All right, so we're recording. Hi. Good afternoon. Welcome to our meeting. And our meeting, let me see. I have a little spiel. Kim. Okay, let's see. So I will read the spiel. Oh, Kim is. But it just says, I'll read it. So it says no pursuing to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. The meeting will be conducted. We have remote means. Like you wish to access the meeting may do. Or be assumed. No in person attendance of members. Of the public. This patient any hearing. We don't have a public hearing. Okay. Great members present. Great. So thanks. So the meeting is called to order. First order of business is a public comment. I didn't see if there are public members of the public here. We are attendee in the attendee room. And they're also, if they'd like, they are, we could let them join the meeting. His hands up when you're allowed. Let him join the meeting or you want me to. You can let him join the meeting. Because then he's not just a voice out there. All right. There he is. Hi. Hello. Tell us who you are. Your address and make your comments. Hi, thanks for letting me join. My name is Gordon green. I live at the corner of. Cal's road and Monday, your road and North Amherst. And I had a question. I want to ask you all. And that is that. The Delta Sands. Corey or whatever it is. Has wrote it, wrote it. Routed its trucks. And it's a lot of, a lot of truck, truck, truck, truck traffic now. And they use their engine brakes, which are quite loud and disruptive. And I know. I talked to them about it and send the Jones, I guess, has been in touch with them too. Because it's pretty disruptive to the neighborhood. And I was, I, they, they said, Oh, we'll tell them all to, to not use their engine brakes, but most of them don't. And they said they'd reroute them down through. Pine street or Meadow street, whatever that is next intersection down. But I think it's, it's, they don't seem to like to do that. The actual trucks keep coming by this corner. So I was wondering, I noticed that in Sunderland, they actually have a sign by the pit there. That says trucks do not use engine brakes. You know, reminding them not to use their engine brakes. And I was wondering if you might enlighten me as to what the process might be for getting such a sign or anything like that. Is that within your bailiwick? No, I'm not sure that it is, but we've never dealt with anything like that before. Maybe Guilford or one of our town. Administrators might. It's not a town of Sunderland sign.  What was that? That's, that's not a town of Sunderland. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Jake breaks. Jake breaks are. A royal pain. In theory, they don't have to make a lot of noise. They're well maintained in practice. It seems like nobody bothers to maintain them. The sign looked very official, but I guess who would have put it there just to. You know, it's the same kind of sign is like a stop sign. It's very kind of an animal thing. But it's on one 16, right? No, it's on, it's on the little, I can show you. It's on the little road that goes up. What is it? It's not Hubbard. Yeah. I know it showed you. I'm talking about. The town, well, the town manager can recommend to the. This, this one's a little bit different because you have to have enforcement as well. So it actually does have to go through the town council to make it, make a, make a ruling so that the police can enforce it. Otherwise you're just putting a sign up and someone uses the Jake break. The police can't say anything about it. Well, I just thought a reminder. I'm not about enforcement, but so actually in any case, I should go with the town manager. Yes. And there's been, there's been a, there's been another one. If I remember correctly, right, Chris, the. The Cushman. Cushman corner people have asked for a no Jake, no engine brake sign as well. Oh, okay. So I guess if he is interested in trying to do something, should he reach out to his counselor or to the town manager? Go for what would you recommend? You can always do both. Okay. Yeah. I would do both. Okay. We do, we do have a noise by law. I'm not sure. Yeah, I was going to say. I'm not sure that. It's broad enough to cover. The engine breaks. But half the time that I've had to deal with this, it's been, it's been dealt with informally. You know, you solicit the cooperation of the, the company that owns the pit and get them to post a sign and get them to talk to the drivers. Yeah, I've talked to them a few times. I mean, I've talked to them a few times, but I guess I'm not sure if they're involved in that. Maybe the, if it's from the town or involved, it would do. Okay. Well, and I guess, have you just talked to the drivers or just to the actual, But I'm saying you may want to talk to people on site too. Oh. They sort of higher up than the drivers. No, no, I'm talking to the, their dispatcher. Yeah. Okay. She said, she's telling them all not to use their. Yeah. I mean, the chief of police might have an idea as well. You know, so how to, how to quiet the situation down. But I think that the, the, the keepers of the road, the official keepers of the roadway town council. Okay. Great. Well, thanks so much. Good luck with your name. Thanks. All right. Okay. So, um, then I assume there's no other public comment. So, um, our next agenda item is approval of the meetings. And we, I'm going to send those out this afternoon. Right. That it's just the April 28th meeting. So. And now who are we? I know we're missing. We're missing four of us. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh no, he's here. Sorry. Just having said anything more. Sorry. In dealing with kids. Yeah. Yeah. I was just. Bus driver. He joined. Well, he said he's away and I know Bruce isn't available either. So. I guess that's all of us then. Oh right. We're a committee of seven, not a committee at nine. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. After a minute. Great. And second. Thank you. Great. Thank you. So the minutes have been approved from the April 28th meeting. And our next order of business is an update on the, from Christine and Tracy about the safe routes to school. Yeah. So I can start. That I have to run around like six 15 and. But I'll come right back. It takes like a couple of minutes. My 17 year old doesn't have a license yet. And I wish he would get one. So if I'm missing or I'm extra quiet for a few minutes, that's why. Got it. All right. So safe routes to school. So actually Christy and I met about safe routes to school stuff yesterday. And we had been in touch with one of our earlier meetings. We had been in touch with walk Boston. And the person who's the chair of the board of trustees for. Down in Springfield and does a lot of. Walking and biking advocacy. In Springfield and Western mass. And also does some walk audits and things. So she met with us yesterday and we did a walk of what the Wildwood school. Because when the attack had originally done its. Audits previously before I was on the tack, I think we did those in 2018 or 19. That we, it had, there had been one for Fort River area and one for a cracker farm, but there had not been one for Wildwood. So we thought it would be beneficial, especially because already. So Christine is in the process of writing up that. And one thing I really like about the ones that walk Boston has done and. School coordinator also works on some walk audits around schools, is that they always include a lot of pictures. And one thing I noted from our ones we've done previously is they're just narrative, but you know, they're just so valuable to show. The other thing that I'm familiar with and then Christine can fill in the pieces that I'm less familiar with. Is that a few weeks ago after our last meeting. So Christine, myself and the. Walk Boston. This region. I mean, I'm sorry, the safe reach to school coordinator. But there she is the victim. She sends to for the mass EMT safe resources school program. Her for the Western mass for Western mass, her name is Lucy Freeberg Belle. And she is that right? Yeah. And she, she actually covers all four Western counties, which is a big area. So she's actually spend. Even though she lives in the Boston area, she spends a lot of time driving to Western mass. to just talk about the idea of the Amherst School is getting more involved with the Safe Reach to School program. And Deb Westmoreland was pretty interested and receptive to that. After our meeting, there was a district leadership meeting that she was attending, which includes the principals and assistant principals. And she brought the idea of Safe Reach to School and having the schools be more involved. It was a pretty positive reception. They're looking at launching something next year. And she also, in the superintendent's newsletter, they, she put together a quick survey about, you know, would parents be interested or what are their main concerns and, you know, how old are their kids? Just a minute. She put it in, after the first week it was in the newsletter, there's a superintendent's newsletter that comes out weekly. It had over a hundred responses, which is great. And then she was putting in the newsletter again and I haven't gotten an update from her since then. But to have that level of responses, excellent. And they were looking to have a point person at each of the schools. One Safe Reach to School program has been K to eight. And now it is also being expanded to include the high school though. Of course it looks pretty different for elementary school versus middle school, high school. One that we talked about with her is just, you know, that through the middle school and high school student groups, you know, there's some groups related to like climate change and environment, aside from just the safety issues of related to, you know, having safe walking and safe biking to school. But just thinking about it from an environmental perspective and that might be a way to get some students more motivated. But Christine, do you want to fill in the rest of what you've been up to? Yeah, so I, we left the meeting. So I think Debbie now, Debbie Westmoreland wants to convene the actual person who's going to run the project at each of the schools. And so she's waiting for the principals to kind of circle back with who that's going to be. And then that group will convene. I agreed to contact the police department, which is, which was our idea for who could actually run the educational curriculum at the schools. So I ended up speaking with, Debbie spoke with Captain Young. Captain Young actually emailed me a couple of times that went to my spam folder. I feel bad. I just discovered that this afternoon. But then officer Laramie, who does the community outreach, this kind of is in his kind of jurisdiction. So if it's not him, they're going to try to find somebody from the bike unit who would be running some kind of bike pedestrian safety programming starting in the fall. And then I think that's really it for now. And gauging interest and level of, and feedback and stuff and how many people participate, then I think everybody's kind of ready to amp up from there. But I think the police department was surprisingly receptive, or I guess not surprised. I didn't have any expectations. They were receptive to do it, which was great. So Laramie is meeting with Friedman Bell just to get connected with all the different educational curriculum resources available. So that's cool. And then Debbie shared the names with me. And actually there are around 50. So I think she just made up a number. But nonetheless, it's good. There's a student from Amherst High School who's pretty interested in then a whole slew of parents, mostly from the elementary schools. So between that and getting, I mean, I'm just going to be focusing on outreaching to those folks and getting a sense of what their interest level is. And then also doing more walk audits with Tracy. I think we're hopeful to add pictures to the Fort River and Crocker Farm audits that currently exist. And then I'm just going to write up using the Walk Boston Framework and audit for Wildwood School. I guess the school district's really into it. Debbie just emailed me yesterday and said, hey, can I, I'm talking to a reporter about Safe Roots to School. You know, can I give them your name and number and we're promoting it. We're excited about it. So they seem genuinely interested, which is great. Yeah. One, if anybody else on the committee wants to do some walk audits or we used to actually have, I mean, this was before I was on the tack, but we had that complete street subcommittee. So if I remember correctly, I mean, I was actually recruited to one of the subcommittees. But I think, right, we can actually have, so Christine, I think community members be on the subcommittee and they don't have to be officially appointed by anybody. Is that correct, Gullford? So, I mean, one possibility Christine, if we have, if there's, if you're interested or I know when they did the walk audits before they recruited people from those neighborhoods, you know, that would be some out of perspective. I'm happy to, with the list I have, I'm just happy to say, hey, come into Crocker Farm. You wanna walk around with me, take some pictures. I can share the walk audit that was done previously. You know, similarly, I can do that at Fort River as well. So I'm happy to just reach out to the list that Debbie's generated. Sure. And also the original walk audits, they have the list of the participants, which when I've looked at them, I know quite a few of them. I mean, some of them were parents at the time, you know, but they also live in those neighborhoods. And I think that if we got back in touch with those people too, that some of them might be interested in participating in like the additional round of it. So. Do you remember if they're contacting whatever? I mean, it just says their names on the notes. But I have a lot of their email addresses just cause I know who they are. Yeah. So is this like an actual subcommittee now or it doesn't even matter? Just, I should just reach out, get people to do this thing with me. And I don't know. I mean, Guilford, do you feel like we would need an official subcommittee? I would say it's just a group of people working with you as the easiest way to do this. Yeah. Okay. If you have, may I just say something? If you have an official subcommittee, you have to keep minutes. Oh, that's good. Yes, I was wondering. And then, so we can do these walk audits without like convening officially. That's what, that's what you're saying, right, Chris? If we just have it in the group of interest. It's good to know that the subcommittee framework exists if we need to be doing anything official. But I mean, at this point, I think we're all just trying to educate ourselves about kind of previous kind of issues or concerns or whatever state of things now. And I mean, I know that Debbie and company want to see these walk audits, you know, I don't think that we're making any big decisions. No. So one of the things just to keep in mind is that the school year ends on June 17th. And I think that, you know, for some of the schools, I know at least like the middle and the high school, they start to wrap stuff up sooner. Right, like I think like seniors don't go to class after the first week of June or so. So I mean, I think if we are gonna do, if we are gonna do walk audits particularly if we wanted to do their consideration and then share that information, we'd have to just do them soon in the next few weeks and stuff and then get that information to elementary school building committee. And they could come back to the TAC if the TAC, you know, wanted to review it or take a position or something on it. It hasn't been referred to us by the council, but it might be informative, so. Well, we're just, we're able to look at it and give feedback. I mean, again, I'm not thinking of these audits as existing for any, you know, we're not sort of asking for any official body at the mean and school level to take a position one way or the other at this point. Oh, sure. Right, it's just mostly. It's just informative. Yeah, feedback. And I think the school district just wants to see them. Well, that's good. I mean, because one of the things I had heard when I listened in on one of the recent elementary school building committee discussions and they mentioned that there had been some comments about the walkability or bikeability of some of the sites, particularly at Fort River, just that the intersections there, like the intersection of what is that Southeast Street, Northeast and Maine. Is that right? No, route nine. And also again, at Maine too. Yeah. That it's a pretty congested intersection. And they mentioned that they had done some traffic studies. I know that the UMass students were involved with doing some of the traffic counts at all these different points, but they hadn't really been focused too much on bikes and walking. They were thinking more about vehicle traffic. And they said, the consultant mentioned something about how they consider more about bikes and walking later. But one thing that's interesting about the Safe Route to School program is that once you are more active in the program, you are eligible for districts, are eligible for Safe Route to School infrastructure funding, which can be up to $1.5 million. And it can include improvements within two miles of the school. Because under state law, two miles is the distance that students can be asked to walk from their school if it's K through sixth grade. So it is a potential source. I mean, one thing I heard consistently at that meeting is that any of the issues with the congestion that they're not on site of the schools, so there wouldn't be any improvements to make the intersections more walkable or to improve traffic congestion or whatever, that none of that would be covered by MS. But you could potentially use Safe Route to School funds for that. Yeah, I mean, again, I think, I mean, personally, I'm interested in bringing up bikeability and walkability in the new elementary school debate moving forward. But I don't really see that as a big part of what I'm doing with the district right now. I think we just want to kind of be looking at what the state of things are now, the environment of safety and comfort that exists currently that's either deterring. I mean, I do think a lot of people are opting out of their kid biking and walking and I think the district also thinks that that's true too. So we're just trying to get a handle on what that's about and just looking at what currently exists. I'm not sure that the district at this point is thinking, oh, we're definitely gonna, I mean, it'll be great if we get a good active program running in the schools for next year that's around pedestrian and bikes. Right, Andy, did you get a comment? Andy on his hand up, yeah. Yeah, has there been any discussion with the school building committee about walkability as an issue as they're getting close to having to make a decision as to whether to build at the Wildwood or Fort Rivers site. It'll be the only reason to not delight because I think by your next meeting they will have made a decision. And if you want to talk to them about walkability as an issue that the school building committee should consider, you might want to do that sooner rather than later. No, I think that that was one thing, yes, for sure. I don't think that has been a major factor and I haven't participated in the elementary school building committee meetings. I just went to the recent one because they had the transportation discussion about the traffic study. It doesn't seem like that's been a major component of it, though I know that some parents have been thinking about it a lot and some have reached out to me on that. But I agree that, I mean, my understanding is that the elementary school building committee is supposed to make a recommendation on which site to choose, like, within the next month or so. But it seems like he was suggesting that we, you know, if we have any information on that, it seems like it's relevant or if Christine or, you know. Yeah, I mean, so the walk audits, we could certainly submit those, right? So I think Tracy mentioned with the Fort River walk audit has been done and my intention would be to go back with a couple of Fort River parents and, you know, update, I don't know, make a different conclusion, take some pictures. But that certainly could, I could try to make that happen in ASAP so that we can get it to the committee and similarly do, I mean, we have to write one up for the Wildwood site. So I think we could, I guess we could submit those. You know, I'm not sure what kind of activity would need to be mounted in order to make it like an issue of concern or a factor that gets weighted in any way, shape or form in terms of whether or not the site is appropriate. I think that it is in there. If you look at materials from the meetings, like they do have a decision matrix, you know, and I think there are some, there is something in the decision matrix from the meetings and they've talked about different versions of it. So I don't know if they've picked the final version yet, but there is something in there just about traffic safety and things like that. Okay, so it would be submitted under the kind of title of traffic safety if we were to get these audits.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just, I hadn't, I just thinking about my own purposes in terms of prepping for next year and working with the... Oh, no, definitely, yeah. But yeah, but sure, I can, which might be was talked to Kathy Shane, who's the chair of the committee and do that fairly quickly. I know they're meeting tomorrow morning and it's too late to get to anything to, for tomorrow morning's meeting, but ask whether it's a fact or whether there's anything you can do to be helpful to the extent that they want to consider it. Because once they make, once I submit a decision, I think that it freezes it up. Yeah. Do you want to do that, Tracy? You mean reach out to Kathy Shane? Yeah. And just, you know, is there still anything that we can do to move the needle and... Oh, sure, I mean, I can reach out to her. I can reach out to her.  I haven't reached out to her, yeah. I didn't, again, I didn't do it in a way that, where I was necessarily trying to truly inject relevant local information, if that makes sense. I can, I'll reach out to her. I'm not sure I'm gonna reach her before tomorrow morning, but I will. So yeah. Okay. Okay, thanks. That sounds good. You guys have done a lot of work on this, so that is really appreciated. It's Christine. She's like, she's on it. Yeah. You get a lot of outreach. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So thank you. No, honestly, I just wanna say, it really has not been a challenge. I mean, the district is really, really truly interested in sort of standing up and doing a set of things.  But I think we needed someone to be the point person, which is what I mean. Yeah, happy to do it, yeah. And that, because we've been talking about this for a while, and so you've gotten involved and you realize that these people are interested. So I think it sounds like real progress is being made. Well, and I think too that Lucy Freeman Bell, I mean, she met with us last summer, right? And she's been interested for a while. She'd come on board as a new rep for Western Mass. And I know she had reached out to the district a number of times. And the district has had a lot of other priorities with COVID and budgets and everything. And so I think Christine was really the glue to like help this go. So, and it's great that the district is receptive and that the district leadership's receptive. Well, and because we need them to be part of this too. So you just need, thank you for being the nucleus around when we all may spin. Sure. Thank you. And our next item on our agenda are some updates from the council and TSO. The first item is the North Pleasant Street parking and the TSO public hearing. Who is, are you talking about that, Tracy? I can talk about it briefly. So I'm both myself and Kim went to the hearing and Guilford was speaking at the hearing. I mean, it seemed like a lot of the, I think I did send around the memo earlier that was under consideration by TSO and the plans. But it seemed like a lot of the focus of the hearing was on how many parking spaces to have the permit parking and how many parking spaces to be metered parking. And that's really where they spent a lot of the discussion. There was, and so they did, the TSO did take a vote on it and they did change from the towns the initial recommendation where they made more of the spaces metered and fewer of the spaces permit. And then, and so long-term, right? The idea was that and the council had already approved this like based on tax recommendations and on the parkside back in angled parking. And that is still going forward. One of the things right is that some of the angled parking won't be introduced until the street is wide and then the whole project is done. So the second part of the meeting was also to discuss like what could be done sooner. And so I think it sounded like with DPW's work schedule. If I'm remembering correctly and Guilford can make any corrections is that they thought that some minor improvements might be able to be made like by the fall, which could include making the street one way and then also switching the parking from the west side of the street to the east side of the street. Now, I did hear from after the hearing and I did hear from Rob Custer. I know he also reached out to other people, including Dorothy Pam, the chair of the TSO about his concerns that bikes, that southbound bike traffic be considered as well, even if there's just going to be temporary improvements that aren't a long term. And we haven't discussed it as a committee yet and it hasn't really come before us, but my thinking was just that, I know they've done this both in Europe and in Cambridge and Somerville and things is that there are quite a few streets where you have the motor vehicle traffic is one way and you allow bike traffic to be two ways. You don't actually have to have a painted bike lane, a counter flow bike lane for that. It's just the idea is that there's just a much lower level of traffic and that bikes can go like where they feel safe. We did discuss having the traffic, bicycle traffic on that road when we were discussing. Yeah, we did of course, but the thing is like, so I mean, in terms of like implementing the whole plan, like with the painted bike lane going southbound and things I feel like, and Gilbert would know better than I, but it seems like you're not necessarily able to make all of those changes immediately. But as a temporary thing, you could just say you couldn't maybe perhaps have a sign that says that it's like prohibited for motor vehicles, bikes only or something and bikes could bike where they want to bike going southbound, not on the sidewalk. I mean, already without the student, like I mean, I know right, the UMass graduation was a week ago on Sunday or no Friday and then in Saturday and I mean, you can see now it's like camp, it's so much emptier. There's some, like even in that area, there's so much less parking on street and things. When you say that you would prohibit vehicular traffic, would it be access only? No, not prohibit like prohibit southbound traffic, I'm sorry. Make it just one way. Right, so it's one way for motor vehicle traffic and it's two way for the bike traffic. I think we were making it northbound one way. Yeah, I'm saying prohibit southbound, make it northbound, yeah. Right, but I'm saying in the absence of having like having to do a full painted bike lane and have the width and like do all the full improvements and things that even- So we not feel there could be, because I mean, if you don't provide some form of restriction on where those southbound bikes could go, they could just ride down the middle of the road legally. Correct, I mean, it depends how much of a through street it still is once it becomes a one-way street, right? I mean, there'll certainly be access, right? So I don't know, Guilford, what do you think? I just, I know Rob just was very concerned about that aspect, so. We haven't really got to it yet. Well, we'll just work on it and go from there. Thanks. All right, so I know too, I listened to part of the council meeting, but it was on their agenda to approve the TSO recommendations, but some of the public hearings went really long at the council meeting and that got pushed to the next council meeting. So TSO didn't actually vote on it yet. And then, so Kim just moving on right to that next item, the TAC presenting at TSO. So we were put on the TSO agenda for tonight, but the agenda is already packed with things like the senior center and the community participation officers and some other items that've gotten pushed from other agendas. Kim and I did meet after our last meeting to talk about, that we'd like to summarize the memo, maybe do a quick presentation. It just didn't seem like it was gonna fit into their agenda and she and I are both busy this week. So we did ask if we could present in June and we haven't heard back yet, right? That's all right. Yeah. And TSO is meeting tonight. I think Andy, are you still here? I think your meeting is what, at 6.30? Yes, the meeting is at 6.30, so of course I'm gonna have to leave in a little bit. Let me see if I can get it. It is on the agenda for tonight's meeting, but I don't think that it's anticipated that we'll actually get to it and I will make sure to just report on what happened if need be. So I can take care of communicating back your unavailability and your request for June and you are correct that there is a lot else on the agenda. As far as the last meeting was concerned, there was a recommendation out of TSO. It did not deal with the bike lane issue that was his parking places and assignment of some of the parking issues, I think was, but within existing construction, no new construction to go with that. And it was postponed because of just the length that the agenda went on about other things and quite frankly, we went, we met until 12.30 in the morning. Oh my goodness, I was not there then. Thank you, but that's too long. Yes, my goodness. Yeah, part of it was, the last part of it was, can't talk about, because it was an executive session. Oh, I see, okay. The executive session did go until 12.30. Did your executive session actually start on Monday or did it start on Tuesday morning? I believe it started on Monday and ended on Tuesday. Oh, I see, okay. That's crazy. All right, thanks, Andy. I mean, one thing I had seen something from the TSO chair that one thing on the agenda for the TSO meeting is about this resolution or consideration of having these speed limits, like the speed limit change throughout town. It is on the agenda. I haven't talked to anyone about it. The agenda included that issue, speed limits request to adopt Massachusetts general law chapter 90, 17 C and 18 B, which is about, I think the speed limit issue. It's probably just in most a presentation, as I said that your committee's discussion about the role of the committee and committee charge is also on the agenda, but given the fact that we're also talking about the community participation officers in senior center, it's a fairly loaded, so I don't think that I can just report. Right, no, they told me that they had gotten a letter, like on the speed limit issue, there was a letter from the town attorney regarding it, and so I guess we'll see if it gets referred to TACC or not. Thank you. And so let's see, what else? Christine Brestrup had her hand up. Yeah, I'm sorry, Chris. Oh, I think I had my question answered. I was wondering what 5B was about, TACC presenting at TSO meetings. So I'm understanding that that's the TACC presenting your charge and what it is you do to the TSO, is that correct? It was also, I mean, as a town, we're a committee under the town manager, right? It's actually up to the town manager to decide on our charge. I know when Aaron Hayden was the chair back in 2020, the TACC members worked with him and we were trying to update our charge because our charge still refers to us like under the select board and so on. And at that time he did send, Aaron sent a draft charge to the town manager, but we haven't heard any updates since 2020 when that was done. I think that the other thing was that we had just when we started the new council, a few times the TACC had put together just a short memo just because sometimes there's confusion about the TACC and what the TACC is and what's our role and so on. And so we had put together that three page memo just about what we are and what we see our advisory role as and ways in which we've contributed to projects. I remember you provided some input then just about maybe mentioning things like the route nine project that's currently underway in the crosswalk, some downtown projects that we've had input in and things like that. And so we did send that memo to the town manager and the council president at that time. But so I had seen this item going to TSO is just to present that a little bit and to answer any TSO or council questions. So, yeah. Great. So. So, there are next agenda item or any updates on some projects around campus around campus around the town, including the Amity Street sidewalk improvements at Guilford. Amity looks great, I think it's like beautiful. It's wide and I have to go pick up my kid if I don't, I'm going to just I'm going to call in on my phone, but if I get disconnected, one key item for me was just what we thought about when we wanted me in June and how many meetings we think we have to have. But I'll try to stay connected. I'll be right back. Okay. I'll be back in five minutes. So, is it Guilford who's showing the Amity Street improvements? Are you talking about that? If you want to, I mean, we're just, we have a sidewalk contract out right now. Amity Street was the first one on it. They're pretty much done with it. They're just wrapping up. After they've finished on Amity Street, they're going to stop the sidewalk work and they're actually going down the middle lane to finish the middle lane multi-use path, which goes from East Hadley Road and from the boulders and those apartments, which have new names now, all the way to Groff Park. So I'll start that project. Wow, that's great. Wait, so they're going on the, whatever that tiny street is that, that becomes gravel or. Yes. Not paved. Okay. I saw all those markings. So that's awesome. So that is the street getting done and the sidewalk. It looks like the sidewalk is getting extended or. This on this project only the sidewalks being done. It's going to be a multi-use path through there. And then after they're done with that project. They're going to Kellogg Street to do the sidewalks on Kellogg Street. And then we're going to repave Kellogg Street as well. And then they're going to get back on sidewalks, which they have about four or five more sidewalks, mostly in the downtown area. And around the high school and downtown that they'll do. And that's hopefully they'll finish that all up before the end of the season. So the down. Just a question that downtown. The sidewalks by the high school or those. The ones on. Is it. Whatever. Is it triangle street that goes through? Chestnut. Chestnut. No. We're doing gray. Gray. Taylor and gray to start with. Yeah, wait, what are those streets? It's, it is triangle. Matoon. Is it Matoon Street? Matoon and triangle or the main road. Yes. Yeah. Cool. What did you say the middle lane project was again, where is this, where is it starting point? What's it starting point and end point currently? And then where's the extension starting point and end point. So it starts on South pleasant street right by the. Intersection there crosses the intersection. Goes across the pedestrian bridge. Goes by the middle and then goes up. Middle lane to Croft Park and stops. So that's the current. That's what it is currently. Well, it's going to take all that out and put a new sidewalk all through there. Okay. And so then does it get extended at all. Towards the dirt part of middle lane. Yeah. No. Okay. It just goes right to drop Groft Park. It doesn't extend past. Past that entrance to Groft Park. No, it does not, but it connects Groft Park all the way back to the boulders and all the apartments. So, so you can redo the. Pedestrian bridge too. That is getting redone. No. Oh, I thought you said it was sorry. We go across it. There's a little section. And you can see it. On the other side of the pedestrian bridge, which is gravel now that'll become paved. And then I see. Got it. Cool. Thank you. We have some questions include. I, I'm sorry. I didn't see who was first. So. I'll start with Marcus. It wasn't me. Okay. So I'll start with Chris. Oh, this isn't a question. I would just wanted to note that. The work that Guilford's talking about was. Part of the community development block grant. That we have. Been awarded. And it's an effort to connect the people who live in the. Apartment complexes, which Guilford mentioned on East Hadley Road with the new improvements and with all of graph park. You know, that was an important connection. So just wanted to mention that. Community development block grant fund. Thank you. Yeah, I think, I think that's a no brainer. I mean, it's clearly there are no sidewalks. I mean, connecting those currently. So, I mean, there are now on the opposite side of the street, but I think it's really fantastic that. Project. So. I see the utility. It's very apparent to me at least. So thank you.  Yeah, I was just wondering if we determine the structural stability of the pedestrian bridge. Are we putting people on a bridge? You know, a wobbly bridge or. How many years has the bridge got left? That bridge is actually in better shape than the bridge across the street on the lane, which goes across the. Little brook. So it's actually, it's in better shape and then the inspections are much better than other bridges we have. For pedestrians. Well, that's good to know. I've run across it with some frequency. Good to know. But I was actually, you know, it was a good question, Marcus, because I was kind of thinking the same thing, except I didn't say it. Have you guys heard of the bridge? I don't even know what that is. Well, you probably should. If you thought that bridge was bad, you shouldn't park in that parking garage. They're redoing it, right? I mean, they're re. Are they doing something with a contract or something? I don't know. I went to a game, a game there and I parked in the parking garage and they have whole sections of the garage. Roped off that you're not supposed to park on. And there's. Concrete spalling and there's netting to catch the concrete. It's, it's amazing. I didn't park there the second time I went. How was that possible? So the next agenda item, unless there's other. Information on that, but thank you for that update. It's a pomerai village intersection. And it says DAC and mass commission for the blind review. I don't know whose agenda this was. Well. The DACC reviewed it. And they wanted. Someone else to review it. So they went out Marine, Marine, Paul it from planning went out and had the, that group you just said on the. Mass commission for blind. Right. And basically they said. Things were fine and just make sure you. It's actually very, very simple. They didn't say very much. They liked what was going on. They approved. So the pomerai. So it's going to be a roundabout, right? It is intersection. It doesn't say roundabout, but it means. Okay. And so are there going to be. I've forgotten. Where. Are there. Flashing beacons and that first for cross for people crossing. Yeah. So it's going to be flashing beacons and they're going to be. They're going to. Chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp so you can find them. And then when you push the button, it's going to say wait. And then when they start flashing, they're going to say the lights flashing. And then you can. Cross. Great. And so the commission for the blind approved that.  And so that's fantastic. That was approved. Is there any other discussion about that? Any questions from the floor. Chris. I just wanted to note that I was part of that conversation and the woman from the mess. Commission for the blind was very complimentary of the design. And also that Myra Ross put us in touch with her and Myra is here. As an attendee in case she wants to say something. Certainly. I can't see. Her. I'll make her a panelist. Yeah. There's someone else here too. There's a 413 phone number that has the hand up. Oh, that's Tracy. Oh, yeah. We don't want her to. To speak right. So. I can't promote her. I can't promote Tracy. I promoted Myra. Yeah. You might not be able to promote Tracy if she doesn't. Maybe she, because she doesn't have a name or something. I can allow her to talk, but. There we go. First. Yeah. Well, if Myra has anything to say, hello, Myra. Do you have anything to say? You're currently muted. I think you, you can mute them. And Tracy is back. Sorry. I was the one who raised my hand. Yeah. And just so you know, I'm. Yeah. Myra is here, but great. Looks like maybe she, maybe she doesn't want to talk or. Myra, if you do want to talk to you. So one thing I had just noted, because I did go to the disability access advisory committee meeting when they talked about the prom life lane project and also the feedback from the mass. So she's this commissioner of the blind. Thought that that was great. And it's really great that the planning. And got the feedback. One thing that that can step the person from the mass commission of the blind had said is that with any of the. Particularly like for wayfinding and things that you should have a lot of the beeping just so that people will know where to find those signals. And things, but I was a little, I mean, one thing is just. Practically speaking, I don't know if there's a way to have like a motion detector. In the area or something, but the idea of having it. And also she wanted to make sure that the volumes were loud enough that they could be heard. Like even with heavy traffic. But I guess. The idea of it beeping all night seemed like a little much to me or something. I know. And project in Millbury, Massachusetts. And there was a senior center, like right at a corner. Webinar. What's that? Control.  Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. It was my speech thing. I've been in places and I've heard those things when they chirp at night or when they chirp when nobody is there, it's, it's pretty quiet. It's not like a beep. It's like a, it's like a little knock. And you can hear them. I mean, I've heard them in other places. Obviously there are other kinds of them that I might not be aware of. But I don't think the perpetual knocking is. A real problem for a neighborhood. I don't think that anybody would hear it except somebody who's walking in maybe 10 or 15 feet away. No, I don't, I just know, I was just saying that just for this one project that I was involved with that. And they, they had the pedestrian crossings that if you hit the button, that's when it would chirp, but it was still, I could see that how if people had their windows open like right next to it all the time or something. Well, it's like a gas station. And I mean, there's not a lot of houses where those are. Yeah, I know it's true. Yeah, I know. I just was wondering if maybe it's even worth just looking at like how many, like, are there apartments above the. Businesses like with the Valley transporter building and things like. To see. I mean, I definitely do want it to be accessible. I just didn't know whether you'd need to have it like chirp all the time for it to be accessible. Yeah. I mean, the purpose of it chirping is so that you can find it. No, of course. I just didn't know. Once you push the button, you've already found it. Absolutely. I didn't know just with the tech, if with technology or something, if it could be combined with some motion detector or something. I agree that it's very important to have it be accessible. But I don't think that's loud. I mean, I think that the, the ones that I've heard. You know, when it's making an announcement. If it's a regular scheduled light, you know, that can be loud, but this will just be activated when someone wants to use it. So it's not, I don't think it should be very obtrusive. It's not like a regular light with a pattern that happens, whether anyone's there or not. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, that's great feedback. It was just, that was just sort of one of my impressions. Yeah. But Christine, did you have a press up? Did you have a comment? I just wanted to say one more thing. I was really pleased that. Guilford and his team were able to put that crosswalk again, north of the roundabout. And that's going to have those RFB said either. And as well, because that was something that people really wanted people who cross over from the office park to, you know, potentially get food on the east side of the street. So I just wanted to say that was really great that they were able to accommodate that. And that was something I think too, that was mentioned a bunch of the public meetings, right? That people talked about working in those offices or yeah, no, that's excellent. Yeah. Thank you. It's something that would not really come out with, in the absence of the public meetings, you know, so it really shows the utility of the public meetings, you know, it's one thing to like examine a space and figure, you know, see what's apparent to us, you know, but it's another thing to hear from people who are using that space on a daily basis. So. And Guilford, what is the timeframe for that project? Hopefully the construction documents will be ready in a little bit before the end of June. That's exciting. Great. Well, yeah. Well, so it does like when you're doing, because it's a roundabout and things like, I think from the public means, they talked about how you'd have to reroute some traffic or would you have to reroute traffic like away from that intersection. Construction. I was just wondering just in terms of like, before you mass comes back and things like what. I mean. The contractor is getting pretty good at building these things now. I mean, they built the one at nine. And 91. And Damon road and. Yeah. They. Altazar just whipped that one out. Great. Oh, so are they going to be the same? Are they going to be the contractor? Is it known or just to have to be big? It has to be bad. Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you. Is there any other, if there's no other discussion. Okay. Thank you. And the next agenda item is talking about our upcoming. And possible agendas for June. Do you want to take that, Tracy? Sure. I mean, so we typically made on. And the third. Thursdays of the month, which is the second and the six. That is also the same night, just like tonight. There's a TSO meeting as well. So if Kim and I are presenting at one of those. We would want to keep the meeting short.  I mean, there's things like Christine and I are working on safe register school and we can report back on that. We haven't been asked for input on too much yet. I mean, do people feel like we're going to need two meetings or could we maybe have one meeting? Seems like we could have one. Yeah. What do people think? Do we have a summer schedule? Yeah, that sounds good to me. Are we able to keep meeting online? Or is there some kind of stuff to that? I think, I think we're allowed to meet through July at least. Is that right? Yes. And does it seem, I mean. Or does it seem likely that the legislature would extend it again or no, not very likely. I mean, I think it's a little bit more of a risk. What do you think? They might because they just extended the ability to do outdoor dining and outdoor service of alcohol through the beginning of April of next year. So I think they are thinking about this. And, you know, they might extend it. I mean, it is, they are very accessible. I mean, I do love seeing people smiling faces. But we also can see you on Zoom and. Yeah. So yeah, I guess we'll see. So the question is the. Yeah, go ahead. Not the second thing. How, I mean, maybe the June is it this, would it be this? Do we want to meet on the ninth? If we meet on the ninth, if people are available then. Then we'd be able to. Like report back on some TSO stuff. And we'd have more to share. Okay. So we could also just go, I mean, the 16th would be our. Yeah, we could do that too. So why don't we. Do the 16th. I'm suggesting yes. Yeah. No, no, I'm Kim. I know that we had changed our meetings from what was it like five to 530 based on your schedule because you were teaching. Do we want to go back to five or.  I kind of like this, but. You know. The easier. Is it easier to just keep it at five? Because then I can pick up my kids. Yeah. Five makes it tough. Yeah. Okay. So. The 16th at five. So to say the 16th at five or five 30, we just said we're going to keep it at five 30. Great. And go for it. Does that work with you? Yes. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and also there's so many other meetings right now going on town, like, I know. No budget and all those things. So. It just. Yeah. We're meeting. That's what we do in Amherst. Yeah. Great. Well, hopefully we're meeting a little less than sometimes. Maybe not. Ask Chris that question too. Planning. Planning has too much to do. There's a lot of meetings. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So then we've decided on. So Thursday, next, I mean, next meeting is Thursday. The 16th. Yep. Very. And are there any announcements or other committee. Comments. Had I knew it. I guess I left in my car when I was going, but one comment I had is so Mindy Dom reached out to me today. And I was like, I'm going to send them to the city. I'm going to send them to the city. I'm going to send the efforts to get. Rail. Passenger rail in Western mass. And she's been in contact with somebody and she wanted to connect them with us and things. If that's. I mean, we could have that person comment present to our committee. On the 16th. Yes, please. Yeah. Okay. That would be an interesting to see what if they have, you know, I don't know. Okay. Didn't I just hear that? I mean, the governor had committed to it. Right. Yeah. Well, he's committed to getting it out of Springfield, right? I mean, making. They're an East West corridor, but not. Not. Coming up through. Great. So that's a different. Yeah, I don't see Amherst. I mean this. So what I understand is one reason, right? The tracks, the Amtrak was switched. It was the Amherst station closed and we switched to North Hampton. It's just because the tracks on the east side of the river. Such bad shape. Well, I mean, that's why they. Brother, bro. That like the train, what is it running? I don't know. Maybe Bernie's been on the train, but the people I know who are on it last said it's running like, you know, 15 miles an hour, 20 miles an hour. Yeah, no, that's not good shape at all. No, the West, the West side. The West side. Was why moved to the East side, but the East side, they used to have to like do some weird stuff in Palmer. So they tried to move it. Move it over to the West side. I mean, that's what it always tried to be right. So they were just Amherst was just a. A bandaid. My introduction to the, to the rail when I first moved up here was that came through and set my neighborhood. So I would not hold out hope that Amherst will be. Yeah. Yeah. But they did talk about having like the knowledge corridor, right? Cause that, that line, I think goes down to. New London. Well, the 91, it goes to New Haven and it connects to the one that goes along the Connecticut. I mean, a lot. Right. That's the one. Yes. But there was also talk of. Bringing the one in Amherst back because you'll go down to New London. And then it can stop at various places along there. So, you know, what's interesting is that the North Hampton station, it's actually like one of the highest few stations. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, it pulls in a lot of students and people. And. So they've had a lot. And that, right. There's also now a station in Holyoke and there's someone in the North Hampton station. So. Well, so it sounds like we. Yes, we would like that person to come to that. I will, and I will follow up. I hadn't. Mindy. I will follow up with her. Great. Okay. And I don't know. No, I can't think of. So one thing as. And Guilford. So. So. I wasn't touched with. Is the GIS IT person for the town. Just about the. The bike and the bike and pedestrian network mapping. And think so he had reached out to me. You reached out to him. He asked me, I think when you forwarded that student stuff, he contacted me. Because I knew him previously because I'd worked with him with a district advisory board. So he's like, Hey, Guilford sent me stuff. So, you know, about that. Cause we had talked about having an intern, but then he, he thought he might be able to do some of the data layers himself or something. I'll reach back out to him. Yeah. Guilford is just, um, you know, so we had reviewed. The three of them. Like two in the direction of the, the groups in like made all the markups. And I don't know. And Kim, I remember Kim was taking notes for seven and two. That in my files. Like. And like. The results of all of them. I have a comprehensive list of what they all were. I think we had reviewed it at three or four meetings. Yeah. And Kim, I mean, maybe you still have notes too, or something. There's a bunch of notes. Yeah. Okay. But I'm happy to give, I have notes on the actual map. So I'm happy to give those to. You just Tracy. Describe what it is that you're talking about. Oh, so I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So, yeah. So Christine wasn't on the committee then. So. So what it was, is that we have this. planning commission, I believe it was finished in 2018 or 2019. And it had a lot of strategies for improving walkability and bike ability in Amherst. One key element of the plan in my mind is that it does include some maps related to what are the primary pedestrian corridors and primary bike corridors both in terms of what is seen as the most important areas. And once you have that map right, then you can prioritize future improvements along those corridors. And so one of the things is that we had spent, so in the original plan there was a map, but there were some issues with the map layer, including the road layer that they used for the map. So in 2000, last like winter and spring, like in February, 2021, March, I remember it was like three or four meetings, we spent time going over the map in detail from north to south, looking at that initial map that the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission had created and making updates and changes to it, including to do some clarifications. And so after that time in order for, so it's been a goal that map could be finished in the updates and then we could, that map could then be perhaps along with the plan perhaps adopted by the council or something endorsed by the council as like this is where we want our priorities to be and used for future decision making. And it just seems like it's a very helpful visual to have that map finished. So there had been some discussion about maybe there was an intern for DPW or somebody who could maybe do that, but that hadn't worked out yet. And so, so I had just been a T coordinator for the town, Mike Warner had reached out to me because on this intern idea because there was one GIS student who said they were, could maybe be an intern or something, but even if that fell through, and I'm not sure that that would work out, but just the idea of this layer is like getting that layer done and ready for like to move forward with the public. I mean, we spent a lot of time on that map and so not through it. So that was the thing is when I was talking to Mike Warner. So then I just couldn't like put my hands on all of them very easily. So that's where I wanted, I hadn't reached out to Guilford get to see if Guilford had the markups, but but it seemed just talking to Mike, he thought that it might not be maybe just being as good as he is or something. He thought that it might not be that much work for him to maybe make the markups himself. I don't know. Well, I guess just to circle back to the safe routes to school question. Andy brought up of what kind of information can you be supplying to the school building committee. To me that seems like really good information. Yeah, definitely. Again, we don't know where walkability and bike ability figures into the decision matrix. But if we have, you know, maps that show existing corridors and future priorities for what we think makes sense for corridors, that's important information. Definitely. And we did in our discussions, we like in certain neighborhoods near schools, like we intentionally identified certain streets as corridors, just knowing that students would need to connect from the school to the neighborhoods, you know, they're coming from and so on. Right. So I think like we included like high street and some of those streets that would be connector streets. So, but so now we're waiting for Mike to do it or we're waiting for it. It sounds like Guilford said he would reach out to him. So, okay. But I might just, I might just send an email just to connect, like to connect on that because I'm going to look through and see what I have, but I just didn't think I had that much too. Well, the problem is Mike has a lot he's doing. He does. Oh, no, for sure. Absolutely. My problem is I have, I've used up all my intern spaces already for this summer. Yeah. No, I understand. I think Mike was going to reach out to the student who has the expertise. The specific problem is to someone to do it. Yes. But we have money to pay someone to do it, but I have no place to stick someone to do it. So I'm, that's my shortage. So if I had another room, I could bring someone into our building, but we filled all our intern spaces for the season. I have money for interns. Can we get a 10? Do they have to be next to you, Gilford? I mean, Well, we need to give them access to a town computer with the access to the GIS. So that's why I was hoping Mike had a spot downstairs in the basement. That would work. Yeah. It sounded like it could be complicated to hire somebody, but Mike was looking into it. Right. Like, I think even with the interns, I said that it had to go through HR and it had to be like advertised and stuff like that. No, I already advertised. You just need to have a talk with Mike. Right. Anyway. So Gilford has money. Mike has space. The thing has already been advertised. So we really need the person. Is that right? Go for it. Well, if we want to finish up, it'd be nice to have someone to have time to work with. Right. Well, thank you. We'll see if we can make some progress. Okay. All right. I think that's it. Oh, and next week. This is exciting. Next week, my work is hosting this conference. It's in Worcester. 1,000 attendees, 35 sessions. I'm the session coordinator for them. And the governor's coming. And Ben, Breger is presenting. He's on one of the panels. About quick build projects. And. Yeah. It's kind of exciting. I hope you get to see Ben. Ben is on this panel. I'm a little surprised that they said they needed to have. At least like six or seven presenters. I mean, the sessions are not that long. I suggest that they have a few. A few less people. So that everybody could talk a little longer, but they insisted. They said, oh, but we want people showcasing like the five different towns and stuff. So. Yes. And usually all of these recordings, they always go online after. So. So one of the things I remember from some mass duty, they do these conferences. They do one in the fall. It's called moving together. It's usually hosted in downtown Boston. So one day conference, but our last maybe together was online. But they did have a session there about this whole idea about the bike counterflow. Again. Like with the vehicle traffic, similar to what we're talking about with North pleasant street. I thought that was a good presentation. I could share that link with people. And then. And then they have a two day conference in Worcester. So. Too bad that COVID is surging right now. Other than that. All good. Okay. I guess the last item was a, any. Antis, unanticipated, right? Did we just discuss that part? Any. I don't know. No. Okay. So the last. So we just can be done, I guess. So. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there was a one quick thing was. Parklets. Right, Chris. Do you know anything about the parklets? Yes, we've got, I think $83,000 to develop some parklets in downtown. And we worked with the bid and they hired a contractor to do. Two parklets and it's unclear whether we can actually make a third happen, but. There's one. Is it in front of a fresh side? It's already, it's already there. Right? It's already like aggregate and everything. It looks really nice. Yeah, I like it. They don't seem to have any drains to let water. Out of the parklet. It just seems like there's two by fours and nothing rains will just collect in there. There's no spacing in between. No, no, no. It's straight. It's straight to tarmac. Yeah. And there's another one that's going in by Amherst coffee. Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah. But they do look really inviting. They do look very nice. Yeah. It was just, I saw that, you know, they had the gaps in the, in the. On the walkable surface, but nothing about the water. Then doesn't it just run under the little screw? There's no, there's no. Yeah. So, so sorry, are those, those are just public seating? Cause it looked like there were chairs. Maybe I didn't see chairs. Maybe I just saw. We're associated with a particular restaurant because. The bid reached out to all the restaurants in town and asked. We'd like to have one of these. I think there were three restaurants that said, yes, we would like this. And so we were working on two of them. We were working on two of them. The bid. And it sounded like they're Cousin. Two maybe we're hoping for bear, bear Cousin. But there seems to be a complication. I think there's a fire hydrant there that may cause a complication. And it might be possible to have two smaller ones, but we haven't quite figured that out yet. Cool. So yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are the, are the barricades that are still up? Go for maybe, you know, on North Pleasant street. Like near subway and stuff. Are those all going to stay in the summer? Are they? They were there to protect the parking. Okay. So they'll stay until the parking is removed. And there's going to be a talk about that hopefully soon. But the other issue is, is we need to do a lot of paving work and some improvements, just the roadway downtown, but everybody now wants to have a different downtown. So we really need to be talking about what we want for our different downtown before the DPW spends a lot of money. We don't really have a lot of to pave what's there. And then people say we want something different and change it, which is how we normally operate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice to do it that opposite for once. Sorry. I guess one, one question. Yeah. No, one, the question with downtown is so. Right. Like previously. I guess there aren't too many parking spaces that are still set aside as like the downtown, like the outdoor dining. Right. Is that right? They're almost all gone now. I'm just trying to visualize it a little bit. I feel like there's still some tables out there, but Chris. Yeah, I think there are tables on private property and there are tables on sidewalks, but I don't think there are any tables in the street anymore. But I wanted to say that. Planning department is applying for a grant. It's called community planning and it's part of the one stop grant program. And the hope is that we can get some help with doing what Guilford is just talking about, which is designing spaces, you know, sidewalks and bump outs and different things like that to make the downtown more pedestrian friendly, more outdoor dining friendly, and just make it a more pleasant place to be. So I think those, the grant application is due maybe June 3rd. So we're hoping for that. And we're also, we also have money that we got last year. We have about $100,000 to help us with. Design guidelines and design standards and streetscape standards for downtown. So we're going to be working on that. And we have an RFP that's almost ready to go out for that project. If there's no further discussion. We're getting to the end of our meeting time. I make a motion that we are finished. Thank you. So have a good night, everyone. Night everybody tonight. Bye. See you on the 16th.


Dear colleagues, welcome to the Third International Conference on Addiction Research and Therapy, which is going to be held in Amsterdam and Netherlands, March 2020. My name is Sandhaki. I'm the author of Malignan Self-Love and Narcissism Revisited, a series of other books about personality disorders. I'm a visiting professor of psychology, Southern Federal University in Wostov-on-Don, Russia, and I'm a professor of finance and a professor of psychology in CSCFs, the Center for International Advanced and Professional Studies. Today, I would like to discuss with you a potentially new view of addiction in our attempts to decipher the human psyche, which in itself we should all admit is a mere construct, not an ontological entity. Well, when we attempt to decipher the human psyche or soul, if you are spiritually inclined, we have come up with two answers. That the first answer is that behaviors, moods, emotions, and cognitions are wholly reducible to biochemical reactions and neural pathways in the brain. And this is the medicalization of what it is to be human. It's inevitably hotly contested by dualists. People who believe that there is a distinction, there is light, daylight between mind and body, and that the mind is not an epiphenomenon or an emergent phenomenon of the body, but kind of a separate entity that somehow is connected to the body, not clear how. This is the Cartesian view. It's very old. And the second type of answer that we've come up with is that behaviors, moods, emotions, and cognitions can be explained and predicted by the introduction of scientific theories or scientific sounding theories based on primary concepts. Psychoanalysis is an early and now widely discredited or disregarded example of such an approach to human affairs, the physics of the soul, the physics of the psyche. The concepts of addiction as the concept of pathological narcissism, yes, the concept of addiction was introduced to account for oft-recurring amalgams of behaviors, moods, emotions, and cognitions. Both concepts, addiction and narcissism, are organizing exegetic hermeneutic principles with some predictive powers. Both constructs hark back to Calvinist and Puritan strands of Protestantism, where excess and compulsion inner demons, so to speak, were important topics, sometimes exclusive topics. And so today we perpetuate this Puritan view of addiction, we say that addicts are slaves to their addictions. They are kind of mindless robots controlled by the processes in their brains, by the substances that they consume, or by interaction between the substances that they consume and the processes in their brains. And in the brain itself, there's another class of substances, neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, and others. And they interact with the consumed substances. They are receptors, special sites, where the consumed substances addictive substances bind, dock into. But in my view, there is no such thing as an addictive personality. I believe that addiction and addictive behaviors should be cast in a totally new light. I claim that addictions are the natural state of humanity. They're the baseline. We start off by getting addicted. We get addicted to mother. We get addicted to her milk. And we continue to develop addictions throughout life. We relabel them. We don't call them addictions. But what I have is, if not addictions. What is love? If not a form, an extreme form of addiction. What are automatic thoughts? What are obsessions? Compatuals? They are forms of addictions. Addictions are powerful, organized in exploratory principles. They endow life with meaning, purpose, and direction, or misdirection. Addictions provide boundaries, rituals, timetables, and exoskeleton of order. Addictions are ways to regulate emotions. Addictions are ways to modulate interpersonal relationships. Addictions are communication protocols. They are communication modes. Addictions are the scaffolding of life itself. Indeed, if you look at our brain, our brain is programmed to constantly get addicted. About 40% of brain structures, and much more than that of brain surface, are kind of dedicated to addictions. Big important parts of the brain revolve around getting addicted, maintaining the addiction, and directing and regulating behaviors and emotions under the addiction, or to somehow conform to the addiction. A high is the desired permanent outcome, it seems. Addictive states must serve some evolutionary purpose. Because we know from evolutionary theory that structures that consume energy do not survive if they have no role, if they have no goal, if they are not functional. So, addictive states must have some function. They must serve some evolutionary purpose. And therefore, they are beneficial adaptations. They are not mal-adaptations. In the process of socialization, we internalize inhibitions and introjects, what Freud called the superego. And these inhibitions and introject usually counter addictions. They are against certain addictions. So as to render us functional and useful in human communities and environments. In other words, the edicts against the injunctions, against addictions, are not biological. They don't have anything to do with our psychology, with our brain, or with any realities which are biological and psychological. They are social in nature. Whenever we counter an addiction, whenever we attack, the morality of an addiction, whenever we... We usually talk in social terms, social acceptability, social conformity, social function. Other addictions, mediated by our institutions, such as the church or the family. These addictions are encouraged for the same reasons exactly, because they are pro-social. So we have anti-social addictions and pro-social addictions. Non-conforming and defiant addicts are conditioned to self-destruct and to defeat and loathe themselves. Addictions are individual. Their prescription and inhibition is social. They are social. No wonder that addictions are associated in clinical and abnormal psychology with anti-social or even psychopathic and sociopathic traits, behaviors and personalities. The addict seeks to alter his perception of reality. Addictions are both intersubjective theories of mind and of the world. Many addictions can be replete with, or in the context of, ideologies. Addictions spawn subconscious. They provide social menus and contexts within which to operate. They spawn codes of conduct. Of alumnus literature, notwithstanding, there is little convincing empirical research about the correlation between personality traits and addictive behaviors. Substance abuse and dependence, alcoholism, drug addiction is only one form of recurrent and self-defeating patterns of misconduct. People are addicted to all kinds of things. Gambling, shopping, the internet, reckless and life-endangering pursuits and hobbies, adrenaline junkies about it. The connection between chronic anxiety, pathological narcissism, depression, excessive compulsive traits and alcoholism and drug abuse. This connection is well established and is common in clinical practice. But not all narcissists, compulsives, depressives, psychopaths and anxious people, turn to the bottle or to the needle. Frequent claims of finding a gene complex responsible for alcoholism have been consistently cast in doubt. In 1993, Berman and Noble suggested that addictive and reckless behaviors are near emergent phenominal and may be linked to other, more fundamental traits such as novelty-seeking or risk-taking. Psychopaths, patients with anti-social personality disorder or even people who are merely defined. Psychopaths have both qualities in ample quantities, novelty-seeking and risk-taking. We would expect them, therefore, to heavily abuse alcohol and drugs. Indeed, as Lewis and Buckholz convincingly demonstrated in 1991, psychopaths do. Still, only a negligible minority of alcoholics and drug addicts are psychopaths. We must reconceive and rethink addiction. It fulfills some function. It has some role. It is very often anti-social, so societies did set against addictions. But addictions have a place. They have a biological presence, a neurological presence, cerebral presence in the brain. Many people actually looking at the situation objectively, most people, are addicts one way or another. They are eruptive and disruptive addictions such as falling in love. They are chronic addictions. They are pro-social addictions and anti-social addictions. We need to reconceive of addiction, not in the framework of clinical or normal psychology perhaps, but in the broader context of social psychology or just psychology. Thank you for listening.


Life is good all this month at Appalachian Wireless. Get the LG G5 for just one penny with sign-up or renewal of a two-year service agreement. That's almost $100 off the regular price. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless. March 1st through the 7th is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Kentucky. During that week, officials conduct an annual statewide tornado safety drill. It stands by for important weather information. This is a tornado emergency for Salyersville. Ballot paints the Riceville, Vamiar and the court. Take cover now. As we saw with the 2012 tornadoes in West Liberty and Salyersville, and even with Wednesday's severe storms, Eastern Kentuckians understand the importance of severe weather safety. Here in Eastern Kentucky, it's kind of been known as not a place to worry so much about tornadoes. However, five years ago proved that we do need to worry. It's no longer a question if we're going to get there. It's a question of when. Maynard says thankfully a signal has never been activated because of severe weather. When the tornadoes hit West Liberty, Salyersville, Paintsville, we started actively seeking a warning system for outdoors here in Papua, and we secured money to bring in an ace iron system. So far, we have been truly blessed. We haven't had any warnings that's constituted setting them off. The outdoor warning system in Pikeville is just that, to warn those who are outdoors. We have a lot of events around town where people are outside, and this may be the only way we can get notifications. However, Maynard says for those who are indoors, at the time the outdoor warning system is activated, the Pikeville emergency management officials activate other systems in order to alert everyone. In conjunction with Pike County and putting a system in called Code Red, I highly suggest everybody go sign up for that because if you have a smartphone, you enter another Code Red community, and you actually download the app, you can get notified of notifications there as well. To receive Code Red alerts, visit the websites listed on your screen. Reporting in Pikeville for EKB News, I'm Shelby Steele.


What is the EIC, the Earned Income Tax Credits? The EIC is a credit for certain people who work. The credit may give you a refund even if you don't owe any tax or didn't have any tax with help. So in other words, the Earned Income Tax Credit is generally aimed at lower income individuals, but it's trying to incentivize people to work so you have to have some earned income. That's why it says you work. You have some earned income in order to get the credit. If you have no earned income, then you shouldn't be generally requalified for the credit is the general idea. Now note that if you don't, if your income is below a certain threshold, the general thought process or the questions you might have is, do I have to file at all? Do I have to file at all if my income is below a certain threshold? Well, if your income is below the standard deduction, you would think you don't have to file because the IRS isn't going to come after you because you don't owe them any money because you're under the standard deduction, you have zero taxable income in essence. That's a different question, however, than should I file? Would it be beneficial to file? And oftentimes the answer there is going to be, yes, even if you didn't have any withholdings from the W-2 that could possibly be refunded to you because of these refundable credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. And also, oftentimes if you're filing before the due date, I think including extensions, you might be able to get access to free software from third-party providers looking for that software on the IRS website, iris.gov. And so it's worth checking out if it would be beneficial to file, if you can get access to the free software can help you calculate this Earned Income Tax Credit even though it is a complicated credit to calculate. All right, so to take the EIC, the Earned Income Credit, follow the steps below. Complete the worksheet that applies to you or let the IRS figure the credit for you. Now, again, generally software is quite useful and helpful to walk you through the steps to figure out the credit. You can kind of double check it and deconstruct it and you might be able to get access to free software or even low-income individuals on the IRS website, free file. So if you have a qualifying child, complete and attach Schedule EIC. So if you have at least one child who meets the conditions to be your qualifying child for purposes of claiming the EIC Earned Income Tax Credit, complete the attached Schedule EIC even if that child doesn't have a valid SSN social security number. See Schedule EIC for more information including how to complete Schedule EIC if your qualifying child doesn't have a valid SSN social security number caution. If you take the EIC Earned Income Tax Credit, even though you aren't eligible and it is determined that your error is due to reckless or intentional disregard of the EIC rules or an income credit rules, you won't be allowed to take the credit for two years even if you are otherwise eligible to do so. So the issue here is like any kind of benefit program. This program is going to be something that is subject to people trying to get an invalid refund or flat out committing fraud. Identity theft is an issue with it as well because you know it's money, it's kind of like free money to an extent because you're not getting a refund from it. You're actually getting a benefit program to it so people can people take advantage of it which of course means that the IRS has to balance between the amount of advantage people are going to take from it and how they're going to lock down that we'll still be able to get the benefits related to the credit, the pros outweighing the cons. So if you fraudulently take the EIC you won't be allowed to take the credit for 10 years so fraud would be intent. They find that you intentionally did this. It's difficult thing to to prove intention but obviously if they say that intent was involved then 10 years. C form 8862 who must file later you may also have to pay penalties. So tip refunds for returns claiming the earned income tax credit can't be issued before mid-February 2023. So note the other thing that's involved with this credit is they're trying to commit or reduce fraud, identity theft, people find fraudulent tax returns for example and trying to claim these refundable credits because again you can basically possibly get the credit even without any refund so without any withholdings. So that's a huge fraud problem. So to try to mitigate that they need a little bit more time to process the paperwork over there and hope and that's I believe something that could help them or is helping them and the reason for delaying the refund pass what you might be able to get if you weren't claiming that particular credit. So this delay applies to the entire refund not just the portion associated with the earned income credit so you might be thinking hey why can't you just give me part of the reform fund that's not part of the credit. Well that they could I guess but that would be kind of complicated to do take a lot more time and effort so they're not doing that.


Hey, this is Brett and this 2015 Ram 3500 Megacab Short Box Dual Rear Wheel Laramy Longhorn is stock number 12538Z. We're here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy-duty truck and Ram headquarters. This 2015 Ram 3500 Megacab has the 6.7-liter Cummins diesel engine. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop. Has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. And this truck is 100% ready to go. We're going to go all the way around underneath. Inside, start it up. Take a look under the hood in this video. Black clear coat over white gold is the color scheme. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p, 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or television, I highly recommend turning them on right now because it is your best way to check out the quality condition and options of the truck before seeing it in person. And if you like the video and how we do things here at Summit Automotive in the upper right-hand part of the screen is a subscribe button to our YouTube channel. Click that and then click the bell notifications and you'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summit Automotive of our new and used inventory. This one comes with the Alcoa polished aluminum rims and it has Michelin LTX MS tires. These are LT 235 ADR 17s and they have right around, I'd say, half the tread left on them. Frame and underbody is in really nice condition for a 2015. Front fender is in excellent shape, I didn't see any dents or dings in there. It does have the projector lamp headlamps, the LED running lights, factory fog lights, the painted front bumper. That's in really nice shape as well, I didn't see any major dents or dings on that. And same thing with the hood, very nice condition, no dents or dings on there. You do get the full chrome trimmed grille. Headlight lenses are nice and clear, passenger side fender is in nice shape and the passenger side rim, no major scuffs or scrapes on that. As you go down this side of the truck, take note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by, just cannot make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle. You can see the truck, hear the truck, and of confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. So when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. And if this video helps you make that decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video, that it was helpful and that Brett sent you. Back rim, excellent condition as well. And the back tires have just about as much tread as the front tires, maybe even a little bit more. Frame and underbody is in nice shape and it's like that all the way underneath has all the remaining factory exhaust so it hasn't been altered in any way. Cab corners and lower rockers all look really good and it does come with the painted step bars. You get the 3M guard right there, the rock guard. Didn't see any major rock chips or anything on there, looks really good. Coming around to the back of the vehicle, rear bumper is in nice shape. Does have the backup parking sensors, full towing package which includes a receiver hitch four pin and seven pin wiring. The tailgate is in very nice condition as well. Does have a locking tailgate backup camera, comes with a pro series 16,000 pound fifth wheel and that's in nice shape and it does have seven pin wiring, spraying bed liner and the bed is in really nice condition as well. Going down the driver's side just as clean as that passenger's side, looks really good. The rim is in nice shape as well and back of the cab looks good and down the rest of the side of the truck. Very nice and clean.  The Longhorn patch on the back rest there, the black piping on there as well, no rips or tears, both these seats are heated and cooled in the front, memory driver's seat lumbar, weather tech floor mats, auto headlamps, power pedals, power windows, power locks, power mirrors, those mirrors power fold in, get the leather bolster, the wood grain trim on there. Will hop inside, check out the miles radio and everything that this truck has to offer. Get the Longhorn animation at the beginning there and you can see that this one has 46,245 miles, you get the digital speedometer, compass outside temp and range to empty on your fuel tank. The special Laramie Longhorn edition instrument cluster comes with the leather wrapped and wood grain trim steering wheel, cruise controls on the right, Bluetooth and information center controls on the left and that steering wheel is in really nice shape, six-speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift, you get the 8.4 3C radio, AM FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities, also has the factory navigation system on it and there's your AM FM and Sirius, you can do your heated seats, cooled seats right there as well as your heated steering wheel, this is also where your backup camera shows up, does have the Alpine premium sound system, turned-out four-wheel drive, factory brake controller, heated and cooled seat buttons down here, stability control, tow haul, factory exhaust brake and your backup parking sensors, you can turn those off and on, dual climate controls, 115 volt, 150 watt plug-in, this one does have remote start on the keyless entry, passenger side format and seat are in excellent condition, I didn't see any rips or tears on there, smells very clean inside this truck, the headliner is in nice shape, you do get the power sunroof as well, map lights, power sliding rear window button and home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lane systems, 911 and assist buttons in the rear view mirror, we'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we'll start it up and take a look under the hood, back seats are just as clean as the front seats, no rips or tears back here, it does have the latch child safety system for each child car seats you may have, these back seats are heated on the outboard sides, you get the power sliding rear window with the built-in rear defrost, long horn patch on the back there and the factory or I'm sorry the weather tech floor mat back here as well, you get those saddlebags on the back of the front seats, heated seat buttons, these mega cabs, the seats go down two different ways, first way is just the backrest goes down and then the whole seat can go down and it'll go down nice and flat like that, what's nice is you got a nice flat load floor or if you got pets you can put both sides down they got a nice flat place to lay or if you want to take a nap there's enough room back here that you could lay down as well, so that's really cool and then one second here I'm gonna get you know put the front seat up just a second, alright so you got to have that front seat up just a little bit to get that seat back into place but really a nice system, back doors are trimmed out the same way as the front doors and you do get the child safety locks on the back doors as well, bottoms of the doors all look really good, we'll start it up and take a look under the hood, starts right up, no check engine lights or anything like that, I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you'll have been able to verify the quality and condition of this truck all the way around inside and out, those projector lamp headlamps LED running lights, cab lights are working good as well, under the hood we have the 6.7 liter Cummins diesel engine base very clean runs very smooth, once again this truck has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop as a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off and this truck is 100% ready to go it's got a full tank of fuel as well, there's your emissions sticker and I would highly recommend this truck from a quality and condition standpoint and to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, halftones, three quarter tons, one tons, you name it we got to go to that website right there, www.summonauto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at Summon Auto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to www.youtube.com slash Summon Auto, remember to like, subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there, click the bell notifications you'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summon Auto, in fact in a second you'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on the upper left, a link to more Ram 3500 truck videos like this one on the upper right, link to this vehicle on our website in the lower left and a link to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right, click those check us out and we're super excited to help you with this ultra clean 2015 Ram 3500 mega cab short box dually Laramie Longhorn and black over white gold. Thanks again for checking out the video remember to like, subscribe and share.