cess to the farmer's market. So we don't want to phase this over three years. It would be a nightmare for downtown businesses. The ideal scenario would be to start it in May and have it done by the time the students come back in early September. In the retreat, we had talked about starting off with limits. I'm not saying we should do it with this project because it's too late. That's something that should be done in the beginning of a project. But I just wanted to ask, is that a possibility that we can start off with saying that this is one million or 900,000 is what we want to and can we get people to design within that? So is that something we can look at in the future? That's one question. The second thing I was thinking, I was reflecting on with parking, is we don't want to think of this project in isolation, which I don't think we are. But just if we're looking at the bigger long-term vision for downtown and hoping that there will be a garage down the road, then making use of this space more for a plaza and a gathering space would be a better use. And even though it feels like in the short run, businesses are going to lose some parking, but can we find parking somewhere else? But also, just based on other downtowns that are thriving, making gathering spaces, making the downtown walkable, bikeable is what brings more people and not more parking spaces. Even that seems counterintuitive. But yeah. And the third thing is I was looking at comparables. It does sound like a really huge figure for a small space. And I came across the Northampton's Pulaski Park. And I don't know if people are familiar with the renovation there. And it's a very similar area. It's a one-acre plot that was recently renovated. And they paid in two phases. The first phase, they paid $1,450,000 and that they got from CPAC along with $400,000 from Park Grant. And then the phase two, they spent, they just passed another $965,000 for that project. So it looks like these kind of projects do cost that much. Okay. Alyssa. So I wanted to wait because this is a hard situation in terms of us saying this is a first look and it's going to get referred to a council meeting. And then we're hearing staff saying, yeah, we'll talk about that at the council committee level. But in fact, this is one of the things I've reflected on at our town council meetings before. We can't expect all of the town councilors to show up at all those council committee meetings. So it really was important that we get a lot of these questions out today. I appreciate that some people have saved some of them and will pass them along to the committee that this gets referred to. But we really did need to talk about this in this level of detail because otherwise how on earth would TSO know what were the questions that you needed to have answered in order for us to make on TSO to make a reasonable recommendation? I will mention that I was really hoping Pulaski Park would not be invoked as a comparison here because it was invoked over and over again in the public meetings. And Pulaski Park is way nicer than this is going to be. And that's just a fact. It's going to have way more, it has way more amenities and is way different than what we're able to do here. We're not making Pulaski Park. And we won't have the amenities that Pulaski Park has. I appreciated that Kathy pointed out the deteriorating site amenities because this is a perfect example of our lack of maintenance. It is so frustrating to me that we say, oh, this is the jewel of Amherst. Oh, this is so amazing. And we have literally ignored it for decades in terms of maintenance. I've been on those walks. I've talked to the staff. And so I will hope that now that we said that two years ago and that we said it again tonight that when it does get to the committee level that we will actually see a maintenance budget associated with the amenities that this does have, right? Which, you know, is some because we have to make sure like electrical cords aren't sticking up out of the ground when it rains like they were here a couple of years ago. So I think that's really important. I think it was a really frustrating to me choice tonight to not give us the numbers ahead of time on this current iterations parking spaces. There was literally no reason not to do that except to get us to all fall in love again with the historic pictures. I do agree. We absolutely need to do something here. But we also just need to make clear about again managing expectations for our community, what it is that they'll be giving up because it'll be such a wonderful thing to do this. But I also want to push back a little bit on the people who are still saying, well, let's just scrap the parking there altogether. Let's remember that we already have parking on both sides for most of Bultwood for the entire length of the south part of the common. So we can't add a lot, but certainly it would be great to see what we could add. This project has come a very long way in terms of adjustments and I appreciate all the work DPW and planning staff and everybody has tried to, you know, take the best of what we can do and think what we can do with it because I'm really frustrated that we spent $64,000 with Weston and Samson and they at one point had the traffic running behind Town Hall through that parking lot behind Town Hall. So we have really come a long way in doing this. But also remember that when people said, well, I wish there really wasn't any parking there in front. A number of people at those meetings also said, I really wish there wasn't that parking at all, at all on any of the common where the Spring Street lot is now where we specifically paved it so that the farmers market could pull their trucks up onto it. And yes, I know there are farmers markets where they don't have their vehicles parked right there, but we specifically did that because our farmers said they wanted that. So as long as all those issues can be addressed, then, you know, I think we can move forward. But I want to remember that there were reasons that we had those conversations over the past several years and that those reasons still exist. And so unless the farmers market has decided they don't need to pull their vehicles up anymore, then that they're going to continue to need to use the way we redesigned the Spring Street lot for them several years ago. Thank you. Prior to calling on Dorothy, I'd like to get out of my role as president and make my own observations and questions. One, however, is his president. And that is that TSL always has the right to approach me or their members or the president at the time and say we'd like to have a more public conversation and we can figure that out. So I don't think all of this needs to take place in the confines of a five-member committee. And I just want to make sure that people think broadly about how that conversation can take place. Second of all, this is an eyesore. I drive through towns of New England and I love their town commons. Just the other day, my husband and I drove out Route 9 to the snow farm and through beautiful town commons. And I look at this town common and I go, oh my God, it is ugly. I won't walk on it. It's rough to walk on. The mud is all over the place and we need to do something about it. So I hope whatever we end up deciding, whatever we see with parking, whatever we do with picnic tables and so forth, we end up with something that in fact is a center of our town and that it is part of a broad plan that helps our town feel proud and reinvigorate our downtown in a way we are going to need to invest as we come out of COVID. And so I loved Evan's analogy or discussing what downtown looked like on the announcement of the presidential election and just other things that I think we've all learned out of this. So that's just, I'm all for figuring this one out. I don't want to break the bank but let's get it done. Dorothy? Building on the beauty of New England commons and greens, I think that's what we need and what we want in the park, the commons. So I think that we have to remember it's not one park or green or common to meet all the needs. We have Kendrick Park being developed as a more active park, although it will have beautiful areas of green. And we have Groff Park with some wonderful new interactive things. I do not like Pulaski Park. I made a big point a few months ago of walking through it very carefully and deliberately and thinking, is this what we want in our downtown? And I came away saying, too much paving, not enough trees. It's a very interesting student playground, children's playground, which I could see in our Kendrick Park. It was very urban and it didn't keep that sense of the calm center where people can gather. And I grew up in Windsor, Connecticut and when I drove by there recently, I said, my God, they haven't changed the common. And it was still there like three different sections like ours is in several sections. It was still there and it looked pretty much the same. And it was just a wonderful feeling. Other buildings have changed here and there. But I think we want that sense of green and grass and paths that people can walk on something that's more accessible that just represents a calm green spirit in the center of our town. And I hope that we can do that. Steven? Yeah, so if we were starting from scratch, which is one way to look at this, and even if we had 21 spaces or whatever the number is, as part of the portfolio of things that had to be accommodated, there's no chance that we would say that the most logical place to put those 21 spaces, whatever the number is on the common, it just, we would be run out of town. So because there is a parking lot there now, doesn't mean that we should continue doing the parking lots there forever. But the impact of doing even a tiny parking space is extraordinary because like if we were to do just two spaces on the common, you still need a drive aisle, you need a place for those people that park in those spaces to back up. So it's a really inefficient way of, particularly an inefficient way of handling small parking lots is to you know, really basically to do what's being proposed. It's much more efficient to use existing infrastructure. Basically, that's why on-street parking is always the best option for parking because you already have a road there and you're not creating new asphalt somewhere else. Okay, I'm going to make the motion and I'm going to look for a second. And that is to refer the Planning Director Memo of 111320 regarding the North Common and Main Street Parking Lot project. A first look to the town services and outreach committee for review and recommendation to the town council within 90 days. We're off second. Is there any comment? Can we just call it the North Common project and not the North Parking Lot project? That was a title of the memo. If the group comes back. I'll move. Well, I'd like to propose a many no. Well, I'd like to propose a many in the motions just to call the North Common because if you call the North Common and North Parking Lot, it sounds it in a different direction. Is there a second to that motion Dorothy? Seconded. Okay, so here's a problem is that's not the way the memo is titled. No. And money is coming from the Transportation Department Fund. So to pretend that it doesn't involve parking or parking lots is kind of silly. I think if the committee comes back and says we don't want that, then it's a different, but the way the memo is written that is in your packet, I believe at least, is a memo regarding the North Common and Main Street Parking Lot project. Hard to retitle a memo. That's my comment is the way the memo is titled does not dictate the outcome. I'll withdraw my motion or I don't even try to make it as a motion. Dorothy, are you willing to withdraw? Okay. Thank you. So the motion has been made and seconded. This is the original motion. Is there any further comment? Kathy. Yeah, I just have a quick comment to build on Alyssa's point. I completely support the motion and I would like the committee chair to reach out to us to have us submit any questions that we might have so we can get a fuller list and then potentially call a meeting of the whole if there's enough interest in it. Because I think there are tail questions and there's more things the town staff can tell us. So many of us thought long and hard about this. So you can just get the benefit of our questions. Any other comments at this time? All right. And I'm going to start with Darcy, no, Patty Angelis. Yes. Darcy DeMonte. Yes. Reese Merz, yes. Mandy Joe Hanneke. Yes. Berthie Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Candy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Do you all need a balloon? Yes. Melissa Bloor. Yes. It passes unanimously 13-0-0-0. We are going to move on to my agenda. Tax classification. This was taken off the consent agenda and so we the motions that we will deal with include the suspension of 8.4 and then the other motions. However, Darcy, you particularly asked that this be taken off the consent agenda. Could you briefly speak to your rationale? Yeah, I just think it's an important issue that's probably really important to a certain sector of town residents that probably don't know that we're talking about it tonight. And if more than half of the owners of the residential taxpayers would be benefited by changing the formula, I think that they would want to weigh in if they knew about it. So that's why it doesn't make sense to me to vote on it tonight. So there should be two, so that you know there'll probably be some kind of news item about this and then if anybody wants to weigh in on about it, they can come and give public comment at the next next meeting. Melissa. Yeah, I got a wholeheartedly disagree. This is exactly the same recommendation we've been getting for decades. The entire town knows that we do this every November slash December to do this and this is not news. It was not news when it was discussed last year and just because a newspaper writes an article about it doesn't mean more people are going to be paying attention to it. We had the information out more than 48 hours ahead. We are not going to get additional valuable information and all we're going to do is push staff out further in terms of getting things continued on with the process. I completely disagree with delaying. This is not about the public didn't know. Of course, the public knew and they are not going to know anymore because the Gazette may or may not publish an article that may or may not have any additional information beyond what was already made available 48 hours ahead.  Mandy Jo. Yeah, no, I'm just going to make the motion and then I can speak to it if there's a second to suspend Council Rules of Procedure 8.4, Rule 8.4 for the current agenda item. There's a second. A second. Okay. That's a second. I made the argument Darcy that you're making this year last year and the reason I support suspending this year is because in between those two meetings last year we heard not one thing and so that I think supports Alyssa's contention and everything she just said that the people that are concerned already know about it and all, so.  Yeah, I just wanted we don't have an alternative and so I do think it's important if we think we want to see when Darcy, you made a statement that maybe half could benefit. We don't we don't even know that in terms of homeowners, not homeowners and the way this plays out. So I don't think we can make another decision right now other than to go with what we've had because we would need to know a lot more to make a change and we're not going to have that information in a week. We may not have it in a year given the amount of work it would take to get us alternative what what would happen. So it's a clear shift within a category. So I think we don't really have options here. So people can't even know whether they personally would benefit or not. It really depends and so I think there are strong arguments why we stay with this and then the other thing it wasn't stressed enough this time but last time and it was in the slide just because someone has a high valued house does not mean they have a high income. So this is a very clumsy way to try to target lower income people that might be hurting and that's we really don't have information about the distribution of income that goes with properties because some people have a property that's just gone up in value and they don't have a lot of money and there are other people that are vice versa so it's it's a blunt tool. So we don't really have an option of not moving forward and we're certainly not going to know anything more in two weeks from now. So that's why I would support the motion to waive the rule so we can vote on this tonight. Darcy give me a hand up. Yeah I would just say that there's a reason why we we have a rule that we look at something twice and this is the type of thing that that really makes sense to look at twice because it has to do with our our residents taxes and I guess I just feel like I learned quite a bit from the slide deck this time around it was it was updated and there were figures on there that were were new to me and I I guess I you know I live in a moderately priced neighborhood and I feel like everybody in my neighborhood would benefit from that change everyone and so I guess I just feel like we are not looking at it from the perspective of those people that all that are the ones on the lower end that would benefit so all all this is about whether or not we would hear it twice. Andy, hand up. Well uh to what Darcy just said I'm not entirely convinced that you can make that conclusion because you have to remember that there's a breakeven point above which people would actually pay more taxes not less taxes and it's a house that's approximately $500,000 in value so it's a pretty complicated question you'd really have to go and look at the value the the assessed value of each house by tract and I think that would be a fairly complex thing to do I think that the other thing and I have to ask staff Paul or Sean or Sean if she's still at the meeting to respond to this but there's a process that follows once we take this vote and that is that a form is filed with the Department of Revenue the Department of Revenue then certifies the tax rate and that enables us to then go ahead and bill for our taxes for the remainder of the fiscal year and it would be very helpful if one of the professionals who works with this can tell us what the delay what the consequence of the delay would be Paul do you want to speak to that? Sure so the concern we have on the staff level and speaking for Sonia and Sean on this is that we we need the vote of the council in order to get to submit the information to the Department of Revenue if we wait till December 7th which is your next meeting then a lot of communities are all piled into the Department of Revenue at the same time trying to get their tax rates certified and then that just delays us in our ability to get the tax bills out on time which have to be out people like to get them out before the end of December so they can deduct the taxes on this on their tax bills so the sooner we can get the information into the Department of Revenue the sooner we can get our tax rates certified by the Department of Revenue the sooner we can move the process forward of course from the staff point of view and I'd like to comment I heard two things tonight that convince me that we are not in any position to change the direction that we presently have on our tax rate one is we have not done a survey in 10 years and we need to have very current and very up-to-date data and the second is there is impact on the town from a staffing standpoint that has budgetary implications that need to be taken into consideration as well we are not going to have either of those pieces of information particularly a survey that replaces something that's now 10 years old that would allow us to actually look at this with an educated eye and so I don't support delaying so are there any other comments all right there's been a motion on the floor the motion is to suspend town council rules the procedure rule 8.4 for the current agenda item it's been made and seconded we start with Darcy Dumont no Reese Mirzi yes to Hanakie yes Sam yes Ross yes Ryan yes Jane yes driver yes Steinberg yes Schwartz yes Balmain yes Brewer yes yes the angeles yes the motion passes 12 100 the next motion is to adopt a minimum residential factor of one equal tax rate for all classes of properties for a fiscal year 2021 and that no open space discount be granted is there a second second Hanakie thank you any conversation or question all right we begin this time with grease burn it's a yes Hanakie yes Sam yes Ross yes Brian yes saying yes driver yes Steinberg yes Schwartz yes Balmain yes Brewer yes the angeles yes no okay it's 12 100 the next one is to not adopt a residential exempt exemption for fiscal year 2021 is there a second second the angeles thank you this time we start with is there any further discussion we start with Hanakie yes Sam yes Ross yes Ryan yes Spain yes driver yes Steinberg yes Fort yes Balmain yes Brewer yes the angeles yes Cremont no Reese Mirzi yes it passes 12 100 and we have one final one and that is to not adopt a small commercial exemption for fiscal year 2021 is there a second Steinberg second Steinberg seconds it any further discussion we start with Dorothy Pam yes Evan Ross yes Brian yes name yes driver yes Steinberg yes Schwartz yes Balmain yes Brewer yes the angeles yes Cremont yes Reese Mirzi yes Hanakie yes passes unanimously 12 100 okay we are moving on to item F prohibiting the use of wild exotic animals and traveling chosen circuses by this was reviewed and discussed in extensively last week since then Sarah Schwartz one of the non-council sponsors has provided us with an email addressing several of the questions and issues and response to one of the issues and I'm sorry I'm sorry Lynn I think we're doing public ways first I'm sorry we have a couple staff folks waiting to present and I'm so sorry about that use of public ways first discussion Brianna and who's our communication manager and Ben please proceed would you like your memo up there oh I have Lynn I have slides that I will pull up in just a moment good evening counselors and thank you in advance for your time and attention as Lynn mentioned my name is Brianna Sunrid communications manager for the town working out of both the town manager's office in the IT department I'll try to keep my presentation efficient and respectful of your time this project I'm working in conjunction with the department of public works and with guidance from the planning and inspections departments I am here on behalf of the town to propose to you our pilot project for three solar powered information and communication signs as well as three solar powered charging stations into request permission for use of the public way for the duration of the pilot project in downtown Amherst so if you'll bear with me one second I'm in charge of my own slide so I'm just going to pull up that screen okay so as I mentioned I'm here to give you a preview of our one-year proposed pilot program for the solar information communication signs and charging stations I will give a quick overview about what the sign component of the pilot project is these signs would serve as a trusted source of information for residents to receive information on upcoming events ways to get engaged public works in general or emergency town updates they allow us to offer instant and flexible messaging to push out important PSAs updates especially critical during times of emergency or COVID-19 related updates the company that we are working with on this pilot project is called SUFA and they are a Massachusetts-based company that is female-owned and led other cities mostly in the eastern part of the state such as Boston, Maldon, Somerville, Everett and more currently have these signs in place Brookline is the newest one to join that list with over 24 signs in their downtown area SUFA signs are also coming to other locations in our region I can't say what those are at this moment because I don't think it's official but they are in discussions with other communities nearby the signs themselves are a 30-minute four-bolt installation no wires no excavation and the sites that we've chosen have minimal site or prep work prep work that would be done by the Department of Public Works the signs themselves are managed and maintained entirely by SUFA who come out weekly to maintain the physical structure of the signs I'm going to move to a quick example for everyone can see this okay there's four side-by-side examples of of these signs in Massachusetts cities and towns you can see on the far right I believe it's Revere using the custom back side of the sign to share some critical public health information I'm going to show you next just a mock-up of signs in Amherst obviously not to scale and not in that location this mock-up was recently done for the design review board who reviewed this project last week and they had asked to see the signs in in line with current wayfinding designs that are coming to town in spring of 2021 on the left hand side is the e-ink screen again this is just a mock-up the e-ink screen is similar to if some of you have a Kindle that type of screen technology the the important thing about this is that we are able to push real-time information to the sign if there is an emergency or there is a a change in protocol due to due to COVID we could have that post to the sign instantaneously as well as being able to display other applets in terms of weather we could have the PVTA bus schedule display on these signs as well as link up our social media and be able to pull community members and visitors at the signs themselves I'll talk a little bit more about this in the next slide or two but I want to call your attention to the bottom left square which is reserved for advertising by local business and right now that would be a free tool to our local businesses during COVID-19 on the right hand side of the sign this is again just a sample mock-up these have not been finalized at all but you see a map in line with designs from our public writer's walk and we can have a custom custom design placed on the back of these signs it's a vinyl printing that they do at the facility and they're laid overlaid on top of the signs so that can be something that we change every couple of months or seasonally and is very flexible here is just a view of the structural plans which the design review board was very interested in seeing it's also included in your packet so hopefully if you have questions on that we can look at that in more detail later so I think something that I think is an important question hopefully we have some good answers or why are these signs right for Amherst right now so is a new sustainable technology that provides flexible instantaneous and widespread updates to our community members on what whether that's on public health guidelines general town information transportation updates and more we ensure information absorption absorption by visitors those do not have access to devices or internet or those not connected to our other official town communication channels as I mentioned in a previous slide the signs will also assist our local business community and economy deal with the impacts of COVID-19 by offering free advertising for local business in a dedicated small portion of the e-ink screen that I had pointed out earlier this is a one-year pilot program to see if this is the right fit for our community so I want to emphasize that this is a very flexible project we would we would sign on for this for these signs for a year and we would be able to change that agreement at any point within the year because it is a licensed agreement the the project is CARES Act funded so it will not impact will not impact the town's budget if if the project is completed or purchased before the end of December and I mentioned this in the last slide that the custom back design can match our wayfinding we can use it for public health reminders or any number of different uses I talked a little bit about flexibility earlier in the project also I'll reiterate again the one-year pilot license agreement to test out the signs in the technology the easy installation we can relocate or remove the signs if needed we can change the designs of the signs as needed we've also discussed doing a staggered installation option which allows for us to fine-tune the locations and the design of the sign for example in future slides I'm going to tell you a little bit about the solar power charging stations that are another component of this project we are proposing the chargers be installed first and then the signs in the spring the solar charging cores are ours to keep as part of this project which means if we decide not to keep the signs they're not working for us we can keep the solar part power charging stations without any issue and these are also easy to remove in place in different areas based on demand or need in future slides I will show you the proposed locations of both the signs and the cores a little bit about the solar charging core these are these solar charging cores which we're proposing to install three in the downtown area will offer our community members access to charging ports to charge their devices and stay connected to important information and online resources this is especially important with public buildings being closed to the public due to COVID-19 we also aim to bridge the digital divide and provide equitable access to power sources here you'll see just an actual photo of the sign the bench and the kids will not be included just the actual charging cores here on top you can see the solar panel and here are the USB charging point ports the potential sign locations we're proposing three in the downtown Amherst area as well as three cores we've been mindful of existing signage infrastructure ADA and other standards working closely with the planning department public works and the inspections department and we're planning around and with the upcoming wayfinding signs making sure the saturation of signage doesn't impact where we place the signs and as well as incorporating the designs of the wayfinding signs that are coming online in spring I'm going to skip to this next map because it's a little bit bigger and I apologize for the the busyness of the the forks and the other icons but if I can call your attention to the red stars as where we're proposing the charging core locations the first charging core location we are proposing right outside of st. Bridget's where the current transit a high traffic transit stop is the second location is outside of what used to be Barts and we chose this location for its proximity to the uu church which as you all know has come online as a shelter for this season the third charging core location is going to be outside of the Jones library on the bench by the crosswalk or at least that's where we're proposing and speaking with the library director she mentioned you know how how their building being closed has impacted folks who were relying on that site to charge their devices and use internet the next three locations that I'm going to bring call to your attention are the three proposed sign locations and those are identified by the blue question marks the first one is outside of what used to be Starbucks and right now it's it stands at the crosswalk there is a concrete post and a metal pole sticking out of it with no signs so it's our intention if if all works out according to plan is to remove that concrete post and concrete and metal posting to place one of our signs the second location would be at the amity street and south pleasant north or north pleasant and amity street corner and the last location would be by the pvta bus shelter transit stop by the spring street parking lot and again those are because of the flexibility of the signs and there there's no wiring components or excavation needed those are flexible but that is what we're proposing so the potential core locations we just reviewed on on the map we tried to be mindful to be in proximity to transit stops or other high pedestrian traffic areas and again like with the signs it's an easy four bolt installation we can move they can be moved quickly without with relatively low impact to new locations if the need arises I do want to make sure that the council is aware that the design review board did make their recommendation last week with their decision drb f y 2021 dash o four devoted four to zero to positively recommend the proposed locations and designs of the three signs and three charging cores they would like to review the final design prior to installation of signs in spring 2021 and after one year of installation they would like us to return to the drb to review and approve before the town considers extending their contract with the company they also would like to review the success rate of each respective sign and charging core regarding its location displayed information and design layout so with that being said I would love to allow for questions or comments from the the council members thank you first of all Brianna I can't tell you how good it is to just see your face even if it's virtual really good likewise I'm curious if we were to I think this is wonderful and I'm curious about what we go through the one year what would the cost be approximately if we were to just maintain these three these three cores and three signs or if we you know I'm assuming if they work we would expand it to the village centers but what would the cost be so for the charging cores thank you for your question councillor de agilis the charging cores as part of the initial purchase and contract will be ours to keep in perpetuity so there will not be any ongoing costs associated with those unless there were we needed to remove and do any fixing of a site that had the bolts installed and I can't say what that cost would be but the it's a one-time cost for the the charging cores how it works with the the next year we would evaluate as the end of our license agreement came up typically these signs go into communities and after the first year there's little to no cost to the communities as I mentioned in earlier slides there is an advertising component of this where local businesses would use this as an advertising option right now that's free for local businesses the idea would be at some point post-covid-19 recovery when when and when we get there hopefully that that would be a paid service and would pay for the the ongoing maintenance of the signs so that is something we would evaluate once we got to the end of our license agreement whether or not it was something that we would be able to continue doing and what that cost would be so that's a lot of words for saying I don't have the definite year two costs in front of me at this moment but it's something that as we got close to the end of our license agreement we would be able to evaluate that okay have to show you have your hand up yeah beyond I might have missed it you have what the year one cost would be what you know what does it cost to do the licensing agreement and the initial installation of chargers so that's question number one and then I saw the design rebroad you board said come back to them with an assessment of the use how popular they were whatever how exactly would they have get any information um you know it's yeah are these things if I step stop by this sign and look at it as it's changing is it taking my picture so they you know is it you know so so how do we know whether anyone found it useful um how many people actually stopped to get the information there charging stations I can imagine a different way of collecting information but it's doing that so that's second second question then third is on the advertisements um you know do we have any way of guarding against this being a kiosk you know people you know walking around town and just seeing advertisements you know come eat here come eat there and and a queuing up of if it in fact pulls you into my place versus your place um vying for the spot because we're we're only talking about starting with three um um so just how do you think of being fair in terms of a a space that would bring people or encourage people to use your service thank you for your questions counselor so if I um I'll start with the the assessment how we're going to assess the success of the signs um when I was speaking with the design review board we discussed a couple of different options um about whether we found the signs to be successful um whether that was polling community members and also working with the chamber in the bid to see you know the from the business side of things if they were perceiving that as a success there's also a feedback mechanism that's built into the signs where we could pull community members and users or visitors by a you know a text in response option I don't think I had a visual of one of those but it would be um one of the squares that you see here um we could use as a polling feature and so we would be able to gather feedback directly from users of the signs um and they also another um another thing that we would use as a measure um would be the fact that they have um pedestrian sensors now you mentioned you know is it going to take a picture of you um no it is not able to capture any identifying information there's no cameras um but they they do have pedestrian sensors in them and I could get a little bit more information about that technology but they are able to basically tell how many people are walking close by to the signs um but that that process does not involve any um identifying information collection or storage yep and I'm going to move on to your your question about advertising um so the first year again would be um or or during this time of COVID-19 there would be no charge to the local businesses in order to utilize the advertising space um and so SUFA works very closely with in every community that they go into with the the area's chamber of commerce um in some area in some cases the bid if they have those in the other communities um to to promote this as a service especially now um as a resource during COVID-19 to ensure that all businesses in town who wanted to use it could be able to access it um and then when that goes into a paid model that of course changes and I can get more details about what that looks like um but since there we don't have an end date to to what we're going on what's going on with the pandemic we don't have specifics on that at the moment thank you thank you for your questions uh Darcy I'm just trying to envision what these would look like you know in a two or three years and um so talk to me about vandalism Brianna what what do you what do you uh what have you heard about how you would deal with that we've had to deal with that somewhat with our light our electric light boxes absolutely and that's a great question thank you councillor so the the signs themselves are maintained weekly um by SUFA and their um you know contracted service for maintenance the the vinyl designs themselves um can be reapplied or changed out as as necessary especially in the case of vandalism and so all of the maintenance and um you know if there was any issue with vandalism we would work closely with SUFA's team to have that um sign maintained taken off taken offline or replaced with a different sign um if there was substantial damage done to it that would just be until the end of our initial contract though right so um they're the maintenance of the signs themselves go hand in hand um you know if we were to continue the pilot project into another year or sign on for more signs SUFA continues to maintain um the design of the signs in terms of replacing the vinyls or updating the vinyls which we can do you know several times a year just because we wanted to but especially in the case of uh damage or um or vandalism they would still be the it would still they they would still be the responsibility of um of SUFA so that would be a contract with them uh in the first year it's part of the pilot in this after that then we would have an ongoing contract with them correct uh we would need to you know as we get through the pilot and get closer to you know whether or not our decision is to keep the signs uh remove the signs expand the signs that would all have to be part of a renegotiated process and contract okay um I just another question so at this point this is a referral to TSO um if you can take down the presentation yes so the motion is to refer the permanent use of public ways request for public information and emergency communication science to the town services and outreach committee for a report and recommendation to the council by December 21st 2020 is their second Brian second uh for their comment and do you have your hand up yes um I guess that I should have asked these questions before but is pertinent to the motion to whether there's a time limit if we are using the remainder of our funds from the CARES Act whether it's a decision that we have to have a contract in place by December 31st and whether there's uh what kind of pressure that's placing on us if so and then the other is whether in this is so partly a question for some members of the chair of TSO is to whether the finance committee um looking into just the financial implications of the proposal um is uh something that they would seek um all raps and Brianna give an answer to that question the last part of the question I it went the audio went out for me um I so I don't know if you could repeat just the last part Councillor Steinberg yeah the question was actually geared towards more of the TSO committee whether the TSO committee it's uh the chair of the TSO committee would feel that they would want finance committee's assistance to look just at the financial aspects of the arrangement not to look at the um um town services aspects which is not our role so it's really not a question to you question to you is whether or to all or uh one of the finance people is what's the deadline what's the deadline by which the decision has to be made so the motion is by December 21st although you know if you could do it sooner the better off we are um there's a lot of communities all doing the exact same thing let's do it at the same time um since this is a pilot for one year um and again I think Brianna said four volts a lot of times um I think it's a low low threshold to get to yes on it so uh Andy one of the questions that Andy's asking or whether or not this should also come to the finance committee and um Andy do you want to make that as a amendment to the motion no I was not actually um unless uh uh TSO was feeling that they would wanted made to the motion TSO also can ask us for assistance but they need to do it fairly quickly yeah I mean there's no problem with that or having a joint meeting with the finance committee um but yeah either way next um thank you uh Alyson you have your hand up yeah I'm wants to comment in terms of the DRB part of this and so the DRB um actually obviously only met last few days ago for their second meeting but their previous meeting was weeks ago and I don't know why we only got their material today at 430 so that's a comment to the town manager that we can't be getting stuff an hour and a half before our meetings we we need more time to process information even though this is getting referred it's very frustrating to have that happen and we're still in the season of recruiting other people to serve on town committees and in town office and telling them they have to read things when they're trying to make dinners making things much more complicated the other part of it is in terms of that deadline so I I just heard that definitely this has to be done the contract has to be signed by the end of December we're hearing about it for the first time here at this meeting we have to have the contract signed by the end of December no later than the 21st for town council but be even better if it was a prior town council meeting but the 21st I mean I can't speak for TSO and I'm not the chair but we may well be able to get it done we have three meetings between now and then so we may be able to get it done sooner than that if that's really helpful I think being really clear on that is is helpful to TSO in terms of managing our workload that knowing it before the 21st just to give yourselves a little extra wiggle room in terms of the mad rush at the end of the year. That was going to be my exact question and hearing what Paul said and all I'm going to move to amend the motion to change December 21st to December 7th. Makes sense. If there are a second to that amendment. Dr. DeAngelis. There are discussions.   Yeah I just wanted to clarify we're saying that it needs to be back. It needs to be back by December 7th. The council meeting is on December 7th so it needs to be done at a meeting the week before.  We have two TSO meetings between now and then. Right November 19th and December 3rd. Yeah so we can squeak it in. Okay so that's enough time we might even be able to start it this Thursday. Okay right now we're voting on an amendment to the original motion and the amendment is to change the date of from December 21st through December 7th. There and that motion has been made in second to that. I want to go back and make sure that we have voted on that piece of it. We start with Dorothy Pam. No actually we start with Evan Ross. We're voting on the amendment. Yep yes. George Ryan. Yes. Fang. Yes. Dribber. Yes. Steinberg. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Schwartz. Yes. Paul Mill. Yes. Drawer. Yes. DeAngelis. Say it again. Pat DeAngelis. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Griezmann. Yes. Hanna Key. Yes. Pam. Yes. All right so that now the motion reads through for the permanent use of public way request for public information and emergency communication signs to the town services and outreach committee for report and recommendation to the council by December 7th 2020. Motion has been made and seconded. So let's go to Ryan. Yes. Shane. Yes. Dribber. Yes. Steinberg. Yes. Schwartz. Yes. Paul Mill. Yes. Dribber. Yes. DeAngelis. Yes. Mont. Yes. Griezmann. Yes. Hanna Key. Yes. Pam. Yes. Ross. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. We're going to move on to the next item under this which I believe is regarding the bus stops. Lynn could I just ask a quick question? How do we see this timing wise happening? If we have two meetings we want to get input from the finance committee. Do we also want to get questions from counselors before all of this happens and so I guess I just want a little guidance on this. All right. I would solicit questions from the counselors immediately tomorrow morning and with regard to the finance committee meeting I would work out a schedule with Andy to either invite the finance committee to one of your meetings. It won't be able to be the one we'll know it could be the one that you have this week because you still have time to post it but it has to be posted by a joint meeting has to be posted by four o'clock tomorrow or 30 tomorrow. Yes. Am I correct on that? Yes. Okay. All right. Is that sufficient, Darcy? Yes. Okay. I mean the other option is to invite the finance committee to the one in December. Yeah. I'll figure that out. All right. We're moving on to the bus PBTA bus stops. Yes. Thank you all for having me. My name is Ben Breger. I'm a planner with the town and I'm going to share my screen. I have a presentation. I will move through this quick. I know you all have had a long meeting. So a little bit of background, the town received a grant, $130,000 grant from Mass DOT for our shared streets project. Part of this grant is for new bus shelters for the downtown. And so I've been working with PBTA, the DPW, certainly the planning department and the town manager to figure out some of the details about the bus shelters, what they should look like, who's going to manage them, who's going to own them. And then I also presented to the DRB kind of the same timeline as Breonna we presented. Or Breonna had to come back a second time, but I got my approval two weeks ago from the DRB and have incorporated their suggestions into the bus shelter proposal. Also similar to Breonna, this has a December 31st deadline to spend the money. Otherwise DOT will take it back. Preferably also similar to Breonna, preferably its contract is well underway before December 31st, just in case there's any issues. So I'm going to, this is kind of the presentation I gave the DRB where I walked through the different design options. But just so you know, these are the kind of the work going with the existing kind of Victorian shelter that DOTs are downtown, the black Victorian shelter, and there's some variations to that shelter. So this is the one across from the commons, also the Peter Pan stop. This one is in front of the post office downtown and has kind of like the metal grill work on the bottom. You know, this is down near north part of downtown. This is just an example, has solar panel near Crocker Farm. And then this is the apparently at least 25 years old, the main street shelter in front of town hall. So those are kind of the existing, you know, language of design language of shelters downtown. And so the proposal for the grant, this is what we put in the grant, we're for the new shelters downtown. The locations are, we chose high ridership, high ridership bus stops that currently don't have shelters as our priorities. And then the third one is the town hall stop, which is an old shelter that could be updated to look more in line with the rest of the shelters downtown and could also be incorporated into the North Commons redesign once that comes underway. And so I worked with DPW as well with PBTA to kind of find and then got approval from DRB to actually, you know, figure out where exactly these things, the new shelters would go at the proposed bus stop at the bus stops. Also, you know, working with Maureen Pollock, our fellow planner who focuses on ADA issues. So we wanted to make sure we're in line with ADA concerns and and so for, this is in front of St. Pregards Church just to orient you, you know, UMass is to the north and then towards town is the south. And so the shelter width is standard 11 feet long by five feet deep. And then there has to be a loading area to get people from the front of the bus to and from the sidewalk. And so this was really the only place you could fit the bus shelter. There's a existing light pole here. And so here's just a quick rendering of what that might look like. I did this quick in PowerPoint, but the DRB supported the idea of having like the Victorian shelter with the metal grill work on the bottom because that matches the one at the post office, which is right across the street from here. So there would be some, they would match well. You know, talk to DPW, they're perfectly willing to relocate this bike rack and move the recycling over. There's plenty of room for that. And so this is where the bus stop would go. This is, I think the St. Pregards Church is, this is our busiest bus stop because it's not only all of the local UMass stops, but it's the B43 to North Hampton, the R29 to Holyoke. And pretty much every single local bus stops here. And there's, these benches are usually full. And so, you know, actually while I was out there just talking with taking measurements and whatnot, I spoke with a lot of bus riders. And a lot of them were saying how, you know, whenever it's raining, they actually run across the street to the post office bus stop because they have to wait there to get out of the elements. And they would really wish that there was a stop here. So, or a bus shelter here. So that's the proposal for this location. And then the second location is at the corner of Spring Street and South Pleasant Street. This is, you know, the Spring Street lot is right here. This is the corner of the Town Commons. And so there's a, this is actually for, this is where the yellow kind of information booth used to be many, many years ago. Similar, I think, yeah, pretty much the same location. And this is also, this is the Peter Pan inbound stop. So a lot of people get off here. This is what they, what they arrived to when they come to town. And so, and this is also a B43 stop and a lot of the local stops here. The, here's what there is now. There's kind of a hodgepodge of different, say, furniture. There's a bench, the newspaper boxes, trash can, transformer boxes back here and the fire hydrant over here.  The Sufa sign could be incorporated into this new stop as well. There need to be a new concrete pad laid, or, you know, if there's some rearranging to do, possibly move these newspaper boxes and expand on this existing concrete pad could be an option. And here's just kind of another, oh right, yeah, I incorporated the new color for the Sufa sign as well. And so the, this shelter would, the DRB recommended matching the one that's across the street that has kind of like patterned glass and, but no Victorian, sorry, no metal grill on the bottom. So that's where that came from.  So we're all good there. You know, the DRB did recommend, you know, just minimizing the amount of furniture here. Like, if we have the bus stop, do we still need the bench? And how often are these newspaper boxes really used? So that's kind of some of the questions I'm looking to figure out right now, working with DPW on that. So yeah, that's kind of the basic overview. Again, these are the two existing shelters that we would match that are across the street from the two locations. And the, sorry, I'm just going to go back. This is the one in front of Town Hall. I didn't do a rendering for this one, but this would be replaced by a updated Victorian shelter to match the rest of downtown. And same, it's same footprint. So it would just pop this out and put a new one there. So yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions and appreciate you giving me the time to present. Um, Andy, do you have your hand up? Yes. Thank you. You answered my question about the bike racks in front of St. Bridget. So I'm glad to hear that they will stay because I had to put it right in front of on the bike racks. Yeah. My question is about the one in where there's already a shelter. Do we have plans to move that shelter somewhere else in town to another look? Like, is that shelter reusable to a place that may not be downtown? Maybe by the, I think we've got some new places by apartment complexes that might not actually have shelters. I'm thinking, you know, East Hadley Road, where things just got redesigned and all. Is it possible to be able to use that shelter somewhere else where shelters are needed? Either on 116 South, I've heard near not Pomeroy, but the apartments down there or, you know, the East Hadley Road apartments. Yeah. I think that's certainly possible. In my conversations with PBTA, they gave me a long list of priority stops that don't have shelters for Amherst, you know, even outside, certainly outside of downtown as well. So yeah, we could certainly look to do that. Are there other questions? I want to clarify something before we start and that is this also cares money or did I hear it is a separate grant? Yeah. Yeah. This is a separate grant, but it fully funds the cost of the shelters and any labor for installation and concrete pads. It's from the Mass DOT shared streets grant that we got mid-October or so. And what is the timing sensitivity with regard to the grant? Yeah. So Mass DOT, they've said they want all the money spent by the December 31st or they will, you know, they're going to take it from us. Of course, there's some issues with that because, you know, even if we get a contract underway by mid-December, we might not actually pay that in full until the shelters are delivered. And so they've been a little bit flexible for some other things. I think if we if we had some shelters under contract for delivery, you know, in January or February and, you know, paid, you know, X percent of that, they would let us hang on to that money after the 31st. But I think it's imperative that we get a contract underway, you know, early to mid-December so that, you know, I can have time to work to just kind of explain that all the DOT. So and, yeah, for what it's worth, like, I've been, you know, soliciting quotes for the shelters and I feel pretty comfortable that as soon as this is all approved, I can place an order immediately. Okay.  Yeah, this wasn't actually, this wasn't a question about the project, but a question of process, although now that I see other hands going up, what I say might be moot, but I was going to say that given that they didn't seem to be a whole lot of questions about it and given that this is a much simpler proposal than what we just saw with the SUFA signs, I know the intent was a motion to refer to TSO and I guess I'm wondering if we feel that that's necessary. We've certainly not referred to TSO public ways request that we didn't feel that TSO would necessarily be needed on and I guess as a TSO member, I'm not quite sure what added value we could provide here. So I'd be curious to hear from my other TSO members, but I know that I would be willing to not refer this and just have it come up on the 7th or even vote tonight, although we don't have a motion crafted for it. So I'd be curious to hear if the council feels that this needs to go to TSO and if so, what what value they would like TSO to add to this on discussion. I'm looking at hands and with regard to other members of TSO and that's me trying to do this one. Could you please take this the presentation down? Yes, your RC. Yeah, I would just definitely agree with Evan on that, that if the council just decides to vote on it tonight, I know unless you have some questions that you want to refer. Okay.  Yeah, mine was actually on process two on the motion itself. Even the referral motion was missing one of the shelters because I didn't realize there were three not two. Substitute motion. Okay. Okay. Steve Schreiber. Yeah, so this is a relatively important decision, right? Because these are very prominent spots and we're kind of setting a branding. So you sort of talked about all the different, almost the chaotic different kinds of shelters there are. So there's a honing in a particular style for Amherst and I know that it's the DRB has been consulted, but I'm wondering if this takes more time actually to think about this because I'm not completely convinced, not that I have to be, that the Victorian is the branding. I'm not sure exactly how we got there other than the fact that we already had some Victorian bus shelters. And I mentioned this in part because if you go down South Pleasant Street towards West Street, there's a really beautiful modern, actually the next bus stop down near the Amherst Golf Club is this beautiful modern bus shelter. And I've always wondered how that appeared in the portfolio of bus shelters, but I don't know. I mean, I'll, I'm just one voice here, but I just think about how much discussion we had about a transformer box on the common in that same area that there's a bus shelter and the idea that we might then approve two bus shelters on the common, you know, in a very short order, that have more of an impact. To me that needs a little bit more pondering. Um, Pat DeAngelis? I don't, I would like us to vote that tonight I think matching the shelters that are there makes sense. I don't feel like taking the time to find a nicer design and then having to replace everything around town seems unimportant to me. And you know, um, because the shelter is a shelter, it's pretty straightforward. I'd like us to vote tonight. Darcy DeMont. Okay, Alyssa Brewer. I don't feel like TSO can address the issue. Steve is bringing up and not in the time frame that we've got. So, um, the most the previous item that TSO is working on has the added complexity of advertising and a little bit more twist to it. And I do actually not think that this has more impact than the transformer box did in all reality. So I'm good with going ahead and town council voting it tonight because I'm just not sure what TSO could add to it. Okay. Um, I'm still seeing hands up. Can you put your hand down if you've already spoken? Dorothy Pam, I think your hand is new. I think Steve raises some very important issues about the bus shelters around the North Common. And I think we should take some time to think about it or to look at other possible designs. Can I ask a point of clarification that if we look at other designs, then this has to go back again through design review board? Is that correct? Um, yeah, they approved the Victorian shelters and gave me a recommendation for, you know, matching the ones across the street. Okay. Steve Schreiber used to have your hand up. You could also we consider placing them in those places. You could not change the design but change the placement.  Yeah, could we also get a confirmation that the extra bus shelters can be put in South Amherst and other places that just get an assurance that they will be put because I know a lot of people in South Amherst have been without a bus shelter for a very long time. Are you asking? We confirm that there will be that done and your vote is contingent on that? No, it's just a friendly assurance. Thank you. Okay. Sarah, you have your hand up. Yeah, I was just going to say that we're going to miss out on having any of these things if we stop and look at our delicate aesthetics. So I just wanted to weigh the fact that we're doing a lot of things that we are hoping will help our downtown after or during COVID-19. And I think that this is one of the cases where functionality for me is more important. Okay. I'm going to make start with a motion. Oh, we'll see you have your hand up. I was just going to ask you if we needed a motion to suspend rule 8.4. You do. And so the first motion. And I would consider it moved if I could say that. Please. Do suspend town council rule to procedure 8.4 for the current agenda item? Is there a second? Second, Ryan. Thank you. Any further discussion on that? All right. Then we're going to vote on that one. And we're going to start with Ryan. Yes. Shane. Yes. Driver. So. Steinberg. Yes. Schwartz. Yes. Balmille. Yes. Brewer. Yes. The Angeles. Yes. Vermont. Yes. Greece. Mersey. Yes. Hanakie. Yes. Pam. No. Ross. Yes. So the vote on this is 11 in favor to oppose no abstentions and no one absent. And so we're going to now move to an item. This is breaking the fourth wall a little more than normal. Okay. To approve the following PBTA bus stops to approve the improvements to the following PBTA bus stops located at one new bus shelter at the intersection of North Pleasant Street and Culls Lane in front of St. Bridget's Parish. One new bus shelter at the intersection of South Pleasant Street and Spring Street in front of the town common. And one replacement bus shelter on the southbound side of Main Street adjacent to the town common. Is there a second? Second. Brian. Okay. Any further discussion?  Then seeing no other discussion we are going to move to a vote. We're starting with Kathy Shane. Yes. Driver. No. Steinberg. Yes. Sports. Yes. Ball Mellon. Yes. Brewer. Yes. Deantalus. Yes. Mont. Yes. Yeah. There's a yes and a yes. Pam. No. Ross. Yes. And Ryan. Yes. The votes 11 in favor to oppose no abstentions no absence. We are have one more item under this and this is regarding.  Please be at your. Thank you. The town manager memo 111220 revisions to policy regarding the control and regulation of the public way to the town services outreach committee and to the governance organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation to the town council by December 7th 2020. Is there a second? Second. Hanneke. Thank you. Who would like to speak to the motion? So this this is all so this is a recommend this is a referral to the TSO to look at extending the current authority that you have granted to the town manager in conjunction with article 14, which you had approved previously to bring it in compliance and alignment with how that works. In addition, it starts to address and have the conversation about how you want to start handling other types of things that are in the public way. And that's what there. So there's a two prong thing with this with this memo that we are asking the TSO to engage with. Are there comments? Yeah, I just have a question about why what is the time urgency on this one? You know, I don't think it's as urgent as the previous two items that you had actually. I mean, it's I don't think there'll be anything that comes into play between now. If you want to put it off to December 21, that's certainly feasible. That's pushing it to have so many of them that are that need to be back so quickly. I wasn't going to accept that as a friendly amendment to go to the 21st. Mandy, Joe, you made you seconded. Is that an acceptable view? Actually, it's not for me. The current public waste policy that deals with article 14 is allows the town manager to deal with them only for article 14 requests for 100 and for approvals not to extend 180 days past the effective date of the zoning bylaw, which ends December 14th. And so, you know, we're already on a tight deadline to get this change done before the current delegation we've given to Paul ends. Two readings, even starting December 7th, would put us to December 21st, which is past the 180 days that we granted him the approval for all of these. And beyond that, he has been operating on good faith with what the intention of that public ways requests public ways delegation was, and I'm not questioning that at all. But many of what we heard recently about what we thought would be covered under article 14 has actually been covered under a governor's emergency order. And that's technically not covered under this public ways policy. And so I think the sooner we can get this amended to bring what our intention for delegation was into what our policy actually states the better. Listen. Whereas I'm just confused by the memo itself, not all of it, but the whole section and that screen is gone now about the 3D, I believe it is. That's the whole new section. That's about signage and bus stops. So is that, am I to understand that that would be the same as what we've just been talking about in terms of signage and bus stops? And that would be permanent because I'm not seeing any time limit on that. So I'm just wondering if I'm just tired and confused like when I read it the first time or what that section actually means. Item G, placement of road and sidewalk signs, bus shelters and sidewalk seating. This is an entirely new section and it is giving away a significant amount of delegation authority, which if people are bored of the conversations we just had about signs and bus shelters, I guess that's a good thing. But if they aren't, then I'm not sure why we would permanently be giving this away, which is what I, the way I think this reads and I'm hoping Mandy, Joe and Paul can help me understand that. Paul. Yeah, that's accurate. So it actually accomplishes two things. One is to extend the temporary nature related to zoning bylaw 14. And the second is to actually increase on a long term basis the actual capabilities of the town manager to do things such as we just voted on. Mandy, Joe, comment. Yeah, it's one of the reasons it needs referred to for policy discussion at TSO and GOL. 3D, I think it is, placements of movable signs. It depends on what you consider movable signs. I believe when it was drafted, it depends on who you talk to. It could contain the SUFA signs that we were just talking about. It could just be sidewalk signs and stuff like that that are much more temporary basis. But that language can certainly be looked at in committee for things. But bus shelters and all those things would be permanent installation, approval, placement of seating on public sidewalks. That is written as a permanent, as a permanent changes to the public way that would be delegated to the manager. So it definitely needs looked at. I guess one of my questions is if there's a seven day lapse between the 14th of December and the 21st of December that is related to the zoning bylaw and the emergency act, is there anything we see happening in that time period that isn't covered some other way? The requests would just have to come to the council for approval in that seven day period because the manager would no longer have the authority to approve them on a temporary basis. And so we would have to deal with it for that time. And it wouldn't necessarily be just seven days, depending on what language comes back from the referrals that the 21st, if we delay the report back to the 21st, that's the first reading. And it might not be final language at that time and it might go into the new year. Whereas if we have a report back on the seventh, there's a possibility that we could have a second reading on the 21st with amended language, depending on what the council discusses on the seventh. Well, any further comment on that? No. Darcy? I think that's asking a lot of TSO to have a fully fleshed out discussion and get an answer back within two meetings when we're also being asked to, you know, we have several other issues that we need to deal with. So yes, I think that we should say something like within 90 days. And I get, I understand what you're saying, but I think that we're just going to have to deal with that, you know, or 60 days. I'm going to suggest the following, that in on the 7th of December, we bring before the council a motion that deals with the emergency nature of what we need to get approved. And that have a second motion that is much more about the extensive nature of this giving people time. Does that work for you, Paul? Yeah. Mandy, Joe? If the report back on the 7th is only to dealing with, I think it's now the new section four. I just closed my public ways policy for my file, the one that deals with the revisions to the COVID-19 section. I think that that would be fine with me. But it could read initial report back by December 7th. Right. So at this point, no motion at all? On the table to refer. Oh, okay. So the motion that's on the table is to refer the town manager memo 111220 revisions to policies regarding with control and regulation public way, the town service and the outreach midi and to the governance organization legislation committee for review and recommendation to the town council by December 7th, 2020. But that makes it the entire document. So this, tell me which section of this document by December 7th. And is that assuming that on December 7th, we would suspend rule 8.4 because otherwise it would be expired before the 21st? Yes, it does. Okay. But I need just need to know which section of the memo. What's the next section four? Yeah. Okay. So the motion will now read to refer the town manager memo 11 dash 1220 revisions to the policy regarding the control and regulation of the public ways to the town services and outreach committee and to the organization governance organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation regarding section four of the memo to the town council by December 7th, 2020. That would be the new motion. We still need to, I would rephrase it as I was the second regarding section four for review and recommendation regarding section four to the town council by December 7th, 2020. And the remaining sections, section four of the policy by December 7th, 2020 and the remaining sections by January, I don't know, when's our January meetings? January 4th or 25th? Probably the 25th. Okay. So I'm going to withdraw the original motion. Mandy Jo, you seconded the original motion. Great. That's fine. Do you want me to make a new one? Please, that would be terrific. Thank you. To refer the town manager memo 11 1220 revisions to policy regarding the control and regulation of the public ways to the town services and outreach committee and to the governance organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation regarding section four of the public ways policy to the town council by December 7th, 2020 and remaining sections of the public ways policy by January 25th, 2021. Is there a second? Brian, second. Thank you. Any further comment? Alyssa, you have your hand up? Yeah, the only thing I was going to add is that I think it's reasonable to give town council the heads up that I as a TSO member, I'm certainly going to ask that in section four, we take out the reference to the brand new section 3D. And that still enables us to do this motion, but the recommendation might say that item for the way it's written here, except for the and 3D part, because GOL is going to be working on this. TSO is going to be working on this. And it's possible we'll all come to a meeting of the minds prior to December 7th, but if we don't, we can just take out the words and 3D. Okay. Darcy? That's fine. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? I would just say if we're not acting on the rest of the revisions, 3D has to come out because it won't, well, a different 3D would exist when we vote. That could be part of our recommendation on the 7th.  Okay. Steve Schreiber. Hi. Angie Steinberg. Yes. Barry Schwartz. Shirley Dealer. Yes. Yeah. Melanie Balmarone. Yes. Lisa Brewer. Yes. Matthew Andrews. Yes. Darcy Demont. Yes. Ruth Mersias. Hanneke. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Kevin S. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. I am going to make a decision, given the lateness of the hour, to defer the voting on the prohibition prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals in traveling shows until December 7th. Next, I object to that. We've had people waiting for four hours now. Oh, I'm sorry. They're still waiting? Yes. Okay. All right. Then let's move on. We're going to go to F, prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals in traveling shows and circus by-law. I mentioned earlier, directing myself, Rebecca Schwartz, one of the non-council sponsors of the proposed by-law sent us an extensive email. In addition to that, and that email is in your packet, responds to a question that was raised. I asked, and David Zomac did confer with Carol Hepburn, the animal control person, and her comments are as follows. She's been in her role for close to 20 years as the animal worker all through. In that time, she has rarely, if ever, encountered any issues in Amherst related to captive wild and or exotic animals. With that said, she is supportive of any measure that protects the health and well-being of all animals, and she supports the by-law. Are there other questions? George Ryan. Not a question, but just a brief comment. I appreciate the fact that you reached out to Carol, and I appreciate the response of Rebecca Schwartz. Her email was very informative, and certainly answered some of my concerns and reservations. Just an expression of thanks for people taking that extra effort. Shalini. Yeah, I just also wanted to add two things. One, that Carol also reached out to me, the animal welfare officer. She reached out to me, and I spoke with her. One thing she said that really helped me also think about this issue is that she said that in Amherst, she said that in Amherst, we tend to believe that nothing bad is going to happen, and then we don't plan for it. From her point of view, it would be really helpful from her perspective as an animal welfare officer to have a plan if this did happen. She did say that it hasn't happened so far, but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen in the future. If it did, it would be great to have this by law in place. The second thing, I think I just wanted to emphasize, like you already spoke about the human aspect, human aspect, and also public safety. I also wanted to bring out some points about wildlife protection and climate change and maintaining a biodiversity. So, for example, humans represent just 0.01% of all living things, and according to this study, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of the plants. So, scientists consider this the sixth mass extinction of life, and we've lost since 1970, 68% of animal population. So, this is resulting in biological annihilation and leading to serious ecological, economic, and social consequences. One of the strategies that's proposed to promote coexistence of people and wildlife is public policy and having bylaws, and since the state level has not been enacting any of this, it's important for local governments to enforce these bylaws. So, as a town that supports climate change, I think this is just a no-brainer that we should be supporting these bylaws to protect the biodiversity and our interdependence. So, I hope you all will pass this bylaw. Are there any other comments? So, I'm going to make the motion and then look to Shalini for a second, and it's to adopt the prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals and traveling shows and circuses bylaw as a general bylaw as presented. Is there a second? Second, Shalini. What was I proposing, the motion? Second. Further comment. Okay, then we start with Wendy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Shalini. Yes. Alyssa. Yes. Pat. Yes. Yes. Darcy. Yes. Chris Murphy. Yes. Mandy Jeff. Yes. Darcy Pam. Yes. Evan. Yes. George. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. The unanimous. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you for all that has taken place going into that bylaw. We did the schedule by consent. We did the appointments by consent. So, we're to liaison reports. Mandy Jo. Nothing to update. We have a meeting tomorrow. We'll be continuing to discuss zoning, including the 40R consultant report that was presented at a forum a couple weeks ago. Andy, finance committee. Yes. I submitted a written report, which you have, but we had one item that came up after the report was written. Sharon Povanelli, one of the resident members of the committee, has resigned for personal reasons that she stated in her letter of resignation. She's in a term that ends on July, our June 30th of 2021. I have consulted with the chair of GOL and I would, since GOL is the committee that deals with it, I believe turning it over to George and just wanted to report that to you. GOL, George. Well, we now have something else to do, but we've not had a meeting since the last report, so there's nothing to report. Okay. Matthew, we know JCPC is not meeting yet. Darcy. Yes, sir. Yeah. We just had a brief meeting last week and came up with the recommendation for the seventh member of the community safety committee that we approved by our consent agenda tonight. And I'm fairly overwhelmed by the number of referrals that we got tonight after not getting any referrals literally for months. But so that's exciting. That's exciting. So yeah, we are going to look at the surveillance technology bylaw on Thursday and look at town-wide residential parking policy. So please let me know where you stand on the surveillance bylaw as to whether or not it will be coming to the council and when. Okay. Yes. Any liaison reports? Matthew. Just briefly that the Community Preservation Act is now, group is now at the point of ranking and thinking of all the proposals that are before them to come up with some ranking. They started that discussion last week and will be continued. They're on a fast track to try to come up with the final slate. So one of the things they're grappling with is this year, there's some large requests that have all requested to be debt finance, bond finance. So to the extent they do that, it means there's less money in future years. So trying to think of the multiple year impact on it. So for any of you are trying to follow the individual proposals, they are now at the point of looking at which you're going to be voted out. Are there any questions of any of the committees or the reasons? Yes, Alyssa. I was just going to say that since TSOs would need to, we talked earlier tonight, feels like hours ago, about the signage issue, right? And the possible finance committee opinion on that. If we're going to do that in a timely fashion at TSO, that it feels to me like we need to have that on our agenda for Thursday, which as you indicated earlier tonight, we can do that by updating our posting tomorrow and that finance committee needs to come to that discussion, not just say, well, maybe finance committee will come because otherwise we're not going to make people come twice. We're not going to make staff come twice to listen to that conversation. So either finance committee comes at that time or finance committee can talk about it separately because I don't really think TSO and finance committees parts have to be together, even though in an ideal world they would be. I'm going to leave that to the chair of the two committees to sort out whether or not it's a joint agenda items or agenda items at separate meetings. Okay. Anything else? No minutes to approve? Paul, town manager's report. That looks like I have five things I want to mention. One is we had a great, just want to congratulate and thank my colleagues, fellow town employees who on Veterans Day delivered 65 gift bags to our veterans because we couldn't bring them together for the breakfast at Mary Beth O'Gilovitz had organized in the past. She conspired to make this happen. Town employees came out with their families, little kids and dogs. And it's a really fun thing to do. Second is the town clerk report that this afternoon, they completed the count and certified the count, which was submitted for the election. And I'll send the results to you. It's not different than what it's already been posted on our website. So it's all official. Now it's completed. Want to mention that I've appointed a group to support me on the North Amherst library group of five members, two members from the community, the representative of the library trustees, the library director and DPW superintendent to move this project forward, starting and help to get the reaching out to the public going forward on that. And I'll just drop one out. One last thing. Today we handed over the keys to a facility in downtown Amherst that has five showers plus restrooms to Craig's doors. Congratulations to Rob Mora and Dave Zomack for securing this location. Again, supporting this through the first few months of operations. This is where we have the money to do that. And so it's really great. Very beautiful facility. So very close proximity to the Unitarian Universalist Church. That was the big problem with that location. They didn't have showers available. Now we do have showers available and hopefully Craig's doors will be able to manage that successfully. So Thank you. Any questions of the town manager? You may have seen none. I just want to mention that I have referred Dorothy has her hand up. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I didn't see that Dorothy. Darcy take the call to get the hand up. Just a suggestion on something I mentioned earlier tonight on your project update. Why not include the Civil War Stones in that project update so that we don't have to ask about it every time? Any further questions or comments? Okay. So under my report, I referred the resolution affirming the town of Amherst's commitment to end structural racism and achieve racial equity for Black residents to GOL. And that is a joint sponsorship of Hap-D'Angeles, Chalene Balmille, and Elisa Brewer. I get that right. And then also regarding the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, alternate. There has in the past been an opportunity for in in the long pass of the select board to have somebody being the alternate to Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. This is a town manager appointment. So consistent with past practice, I will send an email out to the full council, ask who else might be interested in being an alternate to Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. And we'll come back to the council and then we will vote on recommending someone to the town manager.  I vaguely remember from past discussions that the alternate under state law is the town manager and that it's an executive position. So I'm not sure why we have anything to say about it or why it would be one of us. Paul. So it is a town manager appointment. And right now the chair of the planning board serves as the representatives, but we also can have alternate positions as well, who can who can participate in lieu of that can have a vote in lieu of the appointee. And we've always had that. In the past, you know, it's been a member of the planning board. It's been a member. It's been the planning director. It's been a member of the select board. So I can appoint if I and if if there's a person from the council who wants to do it, it's it'd be the process the council has is to pull its members see who wants to be the member, then that name comes to me for review. Are there just questions? I don't understand that either. So before we get this poll asking us for our opinion, I'd like to see the the regulation and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission's bylaw that says this is what we're supposed to be doing because that's not how I remember it from the last time either. Okay, we'll check on that before we do anything. Okay. Any further discussion on that or questions? Any future agenda items or councilor comments? Then we have no topics not anticipated. We have no executive session. And I'm going to call the meeting adjourned at 11 30.