k up to the goal sounds good to me um rest is and this and then there was the statement on the system to track energy savings and it should continue as a goal for the coming year problem with that all right then we'll move on to the next one which is long-term planning elissa this is the one where you gave me various comments i had showed earlier we didn't pause on it but all of them basically made the second paragraph that despite the pandemic gave it more clarity it's not shown here however i didn't none of it was changing anything substantial well mendigo yeah i i guess my question is is there an intention to change whatever elissa provided and if so i think we need to have a chance to actually read it i'm gonna be expecting on this document today okay we can come back to that then okay let's i don't want to switch back and forth with documents okay so then uh the other change on the next paragraph again was just clarifying i just added the words golf course property because who's going to remember five years from now what hickory ridge is so yeah hickory ridge golf course was added in there um then going on to other substantial changes the next ones really come in the area under expanded community engagement which is roman numeral five you keep going and you start to see some of them right here those were mostly minor but on the next page is where you start to see this is where we got into the issue of one counselor and i did try to eliminate a lot of that i'm looking for comments on how this was edited elissa so i just want to clarify because this is so hard for you to keep switching documents around like you said you already gave us what we're seeing on the screen right now so if we had an objection to what we're screening on the screen right now we should have told you already because you gave us that opportunity so the more difficult part is because we later gave comments after we saw this version after we saw the clean version what andy wrote what i wrote what other people wrote isn't on here and so i appreciate that you're not switching back and forth documents but i'm not sure why we need to go through this document that you already gave us that we all had the opportunity to respond to i'm just making sure that we're clear and we're fine on what i did do already and then i'll go to the next round okay all right then moving on the next one is in the area of economic development and there was that paragraph and then there was a lot of additional paragraphs at the end a lot in the paragraph at the end that really started into one counselor etc okay so those are the major changes before of what those are the major changes of what went into your packet okay are there any questions on those changes before we take this version down so surgeon i'm going to have you take this version down and then we're going to go to this version okay this is the cleaned up version this one was in your packet and since then i have received some additional comments first one we've already discussed which was taking this comment out entirely thena you're gonna have to tell me if people have their hands raised i'll listen maddie i'm hands up um didn't we agree to take it out yes we did that's i just want to make sure no more discussion on that okay then andy had also made this my handbook um i'm sorry mandy john page has changes on it that i'd like to actually see that those this change was suggested by kathy in the red writing right i said find to take it out yeah no i i i just hadn't had a chance to read it so i wanted to be able to read it um the word committee is spelled wrong so that should be corrected but um okay we're just making changes as she was reading it and then we never had a chance to actually read it i'm sorry yes it's capital committee yeah no i wrote it too fast i'm good with it now that i've had a chance to actually read it okay are there any other comments please a thing to let me know if there are not at this point okay then we go to the one that we already agreed on here and now we're down to this one good and i'll just give you time to read it was andy wanting to say something in a slightly more positive way it sounds good any other comments etina out of this point okay then the the next one this is the paragraph i'll give you quite a bit of time to read it that elissa edited no hands any further comments okay this is the place where elissa put the golf course property pretty straightforward and here is where we said in the area of economic development marks were considerably mixed with mixed ratings in the subcategories maybe that's awkward well you would need an e that fixes it okay any questions on that kathy you added this yeah i i mainly flagged this because when you go back to the very beginning of the memo um on positive ratings it didn't know and then later on this mixed rating i was just struck by in one place said it's mixed and i realized the mix is in these subcategories that's what you were referring to you know it's the overall rating is positive but then you go into each category and there's a lot of variation so i thought this sentence was an accurate sentence it's just did you want to when you i mean paul is listening to all of this so you know did you you want to just send a signal on the very first part where we said great ratings in this whole category to say although there was a mix in the subcategories so it was just trying to be consistent when in the body of the memo with the summary that could see the precise okay so then there is little indication of any activity or progress that was a sentence that wasn't complete it's complete because it completes the non the beginning of the parenthetical but in most of the subcategories there's little indication of any activity or progress so you're saying leave this in yeah okay and then at the very end elissa provided an explanation as to why we don't have any of these and that past practice combined this feedback with comments from the public okay it's just an explanation so let me just explain that in what does anybody want to go back to another part of the memo i'm going to stop sharing and let me just say that what happened in the past was i took this i did one more run through for grammar or anything else and i put the final one in your packet but we voted this tonight so the motion is to adopt the town the fy 20 town manager performance evaluation as amended is there a second anarchy seconds any further discussion okay then we start with ham dorthy gift unmute dorthy you have to unmute all right i lost the screen for a moment okay yes evan ross yes you're trying yes kathy yes Steve yes dine uh andy yes sarah yes galony yes elissa yes pat yes dorthy yes bruce verse yes hanakie yes and i'm last i'm going to take the time to say thank you paul for pivoting so well and dealing with covet so well a good year so i think what we haven't done exactly what mandy joe has said and uh we can spend a little time saying some thanks to paul and why don't we all do that because this has been an amazing year and um having to judge you on goals that we wrote before covid many of us would have liked to have thrown those goals out and started over and so it made it a very difficult thing but you've done an amazing job so other comments people would like to make at this time i just i i just want to echo that but i'll also paul whatever level of stress you're feeling you always look like ah things are going smoothly and and i really appreciate how much credit you give to the staff that's that's sitting there um working to do a plan and then undo the whole plan and come up with a new plan um as in the budget thing and they too didn't come in you know like they had just been thrown against the wall and were dead they came in ready to have a conversation about it so it's really a tribute to your leadership but also the people you have working with you so thank you there are other comments sarah so one of the things that we were asked to comment on was um if we're trying to get ahold of paul what is our success rate and i just want to say that um every time i reached out to paul um he's always gotten back to me right away and has been very compassionate and has followed up on the things that i have asked him about including sometimes um having to text him on weekends about things during covid and i really appreciate that very very very very much and he never makes me feel like i'm a pain which is fabulous so thank you there are times when i wonder why paul really wants this job and even going through this whole process of us judging him and writing a report card and how he's put up with these difficult times but then i've already known that i get a glimpse of what does turn him on and that is he gets very excited when things are very bad i i read ablatedly um something you sent about the storm we had a couple of weeks ago and it was just filled with life talking about the police where where the power line was down and they're guarding this and the dispatchers are doing a great job and i had this idea of you kind of running around the whole town checking everybody out and i said well that's a happy man today so i guess you're the right man for the right time because we've got a lot of disasters right now so thank you but we have an opportunity because we're gonna go into executive session to continue that and but paul did you want to say something now or later yeah i just want to thank you i know you put an enormous amount of work into this uh evaluation process and i really appreciate how seriously you take it you're absolutely right that it's a team effort and this reflects on the entire team um and um you know i i i always appreciate the good graces everyone brings um to the to the endeavor that we're involved in um and it's really working with people that makes the job worthwhile so um and even when it's when we're in disagreement you know it's okay to be expressing those things so um i do just you know i appreciate the um level of detail you've given because i'm always looking for good information and if there's anything that didn't fit into these boxes of the performance thing that you said to send me an email i really do look for that kind of feedback so i can serve the town better basically so i appreciate it and this means awfully long so i'm there all right so we're gonna have a brief discussion about the goals uh and i think at this point what we're gonna do is fall on um george because this comes out of crc and the other crc members who may want to speak to them uh and so uh surge would you put the latest draft of the goals and enlarge them thank you okay george you're muted george george you were muted a great explanation but we didn't hear any of it now you're muted again no how's that that's good sorry um this is the sixth version and um i'm proud of it i think we've we've done a really good job trying to craft six very explicit policy goals that i hope give paul a very clear sense of what we think he should be focusing on for this coming year climate action community health and safety economic vitality the four capital projects housing racial equity and social justice and within each one we've tried to pick out specific items that we would like him in particular to focus on and we tried to in most cases connected to a specific council action that we've taken as a body and then the second half of the document has not changed as much really um but they are management goals and again focusing on administration leadership and personnel and then finance long-term vision community engagement and relationship with the town council um so i think this is a a very fine document that will give paul a clear sense of what we what our priorities are um for the coming year and so i think it's probably most valuable to hear what the rest of you think and so that's what i have to say okay comments please kathy then i you said earlier um when you introduced all of this that we weren't going to have a longer discussion a short discussion on this tonight on the goals um one of the comments i made that i sent today you know in attract change is does reflect the comment we just took out of the evaluation of the past year that um on the particularly on when we're talking about the four building projects i think we need to put yes we did vote a year ago um with a let's move forward but we're in a very different time period now and i think we're going to need to reassess um and so i i provided some language on that so that we can be talking about you know what we have what we think we're going to have in a um and and the staff it's it's one of the things the staff is going to have to give us best thinking and we're heading toward that already on the amount of money we're going to have available as we think about the coming year fy 22 in the next three years so that we go back and look at timelines with the modeling and i i gave some language on that but the way it's worded right now sounds like all all engines are still on full throttle forward um because we said go go forward with with go forward with god last year you know like we we can do this and i think we're in a different situation so i wanted to tone that down or put it into it in part so that paul as manager um he doesn't have to be completely positive if we have very difficult decisions tough decisions on tradeoffs so that kind of um you know what can we afford what can the residents afford you know so we're also talking about taxes so i wanted to just be careful on that wording um and i provided some industry wording but that is just they're trying to change the tone a little bit to since everyone is talking about that people don't have money necessarily even to pay their current taxes but they don't know where a paycheck is going to come from and we belt tighten this year on capital and we might have to next year too and if we keep doing that it becomes every let every more difficult to maintain buildings maintain roads so it's the tone of that so i've forwarded your comments to george's chair of gl and this is on the agenda for gl on wednesday right george yes thank you okay darcy i would endorse kathy's suggestion that she just made and also um and in light of the uh proposal proposals that the racial equity task force has made um i i would support the proposal to um not only have the separate equity racial equity goal but to weave racial equity into um the specifics and um i'd like this level of specific goals and objectives to be included um for climate action too um we uh last year looked at whether or not we should have a separate goal or weave it into the different goals and we decided for climate action to make just the one goal and we didn't really mention it much in the other goals so it obviously if we have a if we have a major commitment that we're making to racial equity and to climate action it does make sense to mention it throughout the document in the different goal areas and right now the the new goals are not really the format is really not set up to include that degree of specificity um and this is why i actually really like the way it was written for this fiscal year including much more many more of the lower level objectives and more specificity so um i really feel like um we need to um have a separate main goal and evidence throughout the document um that each of these both racial equity and climate action and our other big priorities are being dealt with in hiring and policy making and within all the departments across the board on every level on a day-to-day basis so that's what i would suggest more specificity and more more objectives included George i just want to remind my colleagues that this is a document that reflects the views supposedly of 13 people and so i think there has to be a certain amount of what do you want to call it breathing space sort of room um because not all of us are going to agree about this specificity and we can spend the next many meetings discussing very specific action items i think this document tries to articulate six very important goals that i do think we share and tries to give paul some clear sense of priority along these six items and some idea of where we'd like to see him go but i think if we get into a certain level of specificity the whole thing falls apart um at least i think it would so i think we have to do at least from my perspective a balancing act between coming up with goals we all agree on and a level of specificity that doesn't go beyond what in fact the 13 of us can tolerate okay pat you have your hand up on when gl worked on the when gl worked on this we felt like the policies filtered down throughout the management goals and we were trying to keep it as open as possible but i really feel right now that i would like to see the specificity that the racial equity task force is offering um filtered through the document um and but i think that we have to have discussions about which aspects of that document are we accepting and which ones we are might not uh i it does make me uh concerned and i said immediately to when i was talking to someone today well if we do this we do it for environmental issues too um and i think while i like the clean document i think that this is a time where we have to let go of the frame that we made and open it more uh to what the community seems to want and if we do it for racial equity we do it for community health and safety then i believe we have to open it up um for the environmental issues as well i let me just say we're not going to resolve this tonight because these are all suggestions to go back to gl okay alissa so i want to say this really carefully i don't think any of our committees is up to doing that task right now so i agree with doing the things we're talking about doing that pat's talking about doing that jarcy's talking about doing i agree completely about interweaving things about both climate action and community safety and policing and social justice throughout this i just don't see how we're going to accomplish that at this point through the committee process because y'all is going to meet again this week and they're going to take another crack at it and then we're going to say it's not good enough again so i'm trying to get to a point where i'm wondering if we can figure out a way to approve a basic set of these broader goals and commit to revising it at the next meeting or two meetings from now because if we just keep reopening the whole thing before we ever have a set of goals i appreciate that you know we want to get it done we want to get it over with but i also like the goals as a living document and so as we hear more things we already have one document that we haven't had a chance to incorporate and as pat said i don't want to mischaracterize what she said but we don't necessarily all 13 of us is reflecting what george said going to agree with every single thing the racial equity task force asked for and so how do we get g ol to somehow magically know what the 13 of us think about that before our next meeting i'm and so i'm really struggling with how do we approach this and that's why i keep coming back to this idea of trying to do a base set of these more broad generic goals and then say and we commit to we are all going to feed information to so and so and on the side they're going to work on x for the next meeting and see if that one gets us closer to where we want to go because we're coming at this from capital we're coming at this from community safety we're coming at this from climate and i think we could spend an eight-hour retreat on this and i just don't know that we can do it through the committee process and still be satisfied next time and not have g ol just bang in their head on the desk saying okay now what do you want bandit job i second what george and eliso said um and one thing that hasn't been mentioned there are i believe six policy goals listed that we as a council have deemed equally important and so if we start weaving one or two of them into all of the management goals i would argue we need to weave all six into the management goals housing and affordable housing economic vitality one of the things we are saying is vitally important in this town for this next year if we want to be able to deal with affordable housing and you know the four major capital projects and frankly racial equity and climate action we need some businesses in town to be able to have tax dollars to be able to do some of the things that are being asked of us um i think we also have to remember that the manager is the chief executive officer we are not executive we are legislative so we my belief is that we should not be micro managing how he does his job and the more we put more specificity we put into goals whether they be management or policy the more micro managed he becomes and that's i think somewhere where we're also struggling with as a 13 member committee to determine what the appropriate level of that is and we have widely different views on that level um so that's why i second what george said um i don't think we should go along a path where we don't pass a single document until january that's not fair to our manager um the sooner i think we we're already two months into the fiscal year and he doesn't have goals yet um we can't keep pushing this on so that we're three four five months in without goals i think we need to consider adopting a more general policy and then doing potentially what elissa did but again every time we every meeting we spend on goals we either add to the length of our meetings or we do less legislative work and we are the legislature andy so it's actually good to follow up on me andy's comment but she said some of what i was going to say which helps me a lot um when we talked about it at gl one of the things we were recognizing is that we do hire a professional with um expectation of a large number of skills in order to know how to do things and that what our goal our role rather should be in establishing goals is to set the priorities but not to micromanage what how they are accomplished and that was the sort of the philosophy with which gl was approaching this drafting and in conversations with paul participating uh what he was really looking for most strongly um if i've just stated he can speak for himself but i don't think he's going to need to it was that he wanted to know what are the key policies that the council was looking for him to accomplish and to address during the next year and the the first set of goals was intended to address that question and the last comment i'll make because it's getting late is on the racial equity task force as an example i think that we can at gl work on a way to incorporate a reference to the document uh but we don't have to incorporate every piece of it to accomplish the result felony please unmute yes okay so um i'm sorry i didn't send my comments earlier i was waiting for comments from some other biboc residents that i sent out the documents to and what i heard back from um some of the people um biboc people was that that um i think i mean they kind of supported my idea which came independently from them was that having a committee formed that's going to do this work of reaching out two different community groups and then based on the information we receive that needs to lead us in the direction of what actions we're going to take with policing rather than going in with the idea of we're going to defund maybe that will be the recommendation but we want to lead from um from that that to be an output and not an input so that was one feedback i got um there does seem to be like if we are in agreement that this is an important goal that we hire a diversity officer and who can really help us do this in the right way and that's something we need to figure out when and how we can afford that but i mean i think it's important to have a discussion about whether it's part time or be kind of full time but that's a discussion um along with that is maybe if if you do want to i think it's an important goal to weave in because and just even if you're asking the questions so for example how we might be able to weave in the question of equity let's say an economic vitality i was thinking uh just the way we have a sentence which says to ensure the present and future economic health and well-being of the town working closely with local institutions and business entities including the bed and chamber of commerce maybe here is where we could add um like just like he would be uh paul would be working with the bed and chamber once there is this future committee that would also be part of the discussion in terms of how we can support people of color who might be trying to start businesses or youth environment or so forth so i feel there is a way to weave in and be specific enough but not dictating to the extent that we already have specificity right now there is a way to weave in some of these because i think these are very important questions and if you don't ask them we may not go towards finding um solutions for that and um my other comment was around management and personnel management where we have certain goals for diversity but making them more could we have more specific and i think that's something i learned from paul with smart goals around like could we have measurable goals and if you don't have them right now maybe just even outline having the goal of outlining a process for finding what is our baseline and what are some goals we have and my last point is about the economic development director again i know it's we are trying to meet to george shallony will you be sending those to george yes i can yeah i'll definitely send those thank you um dorsey well i think one of the i i do i do see both sides of the argument and i do see the reason to use the simplified goals that are more general in the categories now that i i do agree that at some point we're not ready now we should be weaving the racial justice and the climate goals into each goal but one reason we cannot do that now is although we've had particularly at the beginning of the council which seems like a long time ago many discussions on the climate goals we reached some agreement we have not had a discussion on the racial equity task force and we haven't just where we have to determine um what we think is desirable and what we think is possible um perhaps at this time or some future time and it's a discussion that i do think we need to have i certainly don't want to outsource that i mean these are our goals that we are creating for our town manager um so that's the discussion that we haven't had so i guess that although i do agree these two strands should be woven into each goal i can agree with passing the them as they are now because it's important to have the goals near the beginning of the year but understand that we have a discussion that we have not had where we're going to talk about what we think is possible and desirable from the racial equity task force evan yeah so i just wanted to speak to two things i appreciated that go well did two things with these goals one is i appreciate that they tied each one to council action but the other thing is that they did keep them broad when we were doing this eight or nine months ago with the fy 20 goals i argued for much more specifics and today i want to do the exact opposite and i appreciate the broadness and i don't want specifics and i think the reason for that comes from my experience doing the town manager evaluation uh earlier this month and what i found was um i i gave the town manager very high marks under economic development because i think he did a lot of things um that really showed leadership and boldness and innovation in economic development and yet if you looked at the actual goals that we had set out the very specific goals which were actually less specific than i argued for but were still very specific he failed miserably right because because things changed and all of a sudden those goals that we had come up with just didn't matter anymore but everything else he did that actually mattered quite a bit and what it taught me was especially in this uncertain environment especially given the fact that we don't know what's going to happen with covid um what that taught me is it's better to keep these as broad priorities and objectives and goals because then when we review the town manager a year from now we have the ability to sort of interpret and apply those and not say well he didn't do these specific things we asked for and so we have to give him bad marks even though he did all of these other great things so i want to lobby for keeping the goals as it is right now um keeping them broad keep them tied to specific things the council has passed um and and sort of endorsing elizabeth's position of coming in with specifics later down after we've had more thorough discussions but that not aren't necessarily part of our initial goals that he takes on board yeah okay um thank you i we're going to take this we're not going to vote on the goals tonight we are we have to vote on them when we meet on the 14th i think gol can take one more look at them when some of these thoughts i am going to add my own thought and that is the following goals should never be looked at as individual it is a matrix so when you say you want to integrate this with that with this with that what you should look at is say these are our six goals that are policy goals and these are our five management goals and then you should look at them as if they're a matrix against each other and all of them integrate if you try to write everything into each goal you end up with something that is absolutely and completely not understandable i could write a goal about the four major capital buildings and i could talk about how we have to have racial and equity justice and how we have to have climate action and how we have to do this and the next thing and by the time we get done the building would look like junk so what i'm saying is you can't look at a goal independent of all of the other goals and so gujiro is going to go back to this george one last comment and then we're going to move on thank you lin and i i realize it's late and i appreciate you letting me say one last thing i feel like i have six goals here that i can take to my constituents and argue for passionately and strongly as goals that this council wants to accomplish the specifics we're going to figure it out but these are six things that i think we as a group believe in and i've seen my own self change to some degree over the last couple weeks and so i'm proud of these and i can i can go out and argue for them but if we get to a level of specificity things are going to come much more complicated so i think we should keep them broad and they should reflect i hope what is the consensus of the group and um go forward with it okay okay we're going to move on the next item is the appointments of the town manager uh darsie these both of these came to tso the first one is the elementary school building committee and would you please report on tso and make the motion yes i have the motion sheet in front of me um yeah the the the first was the elementary school building committee yeah and just one second i can read it if you want i have it here i know that's okay um uh so uh we we had a discussion of the the three candidates um and i don't i submitted a report on that deliberation um there were um some concerns um about still looking for it here um wait a minute there were there were just some concerns about um dwayne chamble uh who works for the school district um there were concerns uh that the majority of the people that are on the elementary school building committee are employees of the district um the vast majority of them are men and we pointed out that a number of of um qualified women had applied um and the other issue was that um there was concern that there was nobody on the committee who um was uh an expert in zero energy building even though at least one person had applied so um dorothy and i ended up abstaining and the other three members voted four so um actually elissa is going to make the motion here okay elissa i moved to approve the following town manager appointments under charter section two point one one b to the elementary school building committee as recommended by the town services and outreach committee dwayne chamble bb mariam and jonathan salvin is there a second second dross okay and elissa do you want to speak to the motion i just want to mention that you notice it doesn't have an end date but that's because this is that very funny committee that's going to last forever and so there didn't seem to be any point in putting an end date on it it's done when it's done and the other thing i wanted to clarify is with the uh tso report it doesn't really represent all of the discussion and that there was some pushback on some of those comments but i also do want to clarify that when it is stated publicly that women or people of certain abilities or characteristics or skills applied this is all private through the town managers so the only way that anybody knows that is if some individual told them i applied for that and he didn't recommend me so i just don't want anyone in the public to think that the tso or the full town council has any idea who applied for these positions because we don't know that except individuals may have approached individuals to share that information it's just one of the little quirky parts of our process maybe joe yeah i wanted to express some concern about the report this was a unanimous vote in tso because abstentions are not knows abstentions are a choice to choose not to vote you are saying i don't want to vote on this when you abstain yet the report only discussed reasons kind of for voting no but there were no no votes and the report did not at all discuss reasons for voting in favor which was the actual unanimous decision of the tso so i just wanted to express my concern about how this report was written that it failed to include any reasons for why the three members who voted unanimously to support these recommendations actually made that vote um and all so that's all there any other comments at this time hey the motion's been made and seconded i'm going to do the roll call uh i believe this time i start with evan ross yes george ryan yes yes kathy shane abstain steve schreiber yes gandhi steinberg yes sarah schwarz yes yes chalene ball milne yes i'm sorry yes grower yes pat de angeles yes darcy demont abstain lin greece mersey yes mandy johannicky yes and dorthy pamm abstain so the motion passes ten four none against three abstentions no napson okay moving on to the human rights commission yes um the um the town manager put forward the um uh recommendations to fill positions in this human rights commission um uh he was uh away for the time period of our meeting and jennifer moisten came and um and uh put in a pitch for the different nominees which was great because she's the staff to the committee um and she's one of the community participation officers um we heard we uh heard only good things about all the applicants um and ended up unanimously recommending them for reappointment or for one of them for reappointment the rest for appointment to um to the to the recommended to the council to reappoint them and appoint them do one shall I go ahead and make the motion darcy i can make that so the motion is to approve the following town manager appointments under charter section 211 b to the human rights commission is recommended by the town services and outreach committee for a term to expire june 30th 2022 said for rara a reappointment for terms to expire june 30th 2023 cedric gonett alizabeth hey good and erica loper is there a second i second thank you any further discussion at this time okay we begin with george ryan yes kathy shane yes steve schreiber yes andy steinberg yes sarah schwartz yes calinny balmille yes elisabar yes pat de angeles yes dressy demont yes yes then greece mersey yes nandy joe hannagy yes northy pamm yes evan ross yes passes unanimously 13-4 none against none abstain none absent okay we are now going to go into executive session and so let me don't anybody do anything yet okay this tape will keep running and it will have a sign on it that says the council is in executive session and after executive session we will all have to log back in and come in back into this meeting but meantime you have to log out of this meeting and surge has sent you an individual invitation to a different zoom login okay and so you need to go from that this zoom login the other zoom log in and then when we come back out of executive session we will come back into this zoom login so make sure that somewhere in your calendar although i'm sure athena will be glad to send it to us all again so we know which to log back into so i will see you in the other zoom no no no oh wait a minute we need to vote in to go into executive session before we vote on the executive session we were working on appointments why are we not finishing that process because we're going to go on to the next appointments after we come back out because we didn't want to be so late in the meeting going into executive session we have to be late either way because there is a real discussion that has to happen around the appointments it feels like a manipulation now it was not meant as a manipulation believe me um yeah we probably have a lot of people waiting attendees okay i wish somebody had told me they didn't agree with this when i sent you this the revised schedule which i did earlier today um and the town manager appointments are all together on the agenda the town manager appointments are finished and the and then in the agenda it goes to the town council appointments to planning board but in the order of the agenda that i sent to you with the timing which we're way off i always are the order different fine we'll go to the town council appointments planning board community resources committee mandy johannicky so community resources committee met on august 26th in two separate meetings um one meeting to hold interviews and one meeting to make those discussions the interviews were held with five individuals and lasted approximately an hour after interviews that meeting was adjourned and a new meeting was called to order to have a discussion about recommendations per the process that crc has adopted those that discussion is put forth in the memo that was dated august 27th at the end of the discussion crc voted three to one with one absent to recommend the town council appoint to the planning board effective immediately for terms expiring june 30th 2023 johanna newman tom long and andrew mcdougal um you can read the report um i don't think i need to go into any more detail unless people ask about that report it includes both the reasons for the three votes in favor of this uh recommendation and the one vote dissenting from the recommendation so at this time i'm going to make the motion to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee for terms expiring june 30th 2023 johanna newman tom long and andrew mcdougal is there a second ryan second did we separate those motions out and how i don't think we should separate them out so what darcy did was just move to divide if that gets a second then there needs to be a motion then that needs to be voted on and receive a majority of votes to actually divide um i lin i'm just not sure how to do this i want to make a motion to postpone this discussion for consideration after another item that i want to bring um and i understand that i it's a consideration for time certain as opposed to post just a motion to postpone um and this was something not anticipated in 48 hours in advance so i wanted to have another discussion before we get into the discussion of these of the actual appointments okay um kathy did inform me of these and i did send them to you um so your your motion kathy which i need to put before the council is to what okay so according to the language that was sent to me because i'm not good on this uh these motions in terms of the wording it's moved to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after 14 a non-anticipated 48 hours in advance is there a second i second it okay um the motion's been made and seconded is there further discussion uh shallony my hand was up for the earlier ones so we're discussing right now kathy's motion yes okay i think that uh regarding that my perspective is that we proposed that last year and we didn't go ahead with it the motion that we're doing wait let me just read okay i'm going to put my hand down and read this again hold on the motion we're discussing is the motion to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after item 14 a not anticipated 48 hours in advance evan so i had some i had my hand raised for something different as a crc member i wanted to add on to what mandy said before we started this kangaroo process of people just yelling out what motions they want to make um but i am i am 14 b seems to be reconsideration of what we did last week and i heard no rationale as to why we should postpone an appointment until after we 14 a 14 okay that's where i got confused um okay i'll okay darcy i don't have my hand up okay then take your hand down okay so the motion on the table is to move to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after item 14 a not anticipated 48 hours in advance is there any further discussion this is a this is a vote on the motion to postpone okay all it is darcy i need i need um let me just see yeah i need this put into common sense english please um i don't really know what it says and or what it means so i mean i have an idea but when i hear the language i just you know it's hard to know what we're talking about mandy joe do you want to explain a vote yes on the motion on the table to postpone means that we would discuss kathy's well the proposed motion under item 14 a on associate members to the planning board prior to discussing appointments to the planning board a vote no would mean we go ahead and discuss planning board appointments now and take up item 14 a in the regular course of the agenda oh i see okay i i get this so 14 a is planning board hyphen associate members right that's correct so i guess i would agree that i would like to have that discussion before we have um the other discussion okay so uh george and i think that we shouldn't vote in favor of this motion and that um this discussion is something that should be taken up at some other time and now is not the time um we have a crc recommendation and i think we should address it and decide on it one way or the other and i think this is so i'm basically asking people to vote no on this so we can get back to the main issue at hand northease your hand up still oh no i'm gonna yeah please take your hands down yeah thank you uh garcy yeah i guess i would just um uh vote in favor of this because uh i don't think it would take very long for kathy to explain to us what it is that she is suggesting and it might influence uh how we all feel about the upcoming vote um so uh i i'd like to hear what her idea is steve schreiber i'm gonna um plus one to what my colleague council ryan said that and actually for the reason many of you want to hear this right now is because there are people waiting and the 48 hours item is a new item that will very doubtfully reach closure tonight so i urge us to take action on this now while the night is still young for the fairness of those people who are candidates that are are watching this listen i'll just say that i'm going to be voting against this motion i think the associates idea is great i don't think it is appropriately in the spirit of something that's unanticipated within 48 hours i think we could have known weeks ago that we might want to consider associate members just like we toyed with the idea over a year ago and i understand it as a possible solution to a problem and i think it can be addressed if the motion for the crc recommendation fails i don't think it needed to be done as a 48 hour item and i'm uncomfortable with the way that it is being done that way but i think we can still get to it another way so the motion on the floor that's been made in second is to move to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after item 14 a not anticipated 48 hours in advance is there any other discussion shallony yeah i i also agree with ryan and steve that and alissa that that if this is something we want to consider we should do it as a separate thing this is not how we advertised the position this is not what the people came in interviewing for and now to throw that just because we want to resolve a difficult situation doesn't feel fair to the people but i am very interested in this um possibility as i was last year and and i think it should be done in a separate discussion any other comments okay then we're going to take the vote on this and we begin with kathy shane yes steve schreiber um so vote yes means that we would delay that we postpone yes let's go no andy steinberg no no sarah schwarz yes shallony ball mill no alissa brewer no pat de angeles yes garcy dumont yes yes lin greasmer's no bandy joe hannacky no pam garcy pam yes devin ross no and george ryan no okay the motion is defeated it is five four five four it and eight no and no extensions okay so that we are back to the original motion and the original motion that's on the table is to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee for terms expiring june 30th 2023 yohana newman tom long andrew mcdougal so any further discussion evan so this was the comment i wanted to make earlier um which is just adding on to mandy's report um as a crc member just to say um as a former as the former oca chair that's having run through crc for the first time i just want to say that crc followed oca's process almost identically the conversation looked very similar to the conversation oca had about zba and so the process was the scene that was used for zba and oca and for planning board and i was happy to see as former oca chaired the oca process carried forward and implemented again with one slight change which was the utilization of the statements of interest um which i think that crc members can agree were incredibly useful valuable and provided us far more information than the calf so before we get into what might be a contentious conversation i wanted to recognize that the oca process once again has worked has been fruitful and that the so i think was a really good decision i want to thank the council for having supported that when it was brought forward as an oca recommendation okay so first i just want to apologize for not making it to this very important meeting to do a conflict that i could not avoid um so i wanted to make my statement here and spend several hours going through all the interviews and the statements of interest and and beyond um and you know just based on the feedback we've been getting and what the discussion itself i mean it is contentious and we all uh different people have different points of view so i just want to invite everyone to pause and and consider what might be the reasons why other people have these different perspectives before we jump to any kind of assumptions about why we think certain people are voting in a certain way we can just really take this time to understand and each other's perspective and why we are making the choices we're making and maybe in this process we might shift our views so i wanted to run by you what my thought process was the question that i kept holding as i went through all the different pros and cons of the different candidates was the question what is the best for all of amherst given our town goals and not just for the people who are attending these meetings not just the people who wrote to us but also let's keep in mind all the residents who are affected by our decisions so when i hold that question my first question was what are our town goals and what are the current skill sets that we have so we have with us in the planning board an architect a campus planner and slash architect a hydrology scientist and a lawyer and what we lost last year with greg stutzman was we lost a business perspective and we know that we are in an economic crisis i mean i was always in favor of economic vitality and by that let me clarify i do not mean development as in because every time we talk about economic vitality it seems there is a sense in among some residents and maybe some counselors as well we're talking about the six and seven or five whatever story buildings that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about the economic vitality that is needed which supports the restaurants that immigrants own the BIPOC people own downtown i'm talking about the doctors who are complaining i've spoken to several doctors and entrepreneurs and spinoffs out of UMass who have complained to me over and over again that the zoning bylaws make it so hard for them and expensive because every time they have to come to the planning board and they send back again and because it's a goofiness of our zoning bylaws they need to get an architect they need to get um lawyers and that's costing them thousands of dollars and i have a doctor who's told me she is telling all her doctor friends do not open any clinic in Amherst because of that anyway that is one person's perspective and again i don't want to make that's everyone's but i have spoken with other entrepreneurs who have had feeling so it is really important as far as i'm concerned um to have that perspective which we do not have when we talk about diversity of perspective on our boards that is a perspective we do not have right now and which i did feel that Andrew McDougall brought to the board and when i went ahead and read his um description um he also talked about the other goals that we have of social justice in fact he was one of the few people who brought that up um and in terms of very specific expertise that he brings he talked about extensive experience identifying cost saving revenue growth opportunities within retail distribution so anyway he has a lot of amazing expertise having worked with federal and local governments and planning boards which i think would be amazing for us to have in our thing the other thing that i thought very interesting about tom was he's mentioning the humans human centered design that perspective that he brings and you have heard me say that before we are in a very interesting time and very crazy time and interesting time and we need skill sets that are going to engage the community in a way like we've never done before and we need new and innovative ways of thinking that i thought that tom brings with the human centered approach in creating spaces so when we're looking at downtowns or how can we make them walkable how do we make them safe and engaging i think we're going to use both of these skill sets that these people bring um when i talk when we think about experience because that's another thing that's been talked a lot is that uh we will be losing experience of mr bird whistle and i agree that that is uh that is of course true that he has been there for three years and he brings that experience but that to me also is experience that can be gained and learned i mean we saw that with janet mcgovern who joined and in one year she has been an amazing participant so it's not it's not so much about experience because the same people who are saying this year they want experience where last year willing to let go of experience and the people who said they wanted experience last year are letting go of experience so it's not about experience really the way we're thinking it's it's about skill sets that are relevant right now um in terms of experience itself what i'm seeing the three candidates proposed by steercy the kind of experience they are bringing cannot be gained by sitting on a planning board for two years or three years or ten years what we're hearing is these people are bringing an organizational skills work skills working with planning boards working with uh different innovative ways of thinking that that are very unique and i would love to see them on our board right now the third thing i want to say i know this is going on and on but i just want to make up for the time not having been there at the steercy meeting um i think one thing that we also have to realize is that um there are huge challenges coming up with affordable housing with economic crisis and in addition to climate change so i don't think status quo is what we're looking for we do need i really do believe that we want skill sets that are innovator that are going to be able to think out of the box that are going to be able to engage the communities and work and in building coalitions um one thing that i struggled the most with was does this feel like we're insulting uh an existing board member who is committed who's shown up who's worked hard and by not re-appointing them and so i turned that question to myself that if i was in in his position how would i feel and i feel very strongly that yeah we're going to be up for voting uh next year and just because i showed up because i worked hard there is no guarantee that people are going to vote for me again and so just because people have shown up and done their hard work and and truly i know it is amazing sacrifices that everyone who's volunteering is making and i'm so grateful for everyone who is volunteering so this is not meant to be disrespectful to anyone who i am not suggesting be re-appointed but it goes with the terrain that when we volunteer there's a possibility that there will be people who will come up with the relevant skill sets and and it's not a guarantee that we will be re-appointed again or re-voted in again so i'm hoping that this is my my vote is not seen as disrespect to people who have shown up but i just think that the situation demands that we look at the kind of skill sets we need to build collaboration to build coalition to engage the community and to bring in perspectives that we don't currently have so with that i would render my support to the existing people suggested by the CRC. Kathy? You know i appreciate Melanie your walking through your thinking and i just want to go back to a process that we've set up and i would like to honor the process we set up we set up a criteria that we were going to be looking at we actually said i think when uh oka uh was ended that we would abide by guidelines not just the way they were doing things and the guidelines had were as of may when we and other things was to give a preference to someone who's committed to one full term for a second term unless there was a really strong reason not to and so i just want to speak for the candidate where the applicant that we're not talking about who's michael burk whistle we received over 25 emails from people and these were from people that had worked with him on the planning board that had worked with him as he's been the planning board representative on community preservation at committee and on the design review board strongly positive to the fact that he does think out of the box this is not a just think about one thing he comes to every meeting and i've been the liaison to cpa he comes to every meeting incredibly prepared having really fought through and in that their people are applying for a money um with a very strong commitment to affordable housing um and well articulated he's always prepared and the kinds of comments we got about him go with what the past the outgoing chair said she was advising the council to adhere to which was the same criteria we adhered to the last two times we've done um either zoning board or planning board under ocha and it um she talked about knowledge of the community issues knowledge of the master pan zoning bylaws understanding of the regulatory function of the board what is the planning board understanding the way they go about the work and how a seasoned person an experienced person keeping a mix and so i want to remind everyone we're not talking about putting three people who have all been on the board for four or five years we're talking about re-appointing one person potentially and putting two brand new people and i'd like lin i sent um a power point chart that i want to show we have right now a quite inexperienced board um there are two people with four years of service um so they will their terms expire at very times there's one person that has far less than a year it was just appointed um at the end of may or june and one person who's just at a year and so we're we're talking about adding one re-appointment to the mix of the four that now exist and two brand new that in the interviews and i sat through it in real time um we have three people they came up through crc as being recommended but if they are all committed and we put two of them on this board then they will be here next year i mean we're starting to get a healthy mix of people out there this doesn't go away we have two appointments opening up potentially next year and the year after um and attending board meetings we've had people drop off because of the um extent of which the hours have been required and i just want to read because when i said we had 25 comments um i'm just going to read a couple excerpts from people i'm attending this is someone who's an observer of the planning board i've attended physically attended the planning board meetings before covid by the past 18 month and have been impressed with michael's thoroughness in preparing a conch in preparing a conscientious question he often brings up points no one else has thought of and has led in a way to be questioning with the foundation of the master plan which he knows very well he's also representative of the planning board of cpa design review board he attends those meetings religiously and reports on them to the rest of the board he's the only one who is a liaison to two committees there's rarely a site visit that he has missed in fact i found him to be one of the hardest workers on the planning board another colleague who worked with him on cpa wrote i worked with michael for two years on the cpa committee which i chaired he was a diligent committee member who rarely missed a meeting was always prepared easily engaged in thoughtful discussion and rarely had comments that weren't important to hear he was a vigorous defender of taxpayer dollars and equally enthusiastic about the mission of cpa michael is blunt and intangibly irascible but he was never bullheaded or stubborn in our deliberations he was comfortable acknowledging when admits to conversation or presentation he had changed his mind this combination of forcefulness with flexibility was refreshing and i think his style encouraged other members to articulate their own concerns about a project even when they felt their opinions were going against perceived consensus and then the last one i didn't want to do are these ones that we all received yes so the last one i just want to point out was from a colleague on the planning board who said in effect he's done nothing that we wouldn't expect of a planning board and by not reappointing him we could be considered to be firing him and he hasn't done anything that would lead to that conclusion and it's a scary thing because future applicants might think if or board members might think if they speak up if they have a different point of view they too will be terminated i don't think we want to be sending that signal so i strongly urge people to consider michael burt whistle as one of the three and to appoint two new people so we will have two new people along with existing people on the board kathy are you making a motion um i i think i am lind so i would make a motion that we appoint michael burt whistle to a three-year term and i don't know how to do that in the context of another motion that has three other names it would need to be a motion to amend that removes one name and replaces it with his exactly and let me just ask darcy asked do we have to do it as a group because i i would prefer your discussion on each of the other three um i'm i did attend the meeting and i did listen to what shallony just said um so if we're talking about michael burt whistle plus two other people i would like to hear some discussion on who the other two should be what is the right compliment rather than me picking two i could pick two i have the ability to do that you know i'm comfortable with the other three um you know as shallony listed they are different um i'm comfortable with a conversation about each of the other two people but i really want to bring michael burt whistle in as one of the names to be considered for a three-year term i think the only way to proceed is that there be an amendment to the motion all right well i can make one kind of amendment which would be i i amend the motion and i make a motion to appoint michael burt with a three-year term to be affected immediately and that's my initial amendment so if you want me to that's like dividing the motion you can no because even if the motion's divided there's still three names and one of them needs deleted in order to replace it with michael burt whistle good right all right so if you're going to make me make a choice and i listened to shallony then i would pick delete um tom long because we have two architects already on the board and i'm hoping that he will apply should one of them leave or we can reconsider next year and to leave andrew mcdougal and johanna on as the other two who would be new to the board so it would be michael burt whistle andrew and johanna i second that all right so in effect the motion is to amend the original motion by removing the name of tom long and replacing it with the name of michael burt whistle is that it is because i am being put into the box of having to have three as i said i would prefer to go right into michael burt whistle but yes i am comfortable with that group of three people sarah your comment so i don't want to take up a lot of time and i wanted people to respect okas process and as part of crc i want to be respectful to crc um i wanted to make the point that i'm not flopping on anything that i said when we first tried to make these appointments a year ago i introduced one new person out of seven it was there was it was green but it wasn't it this the planning board was not as green as it is right now i have not i have not changed my thinking i also want to say that in soul searching this um for me i found that this is not about a person or a bias for me this is about how i feel about process and how i feel about equity versus political thinking um and in that i'm going to say i'm a terrible politician found that out but process is important to me because i believe it does create equity in government planning board is not elected it's appointed and that's a really big difference and for me i feel like when we're looking for people to serve and we're trying to get people to come and serve i think that they need to have a feeling that that they will be judged on the same rules as another person meaning there are hard and fast rules that people need to reach in order to get elected or to get class see to get appointed or to get reappointed to that and i one big difference in the process was that um the thing that the thing that okah spent the longest amount of time on which was term limits was changed and i was not there for that discussion um so but term limits are something that we we argued about and i said every single thing that shalini did on my i write on because that's everything that i said and when i said that george said to me if you have hard and fast term limits it would make our lives much easier oh two terms you're done next and that and that may be what the committee decides to do but the the very way that this has been phrased right now um and in keeping uh with it um we do not have hard term limits it makes our job harder for perhaps more realistic maybe i'm the only one who feels like we are dancing around the simple fact that there is an undeniable political element to these two bodies planning board and zoning board of appeals and if you are not happy with planning and zoning for whatever reason then you are probably eager to see some kind of changes and you are going to be looking for fresh faces or or people whose views are closer to what you imagine they would be but would be the right views and that seems to be a fact uh of of these two boards that doesn't bother me that it's political what does bother me is the idea that we are going to have hard term limits so that we will not regularly have these discussions and what i realize is is i don't think it's political and i don't think it's about a person uh one particular person i think that we need to one of the things that we didn't do um in CRC when we went through this process was that we did not talk about why somebody would or would not be reappointed in ocho we started to we said they were someone who showed up they were someone that the that the um met the criteria of the um the the chairman and that they needed to be prepared all the time we did not have that discussion at all and so for me i think it comes down to the fact that i don't want us to flip flop on our decisions every single time we can only do that so much before it's very obvious why we're flip flopping and i i don't mean this as um a condemnation of anyone because you know perhaps the way i'm looking at this is very naive and perhaps it would be better if more effective as a politician if i supported someone who always supported my views um so again i'm going to say the same thing that i said the last time we were here which for me this is not political thank you garcy um yeah i would always uh agree with sara on that um that the my main concern is that the the selection criteria that was used by crc um that effectively excluded or fired michael burt whistle um from the planning board was um um was changed it was changed from the selection criteria that oka had passed to it and from the selection criteria the term limit selection criteria that that has been used historically in town and so the rule that has historically been used gives preference to members who are in good standing to serve for a second full term for up to six years that's what the oka rule said um and that rule balances the reason for it for giving the preference after the first term for reappointment is that it balances it it balances the need for experience on a committee um with um the opportunity to appoint appoint new members so after the first term the preference is for the experience after six years two two three year terms or six years then the preference shifts to looking for new fresh faces which wasn't michael burt whistle had not um come up to that point of where we would be looking for new faces to replace him his experience is is what is valuable um so um after six years it's assumed that new folks should be preferred um at least if they're available so this is a rule the towns has had in its committee handbook and that as I said oka passed on to the crc and as rob crowner who um is someone who wrote an email to the town council in the last day uh said it it honors the town's custom of allowing board members in good standing to serve for two full terms to grow into and confidently exercise the skills and knowledge gained during the first term and to take a formal or informal leadership or mentoring role during the second term um and he went on to say has that not been the rule in amherst up to now isn't that the rule that was also carried on by oka and passed to the crc um and isn't that the rule that has also been used in town committees so I I served on oka um and we put a lot of time into developing that selection criteria that we passed to the crc um and um the term limit piece was the only thing that's the crc changed um which seemed like a political move um because of their awareness of that michael vert whistle was the only member of the planning board who was up for reappointment um so anyway I urge the council not to feel bound by a recommendation that was made using that selection criteria um because our our real selection criteria in amherst is time honored um and I hope that you will vote for reappointment and michael vert whistle based on that experience has given the chance to have that additional term um so that he can use the experience he's so committed he's knowledgeable and has a broad understanding of planning and zoning so I hope that you will look to that amherst tradition and follow it driver yeah so um I think you all know that I'm a member of the crc that voted I was part of the group that voted three to one I think you also all know that I was 10 years on the planning board including my last I think it was two or three years as chair and I also served with one of the candidates for two and a half years on the planning board so I just want to be clear that the way that I'm approaching this is that I believe it's our ethical obligation to field the best possible team so our job and it's an incredibly important job that we have we we staff the the planning board and we staff the zoning board of appeals we do the evaluation of the town manager those are the personnel issues that we get involved with so the selection of the planning board is something that we should be is one of the most important decisions that we make and I strongly believe that just like fielding a baseball team that we it's our obligation to field that planning board with the basically to curate the best possible board at that particular moment so this happens to be a moment in which we had a number of good applicants including the incumbent and I I feel you know I feel strongly that the three that we chose as the top are the most appropriate for this moment I also believe that these are three newcomers to the Amherst town politics I don't believe that any one of them has ever served in town government before and I think it's incredibly exciting that we were able to recruit them to apply grow through this grueling process and be candidates in this so we should be you know we should be very excited about that honestly I dismiss all of the letters that have been written to us because I find that letter writing to be exceptionally unfair to all of the other candidates especially the ones that are the front runners they had no idea that they were supposed to be soliciting friends to writing testimonials about them so the fact that they don't have testimonials and that another candidate does have testimonials I give no weight to so and I don't believe that any of us should give weight to you know to those letters because we were not asking for letters of reference everyone keeps saying wait till next year so you know one of the three candidates can wait till next year that same message can be given to the other candidates whoever does not prevail tonight that's exact same message wait till next year so we all know about a zba candidate that was taken off applied again the next year was put back on actually in the pool of six that we originally were considering was a former planning board member who had more experience so he had taken time off from the planning board it was basically applying it again so there's also been a discussion about the service of um Mike Burt whistle to other committees so those other committees he is the planning board liaison to that and I I don't have the planning board rules in front of me the planning board liaisons are not always sitting members of the planning board I believe that the drb is oftentimes a past planning board member I have no idea how this vote will shake out tonight but however this decision happens tonight does does not and should not be considered also a vote for the drb and for the community the cpa committee so that's what I have to say I believe that the crc worked in due diligence on this it was incredibly grueling decision because there are sort of the known quantities and the not known quantities the known quantities generated a lot of letter writing and testimonials tonight the not known quantities generated zero but I that's a factor of the fact that they don't understand this process and it should not be seen as whatsoever as a any kind of evidence that they also don't have that kind of support or much more so I urge you to vote no on the motion on the table and I urge you to welcome three new faces to town government at d angeles thank you um hopefully i'm going to be a little shorter than some of my colleagues if i dance back to what chalene talked about when she talked about expertise uh and the specific um credentials of tom and andrew uh she omitted johanna and i'm going to um and and I would I would omit johanna as well she brings um great work in terms of environmental issues um but she has no experience as an architect as a designer as a landscape architect she um brings very little experience um to the planning board she would have the most to learn uh and I feel like let's get honest if you want experience then you have that and michael bertwistle who I support um in her place and I'm going to read a very short section of a letter we all received uh from Nate buddington um and and I asked his permission and because what he's speaking to is a little different than pro professional expertise uh and the importance of a variety of opinions and people and a diversity of people he he says many things but one of the things he says is I acknowledge there is a growing interest in populating town boards with people who possess a specific professional expertise that's a good thing but there needs to be room for knowledgeable amateurs who have good judgment quick minds intellectual flexibility and a collaborative approach to their work there also should be space for devoted contrarians who use their original thinking to make committee deliberations more thoughtful and expansive michael is modestly contrarian in my opinion but I learned from his ability to think originally and from his overall collegial demeanor so I'm going to throw another thing into the mix I think that we should vote down all three candidates and then vote for them one at a time and vote for michael burt whistle and two other people I think it's I think that we're sort of playing here and I don't think that that's anybody's intention um but I think it's very interesting that you can dismiss letters uh from people it's interesting to me that you can say we need professional expertise and then choose someone who doesn't have it it's interesting that the criteria for from both the planning board and from crc had to do with experience and it's ongoingly um important to me that we have trouble with appointments and I see that trouble and as now that I'm a liaison to the disability access um advisory committee that appointments are handled very strangely and at the whim of and paul I don't mean this in completely negatively at the whim of the town manager in that case and the whim of a group of people who aren't looking at I think the real intricacy of collaboration and the intricacy of establishing and building community trust and I feel like well that's enough anyway I I I guess I I don't know whether I'm proposing a motion I robert's rules of order or whatever but I very much feel like we either need to vote for each of these people individually and that includes michael burt whistle um or we need to reject the whole slate and then decide who we do want are you calling the question I guess so am I Mandy joe other people I'm sorry what Alyssa what if you call the question no though nobody else can talk no if she wants to end debate and go to a vote on the motion she calls the question and it requires two-thirds of the council to vote in favor of ending debate for it to pass uh I need directly to a vote on the motion to amend Alyssa what should I do I'm really asking people have their hands raised yeah yeah let's go ahead I won't call the question yet Dorothy okay um those letters were not testimonials those letters were protest letters they were letters of dissent with the decision that they saw as being egregiously wrong they thought the decision was one that would um stifle people from volunteering for committees if they thought they could be thrown out like an old shoe for the new flavor of the month now when I'm feeling generous I can say perhaps the committee was very excited because there were some really good interesting candidates old as well as new and it's exciting to to see different people but the idea that you would think that you don't need Michael Burt whistle on that board I find absolutely ridiculous when the former chair was not reappointed after a much longer term there was all the argument that you needed experience and then during your discussion which I did listen to completely um it was like oh well maybe experience we we said that but you know it really ran well yes it ran well because it had Michael Burt whistle on it who has great experience who is very intelligent who's an original thinker did his work and it helped do it so now if you remove Michael Burt whistle who has all the most experience even though you put these wonderfully talented new people who I am very excited about I liked all of them and I also like the old person Bob Greeny all qualified people um it doesn't mean that it will run as well without that experience so um Shalini talked about the importance of showing up and doing your work but that's not what I'm talking about okay I'm talking about intelligence I'm talking about independence I'm talking about integrity those are the qualities that make a candidate very exciting and integral and necessary but now if I put my cynical hat on it I will say I knew he wasn't going to be reappointed before I even heard a single one of the new candidates now how can I know that because it's been in the air and we all knew it so so the planning board is very important we have a very fine candidate who should be reappointed and we have some wonderful other candidates I think we should be excited about that and instead of creating a situation which makes people lose faith in the planning board in the town council in the appointment process in giving your all to a committee and then being just treated very rudely I think we should include Michael Burtwistle as to as a candidate to be voted onto the planning board and to choose two of the other two the one and it you know they're all talented they're all people who'd be very good but we have new openings coming up but Michael Burtwistle will not apply for that again in the future after being treated this way and I think you know that so the new people who I'm very excited about will have plenty of chance to add their voices to making Amherst a wonderful town bringing their views and sharing their views but I feel that without Michael Burtwistle on the on the planning board you have really weakened it and weakened its independence and created a situation where people lose trust in us the town council as well as the planning board. Andy? So there's several things one is that one of the letter writers and one other commentator used the term firing and I don't and Shalini responded to that earlier and I don't want to spend much time on it because of the hour but it was it's about not reappointing because of the reasons that a committee is already stated but it isn't that the term firing is really not what this is about there's been comparisons to the situation last year with Greg Stutzman and having been one who argued very strongly for Greg I want to point out that the reason that I did that last year was because as a member of CRC last year I was not reappointed to CRC so I'm not on the current committee that made this recommendation we tried to learn as much as we could about zoning and the master plan and the one person from the planning board who continuously came to our meetings took the time in the olden days when we actually met in the town room and people had to physically come and was there and explained with clarity what the history of the master plan what the history of zoning was and how they related and answered our questions in tremendous detail with and had a tremendous amount of preparation to it was Greg and that it made me really appreciate an exceptional amount of experience as somebody who has been on it and was chair for a very short period of time then and I with all respect for Michael I don't think that they're comparable and the last thing I want to say is that we just talked about some the goals for the town and goals for the council and the town manager and climate action community health and safety economic vitality major capital investments housing affordability racial equity and social justice and additionally talked about wanting a well managed town the well managed town provides municipal school and library services we value some of these goals cannot be achieved without a master plan and zoning bylaw that is consistent with them all of the goals require resources we all know the proposition to Lewis growth and property tax revenue which is our largest source of stable funds without an override or new growth and we're just able to maintain current services with the revenue available without an override that leaves nothing for new initiatives and even current services are at risk when an increase in inflation or an unforeseen crisis such as we're facing now comes along and regular responsible growth is therefore essential I really commend the CRC for an interview process that elicited views of candidates that demonstrate their imagination and their experience to develop an employment zoning and advanced council goal the advanced council goals the CRC analysis then identified three candidates who are best prepared to meet that challenge that I appreciate their approach and their recommendation filming yes so I would really appreciate it if people did not say that we did this or choose that or I wasn't even there but the reason we're doing this is for political reasons because I'm hoping that having worked together for a year and a half we've all voted all over the place and I'm hoping that each of us can see that in each other that we really bring in our own thinking and perspective here so let's and in fact the political thing for me might be to actually vote yes for my call that would be the easier thing to do but the harder thing is to actually reflect and go in and do something that aligns with my integrity and ethics which I am looking at is what are the skill sets that will and that was my position last time to what will make the planning board skill sets the strongest and again when we look at these very specific skill sets of these are the things we've been talking about in the last month where for example with the multidisciplinary practices are highly focused on human-centered design placing the lived experience of community members at the center of the design practice I'm talking about Tom and he's worked with many city and public approval processes for public projects gaining insight into the goals priorities and collaborative processes that towns and cities use so he has not been on a planning board but he's worked with planning boards and he's worked in amazing projects at international levels like he was a designer and collaborator and completed the memorial for the abolition of slavery in France I mean this is the caliber of skill sets we have the chance to bring to our council and we're saying oh no let him apply next year do you think he will apply has anyone ever who's been rejected applied I mean somewhat people who are so busy and we don't know whether they're gonna apply or not and so is this a skill set we want to lose and then in response to Pat's question about Johanna and what is she praying let's look at her her work experience and she's been an organizing advocate around environmental and public interest issues climate change is one of the most important goals we have over here and she's trained and experienced in facilitation of groups strategic planning coalition building community outreach communication and more and we know that she brings in the environmental and we need the coalition building we need the community outreach as we consider zoning by us we want to make that process as transparent and engage the community at every level and she's going to bring in those skill sets of how do we organize the the meetings and community and these are skill sets that we cannot ignore and really just think about this forget about the personalities forget about the people think about just the skill sets of the people and see how hard it is so at least give us credit that we're not doing it for political reasons I I didn't even have the forget about the idea that we planned the whole change in the CRC because Michael was I mean I didn't even know Michael was going I mean I was so clueless that I even missed the CRC meeting so to think that I was planning so much ahead that I changed the whole CRC process to make that happen is really very disrespectful to the fellow counselors we're working pretty hard to be fair about this Alyssa exhausting we'll try and talk fast so many of the people writing to us despite their experience in town government seemed to have forgotten a couple of things that is until we had a town council there was zero I repeat zero transparency around who had applied for appointments to volunteer positions whether they were appointed directly by the select board directly by the town manager or confirmed by the select board and yet despite decades of having always done it that way we all agreed as a town council we wanted much more transparency in our appointments and that leaves us in a mess that's just the case it's been stated over and over again that it would alienate people who applied and were turned down who were rejected who were fired as well as people who wouldn't even bother to apply because they fear that risk we've been told repeatedly there are people who don't want to risk their professional reputation by applying for something and being turned down yet we decided we wanted a more transparent process for our appointments so as awkward as this is and this is a really grueling conversation that is taking a huge amount of time we should actually pat ourselves on the back for doing what we said we thought was really important the other thing that many of our writers forget is that there was in fact no automatic reappointment after one three-year term not when it was made by the elected select board not when it was made by the elected town council although it's true it's often been the position of the appointed town manager who in fact generally does not evaluate what you or I might consider good standing in the same way that our elected bodies have been doing as Darcy said there's still an appointed committee handbook that says a preference is for a second term it's true CRC changed the language that Oka used and you might all remember me saying hey if you guys are going to change anything you better have a really good reason for it I'm not sure this needed to be changed but I would argue that they really only modified it slightly because they still use the definition of a healthy body being a mix of people speaking of the CRC process I'm not fond of the idea of the idea that CRC didn't find it valuable as part of their process to ascertain whether any of the applicants being recommended indicated they in fact had any familiarity with the actual work of the Amherst planning board by having watched or analyzed any of their meetings versus just having really interesting ideas and skills but that's an argument I had at Oka and I lost it there too so I'm not surprised that CRC didn't ask that question or tried and listed it in a statement of interest I hope we'll consider doing that in the future I think we all have very different perspectives on what happened last year my perspective is that last year's challenge was over at whether it made sense to appoint someone beyond six years as well as balancing that with the most needed set of skills at that particular moment some of us were swayed one way some of us were swayed the other Michael of course has not served six years I don't know why we'd put him in for three years when he's already served four years I would have assumed two would make sense if that is the case that we would move toward because I do not see why we would make it seven something I said is an Oka member all these book meetings we all go to is that it's awkward to say but applying over and over just like running for office over and over doesn't mean you get to get appointed or elected even if you run for two elected offices at the very same time it still doesn't mean that despite all your efforts that you're going to win at some point I mentioned at town council more than once that the approach you know was long thought out at Oka we did an amazing report thanks largely to Evan of trying to capture like every conversation we had at Oka so that you all would have that one of the ways that our extensive written documentation let's see rc down was in how to approach deliberation I watched the meeting I have offended someone already by saying I feel like it went off the rails pretty early on because it was really awkward when they said let's start deliberation okay nobody wants to talk because it's incredibly awkward to talk about individuals but almost immediately it was glommed on to two seats here's one seat we're going to put it aside here's the other seat we're going to put it aside now we've got everybody else competing for one seat left I just felt like that was really not the approach that was helpful in terms of looking at the whole committee and how everybody fits together right because you're looking at the people who are still saying and the people who you're considering coming in I understand the purpose of trying to come to consensus and a straw vote early on Oka did some of that too but fairly rapidly two seats were set aside thus leaving the rest to compete for one seat that felt really especially inappropriate to me given that the reappointment hadn't been discussed reflecting back to like an hour ago when people were talking about the actual reappointment it was mentioned very early but then you know the conversation went a different direction with all good intentions and it never came back to hey wait what did we decide was going to be our criteria for whether or not someone was going to get reappointed that to me felt like it needed to happen much earlier in the conversation I would argue that there with those who have said there's no reason not to reappoint Michael beyond you know the reasonable service he's attended regularly he's done his work he's offered his insights and I will say I watched a recent planning board meeting that was extremely fraught and extremely unpleasant during the section that I watched before we got some emails about that and he was very calm and logical during that particular meeting so I have no fault with his service I do understand I really do the perspective on how do we balance theoretical term limits right theoretical preference for one or the other which CRC softened a little bit but I would argue they left in the healthy mix concept versus the idea of really capturing that new and exciting energy even if they know nothing about our particular planning board so I'm going to just go ahead and say this because we have different opinions on what political means in my world after serving an elected office for almost 20 years the message that it sends when you say we have the votes then it doesn't that's saying it doesn't matter what message you send to the people who don't have the votes it's really important to understand that yes there are majority votes on this council and other places but we have to think about the message we're sending to future applicants and to people who are currently serving whether we think we can muscle a vote through or not I understand that no one sitting here thinks they muscle to vote through I'm telling you there are people in the community not just the people who wrote to us who feel like that's what's happening so good luck explaining that that's not what's happening because that's the perception out there and it doesn't matter if that's not why you're doing it it matters that the perception is there so I just ask us to try and calm down with the it's political it's not political I'm a politician I'm not a politician it doesn't matter what you label yourselves the perceptions are out there George I think to follow up on what Alyssa just said that the message that I think I'm trying to send is to steal from Steve that we're trying to feel what we think is the best team I'm appreciative of what CRC did because they really forced me to think hard about what actually are the criteria that we use for putting people on these very important bodies and while certainly service is important and Mr. Burt Whistle has done fine service also occurs to me that that's exactly what he's supposed to do he's supposed to come to meetings he's supposed to show up he's supposed to do his homework right that's that's what he's supposed to do so is that enough and I in some cases that might be enough but this year it seems to me that by itself is not necessarily enough first of all I assume that's what everybody does so that's there's nothing heroic about that that's what he's asked to do um so for me what really boils down to is what are the best candidates for the planning board right now and what excited me about what CRC did is they took a real chance they knew this was going to be very very unpopular they knew people were going to see it in a certain way but they finally came around and I was impressed by the collaboration I didn't have the same reaction unless it did she's right it is very difficult um and it's it's awkward and it's slow and it's cumbersome but they worked their way through it and they came to the conclusion that these were the three best candidates um and that's what to me I'm appreciative of what they did because it forced me to think is it ultimately just a matter of looking it's okay so-and-so served for for three years and came to the meetings and did his homework you know and as a reasonable person good enough he gets the night he gets automatically reappointed and I think the message that we're trying to send is that's not the way we're thinking about it that when you ask for reappointment we put you in the home mix and we look at the field and we make a decision we make a decision ultimately I hope on what we think is best for the the board as a whole and for the community as a whole going back to a challenge started with the very beginning of our discussion so I'm grateful to CRC for what they did I think they took a real chance and I think we have an extraordinary opportunity here to do something really important and also to make a point to people out there in the public that when on these two bodies at least when you ask for reappointment we certainly take your service in consideration but it is not the only thing we're going to look at nothing um I just I just want to correct something that may have been a misperception on the notion that Michael has shown up and that's of course we expect them he's done so much more if you really watch the tapes of the planning board meetings he's questioning he has read he's bringing up topics there's often really engaged conversations this I watched the same thing happen on the community participation at committee and where it wasn't digging your heels in they were very constructive probing questions that led to conversations in a very collegial way um that uh was so refreshing to see someone thinking outside the box and when others have said well the the master plan the plant zoning being able to explain it when you watch the interview he was the one who said what we just heard earlier tonight that the master plan conceptually is pretty good framework where we have work to do is on implementation and that appendix is really pretty interesting there's a lot of pieces that we should be thinking of so he's been thinking about where are the nuances where there are shades of gray where we're not clear and how does that interact so it's a very creative mind um that I was watching it wasn't just that someone is coming and showing up and I just want to say that if I watch across all committees this is not true of every committee member there are some committee members that don't often speak up um they may speak up on narrow things um and and it depends a lot on how well the meeting is chaired in terms of how people participate but this is not a person who just shows up it's it's so much more and I I just was um really but totally impressed on the grasp of a broad range of issues the things we're talking about all these different goals I mean he really has embraced those um on a internal level not just because he's been on these boards on talking about climate change space walkable livable communities the the built space jolly and you're talking about that what does it feel like to live there what what does he walked our new playground land to think of where does in terms of Kendrick Park where does it slant where does it not slant and where do the walkway very thoughtful way of going on a site visit so I don't think we should at all be saying it's just because he's already served this amount of time he's an extraordinarily valuable member of the planning board in the in what he contributes Steve so we don't know so again my concern about the fact that one person has got no bunch of letters and we've been zero letters because that's not part of the process for the other candidates we have absolutely no idea if those qualities are true or not true of the other the three leading candidates I would imagine I'm guessing that they are also whatever committees organizations that they've been part of they've been active engaged participants and those I'm sure that they could get letters written about them let's say something very similar but I am really deeply concerned about this idea that we're willing to jettison one of three people that probably most of us really don't know because they have not been involved they weren't part of town meeting they weren't part they haven't been part of the the scene we're willing to throw one of them off the bus because of somebody that is known and somebody that's generated a bunch of letters from people that we also know that to me seems exceptionally unwelcoming and exceptionally not progressive this happened to be a year that there are really great candidates for the planning board and kudos to this town and kudos to those that stepped up for these three slots it's um and if there were if there were fewer candidates then obviously our vote would be different but this happens to be a very competitive year next year might not be a competitive year we struggled to come up with this while it might have seemed easy it might have seemed awkward I think we really struggled to you know come to this particular decision I hope that we stay with it and again really the reason I want to speak up this time is kind of the willingness to toss off a lesser known person who has doesn't have a bunch of letters written about them simply because we don't know much about them and we don't think that the political pushback will be much if they happen to be tossed off the bus. Dorothy. Well I don't want to talk well I don't want to talk about tossing off the bus because that's where we started and you had I had an interesting conversation with you in which you explained to me that there were many different kinds of architects and I think that was some very valid points there but we do know that we have openings coming up in the year and I don't think someone who didn't make it in this rather competitive round who actually listened to this discussion is going to feel tossed off the bus so I just want to say one little thing if diversity of opinion is not allowed we will never get diversity of any other kind and I think that's what the issue has been is that Mr. Burt whistle has not always agreed in discussion but as he makes very clear once a vote is taken and hit the other side has one he then joins in and supports that vote okay so he is an independent mind but he is a team player and he's a man of great experience and wisdom and I don't personally know him the one time I spoke to him personally he disagreed with me so I'm speaking purely out of the many many many planning board meetings that I went to over the last two years and I went to almost all of them and he was somebody who was of great talent so I don't want us to lose out on having him on our planning board and I hope that we will be able to utilize the talents of these other new people because I agree we're very lucky and we have the planning board is a very key group and we have a lot of major decisions that have to be made but I think it would run better with if we keep the voice of the greatest experience on the board that will be really a great mix of people few points backgrounds and experience we'd have a good strong planning board. Evan well unless Mandy has something she really wants to say I was going to call the question or ask that be or ask that the president call the question. The question's been called requires two-thirds vote that's nine people the this comes to an immediate vote and it is a vote on whether or not to debate and go on to the actual motions okay hold on hold on hold on hold on um Lynn at this point we have the motion I if you could repeat the motion I would appreciate that. The motion that's on the floor right now is calling the question which means we end to debate then I'll get to what the motions are okay okay um Schreiber. This is to call the question aye. Steinberg. Aye. Ford's. Yes. No yes or no. To call the question yes right. Shalini. Yes. Brewer. Yes. Yandros. Yes. Jamont. Yes. Griezmerzy. Yes. Hanneke. Yes. Ross. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Dane. Yes. Okay we've come to a vote on the present amended motion and the amendment is to remove the name of Tom Long and replace it with the name of Michael Burtwistle. Therefore the full motion would read to appoint the following individuals to the planning board for charter section 2.9c effective immediately for terms expiring June 30th 2023. Michael Burtwistle Johanna Newman, Andrew McDougall. The first person to vote this time is Schreiber. I vote no. Steinberg. No. Schwartz. Yes. Paul Milne. No. Brewer. Yes. Beangeles. No. Jamont. Yes. Griezmer. Stains. Hanneke. No. Pam. Yes. Ross. No. Ryan. No. Shane. Yes. I have seven no's. I have five in favor seven against and one abstention. Thank you. Okay. So that motion dies. We're back to the original motion. The original motion is town council appointments planning board to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee. For terms expiring June 30th 2023 Johanna Newman, Tom Long, Andrew McDougall. And we begin with the second rank. It was seconded. Yes. So if you're voting for this one it's for the slate that is Johanna Newman, Tom Long, and Andrew McDougall. I move to postpone. Mind you, Joe, that does not require a second. Correct. Hands on whether it's a motion or her charter right to postpone. Charter. I would just note that that leaves the planning board without enough members to meet for anything regarding a special permit. Made to postpone and it's not debatable. Chin. Excuse me, Dorothy. Yes. I have a question. Does that mean that Michael Burt whistle is not still on the committee? His term has been kicked off is what you're saying. Okay. All right. Michael's term expires at the end of August as does everybody else who was extended to the end of August. There were three people extended to the end of August. He was one of three. Dorothy, did you have a further question? I can't hear you. I just wanted that clarified because sometimes committee people stay on until their replacements are there. But in this case you're saying because the terms were extended to August that they can't be extended again and there would be nobody on the planning board almost. Is that right? There's four people. Okay. People left on the planning board. Okay. Piper, put your hand up. Can we look at the charter before we go down this path? Because I thought there was something about unless there's an emergency situation or so can we look at the charter before we all agree that this is a correct procedure? Andy, Joe. We can line it up. Yeah. I have it up. It just has to be in a non-emergency measure, which this wouldn't be considered an emergency measure. And it has to be prior to or at the call by the presiding officer. So it would meet both of those standards.  Yes, thank you. I think that Darcy, your action was not helpful and shouldn't have happened. If anything, we should have tried to defeat the three candidates. So I would like you to withdraw the postponement. I don't see the point of it. I really don't. And I think it's a mistake. Steve Schreiber. Yeah. So the planning board this week has on the docket a temporary shelter at the survival center. And it has on the docket tents for the public schools. So if we do not vote tonight, the planning board will have four members, which because we passed this other bylaw, these are special site plan reviews, because we passed this other bylaw, they do have a quorum if everybody shows up. But the fact that you're putting a survival center project and a public school project at risk, I find to be disgraceful. And I really, I don't believe that we'll have any more information regarding this. And the next time we vote, and I am with Pat on this, that I think we should just vote this up or down. No new information will come in the next two weeks. The statement by the counselor has been made and it's not debatable. The jury shall disregard my comments. Don't disregard mine. So Lynn. Yes. I do want to point out that the charter says to the next meeting. And so it is possible if desired to schedule another meeting, it does not have to wait till our next scheduled meeting. It could be a new scheduled meeting. But I would recommend that be discussed with the council. Right. Let's have that discussion. Next Monday night is Labor Day. And so we would normally not meet on Labor Day. We could meet on any time so that I have 40 hours to post notice, which means I'd have to, the earliest we could meet would be Thursday. And we could meet Thursday, we could meet Friday, we could meet Tuesday. Alyssa. I recommend that we meet Thursday at five o'clock. We have the 530 meeting already. I cannot be at 530. Well, I mean, I'm saying we have the 530 already. So we do this at five because we are ready. I know you are part of the 530 event. But we do a meeting just from 5 to 530 with this being the only topic. Or 430 or whatever.  No question. But it is the earliest possible time. And that way, in case something goes wrong with the planning board meeting this week, they can reschedule for something for next week potentially. I just don't want them to have to wait very long to reschedule if they end up having to reschedule because they don't have a quorum because anything can happen. And we're all planning to be part of this 530 thing on Thursday, right? And TSO was already going to meet at seven o'clock. So that's some of us right there. All right. I would suggest we meet at 430. I'm going to pass. Everyone can make that. So I will ask each of you, can you make a meeting at 430 on Thursday, the 3rd of September? I will go through the roll call. Sarah? I am so sorry, but I cannot and I apologize for making this a lot harder. I'm really sorry. I would suggest if the majority and I'm okay with that because it's my fault that I can't change my plans. So I don't want to make this hard. Felony? Yeah, I can make it. Alyssa? Yes. Pat? Yes. Darcy? ECAC has a task group meeting from four to six, but if everyone else can make this, then I will try to make it and not go to that meeting, I guess. Rhysmer, I will not go to my other meeting and yes, I'll be there. Hannake? I can make it. Pam? I have a meeting I'm supposed to be at. It's in preparation for classes opening the next Tuesday. Ross? I can make it, yes. Brian? I can make it. Shane? It would be difficult for me to make it. Is that a yes or a no? I can make it, but I, yeah. Schreiber? Yes. And Steinberg? Yes. So we've got 10 people who definitely can, one for whom it's difficult and two there are no. I think that I will withdraw the motion then. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We're going back to the vote. The motion that's on the table is to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee for terms expiring June 30th, 2023. Johanna Newman, Pam Long, Andrew McDougal. We start this vote with Sarah Schwartz, I think. Sarah? No. Kalani? Yes. Brewer? No. D'Angelois? No. Goumont? No. Griezmer is still abstaining. Panicky? Yes. Pam? No. Ross? Yes. Brian? Yes. Shane? No. Schreiber? Yes. Steinberg? Yes. I have 6-6 with one abstention. You know, I'm tired of getting put in this situation. I'm changing my vote to vote yes and I'm going to just tell you, I thought this was the most terrible conversation. This council has had in our tenure. We have besmirched people's reputations. I mean, I had many things I could say about a number of these candidates, at least two that I know. But I'm not going to sit here and say that. I think we really need to stand back and we need to look at our process. And I want to make a statement I made many, many, many months ago. A committee's process has to be fully and completely understood by the full council so that there's no questions after the fact. I'm sorry. Let's proceed with the meeting. We're not going to go into executive session until we finish the other items, because when we come back out, we're lucky if it's two o'clock in the morning. So are there any committee reports? Finance committee? Andy? No, there's no report. We're meeting tomorrow at 2.30. GOL, George, any report? Briefly, we're meeting Wednesday at 10.30. We'll be meeting with KP Law to discuss their memo on the wage theft bylaw. Right. Kathy, JCPC? JCPC is meeting this week, but the following week at 5.30, and before I say the wrong date, let me make sure I have the right date. Andy will know. On the ninth, yeah. I was going to say Wednesday, but I wanted to give the ninth. Okay. Thank you. Sound services and outreach committee, Darcy? Yeah. The committee is meeting on Thursday. We moved our meeting back from 6.30 to 7 because of the UMass forum, and we'll be devoting the most of the meeting to the surveillance technology bylaw proposal. Okay. Lynn, you skipped CRC. May I say a few quick things? I'm sorry, I did. I was on the earlier page. Andy, Joe? Just two things. Tomorrow, we are discussing the beginnings of goals to put forth in a potential comprehensive housing policy. So if you're into housing and you have time and are awake and like to attend a two o'clock meeting tomorrow, we will be discussing preliminary potential goals for a policy. We're in the very early stages of trying to draft a comprehensive housing policy. On September 15th at 2 p.m., CRC will have Christine Breastrup and Rob Mora at the meeting to discuss priorities for zoning bylaw changes. This is the very first meeting. They will be discussing and presenting the bylaw changes that they believe are priorities. They will be able to, I believe, be a presentation on planning board discussions on what planning board believes are zoning priority changes, and I have asked council members to get to me their thoughts on zoning priority changes by, I think I said, yes, no, by next week, by the 8th, so that I can include them. Enough counselors have indicated that they are interested in this September 15th meeting that I will be working with the president to call it as a full council meeting so that everyone can be involved in the discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Did I miss any other committees? Liaison reports. Any liaison reports? Well, the only report I have is that CPA will be having its first meeting of the year, of the new season on Thursday the 10th at 6 p.m., and that's when they will be reviewing the amount of money they expect to have for the year and starting to issue proposals. And I want to just point out that this CPA is moving their entire process earlier in the year, so that is something that we should make as widely known as possible for people to get their applications in. It's a much different cycle, right? And they have had a subcommittee, I'm just not sure where they are on it, so I'll learn more at the next meeting, talking about how to do better outreach to let people know how to apply if they have an idea, you know, if they, including smaller as well as bigger, you know, to get more proposals to come into them. So, there has been a committee forum, but how could you know about doing that? And so, at some point, I can be reporting on that. Okay. Thank you. Any other committees? Okay. We've already done the minutes. Time managers report? Um, just that the polling locations will open in seven, a little bit less than seven hours, so I'm sure you've all voted early, but that's all I had for this time. I report. Thank you. We look forward to finding out how it all goes. And thank you for your report, Paul. Are there any other town councilor comments at this time? Okay. Then under topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair, 48 hours in advance, there is a motion to reconsider zoning bylaw 11.250. Kathy Shane? Given that it's midnight or after midnight, I don't think I should keep everyone here, but I did want to make sure that people have the graphic that I prepared, Lynn, that the vote we took last time, as a member of the minority, you can bring a proposal to reconsider. And there was new information. We voted on something that wasn't the same as what was in Northampton and Springfield. There's a clause that ours has that says abstaining votes don't count. And I checked Northampton and Springfield. I didn't check many others. They don't have that, and it makes a difference for the way you count. So my understanding, Lynn, is if we don't do anything tonight, the thing we voted on two weeks ago goes into effect. And I couldn't bring it last week because it can only be brought at a regular meeting. So that's why it's tagged on to this. Okay. So, yes, it does go into effect. This is the 14 days of post-it notice. So that is, and that's the opportunity to bring it forward. So, yes. Okay. So, can I, what I would request is, since I couldn't send things to people in advance, I produced a graphic that just shows the impact of what we voted on. And I would like to get it in the packet. Maybe we can get it in the packet for next time. So the public also understands that the implication of the change we made, as well as all of us understand it. So that's it. I didn't know the right way to go about doing that. I have a point of order, Lynn. More of a clarification for Kathy. Do you intend to bring a motion to reconsider on this bylaw at our next meeting? Okay. Or are you not intending to bring a motion to reconsider at all? I think, let me tell you why I ask. Our rules of procedure only allow you to bring it at the next regular council meeting. That is this one. So if you're, I just want to let, I just want to make sure you understand that if it is not brought tonight and you're hoping to bring it the next time, you'd have to also get a vote on suspending the rules too. I just wanted to make sure you understood all of that before you decide not to make that motion tonight if you intended to make it at the next meeting. Well, I guess I was understanding from Lynn is that it's already done and there's nothing to reconsider if I don't do it tonight, that the clock has run out. I mean, so I'm just conscious. I wasn't trying to torture anybody with this. I was trying to make sure people understood what it was they voted on and made it clear because both that it was not the same and it wasn't identical. It had an additional clause and it makes a difference. And I did ask people whether at the CRC level it was explained to be the same. And a lot of public I talked to didn't even understand what the implication was. So I just would like it as part of the public record and I can write something up if someone tells me how I can make it part of one of our packets without being outside the law. So the answer at this point, Mandy Jo, is no, she does not. Okay, Shalini, you have a question. Do you want me to comment because I did look up and I didn't see that it was different in the way I understood. I went to the Northampton and the way they defined majority vote in their charter is identical. It doesn't have the clause as staining votes don't count. It says when you use the connection of the meeting shall mean a majority of those present and voting unless another person vote. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I believe that what you're the confusion is the following. It's voting is present and voting and if you abstain you are not voting. Shalini, a majority of those present and voting. So it says those present and voting. So that does not include abstain people. Don't have that clause only is a clarification. It doesn't mean that they count abstaining or we count or anybody else does and voting. When when I asked for clarification, Mandy said I was correct that if we had four people in the room two said yes one said no and one abstain two is the majority and that and because we're not we're not it's not a majority of four it's a majority of the uh so it's because we're not we're not counting the abstaining vote at all. It's a majority of the present and actually voting yeah four people present at the meeting only three vote if two vote in favor it means it passes. But all four voted just one voted abstain and we abstain is not a vote. This is a whole new flavor because we we keep counting we count 13 of us every time as whether we abstained or voted one way or the other I think it we report that we abstain we don't count that we abstain. So in our charter let me explain some of that there are a number of references in our charter that refer to a majority of the full town council and it's that phrase full town council in our charter that requires seven yes votes no matter what because that is a majority of the full town council if it's a simple majority or a majority of those present in voting abstains do not count because an abstain is not a vote but when you reference to majority of the full body or however in our charter it's full town council an abstain essentially counts as a no vote because you still need seven yes votes or nine yes votes because of how that is worded in the charter and for the charter commission they did that specifically for a number of things but a majority vote when it's not of the full body abstains or not a vote in that case. Well I will say that you can explain that and just did it now but that is now how people generally understand it a lot of people think four is the majority from what we voted on so I think we've just made it clear at 17 minutes after midnight that we voted something that went from five votes required to not four votes required but as few as two is enough that's what we have in fact done okay okay so we are going to move into executive session for the purposes of discussing the compensation of the town manager we will not be returning to regular session so that we will decide tonight and then we will actually vote on the 14th I just feel like I can't put you all through that however we need to have a roll call vote to go into executive session. Do you want me to make the motion? Yeah could we actually make the motion please? I moved to meet an executive session pursuant to MGL chapter 30a section 21a2 to conduct a strategy session in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel town manager Paul Backelman and to also conduct negotiations with non-union personnel town manager Paul Backelman and that the council will not reconvene in open session following the executive session. I second that. Okay and we start with Shalini. Yes. Alyssa. Yes. Pat. Yes. Garcy. Yes. Griezmer. Yes. Hannake. Yes. Pam. Yes. Evan. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Did I miss anybody? Thank you no. I said yes too. So we are going off of this and will not be reconvening. Paul at some point I may contact you to join the meeting. Okay and you need to look at an email you got from Serge in order to join the executive session. Okay.