All right, I'd like to call this meeting of the Community Preservation Act committee to order on Thursday, November 18th at 6.02pm. We are still conducting meetings remotely. So let me take attendance and everybody responds so we know everyone can hear and be heard. Sam McLeod present. Katie Zobel present. Sarah Eisinger present. Kim Neal. Present. Dave Williams. Present. Andy McDougall. Present. On the phone. Okay. Eddie, start up. Present. Great. And I, Sarah Marshall, I am here and we are waiting. I was just not seeing a handout for something. So. Did you just move or something? Thanks everybody. It happened to me too. I don't know why. Me too. Oh, okay. So whatever here. So I'm so glad everyone can make it this evening. So what I would first like to do is have someone volunteer for me to take minutes. If we could really be fabulous. If we could just decide who's going to take minutes tonight and for the following two meetings. Which are scheduled for Thursday, December 2nd. And Thursday, December 9th. If we could just have folks sign up right now that would. That would speed things along. So Sarah, what do you. I would like to do one of the other December nights. I'm going to be solo parenting for some period of tonight. So I just not going to be a possible. I'm happy to do the next one. And I'll be there actually not on, not on a different day. Well, they're all Thursdays from now on. It's good to know. All right. So I'll put you down for this. December 2nd. Thank you. Thank you. Who's willing to do it tonight. Several bunch of committee members have already Katie. Thank you. You're on for tonight. I take very abbreviated minutes. So just. That's fine. We can always put more, we can put more in. If we. He also move. Everyone prefers that to how I take minutes, Katie. So you're, you're good. It's either all or nothing. So. All right. So. So Katie, you're on. But of course the meetings are being recorded. And if I don't know if the, the videos have yet been made public, but Sonya hopefully can get us the link. So that's can be helpful to the minute takers. They want to check something. So. All right. So let us just move immediately then. To the public hearing. Looks like there are maybe quite a few people in the audience. So if anyone wishing to make a comment in the hearing would please put up. Raise the hand. And we're hearing. This is a hearing for all the, all the applicant, all the proposals. I just let someone in. To the room to talk. They had their hand up and Kaiser. Hello, Ann. Is that you? Can you hear us? She's muted. Yeah, she's. And you are muted. Your hand is up, but. Are you able to unmute your device? Okay. Am I unmuted now? Yes, you are. So I'm, I'm. And Kaiser and I live in South Amherst and I am. Here because I would like to see you accept the proposal for pickleball courts in. At Mill River. I think that pickleball is a new uprising in sport that people that anybody of any age can play the ball and the paddle or light. And it's good for young and old. And they're even going to teach pickleball in the Amherst schools in the PE classes. So we need some pickleball courts in Amherst because. Right now I'm going to South Hampton and North Hampton to play. So I appreciate if you consider the proposal to have the pickleball courts. Thank you. Thank you, Ann. Sonya, is it you who's moving people in and out? Yeah. Okay. We have anyone else wishing to. Make a comment. Okay. In favor or against I suppose one of the proposals, please raise your hand. I have Mark McCandish coming in, McCandish. Good evening. Well, I can hear me okay. Yes, we can. Great. I'm a town resident and also a pickleball player for about four years now. And I guess I just want to speak in favor of. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. No river. It's it's interesting. There, I know many. Amherst residents who. Are always looking for a place to play. Pickleball and. Many of us drive. To Greenfield to Westfield. To Belcher town. And other places to be able to play on. And I think that's a great proposal. So. People say if you build it, they will come. I think they're already here. And looking for a great place to play. The other thing about pickleball, you know, you hear a lot about a seniors being very interested in playing pickleball. And it really has been a phenomenal growth. And you know, not just locally, but nationally, but it's not just a senior sport. It's not just for. Sponsorship by the town recreation commission, because it's not only very active sport for seniors. And one that's, it's fairly easily learned.  I think the previous. Speaker said that the equipment's not expensive. It's really pretty easy to come by. And. People can get into it really of all ages. And, you know, so I've played, I play mostly with seniors and I'm retired now. So I can play during the daytime, but. I've also played, you know, with families and young people. And it's just a very accessible sport. And it would just be a great sport for the town recreation commission to sponsor. And have the facilities, the proper facilities to play. So I would encourage you to. Accept the proposal and I thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mark. Bring Brian Harvey into the room. Brian, you need to unmute. Brian, can you unmute Brian? Can you hear us? Maybe move him out. If there's someone else waiting and try again. Okay. Yeah. He left for you. Yeah. Okay. John Hart coming in the room. Okay. Hi. It's been probably over a month since I appeared before you earlier. And I don't have a lot new to say. As you may recall. I am the chair of the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust. And I am the chair of the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust. At the time that I appeared before, there were two proposals from the housing trust. One to continue to support our invaluable consultant. So that we can continue to take advantage of her skills and talents, which have been extraordinarily helpful to us over the last three years. And the other for a larger amount. I think that's one of the most important proposals. I think that's one of the most two proposals from the town. One for roughly half a million dollars. To support the development of. Community housing for individuals who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness. I think all of these proposals are important. And as I said, I think that's one of the most important proposals. While on the one hand, I certainly hope that you will support our request for continuation of our consultant. I think it's most important that you continue to support. Community housing in Amherst in a substantial way. The unmet need for housing has not gone down in the month since I talked to you. With winter coming on. And the new year. I think that's the most important thing. There's a lot of the housing in the community. I think that's both the kind of transitional shelter they have at the immunity university motor lodge. And their new seasonal shelter. At Lutheran church. So as I said, the need for these kinds of housing opportunities has not gone away. And I think it's very critical that you allocate community Thank you. Thank you, John. We're in Kathy Shonen. Hi. This is Kathy Shane. I'm speaking as a resident, not as a counselor. And I'm up in district one North Amherst. I want to speak strongly in favor of two proposals that you have. One, I came in late the pickleball courts. Pickleball is an amazing sport for people who have aging knees. And hips. And for kids, it's not the reason it's growing so rapidly. Is it appeals to a whole slice. And this is something we don't have an Amherst. There's some indoor courts down it. In South Amherst inside, you have to have a membership to go on to them. And it's, it's possible to play at, especially with the seasonality we've had. All but the super winter months because it's a, it's just an easy thing to learn. It's easy thing for kids to learn. So I think it's a great idea. The second. Project is the trails, the history trails. North Amherst has quite a history of mills. And you can see their remains, but they're disappearing. Most people don't know what they're looking at. And the idea of doing more work to be able to identify what they are and tell people out of it has, I think will be broad appeal for all of Amherst, not just North Amherst. And if we add pickleball courts, we have a whole destination in the north part of town.  We already have a storybook walk for kids. In back of Mill River. And this would give us something really interesting. That's it. I wanted to just speak strongly for both of those. Thank you. Thanks. I'm. Oops. I'm going to brand Brian Harvey again. Did you mean to bring it in? Again. No. Okay. They all, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Brian. Sorry. Old dogs and nutrition. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Brian. Sorry. Old dogs and new tricks. Yeah. So I won't repeat what others are saying, but I'd like to just support the pickleball proposal. And, you know, one thing that occurred to me, not just about how fun a game it is and how many people want to play it. Back when we were proposing the CPA some years ago, thinking about the kinds of things that it might be useful for. I remember we didn't know anything about pickleball, but it felt like there were things that would come along that, you know, were sort of new that would be find a hard time fighting their way into the regular budget appropriation process.  It's a thing that a lot that didn't exist for a long time. It's something you want to try to get a new start on. So I just wanted to, in addition to endorsing the things other people have said, you know, I just wanted to, you know, I just wanted to offer the opinion that it's a pretty good use. It is very consistent with the idea of the CPA. And I'm hoping that you agree and can see your way clear to put this one through. Thanks very much. Thank you. Anyone else do you think. No. If you, any attendees who wish to. Speak. Regarding a project, please raise your hand. I think we will close the public hearing. Six 18. All right. We also have public comment on the agenda, which I guess could be for anything CPA related. So does anyone. In the public have a comment. On some other CPA matter. So please raise your hand. Right. Seeing none. Then we will move on to outstanding minutes. Thank you. Paul or Anna, Andrew and Sam. Is that right for getting, getting them the minutes to us all. Have we lost Andy? I don't see a phone. Logo anymore. He may be. He may be in his car at this point. Since I don't see him in the meeting, we will not talk about his minutes. Right now. But let's turn to the minutes of October 28th. Oh, those are his. All right. Never mind. So minutes of November 4th, which I believe were honors. All right. So this year. All the minute takers need to be responsible for making the edits and producing the final document. And sending it to Sonya for posting. Okay. So I'm not sure. Maybe some of you knew, I'm not sure I mentioned this again recently that when you review draft minutes, if you have small corrections, you want to suggest you can send those directly. To the, the minute taker and only to the minute taker. Who should then be incorporating those. I think maybe that's Andrew Beck again. Okay. So, but at this point, let's just hear from anyone who wants to give honest some suggestions or request some corrections to the minutes. Of November 4th. None. Really? Maybe I should have asked, please raise your hand if you looked at the minutes of November 4th. I have a comment. I found two really small edits. I'll email them to you on it. Okay. Yeah, Sarah emailed me some as well. So I've got, I've got a couple of little things. Okay. But please do. Yeah. So last chance, I think for anything. Minor or major regarding the minutes. November 4th. All right. Then. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes as Anna will. As they will soon be edited. So moving sir. Second. Second. Thank you. Okay. I think I have to call on everybody. I am an eye. Sam. Hi. Tim. Hi. Katie. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. So computers here. Yes. Yeah. Dave. All right. Sarah. Yeah. Hi, Zinger. I'm an eye or do I have to abstain? You don't have to. Yeah. You don't even. Yeah. All right. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Andy Andrew, if you're out there. I am. And I'm an eye. Okay. So that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That's nine. Okay. Wonderful. So it would be super if minutes can be finalized. And sent up to Sonia before Thanksgiving. Okay. So we can get those.  All right. So now the minutes of November. By Sam. Who has looked at these minutes, please raise your hand. Of course I can't see Andrew's hand. Okay. Okay. At least four of us. I've not had a chance to look at Sam's. Okay. All right. I think we should wait then. I also failed to send Sam my little edits. So why don't we postpone that one till next week? And Andrew, I. Did someone. Okay. Andrew, I assume you're not in a position to take. To be making notes about your own minutes. Is that correct? That is correct. I do have your email to me. Thank you for that. All right. Well, then let me just see. See what else, what other comments there might be. Who has looked at the draft minutes of October 28. Please raise your hand. All right. If you have, I can't see your hand. Okay. All right. So, did any of you who raised your hand send any corrections to Andrew? Did anybody have any large. Any non-trivial. Corrections. To change to send. Sam, what is it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think in relation to the letter that. You had written for potential. Sending to the town council. There was a. A comment that said McLeod concurred. It can be interpreted differently, but I really concurred regarding the. Track. Inquiry in relation to the master plan, as opposed to the full letter. Inquiry. Inquiry. Inquiry. Why didn't you, why didn't you read it? Just read it out loud. Or we could do it. McLeod was supportive of the specific inquiry regarding the track in relation to the master plan. But not to seek guidance from the. Council regarding. Category priorities. Okay. Thank you. Does anybody object to. That sentence. Okay. That sentence correction to Andy. How do you have a hand up? You're muted. Whoops. Sorry, no. No, okay. Not being very deaf with my. It's. You think we'd all know after two. What is it? Two years going on. It's fine. All right. Well. Then I think with those. Corrections that have been sent to Andrew. For the meeting. The meeting is adjourned. The meeting has been adjourned. The meeting has been adjourned. The meeting has been adjourned. The meeting has been adjourned. And the meeting has been adjourned. Tim has offered here. I think we can improve the meat to the minutes. Alright. Would someone. Make a motion then regarding the minutes of October 28th. I move we approve the minutes of October 28th. Second. Is there a second. A second. Tim. Thank you. Okay. I'm an eye. Sam. Hi. Tim. Hi. Katie. Dave. Hi. Sarah Eisinger. Hi. Heady. Hi. Anna. Hi. Andrew. Heck yeah, I'm an eye. Heck yeah. Okay. And I'm an eye. So, okay. That's nine to zero. So you can expect to get one correct, one additional correction. From Sam. Good. So, all right. Two out of three. That's wonderful. Okay. Okay. In that case. We're done with the minutes. Oh, review financial Sonia has great news. She already distributed it. I hope everybody had a chance to look. So. Yeah, maybe you can. Yes, I'm going to try to share my screen. Yeah, bear with me. Yep. You see that. Yes. Or I do. Yeah. Yeah. So. We have an update on state. On the state match. And this is based on the fiscal year 21. Commitment that went out for surcharges. What we actually build out. And we received. 39.4% for the first round. But with the other two rounds. It was a total of 54%. So that was added to the balance. So at this point, we have two, almost 2.3 million. To. To go towards new proposals. Lest the debt, which leaves us. Almost 1.8. Because we have. To cover our debt. Now that does not include the 600,000 that we have sitting in a budgeted reserve up here. If I zero that out, it'll. Increase the bottom line by 600,000. But that's a discussion that committee needs to make. Whether they want to release that so soon. Or. Maybe want to carry it over into the next year. We'd have to re-vote it. It would have to be re-voted every year. It's like free cash. It goes away. Yeah. So whatever we decide to do, we need to take a vote. Whether to use it or save it. We'll have to. Vote on it. You don't have to take a vote for that. Whether you use it or save it was you. If you decide to save it. The amount would have to be re-voted again. Yeah. To be official for the next year by the council as well. Okay. Tim has a question. Yes. I needed a little tutorial in terms of how to read these spreadsheets. Can I do that with Sonya individually? Do I have to do this? Do ask for that in this public meeting. You can. You, you may ask. I will just say that. Even after this is, I don't know, my third or fourth year. It's extremely murky to me. I've just learned. Just learned which cells I need to pay attention to. So much of that. So much. It's like estimated for years. And then it fills in after the fact and. But go ahead. Ask your questions. I don't need to ask the question right now. I just don't want to waste the committee's time. I would rather just. Sit down with somebody. And have that discussion without. Boring or affecting the rest of you folks, if that's okay. And sort of a related question in my recollection was the last few times we met. There was 1.4 roughly a million. We could distribute. And that's now increased to 2. Almost three. Is that a fair assumption? That's because our state aid came better than came in better than we estimated to. Okay. So the answer is we now have about. 2.3 is sure. So. As opposed to 1.4, right? Yes. Okay. Where are you seeing? Yeah. 2.3, but we do have to pay the debt service. So our net available is. About 1.8 million. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah. And I'm happy to talk to you. Great. Great. I think I understand it, but I just would help be helpful if I just. Took a few minutes. Thanks. Sure. I would ask Sonia though to, could you just briefly explain, explain what you mean by rounds? We talked about rounds of. Rounds of money. So can you just. What is that? Well, because. Because we are now a 3% community. And that's been voted in. We, we qualify for the second round in the third, third round of state aid. The first round is really easy. It's straightforward. They give you an estimated percentage to use. And it's a percent of what you're estimating for your local serve charge. But the second and third round have a lot of. A lot of factors and it's, it's too complicated even for me to figure it out. And I haven't found anybody that's been able to explain it to me. So. I always budget based on, on the first round. Okay. So. Right. Sarah. And you thank you. Can you remind me? Or remind us the. About the reserve, the 600,000 reserve where it's from. When it got there. Just a little bit more about that. Last year, I don't think there was as many. Projects last year that we were. Okay. So there was a, there was basically unspent money and rather than letting it, if we don't vote it as a budgeted reserve and we set the tax rate, once that tax rate is set, even if it's sitting there, we can't spend it until the following fiscal year. But if you, if you vote a budgeted reserve, it's like having free cash. Because we voted for it. Then you can spend it during the fiscal year after the tax rate is set. It's all about when the tax rate gets set. And it's about to get set. So. So could you just zero it out so we could just see the actual number? Sure. So we're looking now at row 29, which is 2.39. Yes. Got it. Super. Thank you. That's our absolute maximum. Yeah. Sam. It'd be helpful to me and perhaps others, Sonia, if you could just confirm. What you said regarding what our current. Budget is exclusive of reserves, but including debt. My understanding. Is that it's 1.79 million. And then there's 600,000 of. Reserve. Am I correct? Yes. Yes. So that would be, if we spent it all, including the reserve, it would be 23 nine. But, and that is after. This coming year's debt service as well. So. If we spent everything and we had nothing left. But serviced our debt. We'd have 2.3 million. But if we wanted to keep the 600,000 reserve, we'd have 1.79. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Sarah, do you have another question? Your hand is still. Okay. All right. Any more questions about. Yeah. Can I. Yeah. So the other part that changed is. On the recommendation sheet. This is too. I don't know what you can see here. So. Do you see that? Yes. Yes. May not be able to read it. All right. Yeah. Is it too small? No, I see it. You put in the Simeon strong house. I put in the. Yes. The estimate for the Simeon strong house. And I adjusted the. The Hills house. Right. So the correct number. Okay. Okay. So what we're being asked for is 4.1 million. In funding. Still too much. Yeah. Still more than we can afford. Although we do always have the. Ability to recommend. Borrowing. But yes. Yeah. We just, we don't have enough to like cash to pay off all of them, but we could recommend borrowing for typically for anything. It's like $500,000 or more. Or. Sonia, can you make that this bigger? Do you know how to do that? Yeah. Thank you. I know how to do it. I just don't know if it works for you guys. Yeah. It'll work. Even bigger. It'll be awesome. I can't. But. Thank you. Yeah. All right. So any more questions? Oh, sorry, Tim. Yeah. Yeah, I did have one of the question. Regarding the minimum 10% for each category. What number is that 10% applied to. To community housing. I mean, what's the number of. Available. Of the total amount available. 10% of the estimated surcharge in state of new revenues coming in. So new revenues would be stated. And new surcharge. So on the spreadsheet, we just looked at which is the number we're dealing with. We have to either program or reserve at least. A hundred. A hundred. No. Keep saying a hundred. 10% of that number. So, right. Right. One hundred twenty five thousand dollars. Thank you. How'd you get the 1.2? Five million. Adding the surcharge 3% surcharge. That will be billing out. I don't know if you can see my mouse. Yeah. Yep. So it's a one million. This is new revenue that we're expecting. Okay. The one point, the one million 29 is the fund balance that's carried over. Estimated fund balance. It's carried over. And then we have, we had our estimated new revenue. Which is. Okay. One million. And then state match is estimated at 250. Okay. I was looking at the other spreadsheet. Sorry. Okay. Got it. So. Per. For the 10% for each of those categories, it would be 125,000. All right. Right. So you need to either program or reserve. At least that amount for the three major categories, which community housing and historic preservation and open space. Recreation is considered open space. So that's a. Right. Oh, I understand that. But okay. Thank you. Okay. Sam. Excuse me. Am I correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sam. Excuse me. Am I correct Sonia that our debt service counts as part of that? Or, or must it be new? No. Your debt service does count. Does count. Right. A debt authorization will not because we don't recognize that expenditure until. So we've already met that 10%. Requirement for. Various categories. Correct. Yes. Everyone follow that. No. Since we were paying, we're paying for borrowed money for historic preservation projects already, for example, those payments count towards the 10%. It doesn't have to be 10% applied only to new projects. Okay. So can I, can I ask. Can I ask a question? Yeah. If we're talking about historic, the total of all the requests in historic is about 660,000. Right. 10%. Is 125 or. Yeah. Do we count what you just said? Well, I gave the wrong example because right now we have no debt for historic preservation projects. But if you look at the blue number, you can see that there's a total of 300,000 dollars in debt service for community housing. That's, I don't know that they're subtotaled here, but you can see it's must be $300,000. Just in debt service for community. Housing projects. The best thing to look at is open space. All there is is dead there right now. That service right there. So that counts towards that 10%. Okay. So does that mean that we can not approve any projects that are open space for community housing? Yeah. That satisfies the 10%. Because we're spending it. Is that what that means? Well, not for open space. Right. Well, those open space and recreation. Yes. For. Community housing. Yes. Yeah. But, um, Historic preservation has no debt. So we would either have to set aside a budget. To be appropriated later. A reserve or. Program. A project. To add up to that. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any more questions about. The available funds or. The current obligations of those. Okay, then, um, We will. Launch into. Okay. I'll let Sonia. Yeah. All right. We're going to go now to, or we shortly go to the ratings. Um, Sonia, did you want to speak about, um, The eligibility of some projects that. People and you had concerns about. Um, Um, Because the mill river project was, Was not allowable last year because we can't create historic preservation in that proposal. Was in essence creating. Historic preservation. It's not allowed. There's no, you cannot. I also sent a, um, I don't know if everybody looked through the pack. It, but I also sent a copy of a picture. A qualifying historic projects for funding and how, how you kind of figure that out. Well, chart on that. But for historic projects, it's for acquisition, preservation, rehabilitation or restoration. Create is not one of those allowable. Expenses. So I know it's a really. Great project. And I understand everybody wanting to do it. So I asked if it would qualify under recreation. In recreation, it would, But not the study that they're asking for it because they need, It needs to be either considered historic or recreation. However. It's not allowable under historic. In the study that arc, the archeologists logical study for, Um, The historic artifacts is not allowable under recreation. So it's kind of a, I still have more. I asked, I sent Sarah an email. Earlier today, asking her to postpone that one, talking about that one until the next meeting. So that I can try to get more information and clarify it for everybody. Yeah. Because I have. I'm not convinced that it cannot qualify because I don't see the project as creating an historic resource in my mind. The historic resource is already there. It's the landscape and it's the, the remnants of structures. And in fact, a trail, as far as I know already exists. So, you know, it's, it's research for the signs in that hole. So anyway, I, so all this to say is that this is a, a unique project. It's, it's historic in content, but it's on public, on open space and involves a kind of recreation. Activity, which makes it really tricky. And I think we just, we still have some questions about it. So I would like to postpone discussing that project until next time. Okay. It is not, they're not requesting a large money month, large amount of money. So, yeah, you know, I don't think it that if we decide it can be funded, I think we will be able to find it. Okay. So let's just put that one aside. And I'm sure that's disappointing to any of the applicants who are in the, in the audience. Yeah. Was the Northinghamers community farm. Again, that's kind of mixing recreation.  Farm for materials to build a. A gazebo was a gazebo pavilion for. Recreation, but most of that. Issues is on. Well, it's an issue. To dismantle a historic building. To build. The pavilion, but the other issue that came up is that it's on private land. It's on APR land as well. So we're trying to figure all that out. Now I don't know. I can't remember if the APR had anything to do with. CPAC purchase. To purchase that APR, I don't know, but if it wasn't purchased by CPA money, you can't. To maintenance and renovations using CPA money. If it was purchased, if it was part of a recreation project, it would have been a better option. But it's not. You have more leeway, but open space. You don't. So I'm trying to get more information on that one too. Okay. So we will also table. That proposal. All right. So then what I'd like to do now. Have to find up. Okay. All my own notes. Is that we. Okay. Okay. So we can see this spreadsheet. I'm assuming Andrew cannot. Andrew, are you going to be able to give your ratings? If I ask you for, or Sonya asks you for them. I'm about five minutes away from being online. Okay. Slowly. Okay. All right. So we'll get back to you. So hope everybody has had a chance to.  One, not it, you know, not interested to each of these projects. Head of your hand is up. I don't know if that's from before or. Something. Sorry. Yeah. Oh. No. No. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm still digging with my document. I just need a minute, but yeah. Okay. All right. And Sonya, maybe you just want to say something about the administration line there at the top. Well, that one is. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Okay. Okay. I'm not sure where the signage project is at the moment. Sam, I don't know if you have more information on that. I know we allocated the 25,000 last year. I know that I've seen the banners around town that others might have seen as well. I know Anna and Sarah were at the Kendrick park opening where the banner displayed. Your community preservation act funds at work. I've also seen them at the dog park. I have not spoken with Dave. Or others regarding signage that would. Be placed on the various town trails. I believe we left it that they would be doing so, but we have not. Followed up with specifics. We essentially have a lot of information on that. We have a lot of information on that. We have a lot of information on that. Followed up with specifics. We essentially passed the baton. And. They had designed. Signage options, but we're relying upon. Dave. To and staff to implement it. So no further word, but the banners look. They look great. I really liked the design. I think Angela mills. And whoever else might have been involved in a great job with it. Yeah. Hi. If you wouldn't mind. My understanding is there was someone in the audience who's got their hand raised. Bruce Coldham who wanted to. Respond to some of the conversation. If you're willing to go back to that. Topic of the NACF. I'm not sure we can do that. Yeah. I mean, we can. I'm, I'm sure he's troubled by. What he heard. CPA monies were used in the. Part of the purchase part of the land deal. So I would ask if we could. Have an offline conversation about that and bring it back to the committee to see if there's still a possibility for this project to qualify. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you know that or you think you know that of your own. Or you've heard from Bruce. I've heard from Bruce on it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's part of the reasoning that I wanted to hold off until the next meeting to give me more time. These meetings every week. I don't have enough time. Sure. Yeah. No, we're not, we're not. Ruling out either of those projects at this point. Okay. Great. Great. Sure. Okay. All right. So let's. I don't know if Anna's found her notes yet.  Well, we're going for it first. All right. So let's go project by project. Across committee members. Yeah. I'm so sorry. This is the don't take her. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. For, since this will be recorded. Not only recording recording, but the, the. That I don't need to take the minutes for what's being put into this spreadsheet record. That is correct. This spreadsheet will be part of the record. Is the part of the, yeah, thank you. Yeah.  So Sarah, are we still on administration? The other, the. The dues to the community preservation act coalition. And advertisements for the public hearing. In other small. Administration costs for the committee. Right. So that's not normally a number we talk very much about. Somebody has, but we, we don't have the time to, the time to vote on, we do. Right. And it's normally 10,000. We, we increased it to 25 last year. For the signage. Yeah. Well, maybe we'll see next year. We'll see if that was, you know, more than enough. Or what. All right. So are we ready to turn to the projects? All right. So we are looking first. Acquisition and development of transitional housing. Okay. Okay. Okay. Number on a. Four. Say four. Yeah. Thank you. Sarah. Oh, we're going. We're going across. I think so. Okay. Last time we've, I'm sorry. I think feel like we've done it before. Sure. Well, if everybody has. I don't. Order. No, I got it. Hold on. Hold on. I had a five. Okay. I didn't get to say the number. It was, it was actually. Eddie. I. Andrew is probably not there yet. Sam. So move over to Sam, please. Four. Marshall is five. Neil. Five. Williams. Four. So Bill. I've. Okay. Andrew.  I am here. Actually, sorry. I'm a five for this one. Okay, super. All right. So the next one will be the affordable housing trusts. Request for affordable housing development projects. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Ready to go first this time. Yeah, all right. Sorry. Or the strike out. Forget you. Are we ready for me? Yes. Yes. Maybe. Yeah. I'm a five. Eddie. Andy. Sam. Three. Marshall is three. Tim. Dave. Five. And Katie. Five. All right. Now to the consulting services for the housing trust. The two year funding. Five. Three. Teddy. Three. Andrew. I'm a three as well. Sam. Four. I'm a five. Tim. Five. Dave. Five. And Katie for. All right. Request from the town for funding for a three year housing coordinator. Four. Five. Three. Five. Three. Sorry. Do you want to read it first? Yeah, we're on the netting. Not in here. Sorry. You're on it now. Notting bit building envelope. Improvements. Go Sarah. Three. Three. Three. And Katie. Sorry. I was. Multi-tasking. Tell me again. Which one? It's the. Notting. Five. Two. Can I go three point five? No. Three. Four. Five. And I have a question. Why are there lines through the numbers? It's just accidental. It's in there in the formula. I need to go in and get rid of it. All right. Okay. You didn't wipe them out. Got it. Thank you. No. They're averaging. Sonya is having it. Okay. So Dave, what's your rating? Four. Katie. Four. All right. So that's it for the housing project. So now to. Historic preservation. Requests beginning with. Conky Stevens. Three. Two. Four. Two. Three. Three. And three. On to this. The engineering study for the Simeon strong house. And grounds. I hope everybody. Did see that. They submitted a quote. Five. Sarah. I said three. Sorry. That's okay. Four. Five. And for disclosure, I'm a former trustee of the Simeon strong house. Four. And five. And three. On to this. The engineering study for the Simeon strong house and grounds. I hope everybody did see that. They submitted a quote. Five. And five. Right. To the Alice. Mod Hills house. Exterior work. I'm. This isn't about this. Three. Four. Five. Three. Four. Four. Five. Now to the North Cemetery. And some proof. Four. Three. Two. One. One. Two. One. One. Two. The two. Can we pause just for a minute so I can. Save this. Okay. Yeah. Right. We'll skip. We'll skip. The donor. The mill river one, right? For now. Go down to West cemetery. Sonia, I mixed mine up. I mixed the two cemetery ones up. I'm sorry. I know I'm sorry. Do you want me to just go ahead and change? That's a three. And the next one's a four. The next cemetery. I apologize. Thank you. All right. So the West cemetery. Sorry about that. It's okay. You ready? Yeah. Five. And I have a question. If I had a feeling that one part of the project was more than one part of the project, I would have to do a, I can't do one number for one part and another for another. I have to do the entire project. Okay. All right. That's what I needed. And three. Right. Now. So that's it for historic preservation. At least for tonight. So onto recreation. Hickory Ridge trail improvements. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Four. Five. One. Three. And five. Pickleball. Five. Yeah. Sorry. Pickleball. I'm a three. Three. Four. Four. And four. All right. We will also postpone. The pavilion at the North Amherst farm. So on to. Irrigation. Well, an irrigation system for Plum Brook. Four. Three. Three. Four. Five. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Five. Three. Three. Three. The high school track. I'm not sure why Sonya says APR at this time. Oh, okay. Never mind. Got some credit. Five. Yeah. Five as well. Five. Keep it going. I'm a five. Three because of the discussion that has to take place. Two. One, that would be four. Five. Hey, playground repair or improvements at Crocker farm. I don't know if you hear me sonia for sorry. Yeah. Sarah. Sarah. We don't. You're muted. She said she had to step away for a while. Oh, okay. All right. Let's go on it earlier in the night. Nope. I'm here. I'm here. Oh, good. Okay. What, what, which one are we at? The playground. Crocker farm playground. Yeah, playground. I was a five on that. Two. Three. And. Amherst trail improvements. Five. I'm a four. I'm a five. Five for me. Three. That's two more million. That'd be great. Yeah. So the idea is that this. This process should help us. Approach. Approach the discussion. See where maybe the most agreement either in favor or, or not in favor. Is. So. Why don't we just first start with the North cemetery fence and then we'll move on to the north. So. Maybe the. I mean, the highest score for that was, it was a three. Does anybody want to speak strongly in favor or on a strongly speak. In favor since most. Seem to give it a pretty low priority. Tim. Oh, sorry. I didn't take my hand down. Is anybody want to offer some. Any comments? I think we rated it so low. Sam. Sam and then Andrew. I can answer that question, but I have a general process question for us. I rated it low just because it wasn't indicated to be part of the original. Historic cemetery. And the cemetery is open. That is safe. Or is from a security standpoint. I don't know. I don't know. You know, I signify pure security, but my question on the process is. We have two proposals here that we need further review on. And we have a lot of. Proposals that have different. Budgetary requirements that I'm sure many of the members want to discuss. In the past, when we did this type of voting. We've had a lot of discussions. At the time of discussions, such as perhaps right now to approve or deny. My suggestion is that. We take into context that we have 18. Projects two of which. We haven't heard from because. There will be implications for approving some. As you know, when it comes time to look at the other ones, our final, we have had a lot of discussions with the members. About how we might vote. Are we doing temporary what we think? It's hard for me to come up with final votes. I guess I would say. Without looking at the total budgetary situation. First of all. I think the two projects that we've tabled for tonight. Are asked for relatively low amounts of money. Small amounts of money. I think if we decide they are eligible and we want to fund them, I think we will be able to do that. So I don't think it should hold us up on these much larger ticket items. I think we vote to put things into a package or not, but I think I always think that whatever we do, we can revisit if it turns out that we've run out of money or it means we have to borrow and we're not so sure or we need to have to go into reserves. The more votes we take, the smaller the pockets and maybe the harder the money is going to be, the pockets and maybe the harder the decisions, but I think we just have to plunge in and start, especially if we can roll projects out, let's just do that. The reason I bring that up is if we recall the library project, a previous cycle, there was actually a point of contention between the former chair and the town as to whether or not we actually approved a project based on our voting as we're about to do now. And the conclusion was that the vote was final that we would be taking now. So I don't know that we'd be able to revisit unless we clarified at the front end, which might be a very reasonable approach to vote, see where we come out and then reconsider it. But I bring that up because there's have to be some choices that need to be made and one may impact the other. So, are we voting as a final or are we voting to consider the total for a package to then revisit that full package and make edits to it? That's, I guess, my question. That would be my suggestion. Andrew, is your question on that general topic or was it something about the fence? It was about the fence. I can wait if you want to. Yeah, let's wait. Katie, are you addressing the fence or Sam's questions? Sam's question, but Anna, were you up first? I don't wanna, Sarah, Mike just, I was just clarification, do we need to vote? Can we just build some consensus around and say like, this is where we're headed and then vote at the end? Then we don't have the question of it being final or not. We could build consensus without a vote. I support that. That, I'm on it. Do you have something on that? I do. Yes, go ahead, let's do it. I wanna be very, very cautious with how we use the literal word vote. I think we can do straw polls and we can build consensus, but if we are using the word vote, it is a final vote and we are approving. So, Sam, I mean, it's fine if we wanna do straw polls and discuss, but if we vote, that's the, I think like, I wanna just, we need to be very clear because I remember last time there was confusion and we don't wanna be in that vote again. So, I just, if we're voting, that's our final vote. If we're straw polling or building consensus or discussing, that's fine. These are my feelings. This is my pitch, but I think if we're using the word vote, that's our final vote. We're agreeing, that's what we're funding. That's my, that would be my proposal just for the sake of clarity. Okay, thank you. Tim? I agree with that. And the second comment is, what are we voting on the project or the dollars? Because I could approve a project, but I would like to have a different dollar amount for it. And what are we voting on? Well, that is a discussion we have for each project. So, the final vote includes X dollars for Y project. Is that what we're doing? Yes, yes, it will be. Yeah, Eddie, you're muted. If it's about the fence, let's just hang on a moment. But if it's about the fence, I'm really sure where this fits. I just want to make a strong case for both of the houses in the historic preservation category on the base. All right, we're not there yet, we're done it. Yeah, but don't worry, we're gonna talk about all of them. So, I am completely... Oh, Andrew also has a chair. Was that still about the fence? No, I was gonna just add my thoughts on. Go ahead. So, I think what everybody says makes sense. I think to Tim's recommendation, perhaps we just add another column in here that would have the CPAC recommended dollar figure, just so we can track that, because it would be really useful to keep sort of running tallies as we're looking through this to see kind of, you know, how close we are to the number. And then I was going to just ask for folks, when do you think we would actually have our vote? Right, at this point, we're talking about just sort of where we're leaning towards these, at what point do we make it official? Open question. All right, a couple of things. Sonia has hidden a lot of columns, the columns we saw earlier that have the dollar values had the dollar amounts in them. So she will... We have the... They're right here. Well, the proposes there are... No, no, no, it was in categories. Must be E through Y, where you had, or was it a different sheet? I'm sorry. Maybe it was a different... I guess if it is here, I would recommend we put it into that vote section to keep it very clear. Or we can add another... Well, I would put something between like T and U or between AC and AD. Totals are all over here. So these are the totals of the lines. These are just in the columns based on their category. That's what they're asking for, but we may say... So we can put in a different number and it'll keep track. Yeah, so I would just say, since we have the sheet open, we're looking at in real time, we should probably put it in there. Next to Jay. I would actually put it in the vote group of columns just so that it's like in a tidy location. We can see pretty clearly what your vote is and what the amount would be. Straw-pulling. I think it would be most helpful to us for when we are coming to consensus or having a recommendation about a dollar award for a project that it replace, if it's different, the number in the cell that's in columns E through I because of all the calculations that go on down below and will help us keep track. I mean, that's what they're asking for, but we can change the numbers. And that's fine. I think it's just as long as we made duplicate a column or two for simplicity, but all right. So then you have my other question again, which is when do we anticipate doing the actual vote? Well, so if, and I'm fine with what people have suggested that we get, we just try to have a sense of the committee regarding each project and whether, how much we want to recommend, if anything, all right? After we've been through all of them, we'll see how much it adds up to and then if we want to revisit anything or say, ooh, maybe we should borrow or, you know, whatever, then we can make those changes and then we can vote on the entire package. Okay, and then actually- Although, excuse me, although in the past, we have voted on each specific project and I think we do need that for the report. Okay, so at some point we do have to vote on each recommendation. So the council can see the strength of support in the committee. Sure, sure. And I guess the other thing is do we need a column here for qualifications? I know like the track is one that jumps to mind. I think some of the proposals had mentioned that, you know, they could do one thing or something else if, you know, we want to provide that clarity. So I think some- Like if it's contingent? Like if it's- Yeah, contingency, right. I don't have to be in the notes. We're gonna, I think we rely on this either recording, you know, what we say on the record. I would think though that'd be part, I mean, that's fine. I guess you could have it all here, right? You could have the contingency, the dollar amount and the vote, and then you have a clean place to find it all. But if we want to do it in minutes instead, that can work. Thanks. I like the spreadsheet idea. Can I just interject here a little? Are there some of these projects? Some of these projects are obviously large enough that we would most likely borrow for. So if you don't feel that they're quite ready now and need to come back, you can vote to authorize or vote to recommend to authorize borrowing for some of these projects when you get a little more information. Sean just texted me and wanted to know if you wanted us to kind of walk through how we could fund some of these. Sure, okay, sure. Sonia, can I just clarify that? Sure. So I don't think we want to walk through how to fund them right now, but what I was thinking was just based on the conversation, if you all don't want to vote tonight, which I think it probably makes sense not to vote tonight, if we can walk away tonight with a sense of what projects you all think should make the cut, we can model and bring back to the next meeting what the borrowing would look like for the projects that we'd likely borrow for and things like that. So then at your next meeting, you can see if we can afford all of it based on your input tonight. Right. Okay. Tim, do you have your hand up? Yeah, I know I'm new to this, but for me, we can't spend all the dollars that are requested, right? So for example, if we took every project with ratings in the straw poll of four and above, how much are we talking about? And is that possible? And that kind of thing. I, so somewhere in here, I'd like to have the subtotal sort of like Andy's comment so we can kind of get that sense. Cause I might be willing to change my vote based on the fact that, well, X project sort of just missed out. Maybe we could fund it by agreeing to a little bit lesser amount and so on, that kind of thing. Cause I just based on this right now, I have no idea whether we can fund, say everything that's four and above or not, as an example. Is that at all possible? I think... Or maybe that's not... I think it's very unlikely given, I mean that two $500,000 projects are already over four. Okay. Tim, you mean without borrowing at all? Yeah, I guess I mean without borrowing. Like for example, the two $500,000 projects for the housing, whether maybe we would agree to have a total of $800,000 rather than a million, just so we can fit a few more projects in. On the other hand, we may not, but I just wanted to see how close we were in terms of where we were in terms of our abilities to fund projects. And I think Sonya is about to total, make a total at the bottom. All right, so maybe almost, right? Wasn't our number? Our number is two, three, nine. But then if we get the, if we take the reserve. Sonya, you have the pavilion in there. That should come out. At least for the moment, yeah. We also have a $800,000 one that's one tenth of a point off. Probably worth discussing. Oh yeah, that was gonna be my thing, was can we discuss before we do a firm cut at four? I'd love to. Well, I was just using that as an example. No, I think it was a good example, Tim. I don't get me wrong. I just, yeah. Okay. Let's see, Sam had a hand up before. Yeah, I just want to follow up. So I like Katie's suggestion that we get a sense of the committee. I think the importance of the projects to the applicants is very high. I think it's in our interest to be deliberative. I think we have time. And I think I, and I don't know about others, I could be influenced based upon the discussion of committee members for all the different projects. And I'd kind of like, I would benefit from hearing a discussion of all the projects with a straw as opposed to vote, the referencing Anna's distinction. So I would be an advocate for Katie's suggestion. And it seems that we may be going that route to talk about them, to get a sense of the committee because there are two, there's the variable of being in favor of it or not contingencies related to the applications for a few of them and the budget amount. I think it'll benefit my opinion, the committee for us to have that discussion prior to voting. We are definitely going to talk about them. Even if it just looks like, oh, sure, we can fund them all. We have, yeah, we're not, we need to talk about each project. So, Sarah. I'm going to go through them all before we vote. We will, we will. Yeah, okay. Sarah. Couple of things. This process as a reminder was meant to be to shape our discussion process. And we've all, to Tim's question, we've all voted for slightly different readisms. You might have voted five because you really liked the concept, but maybe another one you voted one because you didn't like the money amount. So it merits discussion here. Right. It was also used to, you know, eliminate where there is consensus. We could then not spend the next hour and a half talking about a cemetery project, which both we've rated low and there is not a significant dollar amount. So it's meant to target our conversation to the highest and best use of our time, which is not to talk about process, but to talk about these actual proposals and then, you know, from our consensus to make a slate that we can then noodle on on the money amount. I would endorse two things that have been said, I'd endorse what Sean has raised about, like if we can get to kind of consensus slate tonight, then they can noodle on the numbers and come back to us and say, this is what you could borrow against. Like we don't have to worry too much at the moment about the numbers. And I for sure tonight do not endorse arbitrarily reducing amounts of grants that, you know, let's, I think we should be more at the concept level. So, and then I would just go back to where the chair started, Sarah, about the cemetery, like we have rated it low. So is that a project that we can eliminate? I feel like we should sort of do that process. So that's all. All right. So, all right, let's try to get a sense more than the, you know, in addition to what these straw poll averages give us about, because there are a lot of close numbers, a lot of kind of 4.0 to 4.3. So we can eliminate the North Cemetery. Yes. All right. So maybe you can just take that one right out of there. Can we enlarge this at all? The screen doesn't react like it normally does for me. So... It's pulling closer. Is that better? That's better. Yeah, okay. All right, the next lowest rated project was Conky Stevens, which had, but it had a higher, high score of four. And that was from the Historic Commission representative. So I would like to give Hedy a chance to speak to that one briefly though. Tell us why we convinced that. I guess my, I would encourage the committee to, you know, consider both of these big houses on Main Street as priorities partly because they can't necessarily find funding outside of CPA. And they're fairly urgent. And it's a main approach into town with lots of public views of the properties. And in particular with Conky Stevens, they actually, due to their profit private entity status, can't get access to other kinds of preservation funds.  And on the fences, you know, if they are... Hedy, Hedy, we're trying to talk about one at a time. Sorry, I'll stop. All right, so the Conky Stevens has, as I recall, and thank you for that, that the memo you all sent to us had recommended it, but for a smaller award than they were requesting. Correct. It is also on the national register. So it has status in that respect as well. I'm sorry. I'm really being schooled here. And I need to be. But I also have Ben's memo in front of me now. So that's, yes, that's giving you the insight into that. All right. So does anyone, I mean, because my rating partly was, I was willing to entertain a smaller amount of money, but not the full amount, but I also didn't feel it was as meritorious as some others. In part, I'm not sure what I think about giving money, even if they're eligible to a private entity that's not a nonprofit. So that's a concern of mine. So let's see.  Those actually were my exact concerns. That one, I know the original estimate was split up. So it seemed like there were some ways that it could be done, maybe in a piecemeal manner. I thought the dollars were too high. And then, you know, I also, it, I think you said it better than me or, or then I'm well about to say it, but it does feel like we're subsidizing private business to a certain extent. And that's just, I think when I, when I consider that relative to the other projects, it, it's lower on my list. Tim. Yes. Can I request that Sonia right after the average column put the dollar request amount in. So I think that would be helpful in our, as we're, if we're looking at this spreadsheet. It's there in the total. But right where I can't see it on the screen. I'm looking at right now, the one that's enlarged. Do you see. Total. No. All I see is. When you enlarged it. Sure. Tim. It's underneath. Okay. There now I see it. Okay. Okay. And yeah, cause part of my vote was I'd hate to vote for one project. And therefore that I think is a little less important and shut out another one. And partly that's due to the dollar amounts. So that, that's why having that column is helpful. So thank you. Thank you. Would anyone be opposed if I just asked Sonia to. Put in a different number there for total doesn't mean we're. We're recommending it, but. I don't think anyone is on maybe in favor of, of awarding the full amount. So. I think it was more like 240,000, which was what the historical commission. So if we could put 240 in and then ask, does any, does that raise the score significantly for anybody. To say it's going to be, it would be for this amount and not the original amount. Can, can you ask that after it goes through the other ones? It may or may not. I think it's on some. Okay. All right. Well, I'll see Sarah's hand is up, but I'm not sure she's in the room at the moment. Okay. Let's see. So now we go have a few projects, three point rated or averaging 3.7 is the nothing building envelope. Are we talking about the last one? Somebody just asked if we could come back to it once we see how. Some of the others shake out, but do you want to say something? Okay, go ahead. Related to the dollar total. Okay. My concerns on the product projects. I'm very much an advocate for trying to get more interest from private, meaning non, not just town organizations, but the access of this and to the public was a factor for me, meaning it's not, you know, when I asked the question, yeah, you can come into their offices, but it's not per se. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to look on an ongoing basis. It has the view, but it's it's private condominiums in that regard. There are some interior aspects of this that I don't know would be appropriate in. Interior painting as an example. And I know they reference the roof and chimneys as the most important. Andy had some great questions regarding phasing. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think one of the full proposal that was most appealing to me. In fact. Was the fence. Because I remember this house. Refer to it as the monster house. And I remember when the fence was there and then it disappeared. But. A big portion of my consideration of this was related to the. I don't know if your comment about a nonprofit, Sarah is the way to phrase it or not, but the. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And. Accessibility and the dollar amount. So the fence though. Aside from the request for the roof was. Something that's definitely used to be there. I remember it. Thank you. Anybody else want to speak about the concrete Stevens house. All right. So we will come back to that. And consider. Okay. Sorry. I do know that Robin mentioned that. CPA coalition and. The Massachusetts historical commission do actually suggest that private homeowners apply to CPA for funding. So we need to be a bit careful with our messaging in terms of. You know, what, what we're really saying. If we're saying, oh, but they're, but they're a private entity. So. Just, just that. I understand. I understand. For me, the fact that it's partly, I mean, it's business condos. One, and second, and two, that they had. I mean, part of their difficulty is, is fund mismanagement is concerned to me. I mean it. So Katie. I think I just wanted to. Endorse what he just said about if it's eligible. We don't want to mix our messages, but what you just said, Sarah, is that the concern is perhaps more about. Management. Then it is about. Although you did say about private. I mean, I think if it's an, if it's eligible, we can't. I wouldn't want the message to say. It may be eligible, but we don't like that, which is. You know, it might not be as high a priority or something along those lines. Okay. If I said, I didn't like it. That was, that was not. Well, I didn't say it was concerning. If that well. Okay. Yes. Yeah. But, but it is that, that particular fact, whether it's private or not is an eligible. I mean, if it's eligible, it's eligible, but if what's concerning to you is about how it's being managed, that I think that's worth. And worth. You know.  I would be interested to know when we discuss these. Which projects we think should never be done or which projects we think might. Due to the fact we have fewer dollars available. Moved over to next year. I rated some of mine because the lower, because I thought more than we could do next year. And you'll notice I rated a couple of ones that I just don't think we should do. And I don't get a sense in terms of where the other people fall. So that might be a suggestion as we have our discussion. Well, we can't postpone projects. I mean, I don't think it's like all we could do is say. Not this year, but please reapply. I think that's as. Okay. Much as we could do for that. Yeah. And now, I mean, I, I readjusted some of my ratings today once I saw the extra money. You know, so, so maybe not everybody's had a chance to do that. And you know, you can change your mind about it. I mean, we've got a lot of ratings. We go a lot. All right. Well, I think somebody asked that we not make it. Come to a consensus about conky Stevens until we've talked about some of the other projects. So let's go back up to the nutting building envelope. Which was. Had an average score of 3.7. So who would like to explain why they think it's. A good. A good project. I guess that's heady or Tim. Oh. Doesn't matter. I mean, I'd be happy to start. I rated it five because I visited all the sites and of all the buildings I looked at that was in terrible condition in my opinion. And plus there was a lot of energy efficiency by replacing the siding and I thought it was a project that was something we definitely had to do. That's the reason for my five. I, I checked with Sonya about this. I want to make sure that I'm where I'm supposed to be. This is off of the, is it chestnut court? It's the little. Right. Sort of seven. Is it 1970s era? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think this is sort of show almost like sheltered housing. I love. In that complex, there are brick buildings, other apartments. And then there's a, there's a one that's wood. The one that's wood is this. JC nutting project. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think this is an incredibly sweet. Development and. You know, Meets a set of needs that are fairly specific. And she thing, you know, whether it's just seems to me, it has kind of preservation over turns, which appeals to me. I know that's totally irrelevant. But. You know, this is a very, a very attractive. Little, little development in town. It's a little bit of a colonial revival. Developments right next to it. So. We're really close to the point here. Make a point. This is under community housing. It's for affordable housing. It's not. I know it's not reservations. I know. I know. And by re sheathing the whole bill, the buildings, you would. You would be taking care of both the assets. As.  I may be speaking out of turn there. Turn here, but that's a very. A very, I don't know who the architect was, but I'd like to find out. Thank you. Andrew, you gave it. A low score, I believe. So what was your. Yeah. Yeah. So I will say, I did not modify any scores since hearing of new money. My. Well, wasn't the most expensive. I know this is one that had been successful in getting. I fleet funding from other sources. I just. My rationale was more around. The cost and where there are other monies they might be able to get. I'm. I would feel comfortable with that. I do think that it is. I do think it's worthwhile. It's in this situation. This is kind of me. Accounting for the math in my head. You know, last week. When I fill this out. So. Well, what would you, what would you like to pop in there instead? I mean, I could bump it up to a three. Makes a little bit of difference. Yeah. So these are going to be, these are going to be tough. Especially since we're not voting yet. Should we leave it? Maybe I need help from the committee. Should we start? We've taken some of the lowest scores. We go to the high scores and work our way down. I still have a comment on this one. Okay. Go ahead. You can see me on the screen or my. My white background presents. Prevents it. I just had to. I wanted to add a comment. I. As Tim went around and I agree with him. Seeing. The condition. Is bad in many respects. For. That particular building. I was there this afternoon. And in fact, the roof. A couple of them is bad shape. So it does very much need it. And I wrestled with the fact that. It has a maintenance element to it. Counteracted by the. Energy efficiency, which would be a great benefit. And in addition to that, I would like to add a comment. On. Energy efficiency, which would be a great benefit. And in addition, I have an inherent bias in favor of. Projects that start with a lower dollar amount and move towards the highest one. Just because there's more projects that can be done if they're smaller. In terms of their request. So that was my general thinking on this. It qualified. For the project. And so they not. Check all the boxes. Of new community housing, but it is in significant need to repair. Thank you, Sarah. Okay. Sarah. Sarah, are you out there? Yep. I'm here. My thought about this one was that I just had wished it had a higher priority. But I obviously see the value of it. It's a critical asset. We should be maintaining it. I just know it didn't know. CPA money was the best use. And it was a, it was a big ask for us. That was all. I think I don't think there's any question about its eligibility. I think. Yeah, I was just served in my own mind prioritizing different. I will note that it, um, this, they do have other funds, the HCD, I think it was funds to put towards this pride, this effort, and that they will not lose them. If they don't get CPA money. They will not lose them. So I think that, um, I think that, um, perhaps if we decide it's not a high priority for us this year, we could ask them to or suggest that they, um, reapply next year. Andrew. Yeah, you would, you were kind of thinking through what the process would be for this. I would say like. That we still kind of go through all of them before we try to make any. You know, I think it's going to be a challenge to keep all these in our head, but, um, we'll give it a go. Um, So the, so the score on that rose a bit. Um, let's. Let's just now go to the top ranking or the highest scores, because we've only been able to eliminate at this point, one product. The North cemetery. So let's, let's take the highest, uh, Ranking projects. And I believe that would be the town's request for half a million, million dollars for acquisition and development of transitional housing. They had a large number of fives and nothing lower than a four. So maybe this is a. Maybe we're already at consensus, but I think I should ask. Did anybody. Was it anybody's thought or preference to fund an amount other than $500 for this one. And your hand is up. No. Sam. Only in the context of how it relates to other projects. You know, if it were bonded, that would make it better. Um, The contingency for my rating of four, I was going to go with three, uh, based on the question, which is it indicates that it's designed for the acquisition. Of housing. Um, And. My. Rating of four is in the context that this will specifically be used for that purpose. In a X amount of time, just like when we did the vote last fall for the belch town road property. It was important to me at that time. That we clarify what the purpose of the funds was. Um, and the fact that the application stated specifically. That it is for that purpose. Was very important in my vote and a distinction between. My vote. Uh, might excuse me, my rating. Uh, A distinction between my rating for the AMHT dollar amount of the same request. The town proposal specifically said it was for. The acquisition of property and that's. Very significant in terms from my vote from my. Thank you. All right. So I, I. I'd asked whether anybody was interested in a different amount. And Sam said, maybe in the context of the others. So, but remember, um, Sean has said that if we can tell them up, we like to fund Dell tell us how we may be able to do it. So with that said, should we, is there consensus? We're not voting, but is there a consensus to put this one on to the tentative slate? Okay.  So I can't. I can't tell. And I don't want to, I don't want to take a vote. But does anyone want to. Disagree with. Moving this one forward. Andrew, you want to say something about it? Yeah, I don't want to disagree at just your point around reducing the number. My, my thought was. We're identifying the projects. For money heard from Sean. We're identifying the projects. They will come back. And let us know what we can afford and how much. And then at that point. We could maybe make the decision if we want to adjust the dollars. Well, but if, but if we already have a. Kind of. If we already know that we don't want to give a. Yeah. I would say like my, I would only. In this situation request a lower number. Depending on what the answer is for the whole pool. All right. So at this point. We will, we will put that one forward. Into the. Into the list that we will request feedback about. A funding plan. All right. So.  You just leave that number there in total for the moment or move it. Over. I'll leave it there. But can I make a comment? Yes. When you're reducing some of these. It seems to me like it's, it's a mixed message. When people come in and with their. With their proposals, they usually have a pretty good estimate of what they need to do these things. And when you. Cut the funding that could extend the time that they. For them to get. Get this done. They might have to come back the following year. For more money. So I'd be a little cautious. And I'm not, I'm not talking just about the town. I know this one's on the town side, but it just, I've seen that happen where the amounts are reduced and people have been kind of forced to come back and ask for more later. Right. Right. All right. So fine. We'll keep that one in that one in there. Next. What's next highest 4.4 at the bottom trail improves. Simeon strong. It's 4.6. Oh yes. Simeon strong. Okay. Start. Tim, you want to say something about. I was going to suggest we talk about the next one of the AMA. 500,000 because they're kind of related and I've actually, my vote was related to the two of them. And I don't know if that, if you would like to do that, but. My, my. The two together is a million, right? So, and I frankly don't know if it's better to reduce the town request or the. Housing trust request if we want to reduce the numbers. So I mean, I could go either way. That's why I voted a four for the housing project because I voted a five for the town. So I don't know. To me, I would like to discuss the two of those together a few. Cause I think that you can comment on that. That's fine. That's fine. And the one we can reduce. Most readily. And they've even said as much is the funding for the affordable housing. Development projects. Number. Two. The AMHT project because they don't have us. It's not for a specific project. It's just to add to their pot of funds, which then they can use. As the need arises. Okay. So would anyone like. Does anyone want to suggest a different amount. For the AMHT. Project. The request there is $500,000, but in the past we have also given them smaller awards. So that we've already. They know that happens and we've done it. Katie. Oh, sorry. No, I was, I'm sorry. I'm sort of stuck on. For Sarah. Process. I'm not sure why we need right now to talk about lowering or changing amounts. It sort of feels like just talking about the projects. Merit. I just, I thought Sean's point about the, they could come back to us and say. This could be, you know, the two 500, for example, maybe, or one, you know, one of them could be through debt service. And so. Can I interject on that? Sorry, Katie. The affordable housing development. Project funds. That's a transfer that goes into the. Into the Amherst affordable housing trust fund, which is still under the town's treasury, but we can't borrow. To transfer money. Okay. To find to be used later. If we're going to borrow, it has to be for a tangible project. Yes. Thank you for that clarification. I was just, I was using just as an example, there might be something on here that could be. Debt service. And therefore we might actually be able to fund more than what we think is. So I just wanted to ask about that process. Of talking about merit first, and then don't get too bogged down. The amounts until next time. Well, but I would say those are. They are not. They're not unconnected. I mean, I might think a project is not worth $500,000. I might think it's worth $200,000. You know, that's. That's an opinion one could one. Right. I think that's a merit based conversation. That's fine in terms of the dollars, but I was hearing people talking about it more about how much money we had. So that's, that's the only thing I just was concerned about. I think what you're saying is if, if you can, if you think that it doesn't merit that amount of money for some reason, then that's a merit conversation. Well, but it's partly merit in context, you know, in the context of. Other projects in that category or in the context of. Of the larger financial picture for CPA funds. So. I mean, I don't want to just, just say, yeah, basically everything's in the list. Tell us, tell us what it is. I would, I would like to hear what members think about an appropriate level of funding for this project. And, and, you know, maybe that has to be a, that one has to be a transfer, but what do you think is an appropriate level of funding? Maybe it's $500,000. Maybe it is. But Sean wants to say something too. I was just going to agree with Katie to, to say that I would focus on just whether you like the projects or not. I mean, you could say to us at the end of this, you like all the projects come back and then we'll say, well, no, you have to reduce this much in order to, to meet the funding we have. And then I think it makes sense to have that, that discussion that you're talking about how much you have to reduce. But we don't know that yet. You may say at the end of this, these three projects, we don't care how much funding we have. We don't want to do them. We don't want to do them. We don't want to do them. We don't want to do them. And so that's going to, that's going to change the amount that you're going to have to kind of get to to meet your target. And then you're also again, going to want to see the, I mean, really the only, the only projects on here that we might borrow for are the high school, what we will borrow for the high school track replacement and maybe cracker farm. The other ones again, a transfer. So we wouldn't borrow for those transfers. I agree with focusing on merit. And then we can figure out at the end, we can figure out at the end of this. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Hold on. Dave has. I would endorse. Andrew. No, it wasn't Andrew. It was picture disappeared. Oh, Sean. And. I will say Katie. Katie. Yeah. The idea of the merit. Of the. Programs or projects. I think we should be focusing on the merit. Instead of looking at the dollar sign. At this particular point. We. Well, I'll just put it that way. Okay. Thank you. Anna, you had. I had a clarifier. Yeah. Sean. So Sean, what you just said was that the only two that we would borrow for. Are the, the, the two school ones, are the ones that we would borrow from. The one that we would borrow from. The one that we would borrow from. The one that we would borrow from. The one that we would borrow from. The one that we would borrow from the ground, not, not any of the other ones. Those would all be transfers. Not any of the other ones. Yeah.  Up there. You know, if we did that, especially if it was the full request. But again, the two, the housing trusts ones, those are both transfer. So those are. Ones we can borrow for. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. I'm trying to remember what I was going to say. Kind of bounce around a little bit. I would just say, Tim, I approach these two the same way I looked at them similarly. Looks like we had a similar thought for the direction to me. Transitional housing. When they said there's none in town, like that was to me what really. Had that one rise up. I also though I thought both of them didn't have projects in mind and maybe. Or specific projects. I may, I may be misremembering that. But I would just point it out there. And then given, given my, my ranking of one over the other, Sarah, to your point, I agree with you talked about mayor, but. Since you have asked for folks, I would, I would keep the transitional housing. At its full request. And if we got to the point, I would, I would lower for the affordable housing. Okay. Thank you. I think we'll just say to your first point, I believe the town does, it sounded from Dave Zomek, like they're, they do have a specific property in mind. Yeah, that we could have it go into executive session if we wanted to know the details, but they weren't prepared to speak publicly about them. So. All right, Tim.  Sorry on which. For the affordable housing, the AMAHT. You want to move from. Four. Five. Two or five. Yes. All right. Sam. I want to make sure I heard Sean correctly that both. Projects one and two, the town of the numerous acquisition. And the AMAHT projects at 500,000 would both be transfers that we could not. Use debt service for the town of Amherst acquisition. It's a large dollar amount. I'm not sure. Yeah, let me, you're right. Sam, let me clarify. The housing, the transitional housing one. Again, I don't, when that one firms up, if there's a specific site or specific project, that one could be borrowed for. Because that would be a, that would be a physical, potentially acquisition or construction. So sorry, I apologize for that one. Thank you. Okay. In the context of the two, my thought process was Dave was referencing. A yet to be. Announced. Project. For purchase. But we don't know what that is. But my thought process was Dave was referencing. My rating was in accordance with a specific project. Whereas. AMAHT who do great work and advocacy. It seems to me that it's a request for a transfer of funds. So I agree with Sarah that. The budget is relevant because there's no specific project there to rate. It's more, do we want to support. AMAHT, which is great. And in the early, in the presentations, the thought, the reference was that. From John was, it would be great to support one of the two. You know, it would be great to do both, but we certainly want one of the two supported and we'd be fine. With the dollar amount of $100,000. So it was brought up. By the applicant themselves. Those are my comments in my thought process for ranking one. Over the other. And again, I would want us to be certain that if we. Allocate $500,000 that we, you know, I have a bias of having it go towards a specific project. Such as a purchase of the product. Thank you. This one's a sticking point for me that affordable. Well, others could be. I mean, just because a project is meritorious. And just because we could fund it. Doesn't mean we should fund it. We can also, we always have the option of. Reserving money. So. Again, I mean. Frankly, I would not want to support the housing. Affordable housing trust to the tune of $500,000. If we are going to recommend a half a million for the town for housing. So. I, I feel like. That point is relevant for what we pass on to Sean. So. I agree with your thought process, sir. Anna. Yeah, I mean, I agree too. I think we're, we're in a pinch. And we can't fund everything fully. And so I think that I'd like to see, I'd like to give them funding. And I agree that it probably will not be to that full amount. So I think I, where I, where I'm stuck is where to go. And so I'm curious, Sarah, if you have any references in the past of what a reasonable. A reasonable amount of money would be. A reasonable amount of money. That would be a reasonable amount of money. That would be a shift to that number might be. Well, Sam is remembers what I remember that John said, well, if you fund the, the towns, then could you at least give us $100,000. So. Sorry. I meant, I meant prior to that. You, you mentioned that in. Oh yeah. I think we've done like half, you know, half of the amount. Okay. Did we not give them 400,000. I think so, but I think there have been. Some occasions where we reduced. Yes, there are. Yeah. Yeah.  Because again, the request itself is a little arbitrary. They just want to put money into the trust. So any money they can put in the trust, you know, is, is, is helpful. Sarah. Yeah, I was going to say I'm in agreement with a lot of what people have said. I don't think. I think we should send a very strong signal about the importance of affordable housing. But I don't think we have to do a million dollars particularly somewhat speculatively. And so I would support. How you've laid it out, Sarah was supporting. That's why I did. I mean, I did fives for both. But my caveat was. That I didn't expect we would support both. And then it would, that it on concept, I was supporting them, but not on the amounts. So I'd support that, that reduction. I know we're not talking about reductions, but. That's where I would leave. Thanks, Tim. Yeah, I guess. We'll probably have this conversation. Further, but my, my feeling is. I'm not at all sure. John. Didn't just think that he might strategically. Be sensitive to the needs that are far out exceeding the demands. Where the requests or the dollars available. So I'm not sure I'd agreed entirely Sam with your conclusion that he came in saying, well, we might be able to do a little less. I think he said that. Because he maybe it was realistic or thinking he was realistic that we might have far more many needs. And I think in terms of the town, it's a high housing is a very high priority. I for one would not like to reduce that and fund some of the other projects, some of the other large dollar ones, for example, sale in place. My feeling is I would not want to do that. So I don't know when we get into that conversation, but. Oh boy. Okay. Let me. So let me just propose something. And we'll just see how it flies. What if we put in for the affordable housing trust. For the purposes of getting feedback from Sean and Sonia. If we put in $250,000. Does that give anyone is that really upset anybody. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah, Sam, I see you. Go ahead. Tim York, I think you heard John Kornick correctly. And, but I also, I did hear John say that, and Dave say that. Or one of them that they didn't even realize the other was putting in the proposal. I think that the, my interpretation was that their. Was 500,000 plus whatever would be for the AMHT. My interpretation. The need is greater. John does all kinds of work. And you can tell from both proposals that there's a lot of ideas there, but my thinking was not purely based on. The. Recognition that a hundred thousand would be fine. But the reading of the proposal as submitted. And distinguishing between the two. Regarding your comment, Sarah, I would have. I would be more in alignment with reducing it to whatever amount it might be. And 250 seems from my perspective to be. Generous. Yeah. Both John and Dave are in the audience. Are we allowed to ask them any questions or no. Or both Dave's in the room, but John's also. I wasn't sure. There's been some speculation, so I just wanted to check. No, I think we, we all, we all heard. We all heard what we heard. I would note that in past years, when there've been a whole. A variety of versions like various affordable housing. Or community housing projects. Not all from the trust that John has. Ranked those. And other times given urged us to give a higher priority to some other project. So. You know, this is, this is not unusual for him to. So, okay, but I feel we need to be making some headway here. So, Tim, what do you know? I just, I don't, right now, I think when we added everything up, we were very close to our number with the 500,000. And I think it's premature to reduce it right now. That was my, but okay. Does anyone else at this point. Want to keep the full ask there. $500,000. Andrew does. I'm sorry. I'll say if you want to, if you want to reduce it to 50, I think that's fine. We're not deciding the numbers tonight anyway. I think I agree. I want to get talking about some of these other projects and move us along. All right. All right. How many people at this point raise your hand. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm going to stop if you are going to be unhappy. If we put 250 there now for this sake of planning to see what kind of feedback we have. One unhappy person. We're not deciding. So. I'm with you, Tim. But I think just to keep us moving along. Yeah. All right. Let's put 250 in there now. And then I would suggest we go down to the track. Deal with the track and the. Playgrounds. Okay.  And then perhaps that will be enough. Enough for the finance department to work on. So the track $800,000. I think it's going to be interesting because it got some. Several. Fives and also some low scores. Gosh. So this one would certainly have to be bonded. I will say as the rec commission representative. We talked about all the rec. The projects under the rec category. And I would say. Was not enthusiastic about this. Now, maybe there's some, I don't know. The rec commission is very much in favor of, of the projects having to do with the recreation department facilities. To be fair, but there was not a lot of enthusiasm for the track. People thought it really mostly served. Much larger populations. And there was a lot of concern about, you know, the surfacing. If it's resurfaced in place, then that kills the, the athletics master plan. So. Those are why I gave it a pretty low number. Let's hear from some of the. Enthusiasts like Anna. Do you want to hear anything about this? Do you want to go? Go ahead. All right. So, so Sarah, I want to hear more about the recreation. Discussion about the master plan. I think for me. I hear you about, or I hear the comments about, you know, the other recreation facilities being open, but also students are using those too. I would argue in. Like when we think about the soccer at Plum Brook, right? Like the people who are playing soccer at Plum Brook are. The people who are playing soccer at Plum Brook. The people who are in public schools, I would argue, right? So I think that there's, in my mind, it's, it's. When it's used is mostly during school. Yes. And then it's by students, but. During the summer. Does LSSE still do camps out there? Do you know, I mean. I guess I'm, I'm struggling with that argument. For me that the condition of that. Track and the fact that then it's now limiting. What people can do on it safely. I mean, I think that's the point that I'm forgetting the professional association's name. Spoke very strongly to me in terms of why this needs to be done. This is, this is hazardous for our community to be utilizing it at this point. And that, that was a strong selling point. For me, but I want to hear more about the, the other component of this at some point. Okay. Andrew. So to me, this is when I mentioned before contingencies, this is, this is kind of the one that has the most. The most contingency in my mind. I believe that Doug said in the presentation that. You know, they could still reorient like if, if, if we gave the money to reorient it, they could still look into reorienting it. I agree with you, Sarah, in terms of resurfacing in place, I think does set us back a generation. I see this as an opportunity for us to kickstart. The plan. I agree with what Anna said. This is, I wouldn't say it's for students. It's, it's for youth. Right. I mean, there are, there are students, there are children who use it. There's rec leagues that play in the area. The, so thinking of this. If it could go into that kickstarting the plan. I think that opens the doors to not only the track team, but you know, hosting tournaments. Bringing some other. You know, sports. Like into the town. I think that frankly, like the condition of our fields has impacted. Interest in, in play from kids. I run the Amherst youth lacrosse. We've had. We've had issues getting appropriate fields. When you just take a look at, I think the enrollments across the board. There is, there is less and less interest in the fact that we're not. Investing into those fields, I think is, is compounding that problem. So I, I love the idea of, of getting track back home. But. Only if this is compliant with the plan. And again, that's, I know Doug mentioned it. I don't know whether it's really true or not, but that would be my very big contingency that goes along with this. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. I think I'll ask Sean to, to speak up before. Yeah. So I agree with everything Andy said. I will say that there are quite a few adults that walk that track. During the day in the evening. You know, I see lots of non students using that track quite a bit. You know, one thing the committee could consider because this will likely be a borrowing authorization is you could kind of table this one. Until we hear more from the designer. And know exactly what the region is going to do. I think the scores here are indicative of, we don't really know which way that the region is going to go, whether they're going to replace it in place, or if they're going to turn it and follow the plan. So because it's a borrowing authorization, you know, it's not going to, it's not reducing your total sum here for this year. So you could wait and see if you can, you know, it's not reducing your total sum here for this year. So you could wait until we hear more back from the regional schools. And you know exactly what option they're going to pursue. And then you could consider whether it's CPA or whether they just, just go through their, their regular regional. Capital process. Do you think we, do you know whether we're likely to hear. More from them in a timely fashion or, you know. Yeah. So, so Dave Zomek's in the room too. He might want to add to this, but I think we're supposed to hear. Sometime in mid to late December, more about the cost. Updated cost estimates for each of the two options. And then once we get those cost estimates. I think staff need to then think about. You know, whether there's, whether there's something we could plan for or not. I mean, the range from the original plan was, I think, two to $6 million. And so it makes a big difference whether it's $6 million or $3 million. And so that's why we really want to get those estimates back or those, those more detailed cost estimates for each option back. And then we can see if it's something that can be, you know, that we can plan for. Is it reasonable to say, or for the committee to bear in mind that. If we do table it and then eventually recommend. Borrowing for that. That we will then have the debt service to, you know, we'll be responsible for the debt service. So that will be. Yeah.  Your flight 24. CPA is when that would, would hit. Is that correct? 24. At the earliest. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Tim. Let me, I can talk later. I'd see another. I've talked a lot that maybe some other hands, but I would like to comment while I gave it a one, but I'll wait until. Go ahead. All right. I gave it a one because in part because I would hate to put $800,000 in that track and not appropriately. I don't think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. That's a good idea. And. Fun. What I consider one of the top town priorities, and that's housing. And that's housing. I heard John said. Say that that gives him the flexibility. Having the funds to move quickly rather than wait to following years. And I just don't feel the 800. I just don't think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that we always have the way meets and to spend $800,000 for one or two home meets. Maybe, maybe one homie. I just don't see it. Maybe in the future. I just felt. If. I put it at one because this year's funding. Request. Cannot be met. By all of our. Our resources. So that's the reason I put it on. Thank you. Sorry, I'm typing. I forgot to lower my hand. Sorry. All right. So, Sam. A couple of comments. I agree with Andy's reference. That the contingency regarding reorientation. I participated and attended the community outreach and extensive participate. And many of the rec committee did as well. I think that was a good question. I agree with the vision of a North South track. And. And that could be with or without a tour of fields. That's a separate discussion. I wouldn't be in favor of. Funding and less absolutely necessary in place. Because I think it does restrict us. So. My own opinion and the reason I rated it as I did was the uncertainty related to. Reorientation. Reorientation would bias my vote higher because for me, it would be a requirement. And secondly, a point I want to bring up is that. We authorized. CPAC $157,000. As a request from the school of finance director. For the study. Of the cost of the design of the reorientation plan. And the main plan. And my concern is that. I don't know if that money is still out there. It hasn't occurred yet. I think it's highly relevant to the context of the discussion. Of what's going to transpire. Because we're talking costs and it would be great to get that additional information. I don't know if. The plans are to proceed with the usage of that 157 that we allocated. I don't know if that would be a good idea. But I think we can figure out the impact. Along with some money from the other. Participate in participating regional schools. But I would like to see that occur. Regardless of what we do. And that was the reason I asked if we could delay. You know, repair it for another year. Well, that takes place. I'm very much in favor of the. Master plan vision for the. Fields. I. And I would be in support of it. And that it didn't impact all of the other projects. But the one element I haven't heard discussed to date in, in significance is the fact that we did allocate $157,000 recently for a cost and design study. And I'm hoping to get some feedback or some information related to that at some point. Thank you. Yeah, Doug did say that. Because the, because the other towns have to vote their CPA. Grants at town meeting in the pandemic pushed their town meetings into summer. That those. Grants or approvals were late, you know, very late to be made. And so they did not start the design work. So that doesn't strike me as, as unreasonable. But it is true that the. What they requested was money to start designing a reoriented track. So as I understand it, they cannot use it to design a track in place that would, that would not fly with us because that's not what we approved. So. So I don't think. I think they will use the money if, if it looks at all likely that we will. Might recommend borrowing. We can also make it contingent, as has been said, it's like it will, we might recommend $800,000 for a reoriented track. And if they don't reoriented, then they don't get to borrow the money. So. All right. So we've moved that out of the. We've moved that out of the column. So let's talk about the crop or farm playground. And I think once we have a sense of where we're going on that, we can probably stop for the evening. Okay. So, Sarah, I'm sorry. I saw a heading with your hand up, but it's like camouflage with the background. I'm not sure if you actually have. It was up. I just, it's just a point of information. If the track was reorientated, would it be, would it be like, you know, the wicked, which, you know, it would just be blown up into the air and then twisted and then come back down again, that kind of a thing. It's basically 90 degrees. Yeah. Just, just. But, but not to a whole different part of the property. Just basically where it is just very helpful. It hugs, it would hug the, the change of grades so that maximize the flat area. So you can actually get more fields in place by reconfiguring. I think it benefits not only the track, other playing fields, because you could then move softball down from the upper field to the lower field. And there's like a domino. Yeah. It's, it's in really rough shape. I don't think any, I don't think anyone would notice that it, that that track is in such bad shape. If you didn't walk across it as I did with a friend the other day, it's scary how many holes are in that thing. And I remember, I think it was someone in our last meeting who said that, you know, it's got to the point where you can't really keep patching it. Because the patches aren't really holding. It looks like it looks like liability issue to me. Big time. It is in touch shape. Okay. So. Sorry, Sarah. That's why I voted five, but I could come down before if that, if that helps knowing that it could be bonded. Bonded. No, it doesn't matter. You can recommend it five and be, and borrow. I mean, it's, it's like the borrowing is, is not even in a way our decision because it's so much money. It would have to be borrowed. So if we want to recommend it, it, you know, the money would be borrowed. Wow. Okay. I'm learning as I go. You're doing great. Doing great. All right. Crocker farm had a bit of a spread here. Ratings from two to five. So I'm going to pick on Andy again and gave it a two. I don't know if it was, you know, the merit or the amount of money or, you know, do one phase and not other phases or. Yeah, I think the money was, the money was eye opening. Also, I think just. There are, there are. There are multiple playgrounds at that school. And I think that the kindergartners will, will also use other playgrounds. So like, I don't. I don't know that this is necessarily inhibiting. Effective play. It just may be like inhibiting convenient play. That said, like the dollar figure was, you know, why went maybe from like a three to a two? Because I realized this is like.  All of my kids went to crack a farm by the way. So just. But yeah, not. If there were less, maybe it could be phased. I would think differently in that situation, but. Say that again. If there were what. Oh, if it could be phased in some manner. Yeah. Like you could put in. Some sort of a, some kind of a, some sort of a, a little bit of a distance, but maybe there's a way to address some of that need. And this is just part of a multi-year project. That's why I gave it a low score. Thank you, Sarah. Yeah. I believe in investing in our. School resources. I think probably we all do. I would. More, I would favor. of it last year. And this is the first time we're seeing Crocker Farm come to us. So I would support, like if we had to evaluate the two against each other, I would support the track as a continuation of our previous support and to see a project carried through. And I would also in some ways look at this against the large pickleball ask at Mill River. And I suppose I support Crocker and I think I support these over the Mill River projects. So that's sort of how I'm looking at them just in concept. Thank you. Katie. I was just wondering, Andy, when my kids went to Crocker that they were, the kindergartners couldn't use the other playgrounds for safety's sake, like they had to use that one in the back. And so that made me when I was hearing the presentation think about, there are three playgrounds at that school and sort of what is, it just feels like there isn't really an overarching plan for capital improvement there. So I'm in favor of it and I think I'd like to support it. But that's my one question is sort of, this is a question I've had since last year when I started to sort of this, the capital needs of the schools and sort of how that gets decided and who's recommending. So I just, I'm just unsure of how this works. Because will there be another playground asked next year for another part of Crocker Farm? Which obviously nobody can answer, but it just feels a little bit, I just don't understand how this works from the school side of recommending these capital needs. And maybe that could be answered at another time or offline. Couldn't we do the same thing, excuse me, to jump in a kitty on that, that we've asked John Horneck sometimes to rank. We've never asked anyone else to rank projects. I wonder if we could ask the school. That would be really helpful to me. Is that okay? Sorry, go ahead, sir. Well, I don't know if it matters in this case, but one is a regional school asset and the other is Amherst school asset. Yeah, I want to put the superintendent in that position. That'd be a tough position to be. Yeah, he works for, he works for all the time. Yeah, but I wonder if Sean could, I don't know if it's really helpful, but it kind of gets to Katie's point. I know the schools have their own capital plan. I believe they come to JCPC also. This is something I'm also interested in knowing, I mean, we're first, CPA's first. So everyone's, who's eligible is gonna come to us first, but would the playgrounds also be eligible for funding under JCPC or other? Yeah, so one thing we can look at too, again, if this is a project that the committee at least wants to consider, this may be partially on the capital plan as well. Again, sometimes projects are in both places until we know where it's gonna be funded. And so it's possible maybe partial funding could come from each place, if we're trying to get down to a number. So that's another thing we can look at between now and next time, is if it's already on the capital plan and you can use that to get this number down a little bit. And who's capital, which capital plan? So the way capital works for not the region, but everybody else's departments will submit their capital requests to the town manager. So the superintendent and the facility director for the schools will put together their plan. They'll submit it to the town manager. We'll do our process. And then ultimately there's a town-wide capital plan that includes the elementary schools. And so the playgrounds would fall under the town-wide capital plan. If it were possible, if they're also on this other capital plan now, is that a guarantee? Like if, just for the sake of argument, if we said CPA will kick in $250,000, would they necessarily also get 250 from the other budget? Or that has to go through it's own... So the town manager, so it's a town manager's capital plan, but the council has to vote to approve it. So I think we'd have to say all that. And that might be part of what we'd have to write up in your recommendation if it's not fully funded, that the expectation is that either funding has to come from another place or that the request more funding next year or something to get to the number. Okay, all right, thank you. Tim? Yeah, it continues to bother me. This one I actually toured both playgrounds with the school principal. And as I said during the presentation, my impression was the school principal felt the older kids playground was in worse shape than this one. And this is the proposal we're going to consider. So I don't know, and there were two aspects. One was safety issues like rotting beams that kids could fall over and so forth. And then there was much more modern up-to-date equipment. And whether or not we could offer them a certain amount of money and then they could maybe solve some of the surface safety issues, but by the other better equipment at some of the point, that's a consideration too. And I don't know how you put that into the equation. So that's something to think about. Pam? Yeah, I caught, go ahead. Yeah, I toured this the other day and there were kids playing there, by the way, after school and they have an after school play program, preschool program, it was very widely utilized and kids are running around having a great time. I went there because I also similar to some other members wasn't certain when the presentation was made exactly which area we were talking about with ADA compliance. I did see when I went there that there are some sloping issues. The equipment, it's usable. There's like once, a couple of slides that need to get repaired. It could all use a great upgrade, but the more urgent issue that I saw was the ADA compliant aspect of it just in general and a couple of the pieces of equipment. I think in the context of a full plan from the school as to what they wanna do with their program, it would be beneficial, but by visiting it, it did change my opinion and straw pool rating up somewhat based upon my recognition upon seeing it that there is, the ADA could get done. Andy asked a lot about phasing questions of the proposals and from my perspective this would be one that might come into play with that. I know Rupert mentioned that as a way of segmenting it because I did have concerns with the proposal itself in that it really, there weren't specific plans. It was like, here's the number, give us it and we'll go with it. I mean, in favor of upgrading the schools, my kids went to the crock farm as well, but the tangible aspect that I saw was, that's clear and present, let's put it that way was the ADA compliance and to the slide. So that's my comment on this. One other thing before, I know you're anxious to move on, Sarah but I do wanna make a couple of comments on another large dollar amount project before we submit things and that would be the mills house, the mills house, excuse me. As I recall, as this is what I did in my own ratings for the crocker farm, I think they broke it out as being $50,000 for designing the access, you know, trying to solve the access problems. So one option is to give them that if we don't wanna do the whole thing. I know there's not specific plans, you know but you can't get specific plans without spending money. So, you know, a lot of things don't have specific, a lot of specifics to them like the town's transitional housing project or, excuse me, know even the track, although, you know, it's just a track, maybe you don't need a lot of detail but we don't always have quotes, you know like we do for some of these preservation work at structures. So does anybody want to do, put any number other than $500,000 in here at the moment? Sam, you do? I very much be in favor of a study and I don't know what the town can afford. So my instant, my guess is that the 500 was just thrown out there. I really don't know what it will cost. It looked to me to be a smaller playground area than the Kendrick Park one. I'd probably lower it if it were me to, you know if we were looking to do the whole thing to 400 but I'm not that concerned if we can afford it but I think the choice would be funding that the committee is going to face would be funding a study, funding the ADA compliance or the full boat. My advocacy would be for the study and the phase phasing in of the ADA so I'd advocate for a lower amount. That's me. And Sean said he can also look into other funding sources. So maybe in the end we could do 250 if we feel better about that if the rest comes from another source. Tim, you're muted. You're muted. There you go. Sorry. I just looked it up and it was the 500,000 was 50,000 for design and engineering and 450 for materials and labor and that 450 was based on an industry mark of $2,250 per child times 400 students. So I don't feel comfortable with the number I would suggest we lower it and I would propose like we did with the housing let's put 250. And if it's a kindergarten playground there aren't 400 students. Even the whole school doesn't have 400 students. So there are a lot of questions. Okay. All right, Katie. Yeah, all I was going to say is I'd be in favor of lowering it but I don't know to how much and I would like to know more about what the town could provide. Thank you. All right, maybe Sonia you could just make a note to the right of that cell that look into shared funding or something. Thank you. Okay. Well, those are the biggest ticket items. It's been a long evening. Sam, I know you want to talk. It's a big item. Well, it's not the next biggest. I don't think but why don't you just say what you want to say about the mill's house but then I think we're going to just say ask finance department to tell us what we could do. This information. The question I have related is related to eligibility and in the department of revenue guidelines for the projects they have a few different sections related to painting. And one is restoration where if you're restoring it to its original color it qualifies. That's not the case in this one. This is more of rehabilitation but in rehabilitation it indicates painting that is an interval part of a larger eligible rehabilitation or restoration project after extraordinary repairs qualifies. The reason I'm bringing it up is I consider 172,000 a large ask given that this is really a restoration projects that is a part of a larger painting project. The restoration portion of the estimate is about $50,000. I don't have the exact number in front of me whereas the painting component of the job is 120,000. Painting represents 70% of the ask. So to me it's a restoration projects it's a part of a larger painting project and I'm not sure that the full amount of the painting qualifies. I'm very much in favor of restoring the building it's a great building, I love it. It's a great asset for the town but I'm not comfortable myself voting in favor of that large dollar amount for the project given what I know in particular given the definition of what qualifies and what doesn't. And I think it's important for the committee to consider this aspect before we recommend a full dollar amount for approval. And I'm not getting into the bidding aspects or any of that I'm just looking at it straight up in terms of qualification. All right, all right, thank you. So I would, I guess I throw that one to Sony and say can you just check into that eligibility of that? Page 56. I don't mean to do it now but next time hopefully we'll have more information or clearer opinions on the Mill River and North Amherst Community Farm. So maybe this, maybe there's also a question here. Thank you for raising that. Tim. I looked at the construction estimates and added everything up and I still cannot get to that 172,337. I think that's the latest figure we got from them. And that to me is the project cost. And they said they were going to the Amherst Women's Club was gonna kick in 30. So the CPA asked, I think is 30 less than the 172 right starting right from the get go. So. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. But if the numbers still don't even add up to hundred, you know. I could be making that up. Yeah, okay. All right. So Sean and Sonia, do you think we've given you sufficient information that you can tell us how it could all be funded if we in fact want to proceed? Yeah.  We removed one. Okay. And we're uncertain about the eligibility of two others. So North Cemetery is off the list, right? Yes. Okay. And are we going with the reduced amount for Salem Place and the reduced amount for the Affordable Housing Trust? Can you give us an opinion based on that? Yeah, well, we can do it. Yeah, we'll look at the numbers and see if those reductions, if it gets us pretty close. Yeah, so I think we can bring back information that will inform whether you have to make further reductions or prioritize the projects more. Okay. We may wish to in any case, but it would be nice to know if this is possible. All right, so. Can I ask a question? Yes. Is the committee feeling like they want to maintain a budgeted reserve for unforeseen projects? Because that would make part of the... Well, I guess I would like to know what choices we face if we want to keep the reserve. Okay. All right. Sarah? I mean, I would say that we have a range of very large and extraordinary asks, particularly around affordable housing and that we should lean into the reserve and use our resources this year to fulfill these requests. All right, so we'll see if we will need to do that. Yeah. Or yeah, so let's find out first. Okay. So in that case, I think we've done enough for one night. This had spent a while since we had so many projects. So I'll remind you we meet next. No, happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And then we will meet on December 2nd and December 9th. It would be awesome if we can finish, make our decisions and have a vote on our recommendations on the 2nd. I think we should plan on another lady thing. But if we have to go to the 9th, we can do that. Okay. Sam, you have a question. Just a quick question. Is it your mindset that come the next meeting on the 2nd that we would revisit the projects after having been informed by the town finance folks and then talk about them again in terms of our rating and our dollar amounts, is that correct? Yep, whatever. Yeah, whatever we need to talk about. And that's when we're going to do it. I'd just like to thank you for bringing up the discussion today. I think it's been really helpful to me and hopefully others in our process. It's always a challenge. Well, not always. Sometimes there are a few projects and everybody agrees and we have enough money, but whoops. We're done with that, right? Okay, yes, it just surprised me. Okay, if nobody else has anything to say, then have a wonderful Thanksgiving and meeting adjourned at 8.50. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.