This meeting, this meeting of the tack is being conducted via remote participation. It looks like the first order of business. Hi everybody. Happy July. The first order of business is to look over, I think. So I did have like a few edits to them, and I'm happy to send Amber updates, like if people agree I was just I was just looking through them right now.  Yes, I have them now I'm not sure I. I can I can pull up my copy because I was already like marking it up a tiny bit. I'm not sure that I'm able to do that. We able to do that go for us like meeting attendees we can share yeah we can share screen. Okay. Oh yeah, I could too. Okay, but let me I'll just hold my. Okay. All right, so the first minute. So this is the first thing I appreciate. So you guys just see my minutes right. Yeah, tons of other screens. Okay, I'm going to actually close it. Okay. Yeah, sorry. Okay, so. So the minutes I thought like great, you know, Amber always does a good job. I just had a few like clarifications just that that with the savings to school stuff. That you know that it was both Christine and myself who had met with the board member and did the walking tour of Wildwood and what we were like assessing you know the walkability. Yeah, that's just not okay. Yeah, okay. And that is actually, we're both writing up. Okay, great. Yeah, I don't want to put it all in Christine. I was supposed to give her more draft than I did before this meeting. Okay, so then we also had the meeting with the safe reach to school coordinator so she's the western mass coordinator for the four western mass counties. I'm going to see Freeman Bell and the representative from the school Debra Smoreland. Yeah, so this is all going all the way back to May. So we've done like quite a bit since then, and there was some general support. And, and so the day after that meeting that we met with Deb, there was also a meeting of the district leadership team for the district and Deb was more than followed up with them with that meeting includes the principles and this is a principle since some other district and there was general support. So, then the other thing with the minute edits were just that part of what I remember from the discussion and made, was that actually the thing wasn't that the TSO decided to make a change and make more of the spaces metered and less grounded but also, but also the whole it was introduced to have the dual metered permitted spaces like that seem like the main change to me. Guilford is that right. And so, and that the park side back in Angle Park is still going for it but will not be introduced until. So, you know, the larger project is done, including widening the road, I think, right. So part of it is that there's limitation. So, and minor improvements to be done by the fall. And, yeah, so at the council, I mean the council actually voted on the minor improvements to, if we want to mention that. I mean the rest of it looked fine to me. I just highlighted that in the notes that talked about the Amity Street improvements. I guess I would just clarify the section that it covered right it was like both sides of the street up to Lincoln. Is that right. Guilford is it from. No, it's from I guess it is until Lincoln. It's still Lincoln. Yeah. But where does it start on the town side like the town center side. Does it start at that little street right so it starts at North Prospect Street South Prospect Street. Yes, go for can't hear you. I still can't hear him. Can anybody else hear him. Nope. Hear me now. Yes we can. Okay. That zoom teams thing.  Yeah, I got, I hear you. So yes, that's right. Okay. And then my question here just with the notes is just that it says the meal lane multi use path is next, which you can already see that's happening in Kellogg Street sidewalks. That's just the section. That's just the near town section, right, like up to the, up to the driveway of like the housing, the public senior housing. Is that right. I had a question about why Mill Lane was in there because enmity street improvements doesn't really know that that's a good point is down in another location. Yeah, that should be B. You know, well, actually, I guess it could just say here, so it could just say it could just say sidewalk improvements, right, because yeah, I'd walk improvements sidewalk upgrade on a enmity. Yeah. Street and then. Yeah, so.  And then Pomri intersection.  It was my only comments. So, right. And I guess I didn't know to go for it if I mean it says here that it said the project is potentially going to be bid out Pomri Village like before the end of June. Do we want to just leave that in the minutes as I didn't know if you had like an update on that. Well, these are minutes from last time at this meeting. It's even the main meeting. It's even longer. Okay, so let me I'll stop sharing that screen. Yep. And so we also have the, yeah, want to just approve all the minutes we can also the June one. Yeah, minutes. And Christine has her hand up. Yes. I think it's remaining up, potentially. I'll just put my hand down because you just put your hand. I've blurted out my comments before. Okay. Do we want to just look at the June one fast to they were shorter. I think if you remember that may was the one that we went through a lot of items. So let me I'll just share the screen on the May items. You mean a June on the sorry, June minutes. Yes. Okay. And with those. I just wanted to just clarify again with safe reach to school that Christine and I are still compiling the summer report. We did collect the data. And, and just that. I mean the big thing with this, this thing about one there, we did find that all the schools, even though sometimes I hear otherwise from school or town administrators that the numbers of kids walking and biking to school at each of the three elementary schools. And it was about 10 to 15 kids at both Wildwood and Fort River and it was about 2025 kids at Crocker farm, in part because Crocker farm has a neighborhood that's literally like right next to the school and there's a direct path. And so one of the things that was bent into us by the principles. And we've now met with them Chris. I mean, I have met with them a number of times is the arch, at least once is that the, that, you know, with COVID that more parents were asked to drive their kids instead of bust their kids, and that the bus numbers are still lower now, and there also are fewer kids walking and biking to. I mean we did our accounts on days where the weather was good and things. So the counts that were done with the elementary school building committee meeting were those pedestrian council room in the middle of the winter, but ours were really almost the same so. And I don't actually know if this is true about the district rules have changed regarding school pickup. I don't know what that means. Chris, Chris, do you know what's from this comment that yeah, I had included. I would say, we think district rules have changed regarding school pickup but we need to, we need to find out more. So we're just thought this is actually referring to the bus ridership is that what we're saying. Is that what you mean. Yeah, I think so I mean, this was at a meeting. Right. Obviously I wasn't here at this meeting. Oh yeah that's true. So the concern is that right with even if you live within the mile and a half walk radius of the school, you're still getting picked up kind of automatically by the bus. Yes. But we have yet to confirm that and need to have. Yeah. And then. And right and we did have a meeting on June 28. Just to clarify that that's a June. And the meeting actually on June 28. That's the one we had with the principals to right. With the it's going to be held with the district reps the safety school rep. And you know school leadership. Right. I mean, this is like in advance of the meeting, right. So, what we can say representative. Yeah, I think we knew early. Okay. It was going to attend, including Bill. All right. All right. So. And it's not really to see what the district could apply for so much. It's more to just talk about the results. Of what Christine and I saw. And to talk about next steps. Including potentially applying for funding. Is that how you would recap it to Christine. Right. Discuss. Next steps. Next steps. That's it. Okay. And then all I did there is I just corrected the style. I'm a clown. That's it. I'm a clown. I'm a clown. I'm a clown. I'm a clown. I'm a clown. I'm a clown. I'm a clown. I'm a clown. Okay. And then all I did there is I just corrected the style. I'm a clown. That's like my other highlight. That's it. And then we didn't have any referrals. And that's it. So. Okay. Okay. Did, did you have. Something for us. Oh, I was just going to. What would you say me or Chris. I don't know Bruce to do every hand up. I'm sorry. Okay. I was going to say we need to vote on these separately because I wasn't present for the main. Okay. Okay. All those in. Oh, yeah. Sorry. We should have asked for this second set of minutes. Yes. A meeting on August 21st. And that's a Sunday. Oh, okay. It's the last part of that. Yeah, yeah. Let me just check that. Thank you, Chris. We'll just make sure. So we were just talking about the first, the first and the third. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's so sorry that would have been August 18th. Which I think, I think we had decided not to meet on the 18th. I'm not available on the 18th. Yeah. We're not either. Okay. Next meeting. So I think we'll just say. August 4th. Yeah. So it'll just be August 4th. And I'm, I'm interested. I mean, if some people are interested in meeting in the middle of July, I think it would be nice to get some feedback. So if we wanted to have like a subcommittee or something to have like one official meeting. Just to discuss that maybe that's an option. Andy has his hand up. Yes. I had a couple of things real quick. One is that I don't think. You need to have been at a meeting. I think it'd be nice to get some feedback. So if we wanted to have like a subcommittee or something to have some feedback, I think it would be nice to get some feedback. I think that you need to have been at a meeting to vote on the minutes of the meeting. So. That's fairly common from other committees. Work with so that. You can vote on those block as you want. The other thing is just that during the, as you were talking about the minutes, I was looking through the. Committee handbook and I did not find anything. I just wanted to make sure that. Somebody whose term is expired can carry over voting authority. One way or the other, it was silent on. The issue as far as I could tell. So my recommendation would be, I think it was, if I recall, it was Bruce who raised the question. But whoever did to note. The votes of people whose terms have expired. I don't think it's going to make a difference. I don't think it's going to make a difference. I don't think it's going to make a difference with the. Votes before the minutes. I doubt that you're going to have anything that it's going to be so close to this going to make a difference, but that's to me. Probably the more cautious approach. Thank you. So, so I guess, Andy, I'd like to just respond to that second comment is that it seems like with the tack, typically we have people whose terms have expired. But I don't think it's going to make a difference. I don't think it's going to make a difference. I don't think it's going to make a difference. And some are, and I think that's not unique about committees. I'm not, I understand that you're looking at the rules, but I don't think this issue is one that is just with the tack alone. I know that my current appointment, the last time it was approved by the council is that my term expired last summer. My, my term expired June, 2021. And Kim's. Yeah. And so we have been waiting since that time to be reappointed. And we've still been conducting business as usual. And if we weren't able to do that, we would not have a quorum. We would not have had any meetings in this interim period. So this is a practical matter. I mean, perhaps the council wants to clarify how that works. But what I've been told from the town manager's office is that until reappointments are done, that existing members are. Not able to continue on. The town manager's office has told you, because as I said, noted before, this is not a council appointed committee. It's a town manager appointed committee. The council only. To confirm and usually it just. Proceed. So I, it is a town manager. No, but I think it's still a good question just to perhaps clarify that. Yeah. Whether the minute ticker wants to just note that for. The votes might be visual, just. If you see clarification. She should go on. This is worth the time to go. No, absolutely. Okay. Okay. So unless there's any further discussion, I think we will. Vote on the consent agenda, both of the items. Both of the minutes. With the. Suggested. Changes as, as we watched on our screen. All those in favor. All those members in favor, I see hands up unanimously. Okay, so that is five of us. So all of those are approved unanimously. Okay. Thank you. And so our next item of business is public comment, but it looks like perhaps there is no public with us. Let's see. Nope. Okay. So we next have the request from the TSO for our feedback on the public comment. Jennifer Todd, the council member for the district, district three where this is where this part of Lincoln Avenue is. To come to the committee. She did write a memo to the council that was in the information that I shared earlier, and it did go to TSO last week and they discussed it. For most of the meeting. So Jennifer, I just want to make sure that we have all the information that we need to get up last year and why it's come back to the council. And then the attack can discuss. Well, thank you. And thank you all. You know, thank you for inviting me and letting me have a few moments. I feel like I need to apologize to Andy Steinberg. Because he has heard this presentation. More times. He can count over a period of years. So you can tune out or probably give it in your sleep. But I think we need to have some new information for most of. The committee. No, I mean, I think. So I mean, most of us were on the committee last year and we did. We were not asked to weigh in officially. I don't mean to start at the beginning. I mean, the issue about Lincoln and like park safety on Lincoln. I've lived in Amherst 20 years. It's come up for 20 years. And there have been many different iterations of proposals. I think it's because of the lack of, the lack of safety and the lack of safety and the lack of safety. All the old days we had when this was the other committee, we had people from Lincoln com and talk about parking. And we're all very familiar because I've also brought the topic up to thank you. Yeah. So come to the tech Kim. I remember when I first got on the tack, and we were meeting in person pre COVID like we did have. and they talked about their concerns. Yeah. So. So I should probably apologize to Gilbert. Gilbert too, he's heard this more times, but so where we left off with the last council and I wasn't on the council of the last term but the district three counselors at the time, Dorothy Pam and George Ryan brought the matter to the town council and it went before town services and organ and outreach. And it, and this was the request. There is now no parking on either side of Lincoln because Lincoln is a major through street from Anady and route nine onto campus. It's a connector road, which is, has been determined by DPW really not to be wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic and a lane of parking, which is what it currently has. So during weekdays during the school year between McClellan and Anady, on the east side of the street, there's really like bumper to bumper parking, you know, between like nine to five again, weekdays during the academic year and almost no parking when it's not the academic year. So Jennifer not to interrupt, but would you like to, or I can, one of us could pull up the map that was in the TSO packet from last time just so people get a visual? Sure, if you want to, I don't have the ability to share it. Okay, that's fine. Right, so currently they've over the years, they have adopted some parking restrictions from North Hadley Road, right? Which would be the southern border of the university going to McClellan Street. And there is no parking during the weekday from nine to five on either side of the street on those like two and a half blocks. And the thought was that if parking was restricted there, that people wouldn't park further that, you know, on the other side, going south of McClellan, this would be so far from campus, but that has improved into be the case. There's now parking from McClellan to Anady. Yeah, so you can see it, the red lines are where there's currently no parking. And trying to, I can't see that so well. And we are, the parking issue is between McClellan and Anady on the east side of the street. So it's not only impeding traffic because the traffic has to stop going in one direction to allow cars coming from the other direction to go around the parked cars, but it's becoming hazardous and problematic for the residents on that side of the street because they all have narrow one-car driveways. And the cars are parking right up to the curb cuts to the driveways. And often they'll even overhang the curb cut. So it's, the sight lines are blocked for the cars to pull in and out of the driveway. And there's been at least a couple of instances where an emergency medical vehicle couldn't pull into the driveway because the cars were parked so close to the curb or overhanging the curb cut. And there wasn't space for the vehicle to go into the driveway. And then because there were so many cars parked on the street the vehicle was finding itself having to park, like almost a block away. So it's both a traffic inconvenience for traffic and a visual sight line impediment for the residents. And we've requested if the curb, the residents have requested if the curbs could be painted maybe two or three feet on either side of the curb cuts to the driveway but that's not actually something that the town does because it requires then vigilant enforcement and then maintenance of those lines. So it's, we have, it is, so for the last council when they went, they went to TSO and DPW did a study and the recommendation was that they not allow parking on the east side of Lincoln between McClellan and Amnesty from eight to five weekdays during the academic year. And it, the TSO, a majority of TSO voted to refer that recommendation to the town council. And then really that, I think like the day before it was going to the town council for a vote where it tied six, six. A couple of counselors will change their vote because they heard that there are two new dormitories being built at Lincoln Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue. So basically where about two and a half blocks from where we're requesting that the parking be restricted there in the process of building two new dorms and they last November, they blocked off the intersection at Lincoln and Mass Avenue for the construction. The dorms will be open in fall 2023. And a couple of the counselors thought, well, let's, before we restrict parking, let's see what happens when they close off that intersection because it may mean cars aren't coming down the street in our parking there. But our experience has been since, although they've closed that intersection to through traffic to campus, it's open to pedestrian and bicyclists. So that hasn't changed cars parking on Lincoln between McClellan and Amnesty at all because you can park and still walk to campus. And then we've just recently been informed that when the new dorms open, that intersection will open again. So it's not permanently closed. And once again, Lincoln Avenue will be the major through street going north and south, from Amnesty and route nine onto campus. And it feels even more pressing that we implement some level of parking management on the street because we are about to in fall again, 2023 have 800 new residents moved to the corner. There's two dorms at undergraduate dorm, which I think is gonna have like 603 and maybe beds and then a graduate residents, which will have about 200. So that's a huge influx of residents and drivers onto the street. I think Tracy recently told me that the average they figure what is it, a 0.5 spaces per residence? So I mean, we could be looking 0.5 cars, excuse me. So we could be looking at 800 residents with 400 cars, maybe a hundred of whom would have be able to access spaces on campus. So that the situation we've been facing for the last many years is about to get much more critical. So that's why I came at the request. I don't live on the part of Lincoln. I might add where this between, I don't live between McClellan and Amity, but the residents who live there, this that's almost a number one priority. So I brought it to the council who referred it to TSO and then TSO met last week and it was terrific that Tracy was in the audience and they asked why this matter hadn't been referred to TSO in the past and asked if TSO might be able to weigh in or offer an opinion. By Jennifer, they asked about TAC. What did I just say? TSO. No, I'm sorry. No, it's fine. It's all good. So just to clarify one thing, I mean, I'm on the street almost every day. I live nearby and my office is at UMass is on Mass Ave. But so one thing is, and I have used Lincoln, I will admit it as a cut through street sometimes. But so one thing that has happened, I mean, when I've been on, when I've been driving towards campus and things at first, you have the impression when you get to faring, oh no, like there's all that construction ahead and you can't get through, but you can actually, and cars have figured this out and I've seen an increase in traffic and today, even in the, though it's the summer, there were quite a few cars, is that it is blocked off like here and so on, but you can actually go on North Hadley Road, which will bring you out to the street right next to the Southwest dorms.  And the only thing there is that you can only turn right. And so like, if you could go right to Lincoln, you could turn right or left, but currently you can only turn right. But that doesn't mean that cars aren't doing that regularly. Right, so you can see that square, where you show them where the dorms are being built. Oh yeah, can we, so the dorms are being built here. So they're being built on it. To the right also. Oh, they're to the right, yeah, all of that. Oh right. And also where there was the Lincoln apartments, much smaller density. So it looks to me, I don't know the building plans off the top of my head, but when I go by there, it looks like it's at least like four to five stories on Mass Ave, very close. And I think they tried to put the highest buildings away from the neighborhood. But one thing is that, right, this is being built on an existing parking lot as somebody who works on this section of Mass Ave. And I mentioned that it's a TSO that my, you know, the staff who are in that area, a lot of them have been moved off of where they were parking because we were, people were parking in this lot. And so that's no longer available, right? And most of my colleagues, we have some other remote locations and most of them will not come to our Mass Ave offices. They say that it's just way too inconvenient. So with these new dorms, it's actually according to what UMass has shared, it's 824 beds, including the 623 for undergrads and the 201 for grad students. And then Jennifer's, I mean, the information that I've seen from the meetings from UMass is that UMass has typically traditionally estimated that 0.5 parking spaces per bed. They have not updated that 0.5 since COVID. I don't know if that number has changed. I would be interested to find that out just in case, because for example, like right last school year, there were more students springing cars to campus than ever before. So it might be even a little higher. So what the UMass people have said in the meetings that I've seen and heard about and George Ryan had reported on some of them too is that one, the dorms open, which is suspected for the fall 2024, that there will be a hundred parking spaces on site, like right there. But even though they will be providing the 400 parking spaces based on the 0.5 estimate, but the other spaces will not be there. Like so a bunch of them will be on the other side over here where like next to, you know, a long university drive where there's a lot more parking and things than other students will be distributed elsewhere. So they're not quite as convenient. And so that's what I'd heard. Anybody?  So crossing is more hazardous. And certainly cycling is more hazardous with all the cars on there as well. So. And I know anecdotally there was something mentioned about buses, but I actually for a while, I was driving my children to school at the same time. And I have actually seen buses wait and be delayed because of not being able to get through that whole section of road. I've seen it multiple times. So it does cause some issues. I mean, so one issue that's come up, you know, and if you look at the guidelines from DPW and so on, right that the road width is not sufficient to continually have like two lanes, two travel lanes, one each direction. Hi Dorothy, good to see you. Two traveling to each direction plus, one traveling each direction plus the on-street parking. And which, I mean, I think that's right. I mean, I think what, I mean, in my experience and I don't know what data DPW in the town may have, but really so much of the traffic there is related to UMass. And so after hours with UMass or particularly, you know, particularly like over the summer and so on that there really isn't, there are very few times when you're going to see like two lanes of traffic continually. And even at the UMass peak times, like so much of the traffic is about UMass, right? So like, for example, in the mornings, a lot of the traffic is going towards the campus, you know, in the afternoon, a lot of the traffic is going away from the campus. It came up at TSO and people said, well, if it's not safe to have parking there, you know, from eight to five, like why would it be safe to have parking there other times? And my, you know, that response to that is, I look at like other streets that, you know, where, you know, other thorough affairs where during commuting hours, they say you can't have on-street parking, but during other times of the day you can and things. And so it doesn't seem that there would be a conflict where if during the off-peak hours, you did allow parking from my perspective. But again, I don't live, I mean, I live on Blue Hills, right? I don't live on Lincoln. I just walk on Lincoln a lot. So did anybody want Christine to do a comment or if I don't have a comment? Oh, you can go ahead first. I actually just had the precise question that Trace answered. So I took my hand up. Oh, okay. Yeah. Jennifer's next, I think. Well, I just wanted to kind of echo what Kim said is a couple of residents have said that the school bus actually had to change its approach to the street because he was getting behind schedule, having to stop and let traffic coming from the other direction pass. So you write about that observation was actually problematic. It was that the cars parked were causing enough of the delay that it was problematic for the school bus driver. Thank you. Dorothy? Pardon me from being late. We've just driven back from Boston where my husband got a one-bandage office foot and a new hard cast put on. I want to say the question of whether there should be any parking on Lincoln or none at all is an interesting question. So my suggestion is that we go with the proposal, the formal proposal that DPW gave which is to restrict parking to non-business hours and to have parking allowed on the street. I guess it's after five till maybe eight in the morning, something like that. And then see how that goes. If there are still problems, then one could consider that there should be no parking at any time on Lincoln, but rather than go all the way to that in one step, I would say, why not do it in two steps and do the official proposal from DPW and have no parking there and we'll see how that goes and we'll also take a look to see about bike safety and other things. One thing that does perturb me when we discuss this, the question of how this affect other roads, other streets always comes up and I think, well, we don't know but we do know how it affects people on Lincoln Avenue and I keep thinking, why is that not important? Why doesn't that count? Why is somehow that it's Lincoln Avenue? When we know it's a major, major road directly to the university and an important road. And when I view sunset as an alternative since when Lincoln's closed at the top, you don't really, it's kind of hard to get into. It's got that weird little divided thing in the middle of the road and you're not quite sure how to go and it's just people don't take that road, that street, I don't know why. Would they change in the future? We would find out. So I'm just really strongly advocating that we listen to what residents have said and follow the recommendation of Guilford mooring and the DPW that we go for the no parking on the east side of the street between, is it eight or nine and five? I think it is. I think I would that. So that's my comment. Thank you. Thank you Pam. And I think Guilford is next and then Stefan. Just a quick comment. The proposal you're looking at which is being called the DPW proposal is the consensus proposal that came out the TSO and everybody meeting. The DPW, if it had its way, would say no parking and just leave it as that. So please just call it the proposal or something else, but don't tag it to us. Noted Stefan. Yeah, just to kind of piggyback on what Dorothy was just mentioning, I think just looking at it even a software approach instead of restricting it entirely. And again, this is just, I would just consider this as a pilot just to see how it goes. Not again, and I'll be all, but I think that looking at it as more of a time restricted thing. Okay, so you can only park for one hour, two hour, three hour versus an eight to five or between those times you can only park for two hours is what I'm saying. I think that might be just again, just as a trial. And then if that doesn't work and we're having the same issues, I don't think they'll be worse, but I think if you're having the same issues and you don't see any change, then go to a whole don't park eight to five. The only thing, and I just actually mentioned in Jennifer's memo, which I read earlier today of this towards the bottom, I think of the memo I mentioned that the approach that I just said, the only concern I would have with the approach that I'm just suggesting now is because UMass is so massive, and I go down Lincoln a lot to cut through, I'm guilty of it as well. And I know classmates, when I went to UMass who would actually park? Some people came as far as from New Hampshire. I had a, in grad school, there's someone who lived in New Hampshire and he would come and park all day there and then walk. And I know a lot of people do that. So with an issue with UMass, a massive school, the whole two hour only approach might not really fly only because when someone does leave, someone's gonna be the right to take the spot. So I think it's gonna be continuously full the street. So that's the only kind of concern I would have about that, but I just figured thinking of more like, instead of step one to four, just go to the second step and try to do this. And then if it doesn't work, then go to a whole, you can't park there at all, eight to five. And that was, oh, and then last thing I'll say, so I mentioned a few minutes ago is with the painting of the curb cuts, I know it was mentioned that that's gonna involve enforcement and that the town either can't or doesn't wanna do that. The only question I would have about that is if we do put up signs saying you can't park here during these times, either for two hours or at all, that's still gonna have to be enforced. So if you're enforcing that one way, I don't really see the big deal in looking at if someone's too close to curb, because I think if you don't paint these lines, people are just going to put the bumper of the car aligned with the curb cut.  If we don't do this, that really, if you're gonna be enforcing anyway, the parking signs, you might as well just do the paint because you're gonna be there anyway enforcing it. So that's all I have to say about that. Thank you. Sorry, before the next speaker, Eve just came as an attendee. Can we let her into the room, please, Tavia? Thanks. I think Jennifer is next. Thank you. This may be what Christine was going to respond to. So if you were, I will certainly defer to you to explain it much better than I could, but I think the two-hour parking, when that was suggested, the concern again was that it was just gonna be very labor-intensive for the town to enforce that. But at the TSO meeting, I know I shared Dorothy's position of why it was maybe overkill to say no parking ever since it's between eight and five weekdays during the academic year when it's problematic. But I did have this question for Guilford, but I wouldn't take up too much of the committee's time with this. But do you think because of the new dorms that we're gonna find that parking, there's demand for it now, kind of 24-7? We now have demand for on-street parking 24-7 because the town council did away with the overnight parking ban, which was from November until April. And that kind of made people who lived in town know they had to have a safe place to park at night. I mean, we didn't tow every night, but during a snowstorm, we definitely did tow. So now they know they can kind of stay there and there's no risk to being towed at all unless we declare a parking ban. So people were just, people are now just garaging their cars on the streets. So that's gonna stay as long as you have, as long as you can park overnight on the street. Yeah. So that's just two really separate things. Parking, I don't know how much UMass has been saying this, but the planet UMass, UMass is to actually build a couple of parking garages and I don't know where they have them in their schedules. They are in their master plan. If you look at the master plan, they have several new parking garages. And so they should technically be taking care of the parking problem, but the timeline is what I don't know or probably they're not talking about. And Gilford, do you know where those are slated to be? Any additional parking garages? There's actually, I think, there were two slated in this area. The ground lot that's left to the west and the ground lot that's to the east were supposed to be parking garages. If you look at their master plan. Because I know I pushed back at TSO hard against the total ban, but in thinking about it since then, I'm wondering if maybe we should think about that. But I don't know. So I mean, one question I had. So there have been concerns, right, about banning parking completely. Like if we know, and I do want to pull up the map again because there are some streets that I do have concerns about like spillover demand. It is worth noting to that, right? So Amherst is changing its whole downtown parking permit policy, right, that the rates went up a lot, especially for people who don't register their car in Amherst. Like it's going to be up to like 400 something a year. In other words, it's going to be 100 something, which is not huge, but it's five times what it is currently. And so Lincoln, if you're coming from downtown, Lincoln is like the first street that doesn't have any like permit parking. So in the permit parking means you have to have a downtown parking permit to park in those spaces during the workday. And then otherwise those spaces are available to everybody. So like we saw that right on North Pleasant Street near Kendrick Park. And then like all the way over to like fearing all the connecting streets, but then, but when you get to Lincoln, it's not, you don't have that anymore. So I think, you know, there's already, there is already some of this demand for Lincoln. I always worry the most and I did remember a few years ago. So this, the last proposal from the council, like it came to a vote in December of 2021 before the last council finished up, but it actually originated, I think in sometime in 2020 or 2019, when George Ryan and Dorothy Pam were working on it and they worked through a number of different iterations. And I do remember speaking, and I wasn't, or even maybe before I was even on the tack, but I do remember speaking to TSO then about just one concern that I always have is just the safety about the sight lines with both the cross streets and with the driveways. And that's what we hear too. Like when we did have, as Kim said, when we did have people from Lincoln come, that was always one of their concerns too. And Jennifer's talked about how with emergency vehicles and things, if the cars do choose to park. And this happens too on North Pleasant Street right near Kendrick. That's one reason that I was pushing to push the parking to the park side and not the driveway side because there are cars that will not just park up to the driveway, but like into the driveway and fringing on the driveway and some of the driveways aren't very wide. And that, as somebody who's worked on driving safety and things like that's always a major hazard. And that's a hazard for like kids on the driveway and bikes and, I mean, just not being able to see. I mean, that's always one of my big concerns. Now it has come up at some meetings that like, I guess it's under like state law or, I mean, are there any statutes or anything, Guilford? Or like rules relating to how far away from driveways and things that cars are allowed to park? The police say there are, but they won't enforce it unless there's signage. Oh, so as they, will they enforce it in this? So at the street intersections, because I think that they, the town has expanded the setbacks with the street intersections to have like a wider sideline to there. And it seemed like they're all signed now like all along Lincoln for the streets, but you're saying there is stuff with driveways, but it's not enforced.  I mean, because I guess that was a question that came up, right? So like Jennifer gave that example of like an ambulance that couldn't get into the driveway because the people like the surrounding cars had parked too closely. Like if, I mean, of course you would need a very rapid police response in that instance, but even if there was one, can the police like require somebody to move or to get them or something like that? So if you want to recommend that you, we actually sign every driveway. No. Between every driveway that has no parking, we would prefer as a DPW, we would prefer that over going out and paying the curbs. Paying the curb is a problem because when the winter comes, you don't see it unless you remove the snow. When we do the parking spaces downtown, the lane, the parking lines are longer or wider than the car. So those usually are plowed and you can see those because they get plowed, but the curbing doesn't get plowed. So that's why we don't like to paint the curbing. As one is it's, you have to do it every year and half the year when there's snow on the ground, it's not visible. So then what are you using? If you use a sign post and you say, you know, parking between the sign post and that just happens to be on other side of the driveways, that's easier. That's an easier way to make sure it's known. If you want to paint parking lines like there are in other sections of town, that's easier to make sure they're seen year round as well. Yeah, I'm just going to pull it up again, but it seems to me, I mean, it's nice of the DPW to offer to do that with the signage, but it seems like there are so many driveways, right? So like it just, it seems like a lot of work. And it's 35, it's 35 sign post and 35 signs. Oh, if you were going to sign every driveway on Lincoln? Yes. Wow. Okay. It just requires someone give us, I mean, that's not in the budget to pay for. So there would have to need to be some money for paying for it. Andy and Dorothy have their hands up. Andy? Yes. The one thing that I thought about and to ask for it is whether it would be valid to ask the police department for some input, because it's possible that a single sign at the each major intersection coming into a street notifying people that they cannot park within a certain distance of a driveway would be sufficient that we would not have to do that at every house, because the purpose of what the police are concerned about is ticketing when there's been no notice. And I think that if TAC would like that answer, somebody needs to check with the police department to see if that's possible as an alternative. And I want to just say one other thing since I'm in the liaison position, we're in somewhat of an awkward position here because the committee liaison rules are very clear for the council that we are not to express our opinion about the action that a committee is taking because we want to preserve your independence as the Transportation Advisory Committee to do your work. And so it's a little bit awkward and I think probably needs clarification from the council side about what to do with district councilors, two of whom are present today because of their interest as district councilors, whether that places them in a different position, but it is a lack of clarity within council rules. And so as Liaison, I would encourage you to consider, listen to the opinions of district councilors, but remember that you are the committee and the rules are to seek your opinion. So thank you. Yeah, Andy, I mean, I want to take Bruce's question comment, but just to speak to that briefly, so I invited Councillor Todd to come here because it was her proposal that went to TSO and I wanted to hear, I mean, she would know better than any of us about what went into that proposal and thinking. And so, but I think you do bring up some good points. So thank you. Yeah, no, I'm not mentioning that nor am I questioning they're expressing their opinion, but I want to encourage you as a committee to perform your function as the Transportation Advisory Committee and not feel that you were being influenced because, and I'm saying that as Liaison. Thank you. I think Dorothy had her hand up next and then Bruce. So I do have a couple of points. I agree with Andy that the Liaison position is an awkward one, which is why I at present refuse to be an official Liaison because we were told as a Liaison, you cannot express your opinion. But the fact that I'm a district three counselor is interesting because I don't, as you know, using an analogy, I'm a woman and I feel I can make comments about women's rights and about the abortion law without having to say, well, I can't really talk about it because I'm a woman. I'm an interested party. Yes, I'm an interested party, but I want to clarify something with Guilford. When you said, if we painted parking lines, you know, the parallel lines showing where the parking places were up and down the street, did you say that would be sufficient? So if somebody's parking really crazy over the parking line into a driveway, would that be sufficient without the individual signs that you were describing? Can't hear you, Guilford. We can't hear you, Guilford. I'm gonna share my screen with you. Yep. So this is Churchill and this area is for permanent parking and the spaces are painted like this. This is how we paint them. So when you plow, you can still see them. So that is something that is acceptable to the police. It's permanent parking. If people park over those little lines, they give them tickets. From the standpoint of workload, it's actually easier to just have us install a sign and hopefully it lasts two or three years, whereas we tend to paint these lines every year. So signs would be our number one choice, but this is used now in other places in town to demark, to keep people away from driveway entrances and roads. Okay, thank you. They're not parallel lines. So these little V lines, is that what you're saying? Yeah, it's a little mark that says park between this line and the next line, which is over here. That's the parking line. Okay, I see that. Okay, right. Okay, well, that sounds like an interesting possibility. So just for clarification on that though, you wouldn't, I mean, it would be a lot of these little markings if you were gonna do it at each driveway, right? Oh yeah. So yeah. Every year. I mean, I would be hesitant about that, just knowing how many other lines there are to paint for bike lanes and crosswalks. And I mean, there's a lot of maintenance that DPW is already doing. So, and as you pointed out, like in the snow, you can't see those anyway. Well, the snow plow comes down the road and uncovers these, they don't cover the ones on the curb. Bruce? Yes, I would be in favor of a 24 hour ban on parking safety as a concern. But my question was, it seems to me that at a meeting a long time ago, there was concern expressed about apartment dwellers on that street who need overnight parking on the street or visitors to homeowners on the street who might need to park on the street. So I don't know if the two counselors could answer that question or are there neighbors there who actually want overnight parking because they either live in apartments and they don't have a parking space on the driveway or they're a homeowner who wants to be able to have guests come and park someplace. I mean, if it's okay, I can speak to that briefly. I mean, there's very little on-street parking. Most of the parking is day parking except for as some people have indicated like people are using it as like their garage and they park there for multiple nights, but they don't live. I mean, there are driveways like on every property. Well, yeah. It doesn't seem to be a big issue. But certainly when people have parties and whatever. Oh, for sure. Parking on the street. Absolutely. You know, that's really what the parking had been on the street prior to it becoming a parking garage.  So, Jennifer. Yes, I just wanted to also reiterate what Andy was saying is the TSO asked, it was referred to TAC because they want your council and your input. So, yeah, we don't, Dorothy and I aren't here as a council liaison, but to present, you know, the proposal and the problem that we're trying to solve. But we definitely want TSO, which I'm not a member of TSO wanted, you know, your input and your thoughts, which is why it got to your agenda. Okay, Christine, and then I'll speak. Yeah, I just want to unpack a little bit of what might the choice be for a student living in one of these new dorms if there aren't any garages, you know, being built at the same time. So, their choice right now would be to buy a town permit at 400 and park somewhere else. Or currently they could garage their car entirely at Lincoln, right on down the street. Or they would have to pay the university some amount of money to be able to park, you know, that there are currently two parking garages on either, I'm sorry, two parking lots on either side. And I just like price wise, how much is that? And I'm just trying to understand what a calculation would be for a student living in one of those new dorms. I don't know what the rates are for next year. I haven't looked at it yet. The year is the calendar year, like the school calendar year, right, so it starts their year-round passes. I mean, they start in September, they go to August. The university also does allow you to get summer permits, which is something I looked into for my job. Students who live in the dorms, they are not eligible for the downtown permit passes because those aren't town streets, you know, they're not living near the downtown, they're living on the campus. So, if they were to bring cars to campus and they're living on campus, you know, they would be looking for on-campus parking. And as I was saying, like the UMass calculates that it's like usually a 0.5 parking spaces are needed per bed. And so that's a total of about 400 parking spaces. And they are providing a hundred on-site there and then there will be other parking made available to the students too, just like in all the other dorms, but in some cases the parking lots that the students are assigned to is not very close to where they live. Like I remember an editorial last year from a student at UMass who like lived in a dorm, like up the hill, not far from your house, Christine. But they were assigned to like a parking lot across campus, for example. So, I believe, I mean, I believe the university is planning to provide at least the 0.5 parking spaces per bed. And so I have a question, I guess my hand is still up and I'll lower it. So one of the questions I had, and this has come up to just about the right of people to park their properties. And if you look here, sorry, I'll re-share the map again. Right, so the idea, I mean, I generally support and I think we do wanna move forward and like have a motion on this. But, you know, if you look here, I mean, there are these other streets, like very close to UMass, the red means no parking at all right now, right? So there is no parking on most of Fearing. The only parking allowed on Fearing is like the UMass parking leaders that are like going down the hill to University Drive, right? And there's no parking on some of these other streets that are close to the university, all these red ones. And like of course, Page and Best and those are narrow streets. So I did wonder, you know, just, and it's come up too, especially as the parking permit prices increase, you know, in terms of students looking for other parking around, I'm not, I didn't get a chance to go up to other neighborhoods that are also adjacent to the university. I do think it is a little bit of a unique situation to have like 800 beds, a dorm with 800 beds so close, like right on the border of a neighborhood, like a dense neighborhood. But, you know, for like, for example, like up North Pleasant Street, like Hobart Lane and the other streets that are off of North Pleasant Street, North of campus, like do any of those have parking restrictions? Do they allow cars on one side of the street? Do they allow cars on both side of the street? I also thought a little bit too about, though it's, you know, it's farther. I thought about Christine, your street. Christine Lindstrom, because you live on what's your street called again, but there's parking allowed on your street too, right? Butterfield Terrace. Yeah, but there's parking on one side, I believe, right? No, there's no parking, no.  But I mean, one thing I find, like on some of the smaller streets, and even I see this a lot on Blue Hills Road, is that when we do have times when there are cars parked on both sides of the street, which we're having more and more with accessory units and with people running businesses out of their homes and with people getting work done in their homes, I mean, we could not have school buses. You know, we have issues with school buses on our street. We have issues with garbage trucks. The issues are masturbated during the winter, you know, when there's snow and things. And so are there restrictions? Guilford on some of those other neighborhoods that are close to UMass on the North Enda campus? There are restrictions on those. Most of them are parking on either one side or no parking. Okay, so sort of with that in mind, and as I looked at these maps that were presented at the TSO meeting last night, the ones I'm sharing again now, I was looking around this neighborhood and one thing that came up at TSO was sort of the issue about some of the spillover parking. So like one thing to me, right? You have all the red areas, but I was thinking for example, about sunset. So from where I live and close to downtown, if I'm walking to campus, which I do often, right? For me, walking on sunset is just as far away from campus as walking on Lincoln. And so like currently, if you look at this section of sunset, this green section, that's completely unrestricted parking. So, you know, one thing, we weren't asked to consider this by TSO, but just in terms of spillover effects, like would it make sense? And I know that this is something that was in the early version of the proposal that Dorothy Pam and George Ryan were working on. Would it make sense to... I mean, I can't, you know, sunset, when I look at it, it seems narrow, I haven't measured it, but it seems narrower than Lincoln. And so if all of a sudden, if Lincoln parking is restricted, and then again, you know, students are pretty industrious, people are pretty industrious, people may park on sunset more because it's basically the same distance. You know, would it make sense to restrict parking on at least one side of the street on sunset? Because I would hate to get to a situation like where all of a sudden you have cars parking on both sides. And so you have had some spillover and you have transferred the issues from Lincoln to sunset because I feel pretty confident that if parking on Lincoln is restricted more that there will be more people over here. And I had the same sort of question just about Elm Street too. You know, Elm Street only has a couple of driveways on it, but again, like currently, well, the parking is prohibited Monday to Friday, you know, during the day, but why do we have to allow parking on both sides of Elm? I would rather restrict parking on one side of the road upfront and then we won't ever have a situation where there are cars parking on both sides of Elm at off-feet times and then it's harder for cars to get through. So, I mean, those are my, those are my questions to the committee if people agree with that. You know, if we think there's issues, if we restrict on one side of the street. I think that's probably a very salient point. I didn't, I mean, especially Elm and Sunset. Okay. But is... Go ahead, Kim. I think that it seems like, you know, because we are getting toward the end of our meeting, we should as a committee start to come to some kind of consensus.  Along Lincoln, at least as a test, both, you know, mainly for safety reasons. And yeah, there might be spillover in the evenings. I mean, who knows, it's a wildcard with the dorms coming in. But what we do know is that there are real safety issues from between, you know, eight and five. We've all experienced that. And as have the residents. So to me, and this is something we've all, we have discussed in this committee before as well. So that's, I think that's where I'm landing. I would be interested in hearing from other committee members who have, because I think as Stefan was mentioning, you know, the two hour thing, which, you know, I'm not sure who that would necessarily serve. And you're right. I mean, especially with the new dorms coming in, I think we should just try the no parking nine to five. But yeah, Bruce. I would second that. Thank you. If you're making a motion. Yeah, I can. I mean, I can put it in a motion form, but did any other committee members. And Dorothy, just to clarify too, when is the TSO meeting again? Like, when would you be taking this up? We can't hear you. You're muted. I have misplaced my address. Let me go look on the door where I keep a calendar. I'll be right back. So do any other committee members want to chime in while? Well, Christine has Christine Lindstrom has her hand up. Please be heard. I'm a little bit more, I guess, feeling more hardcore and sort of leaning towards just an overall ban and, you know, with concerns about Elm and Sunset as well. And, you know, doesn't mean that the safety issues that occur between eight and five can't happen at other times. So why not just make it safe? But so that said, I guess I would support the ban between eight and five during the academic year, for sure, even though it's not my leaning, it's more of a compromise. And I would just want to, if there's a way to write into our recommendation that it's just, you know, our recommendation maybe stands for a year. And we do want to revisit once the dorms are built and we have some understanding of how, you know, that situation shakes out in terms of impact on the neighborhood because I can see, we just don't know and we might want to react even more, you know, aggressively with parking bans depending on how things work out with the students there. Yeah, I agree with you. So I mean, so one thing is if we do an eight to five ban like a weekday ban, it would be a year-round ban, which I'm okay with that. It would be a year-round ban eight to five. So it sounds like we could make a motion saying, I'm sorry, Christine, press up. Christine, have a hand up. Yeah. I just wanted to note that someone mentioned before that the dorms weren't actually gonna be occupied until the fall of 2024. So do you want to extend your experimental period? 2023, I think. It is 2023. Oh, who said? Sorry, I might have said 2024. I was misspoken. It is 2023. 2023, all right. Right, in one year, yeah. All right, thanks. My apologies. So, but still, you're not gonna get to the dorms being open. Right. Oh, in that one year? No, absolutely. So you should probably go for 18 months or 24 months. And I mean, and also like, as we've noted, it's already an issue now, right? So it's like some people had thought that there wouldn't be a problem that wouldn't have the traffic, but we're still having a lot of that happening. So it's probably won't get better, you know, unfortunately. So Dorothy is asking, has her hand up. Yes, you were asking me when the TSO meeting is now we have a lot of things on the upcoming agendas. I can't swear to it, but we do have a meeting on the 21st of July. And I think we wanted to have this thing ready by the start of the semester. So I think this is not definitive, but there's a very good chance that Lincoln Avenue parking could be on the TSO agenda for July 20. Well, yeah, I mean, what I'm feeling like from our discussions and things is that we could make a motion today and that it would be supported by attack and then I can write up a memo. We wouldn't, the attack would not be meeting again, you know, before the 21st, but I can circulate it as we have done before. If Kim is fine and she can like edit it, we'll keep it short and raise the issues that we've raised. So I would make a motion to say that we support prohibiting parking on Lincoln on that section that Jennifer had requested. The one that's currently allowed, which is the McClellan to Amity section. The East side because the West side, it's already banned. So we would support prohibiting it from eight to five Monday through Friday. And so our motion is we support or, you know, we would recommend to the council that Lincoln Avenue in that section, Monday, Friday, eight to five, parking be prohibited and that parking also be prohibited permanently like 24 seven on one side of sunset from Elm to Amity where it's currently allowed. I would suggest prohibiting it on the East side personally because there's fewer driveways there, but it can be up to the committee. I mean, there's more driveways there and then also on Elm Street on one side. And so, and before we take a vote there, is there any other discussion? Okay. Yes, Christine. Well, just I would, you know, and then as including a revisit after eight months once the dorms are populated, cars are there we can see how, what impact it's having. And that the street is reopened all the way, right? Yep. And Stefan has a comment. Yeah, I'll make this quick. And then what is the force of mechanism for this going to be? I know Gilferty talked about signs, earlier signposts and then it'll be easier long-term maintenance than painting. Is that the way we're leaning even for this trial period with signs? I think that's an excellent point. My suggestion would be it still seems like a lot of labor to me. And so I guess I would not start with that as a first step, but we could put that in our notes that, you know, if it continues to be an issue that that could be something that could be considered in the future. Like how do we notify people? I guess what I'm saying is that like, when this enacts, how do we like? It has to be a sign. Somewhere. Gilford says yes, it has to be a sign just like it is. Oh yeah, no, there would have to be a sign. The signs to prohibit the parking. But oh, I thought you were referring to like the driveways that Gilford offered to sign all of those. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there would have to be a sign and there would also need to be, CSO will need to hold a public hearing. Anytime you're changing on street parking, there needs to be a public hearing. So they would need to hold one later this summer. And property owners should be notified in advance. Like the start of the road, maybe midway and not every driveway, but just hold throughout the road. Okay, got it. And Dorothy, do you have a comment? Yes. The question of the public hearing prompted this. I believe that Lynn said that our last TSO meeting and Andy can use his memory on this. She said, yes, we need a public hearing and that maybe we would wait until UMass was back in session so we could ask them. Do you remember that Andy? Because this is about the timing of the public hearing. So are we gonna wait until UMass is back in session or go ahead and try to do it this summer? I think that the suggestion was as you indicated that the other piece to the public hearing was that it's best to have a concrete proposal to take to the public hearing so that the public knows what it is that is being proposed and can offer their opinions about it. So if I'm correct in my recollection of what you said about that and that is consistent with prior public hearings both on the select board and the council, we would need to clear the notice of course with the, you know, Keith who's the clerk to the council but I think that we also would wanna have agreement on what it is that is the preferred solution so that this committee's input happening promptly certainly would be helpful to move process along regardless of this hearing question. Yeah, I mean, I think it's up to TSO when you hold the hearing. I know when we were, when TAC last summer when we were asked to look at North Pleasant Street at Kendrick Park like it seemed like it would be better to have the public hearing actually when people are back parking on the street, you know, which doesn't happen much over this summer it is the same with Lincoln.  I mean, the only concern I would have but again, it's totally up to the TSO when you have the hearing is that like if we haven't implemented it before school starts again, right? Then beginning in September, like students and whoever else is coming to UMass they get into these patterns and these routines about where they're parking and so on. There is also a lag time in terms of once the council, it goes to the council so that there would be a public hearing it would come back to TSO then it would go from TSO to the council like how far into the fall would it take before you actually could do like any enforcement? I don't know, Guilford, I mean, Guilford in your experience like once, no, but once the council approves it like how long does it take typically to order the signs and get the signs installed typically? We would probably just have the signs sitting on the shelf and here's the radio. And Dorothy. Yes, so the meeting on the 21st we will take to consider tax recommendation. The committee will decide what its position is. I think Andy is correct. Lynn did say this and it makes good sense. And we will firm that up and I can't tell you right now what exactly it will be. But at that point we then can announce the public hearing which would be a meeting in August if we decide to go ahead then. And that same meeting that we have the public hearing we'd have the public hearing then TSO would firm up what its response is after having listened to the public and form its motion that it would send to the council. So that would probably be an early September meeting that it would go to the council. If this is the fastest that we can go. So that the next meeting that we meet we would be considering tax and then making our motion then we would use that when we call our public hearing and combine that public hearing with a meeting in which we make our final decision of what we're going to ask the council to do then the council has to act. And I mean the public can still weigh in like all the way through the process like at the count and also typically right at the council it comes to two council meetings unless you waive that requirement. So it would be I'm saying there would be the month while the students are everybody's back. So people could weigh in one way or another even if they weren't able to attend the public hearing in August when lots of people are on vacation and things. Right. Yeah, cause the council has a desire to not have a town council meeting maybe after the first of August if possible just so that the town staff can take a break. So I do have a question. Do we ever take our motion, Kim? No, but we're in a period of discussion which I understand. Okay, got it. Vote. Jennifer, did you have another comment? I don't know if it's appropriate but no, as Andy said, since it was suggested that we have a specific proposal before a public hearing it would be very helpful to have tax input because just like you just suggested we consider one side of Elm Street and that each side of sunset between Elm and Amity that would be very helpful to have is that then TSO may decide that that would be part of the proposal that's put out to the public before the hearing. So thank you. Okay, and so thank you for that fruitful discussion. Can Tracy reiterate the motion please? Okay, I will reiterate. So the main point of our motion was that we would recommend the following to the council that the parking on Lincoln between McClellan on the west side of sorry, on the east side of Lincoln between McClellan and Amity be prohibited Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. That the parking on sunset on the east side of sunset be prohibited between Elm and Amity like all of the time and the same with Elm Street, one side of Elm Street be prohibited all the time and that also that the accounts that this come back for reconsidering out for to revisit after the interim period after the dorms are open and Lincoln is fully open again at Mass Ave within like an 18 to 24 month period. Great, okay. So with that motion all and the previous discussion all those in favor on the committee please vote and that is a unanimous. Okay, so that's five to zero, great. No percent, so great. And so we passed that motion of restricting parking on Lincoln. All right, thank you. Now I know that we're almost at seven and we typically try to end after 90 minutes. We don't have the meeting scheduled again for a whole month I don't really want to keep our meeting going very long I know people are very busy but if there aren't any priority items people want to bring up. I guess I was mainly interested just to see Christine and I are working on the safe routes to school information and I would like to wrap up whatever we're going to do whatever we're going to submit to the schools back by August. Would it make sense for, I mean could the TAC have like a working meeting or a subcommittee meeting? We do have to discuss that through people feel comfortable with that. Could we do that on the 21st? On the 21st of July? I know Kim you're not available then. Of July? Yeah of July. I mean how do people feel about that or? I'm available. I mean the other option could be that Christine and I just work on it and we circulated around and Kim or somebody collects comments and we don't need to meet. I mean it doesn't directly involve TAC you know it's more about the schools but we because you've been part of the previous discussions so. We do want to have some on-point recommendations and it would be helpful to have the group to do that. You know just to and then that helps us encourage the school district to move in a certain direction around you know improving signs and lines and other kinds of. So like Gilford are you available on July 21st if we do have it to you? I mean a TAC meeting that day? Not simply. Okay I know that we had some questions for you too so. Yeah that's true. Or we could maybe have the meeting like a different day that week if you were available. Would any I mean so we can. Right now I'm available. Okay great thank you. I'll say remember it has to be posted even though. No we understand we understand yeah. Yeah. So Gilford if we're doing it as a subcommittee meeting that we don't need to have like four members present. Is that correct? No but you just still have to. No we need to post it I understand yeah. And so I think if we were I feel good doing that meeting on the 21st and we'll just have that one main agenda item to focus on the safe routes to school and we'll try to keep it short. And we will as Gilford said we will advertise it. And now Gilford can you just I admit this or Andy can you just clarify too like what I missed as part of the last council meeting about what are the rules currently with continuing remote meetings beyond July has that legislature taken any action on this? Yeah. Someone somebody who knows seems to have heard. I can tell you Christine yeah. One of the two houses I think it's the Senate has taken action allowing remote meetings to go on through December of 2023 but I believe it has to go back to the house to be voted on and then it has to go to the governor. So that's my understanding of the situation. Actually the house passed something but it is a very different and more comprehensive proposal than the Senate so that the difficulty of trying to conference between the two chambers is going to actually be more complicated and really press that deadline pretty hard. And is the current deadline the end of this month is that correct? That's the middle of the month's 15th. The middle of the month like what next week? Yes and that's what the problem is. And I think that we really have no idea I don't know if Jennifer's heard anything different but I think we have no idea how long that process will take and what the meaning is for those of us in Amherst because we just heard this news today and typically we hear through the town manager and the town attorney about these kinds of issues. And at this point we're sort of at a loss ourselves as to what to schedule because I'm trying to schedule a joint finance committee and council meeting for the 19th and I just sent off something this afternoon to Athena saying maybe we're gonna have to post it both ways and hope that we get clarity and can stay with a virtual meeting but we needed to do something. Yeah, I mean, so for TAC for the 21st I would be fine if our subcommittee needs to be in person either way works but I mean, Guilford, can we check about like if there's a space that we could use at Town Hall or something if we did need to meet in person? It will just be a few of us. We could even meet in one of the smaller spaces like one time we met in that room in the bank center or something if we had to do it that way. That'd be great if we could just check on that, okay? And then just the one last item I would, and then we do, we are planning to have, assuming we are allowed to go back to remote meetings to have a meeting the first Thursday in August which is August 4th and if the TSO has anything more for us or anything and we'll continue with some of these other items. The one last thing I was interested in for this meeting just if we had, if Guilford just had a moment because there had been discussion just about potentially hiring an intern who could work on the network's maps. So I just wanted to see if Guilford had any update on that because, so do you have any update on that Guilford? Yes. Okay, great. Update. We met with the young lady and she actually gave us a proposal to do the work. Oh, great. So we'll probably look it over and then go from there. All right, great. Okay. Now do we still need to, I mean, is the information that she would need to be able to work on the maps? Is it already like put together and available or does that need to be pulled together? It's all over the place. Including the notes. Okay, okay. All right, thanks. So I'm, before the last meeting and I know she had read, you know, I've been in emailing her and you as well, as well as Mike Warner who's the GIS coordinator but I had gone through and like I had checked on which meetings we talked about it. I think there were like five or six meetings in early 2021 that we went through it. So, I mean, as a last resort, if we had to, we could always go back to, now that we have recorded meetings, we could always go back to that and revisit that. But so, but it would be great to get her on board because I know that she is a grad student, right? And she's starting a new graduate program in the fall and the summer is going quickly. So, great. So if there's anything we can do to help facilitate that getting underway, that would be awesome. So please let us know. Okay. Okay, thanks. Okay, that was my main, did anybody else? I know we're at 706. Does anybody else have any other items? Sure. I move to adjourn. Thank you. All those in favor. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Take care. Good night.


People in general shouldn't have to go to school afraid kids shouldn't have to walk the streets afraid There's no reason for these senseless gun laws that could be fixed with a simple vote When you're registering people to vote, it's not about part of your issue It's getting people engaged right and getting people excited and so I think it's really important for everyone to have their voices heard regardless of Opinion or like what they're passionate about because there's this saying democracy only works when it works for everyone and It's not working for everyone if people feel disenfranchised if people aren't turning out to vote And so our hope is that everyone turns out to vote and everyone gets engaged because then we have a truly functioning democracy


In 2020, there was a significant drop in the number of children visiting the emergency department for fevers, but the severity of their illnesses increased significantly. This required more medical attention than before, leading to higher rates of hospitalization and respiratory virus testing. This article was authored by Jean Au-Kim, Myeong-Hai Sun, and Miran Park.


Coming up on the Sporting Chef. So today on the show, I'm getting out of the kitchen and out on the water, one of my favorite places in the universe. But that's not all. We've also got Susie Jimenez, Brad Benson, Melissa Bachman, C-Dub, and that other guy. The state's north of here in South Carolina, but my family spent a lot of time in South Carolina. We had a place in Myrtle Beach until either Myrtle Beach outgrew us or we outgrew Myrtle Beach. It's a bit more of a younger town now.  Now, I started working with the South Carolina Waterfell Association about 20 years ago. There were only two buildings here. I did a wild game cooking school. One of the hardest jobs I've had, basically it was nonstop. People would show up early afternoon. We would cook a bunch of different game. Then I'd cook them dinner. Then the next morning I had a gal, Sandra, who would cook them breakfast. And then we would have a fish cooking school and then the next group would come in. And basically I just wore out a path between my cabin and the cooking school here. But, isn't it funny how things work out? The guy, David Waliki, who you're gonna meet shortly, introduced me to these other guys. And next thing I know, I'm on TV, go figure, not a well-planned career path. Now, South Carolina Waterfell Association has grown tremendously since then. It's a group effort that's spearheaded by David Waliki. Behind me, this is gonna be set up for a whole bunch of people.  We've got oysters, there's all sorts of food. It's not just me. And tomorrow morning is the hunt. But first I want you to check out Susie Jimenez. And now I know I'm not supposed to play favorites. No, your parents say don't play favorites, but you know they always had a favorite. Susie just happens to be mine.  But you gotta make sure when you have it, you have to have it traditionally. I think I've talked to a lot of Latinas and Latinos about this. When you have a taco, it's gotta have its toppings. When you have a torta, it's gotta be a certain way. Otherwise, you're gonna have a really, really bad experience. So, we got tortas today. And you can't just have your bun with meat on it. You gotta have the traditional toppings. So we use a Western slow cooker. And when I do that, I tend to cook a lot of the meat in advance, so I don't have to do this over and over and over. So we got a little bit of venison. Just gonna cook it all off, right, from the little, like, pouch. And we're gonna put the bun right down on that fat.  So you're gonna notice the beautiful marks on this, right? It's nice and golden brown. You know what, guys? Everything in moderation. You can't always have greasy tortas, but sometimes you gotta have them. And a torta's not a torta without this. So it's time to assemble. This is the best part. I get really, really excited about this because you gotta add all these ingredients to it. I'm gonna grab my plate and I'm gonna show you how to do this. Now, while that's still getting crispy, I do wanna give you this important tip. Try to pickle some onions. And when I think about pickling, a lot of people think you have to pickle them overnight. My mom does this really, really fast. You get some white onions, pour some oregano on top of there, apple cider vinegar. And really what you're trying to do is just incorporate the flavor, but you don't want it to be pickled too much. So while this is pickling, we're gonna start assembling our torta, right? So we got the bottom part of our bun. We're gonna add some crema. And you guys can go with mayonnaise if you guys want. You can flavor your crema if you want with some chipotas. Now it's gonna keep it nice and simple. And we're gonna put some tomatoes on there. Lettuce. And power. Gatane, which is our meat. Oh yeah, guys. You're gonna send me a lot of emails about this. You're gonna be very appreciative of how delicious this is. So simple, but so good, right? And yes, it's going all over the plate. Because guess what?  Oh yeah. And now we got the onions. And they go right on top. Make sure you get a little bit of that oregano in there. Man, this thing just got giant, right? And then we're gonna top this guy off. Yeah, this is the love torta. You guys, have fun making this. Make sure you put all the ingredients I showed you.  We'll see you guys next time on The Sporting Chef. Camp what it started in 1995. They had over 1,100 campers last year and they hope to have 2,500 this year with their expansion. My own son's been here a couple of times when he was younger and he still talks about how much fun he had. My wife sent him with soap, toothpaste, and a toothbrush, none of which were ever used. When I picked him up after camp, he couldn't stay awake to the end of the driveway and when I got him to a hotel room, I sent him to the shower and went ahead and threw his clothes away. No reason for them to make the trip back wet. Camp Leopold is a school year camp that teaches kids about land and natural resource conservation. Put the phones, tablets, and laptops away. It's time to learn firsthand what nature is all about. To learn more about how to get your son or you involved with the great happenings at Camp Woody, check out scwa.org. More to come from South Carolina, Brad Fenson, Melissa Bachman, C-Dub, and Buddy Topher. So one of the things that I do around the country is I do these little presentation demonstration type things and tonight, for the opening night, night before opening day of waterfowl season, second half in South Carolina, I'm here at South Carolina Waterfowl Association and I've got a whole bunch of stuff. I've got deer, duck, wild turkey, antelope, and a whole bunch of fish. And the whole plan is to cook it really quickly. It's not a cooking school, it's an eating school. And the reason that I cut everything up into one or two bite pieces is, as I'm doing the demo, as I'm cooking this stuff, I wanna do it as fast as I can so that I'm not spending a whole lot of time chopping stuff up. It's already chopped, it's user-friendly, and again, these guys don't really care about how it gets to them as long as it gets to them. It's about eating and having a great time here at South Carolina Waterfowl. Next up is a guy who hunts and fishes and cooks more than anyone I know, Brad Vincent. Well, we're continuing with Deer Camp this week and we've got some incredible yearling, whitetail dough to cook up. We're gonna try to eat up the whole deer while we're in camp this week. Today we're gonna do some backstraps and tenderloins and we're gonna have one of the landowners over for dinner so we wanna do it up nice. Of course, we don't always have everything we want when we're in camp, it's not like home where we have a cupboard full of goodies or too much stuff. So I have to do some searching and we made up a nice little marinade here. We've got some olive oil, lemon juice, some seasoned pepper, soy sauce, and some sriracha. And then I chopped up a couple cloves of garlic too to put it in there. So that should give it lots of flavor and a bit of moisture and we're gonna do it up on the pellet grill later tonight. With our marinade, we want to use the olive oil and stuff because it'll help brown it up when it's on the grill tonight. You can see how nice and clean that is, but you don't wanna overpower it with flavor. We wanna be able to taste that deer. All right, we've prepped our backstraps and tenderloins this afternoon with the hopes that we'd get a deer today and we did, we got another nice Montana whitetail buck hanging in the tree outside which would give us more great eating for the rest of the week. Now it's time to get these bad boys on the Camp Chef pellet grill. I'm gonna put the tenderloins up top to keep a close eye on them to ensure proper cooking, insert thermometer probe. There we go. Now we can monitor the temperature and make sure everything's done perfectly. All right, we're making a fruit sauce to go with our deer backstraps. Lots of people would make a wine reduction or some type of gravy or you can even stuff your roast and stuff with different fruit and vegetables, onions, but we're gonna actually use some green grapes and if you've had Chardonnay wine or a wine reduction with meat, you'll understand why the grapes would work well whether they're green or red. This is what we have in here, Cam, so we're just gonna cook these down a little bit. All right, we've cooked those grapes and you can see they're kind of turned opaque. We're gonna add about a quarter cup of sugar and about a quarter cup of whiskey. You can use bourbon or dry whiskey or even some rum if you wanted but the whiskey works very well. All right, we've finished up our backstraps out on the grill, a little bit of smoke, done perfectly, extremely tender and then I'll just grab some of that fruit and whiskey reduction over the top. There it is, a little bit of the sauce. There it is, fresh whitetail right from deer camp. It's well before sunup on opening day and the hunters all gather around to get information about how today's hunt's gonna go and to get a safety briefing. One of the overall goals of South Carolina Waterfowl is to teach young people the importance of gun safety. My plan is to head out a little later after everyone else has left their blinds. Where each group is hunting is determined by the SCWA staff. Everything here is like a well-oiled machine and each party is accompanied by a trained guy. You know, listening to the sound of shotgun blasts and watching ducks fall from the sky is a beautiful thing. I'm hoping there are a few left when I go out with my friends David Walecki and Charlie Roundtree soon. So, you know, we're very fortunate to have Melissa Bachman from Winchester Deadly Passion right here on The Sporting Chef Show and here she is. Absolutely love hunting whitetails from a ground blood. Your eye level with the deer, you've got great shot opportunities and it can be amazing when you're out decoying them. But one of the things that you really need to keep in mind is scent control when you're on the ground.  This includes your release, your clothing, your backpack and also your ground blood. One of the things a lot of people forget is they put up a ground blood and they wonder why deer always notice that the ground blind is there. First, you need to make sure that you're really taking a lot of time to blend that ground blind in and brush it in. Once you've got it all brushed in, I like to take a bottle of scent killer gold and thoroughly spray down that entire blind. This way you don't have any of that smell from the blind and also do your chairs as well. It can make a big difference and the last thing I like to do, well, if you're hunting during the rut, I like to put a decoy out in front of my blind. What that decoy does is take all the deer's attention and focus it right to the decoy. With that said, you need to make sure you're also spraying your decoy down and using attractant scents as well. I like to hang key wicks around the area and also put some scent right at the decoy's hawks. When you combine all these things together, you can find great success out hunting out of a ground blind for whitetails and hopefully have some deer riding clothes. You know, we're just barely getting started. Coming up next, we've got C-Dub and Buddy and a whole lot more right here on The Sporting Chef. Welcome back to The Sporting Chef. Now it's time for me to shoot a duck or two.  Sun was in my eyes. He's just shooting us now. What? Well, these are the shells that David says you can't miss with. I mean, they're six shots. All right. That one slowed down for me. That was a can of corn. Right here, right. Too far behind that. Sorry, guys. Just dropped his leg. Is he down? He's down. Huh? Did he go down? Scotty, I knew you killed him. I never doubted you. You had him all the way. Yeah. No, good girl. Good girl, Pat. Good girl. Uh-huh. He did make you up. Yeah, yeah. All right, one more of those. All right, this next guy, C-dub. He does it all. Game warden, truck driver, cast iron expert, had his own show on PBS, and we got him now. Here's C-dub. It's always nice to have something in your pack to give you that quick boost of energy or just to have something to eat without going down and buying stuff from the store that's full of preservatives and who knows what. So we're gonna make what we call apple butter bars. We've got some oats, sugar, and a little flour, a little salt in here. We've melted a bunch of butter, and we're just going to mix this up so we want about half of our mixture in our Dutch oven. And I'm just going to press this out in a nice layer. We want to use one whole jar of this and about half of the other one. Make that layer of apple butter over my bottom layer. Kind of sprinkle it with my hands and then we'll pat it down and bake these. Our charcoal is just about ready. Okay, we're ready to go. Apple butter bars headed for the Dutch or for the fire pan. Now I can tell by the smell that our apple butter bars are ready. So let's take a quick look. Our apple butter bars are ready. We're going to let them cool for four to five hours and then we'll cut them. They'll be ready to go putting your backpack. I'm telling you, I'm sold in the ring. I'm still not going to shoot them at home but I'm sold on them here.  Come on, I got this boy, I know what I got with you. Oh, sorry, Jimmy, I got him. That's it. Just trying to get to you. That is a beautiful, great canvas bite. Look at that, the king of ducks, baby. That's you, man, that's you. Yeah, baby. So if you do miss considering how many ducks you shoot every year, you got to feel really bad about yourself, don't you? I don't want to out-shoot my guests. I try to purposely miss. When I miss, it's usually I'm her. I know you said that you shot that last duck but I noticed the dog had moved. Is that an indication? Is he waiting for him to pile up or what? Oh, you know, Ty doesn't like to hug the camera. So I'm talking to the lady. She is a lady. She's going to wait for you to stop talking and then she'll say, now it's coming. I think you should shoot them or get them. Come in on the left, get him. It's my birthday tomorrow. You think I ought to be able to shoot one duck? They should give you one on your birthday, an extra. Bonus bird? Bonus bird, man. You know, buddy's no stranger to shooting ducks. I've been with buddy shooting ducks in Mexico and Texas. And as much as it hurts me to say it, he doesn't miss all that much. Here's buddy. I can't tell you how much of that pimento cheese I eat. A little earlier, I went and videoed smoking these jalapenos. These are some big monster ones on that smoke wall. Well, this is what I ended up doing with it. That's jack cheese, some miracle whip, and then I put about a dozen of those seeded smoked jalapenos in there. And I know people say, oh, miracle whip, miracle whip, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I tell you, if you don't use miracle whip, then what you wanna do is put some sweet pickle relish in there.  It's all good. The other one is extra sharp cheddar. I use mayonnaise in there with this one. The other thing I put was chipotle peppers. You can see how it spreads on there. Nice little spread. I think this one here, I think that's gonna be good with some pasta. All right, we're on to something different next time. Coming up next, we've got a big announcement, so don't go anywhere, unless it's to get a glass of Michael David wine. So, welcome back to the show, and I mentioned that there was gonna be a big announcement, and that announcement is that the Dead Meat show is back. It'll be back this fall. We've got a bunch of new shows. We're going to some very cool places to meet some interesting people and harvest critters that you don't normally think about eating. Special thanks today to the South Carolina Waterfowl Association and Dave Wallicki. Big, big deal. Love this place. I've been a big supporter for years. As I mentioned, my son went to camp here, and the things that they've done for this area are just, it's hard to describe how good this organization is. Also, the other people that participated in the show, we've got Susie Jimenez, Brad Fenson, Melissa Bachman, Cedub, and as always, Buddy, and we appreciate you supporting our sponsors because without them, well, I wouldn't be duck hunting here today. I'm Scott Laceff, the sporting chef, and we will see you next time.