because we know that students live with people from all different states and then they go home and live in their apartment and it's like, how do you quarantine and isolate when you're a student living in an apartment like that? And so knowing that that is available to students is really huge. So I would appreciate just having that confirmed. And the other item is more associated with our enforcement around the mask provisions or shall we say lack thereof because we are taking this educational approach, right? Just like UMass is taking an educational approach. And so I guess it ends up being more of a comment, although the question that is associated with that is historically when we find people for noise violations and we do the $300 per person thing, historically anecdotally many times we've been told that judges throw that out, that they don't actually make the kids pay the fines. So there was a big article in the paper about how all these have out, even though they were not particularly huge parties, that there were parties where people were fined given that the courts have been closed because of the pandemic, given the historic reputation of the courts not actually enforcing these fines. I think it would be helpful for the town council to hear at some point in the future how that's being looked at right now because there's all this discussion about enforcement of masking. But along those lines, we have the enforcement associated with noise violations because there's the only enforcement we're doing. And if that doesn't turn out to be effective, then I wanna be able to say, well, we're not doing that. So I don't know how you expect we'll be able to do the other with the other caveat to that being, one of the things that looking at the broader picture, municipalities always complain rightfully so that we don't get enough back of the state's money. And so when the state does offer us the ability to tax ourselves, say for example, the small percentage that we're allowed to offer associated with restaurant meals tax that will then belongs to us, some communities don't take advantage of it, but they still complain and say, the state's not sending back enough money, but they don't actually aren't willing to tax themselves to do that. So when we say we're not willing to enforce the mask requirements because we think education is a better way to do it. And I have many positive thoughts about that. But again, the state can say, hey, we gave you the option of being able to enforce this and you're choosing not to do it. So I would just like us to get updated on just how that approach evolves over time. And partly that's gonna be a fall winter thing, right? But also because of the court's involvement there, we can have education, we can have police, but if nobody follows through in the court system, then really what was the point of everybody going to all that work? So thank you.  They are offering off-campus students quarantine on campus. What happens when a student is identified, they spend a lot of time on the phone with them, talking about what the diagnosis, what kind of support they need, whether they need food, whether they have roommates, et cetera, et cetera. And so that whole big room that overlooks the Mullins Center area is where they're doing all these phone calls from. And so they have a whole protocol set up and they've been using public health students and also nursing students as part of the whole team. And so it's become an educational process as well. So I think that UMass Amherst is really, really stepped up on both testing and on handling off-campus students and on taking care of people as they've been diagnosed. I wanna sing their praises for what they've done. Paul? Anything else to add on that? Do you wanna talk about the enforcement issue? Yeah, I mean, the court's issue is always a challenge, especially at this time. So we tend not to talk about that, but we will see how the courts are gonna process all the fines that we're issuing at this point in time. I think, yes, last weekend, there were 22 noise complaints and 18 tickets issued. And so I think we take issuing tickets pretty seriously. The police officers have to document why they're issuing a ticket and it has to be grounded in reality. And so there's a lot of work for them. When they do issue a ticket, they have to do it willy-nilly. So we take it seriously and we hope the courts do as well. Let me also mention that these tickets are not only going to students. We have a problem with our other residents as well. And so again, we may be at college town, but our students are not the only people violating. They're acting quite responsibly for the most part. Kathy? Yeah, I just, this has occurred in my family where people were going to be either traveling out of state to a state that was a higher risk state or traveling in from a self quarantine. So I thought, I was checking out where you can get tested. And I thought we might, if we haven't already Paul, so maybe we have put where people can get tested. So there are a couple of places in Holyoke that will do free tests. And it's very quick turnaround time too. So if you're supposed to come in, if you're coming in from a California and you're supposed to quarantine for 14 days, you could get a test and get the test results back in two days. So we might want to just do that as we hit when I'm thinking we're going into Thanksgiving holiday season where people might have family members traveling in and out unless we miraculously are distributing a COVID vaccine and we're all safe and comfy on telling people how to do that. Cause some of the local places like Express Strip, the one on route nine, to the extent they had anything that could test, they were telling you 14 days to get the test result back, which doesn't do you any good if you're supposed to quarantine for 14 days for a traveler. So just this traveling in and out, again, it's your point, Lynn, it's not just students that are traveling in and out. And so it may be for holiday seasons or for long weekends that people are finally trying to see family people that they haven't seen for months. So, and they're not just coming from that nice set of states which you are, and it's a pretty heavy fine if you don't quarantine, although I'm not sure how the state will know that you entered the state and you did or didn't quarantine, but I'm just thinking make it easy to find. It is on our website, but it's not easy that it's not readily apparent. And it's on the COVID website. Yeah. Dorothy? I was talking about vaccination with someone who'd done some research. And he brought up a lot of issues that we should be very concerned about, which is that just as like the beginning, we're gonna, since there's no national coordination, we're gonna run out of the needles, syringes, the chemicals, and then the two shot, I hear that one of the vaccines being considered has to be stored at 20 degrees below zero and another one at 40 degrees below zero. It's 80 below Celsius. 80, oh, okay. So it's really, really difficult and complicated. And I was very excited when UMass made their own company for testing. I'm wondering what can be done in terms of that by this UMass corporation in terms of the vaccine because if we're a little town, we're not really very important as far as this world is concerned or as least as in the US. And if we don't have a plan, we're not gonna have that vaccine for very many people and we'll just be sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting forever. So I'm just wondering if there's any talk or plans about how we can get set for this with the equipment or even the storage facilities. I mean, what kind of thoughts have you had on that? Well, I can tell you that I share your concern too because that's the one drug, the vaccine by Pfizer. It's the minus 80 Celsius and most freezers are minus 20. So I don't know where these freezers are gonna be. Are they gonna ship it to us on dry ice? That's gonna be problematic. So one thing that I have been working with is our partners, the Hampshire Preparedness Health, oh no, the HPHC, Hampshire Public Health Coalition and then there's the Public Health and Medical Coalition. So these are our emergency preparedness partners. So we're beginning these conversations. Possibly, we'll hear more about that over time. Any other questions? If not, I'd like to move on to the next item which actually is going to be the percent for art. So Bill Cason who has been waiting patiently and Eric Brody who's been waiting patiently, okay. Thank you both for that very thorough update and thanks, Jen, for watching out for all of us. Thank you very much. Great, so we're gonna go for the percent for art. Let me just start by saying this is a bylaw that has history and so I've asked Andy Steinberg who was also part of that history along with others that you'll hear from as well to give us a little bit of that history and then we're going to go to Bill Cason who is presently chairing the Public Arts Commission and then Kathy Shane who chaired the ad hoc committee. So Andy. Yes, thank you and I'll try and be quick because of the hour that you had asked me to briefly recount the history of the percent for art bylaw from the select board and town meeting period. The Public Art Commission presented a proposal to the select board on February 8, 2016 to submit a percent for art bylaw town meeting. First proposal was about an amount equal to 1% of a project, the cost of a project that at 1% be allocated to art. Select board was uncomfortable with the amount but encouraged the concept as a result the Public Art Commission presented a proposal to the 2016 annual town meeting that won half of 1%. At that town meeting there was substantial discussion and the desire of some members that art supported by the bylaw include performing art and not just visual art. And as a result of that town meeting passed a motion to refer the article back to the Public Art Commission. In order to fund performing art such as music, the commission found that it would need to establish a public art fund as a part of the bylaw. However, that would require special legislation. So they proposed a revised bylaw to the 2017 annual town meeting that established such a fund and authorized the select board to petition the legislature to authorize the town to establish a public art fund. The bylaw passed and the select board submitted a request to the legislature fraction in 2018. A bill was passed in the house but ran into a problem in the Senate. The Senate committee asked for an opinion from the Department of Revenue and in November of 2018, near the end of the session, it advised the Senate committee that it did not support the request. The Senate therefore did not act on the legislation. There were reasons that it stated for that which I think Bill Kazan might talk about later. The council was elected November 2018 and the question was passed along from the percent for art bylaw then became something that was in the council's jurisdiction and the council created the ad hoc committee that was chaired by Kathy Shane. So that was basically the context of what led up to the council action on it. And I'm sure that Bill is prepared if people are interested in knowing how we resolve the problem that the Department of Revenue identified but it was resolved and so I'll leave it for there. Let me just also say we'll be hearing from Eric Brody who lives in my paths in my district and I heard from Eric Brody about this in December of 2018. So he was right on it. We're gonna hear from him later. So Bill, we're gonna put your slides up and have you start, okay? Thank you. Can everybody hear me? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Let me just get my PowerPoint set up. Okay, thank you very much for having me. It's been a long winding road to get to this point but I'm so glad to be here and to be able to present to you on this. I start with this slide because it features Judith and Blaise's mural at the Bang Center. And to me it really epitomizes the best of what we've been able to accomplish so far regarding public art and Amherst. This was a public art commission project all the long before my time so I can't take any credit for it but we can think about something like this and even more ambitious if we do pass a percent for art bylaw. Next slide. So just to cover a few definitions and I'll return to these a bit later but what are we talking about when we talk about public art? Is art that's available to the public for free? And when we talk about the proposed percent for art bylaw like other percent for art bylaws what we're proposing to do is publicly fund the creation of public art. Next slide. So the public art commission does this already on almost zero budget with very, very, very small amount of money but we've been able to accomplish things over the years. I've been on the commission for three years or so now I've only been chair for the last six months or so right around the time COVID hit and electrify Amherst has been a real feather in our cap I think that we've accomplished since I've been on the commission it's the project to paint the electrical boxes in town and I imagine that if we do pass the percent for art bylaw the administration of it will work in a similar way but just on a bigger scale so we can talk about that in a later slide. Next slide. So percent for art programs serve according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies economic development, creative placemaking and social justice. Economic development because strong artworks and a strong arts community attracts visitors to a town like Amherst. Creative placemaking because public art serves residents and workers as well as our visitors and social justice to the degree that free public art reaches populations who might not otherwise have access to art. Next slide. So these are some big numbers put out by the Mass Cultural Council about the impact of the arts in general financially on the state. So three out of four residents participate or they did before COVID in at least one cultural event each month and certainly that will resume. The nice thing I will add about the kind of public art we're proposing is that it's very suitable to times like COVID because small numbers of people can see these things they're often outside. But anyway, in 2019 the arts in Massachusetts according to the Cultural Council generated 97 million in direct revenue, 880 million in indirect spending and $2.3 billion was their total impact on the state as a whole. Next slide. So Amherst currently gives the town of Amherst itself almost no money to support the arts really no money to support the arts. And we always compare Amherst to our neighbor Northampton, but gee, we don't do anything like what our much smaller neighbor Eastampton does when it comes to funding the arts publicly. So I would just say, you know, maybe now's the time that we could step up and stop being so stodgy and really create through the town itself even stronger arts community and arts culture than we've had before here. Next slide. So what is the proposed bylaws? Half a percent of the budget for capital construction projects over a million dollars will be used for onsite visual artworks. And this is a bit different than the way the bylaw had been proposed previously as Andy had just described. And I will go through some of the changes that we made in the ad hoc committee getting to the version of the bylaw we have now which I think is in many ways much improved. Next slide. So how are we defining in this new version of the bylaw public art? Well, the one part I don't like about it is unfortunately we weren't able to include the performing arts and hopefully the town will find other ways to do so. And we have lots of ideas on the public art commission about how it might do that. But what we mean by public art is permanent onsite art projects that are integral part of a town-owned building or site. Percent for art projects will be considered part of qualified construction projects and will be developed along with that project from the beginning. So we will select an artist who will work with the construction manager, the architect of the town to create an artwork that will be integral part of new capital construction projects that qualify. And we built in provisions to avoid delays. So let's say you never know, you get a temperamental artist or there's supply line issues and the art piece of a project is hanging up that project. Well, in the new bylaw, they can stop that project to get a building built. If we need that new fire station and we can't wait for the art because it's taking too long, well, it might have to just be set aside but that is possible with this new version of the bylaw. Next slide. Administration, how will this be administered? So the authority for administering this will lie with the town manager. The town manager will work with the public art commission in a manner that's similar to how electrify Amherst works and we'll work with the town manager and town staff to do so. Right now with electrify Amherst, we I think have very little, there's very little demand that we put on either the manager or town staff. This, the percent for art bylaw will create bigger projects so there will be more demand but we really see the public art commission doing the lifting, the heavy lifting with these projects. And there will be an art selection advisory panel appointed by the town manager with input from the public art commission that will work with us every step of the way. And the idea is that rather than a jury, this will be a commission of people drawn from the greater area potentially from around the country, real experts, artists, public art professionals, et cetera, who then will inform the decision-making process which will all be of course public and that the public art commission will actually do the final, make the final decision in consultation with the town manager about the artworks. The reason we decided on this is because the public art commission is made up of Amherst residents and so it will be residents deciding with resident input but with broader input from experts from around the area, around the country, what gets built here. Next slide. And then there's the issue of financing. Kathy will talk a little bit more about this but one of the biggest changes is that we raise the threshold for the trigger for projects from $100,000 to a million, big change. So that means only bonded projects will be eligible. The half percent that we're drawing from only applies to the amount financed from the town's general fund. This means no money will be pulled from enterprise funds and no money from grants unless the grant explicitly says that it can be used for works of art. Any unspent funds will return to the general fund which also means that if we have a huge pile of money and that we decide that a mural is more appropriate for a project than a bronze sculpture, a mural is significantly less expensive, the rest of that money would go back to the general fund. And the piece that I think is really crucial, I think now in times of COVID and concerns about finances that the council can lower or eliminate any given percent for art project what if they feel the town doesn't have the money or they feel that a particular capital project doesn't qualify for one reason or another. Next slide. So I want to end with just some examples of great works of public art from around the country that trigger our imaginations and get us thinking about what could be possible here. I've tried to pick examples that draw from fire departments from DPWs and potentially from schools because those are the three of the four big building projects coming down the pipe. So this is a really famous now mural from Cambridge, Massachusetts who has a longstanding percent for art program, the only other city in Massachusetts that has one. Way back in 1976 in Inman Square, a landmark for Cambridge, the firefighters from a fire company with the founding fathers to celebrate the bicentennial massive mural if you've ever been in Inman Square, you can't mess it, it's really iconic. Could use a new coat of paint, but next slide. Here in New York City, which has probably the biggest percent for art program in the country, not surprisingly, the artist Julian Laverdiere who did the Tower of Light tribute at the World Trade Center worked hand in hand with the architects to design this remarkable sort of postmodern or neo-modern really fire station. And he designed this light display in the front where there's a high pressure hose and a fire ax as part of the facade. Next slide. And here in New York at the Newton Creek water treatment facility, this remarkable fountain that takes that clean water from all that polluted water from the Newton Creek on the border of Brooklyn and Queens and pipes it in this water display from the outside of the building and it wraps inside the building all throughout the visitor center. So should our DPW have a visitor center or big public presence? We might wanna think about something along these lines. Next slide. And here are playful park bench in Cambridge, but you could certainly imagine something like this at a school yard, the new elementary school, hopscotch course come to life. Next slide. And one of my favorite projects actually built on a landfill in New York, but again, you could easily imagine this at a school a carousel where there was a contest where children did drawings submitted them to the contest and they were chosen as what were then turned into sculptures the sculptural animals that the kids could ride on at the carousel. Next slide. And I just would like to point out, we looked at Cambridge, we looked at New York City that's definitely out of Amherst League but the Americans for the arts describes and says public arts, it's not just for big cities percent for art programs and other public art programs are in about a third of the towns that have these programs in the country. So 150,000 people or less actually have programs, towns are 150,000 or less have programs that are similar to the ones we're proposing for Amherst. And I'd like to show you two final examples. Next slide. Here in Roanoke, Virginia, fun project a bike rack shaped like a giant comb by pop-up design the comb bike rack. Again, think about this at one of the at the new elementary school or one of the schools. And last but not least in Missoula, Montana, a sculpture very modernist looking sculpture but one that actually references the dogs that go running around it in the dog park where it was newly built.  And my last slide because it's late I will just leave that. I won't sit there and read it to you but it's a wonderful quote from the National Governors Association describing the economic and social impact that programs like the one we're proposing for Amherst has on towns like ours. Thank you for the time. And I am here to help answer questions. And I thank the members of the AdHoc Committee and the council for all the work they put in on this. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. We're gonna move right on to Kathy. Okay, so you'll search. So I get, Bill gets to do the exciting beautiful pictures and I get to do the finance side of this. And I think everyone knows you have a large package that Lynn creatively helped us put it all together. So the report from the AdHoc Committee the full report is in there the report from the finance committee as it reviewed the financial impact is in there as is the bylaw. So I'm just gonna highlight a few things from the finance committee report cause we were, we now I was the chair of the AdHoc Committee but also on finance. So it's a big we here. We're asked specifically to look at a financial impact and Bill just quickly outlined all the major areas where this revised proposed bylaw made significant changes including this raising of the threshold to a million dollars. And I just wanna emphasize that by doing that it means that ordinarily this will always be financed with long-term debt. So it'll be integral to the larger construction project and we'll go out for 20 or 30 years. And that spreads the cost. It finances the artwork but it spreads the cost to the town over multiple years. And we do have an escape clause to go down on the percent or eliminate it if we just can't. But we also have a we wanna if the delay would happen or it's not accessible in some way. So we put some safeguards in it to make sure this is public art that's publicly accessible. So go to the next slide. We were asked in the committee by a couple members of the committee to try to do some illustrated examples of the financial impact. So these are just a couple. If you were trying to finance a $10 million construction project or 20 million what does 0.5% equal? So that's the total cost that could be up to that amount allocated to art. And then what if you went out with a 20 year bond at 3% or 30 year bond at 3% and the way the town has been financing bonds it's a declining amount. So you can see illustrated in this that the cost declines you're not financing the whole 50,000 in one year you're spreading it out over time. And it spreads out even more if you do it longer and I might add that bond rates are now in the 2% range. So this would be even smaller if it was financed by a debt service override if that was the larger project it would be $2 to 250 per taxpayer per year. So we tried to show why the impact is less on the town budget because we're spreading it out. And that's the importance of this going up on the higher threshold and tagging it to be integral to the overall project. Next slide. Bill quickly summarize some of these what are the benefits of it but that we had quite a bit of discussion in the finance committee and Chaloney did some research for us on the economic benefits of it as well as the cultural benefits and gave us some citations. And as Bill came and did presentations of the kind of art we could be financing because we were attaching it to large buildings that potentially is going to attract national or international artists or the kinds of things of beauty he just demonstrated. Sharon Pavanelli who's on our finance committee as a resident member and runs a store downtown said oh, it's gonna be bringing visitors out it's gonna be people to town. And we've talked often about a two season economy and this creating these kinds of public art in Amherst contributes to that. So it's enhancing the public space but drawing residents to Amherst and drawing the residents of Amherst out to meet play and use our public art. So we got increasingly excited about it both in the finance committee which normally doesn't get too excited about things it just is costing things out but also in the ad hoc committee because the revisions really make this a solid bylaw and I'm gonna end there. Thank you. And so let's take that down and I'd like to invite Eric Brody who is kind of the father of this thing if he would like to say a few words, Eric. Thank you. Thank you to the council and thank you, Bill and Cassie I saw you made very compelling arguments to promote public art. Thanks for calling me the way you think of me as the father. I kind of think of myself now after all this time is if there was such a thing as a godfather for a bylaw I feel like I would be a godfather of this one. This began over four years ago under a different town manager and different people on the town council now with the select board then although there are three people on your council that were involved pretty much from the beginning still so they have some of the history. I was the former chair of the public art commission when this began over four years ago and I'm really excited now to see that has finally reached this stage of development after all this time. So I wanna thank again the committees of the town council that have been responsible for bringing it to this stage. I think I just wanna say a couple of words of support. I think that the percent for art concept was a good idea four years ago when we started and it's still a good idea. It passed town meeting by over 70% of a positive vote and it was clearly something that members of town meeting at that time thought it would be a good thing for Amherst and something that they wanted to see in the town. The changes that have been made that you've just heard about have changed the original idea, the original concept I think to make it more palatable to the times you're living in. Right now you've changed it so there's basically no risk at all to having this impact the finances of the town is the town feels the need to pull back on any project like this. As you've heard at the most, the percent could be reduced or eliminated entirely if you need be which I would hope would not occur with any project. There are so few of them in the works. There's probably a maximum four projects on the boards for the next decade or so and maybe only three. So I would urge you to think about when the time comes to vote on this that not to let the current financial considerations and situation of the town because of COVID control your decision because the pandemic will pass in time. We'll get through this and the town will recover and it will build the structures that the town needs. And whenever that happens the maximum of any project for art that will go for public art is still only 1.5 of 1% of the total construction costs. We said at the beginning when we began this over a few years ago and I made my first presentation town meeting that it would cost the average taxpayer no more than a cup of coffee per year. And I see from the new presentation of the finances that that's still pretty much the case. The average person, I think it's our memory just seeing those around $2, $2.50 or something like that on average. So I think it's a very affordable way to get significant pieces of work into the downtown streetscape that Amherst otherwise would never be able to afford or acquire. So I would just encourage you to think about this carefully and don't be deterred by the current financial situations. We would have, I think if this passes one of the least expensive public art percent for our programs in the country. Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you. Thank you. So this is just the first reading and the second will be next week. And so I wanted to have the opportunity for people to ask questions. And we'll start with Mandy Jo. I just wanted to give the report of the community resources. Thank you so much, Mandy Jo. I goofed on that. Community Resources Committee, Mandy Jo. So Community Resources Committee can consider this at at least two meetings. The first meeting was January 8th of 2020 and the second meeting was January 29th, 2020. In between the public, the percent for art ad hoc committee went back and reviewed the concerns that the CRC had at its first consideration which related to the jury and then presented a modified bylaw to CRC on January 29th. At that meeting, CRC voted four to one, four in favor, one against, recommending the council adopt the percent for art bylaw as presented at the January 29th meeting. And I will defer to Pat DeAngelis who was the one against if she wants to expand on it. The reasons for opposing the recommendation to adopt at the time of the January 29th meeting, Councillor DeAndreis stated that she had a very much concern about increasing the tax burden on town residents, even at what appears to be a small amount to any one taxpayer for one project. So that was the vote. And if I didn't summarize that properly, Pat, I encourage you to state that for the opposition to the recommendation. Pat, would you like to make a further comment? Okay. Then we're moving on to the finance committee report which was included in your packet. We'll get to questions in a moment, Dorothy. Andy. Yeah, I think Kathy's really already given the finance committee report, so I don't need to repeat it. She's vice chair of the committee and served in that door. And the only thing I would add is it was unanimously voted out in favor. And the sense of the two non-voting, the three non-voting residents also expressed support for this. Okay. And then George Ryan. Yeah, folks can read the committee report. It's in the packet. The vote was four to one, it was on March 11th. The one vote against, it was four to one in favor. The one vote against was because the item had come at the last minute and the committee member felt uncomfortable voting without more time for deliberation. So, but the majority of the committee approved it clear, consistent and actionable. We also complained a little bit about KP law. That's the time for another discussion, perhaps. Can I also mention, so in other words, this was geared up and ready to come to the council at the time COVID hit Amherst. And so it is our attempt to try to catch up, if you will. Dorothy, you have your hand up. Okay. Well, I certainly support the percent for art and I was in on many meetings in which this has been refined and developed and the committee under Kathy has done a great job. But there were a couple of issues that I brought up that people seem to agree with, but I don't see reflected in the final report. And that has to do with kind of soft reference to local responses. I had said that I thought that the people who worked in the building in or on which the new art project was going to be should be consulted or brought into the picture in some manner. Also, I see the excitement for internationally talented artists, but I don't want that to mean that local artists, a local meaning, you know, Pioneer Valley, Western Mass or whatever, not just the town of Amherst, but that local artists feel not wanted. So it's really just to make sure that the outreach includes strong access to local artists to participate and that the people who work in the building upon which the art should be consulted. Because I really would hate to have one of these things where, you know, international committee comes up when supports a work of art and the people who work there bitch about it every day because I really want the percent art to be successful and to create, end up in creating a lot more art in the town of Amherst than everybody loves.  I assume you want to respond to that and Kathy does as well. Yeah, thank you, Dorothy. And absolutely, I think that that level of detail over the exact composition of who will serve on the advisory committee and what the RFP will look like is going to be part of the administrative process. But absolutely, 100% for sure, this wouldn't exclude local artists in any way. And we certainly would bring the people, the people who use the building would be, you know, when we do electrify Amherst, we always reach out to the butters and invite them to be on the jury. This is just part of what we do. So that's absolutely in our mind as being baked into the process. But we didn't want to get to that level of specificity in the bylaw because there has to be flexibility in terms of how the program is administered. And each one will be a little bit different too, so. And I just want to read, because we, Bill, you're right, we didn't get to super specificity, but we wrote in users. So the selection committee shall also include key stakeholders, including but not limited to users of the building, neighbors of the project and other members of the public. So we wanted, you know, the people that were the butters and would see it every day as well as the people who were in the building. And this is the committee that would be selecting and talking about the art. So we did try to write in a broad committee. It's not just artists who are selecting the art but people who are daily in the building. Kathy. Thank you, Kathy. Any other questions from the council at this point? Yes, Alyssa. I sometimes feel like we rush a little when it comes to our comments and questions and we say, well, it's just the first reading, but hopefully we get everything out on the table during the first reading so that with the second reading goes super smoothly. And we just hear some public comment and then we move on. But literally, and Eric Brody will probably faint when I say this, I am in full support of the revised by-law. So thank you for all the work that has gone in to making this work in the reality that we're in and in the reality that we'll be in in the future. I think the flexibility that's been built in and just every aspect. Also, excellent slide presentation on Bill's part and on Kathy's part and on everybody who put together packages. So this was incredibly comprehensive, caught us up to where we needed to be and actually addressed literally every concern that I had and that many other people had over the many years. So thank you, everyone. It's been amazing to see this come together because honestly, I didn't expect whatever happened. So yay, I think it's terrific. Pat, do you have your hand up? Please. I'm going to be voting yes on passing this. Okay. I do want to just say that before next week, we want to clarify how the Jones Library fits into this, both in terms of renovation and also in terms of a full library addition. So we'll all be working with Kathy and the town manager on that, okay? Any other comments at this time? Thank you all for your wonderful presentations and especially Eric for your work in the past and the future and Bill and Kathy and the rest of the committee, Andy, Steve Schreiber and there was one other person, oh, the other person from the commission, the arts commission for being on the ad hoc committee. Thank you. Thank you. Next week on this one, I'm going to move on to the plastic bag. Single use plastic bag prohibition. And in this case, we're going to call on Darcy Dumont and Darcy is the, let me just give you the background, although it's in the package very quickly. This was one of the bills, the bylaws that came to us for revision from the bylaw review committee. We adopted it, but then Darcy said there were some pieces that she felt were taken out and she wanted to see them put back in again. And that led to this being referred to GOL along with other bylaws where the same kinds of questions were asked as well. So it's gone through all that process and it's gone through several discussions at GOL and it's now back before the council. And so I'm going to call on Darcy for a brief presentation and then on George for the GOL report. Darcy, unmute please. Darcy, please unmute. And would you like us to put the red line copy up on the screen? Sure. Okay. So I won't go over the background that Lynn just put out. I just would like to make sure that anyone, I don't think we have very many attendees left, but I think we might have gotten a few people excited about thinking that we were passing a single-use plastic bag bylaw when in fact it's been, we've had the bylaws since 2016. So, but I won't go into how this all transpired. I was asked to bring my case to the GOL committee to bring up the original objections that I had back in January to including it in the general bylaw. So, you may know that in March, Governor Baker issued an executive order lifting local single-use plastic bag bands and then vacated that order in July. In the middle of that, the GOL took the issue up in June. And the main objections I had were that the bylaw review committee had removed language encouraging the use of reusable bags. So, if you see in on this on the screen, the former section three in the use regulation, which I think you see, where it says retail establishments are strongly encouraged to make reusable bags available for sale to customers at a reasonable price. That sentence was the reason why the, bylaw review committee felt that because it was just words of encouragement and wasn't enforceable, then that should come out. And as well as all of the definitions of alternative types of bags that retailers could use, again, because they thought and they in fact were not, that was not an enforceable part of the bylaw. So, they remove the language, they also remove the language regarding the purpose in section A. And that language appeared in the finding section of the original bylaw. You don't see it here because this is not being amended from the original bylaw. If you wanna see that history, you can go to the other memo in the packet, which gives several other versions since 2016. So, I argued that these changes were substantive and shouldn't have been made by the bylaw review committee. The GOL committee in January, or no, in June, pardon me, agreed four to one that a slight variation of the original bylaw language could be retained. Mandy Jo voted no, based on still wanting the language to be enforceable. The GOL committee also decided on its own to remove the last paragraph about deferments based on the fact that years had passed since the enactment of the bylaw, enough time for retailers to have noticed of its existence. So, as noted in George Ryan's report on this matter, GOL met one more time on the issue in order to try to counter arguments about enforceability. I researched and found Sierra Club model language that provided enforceability, but is conditional on retailers choosing to provide alternate bags. Once this language was added, the GOL committee voted unanimously to support it. That's the language you see in section C2.  So, adding that sentence in C2 also negated any objections to including the definitions, putting the definitions back in, the definitions of alternate bags. So, I know we're not voting tonight, but I hope that the council will vote for these changes when it comes to second reading, rather than putting it through any further process. I think, thanks. I believe we can take this down at this time, and I'm gonna call on George to give the GOL report. Well, I think Garcy has pretty much given it, which is fine by me. I'd only point out one other small thing. If you were looking for the exemption, there's still an exemption for certain permissible single-use plastic bag, moved from the use regulations section to the definitions section. So, that's one thing that you might have been looking for and couldn't find. Otherwise, Garcy's pretty much given you the story of what you all did with it, two votes, and how it was revised the second time to meet the objections of one of the GOL colleagues. And that's what you have now. This by-law is the first reading. Because the by-law that was posted on the town website was actually incorrect, we will not be able to do the second reading until October 5th, because it has to be posted for 14 days before we vote. So, we were allowed to discuss it tonight. We just weren't allowed to vote next week. So, it will come back on the agenda on October 5th. Evan, do you have a question? I have comments. So, I guess reading through what was in the packet, my understanding of what was being done was what was being referred to GOL was a request to add back in what by-law review had taken out. What we've gotten is something different, which is a by-law that's been changed substantively in two ways. I would argue that what by-law review committee did were non-substantive changes. I would argue what we have today are substantive changes. And so, my first concern is process concern, which is that the moment that the by-law started to go into substantive territory, it really left the jurisdiction of GOL and really should have gone over to CRC. We saw that with the noise by-law, which GOL sent over to CRC once that conversation became substantive. I'm not quite sure why that didn't happen with this. And the reason for that is based on the two major changes. So, one is that, I think it's C2 about if any retail establishment provides a checkout bag, it shall comply with the requirements and then it gets some requirements. That's a new requirement that didn't exist in the by-law that's been on the books since 2016. That's something brand new that potentially could impact our businesses. And so, you can argue that's not a substantive change. And in fact, when I read that, I thought, do all the businesses already comply with this? You know, I went, I've been doing a lot of takeout in the past week and I went and looked at all the takeout bags and I was thinking, well, you know, like this one from Formosa is probably recyclable but doesn't meet the criteria that it say it's recyclable on it or say please recycle, but maybe it's considered biodegradable. And I started to get a little bit confused about, does this bag that I got four days ago from Formosa meet the new requirement that's being put in this by-law that says that if they give out bags, they shall be required to do these types. And I thought if I'm confused, there's a chance a restaurant owner might be confused and might be surprised that this new requirement is being put on these businesses without them ever knowing because it was done through GOL. The second thing was the removal of the deferments. Pat and Alyssa will remember our conversation and by-law review committee where I brought up the question of why, should we get rid of the deferments since I always understood it to be a transition provision and certainly we've been long enough. And what we heard from the other members of the by-law review committee who had been there in the original by-law review committee where that when they talked to the health department they found out that they're still giving deferments to some restaurants who have shown a burden. And in fact, they cited one restaurant in particular who has a delivery driver who is disabled for whom available non-plastic bags are very hard for him to carry because he only has one arm. And so they've been allowed to continue to use plastic bags, at least at the time that they had talked to them because they saw that that was a burden. They didn't wanna put an undue burden on one of their employees with a disability. And so my question to GOL would be, did you talk to the health department to ask whether there are any active deferments and whether any restaurants have continued to seek deferments because if they are, then this is a pretty major change to take that away. And this is where I come back to, I don't understand why it didn't go to CRC because that would have been the place to say, hey, local businesses, there's a new provision being added that wasn't in there before, is this going to affect you? Or to bring in the health department and say, what's going on with deferments? Are there any active deferments? Because in Baila review committee heard that there were still restaurants that were requesting deferments and that should be part of the conversation. Perhaps GOL had those conversations. I imagine they didn't because it's not in their purview. And so I'm not saying I'm not supportive of these changes, but from a process perspective, I'm concerned that it went through GOL and that these conversations might not have happened. Is there anybody who would like to respond specifically to that? Darcy. I was expecting Evan to bring up both of those points. And he did. And I would say that that's, they're probably valid. I would disagree that the original problems with the Baila review committee were not substantive also. But, and I would just like to point out that the, this has been, I feel like the entire process has been pretty much unnecessary because the original Baila review committee that Paul appointed, which was three residents, which I objected to, if I recall, but which they were the three residents, Bernie Kubiak, Bob Ritchie and someone else, they had a very light hand and they proposed the exact same words that was in my proposal. They didn't propose taking out any of the stuff that the later Baila review committee proposed taking out. So I'm sure you have something to say about that, but I beg you all not to send this to another committee. Please, the next time. That's why I said previously, please don't add any more process to this. If you think that it's okay, the way it is when we have our second reading the next time, but I do agree with Evan that GOL can have the tendency of getting substantive when they shouldn't be. George. I guess all I can say in defense is this was sent to us by the council. So I'm gonna blame the council. You sent it to us and told us to deal with it. Told Darcy to go to GOL with her recommendations. So we dealt with it. Council wants to put it somewhere else now. Go ahead. But we gave what we thought we were supposed to do and you sent it to us in the first place. Okay, Andy. Yes. Speaking only on the deferment issue, I was the select board liaison to the Refuse and Recycle Management Committee, which was the committee that proposed the original bylaw to town meeting. And the deferment section was added in the development of that bylaw for a very limited and specific purpose. And that was that if establishments had problems getting recyclable bags that were appropriate for the establishment or had an undisupply of purchased already bags or for other similar reasons that it could ask for a deferment for a limited period of up to a year. If you look at the language for the deferment section of the original bylaw, it applied to the entire establishment being able to defer its participation in the bylaw risk requirement. It was not to a specific type of bag. So the original purpose was no longer served and the suggestion that had been made to eliminate that section, therefore made sense at the time that it was made, which was really before GOL. I'm gonna just ask straightforward, is anybody gonna make a motion to send this to CRC? Alyssa? That's not why I raised my hand. Okay. Is anybody gonna make a motion to send this to CRC? Okay. Alyssa, would you like to comment, please? So given that I'm not making a motion to send it CRC, I share the chagrin surprise that even though the sponsor said they totally expected the questions Evan brought up, they didn't bother to address them because I don't understand why we wouldn't have had the petitioner check-in. This goes back to perhaps some conversations. We're gonna have it TSO as to whose responsibility is it to do what, right? How much is GOL? How much is CRC? How much is the petitioner? And I would argue in this case the petitioner's responsibility to ensure that restaurants do in fact understand this when we went back as Andy just said, we had there's a lot of history here as to how they understood it. And I in fact used to take Jeff Kravitz, my takeout bags and we're written in Sharpie where they came from because they were clearly not in compliance. And so we've dealt with this over the years. We are focused on education, not on finding people. And so a change to the by-law that says we're changing the requirement without actually letting restaurants know that just seems incredibly odd.  I do not know exactly what the problem was with the bulletin board posting but I will reflect to the fact that I had already emailed George about the fact that just as when we discussed this briefly at a previous meeting this was in unintelligible when it was presented to us last time. The big report this time really helped in terms of sorting out what changed and when. It's been incredibly complex. I can't imagine that most members of the public have been able to follow it. And what was submitted as the change to the by-law is in at least three different colors and different styles. This does not even comply with our own rules and is certainly far less transparent than what we did with representative town meeting and warrants. We need to get our act together in terms of how we're presenting by-law changes in a very simple way. We need a good report like we had this time and we need a clear key at the top of the item that says this is pink, this is purple, this is why this is underlined, this is why this is green which seems to combine more than one version of the by-law. It was a mess. It was extremely difficult. And I'm actually thinking of voting against it just because it's been such a mess. But I appreciate that people tried their best to work around things. I don't expect to see something this messy brought to us again. And I don't expect us to see something that impacts the business community not having been discussed with them because it just wasn't, I don't understand that. Evan. Yeah, so I will say, I think this should have gone to CRC once it became substantive. I am not going to move to refer it to CRC because I sort of feel like horses out of the cage or whatever that's saying is. I don't want people to keep horses. The barn. Barn, sure. Horses out of the barn. So I'm not going to try to sense that. I don't think it's the appetite of this council to do it. But I will say, I'm glad it's not on for a second reading next week because that gives time. And what I am hoping for is between now and the next reading essentially one, some action on the part of the petitioner to actually make sure maybe through the bid or the chamber that businesses that could be impacted by this at least know it's happening. So when we come to public comment if this is a concern to any business they have an opportunity to express that. And the second thing I want to know is if there are any restaurants that have active deferments right now when this was before by law review committee we were told there was at least one. And I don't want us to change the by law strip the deferments and then have business surprise you don't have that deferment anymore. So I don't want to make any changes without people who this is going to impact knowing those changes are coming. And I'll feel comfortable not referring to CRC if we can have that those two things done by the next by the second reading. Okay. Got it. Andy. So just coming back to the deferment thing one more time. The other question then comes up to what Evan just said is to if the board of health has been giving deferments on specific types of bags to restaurants then it is in violation of the prior language in the deferment section of the by law which is what you really have to go back to at that time because it really does say upon written application from retail establishment the board of health after public hearing may temporarily defer application of this by law for retail establishment for up to a year upon a showing by the retail establishment that the conditions of the by law would cause undue hardship. So if a deferment section is appropriate I think that it's now too far down the line and if there are establishments that have that feeling that a suggestion should be made to add a deferment section back that is appropriate but the deferment section as it was written in the by law should not be used now. It was not the intent and it is not the wording of the by law. Are there any other comments? Then Darcy I'll work with you to make sure we get the answers to those questions, okay? Yes, too well, we'll also make sure. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to the D which is the North Amherst Library expenditure of gift. I'm gonna ask that Paul speak to this and then we just have a brief thing to show you on the screen. Thank you Lynn. So you saw the presentation before and at that point we were still searching what was required from the town council. So the town council doesn't have to vote to accept the gift but the town council does have to vote to expend the gift. So before we move forward on this there is a proposed motion for you to actually expend the gift. And so this is the addition for the North Amherst Library. This is for the first phase of the design and outreach into the community that will come up with plans that are construction ready. At that point we'll pause if the anonymous donor wants to give additional funds to do the actual construction that offer of a gift will come back to the council and you'll have the ability to make the decision if you wanna move forward with the construction or not. So the action tonight would be to accept the gift of $200,000 to do the construction plans for the North Amherst Library. So in your packet is a memo from the town manager. So I'm gonna place in motion to authorize the acceptance and expenditure of the following grants and donations. Donor name anonymous amount $200,000 purpose design, engineering costs associated with improvements to the North Amherst Library. Basically it is on the page you see right now. Is there a second to the motion? Second. You can have a pat. All right, I've got that one. Are there any other questions or comments? Okay, seeing none then we're going to move to a vote. And I'm just gonna pick somebody. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Shalini Balmilm. Yes. Alyssa Brewer. Yes. Matt DeAngels. Yes. Darcy DeMarc. Yes. Lynn Gresemer. Yes. Mandy Johanicki. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Passes unanimously. Moving on, next topic is the town council performance goals for the town manager. And we're going to put up on the screen the show the version that shows the modest changes and I'm going to call upon George Ryan. So can you all see that? It's on my screen is very small. Yes. I'm trying to open it up so I can see it more clearly on my screen, my other screen. Again, the GOL report describes the discussion. We spent a fair amount of time with the question of whether we should interweave racial equity and social justice goals into policy and management goals. And I tried to capture the sense of the committee was that that was not appropriate or that was something that we felt that all these goals are important and that trying to pick out one and interweave it into all the others basically would require us to prioritize goals and we had shied away from that from the beginning. And so what we did was introduce a sentence in the preamble actually not a sentence but a fragment acknowledging that these goals are these policy goals are deeply interrelated and overarching and then continue with the original draft actually version six. This is now draft seven. And so that was an attempt to acknowledge that all these goals are important and interconnected and overarching. But we did not have a formal vote on this but one member of the committee felt strongly that we should still nonetheless interweave racial equity and social justice into all the other goals and the majority of the members of the committee did not agree. So that fragment or part of the sentence was introduced into the preamble. The other changes are there before you they are not particularly, I don't think substantial but they're there for you to review. What we did under goals was simply strike the under management goals we took out the management word just to highlight the goal, bring it out. And I do have a question. I don't quite understand myself what happened to the title. It now reads town council performance objective goals for the town manager. I think you can read town manager performance goals. Yeah, perhaps in strike objective is that was what we suggested that. Okay, that's. Thank you. For that. Are there questions from the council? Kathy. I think George just addressed my question.  Yeah. Okay, cause I kept thinking, is that as opposed to a subjective goal? So we just, I kept. This change was made, shall we say remotely? And I don't think I understood what I was being asked when I agreed to it. And this evening I thought, what does this mean? Okay, that was my only question. I just wanted to make sure I understood that the word objective is going and the word goals is staying. Thank you. But it's not. So that's why I was confused.  Yes, I wanted to say that during the GLL meeting we did put in this sentence about interrelated and overarching, but I feel strongly and the reason that we didn't accept the proposals presented by the Racial Equity Task Force or the Energy Climate Action Committee goals was because they had not all been voted on by the council. And therefore it was agreed by the committee that they did not specify things that hadn't been voted on would be inappropriate. And there is some accuracy about that. However, what I suggested then and I'm gonna suggest now is both the Racial Equity Task Force goals and responses to the town manager's evaluation and the Energy Climate Action Committee's proposals be put in sort of as an appendix so that both Paul and community members could have access to the kinds of thinking that we're working on. So I would like to propose those be added. Pat, I need to clarify. What are the two things that you wanna add? The Racial Equity Task Force put out, I apologize, I don't have it in front of me. They put out a series of recommendations about racial equity in Amherst. And in reference to the town manager's evaluation goals. And how, and what are, I'll bring... I wanna know what the other document was. The Energy Climate Action Committee has also created a document at another time that listed all the potential proposals they were making to the council and that it was felt that those were also goals that could be interspersed or intertwined. And the decision was that that wouldn't be appropriate either, but I would like to see those goals also added as an appendix, does that help at all, Lynn? Yes, so I'm gonna ask you that you put that in the form of a motion.  I move that we amend the town council performance goals for the town manager by adding, as an appendix, racial equity task force goals, recommendations for the town manager goals and also the energy and climate action committees, recommendations about energy sustainability. Help me to hear Darcy to also be included in this appendix so that as we vote on them, it could be clarified and seen. I don't know, does that help?  Is there a second? I can do that. Is there any further discussion about the motion to attach these two documents? Alyssa. I was originally gonna speak about something else, but since that motion came up, I will not vote for that. We will not add appendices. I think both those documents are very valuable, but they are not adopted by the town council. They therefore are not part of the goals. Darcy. Yeah, I just wanted to say that the document is was officially sent from the ECAC to the GOL committee to request town manager climate action goals. And they were based in large part on last year's goals, which were much more extensive and detailed than this year. So they repeated a lot of those. And so they are goals that were already, they've already been in our set of goals last year. So yes, they were officially requested by ECAC. Is Kathy Shane comment? Yeah, I'm uncomfortable unless I had a list of what we're specifically talking about to include it as an appendix. I would be fine with saying, you know, these are evolving. I think Alyssa at one point said this is a living document. So, you know, if as we go along, we say, yes, we endorse doing this, yes, we endorse doing that. That can be broadening it, but I know what was in last year's performance goals. I just didn't wanna rework and rework and rework these. And so I don't know which specifics were in last years and we didn't do them all. So I would just be very uncomfortable having an appendix see these specifics on either topic. And I'm not saying I disagree with any of the specifics. I just haven't heard a discussion about them. And I'd wanna be saying, is this the right set? We've got these very general climate action policy goals and that are overarching policy goals that I think are pretty strongly worded that should be then taken into account in each of the other activities. This is a restructured way of doing performance goals. So I am very uncomfortable about putting an appendix on of things that I would have to go through each one of them. And I don't think that that would be a good use of our time. Jelani, any further comments? I would want to know what the purpose for adding the appendix is. Yeah, I'm not sure why we are adding that. I mean, if there's specific things we want from those documents, we should be discussing those. For example, I'm still interested in having, I don't know, discussion or what at this point, but more like a consensus amongst us as a town council, how important is the equity, racial equity goal for us. And given that this is the first year we're talking about it, to me it feels really important to include it as a lens we bring to all the goals. And just because it's a new thing, it's important, and if you don't do that, then it doesn't create a measurement around that. If it's not part of the economic goal as well, and we're not considering it, then it's not gonna make Paul look into it specifically because it's not part of the economic goal and therefore there is no measurement around that. And so, I don't know, to me just feels important to include it, and I'd love to hear what the other councilors have to say about. There's a motion on the floor to amend, and there's a motion to attach to the town manager's performance goals, two documents. One is a document that came from the Racial Equity Task Force, did I get the name right? Yes, and the other one is a document that came from ECAC. The document that came from the Racial Equity Task Force was sent to all of the council, but has not ever been discussed by the council. The document that came from ECAC was sent to GOL, but has not ever come before the full council. Is there further comment on the motion to attach, George? No? Doris C. I think attaching is just a way of acting as if we have paid attention and listened to them, but it means we haven't really done the work. We haven't gotten to the arguments and the fights that would result if we went through each of those and decided, do we really want to put that in that here or that there, which maybe is work we should do. But so I think attaching, although I might be very interested in many of the ideas in them is a meaningless activity, so I would be against attaching them. Alyssa, any further comment on the amendment to attach or the motion to attach?  It's like I'm that kid who keeps doing that. And no, it's my computer. Thank you. Then I'm going to ask that we vote on the motion to attach those two documents. Your vote is yes, it means you want to attach the documents. If your vote is no, it means you do not. I will start with Steve Schreiber. He's asleep. Somebody call him. Sorry. Andy? No. Why don't you call Steve and wake him up? Andy, please unmute. He already said no. I said no, I did vote no and then I muted myself. I'll try and find the phone number and see if I can call him right now. Okay, Sarah Schwartz? No. Jalony Balmille? No. Alyssa Brewer? No. Pat DeAngeles? Yes. Darcy DeNant? Yes. Reese Merzion, no. Anarchy? No. Dorothy Pym? No. Evan Ross? No. Georgia? Lin is punchy. He's been a long night and it's getting, not getting any younger. A vote is no. George Ryan? He'll no. Kathy Sheing? No. Steve Schreiber? I'm a no. Okay. So it is two in favor and 11 no's. So the motion dies. So now we're back to the original performance goals and the motion is to adopt the town council performance goals for the town manager July 1st, 2020, June 30th, 2021 as amended. Is there a second? George? I second. Okay. Do you have a further comment? Yes. I think that we have consensus on six strong goals that we have tied to specific council actions that we are all committed to. We think they're all important. The attempt to take one or two of these and try and make them rank them or interweave them or however you wanna describe it is going to be extremely difficult, painful and I think extremely unproductive process. This is the seventh draft of these goals. They're well overdue. Paul has now a clear sense of what we think are the six important policy areas and specific goals we'd like him to accomplish same in the area of management. I think time is now for us to adopt these goals and let Paul set to work implementing them. And in the course of time, we can come back and revise them, rethink them and discuss them. But at this point, I think it's time for us finally to vote and make a decision. Okay, Alyssa? Thank you. While I would have preferred a way to interweave, I hear George's strong statement and I stand by what I said before about re-looking at things as time develops and we certainly will take that lens from both the energy and climate and also the racial equity and social justice goal and we will apply it to the other things as we are going along. And it's important, I think maybe this helps encourage us this discussion about the attachment, et cetera to not just say, oh my gosh, we finally finished the town manager goals and now they sit on the shelf until it's time to figure out how to do the actual evaluation except for the mid-year report from Paul. So maybe this will encourage us to continue to reflect on what's actually happening associated with these. The one question I did have that I didn't see addressed in the report so I must have just missed it because like you said, George, you've done this like a million times now. On page three under what's now called finance instead of financial management, the last sentence says talking about reflecting, looking at fees every so often and saying the cost of providing services and you crossed out are in line with other municipalities. Why on earth would we remove that? We had a good reason and hopefully my colleagues can help me here. Can any of my colleagues help me? I think we just assumed that that was a natural process to compare. I can help with that. Excellent, maybe. There was concern that there are some services that we may have a good reason to not be actually in line with other municipalities or we don't know what that they're charging and that we shouldn't be looking to necessarily just align ours with other municipalities because that's what other municipalities charge. So that's why we changed reflect to consider so that we're looking at how much it costs us to do it while looking at what other municipalities charge but it doesn't have to be necessarily in line with what they charge if say our cost of providing services is less or maybe we make concerted decision that our cost is more or about the same as the other municipalities but we want to subsidize that and not necessarily in charge fees that would cover the entire cost of providing that service. So it was the GOL I believe felt it was too restrictive to put that sentence in there. Thank you, I think that reflects my recollection of the conversation as well. Marcy. Okay, so I can. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I agree with all these goals and I'm gonna vote for them but I'm disappointed in them because I feel like two years ago we started with that long list of over a hundred questions that we had for the time manager which none of us, we all realized that we had to get away from that and then last year we had not nearly the level of detail but we did have a fair amount of detail and I didn't feel like that was onerous to do at all as far as our doing the evaluation. I feel like this is swinging the pendulum way too far in the other direction not requiring much at all specific of the time manager and so I really would like us to go back to more like what we had for this last fiscal year.  Yeah, I just wanted to just say that I feel rather dismissed by that explanation and that I understand that that was a conversation that took place at GOL and I appreciate the work they did but that's not at all the way I interpret the words and the sentence going back to my thing about providing services. I didn't, the sentence didn't mean that we couldn't charge more or less because we weren't in line with other communities. What the sentence meant was the reason that we would say that was because they need to be in line with other municipalities or they're needed to be an explanation for it. We have never, other than water and sewer fees, we have never received a report and the entire time I've been in an elected office that explained why we charge, what we charge for any particular fee. In some cases, MGL requires you just charge X amount and that's a fact. We've never gotten an explanation of why we would charge more or less for anything and we hear complaints from our community. It's not just a theoretical concept and so the idea that we don't need to know what other municipalities charge and that that is somehow going to automatically be included, I can tell you we have no history of including that information. So that's why I found it was important to keep it in there. Any other comments at this time? Okay, the motion has been made and seconded. It is to adopt the town manager performance goals of a town council performance goals for the town manager, July 1st, 2020 to June 30th, 2021 as amended. I'm going to start with Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Shallon Delmone. Yes. Melissa Brewer. No. Patty Angelis. Yes. Darcy DeMont. Yes. Riesmer's, yes. Hanneke. Yes. Sam. Yes. Ross. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Chang. Abstain. Driver. Yes. Steinberg. Yes. 11-4, one against one abstention. Okay, we're going to move on to the town manager's contract compensation discussion. Let me just say this is a result of our meeting in executive session two weeks ago, 31st of August. And I just want to point out that in the, let me make the motion first and then have a second. In accordance with the town manager's contract to grant a 2% cost of living increase effective September 1, 2020. Is there a second? Second, Hanneke. Okay. The town manager's contract basically says in section 6.2 in subsequent years of this employment agreement, which was made a year ago. The town manager shall subject to the provision of 3.5 of the town manager of the town charter receive an annual increase in salary equal to that provided to other non-union union employees for cost of living and at the sole discretion of the council based upon the annual evaluation of the town manager by the council any additional performance-based adjustment as approved. So in our executive session, we decided that we would go ahead and do the 2% as required by contract as much as we are absolutely appreciative of the work that Paul has done and especially in this last three months during COVID we felt that financially we did not want to add an additional performance-based. So that was the discussion. Is there any further discussion at this time? Okay, this is to confirm this cost of living increase and I'm beginning with Balmille. Yes. Brewer. Yes. DeAngelo's. Yes. DuMont. Yes. Griezmer's, yes. Hanneke. Yes. Cam. Yes. Ross. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Jane. Yes. Driver. Yes. Steinberg. Yes. Schwartz. Yes. Yes. The Julian. All right, we are going to skip the council liaison discussion. I will be in touch with you by email and bring that back on September 21st. We have no appointments, so we're going to move on to committee and liaison reports. CRC, Mandy Jones. Tomorrow CRC and it is labeled as a, it is posted as a council meeting, full council meeting at 2 p.m. We'll be discussing zoning with presentations by Rob Mora and Christine Brestrop and a presentation, not presentation, but the new chair of the planning board, Jeff Gemsick will be there to talk about the planning board memo too. We hoped it will be a good discussion and a start of a discussion on zoning priorities. And I hope everyone that can make it can come. Finance committee, Andy Steinberg. Yeah, I really don't have much to report. We had one meeting since the last council meeting and have one scheduled, not this, not tomorrow, but a week from tomorrow, so they won't be a report next meeting. We did begin work on the discussion of the inventory and that, to propose back to the council. And that was also reported then to discuss to JCPC as Kathy might report, but there was no decisions made to report to you. Well, George. We'll be meeting on Wednesday and our focus will be exclusively on the wage theft bylaw. We have gotten the written comments from KP Law and we'll be going through those in detail and hopefully making a decision finally, that we'll see. Great, JCPC, Kathy. Just unmuting. We met, JCPC met on September 9th and I'll just point out that it's unusual for JCPC to meet in the fall at all. So this was a meeting we'd set up because we had unfinished business and the main report is we set up a reserve fund in the capital area and none of it has been tapped so far that the town has been able to build some of the capital expenses to the CARES Act and during the JCPC meeting, we were told we'll get a full report on how much money we have potentially available in CARES but how much we've spent. So both in schools and other parts of the town, we did get the same amount of road money and the grant program. So that was what we had predicted, but it was flat. So roads come in. And then the other thing we did, we quickly reviewed inventory, mainly on categories and decided, was talking about what is the goal of having an inventory and to extent there are any comments that are gonna be sent to finance. And the final thing is we were gonna be looking at a five year capital plan, but because we're in the mid stretch of everything, we don't know what the revenues are gonna be and that Sean and staff are gonna be giving us alternative revenue forecasts for how much we'll have available for capital. So there's going to be a way of presenting capital to us that we'll have what do we need to do to maintain existing buildings, maintain equipment and then have something I called below the line to say new projects in the waiting room. So in the attempt to get to a balanced budget, we'll have some things that we don't have to do because they would be considered new. That was presented conceptually. We don't have a list yet of what would be considered new. And so we didn't have specifics. And we will not be having another meeting, I think until we start to discuss the forecasts and send indicators. So I think that's all we have. Some of us had expected more detail and there was a pretty good explanation of why we couldn't have it yet in terms of we don't quite know how much money we've got in any of those years, including the next two years. Okay. TSO, Garcy. We are having, am I on mute? No, we are having a meeting on this Thursday at 8 p.m. just to look at the two town manager appointments, one for human resources director and one for health director. So that's all that meeting is going to be about is just those appointments. And then we're going to have another meeting on the 24th where we'll be talking about Lincoln Avenue and or other more town-wide parking solutions and other town manager appointments. And then the following meeting will be on October 8th when we're going to look at the facial recognition part of the surveillance technology by law. Okay. Are there any liaison reports besides the fact that, yes, CP AC Kathy? I just wanted to, Lynn put up the announcement that the, the proposal period is open, but to send any of you in other districts can let people know in a strong way it's open because we've got over, well over $1 million that it's only going to be open for a one month period of our tax dollars, but it's under CPA. And there was a reserve fund set up last year, the most recent fiscal year because there weren't sufficient projects that weren't in spending all of it. So encouraging people to apply and letting people know it's open, I think it's important not to forget that that is a source of money. It can only be sent in certain categories, but that the guidelines are up and it's only a four week window when this is open right now. Okay. We have one set of minutes and that is to approve the August 10, 2020 special town council meeting minutes as presented. Is there a second? And a few seconds. Is there any amendments or changes? Okay, then we'll move to a vote of Brewer. Stain. D'Angeles. Yes. Goumont. Abstain. Rees-Merzi, yes. Anarchy. Yes. Ham. Abstain. Ross. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Stain. Yes. Treiber. Yes. Steinberg. Yes. Twartz. Yes. And Balmille. Stain. Did you say abstain? Yes. Okay, so I have one, two, one, two, three. Nine in favor, none against, and four abstentions. Okay, we're going to move on to the town manager report. Thank you, Lynn. So I don't really have anything on the town manager report. You have a second memo in there that talks about the voting from the primary election. The town clerk will be at our, I can't remember if it was our next election or next meeting or the October meeting doing a report on the polling locations and the experience that happened there. She is meeting with the, our temporary town clerk is meeting with the wardens on Wednesday. So she wants to collect that information before she comes in. So she will be available to talk about the, and I can answer any questions that I can on the information I've provided to you. If you have any questions. Any questions? I just, I have one question. I'm sorry to just, but neither my husband or I ever received a mail ballot, even though we requested one, the official tracking site shows us having been mailed a ballot on August 8th. And then we went down on early voting and voted and it shows us having voted with our mail ballots on the 24th, but that's not what happened. You know, we actually never got it. So is there any way of tracking just non-receive? I mean, we did vote in a ballot, but it wasn't a ballot that we ever got in the post office. And we called the secretary of state saying, how do we register? We don't even know where it went. So Paul, it's just a question and it's probably not a big detail, but I didn't know whether it's just a handful of people never got it. And early voting was a savior here because there was nobody there when we went to early votes. So we early voted, but on the website of the secretary of state, it makes it look like they mailed it, we got it and we voted, which was not what happened. I can check into it. I don't know the answer.  Yeah, I'll just do a couple of quick things for consideration as we go into November. I visited a number of the polling locations and some of the things that were said were, it's my understanding that mass law requires that the early votes and the absentee vote ballots get counted sort of during the day at the polling location and they were feeding them in and all. Well, they're fed into the machine's day of. That's what I was seeing. They were tracking them and they were feeding them into the machine's day of and there was concern that if polling locations are busier and the absentee and early votes are larger, that there may not be time to do so. So really thinking about how that stack of mail and vote ballots will be counted on election day, I think it's gonna be important going forward given that the polling locations might be busier. The request for better signage at the locations, especially those that have multiple parking lots or multiple entrances and exits that you might not be able to see so that it's clear where you go in, where you go out and where you find that. Better messaging, a lot of the polling locations had people bringing their early voting ballots to the polling locations. So we need to have better messaging around where you can drop them off on election day so that people don't have to go differently. It's okay if they're bringing their own to the right polling precinct because they can just essentially void that ballot and have them vote in person. But if they're bringing their family members, they then have to go to another location. And then for the ballot drop location, maybe as we gave you the authority for temporary parking, create more five or 15 minute slots in front of that during the course of early voting drop off so that it's easy to just stop and drop a ballot off. Let me just add, I agree with a ballot drop off and also do want to say that I thought for the precincts that were being changed, particularly precinct too that the signage was very significant and it was there early. So thank you for that. Sorry, Paul. So the state doesn't require that the ballots be counted at the polling location. So we were going to have a centralized tabulation facility that again has to be visible to the public that didn't work out. So the backup plan was that the ballots were taken to the polling locations. We will have a centralized tabulation facility at a different location this time. And we anticipate that will be a dedicated crew just handling all those mail-in ballots and they will sequentially go through it precinct by precinct. So that's why that happened that way. And it wasn't intended to be that way just sort of happened that way. But it was happening in every precinct where the folded ballot pile up but then they would jam. So. Any, Alyson. I just wanted to thank Paul for the comprehensive report because I had said to him, the report better not be limited to, it went well because it did go well but I wanted more detail. And it was really interesting to see that so many people got absent, requested their ballots and of course Kathy is a separate situation and then how many people actually returned them, right? Because we were all guessing how this was gonna work. And the fact that this was a contested election made a big difference. So I appreciate everyone's comments about signage, et cetera. And also we'll pile on to the idea of needing to maybe have some additional spaces for the ballot drop off based so that we don't clog up that driveway behind town hall because that's what I did when I turned ours in into separate batches. So that would be very helpful to have. And I do appreciate also the concept about, I'm sorry, I'll skip that. So thank you. Okay. Any further comments at this time? Any questions of the town manager? Okay. Then we're moving on. I have nothing further to report. Are there any future agenda items that have not been mentioned? Darcy? Alison.  Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. I, as a result of a conversation that I had with a constituent, I am interested in having a discussion with the council about increasing our salaries. And I know from the charter that we may not be able to do that after 100 days from the beginning of the, the, this but it moved me that she said that, you know, low and moderate income people can't even contemplate running for town council because they can't afford to. So I think that it requires a discussion. Okay. So I've noted that.  I'm so sorry. I remembered the thing I choked on earlier that I was going to ask Paul, if you would just pass along to the town clerk and we heard this content earlier today about data management and getting other people to crunch data for us. Given the concerns that were raised all through our discussion about polling consolidation, we know, we all know that there are books, except now there are iPads, but there are still books that show whether or not somebody voted, right? So there are records that I don't see how you voted, right? But it says whether or not you participated in the election. And I wonder if we've ever found a way or we've asked a partner of some sort to crunch data for us on apartment complexes, participation, because we talk a lot about, oh, this is an easy place to walk to or this is an easy place to drive to. Oh, but wait, now we're in a pandemic so you can't take the bus or you're not as comfortable taking the bus. Have we ever actually analyzed? It's great that we always do these great pushes. I've been part of voter registration before, but if people aren't actually submitting their ballots, especially given the conditions we're under now, is there a way for us to do a check-in to say, you know what? All these people are registered fairly recently. None of them actually voted in the election. Is there a way we can do some additional outreach, some targeted outreach to different areas, especially if people are having difficulty with, they're concerned about the mail, if they're having difficulty with transportation to get to drop off their ballot, et cetera. So. Thank you. Are there other councilor comments? George. Just very briefly, Lynn, but as many of you know, I go to the campus and community coalition meetings and I wanted to end on a positive note because at those meetings, you've got police department, fire department, Hadley, you've got a whole group of people together. They tend to be fairly frank and direct with each other and their initial take on the first month with students returning is very positive. They've had good interaction with students. Labor Day weekend was obviously a busy one, but this was after the Labor Day weekend and Captain Tang and Bill Laramie said, the students aren't the problem. They're getting good cooperation. When they go in and have these conversations, they're being listened to. So I was very positive message. The campus is very quiet. Not surprisingly, the fire department has very few calls to the campus right now. So their calls are way down. That's not surprising either, but it's a very positive message at least in this first month that came across at the CCC meeting. And then maybe Paul, go ahead, Paul. Just a quick note. This is the first weekend where we didn't transport someone for alcohol from a student or anything like that. Unheard of is really remarkable. And then just very briefly, Evan and I both were invited to attend the IFC meeting which is the Interpreternity Council. This is the Greek body. And Evan can speak for himself if he wants to, but I was impressed. They're very strong on having, these are off campus houses. One of the kids, one of the heads of the house said, try to convince his peers. He said, look, it's wicked easy. Those are his words to get tested. So they were pushing that. They're very conscious of their responsibility. I'm always impressed. They're also doing some outreach. One of them went on 9-11. One of the houses went with donuts and coffee to the first responders. Another house is doing some kind of a tutoring with one of the local elementary schools. So we're gonna also hope to meet this week with the Pan-Atlantic Council and get their input. Cause we're also asking them, what's it like for you? And obviously it's very different academically, socially and so on. But I least was very impressed by their positive attitude and their willingness to do what's needed in this time of crisis. And Steve Schreiber. So there's an old saying that nothing good happens after midnight. And so as you know, our last council meeting went after midnight. So the next day I got a couple of emails regarding what I may or may not have said during the discussion of the planning board candidates. So I just thought it'd be useful to make it clear to the counselors that I was very upset that letters, what I call testimonials or letters or reference were being read about some candidates but not all candidates. But I did not mean to infer that any particular candidate had solicited those letters. So I think we need to discuss that process but I did listen to the tape as to what I did say and I see how that could be inferred. So I do apologize for any candidates that think I was inferring that. Okay, thank you. Any further comments at this time? We have no issues that are under the 48 hour rule, no executive session. Although I believe we may have one next week to approve previous minutes. And so the meeting is adjourned at 11 27. Have a good evening. Thank you, Lynn.


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