We have a couple things we need to do before we officially call the meeting to order So this evening we have one counselor attending via remote participation Therefore let the record reflect that the board That the I'm sorry council member Andy Steinberg is attending remotely via speakerphone for the meeting of August 26 2019 because it would be Unreasonably difficult which is permissible under 940 CMR 29.00 Andy. Can you hear me? Andy? Can you hear me? Andy, can you hear us? Worked five minutes ago Andy We have just notified the public that you are participating remotely Can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay Let the record reflect that member counselor Andy Steinberg's attendance via speakers Speakerphone can be heard by all present at the meeting All votes taken during a meeting with a remote participation shall be by roll call vote Therefore all votes for all votes the town clerk will ask for individual votes if technical difficulties arise at as a result of you Utilizing remote participation We will suspend discussion until reasonable efforts are made to correct the problem if remote participation is Disconnected that fact in time of disconnection and if subsequent Reconnection is achieved shall be noted in the meeting minutes the clerk of the council will indicate that the counselor participating remotely wishes to speak Remote counselors are to speak by stating your name You will acknowledge be acknowledged, but would not speak until called upon usual time limits apply All right seen therefore that we have a quorum of the town council members present I call the meeting of the town council to order at 639 Welcome all this meeting is being broadcast live and being recorded by Amherst media copies of the agenda are projected on the screen. We will review the timeline in a moment and They are also posted in advance of the meeting along with the other materials If you are interested in speaking during the meeting Please sign the sheet at the back of the room and I will explain later when there will be public comment Okay, just a few announcements We'd like to start out with mr. Barry Roberts coming forward Along with Gabriel Gould Yes, you do My name is Barry Roberts. I'm president of the Amherst business improvement district And I'm here tonight to introduce you to our new executive director Gabriella Hi, my name is Gabrielle Gould Thrilled to be joining the Amherst bid Oh, I think I did yep I Officially started today, but I have been in the office for a week. I'm getting to know the board members better few of our community members and it is my Intention to get to know all of you So I'm going to email you all to our morning and find out when we can get together one-on-one or a couple of us Coffee lunch just to sit down in your office or my office. I moved here from Nantucket in January I'm thrilled to be here. My family chose Amherst We looked all over the United States from California to upstate New York to Manhattan To the Carolinas and Amherst kept calling us back one of the reasons why Amherst really Struck home was friends inviting us to come to the block party last year We hadn't moved yet and one of the things I was afraid of leaving Nantucket was the sense of community The Halloween's on the Main Street strolls You know things like that and the block party absolutely Reinstated what an incredible community this is the five colleges and I'm really looking forward to getting to know and support the local downtown business owners Thank you. Welcome to you and your family and we look forward to working with you. Thank you. That's with you great We want to just mention a few meetings that are coming up on September 5th at 7 o'clock There'll be a joint meeting of the finance committee and the joint capital planning committee That has also been posted as a committee of the whole for the council on September 9th and on September 23rd The council will have its regular meetings in this room at 6 30 on September 17th There will be a joint meeting of the council with the school committee for the purposes of hearing the Fort River School study That will be in this room at 6 o'clock and on September 21st at 9 o'clock a.m. I'm going to approximately to the town council will have a retreat It is open to the public and will be posted as to where that will be at a later time We are going to move to our public hearing and Let me just say this is regarding the installation on the conduit on South Pleasant Street and a transformer on the South Common This has been requested by Eversource for permission to install an underground Conduit duct bank across South Pleasant Street a block approximately 60 feet south Sutherley of the centerline of Spring Street and a pad Mounted transformer on the South Common approximately 48 feet Easterly of the centerline of South Pleasant Street and 60 feet Sutherley of Spring Street We have someone here from Eversource. Please come forward The hearing is now officially open Massachusetts General Laws 166 section 22 requires that the council hold a public hearing on the petition of any utility provider to construct or locate Poles conduits or underground wires for the transmission of electricity. This hearing is on obviously August 26th 2019 It's based on a petition of Eversource to install as I've mentioned the various conduits and the additional Mounted transformer Notice of this public hearing was published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on August 19th 2019 and is required by statue written notice of the time and place of the hearing was mailed by the town clerk on August 8th 2019 to all owners of a budding real estate the department a public works has recommended approval of this petition and Reminds the petitioner that a street opening permit must be obtained prior to commencing work Do you have a presentation at this time? I can speak a little bit to the project just to get everyone up to speed so the purpose of this transformer is Kind of two-fold The first would be to allow us to abandon an underground bolt That's located on Pleasant Street. If you look on the drawing there on the left-hand side. You'll see that Kind of teal M in a box that indicates a manhole. So just north of that. There's actually in the sidewalk There's some submersible transformers. It's essentially a graded area On the sidewalk that houses some transformers that are underground We like to move away from those One they interfere with the sidewalk and it's kind of beautification and They're not the most reliable. So this will increase our reliability by installing this new transformer on the green Secondly, this will allow us to move on for the Spring Street project, which is to relocate those overhead lines underground and in order to proceed with that we need to create what's called a loop and That creates a contingency in case capable Basically instead of having a line of power you have a circle. So if it goes out somewhere you can feed it the other way But we'll probably have another hearing for that at a later date Additionally this transformer, there's already one there There's a single phase pad mount transformer this petition is to take out the existing transformer and Add a new larger transformer Also To make this work. We're going to need to install the duck bank which you spoke to our goal there is to put pipe underground to protect the wire and We like to use what's called horizontal directional drilling which would allow us to Install the conduit without affecting the street above. So there'd be Ideally no road closure during the project There are several phases to a hearing. The first is the opportunity for counselors to ask questions There's also an opportunity for the public to ask questions and to speak in favor of and to opposition of Are there questions from the council at this time? Yes, I'm sorry Dorothy Two questions for clarification on Spring Street. Are you replacing over headlines with underground lines or is it just Adding power to what's under an underground The goal of the Spring Street project is to move the overhead lines completely underground All right, so so that would that would be it could be looked at as a beautification thing by somebody besides ever source, correct? I mean it's gonna that's gonna look better That's an ethical call, but I would say yes So then my second question is about the above ground transformer, which is not beautiful Is it possible that it could be in some kind of small structure that could be more attractive? I Think we've spoken about possibly planting some sort of vegetation around it to kind of disguise it and Create a beautiful area around it, but we can't Kind of like I spoke to on South Pleasant Street. We don't want to bury anything because There's a lot of problems associated with it when this type of equipment it needs to sit above ground So I think if we can't can it be with in a little house. That's the question I don't think it could be in a house because That would probably create some issues if someone had to access it in an emergency situation I think probably the best bet would be either to a paint it Maybe some sort of mural or art project or be probably just plants some some shrubs around it But I'm not a aesthetic tition That's the tition so I might want to ask somebody else are there additional questions and comments from the council. Yes, Mandy Joe Could you my understanding is it could go underground? It doesn't have to be above ground, but ever source prefers an above ground transformer So can you explain to me in more detail? Why sure so this is kind of our plan B Our first plan was actually to add another transform to the green But we don't want to add more equipment to the green so our second plan is to replace the existing transform of the green and If that were to fail then the volt that I described it was in the sidewalk on South Pleasant Street We'd have to try to work with that but It's not the ideal situation, you know your We have transformers underneath the public walkway. There's greats there that in the winter months can be a hazard And it's much more prone to a fault. So we're trying to abandon those if possible So it's not that we would put this one underground it'd be we'd have to try to figure out a way to use that existing vault Underground volt that's on South Pleasant Street Additional questions Dorothy When you're talking about the one under the sidewalk is this in New York City There was a situation where there was some electrical thing under the sidewalk and dogs were getting shocks in the winter When there was salt on the sidewalk and snow is that the kind of thing you were talking about? If there's faulted cable under there, I suppose there could be I don't know that exact situation So I can't really speak to that but It's it's not a situation that we're ever going to use going forward So we're whenever we see an opportunity to replace it such as this we're gonna try to And did you So it seems really big six feet tall as three times as tall as what's already there You didn't provide dimensions for how deep it is you provided the width of five feet a height of six, but how Deep is that picture because it's really hard to determine anything in terms of Dimensions with that is it two is it three is it four? It's about three feet deep Kathy did you have a question? Yeah it's building on both of those the size and then for the part that's going underground on It's ever sourced paying for the digging and the repair of the surface area Ideally there's not going to be much impact to the surface area due to the horizontal directs a little drilling technique Which allows us to essentially bore under the road without impacting it but any Damage that I guess could accrue during the construction phase then yes, we would we provide and would it I Attended one of the meetings of the building that's being proposed to be added to spring street And they were showing utility poles going up in front of it And they actually did a drawing where they didn't exist and people were saying what they do exist Are those poles going to disappear or is that also telephone lines that I'm looking at? The poles are going to disappear if that project goes forward as designed And so this would at ever sources expense put that wiring under the ground Yes, I believe it's the developers paying a fraction of that cost ever source a fraction of that cost and actually part of this project was to my knowledge is Ten years old to put existing conduit underground I don't know if you could bring up minutes from that time meeting ten years ago But this project I think was birthed like ten years ago, I believe So we'd have to look into that I'm not sure about the finances of the of that part. Okay, and I want to go back to these large structures We're looking at you know when I I don't think I've ever seen anything like that in various other urban areas So you look over in North Hampton. I don't remember seeing one at the corner of the street So is this atypical of the way you would put in transformers? In an urban area You know where there are sidewalks people walking around homes This is very typical. I mean we try to not have them out in the open if possible, but With the existing conditions of of the green And the fact that there's already a transformer there. This is you know realistically the best option So if there hadn't been a transformer there already, how would you have done it? If there wasn't a transformer there, then we'd probably have to a petition to add one or be Work with that vault described earlier. So there's already that those transformers that are beneath the sidewalk And there's other locations in downtown Amherst where those exist as well Steve So my first question is really for us that shouldn't we have a site visit for something like this? I mean, I I'm almost tempted to suggest that we can that we recess and just go look out the window But it just this just seems like We're dealing with things and We're dealing with things that with the built environment. I think that that practice would be you know would be useful But then so so Google Street view as my friend. So there's a number of boxes and things that are on the You know on the common that we probably have become invisible to us. I totally agree that study that six feet tall Starts to become less invisible and the more you try to make it invisible the more visible it becomes so if you start planting this or muralizing this Like I'm trying to think that Emily Dickinson mural portrait. That's probably a four feet tall Transformer, you know something like that so Yeah Those are kind of my questions, but I have the same concern about the size of it. You had me on option three I have to confess that you showed your hand at option three Well, I'm just I'm here to give information. I'm not here to disguise information. So, okay. Yes, Paul Thank you. So Ever source met with with town staff and DPW was comfortable in terms of the technology and they supported the looping of the Electrical lines, which is important for resiliency in the downtown staff had concerns about the trade-off of burying Poles on Spring Street in exchange for a large structure on the town common in my mind it was taking a Putting a large structure on our most important piece of land to bury power lines on a Secondary Street in essence no offense to Spring Street So so but one of the things we struggled with is that while this is required It's a town council thing They would also need to go through the design review board and the historical commission to place something on the common But rather than direct ever source to go through that process I thought it was important for them to hear from the council whether you even wanted something on the common to begin With I wouldn't want to put them through these two hearings to come back and you have you say We just don't want something on the common and if the council is going to consider something on the common Then I think it would make sense to refer to your CRC committee who can do the site visit and Do the kind of bring back a recommendation to the full council? I think you know as ever for said there are alternatives to placing this structure on the common It is to keep it in the existing vault that they have Or a place at some place else either in the public way or on private property Even in the boat and the on the road someplace where you know on the sidewalk. It's Our concern has been that placing something on the historic town common Is should be the last resort for such a facility? Thank you Alyssa As we continue to learn how to do things a new way I'm concerned that this came to us at all without any sort of preface to it I appreciate that it has the required components from ever source. No Shade on you guys. You're totally doing the thing you need to do But we needed as a town council an introduction that included what mr. Backelman just said before I got here tonight So that I would have be better prepared to answer questions associated with it. So I We need context and we have done these having been part of a board that used to do these They were usually very minor. It was no big thing. There were a couple times We argued about where polls were et cetera, but we always had a recommendation from DPW and so this one being Especially egregious. There's no recommendation from DPW in here And there's no preface that I really appreciate that mr. Backelman just gave us Saying this is why there's no preface in because we're going we're doing the thing we have to do But we expected there might be more questions. I have to admit I assume this was just a We only got this information, you know Wait before the weekend like always and so I assume ever source poll hearing whatever I didn't look into this until this afternoon And if we'd gotten some sort of preface from staff who can do that expression of opinion to the rest of us That would have been really helpful. I do want to suggest that one of our options is to Delay our decision and have more conversation. Are there any other questions from the council? I I'm going to step out of my role as president and just say I think it's ugly I don't think it belongs in our town common and we are in fact the keepers of the public way. I Appreciate your goal in making the rest Beautiful, but if it's at the expense of the town you will hear me oppose it Now may I have see if there's any public questions? at this time any public Speaking in favor of any public speaking in opposition Okay, then we're back to any further council discussion before we close the hearing and then move to whatever action we decide to take Alyssa so The being that this is a new variation of this I don't know if we actually do want to close the hearing or not And I think that's what mr. Shriver was also going to speak to and so I guess I've looked to mr. Bakerman for timing issues associated with that Mr. Bakerman Is there an issue of timing so ever source would like to do the construction this fall and there's a day of a certain deadline When they would have to do the construction before the ground freezes I believe you can comment on that your time frame typically in November is when And you work that affects roadways shuts down until the pavement plans open up Okay Is there any other questions from the council discussion? Oh Yes, Mandy just so that would allow us to keep the hearing with that timeline We could probably keep the hearing open till at least our next meeting and make a decision maybe then without necessarily affecting Depending on what that decision is construction Is that there may also be additional public comment at that time is there any other question from the council? Yes, I'm sorry Evan designer view board and historical commission are the other two so I want it it the latest This could be done is perhaps November, but this is the first of three bodies that has to go before so I Don't want us to feel as though we can push this off until like October And I also consider that there are other bodies that will be looking at this for those particular aspects of design and also historical appropriateness Alyssa So I was gonna follow up not at just wondering if in staff conversations They determined oh well historical can look at at this point DRB can look at this point Just so we'd have a sense of that But then also I think that it's probably appropriate again It's being new for us to make some sort of statement to those bodies saying Well, we had a number of questions and misgivings so that they're not just walking in cold looking at the same thing and not knowing What our conversation was I think we should communicate that not just depend on staff to do it I also got the impression from what you said, mr. Bachman that You didn't see any reason to advance it to the design and So forth if we were opposed Right that you If you don't want it on your land you should tell ever source We're not interested in this on our land rather than go go and design something that we're gonna say no to anyway And we sort of struggled with this a little bit like should they have gone through design review and historical Commission first and then come to you But then the I wasn't I didn't know that I couldn't read the council as to whether you were gonna say no matter What it looked like we were gonna say no to it So why'd you go through all that work? So we were sort of in a chicken and egg situation and felt And ever source had the right to file a petition with the town clerk, which they did and then that generated this public hearing Okay, Steve. So as we're we're still done in the airplane, right? So the design review board is advisory so they don't make this they advise other bodies most most typically the ZBA or the Planning board and I guess the the old select board. So in this case, I would assume that they're advising the town council so it would be Even if it goes to the design review board, it would have to come back We would have to choose to adopt whatever recommendations they make or not or have our substitute our own recommendations And the historic historical I'm like I can't remember which one it is Same right. They're also advisory in this case or they're not a final decision maker there. Are they advising other bodies? I believe historical commission has the right to say no to this project Okay, so but at least in the case of the DRB they're making recommendations, then I guess to his door the committee on history And to us so DRB would advise that the town council Are there any of the discussion points for the council before we close the hearing and move to some kind of motion Shalini So seeing the kind of conversation that's taking place here. Could you consider coming back with alternative locations? That could be part of our next reiteration of conversations Yeah, we can come back at a future date and see if there's any alternatives, but this is We're already kind of going down the list of alternatives and In my opinion, this is our best option And if I could just have the floor for a minute, I'm not sure if that's part of the protocol Yes, I just I had a question on the town's petition process as a whole Because I was only impression that when Ever source originally petitioned to have a transformer on the green. I'm not sure when that was but you know for the existing Transformer that that gave The utility the right to upgrade that Structure in the future so if we could maybe find something in writing on your end to maybe clarify Because it's not like I'm applying for a new structure on the green here. This is essentially a modification to an existing Transformer I Think that's additional information that should be brought forth to the council. Let me also say we can always change our mind Yes, I just because we said yes For a little thing doesn't mean that that means we are automatically in for a big thing It's like, you know inviting the camel into the tent. I mean you just I think that's not a good basis So I hope that you can find another place that will work because we do want this to work, okay? Yeah, absolutely I'm not trying to impose anything, but I was curious what kind of protections utilities have if We go into an agreement thinking we can install a piece of equipment and that we will have access to maintain it or improve upon it in the future and then a Future government decides, you know, we're not going to do that anymore We will ask the town clerk or the clerk of the council to try to find the previous rulings on that Thank you And I will I will look into some alternatives and when I come back. Maybe we can have another discussion Andy Joe So I would like to keep the hearing open instead of closing it as you say But I want to make sure even if we do that can we as a council still make recommendations in case the council decides it Wants a DRB Opinion or something. I just don't know but I think it's wise to keep the hearing so in other words I would call a recess on the hearing and then we can Do whatever we want Paul so you would continue the hearing to date certain a continuation on the hearing and I think we should do it to September 9th Okay, does that need to be a motion? Yes. Yes All right, I'll move to continue the hearing till September 9th at 6 30 p.m. Is there a second? Seconded by Kathy Shane Is there any further discussion? Alyssa, I don't want to vote on this until I find out what it is that we think we'll learn between now and September 9th I want to know I totally appreciate the idea of not on the one hand We could just vote no tonight But on the other hand if we keep it open What will change between now and then because they're not going to go back and come up with an alternate location Because they have to do a new notice legal notice to do that. So unless they're just going to make this smaller There's not a lot of options they have in terms of this and if we find out that We did give them carte blanche to do whatever they want and that is a piece of information We can't argue about it either exists or it doesn't exist And so I'm not sure what we're gonna learn by keeping the hearing open And I'm just trying to understand what so that when we vote and then we say okay now It happens next time and I don't know what happens Kathy Well, I think we could ask that next time we're looking at it We get a document in advance that provides the context as you described, you know what was considered word of the alternatives What's the spring spree flight? Even if the the public notice has been for this specific structure We could still hear what other choices And so that we can make a recommendation then to DRB and others that This structure doesn't fly but something else might and it yes It would trigger a new process, but at least we would have enough more information to do something other than just say no We wouldn't be doing it a completely informed no at this point given the Issues we've raised and Steve suggested we I don't know I guess it was get a large cardboard box that six feet tall five feet wide Which is my height and then three feet deep and you know get it You know, it's sort of a sense of place on what is this feel and look like because it's not usual to have that large a But I mean we could be doing that between now and then And yeah, I guess I'm thinking if we do want a DRB Opinion that if we keep the hearing open that would be then part of the record for the hearing and since hearings are separate legally from council actions and council sort of Meetings my understanding is that if you're looking for more information You'd rather it be put on to the record during the hearing than after the hearing has closed Pat there's a motion on the floor may May ask the town the clerk of the town of the council to read the motion To continue the hearing to September 9 at 6 30 p.m Motion's been made and seconded is the further discussion. Mr. Shriver so after this will entertain motions to refer it to DRB or to CRC or whatever I believe we would have one to act one way or the other Yes Yes, Evan so so I heard two reasons for a continuation one is to get a DRB opinion is DRB meeting between now and September 9th. I don't think that's Expect there's not an expectation of so then why are we saying we would have a DRB opinion for September 9th I was saying if the council wanted one I don't know whether we even do but that would be a reason to keep the hearing open If we want more information to go on the record So that was an example, but we haven't had any agreement on that and in Kathy brought up a whole bunch of Information that we could get are we asking ever source to provide is that coming from ever source? Are we asking this person to go back and provide us with the information that Kathy just said? I feel like Alyssa's question hasn't been answered I Mr.. Rockwell so the way I interpreted that is that staff should prepare a detailed memo for consideration by the council In advance of your next of the September 9th meeting that would identify just a little bit what Alyssa mentioned That show alternatives and all those other cast stuff The only question And I guess that the sense I'm trying to get from the council is if you want us to pursue this location or Or not If we should be putting time into them encourage them to design something for the common or alternative locations And if they came back with an alternative location, I assume based on Alyssa's comment We would have to go through an entire new hearing Publication and process and the other thing yes, that's true, and I think the other thing we have to do is to Research the modification of existing structure what the rights of ever source has under that Modification you have to research that and I think that's a town meeting action actually right so before we come back to September 9th, we would at least find the previous vote that was taken and While ever source might start considering other options and present them to us if it requires use of our public way it would have to come back for a separate hearing and Then we may also decide there are certain things we would like to see done like Referral to the design review board with an opinion back to us, but Steve so just trying to make figure out the difference between this and say a site plan review slash Special permit so the notice there basically was no notice like 48 hours notice for this public hearing is that no Okay, it was published in the paper it was published How much notice is there need to be and it was noticed a notice that was published in the paper on August 19th and it was sent out to Owners of a budding real estate on August 8th Is that a requirement that it be oh, yes, okay that far in advance. Yes So there's motion on the floor to the wording Thank you to continue the hearing to September 9 at 6 30 p.m. Any further discussion? Yes, Alyssa if I could just add one more piece of to the Context memo is I want to put it on Amherst College's land instead Directly across boltwood and because that's the closest that's not something we'd ask ever sourced to go in design right now But just in terms of the general context of if it's not there how close would it need to be kind of thing? What are our real choices? Are there additional comments? All right, then I'm going to call the question Yes, I'm so thank you. There will be a roll call vote the town clerk will call the roll The motion is to delay the is to continue the hearing on August on September 9th Andy can you still hear us? Andy Sorry, Andy. There's a lot of static. Hang on just a second. How long has he been disconnected? Okay It's probably because he put it on mute and is trying to come back We're going into a roll call vote in favor of the motion to defer this Hearing until September 9th Councillor ball millen Yes Councillor Brewer Councillor D'Angeles Councillor Dumont. Yes, Councillor Grisimer. Yes, Councillor Haneke. Yes, Councillor Pam. Yes, Councillor Ross Yes, Councillor Ryan. Yes, Councillor Shane. Yes, Councillor Schreiber. Yes Councillor Steinberg. Councillor Steinberg. Can you hear us? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Councillor Schwartz. Yes Thank you. That's unanimous Thank you. That was unanimous that we will defer the hearing. Thank you Andy, did you want to say something? No, I just want to affirm that I heard the entire hearing Okay, thank you for doing that. We appreciate that Okay, we are Going to continue and thank you and we will see either you or whoever else on September 9th, and if there's additional questions regarding what you might bring forward, please communicate through through the town manager. Okay, excellent. And just as a closing statement, I just would like to say that Before the September 9th meeting if anyone wants to go Look at the site and the proposal while the weather is still nice I'd be more than happy or someone else from ever source to explain the project further in context of the actual built environment. I could enter my email address into the public record, I suppose, or if somebody wants to reach out to ever source any questions Be happy to discuss this further. So everyone's more prepared for that next meeting. I assume the town has contact information I know that the town clerk of the council does. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yes Mr. Bachman, could you just make sure for the records date your name and your title? Nicholas Langoni, field engineer ever source. I was just going to ask if you acknowledge me or no We could also get examples of six foot boxes that would be Okay We'll take additional suggestions, but we need to move on with the agenda at this point. Okay. Thank you for your time Thank you The floor is now open for general public comment May I see and let me just state this is general public comment It is not common on items 6a 7c or 7e We will take those comments at a time when those are agenda items come forward Residents are welcome to express their views for one to three minutes at the discretion of the president Based upon the number of people who want to speak the council will not engage in dialogue or Comment on a matter raised during general public comment Those that plan to Make comment will raise their hands. They'll come forward. They'll sit at the table They'll make sure the green light is on for the mic and their name And you'll state your name and where you live. Would you please raise your hand if you had general public comment? Yes, please come forward. I'm sorry to make sure I had to push it. Thanks. Thank you Hi, everyone I'm Chris Crane. I'm an Amherst resident and I'm an hourly employee at the Jones library I'm here to express my concerns about the 2019 wage scale for our hourly employees in 2018 town administrators decided that the 2019 minimum wage would take effect on January 1st instead of in July This meant this meant that all raises for hourly workers had to be moved from July to January as well Moving these increases forward by six months would be a costly undertaking for the town Nonetheless on October 18th the former human resources director announced that in addition to the new $12 minimum a 2% cost of living adjustment or COLA would be applied to all other steps on the hourly scale effective January 1st Now a COLA by definition is a percentage increase that a worker gets in addition to a yearly raise All other town scales now get yearly colas. The hourly scale has never received a COLA. This was to be the first However, as workers soon discovered this was never really the town's intent The 2% was in fact not a COLA. It wasn't designed to augment workers raises. It was created instead to substitute for them For 2019 all hourly workers over $12 an hour would get a 2% increase only Now this plan clearly benefited the town but few hourly workers while a small group of our employees at the top did gain For most 2% did not even equal a regular raise Most Jones workers will get a half percent less this year than they would have normally Even worse since no one moves up the scale this year The plan will set back nearly all employees for several years to come Library part-timers for example could lose two to three hundred dollars over the next few years Compared to what they would have gained with regular raises In March, I asked the personnel board to remedy the situation by simply providing workers in the middle with an additional half percent At very modest cost to the town Less than twenty seven hundred dollars based on the former human resource director's figures all hourly workers could at least receive a normal raise this year But the personnel board declined to make this recommendation Taking this step would have suggested that hourly workers are entitled to a yearly raise per their published town scale Like any other town workers and the personnel board seems to believe that no hourly worker deserves this basic benefit This is the crux of the problem and this needs to be corrected I can't think of any reputable employer public or private who would deny permanent year-round employees Like our library workers a yearly review and a regular raise This is standard human resources policy a yearly raise for our workers should not depend on the goodwill of the department head or on town administrators a yearly review and raise for permanent hourly employees must be town policy Thank you for your comment Additional comments at this time Please come forward state your name and where you're from My name is Sarah McKee. I've lived in Amherst for nearly 20 years and My service to the town includes a term as Jones Library trustee a year on town meeting as trustee president and Two years each as a member of the joint capital planning committee the town audit committee and the town personnel board in The town's non-union employment classifications a huge gulf lies between so-called regular employees and so-called part-time employees These terms have a particular meaning in Amherst Here if you work at least 20 hours per week up to the full-time schedule of 37 and a half hours You are a regular employee Regular employees receive a panoply of benefits Rated to their regular number of hours per week Paid vacations paid medical insurance paid sick leave paid retirement Paid bereavement leave paid family leave paid life insurance and more for regular employees Amherst really is the employer of choice that the town personnel procedures manual Says that we want to be If you work fewer than 20 hours per week however Even if you have a regular part-time schedule and even if you do the same work as regular employees You are part-time You get paid only for the hours that you work and Your one and only benefit is paid sick leave. I Understand that some year-round leisure services employees are in the same boat Now here's the library's dirty little secret for years possibly for decades It has balanced its budget only by keeping nearly half its staff as part-time Employees allowed to work only up to 19 hours per week So I share Ms. Kris Krain's Concern that the town personnel board is okay with saving the town a grand total of less than $2,700 this year at the expense of our dedicated under 20 hour per week part-time employees At the personnel boards discussion last week last week after Ms. Krain had left Therefore, I was encouraged to hear personnel board chair Tony Wonder whether the town needs an overhaul of job descriptions and classifications and To hear our new director of human resources Evelyn Riviera Riffenberg Agree She reports that she is working on a new four-year projection of part-time hourly rates so that mid-range employees Will not be squeezed as the state's minimum wage rises each year and Everyone will know what to expect This is excellent news For the town to balance any department's budget on the backs of its under 20 hour part-time employees, however Remains nothing short of shameful. I would strongly encourage That most library and possibly certain leisure services positions be reclassified as regular with a minimum of 20 hours per week and Benefits accordingly Reserve the part-time designation only for those hourly positions that genuinely warrant Paid sick leave as the sole benefit. Thank you very much Thank you for your comment. Are there any other public comments at this time? Okay, then Thank you. We are going to move on to proclamations and commemorations We have a proclamation tonight To celebrate the Jewish community of Amherst 50th anniversary. We'd like to well welcome Eric Weiss Who is president of the JCA? along with Jeff Roth Roth Howe and Boris Wolfson executive executive board members and Janice Levy board member and communications chair for the 50th Planning Coordinated Committee I'm not going to do this without them. So Thank you. I will mention that the town council all has received the proclamation and I'm going to start by asking Mandy Joe Hanakie from the GL governance organization and legislation report to quickly give us their read on the proclamation Okay GL on August 21st voted 3-0 with two absent to declare the proclamation as amended clear consistent and actionable Which is what we were asked to look at the amendment was solely to the date that it would be passed at council. Okay Is there any other questions from the council at this time? Comments We'd like to hear from you about your coming celebration. We wouldn't pass up the opportunity I'm Eric Weiss. I'm the current president of the board of the Jewish community of Amherst. I happen to live in Belcher town. I Know you then at least a little bit The JCA is honored to be part of the fabric of the town of Amherst It's been in its present location for 50 years. We know that that's a Historically valued building in town with all of the stained glass windows We know that we got support from the town over the last couple years to fix the steeple And if you ever want to see a good debate put a hundred Jews in a room have a debate whether a synagogue needs a steeple But we made it through and we save the steeple and it's up and it looks nice And it's been in the gazette and we it was repaired beautifully and we appreciate the CPA money that we got for that Jan has been much more involved than whenever she wants to chime in is fine The JCA is seeing its 50th year. It's a synagogue that is thriving. It is a synagogue that is growing Which is unusual in today's world We have a very progressive rabbi. We have a very progressive congregation It is a place of joy and spirituality for all that enter from any any place We've had a number of Incredible moments based on unfortunate incidents over the last few years when there have been shootings and all kinds of things and people from many different faith communities have come to the JCA and Been part of what we do when we deeply appreciate that and we know how unique it is to be part of the fabric of the Amherst community So we obviously deeply appreciate this I don't have a lot of the details of all the events plan. Jan has been involved with the planning and Jeff has been involved with the planning I get to be president But there are a number of things and we're tying it to a number of things that we do throughout the year And I also want to make one other comment. We have gotten a great deal of support and advice From the Amherst police department in terms of how to make our facilities safer They've done extra patrols during different times They're aware of our schedule and what and and those types of things and our administrator Has been in touch with the Amherst police on a regular basis to try to do that And I know we're trying we've done a couple of Alice trainings with the Amherst police department and I have nothing but praise for them It's been great. It's been a great relationship for us, and we really appreciate their support as well Are there other comments Janice or there's some things you'd like to highlight? I think essentially I'll sum it up and tell you that our approach to this 50th year was to look historically at how we came to be and it's it's really quite a wonderful story of perseverance and Coordination with the town as well even to find the premises that we did The way we're going to look at this 50th year is not just have one big party. That was too easy We're going to focus on who we are today Really highlight and bring forward All of the good work that's being done in the synagogue and the relations with the town and the community So we're having a lot of events. We will have a whole program for the year and we'll end with a big party in June so We will send you the the details of all the programs and we look forward to Greeting you at any of our events and thank you very much for this it means a lot to us. Thank you Jeff Is that anything else? Thank you, are there council comments Pat Your mic I want to thank the Jewish community Of Amherst for all the work you've done to support Lucio and his family That is I'm very grateful as is the council and Amherst sanctuary, which is a group that I'm part of. Thank you Are there other comments from the council? I know that our rabbi Confers regularly with the other religious leaders in the valley and in the Amherst area And they talk about things like Lucio and other things and it's it's a group that meets regularly to be Be aware of all the different activities that are going on other comments at this time All right see none. We have a motion before us The motion is to adopt the proclamation and sell it to celebrate the Jewish community of Amherst's 50th anniversary Do I hear a motion? Dorothy I still move and second Pat Okay, any further conversation then all those in favor. We have a roll call vote. I'm sorry. Thank you Andy are you still with us? Yes Great counselor Breuer Counselor DeAngelis Counselor Dumont. Yes, Counselor Grisimer. Yes, Counselor Haneke. Yes, Counselor Pam. Yes, Counselor Ross Yes, Counselor Ryan. Yes Counselor Shane. Yes Counselor Schreiber. Yes Counselor Steinberg Yes Thank You Counselor Swartz. Yes That's unanimous I'm sorry. I do that every time. Yes Counselor Balmo and now it is unanimous We wish you the best for your anniversary and your upcoming holidays. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much We're moving on to presentations and discussions the first item is is the proposed purchase of the Hickory Ridge Golf Course land and I believe we have assistant town manager David Zomac and economic development director Jeff Kretz Kravitz and Anything else that the town manager would like to add? Good evening, and thank you for having us tonight What we would like to do as quickly as possible We know you have a full agenda is to give you a little outline of an exciting project that Jeff and I have been working on with the town manager for a number of months And that is the possible purchase of Hickory Ridge Golf Course Which is in South Amherst off of Pomeroy Lane and we put together a brief slide Presentation just to give you an overview of the project and where we are with that so perhaps if We could advance the slide. It's I don't know if mr. Kravitz will do that Athena. Thank you So first slide is gives you a sense of it's a little bit busy But there's a lot there's a lot going on there in South Amherst and that's one of the reasons We're so excited about this project. This is a hundred and fifty acre golf course It is currently being operated by a company from New Jersey Jeff and I have been engaged in a lengthy conversation with them a very fruitful conversation With them for quite some time as you may know because there's been numerous media Coverage of this the work that they've been doing there They're interested in doing a solar project on the property and that is going to continue But as we looked at the solar project, we realized that out of a hundred and fifty acres There is an incredible number of resources and opportunities that we can take advantage of as a town and Offer to our residents if we were to step in and partner with applied golf the company that owns the property I think Jeff might be able to help me a little bit here but as you can see the property is north of West Palmyroy Lane and Includes over a mile of frontage on the Fort River. You can see in green all the fairways and the Various golf amenities including a large clubhouse But what what intrigued us was its potential to connect people to a place Both this incredible place of beauty the the Hickory Ridge golf course But also to potentially connect people with trails that would then lead them to the Village Center Which is over to the east to the East Village Center where there are various businesses and restaurants We're talking specifically about those residents who live in the Orchard Valley neighborhood and then to the north and The numerous apartment complexes listed above Mill Valley the Brook the Boulder South Point Etc. Hundreds of residents live there With little to no access to open space and this would open up miles of trails and connectivity to the Village Center Walking potentially bicycling for them. So it was a very exciting project and we're happy that applied golf Has stuck with us all these months and we've had a very Productive we think discussion with them and I think we'll go on to the next slide This gives you a sense just of where the the project the actual solar project will go and over on the key You'll see that in that grayish green dark color will be 26 acres of solar In addition to that just to break out the the property a little bit In the tan color That is an area that the company will need to mitigate for rare and endangered species And we said this this property is unique in many ways What makes it so unique? Ecologically is the Fort River and the Fort River is an absolute gem in the Connecticut water River watershed and Holds a number of rare and endangered species both in the river But also that make their home along the river So the state not the town but the state through its various permitting processes is requiring Applied golf to mitigate in other words put in permanent conservation 18.5 acres that you see along the river and then the remaining land is really what we have to program which is you know a hundred over a hundred acres or so and Some of that will come with restrictions You can see in the crosshatch how much of the property is habitat for rare and endangered species now That doesn't mean we can't do anything on that property It just means we need to go through both the Amherst Conservation Commission and the state to determine what uses are permitted there and those areas outside the dark green the Is that tan the mitigation area and then the estimated in priority habitat our areas including the clubhouse along? West Pomeray Lane that would be potentially open for some sort of reuse and we'll talk about that in a minute Next slide So we're very pleased to be able to bring you the news that the town manager on August 7th signed a purchase and sale agreement For what we think is a very fair price of five hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the entire 149 plus acres there are as with any purchase and sale agreement contingencies Obviously, we would need to work through and with you on appropriating funds the seller Needs to get approval through the smart program for their solar project and we would Work with our town council and and their attorney on a mutually agreeable easement agreement for the 26 acres next slide As I said, we'll purchase the entire property 26 acres for solar. We've talked about the mitigation already Jeff and I working with the town manager have discussed an initial term of 20 years with the with the seller and their solar provider with four five-year extensions taking it out from 20 to 40 years Potentially for solar to be on that on that property We would need to do some master planning for the the site. It's a complex site We need to really look at the natural resources the access the potential Other uses that could happen on the property and concert with solar a next slide We we'd need to look at what part of the property would be permanently protected because as you know if we use CPA funds Which you have already authorized for part of the purchase Some of the land would need to be permanently protected in addition to the 18.5 acres That is required by the state to be be protected We see trails connecting South Point and the boulders and the apartment complexes to the north as well as access For anyone coming there from the public So we'd need to make sure we maintain parking and connectivity north to south and east to west Through a master planning process We would look at possible reuses of the building of the buildable land including Swing space for DPW or a sale of some of the property Potentially affordable housing if we need a senior center site in the future That land could be banked for a time to decide what uses the town might have for the remaining land Again at the purchase price that we need we've negotiated We feel as though we've got some wiggle room here for potential other uses or potential revenue generating reuses next slide As we said the purchase price negotiated is 520 the appraised value is 915,000 leaving us with a bargain sale of $395,000 Next slide so this is the summary of the finances up to this point the agreed upon purchase and sale 520,000 already appropriated through CPAC 200,000 There's a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars existing from the sale of Previously town-owned property that can be put towards the purchase Leaving a balance of two hundred and six thousand and then you'll see at the bottom There are additional costs associated with owning property that we didn't own before so we think that About a hundred thousand dollars just to maintain the property and sure Assure that we have adequate insurance Understanding that it's right now a big empty field people are used to walking their dogs or going on it and then making sure that If there are any injuries casualty insurance those types of things environmental testing The typical things you do when purchasing a property legal costs and then if we want to Invite people to use the trails having trail heads kiosks those types of things as well So the property currently pays about thirty thousand dollars a year The property is in chapter 61 B which reduces The taxable value of the land because it's used for recreational purposes We've estimated that pilot payments which are payments in lieu of taxes would begin at around $40,000 the first year and increase two and a half percent. This is for a five megawatt solar field and In year 20 and my understanding is that there is a limitation of 20 years on pilot agreements And so we calculated it for a 20-year period, but the two and a half percent over 20 years would result in $63,700 in a pilot payment in the final year Yes, David one additional comment just so we're clear on you know the first night here because people have come up to me throughout The process and said are we are we buying a golf course are we going to continue to to run a golf operation? And I just want to make clear the operate the the answer to that from the staffer's standpoint is no We're not proposing to have any golf continue on that property We have a municipal golf course a nine-hole golf course up at Cherry Hill this would be study through a master planning process and then we could determine appropriate uses that benefit both residents of Amherst as Well as visitors for generations to come and as we outline and we'll do more in future meetings Some of those opportunities we think are are pretty exciting, but we start with the ecology of the property It is a once-in-a-lifetime property to get over a mile of frontage Along the Fort River just doesn't come up in this town or many others So hold on hold on Andy Okay Yes, please Sorry, okay. I'm here. Thank you. And lastly the other question I get is is this Really a straight-up conservation purchase and the answer is no we've always gone in with our eyes open. This is a creative Acquisition which we see could have multiple uses as you may know golf golf is struggling nationally So golf courses are coming on the market with some frequency some months ago Northampton Began and it was reported in the newspaper that they were looking at a golf course reuse So we want to go at this with potentially multiple uses solar being one and the pilot payment is a wonderful thing over the next 20 to 40 years But we want to look at this creatively for a reuse to benefit all of the residents of Amherst and and potentially of Make it a visitor attractive attraction as well Thank you We're going to have a couple different stages here one is for council comments one is for public comment There will be no vote this evening Although this will come to the council for a vote with regard to the financial aspects of the prop of the project So the floor is open for council questions. Yes, Shalini Just want to acknowledge this is very exciting. I don't know if you're allowed to say that anyways my question though is What is the annual cost of holding that property going to be? So that's a great question and Jeff alluded to we we need to study that more We need to look at What it will cost from a utility standpoint, you know, we have it includes a building as well a couple of buildings There's a few outbuildings. So we need to look at we just signed the purchase and sale Week and a half ago two weeks ago And so we want to study a little bit more the utilities the insurance cost and then as Jeff said If we are potentially going to open this up to the public, what does it mean to have adequate parking kiosks? Things of that sort so we need to do a little more study and that's why we put in that $100,000 we don't know how far that's going to take us But we know we are going to need some Thousands of dollars to pay for various utilities as well as the studies that will be needed to look at reuse Surveys etc Yes, Dorsey Yeah, it also occurs to me that if it's if there's a walkway from Mill River and the Brook to to the Village Center That you'll also will also have operating expenses for policing and Lighting if that's open 24 hours a day David please again, I think that'll come out in the master planning process I don't honestly I don't think when I've worked with staff in the town manager on this We had not gone that far that this would be an open walkway with lighting We were seeing this more like Conservation trails or the rail trail, which is not open all night. It's open down to dusk So we would see these trails as open down to dusk now That doesn't mean there would not need to be policing because we know our police force does get out on trails Buffer spawned etc. etc. So but we did not see this moving toward a paved trail at this point with lighting which That number clearly would not even touch Anything as formal as a paved trail with lighting. So this is really using the existing Cart paths which are quite extensive I'm not a golfer, but but I know Jeff is I'm a very bad golfer But when you walk the site The the pathways are very well established. They're relatively flat and they're firm So we really see that as a bonus and a benefit for people to walk and hike and potentially bike Somewhere down the road the town may entertain something more formal, but at this point we're talking about Enhancing those already existing trails to make the connection north south and east I hope that answers you quick. So you're not thinking of it as a utilitarian route from the Brook or Mill River to Crocker Farm School or the Village Center there Well, I think we are looking at it as a utilitarian route including potentially making a connection to To Crocker Farm School, although that would require a new stream crossing which is pretty significant. So It will have utility for hiking walking potentially biking Informally, but not with a paved lighted surface So Incrementally, I mean, maybe that's 10 15 years down the road. I don't know but at this point We're not envisioning anything that formal but clearly people could walk this You know eight nine months a year It would not be need to be plowed or anything like that, but dawn to dusk That's how we see it right now. But again, we need to do some process on that and DJ Are the current paths ADA accessible or would we be looking at something like that since they are cart paths? many of the trails I think at least part of many of the trails would Would meet a DA standard so part of the trail could be made accessible particularly from the Pomeroy Lane from the existing parking Northward, I think there is some topography as you get north on the back of the course It would make it a little more difficult. Again, that could be a phase down the road to make all of them a DA 5% grade can be very challenging to meet I'm not sure if any of you are aware or some of you perhaps have been to the US Fish and Wildlife Service Trail in Hadley Which is just over the line which They made completely a DA but really didn't have the topographical issues that we would face on some of this property My understanding is they get over 50,000 visitors a year using that trail some of them repeat Obviously from all of us in in the region, but that's a significant number for a conservation recreation trail So I think our goal would be to make as much of it crushed own Path accessible a DA as possible Additional questions. Yes Dorothy I just want to make a comment for the public that we had two closed sessions on this with very detailed presentations and where we had a chance to ask a lot of questions and I just want to applaud The those of you who were involved in putting this thing together and bringing it to fruition. I think it's a great accomplishment Yes, Evan. So I have a Process question, I guess so in the very near future Then I expect that will be asked to authorize an appropriation of three hundred and six thousand dollars. Is that coming to us? That is correct, but let's David and if so where is that money? So up to five hundred twenty two hundred thousands all already been appropriated by CPA The remainder would be we would put together a council order for an appropriation Most likely from the stabilization fund So it'd be directly from an existing source of funds That order would be prepared and submitted to the finance committee because it's an automatic referral Finance committee would take it under consideration review all the details of it And then it would be they would make a recommendation back to the full council Yes, go ahead and so okay stabilization fund is likely where this money is coming from and then the second question is would we also then have to Authorize the acquisition of the property in the same way we did for the Zala and the key Haskins Yes to vote to the council we have to take on this That's my understanding, but I'd work with them with with with mr. Backelman and town council Okay, again up on the screen now we put so I wanted to call your attention. There are existing funds already Available a hundred and fourteen thousand from sale of previous properties that can only be used to buy another property So we're working with with Sonya Aldridge on on that. Thank you, mr. Backelman So that would require council action as well the hundred and fourteen thousand. Okay, so we would be acting on the hundred and fourteen and On the three hundred and six I would also assume then we might in the annual budget see ongoing maintenance of the property But the hundred thousand that's there now Would cover this year And then something okay Kathy my question was going to be of the hundred thousand does that spread across several years? So it's got utilities insurance maintenance the trails, but the maintenance of the trails would be ongoing So I realize you're doing your best guess to get up to a hundred. So is it does that leave? some spillover to year two for we believe it will it will Allow us some spillover if you will into year two We're gonna obviously before we get to the finance committee We're gonna sharpen our pencils a little bit on that but tonight we wanted to give you kind of an overview and Include a number in there that we thought was reasonable And and also acknowledge the fact that there aren't funds in any departments budget to cover this and there are some Unknowns we are gonna be working with town council if we proceed on For instance surveying out those proper parts of the property that might be To carve off if we decide to sell some of the property which again would come back through you It's not something I just want to build on this. I have actually golfed that course. So when you said Jeff's has and While it's been maintained as a golf course the trails because they were golf court cart Accessible in pull cart accessible or Walker's accessible, but that's because they were being maintained For golfers to schlep around the different areas and we ease off limits. So You know, they didn't have potholes in them. They didn't have our goal would be to maintain all of those or those that are environmentally sensitive perhaps there might be some cart paths that Go into a flooded area that we just realized isn't something That we want to continue but for the most part we want to try to maintain those trails Over the next couple of years as we plan for the site So just just staying on the cost to us besides acquiring it back on your map When we talked about this before there's a piece along Pomeroy Lane that could be potentially including a clubhouse Be used for commercial purposes that would be revenue generating or could even be sold off So with the notion of a master plan do you have a timeline on it that within? 24 months within X you want to make a decision of that? There's a small no one else can see that small green little piece that you showed us last time, you know there that's Not Wildlife that's not river. That's not solar. That's not You know, but it's enough to do some housing some multiple units some concentrated because I think that if That sooner rather than later you have a way of recouping a lot of the original Investment while getting all the other things we like about it with the trails and walking places Unfortunately, our pointer is not working here, but you're right where where it says clubhouse has the most potential. I think your Generous timeline of 24 months actually sounds very reasonable I would not want to commit to you tonight that we could do this within six months or do this within a year I think it is going to take some time Our goal I think would be to come up with the best plan possible I would not want to have it solely be driven by by Funding if you will but what are the potential uses of the property some of which could then bring Some of that revenue expended back to the town while at the same time working creatively with the solar folks And as as one of our slides indicated in year one $40,000 and then Your your 20 is somewhere in the order of $63,000. I think those are very helpful I think in terms of five-year chunks, you know with a major initial investment and then trying to think of how this could play out Yes, so that you can as you said, it's not just the money, but it is also money. Yes, absolutely We're very conscious of that And we will try to move that process along as quickly as possible Okay, are there other questions from the council? Lisa So just a couple of follow-up remarks about that what is indeed very exciting opportunity really glad we can do this Is the slide presentation that we saw tonight isn't part of our packet? So if we could please add that to our packet as soon as possible and then also I'm hoping this has a home somewhere else on the town website and Building on that. I'm hoping that we are going to do some sort of press release meaning The we that includes staff not us at this point Perhaps or that you could be done in conjunction with you President Lynn is That I do not want us to depend on whatever the press decides it feels like covering about this particular issue to get out there I think this should be Expressed as the way it's been expressed from our viewpoint and taken out there and I think that would be really helpful I also appreciate various counselors who are going to help me Quote nag later when we talk about maintenance costs because it has not been a culture of this town for many many decades To think about ongoing maintenance costs when we do budgets and to clearly and consistently do that each year And so this would be a great place to start that. So thank you. Are there other questions or comments from the Council? Just to point a clarification you mentioned in previous meetings that counselor Pam has referred to that there is the contingency you put it out up here of the Getting the smart program approval. Do you have an estimate on the timing on that? I don't I think it All indications are that it is the next couple of months. It could be weeks But certainly the next couple of months. We've been working very closely with the owner of the property Trying to address any concerns that the state may have about the town's role in this purchase vis-a-vis the 18.5 acres of mitigation land that needs to be held by a Municipality or someone that is authorized legally to hold land for for conservation purposes So that's the first hurdle that they are moving through and then the smart program will be right after that so as I said in my opening remarks, we've had a very open and Transparent process with the owners and and we were thankful grateful to them for giving us the opportunity Does the smart program? Automatically assume that the electric company is on board to take the solar Electricity there's a very prescribed prescribed process that any Potential solar generator needs to go through with their local in this case ever source It includes an interconnection agreement an application So there's a very a very clear process that anyone Including the town if we're talking about solar on the on the landfill needs to go through With a solar provider a developer and then a producer of solar energy So they have been moving through that process on their own the town does not have any Involvement on that level. We're just kept aware of their progress Okay, and can I therefore assume we would not Appropriate the money or approve the purchase of the land until That condition of being entered into the smart program has been met Yes, okay, I basically wanted to say that for the purposes of the public to make sure that it's There is timing here And there are conditions on this purchase and sale that have to be met before we and the Sellers are willing to proceed Okay, and are there other questions from the council? Yes, Sarah So we talked about holding the conservation land and that there there are species that are Endangered that are there do do we know for sure or will we know? If we can use the certain trails that we have I'm assuming yes because of the golf course did But I'm I'm just wondering if there's like an assurance that we can get that even though it's conservation We can use it. That's a great question Having done this kind of work for quite a while. I'm confident that we can continue to use the existing cart paths Anything new we propose Hardback surface pavement Anything in that area that was outlined in the cross hatching Would need to go through the embers conservation commission and then the natural heritage program in Boston And they oversee rare and endangered species habitat all throughout the state So I'm confident that we could continue to use the walkways the pathways that have been used for golf if we proposed a new bridge or we Proposed an observation tower or blind or something like that to enhance the area It's not to say that that wouldn't be Permittable, but it would be something that would need to go through the process locally and then in Boston And likewise on the frontage anything we propose to reuse the clubhouse that changes the footprint of the clubhouse or the parking lot Would also need to go through the various local as well as state process Sarah I'm just wondering Just because I have endangered plants. I'm wow on my farm But I'm wondering like if there would be any kind of restriction for like if we use those paths How many people can go through or you know if there's ways that we would have to make sure that you know People couldn't stray into another area. I'm just wondering because I know with a saw property like we you were Everybody was like there's water like we could have community gardens and then I think it was an unpleasant surprise to find out later We couldn't so I didn't know if there's just if that's a conversation that that you know There will be had and there won't be any surprises for you and us later, right? Well, there's a little good news on the previous property you mentioned Which is we're now working on a well solution instead of irrigating on the so-called salt property in East Amherst from the Fort River same river upstream. We're going to move forward with a with a well So a well is permittable harder is to irrigate from a brook directly so Again the question about We know what these are critters. They're not plants So we know what's in the river and we know what's moving along the river So I think we just have to be cognizant and work with our local and state folks to say here are some of the uses We'd we'd like to Put forth. I mean if we I don't know, you know wanted to Cut down all the trees alone not many of the trees along the Fort River and say Because we want to get a better view of the river That's going to be problematic because the trees have a value both to the critters as well as the stability of the bank of the river but other things making a making an ADA extending a pathway to make it ADA so somebody could get closer to the river for a view of it That's something that might be a goal a goal that we try to achieve through the permitting process Thank you Are there any other questions or comments from the council? Hearing none, I'd like to move to public comment. Is there anybody who would like to make public comment on this particular issue? Okay Going back one more time to the council any further questions We have had a request that the town prepare an appropriate press release regarding the intention and I'm sure the town manager will follow through on that Thank you for your presentation I'm wondering about Thank you, it's an automatic referral and in fact the finance committee will be taking this up at six o'clock on September 5th in this room CRC I don't know that it this Would you like to have this referred to CRC? The chair There is somebody we would like an engineer to deal with the chair Right now we have an architect and he's not dealing with it So Steve the questions raised as to whether or not now is the time to refer this to CRC Or I would want to raise the question whether or not there's it's a future referral once we've purchased Okay. Thank you Unless somebody else wants to say so no All right, then we are moving on and we would like to welcome David Burgess. It's always nice to have you David is still Working with us as our principal assessor although he keeps telling us he's retired And let me just mention to the rest of the council after David's presentation, we will take a break So just to promise you okay. Thank you David Good evening the purpose for me being here tonight is Is the light on yeah, okay. Thank you to give you some information on a tax classification hearing But the council is required to have every year before we set the tax rate This year is going to be an October 26th and I asked mr. Backelman if I could give you a little brief Overview of what's going to be coming because it is a lot of Questions and a lot of impact to take on a one-night Miss Brewer and mr. Steinberg are pretty well acquainted with it. They've did it about seven or eight times So if Athena was that we see the next slide, but your purpose every year will be to set a classification We have four classes of property residential commercial industrial and personal properties and the We have to do this as I say every year But I don't want to explain something residential property is anything that is used for residential use If we look at all the new problems are getting built at the moment Those are what we call mixed use and they're broken the two classes commercial and residential So it's a big deal Your option will be to split the tax rates Between the commercial and residential properties We have never done that because it has puts a heavy impact on the commercial and a very light relief for the residential But we will bring forward that and let you see every year of what the impact will be We can shift up to 50% of the tax rate In other words, we can increase the commercial tax rate by 50% and lower the residential rate It does not lower by 20% it would lower by about five or six percent. So that is what the impact is on The other properties are self-defined like and the Western mass electric company or something that would be an industrial And then commercial is everything you see in the downtown on any level of the retail or Yeah, retail and banks anything that got it will be in the commercial property and Personal property is the fun one That's business personal property. We have adopted an exemption that I think you did last year of $10,000 So there are almost no qualifying small residential properties and a big commercial personal property tax our largest pair would be Western rice and let's choose is electric company and then secondly with are some of the apart of Berger gas Television stations So that is what that is Personal property is only the personal property in the property and we value that based on its Purchase price on depreciation Tina, I suppose I just covered that Sorry, but these this is in your packet that'll give you a little bit more And the commercial I meant to mention is also the all the farmland 61 61 and 61 be And we will explain those to you at the time because you may not know what chapter land is and we will go for that basically it gives the The sawmills People who have forest land that'll break people who have agricultural land break and recreational land gets a break the property You just talked about Hickory Ridge was under recreational. So they were valued at 25 percent of market value the property other land probably so and These are the experts that you what you'll have to vote it what you will have to work with When we have marriage approval, we're now talking to council approval. This is just a overall thing for the For everyone else and the town manager does not have any say in this. This is only you each year so The select our town council You're going to approve what we certify with the Department of Revenue We have to have our values certified every year by the Department of Revenue and by the time we come to you They will have certified all the values When we come to you you're going to vote on resident Split rate between commercial and residential You will vote on another item is called a residential factor I was able to go into in more detail in that and that only impacts the residential property. It is basically an exemption for the owner occupied properties only and it's not a percentage. It is a 20% of the average value. So it might be with $60,000 that we get Consequently the higher price properties will pay more on their taxes than they would have without it Apartment complexes will pay more and land will pay more Because the tax rate will be split into two pieces for an owner occupied and a non owner occupied So at that point we will give you a lot more detail. You'll be provided Some information Since this is the first year I plan on giving you a lot more information than we will in the future years Then we also have the minimum resident there the small commercial exemption We have never used that because we do not have enough qualifying properties in town and we have Residentially, sorry Open space exemption. We haven't used that either because we don't have open space We value all our access land very low already. So there's no point in putting an exemption on and the assessors Word of assessors are the only ones that can create open space. No one else That is basically that and I was going to throw this open to questions But I would also like to offer If any of you would like to come into the office, I would have to explain this in more detail in your packet. You've got last year's Document showing how we all the different explanations and we'd be happy to go over with that You will see something like this or you may see a slide through this year with a bit more detail and we will Let you have questions Are there questions of the council? Yes, Pat use your mic, please Mr. Burgess, thank you for being here When I was reading through the packet that you gave us I was looking at Residential or small commercial exemptions And it looks like the residential exemption is not something we have used but I'm still curious Because what's the break even what's the break point in terms of valuation? How many homes or what are the costs of the homes above that point that center point and The number the cost of housing below it. All right for the exemption purposes You can pick any persist percent we can pick any percent percentage between zero and twenty percent of the average residential value and Time last time we did that that was summer in the region of sixty seven thousand up last time we did a study It was over about sixty seven thousand dollars because the average property was assessed as somewhere around 335,000 and we use 20% Now that 20% that's sixty seven thousand if you've got a value of a hundred thousand sixty seven thousand was off it And then you're taxed on the thirty three thousand If you're a value of a million sixty seven thousand turns off it and you're valued in the difference at that point for the nine hundred thousand What happens is to accommodate the difference in the loss or change is We will take say there's four thousand properties We would take twenty four million dollars off the value of the residential Recalculate the tax rate and that becomes the tax rate for the residential class So properties of somewhere in the region of five hundred thousand dollars even owner occupied Will pay more than they would have before at the 20% level of course it's different at 15 10 or 5% That all depends what we do It's something I could do by coming to meet you because I'm still interested in how many homes in Amherst Fit the higher end and how many are below Mr. Brock on Monday night discussed and I just mentioned we're going to do a more in-depth Coverage than we would normally so I will be bringing you information to the council I would appreciate if anyone thinks of questions that we Certainly come into the office and we'll go over this in as much detail as we can Simply because Once we get to the end of the year We've only got we have we have to have tax bills in the mail by December 31st. That's a given So I don't to try and avoid any delays I would rather not come to you and 22nd you say well, we'll table this until the whatever date in November I would like to try and get it done that night if we can Are there additional questions Kathy? I have some more generic questions and some of it was triggered on we've lost Andy again Well, Mr. Steinberg really does know more than I do practically Thank you. Okay your questions Kathy Some of the background information you sent to us triggered in my mind these questions so one in the categories you have of classification Even though we can't tax them Do you ever go out and assess the value of you mass land and property embers college land and property in terms of If they were ever taxed or if they ever paid it so is there and they don't fit in any of the categories you have I mean they clearly could fit somewhere, but yeah, no, we have not done it for you mass We have done a lot of work on Amherst College Simply because they want the Value what it should be because if they if they do any improvements I think it's a 25% of the value the ADA kicks in Somewhere around there, so they need to have a value And the ADA will only take the assessor will take the assess value rather than insurance value Personally, I think it's a waste of time because those are special use buildings and I don't know what the value of them is No, and it related to this In other states, but I don't know whether it's been in Massachusetts There have at times been a look at large Public universities or private universities but tax exempt and said some of what they're doing on their property is commercial It's not really education related and they carved it out So running a hotel running a store running a bar, you know, so not housing So that was one of the questions I had related to the assess value and it's separating it out. Have we Ever done that just as a look, you know, and like 10 years ago five years ago. We do do it If you look at the Lord Jeff, sorry Boltwood, right. I know it. Yeah as It is taxable that is owned by Amherst College, but it's taxable. We do not tax anything It's on the university because they are a State and they just won't let us So and then we also tax a lot of land that Amherst College and Hampshire College own under chapter 961 a and 61 b That's where we are in that at the moment Okay, my other two questions move away from that issue and it's something I've asked you once on finance But I want to just double check when a new building is opening up mixed use and if the downstairs floor is going to be commercial But it as yet has nothing in it including it's being built to suit So we're waiting for a tenant to say I want to be a tenant. Do they start paying Taxes immediately on that property As if they were generating revenue. Yes, we will create models for general types of businesses come or restaurants banks Office space and when we have that We'll make an estimate of what they may be going to put in those properties We'll come to a value and then we'll reduce it by the percentage of completion In other words, if they have not if you look again at beacon properties in North Amherst The agreement there is that the company building it will put it to the state to this rough building and then the Jones company will finish it out at that point we'll tax it on what the value is when it's Incomplete and then we'll tax it again when it's complete And for the apartment side of a mixed-use building if half the building is empty For half the year, they just haven't filled them. Are you Taxing them as if they had rented all the apartments. We are are there other questions. Yes, Mandy job So I wanted to go back to what Pat was talking about in the ability to essentially tax Or I guess exempt portions of a property if it's owner-occupied versus if it's not owner-occupied and residential and the last year's memo had that if we had done that The tax rate for residential would have gone up to twenty five point three one I thought there might and maybe I've got this wrong is there a cap of twenty five dollars per thousand on Property taxes and if so, how does this exemption fit into that? All right, there definitely is a tax rate cap of twenty five dollars But it's twenty five dollars is as if everything was at full and fair cash value So you've allowed for the exemption. That's why it's only in the residential class The other classes would stay at the fixed rate. So you're splitting the money out amongst the class But it could go above twenty five dollars for sale for that reason Yes, Dorothy You have to do this every year Is there something different about this year or are you just doing the thing you do every year? It's easier to talk to you now because there's 13 of you when I used to go to the select board There was five people we can answer questions And we usually did it in one night. So yes, it's different this year I would like to get you as much information because you're new folks except for Miss Brewer and Mr. Steinberg and So it takes a little bit of getting used to I want you to know what you're doing before you do it Okay, are there additional questions or comments? I do want to make one and that is that I appreciate your generous offer to meet with councillors individually However, I would like to make sure that if councillors are interested in meeting with you further That they go through Mr. Vakum and myself that is the practice of the town Okay, and I I might be one of those people who'd like to learn some more Well, could I just add the moments my schedule is somewhat upside down? But generally it'll do Wednesday Thursday and Friday Okay, and what we will do is collect those that are interested and if we actually have a quorum of the council Then we'll have to call a meeting, but we can have a meeting with you Okay, we'll just give you a few days to prepare great Are there additional questions at this time? Yes, Alyssa. Thank you so much for saying that that was really helpful In terms of I and I really appreciate mr. Burgess pointing out that yeah, I've only listened to this about 11 times But yeah, it's still really good to be reminded and it's really helpful I think to not only hear the questions but also to think about how to beef up that section where every time we have Somebody new we talk about why can't we shift that burden because it sounds like such a good idea until you Explain to us how the actual reality works just like people have occasionally said well Why don't we have a split tax rate between residential and commercial and beyond the fact that everyone can see we have very little commercial? When you look at the actual finance of it, it doesn't work But it's always for us to be able to explain it to our constituents in addition to understanding it here It's been really helpful for you to come have this extra session for it with us Thank you and I just wanted to point out that of course we are in this funny place of being a town council Which in MGL is often a city and is often called a town council as well But in the quotes that were up there, there's nobody gonna veto our decision just to be clear on that We don't have the equivalent of anybody who can veto us. This is our decision Evan the date of that hearing is I Believe it's October 26th, but don't hold me to that. Oh, we have to set the hearing and we also have to set We already have a subsequent vote. Okay, so October 20 Is it 20? Okay Okay, the 28th then So October 28th Paul and that is the meeting that we've signed aside as optional, but it sounds to me like We've just gotten rid of the option That's fine. We can go in the 21st if you want Let me work that out with the town manager and when we look at our agenda Okay, when you do it, I would just ask you to remember. We do have to post this meeting In the newspaper and they require at least 48 hours for it At least At least and we look to you to making sure that we along with the clerk of the council meet all those regulations Are there any further questions from the council at this time? Thank you again. Yes. I'm sorry Pat I was just gonna say are you doing anything for your own pleasure? And your quasi retirement on Monday's and Tuesday, I'm sleeping Thank you very much for your time I'm going to call a break at this point. We're going to reconvene at 835 And I that we are connecting I I Understand we're connecting with Andy at this point Andy because of the intermittent Disconnect as we take on each of the seven action items. We're just going to make sure you're still connected. Okay? Okay, I actually was not disconnected very much. I heard virtually everything Thank you for letting us know that We also appreciate your persistence We're going to move on to action items the first which for which there is a slide and it's up before you is Pretty straightforward. I'm going to call on Mandy Joe It is the first reading of the Towns Council rules of procedure and its clarification with regard to the word clerk Andy Joe, thank you Um, so we've got one PowerPoint for both 7a and 7b on our action items But we're only going to do the first half now until we're done talking about that and that is our clerical Corrections and clarifying the references to the clerk. So on August 21st by consensus gol permitted the chair to bring Tonight proposed revisions that would clarify the clerk references per the request or nudging of councillor Brewer and Had a prior meeting. So that is what we're looking at tonight in the first rules of procedure document And you'll notice you had two marked up copies. The first one is for this Because the intent is to vote things separately, which is why they're in two separate documents and there are five things being proposed in these clerical errors and clarify references and the Clarification of the references is to add of the council after the word clerk in three different four different rules 5.1d1 5.1d5 6.2f and 10.6 j3 And that though it was just referenced the clerk And so this would clarify that it's the clerk of the council not the town clerk The second one in rule 8.2d is to add the word town before the clerk to clarify that It's the town clerk being referred to not the clerk of the council The other three proposed changes are all clerical errors Scriveners errors that I found as I was going through and looking at the word clerk And and that was I guess when we had done the last set of approvals The phrase with the assistance of the clerk of the council and town manager in rule 3.5 before Was underlined and blue So we would Underline that and turn it to black and there was an extra space in front of the comma and after the word council So again truly a Scrivener's error Same with the word sessions in rule 5.3. It's supposed to be session not sessions and 8.2c for some reason had the wrong font size So I'm bringing it all to you even though I know those last three truly are Scrivener errors while that we're here We might as well just be all open as to what's happening. So that is the proposed clarification of clerk references and some Scrivener error corrections This is 7a on our agenda. Are there any questions? We are not taking action even though this is under action items We will take this up again on September 9th for the second reading Seeing none, then I'd like to move on to 7b this is also first reading. It's the town council rules of procedure 10 4.4 and 10.5 Regarding ad hoc committees and work groups. I Want to point out that at a very last minute? I apologize that for that, but we've done as fast a turn around as we can You did receive a an opinion from the town attorney Andy, are you still on the phone? Yes, thank you Okay, so I'm again going to call on the GOL and that's Mandy Joe So work groups and right now there's two slides and we're gonna go through this slide Which is ad hoc council committees and you're probably asking me Why are we doing ad hoc council committees if we're looking at work groups? And it's because while GOL determined and worked on some language for work groups it Thought that in order to distinguish between work groups and ad hoc council committees We had to come up with some distinguishing character because we had a problem if everyone read the report of Figuring out what was different about them and how to write rules to make that difference clear and the Distinguishing characteristic GOL came up with was that work groups would include members of the public ad hoc committees would not So you're right now looking at a proposed revision of ad hoc council committees That directly relates to the adoption of work groups It's while we did not specifically discuss this at our last GOL meeting, it's my understanding that if work groups are not adopted GOL would not recommend making the change shown here on rule 10.4 to prohibit Members of the public from serving on ad hoc council committees that it's solely there Because of trying to distinguish it between work groups and ad hoc council committees We did move one sentence that was in the opening paragraph down to a letter a B is the addition C and D were labeled A and B. So that's another small change But but that's the reason you're looking at ad hoc council committees. So if I can get the next slide This is the bulk of what we're presenting tonight which is rules on work groups and GOL spent four meetings discussing work groups and We also brought in a former member of a member of the dissolved rules of procedure ad hoc committee Kathy to talk to us about her idea and understanding of what work groups would be as we struggled with Coming up with some language to present to the council with our understanding of what the council wanted us to do This language is problematic and has shown to be more problematic Given what we received from KP law today. I'll get into that in a little bit, but the goal of adopting work groups was and is to if this council decides to adopt them to make a more Flexible way of creating a multiple member body to advise the town council And and so we as GOL worked toward that goal in attempting to come up with language the report has five pros and Things that reasons why GOL thought defining work groups in a separate section would be good The first was to define work groups in a clear manner. The second was to Specifically state that members of the public would be on them and to the third was to Remove the formal requirement of a charge and allow them to be done by motion only and the fourth was to Allow more flexibility in finding in creating them, but also in more easily working with experts And appropriate staff on particular policy areas of policy or concern People GOL members Repeatedly pointed to marijuana working groups and parking working groups that the town has utilized in the past as examples of What we were trying to create here with work groups and the fifth reason for favoring work groups was To have committee chairs appoint members as opposed to the council president, which is required under the ad hoc Committee rules and the charter But this is where also we struggled as you saw from the KP law opinion KP law came out today and said that Whatever the designation of the title if it is a committee of the council whether ad hoc or not the president needs to appoint this proposed language Would violate that at this time So other reasons for Opposing where we struggled with this and where at least one member opposed the adoption of this beyond the fact that That member believed it violated the charter Was this struggle between what's the difference between a work group and an ad hoc committee and do we need to separate things? or can we just work with ad hoc committees and maybe make them a little more flexible another concern over adopting this language was the appointments process and Adopting this language could Allow committee chairs or the president to In the language that was proposed would allow committee chairs to not require CAFs for members of the public to be on work groups and that they could just choose names and That was a concern by at least one member of this GOL that circumventing the public process for applying to serve on a committee Was problematic and not potentially in conformance with the council's values as adopted in the rules There are some other reasons that We had concerns the ultimate vote on this in GOL Was three in favor one against I was the councillor against And one councillor while vote and one person was absent one councillor while voting in the affirmative did specifically ask that That their vote be stated that it was in favor to ensure that the language was presented to the council Because if they had voted against it would have been a to-to-tie and would have failed and not come to the council So we struggled with this over four meetings KP law has said this language is not quite Potential not not compliant with the charter right now I'm not sure what this council wants to do with that and whether they want to Send work groups back to GOL to potentially Make it compliant Other options as hinted at in the rules would be to I guess pass it while not compliant with the charter Or ask GOL to rework ad hoc council committees to attempt to make them more flexible To reach some of the goals that the original goals of the work groups would reach This is a proposed change to our rules or procedure This is the first reading While I would like to engage in a discussion I would like to also point out the extent to which we have an enormous amount of other work on tonight's agenda Including three items for executive session. So I'm going to limit the conversation to about no more than 20 minutes Okay Discussion from the council Cathy. I'm sorry Andy Okay, please. Thank you Hi, Andy. We've gone on to seven B and we're entertaining a discussion about their proposal and Taking into consideration the recent ruling that we got Excuse me from the town town attorney. So Kathy, I believe you wanted to speak I Want to thank you. Well, because I like this language a lot I think it's create very creative and you did distinguish between the two the issue you've brought up by the Straight jacket of the charter. I think This offers some wording to get around it and I you know in the past when we had select board in town meeting We did have things that looked a lot like work groups So it was the parking group on the marijuana group with those set up by the town manager where they set up by the select board How were they set up? So the the goal of this was We're wrestling with an issue. We want to take it out do some more study and get more information come back with some ideas and Don't want to take just counselor time We want to be able to reach out to people it won't they would typically not be around for very long, you know two months six months So that's the flexibility and I'm seeing North Hampton uses these they sometimes call them study groups They they're various names, but it's not a formal committee so It's hard to believe that we would set up Ourselves in a way that we can't do something flexible and I'm thinking when we set up the it was a committee but when we set up the climate committee and we had a mixture of council and the public on it we found a clause in the Charter and I was going to go look at it just said we can do things if we want to do them We can create policies when we want to do them that we didn't have to write A word for everything so I'm just I'd like this a lot and I would I would hate to think that we Can't proceed in the fashion that this is written out that a committee could decide that we can't do this by ourselves We want to send it off and have some people wrestle with it and bring it back to us So I think this wording works for the intent of what a workgroup was as opposed to ad hoc committees Which have to have charges which will be appointed by the president And this doesn't say the president can't appoint sometime the president might want to set up a work group You know, I mean it could be a work group of the council. So that's just my first applause for Clarifying the difference between the two which I think is important. I think they are quite different and a plea for finding the flexibility rather than saying we just can't do it because There's a surrounding document that says we can't be flexible like this Additional comments, please Pat I guess I would like a clarification from my colleague when you say that Northampton has work Study groups or what are the criteria that they use to select? You know, what's interesting is I don't find long lists of charges and back and forth I just see they've created them, you know, and their committee is getting a report back and it's not always All counselors, so I don't know the process pad. I just you know when I I was on the rules of procedure I had hot group and I was trying to read through what were people doing and they didn't necessarily call them this they might call Them so many committees or study But but it was you know people were using an avenue that said take it out of just a committee Deliberation and then come back to us Andy would you like to comment? Yes, thank you. I think that there's an unfortunate problem is that our charter is different By the rules of our own charter I'm not sure what it is that we can actually do If we have a very clear opinion based upon our charter, which is what our town attorney has provided And I guess the other point is is that we could Have the president due appointments it is ultimately the president's Decision, but the president could take recommendations and We could we could explore that as a process. So those are my two comments other comments from the council Pat I guess I'm I want a clarification about caps Would people applying for study groups work groups or Be required to only be people who had put out who filled out a caps Or would we be able to go forward and select other people? The other comment I have as well. I have great respect for you Lynn, and you know that I I It in that it troubles me that only the president appoints ad hoc committees and Because I feel like that puts a lot of power in hand and one person's hands now Luckily, I feel like they're doing a damn good job, but I still feel uncomfortable with that Are there additional comments Evan Yeah, so I can out myself as the member who voted for this For the purpose of putting it in front of the council for discussion, but doesn't necessarily feel Comfortable I think one part of that is what we just discovered This would not necessarily be compliant with the charter until we unless we change D to the president would appoint and that creates some weirdness in that CRC might create a work group, but then the president would appoint Certainly, I would assume the president would work in collaboration with the committee, but we don't necessarily know My position from the beginning for those of my colleagues who don't sit on GLL has been that the goals of Work groups could be accomplished by revising the rules around ad hoc council committees And the reason for that is I mean currently unless we accept the revision that Mandy Joe showed on the previous slide There is nothing in our rules that prohibit Members of the public from serving on an ad hoc council committee Our rules do say that ad hoc council committees require a charge Which is interesting because the only ad hoc council committee that we've had that has actually had a charge was rules of procedure We created an ad hoc council committee for goals one for the energy and climate action committee charge one for the CRC charge And none of those ever had charges and so those predate our rules But going forward if we were to do such a thing to say we want to create a new committee on I don't know zoos in Amherst and We want someone to come up with a charge We'd have to write a charge for them to come up with it a charge Which to me actually seems like an encumbrance for an ad hoc council committee So I'd actually my preference although it wasn't part of that revision would be to remove Charges from the requirement of ad hoc council committees. I think that provides nimbleness Once you remove charges and you permit and you don't have any language in there that specifically prohibits the public I don't see how that's that far away from what we're actually looking for in work groups And and I always rather would keep things simpler and my mind is if you why have two things When you could have one thing that accomplishes the same purpose I do have the language for North Hamptons in front of me that Kathy references they call them select committees And they do require And they do allow for for members of the public to serve on them They're just special committees of the council. They are appointed by the president And so that that does hold but the language reads very similar to this and and ad hoc Council, so I think that there's a way to do this But I've never felt as though we need to create an entirely new category of committee to accomplish this goal I feel like it could be reasonably accomplished within the structure that we already have given our past practice additional comments listen, so Of course, it's illegal because I like it So that makes perfect sense that makes perfect sense and this is also a reminder of Careful of what questions you ask KP law because I don't know why we wanted to know this answer quite honestly if we hadn't asked We would potentially just do this. There's nothing to sue anybody over There's nothing to complain about except if you don't like a decision But the final decisions for a work group any recommendations they made would be through a committee which would then go back to the council so I Would argue that there are some other things We haven't asked legal opinions on that We still need like conflict of interest Distrocated with the board of licensed commissioners and to be a little cautious about what things we asked for because I'm not in Any way looking to skirt the law, but I think that we've made ourselves a mess by doing that And I don't think it's been helpful. I think that it is very unfortunate And I don't think that anyone who voted for the charter believed that the town council president got to a point everything Now I know that's an exaggeration. It's not everything but that was not the intention because they didn't vote for a mayor and so It's it's a complicated dance that we do associated with that But I think that one of the things we might want to reflect back on is Some of the assumptions that our town attorney makes about the way things actually work She references basically in each one of those memos two of which are republished from before The idea that of course for example in a case where the town manager was appointing of course The town manager would work with the town council president and one not just pick random town counselors to serve on a committee that he was appointing and Perhaps that's part of what we need to Adjust our minds to is that even though it says even though the rule will have to be to comply with the legal guidance We received that the president would appoint It's that we could decide what that process looks like of the president appointing. I Don't I although when push came to shove the president some future president of course not the one we have now Could say oh well this KP law opinion says I can do whatever I want I can appoint whoever I want of course they can we can also decide they're not going to be chairing our president anymore So if if that happens like a few times, so if we give clear Guidance to the president then about what our expectations are and don't Why did why did you do that if we just give killer guidance as to what we expect? But the problem still remains and so I'm fine I Get my head around that the problem still remains the reason we wanted these I thought instead of the ad hoc Was so that if CRC is sitting there and saying, you know, we really need this thing But till we put it on the agenda to take it back to the full council and the full council decides whether or not We need this thing we could have already had this thing do their job and Since they're just advising that committee. I agree with the idea that that's just too much I love process, but that's too much process. It's not you're not getting things done at that point And so is there some way we could adapt this so that it wouldn't because we don't want to have to like drag the President of the council to a CRC meeting in case they decide at that particular meeting that they might need a committee And that just like seems crazy It does feel like we ought to be able to have this flexibility that if our committee decides We need to hear something more about small business owners Whose names begin with be and and they can go off and do that Process and come back to the CRC and then that comes back to the council We need this kind of flexibility whereas I feel like it charges schmarges We the first several might have been written on a cocktail napkin for as official as they were But they eventually got turned into something But they do cause a lot of wordsmithing in between and so if we could find a way to do What we had presented for this package before we got that little Downer of a piece I still see a purpose to letting council committees do some more work to the side and bring it and then without having to ask The council for permission Andy Joe So I'm going to try not to speak too long since I presented the report But I tried not to put it too heavy on my own opinions One of the reasons I voted against this was because I'm there were many one of which was I did feel it violated the charter Another one was the potential to not be transparent and who you're appointing to do a committee in an open meeting law body public body And I think that should go out to every resident not just those that the people on the committee know or those that the President or the I mean the chair of the committee knows I think it should be open to everyone But I think one of the biggest problems or one of the main problems of this is also the fact that it would allow committees to create bodies public bodies that don't have counselors on them and We saw this problem and we'll see it in about 10 minutes when we get to the percent for art by-law work group proposal What if finance wants a committee on The Hickory Ridge, what if CRC wants a committee on Hickory Ridge? What if GL wants a committee to study Hickory Ridge now? We've got three different council committees appointing three different work groups to study the exact same thing and them going out and Either having the president if we fix this to make it compliant with the charter the president appointing Three members to report to this committee and five members to report to this one and two to report to that one That seems like chaos to me And not really transparent if a committee feels like it needs information on say Hickory Ridge from You know a golfer go find a golfer and ask them to show up and comment during your committee meeting I don't see why we need to form all these extra committees to look at Information that we've already assigned one of our standing committees to look at and maybe that's Too narrow of my view But I think the more committees we create the harder it is for the public to actually follow our work if CRC has been Referred something to look at I don't think They need to form every time a new committee to look at it if they don't have enough expertise either send it back to the sponsors that brought it to the council for the expertise or Bring in the experts to talk at the council meeting at the committee meeting about their expertise So I don't think we need this Steve. So I think the exact issues that you're talking about are a reason that we need something like this and in particular maybe why we need D to be the president which I think is a default anyway, but when Measures are when issues are are referred to two different committees. We're discovering. It's really difficult for those committees To operate because they don't know what the other committee is looking at And so that's exactly where the work groups need to be formed is when things are logically Referred to more than one group. So we could choose a different protocol Which is that it's sequential that it goes to the CRC for example first and then to finance after that in some ways. It's much more expeditions in cases that You know rip from today's headlines the percent for art to have them referred to both But then both get a little bit stymie because they don't know what the other one Should be doing or is doing? so You know, I voted yes for this and I'm okay with the president I mean, I have no choice, but for the president to to be the Appointing officer and I see a process in which the president is taking recommendations from whoever the most knowledgeable are Who thought who the members should be are there other comments from people who've not competent? Yes, Darcy. I just want to say that When I saw this I was very pleasantly surprised. I Was on the ad hoc rules committee and and we were Very excited about the possibility of having something like this that would Would create a situation where we could be more action-oriented and nimble and I also like Alyssa Wondered why we asked for a legal opinion Because it feels like it wasn't That helpful and I do and I have a question About that and that is How did that transpire did that just come from GOL? The legal questions The as we were meeting on the agenda item to put the agenda together I brought the question up that maybe this needed legal counsel review and Because I questioned whether it was consistent with the charter and Anytime I question something that's in that I think could be inconsistent you may question it as well with the charter That says to me get a legal review Okay, so then you ask the town manager to ask KP law. Yep and each one of those questions Is like a certain number of billable hours? We have the we have KP law and a retainer. I don't know how we do that the town manager manages that contract so that would be interesting for us to find out because You know before we ask our questions, it would be good to have an idea How much we're paying to get an answer for each question? Do we have a way of knowing that? So we do have KP law under retainer, so they do our general legal services under the The Retainer that we pay them annually though we're in discussions with them again To discuss the retainer the value of the retainer and how they are billing us. So That might be changing. I just had a meeting with Lauren last week actually on this How are they billing us now? They bill us on a retainer level And I don't know the monthly amount. Yeah, and then every if there's a legal case. That's that's car if doubt and build separately Me any case meaning there's a lawsuit Do you know how much they charged for the questions that we just asked? I Can tell you the number of I will be I haven't seen the bill yet, but we will on our bill We will be able to tell you the number of hours they spent on this question in particular. Yes Shalini So I am very much in favor of having work groups I don't believe that asking a golfer or a single person to come and make a you know Come and make the comments is enough to really it requires going back and forth It requires doing in-depth research and ongoing process and conversations So I really feel to have a creative nimble and at the same time We have processes in place for transparency everything that's being discussed in these meetings is in our minutes So it's not that there's any underhand Decisions being made and if there's any concern about transparency. Let's talk about what are the obstacles we have and how do we? overcome them and But I really do think we need to find a way to work in this way Additional comments Kathy. Okay. I'm not gonna repeat what I said before But I just want to react to the notion that if we as a committee a Wrestling with something asking the sponsors just go back and fix it. It's not what I'm used to as a legislative process I'm used to I'm and I I know my framework is Congress, which is not a particularly effective legislative body these days but if someone is dealing with a change this and change that One or two members the legend legislature will usually have a staff person go off and work with a couple of the groups to say There's some differences here. Let's iron them out. Let's figure rather than having just themselves do it, you know, so because the sponsors are if they want to get something through they want to Not agree with everything, but at least understand what the issues are So that's what I'm used to as a legislative process that it's not just the elected officials And we don't have any staff so I can't tell staff to just go out and find a bunch of things for me But we've got this incredible town full of creative people We're willing to do a lot of work on behalf of the town and I think that's what this can tap into I Want to ask if it's the desire of the council to continue this discussion at this time In terms of transparency the workgroup would make a report the report would come to the committee and would come to the council and I think that makes it pretty public bandage, oh, I just want to clarify my Comments on transparency because I think they were misinterpreted the transparency is in how the workgroup gets appointed And I don't think it's transparent at all when it's a committee chair just picking members without any application process whatsoever That's my concern with transparency is how do you get people on to this committee? And if it's a committee chair or the president I my concern was when it's chair without any CAF application process whatsoever where you You adopt a motion and then say and here's the five members No one had a chance to apply. That's not transparent That's not open government where we're trying to bring people into the government to get them active because no one had an Opportunity to say hey, I'd like to be on that. That's my my issue with the transparency of workgroups showing I Thought I had it had something to say. Okay, so Since this is a special type of committee in terms of transparency related to who gets who is being appointed I think it's the committee's involved like that's a CRC I think it's up to them and they're having a discussion in that like who are the relevant people they think and what is a diverse Expertise they can drop on and I think there's a hard chance of actually getting more diverse people Involved in this because it's a smaller group and they can be Approached directly. Hey, we really need your help in this committee. Can you come and help us versus having that long? Process which is truly incredible and very good in place in other places But I think it's okay to have these small groups where we can approach and there is a discussion That's happening openly about why we think I might think that I think this person has this express Experience and Doris C might say no, I think this person needs to bring this and we might decide, you know So there's a healthy discussion openly Transparenly happening on the basis of which they will make a recommendation to the president that we would like to appoint this Darcy just to add to what Sean is saying The fact that the group has a finite task. I think really makes it makes it different As far as having to go through the whole CAF process and and so forth In order to be more nimble and be able to do the kind of work that we want to get done at a faster pace This is just Works better Dorothy That's my point that it's for it. These are short-term committees I do agree that if it were going to be a committee that was in existence for a long time Not to have it open to the public the CAFs would be a mistake, but these are short-term Committees so that we can get something done. I'd like to make a comment So As I looked at this I said, okay, how does this really play out? Okay, I'm the chair of a committee of the council Forget the fact that I'm president. Okay, you can vote me out whenever you're ready But More than anything so I'm the chair of a committee of the council and we decide we need to study something We say we need to study this and Then I actually end up there's a committee and the committee sits there and says, do you know what our real charge is and It's not clear and I will I'll tell you I chair an ad hoc committee right now It's the goals committee and frankly, we don't have a charge and I wish we did Because I'd like to know what my final deliverable would be So that's number one. I really believe in charges I believe in committees knowing what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it by and when they're supposed to come back If we don't have an ad hoc committee with that kind of charge Then we should have a regular committee of the town like the affordable housing trust That discusses this is an ongoing thing second thing is Without having a process by which people are appointed We will always be stuck subject to the criticism of cronyism and I hate that When people can't apply openly to be on a committee when people can't volunteer when asked if they'd like to be on a committee Then you are subject to well, how did you get chosen over somebody else who might have been on that committee? But we didn't even know they were interested and So now I'm the chair of this committee and I say I want my next-door neighbor because I really know that they know Something about this and you say, huh? And so how did I choose that person? And you could spend as much time and I'm just going to reflect back on how much time Oka has spent on the issue of appointments this year and You could spend a lot of time in the weeds over how are these people appointed? Whether or not the council votes them the president appoints them It's I mean we can work out of words how to make it collaborative But I do worry when committees don't have charges and there's no process by which there is open opportunity for appointment What would you like to do with this Steve? I'd like to approve it, but In some ways, I think we're overthinking this because I think that there's some very specific Practical work groups that are being stopped because we're kind of overthinking this so Yes, there are sort of far reaching examples that you've brought up But there's another one which we need a work group that has two counselors on it two people who have already been CAF because they're on the Art Commission and You know, so there's there's I don't think we should stop The good for the perfect so you're absolutely right There might be somebody that's far reaching that hasn't been involved in public art or whatever But the Public Art Commission people we know that they've already been vetted. They've already been out there So we're stopping that if we can't approve you know a Rule for work groups, then we're going to stop very logical. We shouldn't be stopping logic is really what my point is Pat I'm trying to recollect my thoughts. I think as a member of CRC We're we've been that committee was created to study the impact of decisions and policy of the council and In order to do that we need to be able to meet flexibly with other committees We you know, it's we need to have we need to know financial impact way before the finance committee offers it to us in a Town council meeting, you know, if we have we need to go to the housing trust We need to go to different organizations and I feel like that flexibility is critical to the working of CRC and and so I think Refining this until it's perfect Which means getting rid of it. It sounds like from many people on the council. I I think we're making a mistake I think that we're groups or whatever you want to call them in our critical. I think the idea of transparency And charge. Thank you Pat You talked about charge not having a charge If you even lo