on this document but there are two things that feel really important to me and one of them is that, sorry, so in, I believe it was like capital or... Let's put it up on the screen so that we can follow it. Thank you, sorry. No problem. So it's expenses for operations, actually. There's a section that has a number of recommendations for the uses of ARPA funds and I'm actually hoping that we can take that out because it's specified specific uses for ARPA funds but doesn't include all things that I believe the ARPA funds should be used for and I think that that should be a separate conversation when the ARPA recommendations come from the town manager that we deal with it at that time. I don't think we should be putting recommended uses in here for the ARPA funds ahead of that conversation because there are things that I think ARPA funds should be used for that are not included in this list and I would of course opt to add those things but I think it deserves a more full, separate conversation, the use of ARPA funds and additionally another thing and I wasn't sure if this is something that was ever resolved and I know it came up at the finance committee meeting and that was the discussion of staffing and I know that there was some discussion about having some type of staffing study or something to look into that more but I think that at the last ECAC meeting Stephanie Chickarello said that she recently missed another grant deadline just because she doesn't have capacity and so I think like when we're talking about initiatives that we wanna move forward and the fact that we don't have funding for all of the things that we need to do something that would be in our great benefit I mean more staffing in all departments which is probably not possible but staff to manage grants, staff to manage more income to the town to be able to work on certain initiatives and I'm wondering if there's anywhere that that was represented because I know it came up but I wasn't sure because I missed part of the meeting how we settled that conversation. Andy do you wanna speak to, I think the second one is included. I think we had quite a discussion about staffing and grants and included something on that. While we're looking for that I'm gonna go to Mandy Jo. I just had a basic question that doesn't really deal with the language of this but on the first page it says the guidelines refer to the town charter and to the town of Amherst financial management policies and objectives that were adopted in January of 2008 and revised in 2022. I don't remember the council revising them so I just have a question as to whether the council votes them or was it another body? Is it the manager that adopts and revises the financial management policies? Is it just, it doesn't have to be answered tonight but I would just like to know cause I don't remember the council adopting the financial management policy any revisions to that document so I'm curious who did? Good question, thank you. So we're looking at two things right now. One was the issue of ARPA, another one was the issue of a staffing study and the third was the one that Shalini raised which is under the utilized buildings that could be used to produce revenue. Of those, I know the staffing issue with regard to grants was discussed and it's somewhere in this page. It's someone who's ever scrolling stuff because you just had it on the page. There's several places where it comes up, this page as well as page 10 and there was one other one. I remember it being. So I can speak to it. What we talked about was that bringing in grants that also cover staff could bring in new staff and we're particularly looking at where the staff could then bring in new grants so in both directions as you're saying, we showed that if the examples that we've all known is that there's federal incentive money out there and we don't have staff to even apply for it we lose the resources so there's probably a way to do some of that within the grant bringing in coverage of staff as well. So we added the words, including staff. Okay, so I think that one's managed. Surplus was on page eight. The surplus property is the end of September to begin. And the surplus property is on the top of eight. Thank you. And the staffing study is middle, bottom-ish of page six. I guess on the marked up copy it's the last paragraph that's showing right now is surplus property. That's the issue of when we don't have, when we have a property we're no longer using. Is that what you're referring to? Yes. What I'm referring to, I think that covers Sean's question, but Sean is the only one that can do that. So I think that's taken care of and then let's find whatever we've said about ARPA. Maybe we have to do a word search. It's on page seven. It's the top of page seven. And so if it's okay if I just reiterate, my concern was just that we have very specific initiatives listed here. And I mean, I could argue to add other initiatives, but I think that just taking them out and having the ARPA discussion be a separate discussion from this in terms of the use of the ARPA funds, I think might be in our best interest because I think that it would involve a much more in-depth conversation to determine what we do believe the best recommendation for the use of the ARPA funds are. So the recommendation would be basically to strike the sentence that says this could include allocation of ARPA funds to town capital needs, including roads, blah, blah, blah, fossil fuels. Yeah. Okay. Let's pause on that for a moment and going back to Finance Committee, I guess. Does it change anything dramatically if we eliminate that sentence? I'm gonna go to Anna while we think about that. Anna? I think the, my understanding was that that sentence was based on a conversation that we as the council had. I do not remember even the month, but a while back where these were brought forward and discussed, I don't mind taking them out strictly because I believe that the allocation specificity lies with the town manager and I don't necessarily agree that it's appropriate for us to be pitching specific projects since it's ultimately his decision. And what we are asking for in the first sentence is basically saying, we need to be made aware so that we can talk to our constituents and pass messages along. But the vote that the last council made authorized the town manager to make those decisions and I would support striking that sentence strictly because even though I think that there's great things in there because I think that what we're bordering on is the council overstepping into what we've asked the town manager to be responsible for. Okay. Yes. I'm having problems getting to kind of having the document and the hand raised on separate pages, separate screens. The sentence, I mean, what we say in there is we recommend that you include remaining ARPA funds and projections of other possible grant support. But we don't really, we give examples but do we really recommend anything other than we're giving examples but it's not an exclusive list. And ultimately it is, I think that the question back to, the elution may be raising is whether we want to make more concrete recommendations than just saying, here's some possibilities and we'd like you to include the remaining ARPA funds and projections in your planning. So I think that it's a, that's really what the question becomes as to whether we want to have the opportunity to provide more than just here's some possibilities but give more concrete suggestions. Michelle. I have a question and a comment. My recollection is we received public input on the second round of ARPA funds. So I think the meeting that Anna is referring to is when we received input from the public and it included many of these items that input but it also included a lot of other items that are not in this list. So I do feel uncomfortable that the list is limited to particular items that I don't believe were discussed as a full council. So I would very much be in favor of removing this because I think at this point we're not going to have that discussion before these are adopted. I also have a question for Paul. Paul, is there a timeline when the second round of funds need to be spent? Like what are the milestones or deadlines? So all the funds have to be contracted for by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2025. And is that by calendar 2025? Thank you. Okay. Jennifer, I'm not ignoring you Alicia. I'm trying to get other people. That's okay. Yeah, just briefly. I agree with Alicia that and what Michelle said when there's a list somehow that if it's not comprehensive it looks like we're prioritizing. So I think just to delete what's highlighted in yellow would be wise. Kathy? I'm okay with taking this out but I just want to point out the context. It was in the past when we've seen a budget we don't necessarily see that we bought a bunch of grant funds in and it paid for something in the budget. So that was the context that we don't even see it. So an example would be the turnaround on Palmaré Lane. That was grant funded but you didn't ever see it in the budget. So trying to figure out a way to show us that in addition to the property tax revenue and everything else there were some grants and they bought us the following. So taking this out is fine but that was the sense it was in and we just picked capital projects because you wanted to say some of the roads were paid for by this source, by this source because it says next year we won't have the money. You know, that we get one time money. So that's the context. It wasn't to be selective and say not other things but things that aren't town services would not be there, you know, in the same way.  So again, I'm okay with taking out but that was the sense of it that, you know, you're spending money and getting us roads but we didn't see that money anywhere.  This is just a response to Mandy Jo's question. It's really a typo, it should say 2012, not 2022. There you go. All right, we have one correction we are making and I'm gonna go to Pam Rooney. Okay, so we've talked about eliminating the sentence. Many of the, oh, don't go away. Don't move. Go back, where the sentence. I'll come back, I'm fixing the date on the first page. Well, I'll just say it then. So instead of listing specifically the capital projects, perhaps we could say, in addition to ameliorating the impact of COVID on our most vulnerable residents, we might, you might consider some on capital projects such as those discussed by the community.  Okay, Andy. Excuse me. I guess two things. One is I think that there's nothing that's problematic about removing the ARPA section and coming back at it in the next council because the guidelines really are written to assist the town manager in developing the FY 25 budget that he's presented on May 1st. And this is when the council can be most helpful in providing guidance for that document. But the ARPA funds, as was pointed out by Paul in giving the schedule of when decisions have to be made and when funds have to be expended are not operating on the same timeline. So I guess that was point one. So if the decision of the council is to move the references to ARPA, it's not gonna be harmful for the purpose that we created guidelines to begin with. But then the other thing that I just wanna note is and I think I can't remember when I explained this so it was to the committee or the full council, but my experience on the MMA physical policy committee when we did surveying of how funds were being spent far more communities were using it for capital as opposed to operating because operating expenses have a lasting effect and you have to, you're gonna fund them in future years which we found out with firefighters but a large number of communities more than operating capital of COVID. So the thought about putting considering for capital wasn't more than that considering using for capital did have a background to it. There seems to be a consensus that we're going to remove this line. If there's anybody that objects to that, please let me know. Okay, we're gonna take that line out and fix the typo and fix the typo. Thank you. Alicia, you have your hand up again. Yes, I just wanted to confirm with Paul though that when we do come back to the ARPA funds that your recommendations will come back before the council before you make final decisions as to how the remaining ARPA funds will be used. Correct, I've told the council I would report to the council on what the proposed use of funds are. Correct. Although we wanna be clear as Anna pointed out it is a town manager decision. We can advise, but that's what it is.  I'm gonna go to Dorothy. I'm just asking a question. I thought that I had heard that there was a chance that some ARPA funds could be used in this next round for supporting black business. Is that still a possibility or has it been ruled out? That has not been ruled out. What we've done by removing the sentence is take away what appears to be the beginning list and therefore it's not ruled out. Because I mean, I agree with some previous speaker that one time funding is much more appropriate than any kind of ongoing expenses. Thank you.  Yeah, is it okay if I just respond to Dorothy? I just wanted to say also that I am very much in support of using the ARPA funds for businesses to reopen the application and to focus on black owned and BIPOC owned businesses. But I didn't want, this list first of all didn't include that. And so I didn't want it to seem like we're only advocating for this set of things. I wanted it to be less limited. And so that we have the opportunity to explore those things when we come back to the ARPA decision. I didn't want there to be already prewritten things that we were advocating for before we had the time to talk about those things with the town manager. Okay, good. So the motion is been made and seconded. It's to adopt the FY 25 financial guidelines as amended even though we didn't officially amend them. Shalini? Yes. I just want to say that when you all do have the ARPA conversation, that is something I had written earlier to maybe Paul. But I think it's important to talk to the stakeholders and again, get a sense of what sort of need we need. We have limited funds and how to address some of the systemic things instead of handing out money but like find out where people were struggling. Like where were the problems? I can send more details about that. And then there's just, okay, enough of that. There's, I will send my comments about that later. But we did receive an email from our district and I don't know if this is the right place to put it but I'll just put it out there. And this was a request from the Applewood community. They've been asking for the senior center there has been asking for the ability to get the town to create the sidewalk from there to the Atkins so they can walk. And I don't know where that goes but we just got that email from. That's a larger process that I think Paul has updates on but I don't think that it's an ARPA news. Didn't mean that in an ARPA conversation that was more just the budgetary guidelines if that fits in an investigation now, okay. All right. Can I just say, I suggest that when, what happens is the working with DPW, the town manager comes forward with a list of road and sidewalk improvements. Other, we've never gotten more specific in the financial guidelines about that. Are there any other changes or requests? Andy? It's not really a change your request but Andy has raised a question so I'm not the policy, the financial policy. I just wanted to make a comment from somebody who was on the original committee back when there was a document. There are, it's a complex document and it includes some things that really are management issues about how the executive manages the financial government and there are some policy questions in there regarding things like what we just dealt with or the meetings ago about the percentage of money that should be held aside and proportioned to the budget in various categories whether it's 10.5% Japanese gold, which is the guidelines so that it's no longer part of the policies. If the other one is what percentage we are looking for with totally research, what percentage we can cash, what percentage is the minimum should be and other kinds of capital are funds, the stabilization funds. So there are those policy pieces but those important policy pieces have to be given to the council and are voted on by the council in their actions to make transparent funds. So I think for the most part, the cleanup of language in the amendment was really just efforts by Sean Mandano to work for clarity more than anything else and they're really aside from those few issues with things you have to do with administrative functions that really are in the executive realm and not to be drawn with the legislative plans. Mandy Jarrod, did you have a follow up on that? No, Paul answered my question with that it was a typo. Okay. So, yes, Alicia. Sorry, I did have one other request and then I do have to leave but I will continue to join you all virtually for the end of the meeting. But my last request is just some small wording changes on page six in regards to the Cress department. One, it's just listed as the Cress program. So I would just like to specify that this is an independent department and not a program and also I would like to strike the mental health and homelessness, et cetera in the types of services which may reduce the demand of the police department because I don't think that that's necessary and I think that one, I don't wanna lose the original mission and goal of Cress and also it's not limited to those two things. So I just think it's better just saying for some types of services. Is there any objection to that from anybody? Maybe in terms of the mental health and homelessness, et cetera. And I'm sitting here, that is not the only thing Cress is doing but it's two critical issues. Maybe because I'm around a lot of homeless people through some of my work that I'm aware of their constant interaction with the police and how Cress has supplanted that and fostered more security in that community. So I would like it to remain there. I think those are two important services. If inside the parentheses we said such as or EG, mental health, homelessness, et cetera, would that meet your sense, Alicia? No, I'm not actually hugely opposed to having this language here. I just think that what I have noticed in the past is that when we're talking about the Cress department that our focus is consistently on mental health and homelessness and that was not the original intention of the program specifically. So although that that is included in sort of the blanket of services provided of Cress, it is not the main focus. And so I think continuing to use this language as the only language is changing the focal point of what we intended this program to do. So... What would you add to make so those things could stay? And I'm not saying they have to but what would you add, Alicia? Okay, if you can give me a couple of seconds, I will think about that. But I do also just want to say about the other highlighted part, I would just still prefer for it to say like the Cress department as an independent department, not departmental department. God, I think we're fine on. We're just... Well, just because on the screen it says departmental program. It means departmental. No, the program has a line through it. Oh, okay. You can't see it. Okay. Oh, up there you can't. On this one you can see. I had, sorry. I just have my own version open. So I didn't see it. Got it. So because I want to focus on the fact that this is an alternative service, like an alternative response to nonviolent police calls. So that should encompass way more than just mental health and homelessness. And that its focus was on picking up people who do not necessarily feel safe or comfortable contacting the PD and that they also can have a public safety response to their nonviolent crises, which could include mental health and homelessness, but is not limited to and not solely focused on that. Not sure how to put that into exact words. So if it said EG, mental health, homelessness, other nonviolent, nonviolent events. Maybe we say which may or which can act as an alternative response to the police department for some types of services and then. Okay. I think we have two different things going on. So we're going to take out that thing and the sentence there, but what Alicia is now suggesting is which may act as an alternative to the police department and reduce the demand as an alternative and to reduce and to the police department. How's that? Yeah. Okay. All right. Anything else? Yeah. Alternative to and reduce. Reduce the demand on the police department. So reduce the demand. In other words, don't accept. There you go. Okay. Are there any other changes? Yes. Departments should be capitalized. Okay. Are there any other comments, questions, changes, requests? Okay. Seeing none, I want to bring this to a vote before Alicia has to leave to change her location. I'm going to start with Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tob. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shaline Balmillan. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Griesmorsen. Aye. Mandy Johanicki. Aye. Anika Lopes. Aye. That is unanimous. We did the town manager's goals. Given the hour, I would like to suggest that the council committee transitioned memos that each of you have provided us are fabulous. Can you give us a two sentence or just let it go? They're fabulous. Anika's very- They're good enough as is, Lynn. I don't think we need to speak to them. There'll be a lot of time to do that at the end, but we'd like to get the carryover memos. Okay. All right. All right, all right, all right, all right. We're gonna see her in a minute. She's just gonna go home. All right. Are there any questions or comments about the CRC one? Are there any comments or questions about the financial one? Are there any comments or questions about GOL? Are there any comments? Was there? Yes. Yes. We should. Are there any questions about the TSO report? I would, yes. Okay. Could we use the rate? Yes. Jennifer? Jennifer? Yes. So I have a question because I blurted it out before and Anika said it was there, but no, on the waste hauler, it says the revised, a revised bylaw, which has been referred, is the original one also? TSO memo includes about everything that we have, like all of the information that has come up to date. Could it just say the original proposed amendment and the revised? Well, the revised is what was the updated, rather the latest updated, which was submitted on December 13th, was even from the week before on the seventh, asked that it was approved and that all sponsors were on board with that. So that is what is being, what was placed into the carryover, but the background information is available as well. So it makes it clear that that is the, the updated draft is what we did not discuss in TSO. Okay, nice. The language is, it says the original proposed bylaw and an updated bylaw submitted will be carried over. It says that. Okay, so I had seen it earlier. Okay, great. Never mind. The paragraph for that section is very short. It's very short. Just that paragraph there is very short. So there are a lot of attachments that go with it, but it makes it very clear what is being carried over. Because I didn't see it. It didn't get in the packet till late, till that I had seen it earlier. Okay, thank you. It did, but it's there. Okay, Anna. I just wanted to, Anika had written some really nice thanks to some staff as the presentation. And I'd like to, if she's open to it, give her the opportunity to say that. Okay, Anika, please. No pressure. Make sure to thank the entire committee and also to Paul and Athena who I, I mean, I think Paul, did you even miss one meeting? That was great. And I also just wanted to give a thanks to our honorary members, members that were Amy Russocki and Gil Hurd-Boring and Susan Wait and Mandy Jo. Okay, that was it. Yeah. And TSO. I said that TSO first. All of the members would not have been, have been possible. I mean, I'm sorry, TAC, T-A-C. Oh, absolutely. Yes, Tracy, thank you. And the rest of every single member, but thank you, particularly to Tracy. Thank you so much. All right, we're moving on to H, which is a non-item because nobody submitted anything and you lost your opportunity to take things off of the referrals. We've already done the appointments on the consent agenda. And except for the building committees, are there any other comments that you don't feel have been covered this evening from CRC? I took my chance at the last meeting to thank everyone, but while we're in a full council meeting, I would really like to thank the staff that supports CRC, particularly in the last two years. You know, our staff support is normally Dave Zomek and Christine Brestrup, but in the last two years, we've received significant support from Rob Mora and John Thompson and even recently, Chief Ting, Nate Malloy always supports and all, and we couldn't do our work as a committee without them. And also Stephanie has been to a couple because of some of the referrals. So I just wanted to take the chance to thank the staff particularly. Great. Kathy, anything on elementary school building committee? No. Andy, anything on finance? No, I think with the guidelines, we're pretty much finally done with everything that was assigned to us for this year. Just have to pick up next year. A lot of our work is, of course, things that are not guided by the carryover memo at all but are guided by the charter and the budget process that's mandated by state statute and that work will continue. I want to thank the entire committee, including our resident members. It's the one committee that does have resident members because the possibility was suggested in the charter by the Charter Commission. It has turned out to be a really great experience to have it. I think that the other committees might want to consider having resident members also based upon what is now five years worth of experience with the finance committee and seeing that they really have provided a different perspective. In the non-legislative perspective, they have not gotten out of the lane of the committee who's now a councilor-elect, but I think that he's a councilor-elect because of the success of the process and because I think he learned a lot about the council and the community and the government and learned a lot about him because he was participating on the committee. And the last thing I want to do is thank all of the staff. I even want to thank Sean Mangano, even though he had the nerve to leave us. But since he's not here, I can do that. But I want to thank Paul and Athena for providing what they always do and Holly Jennifer LaFountain, Holly Drake and Jennifer LaFountain for the way that they picked up in addition to doing all of these two to answer questions that the committee may have. And we look forward to Paul's successful search for a finance committee, a finance director who can work with the committee in the future, but in the meantime, I think we're well-served by our staff and so thank you to everyone. Okay, GOL, Pat. Well, I absolutely want to thank Jennifer and Lynn and Michelle and Mandy for their work on the committee and Michelle for sharing it in the first year. That's a given. But I also want to thank the multitude of residents who have attended our meetings. But I'm making a joke because one of the few times that we had a resident come was when we were first looking at the rules of procedure. And I am actually grateful to this person and I won't name her right now. But she really brought up the fact that our rules and procedures had separate rules for counselors and residents and why should they be different? And so got us looking at that and lessening the separation. So I think that was really valuable. And I thank Athena also for the comment she made to me today that I'm thinking about and processing. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to move on to Jones Library Building Committee. I think we are all up to date with the Jones Library. Done. Okay, moving on to TSO. You have another opportunity. Okay, well, let's see. If I'm going to add anything, I would just say speaking up to, to pick up on Andy's comment, we ended a little bit talking about how we would probably also been the committee that we claim that has had the most laughs as well as pushing through, I think, in an enormous amount of material. But I think going forward, and TSO was really the people's committee and that space where not all residents may be aware that it's really a great place to come and express concerns. We really are talking about, I mean, not that every committee doesn't do it, but really just town services. So I think it's a really important place and hopeful that more residents will come and participate and spread the word. Great. Any liaison reports? Seeing none. We've already approved the minutes. Any questions of the town manager that you want to ask in public? I'm not, oh, yes, Pam. Thank you. I had a question about the formation of the Charter Review Commission. And just if I could get a sense of the timeline of when the call goes out to form the committee to interview the committee or whatever happens, what will happen and when? Actually, that is a council responsibility and it rests with GOL. What will happen and when? Right now, GOL has approved the bulletin board notice which will be posted on January 2nd. So you'll start receiving community activity forms. And then at a recent council meeting, GOL was referred the appointment recommendations. So GOL will go through that multiple member body council policy for making recommendations to a multiple member bodies process and bring appointments forward. I love how long the name of that policy is. I always get tripped out. So anyway, so the CAFs will be coming in, allowed to come in on January 2nd. That notice will be available. I think when we passed the charge, we had an approximate start date of April 1 in the charge. That sounds right. There's summer. So I mean, it's not a set date, but I think that was when we passed the charge. The goal was to have it up in appointments done by April 1. Any other questions of the town manager since that really wasn't one for him? Can we confirm Alicia can hear us and be heard? She's rejoined. Hi, Alicia. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you, Lynn. Great. Nice to have you back. Okay. We're going on to town councilor comments. I did submit a makeup presidents report. My apologies. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I only doing this because Alicia is here and so I wanted to raise a question. We're asking questions of Paul and his head manager report please. And I was wondering if there's anything more that you could tell us about what calls dispatch is referring to Cress and how you envision that proceeding. Sure. So I don't know the call types off the top of my head, but they have worked between dispatch and the Cress leadership team to choose a select number of call types. And they went live today. They dispatched the first call today to the survival center call came into dispatch and they allocated that to Cress responders who responded in a timely manner. And I haven't gotten the follow up report on it, but they went live this morning. Perfect example. Yeah. Jennifer. Two questions. The RF, the responses from the RFI for the waste hauler. Do you think we might get that report? Or I guess it goes to TSO will get that report. Yeah. It will go to TSO. I don't have it timeframe for it yet. And is buried line coverage? I just had to ask that before the end of the council term. Yes. I'm, what was the question? That is the sewer line coverage from for private No, I care too. For property owners. Oh, that's two years raised with us. You were negotiating I think with Yeah. There are two companies that we're talking to right now. This is for the insurance. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I wanted to make that clearer for other. Are there any other questions of the town manager? Okay, seeing none. I'm going to move on to the president's report. Any questions? Then I'm going to move on to the future agenda items. They were pretty much covered in the carryover memos. Are there any other requests that people want to put out there now? Kathy? I just wonder if we are going to do what you did two years ago which says thank you and appreciations. That's next. Okay. Thank you. Just give me time. Try and blow the agenda. Right. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. In lieu of councilor comments. Athena, I have sent you a slide deck. A deck. Yes. A slide deck. So this is the town council that started on January 3rd, 2021 and ends on January 22, 2022. Thank you and edit already. Manny Joe has been on GOL I think from the very beginning, Ms. Editor. Thank you very much. To January 2nd, 2024. We can edit it up here. It's a slide. Let me just say this has been an amazing council. So let's look at the council itself. And I want to take the opportunity to thank all of you. You've put me to the test. I think I've put you to the test sometimes. I know I have. I want to just thank you for the hours and the consideration of how do we shorten our meetings and taking that to heart. I especially want to thank the chairs of each of the committees. CRC, Manny Joe, I think you've just continued to chair throughout the last two years from when it was almost created. No, you were the second chair after Steve Schreiber. Finance, Andy, I think it's been you and Kathy backing you up from day one. Thank you. GOL, we started out this term with Michelle and Pat took over. And TSO, we started out with Dorothy and then Anika took over. And then on the elementary school building committee, we had Kathy who's been ably chairing that group and Alicia Walker. And then on the library building committee, Anika Lopes.  I've often felt, and I've brought this up before, that we should give chairs a stipend for just chairing because when you're sitting there and it is approaching the holidays or you're in the midst of your holidays and now you have to write the carryover memo, you're sitting there going, oh boy, this is a dredge. So thank you for everything you do to keep your committees going forward. Thank your vice president, Sana, I forgot to recognize you for TSO. For stepping in and carrying part of the load, this council could not exist without its committees and the leadership of all of you in those roles just could not exist. And it's where the hard work often gets done and then we come into a council meeting and then we rip you to shreds.  So just thanks for all of that. We have a couple counselors we'd like to say goodbye to. This is tough. Next one, Anika. I always have fun putting these together. This was my better one. I apologize, I wasn't as creative. Anika, you've been on the council for two years. You've served on TSO and the June's Library Committee and although not part of the council started ancestral bridges at the same time. So I've asked two counselors, Anna and Pat, to particularly share remarks with us about you. And Pat made me go first. All right, Pat respectfully asked me if I would mind going first, sort of, okay. The first time I spent a significant amount of time with Anika was during and after Monty's March in 2021. We were just over a month away from being sworn in as two new counselors. And I remember walking with Anika through Amherst, hearing her story and being struck by how deeply interconnected her story was both with my own, but more so how deeply she honored her connection to her ancestors and to our community. While others went home after the March, Anika and I spent the afternoon together volunteering at the Amherst Survival Center and beginning what would become a close friendship and productive collegial relationship. We, which is how everyone describes their friends, productive collegial relationship. We've spent many hours talking about how this town, this community and communities past have shaped our experience and love for Amherst and how that love has allowed us to look critically at building and sustaining a more equitable community in the future. Anika has dedicated much of herself to honoring the legacy of her ancestors. While honoring and uplifting the stories of the past, Anika herself has also been building a legacy that stands on its own. One small piece of that legacy is that she is the first Black and Indigenous counselor to serve on the Amherst Town Council. Outside of council, she is a phenomenal milliner and the founder of Ancestral Bridges. Well, her story is only the start of a full story and when you place that on the end of that long line of stories that she is surfacing and telling that have been lived by her ancestors, we are seeing the culmination of generations of love and pursuit of justice. I would be remiss to not also take a moment to recognize one of the other stories on that path of Ancestral Bridges, one of Anika's biggest champion, if not her biggest champion, at her mother, Ms. Deborah Bridges. Ms. Bridges' pride and her daughter and her love for Anika and our community is apparent and as all of our loved ones deserve accolades for supporting and loving us through what can be a trying experience in service to Amherst, I want to recognize Ms. Bridges for her unyielding support for Anika. As a colleague, Anika has been steadfast in her grounding in history, using it to inform her decisions, considering how future generations will look back at the votes we took as well as how they impact us now. I have been moved by her unwavering commitment to learning and to doing what is right, not what is expected. She has stood up to voices seeking to box her in, elevated the needs of community members and truly has considered how her actions have the power to bring us forward and help make life in Amherst better for all. Anika is known for her reverence for our history and bringing it into today, but she also deserves accolades for the humor she brings to situations which merit it. I can always count on her for long phone calls, typically on a Thursday afternoon before TSO and exclamations on mutual frustrations or a robust conversation if they were not mutual frustrations. She celebrated other counselors in their work and challenged us with a spirit of compassion. She has engaged with our community readily, chairing TSO with an eye for supporting conversation and resident engagement and made connections with our community which will only add to her legacy. She just called TSO the People's Committee, but ultimately she is the one who made that so. To know Anika is to seek to champion her. Anika sees people and feels their needs deeply. She leads with a special blend of love and pragmatism. We have all learned from her and are lucky to have had that opportunity and I know we all still will. Anika carries herself with the known strength of generations past and the potential of generations to come. I'm going to deeply miss working with her and I cannot wait to see and support where her path continues. No matter where that is, I know she will continue to uplift stories, speak truth and make Amherst a better place. Nice, very nice. Pat, you get to follow. You wanted me to go first. Microphone. The very first time I met Anika, I forgot to turn on my mic. I called her up and asked her to have coffee with me and she invited me to her home and we sat down and had coffee and we're talking and it was lovely and pleasant. And then she said, oh, come downstairs and see my studio. And I went down into her studio and it was like this explosion of color and texture and light and photographs of family. Black and white photographs, man riding a camel, grandfathers, grandmothers, dishes from Amherst College. I just was blown away. I felt like this was a world I wanted to enter and a person I wanted to know and I've been blessed with getting closer and really becoming friends with her and her mom. But I want to talk very much about what you've brought to the council, okay? Because you have challenged every one of us, counselors and community.