planning board and stuff. We said the problem is we have no definition what a mission. If we tighten up on what it could be, and when it could be used, we wouldn't have this escape so maybe 24 is the wrong number. But I think we shouldn't rush. I don't see that we have an urgent need to rush. We've actually been building a lot in Amherst. And when we talk about affordability, it's we're getting apartment buildings up here where I live, the two bedroom units cost $33,000 a year to want to rent them. So it's, it's hard to call those affordable. And we did put a lot of money into making sure some of them were, but there's nowhere in this document that talks about inclusionary zoning which would require any new development that was large to have some of it in it. So I think we need to have this vision of what are we trying to do and go slowly through interlocking pieces the way I've seen Northampton and other towns they don't do a big set. They do small sets that come together as a kernel and make some sense. And then my last comment is there seems to be a sense that if we just free things up, and we allow more to cover more pieces of land where it's all developed not worry about lot coverage anymore but special needs that somehow we'll get to a place that we're generating revenues to do other things we want to do. If that were true New York City would not be in the problems it is if that were true we'd have whole urban areas, which we're saying we finally done it the places that have done this well, have a vision. They talk about balancing it. They worry about the environmental impact, and some of them do special permits. Now, if you put in solar will give you a waiver on some dimensions so they use an incentive. If you do this will give you a waiver, and I didn't see that so I think we could be much more creative. And I just want this to come out at the planning board to what is the vision, and what is the problem with each of these things we're trying to solve, and is this the right way to solve it so I just didn't see the analysis. I don't have any statements, but I would have come up, I think with a different set, and I wasn't on CRC, but I wouldn't have wanted my set alone. I just would want to know why these three pieces, and I've been reading a lot of the smart growth. And the under the layer of form based zoning, they're interlocking pieces where it's worked really well. People said let's focus on this area. What kind of space what kind of housing we want housing for people to move out of their big houses as senior citizens and something smaller but they want a yard. They want a garden. We want a family unit where kids can be with a yard. So, what does it take to get that to give developers both the incentive to want to build it with some of these if you do this will do this for you, and where would we want it. I just didn't see that it was more free it up here free it up here free it up here. So, I think we need a different kind of document coming to us before I would feel really comfortable with it with a lot more analysis of consequences. And I do appreciate the amount of work, but I just want why this one why not this one why focus here, why not fix this dimensional table and I got into the weeds really quickly and stepped up and said what is the vision here. And, and where do we want what. And so I think we need to have a larger discussion about all of this, if we're going to make this a priority and I don't see the rush. You know, I think we need to think about development, and we need to look to the future but we need to look to our past and other places expect experiences to guide it how we develop is really going to matter, because you can't turn some of this back. Once you've started down a road, it will, it will happen under its own accord so we need to be careful when we make changes. And I don't want to go into the specifics but I'd be happy on each of the items to send my thoughts and comments on it. It was a long enough draft that I didn't want to talk longer tonight about specifics. Dorothy. Well, first let me talk about the town of Amherst comprehensive housing policy, which is one of the CRC documents. And I read through it and I had a few questions but I liked so much of it. The talking of the aim of more diverse, moderately priced and affordable housing types, diverse neighborhoods. And again, that would also be if there were an apartment building. I would think diverse types of people in the apartment building which would mean a diversity of sizes of apartments. So I was really happy with that. I got onto the zoning report and I found that I couldn't follow it. And I know that that means that if I did more and more work and pulled out all my maps and my files of which I have enough to fill an office. I could but adding BL to footnote B, I need to find how that relates to the housing policy because I like the vision of the housing policy, but I couldn't see it. I couldn't imagine it. And so it was like picking a poke for me. And I know that's a lot of work but we in the town council we are the liaison with the people the residents of the town. We have to be able to understand this and to be able to explain things to the people who want to know that we see and that we talk to and we communicate with. And I, I can't do that at this point so I know that's asking you to do a lot more work. But I really did like the vision and the housing policy. And I would I would need to say if we do this, then that would create this other result which we want if I were to explain to people what it is. So that that is what I'm hoping that you'll be able to do. But thank you for what you've done. Darcy. Yes. Am I unmuted. Yes. I just would also echo. Thank you for all the work that you're putting to this, especially Mandy Joe had a very intense week. I would also agree with, I guess, pretty much everything Kathy said I was planning to say. I would also agree with that. So I will just say that I agree with her statement that we really need analysis. And I, you know, I, the fact that we got the document on Saturday. I really have time to prepare until today. And so it wasn't for a document of that size that really just wasn't enough time. And I really felt like a lot of, especially what was in the summary. And the first page was not reader friendly, especially for the public who do not understand the names of all the zones and the, and the footnotes and, and there were there was reference to the dimensional table but it would have been extremely helpful to actually, you know, have the dimensional table in the report. I think it probably was very difficult for the public to understand it. And it wasn't in the packet as a separate document. It's in the CRC report. So anyone who was just looking through the packet for things of interest, they would have seen the two slides, but they wouldn't have seen the report. So it was sort of not, not really transparent that it was in our packet this time. So I, you know, I really don't think that we should treat this as a first discussion. I'm assuming that we're not planning on voting on anything in our next discussion. We just won't have had enough time to do what we need to do. Let's see what else was I going to say here. I really would have loved to originally see the actual comments that were made by all the individual counselors. We initially received Evans proposal for zoning changes and his proposal pretty closely tracks the all of the suggestions that are made on the first page of the zoning report. I would, I would really have liked to see everybody else's rather than just a compilation I would have liked to have seen each individual counselors suggestions so that we could really dive into them and see what everyone said. That's another kind of transparency issue I would like to have seen that. And as Kathy said I would, you know, I really feel like there should be an impact analysis. I would like to see has adopted a community impact review process. And I don't, I couldn't see evidence that that had been followed or that you had looked at environmental impacts or financial impacts neighborhood impacts or anything like that, which seems like we have to figure out how we're going to get input and evidence of impact on people in town. So, and lastly, I really think that probably a large number of counselors mentioned that we need to. One of our priorities is increasing the availability of moderate priced housing. And I didn't see that stated in those words, low income and moderate income housing. Because that's a big issue in my neighborhood, a lot of neighborhoods. There just is, we're losing moderate income housing to investors coming in and buying it up and renting it to students. So that's a huge issue in town, and that I really would like to have covered. So, I think that's basically what my comments are. Alyssa. I actually think this is a great first discussion and I really appreciate the way CRC tried to herd cats here because like, wow, this is a lot. And in terms of process, as I'd already made allusion to in another conversation, we could not have published what each person sent in under their name, or it would have been an open meeting law violation that would not have been appropriate. And so, that's the way that we're going to do it that way. I know it stinks, but that's the way real life is. And so that didn't happen. But further, I'm not convinced that was that would have been useful from the standpoint that let's bear in mind that as the report says, only 10 of the 13 of us have even participated in making this list. It's a better editor than creator. Right. And so there's stuff on that list that I was like, which I would have thought to put that down, and then you could have had eight counselors or 12 counselors say that was a great list. So I appreciate that this was a way to do it and I'm totally on board with that but at the same time, you know, more people I know marijuana is such a special project to me, but maybe one or two people might have cared about it if they'd seen it as an option. This was not a survey, right, because there's this huge realm of possibility. This was just what occurred to us and the amount of time that we were each willing to spend on this question. And then you were trying to funnel down from there. But I think you were able to come to see that there was a lot of interest in certain areas, even if I might have voted for some more things given the opportunity. So I wonder if the direction that we're looking at isn't to go ahead and say, okay, well you kind of clumped these things. So can we pick fewer things to clump because I got to say, the list seems real long to me, even for those time periods that seems like a lot of stuff. The planning board doesn't normally generate that amount of work over that amount of time period and so I'm just, is there a way to, you know, to get down more to like just something around housing and yes I understand how all things are related. But finally, I have two other things. One is inclusionary zoning doesn't appear as a concept in this priority list. And so I think we need to address that one way or another. I know that some people refer to it that way, not only in public comment but also in our original counselor comments which I appreciate you having the hyperlink to Mandy Joe thank you so much is, but I think we need to address why we're not addressing it. And that could be because it's just too long and cumbersome or we're making choices here and the words inclusionary zoning do not appear in that fashion except as they're not on the list. And the other part is, when we talk about our vision, the master plan is our vision. That's the thing we just passed. This is exactly within our vision we don't need a new vision document. We just pull out the pages of the master plan and say, this is what goes in this section. Now we've actually got something we want to implement that goes with this section. We are not creating a new vision. This is not up to this town council to come up with some cool vision for downtown. We need to turn to the master plan and say, what's some things we can do to implement and I really appreciate you trying to get us to this point but I wonder if we need to just funnel it down further for the next presentation and say okay well let's start with this because the list you have feels awfully big and in some ways awfully technical. I've been waiting for two years to get to this. So those of us who aren't in a hurry. I'm at the other end. We're entering our third year, and we're finally actually talking about actual zoning and real changes. We have to look at each one individually. We have to think about the impact, but I'm excited by this document. I'm impressed by the amount of work and so forth. There's a lot here. We can narrow it down a little bit perhaps, but please let us start doing something related to zoning. And we've got a number of excellent suggestions and excellent vision here of a comprehensive overall housing policy. This is absolutely correct. We have a master plan. We have a vision. We don't need to start creating new visions. We need to start applying some of these specifically to the larger visions. Inclusionary zoning needs to be part of this. I agree, but please let's not make this the death of a thousand cuts. Let's actually start tackling some of these now. It's three months priorities and then six to 12 months and then work where our job is done. We're finished. It's a new council. So let's get going. I'm going to call on people who haven't spoken Steve Schreiber. So it's okay if I speak if I'm on CRC. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so really interesting comments. So everyone keep in mind that we have a zoning bylaw that basically works. So it's been developed over many, many years through the town meeting process. So really what the goal of this document is to to tune that up to to refine it to make it better. So we're not starting from scratch or really tune it up. So really do keep that in mind. So the other thing to note is that the very last zoning bylaw ever passed by town meeting was inclusionary zoning reform. So basically that's the last major content related change to the zoning bylaw was by town meeting and basically close some of the loopholes in the inclusionary zoning. So so we shouldn't say that we're not addressing inclusionary zoning that in fact was addressed by town meeting. Then furthermore, these pesky footnotes, these footnotes are, I find them head slapping because the footnote can change everything. The footnote also allows special permits in some cases for certain types of buildings or certain dimensions of buildings by special permit. So by special permit means that the inclusionary zoning passed by town meeting triggers. So by adding those footnotes were actually addressing inclusionary zoning. So we might not say that specifically but a lot of this is in fact inclusionary zoning based. So with that, I will stop talking. Chris, rest refuse your hand up and I'm going to make sure you man. I just wanted to make a few comments. I think, you know, if we really want to go beyond the master plan and start talking about a specific vision for downtown, we need to go the route of hiring a consultant like Northampton did. And Northampton's been working on their vision for their downtown and their village centers for a few years now. It does take a long time and it takes a significant investment of money. That's certainly something that Amherst may choose to do. But for right now, we think we have a pretty good idea of what people want in the downtown just by hearing from people over the years. So, you know, you can either choose to go with what we already know, or you can choose to come up with the money to hire a consultant. One thing I wanted to say is, as each item on the list that Mandy Joe put together comes up, of course we will talk about the impacts of each thing. So for instance, applying footnote B to the limited business zoning district, we would come up with an analysis of what that means. What that means for, say, the property on the corner of Halleck Street and North Pleasant Street and how many units, could you actually get there so we would be giving examples of those things as we moved along through each one of these items. And the last thing I wanted to say is, we do care very much about inclusionary zoning and there may be things that we need to do to make inclusionary zoning work better. But in my opinion, I think that we will need a consultant in order to do that to really reach a consensus about what we want to do. We can say that, like some of the communities in Eastern Massachusetts we want inclusionary zoning to apply to absolutely every residential development, and that works for them because they have such tremendous development pressure on them. And people and developers are willing to, you know, jump through all kinds of hoops to be able to develop in these places. But I don't really feel like Amherst is in that kind of position. And we in the planning department are concerned that if we apply inclusionary zoning to every development in town every residential development that we may end up stifling development. So those are just three three comments that occurred to me as I was hearing the comments of the town councilors.  Yeah, no, I know you said, I get one one chance not to I just wanted to correct the way I talked about vision I do agree we've got a master plan with the vision. What I was trying to do is a vision of why these four piece the long list, how does each one of these and how did they together, get us further along a particular path so a list is asking for a shorter list. I also wanted a shorter list with these three need to happen together, because together they give you this result. And so Chris said we could, we could talk about this. This is what I didn't see there, it was, I didn't want to pick a few because some of these, you can't dial it back once you make those changes. You know I don't think whatever we think about the parking overlay district of you don't have to have parking. Once once you've allowed someone to buy a piece of land and that's what that's what they're understanding you're not going to roll it back so you do want to be careful as you move forward. So I just want to see much more of that interconnectiveness, and I agree with Dorothy that when you get back to the housing document you see these, these words about diversified sizes and then I go over to the zoning side, and I don't see the same thing that that was just where I wanted just more clarity, and I don't believe that just by opening up the ability to build more will get affordable. I've just watched it not happen I mean, and one of the reasons is the generator of big demand on our streets and on our apartment buildings is UMass, where they haven't put enough people on campus. So it's almost as fast as we can build it, it can be go for something else so the building that was originally on Spring Street was going to have family downsizing, and suddenly became all efficiencies because and the reason was, that's where the demand is you know we know there's a market for that so I think we can't just race that way if what we really want is some family housing and some places where people can give up their house as a senior a big house and move to something smaller we've got to build the kinds of things that people would be willing to give their house and move into. So what changes, what small changes or big changes get us further down that road that's the kind of analysis I want to see and whatever the first, the first list is out of us. Family. Yeah, I was wondering if the consultancy for form based zoning and design guidelines if that would speak to a little bit around what people are talking about vision like I know we do have a sense of vision through the master plan and we all know the kind of town we want to create walkable and environmentally friendly and gathering spaces for performances or and we want open spaces so those are some things we all kind of agree on other than I do get the performance shell is still a little issue but overall we kind of agree and so I wonder if hiring a consultant which is there in the plan around the design and flow and some of those things would address the vision issues and I think that was helpful to hear from Chris around the impact analysis at what point that's going to show up. I just want to also mention about the speed like the timing issue and I think we heard from several town staff about positioning ourselves to come out of the pandemic and so as we're thinking about some of these changes we want to keep in mind what thoughtful changes in zoning are going to support and attract people to invest in our town versus let's say had yeah we want Hadley to also have grow and whatnot but you know but we also want to position ourselves as a town which is really really encountering a lot like as we all know of businesses closing and whatnot so what can we do to position ourselves to come out of that.  I know it's late but I just briefly wanted to talk about timing. You know I know I share George's feelings of we've waited a long time to get here. Let's go. But I also really think that there is a rush to do this. And I think part of that is what Shalini just said which is what we've seen with COVID which is the vulnerability of our local economy and the vulnerability of a lot of people in housing and specifically the renter population. I know that Darcy mentioned that words like low income or moderate housing weren't explicitly mentioned and then think and she's right they weren't and that's perhaps an oversight of the report. But when we're talking about things like supplemental dwelling units when we're talking about things like duplexes and triplexes. These are ways that have historically been avenues for affordable rentals and affordable homeownership which trust me this town needs avenues for people to be able to buy properties. And a lot of folks myself included cannot afford single family homes in this town. And so I know it's easy to say that there's no rush when you don't personally feel there's a rush but I think for a lot of people who are looking at our local economy and looking at its fragility the zoning recommendations that can help bolster that local economy and improve downtown. I think there is a rush and I think for many of us who are looking at the housing situation and seeing people to stay in Amherst struggle to move to Amherst struggle to buy their first home. There is a rush and anything we can do in zoning that can help create more affordable housing and I think things like duplexes and triplexes things like allowing smaller lot sizes were to allow us to build smaller homes that are more affordable for people who don't have the income to buy a $400,000 home. I think those things are important so I actually think there is a rush year beyond just our personal interest in zoning. And I think that COVID has only further exposed the need for this. Okay, Darcy, your hand up. Yeah, I would just say, in response to what Evan just said, that I agree with him that we really need to have those types of duplexes and triplexes and you know, making accessory units easier and so on. But I guess I am wanting to make sure that they are going to go to families to make more housing available for our neighborhood income families and low income families as opposed to just, you know, unlocking housing in general in order to house UMass students throughout all of our neighborhoods in downtown. You know, the more housing we build if we do not somehow have some kind of ability to control that, they won't go to moderate income families. That's what we've seen in our neighborhood. So, like I said, I am for having more of those types of units, but not, you know, I worry about who this is going to end up benefiting. And we want it to benefit our moderate income families so that they will stay here. Great, Steve. So absolutely, so neighborhood stability and affordability are critical. I live in a neighborhood where probably 50% students, 50% that live in 50%, what am I trying to say, mostly owner occupied multi family houses, one or two or three family houses where there's an owner and then there's a source of income, either through students or other people renting. But that is an incredibly, you know, quite frankly, logical business model in Amherst where there are ways of allowing people to, it's a way of achieving affordability is to have a rental unit, you know, on the same piece of property. And we should not be dismissing the fact that students want to live off campus, but in fact we should be addressing that and I think the proposal to allow duplexes and dryplexes or whatever, everywhere as long as their owner occupied is a very wise way of addressing these issues. But it's the owner occupancy which is critical that there. Okay, are there any other comments. First time we're going to have this discussion and Mandy Joe I'll touch base with you to see if you're going to come back in two weeks. Okay. We're going to move on to appointments. There was one that was asked by Darcy to not be included in the consent agenda and it was regarding the personnel. And so Darcy, why don't you give us the TSO report. And also, your reason for wanting it off the consent agenda, which you asked well in advance, and it was not a unanimous decision. So, as you can see from the report, the committee voted four to one to recommend the appointment of the five people put forward by the town manager for the personnel board. I was the dissenting boat and nothing whatsoever against Mr. Butterfield, but it was based on disagreeing with this recommendation for his appointment for a three year term when he spent on the board since 2006. And so I brought up the length of the term and the fact that the term appointed could have been a one year instead of three and George brought up the fact that the normal interview procedure wasn't followed and Alyssa noted that this was the town manager's practice, not to argue reappointments. So my concern actually has grown since that meeting. There were other issues that we were arguing about at the meeting, but since the meeting I realized we didn't really mention this at the meeting, the fact that the appointments weren't the vacancies weren't advertised. So there was not only not interviews, but it wasn't, it wasn't advertised. So, you know, we just voted tonight on repairing our relationship with black residents and Amherst. And one of the things we really should be doing as a matter of course is at the very least advertising committee vacancies, so that if someone somehow with some degree of diversity is available to serve, we can take advantage of it. And how can we ever do it if we don't advertise the position. I feel like our current system sort of is that the charter looked to get away from the kind of old boy system. And that's what we want to do. I think our current system is not what was intended by the charter. So again, I am not saying that Tony Butterfield is not a wonderful personnel board member I'm just saying that we have a new world out here, and we should be opening up opportunities to that new world. The charter actually requires the town manager to set up policies and procedures to increase diversity in committee membership and I, I think that our, our board and committee handbook probably needs to be updated and clarified to to to deal with how, you know, I personally think that it should require that positions have to be advertised when they become bacon, at least after six years of service. It's unclear to me one, what type of motion. I would potentially make tonight to remedy the situation but if any other counselors willing to make a motion or a motion to amend the main motion. I would second it. The second is to approve the following 10 manager appointments to the personnel board effective immediately as filed with the town clerk on November 17, 2020 and recommended by the town services now each committee report of December 4, 2020, for terms to expire June 30, 2023, Tony Butterfield read appointment replica Woodland reappointment for term to expire June 30, 2022 Catherine Porter reappointment for terms to expire June 30, 2021 Christopher Huff Jones trust Jones Library trustee designee reappointment Charlie Charles Sherpa employee designee reappointment is there a second to the motion. Second Ryan.  And Darcy is bringing up a concern for me that I really want to ask Paul about because I know when the disability committee had vacancies, you did not reappoint people because they had been on the committee too long. And yet here we have an instance where this gentleman has been on the committee for a very long time and I thank him for his service. However, I feel like it seems to me one it's not transparent and number two, you kind of, and I guess that's your role is harder but it may it's making me very uncomfortable that you remove people without explaining why for being on too long and then keep people who have been on too long. So I'm left really questioning what happened on the disability advisory committee. And at some point if we want to raise the question of another committee, then we'll come back to but it's the same issue when the issue is the issue but then, but let's stick to this committee. So I have a lot of questions. And I'm going to just put out there that I'm thinking of making a motion but I need to hear from Paul before I can decide whether or not emotion is appropriate. And so I'm hoping Paul you can answer a ton of questions that I have. The first one is why was a member who has already been on the board for 14 years recommended for reappointment for another three when all five positions were open and he could have been recommended for one. There are other two reappointments that have already been on for three and four. And the one that's been on for four was not recommended for another three but the one that was on for 14 was and similar to that. You stated that you advertised in your memo but you didn't put a date and your other memo for tonight's appointment for CDBG had a date that that advertisement went on to the bulletin board. So did you advertise and if so what date did you put on and did you receive any applications and or I think you go back three years for applications are there other people who have applied for personnel board that you did not interview this time despite having five positions open and if so why weren't they interviewed. I don't know who chooses the employee representative that was very unclear in the memo completely.  Is it normally a one year appointment or is that something that could normally be three years or two years and you know I just we don't know this because it wasn't mentioned and I don't even know whether Mr Sherpa is a I think it said reappointment on this but that wasn't in your memo that just showed up in our motion so has he been the employee representative and if so for how long has he been the employee representative and and please explain to me how you deal with the appointed committee handbook because that says clearly that an executive I mean that was adopted by the executive it's never been adopted by the legislative our side but it has been adopted by the executive that the in the appointed committee handbook after two terms, there isn't supposed to be a preference for a third, according to the handbook. And then finally, can you explain why all five positions are up for reappointment right now or appointment at all when it's supposed to be staggered terms how did we get to a point where all five members had their terms expire at the same time like that should never happen when they're all supposed to be staggered. You're muted. So for the terms. So the library under the by law or the charge of the by the actual by law, the, the library trustees have an appointment so I make that a one that's a one year appointment they can choose who they want every year. The employees have an appointment so I go to the employees and say who would who would you like to have, you know, represent you, and whatever names the library trustees give and the employees get and there's a contact person at the employees that I go to, and say, would you, who do you want to represent you, how the employee representative chooses.  For the other two appointments one person had served one three year term in the end so I extended that for another three years and the other had already served four years so I extended her two years. Yes, Mr butterfield has been on for a very long time. I've always said to the select court that I don't believe in term limits. That's, that's, that wasn't, that's not my policy. And, you know, and, you know, and that's been the case for the disability access advisory commission. There have been people on there for a very long time for for a couple positions to answer this. That's a very, very, very dangerous question. The. I did not see these as vacancies. It's because I saw these as reappointments and so they did not advertise them that the memo should not have said that. The. I think that's those were the questions. I don't know if I got all the questions. Yeah, I was just going to check with Mandy Joe, whether were there additional questions. I think you got most of them, but the charter in section 9.12 E requires the advertisement for 14 days of vacancies or impending vacancies. Right. So I did not interpret that you don't in, you don't consider the fact that a term is expired as an impending vacancy before you even pull as to whether someone wants reappointed. Is that what you're telling us? That's, that's how I interpret it. Yeah. George. This was addressed in the memo and four members of the committee found the explanation by Mr. Bachman to be quite compelling. Which didn't seem to come out as clearly in the chairs comments earlier. So I'll just read it for what it's worth. Mr. Butterfield has been a member of the personal board since 2006. He brings an unusual set of experience skills and historical knowledge to the board. Human resource directors have relied on him for advice on important personal issues. In addition, I have gone to Mr. Butterfield both as a confidant and guide on some particularly thorny issues. His council has been important in my role as town manager. He has also established an excellent rapport and trust with employees and brings instant credibility to complex situations. As we bring on a new human resources director, I have determined that Mr. Butterfield's continued service on the board is crucial to our continued success. Any further comment George. It's time. I can see that there are some issues about appointments, reappointments that perhaps need to be discussed. But as a general rule, I really feel extremely uncomfortable in having these process discussions done around real people because I think it will make people really think twice about applying for committees. So I do see there's some areas where it's not clear what is the ruling or what is the practice, what should it be, what should it not be. And I think that should be addressed. But I would recommend that we not mix that up with this particular process because we have real people in the being recommended. Steve, you have your, I'm going to go to Steve first and then come back to me and show. So I support the town manager's ability to feel the best possible team. That's really what his job is, you know, that's what the charter says that the town manager is in charge of these certain appointments and legislatures in charge of these other appointments. I respect his ability to do his job. I think that if you ever agree with those who have said that when somebody's term ends, that's basically a vacancy in my opinion and that should be advertised. And I think that that otherwise it really doesn't look transparent. It doesn't look right. So I have not realized I was a practice I was being used. I'm going to vote yes on this slate, but I hope that that message. We hope the town manager.  They might be the right person to fill that same vacancy. But it just doesn't send the right message unless we do that. Unless he does that. Mindy Joe. I'm going to move to amend the motion. And so that Catherine Porter's term expires on June 30, 2023. Charles Sherpa's term expires on June 30, 2022. And Tony Butterfield's term expires June 30, 2021. I second it. Can I speak to it? The motion. So I am very concerned that as a charter commissioner, we put in the requirement to notice on a bulletin board impending vacancies so that you didn't just reappoint someone from the inside over and over again without ever giving someone who's not in government a chance to express their interest. And so while I don't want to reject every single one of these appointments except for Chris Hoffman's and Charlie Sherpa's because those are the two that would in some sense never really get advertised to the outside world. I kind of do want to reject all three of them because I'm really disappointed that we're not advertising positions and kind of keeping an old voice network because that was not the point of the charter. And at the same time, I'm also disappointed that when I asked a question about why Catherine Porter who has served four term four years already did not get a three year term. But Tony Butterfield who has served 14 years did get a three year term the answer was well she's already served four, so we'll give her two, but he served 14 so we'll give him three. It doesn't make any sense. And you can get that continuation of the knowledge that Mr Butterfield provides for a new HR director with a one year term, which is why I propose and I'm seeking to amend this him down to one year. And because you know, he can do fantastic work. But if we're not even advertising the positions we don't know who else is in this town that can do just as fantastic of work. And that's a big problem. So that's why I'm making this motion. Motion's been made and seconded so comments should be to the amendment. I mean the motion has been original motion has been amended, and that amendment was seconded. So comments should be to this motion, Evan. I don't think this motion is appropriate. This is not a town council appointment. This is a town manager appointment. The charter says that we have the ability to approve or reject the town managers appointments but it does not in any way read to me that we can amend the appointment so if this was a town council appointment. I think we could have a lengthy discussion about term limits I think we could amend them. But I think this this motion is actually in contradiction to the words of the charter I don't think that we have the ability to amend any town manager appointments only to approve or reject and so if, if people are unhappy with the appointments I think they can vote to reject but I don't believe that we have the ability to amend. Thank you for raising that question. I've had that question, frankly, myself as well. Alyssa. Thank you I think that's an approach that maybe is you know is this an amicable way we can work out a disagreement rather than a rejection, but I also understand Evan's point. I want to just make two clarifications one is that TSO did not vote to agree that not advertising explorations in conflict with the charter was a good idea that we were happy about that that conversation didn't happen. Okay, it was that given the totality of the information as George explained, we agreed with the reappointments that doesn't mean we agreed with the process and you know I'm the first to complain when it doesn't when there aren't the postings for the vacancies. And so I think that's something we need to discuss as a separate process issue to see if that is something because there have been things that OCA and then TSO said, if you're aren't going to follow these guidelines we're going to reject your appointments. So that may be that kind of conversation. But the other part is is I can't agree with the amendment of the term for the employee representative or the library trustee. Those have nothing to do with the town manager. The employees should be picking a person every single year if they want to pick the same person forever. That's their problem, but they should not pick that person for two years for three years. They should only pick them for one and the same with library trustees, just like for a Community Preservation Act, for example, Conservation Commission should not be sending somebody for three years. They should send them for one year and if they want to send them 12 times in a row, that's fine with me, but they should only be doing it a one year at a time it has nothing to do with their other lives. The employee should be making a choice every year. The library trustee should be making a choice every year. There's a motion on the floor. It's been amended with and there's been a second to the amendment, although the question has been raised as to whether the council has the authority will to do anything other than accept or reject the town manager's recommendation. Mandy Joe. If it pleases people, I will, I will withdraw that one and make a different one. If that would potentially solve the issue. You need to get your second to agree to that. Yeah. I will withdraw that motion and make a separate motion that is to a motion to amend to delete quote Tony Butterfield reappointment from the motion and to add the phrase quote to reject the town manager appointment of Tony Butterfield to the personnel board as filed with the town clerk on November 17 2020 and to the beginning of the motion. I can read the full motion is how it would. Is there a second to the motion and then I want to discuss why that's any different than the first in terms of whether we have the authority to just to change the authority to reject any appointment of the manager under the charter. And this amendment would reject Tony Butterfield but approve the rest. Okay. Mandy Joe anything further to say on that. If the council doesn't believe we have the ability to change the terms of the appointments then I believe we should reject Mr Butterfield not because he's not qualified but because the personnel boards. The appointments were not advertised and he is the one that has served the longest in contradicting to other statements the manager has already made about terms and reappointments. Kathy. Yeah, I just, I have a question. As I understand it. I understand what Mandy just did which she in a box she found a way to adhere to the charter. If what we really want would like here is for Paul to look at the terms that he proposed and say, Oh, I can change them in the following way. The ability to just to ask for that because we can also reject the whole group and just ask come back. And this is what you want you to address and that just seems to be a more secretive route to go.  I wouldn't be in a position to vote on this, I would just have to abstain.  And so therefore you're picking one out to reject is the way I understand what just happened. I think it's very unfortunate. So that's my comment on this that we can't just have Paul say, huh, okay. Can I respond Lynn quickly. Yes, please. So we have to approve or reject today we can't send back to Paul without one or the other or they are pocket approved according to the charter which is why a referral back to TSO won't solve this issue for an amended motion or amended memo. And the other thing is if we seek to reject three of the five the three reappointments that are not library trustees or person or employee representative. And the personnel board wouldn't have a quorum. So I, I definitely don't know the, you know, Paul's thinking about this but I have confidence that he has thought about all of these terms. He's basically the general manager right for, you know, if we're a sports team, he's a general manager and he's responsibilities to figure out again the best possible teams and I am not a position to guess whether or not somebody should get a shorter term or somebody should get a longer term. I really trust Paul to make that decision. I completely agree with the comments that this could have been advertised. This is not a reason to, you know, basically embarrass really good community members who have been put forth. Any other comment, shall we go back to that friend make it a friendly whatever and what money Joe proposed because I thought that was a much better way to deal with this, rather than. I mean just because we want to be right. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying but I just feel that I don't. I think that was a good amicable solution that we offer one year well and then discuss that other process as a separate thing. But it wouldn't it's better than just saying no and rejecting because yeah he's. Yeah, I don't know. There's a motion there's an amendment to the motion on the floor and it's been made in seconded so that's where we stand at this point. I will not support the motion. I don't like the kind of process that that Paul you maintain where you have one set of rules for one people and one set of rules for another group of people. Someone you like someone you don't like I have no idea. I'm hoping it's a better criteria than that. I did respect what you said about Mr Butterfield and I can see why you want to work with him. I feel very strongly while I can't support this right now that you need to come up with a real real criteria and and say to the council. This is the criteria I will use and I will use it consistently because I won't get into the docker. But it's it's got vacancies because the process wasn't well handled and because there was a removal of a person who had a long term commitment. So you need to come up with a consistent criteria or this kind of thing will happen again and I won't support your decision.   And Darcy, your hand is now up. Yeah, I would just say that a compromise mission might be voting for Mandy Joe's motion, but with a message to the town manager. That he come back to us with a wreck, a recommendation for a one year appointment. He did say that he wanted to have a one year overlap with the new human resources director so that Tony Butterfield could help her in the first year. So if we sent that message, and also the message that we want him to advertise in the future in this type of situation, then maybe that would be a compromise. I don't have any other comments at this time. Okay, the motion's been on is on the floor it's now been amended the amendment is to basically accept the full set except Tony Butterfield. I'm going to call the question on the amendment. It's a favor of the amendment it's to remove the appointment of Tony Butterfield from the list. And if you vote for it, it's to keep it there. That's not true. That's not the motion that she made. All right, what is your motion Mandy Joe. If you vote for the motion, the motion on if the if you vote for the motion you want the motion on the floor to make it it back up to read to reject the town manager appointment of Tony Butterfield to the personnel board as filed with the town clerk on November 17 2020 and to approve the following town manager appointments to the personnel board effective immediately as filed with the town clerk on November 17 2020 and recommended by the town services and outreach committee report of December December 4 2020 for term to expire June 30 2023 Rebecca Woodland reappointment and then the rest would read the same. Okay. The motion to amend would make the motion read voting against it would take it back to the original motion. Okay. Any questions on the motion. Shall me. I'm sorry I haven't understood calls reasoning for this. I'm sorry. Could you again, try to explain what is your reasoning for doing this. You're asking Paul back. Yes, please. I think the question has been called. I think we have to vote. Oh, you asked for discussion or any other questions. Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay. You can't call the question unless we if there's a objection unless two thirds say and debate. I think I think the president said that she calls a question and I'd like I was going to explain what the motion was and we're about to vote. It was basically indicating you move forward shall me as a question her question is to Paul. Mr Ryan council Ryan read the major conversation reason for it and the personnel board is basically advisory to the town manager so the different kind of board than all of every other board it is an advisory to the town to the executive. In my position, there aren't many people that I can confide in when I'm talking about other high level department head level people in my in our organization. I found his I find his advice and his guidance being extremely important to me as a manager is unusual situation I do recognize that. And I and I hear what you're all saying so I respect those points and I hear them and will understand the points you're making that and I'm sure why you're making them. But for this particular instance, because I need someone to be able to talk to who's not as political figure, but also understands the town as a has the respect of the town employees. And I talked to him about the about certain things that I can't talk to my colleagues about, you know, there's no one at this level that I can talk to, you know, I can talk about political things. I can talk about management things with other managers, but in terms of our organization is the person is my go to person. That's why I find him by and and yeah. I'm so glad I asked you this question, because that really helps to clarify for me and it's what I'm hearing is that this is a little different from other regular boats, at least that's what I got out of it and it's helped me decide how I'm going to vote. Thank you, Paul. Oops. Are there further questions of clarification. Dorothy. I just want to say that when someone that you respect was doing a difficult job says that I really need this person to help me do it. And for process reasons, you decide that that's not important that you are actually doing a hostile act to that person. And I don't think anyone in this room on this zoom sport really means to do that. So, I just think let's have some balance. It's all I'm requesting. Are there any other questions from the council comments. Okay. So the motion. This is the amendment to the original motion. Okay. Does everybody understand the amendment. Okay. And I begin the vote with Dorothy Pam. No. Evan Ross. No. George Ryan. No. Kathy Shane. Stay. Steve Schreiber. No. Andy Steinberg. No. Sarah Schwartz. She left. Shalini Balmille. No. Alyssa Brewer. No. No. Garcy Dumont. No. Lynn Griesmer. No. Yes. Okay. The amendment. Did not pass. And we are now back to the original motion. The original motion is to approve the following town manager appointments to the personnel board. The prior and recommended by the town services. Outreach committee report of December 4th, 2020. Returns to expire June 30th, 2023. Tony Butterfield reappointment, Rebecca Woodland reappointment. Returns to expire 20. The expire June 30. 2022. Catherine Porter reappointment. for terms to expire June 30th, 2022. Chris Huffman, Jones Library Trustee Designate Reappointment. Charles Sherpa, Employee Designate Reappointment. Motion's been made and seconded. Any further discussion? All right, then this time we begin with Evan Ross. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Shalini Bonim. Yes. Melissa Brewer. Yes. Pat D'Angelois. Yes. Darcy DuMont. No. Lynn Griesmer is yes. Mandy Johannike. No. Dorothy Pam. Yes. The motion passes 10 in favor, two opposed, no extensions and one absent. Any further? Okay, we're moving on. We've already done the approval. Now we're on to committee and liaison reports. Community resources committee. Anything else, Mandy Johannike? I just want to highlight quickly two things. Actually one thing, which is the comprehensive housing policy draft. There was attached draft of the goals and objectives sections only of this draft policy along with some introduction and explanatory sections. We are seeking feedback on those sections. So any suggestions counselors have on feedback, on how to solicit feedback from the public would be welcome. Please forward that to me. If you have feedback on the document that was attached to the report forward it to me, I'll include it the next time we're talking about those sections. And I'm not sure my report indicated which committees we'd invited the chairs to. The chairs from to our next meeting to talk about feedback from committees, but I thought I'd indicate which ones they are. And they are the planning board, the zoning board of appeals, the ECAC, the housing trust, the PPA, and the CDBG advisory committees. We've invited the chairs to talk to about feedback from their committees specifically. In relationship to the housing. To the housing policy. Thank you. Thank you. Just clarifying for the public, that's all. All right, Andy. The finance committee I have to be really quick. So I don't have to say that our meeting is going to be later today, which is going to happen very soon. But we are meeting it tomorrow. And the two items are the draft of the guidelines which we will then be forwarding to the council. This is all according to the schedule that was sent to the council in our report of November 9. And the way that we had envisioned it that we would send it to the council that if there was significant questions about it and you wanted to refer it back to the committee that we would meet them the following day on the 22nd of December and bring it back on January 4th. Though there's always the hope and the positive that it'll actually be just adopted at our next meeting on the 21st. And the other item that may come back to the council now is that we're also taking up tomorrow a discussion of a proposal on capital inventory, which was something that the council referred to the committee. And so it may come back after tomorrow's meeting too. So that's the report. Thank you. GOL, George. Yes, quickly three things. First of all, we will be doing interviews for the FINCOM vacancy on December 16th, Wednesday. The SOIs for the candidates will be publicly available on this Wednesday, December 9th. We hope to have a recommendation to the town council for our December 21 meeting. Also note that there is in the GOL report a timeline that we've been working on. This is draft number five related to town manager evaluation, the process of town manager evaluation and the setting of town manager goals. And we very much appreciate any comments you have already gotten some comments from one council already, which will be incorporated into the new draft. But anything you notice, typos, confusions, and please read carefully the section excerpted in the report, which comes from the town manager's contract because that paragraph basically governs this document. But we very much appreciate your comments. If you have any, send them to me. We hope to have this for you, have this finalized by our meeting on December 16th as well. And finally, very quickly, I solemnly promise as chair that we will get the bylaws for future consideration to you by March. Every meeting from now on, we will begin with the homework assignments that I've given to all my colleagues on GOL. And so we are conscious of this, we are conscious of the referral, and we are working on it.  Is that a question? Yeah, I just have a quick question. I think I know the answer to it, but for Fincom, then the non-voting resident, if we wanted to reopen the question, I'm on finance, reopen the issue of whether those should just be one year appointments or longer, would we have to first go to the charge, change the charge? Do we need to come through GOL? How do we do it? And I just raise it because I think there's a learning curve on funds, and I would love to bring some new people in and have them stay for two years or for three years with the idea that maybe even some of them might wanna run for counsel someday and getting to know the budget would be a waste. So I just, I don't know when to raise that and we just happen to have an opening right now. So I just need someone to tell me about when and how and where do I raise that issue? And I raised it when we first were elected, when we first ran that I felt those should be longer. So I just need guidance on how I would re-raise the issue. Wendy Jo. So I was just gonna correct that the current charge has two year terms for the non-voting members. So it has at least two. So originally I was doing, it was thinking three. I guess we appointed one of them for only one year was an issue. Correct. Because we were trying to stagger them. Right. And we're still trying to stagger them. So in answer to your question, I think it would have to go back for first of all discussion with finance and then, and they would say then to GOL we'd like to change the charge if they agree. Any other thoughts on that? All right. Kathy, nothing on JCPC yet. Darcy, CSO. Oh, I guess the only, I can't talk. Let me second. I'm not sure I can talk yet. I'll tell you later. Thank you. We've approved the minutes. Paul, town managers report. I know it's like there's just one thing. I want to make sure that you and the audience do that there was the university opened up asymptomatic testing to the community. It starts next Monday. You can go online, sign up for it. It's free. It really is designed to be in for the Amherst area that the governor explicitly said that today during his press conference. We are still exploring a symptomatic testing or contact testing because that's not permitted at this location. We're working with the city of Northampton to have designated a mobile testing site in the town that our health director with that could direct people to if there's an outbreak in a restaurant or a business or someplace and they have close contacts, they need to get tested. There aren't really easy places for them to be tested. But good news on the UMass site and appreciate the work of the university and the governor and his staff for making that happen. Great, thank you. Any questions on the town manager's report?  It's a real quick one on the testing poll. Do you happen to know or could you get back to us? Is it the kind of testing like the quest testing where you get your results back two days later or is it the rapid, the 15 minute or it's just today? Thank you. The same thing that they've been offering to students. Yeah. Under town councilor comments, I wanna make sure that you are aware that once I receive the Black History Month and the Martin Luther King Day proclamations, I will be automatically referring them to GOL. I'm expecting to receive them sometime this week so that they can go to GOL next week so that they can come to the council on the 21st so that we can then hopefully approve them in time for the month of January. Darcy, do you have a question? Let's see if I can, yes, I can talk, good. I just wanted to say that the comments for the on the North Common to TSO are due. I had sent out an email suggesting that they be due at the end of the day this Friday. So if you could get them to me, that would be great. And also I just want to repeat my comment from earlier that I would like it if we could have the practice of notifying all of us when we get a referral to a committee so that we all know even if the referral is automatic so that we all maybe the referral could go to all of us, including whatever the document is. I'll be glad to do that, do it that way. I'll send it to the chair of the committee and CCB council. Yeah, that'd be great. No problem, good suggestion. Thank you. Are there any other comments, future agenda items or councilor comments? Darcy, your hand is still up but I assume that you're done. Yes, Alyssa. Maybe this may be a finance committee referral but somehow we need to find a way to talk about as a town council what we're doing with the marijuana money we're receiving from host community agreements and excise taxes. I brought it up before when it finally started showing up on our quarterly reports we need to be making proactive decisions about this not just assuming it'll just get in the general fund and stay that way. Is it acceptable to you that we start it with finance committee and bring it to the council? Absolutely. Andy, got that one? Yes, I do have that one. Alyssa has brought it up before and will look for recommendation also from the town manager, I presume. Okay, and if you would like to bring it back to the council before making a final recommendation just let me know that, okay? Now if you wanna have a council have more of a discussion before the finance committee makes a final recommendation you can certainly bring it to the council we have a conversation goes back to finance you make your recommendation, okay? Yes. Any other councilor comments? Future agenda items?  Then in that case we're actually going to adjourn at 1144. Thank you.


Namaste, Welcome to the video lecture on GSM Speech Coding, Authentication and Security. Learning Outcome. At the end of this session, students will be able to explain speech coding. Students will be able to analyze authentication and security in GSM. These are the contents of video lecture. To send a voice across a radio network, we have to turn our voice into a digital signal. The speech signal is compressed using an algorithm known as RPE LPC algorithm, that is nothing but regular pulse-excited linear predictive coder. Before starting the GSM speech coding, authentication and security topic, pause the video for two minutes and list all steps which are involved in digital signal transmission. You can pause video for two minutes and list out all the process or all the steps which are involved in digital signal transmission. I think two minutes are over. GSM transmission process involves following steps. First step is analog to digital conversion, then converted data is segmented and speech is coded. Then next process is called speech coding, channel coding, inter-living, cyphering that is encryption process, bus formation and modulation and transmission. In essence, data from previous data samples are used to predict the current data samples. Each data sample is then encoded, which is a sum of bits representing the coefficients of the linear combination of previous sample. And an encoded form of difference between the predicted and actual sample speech is converted into 60-bit packet with duration of 20 millisecond. Speech coder output bits are ordered into selected group for error protection. This can be divided into three classes. Based on the importance of the bits, from the given packet of 260-bit information or following division is taken place. First class that is class 1abit. This group includes 50 bits most sensitive to the bit errors. Next class is called class 1b. This includes 132 bits moderately sensitive to bit errors and third group is called class 2, which involves or which includes 78 bits least sensitive to bit errors. Class 1a that is 50 bits are protected by three bits by using CRC method that is cyclic redundancy check. Class 1a which includes 50 bits and 3 CRC bits, 189 bits block which includes 53 bits from class 1a and 132 bits of class 1b, which all add together to form 189-bit packet. And next step is these 189-bit packet is then error protected by convolution with rate of 0.5 or we can say with half rate and with the length of 5. Resulting 189 bits are converted into 378 bits by using convolution method. Now the last group that is least important bits which is also called class 3 bits which includes 78 bits are unprotected and are appended to existing sequence to produce 456 bits in 20 millisecond. We can observe how 260 bits are converted into 456 bits. First the 260 bits packet are converted into three groups that is class 1a, class 1b and class 2 and then by using error protection these bits are converted into 456-bit packet. We can observe speech coding process distribution of 260-bit speech data in 50, 132 and 78 bits and further how these 50, 132 and 78 bits are error protected and converted to form 456-bit packet. Now next step which involved in data transmission interleaving of user traffic data. The purpose of interleaving user traffic data is to improve the signal quality by distributing the effects of fading among several mobile subscribers receiving data simultaneously from base stations. The user traffic data of 456 bits are interleaved into transmitted normal burst in blocks of 57 bits plus 1 plaque bit means the 456-bit data is distributed in 58-bit block, 456-bit encoded data divided into 857-bit sub block forming speech frame. The speech data are encrypted 114 bits at a time assembled into time slot and modulated for transmission. Next step is packets of signaling channel. The number of signaling or control channels are used to determine how traffic data are in the network. Signaling channel employing the normal burst use 184 signaling bits in 20ms duration. Further these bits are coded with 40 additional parity check bits and 4 tail bits to form 228-bit block, further 228-bit block is then coded with convolution encoder with the same rate which was previously used. We can say it is used as a half rate convolution packets of data traffic 192 bits user data plus 48-bit signaling data with 4 tail bits which results in 244-bit packet encoded with half rate convolution encoder punctured coding to eliminate duplicate bits resulting coded data packet is of 456 bits. Now next step of data transmission which is called channel coding for traffic or control data. Traffic data is processed in blocks of 240 bits every 20ms traffic data is processed in blocks of 240 bits every 20ms. For the actual supported data rates of 9.6kbps, 4.8kbps and 2.4kbps each block is augmented by 4 tail bits. Trim code is used to produce a block of 244 into 2 that means 488 bits. The 488 bits are spread over 22 bus first and 22nd bus carry 6 bits, 2nd and 21st bus carries 12 bits, 3rd and 20th bus carry 18 bits, 4th through 19th bus carry 24 bits each. Authentication and security in GSM. The two security goals of GSM are to provide an infrastructure which protects access to the mobile services and to prevent any information from being disclosed. In other words, GSM aims to prevent fraudulent phone use and to provide privacy for both parties to provide security. First is authentication and register users, second one secure data transfer, then subscriber identity protection, then mobile phones are inoperable without SIM chip. Next one is duplicate SIMs on network are not permitted and last one keys are securely stored. Authentication and security which includes GSM divides security on three different levels. Each level provides the mechanism for anonymity, authentication, confidentiality or integrity. On the lowest level of security GSM provides authentication and anonymity for the user through the SIM card. The SIM chip serves as the identification of the user. Billing and authentication are verified through the SIM chip. The second layer of security identifies the location of the user and reveals the incoming caller's name to the receiver so the receiver can choose whether or not to accept the call. The third layer encrypts any data travelling between the two users with the data encrypted and connection secure integrity and confidentiality is provided. As we can see the authentication process in GSM involves two segments, MS and network and it needs supporting data like IMSA number and key. Let us discuss the authentication process in detail. A cell phone call placed on a GSM network goes through the two steps. Any mobile device must first be authenticated before any data transmission can begin Being successful authentication a private key KC is generated and data is exchanged. Authentication is done through a challenge and response mechanism. The base station initially sends a random 128 bit number R to the mobile device using A3 encryption with input key KI from the SIM and the random number R a 32 bit encrypted number SRS is generated. The mobile device then sends generated number back to the network to validation. The network itself knows the mobile device KI that is input key and can thus compare the value it generated to the value the mobile device generated. Authentication is successful if mobile numbers are identical. These are references. Thank you.