e anything we forgot? Does anyone have any questions In the parking section Would be in the general section And it would say That the site shall have two one electrical vehicle charging stations with two Connection points and there was another one about and the Developers shall attempt to install solar panels if feasible Insubstantial field changes can be approved by the building commissioner and then interior construction may be allowed on Sunday if allowed by the police chief and The parking for contractors shall be restricted to the project site unless written consent is provided to the planning department The additional conditions are we ready to make a motion on this? So I think it's a multi-layered motion Number one you have to close the public hearing number two you have to Approve the project with the conditions and waivers as listed Number the site plan review approval number three you have to approve the special permit to expunge all previous special permits And we haven't really talked a lot about that But if you want to talk about it now would be a good time so I Think it would be under 10.33 the building commissioner's position is that because there's an existing special permit associated with this site? And it hearkens back to a time when the uses on this site were allowed by special permit pre-zone change However, even though post zone change they're allowed by site plan review, which is the process We've just gone through the building commissioner's position is that we still have to extinguish the existing special permit and so I think what we have to do to do that is Modify the special permit to extinguish The existing special permit somewhat circular, but that's where we end up So I would suggest instead of going through all 10.38 you probably want to do 10.33, which is the modification piece and it's Provided that the action is consistent with the purposes and intent of this by-law and a public hearing has been held So you've had the public hearing and we would suggest that it is In concert with the purpose and intent of the by-law specifically because the by-law has changed to now allow it Not by special permit, but by site plan review and you are in fact allowing it by site plan review I want to take two votes one on the site plan review and one on the special Should we do the special permit second or first? That's just the getting rid of it, right? Probably Christine I think you raised the issue about if are there any things in the special permits that way we might want to add to the site the site plan review permit Did you have any more thoughts on that? I think that would take a lot of research because I haven't read all of those special permits and the building commissioner is comfortable with expunging them and I read them just because I Can't stop reading paper, but it They were mostly about like allowing a hair salon and or a beauty Esthetician and you know keeping them as professional offices. I think that was it I think that was because this used to be in the RG zoning district So that was a residential zoning district and they wanted to have huses on the site that were very restricted And now it's in the bn which includes a lot of different uses that are allowed In business neighborhood and they're all listed in the use table. So I don't think that we need to get into that So why don't we do a motion to to is it dissolve or remove the special permits? Extinguish, thank you. That's the one extinguish. I move we extinguish the existing special permit someone second Any discussion on this? None. Okay all in favor say and it's unanimous. Thank you No, we only just did that now. I'm gonna do that, but I was gonna ask one more time. Is there any public comment to this? Do you we're good? No problem. Okay, so Then we can close the public hearing, but that can get tagged on to the next motion, right? Okay, so David if you want to do your thing again move to close the hearing to approve the conditions as And waiver discuss. Yeah, the findings and the waivers presented to the And close the public hearing Okay, good you did that first and approve this I plan review and approve this I put yes And that too and that too I plan review and I hear a second any further discussion Okay, all in favor say I And that is unanimous. Thank you so much Really, thank you. Thank you for being so flexible great job. I Know it was Thank you for waiting You're really Yeah, I know just raise hands. All right, I'll do that. I just always think I can't I can't see I can only hear but yeah You're right Yeah, that is a luxury Okay, so if I can find my agenda So miss McGowan was asking about her status in this since she wasn't here when this case was first heard She is now a member of the planning board so she may approve Submittals related to conditions as part of the planning board Miss McGowan was asking So we're gonna move down the agenda to Section 7 old business SPR 2018-16 and SPP 2018-04 Acapulago investments LCC 26 Spring Street Welcome, thank you. If you could both introduce yourselves Kyle Wilson from archipelago Dave Williams archipelago So I'm reading what we have here Chris do you want to Give a summary of Their return So the reason that mr. Wilson and mr. Williams are returning is that they are eager to get a building permit from the building commissioner and the three conditions that they need to satisfy from the site plan review That they need to satisfy prior to getting their building permit or these three So they needed to submit detailed plans and information about site improvements. It turns out they did show you the detailed plans and site improvements at the August 1st meeting of last year of 2018 and I believe that miss field Sadler has provided you with copies of those plans It just turned out that you never actually received copies of the plans mr. Williams brought them to the meeting But we never actually received hard copies and we didn't receive Electronic copies either but now we have received them And so I think it would be good if you went through the plan with mr. Wilson and he described What all the materials were and then the condition number 12 was for a complete lighting plan a photometric plan and details And I understand that mr. Wilson has a plan with him I hope he does and condition number 14 was to show the new location of the street light that is to be Relocated and I understand from talking to mr. Wilson that he's not proposing to relocate the street light He is just proposing to remove it because that's the lighting from the building will be adequate to Like areas so perhaps he can explain exactly what materials he has here Thank You Chris So you have some Conditions to talk about yes, thank you and Chris. I plug in right here for the flash drive right into this Pull this one out the town of Emerson and you all have hard copies of the the plans from 2018 yep 730 18 okay, and I have a hard copy and I'll bring it up on the screen. We have existing conditions For pro site plan and the grading details. Let me try to figure out how to get this I might need a little tech help on how to get into the flash drive on this. Oh gosh Yeah, you from the other people it dropped out Check you today Go over here to the way There it is Thank you, so I'll pull up the plans that were submitted these are the plans that the hard copy that you have that were submitted last year and the hard copy that I just gave you are Is right here and so when we met last year one of the questions was Public improvements in the street and whether we were going to have street trees out front or whether we were going to have parking out front and What we were planning to do with the power lines that were there so we have spent the last Six months working with ever source and have come to an agreement that they are going to bury the power lines along Spring Street Which has moved more quickly than we had imagined which is very positive in doing so then As you'll see here these the little islands that that are remnants from The project that the town and Amherst College started about ten years ago will go away and these poles Across the front will be dropped And I have another image that may help so Oh, yeah, that's good. Can you zoom in? So there are three poles adjacent to the site that will come down and there's a fourth adjacent to grace church That's right here that will come down These three poles a b and c are In the street as you can see here so Before the crash of 08 town and Amherst College worked to regrade all of Spring Street and improve the the sidewalk and The intent was to bury all of the utilities So the town put all of the conduit underground There are boxes which you can see here for power cable and telephone that were installed and And once the crash hit and the Lord Jeff project was put on hold Those plans were kind of stopped as they as they were at the time and the poles were left and a Somewhat of an accommodation was made to keep them out into the street and so when we began the project the intent was to try to use the new development to be a catalyst to help finish that project and and That's what we've been able to do So as that relates to what we're talking about today is one of the items that you know this Condition three was related to that previous conversation about parking or street trees out front Are we going to have spaces? Are we going to have? drop-off and a lot of that was obviously dependent upon whether or not they were going to be poles in that street or not because those obviously guide the Parking layout which is inherently inefficient because the parking was not laid out and or the poles were not laid out on 20 foot increments so what we're showing here is is is the is to satisfy Three and a portion of 12 and 14 so for condition three what we've shown is On the top is of this page, which I'll go to now so excuse me, it might be helpful for miss McGowan if Mr. Wilson were to kind of give a summary of the whole project because she's coming in not knowing anything about the project at all And I think your page two of six, which is the second page of your little group of plans here Shows the plan as a whole so maybe if mr. Wilson started there and described sure this building Then he could put the materials in context So this is page two that you're referencing. Yeah, so this is the new development This we have there is 10 feet of grade change So the northwest corner of the site is 10 feet higher than the southeast corner of the site so the building has done The intent the design of the building is to accommodate that and try to make a exterior space on the southwest corner that is commercial and In the southeast corner is the lobby entrance to building. So there are actually three different slab heights for the building There's the lobby there's the commercial space and then there's Which includes some of the back of house trash electrical fire and then there is the residential floor So those all step up to try to accommodate this grade that That varies over 10 feet across the site so we have Units on the ground floor residential units on the ground floor and then three floors of residential units above So it is a four-story building That sits on this site to the Southwest is a ramp an accessible ramp that brings folks up to Entrance to the commercial it also services the side of the building since there is no back this is the side so this is trash and electrical as I mentioned a lot of the connections and That is approximately three feet higher than the lobby which is here there are also steps a more direct route to another entrance to the commercial space and The lobby is directly at the grade of the sidewalk so the When the project to regrade Spring Street was completed the street sidewalk Was pitched it was dropped. It was lowered It was kept high up here for Grace Church. There's a handicap access ramp that needed to be preserved but and it drops down and right here is if I go back to This is almost exactly where the existing Drive-Ile to the parking lot is so all of those curb cuts The two the two cuts this one this one entrance and the two curb cuts are almost exactly where the proposed drop-off area and lowered curb will be for access to the building so As you'll see here That has not changed since last year We've been able to refine it with all the work that we've done in the intervening time and been able to provide all of the All of the pitches all of the spot grades all of the exact dimensions for The improvements related to that handicap drop-off So as you'll see here at this this side of the site. It's at two ninety point nine At this point and down here. It is at two eighty eight point eight eight so the all of the material is Well, let me stick with the grades first So this is matching the existing sidewalk obviously and as that continues There is a pedestrian ramp which will be more gracious than the one that's currently there a bit longer and have a five point two percent slope And then it's roughly flat here. There's a bit of a pitch And within the two percent max cross-grade That is allowed per ADA and AAB And then there's a pedestrian ramp that ramps back up which is about the same size as the existing and Connects back up to the sidewalk which continues to match existing grade here so We will be Keeping with all the town of Amherst Standards for the sidewalk as you'll see here that sidewalk is the has the paper On this side has the you know the cross Pattern in the concrete and the the brick colored pavers on on on the other side as well, so we'll be matching that This shows the the spot grades for The stairs and this shows the spot grade and the ramping for The ramp up to the commercial space the ramp here is Gracious enough where there is no railing. There is one railing that is here as required by code adjacent to the stairs and This is the entrance to the lobby What you'll see I think it's probably more clear on the lower portion, so I'll scroll down This this drawing is keyed, so it calls out each of the materials It calls out where they are This is and it also calls out For condition 14 the existing light pole which is shown here Which will be removed that light pole is currently right here and Provides some lighting to this the the parking area as it currently stands the The parking layout as such we have With the word this will come out with the removal of the power lines This will come out with the removal of the power lines and then the ability to restripe is there So the standard 20 foot parking spaces will be able to keep this one We'll be able to add one here. I'm sorry, and then we'll be able to keep these Make them a bit tighter, and then there is an opportunity based on How the town decides to strike the rest of this to potentially Keep those existing spaces or maybe pick one up if with the removal of this pole There's some additional length for an additional parking space This is per the approved plan, so we have the granite curbing that is Shown in front of Grace Church here, which is which was installed as part of the Regrating of Spring Street when they drop dropped it As well as well as the the stairs that were installed in front of the Jones property and the stairs that were installed here at Grace Church so We will be that that granite is going to be the same granite that we're using for the the number 12, which is the monolithic stone wall and The same type of grant that's used for the cladding The stone cladding on the face of this wall and the face of the building which was shown in the approved rendering So none of that has changed We have Granite paving as well that will occupy everything on the property north of the sidewalk That is shown on this plan here So that also has not changed again, this is really a Clarification and a bit more detail with the more information we have On what the front of the the building as it addresses the sidewalk will look like If there are any questions on this I could go into I could answer those before I got into the lighting plan Yes What is the depth of the landscape because it's a little different on the zoomed out plan than from the zoomed in plan The depth of what this? Yeah, it looks like it aligns with the stair like the full depth of the stair and the Site plan, but then here it shows it's a little narrower Yes, so that was a result of code requirement to allow for Access and turnaround in this location. So that line had to be reduced to meet building code The landscape plan It didn't impact the landscape sufficiently we had shown Service berry in that paper so in that area, so it's the same landscape playing just a slightly reduced Section there. Can you retrace My memory is sake the handicapped access route from the curb to the apartment building sure the apartments So this is that grade This lobby is a lobby that directly access is the elevator in the building Those steps just go To the up to the commercial space. So this is the entrance the granite the granite paving confuse me. Yeah, sorry And the center staircase only requires one railing The center staircase is is a second means of access to that commercial space could be satisfied completely with this ramp Okay, so that's why you have because of the sky Look at me and this is also the egress path for Building so that second stair that egress is the upper floors of the residential comes out and drops To the street here, that's very glad that the bump odds are being removed and the street lights So is there any other replacement light? I'll show you the exterior lighting. So we go from one street light to Lighting that that highlights the egress and then lighting around the perimeter and this lobby will be This lobby is a part of our egress path in the building as any Multifamily building will have and so that building has a certain foot candle that needs to be maintained 24-7 In in that space so that in the event of emergency egress from this stair or egress from the elevator is lit Chris I just have a question about the grading. I noticed that one of the ramps leading down to the drop-off area is five point two percent so How how is that going to be allowed without a handrail? It's part of the sidewalk, but it's probably something that's created new, right? 5.2 percent is allowed and in Inside walks with a lot. Yeah, I believe the threshold is 8% Do you just have a picture of the project some I'm looking at these lines, but what does this look like in? I don't These were in a picture pictorial way. I don't know if I put these on the flash drive. Hold on Chris might have it there Oh, and this is Actually, this is helpful This is a picture of the granite that was installed when the town redid this the sidewalk and dropped it So that this granite and this stair to Grace Church were required because the sidewalk was previously open about this height And so we're gonna take that same materiality into the into the site work for the building It's a Salt and pepper granite that's used for all the curbing all around Where does that curbing go? Does the town take it back or no that all stays? That's all that's on Grace Church property Oh, it is that is but it doesn't it run all the way. Nope. It stops right there. It doesn't so then there's a stair and then there's the That is Here Yeah, so this is this had this had to stay high Because this was when they dropped the sidewalk This is the handicap access into grace and so this pitches down down down and then it's flat for a portion Then it pitches down again and when it pitches down again is where you have that granite Again that you walk by things all the time and you don't notice So did you see to your question those are the renderings that On the project is the sidewalk just all concrete. Nope. It has the it has the brick paver on either side of it and then it has the cross Patterning in the middle Chris. Isn't that going to be changed? Please Yeah So it's being changed in other parts of town.  So they really need to keep in Conformance with that elsewhere in town. We are changing the pattern. It just doesn't have long good longevity But if it's to I didn't realize it was to the east too And I've seen most of the failing when it's perpendicular to the path of travel and this is parallel so fingers crossed Any other questions So for the lighting plan We have cut sheets Here's the exterior lighting Well, there's there are four different exterior fixtures e1 which is a downlight in the Canopies Which I'll show you in a quick minute here e2, which is a downlight in the walls exterior walls e3 which is Another downlight that is in one of the monolithic walls right when you come up to the commercial and e4 which is Only in the very back of the building on the north side, so The lighting plan here Shows those fixtures, so you have e1 only here in the canopy above the entry here in the canopy above the Commercial entrance and here in the canopy above the other commercial entrance. So that is This fixture that'll be installed in the canopy. It's flush mounted down with LED e2 is around the perimeter, so this this wall is a is a site wall that is The grade is higher on this side than it is this side to make all the egress work so that's all stay the same this e2 fixture is mounted in the wall and provides a Low, but required foot candle for egress light around that perimeter all facing on to the site And that is the e2 fixture here Yes, what height on the wall Well, the it's good question the wall changes because it's it's managing the grade as this pitches down and this is the highest part of the site and that is I believe it is 24 inches above grade trying to keep that as as uniform as we can without pitching So it's quite low. It's really to to to light the path for egress E3 is Just here and here so these two walls Again as per the approved plans are a large monolithic granite wall that will Resemble the wall that the town installed along grace and that fixture is also down lit a little bit different because it's more of a ribbon and So you can see it here that ribbon projects underneath benches that are installed along This wall and this wall again in keeping with the approved plans Sure So you can see the face of this is Flesh with the wall and then this is recessed into the wall And then it's a very simple black that is tapered back to allow that light to shine down onto the onto the walkway The e3 fixture is surface mounted, but it's an eighth of an inch thick It's a it's a ribbon LED ribbon that gets mounted underneath a bench And it lights the on the underside of the bench and that's the ballast And then e4 is just back here there's one Surface mounted light that'll be on the exterior wall of the building Scroll up here. There's one e4 that's here and that e4 fixture is this Which is down light down lit against the back of the building and picked so that it matches the cladding at that part of the building and Then as part of this plan we put together two photometric plans. So This plan highlights each of those fixtures Let me see And Then this is we've done two photometric plans because this We've done one that shows how the the foot candles for the egress And that is reflected in the requirements for the code, which is very small but the code requirements that we have for site egress and the lobby entry are satisfied by Effectively the lighting around this this site wall And then in meeting with the planning staff Asked us to take it to zero to go beyond that to show how the foot candles are Impacted beyond that so beyond where the egress is shown and at the patios and At that space out in front of the commercial area. So you can see In this plan there is no light impact anywhere here except around this periphery the entry to the building and it goes to zero in short order right along the property line So there's it's a it's a very low light impact approach to providing What's required for egress around the exterior of the site and have any questions Chris? Wonder if mr. Wilson would send me those plans the electronic means. Yes, I did Yeah Could you zoom in on the front entrance? It's yeah in this plan at grade right? Yeah, I just want to see what the numbers were we it's hard to see There'll be less than the street light and Where is the street light the street light would have been here which is gone So there's no other street lights. So basically the sidewalks are dark No, there's a street light here that one stays. There's a street light. Yeah, we're not doing anything We're only there's street lights on adjacent properties We're just the one that landed in the middle of this property when that those street lights were a part of the This I weren't any on the poles No bump outs. No, that's part of what they did do is these street lights were a part of this improvement This one was placed in the middle of property. There was one place in the right of way and then one placed here On the Jones property, that's what threw me off because they put one on the property. So, okay Can you go back to the light? Just Curiosity, what are the kelvins for like are you going for a white medium? It's a good question. We keep this the specification calls for 3,000 or lower. So a warm light very warm. Okay, we try to shoot for 2700 in the building Exterior is about 3,000. Great Any questions Chris? Do you have any questions? Are we forgetting anything? We're going on four hours here, so We're slowing down It looks to me like they've met the condition number three and number 12 Yes, number 14 sort of goes away because they're not Relocating the light Yeah, so condition three is you think Matt that was the detail plans and so We have to vote to approve this is it an addition or just that they've met the conditions right number three and number 12 Okay, so did anyone catch that is anyone brain still functioning at this point where they can articulate a motion that says that This has met the conditions that were Previously laid out on their parents. Yes. Have all the other conditions been met? We still have to go to town council In our conditions it was called It was a lot of work, but we still have to go to town council and we still have similar to the last On the last group we still have to meet with Rob and chief Livingstone and chief Nelson to finalize some plans that are Separate then plans that need to come back for the planning board So this is but so all conditions are met for planning board all conditions relative to the planning board All conditions are met relative to getting a building permit So I'm not sure if they have to come back to you later on I Didn't read the conditions With that in mind, but these are the conditions they had to meet in order to get their building So we need a motion that says that they have met the conditions laid out for Them to obtain their building permit. I Think it would be direct Chris three and Refer to missions three twelve and fourteen that they've met three conditions three twelve and fourteen. Yes That would be good That way we don't get credit for meeting when we haven't met yet If you want to it's on the agenda here if you want to look Move to approve the project presented by our compelling investments that conditions three twelve and fourteen have been Submitted and approved the submittals have been submitted We're gonna improve it Any discussion All in favor raise your hands Okay, no zero and abstain So it's five no, did you you all said yes, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it's five yes zero no and one abstain I'm like now. I'm seeing I'm like I thought I saw all the hands go up. All right. Thank you. Thank you And thank you for your patience. It was a long night. Thank you We got to skip the first two hours Unfortunately, we're getting used to it, too Okay, so Granite samples, do I want to see what sample they have granite samples in the back. Are you interested in seeing well? I Tempting but no, we can go see it next to Grace Church. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you So if we back up to item six there's no ZBA report so we can skip all that and We have a signing of decision Can we just sort of do that and I can? Sign it after We need either Greg to come back or Perry Yeah, but the rest of you can sign it and this McGowan won't sign it. Yeah, so here here they come So you'll just pass. Yeah, and I can do that I can sign the minutes like after we close the meeting, right? I mean it to keep it rolling So can we postpone item new business item B downtown planning Do you want to talk about downtown planning right now? For five minutes. Is that okay with everyone five minutes? We'll start the clock Max five minutes for For Chris to talk to tell us about it for five minutes or I could talk about what Chris told me That there's money for sort of restarting the downtown conversation. So I was hoping to Let's schedule a date and do that and There's money for like a facilitator and then the other thing I was hoping is to sort of get a document that Incorporated what people said at the last two meetings But I thought there was a lot of good information that came out of that I went to it with the second session where they had the breakout groups I think with your husband was in my breakout group and there were a lot of really interesting ideas about things when people wanted to see downtown There is there are no names attached anything But there were like the groups had a lot of like fun and interesting ideas away things I'd like to see downtown So I think people if they could see the results of what they've said like, you know that they were heard Or there's a record of that that would kind of help us jump start and get people to re-engage because I know people care about a lot So that's that's my minute and a half. I think so Normally we do incorporate Or you all the planning department does and then puts it somewhere up on the website that never happened for that I think it happened forum We've happened for the first one, but it didn't happen for the second one So we have to go back and sort of reconstruct it for the second So you'll pull that together and put them back up. All right, and then Janet you were saying you want to schedule a meeting There's probably time in October because I think already sounds good 18th of September is getting kind of full. Yeah Good Good and then so item section 9 form a other any And ours hate to tell you there are oh god three. I think there are three Oh in the blue folder. Oh this in the blue there in here So if you pass me back, yeah, let me just pull out the signee things Sorry, I pulled them out already so I'm gonna come down and show them to you Or maybe I'll just pass them along Start with some of them you signed So the first one I'm gonna pass you is Property that is owned by Michael Kittrich's family and it has a very odd configuration currently They divided it into one two three four five six seven lots three of which are flag lots which are Really not very developable because the back part of them is in wetland And so the realtor who's representing the family is Suggesting that they Redo the lot lines to create I think three lots one of the lots has been sold off So when I come by and show you the big plan I'll show you which one has been sold off and then what you're doing here is Declaring that this is not a subdivision A and R stands for approval not required so subdivision approval is not required for this because there's no roadway being created There's no subdivision being created. It's merely Redoing lots on front it redoing lot lines for frontage lots. Oh, it'd be nice to know I think this is Leverett Road Yeah, as opposed to East Leverett Leverett Road. Yes, that's Leverett Road Jack actually I'll take them back because I haven't signed them. I'm just stacking my junk up But you and Janet sign these That's me don't worry about it. Well, that one's the dog part that I had Where is this thing That looks like Oh my gosh They're doing is there combining this These two access strips So the building circles show where the buildings are So nothing on this one This one already is no, I mean, sorry that goes to the back So they're only gonna four Right and four Yeah, because it's not in the back there's railroad, but there's power lines back there Well, that actually makes more sense what they're doing in the back is just power lines and railroad No, I wouldn't want to see anybody Is Yeah, yeah, yeah Yes, sorry the A&R gets weird I know yes, sorry They're like the back of Chris like what's going on Yeah, they will I promise As long as these two haven't come up with too much work for us. Yeah, this is property on East Leveret Road where There are very strange shapes to these lots I'm gonna pass around the plan that shows the existing shapes and then I will describe the proposed shape And the proposed shape is meant to include a well So there's a well between these two properties The person who has the house wants the well on his property obviously so he can control it And then the other guy can dig his own well if he needs to get his own well Yes fight well So that we were just over here with Kittridge and come down and State Street is here That is a house it's just a house and then these are existing houses My house I don't want to actually say who lives there, but I know So so they're splitting this off Wow So are these buildings there these are there yeah, there's two houses in a barn Yes, okay And so they're taking the well And then there's no house on this block Yeah, and they squeezed out that frontage by dragging the point out Wow I Know and the next one's even crazier When we haven't heard back from the town engineer we always send these in our plans to the town engineer in case he has any Questions or suggestions and for this one. It's a market Hill Road and As I said, we haven't heard back from him, but I'll show you Where it is located? Let's see Maybe miss field Sadler can tell me what's going on here. This shows the the location of the Lot and it's probably the location of the lot before it is subdivided. I haven't looked at the The proposal so I'm going to send this So this is a strange Integration as well. There's a kennel here So For some reason Not They're gonna turn out they're just cutting out that No building So why are they keeping it separate and not attaching it to this What's who's the next one over Christus side question Really Isn't it it's been closed it's been closed for six or eight years. Yeah It was The question here is once we hear back from the town engineer You authorize in the screen moment to come in and sign this right He If there's a driveway He probably looks at it a lot for septic And Right, and that was my only thought with this being such a small site I don't know because that's septic that they're on I mean they can The building commissioner This way But they would have to put a new one in and the new ones are good Okay, yeah, okay Well, what I think we're Chris is still torturing us a little bit. Sorry. Yeah, we're getting close So are there any upcoming ZBA applications just say zero Back When is that coming back The May I just say something which is that just for Janet's benefit One of the reasons that we tell you about these ZBA applications is if you Hear one of them hear about one of them and you want to have a presentation We can invite the applicant to come in and give you a presentation and you may want a presentation about the solar on the old New landfill that might be one that's big enough for you to want to see It's possible that you'd want to see the tip-up one as well with Two-family house non owner occupied on North Whitney Street. That's gonna have some Site issues related to it. And what is Aspen Heights? Coming back for Yeah, Aspen Heights has already been approved. It's shrunk from four stories to two stories It's only 88 units with 11 affordable units And I think this is just to prove similar to the way Kyle and Dave came to you tonight to show that they had met Condition requirements there to ask you for approval. That's what they're coming back. So on the duplex Is it owned by the owner? They're trying to convert it to a non owner or did someone buy it? it's owned by a Developer and someone who owns property in town who rents it currently and he's adding a new Dwelling I mean he's got a four a four Bedroom single family and he's adding he wants to add another four bedroom single family So it's kind of a big project and it's gonna have a fairly big effect on the neighborhood So if you wanted to see that I'm sure invite them to come in on the 18 right now our coping is low So we're like no not more but no I think we would we would want to see that yeah and the solar farm then No, it's admitted yet, right? So we don't have a date but it's out there, but you'd like to see it upcoming SPP SPR SUB I can't think of any. Oh, yeah. Okay, so at that point I think we should just have a motion to end or Reportive chair there is no zero and reportive staff. Do you have anything? Thank you for? Your tolerance and thank you Chris for we're all here together So adjournment motion move to adjourn Yeah, so again all in favor. Yes done you wow four hours and 15 minutes Thank You Amherst media


Russian soldiers refuse to attack Volodar. The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces states that a conflict is possible among the Russian military top leadership over their significant losses and lack of success in the combat zone. Besides, General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reports the following. A conflict is brewing in Russian military top leadership over huge losses and the lack of real achievements in the contact zone. This February, Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted Rustam Muradov, Commander of the Eastern Military District to the rank of Colonel General for his report on the successes of the 155th Marine Brigade on the Volodar Front. Now, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is demanding that the General prove his rank and take the city at any cost. According to available information, the brigade's leadership and soldiers refuse to go for an absurd offensive again, which they are being sent to by their inept leadership to storm the well-fortified positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces without any support or training. Meanwhile, Russia continues to focus its main efforts on offensive actions in the Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdivka and Shaktarsk directions. The enemy keeps violating the norms of international humanitarian law as their artillery targets, civilian objects and households aiming to destroy critical infrastructure. General Staff warns that the threat of Russian missile strikes remains high across Ukraine.


Exciting times love being here. This is like my favorite time of the year. I Love the cold. I'm from Latin America. People think I like the warm, but I don't actually like the cold and Got invited to go to swimming in the Baltic Tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to that I'm also that I have the privilege of being Tom's colleague. So if you were here raise your hand if you're here for Tom's talk Great, it's a very tough act to follow. I really love him and his contents amazing I'm the prequel think about the Star Wars movies. He made three four and five.  Okay, so I would say this this talk is probably targeted to you guys if you're raising a series D This is probably not for you. So feel free to go and mingle somewhere else The reason why I was asked to give this talk I think a little bit is partially on the tail end of the book which I wrote About four years ago, and then I republished this year with updated view and the reason why I updated is for many reasons One of the things that you'll notice is that on the X on the term sheet It says X as opposed to a number when I originally published the book I put a number which was typical for seed but what we're seeing now is how fast those rounds are growing people's expectations of Round sizes at the pre seed and seed stages have like doubled in just one year So a lot is changing and what I want to do in this chat is give you a sense for What to what to like reflect on in the lead up to your first round? So that's what we do now a little bit about my story As the as the introducing team said I was an engineer. I worked in tech I worked at New York Stock Exchange and I moved into The world of venture because I loved it. I love tech. I love meeting founders. I love what people are building and Over my career. I've I've been part of the journey of 400 companies I have a pretty good sample size and I really specialized in that first year that first year of your journey That's what Tom and I and the rest of the seed camp team has been seeing for over 13 years And I wrote the book because I saw how hard it is You know the the process of fundraising is probably one of the most frustrating Experiences and I know this personally because I've had to raise for seed camp seed camps a startup like you guys our first fund Was 2.5 our second one was five our third one is 20 and yes We have some winners in the in the family of seed camp, but it didn't come easy I mean we've had people turn us down for investment. We've had term sheets pulled from us We've had every single story. I won't say them on stage But if you grab me later, maybe I'm willing to share some stories But I trust me when I tell you I can feel and understand but I will say that fundraising has also been one of the most inspiring Insightful and serendipitous Events in my life. I've learned from so many people during fundraising I've gotten I remember one chat that I was having with my colleague Reshma Where we were fundraising and we got asked a question by an investor and neither of us knew with the answer And it's it's really great when you go fundraising you have your co-founder there because it's easier to to sort of You know trade off of each other. We were like, do you know the answer? No, I don't do you know the answer? No, and so like later we looked it up.  Let's not get caught on this So we came up with an answer and we'll talk a little bit about that How many of you are here for 10 persons talk raise your hand? Okay, a few of you there will be some overlap. Don't worry, but we'll hopefully cover some new stuff so the first thing is Do I need to raise Now why would I put this when all of you just raised your hands I don't need to raise is because I'm seeing more and more companies that can sell fund Especially if you're issuing some sort of crypto token or you're doing anything Bitcoin you can probably generate enough capital You don't need to go through a venture Program of any sort and I mean venture programming include funds and everything Also, sometimes you need to think about what it is that You you get into with the relationship with an investor You might not realize that when you're taking money from investor like it's got implications and those implications are both positive But also they do put you in a certain track. I mean just to give you an idea of what I mean by shareholder alignment Can I realistically return at least ten times their money? Like if you're building something and you honestly think your company is probably worth fifty to a hundred million Maybe two hundred million you can get rich But can an investor get rich to and unfortunately that's the nature of the venture business And I know it sounds like a basic question But you'd be surprised a lot of people are in the business of building businesses that are casual positive and can do very well But they don't haven't fully thought through is this a venture-backable business and if it isn't don't worry about it You can make enough money on your own now the second thing and I should probably put it another reverse order But personal alignment You really need to invest in researching who you are as a person Because so much of who you are as a person will be transformed when you're building a company and I can tell you this from first-first hand experience I remember some of the worst mistakes I made maybe seven years ago as a leader within the seed camp team Helping manage our team members and making all sorts of HR mistakes like things that you learn and so first of all First question you ask yourself is do you see yourself as a leader? Do you want to be investing in yourself? Because that's what you need to be willing to do if you're not willing to invest in yourself and what I mean by that is like Actively thinking about how can that be a better human being for those around me that I have the responsibility of leading? Because you need to not only fundraise for their company But you need to hire their best people inspire them keep them motivated deal with their problems and own their problems It's your problems to take care of it's not anybody else's and so if you're driven by other Externalities like your ego or what you want to achieve any ain't the thing to do this is not there There's other ways to make money. This isn't the way to do it So think about what is the ambition for your business? Is it externally led or is it internal? Those are really key things so that you know and then the last point is what is your ideal outcome? I think early early days maybe about 10 years ago in the venture world I would hear investors say how European founders aren't ambitious enough that's bullshit. We all know that's bullshit But the reason I think they were saying that was because they had a couple of anecdotes about how founders sold too early I Don't care whether you sell early or late doesn't really matter But I think what really matters is that you fully understand what it is that success means to you I remember when I was in my in school back in the day One of our professors told an entire group of people said hey guys write down everything you want Just write it down is it write a list and so everybody's writing down, you know plastic surgery yacht, whatever, you know, you write it down Pretty much everyone said Something around 100,000 to 200,000 dollars covered all their wishes, you know, maybe a bigger house Okay, fine add a million a million a hundred a million 200 You quickly realize that in order for you to achieve the material or other things that you think you want Doesn't take a billion dollar company, but I'll tell you what comes to the billion dollar company responsibilities Shareholder meetings investors expectations if you go out public you've got public Issues and you have a team of at least 300 people all that need your attention your inspiration your management So those are all things that you need to consider This is the journey and the responsibility that I'm embarking on as a leader of a venture-back company so the next point is The fundraising mindset now the reason why I say all these things is because if you believe all those things that are saying earlier The way that you will present yourself to a venture investor will be fundamentally different my job is to invest in people I Can tell you right now I can tell so can Tom so can Ted other investor who spent a lot of time You guys too you can tell when somebody's driven for the right reasons and that inspires because you know what your job is as CEOs Hiring other people raising money So if you can't do that if you can't convince me of that, how can I believe that you can convince others? That's the tricky thing So about fundraising The whole process is a series of iterations I can give you a whole bunch of magic formulas doesn't matter if I sat here and I told you exactly how I raised for seed camp Wouldn't be applicable to you I think one of the biggest mistakes you can do is compare yourself to somebody else on TechCrunch Oh, you know we've invested in some great stories, and I'm sure those founders you've read their interviews on TechCrunch or medium Or sifted or any of the great publications out there what you realize is you're not like them Like when we fundraised for seed camp We struggled raising we had our first fund. It was 2.5 million our second fund was Twice as big 5 million It was hard people said this day will never work. Why do you have so many companies?  Why are we not man? Why is it so hard for us, right? Don't compare yourself to others. That's the first thing and the second thing is Don't think any rejection as failure think of it as an evolution because with evolution you will end up with achievement Some of the best stories are about continuously evolving to the point where you get to where you want to get to one of my favorite stories and I talk about it in the book is one of our founders who I'm not gonna say his name because I Don't know that he wants me to share it, but you can read it in the book is He went to a meeting which was his 80th meeting or 76 high enough He had been rejected by everyone. He had about five euros left in his bank account Flies to this guy's office in Germany shows up to the office is in the lobby and then all of a sudden the the EA says sorry Forgot your The meeting ah wasn't in the schedule. Whoops.  Yeah, I've come all this way this guy Anyway, the investor says look really sorry about that. I'm going to the airport getting the car Let's go gets in the car goes pitches him gets his anchor investor the rest is history You just never know you never know another one of our founders sitting in the tube in London Starts talking to a stranger next door boom ends up being an investor You just never know and that's happened to us like I've had amazing conversations with people people who have ended up being our investors And the thing is that you need to be open-minded about this You need to be thinking every single interaction I'm gonna have here outside with me in the party Every single interaction is a possible lead to the next person who's gonna invest and as long as you embrace that You'll always have authentic Engagements with people which can lead to possible fundraising and element because at the end of the day. This is a relationship business. That's all this is So you will find the right person at the right time You cannot control events that get you there. You can only control your reaction and be resilient with any feedback you get So now let's go into the bit. That's maybe a little bit of overlap with Ted's talk Storytelling So much of what you need to do in Fundraising is just get what you're doing correct. It's that simple, but it's also that hard for example raising as a seed fund One of the things that came up often was how do you compare this other fund or how do you compare this other fund or? I've already invested in this seed fund in Europe I don't need to invest in you because I already have exposure to the seed market I'm giving you personal anecdotes for what it feels like for us to fundraise even though I appreciate many of you aren't raising funds, but it's it feels very similar and What what we realize very quickly is when we're presenting anything you have to be able to present things how they're different From anything out there There's a really good book called positioning and it's written by an author called Jack Trout And what he talks about is how do you get people to think about you? Different in their minds. We're not talking about like an XY axis. It's an emotional engagement How do people emotionally connect with what you're doing in a way that they've carved out a niche in their heads for you? So that's the first thing and storytelling is just how do you package that and get it out the door? But positioning is how do you make sure that when they receive it? They know how to compare it relative to something else? The rest of the points are pretty obvious You need to set the right milestones. What do you want to achieve with it? How much money do you want to raise and do you have a plan on how to spend it? Which is the financial plan and all that stuff, right now on how much you want to raise? One of the things that you probably are seeing today is the increase in valuations. I'll give you a very very fast mathematical tip The equation is very simple. How much money are you raising? Divided by the dilution equals the post money valuation, right pretty simple math So I'm just going to help you prioritize your negotiations here the dilution is Something that the industry of venture has kind of stabilized around nobody wants to own 50% of your company Nobody wants to own 0% of your company. So focus on how much money you want to raise and To some extent you will find that most investors are going to offer you something between 10% to 20% dilution, which will give you a range for valuation The point of this isn't to give you a lesson on valuation the point of this is you control your valuation with how much you raise That's the biggest variable because it's simple equation three variables pick one The other one is kind of market-driven. You have the outcome for the third Simple enough, right now the reason is The reason why it's a little bit more complicated is because you can't just pick a random number You can't say I want to raise 10 million although you're hearing about it more and more But the point is you get to choose your valuation to some extent by how much you're raising and try to calibrate For what you've seen others do in your sector in your space What is the right first round to raise on average? Pre-seed to seed somewhere between let's say 500 on the smaller end to about 3 million on the upper higher end But not the highest right there's always going to be outliers But anyway, those are just rough numbers for you to think about The next part is pretty simple the materials. I mean, I know this is basic super basic, but When you're an investor and you're receiving tons of emails Try to optimize. This is a hack right try to optimize for how do I get their attention without overwhelming? This is super simple first of all optimize everything you send for mobile consumption Secondly don't send an email. It's this long try to think about your email as something I can be viewed without scrolling And have everything be so that people can automatically Engage with it without having to over like don't log in do that extra now I've seen a lot more founders do doc send. It's pretty cool for a couple of reasons you can see Who saw your presentation? How long they saw it for who they shared it with and that's all great And I don't discourage that but what I'm saying is find a balance between having a high barrier for consumption and or being like super like track everything But both work The last points on the on the materials is make sure you have a cap table That's readable and understandable and try to when you talk to investors try to front load any issues You have with your cap table because one of the biggest problems everybody has is if you've had some Historical thing that happened to you. That isn't great. You know what front load that actually for anything If you have anything that's gone wrong in your company Front load that at the right time, right? You know it's like when you go and you meet somebody new a romantic partner You don't just immediately go into all the bad things about your life, right?  Did your co-founder leave? Well, you know, just share that at the appropriate time Don't wait for that to come up at the very last minute to jeopardize your your round if you have Founders that have left or investors that are you know not actively involved. Yeah, maybe you find the right time The point is all these things add up to your fundraising materials and you want to get those done, right? The next bit is the human element This is the bit that I think Ted spoke about quite a bit and I'm not going to go into too much detail But the human element is Reaching out to the right investors How many of you have cold called an investor? Okay, how many of you cold called an investor?  I'm like dude come on It's written on the thing. Why would you send me a series B? Don't do that That's an example of totally completely not identifying the right investor So make sure you identify the right investor Get an intro. I think Ted spoke about this get an intro get the right references It's gonna do wonders for your introduction even from another friend. Look everyone here is probably sitting next to somebody else that Is connected to the right people they need to connect to make friends and go through those friends If you don't have any friends grab a beer and make a friend. Okay. It's that simple so In terms of choosing the investor it's about relationships. It is so much about relationships. This business is a relationship business You want to find somebody that you can work with for a decade at least because that's how long it takes You know, we invested in transfer wise in 2010 I think and I'm friends with Tavit Actually, I go to him for a personal advice and he might be around here somewhere right now But you know, he's a great friend and I've and and I cherish that and you know I hope he cherishes that too and the same for Johnny from Hopin same thing You know like you want that kind of relationship because at the end of the day you're gonna build that now Doug Leone from Sequoia Says I don't want to be your friend, but we might become friends during our work time working together And that's fair too fair too So either be be some be with somebody that you think you can be friends with or be with somebody you respect So that you could potentially become friends with but if they're an asshole or dick just because they're giving you money I wouldn't take it and there's people that I wouldn't want to work with So about managing your pipeline I don't want to go into too much detail because it was covered a couple of the previous presentations I wrote a blog post about this and I am gonna be that guy who says check out my blog. I wrote it The cool thing is I promise you'll get out of value out of it because there is a excel sheet You can download and literally all you have to do is fill it in But basically the summary of the blog post is think of Fundraising as a pipeline like your sales pipeline and as I was talking about it's an iterative process So you just fill out the names who are you to who you spoke with when you did when you spoke to them last What's the next thing you need to do and then over time that will materialize into Hopefully an investment. This is a summary of what we've just been good through. It's a it's a circular as you can see circular process You identify the right investors You move into your first draft of materials you take those interesting meetings you analyze those you fine-tune those materials and Then you go back to identifying new investors and you can do one or two or three of these and then you'll tweak it So when we fundraise and by the way if you want to look at seed camps pitch deck because fair enough you guys share it with us So we share it with you if you go to slide share and Google seed camp pitch deck You'll see our previous fun in the fun before that. We went through multiple iterations.  We didn't have this person fix that. Oh, oh, we should describe this or the numbers went right fix that Grammatical mistake we all make those fix that and so you know you want to do that You don't want to do that forever, but you want to like maybe two or three meetings You'll figure out what the issues are and you start fine-tuning another thing That's really helpful and it's it's it's here an analysis from the first meeting is if you can go in with your co-founder or With somebody from your team and you present One of you kind of mentally keep track of the eyes of the investor and see where your story Isn't quite connecting you can kind of tell from people when they're disconnecting and you can be like This isn't quite working like for example this gentleman here getting up I'm like shit. I don't know what I said, but I lost them, you know So it's the same kind of thing, you know, you're just kind of like ah, man, what could I have said? Series B he left um So think about this is circular process and Lastly closing the deal There's only two things that really drive this FOMO and metrics Really only two things you're either generating FOMO because you're doing something Or you have the metrics to show and I have seen both versions of this One one of our investments is Revolute and I love Nikolai the founder of Revolute He's a great guy, and I know that you know that you might have opinions about him or not But one of the things I really admire about him is that he's been shipping product very fast He's always been super super fast about how they ship product And one interesting things was that early days when he would present to investors He's just you know, if you've ever seen him speak. He's not like, you know He doesn't like that, but what he does he backs up everything he says and I just remember early days He would just talk about his numbers and it was just like wow like how they're growing how they're doing And if you have that kind of story tell it, it's amazing You know like it delivers now sometimes especially at the early stages. You don't have that fine Which then leaves us to FOMO. Okay, so what generates FOMO the right storytelling the right team all those elements that we were talking about earlier That's what generates FOMO. So how else can you generate FOMO? Well, you heard Tom talking about when you have competitive term sheets that that helps that involves having one or two more Investors another thing that generates FOMO is being at the right place at the right time And this is part of being a founder is like, okay, what part of my business is relevant for this investor right now Why am I the right business right now? Why am I the right team right now and how can I tell that story in a compelling way where people are like? Shit if I'm not part of this I will miss out Now if you can have both those things that's amazing and that's how stuff gets done So with that guys, thank you so much. It's absolute pleasure being here. I'll be around if you guys want to chat But thanks again


Fourth, 2021. And we're here on Coronaville, what's next? And while you may think that we're gonna talk about vaccines and variants and the like, we're gonna talk about the real heart of it today, a strange journey of the COVID relief bill, how strange it is. With our panel, Tim Appichella, Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton, and Cynthia Sinclair, here on Coronaville. Welcome to the show, you guys. Thank you, Aloha. Thank you, Aloha. It's a strange journey. And we've been talking for years about distractions and how Trump has been distracting us. And that's still going on. And we've been talking about the dysfunction in the Congress and during the Trump years. And sorry to say that's still going on. So Joe Biden has identified four or five areas. Of his primary initiatives. And the first one, the most important one is the COVID relief bill for $1.9 trillion. And today we should analyze that bill, where it is, and why it hasn't been passed already. It's the most important thing in the country. So Tim, can you tell us why it's important and where it is? Well, good morning, Jay. It's important because there are so many Americans that need financial relief. It's just that simple. This was to be passed a month, two months ago and politics played and ruled the day and it got put off. 600 billion were passed, but not nearly enough. And so it's politics, Jay. It's the old game of politics. And here we are again. It's the power quest. It's Republicans in the Senate that have 50 votes and it's the Democrats in the Senate that have 50 votes. And of course the deciding vote is with Vice President Kamala Harris. But it's grasping for that last straw power. And that's why this thing's being dragged out. And that's why what was fine a year ago for multi-trillion dollar budget and COVID relief, now $1.9 trillion is asking for the moon. And so they're staking out their territory as the GOP party is. This is now too much. And all of a sudden they're concerned about budget deficits again. Give me a break. Yeah, so Winston, a year ago, the Congress was able to pass a multi-trillion dollar COVID package. And I have to say that was impressive. They got together on it. But now the Republicans won't do it. What has changed? Why won't they do it? What is the reason that we have such a fantastic, identifiable change in their willingness to go along? You got me, Jay. It's impossible to fathom why leaders of this nation would not want maximum sustained relief effort to get us out of this economic mess that we're in. And it's not based on any principled economics on the side of the Republican party either. As we saw, our GDP, our debt last year was larger than our GDP has nothing to do with wanting a smaller government or anything like that. Like you said, last year, these bills were passed. It's all about the political optics of letting Joe Biden have a win here. It's gonna go through anyway, one way or another. I saw, and there's breaks. I saw Mitt Romney was proposing 3,000 for every kid in the country. I think to the tune maybe of like 300 a month subsidy type of thing. There's different things that are gonna be coming out. They have to. We're gonna face a cliff here at the end of March when the rent moratorium and eviction moratorium ends. Sovereign articles on business rents not being paid, not just personal rents. We are having, we're facing a massive drop off here in about 60 days. And we haven't begun to understand what that cliff is yet. So you got me. I can't understand why they can't pull together and just say, just do it for America. Well, let's go to Cynthia. Maybe she's had some really smart ideas about why the Republicans were opposing them. I mean, maybe they have something in their agenda now that is simply more important than saving Americans. I mean, for example, you know, they have to talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene and spend time about her. And before I go to that, I wanna ask our friend, Alexa, about Marjorie. Alexa, who is Marjorie Taylor Greene? According to Wikipedia, Marjorie Taylor Greene is an American far right politician, businesswoman and conspiracy theorist serving as a US representative for Georgia's 14th congressional district. A member of the Republican Party and a supporter of Donald Trump, Greene was elected to Congress in November, 2020 and sworn into office on January 3rd, 2021. Well, I don't know if that's helpful, but at least it gives us a sort of environmental background on who she is. Thank you, Alexa. Alexa, I love you for Valentine's Day. No response, no response. Alexa, I love you. That's so nice of you to say. What did she tell you? She said it was nice of me to say that. Well, I'm a requireded love.  They spent most of yesterday in a secret meeting. I'm sure it's very important. How important is it? What are they doing to be so distracted here? Nothing, they're not doing anything. They didn't really do anything about Marjorie Greene either. They left it to the Democrats to do it. And I don't know if everybody has seen the video where she's going after David Hogg, who is one of the victims from the Parkland shooting. And he now has, he was just on CNN, that's your own goal, and he said, you can text RESIGN to 954954, that's RESIGN to 954954 to sign a petition to have Marjorie Taylor Greene removed, not just removed from her committee appointments, but removed from Congress, because really there's just no place for somebody like that. But Mark, I mean, Kevin McCarthy didn't have the guts to actually follow through and take her out of her appointments. He just gave her a stern talking to, and she apologized without really apologizing. It was all of that same double speak like we heard for the last four years where she says it was the media's fault. She blames everything on the media. So I think that the Republicans are not going forward to help with the bill for COVID simply because they're not going to do anything that the Democrats want, period. And it doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter if it's something great, it doesn't matter if it benefits them and everybody, they still won't do it because the Democrats want it. And you didn't mention, of course, that when she made her quote apology and quote, the Republicans gave her a standing ovation. I didn't understand the psychology of that myself, but there you have it. But there are other things, Stephanie, we're getting now into the mode of setting up for the impeachment trial in the Senate.  And of course, granted that the Democrats are initiating that and pushing for it, where does that fit with respect to the COVID relief bill, the most important initiative in the country? Well, they say they can do many things at one time. And I'm grateful as a taxpayer. I think most of them have been doing nothing for many years, especially our former president. So I'm fine with them marching to a much faster tune. Let's go, and they can. And they've promised that they can do many things. I think that as we all know, if you try to extinguish behavior, modify somebody's way of acting, that usually it mostly gets much, much worse before it ever gets better. So I'm still very, very hopeful that as everybody's on vibrate, that's a Republican in the House and Senate trying to figure out what's going on, what they're gonna do, and that it's all gonna get much worse. But as we move into the trial, we are all gonna get the same script, okay? So we're gonna put the whole country on the same script without any interruption. Of course, it'll be translated by whoever's are the media that are gonna do that. But anyway, we all have the same script. And perhaps with that and making a decision based on that, whichever decision that it will be by them, hopefully it will indict him, or I mean, it will punish him. But I think that it might be coming out of the tunnel because we've got Biden and the administration continuing to model a reasoned way and not doing the kinds of things that Republicans have done because it has to change. I don't know what we're supposed to do as a country if this oppositional thing from the Republicans continues. We're gonna break down. So it won't be what it has looked like. It would be an insurrection. It's gonna just break down if we just keep going. And God forbid that McCarthy gets replaced by Jim Jordan. I mean, there's lots of bad things that can still happen to make it worse. And they probably will. But I think the arc towards the better eventually because we have this fabulous administration modeling competence and real patriotism. Yeah, and he's great. He's Biden's great. He was in the State Department this morning giving a speech where he told them that he had their back and he loved them and appreciated them and wanted to recreate all our alliances. It was really a heart-rending speech he gave and I was touched by it. But Tim, let's go to Wednesday. You have thoughts. You wanna respond to Stephanie first, eh? Yeah, I just wanna amend my answer about why the GOP is fighting so hard on this COVID relief bill. And if you really think about it, they need 60 votes, right? And so what better way of making the Democrats use up one of their budget reconciliation chips? Than to fight this and then that forces them to use it and get a 51-50 vote to pass it. So I think that's maybe one of the reasons why the GOP is fighting this, just to make them use it up so that they only will have one left from last year. Yeah, and remember that he identified a number that is Joe Biden identified a number of other areas. Let me try to remember them. There was immigration reform, which we need badly. There was infrastructure, which is falling down around the country. There is election reform is the big one. Election reform, gun control reform, climate change. And these all need money. And if they need money, they need legislation. And to do legislation, he's got to go through the same process.  He can nibble away at it with proclamations. Don't be able to get money through legislation. What'd you say, Stephanie? I was just gonna ask you, can you explain the chip situation? There's a limit. What are the chips about? There's a limit to- Tim is gonna explain that to you now. Yeah, each year you get one, what is called a budget reconciliation. And it's kind of like a mulligan. You get to pass something with a budget impact with a simple majority versus a 60 vote majority in the Senate. And so they didn't use one last year for whatever reason. And so now the Biden administration has two of them, one for this year and one for last year. So he could get two very important things passed and use those budget reconciliation chits, if you will. And it'd be wonderful. But I think this is a wasted one. I think that Joe Biden in the administration can come up with a COVID relief package that isn't everything they demanded and want, but not use those valuable budget reconciliation options. That's if they move up the stage. Winston, does this remind you of what was going on with the Republicans in Obama? How they just wanted to make them look bad and stop all this legislation? Absolutely. Do you say Winston? I did. It does, but there's a different quality to it now.  This one, we're sliding sideways and lifted. It's like trying to stand up on a greased floor. The Republicans are in disarray. They're trying to find some focus or something. Meanwhile, we have this epidemic that's raging. We're approaching half a million dead in this country alone. We've got serious, serious questions while they're trying to figure out whether or not they're going to be a party of QAnon and that Marjorie Green is actually the head of the party and or are we going back? And Mitch McConnell, it's hard to figure out but he seems to be going back. They did a, you know, Liz Janie got a pat on the back. You saw the secret vote yesterday. It was like 150 to 50 or whatever it was keeping her in her position of power. That was the secret vote, the open vote where they say, oh, we can't impeach the president which she called for, which is basically a referendum on that was 45 to five or was it 40 to 10, whatever it was with the Republicans. So their heart is like, we need to get away from this as soon as we can but they're terrified of the base. And so they vote the opposite way of what they're really feeling. That was, could not have been clearer to me when I saw that. But, you know, at the end of the day, Americans, we've got to just buck up and grow up and act maturely if it's sad to see this. But the heartening news is, we have an adult in the White House. We have an adult vice president. We have adult cabinet members. We have, I don't, I'm not following what Joe Biden is signing or doing or not doing because I know he's got things under control. I don't have to worry about every single thing that he's doing something out of pettiness or vindictiveness or just because he saw it on the TV two minutes earlier. So there's a lot of good news, but there's some scary... Well, you know, somebody said, I think it was Stephanie, Tim, said that, you know, yes, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. But as we ramp up to that impeachment, it's much sexier than a bill that has been lingering this way. And that, you know, you lose interest after a while. I say, oh, a pox on both of them. But in the case of impeachment, that's pretty exciting. That's a legal proceeding live. That's a, may I say, a reality show representing all of Trump's influence. I mean, yesterday there was a letter to Trump asking him to testify next Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday at the impeachment trial.  Isn't it? And it is going to get directly in front of the COVID relief bill, isn't it? What do you think is gonna happen here? And will the impeachment trial succeed? Will Trump be, despite all the evidence, will Trump be convicted? Or will the Republicans who seem to be still Trumpers stick together and exonerate him? I think it's unlikely that he will be convicted. Unfortunately, I think, if not this, then what? But, you know, they're gonna hang in tight because they fear Donald Trump still. Donald Trump still is in charge of this party, whether he's in the Oval Office like you are or not.  Again, I do believe it's a theory of mine that the GOP wants them to use up that budget reconciliation option. And, but they'll come up with something relatively soon because both parties are on the line and both parties knows that financial relief is, even if it's a token gesture of $1,400, that it's absolutely required for those families that need it the most. It'll be interesting to see whether or not they reduce the means testing for who's eligible for the stimulus versus who's not. And they may reduce the annual cap down to a hundred thousand for a couple versus 150,000 a year for a couple. We'll see if that happens or not. They're discussing it.  Does their base care about COVID relief? Does their base still think that COVID relief is a hoax? I saw a piece on television yesterday where some guy in, I think he was a bar owner in Texas, who hired a bus. He admitted that he went to the insurrection. He hired a bus to take a hundred people to Washington for the insurrection. And he didn't care about masks. He didn't care about COVID. And he joined something 24% of the people in the country have no interest in a vaccine, believe it or not. So, you know, the base, does the base care about COVID? Is this because the Republicans are responding to their base and the base simply doesn't care about COVID? Is this possible? Jay, I think the base are the major recipients for this COVID stimulus. They're the ones that need it. Donald Trump's base is not the bar owner that you saw that interview with. I saw the same interview. I think the majority of his base are, you know, people who are barely struggling to put food on their table for their families, though they're unemployed or at risk of being thrown out of their homes by not paying the rent. I don't believe that the Donald Trump's base is the rich, the 1%, I mean, they're a part of it, but there's so much more to Donald Trump's base and the GOP's base that desperately need this stimulus money. Stephanie, what are your thoughts about that? Oh, this is my query. Who is this base? These guys that ran up to the Capitol the other day, that they're not having any trouble. I mean, they're having a great time. They need most of them. And do any of them have jobs? I mean, they did take Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday or maybe longer to get in and out of there. I mean, who are these people that went up to the Capitol? Is that the base? If that is the base, then why are they so getting so much attention? What percentage of the base are they? I don't think we have enough info or data to inform us about just who exactly is this base? What is their condition? What's their economic welfare and what are they contributing? In fact, I did see some data on the contributions made to the economy by people like in that base, Republican people and Democrats. And the difference in the contribution to the productivity of the economy is enormous in the way of paying taxes and being productive in industry and business. I don't have the specifics on that data, but watch for it because it is something that is out there. And maybe we're gonna get more attention. I'm watching for COVID. So Winston, give us a thumbnail on how COVID is doing. We hear all this talk about the vaccine or shall I say vaccines with more coming online and variants. We hear more about distributing the vaccines through the pharmacies of the country. I think it was a really good idea that Biden had. But how are we doing? It seems like the charts are showing a kind of improvement or at least not so much of an increase in COVID. How confident are you that we'll be out of this by the summer or the end of the year? Lest we forget, you know, there's always a dynamic. It goes up or it goes down. It doesn't say the same. Well, yeah. You know, I think that one thing that I want to bring up is that it's just, you know, a report on CBS. Mental illness will be the biggest non-COVID public health issue after the pandemic. I think we need to acknowledge that we have that now. We read an article about what you're feeling is grief. We have a, for people that are going through this, our entire world is being affected at the same time. We've lost jobs, family members, lifestyles, being able to go to the supermarket without freaking out. We've lost graduations and Christmases. And if you're feeling heavy, there's a reason why. But even if we do well with this vaccine and everybody gets vaccinated, by the way, interesting article in The New Yorker, Yale, New Haven Hospital, 90% of medical residents are getting the vaccine immediately, but only 42% of the environmental services workers and 33% of the food service workers did. Nursing homes in Ohio, 60% of the state's nursing home staff declined the vaccine. North Carolina, it's about 50%. So we're really running into an educational problem. This is not just about Donald Trump's base, which by the way is half the nation. And that's not going anywhere. But these folks aren't all Donald Trump supporters. They don't trust the basic science. I think it's too fast. More frightening, I think there was an article in Washington Post by Megan McArdle on the February 2nd called the COVID questions we don't wanna face, which is what if this gets more contagious and more lethal, like the 1918 flu? So we have a lot of variants that are coming out. Manaus in Brazil is being completely overrun after it was supposedly had herd immunity in the spring. We don't know where this virus is actually gonna go. They're gonna come out with new vaccines, but let's assume we vaccinate everyone. We get to 75, 80%. What's after that? And we had a question last week, maybe two weeks ago. How about the third world, fourth world, so-called? I saw there was a plan to get 200 million doses or two billion doses it was, but two billion doses does not seven billion make.  It's like polio or any other disease. If you don't take care of it everywhere, it's gonna pop up again. So we got a road in front of us, but in this country, if we can get some education and right thinking out there, I think we could be back to some semblance of normal by the fall and that seems to be the consensus out there assuming all of the things are equal, which they're not. Yeah, that's something I wanted to ask you about, Cynthia. Trump lied over and over and over again. And at first, it was a bath of cold water or everybody said that's a lie, but then he kept on repeating it and other people around him kept on repeating it. And after a while, people believed it. For one reason or another, that's a question of mental illness, I think. But then, okay, and this is interesting, there's a kind of momentum thing going on. So if you believed, and Tim and I have discussed this, if you believed back in, I don't know, you came to the conclusion back in April or May last year that COVID was a hoax, you stuck with that. And you'd have new information which you would reject. It was a kind of delayed reaction on public opinion. And I guess I wanna ask you about your observations of that phenomenon and ask you whether the fact that Biden is now in office and he's rational and he's saying rational things and he's reversing what Trump did, is that gonna be the same thing where, it takes a little while and people can sort of get away from the Trump lies, sort of the delayed reaction effect or will Trump's lies continue and undermine our country and our electorate on into the future? Do you have a sense of that? I do, I actually have a personal experience with that.  So many times that I looked in the mirror and I saw fat and ugly. I had a completely distorted view of the reality of things. I had a good friend that was a photographer who wanted to show me what I really looked like and talked me into modeling for him, for this one thing he was doing. And I changed my life.  So there's gotta be some sort of major shift in the thinking of the people that are believing these lies. There is a really good article right now that I recommend people to read. It's in the Scientific American. It was written by Tracy Lewis, no. Can't remember her name now. Tracy, I think it is Lewis, is right. And it's called the shared psychosis of Donald Trump and his loyalists came out on January 11th. And I really recommend reading that article. It's very informative. It really goes into depth into this whole thing. And it talks about the connection between the base and the maniac and how you stay connected to that. And it takes intention.  So it is possible, but it takes intentional work. So Biden and his administration are going to have to be intentional about reaching out to the base over and over and over, because they won't hear it the first time or maybe even the fifth time or maybe even the 20th time, but you've gotta be intentional. The photographer asked me to model for him multiple times before I find he said yes. So it's an intentional combination of things that have to come together in order to change their mind. I think we have something like that going on here. But ultimately, Kim, when you talk about getting one shit or two shits a year, talking about going through all these mechanics to get a bill passed and then you have trouble getting any reasonable initiative passed through the Senate and the Republicans. Isn't what's gonna happen here is that Biden is gonna have to go to the public? I think he's starting to do that. Isn't that his best option going forward? That he's trying to convince the public and of course it's an easy sell as far as I'm concerned that the COVID bill is the most important thing. He's gonna have to do that with other bills too, isn't he?  Isn't that true? It is true and no one used the bully pulpit better than the bully in chief, Donald Trump. He was a master at using the bully pulpit better than any president I've ever seen to sway the population's way of thinking. It's incredibly how well he used it. And I think Biden will use an ethical approach, an honest approach to that precious thing called the bully pulpit. And he'll use it to bring the country together, not separate them and break them apart. He'll use it to convince the public that we're all in this together and this big stew of COVID and it's gonna take all of us to get ourselves out of it. And I think he'll use the bully pulpit effectively and honestly and I think eventually we are gonna get out of this. Unfortunately, it's gonna probably be late summer. Yeah, and Trump is gonna be working against that because he wants chaos. He feels that serves his personal pathological needs. Okay, let's make final comments. Briefly then, Stephanie, final comments about where we are, where we're going on this bill in the context of all the other issues we've discussed. It's a bill that will bring Biden great plays. Praise, I think it will also launch the economy, the rock, it's gonna fire the rocket here for America. And I think it will turn out to be in Biden's great interest, it's a good start. So even if we have to use up the chip, it's really important that he get this lighted now and then we go on. But it's gonna take a generation to get any of these things changed. Remember they burned people at the stake, they chopped their heads up, they boiled them a lot, didn't make any difference, they never changed. It takes a generation. So unfortunately we've been inflicted and all of this has been brought to the surface. So, and they've had power. So it's gonna be a generational shift to get back to it. Why do I say that our generation Winston has actually lost time? We've paid a price here. We had a good life, but now it's oppressive in so many ways. What do you also us about this bill and where it fits in the historical context? The bill is just part and parcel of all of it. I just say just God bless Joe Biden and this new administration. And this nation because we were, we have been saved at the beginning. We have a chance to get it right. We will get it right. I have faith in us. We've been boosted and battered. But you know what? Back again, let them do their jobs. We've got our jobs, personal responsibility, double masking, don't share your air and you know, share a lo-ha. Okay. Check on others. Can you share your air with us just for a moment? Yes, but I'd like to take the little detour. We've been watching the services for Officer Sicknick in that Capitol building, which I think is the first real honoring of our Capitol policemen.  They hung them out to dry. They knew that there was going to be violence. They didn't give them any backup to begin with. They didn't send it until what? Two hours after the whole thing had been going. They literally hung those boys out to dry and that just makes me so angry. That includes Trump who did nothing while he sat and watched it all happen. Trump was in the beginning, part of it, planning it to keep all those officers away so that those guys would be the only line of defense. So you're making me angry again. You're infuriating me, Cynthia. Okay, we're almost out of time here. We have to go to Tim for a close. Can you close, please, Tim? One more thing, please. Just one more thing, because I think it's important that most people don't really know, public doesn't know these statistics.  Some were serious brain injuries. NPR put out something that said there was 140 officers that were injured and that's the notice by according to the US Capitol Police. So 15 of these guys were seriously injured and needed hospitalization and then two committed suicide after the fact. And I don't mean to make you so mad, but I would like that our public, the people that are watching to get angry, say something to your senators, say something to your congressmen, make sure your voice is heard, that those guys need to be really honored for what they did and they saved democracy. That line, that single line of defense saved us from having a coup that would have been successful and would have overturned democracy. Okay, thanks for letting me talk. Okay, we live in strange times, don't we, Tim? We do. And I agree with Cynthia that they were highly not prepared to take on that crowd and it's a shame to see what has happened to them and I agree with Cynthia, I'm upset about it too. As far as the COVID bill, it will pass. It might look different than what the Democrats initially wanted. I think it's in their best interest to negotiate and work with the GOP to try to get this thing passed relatively soon and save the option, but that's just my personal feeling. It will pass, but remember in the final scheme of things, $1,400 is nothing. We have big economic problems in this country and $1,400 is really not gonna do a whole lot for the people that really need financial help and get back on their feet. So that's gonna take structural changes to the economy and the employment and the stimulus is the stimulus, but it's really not gonna be all that helpful. You're right. Great points today, you guys. Thank you so much. Cynthia Sinclair, Tim Epilez, Stephanie Dalton, Winston Welch. He shows these discussions get better and better and it impresses me more and more. Thank you so much. Aloha.