ned away. They still live in the same public housing project I grew up in. I remember when my mom called to tell me that she had earned $800 before taxes for 100 hours of work.  Passing the diverse workforce provision will incentivize contractors and developers to hire women and people of color like my mom for better blue collar jobs. For all these reasons, I ask that you please pass these bylaws. Join North Hampton, East Hampton, Springfield, Worcester, Boston, and so many other cities and towns throughout Massachusetts that have passed similar measures. I thank Pat DeAngelis, Mandi Joe Hanneke and Kathy Shone for their sponsorship of these bylaws and Lisa Clausen and the Regional Council of Carpenters for their leadership in fighting wage theft and diversifying the trades. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Thomas Corcoran, please state your name and where you live. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, hello, my name is Thomas Corcoran. I live at 950 North Pleasant Street in Amherst. I'm speaking in support of the passage for the two wage theft bylaws presented before the city council. Tonight I address the council not only as a resident of the town but as a former building trades worker. Prior to arriving in Amherst, I worked as an electrician in New York City. While I enjoyed the benefits of union membership, wage theft occurred regularly on many of the worksites where I was employed. Cheating workers out of state mandated wages robs them not only of what they deserve, it robs them of their dignity. By passing these bylaws, we can ensure that workers in our community receive just and timely compensation for their labor. I ask you to please vote yes on the two wage theft bylaws in order to protect workers in Amherst. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Jyoti Yair. I am sorry about mispronouncing your name. Please state your name and where you live. Thank you so much. My name is Jyoti Yair. I live in East Hampton now. I am a graduate student at UMass Amherst and I'm speaking in my capacity as such. I've been a graduate student for eight years now and lived in the area. I am also a union representative for the graduate employee organization. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit and draw your attention to the part of this meeting that I was most interested in, although I'm very happy to hear perspectives in support of the wage theft bill and I support that as well. However, I am here to express my astonishment, frankly, and concern about the acceptance and welcoming, apparently, of the UMass reopening plan. There is widespread concern and fear among graduate student workers who are people like me who teach the undergrads who are going to come back on campus. We have a lot of residential positions as well where people are in residential life. They have positions like ARDs and others. And I don't think that any one of us is satisfied that we will be safe with 60% of the undergraduate population coming back in the spring. And the main reason for this is that we have evidence now that COVID-19 spreads in an airborne fashion. And I have been part of some of the discussions that are occurring among departments at UMass and we're still talking about sanitizing surfaces and how often rooms have to be cleaned. But I think the fact of the matter is, and if we're honest with ourselves, I think we all know this. If we have too many people in a building and if we have exposure of instructors and students to each other for anything longer than 15 minutes at a time, I don't think it's possible at all to prevent a super spreading event or a series of super spreading events. I'm amazed that the town of Amherst is okay with this. And I don't think that's, I don't think that's not the opinion of the workers among us who have to come back. And I want to stress here that the graduate student workers are a very small part of a very large workforce. And a lot of us who have jobs that can't be done remotely, who have custodial jobs, who have lab jobs, various kinds of jobs that simply can't be done remotely, have to come back to campus. And I think for those of us who have a choice and who have jobs that can be done remotely, I think that we should have that option. And I don't think that bringing 60% of the undergrads back is going to leave that as a viable option for us. And I wanted that to be heard. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to say that. Thank you for your comment.  Please enter the room and state your name. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Lovely. Thank you so much. I am among several voices you have heard tonight already urging you to support the two wage theft bylaws. I've had colleagues even in like an office job have wages not be appropriately meted out to them for various reasons. And that's something that shouldn't happen to anyone regardless of what position they have. And especially not if they are being contracted by our town. So I would really strongly urge you to pass both of those bylaws. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comments. There's a Pioneer Valley Worker Center hand up. Your name and where you live. Hi, my name is Rose Bookbinder. Sorry, my kids just walked into the room. So I'm going to try to do my best here. I had planned on trying to speak a little earlier, but clearly that didn't happen. Okay, great, there you are. So my name is Rose Bookbinder. And I'm one of the co-directors and organizers at the Pioneer Valley Worker Center and also sit on the Hampshire Franklin Central Labor Council and the Western Mass Area Labor Federation. And we have large memberships from across the valley and in Amherst, but I personally reside in Haydenville, Massachusetts. And I first just want to thank the Amherst city counselors and all of you who have been leading this work to pass the wage theft bylaws. And I'm speaking in favor of those tonight. This law is needed more than ever as many workers are even more vulnerable as we are facing this global pandemic. And it's exciting to think that the town of Amherst will join dozens of other cities in town, sorry, a dozen other cities and towns across Massachusetts who have passed similar legislation. And I also just wanted to thank the Carpenters Union and the Western Mass Area Labor Federation for the great collaboration we've been able to do with all of you here at the city council. Each year, $700 million are stolen from Massachusetts, hold on a minute, $700 million are stolen from Massachusetts workers each year and workers win back less than 1% of that money on average. That means $280 million lost in GDP across the state and $13.5 million lost in taxes each year in Massachusetts. But I'd like to just take a moment to talk about what this looks like for a working family. I've sat down dozens of times over the last few years with restaurant workers and Amherst and other places across the Western Mass who tell me that they receive a flat rate of $500 a week for cooking in local restaurants. I then asked them how many hours they work a week and they tell me that they're working 65 hours a week. This means they're being paid $6.69 an hour. That means they're having $5.06 stolen each hour because our state minimum wage is $12.75. That means $328.90 a week, which if you do the math for 52 weeks, that's over $17,000 that's stolen from workers who sit down with us on a regular basis who work in back of the house. And many of those workers are immigrant workers, many of them are women and many of whom are providers for their family. And this wage theft by-law that we're speaking about tonight is so important for helping to create a level playing field for businesses and contractors in our town that are cheating and getting a competitive edge over those who are playing by the rules. We speak also to many restaurant owners and who talk about how this has just made the norm and while they wanna price their meals at a rate that will allow them to pay their workers a living wage, they are put at a competitive disadvantage to those who have normalized wage theft on a day-to-day basis. And passing these by-laws will give the town more tools to address problems that should they occur. And it's unfortunate that we're just talking about basic laws that have been won, but we clearly need cities and towns to be pushing for these by-laws in order to make sure that basic wage and hours laws are followed. And I really appreciate all of you who have stood up and are working to do this with us. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Again, I'd like to ask people with possible please keep your comments for two minutes and under.  Hi, can you hear me? My name is Terry Mullen, I'm at 58 Northeast Street. I am here today to also support the passing of the wage theft by-law as I was trying to learn about the financial indicator presentation to listen to y'all. One thing that I came across was really interesting article that explained that actually income and per capita income is a much better predictor of the bond rating. And so if we have emersed residents who aren't getting paid what they deserve, you could see that really precious debt rating go even lower maybe if we actually get that to happen. And this is like the big thing, right? Wealth is important in our society as much as we don't want to admit it. So I think it's really important to protect these workers and please pass this law. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Terry. Karen Baker, please state your name and where you live. Hi, I am Karen Baker. I'm a Northampton resident and I was just eating a bite of cookie but Terry was quick, so I wasn't quite ready. Okay, swallowing that cookie. I live in Northampton. I've been a teacher in Amherst Regional School District since 2008 though. During that time I've been active in the union there and at the moment I'm part of the leadership of the Amherst Pelham Education Association, specifically the vice president. As is probably true for many here, I was shocked when I discovered a few years ago now that wage theft exists, let alone that it's so prevalent. How outrageous is that, that it's possible for an employer to get away with not paying someone and how awful to be that worker who has put in the work and discovered that you haven't been compensated for it. Businesses that behave this way should certainly not receive public money and we need to make sure of that. Frankly, businesses like that don't belong in Amherst. I understand that there are state laws against this but a local law that reinforces a state law and local oversight can be more meaningful and effective. Also businesses, companies and contractors that play by the rules pay employees properly, pay taxes, pay workers comp, should not have to compete against companies that violate wage and our rules. The town needs bylaws that give it tools to deploy if wage theft is found to have occurred. As has already been mentioned, my town of Northampton has passed such a measure covering business licenses, contracts and tax relief. It has experienced no legal challenges. This is also true for Eastampton, Springfield, Worcester, Lynn, Cambridge, Somerville, Boston, Chelsea, Medford and New Bedford. Please pass wage theft bylaws with a strong enforcement mechanism for all of our sakes and especially for the sakes of the workers who have the least financial and institutional power. Thank you for your leadership on this. For your comment, Kristina's Gerenj, I'm sorry to misstate your name, please correct me. That's fine, can you hear me? Yes. Great, thank you. Good evening with thanks to the council, Kristina's Gerenj for Animal Defenders International and our many Massachusetts supporters, friends and colleagues, including Western Mass Animal Rights Advocates in support of Agenda Item 8D, a bylaw to ban wild and exotic animals and traveling shows and circuses. ADI has worked on this issue for years around the world, including the proposed state measure for Massachusetts. We've provided you extensive data and written testimony and we stand ready to answer any questions. Preventing science makes clear these animals are inherently unsuited for this business model. One comprehensive study that we sent you considered the latest science in the industry worldwide to conclude that for circus animals, this is quote, no life worth living and that any education or conservation role would likely be marginal and outweighed by the negative impression generated by using wild animals for entertainment. Raising concerns that we know little or nothing about how or how many animals are source bread traded, how they die or what happens when they're no longer used. As this global pandemic rages on, wild animal trade must rightly face new scrutiny. Federal oversight is complex and costly and by the agency's own admission, it's just not working. States too often rely upon the mere existence of federal licensure, despite longstanding repeated OID criticisms of agency oversight failures. The National Association of Public Health Veterinarians warns that no federal laws address pathogen transmission risk at venues where the public has contact with animals, advising that certain exotic and wild animals should be banned altogether from these settings. Federal oversight does not consider public safety, that's left to you and your local first responders. Yet local authorities often lack the funding, familiarity or facilities to deal with these species. Local law enforcement isn't expecting or trained to handle wild animal escapes. Too often they are surprised to learn that there is no backup plan. Using animals this way teaches us nothing about what it means to be wild. Rather the science shows these acts perpetuates misconceptions that fuel trade and trafficking and endanger humans, the individual animal and wild populations. True conservation demands that we teach future generations what a wild animal really is. And that is not a plaything or a prop for entertainment or selfie clickbait. They are wild and will seek to be free and to follow their natural instincts. Please protect animals and Amherst families from these cruel and dangerous acts. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I am gonna encourage people to submit comment in writing to town council at AmherstMA.gov, considering that we still have a long number of people that would like to comment tonight. So if you are willing to do that, you can take your hand down. Otherwise, Brooke Ballinger again, please keep your comments to two minutes and under. Okay, thank you. Brooke Ballinger, I live on Potwine Lane in Amherst. I am a retired UAW organizer. And so I just wanted to speak again in support of the wage theft ordinances. I can tell you that there are several other agencies that are tasked with enforcing wage laws. And I'm extremely unlikely that a worker, even with a union, would ever have success in gaining all the wages that have been stolen from them. I've represented lots of people and sometimes I've been successful. Sometimes I have not. It's sort of at the whim of the attorney general has a wage in our division. There's the Department of Labor, but it's extremely cumbersome process. And if you don't have a union at all, which unfortunately is often the case for the most disenfranchised workers, it's just totally impossible to imagine that they would even approach one of these agencies. So that's why it's so important that towns like Amherst have their own ordinance. And it still won't always work, but it's another avenue and it's a reminder to employers, which is the most important thing that we're watching you and we expect you to treat your employees properly and pay them for every hour that they work. So I hope that you will endorse these laws and make this happen in Amherst. Thank you. Brooks, thank you for your comments. Lydia Wood, please state your name and where you live. Lydia, no, we can't hear you. Unmute, can you try out your microphone? Okay, given that we're having difficulty, I'm gonna move on to Jennifer Page. My name is Jennifer Page and I live in Amherst. I'd like to urge you to vote in favor of the wage theft and responsible employer bylaws. Employers should not be able to get away with withholding pay from workers. When this happens, the people who suffer the most are more likely to be already marginalized, such as undocumented immigrants and lacking in resources to pursue remedy. You might be considering why the town council should pass this bylaw, given that there are already state and federal laws in place. What I would say to that is that as elected officials and people in a position of power, it's your responsibility to support marginalized and vulnerable people. It's your responsibility to side with those who are harmed when laws are broken, not decide with employers who don't want more regulation. I'd also like to express my belief that UMass Amherst should not be exempted from this bylaw. Of course, they should not be exempted. As a UMass employee, I believe that my employer should follow the law just like every other employer. I mean, really, how would it look if you passed this bylaw but exempted UMass Amherst from complying with it? I hope that you will show your support for everyday workers and vote to approve these two bylaws. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Jennifer. Ruthie Weinbaum, please enter the room. State your name. Hi, my name is Ruthie and I live on McClellan Street in Amherst. I am a senior at Amherst Regional High School. I'm speaking in support of the wage theft bylaws. So I think that a lot of people, especially people in my generation that live in Amherst care a lot about things like equality and justice and we want to work against exploitation or oppression. But I also think that we think of that as something that happens in other places other than Amherst. Like maybe it happens on tomato farms in California or in sweatshops or factories and other places. But in fact, it can and has happened in places just like Amherst. And the people who are most likely to be victims of wage theft are our own community members. A lot of them have kids who go to school with me. And just like my parents know that when they go to work and do their jobs, they'll come home making the wages that they were promised and that they've earned. So should every single person in our community, especially the parents of my peers. And also as a resident of Amherst, I wanna know that the businesses that I'm patronizing are treating their workers fairly because I'm giving my money to restaurants or stores. I wanna know that the workers are earning the wages that they deserve. And it's also very unfair to the majority, the vast majority of businesses who do treat their workers well if we don't have these preventative measures in place to deal with the occasional employer who is not treating their workers fairly. And so I really hope that you plan on supporting the wage theft bylaws. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Shao Yi Dora Singh. Yes, hi. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you for being here. My name is Dora and I live in North Amherst. I'm the Co-Chair of the Graduate Employee Organization at UMass Amherst. Today I'm here to present my testimony on the wage theft bylaw and why Amherst should stand firm on protecting workers whether documented or undocumented. A couple of years ago, I was working undocumented at Amherst Chinese restaurant. I did not have my green card at the time and agreed to work for $2 an hour. I worked 12 hours a day from 10 to 10 and will bring home about $80 a day depending on the day. Every night before the restaurant closed, we were gathered in front of the cashier so the boss could give us our share. What I didn't understand was that when we shared the tips, the owner would take a cut for themselves. They say we all work together while handing me over my meager share of the tips. It took me a while to be able to say these things briefly in the public. Now as a culture of a graduate employee union, I am astonished by how many rights a worker has and how a strong union can make sure workers are treated fairly, which was not the case for me when I was working under the table in the restaurant. What was more interesting to me is regardless of what the paper said about me, I'm still me doing the work and trying to sustain myself in this foreign country. I certainly did not want to see that any other restaurant workers or construction workers were treated unfairly just because of their status. We are all working diligently and trying to support our loved ones just like any other restaurant here in Amherst. If Amherst truly hold herself high as a liberal town and stands firmly on the issues around social justice, this is the time. Only if we can hold those business owners, contractors and developers accountable for paying the visual families rather than their own greed, can Amherst own her name. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Michael Ash. Hi, good evening. Michael Ash, I live in Amherst at 47 Mount Pleasant. I'm a professor of economics and public policy at UMass, Amherst. Wage theft is an enormous national state and unfortunately local problem. There are many forms, paying a wage below the minimum wage, failing to pay overtime, misclassifying workers, illegal paycheck deductions, stolen tips, time clock and snack breaks and anagons and blatant theft. Minimum wage theft alone is estimated at $15 billion per year. Wage theft by public contractors and there are subcontractors in projects receiving public subsidies. For example, through affordable housing tax credit or other tax abatements, often for construction projects is especially disturbing because these wage thefts additionally violate the public trust. Wage theft can happen to any working person. Wage theft takes advantage however of vulnerability. Victimizing people who have limited capacity to complain and seek redress. Racial, gender and parental discrimination, immigration status and youth and inexperience are often sources of vulnerability. Frequent form of attempted wage theft is delaying payments to workers. We're offering a smaller sum now assuming people won't pursue the hassle of seeking full payment. Workers can't afford to wait. About 40% of American households cannot meet a $400 expense of available funds. For the many households living hand to mouth even a short delay in payment let alone complete theft causes missed payments, missed healthcare, missed taxes and bills, additional fees, credit score impacts, even eviction. The MIT living wage calculator shows that a single parent with one child needs a wage of $27.71 an hour to make ends meet in Hamptree County. The state minimum is $12.75 an hour with the minimum wage already inadequate for safe subsistence. The last thing workers need is to have their wages stolen. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts lacks adequate state laws addressing wage theft. Best practice is well known. It protects workers against theft in the first place and gives safe protected recourse for workers who are affected. The National Employment Law Project classifies Massachusetts only as a tier three state where tier one is best and the fourth tier is worst and concludes, while Massachusetts offers some compensation beyond actual wages owed it may leave some workers with only a small amount or no award of compensatory damages and without any punitive damages. The state's protections therefore fail to capture the full extent of the financial and emotional costs and risks that workers experience. Amherst can take action like many of our sibling communities and providing protection against wage theft with timely and thorough protection against this abuse. I urge you to pass the two wage theft bylaws. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you for your comment. Ashwin Wabakumar. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Great. My name is Ashwin Wabakumar and I live in Amherst on Pleasant Street. And I am speaking in favor of the wage theft bylaws by looking at the materials that have been provided. It looks like a lot of other municipalities have at least this strong of bylaws in place. So this seems like a really important tool to allow the municipal government to help people and to show up for people that live here that are in situations where all too commonly employers are not paying them what they deserve. So please do pass this and thank you. Thank you for your comment. Nadine Mazard. Hi, my name is Nadine Mazard. I'm a resident of Amherst, East Pleasant Street. And I'm also calling in in order to say that I'm in favor with passing this bylaws that allow for not having this wage and theft. And in addition, I'm in agreement with what has been said before. So that I can keep it short and sweet. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Emory Powell. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. My name is Emory Powell and I live in South Amherst. And I am just in support of the wage theft protection bylaws. I have recently become a first year apprentice carpenter with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. And so this issue will soon directly affect me as a resident of Amherst who will be qualified to work the construction jobs planned under UMass Amherst in the spring. I also want to express my agreement with Geotier Iyer who spoke earlier and I second their thoughts. I'm a Hampshire College alumnus who graduated this May during the pandemic. And many of my roommates are current Hampshire students who are already expressing on a daily basis similar concerns regarding UMass reopening in this way. I yield my time. Thank you. Thank you. Kathleen, please state your full name and where you live. Hi, I'm Kathleen Trapegan. I live on Southeast Street in Amherst. Thanks for your service, Town Council. Just a couple of things. I'm also speaking in support of the wage theft bylaws. I wondered the story of what happened in the North Village is extremely disturbing, I'm sure to all of us. And it doesn't seem to have anywhere near a satisfactory ending. And I don't know if there's anything that can be done but I urge you to research that. I appreciate one of the commenters bringing up the idea that UMass might be exempt from this law. If and when you pass it, that seems completely ridiculous. I hope that does not happen. I wanna thank the Pioneer Valley's Worker Center for all the work that they do and the Racial Equity Task Force for all the work they do. And then lastly on a different subject, I really urge the Town Council to figure out a way to switch how we are appearing in these meetings. Every person is like, can you hear me? You can't see me. I can't see the other people. I don't know who else is here. We've been in this pandemic for a while now. We're gonna be in it for a long while. So can we figure this out so that I can be on camera with you, the other commenters can be on camera with you when they comment and we can see who else is here? I'm sure there is technology that will allow us to do that. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you for your comments, Lydia Irons. Hi there, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, my name is Lydia Irons. I live on Jeffrey Lane in Amherst and I'm calling to also support the wage theft bylaw. I agree with everyone who's spoken here but I also would like to point out that wage theft is a neglected public health problem. I think it's really important to see wage theft as something that can contribute to someone having a poor public health outcome or having a poor outcome for health in general. Receiving less than minimum wage is one of the things that can result in people not being able to have overtime pay, have paid deductions when they're sick. And right now in this pandemic especially we want people to know that they are safe to stay home when they are sick.  Almost two thirds of restaurants lack the minimum requirement for wage theft signage. And I think it's really important that we protect those workers so that they can stay healthy and they can stay safe and they can keep us healthy and safe. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. We are going to conclude public comment at this time. You're going to take a five minute break and reconvene at eight. Thank you. When you return, please put your video back on so I know you're back. Okay, let me just remind you that if you need to, if you have a technical difficulty to please let Athena know, I'm just gonna quickly check and make sure that you can hear me and I can hear you. Shalini Balmille, not returned yet. I'm here, I'm here. I'm just in transit. Thank you. Elizabeth Brewer. Pat DeAngelis. Yep. Elsie DeMont. Yes. Thank you, Darcy. Lynn Griesmer is here. Amanda Johannity. Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Ken Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Matthew Shane. Yes, here. And Steve Schreiber. Here. And Andy Steinberg. Present. All right, we're moving on to the consent agenda. The filing items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy to remove an item from the consent agenda for the discussion later in the meeting, ask that if they removed as I list the consent agenda items, the request to remove an item from the consent agenda does not require a second. The motion is to move the following items and printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. 6A, Small Business Saturday Proclamation. 6C, Adoption of the Master Plan. 8G, Suspension of Town Council Rules or Procedure. 8.4 for Item 8G. Okay, something. Seeing slide. Yeah, we need a different slide up. Thank you. 8G is. I'll fix that. Amend Council Order FY20-68 in order appropriating and approving borrowing for a portion of the Town of Amherst FY20 Capital Program Elementary School Feasibility Study. 9A, 1-4, Approval of Town Manager Appointments to the following multiple member bodies, Community Safety Working Group, Council on Aging, Design Review Board, Munson Memorial Library, Building Trustees. And I believe that should also include, no, that's it. And then 9A, 4 is Designation of Special Municipal Employee Status for the Community Safety Working Group and 11A, Approval of Minutes October 19th, 2020 Town Council Meeting Minutes. Are there any items people would like to have removed? I see a couple hands. Darcy. Yeah, 8C, Adoption of the Master Plan and 9A, 1, just not all the appointments but the Community Safety. Okay. Darcy Dumont, I've already called Darcy Pam. Yes, the approval of the Master Plan. I'd like to take that off the Consent Agenda. That's already been removed. So the items that still remain on the Consent Agenda are 6A, Small Business, Saturday, Proclamation, 8G, Suspension of Town Council Rules of Procedure, Rule 8.4 for Agenda Item 8G. 8G, A Men Council Order FY20-68 in Order of Procreating and Approving of the Account of Amount FY20 and Capital Program Elements for School Feasibility Study. 9A, the following multiple member bodies remain on Consent Agenda. Are you found long enough? Could you please mute? Thank you. Council on Aging Design Review Board, Munson Memorial Library Building Trustees, 9A4, Designation of Special Municipal Employees, Status for the Community Safety Working Group and 11A Approval of the Menace. Is there a second? Second, DeAngelis. Thank you, Pat. All right, any further discussion or questions? Darcy, please, is your hand up? Oh, no. No, it's not up. All right, no questions at this point then we'll move to roll call. I'll start with Alyssa Brewer. Aye. Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Darcy DeMont. Yes. Lynn Griesmerzy, yes. Mandy Johannike. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Aye. Evan Ross. Aye. George Ryan. All right, technical difficulties. Aye. Matthew Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Aye. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Anne Chaloney-Ball-Milm. Yes. The pass is 12-4, no opposition, no abstentions in one absence. We're moving on to, let me adjust my things so I have everything right. C, we're keeping, we're going to move on to the items eight. Action items A is the appropriation outside the annual budget. I just want to mention this is a first discussion. It's a brief introduction to an item that will come before the council on November 16th at 6.30. And it will also come before the finance committee tomorrow at two o'clock, Paul. So this is for the ambulance. You have a memo in your packet that will be discussed with the police, the fire chief and the finance director at tomorrow's finance committee meeting, the town's ambulance, one of our ambulances has fallen ill and needs about $30,000 worth of repairs. This is one we normally would have repaired by now. So we think this is an appropriation request to the council to actually request a new ambulance. It takes about six months for us to move forward on this request. I mean, for the vehicle to be assembled. Are there any questions from the council at this time?  I know I'm talking a lot, but I am with all vehicles. I'm always interested in whether or not they can be electric. So I was interested to see that it has this proposed ambulance has the zero RPM feature, which seems to have something to do with minimizing the emissions during idling, which is ambulances and police cars do a lot of idling. So do you know any more about that? Paul? The fire chief does. I mean, but we did get the grant through Stephanie Chikarello got this grant to help fund it's an add-on, but you're right that when a naked shows up at a scene, it has to keep running because there's so much electronics on an ambulance now. So it's just idling there. And so this will allow a significant battery pack to be on the ambulance and then be running all of these electronics instead of having the vehicle idling. Thank you. Are there any other questions with this one? Great. Again, this was the back on our agenda on the 16th of April. We're moving on to amendments to zoning article 14, temporary zoning. And that is first of all, first of all, Christine Brestrup, planning director and building commissioner Rob Mora will be making a presentation. Paul, did you have anything you wanted to introduce with this? Oh, I think Chris, Chris was gonna take the leader. Actually, Rob is the expert on this matter. So Rob is going to give a presentation and then I'm here to answer any questions. Good evening, Rob Mora, building commissioner. We are proposing amendments to article 14. Article 14 was adopted approximately five months ago to offer administrative approval for certain types of uses in certain zoning districts. What's in front of you tonight is amendment to that article, first extending its timeframe to allow it to be effective through the end of 2021. And it's also expanding its scope. So we are proposing that the affected uses also include medical uses, specifically medical uses in the office park and PRP zoning districts. We have proposed a addition for temporary uses and we defined that as a use that would be one that would when it goes away and ends that it would be returned back to its original condition, whether that's a change to the building, the site or the user activity itself. Those uses that we included specifically for the temporary possibility includes class one and class two farm stands, nonprofit educational uses, churches, libraries, medical residential institutions and government type activities. There's one additional change that we're proposing in the application process. This was an addition that was put into the document recently at the joint public hearing with the CRC and the planning board. And it's to provide a notice to a butter's people in the area of whatever, wherever the activity might be occurring. It's expected to be a very simple type of notice that the applicant would take care of. They would post either on the building or the front of the property, a document that states the scope description of the scope of work that would be taking place and some contact information for our office in case somebody interested would like to view the documents or provide comment. This notice is specifically for no less than 10 days and we will include in our application process some guidance on providing that notice. The rest of the document remains the same. This has been reviewed by our town attorney and Kristine Brownstrap and I are here for any questions. Thank you. Are there questions at this time? Alyssa. It's a really simple question about that notice and I know a lot of it is just based on what do we normally do and what do other communities do? And I really appreciate that this idea of the notice was brought up several years ago. I noticed in Northampton that they actually use a form of lawn sign on some properties that say, hey, did you know this was subject to a public hearing coming up on such and such date? And you'd walk right past and be like, oh, that's the place they were talking about. So I think this is going to be very valuable for people but the part that I'm finding a little strange is that the bylaw addition does not say that we will provide the template because obviously there's a way that somebody can just put up a post-it note that says contact Rob Moore if you have questions. You indicated you'd give them a template. It doesn't say that in the bylaw. So is that something that's covered in a regulation somewhere or how does that work? Why wouldn't we just put it in the bylaw that they need to provide the information in the format that we provide? Yeah, this was added during the public hearing process and I think there was a lot of discussion about keeping it simple, not getting into too many details and I assured both the CRC and the planning board that the application of the process itself could include a template that we would draft and put into the application and asked during the application process for the date the notice was posted and that we would be able to handle and I'm sure then we would handle that through the application process. Are there any other questions? Let me move on and ask planning board chair, Jack Jemsic to tell us how the planning board ruled. Can you unmute? Yeah, so as Rob said, the main discussion was, you know, we definitely approve this, a lot of additional facilities that were added, no real problems, but the notification was a subject of discussion and I think we came up with something fairly simple with regard to posting on the project sites, you know, existing building that this would happen, I think what 10 days in advance of the implementation of the structure and with that simple change, it was, you know, unanimous vote to approve article 14 amended. Okay, and Mandy, Joe, would you please report out on CRC, which was part of the joint hearing and then a separate vote? Yeah, so we were part of the joint hearing, Rob and Jack and Christine have covered everything we talked about, after the joint hearing and after the planning board amended to add the notice provision, CRC voted 4-0 with one absent to recommend adoption of the revisions. And George Ryan, GOL. Yes, GOL met on November 7th and voted the amendment to be clear, consistent and actionable pending attorney review. The vote was 4-0 with one absent. Okay, are there any questions at this point? This is the first reading. We'll come back before the council next week. Okay, seeing no questions, we're going to move on to the master plan which we removed from the consent agenda. And let me just as a preference to this say, we did hold a public hearing on the master plan and that was on October 19th and the first reading was done at that time. We also did the required annual public forum on September 29th, 2020. And today, we are actually before the council for the second reading and consistent with the charter adoption of the master plan or any amendments there too, shall be approved by the planning board and then be submitted by the town manager to the town council which shall hold at least one public hearing near on. The town council shall adopt the master plan with or without amendments. So let me ask for there are two motions. The first motion is to request that the planning board amend the February 3rd, 2010 master plan to reference any climate action plan and any housing plan adopted by this or any future town council. Is there a second? Second, the Angeles. Thank you. Are there is there any? Yes, Darcy Dumont. I would like to amend the language of that motion. Is this the time to do that? Yes, it is. Would you please tell me how you'd like to amend it? I just want to make it to clarify it. I would like it to say to request that the planning board amend the February 3rd, 2020 master plan to integrate climate action goals and plans, housing plans and other townwide plans or parts thereof adopted by this or any future council. Okay, Athena, I believe you have a slide of that motion or Sean, you have a slide of that motion. Yeah, I'm pulling that up now. It was going to be a slide specifically of the changes requested. Just give me a second. Read that to me again, Darcy. To request that the planning board amend the February 3rd, 2010 master plan. Oh, 2010 master plan to integrate climate action goals and plans, housing plans and other townwide plans or parts thereof adopted by this or any future council. Okay, is there a second to that motion? To that amendment. I'm not seeing the second. I would second that. Would you like to speak to your amendment? Yeah, I just wanted to make it a little stronger that we want our plans that are adopted by the council to be integrated into the master plan. And just makes it a little stronger, that's all. And to include other plans that might come down the road because we might have a transportation plan. So the motion that we just made it and it's been seconded is shown on your screen for the bottom. And it says to request the planning board amend the February 3rd, 2020 master plan to integrate any climate action goals and plan, housing plan or other townwide plan or parts thereof adopted by this or any future council. So at this point, I'd like to know if there are questions or comments. Mandy Jo. Yeah, so first technical one, it's not the February 3rd, 2020 master plan. It's the 2010 master plan. So that's just a Scrivener issue. But yeah, integrate is a lot different than referencing. And we actually are here voting on a master plan now because in some sense, the planning board and the planning staff and even CRC when it looked when we heard from the planning staff about their attempts and how much time it would take in a way to integrate things like climate action into the current master plan would take a ton of time. And so we're here voting on a master plan now because the CRC and the planning board thought our staff time was better used not to do that and instead to work on actual zoning. So I'm not sure I can support a motion that would essentially say you need to do this and it's gonna take a lot of time. Melissa. Same and also referencing the odd wording of saying plant townwide plans and parts thereof. There are too many different kinds of things. And this is a master plan that's owned by the planning board that we the town council based on our charter, except it is not the compendium of all plans the town council has ever thought of in any given moment. That's not what a master plan is. So I was willing to go with the reference but I'm not willing to go with for the reasons Mandy Jo just stated and what I just stated the integrate part. Matthew Shane. I think I'm echoing these because I am not comfortable with major rewrites at this point, which I would say is the word integrate. You know, I think the other thing is that it's a living document. And if as we pass a housing plan or a climate action goal, we would do well to reference it strongly and drop it in so that we can go over to the other piece. And that's to me, the best way of keeping it current rather than constantly rewriting whole sections. So I think there is a way of doing that referencing that say, say in the master plan, shall the seed the following and having a hot link that brings you right over to the document we're talking about. Steve Schreiber. Excuse me. Yeah, so agree with everything that's been said earlier. The concerns I were earlier, but also we're referencing things that haven't been written yet or haven't been, we don't know what they are yet. So I have a, I can't see committing the planning board to adopt something that hasn't necessarily even been considered yet. Okay, does that any further comments? I'm going to go ahead and follow the question. The question is on the amendment, the original motion, okay? Which would be to integrate. And I'm going to start in this case with the angels. If you vote to support, then you're voting to the motion that integrates these plans. And if you're voting again, we will go back to the original motion. Pat DeAngelis. No. Darcy. Yes. Rhysmer, is a no. Anakini. No. Bethy Pamm. Yes. Evan Ross. No. George Ryan. No. Kathy Shane. No. Steve Schreiber. No. Randy Steinberg. No. Shalini Balmille. No. Annalisa Brewer. No. The vote is 10 in favor, I mean 10 again, I'm sorry. Two in favor, 10 against, no abstentions, one absence. We go back to the original motion. The original motion, which has been made and seconded is to request that the planning board amend the February 3rd, 2010 master plan to reference any climate action plan and any housing plan adopted by this or any future town council. Is there any further discussion or question at this time? Evan. Yeah, I guess I don't quite understand the purpose of this, specifically why it calls out climate action and housing as the only two types of plans we're requesting they reference when there might be other plans, open space and recreation, transportation.  So I'm not clear why we pulled out these two as the plans that might be adopted by this or any future that need to be referenced. And I also don't know what it means to amend the master plan to reference any future plans. I mean, these plans come out, they exist, they're on the website, they're easily accessible, but I don't understand what this is actually asking the planning board to do and why these two types and not others. This is a motion originally requested or something like it was originally requested by Darcy when we met back in the middle of October. And Mandy Jo and Alyssa, you both worked specifically on this motion.  I'm not sure I can speak much to it. I reviewed a draft of the motion sheet and it was requested that this type of motion be on there and I tried to draft something that reflected the desire of Councillor DuMont. Alyssa? Agreed, it had some clunkier language about recommending a request and I just tried to clean it up but was trying to reflect the spirit of those two plans that I know were previously mentioned. Christine Brestrup, I know you're in the audience and it would be useful at this point. It's actually, we can take the motion sheet down. And would you please speak to me with your quote. Requesting that the planning board amend the February 3rd, 2010 master plan through reference. Could you speak to that concept? What the planning board has always said is that it would incorporate by reference various plans and the only one that it actually incorporated by reference on June 10th, 2015 was the transportation plan. However, the planning board did have the intention to go back and incorporate by reference the housing production plan, the housing market study and the open space and recreation plan but they just never got around to it for whatever reason. So I think incorporating by reference is a better term and we have certain plans that have already been listed which I listed in my memo to you of what date is this? Actually, it's not my memo. It's Paul Buckleman's memo to you dated October 16th but the plans that were listed were the sewer extension master plan, the housing production plan, the housing market study, the transportation plan which has already been incorporated by reference, the open space and recreation plan, the bicycle and pedestrian network plan and the community field master plan. And those are all plans that have been finished. And so I think it would have been the planning board's intention to incorporate those by reference but then we started talking about the master plan as a whole. So I guess if you were to do any of those things I would suggest that you use that language incorporate by reference those plans that are listed in that memo with the exception of the climate action plan because as I think it was Mr. Schreiber said that one hasn't been written yet. So it's hard to incorporate it by reference when it hasn't been written. I actually believe the housing plan hasn't been written yet either. Well, the housing production plan was written in 2013 and then the housing market study was written in 2015. I think we're due to have an updated housing production plan, but we haven't done that yet. There's also a housing plan that was being discussed was discussed by the council referred to CRC and remains in the CRC agendas list of agenda items which is what I believe this one refers to. I think that was a housing policy plan. Is that what it was? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding because I think that was what Mr. Hornick was trying to get through was a housing policy plan. That is exactly what we're referring to.  Yeah, I just want to address the issue of including the climate action planning because we have adopted our climate goals and we do have an order ordering the ECAC to produce a climate action plan which they have come to us and told us about their timeline and they're actively producing it right now. So it's not like we don't, that it isn't a thing. We know that it is coming and that it's legislated. So it seems to me that the time to adopt a motion like this is once the council adopts a plan. So that once we adopt a plan like the climate action plan we would then also want to have a motion that asks the planning board to amend the February 3rd, 2010 master plan to incorporate by reference whatever that more recent plan that we just adopted. So in other words, having a motion that suggests we amend something where the item does not exist as an action of the council is premature is what I'm hearing. Is there any other interpretation or comment, Steve Schreiber? Yeah, so this is a tricky one because really our goal here is to adopt the master plan. That's what the charter requires us to do. At some point we are supposed to adopt the master plan. It's silent on all other plans on these sort of attachments, these other kinds of plans. Really that's the planning board's responsibility. They're the keepers of the master plan. It's their responsibility in my opinion to incorporate by reference or whatever. So the charter has determined that we should adopt the master plan as a chassis. But then I think that it's the planning board's responsibility to consider the amendments. There's no description of what we do regarding amendments to these kinds of amendments to the chassis in my opinion. Evan, go ahead. I'm gonna actually, as the person that made the motion, I'm going to withdraw my motion and ask that the person that seconded do the same. Athena, who seconded the motion? I did. Go ahead, let me agree with withdrawing your motion. Yes. Yes. Okay. Are there, I see two hands up, but I don't know if they were just left up. Steve, yours is one. Darcy, yours is also one. Doris? Yeah, I just, the reason that we're considering it is just because at our last meeting, I said that I, you know, continue to not want to adopt the master plan from 2010 because it's not current. And that if we were, you know, the only way I would be able to do that would be to amend it, to assure that it's going to be amended to update it with these new plans. So that's, that's why we're talking about it now. And I continue to have that opinion is, you know, why would we be adopting an outdated 2010 plan? That seems dumb. Dorothy? My top, my comments are not on this particular issue. They're on the master plan, but perhaps you need to finish this issue before I speak. Okay.  I'm afraid that I have forgotten what I had my hand up for. I'm sorry. So the motion's been withdrawn and the person that seconded it has also withdrawn it. So I think at this point, we go to the next motion, which is to adopt in accordance with charter section 9.8B, the master plan that was adopted and approved by the planning board on February 3rd, 2010, as presented. Is there a second? And a key seconds. Okay. Dorothy Pan. Oh, I will also mention for the record that it was not approved by the town meeting, which was the body at that time. But my problem is, I do not think that we should adopt the master plan. We spent, when I was on CRC, we spent, I think a year talking about making changes that were necessary. I agree with Darcy, the plan is outdated, but my biggest problem is a great confusion about some of the main words. And those words are densification and infill development. So if you read the master plan, you get some really nice language. For example, in this little piece you've given us here, new infill and development in existing historic neighborhoods, village centers and established neighborhoods will have to abide by rigorous and sensitive design and density controls intended to preserve and enhance existing character. And we're told that this is all to control traditional New England settlement pattern. Yet I have been to, I believe, every forum or hearing that has discussed this and I have not seen any support from the public for what is being passed off now as density and infill development in our downtown center. So if those words density mean large rental buildings in the center of downtown, mixed use buildings with unattractive in the sense of not drawing you in, not being attractive businesses on the first floor, then I think that that moment was, that's what people thought when this was written that's 10 years ago. I think that that's not what we're talking about now. And when you've talked to people about housing in this town, besides the need for more affordable apartments and for some affordable rental property, what people are talking about is family homes. And this is not just rental units, this includes a mixture and it could be a more dense one, not suburban sprawl. It could use many of these really wonderful inventive plans which many places exhibit around the country where rental and home ownership are mixed. Because the bulk of the town, if you wanna keep strong schools and keep a town that's gonna keep young people coming up that are not just through the university. So we don't wanna have just young people leave from the university and then the rest of us are old people. You've gotta have young families and for young families and mature families to prosper in this country, we need to have more affordable houses that people can buy. And I understand that cannot be done just through market forces. I mean, this is clear. So that we would have to like give land, give land for some kind of structure that could do this to create affordable opportunities for home ownership and family living in this town. I know the plan was adopted when the fear was suburban sprawl. And I lived many years in Long Island and yes, I do know Suffolk County. There's a lot of suburban sprawl out there. Yet you know what, those are homes. Families live in them, strong communities, very strong communities. So we have to think about home ownership opportunities mixed in with rental properties for families. And that's not what's been going on. So from me, until the words densification in downtown centers is clarified, I think that we have to do what we started to do in CRC two years ago. We have to do some revisions to update the master plan. So I just think Dorothy and I would just argue for hours about a literal handful of people who've attended a handful of recent meetings over the last two years versus hundreds of people devoting thousands of hours to a nearly 10 year process that resulted in the 2010 master plan. Yes, some things have changed. Yes, some people have changed. But the reality is I am really resentful of the fact that people sometimes like to bring up that representative town meeting did not accept the master plan. Representative town meeting had nothing to do with accepting the master plan. We all know this, whether it makes individuals unhappy that they were never offered the opportunity to do that is not relevant. State law, local law at the time is it was simply the planning board's legal responsibility. It is now, according to the Charter, something the town council has to do. We've talked about this at length. We're going to accept it. We're going to move on and we're going to work on the things we actually wanna work on rather than arguing about what a plan written 10 years ago has to do with what we're doing today. We're going to actually make the changes. So I'm ready for us to move on. Evan Roth. Yeah, so I wanna speak in support of approving the master plan, even as we all might have our own individual gripes with different pieces of it. And even as we might agree that it's not perfect but the guiding vision of it and specifically the vision of directing development needed development to our village centers so that we can preserve our natural areas and outlying land is important. And I think we can understand that there are certainly parts of the master plan that can be interpreted in a number of different ways. And those are the parts that we need to think about as we're implementing the plan, what do they mean? Dorothy brought up one term that concerns her. I wanted to bring up one that does concern me. And I say this not to argue against the master plan but so as we're implementing it and as we're thinking towards our next master plan, we think about the ways that perhaps our culture has shifted in words mean things that could be interpreted in different ways now. And the one I really wanna point out is community character and neighborhood character. And I wanna point this out because in the public hearing that I attended about the master plan that I believe many of us were there, we heard these terms community character and neighborhood character thrown around quite a bit. And it brought me, it reminded me of an article I read over the summer and I went back and I reread it called how discussions of neighborhood character reinforce structural racism. And I think that's important because we've been having a moment in our town and in our country where we're really talking about structural racism and racial equity. And so if I can, I wanna just read two brief parts of this because I think it's important. The first one is what counts as neighborhood character and who kept to define it? In many cities, it's wealthy white homeowners who have lived there for decades. So when we're hearing about the people who are at these public forums who are talking about neighborhood character, I think we need to think about that part there. And the second one is this, people who use coded language like neighborhood character and historic preservation are participating in structural white supremacy that has historically and presently most valued white character and white history at the expense of everyone else. We don't need to discard maintaining historic significance or physical structures in our city, but we do need to discard blocking any and all positive change in the name of one narrow segment of the population's definition of history and character. Our current master plan uses the term community character 10 times, neighborhood character three times. I don't think that that's a reason that we shouldn't approve it, but I do think that 10 years ago, we weren't thinking in the same way. We didn't have maybe the racial equity lens that we do now. And I think that we have to recognize that even as we implement this, even as we look forward to our next master plan, these are things that we have to think about. And so I wanted to bring that to our attention. I'm supporting, approving the master plan. That doesn't mean that I think it's flawless. That doesn't mean I don't have issues with it. But I think that these are the issues that we grapple with as we're implementing what is otherwise a very strong master plan. Christine, you have your hand up, Christine Brestrup. Yes, I remembered what I wanted to say before. And I also wanted to say one other thing. So one of our new planning board members, Doug Marshall, and I have been going through the implementation matrix. He's been very patient with me. We've been going through it item by item, line by line and making statements about what has and hasn't been achieved and what kinds of things would we not care about anymore and what kinds of things we phrase differently. And it's been very revealing to me the fact that almost everything in that implementation matrix is still relevant. There are very few things that we are saying, oh no, we don't care about that anymore. And it's amazing to me how many things we have accomplished in the last 10 years. And I think it's probably worth presenting this to you to the town council at some point when we finish our run through of it. So I wanted to say that in support of the master plan as being a present living document, it's not outdated. It's really lively and very relevant for today. And the other thing I wanted to say is a master plan is different from zoning. And when you look at the downtown, you may differ in your opinion about whether we should allow five story buildings in the downtown or not. But I don't think that you would really differ in your opinion that development should be focused in areas that are already developed. And the beautiful countryside that we have along Southeast Street and Northeast Street and Bay Road, we don't wanna develop out there. We think that's beautiful. It's something that everybody values. Everybody loves it when they drive through there. We wanna keep our open spaces open. And we wanna take the places that are already developed and redevelop them so that they can be suitable as we move forward and need more housing. And that may mean redeveloping Orchard Valley. It may mean redeveloping parts of Echo Hill. It could mean a lot of different things, but I don't think we want to have suburban sprawl and sprawl out into our beautiful preserved, some of it isn't preserved farmland and forestland. We wanna keep our development close to us. So you can differ on whether you want five story buildings or not, but that's zoning, that's not the master plan. So that's all I wanted to say. But Christine, two things. First of all, thank you for emphasizing the distinction between the master plan and zoning. Since we're very actively in a conversation on zoning. Second of all, we welcome having you and Doug bring forward or whomever else from the planning board. Cause it sounds to me like the planning board is now actually in the process of having that quote committee that kind of keeps track of the master plan and how we're doing. So I'm forward to that.  So I really do appreciate Christine's remarks. They're very helpful. And Evan, I do know what you're saying. And I just thought that I should share with you. Perhaps you do know this, that the Lincoln Sunset historical preservation neighborhood, one of the reasons it got the ranking is that it was an integrated community and that there are many streets of small, not fancy houses that were lived in by black and immigrant workers in the town. So it's, I do know what you mean. You don't want to have, I am not talking about preserving the wonderful homes of the rich that you've drive tours through. I'm not talking about that. But neighborhood character and town character includes such things as these neighborhoods. Now, I know we've discussed that many of them could not be built under present zoning because they have small lot sizes. And that's something that we've talked about that we could be thinking about. The kind of housing I'm thinking of does have smaller lot sizes but represents a broad cross-section of the community and of Amherst past, present and future. So I don't take your words amiss. I do agree with the concept that we don't want to preserve patterns of inequality in our neighborhood planning. But that is not what I was talking about. There's no other comments. I'm gonna move to the vote. The motion that is on the table is to adopt an accordance with Charter Section 9.8B, the master plan that was adopted and approved by the planning board on February 3rd, 2010 as presented. Darcy Dumont? No. Reese Merz, yes. Anarchy? Yes. Darcy Pam? No. Evan Ross? Yes. George Ryan? Yes. Kathy Shane? I'm abstaining. Steve Schreiber? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Shalini Balmille? Yes. Alyssa Brewer? Yes. Batti Angelis? Yes. Nine in favor to oppose one abstention, one absence. Moving on. We are now at the point where we're going to introduce the prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals in traveling shows and circuses as a proposed bylaw. The sponsors will make a presentation. The counselor sponsor is Shalini Balmille. The two other people that will be speaking, one is Rebecca Schwartz and the other is Laura Hagen who is from the Humane Society. So could we have the slide presentation please? And Shalini, you'll introduce this. Yes, I just want to first of all thank Rebecca Schwartz for bringing this bylaw to our attention and all the hard work she's put in for over a year and I don't know how many years, gathering information why this is important and reaching out to organizations. And today we also have Laura Hagen with us who's the Massachusetts State Director of the Human Society of the United States. Thank you so much for joining us. And we also heard from Christina Scarrange earlier. She's from ADI and then also thanking all the residents that have written to us about passing this bylaw. To my counselors, thank you so much for your time today to review this and vote for it in the future. And I can imagine that everyone's thinking we have huge challenges right now in our town, in this country and why are we talking about this at all. And hopefully this brief presentation will answer why we're addressing this and why now. And before that, I just wanted to share something that I read from our state rep Mindy Dome. It's not related to this, but she tweeted this today and I thought it really spoke to what we are doing here. She said, we need to codify norms so that they are the law. Never assume someone will follow what seems appropriate, common sense or decent, make it the law. So that's kind of what we're here to go through. Next slide. Can I pass it? Okay, yeah. So the purposes really of this bylaw, two broad purposes. One is to protect the public against the hazards that and secondly to protect wild animals. And I'm gonna go a little more detail into this in a couple of slides for the next one. So the prohibition is very simple straightforward that any person who is exhibiting, walking, conducting a traveling show or circus that includes a wild or exotic animal on any public or private land within the town of Amos, it's prohibited. And everyone was given a memo. So you have all the details. Everything is defined in that along with the exceptions. Mandy Jo as chair of the CRC, she went out and reached out to the colleges and made sure. So we got feedback from colleges that this is not affecting and we changed and adapted it to make sure that no one is getting affected in our town. Next slide, which is really the most important slide. Why are we considering this? And we know that especially now with the pandemic more than ever how interconnected we are, some bats in China ended up creating a pandemic that's affected so many people. And there's a lot of data from PETA, how do you pronounce that? P-E-T-A, PETA, PETA, PETA, PETA organization that talks to the hazards that elephants and a lot of animals can create because they carry TB and other bacteria that can affect vulnerable populations even if they don't touch them. So it is something that we need to be concerned about. And of course, it is to stop inhuman treatment of animals just for entertainment and especially when so many species are becoming extinct. And then I just think it's the right thing to do. So next slide. And we would be the 13th municipality in Massachusetts. If we adopted many municipalities around, in our country are adopting this and we need to do it at the local level because things are not happening at the state level. So I wanna just end with the next slide. And it's a quote from Mahatma Gandhi which I think is really irrelevant. The greatness of nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated and given what we've seen in our country and just the sheer lack of empathy, understanding for people and different. I just think that with animals who cannot speak up for themselves it really shows the character of our town and just a very simple thing we can do by creating a bylaw like this sends a very powerful message to not only a town but our neighboring towns about what our values are which is of empathy and creating a compassionate human town for all beings. And I'd like to invite Rebecca to say a few words or to add to this. Can we take the slide down? I'm sorry, take the slide down please and Rebecca please go ahead. Very good. All right, I wanted to thank Shalini for sponsoring this bylaw. And I know animal protection issues often get sidelined especially during like these crazy times with the election and the pandemic. And I really appreciate the town like continuing to work on this despite all these other crazy things happening. 18 months ago I started working on this initiative. First, I met with the Amherst Animal Control Officer. She has dealt with revelant novel situations such as removing tiger cubs from house parties and felt this bylaw would help support her enforcement. I then talked to many town residents and everyone I talked to supported this effort. In fact, most residents assume the town did not allow this form of entertainment which it currently does. These wildlife shows do occur in our area and I can remind everybody about the sad play, the fuel of the elephant who died a painful undignified death at the big E a year ago. Though Amherst has not hosted an event recently, more and more towns region are prohibiting these shows forcing vendors to look for new venues. So I asked the town is proactive in this measure. There's minimal cultural and economic impact on town and this would ensure that we'll never be able to host any entertainment like this. So I'm just asking you to pass this bylaw and thank you all for your time. And because I know it's really late, I'm not gonna say anymore. Laura, did you wanna say a word? No, you're good, all right. No, I don't need to duplicate, like you said it's late, but thank you all for your time and your efforts and thank you, Councillor Balmine for filing this. This is the first reading. I'd like to go on and to have the Community Resources Committee provide their report. Yes, so we considered this over the summer I believe and maybe started in the spring and we had some conversations. There was concern about the definition of what wild and exotic animal, how that was defined. And then there was also concern about how it might affect the operations of the colleges and universities in town, including the animal research and other, we have a agricultural university here and other types of animals that they might house on campus for whatever reason. And so we modified with the sponsors to support the definition of wild and exotic animals, specifically we added to the exceptions, llamas and alpacas, knowing that there are some of those on UMass's campus through their animal husbandry type situation and that other farmers potentially in town keep them for their, it's not fur, but their wool essentially. And then I reached out as chair to each of the three institutions of higher education to ask them for their thoughts on how this bylaws worded might affect them. I heard from at least two of them and I got some language, some requested language from one of them. And so we took that language into consideration and we added an exception to non-mobile permanent institutions and demonstrations or exhibitions at a college or university just to ensure that any research or frankly, one of the concerns was if UMass is keeping of those llamas or whatever and they wanna take them onto campus to in some sense show them off for the students to show what they do with the animals that that would not be prohibited by this bylaw. And so after all of that, we voted four to zero with one absent to recommend that the council adopt this bylaw. Earthie Pam. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm, that was out of order. I now need to hear from George Ryan for GOL. Thank you, Lynn. GOL voted on October 7th, five to zero to declare this bylaw clear, consistent, actionable. It was sent out for legal review. KP law did review it and found that there was no conflict with an existing state law. Yeah, thank you. Comments, Dorothy, Pam. Just a quick clarification. Sometimes I've seen a school or a say a library have the, a man come with a bird of prey in a cage but sometimes out of a cage as an educational sometimes interactive lesson for with children. Would that be, and of course, I know a bird's not an animal, but would that be allowed or not allowed into this law? It is allowed, but Laura, can you answer that just in detail? Sure. If you look at the definition of wild or exotic animals, there is an enumerated list of what are covered. The bill does cover, the ordinance does cover all species, it's covered based on the taxonomy schedule. And so I don't know exactly what that animal is, but it does impact bird type animals such as ostriches and emus. So if it's not one of those animals, then it would not be covered under this bylaw. It would not be impacted, I should say. And it's not.   When I wish we had gotten more information sooner, I really appreciate the extra work CRC did. I think the CRC went well above and beyond in terms of doing the research with the university and the colleges. I think that should have been the responsibility of the residents bringing this to us rather than the town council's responsibility. But I appreciate that the work was done and if that's how it had to be done, great. But it's not something I plan to insist that other town council committees do rather than sponsors. But I'm frustrated that the bylaw says quite clearly, I mean, it's a bylaw in the town of Amherst is that the list is not exhaustive. So that leaves an out as to whether or not a licensed rehabilitation person associated with Birds of Prey. And I'm sure that Dorothy's grandchildren and my children have seen the same presentation that we have had downtown and throughout the community as well as in schools is quite possibly subject to this bylaw because the list is not exhaustive. Also, I wanna just clarify along those lines because that says it's not exhaustive. And I understand, I do the purpose of not saying, well, it's the species, but not that species except. I do just wanna clarify as well that although of course we have not had situations like the three county fair that Northampton Springfield has the equivalent of, we have had these very small scale things like licensed rehabilitation associated with the raptor. And also the lupus zoo has brought animals to various activities on the common like the taste of Amherst. And it sounds to me like they're not gonna be allowed to do that anymore. And I just wanna be clear that that's what's true as opposed to that we're just talking about lions and tigers and bears that we are actually talking about everything. And I'm not saying I have a problem with that. I'm just saying we need to be super clear on the fact that just because we haven't had an elephant helping put up a circus tent doesn't mean we haven't had lupus zoo bringing a monkey to the town common. And it doesn't seem like that's something that's going to be allowed anymore. Is there any comments from the sponsors? I was just gonna say that the language that cautions as you note that the examples are not intended to be exhaustive. What comes after that is that it says they're not the examples that come after the generality of each group of animals. So if we're looking at a bird of prey, like let's say it's a hawk. Again, I don't know what this particular animal was. The group of the family, I guess, of hawks are not listed on this list at all. So it would not impact that animal. So that's what we would look for is the family of that animal. And again, I don't know what particular one it was, but if it were, let's say a hawk, that family group is not listed here. So hawks would not be impacted. But yes, as you know, a monkey would indeed be impacted. Thank you for the clarification, Andy. Yeah, I mean, I appreciate coming after Alyssa because she's clarified a little bit of what my hesitation about this is. I haven't made up my mind yet. I very much appreciate the purpose of that is being put forward in the concern for animals. I horrified by the kind of activity that goes on at things like what happened at the Big E in other places. But until Alyssa spoke, I could not think of a single incident where there had been anything that had happened in the past or was likely to happen in the future that is along the lines of those kinds of events, nor do we have a venue where it is likely to occur even if the university was willing to rent the Mullen Center. It's an Adley, it's not an Amherst. So it wouldn't be affected. I think that what I'm particularly concerned about is adding to the bylaws something that unless we absolutely are convinced that it is an activity that there is a reason to regulate within the town of Amherst that we shouldn't be considering that. We already have 95 pages of bylaws. We don't need to add more to our bylaws. And also feeling that when things come up every time a bylaw is proposed, it takes a tremendous amount of staff time. It takes a tremendous amount of council time. It takes time of our town attorneys. And I don't particularly like to encourage bylaws that don't actually in the end regulate something that is really gonna happen, that bylaw is not intended for symbolic purposes. But so I have great hesitations about it and have been thinking very strongly about those kinds of issues that we should be more concerned about when we want to invest the time and looking at bylaw changes, what the guidelines ought to be for that and whether there's a significant threat to the welfare of animals that would be eliminated by our passing the bylaw unless I was convinced of that on a real practical level. I just don't think it's where this council ought to be going. So thanks. George. George. George. You have to unmute. Sorry. I just wanted to say, I agree with a lot of what Andy has expressed. And I was struck by the mentioning of the animal welfare officer and I would love to hear from her. It sounds like there have been incidents where she's had to deal with animal cruelty. I looked into our bylaws. We have one bylaw, which is the regulations relating to animals. It's 3.21 and it's fairly narrow. So I'd be curious to hear from her as to how this would help her in her work. But I too, like Andy thought, I can't think of an example in my 30 plus years of living in Amherst where these kinds of incidents have occurred. So it would be helpful to me in making a decision on this to get a sense that this is really something that would make a difference other than simply sending a message. It seems to me this is not something that's likely to happen in our community. And it's not clear to me it's ever happened in our community, which again is why I'd like to hear from the animal welfare officer because I may very well be an ignorance of things that do happen. Okay. Thank you. Andy, Jeff. I just wanted to address to Alyssa. One of the exceptions is institutions accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the AZA. And so if Lupa Zoo is accredited by that, then they would not be subject to this bylaw. And Shalini. Yeah, I would, I think it's a great idea to get that information from an animal welfare officer. But I think it's important to have the bylaw in place and not wait for it to happen. And then say, oh, but now we don't have, and that makes it more awkward. And then we're saying no to a current business and that's more complicated. It's much simpler if we have it right now. And the second thing I feel is what we're teaching our children, what we are, it is symbolic, but it is also a culture that we're creating. And when we look at the culture right now in the country, we definitely need to be talking about empathy and not going with this attitude of just kind of because we don't have time. We've already spent a lot of time figuring this out, working together for, and Rebecca has been working on it for a year and that council has already done a lot of the work. And we've already got the information from the attorney general or whoever. And so I just think it's really important as a town that we work at every level where we can have bylaws that ensure the safety of our most vulnerable beings and inhabitants and that includes animals. Are there any other comments at this time? Again, this is the first reading. It'll come back before the council next week. And I'm sure that working with the town manager, we can figure out a way to hear from or some testimony by the animal welfare officer. Is there any other? Can I, no, I'm sorry. I don't know if I'm supposed to do something. Can I talk? Okay. Yeah. So I just want to say that, you know, the intent is not to stop, you know, people who are rehabilitators or educational people bringing, you know, predator birds to teach children. I mean, that's not the intent. And they're also covered in here that sanctuaries and non-mobile people can come. It's really to, I mean, honestly, if the Lupa Zoo, I'm not sure what their accreditation is, but if they're bringing monkeys to like display on the comments, like maybe they just shouldn't be able to do that anymore. I don't know what all their animals are, but the intent is to stop, you know, these exotic animals from being exhibited for and exploited for profit, basically. So, you know, that's like a different scenario than a rehabilitator bringing birds to teach children. And also, you know, the times are changing, towns are limiting where these vendors can go. And they are looking for new, we have circuses that live, that are nearby and they're looking for places to bring their animals. This is how they make their living. So they're always looking for new venues. And also, what was I gonna say? You know, we have done a lot of work on this and really hopefully covered all of that. I forgot what I was gonna say. I'm sorry, it's late, but that's it for now. Rebecca and Laura, thank you for joining us. This will come back up for a further discussion and second reading before the council next week. With that, we're going to move on to the wage and tip theft bylaw and the responsible employer public construction contracts and agreements for tax relief bylaw. So, I'm going to actually call upon Patty Angelis to make the motion and she doesn't need to read the entire thing. This is the second reading of this. And so, Pat, would you please start? There are actually two motions. Should I do them one at a time or at separate times? I'm sorry, what? One at a time, please. I move to adopt the wage and tip theft bylaw as a general bylaw of the town. Is there a second, Mandy, Joe or Kathy? I second it, Kathy seconds it. And further discussion on this bylaw. Andy. At the last meeting, I asked a question about one very specific issue and that was whether there were costs involved with having the penalty portion of the bylaw that's included in whether there's something to be added. And I want to thank Lisa Klossin who took the lead on trying to do some research and apparently was helped by Rose Bookbinder who spoke earlier today during public comment. The response that came back from them in was that Northampton does not have a bylaw that, it is a bylaw and a very strong bylaw but not one that provides for fines which was the issue that I was raising about. Mary Narquitz apparently had indicated to Rose that they penalized three restaurants who had state wage and labor violations and they penalized them during the annual relicensing process. The one of those restaurants is subsequently closed and all three had been required to buy what we referred to and I think that they referred to also as wage bond which is a form of insurance to keep that from happening again so that they were enforcing it without having the fines there. The other things that they were pointing out is that most of the bylaws do not in Massachusetts do not have fines attached to them and the one example that was thrown out during the discussion apparently here was a community of a lot larger size in that Seattle. So for all of those reasons, I still feel somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of including the fines portion in the bylaw. If it remains in there, I'm still gonna vote for it because I think that this is a very important bylaw to pass. I'm not gonna make a motion, I've spoken now and I will second the motion if somebody makes it to remove the block that refers to that penalty and removes I think it's section I two which is just to clarify some of the language about it. But if nobody else feels strongly about the issue to raise it, then there's not two of us to even get it on the table. So there'll be no, if there's a motion, I'll second it if there's not a motion, then we go forward. Let's see how that goes, George. We have, as all of you are aware, we have been struggling to get answers to certain questions from KP law and we finally did get a response today at the last minute and I don't know if the sponsors have had a chance to see it and they can tell us. There was one of the three questions dealt with some specific language that the sponsors had asked KP law to advise them upon related to successors in interest. And that language has finally at the last minute been sent to us. I don't, so first question is to the sponsors where they've had even a chance to look at this. I think they should, they may want to incorporate it into both this bylaw and the other bylaw. Second thing is we'd asked Paul to consult staff and we got that memo also today about I think four o'clock and it has a number of, I think nine specific comments from staff. Only one is relevant to wage and tip theft. The other eight are relevant to responsible employer bylaw and it seems some of them are things that should be considered. So the timing is terrible, but I can't, it's just that's the way it is. So a question to the sponsors, have they even seen the KP law memo and secondly, have they seen the memo from Paul and do they wish to take into advisement any of these comments or suggestions and some of the legal language?  Yeah, I'll take the one on the successor language. It more specifically applies to the responsible employer, but it's language that could be added to what we already have with a long list, but it doesn't, the language we have should still stand so it could add another sentence. And as you said, George just came in really late, but Mandy in particular took a look at it and it doesn't quite capture what we already had theirs despite the fact that it's two lines long of other definitions. So it's fine to just drop it in after that. And what the other part of the memo said is that what we had done in two other parts works fine. So those were questions that were resolved. You know, on the staffing issue and I'll let Mandy weigh in more on the successor on the staffing issues, you know, we had a long discussion with staff and went through some of the same issues that just came up in this memo, you know, and things like what's the payroll format and pointed out that we have models of it, UMass are using them. They're other that the town doesn't have to invent the wheel here or reinvent the wheel. There are some off the shelf kinds of things that can be done to do this differently. And so some of the enforcement issues, I think have come up in other towns because they've never done this. And then it turns out it's not a lot of extra work. It's just you adopt a different set of formats and then those become the format. So, you know, it didn't feel like it was new information and we rather than it was codified in a memo from Paul. So I think we address particularly some of the other issues that had come up with the human resource director on, you know, what the responsibilities would be, but on procurement, on what kinds of forms and formats that these, some things would be new, but they don't have to be, they're not new in that Amherst has to go and invent them that they can look at and particularly the big constructors, construction contractors are already responding to towns that have these on their books. So it's not like they've never seen them before and can't adjust. So I'll let both Mandy, it looks like Mandy's hand is up too. Mandy, Joe. Yeah, I think Kathy covered it mostly. The purpose of our requirements for successors and interest section in both this by-law and in the responsible employer was because there are many times a contractor or even a business is a doing business as, you know, so it's a one-named person doing business as random corporation and they get into trouble with the AG because they didn't pay their workers and so they stop doing business as that company and start doing business as something else, totally quote unrelated company. And so the language that was provided by KP law doesn't actually address that particular issue because they would be quote two separate companies, it's not a successor company and the language that's in the by-laws right now addresses that issue, which is an issue we actually really do want to address. To go to the comment from George about the memo from Paul, I'll just address wage in tip theft because that's the motion that's on the table right now and just remind the council that the human rights director position originally was created through a by-law, the human rights by-law. And so it was created from nothing essentially by the legislative body. And so we have, I would argue that we as a council, the legislative body have every right to add duties to a job that was created by by-law. Okay, are there any other questions or comments? And I'm just hand raised. Yeah, I can't raise my hand through the thing, Lynn. Oh, really? Yeah. So in response to George, so the sponsors had met with all town staff, these points that were that I was asked to document in a memo were raised with the sponsors. So this isn't new information to the sponsors. But I think at one of the previous council meetings, and I totally forgotten to thank you Athena for saying this is still on my outstanding list. They asked to sort of summarize what those points were. So that's what the purpose of that memo was. Thank you. Are you a co-host? Is that why you're here? Yeah, I don't know. It just says me next to me. Thank you. Okay, just wave it more. Oh, yeah. Thank you. So I just wanna make sure from the sponsors point of view that you're prepared to move forward given the memos and so forth. I'm hearing that that is yes. Yes. Are there any other comments on wage theft? Okay. Then hearing none or seeing none, we're going to move to a vote. And we start with Griezmer and I vote yes. Hannake. Yes. Pam. Yes. Ross. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Jane. Yes. Driver. Yes. Steinberg. Yes. Schelling Balmium. Yes. Brewer. Yes. The Angeles. Yes. And Dumont. Yes. Passes 12, 0, 0, and one absent. So it's like unanimous. Okay. We're moving on to responsible employer. Pat, I believe you're gonna make the motion. I move to rescind in its entirety general bylaw 3.4, responsible employer for public construction projects and adopt the responsible employer public construction contracts and agreements for tax relief as a general bylaw of the town. Very second. And that's Mindy Joe. 20 seconds. Mindy Joe gets to second. Okay. Are there comments and questions at this time? George. Again, just for my sake, and it's my terrible memory, but from what I'm hearing from the sponsors, what I've heard from Paul is that all the items that are listed here under responsible employer bylaw that are staff concerns have been met with by the sponsors and answers have been provided to the council. Yes, that's accurate, George. And that memo actually is reflecting a meeting that happened many months ago. And so some of the answers have been made and given to us. And it's going in this year and out that year, but that's my problem. Okay, thank you. It's been a long time. It's a long time beluded process to get here. Evan, Ross. Yeah, definitely a long process speaking as someone who's on TSO and who asked for this exact memo. I think we're going on six months now, since I asked for it. So I'm glad we finally got it right as we were about to take the second reading. But it was useful. And the memo shows a few different concerns, many of which I don't necessarily share, but one, I would like the sponsors to respond to, which is the first bullet under responsible employer, the bid stage versus contract stage. From my reading, you kept it at bid stage in that C1.  And so I'm just curious to hear from the sponsors about their thoughts around that. We would like to respond. So I think that's me. So yeah, that was a concern of staff and the sponsors chose to keep it at bid stage. We've talked to, and Lisa Klossin and Rose Bookbinder have talked to a number of other cities that have adopted these that include the bid stage language. And they have not seen a decrease in bidders based on that language there. Basically, the reason we wanted to keep it in is because we want to ensure that even someone bidding on a project before we get to offering a contract to that person or that company has affirmed that they are not debarred or have not violated it and will continue to abide by wage and tip theft laws, all the laws of the state. Because we fear that if you don't do that on a converse level to what's written here, if you allow anyone to bid and then you get to contract stage and you've provided the language beforehand, but that doesn't, I'm cynical as an attorney, that doesn't mean everyone's read it. We know how many things we agree to on apps that we don't actually read, user agreements and all. And so you get to the opening of the bids and the lowest bidders there and then they go to sign the contract and they're like, oh wait, I can't sign this because I've done this. I can't affirm that or I can't do that. So I think there's problems either way. And we wanted to ensure that everyone who's submitting the bid has affirmed and signed under oath that they have not violated these in the past so many years and that they intend to and will only hire subcontractors or contractors on the case of a tiff person that will abide by these laws. And so that's that. I wanted to, there was something else I wanted to address. Oh, so I'm gonna take all the time I've got here. And the motion sheet forgot to put in the rescission of 3.4 responsible employer. This is essentially replacing that language. I just wanted to note that we caught that in the middle of this meeting. So we missed it in the motion sheet initially but we're rescinding that one because this bylaw deals with the same stuff. Thank you for that explanation. And actually when Pat made the motion she made it fully and appropriately. Alyssa.  Maybe it was warning me before I spoke. I have two things. One is a question just to be answered at the end of my statement which is whether or not UMass is subject to this as that had always been my understanding that they were not but since that came up repeatedly in public comment tonight I think it's good that we clarify that again. And then the other item is sharing the concern expressed by a fellow TSO member that we asked for this memo months ago so that we'd have time to digest it. And so while the people who met with staff know what the answers were, we didn't know that. And now we've had almost no time to do so. And we're at the point, yes, I know we have a pandemic but we have to figure out a way to do these things better because it's really frustrating to try and just absorb it all in the last couple of hours before the meeting starts. The other, if I'd had more time to do that maybe I could have followed up with a better question associated with bullet point three in the general procurement concerns. Because I'm just, I'm going to use the word surprised that the statement here is that staff were not clear as to what benefit the town of Amherst would gain by giving preference to hiring residents in Hampshire, Franklin and Hampton counties. I just, I don't understand that. We have a TIF with Atkins over 10 years ago that asked for preference of location. And yes, I do understand that KP law says that laws like this have been found to be illegal. But we have existing TIF that says this preference is important to us. I think a bylaw is an expression of our values to the point that we can do it practically speaking. And I am willing to take that risk that KP law has perhaps advised us not to do. But the idea that we don't know why that's important actually I'm pretty sure we all do know why it's important to talk about hiring local employees. So again, if we had more time to process something like this, we maybe could have asked a couple of questions back and forth in a different venue. But more important at the end of this, my only, the only thing I actually need an answer to is whether or not, because I think the community needs the answer is whether or not this has any effect on UMass. Nitya? So this particular bylaw, unless UMass bid to build a project that the town was contracting for and building or bid to or wanted to sponsor some sort of TIF agreement that we were going to interact, this responsible employer bylaw doesn't really apply to UMass simply because they're unlikely to do that. So that part. So I want to go back to Wage and TIF theft. And I was trying to remember and I was just looking at the bylaw that we passed moments ago. At one point we had as a part of the definition of employer, we had exceptions for state and federal government and even I think town employees. It appears, and I'm looking at the definition now that we have removed those exceptions, but I will caution that we are unsure because we never asked town attorney whether a bylaw in town can actually bind the federal government or the state government. We know in zoning that it tends not to do that. So while they are not specifically exempt from this bylaw that we just passed on Wage and TIF theft under the definition of employer, they would presumably be subject to it now or in 14 days when it goes into effect. I do not guess and opine on whether in actuality they would be based on some random law that says that they can't be, if there is such one that says they can't be subject to town and city laws and ordinances. Okay, any other questions or points at this time? And I'm assuming again that the sponsors having received information somewhat late are still prepared to move forward. Great. All right, we have a motion. It's been made and seconded. I see no other hands. So I'm going to call the question and I start with Mandy Jo Hanneke. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Heather Ross. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Hugh Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Helen Falmium. Yes. Alyssa Brower. Yes. Matthew Angelis. I see. You were muted when you did that, Pat. Yes. There's a demand. Yes. And Lynn Gries-Mercy, yes. And it passes 12, zero, zero and one absent. Moving on to appointments. And all the appointments were approved except for community safety working group. And I've asked that if we need, we can look at that memo, but maybe we don't need to and we can just go to the agenda item and Dorothy, since it comes out of TSO, would you please make the motion? Yes. I can find it, I will. I can make it and you can second it. Um, okay. To approve the following 10 manager appointments to the community safety working group effective immediately as filed with the town clerk on November 5th, 2020 and recommended by the town services and outreach committee report of November 5th, 2020 for a term to last the length of the working groups efforts. Tashina Bowman, Deborah Ferrara, Pat Onabaku, Brianna Owen, Alicia Walker and Paul Wiley. Is there a second? Brian, second. Thank you. Any further discussion or comment? Yes, Dorothy. Sorry, I can't do too many things at one time here. I just wanted to clarify that I took this off the consent agenda because of the high public interest in the creation of this group. And I just wanted to make sure that counselors had the opportunity to ask more questions of the town manager and I also just wanted to mention once again that I'm concerned with the lack of transparency in the process of town appointments and that we don't know who applied or how many people applied. So it's pretty much impossible to judge these recommendations because we don't have any way to compare them to anything. So, and of course, I also, I think there was publicity about the fact that the racial equity task force withdrew from participating in the interview process. I thought people might want to either discuss that or have questions about it. I did end up voting for this list of applicants and I will vote for them again because I didn't hear from anyone that they had any problem with the people that were recommended. So, and like I said, I didn't have any frame of reference. So, and as noted in the TSO report, there will be more recommendations for additional members and that the TSO will be looking at this Thursday at 5 p.m. at our Zoom meeting. So I just wanted to make sure that the public knew all of that and that the counselors had a chance to ask questions if they wanted to. Are there any questions or comments at this time? Okay. I do wanna just recognize that this has been quite an expanded into people that have been doing these interviews that makes it even all that more demanding to try to pull that kind of group together. So as much as not see all the caps we've had an outstanding group of citizens who have and I wanna appreciate their efforts in doing some challenging. Yeah, I'm very impressed with the group of people who have been appointed. I just wanted to hear from Paul since we can't get into the specifics as Darcy mentioned but just hear from Paul what the process was like. Did he feel that you were able to get people interested in this and what the outreach looked like and just, yeah. Sure, so yeah, so a lot of the interest I do, I agree with Lynn that the interview team was very strong and because they're all so strong and they were hard to get everybody together but they devoted the time to make it happen. Interviewed all the, anybody who put through a CAF will have been interviewed and these are all moving forward with unanimous support from the interview team. And yeah. Any other questions at this time? Right then we're gonna move to the boat and that starts with Darcy Pam. Yes. Anyone else? Hi. George Ryan. Yes. Matthew Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Shalani Balmoun. Yes. Melissa Brewer. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. Yes. Darcy Dumont. Yes. Lynn Griezmerzy. Yes. And Amanda Johannike. Yes. The people are appoint, these six people are now appointed and it's well for one against, no abstentions in one absent. I wanna also note that we have already by consent agenda voted them SME status. So we have a few minutes and so we now move on to committee leaves and leaves on my first. Mandy Jo, CRC. Nothing new. You heard a lot of reports from CRC tonight. So we'll have something more on zoning later. Thank you. Andy. So, you know, from the meeting we had at 530 that the finance committee is meeting tomorrow. I did submit a written report. I apologize for having failed to do something that Alyssa and I have been very conscious of, which is you always data report and somehow that got left off in the should have born today's date. But the purpose of the report was to explain the process. There were several of you during the prior conversation that we had at 530 who were raising concerns about making sure that there was special attention given to how we develop the guidelines. And they are council guidelines. They are not finance committee guidelines. We recommend them to you. So the process that is proposed this year as indicated in the report is a little bit different because it actually shows the possibility of it coming before the council two times instead of one time. So that if there is discussion that would then motivate the council to want to refer it back to the committee, we have built in that capacity to do so. But, you know, I think that's basically all there is to report right now. George? Q&A? The reports, I'm sorry, the reports in the packet. There's one error in the text. Just I'd like to know quickly. The vote is for zero, but it was an absence, not an abstention. Now I'll make that correction and send it to Athena. But if you did read the report, the vote, the one member was absent. Okay. Thank you. JCPC, we know it's not meeting at this point. Darcy TSL? Yeah. It's all in the report. We are meeting on this Thursday on the community safety additional members. And then our next meeting after that is on the 19th, we moved it so that it's before the budget forum so that it's at 430 on the 19th. Any liaison reports? Kathy, CPA? Just briefly, so people, if people want to know what CPA is looking at in terms of the slated proposals, the public hearing on the full slate is this Thursday at 6 p.m. And the number of proposals have come in, including from specifically from town, far exceed the budget that's available. So the community will also begin a discussion on prioritizing. Alyssa, I failed to see your hand. I apologize. Not at all. I just wanted to know, and perhaps you're really the best person to ask this of it. I was asked again today by a resident, where are we with the facial recognition by-law that like TSO has already said, yes. Where is it? And when do we think it's coming back to us? George? Send out to KP law for review. And that's about all I can say at the moment. I haven't heard anything back. I don't think Paul's heard anything yet, but if he has, he'll tell us. So it's just GOL review at this time? Yeah, GOL review is the last review. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Any other committees? Ayes on reports? Darcy? Tack, the Transportation Advisory Committee has met about three times now and they're in the process of looking at their charge and seeing if they want to make some revisions. They've been working with the town manager and Wilford Moring about that. And so just that's in process. Thank you. Alyssa, you have your hand up from before.  From before, I apologize. Thank you. Okay. All right, we're going on to the town manager's report. Paul? Thank you. So a few things. One is the election. Just again, I've written on my memo and we'll get a more thorough report next week from the town clerk, the town clerk office just did a spectacular job on the election. Just Roy went off without a hitch and huge turnout, unusual situation because of the COVID and all the early voting and Roy just got everything and they have additional things that they're doing and just sort of another piece of background information. Every year the secretary of state chooses 3% of the precincts to be audited. And last time there was a statewide election we were chosen and we had to do a recount of that particular precinct. And but this year we did not get chosen. All the town clerks, they do a sort of a lottery online at the secretary of state's office and they're all hoping not to have to do it. But it's just in terms of voter trust in the process this is a standard operating procedure that the secretary of state has that 3% of all the precincts get audited every year and it's random which ones get chosen. And so that's an interesting process, I think. So next week we'll be having an opportunity to talk to the council more about we'll have a COVID-19 health update with our new health director who this is her sixth day on the job. So she'll have at least another four days under her belt before she comes to you but she's working out really well and only happy with that happening here. And so she'll also be as part of our community chat on Thursday, Emma Dragon is her name. We are the health department has been very busy. They're also offering flu shots. They were at the community breakfast on Wednesday at the universal Unitarian Church. They're at the survival center on Friday offering flu shots. And so they're out there in the community offering flu shots to folks. Veterans Day is on this Wednesday. So the town offices will be closed. There is a small event but it's by sort of like invitation only like they're respecting social distance but the BFW and Legion want to do something to recognize the day. And then town employees are getting together and we're gonna be distributing gift bags to the veterans who we have names of on Wednesday. So there'll be a bunch of town employees just walking around and visiting whoever's a veteran and giving them a nice little gift bag and saying thank you for your service. You know our new HR human resources director started and our health director has started. The crate stores again, I wanna give them a ton of credit for the work. Kevin Noonan, Jerry Weiss in particular have done to secure a congregate housing space in the Unitarian Universalist facility on North Pleasant Street. And I was in there the other day and it was just beautiful inside. It's a beautiful room to begin with. The kitchen is there. Councilor Ryan is there helping to clean and cook and do all the things that he does every time. And then also the crate stores is able to contract with the University Motor Lodge for I think 20 rooms that they're utilizing for individual housing, mostly for women, but it can be anybody. And Mary Beth was up there on Sunday and some of the residents were collecting leaves because they felt they were so honored to have felt so good about being offered a place to live in the cold weather that they went to trying to spruce up the place. And so a little piece of gratitude for the things at the towns. But again, still work to be done, still looking at shower facilities, working, walking down two paths for that. But again, I just can't tell you that how much crate stores has done to get these two facilities. Other cities and towns were on a region wide conference call every week. They're struggling with getting locations that can secure both social distance and meet the needs of the population. And North Hampton, I don't think they have any shelters open yet. So it's a big need out there. And I think that really speaks to the need of a regional solution at finance by the state. I think that's pretty much the big things I want to hit on. I know it's late, you've been here since 5.30. So if there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. George. It is late, Paul, but we're all aware that governor has issued much stricter set of regulations. I'm just wondering what you and your staff and the police department are thinking about enforcement. Pretty much we're going to keep to the same program we've been keeping to. You don't feel this has changed the ballgame at all. How do the police department feel about a 9.30 PM? Parties must cease, that sort of thing. Essentially a culture of compliance is what we're aiming at and we're not, it's not really changing the way we're approaching this. Right, I mean, I think the university sent out the message that things need to stop at 9.30 or restaurants are getting that message as well. We're seeking clarification because the police executive office of public safety had come down saying, having a slightly different interpretation than was coming out of the governor's office. So we're trying to get clarification on what the police role is. But I think we're starting with the culture of compliance continuing with that. I don't want our cops going around on Thanksgiving, knocking on people's doors, saying you've got 12 people in here. That's not our business. And I think, but again, we are, the communication is pretty strong if we are called to a place and they are in violation of the time or the number of people or the spacing, they will take action at that point in time. Garcy? I remember at the beginning of the internet that you spearheaded an effort to secure isolation and quarantining space at Hampshire College. We figured out we didn't need it, but did I, I think I just read today that the state now has a place in Everett? So are we, would we in fact send if some of our residents at Craig's Doors or the motel is our plan to use that state facility to transport them there or do you have other plans? So that's the solution the state has come up with. We find that's incredibly inappropriate for Western masks. People aren't going to go. So they may not want to get tested in fear of cause they don't want to be transported to Everett. Last year we had the quality in, we had the Hampshire, we had Hampshire College for Amherst and we had the quality in in North Hampton and there was also a hotel in Pittsfield. Even going to Pittsfield was a challenge for many people. They still, you know, they're taking them out of their community. The state has been pretty strong about saying we only need one statewide. The quality in did not, the Hampshire unit facility they got did not get utilized last year. Quality in didn't get really utilized at all. Either and so the state through MIMO was feeling like why are we buying these facilities and spending all this money is they're not going to be used. We feel like we have a little bit of leeway in the sense that we have a university motor launch that if we need to use an isolation quarantine we could utilize one of those rooms as a suitable place for someone to isolate. But again, the state has not come up with a very good solution. And I think we've tried to address that through Secretary Sutter's and for, you know, so it, but it's not much of a response yet. At the Angeles. Yes, thank you. I've been asking Paul over a series of meetings about the composition of the ambassadors. And I want to thank you, Paul for getting me in touch with Kat Newman. And I want to reassure other counselors and the community that members of the BIPOC community and people, people with a variety of abilities have been hired as ambassadors. So I'm really glad about the composition of the people who are doing that for our town. Thank you, Paul. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with Kat.  So hopefully this is quick and Paul might have had two seconds to think about it today, although perhaps not. I'd send him an email earlier today. People that are currently being appointed to committees, as you know, we just appointed several members to various multiple member bodies tonight. We confirmed those is that people are being told they have to come to the parking lot behind town hall to get sworn in, which sounds ridiculous on the face of it, given that they're not even coming to meetings at town hall. So is there some way we can do that remotely? Do we need to advocate with the governor's office what's happening with that? Because it's not accessible to people to assume that they will be able to just drive to town hall to do that. I did talk with the town clerk about that. And thanks for giving me the heads up on the question, Alyssa. And they do things a certain way. They have their books that people sign, and it's their record of everything. And so they felt it was a good solution. But I have not, I don't have an answer to whether we can legally do something different. I assume what we can, but I haven't had time to look into that. But the initial reaction from the clerk's office was we haven't had any complaints and blah, blah, blah. So, but we'll look into that if there are other options available. And again, I think it was more of a record keeping thing because they have hundreds of years of signed books that people said I served on this committee. And not looking to, so, but we'll look more into that. Thank you, because we did say to people, hey, Zoom meetings are more accessible to people with little kids or elder care responsibilities or job responsibilities. And then we said, but you got to drive to town hall to literally sign a book. So, because not like you want to take the bus these days. Thank you. That's what EcoSign was meant for. Mandy Jo. Yeah, the talk about ambassadors and the new regulations. With the new regulations, particularly the mask order that is now mask everywhere in public, no matter whether you can social distance or not, are we going to expand where the ambassadors are handing out masks instead of just in our mandatory mask portion of downtown? Are we gonna look at the rail trails, the hiking places, or even just the other village centers where people might be walking North, you know, North Amherst or Cushman or something. So the ambassadors aren't relegated to the downtown area. They do go throughout the town as you know, because you were with them when they went out on the weekend before Halloween. We don't patrol the rail trail. That's not town of Amherst property. That is, you know, DCR property. But yes, they will be expanding their footprint in now that it's everywhere. We're gonna keep the signs up saying mask required area because that's a Board of Health regulation or order. And if the governor rescends his, that order stays in a place until the Board of Health changes. The school committee or school department is asking the Board of Health to also include school facilities as mask required areas that we would then designate that. The Board of Health has taken that into consideration this week, not Thursday, I think. But yeah, ambassadors can go wherever we want them to go. No other questions at this time? Okay. Then on the town council comments, I wanna communicate to you that I have automatically referred to CRC, the small business Saturday resolution, which we adopted tonight and the human rights day proclamation, which will come before the council in December. Is it the CLL? I'm sorry, GLL. You can give it to CRC, it's okay by me. It went to GLL. Thank you so much for the correction. And then the other thing is that I will be posting the agenda for the retreat tomorrow and that is it from one to four on Saturday.  Yes, I just wanted to let the council members know that on December 1st, from 630 to 830, there is a symposium planned on reparations and it's gonna be featuring Alderman, Robin Ray, Simmons of Evanston, Illinois, where they've passed reparations ordinance and Cam Howard of EnCobra. And I'm very excited about that. Chalene and Alyssa and I have been working with to create a proclamation, but this symposium would be wonderful if the council members could attend and I will update people as it's confirmed. And would you please send it out as an email of information? Yes. Thank you, Pat. Are there any other comments at this time? Any future agenda items?  I assume it's just because they got left up. Seeing none, then I'm going to adjourn the meeting and it is 1047. Thank you.