Okay, we are recording but if you would please also make that announcement and I see Alicia, send the audience up right now. Thank you. So we're recording now correct. We are recording. Thank you. Good evening. It's January 23 2023. We have two meetings tonight. The first is a special meeting of the town council, where we are joined by the finance committee, the school committee, and the elementary school building committee. This will be followed by a regular meeting of the town council using the same link on November 7 2022 and act was signed into law, which extends the open meeting law and allows us to meet virtually. Because of the weather tonight, we've chosen to do that. This meeting is accessible in real time via zoom by phone and on Amherst media, given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the January 23 2023 special town council meeting to order at 533. I'm going to go through counselors to make sure you can hear us and we can hear you, and then I'll ask the heads of each of the other committees to do the same. Shall any bone. Isn't. Pat D'Angelo's present on a Devon got here present. Lynn Griezmer is present Mandy Joe Hanna key. Anika Lopes. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Here. Kathy Shane. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Todd. Present. Alicia Walker. Present. I'll now call on Andy Steinberg, chair of the Amherst town council finance committee to call the other members of the finance committee to order. Okay. I want to note that there are it's made member committee. I quorum is present because the quorum is five, including the three resident members and I'm going to just call on them because you've already called on the other members of the committee and one member, I believe. Councilor Walker is not yet present. But Bernie Kubiak. Present. Matt Holloway. Present. Present. Bob Hagner. Present. So the meeting is called to order for the finance committee when back to you. Thank you. Alison McDonald, please call the school committee members to order, make sure they can hear and be heard. I'm singing presence before I'm of the Amherst school committee. I'm calling to order that meeting at 535 PM on Monday, January 3rd. And please state present when I call your name, Peter. Your present. Ben. Ben present. Jennifer. Here. Alison present. And I thought I saw her. You thought you saw me. I'm here. Thank you. And back over to you, Lynn. Thank you. And Kathy Shane, I don't know if you have that many members of the building committee present. I know you'll be recognizing them later and perhaps you can check and see that at that time. Kathy. Yeah, Lynn, I'm looking, we don't have a quorum of the committee. I'm not sure if the committee is on the committee as is Paul and Sean and they're here and Jonathan is also here. But I don't have enough to call the committee to order. Okay. Just keep an eye out for that. There's no chat room for this meeting. If we have technical difficulties, please let me or Athena know. If you want to make a comment or to ask a question, please click the raised hand button. If technical difficulties arise. As a result of utilizing remote participation will decide how to address that at the time, including the possibility of having to spend the meeting. Athena will be monitoring to make sure connections stay steady. With sincere gratitude and all to have brought us to this point.  I just wanted to correct one thing I said, Alicia's present so we have all members of the committee present. Thank you. With sincere gratitude to all who have brought us to this point. I'm calling upon Kathy Shane as chair of the elementary school building committee to proceed with the introductions of our guests and the presentations. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, Lynn. If you know if you can put up my slides that will make it easier for me. I'm glad to be able to present on behalf of the building committee. And I did see that Ben Harrington is also here. Several of our committee members are in on the panel and on the school committee or town staff. And they've asked me to do the brief overview. Next slide. My role tonight as I talk about this key juncture that we're asked, we are about building a new elementary school. As you're going to hear tonight, we have the opportunity to build for the future for our children for our community and for our climate. I'm going to give a very brief overview of the project and its status. Then Donna Dinesco will follow me. That she represents Dinesco design architects who have been our wonderful design team that's been working with us to throughout the last year plus. And she will go through much more on the site design and the rationale for design, both external and internal to the building. She will end with a brief summary of project costs followed by Margaret Wood from answer advisory and Margaret is our owner's project manager. And for those of you don't know that that person does and I didn't before I was on this committee. She helps us stay on track making sure we filed the paperwork necessary to ultimately we hope get a Massachusetts school building authority grant. And you see here the list of the 13 members of the committee. This is a hard working committee that has had to make a lot of tough decisions and way off choices. Next slide please. Throughout what we've been focused on is education first. What we've been focused on is education first. We have an opportunity due to the very low enrollment the declining enrollment in our elementary school which also percolates to the middle and the high school is to combine two schools into one school and the rest of the members will have two elementary schools, rather than three. We're doing this in buildings that were built for a much earlier era when insulation was not important when energy costs didn't matter when people didn't think about classrooms and throughout the school and the schools are underused because enrollment has gone down. The building that you will hear described tonight is looking to the future with a student center teacher informed design that will meet our educational needs now but it's also very flexible so we as educational programs changers needs to change the actual internal and external design will allow for that. The selection of the Fort Rivers site is a place to build the school provides robust opportunity for outdoor learning and play not just inside but learning about the environment when kids are outside taking classrooms outside. We're building the first net zero energy design building a pop first public net zero in and this complies with our bylaw but it's a highly energy efficient building meaning well insulated with cost conscious choice of material materials throughout, and it will be all electric with the electricity sought costs offset by solar box tag. We expect to save at least $250,000 a year in utility costs alone by consolidated the two buildings and moving to this building design. Throughout there's been a focus on costs. One of the reasons for the Fort Rivers site aside from the amount of land was we were able to build a building while the current school stays open without much disruption in the the existing school. One school as I mentioned will save operating costs, and we're expecting to get a facility grant from the Massachusetts school building authority that will offset at least part of the town costs but we will not know the details of that to the end of April. The size of the school the size of the project given everything else we have going on in town will require us to go out for a debt exclusion vote to pay for the town share at least a large portion of the town share. And that vote we've scheduled right now in May 2. We're thinking to do a lot of community outreach there are two forums this week, the morning of the 25th of January in the evening of the 26, we're also taking this out to district meetings, and many other additional outreach meetings. Very quick summary, we are at the point of a well designed school but not we are ready to build the school where we need to be talking about the next stop of getting the financing in, and I'm going to learn if it's okay we go right to Donna. I think that was the plan so I'm going to please. I'm going to be Donna's will be operating her own presentation as I said Donna's head is our leader on Dinesco design and she's going to put more pictures behind the words that I just spoke Donna. Yeah, thank you. Good. Good evening everyone. I'm going to share my screen. Can everyone see this. I can so I think there's any any chance you can see my mouse. Yes, we can. So it worked I don't know what we did wrong in school committee but awesome so it's easier to use my mouse so good evening. Kathy are, I'm just so delighted to be with you tonight and and also where we are with the project, I cannot echo everything Kathy said, especially the fact that thank you to everyone that is dedicated their time and to make no such an amazing role. So again, recognizing it is a school that the first and most important thing is is to understand the educational program and we are committed to doing that. The program has not changed since the school committee voted on that. It's hard to believe it's been a year with their program of 70,500 net floor area which is the area inside the building. And the total gross square footage of the building is 105,750 square feet. So, over the past year, we have spent so much time talking with the educators about spatial relationships and adjacencies, where the programs go next to each other how they work together to maximize time on learning, and make this an extremely compact building, as well as flexible, which is equally important. I'm going to the next. I'm moving my mouse around but. All right, here we go. Sorry about that. So here's a Fort River site. And as you can see what's dotted, or hashed in is your existing building. It's a single story, 80,000 square feet. What we're doing is we're designing the new building to the south of this and we've moved it as far south as we possibly could, to allow the operations of the existing building to remain without the construction of the construction, and even have outdoor areas for play and activity behind the school. There'll be a fence that will separate the site from construction to school. And what you'll see here is we spent a lot of time developing areas for play for outdoor learning, as well as a safe arrival and departure. The northern entrance will be the bus loop. We have sufficient area to line up 12 buses, and an area that we can have a pull off area for vans as we understand those students need additional time for arriving and departing. The entrance will actually be for vehicles for cars for parking, and for student drop off. There's ample space for student drop off without commingling with buses. And once the new school is built, the students will move into it, and then again the fence will remain, and the northern part of the site will be in construction where the building will be demolished, and you'll see these incredible opportunities for community fields. So this may look familiar. It's an extremely compact and efficient floor plan, and that's always been the goal. The main entrance is to the west with the green is the administration wing which will welcome visitors entering the building. The first part of the building is the community wing gymnasium and cafeteria. It's a cafeteria with the stage which will connect to the fields beyond. Now the academic wing which can actually be closed off while the community wing is in use so it provides separation and safety and folks don't have to wander beyond where they're supposed to be. We can see that we have a very efficient, but yet collaborative approach to the learning environments we have five classrooms per grade. And three classrooms will be clustered around a project area which allows for individual and small group instruction as well as project based learning. So it's important to have the five classrooms be in close proximity to each other to allow for that collaboration throughout the grade. In addition, you'll see that we have two grades per floor, which as well will allow for vertical and horizontal collaboration between staff and students. We have an enormous amount of time talking about the special education spaces, not only what's important as far as the size of the spaces but the location so they can serve all students. On the second floor, the academic wing is identical to the first the goal was to make this a very efficient and easy and manageable layout. In the west we have what we're calling the STEM area we have a media center and art room and a science technology and engineering space so we see this as a great opportunity for a lot of activity occurring inside the spaces, but also in the corridor area. And the academic wing, very similar to the first floor two grades here we're showing second and third grade, again with the special education programs appropriate for those age groups, and then moving upstairs to the third floor. Primarily the fourth and fifth graders so we'd like to say as they rise and stature in the school they will also do so within the building. And again, it just allows for flexible learning collaboration and the appropriate special ed spaces. I'm going to show you a little bit, a little bit of a teaser I guess as as we start taking you throughout the building and around the building and into the building. Here is a view of the building from the drop off loop. As you approach the front of the school. And again recognizing this is a three story building which is somewhat unique to Amherst, it was really important to break down the scale of the building. As you come around to the north side of the building, you'll see that natural light was really important it helps break down the scale but it also provides a lot of daylight and views once you're in the building. You see the cafeteria and glass and above that is the media center. And what was really important to us was to provide a really cost effective but durable exterior so we're using masonry throughout the entire exterior, but you can see we're having fun with it we're playing with it in colors so that it can provide a whimsical feel as we really just want to embrace this important elementary school. As we come around the site, you'll see again this very compact footprint really allows the Fort River site to open up and be embraced by the entire community. We've strategically located play areas separate from the outdoor learning areas. As you come around the building you'll see this is the south facing portion of the building and we have sunshades, because we want the views and the natural light to enter the building but we needed to reduce the glare. And then as we move further towards the front of the building, we have the student drop off area and a nice welcoming areas they arrived by bus. As we approach the gym we intentionally have left a blank because we're envisioning some kind of mural that's already been displayed at the existing Court River School. And then you'll see the administration at the front of the building which has oversight from the buses students arriving by bus, parents and visitors. As we enter the building, we have the main office again at the very front. We have the principal's office who wants to see and be seen which is fabulous. We've thought about all of the areas you'll see blank walls because that's for future student art or even local artists. We have the gymnasium on the right, again bringing natural light in, but not getting in your eyes as you take a basketball shot. And then as you come around again, a lot of natural light coming in utilizing windows with views of the cafeteria and looking out onto the site. And then as we start, I'll take you to the academic spaces. So here's a view of a typical project area with three classrooms surrounding it, individual lockers for each of the students with ample storage for staff. Again, utilizing glass to bring the natural light in to even these spaces that do not have direct access to light or outdoors. It was important that we also provided views so that everyone has an opportunity to maintain that connection to the outdoors as you look through these large glass side lights. Inside the classroom it's total flexibility for differentiated learning we have two sinks even for project based learning. And then again entering out into the project areas you'll see that we wanted some quietness. So we broke off those areas from the main quarter but we wanted to maintain that connection to the classrooms to the other side so there's a real nice cohesive feel for each grade. As we enter the what we call the hub of the school the media center with this beautiful natural light overlooking the fields. And this is a north view so it's great for the day lighting and views, flexible stacks as we go around. We have a storytelling area, again bringing light into the quarters. And then we just find this just such an amazing opportunity for the generations of Amherst students. Now let me see if I can advance this. It's not wanting me to advance. Maybe maybe this is where we stopped and I can't seem to advance my slide. Hold on one second. That's not letting me advance my slide one second. I don't know why I cannot advance my slides. I'm going to just sorry I'm going to have to go old school here. As, as Kathy stated, what what you probably couldn't see in the video was that this is Amherst first net zero energy building utilizing ground source heat pumps and PVs to generate renewable energy both on the roof and also canopies in the parking lot. But what's also hidden behind the walls is the energy efficient distribution system. It's extremely well insulated again maximizing daylight and minimizing glare. We spent a lot of time even talking about how to reduce water consumption. We'll have electric vehicle charging station infrastructure, thermal comfort, and we didn't stop there. The next question is how are we going to manage this 80,000 square feet of building that we have to demolish so we will have a waste management system in place as well for construction and demolition. So we are pleased so excited that we are on a path to achieve a lead gold status. As it relates to construction and I'm sure everyone has heard how construction continues to escalate our current construction cost. The next round here is approximately 86,700,000. And we've spent with the school building committee for the past few weeks, looking at opportunities to reduce cost without impacting the intent of the design or the educational program. And we're really, we thankful for finding a personally $5.3 million to reduce the overall cost. So the total construction currently is around 81,300,000. And with that, I think we're going to turn this over to Margaret. Hi everybody. So yeah, I'm going to pick it up from there and I, I want to piggyback on what Donna was saying is, we're, we're showing you numbers tonight because the way we do the work and actually I would say the way that didn't disco does the work. Everything is sort of looking like it's kind of finished, but actually it's not so there's a lot more design work to do. And the budget numbers that we're sharing represent numbers that really should be rounded but they're coming out of a project budget worksheet, which is going to be going into the submittal so I just want people to sort of understand these numbers are more rounded than they look but there you will see them in a version of the spreadsheet. As we finalize the agreement with the MSBA. So, I'm going to talk about the overall total project budget if everybody can see this. So, the components of it are Donna's talked about this line, which is the so called hard, hard construction cost the cost of the building. So, but in addition to that, there are also soft costs associated with it and they're really in three big categories which are played out here. There are feeds for services so myself as the OPM and my firm, Donna's firm as the designer and a big team of consultants at every level and then some, you know, other miscellaneous costs including testing and moving and other pieces. Then there is a budget line item for furnishings equipment and technology. The MSBA subsidizes all of these to some extent, but they don't subsidize any of them fully. We have for the purposes of this budget. Donna and I have agreed to use $1850 per student for furnishings and $1650 per student for technology. It's possible before we make the final submission those numbers may want to be a little higher, but we've done I agreed in discussion that it was a good placeholder. Then the last big bucket is contingency so the contingencies are what protect to the community from unforeseen and in this case. There are contingencies that are already in the hard construction number for escalation and the development of the design, but outside of that budget. There is also a construction contingency, the construction contingency is typically for things that come up in the field. That are result in changes to the construction process or materials. And in this case, we are recommending that the way that the town carry 5% of construction so this number is literally derived from 5% of that. This is equivalent soft cost contingency of 1% of construction, and that's for additional services or fees or other consultant costs that might be required. So, when you add up to these numbers, the hard costs, and the soft costs, you're at 97 nine, which I really do not think we should be saying anything other than 98 million in the spirit of what I was saying earlier about these numbers being grounded. I just want to note that the feasibility costs are actually outside of this budget. Because they were separately funded and won't be part of this bonding process, but I would like everybody to carry away the number of 98 million, not the number 97 967 or 47. The same complex budget document, the MSBA uses the basis of the reimbursement in drafting that it was very recently revised some of you may have may remember that at the end of December the MSBA bumped up their reimbursement a bit which has actually helped us here. So, when I plug in all the numbers that we know now into that spreadsheet, as an estimate, we get, I get a maximum grant. Again, we could call this 43 million probably, and then that town share is a little over 55 million. Donna also had in her spreadsheet and I've carried here that half percent for art so if you come down here, 55 five. Again, you think about rounding these numbers is probably a reasonable number to sort of hold and talk about in the public sector. So, I'm just want to ask. I'll show the second slide here that I have. So, obviously, now that we've got a concrete design and budget on the table. The next big topic is going to be how it gets paid for so I just wanted to summarize here. Here's that number from the prior spreadsheet. Again, 55 five. We, there are a couple of potential sources of funding that could reduce the town share of the bond, and one of them is very clear Kathy, I think touched on it that they're because of the energy that zero commitment of the building is carrying out. There's about 1.6 million of rebates, which are basically coming off the town share of the cost. There are some CPA funds that have been applied for, and then a big question mark, which I'm sure we'll have further discussions about, you may be aware that there are federal tax credits new federal tax credits for the use of federal tax but the the federal government has not yet published how those are going to be calculated so we really can't put a number to that yet. So, that is the extent of my presentation. When I think, do you want to talk about the schedule now or later. We will, but first of all, thank you for all of you. I am going to ask you to call the elementary school building committee to order check with the people who have not already said they can hear and be heard, and we will note that we did have a quorum of that committee at at 545. And so what I'm going to call out there are seven members of the committee here but several of them have already been there were, including two counselors, Lisa Walker and I are both on the committee I'm just going to call out the people who have not already been confirmed, and that I'm going to start with Jonathan Selvin and just say that you can hear and be heard. Here. Ben Harrington. I don't know what you called on but Paul Walkerman. Here we go. Here. Sean Magnano. Here. And Allison Estes. Here. Okay, thank you very much. I just wanted to add something at the end of costs since many people know I'm on the finance committee and it's probably would be my instinct anyway but a couple of things. Margaret talked about the contingencies built in on top of direct costs. There are also contingencies built into the initial number on design costs so that the town is protected, and there's an inflation factor on two ends of this. In those ever source energy credits where we're scheduled to have ground source heat pumps as a major source of the high back system. The big chunk of that is because we chose ground source ever source recognizes in a very efficient way to heat and cool a building. And that's real money, literally, when we build it, they will give us the money if there's a, because of what we've built as the efficiency of the building. And we don't know what others, we don't know yet, as Margaret said but there is a federal credit for ground source heat pumps, as well as for photo partake. Potentially, and these are big, you know what they lost that is it's 30% of the costs, so we will see what eventually emerges. And I will stop there. I've just been focusing on how do we pay for it a lot. And those numbers have been jumping off the page. So this is an opportunity for the bodies that are present to ask any clarifying questions, but I really want to note this is just the beginning of the discussion. There will be an intense period of discussion between now and the time that we actually go out for the debt override. And I want to note that there are 16 people in the audience. And that does not count all of those people who watch us on Amherst media. So, I see a hand up already, and it's Bob Hegner from the finance committee. Yes, I just had a question I did not see the demolition and waste management costs for the existing structure. Are they included in the in your budget or are they separate. They're they're included there and they're in the construction number Bob. Okay, thank you. Mindy Joe Hannity. Yes, thanks. Looking at the expected grant. You told us that that 42.7 million is approximately the maximum we could get. That's about 43% of the project costs so I was thrilled to see that number but we have been operating on a 30 to 40% assumption of sort of reimbursement so I'm curious what the minimum estimated grant number might be how much lower than 42.7 might it go when we finally get numbers. So, also a great question. It's a little hard to estimate because the way the process and more specifically at this time, the way the process works is the atmosphere take their spreadsheet, and then they go through and they may find I don't believe they will but they could find items to exclude small amounts of square footage, you know, things that we don't know are on the table right now. But this is, this is really based on, you know, the assumption that everything that we have discussed so far is reimbursed consistent with their guidelines. It's the lower number was before MSBA did the revisions in December that lower percent. Yeah, it was lower before December 21. Donna you had your hand up was there anything you wanted to add to that. No, just, you got it. So Mandy asked my question, which made me feel better because I was worried it was a silly question and then Mandy asked it so I know it wasn't but the follow up on that is so what I'm hearing you say is well there is possibly a minimum number that's slightly different than what's on the sheet there. You have been really focused on what MSBA guidelines are so you're not expecting anything different. When will we know for certain when is that, when is that kind of point where they go through every single thing. So, they will take this behind this calculation is a big complex spreadsheet, which I typically share with them as a draft but they, they do, they don't typically respond to it until we make the schematic design submission. And then they will shortly after we make the submission within a couple weeks, they will ask us to join project funding agreement review, and we they'll go through with us whether they have any other comments. So, again, I have to just compliment Dinesco who's been incredibly good about being specific about making sure that the areas that are the MSBA kind of caps on areas are that they are consistent with that, as well as I think being very creative around, you know how to use the MSBA guidelines to make sure that it fits for the community, but we're not likely to get a whole lot more specificity about it until, I would say, middle of March, probably at the earliest.  Yeah, I think it's really important for us to note that these are our estimations estimates of what the MSBA will give us this is not a number that MSBA has provided to us is as well informed as people who built these buildings before using the MSBA guidelines. MSBA looks at this as a partnership with the town of Amherst. They're not just a funding authority they work with us to and the design and development of the building so they really truly see us as partners, but you know this is our number the MSBA if you said hey it looks like you're giving this amount of money the MSBA will say no we haven't even, you know, so I just want to put a caveat on that and I think Sean might want to add to that as well. Yeah, one more complication, the final numbers will be when we get construction bids, and we actually know what the contract is which that'll be many months from now. Okay, thank you all nice simple answer. Thank you. Are there other questions from members of the other bodies that are with us tonight. Pam Rooney. I just want to say thanks to the building committee and the team because that's a beautiful looking building. Very excited about. I'm very excited about this. I had a couple of thoughts as as you're going through this presentation. I like the fact that it's under 100 million that that you've worked hard to get it in that range and I would really like to not go to the, I'd like to go to the townspeople for an exclusion override, knowing that we're under that number. So, good work, keep it keep keep the pressure on one of the numbers that you that you presented it with a soft cost, and I'm more familiar with soft cost numbers in the 25% at the university it was more like 30% soft cost. And I'm, and I'm wondering how are able to estimate it at 20%. I think I'd rather see a number that is accurate, then, then hoping to keep it low. If you understand what I'm saying, I do. Pam I'm happy to speak to that a little bit. I. There are a couple of reasons that it's lower than 25%. And, you know, as you as you will know those who were looked closely at the PSR estimates we were using 25%. One of the big moves, I mean, the architects have this huge piece of kind of moving the design along my piece is to move the soft cost piece along so if you think about the soft cost numbers. I think the construction and so the construction contingency numbers are very straightforward it's a percentage and I think it's, I'd be interested in your opinion about whether, for instance construction should be higher than 5%. It's all it's tied up with you know what's assumed in the construction budget. I think the two numbers that. Well, as I mentioned earlier the furnishings equipment and technology number I think could be higher. This was an educated guests and sort of back and forth between Donna myself and the furnishings consultant about what that number should be, but it's a certain level it becomes a budget number that you said and say, we're going to be in or outside of it. I think the two things that are contributing the most to it being less than 25% are first of all. I think the escalation in construction costs does not necessarily mean that the fees at you know this is just sort of the reality of the last couple years construction costs have gone up like this fees have gone up because salaries have gone up but they haven't gone up as much. So that's part of it. The other piece of this is that the feasibility costs which is a million dollars is outside of it. What do you mean by outside of what. So the feet, the feet, let me pull the slide up again just to explain this. So when I'm calculating 20%. I'm not including this line. Okay, and, and that's because I was asked to sort of describe it as as a percentage of this, but actually obviously if you include, you know, a million dollars that bumps it up as well. And that's because that was the MSP won't reimburse on that, because it's a redo of previous project and it was the way it was funded is separate and outside of the bonding. So, you know, I think in a nutshell I would say that the other thing that's probably impacting it is, it's a very, in many ways, and again, you know hats off to Dennis go for figuring out how to build a building. On the side of an existing building it's a fairly straightforward schedule, which reduces, you know, overall costs at least reduces them for on the opium side, because the duration is more limited than if you had a multi phase project. So complicated answer. Definitely. And we may look at bumping up the furnishings cost but that's, we haven't had a presentation on that with the building committee yet. And then encouragement to the committee and the designers to seek out every possible grant that's out there. I think that's terrific.  Yeah, thank you, Lynn. I just want to clarify that the feasibility study we are planning to pay back to our capital budget. So we're not proposing to lump that in with the debt exclusion it'll be just to a regular capital process. We've all the Council's already voted that amount. I really want to thank Sean for making sure that we came back to reality that the final cost of this and what we're going to be facing really awaits the final bit. I also want to remind people that this is a construction project. It is, there are always uncertainties and relationship to budgeting and bids bids are the reality. And when those bids are in that's what our reality is right now. This is pre reality. Andy, I mean Donna, did you want to respond to that. Yeah, and, and you're both right or 100%. The only other thing just to remind people we will be continuing to do cost checks will have a cost estimate done at the end of design development and then to during construction document so we'll continue to be, you know, making the market making sure that if we have to make adjustments we make adjustments as the market shifts. So, so it's not, you know, here's our budget. See what construction. We have three, three more opportunities for kind of a reality check with what's going on in the market for over the next year or so. Thank you, Andy. Yes, I have two questions. One is, we know that one of the disadvantages of the Ford River site was the nature of the land that it sits on and that it's been, you know, very wet on the current school in the way the current construction costs a lot of problems and I understand a lot of work is going to need to be done to get the ground ready for the construction to avoid that happening again. And is that included just in the construction costs itself or is there another place that that shows up so that this one and the other is for both Donna and Margaret. I think you've built a lot of schools involved in a lot of projects. Where typically do unexpected costs come from and how have you factored that in. So, Donna, do you want to start. And I'll add on or share. Sure. So, as it relates to site development costs. Andy, yes, those are included in the construction budget we have a real good, solid understanding of everything that is required for the development and protection of the site. So those are already included in the construction cost. And this has been in business for over 40 plus years, I am not that old but my some of my family members were, but we have been designing educational facilities for 40 plus years. Our documents are extremely solid, and we have a vast experience in chapter 149 or public build public construction in Massachusetts, our change orders I think that's where we're going where where's the unknowns in this. Our change orders, typically represent less than 1% of the construction cost. Related to sites. So, we've done a very thorough job on the site. And we really think we have a really good understanding of it we have the rest of design to further understand it, if, if, you know, we'll continue to develop the documents but typically it's this unknowns on the site is is where we'll start seeing a little bit of the cost of unknowns or change orders. So, I'm going to just chime in and say, and I do agree I think to Nesco has a very good reputation for their design documentation which which can be a source of change orders. I agree with Donna it is likely here that it's going to be soft costs that are sorry costs that are related to this the site and its complexity, but I do think the market has created a situation where there can also be issues and availability issues. So, you know, for instance, in the last year, the availability and cost of a lot of electrical equipment has become kind of crazy. And so, you know, we could end up in a situation where somebody bids on something, it needs to be installed at a certain time, and suddenly it can't be available at that time. Now, in general, you know, one might say well that's that just means we're going to take longer but it, I think there it's possible there could be additional costs that we will have to consider during construction is not something I can predict to have a crystal ball for now that are related to the ability to sort of stay on a certain set schedule. Dorothy Pam in this plan is there an elevator to the second and third floor for handicapped students and teachers who may have a temporary handicapped say from a surgery or something like that. Yeah, it's a code requirement. And security systems I maybe you've talked about that and I've missed it, but are they built cost in at this time. Yes, yes. Thank you. Take last call for any other questions again reminding people that this is just the beginning of a discussion. In fact later tonight during the regular town council meeting we'll be talking about specific dates that are important to the council and the actions we have to take in order to move this forward to the public vote. So any other final questions, not never final, any other questions. Kathy. I don't have a question but I just want to encourage anyone who's not regularly attending our building committee meetings. We can and do receive questions, comments, and it doesn't have to be at the meeting and we make an attempt to address them so that if something occurs to you later. If you just send it to me and it's something the designers can answer. We've also taken to when we get a question that isn't answered during the meeting during public comment we've tried to get the answer put into our minutes so to make sure that we close the loop because this is, we're seeking. We've had both good questions and good suggestions that have led to changes you know I mean it's been a it's been a really amazing process for me. So I encourage you to send them in if they, something encouraged you later. And Kathy would you just point out the specific website for the project. The place that you can get all the detailed information so some of you asked on what's the site cost is demolition is the building committee site on the town website and that's the elementary school building. And if you have a question I can tell you exactly what day we talked about it and we're posting that. It's a larger project site and Margaret you'll have dates it's Amherst dash school dash project calm is that correct. Yeah, I'm just going to quickly pull them both up so this is the town site that will link you to all of the comments and minutes, and then the wheel so have a website for the project that's more sort of a summary for people who are perhaps coming to this relatively new, and that's Amherst dash school dash project dot com. As you can see there's a link to the upcoming building project forum. There's a little bit of a timeline. There's a couple of different levels of explanation of background thanks to some of you who are on here who were involved with helping to generate some of the content including hats off to Kathy and Allison, who generated the set of frequently asked questions that are on here now. So, okay.  Yes, I just wanted to point out, and, and Margaret you were just showing that but I, there's two public forums that are coming up this week. One I believe is Wednesday morning at 830 and the others Thursday evening at six or 630. Yeah, and those links to join we're on on that website that Margaret just showed us. There's a link on the first page and also if you go to the get involved page, and this link is live and there's no one there now but later this week there will be. Pam Rooney. Thank you that just answered my question I sent out a nice email update to district for and I included the incorrect time for Wednesday I thought it was 830pm. I will have to send it out and correct to 830am. Thank you. Okay. So with that, I'm going to ask Andy to adjourn the town council finance committee is adjourned. Allison to adjourn this Amherst school committee. The Amherst school committee is adjourned. Kathy to adjourn the elementary school building committee. We are adjourned. And while the special meeting of the town council is adjourned, we will immediately move on. And at 630 and two minutes, we will begin the regular meeting of the town council utilizing the same link. Thank you all for being here for this opening presentation of a very important discussion for Amherst. Good evening. It's January 23 2023. This is the regular meeting of the town council. We have already gone through all the preliminaries, including the fact that we're allowed to do this based on straight state law. I have, I'm going to state that given that we have a quorum of the council present. I'm calling the council meeting to order at 630. I've already checked to make sure that people can hear and be heard. And so we're going to save a little bit of time with that and go immediately on to the announcements.  These will be organizational committee meetings for all four of the town councils committees at which point we will elect the chair and vice chair. The committee assignments were made just this past week. And also note here the elementary school community forums that were just mentioned. And a new year celebration on Sunday, January 29 is from 11 to two at the Amherst regional middle school. I also want to note that your packet includes the required annual report for the Amherst housing authority, thus completing all the required reports as described in the charter. Let's move on to the hearing regarding the ever source petition for the poll placement at 133 Southeast Street. Tina, is there a person in the audience? Yes, Jesse Martin is coming in. These are ever source rep for this year. Okay. Thank you. Hi, Jesse. Jesse, is there anything particular you would like to say about this we do have a memo in our packet. And we do have a recommendation from the head of DPW. So anything particular you would like to say about this additional poll. No, I'm curious. Were you excited to say. Okay. Are there questions from counselors. Pam Rooney. I've been looking at the. You just muted yourself, Pam. There you go. In looking at the diagram provided. It wasn't clear to me why an additional poll was needed. And why a essentially a loop had to be created. So I'm going to go back to the building, why it could have been taken. The power to the building couldn't have just been taken off the existing full 127 dash 14. Yeah, it has to do with the size of the building being being constructed and we need two options to be able to feed it in case one of the feeders crossing the streets is damaged and say a car accident or something like that. 30 meters 30 occupants needs to have two, two feeds to it. So we call it a loop feed. So you're right it looks just like it's going around but really it'll be fed from one side and then if something happens to that initial feed, we have something to revert to to keep them powered up. Mandy Joe. Yeah, two, two questions. The first is with new buildings. I'm curious why you couldn't go underground with these under the roadway. You know, to avoid, you know, so I would understand the addition of maybe poll 127 14 M, but why couldn't everything else go underground instead of above ground. And then my other question is our report from the DPW indicated that there's a big water main under southeast street and on the west side of the street where two of those new polls are going. And so I wanted to know how far away from the water main are these polls being installed. So putting them underground is an option if you if the town will allow us to cut the road. Typically the town doesn't like us to cut up new roads and trench across them so if that's something that you know, as a group you guys would like to do we can we can talk about that. And I was not aware of the water main. That's what that's why we stake the polls and then before we install them we use big safe to to locate where they should go, and also obviously input from the town. So we can adjust them as needed. Thank you for a follow up questions.  I guess, I don't think Gilford's here. I think Paul might be texting him about whether we could get the two polls eliminated by putting the feed underground on both from both polls and then what about the water main issue. And do we know how close it is. Since it's the water main doesn't show on the plans we got. Paul, I'm going to give you a little moment here and at this point, ask, are there any other questions from counselors and seeing none that I'm going to ask, are there any other. Are there questions or public comments from the audience. Okay, I'm seeing none from the audience but I am seeing a hand up for Anna Devlin, got here. I generally am a fan of putting utilities underground wherever it's, it's possible and like Mandy mentioned maybe this is a place where that is possible. I think my question is not necessarily for you Jesse it's kind of more for for us. If it's required to rip up the road in order to put things underground that makes sense where who pays for that. And how does that, how does that factor into our decision to possibly start putting utilities under underground where, where that's feasible. And I don't know where to direct that question to be honest with you I think it might be a Gilford question or if someone else happens to know the answer, but what are we getting into if we do ask for that. I will put it out, I will put it out to the universe and if anyone knows the answer I'm happy to hear it but if not I will somehow dig that answer up no pun intended. No pun intended. Paul is going to answer that question or tell us when he can answer it. Dorothy. I just wanted to join Mandy Joe in supporting the move to put polls underline or put utilities underline wherever possible, and to think of aesthetics, not just because I know there's this tends to keep adding polls all over town. And there's more stuff that's going to be happening, and it's just going to end up being very, very unattractive looking and. So I think we should start so I think I asked some very good questions also where the cost goes, but if it's possible, I think we should work towards putting some of our utilities underground. Thank you. So Paul I see you've returned and I wonder if you have any additional information. So, it's fine for DPW to go underground, as long as the road gets patched to DPW specifications, so that the road, you know, it's returned to its normal state. And so DPW can work with ever source to make sure that the lines are underground. And who pays for that was one of the questions asked while you were getting the answer to the first one. And of course, we don't pay the town wouldn't pay for that that's ever sources bill. Good fallback to our customer I'm pretty sure. Okay, so ever source would have to pay for the installation and the repair of the digging up and the repair of the road. Yeah, not ever source the customer building building. Yeah, I see. Okay. Paul was there anything else. I guess I was just curious, Paul, were you able to get a quick answer from Guilford about if we kept those polls on the west side how far away from the main they would be. And then the other question would be if we go underground is the main problem for going underground. Yeah, I did ask that question is, you know, ever source works around water lines and all the time they can, they'll be able to figure that out. Yeah, typically a water main is six to seven feet underground typically, and ours are electric conduits are three feet to pay. I did ask that question specifically and he said that they'll be able to figure it out. So, are there any other questions from counselors. Then my question back is, are we ready to close the public hearing, not seen any objection to that. We will be voting on this later, we don't vote on it during the hearing. Right so. Is there a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Second, second. One vote just moved to a quick vote, shall any bell mill. Yes. Happy Angeles. I, on a Devon got there. I, in Greece present, I'm Andy Joe Hanneke. I, a Nikolopes. Michelle Miller. I, Dorothy Pam. Pam Rooney. I, Kathy Shane. Yes, Andy Steinberg. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. And Alicia Walker. Okay. Hi. Thank you. We are. Hearing is closed. And Jesse, thank you for joining us. And I'm sure that Dillford will be back in touch with you as. We move forward with whatever the action is that the council takes. Thank you. We're going to now move to general public comment. This is the only public comment this evening. And I'll note that there are 14 people in the audience at this time. And I would like to ask you to raise your hand if you would like to make general public comment. Again, I'm going to ask one more time. Is there anybody who would like to make general public comment. Seeing no hands. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. The following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect. They would pass with no controversy. To remove an item. You will let me know that after we go through the first read. It does not require a second. When we then do the second, it will include all of those that will be removed. I'm going to already note. I'm going to move on to the second item. And that is we are not. We are not approving the November 14, 2022 special town council meeting minutes tonight. Okay. So the, the motion is following to move the following items and printed motions. They were under and approve those items as a single unit. Waiver waiver of town council rules of procedure. Six a 2023 black history month proclamation. And six B 2023 lunar new year proclamation. Six a adoption of the 2023 black history month proclamation. Six B adoption of the 2023. Lunar new year proclamation. Eight a approval of ever source petition to install. Three solely owned polls at 133 southeast street. I'm assuming if somebody wants to change that motion, they will have it removed. Eight C approval of long-term parking reservations. Requisite at 26 spring street. I'm sorry, request reservation request. Eight D approval of discontinuance of the acu vote. Optical scan tabulator and replacement with image cast. Pre-synced optical tabulator. Nine a one approval of town manager appointment to the water supply protection committee. And 11. Eight a approval of the following meeting minutes. January 9, 2023 regular town council meeting minutes. Are there any items that people would like removed. Mandy job. Eight a the ever source politician, please. Okay. Are there any others. Seeing none, I'm seeking a second where we remove. Eight a. From the list that you see on the screen. Seeing no other hands. We're going to move. Second. I'm sorry. Second. Thank you. I think you needed a second. It did need a second. The removal didn't need a second. The, the total motion needed a second though. Thank you. Okay. We're going to move along. Pat the Angeles. Hi. I'm a delvin got here. Hi. Andy. I'm a delinquent. I'm a delinquent. And I'm a delinquent. I'm a delinquent. I'm a delinquent. More than I'm Andy Johankey. An beloved local Lopes. I, Michelle Miller. Dorothy Pym. Yes. Pam Brune. Yeah. I'm sorry. Cassie Cheen. Andy Steinberg. Jennifer. Hi. Alicia Walker. Hi. Shiny bow. Yes. Okay. Then, as is our custom, we are going to read from the two proclamations we have just passed. And one of the sponsors on the black history plaque proclamation is Dorothy Pam. And I've asked her to read the last paragraph. Hello, Lynn. Yes, it is. Okay. Now therefore, we the town council of the town of Amherst do hereby proclaim the month of February, the year of 2023, as black history month, and urge all residents to mark this occasion, and to participate fittingly in its observance, beginning with a flag raising ceremony on February 1 2023 at 6pm, the celebrations and recognitions throughout the month. Thank you. And I will be sending an email out to all counselors to see who will be able to attend Mandy Joe Hanneke the 2023 lunar new year proclamation. Yeah. Um, so I just want to say we send our hearts out to the families who were impacted by the shooting out in the LA area, because it was slightly related to the lunar new year celebrations. Before I read this. This is the spring festival lunar new year celebration proclamation. Now therefore we the town council of the town of town of Amherst do hereby proclaim January 22 2023 as the beginning of the spring festival and urge all residents to join the 15 day celebration of the year of the rabbit. And I believe it starts with a celebration and reading of the town spring festival lunar new year celebration proclamation on January 29 2023 at the Amherst regional middle school. I believe it starts at 11am. So that families may celebrate the New Year's Eve in New Year's Day. Thank you. And we'll also be sending an email out to see which counselors are available to join us. And then we'll move on to presentations and discussions. And for this, I'm going to ask Athena to put up a schedule that you received as we were looking at the earlier discussion. Can you enlarge it slightly. That's. Okay, that's good. So tonight, as I mentioned earlier, we're really kicking off the lead up to going out to the residents of Amherst to ask them to vote to pay for this to help pay for the school, along with a very sizable grant from the mass school building authority. So at the time we need two weeks, we'll actually talk about debt authorization. We'll talk about the debt exclusion, including ballot language, the dates, and the impact on taxpayers which we did not discuss tonight. At that point this will get referred to the finance committee. The finance committee, we asked them to discuss and make recommendations and come back to us so that on February 27, we can actually vote the debt exclusion language, the date, and any other items with regard to the actual camp, the election. The finance committee then discusses the debt authorization and we eventually on March 20 will hold a public forum on appropriation for the school project. The finance committee has further discussions about the desk, Dennis authorization. And actually on April 3, we will vote the actual debt authorization. That is a two thirds vote of the council. The mass school building authority does actually make their formal and final vote, and our estimated date at this point for a, the electorate of Amherst to vote is May 2, 2023, where, and at that point, it is a simple majority of 50%. So I want to take this down for the moment, we'll make sure it's in the packet, but I also want to mention, we have a lot of things that we also need to think about doing as a council. First of all, we need to think about the fact that state law allows mail in ballots, but it only requires them for statewide elections. And so one of the things that we as a council will need to determine is, are we going to do a early voting. Are we going to do mail in ballots. Some people who have suggested that we do something to do a much more significant outreach to the UMass Amherst campus. And what would that look like. That's a whole piece of our discussion that we need to have and make some decisions about. Another area that I think we need to think about is how can we as counselors in our role of having constituents throughout the town help in our constituents understand the importance of this project and the need for the project and answer questions. And so I am asking all district counselors to schedule a district meeting sometime in March or February, February or March I should say, and I know Kathy and other people from the team are willing to be available. We can also make sure that the presentation that we had tonight is taped so that you as a counselor will not have to be the expert on all the questions, but there'll be somebody there to help you answer those questions. And we'd like to publicize those district meetings as a full set of district meetings so that people know when they are and even if they can't come to their own district meeting, they maybe they could come to another district meeting. Another issue that has come up. And I'm in your pack tonight, we just put it in toward the end of toward late this afternoon is, what is your, what role are you allowed to play as an individual counselor as a resident of Amherst. Specifically, can you advocate for this project. And the answer is yes, but you cannot use town resources to do that. You cannot use your computer. You cannot use your town email or anything else that's considered town resources to advocate for this project. The town as a body cannot advocate for the project, it can provide information. It can do all kinds of things to help it move us forward, but it cannot be the advocate, but as individuals, we can be an advocate for this project. So, with that, I thought it would be useful for people to ask other questions. You know, express other issues they want to make sure we address during this time period. This is the first time that a body of the town of Amherst has gone out for debt exclusion in a long time. And it's clearly the first time that this council has. So, Dorothy. This list of meetings that you want to have. Some of them I think have to be in person. I mean, we already did a meeting with a school presentation, and we had a decent little zoom attendance, but it was, you know, moderate. So if we do a large meeting and I say you do it at the Jones library, am I using a town resource. If you're doing a district meeting. Is a district meeting with a school presentation using a town or town subsidized building to some extent, is that okay. That's absolutely okay because a district meeting is requirement of all counselors to do with their districts. Okay. Okay. And if I did a district meeting outside in March, which is what I'd really love to do. Because we find a warm enough place. I know people would come though they would come. Right. Okay, thank you. Good question. Kathy. Yeah, Dorothy, just to clarify, you know, we can. Lynn made a distinction between providing information and answering questions to, I would say the other thing is knocking on doors to get out the vote.  But one thing I would like anyone's advice and I'm having worked this long on it, I'm willing to devote whatever hours I have. We, we had at least one public person write the council tonight. So I added a sentence in my quick overview with declining enrollment why are we building a school. So I'm trying to think of what fact sheets, you know, simple ones, you know what, but because the notion that we're combining two schools and getting down to one is because we have such low enrollment. But trying to think of a handful of short ones and when I say like one pagers. You know, so that I don't expect people to find the frequently asked question part of that website that Margaret just showed. And if they do we, there's probably a question they want answered that they might not find or not might not find in the fullness. So I thought of trying to do a few. So the other, the one I know is what's a net zero energy school or, you know, what about the school. Do we have because for some people climate action will be a very attractive part of this building what we're doing as a model and it's when I talk about it. I'm just wondering about the school can be a project for the kids to learn from because of the way we're building it. So I know I'm going to write that one but any suggestions any of you have because people are asking you questions. I'm just, you know, why do we need a new school, you know what's a net zero what's in it for the community, we are restoring the community fields. Andy's question about the site tonight there is a lot of money in that 81 million that has to do with protecting against water drainage systems, raising the foundation of the school up by putting more dirt and gravel and drainage underneath it. So there's been a lot of work with civil engineers, including the fields you know to make the fields more usable so again, you know just trying to think through what beyond videos that make a lot of complicated information accessible. You know, send me thoughts, you know I'm on topics and I will try to say what two or three and I'm not saying alone Alicia's here but I'm going to recruit anyone from the building committee and or the school committee that wants to think of simple, non technical ways of talking about this. I appreciate that I'm too close to it to see what might be needed. So I would really appreciate any input. Okay, thank you, Anna. Yeah, I just wanted to be really clear and I think I may have misheard something. All of the things that you're talking about in terms of us advocating for or against different ballot questions are very much about the use of public resources and then the memo is very clear that on our own personal time and dime, we are allowed to do what we would like to support these or support these and so we can go knock on doors we can send out from our private emails we can donate if we choose to from our private bank accounts to these to these causes I just wanted to make that really clear and it's not an ethical for us I think in the last page it says serve on a ballot question committee. I mean right like that's pretty much the furthest you could go to supporting a measure so I just I want to make this really clear that it will, it would not be a misuse nor a violation of campaign finance law for us to be supporting or not supporting a different ballot doesn't need to be this one I'm just speaking generally this ballot measure as long as is as long as it is on our own personal time and dime. There's not a lot of personal time since this is not well, relatively speaking since this is not a full time job supposedly. Thank you, Anna and that is a total incomplete clarification. Michelle. Thank you. I have a comment and a question. The comment is I wanted to share my Asian for three community members Tony Cunningham Maria Kopecki and Rudy Perkins for securing a recommendation from the EPA for $700,000 for the recreational fields. I wanted to ask if it would make any sense for us to consider pulling that particular recommendation out to vote it sooner. I don't know the details in terms of when we would vote the whole slate of recommendations. But just looking at the chart and the way that it was presented earlier, if we know that we have that money secured, it may help us as we're starting to go out to folks and and try to give them some sense of the numbers. Michelle, very good question. Actually, we look at CPA recommendations, they're ready for us to look at I'm trying to see when we would bring them forward in February. In what we've done in the most recent years is we've brought them forward and basically refer them directly to the finance committee who comes back with a recommendation. And then there are certain ones from time to time that have been contingent upon something else happening. For instance, the library. So, I have every reason to believe we will probably vote that CPA recommendation contingent upon the override. But we will do it well before the override. Okay. Yeah. And I appreciate your thanking people for coming forward with their recommendation they've also three people who've been very active and making sure this school is net zero and on target. Jennifer. I'm echoing Michelle, I think that, you know, I look at my district of course I think they're, you know, to a person committed to education, whether they have children in the schools or not, but since so many don't as much as we can talk about the other community benefits in terms of the fields and, you know, other community spaces that the new school will provide I think that's would only be a good thing and garnering the widest possible support. Are there other comments or questions or things that you want to make sure we think about as we move forward. Kathy. That just gave me thank you both for that comment because there's a lot of community benefits to this that we can put in a separate slant. I just wanted to be on a said when will we really know about MSBA. This report with the cost numbers is due to MSBA my March 2. The actual meeting is not till the end of April, but they give us a reading on things earlier. And that's when they will look at what is being proposed they've already just so people know they've already approved the spaces that Donna showed on that very first slide 105. That went through when we we got approval to go to this phase. So it was already talked through how many classes rooms how much special needs space, etc. So what they haven't looked at and they are just sending out the new formula with the changes they made in December. So they, they will go through Margaret's calculations using their formula and tell her whether she's doing it right or not so Paul I don't know exactly when we'll get that read but it won't be like a surprise they will say no you're well off or something else. So, so that's one thing on the actual costs, the town share, and the, the other one that was left the similar. Thank you Michelle for the big call out for the people securing the CPA money. Another thing that may go from a question mark to a yes for sure is if the federal government comes out with regs for these tax credits that are supposedly going to be available. There is a reg that says a town can apply for a tax credit to offset 30% of the costs of the PV system or x% of the geothermal we have those numbers. And it's pretty easy for me to calculate or Sean to calculate what that is, if we know it's real. And what we just been hesitant we with particularly what's going on in Congress. We, we need that bill to stay on the books, all the way through the beginning, you know to the point we can apply so it, it will be real money if those tax credits are real so I to put those two ifs. And what I don't know is whether we'll know that before May 2. You know that you know how quickly or slowly. So the school committee and all public are getting noticed that there's new potential money for conservation sustainability it's, it's they put. And just, it's not a credit because we don't pay taxes it's literally a direct payment for a share of the costs. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments. Anna. I'm just looking really quickly and I'm trying to do we have access to those slides that were I'm not seeing them in the back. They will be put in the packet. They weren't, they were literally being changed up to the last minute that they will definitely be in the packet. That would be great thank you and thank you Kathy for clarifying with your answer. Okay. I'm going to now go on to the action items eight a was pulled off the consent agenda. And I'm looking for emotion other than the one that is on the sheet and Mandy Joe, please go ahead. So I'd actually request that we postpone this because Athena has said that she wants to get a different order from ever source since they like the orders. My motion was going to be that they be allowed or what I would hope that order is in consistent with is that they be allowed to install the one pole. That's on the same side of the street as all the polls. And that then they have to provide underground service from those polls under the public way to the building. So that those two polls that are closest to the building do not get installed instead. We don't have wires going across the public way they go under the public way and then that they have to repair the road to the town specifications for it. And Athena has indicated that ever source would likely doesn't like us to add our own language they want their own order prepared consistent with what we want to do. Okay. And so the earliest that would be back on our agenda is February 6. Are there any other comments from counselors. Before we send ever source back to the drawing board for that new order, shall any clarify, you know, when they said that the cost would be sent to the client. So if you are thinking about the underground and redoing the road and all of that. Who is the client in this case. The client is that large development on Southeast Street, the new apartment buildings there. That's right on the adjacent to the bank. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to add just in support of of that. Putting them underground the, the more as we look at, all right, I'm going to try to stay off my soapbox but the more that we look at our climate changing the more we really need to be pushing for utilities to be underground. The more that they're above ground the more they're going to get hit by limbs falling in storms the more that extreme weather is going to impact them so I think that that goes on to to the builders in this case but as we think about longevity this is important to really start focusing on doing. Okay. There any other comments on this particular issue. Okay, seeing none. Then we're going to go on to the proposed special act on residential property transfer fees. And Mandy Joe, Hanna key and on a Devon got here have been the two counselors who have sponsored this. And let me just say that I did share with you earlier, an email in response to one person. This is really a two part process, it's more than two parts but it's two main parts. One is, we need to file a special act that allows us to get to the table, so that we can participate in a statewide discussion. Once, and if that special act results in some action on Beacon Hill. If we see that's the way it's going, then we will be developing our own bylaw, which will describe its implementation in Amherst with that I'm going to turn it over our so our vote tonight is to propose special act set forth below and act establishing a real estate transfer fee upon the transfer of property to the city known as the town of Amherst and to petition the general court for special legislation provided, however that the general court may make clerical and editorial changes of form only to the bill, unless the town council approves amendments to the bill before enactment by the general court. I'm going to seek a second and then the introduction and discussion. Great. Mandy Joe and Anna. Mandy do you want to start off or do you want me to. Okay, okay. So, I think one of the things that Mandy and I talked about when we first introduced this was that it's a really good way to look at the beauty of our process right and we really saw that through going through meetings with the affordable housing committee through speaking with residents as we went, and where we've ended up with the changes that we're hoping to move forward and send to the legislature today is is something that's stronger than what we originally submitted so I want to thank the committees who took time and care with this, especially they the housing trust who who dedicated a decent part of a meeting to this earlier in December. And as a reminder, the two parts to this initiative I guess is what I'll call it part one is as Lynn said this special act, the special act is essentially saying that the town of Amherst is allowed to put a 2% transfer fee on property transfers, and that they will regulate that by bylaw. The bylaw is going to be a whole other we're going to test the beauty of that process I know when we get to the point hopefully we get to the point of writing the bylaw. The bylaw is when we will decide all of the really specific elements about this right so right now we are saying, please let us approve the special act to get us to the point where we can write the bylaw. I know a lot of folks have had specific questions about exemptions about numbers and about percentages going to different places. Those specifics would all be determined by bylaw. That was the way that we wrote this to make sure that we're allowing our town to make the decisions that are right for our town, not saying that we are going to write something in a home rule which is really locked in by the state and really can't change them once they're there. We're not saying that we want to be totally locked in we want to be able to study this over time we want to be able to make sure that we're adjusting for the market and things that that may shift. So, I want to just make that really that distinction very clear about what we are voting on today versus what we still have to create. What we included was a sample bylaw just to give you an idea of what these might look like. We are not that is to be written, right. That was, I know that may have caused some confusion. So that's sort of the intro, and I hope that you will support us in sending this to the legislature today and voting. So one of the major shifts that we made, we had added the affordable housing trust to be one of the groups that the remaining funds are divided between as a reminder. It's not necessarily an even split that split is determined by the bylaw, but it picks from the general, it divides between the general fund, the affordable housing trust and the capital stabilization fund, after the first initial amount goes to the, the trust itself. That's something to add. I just want to thank Anna for spearheading this and talking to me and letting me join her in this this was really her idea and so I think she deserves the credit for getting us this far. I mean, holding up a mirror here because what I showed Mandy was was a real big messy document and I said I think I'm trying to figure this out and Mandy went through and help me help me actually craft that language so right back this has been a whole labor. I think I'm trying to go out. Okay. So now we're going to move to questions from the Council Kathy. Thank you. This was reviewed in the finance committee, and we moved it forward positively. I just have one question. Probably not so much on the wording but on the way you just worded it on. If whatever revenues come in from this, we kept the, we kept the legislation general to leave us a lot of flexibility, but we talked about a first 250 goes here. The rest can go to one of three places is the way I read and and or, but without, they've, but that's left to either a bylaw specification or and or council votes and my correct. I mean, so we haven't said the rest gets divided one third one third one third. So I mean, we've left it open that this much of it goes here and then we look at the remainder and that would be in the wording of the bylaw. Yes or no. Oh, Mandy, sorry, go ahead. Mandy job. Yes, so it would be determined by the bylaw so that means either the bylaw would specifically set forth the distribution in those percentages or I know there was some conversation at finance committee that it would be rather that that some finance committee members might prefer it being distributed as part of or indicated as part of the comprehensive operating and comprehensive yearly budget. And so a bylaw could actually say, either this percent to hear this percent to hear and this percent to hear or it could say something like to these three specifically indicated in every operating budget or something like that or set forth in that I'm not sure what the language would look like but but it the bylaw would have to say either the percentage or how where you're going to find how it's distributed. So I think you've answered that this is not specific now, but it can and will be made specific later. So to the extent. Those of us who are then reviewing the bylaw are saying actually I would want more of it to the general fund or more of it to the same or more to the housing trust on that that can that has not it's not in written in stone right now. Andy, I apologize for not calling on you for the finance committee report let's do that and then you also have your hand up. Yeah, well that's part of it I the finance committee report was provided and writing and so I don't really feel that there's a need to go through in detail. It's been presented in in writing, but certainly available for any questions about what was discussed in finance committee and how we came out to where we did. Regarding the item that Kathy was raising and that there's been some discussion on already. Another way we recognize was is that a lot of communities are looking at this in the from the eastern part of the state is dealing with the affordable housing question only. The communities may not have the high percentage of affordable housing already. We are well above the minimum required by state statute and have made tremendous progress and made tremendous investments and I think we still remain committed to making investments. And what we also know is that we are unique for all of the reasons that we discussed in our budget guidelines for the town manager. And that recognizing that there are a lot of goals that councils have this past Councils future councils, and that revenue is always the barrier and that we wanted to make sure that this was also be considered a revenue source for other needs that were identified in future budget processes. If we're successful in getting the bylaw and make the decision getting the statute and then getting the permission to go forward with the bylaw and the question then came up of how best to do that and I think that our conclusion and finance committee which has been alluded to is that the best result is to leave it to future councils to make that decision because there may be a very high need for affordable housing project in a particular year. And that should be considered there may be other needs and that's not that's something that can prejudge be prejudged so when it came down to the language as determined by bylaw. And that was with the hope that we would have the decision made at the bylaw adoption stage that it be done on an annual basis. But that's a decision for as many other things are for the future and the last thing I just wanted to say is we as counselors have received some emails early in the process when this was first proposed raising a series of questions which we discussed, but we decided that all of those kinds of issues like the effect it has on a particular somebody whose own property for a long period of time it is their sole asset that they're selling at the time that they're moving out of their home that they've lived in for many years and how important that asset is to them. Our issues that really can be considered at the bylaw stage and should be considered in the bylaw stage they should not be dealt with in the special legislation because we felt special legislation. That is going to allow, if it's adopted as we've requested, will allow the council to make those decisions in the bylaw adoption stage. So, I think that was summarizes the discussion, unless other members of the committee have other things they want to add. That's fine. Thank you Andy Michelle. I appreciate. I had to leave that finance committee meeting early so I appreciate that last piece of clarification. One of the questions I had was about public input so it sounds like the finance committee discussed that that would be better suited to happen beyond this stage of things. The other thing I wanted to say is that if anyone on the council was following Carol Lewis's email and questions I did reach out to her. And as the chair of the affordable housing trust she was very comfortable with the way that the motion has been written so I just wanted to share that with other colleagues. The final thing I have here is, does the special act as it's currently written preclude the remaining money beyond the 250,000 to be part of just a line item on the budget. Like I guess I'm trying to figure out we talked about this a little bit in finance committee. It seems like if it's a bylaw then it's sort of under the purview of the town council, whereas if it's just part of like financial guidelines and it would be the town managers purview to kind of figure out where the money best utilized in a given year. And also, do we actually review bylaws on an annual basis. So I'm just trying to understand sort of that. I love the way that this is structured, but just trying to understand looking at a bylaw verse, you know, having it be something that is part of the financial guideline process so that it is every year looked at, or based on particular circumstances in a year. Anna go ahead, although Michelle's questions are kind of in line with my own comments. I'm going to, I'm going to take my best shot at it so and Michelle let me know if I missed anything. So in terms of the line in terms of my take these on first. I think that we could write into the bylaw something about reviewing it regularly. If that's something that the council wanted I'm not positive but I don't see why we couldn't say this bylaw shall be or these fees shall be reviewed annually, not fees these percentages shall be reviewed annually. I don't see why that's not doable I think that's that's reasonable to do. I think I'm a little confused on how it would not in terms of what like financial guidelines versus bylaw I'm having trouble equating those and so I think that for me. The bylaw is because it has to be a bylaw has to be on the books, but that if we built into the bylaw something about being able to review those splits or the however we decide to distribute that that would be a bylaw situation, which I think gets at what you're saying in terms of the regular regular check ins on where it's going. Yeah. Let me walk this back a little bit. Okay, because we're the question before us tonight is, are we willing to file this special legislation. As I mentioned earlier, part of the reason we are bringing this forward now is to make sure that we're at a table with other cities and towns that are discussing this. And it could end up in any number of places, it could end up on the floor, never to be resuscitated again. It could end up in individual special acts for various towns, and or it could end up in a statewide law that allows towns within a certain set of state laws to do what what to allow them to do this. And it could get very prescriptive. If some towns, for example, have wanted this all to go to affordable housing. Okay. And so we have to remember that once you join into a state process. And this is where if you don't like sought to watch sausage being made, don't watch legislation because it's, it gets very convoluted and it can. But the goal for us is to be at the table so that we can try to maintain as much flexibility as is presently written in our special act. Once the state acts, then we are at a situation with a bylaw, but that bylaw has to be written subject to being consistent with the state law. And so we hope the flexibility is in the state law, because if it's not, then frankly, some people in Amherst are not going to be happy. So, but once our bylaws written if we then go to a schedule, we often have fee schedules that are separate so they can be changed more easily rather than delve into bylaws. And we also often have regulations that are separate so they can be changed without going into the bylaw. Financial guidelines are not bylaws. Once something to be law, it has to be a bylaw. Okay, so I just wanted to walk us back to the fact that we're just at the beginning. And our hope is that we make it through this state legislative discussion with flexibility in the outcome, so that when we bring it home, we can do something flexible, like we're talking about now. Do you have any certainty or honor. I mean I can try so the bylaw I tried to do this before but I'm not very articulate with this. If the council wants complete control over the remainder, then the council would set forth the percentages in a bylaw. And then if they wanted to ever change those percentages. They could modify the bylaw and revise the bylaw if this gets through and passes and all of that right this is all hypothetical assuming the state legislature grants our request for a special act with the language reviews. If the council wants to give that discretion for the split to the town manager, it could write a bylaw that sort of says with line items to be for these three things. We're allocating the funds received from this fee in the budget separate line items, something like that, and then the, then the manager would have the say and the council could reduce one of those lines but couldn't increase one of those lines so I think it would depend on whether the council wants complete control or wants to seed that control to the manager. If it does that then it could use the financial guidelines to attempt to exert some control outside of a bylaw. Thank you, Andy. So I guess what I'm going to do is kind of combine looms and Mandy's comments and just add a little bit to them because I agree with all that was has been said so far. We have to be very careful to remember that the budget process is set by state law and our charter, and we can't change the budget process. So when it comes, if we do it on an on an annual basis. We have to recognize that an allocation to a specific program that we particularly, or a future council I shouldn't even say we, because it's going to be a future council it's not going to be this exact group that's before that we are today. They'll make it they may have a preference, but that there can't go farther in saying a general fund allocation use, because to a specific purpose, they can only go as far as what the guidelines are, and give that preference to the town manager will make the decision as to whether to put it into the budget and then the council decide and act on it with the new limitations that Mandy has stated.  The only alternative is to put the exact percentages in the bylaw, but saying you want something to go into the general fund has all the same limitations, and it is hard and it's not going to be a feasible process, but the complexity of bylaw adoption in bylaw amendment process for councils to do that on an annual basis to amend the bylaws in order to get a specific and the. I think that the reaction from the committee was is that it really was something that needed to be saved for a future, for a future date for when we get to the bylaw stage, and ultimately what we were most focused on in the end was exactly what Anna and Mandy have talked about already is just that we felt that this was a valuable idea, it was one worth moving forward with, and that the, what what what's what's before you today was the best way to go about doing it but we need to get it in, because if we are going to be considered by the legislature this year, we are very soon running across the deadline to effectively get special legislation filed, and so the number one recommendation was, let's do it, and get it for the legislature, it's the start of a new session, it's the right time to do it, and so that's the core part of the recommendation from the finance committee. Any other comments. Yeah, I understand this might be something more for later but I actually wanted to just bring it forward to see if this is something we should include at this stage, which is the regressive effect that this tax can have. So there's a case study of a first time home, so it has an effect on first time home buyers, which is what we want to encourage in our town. And there's a case study of first time home buyers with $41,000 safe for upfront costs and a 2% point increase like a track transfer tax could cause a 16% decrease in the homes they can afford. So I know that this is something we're going to look at later on but even just to bring it forward. I think we can deal with it by saying that houses about 400,000 only will be or like we don't charge transfer fee for houses below a certain. So it's a very simple fix but I wonder if that's something we should do now itself. So, I have always said we want the special act to be as flexible as possible so those exemptions that you talked about Shalini are exactly what we would be looking to exempt in a proposed bylaw if you look at our sample bylaw. You'll see any owner occupancy. Any owner occupied home. Whoever side is owner occupied is exempt as long as the home is under 200% medium home value. Which is a large number in Amherst it's 720 $720,000 is 200% median home value. And, and so, you know, we don't in, you know, and so that would take care of all of that what we don't want to do is put it in the special act specifically because it's really hard to change that. So, you know, if that 200% needs to be increased to 300% or potentially decreased to 150 or something for some reason we find out about or whatever reason and I can't think of them now but that's what we'd be discussing in the bylaw development. If it's in the special act we can't change it. That's why we're trying to push as much to the bylaws possible but yes we in proposing this we have fully intended to have it not affect particularly any homes that any any transfers of property residential property that would be occupied by those who own the property and that are under at least at this time our intent is 200 am I that 720,000 number and so I believe your concern would be addressed by those exemptions. Are there any other comments or questions. Okay, then we're going to move to a boat. The motion has been made in second to. We're going to start with on a devil and got here. Thank you. Lynn grease person. I, Mandy Joe hannity. I, a Nica Lopes. Michelle Miller. I, Dorothy Pam. Yes, Pam Rooney. Yes, Kathy Shane. Yes, Andy Steinberg. Yes, Jennifer top. Yes, Alicia Walker. Alicia. Yes, Patty Angeles. Hi. Alicia, are you back with us. Yes. And your vote was yes. Yes. Thank you. That's unanimous. We're going to take a break at this point since we've been going at it for essentially two hours. And when we come back, we are going to take up. Item E. Okay. We'll take a 10 minute break. Actually, we're going to come back at 750. Can I just briefly say thank you to everyone for supporting Mandy and I and asking really great questions throughout this process. This has been an absolute journey and so I appreciate you all. Thank you. It feels great to send it off with a unanimous vote. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks to both of you for your hard work.  And when you return at 750, turn your video back on. As you return, please turn your video back on. I'm waiting for one more person actually Alicia, are you back. Yes, I am. Thank you. Great. We're going to continue. I'm actually going to be turning the meeting over to a Devlin got here. Before I do that, please note that a Nica Lopes has had to leave the meeting. I'm refusing myself from this I'll be put in the audience and I'll be back right after I filed a disclosure statement with the town clerk is required. So with that, I'll be leaving the meeting. So thanks for the authorization. I used to head and the US Donahue Institute, and I continue to do some consulting with them, though not in any way related to this matter. So with that, Anna, you're going to take over and. is moving just to be clear this would have been on consent except for the fact that Lynn wanted to be able to vote on consent and so she recused herself from this. So I'm going to make the motion and see if there's a second and we'll open it up if there's any discussion otherwise we will go ahead and vote vote on this matter. Athena I don't know if you want to put it up on the on the board or not if people want to listen to me read it I will read it with passion in accordance with mgl chapter 40 section for a which allows for joint operation of public activities among governmental units which requires that such intergovernmental agreements be approved by the town council and negotiated and signed by the town manager the town council here by authorizes the town manager to enter into an agreement with the university of massachusetts donahue institute for consulting services for the town related to the evaluation of the community responders for equity safety and service crest department second hannocky thank you is there any discussion before we move to the vote kathy uh i totally support doing this so the question i have is the content of what they're going to do paul um you've been in a you know we had a little bit of a discussion on this when we were doing the financial guidelines on but also it's not just evaluation but it's kind of in the broader context of the town looking at at work hours caseloads what's happened to calls so my question is i am an evaluator i was in a previous life you know i want to make sure donahue here's what we want to know as they design their evaluation and that we to the extent we can give them before and after data you know on calls and the mix of calls before and after and then my last is we're talking about six months i think they went live to the extent we save live you know on the street this month and so we'll have i think good data after six months but if you included since last august we won't have very much other than startup time you know it can be qualitative at that point so just is six months going to be enough to talk to talk about this um in terms of the timing of what they're going to be looking at so those are the more it's more questions about the content rather than the doing yeah right and so i want to just clarify kathy thank you those are really great important questions this is simply authorizing paul to enter into an agreement that will then allow us to um to engage with discussing what would be allow paul to engage in what would be included in that um evaluation this is simply authorizing him to enter into that agreement i want us to be very careful in this discussion that we are not debating or discussing what would be in the evaluation um because that's not what we are uh that's not what we are doing here right we are the town manager to enter in and i totally i totally agree with that and it's mainly you know the two questions about the time time but normally when we authorize this this may be the last time we see it so i was in part just laying on the table yeah which i think is the paul side so it was not at all i don't want to put details on that in more details into this this wording is fine with me yep uh thank you paul would you like to respond to that or should i go to pam and sean may want to weigh in on this tell this is totally in response to our grant requirement with um the state department of public health so it's it's basically according to their specifications according to their grant this isn't an overall program evaluation necessarily it will get a piece of that but it won't be that what you're talking about is a much broader thing and it may go beyond june 30th so i do want to be clear that we are still negotiating terms so we're not 100 percent set on any of the terms and we may want to go longer because we don't want the evaluation to drive what crest is doing we want the evaluation to sort of you know go hand in hand with crest as it's naturally kind of getting uh ramped up so we don't want a artificial deadline to you know result in a product that's not going to be helpful to us um so we may want some flexibility with that deadline and that's something we're thinking about um but as paul said the evaluation itself is a requirement of the the dph grant that we have that's very helpful both those answers thank you thank you sean thank you paul thank you kathy pam yeah building on kathy's thing um is this is this a um do you have a fixed price in mind so that if it goes longer we somehow owe more money for to the um donahue institute shon yeah that's that's sort of what we're still hashing out is um how the timing will work if things don't move as fast as we expect or if they move faster um you know how the how the payment structure will work um we're we're trying to model it after a state contract for professional services prf 76 which has a a number of firms on it but we we chose donahue institute because they're local and they understand state government really well um so so the rates are based on an established state contract um but the in terms of how we pay them whether it's hourly or fixed price that's something we're still working on thank you but do you have a cap in mind yeah so we have we have a we have an upper number um but again we don't want to you know we're being cautious around doing a fixed price not knowing exactly how fast crest is going to ramp up and be at that place where we can maximize the the value of the contract so thank you ham is that yeah yep all right shalani i was curious if there's any reason why we're going with donahue over let's say leap was it leap which already deals with um and has an expertise in these kind of programs shawner paul do you have a take on that nothing there's no strong well i think we like we we think donahue institute has a particular skill set in analyzing data um leap at one point we were working with and um and that one for reasons beyond this they had to go a different direction so we haven't re-engaged them to see if they'd be interested in coming back but we have met with representatives from donahue institute and gone through in depth sort of what we're looking for a lot of what kathy was talking about in terms of the quantitative type information that we're hoping to gather um and it seems like they have a really good understanding so at this point we're moving forward um or we're proposing to move forward with donahue institute um but again nothing's nothing set in stone at this point yeah so this is a program evaluation and so that's a very particular strength for donahue institute and that's um and it's also allows us to do this as intergovernmental agreement as well and the fact that they are local as well thank you alisha um thank you anna so i honestly have the same question as shallony um and just to further expand on that were any other institutes vetted for this and i have the same question about leap just because this is a very specific uh a very specific program that we're looking at data in regards to and we know that there aren't many if any programs that exist to like that are exactly like crests and since leap has worked with this specific set of data and skill sets why their agency wouldn't at least be considered or vetted or why wouldn't we have been in conversation with them when choosing and also again just if any other institutions have been thought of or vetted for this before making that ultimate decision so again we could certainly reach back out to them they they stepped away at a earlier point in the implementation of crests um voluntarily stepped away it wasn't a choice from the town um so something we could reach it back out to there is a little bit of a time sensitivity here because of the grant ending on june 30th we hope that the grant will be rolled over where the time the timing doesn't matter as much but as of right now it hasn't been so that's still a consideration um and again this is you know up for a discussion leap played a role in sort of the creation of the crest program you may want somebody who wasn't involved in the creation of the program to support the evaluation of the program and a lot of what the work will be at this early stage is not even necessarily the evaluation it will be working with the crest department to build the systems that will gather all the data that we can evaluate in the future um we're making those decisions now in terms of what types of software we'll have and as we get that software and we build it out we're looking for that expertise as to what types of data to gather thank you thank you Sean sorry is it okay if I just follow up yeah I was just asking for any other questions yes thank you thank you um Sean and and this is not to invalidate anything from the Donahue Institute but I do think that leap would be just as qualified to do a job and they weren't as involved in the implementation stage because they didn't attend any of the implementation meetings um they only gave feedback to the CSWG in terms of recommendations and I don't even think they're aware as to how we have ultimately decided to set up our own program um and I know they stepped away in but I think that was because our contract with them had ended I don't think we contracted them to continue the implementation process um we just simply looked at them for the recommendations in the vetting through the CSWG and that contract ended when the CSWG ended and I think we had them come and speak with the implementation team one time um and so again I just still think that there could have been more investigation gone into where or who would be doing this evaluation um and somebody who is more specific to this kind of work yeah I mean I think um our uh choice would be to use UMass Donahue Institute for this particular thing I you know I appreciate the work that uh Leap does I really I think they did they do really good work and we would re-engage them in another phase in a heartbeat but this is you know when you do program evaluation that seems to be a particular strength of the UMass Donahue Institute as opposed to program development which is what I think Leap was really good at um so the recommendation is to get approval from the council to go with the UMass Donahue Institute so there is a motion in a second um that has has been made if there are no further questions from the council about this um I'd like to move to a vote that's all right Kathy um I just want to support what Paul just said about different functions when you look at organizational sites so I just quickly clicked on Leap if an organization wants to start functioning as an evaluator they will usually say these are the services we provide and it's very distinct so um in years past when we set up really innovative programs what I would work here with healthcare institutions that there was one group that helped us set it up and fund us models that we could we could replicate there was another group who came and looked at whether the what we set up was working so I think that distinction is what we're talking about here um and and it's a real one for being able to come in um and take a look because they will have the Leap report so I think that that skill set is an important skill set so I just want to underscore that whether Donny who is the only one they are very local and well known um being able to do that is is different than helping someone set it up for the starters thank you thank you Kathy Alisha and then I'd really love to move to a vote after this yes thank you and I just want to plug that I I understand what Kathy's saying but I also think that there is um an underestimated underestimated value to having somebody who is specific to this kind of work because just evaluating how any program is running is very difficult when we're creating a program that's new and that has never been functioning before and so like how do you evaluate its efficiency and I would be much more comfortable working with somebody who is expertise in this specific subject I'm gonna use my privileges like oh sorry go ahead Chen yeah I just want to I just want to um just add that when we're talking about evaluation I don't know who's not going to come in and say this program is working well or not working well again they're mostly working side by side with Crest to help build the systems one of the things that we're talking about them doing is provided a dashboard for example that can report out information on how Crest is doing like the types of things that Crest is doing um but we're not expecting a report that says this was a good decision bad decision it's working great it's not working well um you know that's not the type of evaluation services we're looking for right now we're looking for that help building the systems that will be able to evaluate in the future and hopefully be able to do it ourselves that's really what we're looking for is to build it so we can do it ourselves year after year um so I just want to you know just clarify that we're not looking for we're not getting an evaluation that's going to say give us a definitive um answer okay thank you Sean all right um I'm going to go ahead and move to the vote and I believe I voted first last so we're going to skip Chris Murray go to Hanakie I uh Anika Lopes has left us this evening Miller I'll be staying Cameron uh sorry Dorothy Pam I know why she does that every time now Dorothy Pam yes Pam Rooney yeah Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer Taube yes Alicia Walker no Shalini Balmille yes Angelus yes and Anna Devlin got there as an I and Greece Mer is I believe would be marked as absent or abstain uh abstain so I did not count as I was calling Athena so I apologize for that do you have the count I have nine in favor one against one abstention and two exit that sounds right to me thank you everybody um we will bring Lynn back into the room I believe at this point and in this thrilling pause everyone can do a quick nice deep breath all right thank you Lynn I'm going to go ahead and turn it back over to you thank you um oh and thank you to Sean sorry I think Sean that might be it for you so you might be able to go home now thank you Sean I've never been in the audience during one of our median meetings and I didn't realize that if you turn your camera off the public doesn't know you're here yep and so I took great reason to keep our camera on it's new Lynn it used to be that it used to be that you saw the image and now with the changes with the name yeah okay all right okay send that away for a year just sorry it was that way before we were on council interesting okay uh I'm going to go uh on with the agenda we're going to appointments we did the town manager appointment by consent last time we met we talked about the non-voting liaison appointments and which committees we thought would be ones that we would like to see liaisons in. GOL was going to meet but wasn't able to because of posting of the meeting so rather than delay this I'm going to suggest that we I list for you again the committees that we presently have liaisons they're on the board and there was one other committee that was recommended the last time and that was the recreation committee and so I'm going to ask whether there are any other committees at this point reminding people that you know if we put a committee up here then we need to get somebody to volunteer um so I'm looking for any comments on the list including recreation committee Jennifer will you um also looking for us to indicate if we couldn't continue I mean we're going to get there in just a moment there okay so I'll hold it's I just want comments on the list of committees and then we'll go to people who are presently or would like to be Pat I would like to be um part of the recreation okay so in other words but I'm trying to understand whether it's the recreation commission or is there a separate recreation committee Paul it's one and the same okay no okay okay thank you Andy yeah just for correction purposes the 22 liaisons was me she just corrected through transportation the 22 liaison is you for which one transportation and that was just changed okay thank you all right so I don't see any more hands so we're going to work with this list Jennifer you're presently affordable housing trust do you would you like to continue I really can't I I always seem to have meeting conflicts on Thursday nights because I go to a lot of the TSO meetings okay so I just don't feel responsible it's the affordable housing trust is very important and it I could be a alternate but I feel very badly that I haven't been able to attend a lot of their meetings because I've had to be somewhere else are there other counselors who are interested in being a liaison to affordable housing trust mean Joe I'm not interested in being liaison I just wanted to remind counselors that a liaison doesn't require attendance at any meetings of the committee that you're liaison for per our rules our rules just you know it might encourage them but you're not required to attend those meetings you you get you're basically in contact regularly with the chair and get minutes and all sent to you and stuff and talk to them about what needs done but there's no requirement to attend the meetings in case it's not remembered that of our part of our rules thank you um Jennifer did you have any further comment yeah I actually didn't realize that I mean you know I thought I really had to be at all the meetings they do only meet once a month and that's the problem if I have to be at a TSO meeting and there's been other it's always been a council event like last Thursday when we were going to MMA it's if you missed that one meeting it's you've missed the whole month so I will continue to be the liaison if unless somebody else would like to I would definitely want affordable housing trust to have a liaison okay um board of health Michelle uh I'm sorry angel uh pati angels you had to end up yeah thank you if I would be willing to work as an alternate with Jennifer on the housing trust okay that'd be great okay um board of health Michelle I'm fine um unless somebody else is interested in doing this um I'm okay with it anybody else moving on community preservation act Kathy you're basically done for the year so I told I I worked hard to get this liaison assigned to me and I'm totally willing to give it up just on sure share workload so just so people know what that means is they start they really start meeting and at the end of the summer early September um and then it says telescope there's there's maybe once a month but then there's a telescope time period when the the reports come in their project proposals come in and they vet the proposals you get to read all the proposals when they come in if you want to um you get linked to them and then you watch them sift through what to do when they a lot more money is proposed than they have so I think it's a really good committee um and an important one but I don't need to be the liaison I've served for three years as liaison Pam Rooney I would be willing to step in there I used to be the chair of it long time ago okay thank you uh community safety and social justice committee we've got two at this point do we feel the need to continue with two Pat I would like to remove myself I don't think we need two okay Dorothy Pam are you willing to continue yes I am okay Pat you're on the disability access advisory committee are you willing to continue yes okay thank you um Anna energy and climate action committee yeah I believe this committee really really needs to continue having a liaison who's um able to um carry forward the things we saw at end goal setting a lot there were a significant number of climate action goals and at this point I do not think I have the capacity to be uh the liaison that that committee deserves so if there's someone else who's interested in doing that that would be wonderful they have a great chair who is very um able to work with folks especially if you can't make the meetings so highly recommend highly recommend this committee but I'm not I do not have the capacity to carry on at this point is there volunteer for ECAC Pat you have your hand up but I have the feeling that's an accident um okay any volunteers not seeing any Anna can you Alicia I have a question do we know how um frequently they meet yes they meet um twice twice per month typically like first and third Wednesdays I believe uh from 430 to 630 um I would be willing to be the liaison for that okay Alicia thank you um planning board Pam uh Pam Roni I'll say thank you okay recreation committee pat you've already staked your claim on that one uh and Andy Steinberg on transportation we had said that it should be somebody who's on the TSO committee because of the overlap and I am done TSO again so I would uh be willing to do it unless somebody else is really interested are there any other volunteers seeing none then uh I'm going to make a motion look for a second I'm going to move that the um volunteer that the each of the committees as listed will have a liaison as listed um for the remainder of our term I'll second Hanneke okay are there any other questions or comments then we'll go ahead and vote uh I think we're up to starting with Hanneke hi Anika Lopes is absent um Michelle Miller hi Dorothy Pam yes Pam Rooney yes Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer Tobbe yes Alicia Walker yes shall any bum in yes Anna Devin goth here I'm sorry uh Patty Angeles hi Anna Devin goth here hi Lynn Greece Merzin I it's unanimous with 12 counselors voting and one absent we have and now we have actually any midi reports from CRC Mandy Jo we're still plugging along with rental registration um we've added and the referral regarding public nuisance we haven't set a time frame for the hearing for um the referral that happened last meeting I'm looking at the first March meeting for that and we'll have elections for chair this coming Thursday chair and vice chair I will be there to open your meeting and run your election uh elementary school building committee Kathy I think we've kind of done your thing okay yeah I think so the the only thing I want to say is if people want to look at the meetings this month we had the painful task of cutting costs and it was a pretty productive in that that quick slide that went past you uh we lowered it from the cost estimates we lowered it by over five million dollars in a way that doesn't hurt the durability doesn't hurt any of the function doesn't hurt the quality um and it was going to an old brick exterior with certain kinds of choices that turned out to really matter um because of the way the unit prices had gone up so it was a change in some materials so that the committee had some we had difficult choices but more difficult was designers would design something they love coming back to us and taking some of the the beloved things but with the pictures you saw tonight are the changes so um we are seeing already that it doesn't visibly look different than what we were looking at before so terrific Andy finance committee so the finance committee is meeting tomorrow at 3 30 and it's in part just an organizational meeting where we're going to scope about what we need to do for the next year and kind of do some scheduling on it because we are getting into budget season before we know it the other things that we're going to be talking about are we get budget reports quarterly as to how revenue has come in against what was in the budget and how expenses have been going compared to what was in the budget and of course the budget we're talking about is for FY 23 and we're going to be receiving both first and second quarter reports and I will make sure that they get provided in the packet for the next council meeting so anybody who's interested but not so interested that they want to hear be there to ask questions so just you will get copies of it and the other thing that we're going to do is at least start talking about the referral that was recently made to the committee but the surplus property disposition policy okay thank you um michelle gl not much to report there's a proposed meeting date of February 1st I'm not sure if that's been confirmed I haven't heard one way or another so I think that's the date that the next meeting is going to happen Athena have we confirmed that yes we have okay February 1st at nine o'clock okay uh Paul is there anything about the Jones building committee we should know you're you're muted that's from me um meeting pretty regularly um talking about the nothing in particular okay um TSO Anika is not here um who's vice chair I was me and I was trying to think I know that she had talked about trying to have a meeting on on Thursday but I don't believe is that it's not just it's not posted yet so I believe Athena has the update there and I apologize it is Athena go ahead yes we did agree to have a meeting excuse me we did agree to have a meeting on Thursday to elect the chair and vice chair just to look at the um upcoming agenda topics for TSO that will be on the upcoming agendas but not to get into anything too deeply and then um I think approve minutes and that was it okay um all right um um any liaison reports Kathy you had your hand up one Lynn one of the ones you're going to need to be asking about is JCPC and you I can't as the chair until we meet I can't report yet because we haven't found a date for the first meeting um it it's a conflict with the TSO time so Sean is but that will start meeting at the beginning ish of February and then be an intense it will be meeting every week and we'll be able to um Sean I think without his permission turned off his thing but we should by next meeting be able to tell you that schedule and you can also know Sean will already have figured out when are we going to be hearing from which of the departments um and to the extent any of that is of interest to people so we will have a schedule we just don't have a time to meet yet so we don't have a schedule so let me add to that Sean indicated to me today that the it looks as if that group will meet um on Wednesdays from one to three and it's let me just check something I I want to get that right because evidently this has been a very difficult group to schedule um hold on uh the short answer is yes it's it's on my calendar it's on my calendar for yeah on the 9th it's on Thursday yeah is that a Wednesday Thursday Thursday Thursday from one to three and um Anna has indicated to me that she is not able to continue to serve on that committee and so I have sent you all an email asking if there are people who would like to serve on that committee that has to be done as agenda item it has to be posted on our agenda it was not posted for this week so um I'll be collecting names uh and we will have that on the February 6th agenda Pat you have your hand up you're muted I was going to give a liaison report I don't know if we're quite there okay is there any other question about jcpc okay um Pat go ahead yeah I'm as liaison for the disability access advisory committee I wanted to make the council aware that the committee is exploring a movement to becoming a commission which is supported by mass general law c40s section 8j it would allow a full it would really support full integration of people with disabilities throughout amherst it would reduce advice and assist municipal officials and employees in ensuring comp compliance with state and federal laws coordinate and carry out programs to meet problems and review and make recommendations about policies and procedures and provide information and guidance and technical assistance across the town to individuals and groups and what is part of what they're hoping to do the reason for becoming a commission is that they would be able to um um have income come in that supported this work and they're thinking about allocating funds that are received from fines um parking tickets for handicapped parking violations and using that money to um uh fund their work it's in the planning stages and I think it's a really exciting possibility so more later okay any other liaison reports Dorothy Dorothy you're muted this is a question for pat it's hard to imagine there would be that much funding from violation of handicapped parking permits is it do you have any idea how much that might be no I don't and that's something they have to explore but they would also be able to accept money and gifts from other areas so either from the town or from individuals I believe and I might not be correct on that but yeah thank you Paul did you want to say something okay any other liaison reports or questions okay we have already proved the minutes Paul does a town manager's written report once a month so this is one of the times it's not Paul are there any highlights you'd like to point out for us however you need to unmute he's frozen well he's not he can't find the unmute button I love charades Paul is there anything you would like to say at this time no okay he said I'm frozen okay I see I told you yeah all right well that's one way to cut it short um town council uh comments let me just mention a couple things um I did make appointments on Thursday uh I also did the very last minute and I apologize for this uh did submit a written presidents report I'm not asking you to read it at this point but if you have questions after you do get a chance to read it please feel free to give me a call or email me with a question um we're I'm working on the end list of future agenda items and hope that when each of the committees meet we can do a little bit of what you started doing today which is to make sure I catch all of the things that I need to because from those of you who were on the wrap up of the last council it gets pretty frenetic towards the months of November and December and we'd like to try to avoid that if at all possible um are there any questions at this time are there any future agenda items Pat yes um Shalene and I formally Michelle and she was not able to continue right now and we are going to be bringing forward a special act uh about a non-citizen voting and municipal elections here in Amherst and we're hoping to get that on the one of the next two February agendas okay and that would be a special act we would file with the legislature yes it is yes yeah and Anna is joining us as well I believe no no yeah yes she's gonna be eyes if we want eyes okay all right yeah all right are there any other future agenda items that people want to bring up right now yes I just um just a suggestion I heard some other um towns doing this at the MMA that you know there were some very interesting workshops if um if we wanted to find time for the counselors to share any insights that we learned because some of us had very interesting conversations so we can learn from each other and also for people who weren't able to attend it might be an opportunity to share any insights and resources and we can do that as the counselor comments which is C part of this agenda Andy future agenda items but what I'm having is uh hang on just a second what what I was thinking about could be a future agenda item or it could be just counselor comments so I don't know where to put it but uh but uh I received correspondence from our key contact in our sister city of Kanagasaki pan and so at some point I think that we have a couple of things to think about one is that he was reminding me that this is the 30th anniversary year of the of our agreement to be a sister city with Kanagasaki and whether there was anything that we would be doing appropriate to the anniversary it could just be a resolution of some sort but the other thing that I think that we really need to think about is what our commitment is to continuing the sister city relationship but it is something that I think I wanted to at least bring it up today not with any specific thing specific but to inform the council in particular the new account newest counselors who may not have had any opportunity whatsoever to know about or interact with Kanagasaki and the sister city to even know that we had such a relationship the principal activity of the sister city has been that up until the pandemic with one exception and that was the year after the tsunami hit the northern section of Japan where Kanagasaki is located they have sent a group of students every year who have been hosted by our middle school students with homestays and have spent several days attending schools and seeing our community and that is what started the relationship and what has been the principal piece to it so I just wanted to alert you that the continuation of sister city is something that is going to have to be thought about and in any event what we want to do about acknowledging the 30th anniversary okay thank you Dorothy well I think that we could acknowledge it by actually having a town council visit to our sister city in Japan that would be somehow a great way to acknowledge it I have no idea how to do such a thing but I that seems like an obvious thing to do Andy did you want to respond to that it's an expensive budget item to be talking about and I think that it gets into we really need to be thinking about whether we need why we have a sister city relationship and whether it's something we're committed to continuing and why before we get into it we've have had small delegations who that have gone before and they have been largely paid for by the people who've attended and I was probably in the last group say one there was one the school sent one person in a subsequent visit to work on the exchange program that I was describing but I went with a group of four people for an anniversary event and had my one and only ever experience of giving a speech to a large audience where I'd had to be translated in real time by an interpreter by somebody who's bilingual and could translate it was so that then of itself made an interesting experience okay Pam is this a future agenda item it's not but it's just a general comment I may be totally off base but I have not yet seen a picture in town hall of the current town council members and it's one year into our term just just