zba about What should our criteria be and what should our process be and That is exactly what we would do with the finance committee and You know that jim pistrang was the person who did the interviewing for the finance committee in the past And He did a fine job coming up You know, he doesn't necessarily have expertise in finance and he came up with the committee So I don't think it's necessary To have the finance committee be involved in this appointment process Because oka can do a Good job on its own other further comments ever so it still strikes me as odd to have any committee pick its own members And the the rationale I keep hearing is Finance committee is different And finance committee requires a level of expertise that apparently only members of the finance committee can assess And it's not necessarily an argument that I've been persuaded by We have worked on oka to figure out planning board in zba, which will be coming to you in our next meeting We are currently in the process of Making recommendations and interviewing for rank choice voting commission For participatory budgeting commission, which is closely tied to the finance committee And it seems to me that the most logical and simplest solution to the question of who appoints Resident members to finance would be with the committee that is appointing Resident members to the other committees And so it seems weird that we would extract that role from oka For the reason simply being finance is different Dorothy, I mean Kathy I'll answer to anything but Everything about this finance committee Is different including we're appointing people that don't have a vote Which is a very odd structure And the hope Is that it would be a compatible group that's enhancing and enriching the group we currently have We could as a council decide We don't it says may have non-resident You know, this is kind of an experiment where we get people who will come to this intense a set of meetings and Be a we want to be full participants and hit the ground running So that was one of the reasons we were looking at From prior experience that I've had sort of in non the nonprofit world or foundations sending For example, we never sent a human resource director in to do interviews for these kinds of positions because we wanted someone who Would just do follow-up questions around this to make sure we got a working body So it was it was this thinking of that it's got to be a really compatible group because it already is a very odd Structure that's been set up George you had comment My only comment on this is that there is no other committee of the council And I I want to stress the words council That has resident members. So it's not like It's not like CRC or anybody else who has resident members And so it seemed natural That if they have resident members at least the committee that is going to have those resident members of the council follow the ocho process and appoint those members Uh, excuse me and bring the appoint bring the recommendation of the appointing those members to the council no committee appoints members Andy And just following up on a couple of things that were said without going back and repeating any of them is a matter of time I think that We did recognize that This is an option To have this process at all of non Voting resident members the Finance committee discussion was very much along the lines of Let's try and make this work. How can we make this work best? and When we had the discussion it was within the context of Making sure that there was a selection procedure that would um make that would enable us to Increase the opportunity to the greatest extent possible that the composition of People who are appointed Would really make this experiment be the grand success that we want it to be It is a very peculiar arrangement that was created by the charter But i'm intrigued by it and I think that that's Probably where the committee was that we we were intrigued by it and we want to make it happen we want to make it work and That was the basis of our recommendation um, sarah So I I just Again, I do this consistency thing Is that when outreach communications and appointments is doing its comprehensive report back to A body that they're referring names to one of the things that will be shown is The health of the entire um Committee so how that's balanced. So I just want to say that that is something that um It's something that oka actually looks at is how how was the healthy body sort of working together In other words, you will balance your fellow counselors In your appointments with the non with the resident appointments Good luck. Yeah I don't think that it was intended But when I hear oh, we want a compatible group I worry that there's going to be a limit of ideas um That is going to what? We'll make people compatible. I think That i'm concerned about that I'm also concerned That finance Still feels itself is different the residents who are going to be on that committee may not have a vote But if you're working well with them, they're going to be collaborating with you and influence the decisions you make That's critical to acknowledge that every resident that we ask On ad hoc or a subcommittee Now we're talking about that all over the board in rules and procedures the possibility of residents that makes us the same And those residents won't necessarily have votes Maybe they will it will be the committees that are set and I really think that Finance has overstepped Are there any further comments? Mandija So I came in thinking I'd go one way and now I don't know which way I'm gonna go um I keep thinking what's What is the council's goal for these appointments and which committee? Would be best situated to meet that goal and i'm not even sure what our goal is to be able to make a decision As to which committee would be best situated Is the goal, you know and and maybe it hasn't been articulated what what residents What you know not types of residents, but is the goal to have residents that are Already financially savvy that already, you know participate in a lot of stuff Is one goal could be to start bringing people into a council body as potentially Council candidates later on You know, there's a lot of different things We as a council could seek in these appointments and I'm not sure I can Make a decision as to who's the better recommending authority Since the whole council is the one that's appointing it without knowing what the goal of Having the residents on the committee is I know as a charter commissioner We had when we put this provision into the charter a certain idea of why we wanted residents Potentially on it and wanted to call it out, but now that i'm on the council I'm not sure that's the right Goal anymore and if the goal might be to sort of bring people into the council's operations Not necessarily for financial expertise that might need to Be supplemented by whatever the councillors don't have but for a way to introduce them to the council work And to create maybe a pool of talent to maybe run for office later Maybe oka is the better recommending authority than The finance committee if the goal is to figure out in true form What the finance committee really needs and what talent they're missing Whatever that talent however you describe it is maybe Someone from finance doing that interview Is the right thing and so i'm not sure where I stand right now because I don't know What we as a council want to see in these appointments? What did you as a charter commission envision? We envisioned the possibility to need financial expertise because there might not be a single person on the council That has that expertise, but that's not necessarily what This council or any future council might actually need I know from my own Uh experience on the finance committee and other finance committees that I've been on Over the years, uh, I always look for other finance committee members that bring expertise That the present committee does not have Investment expertise, actuarial expertise any number of things that Among the five of us we don't have I'm not looking necessarily to groom anybody for future council Positions any more than anybody else is on any other committee so George and it seems that that oka is perfectly capable of taking these into consideration as we do for zoning and planning we Talk to the relevant chairs and we get a clear sense of what they're looking for and that's one of the criteria we use And so again, I don't see why Oka can't continue to be the recommending body and let me repeat again and again again that we only recommend You are the ones who appoint Further conversation Shalini by the time you wreck By the time you recommend Is it then open to everybody because of the open meeting whatever requirements and then it makes it awkward for the people who've been Recommended to say no, actually we don't want them Or no, am I did I get that wrong? When you make the recommendations Then at that point does does it become open that these are the people who are being recommended? And then it becomes really awkward for us because now you're the whole reason we have this whole setup is to Preserve the privacy of people and have a wider pool, you know Have people feel comfortable with the process and this makes it even more awkward The point at which The it is known who is Being recommended is the point at which Oka Forwards a memo to the council There is another point at which Oka Before in their process and that is the point at which the person doing the interviewing Recommends to the other members of Oka and they have to do that in a memo form Who they are nominating and Oka is just about finished getting ready to finish up with that on planning and And zoning can as my my initial understanding was that Finance was going to essentially adopt the process that Oka is using except replacing So that's the situation you just described would happen Regardless, it's just Would it happen in this committee or this committee, but there'd be no differentiation if the process is the same, right? Are there further conversation about this? all right, so if if it's It can stay there's two options Okay, one is option is there's no change it remains with Oka The second option is to amend the Oka's charge to exempt appointments for non-voting members of the finance committee Who would like to place a motion? Which one? to amend to amend the Oka charge To exempt appointees of non-voting members of the finance committee Is there a second? Kathy Any further conversation? All right all those in favor of the motion The finance committee Using the Oka process to come forward to the council with the recommendations For the three people to select be selected for Resident members of the finance committee and the council will then confirm They'll use the Oka process Oka is not involved, but they'll use the Oka process Yes Alyssa so again just clarifying so that means that The names of the people that whoever does the process whether it's Oka doing the process or the finance committee doing the process Will be made public at a meeting of either of those bodies and then Again when it comes to the full council. So as was stated before it's just parallel. It's just a different body that does it Any further questions Okay, again the motion that's on the floor is To amend the Oka's charge to exempt appointments of non-voting members of finance committee All those in favor Okay, all those opposed And abstain Okay, did you Okay, all those in favor All those in favor Kathy all those We need to All those in favor Four Okay, all right Um, moving on We're moving on to the calendar and we have a slide for this So we've been asked to look once again at the issue of the fact that on november 4th We have a council meeting And the day that is the night before an election on tuesday november 5th And in the process of looking at this i chose to enlarge the calendar The circles represent the dates we presently have meetings on I would note that because this came up in the past october 8th is yom kippur and I also did not even want to deal with the issue of whether or not we were going to cancel a summer meeting or So so right now we have meetings on october 7th october 21st November 4th and november 18th And the two the two numbers that are on mondays and red The one in october is vet is uh columbus day Indigenous peoples day, excuse me and the one on the 11th is veterans day And so the Question facing the council is do we change this count calendar? Right now. This is the way the calendar stands Is their discussion Alyssa so i'm putting in my plug again for the fact that we have not traditionally for the last several years Met when it's an elected that's either the town meeting or the select board has not met on the night before an election Now those were more typically spring elections, although it did affect fall town meeting is when is we would also take it into account It is also absolutely a fact that the october and november calendars are really complicated Because of thanksgiving because of the holidays because of jewish holidays showing up in there as well And then when the 11th is on a monday, then that just throws it all out a whack And so everyone likes to know that town council meetings previously select board meetings previously town meetings are on mondays That's just a thing that everybody knows so changing that as a problem On the other hand if we start saying that it's typical that we're going to meet the first week in november On that monday night, that's always going to be before an election Whether it's a state and federal election or whether it's a local election because now all our elections are in the fall We don't have that spring situation anymore And even when we're not running there are other bodies that are potentially going to be so for example this year We're not running but other elected bodies in town are running And we just have found that people are typically working on campaigns and they find that an inconvenient night to meet It's also awkward So it's awkward from that standpoint, but your alternatives are really limited when the 11th is also a holiday And then you've got thanksgiving in there. So that means you either have to pick like a back-to-back date like october 28th So that you have two meetings in a row And then have a gap until the 18th or you have to pick a different day of the week I'm not saying any of these solutions are good But I'm also saying I would not like to establish a precedent that we meet the night before an election comment Dorothy I don't think that we should meet the night before an election I think the town has things to do on that day And I think that we're an elected body, which means that we are interested in participating in government I just don't think that we should meet the night before an election Are there other comments in Andy Joe? So I I'm going to take potentially a minority view. I don't See a hardship with meeting the night before an election Election campaigns go on for more than the night before an election And I know it's a popular night for doing stuff because the election day is the next day, but I think we as a town council need to Think about our own business and how we can most efficiently and effectively get our business done and especially looking at this calendar We all have experienced meeting two council meetings week in a row And that is a hardship not only on us to get stuff done But also on our own staff to be able to get the agendas and the packets and everything ready So the 28th is not a very good Option Because it would be two weeks in a row that would put a lot of pressure before an election on the clerk of the council I would like to know before we go forward with the fourth What I haven't heard is the one concern I would have is our clerk of the council happens to be the town clerk Does the town clerk need to be doing election prep? Then for that the night before the election such that an actual meeting would be harmful to Getting that done because that would change my consideration because I think that's more important than Inconveniencing us in participating for four hours In some phone banking and stuff We don't have the town clerk Here, but we do have mr. Bachman and we have someone else So I think It's true that usually the election day is a very Arduous day for the clerk's office everyone in the clerk's office. It starts early in the morning You know 6 a.m. Or earlier than that the day before they're doing a lot of preparation to get material to all the voting locations Okay Yeah, I would agree and it's not just that prep they have to do but also we tend to meet very late And I would feel terrible about keeping the clerk here Until potentially 11 12 o'clock as it happens for them to have to do the election the next day I also think that it impacts maybe Public aspect too a lot of the public might be involved in things and it would be I I wouldn't want to Schedule anything important on that night because the public might be involved elsewhere But I'm also hesitant to ever schedule a meeting where we say we are not allowed to discuss anything important at this future meeting so But I also recognize this calendar is Kathy um, I I have a question as I look at the These weeks all lined up The first question would be do we have a sense of the flow of work? Would it be possible to have just one meeting in november on the 18th? So rather than doing two in a row and just being really What? So that that would be my you know looking at what things are likely to come up in september and october and Load up on the 18th So that that's one question and then I know we're like regularly on mondays But this is always going to be a problem not just this year But in future years this first monday, you know, except in the rare occasions that the first Monday is the first or you know or something so Would a variation that we were meeting on the 6th on a wednesday or a thursday because of that Throw everything off. So I had those two, you know, what are our options? I mean elissa talked about running two meetings in a row in october So we'd have three in october So I had the could we meet just once in november or could we Make an exception and have an alternative night because november is just different All right. So one option is to yes, shallony I'm not in favor of changing the day just because we have our other Work scheduled ahead of time. So I don't want to change it to a wednesday see It gets really ugly to change the day of the week because all the other Boards and committees they often work around our schedule. That seemed like the the least good of right George well, there's a danger if we don't meet every other monday We you know, people might realize that we're not absolutely necessary to the Existence of good governance and survival of the town So we could try and experiment in that one month and just only meet Once and see what what happens maybe Pardon my french, but maybe all hell will break loose, but I think things will probably be okay. So Right Is there any other comment pat I can't follow that really well, but um, I like the idea of meeting only on the 18th and november But I would encourage us to meet on the 21st and 28th of october So we would meet on the 7th the 21st the 28th No, that's the 7th is fine. Yom Kippur does not start until the next day So the question was whether we met three times in october So your suggestion would be Just the 18th not the 4th Yes, my suggestion is that we plan to meet just on the 18th of november But we reserve the option of meeting an additional meeting on the 28th if Pressing business requires it 28th of october. Yes All right, so let me try this In the interest of moving on the first one is to mend the town council Uh 2019 regular meeting calendar adopted december 10th 2018 town council meeting to remove the november 4th meeting date Do I hear a motion? I'll move that Mandy joe made the motion second George seconded all those in favor That's unanimous And then the second motion is to amend the town council 2019 regular meeting calendar Adopted at the december 10th 2018 town council meeting to add a tentative meeting date of october 28th 2019 Is there a motion if needed? Okay, andy made the motion second george Any further discussion? All those in favor All right moving on The next two items on our budget on our budget next two items actually pertain to our budget When we did the regional school assessment agreement, we actually needed to Amend how we did our motions and so these essentially are substitute motions, okay The first one is to amend the 2020 the april 22nd 2019 town council vote on motion number two under item 7b regional assessment formula By adding the italicized language So that the motion reads That the town vote to amend section Six of the emmerced pelham regional school district agreement by adding subsection j As follows for fiscal year 2020 only the alternative operating budget assessment shall be calculated As 30 of a five-year average Of minimum contributions with the remainder Of the assessment allocated to the member towns in accordance with the per people method Found in section 6e of the emmerced pelham regional school district agreement The five-year average of minimum contribution will include the five most recent years Is there a motion? Second Dorothy Any further conversation discussion? All those in favor Yeah so This was provided for us. I know that I'm we're technically amen every year we amend the regional agreement assessment method We actually technically amend the regional agreement Mr. Steinberg like the answer so that they rewrite it the short answer is yes um, and that is it's just the technicality of what we're doing because the The Agreement has five-year rolling average Of enrollment as the method And so each year that we're doing anything other than that method Or just Going with the statutory method We are in fact amending the agreement for that year So this is consistent with What the requirement is Okay Is there any further question or comment? Thank you for that clarifying question and that explanation Okay, all those in favor Andy can you vote since you went to go for the first one? Yes, okay. All right. It's unanimous. Thank you And then to the second motion is to refer the regional school assessment formula to the finance committee Is there a motion? I'm trying to figure out why we're doing this Okay, I'm following the motion sheet. It was in anticipation of potentialities in other mediums happening In fact, there was a good turnout on all right strike that motion moving on We already did the Section e2 was the same for the same just cautious Matter we're going to the fiscal year audit and pat. This is you I recommend to the council that you accept the Audit as presented by our auditors auditors melons and heath. They made two recommendations to us They wanted us to increase or decrease the amount of time it took to get minutes posted And they also had Two points that in 2020 and 2021 there are going to be some changes and that the Finance committee the finance groups Sonia and everyone should be looking at those Now and preparing for them even though they're in 2020 and 2021 So and the town agreed to that the auditor also said that financially Amherst is doing well It's been it's been conservatively run in a certain way and that's been beneficial so I'm Asking the council to the motion is The motion is to accept the findings To accept the findings of the Fy 18 audit as recommended by the audit committee. Yes, thank you The motion has been made. Is there a second? I will I will say yeah any further conversations or questions Kathy I just have a question um on the timeliness of the minutes they weren't we they weren't Say if this is true were they we reviewing our own practice or the practice Of the time before the previous practice. Okay, thanks Okay, are there other questions All those in favor Opposed Okay, we're done with that We're moving on to appointments and the first one is the ecac appointments And oca Now I kind of feel like you've seen one oca process you've seen them all but I'm going to give you so we have slides Yes, we do So as we promised we're going we're giving you a narrative of our process to recommend Appointees to multi member bodies appointed by the town manager. I think we can there we go I'm going to read this stuff to you and you're going then you're going to look at the decision tree And then you can ask any questions you would like to be answered by anyone from oca So application and interviews so the way it starts out is that applicants They are looking around on the website and they submit a completed community activity form The town manager selects desired candidates and refers to the town council and simultaneously files with the town clerk The name of each recommended appointee the town manager desires to appoint as a member of a multi member body Oca requests that the town manager also sent oca a brief narrative of why they selected the recommended appointee And a description of the selection process What recognizes this is at the discretion of the town manager Next slide Okay, so at a post to public meeting oca reviews the recommended appointees Oca discusses and votes on the recommended appointees at this point Oca may recommend that the town council approve a recommended appointee Recommend the town council reject a recommended appointee sending the recommendation back to the town manager Recommend the town council take no action on a recommended appointee Allowing appointment to be effective after 30 days of the filing with the town clerk Additionally, you could request more information from the town manager to answer questions or concerns about the recommended appointee of the applicant pool Next slide so oca then Sends a report to the town council with their recommendations on the recommended appointees the town council reviews Discusses and votes on the recommended appointees at this point in the process the town council may Approve the recommended appointee reject a recommended appointee sending the recommendation back to the town manager Or refer the recommended appointee back to oca for further deliberation And this is an absolutely gorgeous decision tree done by evan It's really hard to read but you do have it in your packet, right? It's in the packet And it should basically just kind of visually Show you exactly what I just said narratively, but oca's open to any Questions about this process And Yeah, so Sure, so you got and you know back in the old days you'd have lots of pieces of paper and instead you have lots of separate electronic documents, right? And so there are the slides that we just went over which are Based on the report that we wrote which is the thing you see on letterhead And then also the two pages of narrative that ends with that So you have separate documents in the packet tonight But I wanted to make sure we drew your attention to the fact because we've talked before about making sure we report out on Votes which was on the letterhead document. That's our committee report It says that we voted four to one with one member against to adopt the decision tree and narrative that's In your package and because the vote against would prefer public disclosure of all candidate names and public interviews Or at least disclosure of all candidate names because again, we're talking about tan manager appointments to oca And then that being a separate issue from these actual names that were given to us by the town manager Which you all saw which was on the memo of april 22nd, which is again in your packet as well And those names oca voted five to zero to bring forward So The two items before us one is the oca process and the other one is actually the vote to confirm the town manager's appointees to The energy and climate action committee appointments Mandy joe I have a question about I guess You could put up the second slide is what it was on I believe um The recognition Nishin in the the slide says that oca recognizes that the provision of A brief narrative is that the discretion of the town manager um seems Odd to me Um because our charter allows us To ask for any specific information on any matter within our jurisdiction that we want So I don't quite understand why we would Kind of give that up and say well, we kind of want it But it's really his discretion to give to us when it's not if we actually Want it and it's within our jurisdiction. So could you talk about why It says it's his discretion Sarah So with the town manager appointments The town manager actually does because He's executive. He does actually have The right to and in his initial report Give us the information that he feels Is enough for us to make a decision So You everybody has seen the the memo that was submitted um and Yes, we could absolutely ask for Different things we didn't because I don't believe that we can actually like go right ahead and simply tell the town manager What we'd like to see in his report Alyssa just following up on that our interpretation We weren't on the charter commission But our interpretation of that provision Was such that it didn't apply to this because the charter says the town manager makes the appointments and we confirm So we can ask all day long But we didn't feel like it was the kind of thing that we were able to compel based on the way the charter Was written whereas we might be able to compel on a finance issue that we're looking for more information about This felt like it was very tight in the charter in terms of the town manager gets to do this and All we really are faced with is the decision of is it enough that we feel like We can recommend to the town council that they do something and we could ask all day long for additional information But it didn't feel like the same kind of compelling information Yes, you then did okha feel like it got enough information to be able to make an adequate recommendation to the council on whether to confirm or not So I think you you saw on our minority report. Um that um Yeah, it's interesting to see and and this that format of a report is something that that okha is also going to follow So, um, I will say that we did sort of feel a little bit like our job was only to say here are the names Do you think seeing these names that these people could do? The right job and that's how okha looked at what our role was In that process and of course we're open to if people, you know Think that that our role would be different. We're completely open to Suggestions or different ideas or opinions Evan you seem different common So, uh, so two things. I think one some of this was done In deference to the town manager recognizing these are his appointments. Um, and so We're making requests of him, but Not demanding information necessarily, but to your question of do we feel like we got enough information? You probably saw my facial expression and the reason for that is, uh Yes In the end, but no initially and I'll explain that. Um, so What we got from the town manager as you saw was sort of what these What his uh, his recommended appointees qualifications were and we felt like that was sufficient Where we had a lot of discussion in the committee was on demographic information and process and we weren't sure You know, we recognized it's the goal of the town and of the council To increase representation on committees and we didn't necessarily see that demographic information there We had a long discussion in the committee with the town manager present And he gave us some explanation as to Why he didn't provide some detailed Information that he can speak to if so asked But with the uh follow-up that he would provide sort of a broader report which we saw as part of his town manager report So I think that as I think that if you take those two documents together Then the answer is yes Dorothy I think that all the caf should be made public and that we should all see them Um, I know that we don't necessarily discuss them and this isn't a public forum Though there's an alternative method that said that we could um have Interview more than the number of of candidates for an office But I just I just feel that there's there's not enough transparency in this system And there's been a lot of mistrust that has built up over the years that has been reported to me Uh about the appointing process. So Um, I'm just recommending that we all see the caf's and that they may that they be made public Dorothy Darcy, I'm sorry. Um, yeah, I think that um, I was the minority vote on the issue of the process And I'm very interested to hear, um, Mandy joe's opinion that um that we May have more power Over the appointment process than we have been acting like in oka um I feel like we have the responsibility to confirm So in order to confirm we need to have information from the town manager and uh, I think that It's interesting to hear that you think We have the power to ask for that because That wasn't the majority opinion in the oka committee Um, I in the last week had the opportunity to talk to one of the city counselors in Northampton, which I mentioned to the oka committee this morning and he You know, uh told me that that in northampton, um, they Assumed that cafs are public records that they are, um Published to When they are when they are, uh, the Person in the public makes the application they go Uh, automatically to the full city council and to the public Uh, in other words, there there's a link on the website. So they're accessible to anyone Um, and they have a fully public process so, um I it's it's I am having a hard time struggling with, uh Why we are so different from northampton in the way they deal with this and how open and transparent they are and how, um much the public is able to Um see what's going on behind the scenes Which I would I would like to see here Other further comments Andy Yeah, I find this very difficult because in the situation that was just described from northampton Um, there's no information about who in northampton chose not to apply because They didn't want the fact of their application to be public And on the other hand, we don't really have information and amused about whether Um, we had people who did apply Who would not have applied had it become public So that whichever way you flip the question we're sort of, um Lacking a piece of information And, um, I would hope that we could find some way to, um Improve our knowledge In order to make What I think is a very important decision One possibility That's that's in our control is, um Something of surveying the people who have applied for positions and amused And how they feel about the process and if they would have done acted differently had the process been different Um, I'm actually like to follow up on Andy's comment that Um, one of the ongoing challenges that people have brought up is whether or not It is in fact true That people would not submit their names um In the form of a calf if they knew that the calf was going to become public And although we have some anecdotal Evidence that people would not have allowed their name to go forward Uh, what I would like to see us do it is at some point certain perhaps Right around July 1 when we've completed a round of appointments We actually do such a survey not just to find out whether people would Uh, allow how they would feel about the calf becoming public, but how do they feel about the process in general? Uh, how did they you know, we we say we want to evaluate this process and Uh, my You know the researcher in me wants to say okay, there's ways to do that And it can be done through an anonymous questionnaire and it can be done through Um, taking those responses and it can be done in a way that we look at both Whether they were committed appointments of the council or they were confirmations of the council for manager appointees So um as we move forward with this, I would like to keep in mind that idea that we Seek feedback about our appointment process including That very Niggling question of whether or not people would have applied if They knew their calf was going to be made public Just following following up on what you just said about research I would very much encourage that but also look at is there existing research that has already been done whether this affects Especially particular communities if they feel more inhibited and because that's the flaw of the survey Is that the very people who probably are not going to apply and Want to be anonymous may not be the ones who are answering the surveys And I think as we look at the town manager's Report and he where he has summarized Uh, the calves received to date. We already see we don't do very well in attracting diverse Applicants in any number of measures. So um We have a problem to start and the question is are we Enhancing the problem or exacerbating the problem and at whose benefit? I Just want to do some clarifying on some of my earlier questions. Um, I do think The process of looking at the confirmations is separate than the process for Appointing and being recommending for us being the appointing authority. Um, so I was asking because the information you need Or want might be different Because looking at confirming The way I look at it as a counselor is Are the people that the manager is putting forward competent qualified? Are they diverse enough given a pool and all of that not Could could the manager have picked someone would I have picked someone different? Because that's not necessarily my job to do that And so that's why I was asking did you feel you got enough information? I don't want us as a council to give up our ability to seek information if we believe we need it to be able to make those Decisions on the confirmation level or even on the appointment level, which is why I asked that follow-up question And if the committee believes it got the information it needed I just hesitate for us as a council to cede that authority that we have in the charter Immediately when the manager pushes back so Yes So, you know, we we did look at what we had and and we did recommend to you I will say as someone who has been doing interviews and who I did not sleep at all last night I was up all night long actually working on just a draft of what my Memo would be to oka and then to the entire town council because I felt that there was More information that I would feel compelled to give to the entire town council in order for them to feel More informed and I'm not sure if that means I I think that You know that the town manager didn't give us enough. I still feel like the the way we interpreted the role I think we did I think that we still stand by that and I still think that we as oka think that that was Our job and that's how we handled it, but I definitely was compelled to to give oka and to give you guys a lot of information George Speaking as a member of oka and to man his question I felt we had more than enough information to make an adequate judgment I think it's and I also believe personally that we have no business seeing the cafs for town manager appointments We should not be looking over his shoulder in that regard So I felt that what we got was an adequate I think it's a very important question about diversity But that's kind of and trying to reach underrepresented communities But I don't think that's the question when we're looking at specific appointments. That's a long term Issue that's going to take some time for us to work out and resolve But I hope the council will make a distinction between town council appointments and town manager appointments And I do not believe that For town manager appointments the cafs should be something that we should be looking at Okay So I think I I would echo what both George and manager said the information that we need is different Because our roles are different and so I do want to just say It was said before that it's the responsibility of the council to confirm town manager appointments Which it is not The charter says the appointments become effective after 30 days Uh, unless The council Votes to approve or reject. There's no requirement that we this is we're not the senate confirming the ag right There's no requirement. We could do nothing We're chose we're choosing in this instance to positively affirm to say we're not going to wait for the 30 days We're going to approve But we don't have a response necessarily a responsibility We are choosing to do so and I think that that part of the charter makes very clear that our role in this is very light That these are town manager appointments and we only necessarily need to act if we feel like These are great people. We got a we don't want to wait 30 days We want them to be in there now or if we look at them and go Paul, what were you thinking? We're not going to do this and we reject them. But other than that, I would back up with georgia. We shouldn't be Exceeding our authority because our our fingerprint on this is intended to be very light Are there further comments? Yes You know as we were writing the charge for ecac one of the things we were looking at the diversity of and I know we've touched upon it, but One of the communities that I was looking for is businesses and I was curious if They were applicants that reflected the business community because in the list that I'm looking at I know we have a renter Evan and But what I'm not seeing is a business community person represented So I don't know if they never applied or we're not good enough or I don't so at this point You're moving to questions specifically about the appointments Yes And and that might be the I mean in the future like would we be getting that sort of not naming people But would we be getting that sort of information like what was a pool of candidates in terms of diversity? Specifically not just demographics, but I guess That does fit into demographics. I don't know The question I think is in part going to be Whether or not the CAF It differentiates in a way that we get that information For renters for business people etc I mean you could be a professor at the university and list that as your profession, but In fact, you might have a serious business on the side But they were interviewed right so they would know at some point If it was a relevant issue It's part of the alicia see charge to have People represented right and from different communities Alyssa so so just I know there's a lot of different pieces of electronic paper here, but The town just as sarah indicated would happen with the appointments that we bring forward that are town council appointments We're planning for a zba ring choice voting participatory budgeting. We'll be talking about What needs so to speak those people met right in just the way you're talking about so I would refer you back to the town managers ECAC memo of the 22nd and if you're saying his memo doesn't cover that Then that would be a question I believed that his memo did track enough with you know as an oka member That what he wrote about each of those individual people that he did end up appointing tracked enough perhaps maybe are you saying that because The very specific thing you asked for didn't track with any of these individual people Would you like then whether it's his memo or oka's memo to say Yes, we asked for this specific thing and this specific thing is not available to us because that no one applied But I'm not sure how you phrase that other than these profiles you've given of each of these people Guess as part of the process if The information that's provided by the town manager would include the the different Would that be a demographic or would that be experience or Occupations of the different people like so many people from broad sectors like of education applied or business applied or Certain communities applied. I don't know just to get it. It seems to me that We can ask the town manager when relevant that Um And known that he pointed out if candidates and he'd be sensitive to candidates Or committees to having representation from the business community That Is about as all we can do Unless we you know that completely revamped the CAF and I think that goes back to At some point let's evaluate this Dorothy if all the CAFs were public Knowledge Then if we looked and saw that some area you know each individual was underrepresented We could in fact seek out and encourage somebody else to apply But if we don't know what the CAFs are we don't know who's applied And so we don't know what the pool is that the decisions are being made from Okay, george We have a list of names in front of us And I assume you've read them And you can form your own judgments for ecac We are in an awkward position in that right now with planning zoning ecac We're appointing entire groups of people As opposed to the normal process where hopefully it'll be one or two at a time And then I think it would be a natural thing You have a candidate in front of you and we are looking for a particular Demographic or diversity and we're not seeing it We could go back to whatever the right to Paul or whoever it is And say we're not satisfied. We're but here you've got an entire group of people so You can read it and make your decisions But I think we're also somewhat complicated by the fact we're doing so many at once And I hope over the time some of these questions can be addressed But right now I don't see how you could address them I are you going to address I'd reject one person from this group because it doesn't fit some preconceived demographic notion If I don't see how you could you could do it, I guess, but I don't see the logic of it So at this point I think the process is a good one I think we've been given more than enough information But it's in front of you. You can read it and make your own judgment Darcy and I would just add to Shawnee that Jesse Selman is a partner at a downtown business Thank you. And there is one other renter in addition to Evan Yes Andy when Robbie Robbie Kumar the renter Also think that we need to recognize that the charter Provides that there's a resident advisory committee and that we need to make sure we understand the role of the resident advisory committee And not put ourselves in the position of redoing A responsibility that was assigned in the charter to another group I'd like to place the Read the motion and see if somebody's prepared to make that motion And it's to confirm under the Amherst home rule charter section 211 b The town managers appointees to the energy and climate action committee as provided in his April April 22nd 2019 memo to the town council and is recommended by the outreach communications and appointments committee. Is there a motion? Dorothy is there a second Darcy And Dorothy's going to second it for me. So I'm out of that one. Thank you I've done it at least three times tonight. Sorry. I'm really really Apologize. All right. There's been a motion made and seconded. Let me just mention that the People that are being voted on in terms of the recommendation are Laura Draker Draker, I guess it is Andra Rose Jesse Selman Dwayne Breger Darcy Dumont Nikki Robb Steve Roof Ashwin Ravik Kumar and Evan Ross Is there any question or further comment? All those in favor All those opposed All those abstaining Let the record show that Evan Ross abstained All right, and then I have a request of the town manager and that is That either you or your designee Pull the people that we have just voted in for this committee and schedule the first meeting Okay, thank you The next agenda item is we will be receiving Town council appointee recommendations from OCA For the planning board the zoning board of appeals the rank chose choice voting commission And participatory budgeting commission Section 2.9 c of the charter clearly specifies That the town council shall appoint all members of the planning board and zoning board of appeals For staggered three-year terms Likewise section 10.10 specifies that the council shall create a rank choice voting commission And section 10.11 specifies that the town council Shall create a participatory budget commission Based upon these sections of the charter when the outreach communications and appointment committee advances Their recommendation for each of these appointments all All materials that were made available to the full OCA committee To make their recommendation will be made available to all members of the town council However, it would be very clear the same rules regarding debate deliberation, etc apply to To that applied to OCA also imply to the entire town council In regard to this and consistent with our town attorney's advice Let me remind you that CAFs at present are not public records And they are not subject to disclosure Since CAFs will be distributed counselors for town council appointees. I am communicating this process The counselors will receive the CAFs independently from any other documents And the CAFs are not public documents They shall not be discussed deliberated photograph duplicated or in any way shared with anyone else Except for the party to whom they are intended And CAFs may have private information redacted prior to the counselors receiving them And that the process will apply only to CAFs for town council appointees Questions. Yes, Alyssa How can I put this nicely? I have no idea what you're talking about Are you proposing that you have decided this as president or that this is a subject for discussion because OCA has never had Had was not aware that you were planning to do this tonight. So I'm just trying to understand What this means I am proposing that we are doing this You're leaving it up to discussion or you're announcing welcome to discuss it I'm always one up for discussion. And I always seem to have an opinion. Um As I sort of Indicated in our previous discussion I believe we as a town council under the charter have the right to seek this information Whether or not it be a public document because we are the appointing authority for those boards And committees or for two of them. We share appointment authority. Um, and through personally through a lot of discussion with others and a lot of thought on my own I feel like it I'm I know I'm not on OCA. So I'm not part of making the recommendations, but I'm having a hard time reconciling my Duty as an appointing authority to be able to make that appointment with full knowledge and full um belief and say This is who I believe not who's confirming but that these are the right people to choose Without knowing I'm not sure how I could do that without knowing who has applied Um, it's it's that simple if I don't know who's it's different than the confirmation process where I can look at names with some summaries and say those That looks logical and I don't need to know who wasn't chosen because I'm not appointing I'm just saying Here's who someone else wants to appoint and yeah, that looks good um, but I am one of 13 that's an appointing authority and I don't know how I can say these are the right people if I don't know who Is on the other side of that and so I think we have every right under the charter to seek that information as counselors and I think in Doing our due diligence as counselors and a full counsel appointing authority We need that information that doesn't mean I believe it should be public to the public um, if the public has a problem with who we put forth In full vote and who we would appoint their Confirming option is to oust us from office. That's that's the Confirmation if they don't like who we're putting on those boards That's how they do it. Just like if we don't like who Paul's putting on the boards We either say no to that. Well, they say no to it by getting rid of us um The second guessing Is is is something that if we recognize that we shouldn't be second guessing who's not chosen from the manager There's there's a similar one and I probably will not be popular for saying that in a public meeting, but there's a similar If we're not You can look at who we're appointing and see whether they're qualified But we as the appointing authority should have the ability to know Everyone who applied other comments George then i'm trying to understand what the role of my committee is It sounds like we should just distribute the caps to the entire body And let you make your choice That's not what we asked for what what are you asking us to do you're asked We're asking what you're planning to do which is to give us a recommendation from oka And at the time you give us that recommendation We see All of the information that you had available to us Alyssa So I'm sure you know what my opinion is on this but i'm going to go I want to go with two parts of it one is I appreciate even though I had no idea what you were talking about when you first started speaking I appreciate The detail at which you described that and maybe I would ask that you repeat that before we make a final vote Because I want to make it super clear to all the other counselors who haven't had this conversation Over and over again at oka like we've had you haven't had to be exposed to it That since those are personnel documents You cannot say at a future meeting, but what about bob? I know bob applied You can't say that because that's a personnel document and you've now outed a personnel document and that would be bad The other part I just want to clarify is that I would ask that we alter the way that's that I think I heard that phrased again hearing it for the first time That I don't want oka to provide you that information I want town staff to provide you that information Directly just as they did to us so that we're not involved in passing personnel records along Just as you've asked that individuals are not person passing personnel records along So you'll get so right if this passes tonight There's nothing stopping the council from getting that information tomorrow In the cafs depending on if you decide something needs to be redacted But the actual and then the actual memo from oka Will remain as we intended it to remain and it won't have anything attached In terms of those individual caps those caps will just be something that as you said we knew about Before we wrote the memo we won't attach them to the memo, but those two things don't have to go together in time They should in fact not go together. Thank you Sarah So just as someone who's been working on this process for a really long time I also believe that if if this is what the council would like to do Then I would also like feedback in the amount of material that you require From us like what what we're reporting back to you because it's a right now It's a ginormous amount of information which then could maybe become completely redundant if You then are seeing all the cafs So in my mind if we change the process in this way, then I would want to discuss how Oka adapts To that exchange of information just as a clarification All that's asked for is that The council received the same documents you received Caffes A list And I and there's no other documents So Resumes whatever There's no other documents. So you don't need to be you wouldn't require a report You the report is separate You just separate this Oka will still do their process And you will still you having interviewed these people will still advance a memo to oka Oka at the same time will have seen caps and a list, right? No caps, all right At the so when you make your recommendation You will advance as a committee to the council your recommendation and separately The town staff will advance to the committee the same material you received I understand that and I guess again with the consistency. I think that we've said a lot about trusting like the initial Authority that is vetting or going through or doing that Legwork so I guess I would also I mean have heard like we would trust the you know resident advisory committee I would just really want to be The issue is not trust And that's the unfortunate word that keeps getting used The issue is these are council appointments When we do the manager appointments, we are confirming These are council appointments It's not that we don't trust you It's that we have to answer to our constituents as well We think you're actually doing a great job And thank god somebody's willing to do it Mandy joe can I add one more thing the Documents are not the only thing that can go into this decision And that's why I personally believe I need okos recommendation too Right is because someone is interviewing as far as I know nearly every applicant If not every applicant the everyone that you can get in touch with as my understanding there are some that don't respond um and that to me is an extremely important part of figuring out who to recommend and We need oka for that We definitely you know, so there's certain things you can't get from an application But but seeing those applications will I believe not sitting on that committee will help me Be more confident in the council appointment that but but it's not the only information I can take into consideration Alyssa I want to back us up in the process a little bit So I know your eyes all glaze over when I talk about how it was when I was the previous appointing authority, but It was not oka's decision It was not the council's decision It was not the president's decision to stop distributing cafs To the appointing authority that was a staff decision that was made Before oka even existed before the council existed So oka was never trying to keep that information from the other councilors We were simply Given what had happened where we were no longer getting that information as used to be immediately distributed to all appointing authorities um We were trying to work with what we had And so I just want to be clear to the public that we are following through as best we can Balancing all the issues we had given the information we had But we did not make a choke point on the cafs and so That's not that wasn't an oka decision the oak the decision was What to do with what we were getting which at that point at it was only very recently that we ourselves Actually got the cafs of the people who had applied So I appreciate everybody taking all of this into account because all of this material is still an unfolding scenario Just to however it was the public's decision to separate the legislative and the and the administration process Which is what the charter does When you were getting all of the cafs you were sharing administration or management with the town manager I would argue we were a separate appointing authority and that's why we were getting them not because we were part of the executive But we can have a difference of opinion on that Steve So is Amherst the only Of the 351 cities and towns that does this this way because As far as I know, it's typically a no or not. Okay. No mayoral appointment or elected by the It's either a town manager mayoral or elected at large are the most but I don't think there's a one way that others do it, but it's A lot it's what one of the things you said Two weeks ago some places. These are elected positions But they're often debated positions because they're very particularly for planning and zoning the regulatory entities. So it's not a It's it's a it's a clear responsibility. So If I may just seems like we're in this weird hybrid where we're calling So like I think of the word appointing authority as being a single person like a chair or a town manager And the when we start to use that for a body of 13 Then that's really where the complication is. So but it is the way the charter reads We are the appointing authority and there's four bodies. We appoint to pat I actually have a question for paul You you chose or the staff chose to stop giving the caps. I guess I'm interested in what your reasoning was The charter came into effect so it came into effect and then We just didn't start doing anything with the caps everything was an on hold Since march 27th because we weren't really able to start appointing at that point when the when the council comes in I look for direction from the council on how you want to handle your appointing authority and I think the the council's been struggling with the appointing authority And I guess we could have sent the caps to all the counselors To start that process, but I was looking for how do you want to handle it? So any any participants anything to your appointing Any any committees to which you appoint those are your caps you're entitled to do with them how you see fit as a council garcy I just have one more question for the town manager Is there an outstanding question to the attorney general about Whether the cafs are public records? That was my understanding to the attorney general Yeah, I thought there was an additional question or a question to the ag Alyssa check me if I'm wrong I think the outstanding question to the attorney general was whether the ochre process was legal So to clarify We were never going to get an opinion from the attorney general as to whether or not the caf Or the ochre process was legal because that's not what the attorney general's office does The town attorney was going to run Our practice months ago that we talked about at length on a conference call Past a contact at the division of open government and say do you see any flags? I don't see based on my years of experience. I'm thinking this works Do you see any problems and that because that was when we were still moving away from having two people on the council Be so that was part of a previous question The outstanding question is there is no outstanding question the attorney general's office The outstanding question is to circle back to the town attorney about the caf fields That's the conversation that there's no question that right now It's a personnel document the question moving forward is do we want to change that? And if we do what parts of it do we want to change and that we will need the town attorney in terms of employee records and personnel records and open and public records as well as So that's going to be the outstanding question And we just haven't circled back on how to alter the caf and we will need the attorney's help to figure that out Based on current hr processes But the town attorney has given us Her opinion or their opinion on our present caps I understand that I I guess I just don't understand how one town can define The caps as public records and the town next door can define them as personnel records What's that about and What It's not can we just define them the way we want to uh, or is there an answer is there like A legal opinion would the attorney general tell us something different should we ask the attorney general is it mr. Bacoma I don't think the the attorney general doesn't give you an opinion like that That's why we go to our town attorney to get the opinion But if different town attorneys have different opinions, what then what do we do? I mean town attorneys can Give you the opinion that you want I think right no not our town attorney, but I do Town attorney, but town attorneys do disagree on interpretation of law. I don't think that's a surprise to anybody and We have a very reputable firm that represents over a hundred communities in the commonwealth And they bring an assessment of our practice based on their experience in all the other communities but May I speak? Then who is the ultimate arbiter of What these records are? I mean, how is there is there a possibility of getting a definitive decision Since towns differ on this The I would go on the definitive opinion of what our town attorney tells us That's how I base my operations Because if I want my town attorney to be on my side If there's a challenge to something if the town attorney says you're doing something wrong I need to change that practice, but the town attorney says this is in compliance with how I interpret the law I don't care what someone in another town said to there and I don't know the question That was posed to the other community or what the what the set of facts are I just know what my set of facts are and I know what our attorney has examined those sets of facts And has made a made an analysis and legal opinion to to me So that's how I would interpret it and that's how I interpret anything for any kind of legal question Alyssa I just want to be really clear that And I think that was you know to let that settle for a minute is really important because that's true for all town attorney opinions Right, there's sometimes been things in the past that the town attorney's written that I've been like I don't think that sounds right But then we ask different questions and we see if we can elicit a different opinion I think where the difference is here is that this is what's true Right now when we do this evaluation process We've been talking about that we have every intention of doing and you aren't ok and you're going to help with it is that We one potential is that we put a disclaimer on the caf that says by the way all this is public In which case if we say that Assuming that that is not in conflict with any other types of personnel Rules and which our town attorney would check But assume we would have them check that but if we said that then in theory then yeah It wouldn't be a personnel record anymore, but we would need right now It is and so that's a future discussion absolutely Dorothy I I believe that we always have the option of doing it in executive session If we interview a certain number more than the space the spots we're trying to fill So if our town attorney says these are personnel records and have to be kept very private Then we could do that process, but if it's a council appointment I feel that the council members need to have the full information in order to do that job well so The issue we are discussing is the issue as follows These are four committees to which the town council appoints the members it's It's a body. It's not an individual And that's based on the charter and outreach communications and appointments is in the process of Doing a process whereby they're interviewing They're having an one individual do the interviews and make a recommendation back to ocha and then ocha In turn will make a recommendation to the council So what we've been discussing is that at the time The council receives ocha's recommendation From ocha separately They would receive from a town employee design a Of the town manager all of the material that they also had provided to ocha to make their decision that's what the issue that we're discussing is and At this point because the CAFs are not subject to disclosure The council then needs to understand What the restrictions are about those? And I repeat you shall not discuss deliberate photograph or duplicate in any way share with anybody Or with other than yourselves Not even among yourselves They're private information. They may have redacted materials from them and the process Will apply only to CAFs for town council appointments Are there other questions about that? Yes, clarifying question When you said all the material that ocha received does that mean that ocha received all of the CAFs? My understanding is that ocha received the CAFs that for those people that they interviewed There may have been CAFs that they did not receive Because the people didn't respond. I will need to have a clarification on that I don't know how many I think Angela sent all the CAFs, but I've really just don't know the answer to that question But there we will then need to also know when there are people that Between the time they submitted a CAF and We got to this point. They've moved out of town. So they're no longer eligible Maybe they couldn't be reached through any number of methods And even then they may have been reached and said, you know, I'm not interested anymore Or the more I've learned about this the more I'm not interested So we would receive all of the CAFs Yeah, yes 105 I feel like when you have a big family your mom calls you by every other name until she gets to yours Sarah John I'm joining Beth Kate Sarah. Yeah um, so Again when you said talking from a researcher's point of view You know, okay, I tried pretty I would say that I understand from looking at somebody else's decisions thinking, hmm I think I want to know everything that was on the table. Um, so For me I personally think I would like to keep this process pure And the way that we set it up. Okay, just from the just from the idea of we set it up We were told we could go with it. I would like to just see where it ends up knowing full well I know this committee is going to say We're going to do it all different the next time and that's we're a team. That's totally cool One thing I would say is that if people do vote To get the CAFs from a researcher point of view someone who's really been looking at this exhaustively and also looking at what I'm going to give everyone as Um, information I would be interested to see if anyone's Deciding process changed considerably And this is just from somebody who's putting the report together from seeing the report And seeing the CAF. So that does that make sense? So if you looked at my report to you And made a decision then you looked at the CAFs I would just be interested as if They Seeing that additional information Did that just make you really like kind of flip about what your decision was seeing my report? That's just from a research standpoint Other comments Shallony So I feel that we are really getting along well And I trust everyone in this room But the the processes need to be such that they may be different compositions of people and And it should have enough transparency and you know checks within it that You know if there is a certain group of people that whatever then the process will have those checks in place Okay, Evan so I'm In this seat as an oka member but also trying to think of how I would feel if I was not an oka member And so I can I can certainly understand both sides of this There's two things I wanted to say One is that this council Has an infatuation with the CAFs Having seen them many of them provide very little detail The the the real meat of the information is going to be coming from the interviews Which have been done and which You know have informed the decision The CAFs are variable And so I'm sort of wait. I I don't know where this vote's going to go But I'm sort of waiting for everyone to get the CAFs and then go That's it um And they may and so And I'm fine with that. Um, but what I will say is I don't know what the sense of the full council is Although I have an assumption Um My big concern has always been balancing transparency and privacy and It's it's easy as someone who has had these CAFs now It's so easy until you get them to say we're not going to talk about them We're not going to mention them and then you get them and you go I want to talk about them, right? Because you have them and you want to talk about them with each other And so my one thing would be if if the council's decision is to release the CAFs to every member of the council I you know, and I would respect that decision. I would understand why you would want that But that we really do respect The fact that they are private documents. They are personnel records Because the more people they get their hands on them once it goes from five to 13 You're increasing the chances that it gets out there. Um, and so My main concerns here are protecting privacy and so I cannot reinforce that enough that it's really hard not to talk about it's hard not to tell a secret once you get a secret Right, not that these are secret, but it these are personnel records and it it will be difficult. I think Are there any further comments? I just want to say my biggest secret is my age and yet it's a public document Anyone who looks up the voter rolls finds it out. So I really you know How how many other secrets are we expecting to have people have? Mine I've got a lot I did not originally put this forward as a motion would someone like to make a motion I'm not sure how to word it because you're the one that's got the wording But I guess the the motion is I move that the town manager provide To the town council the same documents that the town manager Or designee provided to the oca committee Regarding appointments to The planning board the zba The participatory budgeting commission and the ranked choice voting commission For these appointments and also for all future appointments at this Is so well no so so it's that I don't know how to word it, but it's not just for this round We don't have to revote this unless we want to remove it. Okay. Is there a second Kathy Okay, andy have a question was it The information provided by the town manager or was it all of the information that was available to the Appointments committee it it was the information provided by the town manager Yes, alissa So I think two things are important to clarify because there have been a couple different phrases Tossed around because it's totally reasonable to assume there might have been something like a list or resumes What none of those things exist It's true that the town manager has reported to us that not Everyone he necessarily interviewed had filled out a caf But perhaps had expressed personal interest So if you were if you were which we are not if you were doing this The town manager you might not end up with an equal number because there may not be a caf for somebody he interviewed Or didn't interview When it comes to the oca process There are no resumes. There are no writing samples. There are no lists. All there are is caf So I'm a little loathe to have it say All materials because I will tell you a different material that was provided to us It was an interview schedule that was provided to the to the designee who's doing the interview I don't think that's an appropriate piece of material to hand out because that's an interview schedule So I just want to be clear that the things we're talking about would be things that Would be decision-making things like a caf or if there were resumes or if there were other things I believe your interview schedule is going to be attached to your recommending document No, it is not. There's no reason the questions that you're going to do I'm not talking about a schedule. I'm talking about a literal schedule Like somebody's coming in on thursday at five o'clock the questions Right, so I just want to be clear that yes absolutely the interview questions So they're already public and they were they were intended to be part of not not an interview schedule I just don't know Since we are sitting on the outside and we haven't heard a report as to exactly what oca has seen That's that's what lin was using So that's the wording I used if it is truly just pronounce of the calf or Email copy of the right that that is literally. I just don't know. We just don't know what all you get Sarah, that's why it's worded that way. I just want to make it clear that we didn't ask We didn't solicit resumes everything that We received were the cafs of the pool and I even say that of people who are still who had applied for From two years ago to now who are still living and who are residents of amherst and still expressed interest That's what our pool is I will say that unsolicited one person did hand me a resume. I have not shared that with Anyone else so there is there's one resume that I myself have seen I know of one resume. I will also say that Since this process began just today. I found out that someone who had applied has now Asked that their name be removed from our applicant list So just keep in mind that you know if you're going to get these there, you know We'll be very forthcoming with what we got I'll also tell you that we don't have the only cafs that we have are the pool for the planning board And the zoning board of appeals. We don't have anything else The recommendation that I had suggested was that Those caps be advanced to us at the time you give us your memo That okah gives the council their memo Okay, so that That would be friendly Okay All right, elissa Is there a way to include I know and I'm looking at mr. Steinberg because I know how much he loves long motions But is there a way to include In our records beyond the minutes the really definite personnel Information that you provide that you made so clear. I mean how The motion doesn't include anything about protecting these as personnel records And so your original explanation did the motion that's on the floor does not say anything about protecting them as personnel records And I I'm really concerned that that remained part of it Or a separate motion Okay, let's just deal with the motion and then go to a separate motion Is there any other question about the motion? Do you want to attempt to read it for us? That the town manager provided to the town council the same documents provided to the OCA can they regarding appointments to planning board zoning board of appeals rank choice voting commission and participatory Budgeting commission at the time okah presents their recommendation to the town council Okay, any further discussion on that yes Yes, I don't see why you can't he they can't just send them out tomorrow because you're not getting our recommendations tomorrow You may as well get them. So that was again that separate thing we talked about what seems like an hour ago That there's nothing stopping I don't think they should go together because that makes it seem like they're part of a package I think that you should just get those cafs as soon as staff is ready to give them to you And the oca recommendation is completely separate from that Okay, fine Any further questions on that one Yes So are you Deleting that last phrase then that was the friendly amendment phrase. I guess we are yes Yes All right, any further questions? All those in favor opposed obscene eight to five Eight to five Okay, eight to five in favor. Okay. Now the next motion is that around the issue of Not disclosing deliberating or otherwise sharing the documents Somebody want to try to craft that motion for me, please? I said Okay, I move that because the The CAFA documents are at present considered not are not considered public documents They shall not be discussed, deliberated, photographed, duplicated or in any way shared with anyone else Except for the party for whom they are intended Second Okay Yes Steve Or what or what are the consequences? So I mean in other words That's a very good question except that You'll have somebody else to answer to Right Yeah, it's I think it's guidance. I think it's the guidelines that we go with and I don't see it as a motion I mean when when okra received it it didn't receive it as a motion It received it as guidelines as guidance As rules I mean the consequences you've destroyed the privacy of the process and you've outed some individuals by talking about their CAF and not others And so it's a drastic consequence. It's important But I understand what you're saying about the fact that we didn't vote to adopt that because it's just a fact It's what personnel records are It's not our interpretation of personnel records. It's what personnel records are Okay, sarah Yeah, just so that it's cleared my understanding from all the talking to the the town attorney that we did and then what we received In relation to a public documents request is that these are to be treated as personnel files and the or what would be that you've broken Open Meeting law and you've you've you've now shared something that someone did not When someone filled out that CAF there was nothing on there that said these things will be made public So you've now given public information that that individual did not Agree at this time to disclose. I'm going to withdraw the motion This person that seconded it Yeah, I won't object to that. Okay Yes, so can the minutes simply reflect that it was stated repeatedly? But that it's in our I think I said at least five or six times I know that there's lots of things we say that don't end up in the minutes, but I think that's an important We'll check the minutes for that one. Is there any other conversation? All right, then we're going to move on. Yes Okay We have committee reports Alyssa, I think we're done with rules of procedure for tonight Yes Yes, what was that deadline again? Thursday Close the business Thursday close of business to Margaret Thank you Outreach communication appointments Sarah Oh my goodness. I think you heard it all. Thank you Uh governance organization legislation Mandy joe none tonight. We'll have a written report next meeting finance committee They will offer none no more tonight than we already did Okay, the only thing I'm going to remind you and I'm you're getting an email at nine o'clock tomorrow morning is that we do need your goals Uh material or let me know that we're not going to get it by may 16th community resources committee steve So we have met twice since the last meeting and my apologies that there's not a written report So the meeting of april 24th was um chaired by Vice chair Dorothy Pam Because I wasn't there and the primary discussion item were the c-pack recommendations And there was a vote of four to zero to support the c-pack recommendations as they were presented So this is um, it's worth noting that There was a meeting that same day regarding something that the basically the five hundred thousand dollar allocation for the Project on north hampton road and it as a reaction to that meeting and to other information A lot of us have been contacted You know regarding that particular recommendation So someone from that meeting has is going to when we meet next time Probably make a motion that we reconsider and give more Chance more discussion on that particular that particular issue Um our last yeah I'm going off the report. I'm sorry. Yeah Yeah, yeah I'm sorry. I'm ad-libbing that part of it, but That's not part of the that's not for discussion at this time. Yeah, I'm sorry, you know what let's can I strike Strike the minutes. Yeah Thank you At our last meeting we discussed the initial Goals and so we went through the list of the town council goals and we discussed that so Yeah, I'm sorry. I went off off ad-libbed a little bit there Okay Pat by law review anything Continuing to work. Thank you And audit committee we're we just did it. Thank you. We have the approval of minutes There's two sets of minutes. I'd like to do it as a consent agenda So the motion would be to approve the minutes to prove the April 22nd town council minutes As presented and to approve the April 23rd town council minutes as presented Is there a motion? So moved second It was Mandy Joe and Pat okay, are there Changes or corrections to the April 22nd minutes Any to the April 23rd minutes Hearing none all those in favor opposed abstain Okay, there's three people abstained brewer Schwartz and Steinberg Okay Um, all right How managers report Four things first off great Cleanup day on saturday. Thank you all for who participated We collected 340 pounds of trash and 100 pounds of recycling We had participation from the rotary club the amherst college football team the amherst high school football team The boy scouts the amherst garden club The counselors and a special shout out to our cpo's jennifer angela and bianna who pulled it all together and did all the planning and We're there that day as well number two the um cup of joe with paul We're going to be talking about budget on friday at kelly's restaurant with sonia aldrich will be the special guest star As you heard earlier and it's in written in my report We have i have contracted with pvta to provide late night bus service from may through September so that will happen and lastly rise the recreational marijuana shop on Meadow street is scheduled they should have their opening Hopefully not before friday friday will be a crazy day But they're hoping to open on saturday or sunday or if not early next week So that will you will see an impact traffic wise probably because of that And any questions of the town manager at this time? I just I just had one on on your report. Um the bridge The bridge up by puffers. You said nearly open art. Do you have any more sense or you're just going to keep us posted? I keep keep you in suspense. I don't know what it's going to open when the state says they're open and the contractor Pulls out and the state says it's done. It will open Uh, I've talked with the president and we will have a ribbon cutting of some sort that the council will be invited to But we don't know when that will happen. They could be finished within the next week or two though And the other I want to just uh do a comment on cleanup day I thought it was a fabulous idea and I said that earlier if we could get The information out earlier to people. Um, I've got two or three residents at the last minute who didn't know about it One actually brought a sled with her was climbing down banks and pulled out many of those pounds So we have some willing people who really want to do this. Um, they just Need somehow to be on on the list of call me Um, I did have an inquiry about station road bridge. I took A response straight out of your memo and if you would just share that with people at this time Sure. So station road bridge. We have contracted to purchase a bridge It should be here within a week or two probably two Then uh, we're going to continue to move forward and installing the bridge Probably it'll be finished in june And we we are still waiting words from the state, but we're basically at this point We can't wait for the state and we will be Installing and hoping that they Approve all the things we've taken all their comments into consideration And believe that it's perfectly legal the way we're doing things Thank you pat. Was there another question? Oh darsie I just had wondered if you could remind us about um What of the latest update with a solar landfill or I know it said no progress, but What what is the timeline? What what how does it stand right now? I don't know that off the top of my head I have to ask deafening So I don't know that off the top of my head. We can find that out for you We'll get back to you with that information. Okay additional information or questions Uh town council comments, uh, let me just mention I mentioned earlier I did not do council liaisons on tonight's agenda. It was already too long I do want to inform you however that After our meeting on april 22nd It was brought to my attention that greenfield savings bank had requested Three bag meters immediately in front of the green of their branch located at 108 north pleasant street This was so that they're not prefer not for profit partners big brothers big sisters Could pick up bibs for the daffodil run and that pickup was during friday april 26th from 10 to 3 My understanding is that this didn't come forward to us because they went through a change in staff and Didn't realize that they had to get it in And because there was no bidding prior to having the request confirmed And we had not yet approved item 7a on our agenda town council policy regarding Control and regulations public ways town comments parking cyber et cetera. I authorized the town manager to approve this request Any objections Okay Anything else that any other councilor comments at this point? future agenda items Not that we don't have enough. Yes dorsi. Um, I would like to see uh in a future agenda item The issue of the petition that was brought by the bid To the select board and then it was referred to the downtown parking working groups that is um Probably a lot of you saw the petition at americinema over the months last year that would um End enforcement after 6 p.m. Of parking fees um I'd like to have a discussion of that and um I pledge to try to find out more about it in the meantime because I know that it was referred to the downtown parking working group But they are focused mainly on availability um of parking so Anyway, I'm interested in putting that on the agenda at some point. We'll ask the town manager to bring that forward alissa I think not tonight We need to have another discussion about how to get things on the agenda because I don't think it should just be one of us Thinks it's a cool idea even though it is a cool idea and so I for example think that we should be asking the town manager to tell us what downtown parking working group is doing with that Not that we should just add it to our agenda as an item for us to discuss But I think asking the town manager to give us a report on what they're doing would be great And then figuring out is it time for us to have a next step But I don't want to just add it to the agenda as a cool thing for us to talk about. Thank you Pat I would like to see a list of future agenda items Coming to us more frequently Okay We do have such a running list and we can provide that to you as part of our packet Okay anything else It's a frightening list Just Just to prepare you any other comments or agenda items I just didn't say that I think that'd be really useful because with the the rules we just talked about today There may be some things that we could see we need to do In this work group by you know, that's something that we it's not just an agenda I didn't something we want to spend 40 minutes talking about You know, just which of these things where we're not ready to vote or make decisions So it'll be helpful to see what the framework is on where there might be space for that Let me when we I let me speak with the Town clerk and see what the best way is to get you that list and so forth. Okay Anything else steve? Well, I was going to give a shout out to bill kason who Is For his work The last standing public comment person our member in the town Really for his work on arts week and I played a small role in that by By working with bill on an architectural tour of downtown which attracted Over 30 people on arany 35 people are ready several of us want to make sure you do it again when we can all come Yeah, no, it was Yeah, no, it was super fun. I learned a lot. Thank you Any other comments? All right hearing none. I am moved to I do a here in motion to adjourn Okay pat gets it and and dorthy dorthy dorthy gets the second one All those in favor


And James you said uh stay with the gospel and I've tried the best I could to stay with the gospel because I know the gospel is the power of God to salvation and it's the gospel that Matt needs to hear to see his need of God's forgiveness and that's why I try to open up those commandments to it's weird that you think I haven't heard it repeatedly that's right you've got a hardened heart and I'm praying it'll soften it up yeah well Matt I just know a hardened heart than a hardened brain


at the pool. The tether has broken, it is going away from us. Get it on the TV, Claude. Please get it on the TV. The tether has broken. Copy. And Jeff, we're tracking it with the radar and we do read zero tension. Dave, it's like all the tether is outside of the boom and well away from the orbiter. We've got some tether inside the boom. Maybe it looks like about 8 or 10 meters. So it broke inside the boom, it seems. We've got the brake on and we don't see any tether movement. It's just laying inside the boom. Copy all, Andy. And stand by. Okay, Andy, and we want to completely verify you have a visual on the satellite and the tether is moving away from the shuttle. I'd like some words on that. We had a visual on the satellite up until we got into darkness here. We'll go ahead and try to pick it back up, but at the time that we had it, all the tether was heading up towards the satellite and was well away from us. It looks like we still have a radar lock, so we could keep that for a little bit, unless you guys are tracking it better than we are. We have an image. Okay, and what you're seeing now, we were using the 350. Do you confirm you are seeing the picture? Affirmative, Jeff. Good image. Okay, this is taken through the EOS 350 millimeter lens. We were photographing the shape of the tether, and you can see it just starting to go slack now. Unfortunately, in all the excitement, somebody bumped the camera and we lost it, either we had of it, as it was, and we got it for a minute or so before sunset. Yes, sir. Well, those are some tether dynamics we did not want to see. We have demonstrated that you can generate a lot of electricity with tether, and unfortunately, we've also demonstrated that you can use tethers to launch a satellite into a much higher orbit. And FIDO concurs, that was one of our objectives. Two of our objectives, at least. In fact, we can see it picked up about an 80 foot per second boost. Being able to capture some of it before visual motion again here, sir, and it looks like it's going in. Copy, Scott. Thank you. Roger, we see it. Back with you on the West at 2206. That's a beautiful shot of an amazing piece of equipment. Commander Amy Witte from WHNT TV, I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. How would you answer critics who say $443 million is a lot to lose and space research should be curbed? How would you respond to that? We need to take a hard look at what happened and why. And there isn't any research program, like I said, that doesn't have disappointments that come along the way. The value of it, I think, space research is an extremely valuable tool because every time we do something, we learn something. But I don't think there's a research program around that doesn't have its types of failures and can have some of that same criticism applied to it. We can't learn unless we go try. So I have not lost my excitement about what we try to do up here in space. Nor have I lost my enthusiasm. Nor do I think it has really lost its merit. I think it is tremendously commendable and worthwhile goal for us to keep on doing this type of research up here. We haven't seen the last of Tether's, I hope, and we just need to go ahead and take another hard look at it. This is Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press for Dr. Hoffman. I'm wondering if you could describe a little more your feelings of personal loss as you watched the Tether Cut and as you saw yours and yours of work just go out into nothingness. We have putting it because a lot of things were disappearing there. We all did have a lot of hope. We got about half way there in terms of being able to deploy the satellite and to just wet people's appetite for the incredible scientific investigations that could be covered. The scientists have lost a lot and I deeply feel for them and we were really looking forward to demonstrating that we could actually retrieve a satellite from 20 kilometers which of course is something that has never been done and we've put an incredible amount of work into that. And those of us here will probably never get a chance to do that. But in terms of personal feeling, really important, I think we've all been trying to say this, is that when you're working hard to try to develop new ideas, new science, new technology, you have setback. How many things did Thomas Edison try before he finally found a filament to make an electric light bulb? And I want to think back to STS-46 when we obviously also had a disappointment and one question was asked to us about what the purpose is, why we should keep doing this. And at that time what I did was to take out something that we brought on board and that is a copy of a book by Arthur Clark. The sounds of parents describes a very futuristic view of an application of tethers where someday there may be a tether system that would lead to a space elevator going from Earth all the way up to geosynchronous orbit. Tethers have the potential to revolutionize a lot of the ways we operate in space. Nobody said it's going to be easy. I would have hoped that after two flights we would have gotten a little farther than we got this time and I don't want to try to pretend that we're not pretty bitterly disappointed. But nevertheless, human lifetimes are short in the big scheme of things and hopefully these dreams will someday come true and our successors I hope will look back to the things that we've done and at least they can say that we helped to point the way. And if that's so then I think we'll all have gotten a lot of satisfaction from this.