Great welcome is your last set news they get top stories in crypto and bring out a bite-sized pieces So today just the thumbnail suggests Gemini was not hacked. I want to make that Abundantly clear, but there might be something going on with a company called IRA financial So we'll take a look at what is going on and nothing is confirmed right now That's what we have also We'll take a look at news verse rumors as far as black fi or black fi black fi and black rock and Lastly we'll finish up with some Sunday swap rewards and some upcoming deep dives We're gonna do here in the channel So we'll do all that and then last so we'll get to the Q&A So hold your questions until the end makes things a lot easier instead of Scrounging through all the different comments that come up. So first up market recap I just you know if you're watching the replay there'll be time to ask below so you can fast forward Do every want to news usually takes about 15 minutes or so maybe longer. This ought to be interesting This ought to be a very interesting piece there. That's for sure So first of all, let's talk about the thumbnail the thumbnail Gemini. I was not hacked and the reason why I put that up is because If I put anything negative negative people freak the freak out that's that's all I can really say so Like this one there There is something going on in the background. I don't know what it is There is some conflicting reports But I don't want anybody to look at these thumbnails and get heart attacks because their sensitivity So I just put it out there that Gemini wasn't hacked because God knows if I put something a little bit negative people will Go crazy. So that's why I did it that way and then the title was very concise So no one's like what I can't believe it's okay. So that's that's that's the reason why also Let's get into the actual just what's going on around the world because it's it's some pretty crazy times So of course the market has taken a little bit of a tumble Bitcoin's on a forty two one a three is down to twenty eight hundred was almost that's a you know 3233 and now because we're going down Binance coin everything's down across the board. Let's see about that that price except for stable coins Not so great. That's the Ripple hex Cardano, I mean they're just down so on a twelve percent Then also take a look at look at the actual volume. You've got two percent up first line It's good picks up fourteen percent great But across the board as far as volume trading volume and volume of crypto and Nidgils Just down people are getting a little bit frustrated a little bit scared and What does that mean? Well, there's a big thing looming us looming over us right now And I just this just came out probably 20 30 minutes ago. It's about the US and Russian invasions President Joe Biden plans to speak with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Saturday So that's positive. Hopefully they can get out and hash it out. But who knows there the State Department urge all Americans still in Ukraine to leave in the next 24 to 40 hours Multiple other countries have also advised their citizens to leave the country. That's not good Despite his military maneuvers in the region including deploying more than a hundred thousand troops at the Ukrainian border Russia says there's no plans to invade so you have this going on so people are very sensitive right now I can understand nobody likes war Of course, if we take a look at what happened the traditional market just the hints of this will drive things down But I need you to remember something. This is Paramount of just to put this into your head and that is this this was from Peter Lynch Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections or trying to Anticipate corrections that has been lost in the actual corrections themselves. So yes, could war be on the table Sure, could it be could really blow up to something enormous? Absolutely. Maybe it could be is there a recession out there? Sure, is there a virus out there? Sure. Is there asteroids headed to the planet? Sure There is so much negative news out there. Sure. Sure. Sure. It's true But there's been so much money lost by people just anticipating the corrections rather than just sitting right here and Just know what in time usually works out and that's pretty much my spiel Let me know just think about that in the comments section. Let's get on to the the real piece which is This so I woke up today woke up early super early and I had this information that came to me on multiple messages and Different channels and people kept asking the same thing Rob. There's this thing going on There's an IRA financial IRF and it was a hack whatever and usually think like the first two three messages or contacts I don't really pay honestly.  If anyone can verify this, please comments below so Of course people like is that true? Is that true? And then many people direct me to here to read it okay, so read it and then And one person says yeah, I moved over to them in January because I live in New York I used to be with I trust you can't use I trust in New York Sorry, and now I've lost a Bitcoin 25 each hope they can do something because all I can say is I'm sick over this and Then some stupid hacker is on there and Kevin says a good well looking at Gemini's custodial model cold storage keys are air-gapped That is basically impossible to hack. That's true. That's Jim. That's Gemini. Why wise it looks like What was hacked was hot on the exchange if that's even true and must IRA financial had Gemini key store in a hot location So let's break it down. So this comes into the reddit post. So we've already know that there's some people that have lost something Now we go into what's going on. I was notified IRA financial had been hacked on February February 8th, I counted like a Gemini and had also been hacked money was transferred from my Gemini account to someone random I followed up with both Gemini and IRA financial. They said they're working on it have heard anyone else I haven't heard about this at all. It's the 12th of today So I guess it's an ongoing thing. This is from this is Gemini Georgia moderator Gemini fraud It says Gemini has not been hacked remain secure if you're receiving communications from IRA financial You may have been affected by a security incident that impacted IRA financial systems IRA financials accounts are serviced in the Gemini platform Gemini does not manage the security of IRA financial systems The security of Gemini's platform has not been impacted when we've offered assistance to IRA financial for more information Please the ridge out to them Person one day ago all my Bitcoin ether been has been also transferred out I can confirm that they only transferred out whole units and let the small fraction of Bitcoin in my cash Transfer made to CHOE Roth and multiple one-hole units transfer from this to this to this and then someone says it just got the phone couldn't find any Answers and yes as others have mentioned this thread if you log into your desktop computer You can view the balance and logs that transfers out. So that's what's that's what we know right there And I was like, well, what that I don't even know what these guys are IRA financial This is a self-directed IRA. I'm like, okay looks pretty good And of course you'll see in the upper left hand corner open a crypto IRA with I trust capital Yes, that's who I use but you're used your free use anybody you want to so do your own research these guys I mean, I'll be honest with you look pretty good what they had going on. I mean, I will say that As far as like the pricing Goes a little bit kind of steep or whatever. So But I did take a look at their Their security look solid multiple signatures are required to move funds Client data is stored on cloud-based secure servers or offers our officers don't store to connect anything of value including any crypto private keys So why are people saying this and then the next question is What is the what is The combination or the workings of the inner workings of them and Gemini. So this is a great video. This is from Adam Bergman and he is the CEO or the founder of IRA financial So the next 30 seconds I want you to take a listen this as he explains exactly how everything goes and also there is insurance But that's FDIC insurance for cash not for crypto, which he says previously So I didn't want to waste your time with that but this was interesting as to what he said Let me so you can hear it. Let me stop my screen and And share the actual tab with you So you'll be able to hear it and I'll shut myself off IRA financial works with Gemini which has over 30 billion dollars in assets works with over 70 cryptos as a New York Trust company with a money transmitter licenses license in all states. It's also regulated by the New York Department Banking so when you buy cryptos through Gemini, you know, they're safe you know, they're insured and licensed and regulated now, of course, there's always some risk and that's why IRA financial allows you to move your cryptos off the Gemini exchange to a cold wallet through one of our multi-signature wallet solutions So there you go It's it looks to it's kind of confusing because if they're saying that it's only on Gemini and only you have the power to move It off to a cold storage then what happened here with Gemini, but Gemini is saying that's not us That's them. So it's always only these things to you it's you but I just I found it to be Interesting as to what is going on there and if there's any updates I'll let everybody know but it's just Of course when you're getting to anything with IRAs with any kind of investments with whatever just make sure that you look at these Companies very very carefully like when I picked my IRA company with I trust I just I back This was two years ago So it's only like three and this this was the best one for me and what I wanted to do Do your own research make sure it's right for you, but I feel if this was a hack We'll see how it's works out in the end. Hopefully everybody gets everything back. Anyhow, let me just think about that in the comments section Let's move on to our next piece, which is News and rumors Block fi and black rock. First of all, I'll start off with with black rock everybody on YouTube is Screaming about how great that black rock is coming in to crypto and digital assets First of all if you look at the article we covered this yesterday as a matter of fact It talks about black rock that it's from coin desk and everybody Piles on from from the coin desk article and says well, they pointed the coin desk article But in that article it just says three people Familiar with the inner workings of the company. There is no official announcement. There is nothing else in black rock now Black rock has gotten into these different Crypto by proxy. I mean they've invested in micro strategy, but they've been doing that since 2012 you can take a look at the SEC filings they've been that for quite a long time. They've also got it got it into by proxy Of course through Bitcoin mining and things like that. So is it happening right now? They saying yes all of our 10 trillion assets under management and go in there. No not yet But whether smoke there's fire I just just want to be people aware that I I'm not blaming anybody because I know we want these these good news to materialize But we have to take a look at the story behind the story and get the facts straight as much as we possibly Can before we go all crazy and say this is it, you know, sell the kids sell the house put it on the Bitcoin black rocks here Easy calm down. So here's another rumor And it was good pompous maxi. It's good name and It was from this article from decrypt and I'm only the whole article in a bit According to a Bloomberg report based on anonymous sources anonymous sources Blockfi will discontinue new. That's the key word new high yield accounts for most US residents most not all but most And it says Actually, let's get the article. I don't know.  Okay, let me blow this up. So Blockfi Blockfi to pay a hundred million dollar penalty and They are going to stop opening new high-yield Bitcoin accounts. So what happened? Well? Blockfi has agreed to pay a hundred million dollars To settle ongoing investigations from the US Securities and Exchange Commission our buddies over there Gary I know you're watching That was a tough one and multiple state securities regulators. So Blockfi will discontinue new high-yield accounts For most US resident new high-yield accounts, which means that potentially if you are still on if you're on Blockfi You may get grandfathered in I don't know. I don't think that's gonna happen. But that's what they're kind of leading people to believe I don't see why they would do that if they just paid a hundred million dollars for that Whatever again, you have to go to the source and that's Blockfi So Blockfi spokesperson Madeline McHugh told decrypt it would not comment on market rumors However, we can confirm that clients assets are safeguarding the Blockfi platform and Blockfi interests account clients will continue to earn interest as They always have Notice she didn't say a timeframe. So hopefully it works out I don't have Blockfi, but I know a lot of people that do and they love it. So I'm rooting for you guys The SEC attention came after a quintet of state security regulators from Alabama, Kentucky, New Jersey Texas and Vermont Issued show cause or cease and assist orders demanding that Blockfi cease offering products to their residents It seems like that's kind of like the flare that goes up from the states and then the US government can evolve with the SEC and says Hey, you know what? We work with the states say regulators. They're saying there's something going on. Maybe we should take a look at it Give us some money. Okay. Here's some money. Okay. Now go away. Now. Here's the problem That won't just be the only time just because they paid and they went away It doesn't mean the SEC can't come back and bust them again because it's just an ongoing thing And also what concerns me about this one about this particular statement Is the same thing Is going on with celsius and nexo This was october 18th new york attorney general published cease and assist letters that seemed to target celsius and nexo and nexo also Kentucky issues cease and assist order against celsius network. This is on september 23rd 2021 So when I see these types of things going out and I wanted to myself Who's next and why is it next and what are the what are the inner workings now? I will tell you that Machinsky The machine there He has been on a couple different youtube channels mine Actually most recently I think it was james over vest answers. He was on there And I think he addressed us and said no we were working with regulators. We we know what they really want to see and we'll be okay I had Uh steve earlick the ceo voyager on and I said how are you guys dealing with this and I asked him specifically I'll link that video at the very end. I said, you know, there's problems with the regulators And I said block 5 in celsius. How's this working? He goes well since Steve comes from a background with each raid and then on light speed He's like I've worked with regular as my whole entire career. He goes. I I know what they're looking for and we work with them closely Let's see if it pans out and they don't get all happy with uh bringing in all that new crisp money from these Organizations and yeah, let me understand about that in the comment section. Let's move on to a little bit of good news sunday swap rewards end up coming deep dive so just you know uh sunday swap Started off a little bumpy looks to be going a little bit better I've heard people that say that uh, they've been able to process their transactions in our five minutes now And of course the fees are like super low. So we like that as far as decentralized exchanges This one is built on cardano. So just so you know uh d news Our stake pool for a cardano if you delegated to d news Uh, you were able to Not only get the rewards of eta, but also the sunday swap tokens and here's how you get to claim those. So Today this was from sunday swap We're excited to share that iso iso rewards initial stake offering rewards will be claimable through drip drops dot io on march 1st first of all Let me just say something that's great. They're doing that, you know, but Like when we did it with meld Maybe it's because it was a little different because meld when we did the iso with meld Or not we I just delegated I just delegated my crown to meld. It was their own stake pool They did an airdrop on january 31st. It took 90 minutes and it was done. That was it So I like that whole process this one with sunday swaps a little bit different because they're using other stake pool operators like myself So maybe that's the reason but I would have really liked just to do some airdrops to make it super simple Just complaining because i'm lazy. Okay So what is drip drops drip drops is a token distribution faucet built by reputable spo's stake pool operators in the cardano community. That's great You're able to visit the website and other wallets Receiver stake address and see which token wards. They're eligible for I'll show you how to do that So how do I use drip drops and just so you know This article is it's linked in the description and also the website drip drops Sounds so funny is also linked in the description as well. I think I put it at the very top Here's how you do it. Go to drip drops paste your wallet receive or stake address So whatever you staked your your cardano with whatever wallet ate a light Yoroi deadless or I guess it's umi or whatever that numy Nami that's it Then you just you paste in that that that address that you receive drip drops will create a blockchain Just play the tokens in your wallet to receive Please choose sunny tokens claim click claim by drops. Great. Here's how you do that So when you go to drip drops.io, it's going to say right here And your wallet to receive your rewards. So this is an an old wallet When I I use the other wallet And you're going to click on check check my drops and this is an old one. You're not staking. It's not active Whatever else but the other one when I did it What's going to happen is it's going to pop up and you're going to have all For me because I've had this wall forever. You're going to see a ton of different Drops that you're probably eligible for you just click on sunday swap and it'll go into your to your wallet But just so you know Real quick you have to pay for that service. So hold on Uh, when claiming your ISO rewards, you'll be asked to send a payment of three eta just so you know 1.3 a double we've returned to you to cover the uh, UT XO And then 1.7 will be the actual fee. So just so you know you got to pay 1.7 a and no people like I don't want to pay anything. Well, you can just wait Because if you don't want to pay the drip drops fee, we'll be building this is sunday swap We're building out a service to claim your rewards in the coming months You'll have a year to claim it on your word. So don't worry about it. And that's what's that's what's going on For sunday swap. If you have any questions, I'll answer them at the end But just to finish up real quick There's two things actually One I thought it was interesting that we it took so long to get a dex for cardano You had sunday swap mooseley swap and I have one called wing writers they just got four and a half million and The company said it's offering full privacy to its investors and only requires users to Connect a lightweight non custodial new file wallet to buy and trade token. So another dex is out for cardano and uh, I linked The website wing writers.com. I think I don't like here is that when you want to launch the test next That's not live live, but then you got to download ah You you click on here for some reason. Let me see I can refresh this Without putting in all my personal information You got to make a new wallet and I'll be just between us. I'm sick of all these wallets I've got like 30 walls and they're all over the place. I'm like, nope I'm doing it You can do it and I link to the description But I'm like damn. Can we just get who just get like just a handful of wallets just use those? I don't know just need complaining And then to finish up, I'll be doing deep dives on two Different projects and as you know, I think that's metaverse and play to earn gaming is going to be pretty big So I want to do this one This one looks good. I'm not a gamer. I could care less about games But that's not my job as an investor. So this one This is cryptoverse What do you think would I think ben over into the crypto version get into this because it's called cryptoverse and that's uh put on by Chain guardians. So chain guardians. This is their metaverse play looks pretty interesting and what I like about this one It's going to be Uh multi chain metaverse. So unfortunately It's going to be built on ethereum But they want to look to branch out and do other different chains so we can actually make this usable That's pretty good Then also I'm going to do a big one on cornucopia is because cornucopia is first of all They're built on cardano and second of all they're doing the mobile game for blockchain play to earn And I can tell you right now a lot of people in the world They don't have desktops But they do got mobile phones. I don't care what country in I don't care if you're mexico or india or any place Some type of and then like far off regions in developing countries. They have smartphone, which is crazy to me and that's What's going on? So that's it for right now. So look Ah, let me get out of here That concludes the news. Hopefully it wasn't too long 20 minutes. I'm a little bit long But if you got to go and take off, that's great. Saturday.  So if you like the video thumbs up Subscribe all that great stuff. Let's go into some comments And get away with this comments Training people to just get a wall. I know I just there's so many wallets. It just annoys me and I don't think that I just don't feel like we need that many wallets and every single thing I should have a wall and also and it's a good point I was what this person said is that the more wallets you have the more risk you have So like if I got a wallet for everything, first of all, I have to write down all that information Then I have to make sure that I store in the right place And then I got to make sure that I don't lose it anywhere And then I also have to make sure that the the wall that I download isn't some scam So that I think is uh, is the big play. Let me know what you about think about that because I'm getting kind of I'm getting tired Getting tired of wallets All right, let me see here Yeah, I couldn't care less. I know I always say I could care less But if you think about it, I could care less One wall to rule them all that's right Oh, this sounds good Any old remember I don't remember Pillar wallet. I've been around since 2017. I don't know what this one wall to do everything God that'd be awesome. This is a good question That's not it Hello, Rob. How when can we start mining tomato coin now? I would like to work with drip drops though Just just to give away those tomato coins for everybody who stakes with me I already gave a boy a bunch of tomato coin earlier in the in 2021 Lucas, are you live? Yes? I don't see what the point is I get this question. Are you live? It's because I don't check the comments until the very end So people are like, huh? Are you alive? Maybe that's the bigger question I heard this story about a rapper betting Couple of bitcoin on Superbowl now that would be interesting And that's it Okay, so look, I don't This is just comments. Good help. Yeah. Thanks for stopping by. So look, uh, there's no questions in here that I can see So I'm just gonna split out of here a lot of things to do. It's the weekend So look, if you liked today's video, give it a thumbs up I'll consider subscribing a lot of things we talk about our time sensitive and that's it for today So if you're watching the replay, I'll stick up two videos One will probably be D news and the staking pool and the other one the other one I was talking about earlier So thanks so much for watching. I appreciate it. See you on the next


It is Friday, October 20, 2023, and I'm calling the regular meeting of the finance committee to order at this time. And thank everyone for being here. I think that as I look at the screen. No, I'm going to call attendance in just a moment that Alicia has not joined us and Kathy is not going to be able to join us today, as it turns out. But we're otherwise ready to proceed. This meeting is being held by zoom and members of the public have access to the meeting and by zoom and but everybody who is watching should be advised that this meeting is being recorded both for visual and audio purposes. So you should be aware that the meeting will be recorded and of course available to the public later also through the town website and YouTube channel. Um, so having said that what I'd like to do is just make sure that everybody who's on the committee and hear me and be heard. So I'll just go through the list. Anna. Yep, I'm here. Hi everyone. Lynn. Present. Bob. Here. Matt. Present. Bernie. Present. Kathy is not able to join us and we don't have any indication as of yet that Alicia is with. I reached out to her. And I noticed that there are two members of the public present. The plan for this meeting just so we can get the be clear to everybody is the agenda is going to be in the order that it is presented as posted, which means we're going to start with public comment. Then we're going to go to the reparations discussion. And after that, there's a very brief presentation that Athena is going to make to us about the surplus property real property. It's not going to be a real discussion today, but she's just going to give us a background information about it. I think that she'll Dave is going to present and be available for a later meeting in which there'll be more discussion about it. And then the remainder of the time we will. That's available up until three o'clock, which is kind of a hard stop for several people who are on the committee. To start discussion of the rental registration. The schedule. It was a report from last night's. You see our C meeting, which we only received this morning, so the committee has not had a lot of time with it. So, so the committee, any questions about the agenda or the order. So, if there are none, then I guess. Why don't we see if there's any requests for public comment, any member of the public who doesn't title to make a presentation to the committee. For up to three minutes about any issues that is related to a matter that is or might come before the finance committee. There's no limitation that it has to be related to the agenda at all. And I see one hand that has gone up so if there's a second person requesting. Let me know but we're not is now available and so I will ask. I'm not a welcome to the meeting and shepherd and. Please identify yourself and indicatedly spoke the true name or stress and what section of town you live in you don't have to go further than that. And then please offer your comment. I good afternoon run out of shepherd from justice driving Amherst. Last night CRC outdid themselves all these months of discussion about making permit fees fair went out the window. I am disheartened with our decision to propose keeping the permit fee base at $250 and capping larger properties at $700 in order to simplify fees for applicants.  CRC did not consider my per bedroom proposal so I am offering another idea. 50 for owner occupied parcel 75 per condos 100 for single family homes as base fees at 50 or 75 per additional unit per parcel. Increase the cap for larger properties other towns capped at $2,500 or more and only charge 15 or 25 or 50 per yearly permit, depending on the town. And that's includes Boston which is a big city. I'm urging you not to accept a $250 fee across the board at this. This is extremely unfair to small landlords. And I also urge you to have a full board of a full committee before making a final vote for this proposed fee. I should probably share some of some method you would in hopes that you can understand my point. My two bedroom condo is rented to a wonderful family for 10 years current rent is 1540 for two bedroom. It may or may not increase to 16 or 1700 next June we'll have to see mortgage and insurance is about $800 condo fee 400 started in January property taxes 300 a month. And we'll go up because it's Amherst repair maintenance cushion about $60 not enough but I can do more. So that's a $20 loss per month and wait, I forgot all the fees you want me to pay.  So those are the, you know, options. You are shooting affordable housing in the foot. What is next rent control. Thank you very much. You're not a before you leave on. You had submitted a comment to the council. And, but I don't know if you recommend recommendation that you made at the beginning of this presentation about the amount of the fees was included you did share some of the other information it was in that I remember from the, to the council, if you could at least send it to me as the chair of the committee, or however you choose to do it, but at least to me, what your recommendation was, I can, it would be very helpful for the record to have that recommendation available if you're comfortable with it. Thank you very much for your direct email with that. Yes, you can just send it to my direct email, my, my council address time per day at Emerson may dot gov and I will share it with the rest of the committee before we participate that we're going to be making any recommendations today so it's, there's time. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. So I don't see anyone else in the audience who's asked to make public comment. So with that, I'm going to turn to the next agenda item. What is the AHRA Amherst African Heritage Reparation Assembly recommendation that was presented to the council on Monday night and there was discussion some discussion on Monday. To start today's discussion by, since the resident members of the committee were not present and the council members had a few more days to think about it, to see if there are questions about the report itself. And I'm not specifically at this point, excluding it down to what was referred to the committee the rest of the discussion we will want to focus only on part three what was referred to the committee but the entire report as context so if there are any questions or Michelle, if you have anything that you would like to say an introduction. Look for hands and give you a moment to raise hands and see you Michelle just. I'm really just here to hear me. Yes, we can. Oh, good. Okay. So I'm just here to answer any questions that you might have about the recommendations when it comes time for you all to discuss them as a committee I will be leaving the meeting but I'm always available so please feel free to reach out if you have, you know, additional questions that come up as you happy discussion. Okay, thank you. Are there any general questions that anyone has where we get into Lynn. This may be exactly what we're going to discuss, but I would like to make sure that we review the various proposed ways of funding the project from the report. So, are we going to go ahead and discuss other possible ways of funding. I think that is our subject because what we are charged by the council to review section three. And so I think anything that you just described would be included in the section three discussion which is we're going to narrow to after we make sure that no additional questions that are unrelated to question to section three. Yeah, this is more a question for Michelle I'm curious if there was a process to. It's such a long report that I don't want to say I want like a legal opinion on the full thing but I'm curious if there was a process to get a legal review done on the recommendations in the report just to figure out. You know, I think some of them require enabling legislation some of them to kind of figure out what the level of current or like level of legality under current law is and then where it would need special legislation versus where it's not necessarily doable under either. But that last category is true at all but I'm curious if there if a lawyer had looked at this at all and because I think that as we go through recommendations. I'm trying to figure out which is the carton which is the horse right so do we want to figure out which ones we want to kind of prioritize first as a committee, and then seek a legal opinion on those. Or does that not matter to the committee and that's fine too. That was a super clean question I know but basically I'm just asking if this has been reviewed by legal counsel in any way. Thanks Anna. So, in the appendix of the report, you'll see the extent of legal advice that I have received as a chair of the HRA. So, I'm not sure. I think the manager Backelman has consulted with the town attorney, but just to kind of back up and say, as we were developing these options, we were in communication with Sean at the time with the town manager to sort of try to understand, you know, what the limitations might be based on the original legal opinions that we received. And in the end, I decided that instead of going and asking Paul again to do another legal opinion based on these options that we first allow the council to decide which options they'd like to pursue. And, you know, ask for legal counsel based on that. So that's, that's kind of the general, does that answer the question. It really does. I think that's what I was trying to figure out is like, do we do the legal opinion first or do we do the council decide, you know, that that kind of thing so thank you. And I, so just to clarify your point you're saying that at least the first kind of run through of this was vetted by town staff, and then, but not necessarily that the final draft is that what you're saying. Yeah, so the, the three options were developed in consultation with Sean and the town manager. We had a meeting that where we reviewed the options that we were thinking about and in fact, the town manager is responsible for option B, which I thought was very creative. And sort of just through some ideas around, I mean, I, I guess I should say that what's most important for from our perspective what was most important was to one, be able to start pursuing initiative sooner than 10 years and now, as possible, and to have some meaningful amount of funding to do that on an annual basis. So those are kind of the two goals that we have and we're very, very, we were very sort of open to how we would meet those goals. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're muted. All right now. Now I can be clear. I just want to be clear on who the target population is for the reparations I know the report has three general categories. Folks who have, who've descended from persons who were enslaved in Amherst, folks who are descended from persons who were enslaved elsewhere, and then just about everybody else. We got that right. And what I'd like to get clear on is, is how tied does a person have to be to Amherst before they can be considered for reparations. We have a substantial transient population of, you know, folks who are here for one to four years and they move on and while they're here are they considered eligible or, you know, what, this is a tough, I know this is a tough question, but I just want to get clear on who the targets are here. Yeah, I know it's a great question and it's really important. You know, the eligibility piece is something that we were charged with discussing and reporting on. But the expectation I think is we've provided some guidance and we hope that a successor committee will be formed and that that guidance will be used as a reference. But, you know, depending on whether we're talking about programmatic initiatives versus like a direct benefit, for example, like a down payment for a home or even a cash payment that would require special legislation, I think the eligibility criteria is going to vary. So I think when it comes to the more programmatic initiatives, they'll be more inclusive than maybe some of the other initiatives, let's say that would involve housing and that may look to historical harms that have occurred in the community as a way of defining the eligibility for that kind of benefit. I think it's going to really kind of happen when hopefully the successor body begins actually looking at implementing the recommendation. Well, I just, you know, just as a as a historian, as someone who is interested in ancestry, my own and others, and how that works. It's, it's a given that it's going to be very difficult for someone to trace their heritage back to someone who's enslaved because of the vigourities of record keeping and the non person status that enslaved individuals have. So, you know, so that's where the eligibility question becomes critical to to make sure that you, you know, you're not defining this down to a point where it's impossible for someone to demonstrate eligibility. Absolutely, Bernie and we discussed that a bit on Monday night during the presentation. The difficulty in, you know, providing the documentation that would be acquired under a more limited eligibility, you know, framework. So that's all going to be meeting discussion as we move forward. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Are there any other general questions. You're muted now. Thank you. I just want to clarify that in looking at the three options for the financial way of dealing with the fund. The goal is to have some money that you can do that. The town can do at the recommendation of a committee that the town can do things with sooner rather than later. So that there would be a way to do this without waiting till we fund the full fund and live off of the interest. Exactly. And so I think that's why, you know, option B is it. I'm not going to advocate for anyone option, but I think option B was really creative because it helps us to, you know, it continues growing the fund, but it also helps us to begin pursuing these initiatives now. And so, you know, and that $100,000 that we identified was based on, you know, looking at other initiatives, other sort of projects and ways that we could partner with other, you know, other mine initiatives that are already happening in the community. We felt that that number would be meaningful enough to make some real, you know, comparative change. Oh, so can I just pursue further Andy. Sure. Because several of the concepts that, you know, you've talked about in the report, in terms of how what you would like to pursue, let me let me stick to one that I don't think gets into whether or not CPA or CDBG money. You know, there is a strong group of people in Amherst who would like to see a youth center. Okay, and you mentioned in your report, a youth center. So this is the third committee that we've seen a youth center recommended from. And the town manager, at least in one version of the eight of the ARPA money which is the COVID money from the federal government had put aside a half million or $500,000 for beginning to set up a youth center and I want to make sure that I'm saying that. Your concept would be that HR a might also come to the table with some money for a youth center. Is that what I'm hearing in terms of wanting to do something more immediate than rather than wait till the fund is fully funded and let me just say, in that case, I don't think there's any legal barrier to that, but it would end up being a combination of money that might come from ARPA money and might come from the age or a fund in some way. Is that, is that an example. Yes, I think, you know, through our consultation process use programming certainly rose to the top. I don't think we thought about using the funding that would be available to us. For like the creation of a facility, for example, I think we thought more about program programmatic or other costs that would be incurred as the new center was developed. So I do think that that is absolutely a great example and I also just want to be sure that, you know, the consultation with that successor body continues so that if we don't become sort of split like, oh, this is recommended and so let's take that $100,000 out of there and put it here. And just ensuring that we continue to have that conversation or that collaboration with the successor body, but that certainly did rise to the top for. Okay. But I could go on and push on this. But let's leave it there for now. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks Michelle and all for, for the good conversation. So I apologize if this is duplicative I just want to make sure I understand that the essence of the question. We are we have a. We have a town council action last year to add eventually all the cannabis money up to a certain cap every year until we we hit 2 million with the eventual plan being that 2 million would then generate interest in other revenue and the revenue from that 2 million would be used for for paying for programs. And the question before us now is, how can this be structured so that the successor body has money to spend sooner than then the 2 million to spend before we get to that 2 million point is that right? How can that be established. And it even seems, you know, when I think back to the original commitment that we made, you know, given that we now have this information that we do and the recommendations that we've made. The idea is that we accelerate the timeline so that we can begin, you know, pursuing initiatives now not waiting until we get that full 2 million, which is where, you know, option 1 comes from. Well, let's get there now, you know, by taking moving money from one bucket to another bucket. And again, it would remain down using the investment. So that helps and so so then my I guess my question is without changing the funding scheme, it would take longer to get to the 2 million, but without changing the funding scheme. Is is a hra slash, you know, kind of, or are you or is there an openness to sort of giving discretion over using the funds that are in the account now, and the annual amount of funds that go in, you know, discretionary so it would take longer to get to the 2 million, but you would have money to spend on an annual basis is that is that idea on the table is that something folks are considering is the question are. So, yes, like with option B, it would grow the funds more slowly, but it would give us access immediately to funding, sort of like a middle ground, say, okay, you know, we don't know what's going to happen with Canada tax revenue. So, if we're continuing to model off of that, I think we do have to consider, well, what is the, what is the least amount that we want to option B for pursuit that we want to allocate reparations on an annual basis that the Canada tax revenue goes down $50,000 that we're still modeling off of that. I do think that should be part of the discussion that the finance committee considers in terms of the source of the funding. Right. I have more questions, but I see a bunch of hands going up. So, I mean, I'll sit back for a sec. Yeah, I just, I just wanted to know and make Paul, maybe you can answer this, how much money do we have currently in the reparations fund, and what are we projecting to be the cannabis revenues over the next year or two. I can't answer that question. I can find out for you certainly. Okay, I just, I think it's important that we understand what the base, you know, what our baseline is before we start talking about options. Yeah, Michelle is right that the cannabis revenues is dropping. So, so, but I can get that information for you. Great. Thank you. I can just add that I think when I checked with Sean just before he left the fund has maybe like 410 or 413 something like that in it from the path to allocations that have occurred. Okay. Thank you. And I guess that there was one other piece to the size can add when we get to questions later and so we'll come back to it. So it gets on the list, but the cannabis control commission has had discussions at various times about licensing. We're like, sometimes called cafes where people can buy and use marijuana and social setting similar to going into drinking alcohol. And at one point Amherst was listed as one of the communities, one of the municipalities that might be a pilot in such program, I don't know if that's still operative or not. But if that happened, would there be additional cannabis fees and with likelihood of it happening? And I don't know if there's any if all of you have any assessment of those questions. But you don't have to answer that today either. Yeah, no, we are open to that we don't have regulations that would allow it we have to do some regulatory work internally with our own bylaws. We've been identified as one of those communities as you mentioned, Andy, and if we did open some one or more in town that would generate more revenue for the cannabis tax. Because it'd be more sales. Going back to the group Lynn. I think Bernie's before me. Bernie. You have to get on mute again. Yeah. I've just now just took my microphone off back on. This is a remark on the cannabis cafes. I think we need to think very hard before we put more folks who may be somewhat inebriated on the streets and Amherst might not be the best thing. Michelle, I just want to go back to you because I think I've heard you say and I want to understand this. It's important that we have a successor MIDI in place. Before a lot of decisions and details get discussed. Is that correct. In my concern is, is that we, you know, we don't get ahead of ourselves on this. If, if, if the reparations committee believes that there needs to be a committee and play a decision making body in place that can help direct the implementation that we want to be careful that we leave things open for them. I congratulate the committee on being largely descriptive and not prescriptive and in their, in their recommendations that I think makes it, you know, makes the whole thing more workable. But I would like to be able to before we have a discussion of say a youth center like to see that there's a committee in place to say, yes, it is a priority. The youth center gets balanced against a using monies from the fund for soft seconds so people can buy housing. You know, those are, those are decisions that are going to have to be made because they're going to deal no matter what we do we're dealing with limited pool of funds. So, and the other thing I would like to see going forward with this is that before we do something gets subject to a maker by assessment, because I think for a number of these initiatives that might be better as council pointed out a minority business enterprise that's not organized as not for not for profit corporation could have greater degrees of freedom and implementing this stuff that the town might have. Absolutely, I really appreciate those comments and I think recognizing the importance of that successor body being able to as you said balance the various priorities against what is already out there for the town is a priority and what the community needs is is really important. I don't think that necessarily means that the town council or the finance committee I think we're we're the timing of looking at, you know, acceleration or finding some way to begin this process now is is good timing because you know, without any access to funding, then the successor body really isn't necessary to some extent. So I think that it's good timing all around. You can pause for a moment for a couple reasons. One is Alicia joined us by five minutes ago and it should show that but I want to make sure that Alicia can hear us and we can hear her. Hi, yes, I can thank you Andy. Okay, and just so you know what we're doing is we divided the HR a discussion into parts. This is the, I'm going to try and cut it off in a couple minutes is general questions about the report that don't have to specifically relate to section three, which was what it was referred to the finance committee, but I am cutting it off in a minute or two. Because we want to turn to what was assigned and the goal for today is to identify questions, some of which have already been brought up. We need to be considered as we analyze question three things the information that we need for the next meeting and a list of issues to help us define the discussion for the next meeting where we're really going to be focusing on the charge that was given to our committee. So, Alicia, if you have any general questions or comments about the report. This is a time because we're going to narrow it in a moment. Lynn. Yeah, one of the questions I'd like to ask is if the fund was fully funded at about at at 2 million. What would be the percentage of interest rate we would expect to be able to draw on annually. The place where we might look to a comparable would be the library fund in terms of how much they draw off of it annually for operations. And then additional question that goes along with that is if we use these funds. Can we use these funds for program operation and capital. Is there any restriction on what the funds can be used for based on how we initially set up the fund. Do you want me to be adding these. Make sure you have those recorded. If Michelle has anything further, Michelle, your hand has been up to the entire time which. When you want to be recognized. No, I'm going to I'm going to lower it and I don't I think that Lynn's questions are great and I don't think I think they're probably for Paul and you know others to explore further. And I would love to know if Alicia before I leave the meeting just to make sure that Alicia and the other committee member that hasn't asked, you know, that might have a question has has the chance to do that. Thank you, Andy. I haven't really thought like I'm not I haven't been as thoughtful as I would like to be and how to formulate this exact question but I'm wondering about how you envision the funds will be used and like the replenishing of funds so like once we have hit. What we deemed for it to be like a, a, like fully operating reparations fund and we're utilizing the funds. Is there like a reimbursement vision or do we have to be over the certain mark before we start. Distributing funds or I'm just using how I'm wondering how we expect to be using the fund. Yeah, that's a good question. I think it will depend largely on which of these options or some other option that the town council ultimately goes with. So, I think, you know, in terms of replenishment. If we do keep it set up as an endowment, then the principal will always remain so whether you move to you know the balance to get to get us to 2 million now or whether we grow up more slowly that money will stay in the fund and will be using the investment and then come off of that on an annual basis which gives us a really powerful sort of sustaining, you know, it can sustain us long into the future. And I expect that this as the, as the community comes forward more to voice what is needed and as some of these initiatives are beginning to, you know, suggest that the how the money is used will. This is definitely a live. Not it's not static at all. It's definitely a living body of recommendations. Does that answer the question Alicia. Yes, that is helpful. I think it just is also helpful me for me in terms of thinking of what the options are to understand like how it will be used. Yeah, I think, you know, the expectation is that that successor body will will get up and running and take what we have provided in our report and begin to sort of focus in a little bit more than we have. So we tried to provide based on what we heard from the community some funding priorities and areas that we understood in that process to be important for the community. But I think the successor body really is going to have the opportunity to hear more from the community and understand sort of what is needed in order to fulfill the reparative goals that we have. So I think that what I would like to do now, just managing time and knowing we have a three o'clock card stop time is that Lynn has a document and what it is is questions that I received from other counselors were the one through six of the document and so because as you recall at the end of the council meeting. Lynn requested that if there are questions of the finance committee they be forwarded to me into Athena. And so that was what one through six are is things that were received by that route. And Lynn has added three others based I believe on the discussion that we've just had. What we're going to try and do is continue on and the purpose of this is to make sure that we end this meeting with an organized list of additional information that we wish to obtain in order to do the work that's been assigned to us, or other or issues that are recommended for discussion at the by the committee as we work through our assignment. So, what we're trying to do now is to look at that list. I'm not suggesting in any means, removing questions that were posed from the council in the one through six. I'm looking to add to them because that was I think the understanding with the council. Because I make sense anybody object to what I just said. And he might my hand is up. It's not an objection. It's a question. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Is your next in order and Michelle, I don't know your hand is still up. Are you looking to be recognized. Okay, thanks. Go ahead. My question is looking for modeling so can we model. Can we model out the impact if we give the successor body some discretionary percentage of funds or amount of funds to use on an annual basis.  I want to say I will mention one other thing that. Kathy Shane was planning to be here for the first part of our meeting today but she was down in New York for family reasons and she determined this morning that she was not going to be able to join us. She has a list of questions that she was going to add to be in the council questions, as well as member section. But she may have additional questions that were not there. And I thought of it as you're speaking because I think that one of her questions is pretty much exactly what you just put in. Bob. Thank you. Yeah, I, I had a, it's more of a question of, it's kind of a follow up to a Bernie raised the issue. The fund is administered. I mean, especially if one of the suggestions in part three is to establish and a charity based on, you know, for contributions from from the public. How would that be administered relative to the stabilization of the fund, which presumably has to come through the town council for authorization to spend. Is that correct. And would we be set setting up a separate pot of money that who would who would be the decision makers on how to spend that charity money. I think I'm going to leave that I get that onto the list of questions but also reflect on the fact that when we set this up originally. I think that what Sean had proposed was that having everything remain in the enterprise fund. And then come out of the stabilization fund rather and then come out of the stabilization fund would require council approval. For each time that there's an expenditure so that it remained within council control to make a final decision. So that was what how I understood his recommendation. Yeah, that's that's what that was my understanding as well. The reason I asked this question is with if we had a charity again I don't think we have to answer it now but if we had a charity how would that be administered. How those funds be administered. Could I jump in real quick just to answer just to give a little bit of background about what I learned regarding that. Andy. I think that at this point what we're trying to do is not answer questions but to pose questions. Okay, well I can send a note just because I do have some Pamela young did some pretty great research on how the, the friends of model might work. So I can send that along to you Andy and you can share it with the committee and that might be helpful for Bob's question here. Yeah, that would be helpful on the list that we're developing obviously is a public document being developed on the screen that you can see because you're attached by phone, but it will be available. You know, it'll give you a chance to think about the questions that are being posed and the issues that are being posed in advance of the next meeting. Awesome. Thank you. Bob. I don't have anything else. Thanks. Okay. Bernie. Thanks Andy. The fund that we're talking about the $2 million. That is a discrete fund over and above or in addition to. Is that a discrete fund over and above any additional resources we can bring the bear like CDG money like preservation money or does any contribution from the CPA or the CB CDBG pool or any other pool. Is that count towards the 2 million. No other hands from committee members up at the moment. I had thought about a couple of things one is in relation to option one. So at this point, no options are off the table because we were not voting today on anything was they understand it was our understanding. What would be an estimate of the amount of time that would take to repay the fund. If we did. Did what was suggested in option one. And what effect that would have on other stabilization funds. Andy is, I believe that question is pretty much up here. Maybe you're right. Yeah. Okay. Matt has his how his hand up as does Michelle. Yeah, Andy. Can I go ahead and Andy. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I sense you raise that. I do have a question about, I guess it's option three, which, which I don't, I don't support. I don't think, but I, but you know, that's, I don't need to say that right now. We're just talking about all the options that are on the table. But I would be interested in any consequences to implementing option three in terms of bond rating availability of that capital that we're talking about moving. So just sort of, you know, again, sort of an analysis of, you know, what would be the implications on the other accounts if we were to pursue option three. Michelle has her hand up, Andy. Michelle did.  It sounds like you're going to start to move on. I'm going to jump off my, my, my hand function here on the phone is just wild. But thank you so much and I'll look forward to continuing to follow these questions and get you whatever information I can to support answering them. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I'll, I'll see you guys next time. Have a good weekend. Bye bye. Thanks. Just specific specificity on that number 14 that you just put in there and just, I mean, I was obviously there's like, I feel like if that question is read as is the answer is they become less which I, that's not quite the nuance I was trying to tease out there. You know, so, so for example, bond rating, for example, you know, overall fiscal health of the town, I just, I don't want an answer that says the money will be less because I was looking for a little bit more nuance than that. And I guess that the last question I have was related to that in some ways. And what I was phrasing it was, are there any legal risks, risks to our bond rating, or comments from our accounting firm that we need to be aware of as we continue this discussion. I'm going to combine the two on reading. It's the accounting firm or the. I was thinking that should we be asking is their name is now mark them it used to be. I'm going to go back to Melanson. Should we be asking they have any advice for us, or whether our town attorney has any advice for us about the risks that we're should be aware of. So, I have other questions but to be honest, I think they're more based on the referral that was made to GOL. And that will be taken up by GOL. Yeah, I had, I had left my I had a question that I submitted to GOL. And that was when probably knows and I was not bringing that up today because it's related to the committee charge and not to the financial piece that we were just referred to this committee. Right. So, I think the circumstances the only thing that I would certainly want to do is make sure that if Kathy had questions that she had intended to bring up today. That we keep the list open for that purpose. And therefore, if anybody else in the committee submit questions to me into Athena. We can add them to the list to get to be totally fair. But Matt. I'm kind of like Kathy from previous meetings. I mean, I just, I know that she has a lot of questions about the mechanism for council approval before funds get distributed. I think that's probably not a question. I mean, that question is known, but it might be worth just explicitly adding it to the list for the sake of, you know, I think everybody on finance would like to would like to know the answer that question and sort of be be comfortable with that.  Yeah, so if I can throw in just not sure if it's appropriate for me to put these are council questions, but I'd be remiss if staff weren't asking questions about the creation of another committee that needed support. Is there an existing committee that could take on the responsibilities of this of this this function. And what would the staffing needs of a new committee require what kind of what kind of support would they need. So, I think we've got a lot of people managing lots of different committees and when they say another committee getting created they start to squirm a little bit. I'm certainly going to leave that on because that gets into financial consequence of the cost in staff time. Supporting another committee. So I think that may be a CRC question or a GOL question too. Okay, is anything else, or can we close this up in terms of the next agenda item.  It can get posted. I'll send it to Athena and she can post it. Thank you send it to Athena and to me and then let us decide what to do. Because we also want to make sure that we get Kathy's questions and we can edit them in if they're to the extent that they're not already stated. Andy, I believe Athena might have something to say I think we actually have to post it now that it's been discussed. We should we should post it and if you have Kathy's questions we can add Kathy's. Okay, I will leave that to you. Because you're the one who understands what, what you're tending to do on the OML requirements. So anything else that any members of the committee want to talk about right today regarding reparations otherwise we have a couple other subjects to move to actually I think we have three meeting planning. So seeing no hands I'm going to assume that we're completed with that the next item was that real property disposition was on the agenda, not for any substantial discussion today but to sort of give us preparing for real discussion within next meetings. As you may recall, that was a matter that was referred to us by the council and we're trying to see if we can get back to it and reach any conclusions before the end of the current term. And that's why but Athena. You had planned to be called on at this point so that you could tell us about what you've been doing. Thanks Andy. I I spoke with. So this was referred back to finance committee because in one of finance committees previous reports. The recommendation to update the policy for our new form of government. The previous policy was adopted by the select board. I think in March 2018 and the way our form of government works it just doesn't make sense to have that policy the way it was it was very directive of the town manager and how the town manager brought surplus property to the select board and then the select board bringing it to town meeting for a vote. Now that we have an executive that's the town manager and can form his own advisory committees and so on at his own discretion before bringing recommendations about surplus property to the council. It didn't make sense to include a lot of those details and a new policy. So I've drafted this based on the conversation with Dave and Sharon. Some of the some of the text that was in the old policy was it was rephrased from general laws and so I've left in references to general laws. And so I'm going to go back to the general laws and I'm going to go back to the general laws and requirements that the the council the town comply with general laws but not the text itself. So that if any of those change we don't have to go back and change the policy. I also referred to. So I'm going to go back to the property disposition policy in coming up with the requirements in regard to the town manager's report to the council. The information to be included in the report about properties that he would make a request to the council about. I'm looking for some input from the committee about what they'd like to see there. And we also have a mechanism for public comment a public hearing and timelines there those are not required by law, but there was a public comment opportunity and the previous policy and I think it makes sense to have public notice and comment. In the new policy, and then a quick note at the end, the disposition of town property requires a two third vote by law but if there is acceptance of the mass general law that affordable housing be allowed to be disposed of or property to be disposed of for the purpose of affordable housing that can be a majority vote vote but the the town would have to accept that general law. Thank you. And for the rights of the committee. You know referred to Sharon and as Sharon as Sharon I've written she's an attorney at our law firm that represents the town KP law. This is in our packet. It's not for the was not intended for discussion today but we wanted to give you kind of a preview and introduction. And if so, is there any general questions that you feel you can ask Athena now about what she just reported. Otherwise, the detail we want to do later, Matt. Well, I think it just kind of prompted me to ask a question because we, I know we kind of issued this charge and discuss this probably a year and a half ago or more. Are we anticipating, you know, some action and moving forward on this in the next few months or when, you know, when should we see, when should we expect it to hear more information about this. I was just asking about the draft. If are you asking if the town's planning on bringing a request to the council or just a new draft of the policy request to the council. No, I think this was, you know, the, the council and the finance committee had discussed at various points properties in town that were maybe costing the town for maintenance or weren't maintained. So that's what prompted the council or the finance committee to start looking at this policy and think about how those properties might be disposed of if the town manager determines that they're no longer for public use, a good use. Right. Right. And there was like talk of a committee being formed to start sort of compiling that list and reviewing that list. I just, I was just curious if there was any update or action heading towards that and it's fine if that's still in the future. No, there was in the previous policy there was an advisory committee that would advise the town manager because our form of government has changed the town manager conform of an advisory committee if he chooses but it wouldn't need to be a public body. And it would be up to the town manager to determine who and how many people he wants to receive input from before he would make a request from the town council or request to the town council to do anything with property. So what this new draft is focused on is what the council wants to see in the policy before it makes any act before it takes any action on a request from the town manager rather than mandating how the town manager does his job because the select board previously was the executive and they were more directive to the town manager. Now that the town manager is the executive he's he has a little bit more discretion, a lot more discretion to to figure out how who he wants to consult and so forth before bringing a request to the council. Okay. Indy I can't raise my hand but I have to go ahead. So Athena this is the proposed substitute for the existing policy. Correct. And at some point, perhaps, which would be nice. Before we finish the term of this council is with the finance committee be able to finish their discussion of this and refer to the council for action before the end of December. That's the question I'm raising because I just to not let it languish and frankly, get it off our plate. Yeah, that was that was my idea that I knew this was a loose end and I thought the finance committee might like to make a recommendation before the end of it. The current council's term. Finance is pretty busy so I think it just depends on how if we can get some good feedback from the committee and then Dave and Sharon and I can look at that feedback and make changes to the policy before bringing it back to the committee. So that they can make a recommendation but that in terms of the committee agendas that's an anti question. There's one big piece of property that may come up and that is that if the Wildwood school is no longer being used as an elementary school and the school committee. I think it determines that they know no longer needed for educational purposes. Then it goes back to the town and the surplus property question of what to do with that property. That's a significant issue. So just, you know, learn to alert us all to the possibility that some counsel sometime may be looking at that issue. I'm looking at Paul to see how urgent he feels that is but I don't imagine that it's, it's an impending issue. That's a couple years away. Yeah. So I think we have nothing further today to discuss on it because this was in the packet. So we have an opportunity to look at it and give some thought and come back to it. So, I think we've covered what we need to today unless somebody else has a hand raised. We can go on and do the next item. Andy, if I can ask if the committee has questions or comments or any feedback about the policy that they send it on to me and Dave so that we can work on a draft to bring back. Or do you want to save that for the next discussion? Well, that's fine. If anybody does have questions. I would appreciate having copy to it. Athena and Dave so that they can determine what's the best course of action. If we're going to move this through. That would be helpful. It would be helpful to see the current policy or the the one that this is to replace just. It would help me in reviewing it to see what we had in the past. Sure. I'm sorry. I didn't add that to the packet all out of the packet. Great. Thank you. Andy, when do you want any or Athena and Andy, when, when do you want any questions by again, I'm trying to keep moving this forward so that we finish it and get it to the council. I guess in December, the latest. We only have four meetings of the council between now and the end of the year. And probably need to pull up the. See if I can find you, unless you have at the meeting planning document, it would, it was in the. I don't see it in the. I don't think it was in the packet. You know, it's not it's and I'd want to make sure it comes from you and or Athena so that we make sure we have the latest one. We do have an updated one. I'll add it to the packet. You updated it since I didn't update and then you were going to work online. So I assume you have the most most recent. Yeah. I think yours had the same comments that mine had. So what we're looking at is on the 27th. Fourth quarter and year and budget reports. Again, the disposition policy rental registration fees, HRA. And then a street light if street lights is ready from TSO. I'll add this to the packet so that we see everyone can see what's coming up. It's really after the 13th that things get really heavy after financial indicators. The committee's going to start working on. Budget guidelines. Things get. And the. Surplus. I'm sorry. The supplemental appropriation requests that are coming on the 13th as well. Yeah, I don't know if I can share if I can do the share screen now. Does anybody have it somewhere in my. This works. So do it appear or not. Yeah, I don't. You know, I have it on my. Perhaps to move this along Andy, I'll just ask for comments by next Wednesday, this coming Wednesday.  I think I now have it. Oh, there we go. So just so you know, and I was going to do this later, I'm not going to do it again. But let you know that. We have been doing. This kind of planning again. As we did last spring. To try and think our way through the remainder of the year. And. See what today's agenda that we've. Touched on everything except for the rental registration fees, which we're going to close with. Next week, we have a meeting scheduled and at that point. Holly's going to be able to present the fourth quarter and year end budget reports. And we reserve. Coming back to the surplus real property disposition policy and the other two items that we talked about already. And then if TSO has recommended recommended policy and street lights at that point. We would be able to add that and come back if we wished. But we're really under the gun because as you see, we're working along. Fairly quickly by the third we anticipate that. If free cash is certified. That there may be some opportunity to talk about. The free cash. The free cash transfers. Really come out of town manager recommendations and. So that may not be available to us by the third what. Time managers recommendations are. And. But we're getting towards the point of thinking about the budget guidelines. So the question came up if we had the opportunity in order to make the budget guideline discussion. A little bit easier to manage for the committee. Whether we wanted to have an initial discussion early on about. Any of the issues having to do with budget guidelines that we might be able to. Again, to the discuss since we've had pretty much experience with developing guidelines. The financial indicators meeting is the 13th and that's what usually kicks off the guidelines because that's. When the initial projections come. And. That will also probably be posted as a finance committee meeting so that we can bring. Resident members into the meeting itself. So I would probably propose to add that. To finance committee in addition to the council VCG VCG means that. The school committee and library trustees are also a part of. That particular meeting and then we're moving along into. The end of the year work and so we will add this to the. To the packet for today's meeting and. Come back and allow for discussion next week, but I did want to at least focus on. And I just anticipated for the 27th and the third.  And this is really a question for Paul and Athena. But if in fact. We have free cash certified. Before the council meets again. I'm not an automatic referral. To. Finance. I don't believe so. For what, to what purpose? I mean. Yeah, it's only if you're going to use that as a funding source that you need free cash certified. There's no action for the finance committee or the council to take once free cash is certified. Do something with it. Right. And usually when you, once it's certified, you come to us with recommendations for how. It's appropriate. Okay. So there's no way that on the. That we can start discussing free cash. On November 3rd. Well, there's no, there's no, there's nothing for the finance to discuss exactly regarding free cash. There will be an update from Holly about the fourth quarter budget and so on. But then the town manager is going to be submitting supplemental budget requests from free cash on the 13th. So. Right. Those will come, those will come to the finance committee then. Right. We'll have those, we'll have those ahead of the 13th. We'll need to post them by the 9th. So the council connection act on the 20th. Right. But are those recommendations automatically referred to finance. I don't believe supplemental budget appropriations are automatically referred. I think it's the levying of taxes. I have to check the rules, but I don't believe so. Okay. The. It is just a matter of what our current. Financial management policies are. Is that once free cash is certified. The cash above 5% of the benchmark level. Is that eligible for transfer and the as it's written that between goal is to get the stabilization funds to 15%. And if it goes if the general stabilization fund is at 15% of the benchmark level. Then the excess. We goes into the capital stabilization fund. And I think that's where our current policies are, though. A recommendation to do something different this certainly within the authority of the town manager. Let me also make another observation here, Andy, that I don't believe that we will be ready to make an age or a recommendation until we know the status of free cash. Right. So, I'm going to stop sharing so we can get back to the regular screen. Any further questions or comments about that because that was going to be the last agenda item and it's now been pretty well disposed of so I want to spend the rest of. Our time if needed, and we don't have to stay till the full two hours, but we want to get back to the rental registration. And I think Paul was at the meeting last night. CRC was anybody else from the committee at the CRC meeting. So Rob was there. Hi Rob. And Paul, either of you have any comments about the CRC recommendations and the discussion that happened at CRC meeting. Well, you saw the recommendations coming out of CRC. They try to, they gave you a lot of information, but try to simplify the fee structure because I think in response to some of the questions that were coming from the finance committee. With the bylaw coming out. Subject to sort of the actual. The fee schedule I have sent that along to the town attorney for their review. One of the questions I think that was outstanding was about resident preferential treatment at discount for residents and how that could come into play and just wanted to clarify that with the town attorney. Rob, was there anything. Just as a follow up that the CRC decided that, you know, the five year inspection schedule makes the most sense for the program to be successful and effective and, you know, sticking with that. You know, moved us into the conversation about a simplified fee schedule that is reasonable and would accomplish collecting the necessary fees to support the program. And just one other thing is to clarify and to confirm that we did with the strategic partnership agreement with the university. We do have $100,000 that's available to support this program because that was sort of the intent of some of that funds to support neighborhood issues. And this would be an appropriate use of some of those funds. And he would you like me to put the fee schedule up. In a minute. Paul, when you said some of the funds from the university. Have are there other competing. Or uses other uses we should be considering when making that. Calculation. Not necessarily because what I'm what I'm saying is that you could use the full 100,000, but I don't think when we did the projections, we were going to require that entire amount. So the more you put in the less fees. Possibly could potentially, but yeah. But also, I think where there could be other opportunities if there are other over the next 5 years, if there are other needs that pop up, it's nice to have some money available to use if there's things that we would like to see happen in neighborhoods. I think I'm going to ask 1 more question and certainly looking for raised hands at any time because this isn't. This is a committee discussion. So these two raise your hands, but one of the things that I had been concerned about for a while and Rob, you might have some comments on this. What degree of flexibility. Should the staff have about scheduling in order to accommodate for situations such as. Over in staff illness of staff. Other demands on staff time that might interfere with being able to complete the schedule is. It's a rigid schedule. I think that's the best interest of an efficiently managed program. So, yeah, it is a, you know, a very structured schedule of inspections over the, the, the five year period. The plan is to visit 600 dwelling units in any year to accomplish that. The flexibility exists where the we have the ability to select the exact number of units we inspect in the larger complexes. So that's not totally defined yet. And we don't have the count on how many units are currently in, you know, a housing inspection program by some other agency that we would be taking into account as well. I think when I, you know, when I put together the estimate for staff needed to accomplish that many, that many inspections. It does it does account for, you know, unknowns, you know, we don't know how many follow up inspections will necessarily be needed. How many court visits will be needed so it isn't a, you know, eight to four schedule daily of inspections. And it's far fewer than that to account for this additional, these additional unknowns. So I was comfortable with the number of staff we were suggesting. Now, say it's completely wrong, you know, we find something out that, you know, that I wasn't anticipating the rules and regulations can be modified by the Board of Citizens Commissioners to either change the duration of the inspection or, you know, give farther flexibility, further flexibility in, you know, how often we visit the properties or the number of properties that we have we visit in any particular year. But I don't anticipate that being the case and I certainly wouldn't anticipate, you know, having to go to Paul just to have him tell me no you can't have more inspectors. So, you know, I think this was was carefully considered to be a program that we could be, you know, we could accomplish this and make sure the program is successful. Thank you. Because I think you just in that last comment that just as my concern is whether the by law and regulations is proposed to create a rigidity that would force a budget recommendation of itself just to accommodate the program. Can I, can I sorry, can I just add one other thing, you know, and when we start this program and we understand how things, you know, exist out there, you know, the discussions should be open and continuing, because there might be an opportunity to, to not have to reinspect properties or, you know, really start to identify those properties that are very well cared for. And there's, there's just so many options on where this could go in the future so I think these discussions would have to be open and I, you know, would expect to be able to report on what what is found once we do get into inspecting the properties. Thanks. Matt. Thanks, Andy. And thank you, Rob. I have one one programmatic question and then I know we're going to get into the fee structure a little bit so I'll hold off but Rob just to be clear so my understanding is that if your if staff have concerns about a building or a complex, a complex that they this is what I was told by john they they can file their own complaint and conduct an investigation into that apartment into that rental is that is that accurate. That is accurate yes. Okay, I think that was that misconception is out there and I just wanted to clarify. Thanks. I, I'm going to actually refer to this and also back to the thing we just looked at of all of the things that are pending out there that may come to the Council. Before this term is up, I would like to place a high priority on this because it's the kind of thing that I don't want to see a new configuration of CRC and a new configuration of the finance committee wrestle with again. And I think it's something I, I certainly know from the many conversations I've had with residents. And this is highly desired in Amherst, it is the only. What we keep hearing is have a bylaw and make sure you can make you can enforce it. In a district like the one I represent where we've got a number of student rentals, where the worst problems are mostly in housing student house student rentals not in complexes. I'm not saying that's all true. I just want to make sure that we move this to the priority level understanding that it has to go to CRC, it has to go to GL yet, and it has to come to the Council. And is it a zoning, even if it isn't a zoning, it should have 2 readings at the Council level. So I'm putting pressure on keeping it moving fast. I do want to ask to the extent possible how much of this has had legal review. I think there have been conversations with the town attorney early on, but this since we've got an actual vote from CRC. This morning, I sent that happened last night. So I sent the actual version to town attorney for their review. Okay. Great. Thank you. There's one issue that I think Rob can add to this, but if we don't complete the work before the end of this Council, then I think it becomes more difficult to implement the regulation with the next year as the rental registration year is defined. Right. And so that if we can't move it through during this Council when we lose a whole year of being able to implement it. Exactly. Rob, nodding his head. Yes. So there's no further need for discussion. On that point and Anna. Rob, I apologize for my ignorance on this. I know that we have currently a job posting for a, an inspector. And that is, that is a different role than a code enforcement officers that right so the reason why I was looking at it I was thinking about the, the, the time that we are in where it's really hard to find staffing and just making sure that you feel that as a competitive salary and that will get applicants and obviously you wouldn't have put it out there if you didn't think it was a competitive salary and we'd get applicants but I just wanted to confirm that that is different than the, the posting that's currently out there. Currently the posting is for a health inspector, a prior health inspector Ed Smith, ended up taking the position that John left vacant as lead code enforcement officer and will, you know, be at the lead of this program. So currently we're trying to fill the health inspector vacancy and in the future, the, the position that would be needed for this program is more of a housing health or building inspector there's flexibility and the, the exact background of the, the individual, and it could go a couple of different ways of hoping that they're, it's, it's not going to be defined so specifically to a type of inspector that I think we would hopefully be able to generate some interest within our current set of schedule job descriptions that we have. Okay, I think I was asking just mostly because when I was looking at that other because I was trying to solve my own problem but when I was looking at it, there was a lot of code enforcement in that in that job description and the salary I wasn't sure if that was. I think we have to 74k year for that lead inspector role and so I was trying to do math on again ensuring that we're able to pull people into this because I think what we don't want to have happen and nobody wants this, including you is to start this program up and not be able to find anyone to fill the role. And I, and I do believe it's slightly adjusted from that figure, because the Union negotiations were were completed so I think that that that's salary range is a little bit higher than what was posted in that earlier. Thank you. So, looking to see if there are other comments to make that just to say, and then you had talked about doing a lot from the community about support for doing the rental registration program modifications. I think that what it's concerned me when I have heard those comments is that there seems to also be a lot of beliefs that it's going to solve problems of enforcement of the number of related residents in a property or some of the noise and other problems that exist with student rental housing from the perception of the people who are making these comments and neither of those is really something that is an inspection issue. So, I just do know when to note that for the discussion but nothing else, because it's not really a topic that affects the question of the fee structure which is what we're all about. Are there any questions last thing I'll pose to the committee is there any questions about the calculations that were made by CRC that somebody can help us with or that we want to send back to CRC for further. Yeah, I was trying to figure out just some clarity on the inspection fee in the. And this might totally be me missing it but in the, in the proposed schedule it says inspection fee 150 and then in the sample it says 150 plus $50 per unit above one and I just wanted to confirm is it a flat fee or is it still based on the number of units as the person as the permitting is. So for me I'm not sure. Yep, so in that document. I wasn't sure if there was going to be an additional fee above it just because it was highlighted like that so I just wanted clarity that there was not going to be that it's a flat fee. Can I answer that Andy. Yeah, my, my recommendation that we discussed yesterday for the part of the meeting that I was there and I did miss the end of the discussion is it is definitely a flat fee. So not a additional per unit fee and where I where I see confusion here is that in my discussion and it was $150 per unit. That's inspected, not per parcel. As that reads in the box. Unless you know unless Paul thinks that something else happened after I left that's that was my understanding. Okay, thank you. Of course we had a public comment. During the public comment portion of the meeting. And I made a request. First to offer public comment, send her recommendation in writing, and I will share that with the committee when, when received. So, is there anything else people want to raise today in the way of questions about CRC or that. So, just, I mean, this is I guess is my, just my scratch notes on the broad overall costs of the program. And I just want to make sure Rob and others that I've got it accurate. So essentially, the new program would require us. These are all estimates but out of the CRC memo. This program would cost us about 474,000. 100,000 of that were projecting to come from UMass and the other 374 would come from fee revenue. And that would be a break even on the program. And the current scheme is. Revenue about 293,000 293,5 and administrative costs of about 150,000. So the current scheme nets us about 143 in revenue to the general fund. So that's that's just my scratch notes looking at the CRC memo. Is that accurate. Yes, that's accurate based on the, the fee schedule adjustment that occurred last year. And there was no, there was no change in the program costs at that time because this, this was still being developed. Okay, well, and I'll just since I've got the floor I'll just congratulate you on getting somebody into that lead to that lead role because I know it's been a long time coming. And that's the other thing that I've thought about. So, we build this structure as we're talking about the number of rental properties remains relatively the same. Do we need some projections for years out in order to feel comfortable with what we're with what we're recommending. Because the number of inspections may change. But we also know that salaries will in other costs will increase. And so it's not, you know, these numbers are not static that kind of first year numbers should we be thinking out farther as we are analyzing this. So, Paul, if you have anyone. Of course, I guess I say that daily. Yeah, we can certainly do that. I think that it's modeled on an annual basis, but some some of the costs on impact on property owners. It's modeled on a 5 year plan because that's how it's being implemented. So if you see on the screen, the 3rd column over says proposed total application fees over 5 years. There is a project a 5 year projection included in this. Were there adjustments made to the cost side. Since this is the revenue side. I don't think there were I think that's sort of, you know, there'd be the 2% or 3% whatever we wind up with that would go every year. Yeah. And that's why I like having a little bit of flex in the, not allocating all of the money from the strategic strategic partnership agreement that allows us to manage some of that. Because if I, my calculation is correct, the first year would be the 67, 540 plus the 22, 519, which is $90,059. And if that is right, if I know if that thinking is right, then there's about $10,000 that is actually unexpended from that amount in the first year. Okay. If we have anything else at this point, I think the committee needs some time to digest this and then come back and think about the, what our next steps are and I will forward this shepherd's recommendation to us, which we can then take your numbers and see what that does when you start plugging it in. I don't really have much else that I feel comfortable saying until I have more of a sense of that and I had time to study it myself a little bit more. So does anyone have anything else that they would like to raise on the subject of the rental registration at this point. Well, yeah, so if there are people who have comments or suggestions or specific questions, we'd really appreciate getting them in advance. So we can look at them. We have time to look at them. So, I mean, are you driving towards a vote on next Friday, Andy? I don't necessarily assume that we are, but we've allowed ourselves, I think, three meeting flexibility on this. But I think the report still remains the same. That if anybody has any ideas, don't wait until next Friday. Go ahead and send them in earlier. And that would be helpful. As long as they get to Paul and Athena and me, I think that would be the best way to do it if you just send it. Send additional comments or questions to three of us and then we'll call on Athena to sort out the questions to the appropriate person who can help them the best. So, with that said, and getting back to our agenda. We've talked about schedule of next meetings and work plan, which was item number six, which then brings us to topics that were not anticipated when we put together the agenda. I'm wondering if anybody from the committee, I have no additional topics. If nobody from the committee has any additional topics that think that we have managed to beat our two hour goal. So, thank you and we'll follow through with next week's meeting. Have a great weekend everybody. Bye.