All right, Amherst media, we're ready to go. Good evening. Tonight is our forum on the budget. Looking forward to 2021. It is November 19. And based on Governor Baker's orders of March 12. We are allowed to meet virtually. I'm going to call on each counselor by name. And please unmute and confirm that you are here. And then please make sure you mute again. So I'm going to start with Alyssa Brewer. Let's have a brewer. Let me start with Shalini Balmill. Yeah. Alyssa Brewer present. Babe. Are you ready to get started? We're here at the Angeles. Absaam. Darcy Dumont. Here. I'm using Latin. Lynn Griezmer's here. Mandi. Jo Hanity present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Yeah. Brian. President. Sine. Here. Dave Shriver. Present. And Sarah Schwartz. Present. Given that we have a quorum of the council president, I'm calling the meeting to order at 632. We are going to begin with a brief presentation. And then there'll be plenty of opportunity. For people to make public comment. Limited in time to three minutes. I also want to point out that we continue to have closed captioning. And if you're on zoom, you can do, you can go to that and you can press on closed captioning. And it will show everything that we are saying. Once in a while there are spelling errors. So just be aware of that. With that, I'm going to turn. Yes. Isn't it posted also as a finance committee meeting. Please go. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It is posted as finance committee meeting. I need to call that meeting to order too. And you've actually already confirmed the attendance of. The council members of the committee. And I think Bob Hegner is the other person who's present. So, Bob, if you could confirm your presence then. I'm here. We're good. Okay. And with that, we're going to go ahead and Sean. Is going to make a brief presentation and then we will move on. To public comment. Okay. Paul, are we going to go through this the same way we did on Monday night? Okay. So I'll start. So this is the bud, the public forum on the budget. This is a requirement of the town charter. When we first started this, we did it later in the budget process, but in consultation with the town council, we determined that was better to do the public forum on the budget. Early before the budget is actually proposed. So this is the opportunity for the public to weigh in in advance of the preparation of the budget. And so in the way public forums work is that there's a presentation, but at least 50% of the time must be devoted to listening to the public's comments. Next slide. So what we will present tonight is a look at the. Financial conditions of the town. We will identify the economic impacts of COVID-19. We'll talk about the need for capital investment because one of the ways we balanced the FY 21 budget was by deflating the amount of contributions we made to capital. We also want to recognize the impact on taxpayers for any kind of tax increase. I think we want to recognize that we did a terrific job and the council deserves a lot of credit for actually approving and implementing the FY 21 budget. Credit goes to our comptroller Sonia Aldridge and finance director son, Sean Mingano, and for making all this come. Come to a reality. There's some communities that still have not adopted their FY 21 budgets. And the state is still not adopted its FY 21 budget. So we've been working in a really time of uncertainty. I'm not going to go through every one of these points. You know, we'll talk to you about how we believe that our strong fiscal management has put the town in a position to be able to move forward on some important initiatives and projects. And it's really based on strong working relationships with the other elected officials, specifically the board of library trustees and the school committee and their leadership, their staff leadership there. Our approach historically through the town has been to take very modest, careful steps along the way to make sure that we have the revenues, adequate revenues to support any, any initiatives that we get took on. So next slide. So Paul, I'll walk through this one. So real quick before I dive into this and some of the details and I'll make this bigger. I do want to just point out that you can get more information on our budget by going to the town's website. And if you click on the government tab and there's a little budget icon that will pop up, you click the budget icon. And then you can find out more information on the FY 21 budget. There's also a place for FY 22's budget now. And so you'll see more information on the FY 22 calendar, a longer version of this presentation with more data and more slides on some financial information for the town. And also on that same page is a feedback button that you can click to submit budget feedback. So if there's anything that you remember after tonight and you want to submit it formally, that's one way you could do it is to click that submit budget feedback button and there's a little form and all that comes to the town manager and myself. So this is the revenue side of our budget. It's broken into four categories, property tax, local receipts, state aid and other financing sources. The largest portion of our revenues comes from property taxes. And the two components that really change each year are the allowable increase, which is always 2.5% and our new growth. And new growth generally comes from new developments, new construction that's going on in town. But it also comes from things as simple as home renovations and improvements that increase the value of a home. And so the variable really that's important to look at this year is the new growth number, which is a little bit up from FY 21, but lower than where we generally see it. And we adjusted that down a little bit because of the pandemic. In the local receipt section, I won't go through every line, but I'll point out a couple. So hotel, motel and meals excise, that's one that is driven by our local economy. When we go out to eat at a restaurant or stay in a hotel, that's where we get that revenue from. And so we cut that way back for FY 21, because there was so much uncertainty and we're projecting that to start to climb back and FY 22. The columns here, if you want to get a sense of where things were, you can look at that FY 20 actual and FY 20 actual is a good idea of where we were, even though the last couple of months of FY 20 were impacted by the pandemic. So that even FY 20 might be done a little bit. Another area, I'll just point out pilot. You'll see a 13% reduction in our payment and lieu of taxes category. I don't want people to think that's a loss of revenue. We had a 40 year pilot agreement with a entity that expired this past year. And so now that entity is paying regular property taxes. And so that went up into new growth. Departmental revenue, you'll see a really large increase. That's because we reduced revenues for our leisure services programming or Amherst recreation. I'm not sure if they've officially made the switch, but we reduced those programming revenues quite a bit for FY 21, because at the time we didn't know what type of services would be able to be delivered. They've been able to do some things. And we believe going into next, when this starts next July, they'll start getting back on track. And so that's where we get the money from. The special assessments. That's where our, the money we get from the colleges and universities for the PVTA. We pay a portion and UMass pays a portion and the other colleges pay a portion. And so that revenue we get from the colleges and universities to pay the assessment comes into that special assessment section. And then the last one I'll point out here is in miscellaneous. That's where we have our UMass occupancy fees. That hotel has been closed. So far this year and it appears it's going to be closed for the rest of the year. So, but we are projecting that going into FY 22, we would see that open back up and start to collect some revenue. Going into the next section, which is state aid. There's so much uncertainty around state aid that we have kept this level for now. There's a few areas that we're definitely going to find out more information in the near future. But we wanted to go slow with state aid. And so we've kept that level. We do know that the state did promise us level funding on our revenues for FY 21. However, there always could be mid-year. Reductions to state aid. That we still need to be cautious of. And then other financing sources. The two biggest ones there are ambulance fund and our enterprise fund reimbursements. So the ambulance fund generates revenue when our ambulances go out and they bill insurances and the insurance might come back in and help support EMS staffing and some other areas. And most recently, it helped support new ambulance that was approved Monday night. So, and then the other area is enterprise funds. So we have enough for enterprise funds, water, sewer, solid waste and transportation. And all of those pay an indirect charge to the general fund to represent the services that the general government provides to those enterprise funds. And that revenue comes in here. So all in all, we're projecting that our revenues are going to grow about 3% in total, which is good. But it's still, if you look at FY 20, we're still not back to FY 20 levels for revenues. On the expense side, this, we break our operating budgets down into four departments, the town, elementary schools, the Amherst Pellum regional school district and the library. And so we do have a lot of, we do have a lot of people who are in the library. And so we decided because of all the uncertainty around the pandemic to start this year with level funding. This would be the second year of level funding. If things don't improve. So that will be difficult on operating budgets. You'll see for the schools, they actually have a small reduction. That's because we, there's been a longstanding agreement with the elementary schools to adjust their, their budget each year by changes in charter and choice and so on and so forth. And so we have a lot of people who are in the library. And some of the years, they come in higher than everybody else by a little bit. And some of the years they come in lower. And this just happens to be a year where the adjustment works against them. The next section is capital. And so one of the things that Mr. Backelman mentioned earlier is that there's a high focus on capital this year. And you can see an FY 21 that we really reduce capital significantly from FY 20. And so we need to get it back up. We've got a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, we've looked at the projects. We've looked at what was deferred. And we think if we get to 8%, we can make a lot of headway and catching up on the things that we pushed off. And another positive development in capital that I'll just point out is you'll see a. Pretty large reduction in our debt service current. That's a longstanding debt obligation for roads that was, is going to be completely paid off this year. That was a huge increase in that. And so that's the, the important area. There's our pension assessment that's for all the, all four departments up above, that generally grows seven to 8% a year. And then down below and unappropriated uses. So that's where our reserve for abatement and exemptions, which is we usually use a placeholder of 1% of whatever the, the tax levy is. state aid every year, there's also a number of charges. The two largest charges in our state assessments category is charter tuition and the PVTA assessment. So again, we're keeping state aid level for now, we're also keeping the assessments level and we'll adjust those as we get more information. So right now we've got a small surplus but we know there's a lot that's gonna change over the next month or two that will update this and have more information in the future. The next couple of slides are really to share information about the pandemic. So this one in particular, focuses on the revenues that support our budget that were most affected by the pandemic. So the first one is our transportation, which is for our enterprise fund that gets its revenues from parking in town primarily. And that's the one that we're most worried about because parking really dropped off over the summer and it slowly picked back up but it's still well below where normal levels are. And so that one we'll be watching very closely. The other ones are licenses and permits, meals tax, hotel motel and UMass occupancy. And if I didn't mention before, this is a comparison of actual revenues in FY20 to actual first quarter revenues in FY20 to first quarter revenues in FY21. So it's really comparing apples to apples over the same time period. We did budget reductions for FY21. We anticipated that there would be drop offs in these revenues. And so other than transportation, all these reductions are in line with what we budgeted. Transportation is really the big unknown because we're not sure when that's gonna come all the way back. And then likewise, another area we're watching closely is our water consumption. So we have a water enterprise fund and a sewer enterprise fund. When there are fewer people in town, in particular college students and staff, the water consumption drops off quite a bit. And normally reductions in water consumption is not a bad thing, but our enterprise funds derive the revenue from consumption. And so when there's a steep drop, like there was when the university and the colleges sent all the students home, the enterprise fund has to deal with that drop in revenue. And so you can see in July, there was a pretty big difference between what type of consumption there was last year in FY20 for the first quarter and our consumption for FY21. August, it actually balanced out a little bit. And then in September, we're seeing the gaps start to grow again. So we're watching this very closely as well. There's a little bit of a lag in these numbers because some people are billed quarterly and some people are billed monthly. So we might can see that gap continue to grow a little bit. But if more students come back and things start to come back a little bit in town for the second half of the fiscal year, we would expect to see these gaps close a little bit. But we also budgeted for these reductions as well. And with that, I will turn it back to Paul. Thank you, Sean. So I wanna note that we do have very strong ratings from the standard and poor's bond rating, which is important indicator of the town's financial strength. They look at our operations. They look at the reserves. They look at the broader and economic situation as well. And that we have purposely under, for many years the town has been building up its reserves in order to take on the major capital projects that you're aware of. Next slide. So the, again, I think I don't wanna read, say everything that Sean just addressed this sort of summarizes all the things that we had said previously. We have tried to maintain a budget that gives us adaptability so we can respond to situations, especially in a COVID world. We don't know what's gonna happen after January one. Right now we've been buffeting the winds with our funds from the CARES Act after January one that those funds are not there. We don't know what's going to happen. I was just on a call today with the Lieutenant Governor and Senior Department of Revenue Officials. They're not even speculating on what will happen. And even any decision they think will be retroactive. So it's not going to help us with the funds that we have right now. So keep going, yeah. This is a quick snapshot of the needs of all three entities, library schools in town. As you can see, we're all struggling with facility needs. We're all struggling with state aid. We're all struggling with COVID-19. And each one of us has slightly different issues. There's an article in the Boston Globe today I think about declining revenues or declining school enrollments throughout the state and how the state has to start to grapple with that.  So moving forward, we're hoping to take some strong steps in the near future on the large capital projects. We think that it's wise to, we've built up these reserves for a reason that we've been fortunate in being able to hold on to them so far. But we will be suggesting ways to use them to offset the impact of the large capital projects on taxpayers. And one of the things that we're always careful of is any new initiative. We want to make sure that there's a proven ongoing revenue source to support any new initiatives, which has always been one of the big challenges for any community when you have so many needs and have so many initiatives that you want to take on. If you don't have the revenues to support it, it's a recipe for disaster. We believe that our business fundamentals downtown should be reliable. They should snap back quicker than many other communities because we do have a strong economic base with the university and two colleges.  So Paul, I'll walk through the calendar real quick. So this is actually, we've got a few more things accomplished since last time because this was from the financial indicators report. So that you can put a check. The resident capital request deadline also went by, so you can check that one off as well. And tonight we're here at the FY22 budget public forum. So the next big things that come out related to the budget are the budget guidelines and the finance committee has begun discussing those guidelines and they'll use the information that they hear tonight to further develop those guidelines as we go. And eventually the town council will develop, will adopt them, hopefully sometime in December is where we're targeting right now. Other items, just to note, the CPAC has a meeting going on right now. They are also discussing their recommendations that will eventually come to the council. We have a BCG meeting, which is a budget coordinating group tentatively scheduled for February. We'll see if we need that. And then I guess the last thing I'll finish with is our capital planning process really kicks into high gear when the Joint Capital Planning Committee starts, which we're tentatively scheduled to start in February. And that's a committee that reviews the capital improvement program and makes recommendations to the town manager. And then there's a number of meetings with the finance committee and the town council and the spring and later on in the spring. And with that, we will turn it over for any comments. Thank you. I think you can go ahead and take the screen down. Thanks, I appreciate that. We are now entering into the public forum period. Based on the charter, the public forum will be open for at least as long as 22 minutes, which is the time that we have already taken. So I see one hand up and it's Lydia Irons. And would you please bring Lydia into the room where she can speak for us? Hello, all, can you hear me? We can, thank you, Lydia. State your name and where you live. My name is Lydia Irons. I live on Jeffrey Lane and I've been a resident in Amherst for 11 years. I'm also a nursing student at UMass. I have two small children that I want to grow up in an equitable and just community. So I'm asking you as you look at the upcoming budget to prioritize the needs of the BIPOC residents of Amherst as that will lead for a better town for all of us. Tomorrow, I will be getting up at 4 a.m. and doing a 12-hour clinical shift in a hospital where there are more and more COVID cases every day. In my clinical rounds, I've also been placed at the UMass testing site and I was actually thinking of all of you when I was there last. As I tested hundreds of students for coronavirus and Amherstown police officer came through the testing site with the puppy that the APD now has as a comfort dog. I thought about the nearly two hours of public comment that you heard from your constituents imploring you to cut the APD budget and the presentations that were made about how above par our police officers are and how they need all of the money that they get from us. I was reminded of that and of all of you as I watched the officer with the puppy stand at the doors of the testing site having students that I had just tested for coronavirus crowd around and pat the dog. I thought about how much money the town of Amherst proposed to spend per resident in the FY21 budget cycle, $136 per resident to police, but only $3.77 per resident on public health. I also heard in this presentation that we just bought a new ambulance and according to Paul Buckleman's October 19th report, ambulance and emergency calls continue to be low this fall with calls coming in at less than half of what they normally are. And if you're choosing between cutting funds from public health, housing or other social services or the police, please cut the police's budget. Even if we are going forward with level funding model for the whole town and rearrange the departmental funds to address the systemic racism in our town, we need our budget to support our residents in this unimaginably difficult time and we need to get comfort from our town in solid and secure public health services, not from a puppy. Thank you. Lydia, thank you for your comments. Thank you for your work as an emergence as a nurse and also UMass Center. Zoe Crabtree, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Just a moment please. Hi, can you hear me now? We can, thank you. Awesome, thank you Athena for getting me on here. My name is Zoe Crabtree and I live in District 5. I attended the financial indicator presentation last week and just listened to the shortened version of it now. And I heard the presenters paint a picture of our finances as relatively stable. You saw last week's that we're trending positively over the past 10 years. And ultimately, okay, despite the hit that COVID-19 has put in tax revenue and local receipts. I heard them try and make an argument that we should hold steady and keep doing things as we've always done them. And if you're wondering how we've done things, you also just heard from Lydia that this year's budget includes approximately $136 per resident to the police department and just under $4 per resident to the Department of Public Health. What I didn't hear in the presentation last week or this evening was an assessment of how the town's financial systems contribute to systemic racism or any serious discussion of how we could change that. With the exception of Darcy's comment last week about how the council should consider ways to shift the town's budget priorities to address climate change and potential alternatives to policing. It felt as if everything was business as usual as if systemic racism didn't exist. And before you started thinking, well, it was the financial indicator presentation not really the place to be discussing racism. I want to remind everyone that the town's financial decisions have huge consequences for our community along lines of race and class. Pretending those consequences don't exist doesn't make them go away. And we can't address systemic racism as if it were a separate issue that isn't relevant in core governmental processes. It's baked in. So in order to ensure that Amherst is the equitable, just community that we all want to live in, I'm asking you to prioritize the needs of BIPOC Amherst residents and community members in the upcoming budget. I'd like you to reconsider the proposal from the Racial Equity Task Force of Amherst that requests funds for a BIPOC residents council, youth programming, a cultural center and hiring a chief diversity and equity officer. And I'd like to remind the council that this summer you voted to freeze two police officer positions through the end of January, while the town manager writes a report on alternatives to policing. What are you gonna do to those positions in January if his report says we should move forward with alternatives? Because if you do nothing, those funds become available to the police department again and you'll all have done nothing of any consequence to make our town safer for BIPOC community members. If you want to actually do something, make sure the budget guidelines for FY22 instruct the town manager to prioritize the needs of BIPOC community members. Make the guidelines say that the town should fund a BIPOC residents council and chief diversity and equity officer. Make the guidelines say that the town should fund youth programming for youth of color and a cultural center. And make the guidelines say that the town should direct funding away from the police department and towards community programs that keep everyone safe, healthy and housed. Thank you. Joey, thank you for your comments. Allegra, you'll enter the room and state your name and where you live. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. My name is Allegra Clark and I live in district two. I moved back to the area of Amherst two years ago after having a child and wanting to get out of the city of Boston. Myself, I'm a graduate of Amherst Regional High School and I wanted my children to have access to a quality public education. And I remembered an Amherst that had a progressive spirit but I think Amherst can do better and Amherst should do better. In order to ensure that Amherst is the equitable just community that I moved back to live in, I'm asking that you prioritize the needs of BIPOC Amherst residents in the upcoming budget. If you're choosing between cutting funds from social services or the police cut the police budget. Even if we go forward with level funding, we need to rearrange departmental funds to address the systemic racism in our town. I know that police are not the main thing that keeps this community safe, especially during a pandemic when access to affordable housing, sanitation, nutritious food and healthcare are paramount. We heard from Mr. Backelman in October that ambulance and emergency calls are low this fall with calls coming in at about half of where they are normally. In contrast, I viewed a social media post by the Amherst Survival Center back in May, reporting that they were serving 50% more lunches daily than they had been pre-COVID. This shows us that police isn't where we need to prioritize our funding. Meeting the basic needs of our residents is instead, again, during the FY21 budget cycle, the town of Amherst proposed to spend $136 per resident on the police with only $3.77 per resident on public health. This doesn't reflect the needs of the community and this certainly isn't wise spending on the middle of a pandemic. Please consider the proposal from the Racial Equity Task Force of Amherst that requests funds for BIPOC residents council, youth programming, a cultural center and hiring a chief diversity and equity officer. Thank you. Like we're thank you for your comments. I'm going to go ahead and call on Isoda or Tego Bustamanti first before I come back to repeat. Thank you. Isoda and where you live. Good evening, Isoda or Tego Bustamanti, 21 year resident of Amherst district five. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to support the work of D-Fund 413 and very specifically give an example of where funds could be reallocated. We have a volunteer that some of you know, I'm not authorized to share their name publicly, we have people who are full-time workers, full-time parents who volunteer untold hours in order to help low income essential worker residents fill out the paperwork that they need to fill out in order to avoid eviction and to access services for their US citizen children. And that's an example here if we had even part-time funding for a social worker, hopefully bilingual, bicultural who could support that work, we would be able to actually save a lot of money in the long run because some of the paperwork and some of the work that could be provided by a bilingual, bicultural social worker would support family stability and help Amherst public school students receive additional supports and additional programming that they are in fact entitled to and often simply parents need help navigating. And so a small investment can actually have multiplier effects for a lot of families, a lot of children and result in savings to the district in many, many aspects of both health and wellness and academics for children who are more engaged, fed more nutritionally and who have access to other supports in health and mental health. So there are many needs, some of these are very specific and we've shared with you in the past. And so we certainly know where the funding could go and we know that it could have a long-term impact in the economic and social health of the city. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments, Esoldo. My Maida. Hello. Yes, state your name and where you live. My name is Maida Ives and I've been working at Amherst College for five years and I live in district five. And I'm just right, I wanted to firm and uplift the past three comments I just heard. I am new to the budget process but I really agree that in order to ensure Amherst is equitable just community that I also wanna live in. I'm asking you to prioritize the needs of our BIPOC Amherst residents and consider the proposals from the Racial Equity Task Force of Amherst requesting funds for BIPOC Residence Council, youth programming, a cultural center and a hiring a chief diversity and equity officer. And even this year for going forward with a level funding model for the whole town, please rearrange departmental funds to address systemic racism in the town. And if you choose between cutting funds for social services or the police, cut the police budget. Just echoing the sentiments I just heard. I have a very dear friend who's a 10 year old child who would benefit wonderfully from youth programming and a cultural center. And I'd like to see the town do what's best for him and his peers. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Zoe, you have your hand up again. Would you like to enter the room and speak again? Yes, I actually would. I don't, I didn't have my hand up on purpose but I do have something that needs to be shared. I have an anonymous testimony that was shared with me that I would like to read if that's all right. Yes. So this testimony says, I live in Amherst in the district represented by Stephen Treber and Evan Ross. My demand as a resident of this town for four years and an employee of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is the following. We need to cut APB budget by at least 50% immediately. The APD does not keep people safe. Police disproportionately target black, brown and indigenous people and disabled people putting them at risk while also draining resources from other critically important areas. I have black and brown family members, coworkers and students I teach who do not feel safe and who experienced heightened levels of stress as a result of having to change their daily routines to avoid encounters with a police force which casually carries lethal weapons. The amount of funding APD received in proportion to public health, education and social services is absurd. For example, as I hope you hear many times tonight for each resident in Amherst, the town spends $136 on the police and a miniscule $3.77 on public health and $5.99 on the senior center. This is even more absurd, stubborn and dangerous when we consider that the town council refuses to even budge on these numbers in the midst of a pandemic disproportionately impacting black, Latinx, indigenous, disabled and elderly people. As someone who has received their degree in public health, I understand there are downstream and upstream approaches to treating a disease. Upstream approaches address fundamental problems such as poverty, homelessness and poor infrastructure. Downstream approaches address issues such as quality of treatment once someone has already gotten sick. Funding more police does neither of these, rather it adds fuel to the fire. Policing further compounds racism and ableism which public experts refer to as, quote, fundamental causes of health disparities by increasing the likelihood of injury, death or arrest and at the very least increasing stress levels which have been documented as a major cause of health disparities. It does all this while draining resources for services that can address the upstream and downstream resources of the pandemic. To reiterate, cut APD by at least 50% and take a big step towards ensuring this can be a safe and healthy town for all residents. As it now stands, you are all failing and if you continue to be reckless and do not budge on this, I'll look forward to organizing with labor unions and other political coalitions in the town to help swiftly build you all out of office. Thank you. Thank you for sharing the comments with us. Are there any other people that would like to make public comment? I do wanna thank Amherst Media for also showing us the names of people who are attending on Zoom. We know that there are other people out there that are attending just by watching this on Amherst Media. Any other public comment at this time? Yes, Dr. Shabazz, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Hello. Hello. Yes, I live in South Amherst. My name is Dr. Demetria Shabazz and thank you for having this hearing on the budget. Mainly to reiterate what folks have already said. However, one of the things that we found in our recent People's Assembly is that young people and old, that's across ages, we want a place in which folks can gather. We need a public meeting space, a community center that folks would feel comfortable. They could have some power over in terms of usage for community and cultural events. This is something that since the summer, we have been discussing, we have been asking for. It is part of the Racial Equity Task Force and I believe that cutting the police budget in order to accommodate not only a cultural space, but a ways in which we can safely have interventions in terms of mental health and any other type of wellness checks, that should be our town's priorities, the youth and taking care of folks in need in a way that is non-threatening. So again, when we're looking at priorities, the youth and taking care of folks in terms of wellness checks and mental health should be our priorities. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Dr. Shabazz. Are there any other comments at this time? Yes, Jose Lugo, please enter the room and state your name. All right, thank you. So yes, I'm also speaking in favor of cutting the budget. We have a community here that can take care of certain aspects of our own needs. I'm speaking primarily of the underrepresented groups, marginalized groups who we have worked, tried to work in with city council and other organizations and it doesn't seem that it's systemically easy to address our needs. And so it would benefit our community to have that those funds from the police department shifted to community organization so that we can go around some of the systemic obstacles that we know exist and take care of ourselves by involving all of us. And perhaps we can involve members of the town council as well who might be interested in expanding their understanding of this group of people who are affected by some of the systemic racism that we've been experiencing over the last centuries. Thank you. Jose, before you leave, would you just remind us where you live? And I want to make sure I pronounced your name correctly. Lugo, Jose Lugo. Yeah. And I live, I believe it's in precinct two, the south end of Denver, of Denver. Speaking of my old home of Amherst. Thank you. We appreciate that. Are there any other comments at this time? Looking for final comments. Andy, would you like to go ahead and adjourn the finance committee? Yes, I adjourned finance committee at whatever time it is now, 7.15. Thank you. And before I adjourn the council, just have a safe and respectful of distance and mask thanksgiving and be well. The council meeting is adjourned. Thank you.


Good morning, Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Talking Tax with Tom this morning, and Tom Yamachika is the president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, and he joins us, as he often does, talk about what's happening in the legislature, and in this case also what's happening with the governor in this time of COVID. Welcome to the show, Tom. Nice to see you. Thank you, Jay. Thanks for having me back. Well, let's address something we talked about before first, and that is the shortfall in the legislature.  Last time I looked it was $2.3 billion, and last time I looked they just spent $150 million on giving raises to HGEA union members, of which there is a certain amount of controversy about that. But, you know, how is the shortfall doing, and what can they do? What are they doing to satisfy it? You know, so far from the bills that I've seen, it's all about spending money not raising anymore.  You know, it may be rating special funds, it may be, I don't know, cost cutting. We don't know. It's certainly not cost cutting as far as HGEA or UHPA members are concerned because, as you mentioned, there was a bill to give them previously negotiated raises, and that's on its way to the governor right now as we speak. Chances are he'll sign it then too, eh? I don't see why he wouldn't. But then, you know, other things may happen. Like, you know, he may take up his furlough pen or, you know, do some budget restrictions, you know, stuff he can do on his own without the legislature's help. Yeah, well, to the average Joe in the street, hearing there's a shortfall of 2.3 billion and then seeing them actually pass a bill to spend 150 million on a union raise when so many people are out of work and don't have a farthing really sounds pretty strange. It sounds like the union put plenty of pressure on plenty of people to get that through. It's not an appealing move by the legislature, and it would not be an appealing move by the governor if he signs it. True, but there will be consequences if they don't, you know, behind the scenes perhaps, but there will be consequences. So that's kind of, I think, the message that they were trying to convey over there. We don't see most of this happening because it's in the back room, but obviously stuff like that's going on. That does not endear me, and I don't think it endears anybody to state government, actually. If you want to look for a time when we should be having more confidence in government, this is not the kind of thing that generates more confidence in government. I agree. Anyway, let's go to the other thing you mentioned you want to talk about, and I want to talk about it too, and that is the various proclamations that have come out of the fifth floor from the governor in this time of the COVID, this time of unpredictable, what do you want to call it, sign curves, V curves in the chart of new cases and tests for that matter. So plenty of proclamations. Right. Since the initial COVID declaration of emergency, there have been a series of proclamations that have come out of the governor's office suspending a whole raft of laws. We are now on the ninth supplementary proclamation, which means the tenth one in the series. An emergency proclamation is supposed to last no more than 60 days, but they got around that by basically amending and restating the whole thing again and again and again and again and again. So what's happened is there's been a whole series of laws that have been basically wiped out by the stroke of the pen. The list of laws that has been suspended is 20 pages long. Let me show you some of them. So can I have slide 13, please? Okay. So what you're seeing now is basically two sentences out of the proclamations, an 80-page proclamation. And what those two sentences say is that the protections that we're used to having regarding open meetings of public agencies, that's been basically shredded. And notice of, you know, timely notice of public agency meetings that's been shredded. The second one relates to open records. So you as a news organization or myself, we can go in and ask the government for records that are funded by our tax dollars. Now, what the proclamation basically says is that an agency can basically respond to, it may have to acknowledge that it got the records request, but it doesn't have to respond to it in any particular deadline, which means it means your request can languish for months. For what? Put in a records request to the Department of Taxation. I wanted to see certain correspondence and emails relating to a particular provision that we're going to go into in a little bit later. It was April when I sent the request. I got a nice polite acknowledgement, but I haven't seen anything in terms of fulfilling the request. It's been a couple of months. Well, so far you've talked about, you know, public meetings and notice of public meetings and, you know, responding to requests for information. Working backward, it doesn't seem to me that requests for information are connected in any way to COVID or the epidemic. But it does seem that public meetings, you know, that there is a connection there. I wonder if it's what he did is the right thing, but there is a connection between having a meeting, having a government meeting, having a public government meeting and COVID. Yeah, the idea behind the emergency power statute was to allow the governor to suspend things that get in the way of emergency response. Okay. But we're talking about data, the operations of government, like boards and commissions, giving the news media what they want in terms of information that the government generates. How is all of that blocking emergency response? I'm sure they're going to say, oh, we have to respond to it. That requires work in our part of that. That's work that otherwise could go to emergency functions. Oh gee, that's pretty lame. Isn't it? And not only that, but there are other proclamations or other parts of the proclamation that are even more questionable as they relate to, you know, whether they're justified by emergency powers. Let's take a look at slide 14. Just one thought before we do, and that is, you know, you say that they might have argued that it took too much time by government to respond to information requests. How much time did it take by government to write an, I would just say, 80, 90-page proclamation? Including things that do not really relate to the need to suspend laws that stand in the way of emergency response. In other words, I suspect this is really overkill to the nth degree here. And somebody spent an awful lot of time in an overkill. Yeah, and then it's copied and copied and copied. So it's extended and extended and extended, basically. That's not efficient. But then we can go further than that. So what's your next one, please? Let's go to that. Okay, so do you know about tax clearances? Tax clearances are required for a number of things, including when you are trying to sell services or goods to the government. 103.53 is the statute that requires tax clearances. And it's been suspended. So what that means now is that the government can do business with whoever it wants, whether they've paid their taxes or not. And again, what does that have to do with impairing emergency functions or blocking emergency services? Well, could it also mean, I don't know if this has been fleshed out, but could it also mean that you don't get tax clearances? There are no tax clearances. Therefore, you can't do business with the government because there must be provisions somewhere else that says the government cannot do business with you without a tax clearance. That's the one. That's the one that's been suspended. Oh, that's what we're talking about. Okay, so they don't give you the tax clearance, but they still do business with you. Yeah, that's what it says. So an agency can do business with somebody without a tax clearance. Now, that doesn't apply to like relicensing. If your regulatory statute requires you to be relicensed, that's not 103.53. So that may still be in effect. But it seems like the intent was to say, oh, department taxation is doing too much work. So let's not bother them with tax clearances. Of course, as you say, you could have a situation where somebody doesn't pay tax. And in these days, some people can't pay tax, then they can still do business with the government. You lose control, but maybe in the time of COVID, it's justified time. What do you think? Perhaps, but I still have a great deal of puzzlement about how this is really this emergency functions. Yeah, it's way off the core point of the proclamation. And again, somebody spent 80, 90 pages writing it up, that must have taken a long time. Okay, let's go to page 15, if you would please. Okay, so here's where they hit the tax code. What this one sentence says is that you know how we have the hotel room tax? It's already down 99%, but what they're saying is however it used to be distributed, those rules are now off the table. Distributed where? One significant part of it was supposed to go to the counties. And now the counties are not getting a single red set for the transit accommodations tax. That's a pretty significant change. That was a chain, that was a rule or distribution rule, which was highly, highly publicized, much discussed, negotiated, what have you, and now push, it's off the table. That's right, it's off the table. So, you know, funding for the convention center or the Hoy tourism authority that's been suspended as well, the governor can kind of like send the money where he wants to. The, you know, repayment of the turtle bee easement that was in there as well, that's off the table. You know, that distribution provision, this transit accommodations tax started to look like a Christmas tree because there's all kinds of little presents in there. Yeah, but are they temporary? Are they permanent? All of them are. Are they temporary? They were permanent. No, I mean there's the changes that are made by these proclamations. Are these proclamations indefinite or do they have a sunset? Like I said, the proclamations are supposed to last no more than 60 days. Okay, so they must be, well that's not very long, and I see he's been repeating them, is that it? He's been republishing them after they expire? Or before, but it basically starts the clock again. So right now we're in the in the 10th iteration of clock restart. Does the proclamation change each time he republishes? Yeah, there's a few things that are added each time. I think this current one added the tax clearance suspension because I didn't see that one before, but you know I I may be wrong, but it's one of the more recent ones to appear. How about the others? Anything withdrawn, deleted when he republishes? They were just repealed, period, or suspended period. It was only I think up to the 6th or 7th one, but they said yeah well maybe that was a little overkill. We ought to you know roll that back a little bit so they went to what's called exhibit each. Okay. Which actually came about as a result of several non-profits including ours, the leap of which was a civil beat law center, they negotiated with the attorney general's office to get some of that back in place or else. Good for them. So you know is this these kinds of proclamations that they happened in the past we have had emergencies in the past. Oh yeah. But have governors regularly issued proclamations and if so how does this one differ from the ones in the past? Usually you have a one-time natural disaster like you know a hurricane or a tsunami, but this one is kind of like a continuing state of emergency or at least that's what they would have us believe. So it's been you know it started in I think March or April and now it's and now it's July and it's still a state of emergency. That could happen. I mean I'm just thinking for example you know we're learning about this, he is anyway, and we will have emergencies in the future. In fact this whole COVID thing may turn out to be a much longer term emergency than already because we haven't solved it and because we have the risk even an increasing risk of COVID infection here. Well yeah perhaps part of it's because our country hasn't solved. Yeah I mean there are massive hot spots all over the mainland some of which are in California and so it's closer than we think, closer than we want. Sure, but you know I mean there's other kinds of emergencies that have taken place and will take place. For example in the time of climate change even this summer you know during the hurricane season we could have a really bad hurricane that would do you know what Iniki did for example and in that case you know it sounds to me like a declaration of emergency would be appropriate, a proclamation probably, as in the past would be appropriate. That's what John Whyay did in response to Hurricane Iniki and it's interesting because you know there are tax benefits that get triggered upon emergency proclamations. For example I had a client once who was growing guava trees in Kauai and normally they would sell them to a whole sailor like you know a guava juice maker. Okay so the fruit would be wholesale sales to the to the guava juice maker along comes Iniki blows the fruit off the trees and obviously there are no sales but fortunately or unfortunately the client had crop insurance so the crop insurance comes in and pays for the lost crop. In comes the Department of Taxation and they say oh by the way your insurance has replaced your income so it's it's taxable for GE purposes and they go okay that's fine and by the way the rate's four percent because you're not wholesaling it you're just getting it directly from the insurance company. Well fortunately there was an exemption that the auditor wasn't aware of that said if you have damages from a gubernatorily declared emergency then your then your insurance proceeds are exempt.  Yeah but this this shows you in a larger sense this shows you that when you have disruptive events that are emergencies and you have proclamations there are consequences there are consequences this side and that side it's not only the the raw economic consequences of what happened and how that might affect a given business it's the tax consequences too. And not to say that this this particular emergency is going to teach us about all the emergencies to come later but it does teach us I think as your experience you know with the that was the insurance company is that there are a lot of issues that pop up. There are a lot of disruption and creates a lot of legal issues. There are so if if there's maybe what we should do now is take a look at the 636 million that was uh you know squirreled away into the emergency and budget reserve fund and let's kind of figure out how the how our lawmakers are going to spend it. Please. So the so the current plan which is in Senate Bill 126 appropriates the whole 636 million and what it what it does is you know right now we have an extra $600 benefit for those who are out of work that's going to dry up but 230 million is going to basically be used for a hundred dollar a week benefit that's going to replace the 600. Here for people who are still on work there is a an appropriation of $100 million for rental assistance up to $500 per month for families who need it and the target is 34,000 families. There is a an appropriation for $100 million for a personal protective equipment distribution system. I'm thinking $100 million that's that's that's a lot of money uh just for a distribution system what are they going to do um I mean don't don't you need I mean all you need is you know a few trucks and a few people to to drive around to hospitals and hear homes and whoever else you need to to go to and just drop off this stuff. I don't even know if the 100 billion is is for buying personal protective equipment I hope it is hope it is too yeah uh there's supposed to be 90 million dollars going to the airports for screening testing monitoring um there is 36 million dollars for workforce development that the target is to preserve or maintain 2,000 to 4,000 jobs. There are innovation grants for cleaning supplies and PPE of $15 million. There is a $15 million subsidy for child care facilities because they're they're getting hit pretty hard um 900 facilities are supposed to benefit from that. A $5 million appropriation for food distribution matching grants I can't argue with that. A $3 million subsidy for the fishing industry. A $2 million appropriation for 2020 graduate education support. You know I mean I guess I guess we can pay him money because the last half of their school year has been kind of ravaged and $40 million dollars for governor's discretionary funds. Interesting huh yeah especially especially because you know even if the governor were to sign this he could take all the money the next day by writing a proclamation suspending the law. We are learning about the ins and outs of proclamations so that's it remains to be seen how well this distribution you know this this allocation of the funds is going to work then we may find that some have too much and some have too little and they have to be changed so is does he have the power to change him or has to go back to the legislature these probably will need to be tuned up don't you think? Yeah no I mean he just changed everything with the stroke of a pen and that's what he's done in a number of instances we talked about what he did with the public records and open meeting suspension yeah so he just changes the text in another proclamation then. So so Tom here we are here we are and it's very clear that COVID is is back you know Trump said you know we had prevailed it was gone and it'll magically disappear magically disappear I mean you know and without commenting on him or his judgment or his leadership or lack in Hawaii we suffer the end of the you know the the raw end of that because you know if COVID is is raging on the mainland we're going to have fewer tourists and the tourists who come here are more likely to be sick despite all our best efforts to the contrary and we are very likely to you know at least as a substantial possibility well we are having a spike right now having a spike relative to our own numbers so how does that affect things you know at first it seemed okay well we can we can have a reopening of sorts although people in Hawaii are conservative and they're not likely to run back to the same things they were doing most of them I think a lot of them but now we're having a spike how is that going to affect fiscal policy and by the way the legislature won't be in session when this emerges I guess you're saying that the governor will have the power to do stuff in the event of a serious resurgence because the whole thing about lockdown you know comes back into into the fore you may have to lock down again yeah he might have to lock down again he might have to you know dial back on on the reopening he could he could do a number of things all of which are very scary because a number of them are threat to civil liberties and economic freedom yeah and if he keeps republishing that same long proclamation there's more incursions on civil liberty and economic freedom all the time because he's he's not he's not really going back and deleting things off the list he's just building the list he's remaking the Hawaii Revised Statutes in many in so many ways so what happens to the fiscal policy though because our economy is going to be further in the tank it's already in the tank in many ways tourism hasn't really come back the restaurants haven't really come back a lot of these small businesses and not only have they not come back but the determinations of employees they made have become permanent and they're not going to get another tranche of money so soon from congress and some of these businesses are gone gone gone what happens if there is and when there is a second reopening we're going to have a another problem we're going to have a another economic problem that's going to be bigger than than what we've had so far am i right well we have a we have a big problem now and it doesn't seem to be going away yeah so what you know what happens in between sessions does he have enough power to deal with this sure he can do a lockdown but what about statues and initiatives and things that will incentivize the rebuilding of an economy that's going to be an issue it definitely will be an issue and hopefully he can do some good out of this but it's going to take you know lots of effort and we're just kind of hoping that it's not going to be you know too much of an encouragement everybody's freedom because that's that's kind of what it yeah has looked like it's on well the other thing is that you know now everybody files their tax returns on tax day a lot of people seek extensions this year i think a lot of people just turned turned away from it they haven't they haven't paid their taxes and we don't know the full thrust of that just yet but chances are that the revenues the state receives this year are are going to be even worse than we imagined because covid is worse because the economy is worse the reopening is worse than we imagined so the state's not going to have a lot of money and that and that shortfall is going to be a real problem first of all you know it violates the constitution i don't know what happens that i don't know if there's somebody in the wings who's going to try to enforce that somehow but there you go we don't have enough money to meet the constitutional balance of budget provision um and then of course the government has no money to do things the initiatives incentives ways to rebuild the economy well i don't see a good thing on the horizon here how is this going to play out well like i said we we're just we're just hoping for the best um oh we we have you know governor who's in power who can do these emergency proclamations we may get some relief in november uh because the there'll there'll be an election changing the makeup you know likelihood of the people will have to deal with uh and and hopefully between some or all of them we can get to a better place than we are now that's very optimistic of you tom and i appreciate the optimism well thanks for having me on the show okay we'll see you shortly we'll see you next time around and hopefully things will be better than maybe there'll be some light at the end of the tunnel uh maybe things will be clarified in some way thank you so much tom yamachika president of the tax foundation for hawaii


Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Critical Conversations where we talk about hot topic issues related to American Muslims and other targeted communities. Today we're going to talk about the upcoming fourth annual Women's March that is scheduled to take place on Saturday, January 18th and there'll be a march in Washington DC and all across the country. But today we're going to focus our discussion on our local march right here in the Pioneer Valley and we are so excited and fortunate to be joined by two key organizers of that march. We have Yolanda Kansal and Rachel Mayuri. Yolanda is the founder of Springfield Women Organize and is also a former candidate for mayor in Springfield and Rachel is the coordinator of the Pioneer Valley Women's March and is a newly elected city councillor in Northampton. Thank you both so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thank you. So Rachel, let me begin with you. This is going to be our fourth year marching and that's very exciting. However, there are a few people who feel, you know, what does marching really achieve? You know, we live in a very activist community and people do a lot of the hard work every day, social justice work through advocacy and movement building and education. So some people contend, you know, well, what is marching going to do? Why do we go out and march in this cold, frigid weather? So how would you respond to that? Yeah, so I think it's not really either or. It's all part of a picture of modeling what democracy looks like. And one component of democracy is showing up and getting in the streets. And I think it feeds the marchers, but it also models to bystanders that this is one thing we can do. And frankly, I think it's good if we learn how to mobilize pretty quickly in this current administration.  And so I think it brings us all together in a and and shows the power of people. And hopefully those in power will not forget that. Very true, very true. Excellent. So Yolanda, why is this important for you? Why do you march? I think it's important for me as a mom of five and a grandmother of seven and being multiracial, lesbian, queer. You know, to me, it means so much because me as myself, I am diverse within me. And I think that it's just so important, especially happening in Springfield, because, you know, we've only had one woman mayor since Springfield has ever been founded. So it's in I see politics all around, including our local presidential election, that it seems as if, you know, once a woman starts to run, people don't realize how hard it is. We start being put in the box and be called names, or then they're trying to find different things. It's hard to be, you know, a candidate, not just a woman being in a and what they consider a man's world. It's just it's just not one thing. It's all these things that we have to bring together as a woman for us to fight for. And we should do it in solidarity and we should do it together. That's why it's so important. Absolutely. And you know, and I think we see some of that sort of misogyny and, you know, sort of play out in the national arena as well with like, you know, presidential candidates that they're, you know, the females in the arena are sort of experiencing what you experienced here locally when you ran for mayor. So it's very important, yes, that we sort of do that and sort of come together. And also I feel to really, you know, reconnect with one another right at the beginning of the year to just to be able to sort of set that intention that yes, we're here from very different backgrounds, different experiences, but then to be able to recommit to one another in the public space. It just provides such a powerful moving force. And so we're very grateful for both of you for all the work that you've put in trying to put this march together.  And every year we've had a wonderful turnout and but the march has always taken place in Northampton. And despite the large turnout that we've had this time you've decided, and all of you have decided to hold the march in Springfield, could you tell us a little bit more about why that happened and why was that shift in venue? Yeah, so I think all movements to stay not not stagnant to stay fresh really need to evolve and be timely. So we I think connecting with our larger region is very powerful. The current administration and the historic forces behind the current administration would love for us to stay contained and divided and isolated and predictable. And so we by reaching out across Star Valley, we're modeling the antidote to division. And the process itself is transformative, whether we even have a march. We've been spending what six months getting to know each other and learning to work together. And, you know, when we put the feelers out, we didn't, coming from Northampton, we didn't want to have a colonizing, we didn't want a fact, we didn't want to assume folks in the Springfield area wanted to march. But we we found that we had so much in common and so many goals in common. And the Springfield community is, you know, disproportionately impacted by a lot of the policies that we are protesting in terms of affecting lower income communities and communities of color. So we need to show up not in a benevolent way for Northampton, but really as a with the idea that our liberation is bound in one another. Absolutely. And Yolanda, you've lived in Springfield since 2005. You know the city really well. You also ran for mayor last year. Why is it so important that this march take place in Springfield? I think it's that it's so important because when I founded Springfield Women's Organize and when we first did our own march in March 8th of 2015, what I seen was it was hard for white women, Latino women, and black women to talk to each other and not taking it personal. So it was almost like this me playing mediator between the white organizers and the Latino organizers. And it's almost like, okay, because a multiracial doesn't mean I understand everyone. But it was almost like it was great because at the end, we started to realize that we have to learn to speak to each other. Even as women, there was sort of like a divide that was happening and then along racial lines around racial lines and about how do we talk to each other? We're all women. So and we all go through these same things, if not differently, but we're still going through certain struggles together. And so it was great to know that, hey, this black woman is able to basically have this white woman understand what she's going through. And this white woman saying, okay, maybe I do have some sort of white privilege that I didn't realize that I could marry with my white privilege counselor, part of as a male. And so everything coming together.  The women in Northampton think a different thing. And by all of us coming together, it was just like, we're not so different after all. Like we all were able to like work with each other and come to this common ground. And we've all just had so much fun doing this march together that it was just like, we built relationships, friendships. And it's the best thing that could have happened to Springfield and Northampton and everything else in between. That's amazing. Because and you know, some of the sort of issues that you just described in terms of, you know, women of different communities not really being able to relate to one another, not really being able to have this conversations. Initially, sort of mirrors what happened at the national level, right? Because when the national women's march movement emerged, initially it was criticized for being led by white straight women and that their agenda was not really reflective of the concerns of trans women, women of color. So as you were organizing this year's march, what were some of the issues that came up and how were you able to sort of overcome those? I think that many of the issues that I think that we came across weren't really big issues because if we didn't like, say, like a picture or the way something looked, we all came together and we all was just like at the same time like, oh, that was great. Just like, you know, our image or our logo and we wanted to really capture unity across communities and we wanted to capture it with our logo when we finally did that, which I'm kind of hating on the logo because I wish I would have had it for Springfield Women's Organize. But it was like the best for Pioneer Valley Women's March that was just like, this was meant to happen for us to fight within these next years of 2020 and these next things that are coming along. We have to be together to fight this. Like, we are not so divided. It's not like some big wall of border between our cities. We are all affected in some sort of way. And like Rachel was saying, you know, if we don't fight together, then a part we're gonna lose. And if we automatically assume Springfield Women don't need this, but North Hampton Women need this or Belcher Town or Agawam or East Long Meadow or Long Meadow, no, we all are affected in some sort of way with laws change of some sort when it comes to women hygiene and women environment, self-care, being a mom, being a grandmother, being an independent woman, owning your house, getting a job, going to school, all those things affect us.  We might face it a little differently, but it's still the same. And we have to fight together across racial lines. Absolutely. And Rachel, I mean, I feel like what Yolanda just described in the process with which you guys sort of came up with these, you know, just different aspects of the march and how to put it together and the coordinating of the logistics and all of those things and the themes. I mean, I feel like you're really modeling, you know, to the National Women's March how things should be done. And my question is like how, you know, what is that trust built on? Like, did you have previous relationships as activists that you were able to build on as you sort of put together this march or, you know, was there just a lot of sort of openness in terms of learning and not being defensive? So how was that process like for you? Yeah, it's really interesting because we really didn't know what was going to happen. There were certain threads of people who worked on the last year's march in North Hampton who were from the Springfield area in Chickpeach. And that Rivera was a big component of why we all got together. We have a lot to thank her for. But we really didn't know what we were going to expect. And what I was really struck by is the focus and the mutual respect right off the bat. Maybe it's the silver lining of such dire times is that people know what's at stake. And you know, we, and so everyone really started off on the right foot, I believe. And it was love. Yeah, maybe that's a good word for it. Yeah, you know, it was definitely love for the care of what we want and what we see. And we all had a like mind to the love of making this a success. And so to me, it was just like just watching all these powerful women across the table and even bringing in new organizers who have never even organized before but wanted to find a way to find this niche that they wanted to do and to be able to do that. And it's just been amazing. And we have, like she said, this common respect and love and appreciation for what we are doing. And that kills any evil mess. I've learned the power of good food at meetings. We're all like, what's happening? They're bringing out food here in Springfield. What? They're taking care of themselves. They have drinks and food. And then they're like, okay, this is good. I think you guys had a lot of fun in those meetings. I wish I was like some of them. But yes, and the food, I'm sure was amazing too. Yeah. So the National Women's March, again, in order to sort of determine what their team was going to be for this particular year, they actually conducted a poll among their members, among their supporters to sort of figure out what is most important for people right now. And so they came up with immigration, climate action, and also reproductive rights. What is the theme of this year's march here locally? And how did you all come to that conclusion in terms of what it should be? Well, unity across the communities is our theme because that's our goal of changing the location of the march. And we hope to rotate the march throughout the valley, actually, and go to other cities and towns and in the process, unite ourselves even more. So we're having a focus on climate justice. And I think this, and Yolanda can speak to this, really plays out in Springfield.  And so we really feel like it's kind of a ubiquitous problem. And I'll turn to Yolanda. In terms of like, how is this, I mean, there's so many very dire issues right now that are affecting women, gender-based violence. There's, you know, abortion being legal in like nine states and stuff. So why climate justice? I think climate justice in so many different levels, even the most simplest things as women forget, even dealing with our, you know, hygiene, sanitary napkins once a month that, and if some male thinks, oh, let's use recyclable sanitary napkins. And you're saying, well, it's okay, because you're not putting that in your genitals, but we're putting it in our area. And it causes us to have, we could have cancer, we can have so many different things. So even the most simplest things as you're going to the store as a female, and even as a mom, or even a dad who's going to be a single dad who's shopping for a daughter, who's going to this, because his daughter now just has this time of the month, what are you going to pick to make sure that your daughter's life is okay or organs are okay? And it's just as simple as that. And if we don't think about environment in so many different ways, you know, for us in Springfield, we have Bonnie's Island that all of that weather, all of that, it just comes right into Springfield. High asthma or just so many different things that affects us as chronic pain, fibromyalgia, lupus, Lyme disease, so many different things that affects women in so many different areas. And not only that, we have to work, we have to take care of the house, we got to take care of the kids, we got to, you know, and it's a recycling door. If we're sick and we're not using self-care, who's taking care of the house if nobody else is taking care of the house or taking care of what we need to take care of? Women's health is important. It's not a made-up theme. And it's intricately connected to the climate. And women, I feel like globally, are right now sort of at the forefront of leading this, you know, at the forefront of this cause, you know, with Greta Thunberg, and also like young women here, activists here in our community. So our young women, young people here in our community, sort of, are they involved in this, in this movement as well?  Right, right. And that's really the connection between even reproductive justice and the climate crisis, is that the same mentality, the connection between patriarchal and white supremacy thinking of exploitation and hierarchy and, you know, and using water and air as free commodities that can be abused. It's the same mentality that tells women what they can do and not do with their bodies. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, this is wonderful that we're going to focus on that for this particular march. And how do you both, you know, hope to sort of sustain what is going to be talked about at the march, what we're rallying around with, you know, sort of continued momentum like over the year. And how will you sort of connect this issue to the larger movement? And is there any other plans for that? Are you going to have an activist fair? Like, how would that work? Like, you know, trying to sort of connect this so that doesn't just remain confined to this particular day, but that there are communities here that can sort of take this up and continue their work. I don't think we have anything to worry about when it comes to, like, being able to keep the conversation going. Knowing that from Pittsfield to here, we have so many women's groups, you know, and everybody coming to the table and using this round table to make sure that we continue this conversation. The great thing is that women are fired up. And we have young women of all ages.  I mean, just there's so many organizations that you just it's just coming and fueling and they're all coming to the march. So to be able to be on the same page and be able to fight for this and say, and this is what we want to do, but we only could do it together. You know, it starts with a conversation and hopefully ends with a solution. And I think that that's exactly what we're having right now is having the conversations across table lines, across county lines. I mean, having a beautiful woman as East Hampton mayor and everything else coming in between and the range of city council. And then we have two new city councils in the city of Springfield and more women stepping up fighting. And then we have more women wanting to run for Congress. And then you see the way Boston is looking so much more differently part of their city council, our Congress looking differently. The things that we are doing, we are doing it. Absolutely. Women are on fire. I mean, we did add the activist fair last year to kind of formally address the issue of like, let's where we go from here. But really, as Yolanda says, it's the whole process of even just playing the march where now I'll get on the phone pretty quick with Yolanda if we need to march again pretty fast. So I think those I think those tracks have been set. That is brilliant. And you know, I feel like the activist fair is also really important because some of the organizations that you mentioned, you know, their constituencies might know about them, but not everybody does. And when you have like, you know, those leaders sort of sitting at the table and, you know, sharing information about their work, then people really know which direction they can be involved in if this is something that they also just lay people who have not really been involved earlier can now, you know, find a way to be more deeply engaged in everything. So that's really. Yeah, it was very popular last year. It'll be going on all afternoon, the day of the march, January 18th, Saturday, January. Wonderful.  However, what do you think is the role of male allies in all of this? I think we have many. Um, male allies, I think there was like a few that wanted to even talk. And that was like, that was the only disagreement I think we had was like, should we let guys talk or they could just march. They could just be there and just support but talking, we hear enough about that.  What is that ally group? Yeah, there's, there's a lot. Well, there's a Rambo Kundo does the voicemail magazine. Very, very powerful article is well in mass live. I recently, and I think his whole message was to just show up and march and support and like, you don't have to be at the forefront of speaking, but just be there as a support for it. Yeah.  Don't feel awkward about showing up. It means so much. And I would say the same thing to, to white folks, especially in the North Hampton area. This is an opportunity. This is not, we all, you know, I hear a lot about what can we do as allies, allies is a verb. And you showing up is this year is like, it's really powerful message to the Springfield community. And it's an opportunity that's not always there. So I hope everyone will make that we know an extra effort, but we're trying to make it as easy as possible. And everyone is encouraged. And it means your presence means a lot. Excellent. So ladies, we don't have too much time left. But what are some final parts that you would like to sort of communicate to community members who are watching and who'd like more information about the march itself? Well, we're coming to a town near you maybe next year.  You know, we have Facebook pages, links, websites. So please get involved. And if you want us to, we want to march wherever you're at, we want to show solidarity wherever you are at. So we're ready to go. Yeah. So you can find out more about today's this year's March, January 18th at Pioneer Valley, women's march.com. It'll be, we'll be gathering at 11 at Northgate Plaza, leaving the Plaza at 12 to march. And then the rally will start after that, probably a little shy of one at one p.m. It's going to be really exciting. Great speakers and great performers this year. And what is our Facebook page? So yeah, P, Pb women's march. Oh, that is on the Facebook page as well. Great. So I would encourage everybody to just visit the website. If you need more information. Thank you both so much for being here. It was such a joy to, you know, just be in your presence and hear about this amazing process that you were both a part of. And we hope you have a wonderful turn out. And I'm sure we will on January 18th. And until next time, this is your host, Mahalika Samban.


This study investigates under what circumstances Forster theory of electronic resonance energy transfer breaks down in molecular aggregates by simulating exciton diffusion on the femtosecond timescale using the Louisville von Neumann equation of motion. The focus is on spatial and temporal deviations between exciton dynamics driven by electronic couplings calculated from Forster theory and those calculated from quantum electrodynamics QED. The results indicate that Forster coupling is valid when dipole centres are within a few nanometres of one another, but as distance increases, intermediate and far-zone coupling terms play non-negligible roles and Forster theory begins to break down. These findings could have implications for spectroscopic ruler techniques and energy harvesting materials design principles. This article was offered by James E. Frost and Garth A. Jones.