applications will be looked at on a first come first serve basis, but please spread the word and their website is amherstaffordablehousingtrust.org and it's a really exciting opportunity that's available right now just happened to open back up. Okay, thank you. Are there any other comments or questions? Seeing none, the meeting is adjourned and it is 10.54


Can a man change or is our relationship doomed? Oh my gosh, I hope it's not doomed. So in honor of Easter today is about resurrection. So I was thinking change represents resurrection. So we're gonna dive into this conversation about can a man change or is your relationship doomed? Now, there's an old saying, men marry women hoping they don't change and women marry men hoping they do change. Now I think this adage goes to the idea that men want women to look exactly the same as when they got married, it has to do with looks. And women want men to be more emotionally expressive, a more emotionally connected with them. And to some degree, we're gonna dive into that piece. And before we do, I want to share a story about what happened in my men's group yesterday. And I was with a group of nine men, five of them married, one in a significant relationship, two millennials, so they're just in the dating realm. And then of course, myself. What was interesting in the case, I was speaking to three of the married men yesterday and it relates to this conversation because one of the men I was sharing with them, how much when he got married, his wedding vows absolutely moved me to tears. What he shared about his wife totally had me in tears. I don't think there was a dry eye when he was sharing how much he expressed care, love, appreciation for his bride. And he's a good guy who hasn't done much personal development work, self-help and spiritual work. And so I've been kind of diving into his psyche because he said prior to meeting his wife, he was a serial monogamous. And now, mind you, he was married for about 20 years, had some children, went through a divorce about five or six years ago and had several one-year relationships before he met his wife. And he was sharing with me about the relationship prior to his wife. And I'm like, well, why didn't that work out? Why wasn't that woman the one?  In other words, something that bugged the heck out of him with her. And he just never felt like he could go all in. And I thought to myself, and by the way, he didn't share what it was. Or if he did, I don't remember it, I apologize. But I guess what he said was he just knew he wasn't gonna go all in with her. And I go, why did you stay with her? And he said, there were so many other good pieces in the relationship that he didn't feel like that was enough to end their relationship. But he couldn't go any deeper with her. I thought, ladies, do you find yourself in a relationship with a man where there's something that's bugging you and this is possibly the block in your relationship? Is there something that's bugging you and is there a block in this relationship? And by the way, all the men were over 55 just to give you some context. There was a couple of 60-year-old men there, the married ones, a couple of 60-year-old men there, one in his late fifties, of course, myself included. And then there was two of them in their seventies. And the other two got married as well in their sixties. They met their wives and got married in their sixties. And what's interesting is we were sharing how that both of these couples, these other two men, that they're in relationship with women where they have some big differences between them. And I'm thinking, well, you've been married for seven years now, both of these men collectively. And he goes, well, we're still working on our stuff. We're still working on our stuff with our partner. So it occurred to me, and this is getting to the root of this conversation, can a man change or is your relationship doomed? Well, what's interesting in the man who said I was in a relationship with a woman who had just bugged me, he just knew that it wasn't going anywhere. And I said, how did the relationship end? He goes, it just kind of ran its course. With his now wife, they don't have this same friction in the relationship. Or if any friction that they do have, they work on it together, just like those two other men I was speaking up, how I shared with you those men that have been married for seven years. I think one was eight years and the other one seven years that they actually work on their stuff together because they got to the root, they get to the root of the stuff that's bugging them about each other.  It's absolutely a fantasy.  Now I recognize why this is a challenge because the first 90 days, the first six months of a relationship can feel like bliss because we are amped up on chemicals like oxytocin, testosterone, estrogen, serotonin, dopamine. All of these chemicals allows us to kind of bond with someone early on. And it isn't until those chemicals start to dissipate that we actually see the personality of another human being. And this is where the friction lies. So the question becomes, and this is the question you have to ask yourself, can a man change or is this relationship doomed? Do each of you get to the root of where your differences lie and are you willing to work on that together to come to some cohesiveness in these differences? Now, most women typically want men to change in the area of emotional expressiveness, emotional expressiveness. And oftentimes you come at it at a very violent way. And I use the term violet, but in a very hostile way, a negative way, a confrontational way. If, and by the way, there's a book right here, I'm recommending Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. There's a link below to get all the books under books Jonathan recommends, okay? This is communication styles to actually trigger a man and woman's true, how should I say, their true core essence of how they genuinely feel about you when you use the proper language, when you request a need for closeness in a compassionate way, a man who genuinely loves you is going to want to meet your need and a man who genuinely isn't in love with you. And by the way, love is such an intangible. We can't just because two people have physical attraction doesn't necessarily mean they actually experiencing a deeper sense of love. Folks, I'm gonna tell you something, love is an intangible. It is such a radical intangible. You could be with someone where you feel incredibly attached to them but not in love with them. You can be unhealthily, unhealthy. You could be attached in an unhealthy way believing it's love, believing it's love and it may not work out. See, this is the challenge that we face. So the question becomes, do you genuinely love each other? Do you genuinely love each other? Isn't that kind of what this is all about? Do we genuinely love each other? Because when two people genuinely love each other they're going to want to meet their partner's needs, meet their partner's needs. And I'm gonna share with you in a moment what I think is required for that to happen. In fact, we'll call it the three ways a man knows you're the one. What are those three ways a man knows that you are the one? So if you've ever heard the phrase in real estate what's the most important things in real estate? It's location, location, location. That's right, location, location, location. So the three ways a man knows that you're the one is gonna be predicated on the following. It's gonna be appreciation, appreciation, appreciation. Now there's other words used for appreciation. There is gratitude and grateful. Gratitude, grateful, appreciation. But I prefer to call this three ways a man knows you're the one is appreciation, appreciation, appreciation. How often do couples actually express appreciation for one another? See, we could say something like, thank you for taking out the trash or thank you for taking me out to dinner. And that's certainly a nice way to represent appreciation. But we almost do the words thank you out of some sort of habit. Out of this, we say thank you to the barista, the coffee shop, we say thank you to the grocery clerk. We say thank you in a variety of different ways. But I'm talking about genuine heartfelt appreciation. And I think this is where so many couples don't meet one another in the dating, mating and relating realm in a sense of genuine heartfelt appreciation. In fact, one of the exercises I do for my clients and for my friends is to actually, even when I'm communicating with friends, I always say, can we share appreciation about each other to each other? Can we share what we appreciate about each other to actually use the words? What are you most grateful for? What are you, what do you appreciate about me? Now that might feel a little bit contrived to actually kind of request that. But I'm here to acknowledge that couples that make a practice to every day express appreciation for one another. It is a building block to building love. And here's the thing.  Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. The surface level conversations that many couples have in the dating realm is all centered about the present day experiences from a physical perspective. If you want to get a man to open up, if you want to get a woman to open up, if you want to build a closer connection with another human being, then actually expressing what you appreciate about each other goes a long way to building that. And oh, I almost got derailed, I forgot to say. So for the man or woman who's unable to express their appreciation or they struggle with it, it's most likely because they have a block to love. They have a genuine block to love. They have most likely been deeply hurt from their past experiences. And because of that, they have walls up. See, sadly, a vast majority of people in the dating marketplace have walls up. They have so much built up fear. And this is true for you ladies as well. There is so much built up fear around connecting with one another that it makes it difficult to actually, see, think about it. If there's walls up for just even being able to be in a space of appreciation, there's gigantic walls up for love. Nacy, sadly, we've been indoctrinated to believe that men must climb to the highest tower to rescue the maiden. See, what that represents, if someone is up in a high tower, whether it's a man or a woman, and you must rescue them for love, then they're not actually in a state of appreciation. You know what's interesting? Let's take the movie, Pretty Woman, okay? Now in the real world, Richard Gere would have preferred to keep her as a beck and call girl. Let's just be honest, this is a movie.  The outside ladders to our room.  She says he, she rescues him right back. But in that space, what he recognized about Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, firescape is what it was, please forgive me. He recognized that he was appreciative of her until couples actually, and here's my invitation for everyone because here's, I will say relationships will be doomed if there isn't a regular practice of appreciation for one another. In fact, I'm gonna make a suggestion that you make it a habit. Every single day to carve out three to five minutes to express three things you appreciate about your partner. And if someone struggles with this, if they struggle with it, then you probably have, or if they resist it all together, if someone resists, I don't need to share this with you, don't you know I already love you? Folks, I'm gonna hear, say something. This is really poignant. So let me give me a second to collect my thoughts. If somebody says to you, don't you know I love you? Say, I'm just a human being who sometimes has fear in securities. And I've had past experiences where someone claimed and professed they love me only to change their mind in the future. So I'd simply like to make it a practice that we express appreciation for one another. We use the word gratitude and appreciation or grateful instead of thank you. One of my relationships where I lived with somebody and we'd go shopping together at the grocery store or at Costco. And I made a request that whoever paid that particular time, because we used to take turns paying for things, actually taking turns is a sign of love when you're actually investing your resources in a relationship, whether it's a man or a woman mutually investing. I made a request and I said, instead of saying thank you, can we say I really appreciated that you treated this time? I really appreciated that you treated this time and I'm very grateful for your generosity. We actually made that a practice every single time as we were leaving the store. Now that in and of itself isn't going to build deep love. I'm just saying this alone isn't going to change a person or guarantee that your relationship isn't doomed, okay? But these are the building blocks. And in this context, in this video, I'm offering this building block for everyone to explore different ways to approach a relationship. There's another book. Everyone might want to read. How to be an adult in a relationship, five keys to meaningful loving. And again, there's a link below. Do you realize that most couples just rely on that amped up chemistry, that amped up chemistry to sustain the relationship? And why does it seem like they fade fairly early on or you might accept a behavior you can't stand but that means you're not going to go the distance. I think it's because couples don't actively have deeper conversations at the very early onset of the dating process. They're not having the deeper conversations earlier on in the dating process about really folks, okay, good. If you've been, okay, look at my channel is I'm a midlife dating coach. I say midlife is after baby making years and before retirement, okay? Roughly, I'd say most of my demographic is between the ages of 42 and 69, roughly speaking, okay? Most 75% of you are divorced, okay? I would bet 90% of you have had at least one relationship over one year long. And I've been sure to say that 80% of you have had two or three relationships that lasted one or years or longer. And each one of those has, there are, it gives you clues as to, it probably took off really well and then crashed and burned. And we oftentimes point the finger at the other person instead of looking inward and saying, how did I contribute to this ending of the relationship and really ask yourself, did we build the block, did we take the blocks and building blocks to build a significant relationship? Most of you haven't. I can honestly say when I got married, I was following program.  That was the only building block I had. I had no recollection, no clue how to build a relationship with another human being. And it happened in my second relationship. And by the time I got to my third significant relationship after my divorce, I began getting better at it. And yet still there was a misalignment. And sometimes just like when I shared the story earlier about my friend who was in a relationship with someone, he knew there was something about her that bugged him that he wouldn't go the distance, but he was happy to stay in a relationship. Men oftentimes will nest into a relationship because it's easier to accept most of what you like, or excuse me, accept something you don't like and just kind of let it cruise its own course. Men can be rather lazy because they do tend to nest into a relationship. And I'm here to say, and I'm here to encourage every one of you to approach dating and relationships in your future with more consciousness, with more intentionality, by speaking up. And in particular, I want you to practice this appreciation exercise. And maybe you could do it like this. Every night before you go to bed, you get on the phone with each other if you're not with each other or when you're with each other. Do this right before bed and express three things you appreciate about your partner. Express three things you appreciate about your partner. And hopefully this becomes part of the deep roots of trust that you build with one another to explore a deeper, healthier, happier relationship. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know if it is. Post a comment below. I'd like to hear all your thoughts. As always, if you find value in my videos, please hit that like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel and hit that notification bell so you could be notified of new videos. And always, if you wanna connect with me directly, right here's a link to schedule a discovery call with me. Links below to schedule a call with me to join my group called Midlife Love Mastery to get to all the books I recommend to follow me on Instagram. It's all in the show notes below. And I'd be honored if you start to share my content with your friends. Okay. For those that know my format, it's time for Q and A for the next few minutes, we'll be answering questions. If you're in the chat box, do me a favor, write the word question and post the question thereafter or you can purchase a Super Sticker Super Chat. All the monies from the Super Sticker Super Chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son, Connor Asley. That's a picture of him right there. He's my son who passed away over five and a half years ago in his honor, we donate to causes like the Hoffman Process Insight Institute and we also give scholarships to coaching as well. And there's a little dollar sign in the chat box. We already had a sweet lady, Margaret, who donated already. Where is it? Thank you for the $15 Super Sticker.  I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate your love, Margaret. Thank you so much. Virginia says, dopamine is my drug of choice then, weed. Virginia says, Jonathan is a good level of male emotional expressiveness. Yeah, some men call me a simple wimp because I can, but yeah, I appreciate that. Gigi says, Americans do not use words. Americans do not understand words. We just had a disagreement on Facebook about chicken. Is poultry, beef, pork, lamb, or meat? Yes, Americans oftentimes are really a lot of countries. I've observed that most humans do not know how to articulate their feelings. Most humans do not know how to properly articulate your feelings. And ladies, and I say humans, I mean women too. Ladies, just because men are stoic and don't express their feelings, you oftentimes vomit your feelings in such convoluted ways that we have no clue what you're saying. So let me be clear, just because you have a propensity to vomit all your feelings doesn't mean it comes out in a concise way. This is a fault of humanity, not a fault of men. That's just my opinion anyway. All right, let's keep going. Virginia says, for comparison, another dating coach recommended I be a waitress to attract men, feminine energy. You know, then might as well just hire a servant. You can get a maid to do all those things. I believe in a collaborative partnership and not a submissive nature as that might express. That's just my feeling on that. Virginia said, I'm really appreciative that you treated this time. I love that phrase. I once, folks, many of you know, I believe that dating should be a taking turn process, not that men are the provider protectors and they must pay. But Jonathan, I'm just supposed to sit my feminine energy. Folks, I'm gonna share the story about a woman on a first date, this was years ago. And on the first date, I paid for the first round of drinks at the bar we were at. We were actually at a dive bar on Halloween. And it came time to pay for the second round. For some reason I didn't leave my credit card. And she pulls out her credit card and says, I've got it. And I said, no, no, I got it. And she goes, no, I've got it. And I said, no, no, I got it. And she goes, I've got it. Now, many of the dating coaches will say she was in her masculine energy trying to control me. But here's what happened next.  I said, Jonathan, I really appreciated that you treated for the first round of drinks. Will you allow me to show my appreciation and gratitude for you by treating you on this next round of drinks? Folks, I was floored in that moment. But you know what I recognized in that moment? In that one instance, she demonstrated partnership skills. She demonstrated reciprocity. She demonstrated appreciation. Partnership skills, reciprocity and appreciation. And I share that in a men's group that I belong with thousands of men in this men group. Over a thousand, actually 15,000 men in this men's group, a group on Facebook, and over a thousand men responded to my post about this. And you know what they all said? She's one of a kind. She's a keeper. She's a unicorn. Don't let her go. And while there were other issues that caused that relationship to end, this one simple act on a first date endeared me to this person because now some men will be so controlling that they wouldn't accept it. But let me tell you something.  Maybe he has control issues. When you are appreciative and generous and grateful, if he can't accept it, that means he has issues. But Jonathan, I am told I will refuse. I will never pay on a date. It is a man's duty to date. Very, by the way, many of you say that just with that disdain, with that absolute disdain that men must do this. Do you realize that in and of itself is a block to love? Do you guys get that? That's a block to love. If you have that much disdain and expectation, I invite you to explore that within yourself, okay? All right, let's keep going. Stephanie says, that was so beautiful, Jonathan, thank you. I appreciate it. TS, how do I express to a guy I just met that I want to develop emotional connections first before physical connection? You just did it. That's it. I would prefer to develop an emotional connection with you before a physical connection. Now, the best way to do emotional connection is through social activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family. Okay, so that's how you build emotional connection, but the best way to build emotional connection is asking deeper questions of another human being. There is this, check this out. It's called, this site got on Amazon. It's called best self-intimacy cards, best self-intimacy cards, or you can get the app. It's the Gottman app called card, it's called card decks. It's called card decks. And these are questions to build deeper emotional connections.  So let's go here to figure it out. Let's go here to figure it out. All right, hope that helps. Fair poet says, this is kind of embarrassing. Do guys tend to judge us girls who have lost a ton of weight and been having, have hanging skin and stretch marks yet tone muscle in other ways? I think some men, yes, that could be true. I think for some men that could be true. You know, by the way, it's women and men equally judge based on looks, okay? I believe that is part of our egoic. It could be part of our tribal way of connecting of, I mean, there's a variety of different reasons why. But yes, that could be the case, but not for all men. Not all men will feel that way. But yes, some men will. But I guess the question is, do you care if someone, do you care if someone judges you that way? And if you do care, rather focus on the right man appreciates my body just the way it is. Someone write that down. The right man appreciates my body just the way it is. Jonathan says, what a beautiful way to say that. Thank you. Virginia says, what do you do about losing our youth? You know, here's a dilemma for those of us in midlife. Many of us in midlife dating with 20 year old eyes. The reality, look at, I'm aging. I just, you know, I don't look as good as I did 10 years ago.  Here's, this is what happens. Self love.  And she would walk into a room thinking she was the most beautiful woman on the planet. And she, by the time she passed away, I think she weighed 180 pounds. She was five foot five. Okay. When you lose your youth or your beauty, I think you really lose your beauty. Can you find the beauty within yourself? That's the real question. Okay. So let's keep going. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Margaret says, the right man appreciates my body just the way it is. Exactly. Okay. Jahalia says, I didn't have much disdain but if I have to pay for a date, it's a turn off. If I decide to treat him for a birthday, that's different. You know what? I'm offering advice. I'm gonna tell you that thousands of men view women differently when they actually mutually invest in the process. So if that's not something you wanna do, that's okay. Okay, that's okay. You don't have to follow my advice. But the truth is if a man made a request to have you contribute, it sounds like it's a turn off which is a level of disdain about the person. So I mean, Jahalia, I'm just giving you suggestions. You don't have to follow this, ladies. I'm just telling you ways. Appreciation is a way to build deeper trust with another human being when you actually invest your resources. And by the way, when you're married, don't you collectively put your resources together? And given how many men pay alimony, child support, that sort of thing. You know, and it's, by the way, they may not have the resources to cover the entertainment of a relationship. And you could be critical and say, well, if he doesn't have the resources, I don't wanna date him. Well, guess what? 80% of Americans in the United States don't have more than three months of incomes or resources in the bank. Should there be a calamity? That's 80% of Americans. So I'm just offering an alternate way of viewing things. You can accept it or not. That's just my perception. And you're very well entitled to your perception as well. Sandy says, I feel it's very important and I like to share and appreciate it when they allow me to pay. I think I'm gonna change the word allow because I don't like the word allow when they receive when I offer to pay, when they receive when I offer to pay. I just like that better. Hey, folks, I hope you found value in this conversation. Can a man change or is the relationship doomed? I think the way to build deeper connection with another human being is through heartfelt appreciation for one another on a regular basis. And that's my invitation for all of you going forward. That's my invitation for all of you going forward. Oh, Sally wants to remind Jehalia, or not remind but offer this. Isn't a partnership marriage an equal thing so you'd happily expect him to pay for you but you don't feel you should contribute? I love going 50-50 or Dutch. It just feels better to me. Again, I just, I believe that demonstrating partnership skills right from the very get go leads to greater success in relationships. So thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. Okay, I'm gonna wrap folks. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this video. Please post a comment below. I do my best to read them all in the first 24 hours. As always, if you find value in my videos, please hit that like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel. Hit that notification bell if you want to connect with me. As well, there's links below to schedule a discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. Join my group called Midlife Love Mastery. Follow me on Instagrams, get the books I recommend or my dating vows all listed below. All right, I'm gonna sign up this video as I always do.  I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear pillow, and give inner them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. I wanna thank Sandy and Tracy and Horse Lady and Fair Poet and Virginia and Jahalyah and Sally and Virginia Lu and Jocelyn and Gigi and Margaret. Thank you again for the donation. Johnathan, Fair Poet, TS, everyone, Stephanie, thanks so much, wishing you a super duper, wonderful, fantastic.