This is the SF Productions podcast network I mean he's where you get an award you get an award and you get an award and you get an award From the Bob culture bunker. I'm Mindy and I'm mark you can check out our audio podcast How I got my wife three comics on iTunes or our website SF podcast network calm So the Emmy nominations are out. Yep the television Academy keeps trying to tweak the award categories Generally to the detriment of the show, you know, I don't know even what the point of tweaking them is You know, they need to tweak the voters of anything That's the issue because they can't tweak the voters directly. They're like, let's go to them into doing what we want them to do So the comedy and drama show nominees went up to seven each sort of a reflection of the Oscars going up to ten right and because there's so much more on the air now So they've now Arbitrarily decided that a comedy show is 30 minutes or less and a drama is over 30 minutes And that's just not right which screws over shows like Jane the Virgin who by the way got virtually nothing a show can argue to get into the other category they can put up a case to the academy and See if they can get moved from one to the other They're not calling them mini series anymore They're calling them limited series and the rule is we're limited series at least 150 minutes a complete non-recurring story No ongoing story or characters in later seasons. Okay, which seems basically like they said it to say yes shows like American Horror Story and true detective Can fit in that. Yes You have to appear in at least 50% of the episode in less than 50% of the episodes to be a guest actor, okay There's now separate prosthetic and non-prosthetic makeup categories as well as separate period slash fantasy and Contemporary costume categories. Well, otherwise the period fantasy is always gonna win. Yeah there's also an Outstanding special visual effects in a supporting role Which seems odd There is already outstanding special visual effects. Yes as a separate category But how does it operate in a supporting role? We don't know. Ah Now there are of course also unofficial rules You can pretty much use to predict who's gonna win. Mm-hmm There's a split vote. So if there's two people from the same series or property nominated They're likely to split the vote and not win. There is the dead zone if you've died And there's the final season lock Yes So if you're not gonna be eligible again, and you haven't won before it's likely you're gonna win So let's take a look at some of the categories and the nominees beginning with outstanding variety talk series And here's where one of those rules kicks in right so our nominees are the Colbert report Daily show with John Stewart Jimmy Kimmel live Last week tonight with John Oliver, which I do love but I don't think belongs in the variety talk series No much. I mean because it's only once a week, right late show with David Letterman and the tonight show starring Jimmy Fallon Right, and we both predict that David Letterman will take the award because you're going with the last season lock rule And even though the Colbert report is not gonna be on again He has another show and we'll be in the talk show again in just and daily show Just squeaks over to next year. Yes, so he can get his last season lock win next year Outstanding TV movie We have Agatha Christie's pro Bessie grace of Monaco. Hello ladies the movie killing Jesus and nightingale And we both seem to have picked the HBO movies. You picked Bessie. I picked nightingale And I don't think it makes any difference here. I don't even know if this is a relevant category anymore Yeah, because considering that two of the the nominees Agatha Christie's pro and killing Jesus come to you respectively from acorn TV Acorn TV only does British television shows. It's sort of like a Netflix for British TV. Okay, and Nat Geo Yeah How is Nat Geo coming up with best TV movies, right? And then then there's a nominee from Lifetime and the rest are from HBO So there's no network television at all. No, which is you see that a lot in the Emmys now And I just don't think that's a relevant category, right? We then have outstanding animated program, which is part of the creative arts awards aka the kids table. Yes When we start with Archer Bob's burgers over the Garden Wall South Park and the Simpsons the Simpsons will never win again No, no, it's gonna be a perennial nominee, but it will never win again. Exactly. I think it may be Bob's burgers here It's been getting a lot of nice buzz, but as has your choice Archer Archer. Yeah Yeah, I think it's a toss up between one of those two. I can guarantee you South Park is never gonna win the Emmy It's just not gonna happen Outstanding character voice over performance. So this would be a voice in one of those animated shows, right? And we have Hank Azaria from the Simpsons, Don Castellanetta from the Simpsons, Seth Green from Robot Chicken, Tress McNeil from the Simpsons, and John Roberts from Bob's Burgers What voices does Tress McNeil do? I think Crazy Cat Lady. I think she does one of the teachers. I think maybe she does Miss Hoover Yeah, I think she did a special guest type role Yeah, she's not one of the major players on the show again with three nominees from the Simpsons It's unlikely that any of those people will win which Except you think Dan Castellanetta? Yeah. Yeah, I'm bucking the trend of the of the split vote on this I'm gonna stick with the Bob's Burgers, although I'd love it if Seth Green one, but that's another one that's not gonna happen Outstanding guest actor in a comedy series This is the who's the most famous and oldest rule Yes, Mel Brooks for the comedians Louis CK for Saturday Night Live Paul Giamatti for inside Amy Schumer Bill Hader for SNL John Hamm for the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Bradley Whitford for Transparent I did like that John Hamm was nearly unrecognizable. Yeah part of his role. Yes on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt I'm picking Bradley Whitford because I think Transparent has a lot of buzz in Hollywood right now I think it does but I'm going with oldest and most famous Mel Brooks Outstanding guest actress in a comedy series We have Pamela Adlin from Louie Elizabeth Banks modern family Christine Bransky Big Bang Theory Joan Cusack shameless Tina Fey Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Gabby Hoffman from girls. Do you think I don't know I'm thinking maybe girls has lost its luster a little bit. I think it has and in that case if it's not the girls I think it's gonna be Elizabeth Banks and that's who I picked with Elizabeth Banks You can assume right now. I think you can assume for the most part big bang theory I think the the as you notice through is there's not gonna be a lot of nominees from that show And I think that's because the the voters have decided. Oh, they're making too much money or they're making so much money They don't need awards. Yeah, I guess Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series on Dave Andre Brower Brooklyn 9 9 Titus Burgess Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Ty Burrell modern family Adam Driver Girls Tony Hale Veep Michael Keegan Keegan Michael Key for Key and Peele We both picked Tony Hale and Veep for winning. I just think that that show has more of a Following and he's won before and he's won before and Emmys the Emmy voters love to vote the same person over and over But I'd really love to see Brooklyn 9 9 win something as I would I no question. That is such a great show. Yes Outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series. This is a huge list My I'm be Alec big bang theory Julie Bowen modern family and a chum Chalemski Veep Gabby Hoffman transparent Allison Janney mom Jane Krakowski and breakable Kimmy Schmidt Kate McKinnon SNL Nisi Nash getting on You can kind of eliminate. I think SNL You can eliminate getting on whatever that is And so you're going with I'm again sticking with transparent. I think I'm pretty sure I think the the Academy maybe will realize that they kind of screwed over big bang theory the nominations And so they're gonna give it to me and be out except that she's got a lot of weird other things going on Tending to be like almost an anti-vaxxer and stuff. So maybe they won't give it to her for that. Okay. Yeah, you're probably right I don't know. Yeah, we'll see Outstanding lead actor in a comedy series Anthony Anderson and Black-ish Don Cheadle in House of Lies Louis CK and Louie Will Forte the last man on earth Matt LeBlanc in episodes William H. Macy and shameless and Jeffrey Tambor in transparent And we are both going with Jeffrey Tambor because the due to the political climate right now The timing is absolutely perfect for for him to win this yes, and not only that but a lot of the other Nominees are just too out there. I think you know, yeah, and you also notice That Jim Parsons nowhere to be seen after he's won several times. Yeah Outstanding lead actress in a comedy series Edie Falco nurse Jackie Lisa Kudrow the comeback Julie Dreyfus Veep Amy Poehler Parks and Rec Amy Schumer inside Amy Schumer Lily Tomlin Grace and Frankie If Amy Poehler doesn't win this There's something wrong with the Emmys exactly yeah, we're both gonna be very disappointed and that's who we're going for Mm-hmm Outstanding guest actor in a drama series Alan Alda in the blacklist F for Murray Abraham in homeland ball bridges in Masters of Sex Reg E. Kathy in House of Cards Michael J. Fox in The Good Wife and Pablo Schreiber in Orange is the new black And I went with oldest most famous Bo bridges. Well, you know that could also hold true for like F Murray Abraham. I suppose I don't know. I'm going with orange is the new black. I think it's still a little bit of a critical darling. Yeah Outstanding guest actress in a drama series candy Alexander scandal Rachel Brosnan On House of Cards Allison Janney in Masters of Sex Margot Martindale in the Americans Diana Rigg Game of Thrones Cicely Tyson how to get away with murder and you know, I'm probably Leaning that your choice Allison Janney is probably who's going to win, right? I'd really really like to see Diana ring in Game of Thrones win And I think she has a chance because a lot of the Emmy voters here, you know game of Thrones a big show somebody should win but the Emmys have traditionally said genre shows bad. Yes, but this is just guest actress Yes, you know, it's not a big category. We give it to them. Yeah now There's also the idea that Cicely Tyson who's a big name Hasn't appeared in a lot of stuff on television. That's true She could get it because sometimes they like to do that for these guest ones. That's true Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series Jonathan Banks better call Saul Jim Carter down nabby Allen coming good wife Peter Dingledge Game of Thrones Michael Kelly House of Cards Ben Mendelsohn bloodline. I can't believe you picked down to nabby Do you even know who Jim Carter plays on down? Yeah? He's the servant and he's the Okay If he was gonna well, you know, you can't really say this was not his best season Oh, I mean I can say that but you know, it's not like he hasn't been nominated for anything else, right? I'm gonna go with House of Cards Michael Kelly. Okay Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series Uso Duba from Orange is the new black Christine Baransky from The Good Wife That's her second nomination isn't it lots people repeat Amelia Clark Game of Thrones Joanne Fraggett from down to nabby Lena Hedley Game of Thrones and Christina Hendricks from Mad Men And we're both going with Mad Men last season last season lock And Mad Men for the most part has been pretty much passed over a lot by the Academy Outstanding lead actor in a drama series Kyle Chandler bloodline Jeff Daniels newsroom John Hamm Mad Men Bob Odin Kirk better call Saul leave Shriver great Donovan Kevin Spacey House of Cards Yeah, the show we they're like they make a big deal about like what show is this I'm going John Hamm Mad Men. I'm going Kevin Spacey House of Cards I you know, I just think Netflix is kind of in a way. They kind of peaked and they went back down So I think they might get a shot there Outstanding lead actress in a drama series Claire Danes homeland Viola Davis had to get away with murder to Raji P. Henson Empire Tatiana Maslani orphan black Elizabeth Moss Mad Men and Robin Wright House of Cards And I went with Claire Danes homeland because of the repeat rule she's won before and I'm going with Empire because this is really the only nomination for Empire and it did so well It started off and it kept building and building and I think that's gonna attract some people to vote for it. You may be right Outstanding comedy series Louie modern family Parks and Rec Silicon Valley Transparent unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt VIP now I said it's gonna be transparent I don't think that is the outstanding comedy series But I think that's how it'll get voted and I'm hoping that final season lock will win for Parks and Rec Yeah, I don't I'm not hopeful, but I am hoping that you know that that's gonna happen. Yes Outstanding drama series better call Saul down to nabby game of thrones Homeland House of Cards Mad Men and Orange is the new black and we both picked Mad Men we did last season last season lock You can check out our audio podcast how I got my wife treat comics on iTunes or on our website SF podcast network comm From the pop culture bunker. I'm Indy and I'm mark. Thanks for watching and enjoy the Emmys


oined by project manager for hap broody perkins and um so um we you have uh in front of you the warrant and and this concerns article seven and in earlier discussions about article seven we had hoped to do a couple of things with article seven one is to move forth the acceptance of the public way at olympia drive that was part one of article seven part two is to acquire the necessary easements that haven't been acquired yet uh to to um assure that the project would move forward in recent discussions with hap and i'll let mr perkins elaborate more on this in a minute in recent discussions with hap with the town manager with our town council um we've really determined that it's probably premature to move forward with the road acceptance at the fall town meeting and what we'd like to suggest is that we move forward with part of the of the article which would acquire the easements um and so i believe in a memo or an email from mr musanti he outlined an amended motion that would achieve that goal what we'd like to do is reaffirm our commitment to our partner hap and reaffirm that town meeting has voted multiple times for this wonderful project 42 units of affordable housing um while providing hap with the assurances that they need for their funders that the town is proceeding in a logical rational way in steps to get to that point um so i think i'll turn it over to mr perkins if you want to add a little bit more about the funding piece i think the the board might benefit from um some broad brush stroke on the on the funding again rudie perkins from hap um i think in my july letter to you all i i let you know that dhcd had awarded funding but then informed us that they wanted us to significantly or attempt to significantly restructure the funding to take advantage of four percent federal low-income housing tax credits which haven't been used widely enough maybe in our state but they are also a little trickier to use at least for us this is a new thing for us and so it's taken more time in complicated back and forth with dhcd and also with two different um quasi public entities mass housing and mass development which issue the uh tax exempt uh financing bond financing that goes with these four percent credits we've been you know for months now going back and forth and now also put in two formal applications one with mass development one with mass housing for their particular uh tax exempt financing piece and that's all taken more time than we had thought or hoped so we we are a few months behind where we thought we would be at this point in time and when we heard the the town's concern about taking on the public way so early that you were catching another winter of snow removal potentially on the road and so on while waiting for the funding we we thought this might be a good solution um that has the advantage of having us show any funders who are concerned about things like easements and so on that that authority to acquire those is in place um so that we don't get the the funding closing process derailed by something like that but it also postpones into the spring although i would request if you could put uh that article as early on the the springtown meeting as you could so we might have a vote on the public way acceptance early because there is a chance that this will tend to delay the possible start if we have to wait for that public way acceptance to to go forward okay mr i'm a little confused because article seven still says to see if the town will vote um to accept as a public way so are we going to dismiss this and just pass this motion as written tonight um the recommended motion um for article seven includes the portion of the original article that uh accepted easements take steps to accept easements that would go forward at the november town meeting the actual street acceptance portion of that would be occurring at the spring town meeting early um duly noted um so it'll be so we think it's within the scope and uh is another good faith you know action on the part of part of the town to show progress in this effort um to get the project completed and get the roadway improved and then ultimately accepted long term uh you've already voted as a select board the intent to lay out the public way it's been to the planning board all those kinds of things we have a vote recently from the umass board of trustees that the university brought forward about pursuing special legislation from the commonwealth because this is state-owned land at the present time that where the roadway is uh that process is underway and we're working with our legislators to work that through and their partners at umass to work that through um so this gets us to the end of the project where we have the affordable units created we have the roadway improved in the town uh you know or the funding in place for that in the towns in a position to then accept accept the road if i might add um just to follow up um so to mr stein's point you hadn't voted uh to support the article yet right coming to you with a recommended uh motion to amend the article so prior to that um we also wanted to make sure um out of respect for the select board that we came to you first the finance committee has been asking some questions about the road acceptance because of course that comes with some financial uh uh responsibility and liability on the town's part so we wanted to come have a uh a short conversation with you first so that we could then or i could then go back with mr pooler to the finance committee and address some of their questions we believe this um uh motion and this amendment to the article will address most of those questions so that makes good sense um the thing about the uh state legislation are you at all concerned that um the sequencing of these things such that our situation could hold you up that you wouldn't rather have our the town of america's acceptance of this in your pocket and then you only have one other variable to wait for well um from a developer standpoint sure that would be ideal but um we're trying to be good partners here with the town we understand the town had concerns the advantage of the two uh easement authorizations is there's really no cost they just give the select board the authority to acquire the easement it doesn't compel you to do that at any time it doesn't become an immediate acquisition of the easements whereas my understanding of the the public way acceptance then there's immediate liability for snow removal and so forth so um you know there there could be some delays but on the other hand that the time that's it's taking till it to get this funding structure in place and everybody on board my guess is that it will probably be happening about the same time as spring town meeting the way these things go so I hope there won't be too much delay um yeah thank you um Mr. we need to put any any connection with this article to what's happening at UMass provision recognizing a statement that we do recognize it no that will certainly be part of our discussion and description of how this fits into the bigger picture that being one of them along with the different funding entities um but it's not necessary to be part of the article itself this time would you like to make the amended motion sir I move that the select board recommend november 19th 2012 special town meeting article seven olympia drive street acceptance it's still a funny title first where we're not doing the street acceptance well it's still warrant article title I know but so most like we should change it but I guess you can't okay with the following motion that the town authorized the select board to acquire by gift purchase and or eminent domain a permanent easement to use olympia drive for all purposes for which public ways are used in the town of amherst and permanent drainage water sewer access and or other easements related thereto including without limitation a water and sewer easement in authority way all are shown on a plan entitled quote roadway acceptance plan olivia drive an authority way comma amherst mass um end quote dated august 23rd 2012 prepared by ducet and associates and on file incorporated and on file with the town clerk second the discussion mister here the title is just wrong but I guess we just have to go with it because that's what the one because that's what the article says I mean it's I mean that's that's Diana's question I understand it's just it's just not right and just saying the motion as drafted is directly from town council's suggested motion right motion is correct and you're making clear in your motion tonight that you're recommending this article with the following motion right whatever the name is yeah right it's just it's funny that it's called the street acceptance when that part's being removed all right so then we've got the recommendations from the last time do we want to just go through those you want to just go through them next time are you prepared to make the recommendations so these are ones that you considered last time you didn't have all the materials in front of you so you wanted extra time so first of all is OPEB making the recommending the appropriation to OPEB trust fund mr I was just going to suggest that while yes I'm at this point completely overwhelmed by paper um like you're sitting there with your little pad and I'm going I got 12 different versions of everything sitting here um I would say that yes we should do that because then we'll know our assignments and stuff and we'll be set for Monday that 19th so that would get the article get it over with nine make the motion I'm sorry I thought we were going to discuss them first I just have to find it now we make the motion and then we can discuss it um that's true um is it on here for motion for which one do you want that it's two of the motion here the third one now okay dokey I move that the select board recommend November 19th 2012 special town meeting article three other post employment benefits parence opad and parence trust fund second further discussion I'll note that I was not here for the last meeting um but uh I'll say this specifically to this one and more generally to the other ones um I've watched the presentations from the meetings I have um I I feel qualified to make a vote on this would select board prefer that I abstain or no no we've talked about this tons of times okay all right none of you talked about the material is very thorough here and and you know what the presentation helped comprehend material but it's all there very well and they weren't it wasn't a legal public hearing whereby this uh vote is binding okay very well further discussion on article three all in favor say aye aye unanimous who I would love to speak to that since I have such an opinion on it I would like to suppose your opinion is very positive exactly because now it's positive all right uh next one I move that the select board recommend November 19th 2012 special town meeting article four transfer destabilization fund thank you for the discussion for the discussion all in favor say aye I I could just as easily do that since I'll just be following the finance committee anyway excellent article seven we did that article nine oh who wants to speak to did we do article nine I'll be happy to speak to that first we just did article seven what is the olympia drive oh but what you were doing that already Diana oh did you I love you drive no I won't have anybody assigned to that but I didn't okay um sure if you want me to I will article seven good then that's missed time um then because we did that vote already yes all right so now the EPS one yes okay I moved that the select board recommend November 19th 2012 special town meeting article nine general bylaw ban of EPS bone in restaurants second for the discussion all in favor say aye aye and I'd be happy to speak to that unless somebody is dying too all yours no it's gonna be yours all right article 10 I move I'm sorry do you want me to go ahead you should just keep moving along I move that the select board approve recommend sorry November 19 2012 special town meeting article 10 zoning bylaw public water supply protection second for the discussion all in favor say aye aye unanimous who would like to speak to that I can do that since it's nothing yeah nothing from the select board's point of view it's a wonderful art what do you mean yeah lots of language all right thank you I'm moving along I move that the select board recommend November 19 2012 special town meeting article 11 zoning bylaw lodging or boarding house definitions second for the discussion all in favor say aye aye aye unanimous who wants lodging and boarding house definitions thank you and what else 15 what 15 is residential zoning definitions did we do this I accident it might the motion might be the wrong place because I'd accidentally put it as a bullet as an active I have down that we were to skip it but that might have been just earlier in the meeting I think we skipped it oh no I thought we hadn't discussed it that's because I erroneously listed it okay as one of the bullets for the active things we were considering tonight and so I said that we were going to put all those off but in fact you had discussed that last all right I moved I moved at the select board recommend November 19 2012 special town meeting article 15 zoning bylaw residential zoning definitions second discussion all in favor say hi hi hi hi that is unanimous we'd like to speak to your residential zoning definitions Mr. Walts okay okay Mr. Walts okay so good we're up to date is that right on the one I think now we're up to 13 and 14 we did vote tonight so we could do the right those tonight you're right we cleaned up from before and now we did vote on 13 and 14 and haven't yet assigned in box at work and we decided to delay 12 okay so right so 13 and 14 okay so we voted on them so who would like to speak to two family dwellings Mr. Hayden that's your big chance for his own yeah I will all right Mr. Hayden and converted dwellings well these ones are gone right those are his two yeah so converted dwellings it's similar you might as well speak to them yeah I'll do that too excellent okay now are we good on all our articles today yes okay oh my god we still have all this work to do so that brings us to our 815 item you know I thought it was a lot later than it is lucky we gained that extra hour the other day right can we call that in right now and we're spending it tonight we're spending it tonight okay so this is a new installment of our budget policy guidelines discussion I watched that part of your meeting where you talked about this last time you didn't have any big things to add or change to the document thus far Ms. Brewer pointed out uh the stuff about cdbg just the capitalization issues and adding the acronym in the first paragraph I added the percentage for the new commercial sector and under the economic development and I asked you to look at the overall philosophy for FY 14 as much as I would rather not do this tonight considering how late it is I think that we need to because we know we've just packed a whole bunch of stuff into our next meeting the one that happens before town meeting I have carefully read these and I do not see any changes if other people did that's fine but I really did read them carefully okay I appreciate that um anyone else have thoughts Mr. Heaton I just wanted to let you know that I read them as well and and I had lots and lots of thoughts but um I think there are lots of nuances that we may discuss later but you ended the next round so I wanted to just want to say I appreciate that you know all of our thoughts have gotten into this and seem to be pretty well all right so you're going to kill me because I'm going to raise two points no stop um so the first one is um in that first paragraph we we've made and this mostly comes from last year but some of it is carried over even from the year before and we say uh at the end of the paragraph towards the end right after the italic stuff it says any revenue in excess of that necessary for level services should be directed at increasing our investment capital decreasing our long-term health care liability OPEB blah blah blah so that's kind of our no new spending philosophy and and we've had that for a couple years I am just throwing this out there I have a little bit of concern about um tying our hands in relation to potential new staffing now I don't know if Mr Musianti has any concept of potential new staffing but lots of the things that we're talking about the neighborhood issues involve as we keep talking about enforcement the police and fire issues with various things that are going on that's all a staffing issue I don't know if Mr Musianti has any designs on potentially increasing any staffing to be proposed in this budget we're we're kind of talking about this without the staffing plan that we've talked about but if we could come up with a way to add necessary staff if that were deemed necessary then do we want to be saying sorry this is a year that we don't want to increase staff when it could be improving our enforcement of the neighborhood issues the public safety issues etc so first I'll ask mr. Musianti what he thinks of that and then we'll see what y'all think I am in the early throws of evaluating budget requests from departments um in order to submit a balanced budget that will be within the guidelines and your guidelines that you develop will be helpful I think it does make sense not to tie our hands about consideration of staffing but having said that given that the revenue growth while positive which is positive compared to a few years ago um is still modest and you know barely supports we think level services so that in and of itself will make it difficult for any sort of you know material increase in spending above and beyond level services including staffing but the notion of not tying our hands but maybe perhaps including some reference to consideration of that you know if tied to some sort of long-term staffing analysis that you will get at least in part in my budget proposal I suspect based on the work we're doing so I don't think it's a bad idea it just may not be practical or affordable next round but why take it entirely off the table for consideration so that's miss bruer and then I want to hear the line again that you think takes it entirely off the table because I don't think it does and and and then I'll elaborate if you could well you lay out your summary statement on priorities if there's extra money and there's no reference to staffing right and I guess my feeling is it doesn't say it doesn't say no way no how on staffing and I would also like to imagine that in addition to potentially tying various things you might find a way to find a little bit of savings to redeploy some other staffing so there there might be something that it might push up the need to redesign something else that we're already doing in order to be able to do something else so I don't want to just have some little I mean again we're just doing this on the fly but I don't want to have some little space that says if it sounds like a really good idea when my preference might well be if it's a really good idea then find a way to make it come out of what we're already doing so I would certainly we would always entertain wonderful ideas and I don't think that I think that if it was something new and really important and based on all these various things we've all been talking about I don't think we'd look at this and say well I just don't think we can listen to you describe that to us because it's not on here so I'm a little uncomfortable about about what that might look like so let me respond before I call him this time I want to make sure that these are meaningful so if this is a bunch of platitudes about how we feel about the budget but then we say oh yeah yeah but obviously if anything else comes up then you know we'll deal with it so we're either saying any new revenue should not be put towards new spending or we're saying we don't actually feel that strongly about it so the the words that we're putting on here we want to be able to go back to both if if the town manager were to present a budget that said yeah but I increased it in these important areas because obviously that's really important then we would want to be able to say actually we said not so much so we don't support that conversely we don't want he doesn't want to come back to us later and say you know when we say how come we're still so understaffed in public safety when his budget comes out on January 16th and he says excuse me you told me no new spending any new revenue had to go towards reserves so that we really are giving each other kind of mutual expectations here maybe what we need to do is make the wording a little bit more flexible to allow for more flexibility or maybe we're just committing to this is or isn't the year that we would consider some kind of expansion if it was beyond if it took new revenue first of all I don't have any trouble adding to that sentence the word safety public safety as a possible place for additional revenue to go but I would point out that we hired a code enforcement officer without having that in the guidelines just by appropriate management and that was exactly for that was the previous year I'm not sure what that what the guideline said then I bet you it wasn't in there so but I don't have any problem with adding towards public safety which is I think the kind of specific hires that would be in your thinking um anyway Walden number three yeah I guess I'm sort of in between where the chair is and miss brewer is because I can I tend to read this as a philosophical statement but it's also a guideline and it's revised annually so I mean one of my instincts might be to say and you know it's sort of like the master plan the understanding that in normal circumstances we direct growth to built-up areas but a large industrial park is going to go to the Paterson property not to downtown Amherst you know it depends on how you understand it so I guess that's my sort of philosophical rhetorical question to what extent we have to be specific because if you want to talk specific I guess I'd rather have the town manager tell us it's a likelihood otherwise I could see a general phrase such as under normal circumstances or what have you leave with that okay mr. I as I'm reflecting on the conversation here realize that there's a very interesting feature of this philosophy in that it's responding directly to a situation that we are in now and one that's pretty hard to imagine being different in the future that is that we will have 0.04 percent more money to spend next year that's not or barely enough to give us services that we've had and expected over the time we so this this doesn't anticipate something else so I and I don't know if that's a flaw if that's just recognition of what where we are but I would respectfully disagree with my colleague professor Stein that adding the words you know safety personnel is is tying our hands in a different way I mean I heard a lot of what I heard tonight is going to demand not more police or fire but more planning department people planning department people or inspections people services or inspect well inspection as well but you know zba support planning board support because there's a lot more stuff that those rules so I want to be a little bit careful about tying our hands in in a way you're absolutely right cops and firefighters important to have as many as we can and teachers and oh yeah pool attendance and no no no that's that's not what I meant so you know I'm I this philosophy is responding to our straightened conditions the last four or five years so which is okay for that now I guess we're asking ourselves to envision something else right I watch sequestration sort of lurk another fear so that philosophy paragraph I think is actually well it's a combination of general and specific that was where a couple of years ago we said oh gosh what was it that we said specifically a couple of years ago I can't remember when we first came up with this now it's all it's a blur but for example we included the reference to cdbg in here I mean these are the things that if last year we had the information about the pool recognizing that the pool was going to be a new expense you didn't want to get through all of this and then say like truly um you know you well what happened you didn't build a new fire station in south amherst or something we were expecting you to oh geez it wasn't in your guidelines you know so it's about being clear so so that the philosophy should change should be um customized every year to deal with the circumstances so to make this concrete this past year we ended up with about half a million dollars more in state revenue than we had expected well guess what that raises half a million dollars worth of opportunities to spend um we made that very easy by having gone through that thought process last year and we knew that we're not going to spend it that this is a year that we were going to put that towards reserves or opab um our capital potentially we included in here because the we knew the economic circumstances were were such that that was required if we wanted to do and so so that that was perfectly covered the same situation this year do we definitely want if if we were to get you know some some new half million dollars do we just want to do that with it or would we be willing to um to expand those possibilities and if we would be willing to expand the possibilities i think we need to acknowledge that somewhere in here miss stein okay professor stein would like to say that's become a pejorative and i want to be very clear not the debate i watched okay um anyway what i was going to say is i think mr hayden is um interpreting public safety in a very narrow sense because what i meant was in the more general sense of building inspections in code enforcement in all those parameters that impact on um nuisance neighborhoods and so i could see including that given the kinds of discussions we've had this evening that that may be an area where we do need to increase um if we had extra money uh resources for dealing with these problems so that they could be dealt dealt with more expeditiously miss reed i appreciate my estimable colleagues clarification on that um what i would like to further observe though is that the half million dollars that came in is not a recurring revenue source and so it would be inappropriate to apply it to a reoccurring cost we've made a distinction between those two some in other in our rest of our philosophy which is giving me an inkling as to maybe what the philosophy should be you mean yes we we can increase our operations if we have the revenue the regular revenue to support a regular increase these these these pleasant surprises are not reliable and should not be used to hire somebody thank you and and so i was trying to uh simplify the instead of speaking hypothetically to speak more specifically but we never would have had a recommendation from this particular town manager and finance director to um to fund ongoing of persons with one-time money so i wouldn't i wouldn't worry about that um um me either but we need to understand it that's right and that's a great thing to clarify for folks who are watching this thing jeez they might have bought police officers with that no we wouldn't have because that was one-time money so that wouldn't have even been a consideration but there are other kinds of spending that you could say is one-time spending that would have been another way of doing this um mr musanti yeah i i i appreciate all this i i would uh i think a way to you know highlight this and be consistent with performance goals that you've laid out for me you know separate from the budget guidelines one of which is a long-term completing a long-term staffing analysis um that you know that you're open to considering recommendations in that domain you know that in a balanced budget but that are you know responsive to a development of a long-term staffing analysis and you know it won't be a dramatic announcement to say that public safety will be as such an important component of what we do be actively you know looked at as part of that analysis so suppose i try including a sentence that gives us a little more flexibility than you know miss berm i think that it's not necessary i would put it in the category of can't hurt might help and we'll see um if that satisfies all of us at the next meeting all right are we good with that there's no and mr hayden both appreciate it for just the way it was yes i apologize for messing with that and i and i have one of mr hayden one more point too that i have to make so i apologize um okay i don't know how else to do this uh and i apologize for missing the last meeting about this which would have been a best a better time to um to bring this up but capital so i have long felt that select board should maybe have some role in helping to express capital needs so the the jcpc that the five-year capital plan is created by departments etc but how do we weigh in on what if something is not on the plan that should be there mr busanti is looking at me going oh my god what is she gonna say this is horrible we didn't talk about this um no so we have talked about this before so i want to sort of get on the table and i don't know if it should be included here or what but um i think that we need to be looking at you think it needs to be expressed somewhere in the long-term capital plan that as a town especially to be developing our downtown increasing our tax base we need to be looking at increasing our parking potential so that is not currently anywhere on the capital plan i wonder how the select board would feel about expressing that as a select board priority to get that conversation started we know that the parking garage as it exists took a ridiculous number of years to get to that point that was after the conversation started this conversation hasn't even started yet so how do you get it on the table to be making progress towards at some time when that will be a reality so i'm not making a recommendation for any parking garage or anything like that i'm saying would the select board like to go on record as saying that um a a long-term capital need needs to be included in the capital plan about downtown parking infrastructure that's quarter 10 no way mr waltz i guess my only question i i'm sympathetic to that i guess my only question would be do we want to get out in front of particular bodies responsible for that by calling a capital need rather than talking about studying a need i mean are we sure that's the actual solution as opposed to redistribution exist you know we've had the conversation a million times every few years that's just a a thought not a so personally i think it is i think that i think that the old study you know showed we had adequate parking for now and it said it could be even better if you aggregated all these public spaces or privately owned spaces and stuff well that's easy to say but it was hard to do and that hasn't happened and now versus the future aren't the same thing so i think that even the facts on the ground now are vastly different from where they were when that parking study happened i think that obviously if you didn't have a study that proved that you needed a new parking facility you wouldn't proceed with it just because it was on the capital plan but i think the idea of getting it on the capital plan to formalize and direct some kind of discussion about future parking um would be uh a positive thing to do that's sort of my question just where most appropriately to direct the question okay um miss stein and miss burr i keep thinking what's on the capital list i keep thinking about the fire station situation i think just it's so overwhelming even to have it on the list and have it pushed and know that we need desperately to do something i mean the downtown fire station has so many problems and then we have the distance issues and that we had the whole report came out on the fire station what how many years ago four three it's been a while um i just i think i think it's too much for this um i think there are so many issues for capital at this point that just leaving it is i just think it's more than we need right now okay miss burr i tend to agree with miss stein um and i think that the way to go about it especially if we're particularly convinced that it probably is some sort of capital investment not just redeployment and repainting lines and doing with what we have um is that it needs to somehow and we don't normally create things so obviously this would be one way of attempting to do that but i don't think this is the right the right um tool i think we do need to find we do there does however need to be a way that we can as having people on joint capital planning bring it forward without it having to have been necessarily an idea somebody else a department actually wants to have happened but that a body wants to have happened i think that's a perfectly reasonable way to make a proposal i mean obviously you're not going to invent a garage on our own because we're select board members not engineers but i there does need to be a way that it could feed into the capital plan without it having been recommended by somebody else because it does need to be in there next to the fire station and next to the mowers and next to all the other wonderful things we put in there because we have not all we have we've gotten so much better over the years you know and and i'm not tied closely to it now but just having remembered it from when i was on school committee etc it just keeps the process keeps getting better and better and still we would find things that we just didn't think to put on there in terms of ongoing maintenance associated with capital items that is relatively expensive not just sending somebody out to go look at it but the actual requires you know new investment every so often to maintain what we do have and so i think it's it's a method it's something that needs to go along with those tools of continuous improvement of our capital plan and that parking does somehow need to come up in that venue so then this is sort of a two-part thought exercise for the future so you can think whatever you want about a parking obviously there's not a big um sentiment on the select board to to do anything with that with the guidelines but um but the idea of how do we express ourselves on capital how do we bring ideas for potential capital stuff to the table so uh so here and then you know whether it's a discussion as part of our budget process in the fall whether there's another time to do it it reacts to whatever the capital plan is or whatever but um but you can all sort of help us think about how to do that because it it does seem to be maybe a missing link in all of this as well yeah that's very well taken i didn't mean to sound too negative about the other one it was a question of places and we're kind of caught in the middle because you know the library's got a capital budget the schools the police and fire but the finance committee does its thing and we do our thing and so i think formalizing our role requests would be good now this year miss dine for example uh proposed increasing the amount allocated to capital which was a good thing to do based on what jcpc did plus our budget guidelines here but right now there's no formal mechanisms so we're kind of you know it depends on who you represent what they're doing okay good i think we're done with the budget guidelines discussion for this time i'll bring you a new hopefully final draft for the next meeting how many others report mr missy okay a few things and i will talk fast our hurricane sandy which was not named after our finance director but happens to be the next letter in the alphabet uh you know came through our area or impacted our area last week on the 29th and 30th of october we were very fortunate in our region compared to the south coast of new england and certainly the new york new jersey area i had my uh emergency management team working in advance we had good cooperation and communication with i think each other and with uh western mass electric company in particular before and during the event uh we had relatively less damage here at the peak of the storm on monday evening we had somewhere around a thousand customers out in town of electricity that's about 10 that was reduced very quickly uh to really i think we were in the down to a handful i think down to one customer even by the following morning on tuesday we had some outages uh across town but um some concentration in north amherst monday evening and the power for most of those customers was restored uh laid into that by about 11 o'clock uh monday night i can tell you that uh for the event uh our roads remained passable we had some trees down but not a huge number uh there were three uh that we are aware of that caused damage two fell on vehicles and one one hit a vehicle and a house uh so we were aware of those uh the other trees our branches that came down were moved to the sides of the road and the roads became passable east pleasant street was closed briefly monday evening to affect a transformer repair related to the power outage um water and sewer were fully operational um dispatch staffed up in advance as did police and fire uh dispatch uh said they were busy between three and eight o'clock on monday uh with no calls zero storm related calls after midnight on monday which was quite fascinating uh police reported minimal issues most people heeded the advice of us and others to basically hunker down and stay off the roads so that was that was very helpful uh i closed uh town offices at noon time on monday uh several hours in advance of the worst the storm to allow employees to get home uh non-essential personnel uh schools were closed on monday but we are all open for business tuesday morning um the regional shelter at smith vocational run by the red cross did open uh and they had 26 guests i'm told uh monday night i don't have a breakdown of how many if any were from amherst we had no requests for rides or anything like that and we were willing to do that if necessary uh i did give permission to the homeless shelter the emergency homeless shelter which was scheduled to open november first at first baptist church i did give them permission to open early uh on monday evening and they did they had six guests uh protected from the weather that night and they stayed open during the day on tuesday and tuesday night and then uh were open wednesday night as well and then their regular opening thursday night the first so that went relatively smoothly and again good collaboration cooperation with craig's doors and with our colleagues at first baptist church um so uh i also want to acknowledge uh that we have a good team in place and we also had excellent work by our line personnel or dpw crews water and sewer the highway crews the tree crews uh and staffing of the dpw related calls we only had 11 or 12 dpw related calls during the storm which was uh positively low uh number we had our facilities team town and school working on building security prep school buildings town buildings before and during the storm uh we had our health staff uh julie and her staff all engaged answering phones uh answering questions preparing uh supplies and planning for cots etc dealing with the regional shelter coordination i mentioned dispatch center uh it and staff from my office were participating getting our eoc up and running uh in other sharing of information and doing our reverse 911 calls i made i believe three uh when all was said and done including a final call uh so midday call on monday um status call early monday night and a what was really mostly a post mortem call on tuesday morning uh and then our police and fire staff out on the field responding to calls and dealing with residents uh so uh so it was a good response overall i think we're in the kind of post storm interaction with me about whether the damage that resulted from this storm rises to in a a high enough level to trigger state or federal financial support that remains to be seen we won't know the answer to that for several more weeks but we're working on that in gilford mooring in particular who has quite a bit of practice now in doing post storm uh reimbursement requests uh is helping pull all that together so i'll have more on in the weeks ahead on whether we get any financial relief but our out of pocket cost was uh not too bad it was very very low for us and our public damage was was low we're still compiling some of the tree estimates but we're in pretty good shape thank you um i had already emailed to the slide board that uh that i went by the eoc on uh monday afternoon for a to just listen in on the phone call with me ma and other folks who are giving the latest updates at that point and uh and i was just so impressed by all of the plans on the contingency plans that were made by the entire emergency team um they were thinking several days into the future about all kinds of what ifs could happen you know we look back on it now and and we were so fortunate to have it be a storm that was uh of little consequence except to those of us who had serious consequences um but uh you know comparatively to our region um but the uh the staff in the emergency team were were ready for uh vastly more than what we got and uh i just wanted select board to know in the public to know um just how um how comforted and secure i felt by that so and and kudos to mr musanti and his staff mr aden i i can't imagine that the value of having such good forecasting such accurate forecasting uh could ever be determined but um i just want to point out that that's sort of a little bit of catch 22 i mean great forecasting means that we were able to get ahead of it and reduce our potential damages and so we can't declare a disaster and get reimbursed um that's one thing but also the apparently the system that allows those forecasts to be made um is aging and there's a piece of it is about to fail so i don't know if at some point we may want to um step up and support legislation to fund the new goes west i think it goes west that that's about to about to come down satellite so just just okay any other questions or comments about the storm response okay again as it approached 10 p.m. uh very briefly uh i attended a meeting uh i was invited by organizers of a new regional chamber of commerce for hampshire county uh susan beck from the northampton chamber organized that meeting we had myself the town administrator from hadley mayors of northampton and eastampton there molly keegan also joined us who's on the founding board of the regional chamber we just had a good discussion about what their mission is and how they are meant to supplement and and complement the existing local chambers including ours in the greater amherst chamber and it's the whole point of coming up with a more unified regional voice on you know chamber related issues economic development and otherwise so it was a good discussion about uh i expressed a lot of interest in working uh collaboratively with that group i know they've been engaging the amherst chamber as well and i so i think it has great uh great promise question about that okay next another exciting uh anaerobic digester uh this is a effort uh that the mass uh d e p uh is partnering they've been looking at uh state-owned land uh to uh has another way to generate renewable energy in massachusetts by uh looking at how we might get energy from some of the organic material that's disposed of in our waste stream which represents over 25 percent of the waste stream which is a surprisingly high number um and so they they have a technology that uh is in its early stages but has proven to have some success uh using a process called anaerobic digestion and they've identified they're trying to identify three sites across the state uh for um public land and they've identified one site that is on state-owned land it's technically in Hadley but it's adjacent to our existing wastewater plant on mullen's way so it's on the corner of mullen's way and uh mass av and the uh two of the primary benefits of that location are uh you know food waste including a substantial generator of food waste uh at the university uh and wastewater sludge which is one of our byproducts of our wastewater treatment process that we pay a lot of money to every year to dispose of offsite and sometimes out of state um could conceivably be uh processed into at this facility and generated into into renewable energy so we think that has great promise uh the DEP next step is uh have some informational meetings out in the community and we've been talking about having a joint meeting with our neighbors in Hadley uh that would likely occur sometime in the first part of December the DEP would come back out and uh we'd have representatives from DEP uh UMass who were at the meeting I attended at UMass along with Hadley um and we'd invite you and other appropriate representatives of the town planning board public works etc uh to attend uh so I wanted you to let you know so there's a there's a feasibility study that will be undertaken we'll have a lot of discussions with the state going forward and they were very constructive dialogue even at this first meeting uh we want to understand all the benefits but also are there issues uh that require mitigation for example um related to um if there is such a facility adjacent to our wastewater plant uh their impacts on our treatment process that might require permit changes or capital investment to accommodate and how might we partner with our colleagues at the state level to try to move forward on those issues so I think it is great promise there's some issues and we're we're starting a good dialogue on on the whole effort questions about them okay next uh cdbg update uh I am continuing to pursue uh potential reconsideration of the uh department of housing and community developments uh uh pro uh announcement that we might lose our many entitlement status with the next grant year beginning next october 1st uh DHCD has released uh some updated summaries of where they are in their process for next year and that includes the notion of uh the town of amherst uh uh being considered for up to 450,000 of so-called transition funding in the next grant cycle now that's basically half of our current year 900,000 we articulated transition funding as a backup alternative uh if full-blown reconsideration uh was not successful of our eligibility um I am going to be continuing to pursue aggressively the notion of reconsideration uh I think the DHCD's announcement is a positive step forward that we kind of have the outlines of what a transition option might look look like uh financially uh there'd be a uh grant application for the whole category has been delayed until february so like we do every year where we we get an initial award of a certain amount and then we submit specific proposals to spend the money uh that would still occur as part of this february submittal but it's possible that it'll be in the transition funding category but we'll still try to see if we can get clarity on reconsideration uh prior to that question about that miss brewer is going to comment that she uh believes that the town manager is not painting the picture quite as bleakly as she thinks it needs to be painted for the cdbg proposal although I have great faith that he will find a way to aggressively have them reconsider our position to give you a better sense of what half means and I mean the viewing public in addition to all the delightful people here with us tonight is that that means that we are talking about only 90 000 for social services for a whole year that's how much the shelter costs when we don't pay as much as it actually needs so that's one thing just one and none of the other agencies getting anything if we look at just the amount that that requires and it's a huge obviously a huge cut in our cap and on particular because it's still a 60-20-20 split no matter how you're always forced to do it that way it also means um not only the other agencies that we have such great partnerships with and we've been delighted to be able to fund again but also just the town of amherst flexible emergency funds those wouldn't even be there either and when we're talking you know seven thousand dollars here ten thousand dollars there it's it's a huge thing so obviously i'm sure the town manager is working very hard on this for many reasons including that it's going to be difficult to figure out how to accommodate these elsewhere in the budget but it's it's just that thank you and cdbg is going to try and get together and have a meeting to decide how they might move forward with prioritizing that you know if that is the worst case scenario which you know thank goodness 450 is still better than zero um if that is the worst case scenario how they would prioritize the different proposals they have because they're all up online right now and of course they have proposals for seven hundred thousand dollars worth of capital and three hundred thousand dollars worth of social services so how would they then narrow it down further given the circumstances i would just reinforce that i wasn't trying to sugarcoat anything oh no just um set the you know this uh announcement um appears to show that the worst case isn't a hundred percent cut but it's a 50 percent cut still a very severe cut with serious consequences but it's not as bad as a nine hundred thousand dollar total elimination of the funding for everything in that program so um we're gonna we're gonna keep at it we're on the town manager's report then let's do the untimed item that we need to do um one of them that we need to do the one about authorizing the interminiscible agreement for assessor's services to the town of Pelham and this is something that you were briefed on at the last meeting we have a good memo in our packets about this um it's pretty straightforward we've got an arrangement with Pelham by which they will pay us um prorated this year and then uh full amount in coming years uh for us to provide their assessing services so uh town council suggestion is that we need to sign off on this miss stein would you like to make the motion i would i move that the select board authorized the town manager to enter into an interminiscible agreement with the town of Pelham where the amherst assessing department to provide assessing services to the town of Pelham second for the discussion they were saying hi hi thank you okay um let's actually get through the other untimed items that we have to do before we get to the member reports that we don't have how about the proclamation yes please um i don't think we have to read it it's posted online so i'll just make the motion i moved to proclaim that the select board proclaimed november 18th 2012 Puerto Rican day and to permit the Puerto Rican flag to be flown from november 9th 2012 to november 30th 2012 second for the discussion miss Brewer um the proclamation says november 8th and the motion says november 18th yeah i sent that to miss russell and she was gonna fix the signing copy for it's supposed to be 18th although it says the 8th we don't know or the 18th well it's one of those i was thinking it must be later i was thinking it was closer to thanksgiving but i thought that's i thought it was the 18th also let me just check my email because what i was going to tell you was when the um flag raising is it's the ninth i think it's at three o'clock because that fell during snow told me it says it should be november 8th i'm sorry she she followed up on my email said should be november 8th prepare a revised motion she has the actual day okay but we said our hands this fifth day yep that's okay so the the signing copy is correct and we just changed the motion which was not changed to say that is correct and let me just tell you about the flag raising while we're on the subject is november 9th at 3 p.m so that's right okay further discussion all in favor say hi hi hi and do we have to do the merry maple yes um let's talk about the merry maple um we can do the merry maple thing the parking thing we can't do that one yet that's not even the same as what it is currently or what i should say what we did last year um so i would rather put that off mr okay yes i was going to ask if we could just do the greeting card day and merry maple part and then that way we have the greeting card day there's no reason to mix all the rest of the stuff in with greeting card day and just that because that that motion like is totally not even what we would approve um but just so that everybody knew for greeting card day because that's you know faster than the other stuff but if you want to put it off too it just it just it doesn't have to be in the same motion it's true it doesn't have to the only thing thing is that one of the things that's missing is whether or not there's a small business saturday this year that there was last year which was the day uh the saturday after thanksgiving which is more like greeting card day as because those were things that we said townwide versus the other one so if you wouldn't mind if we just hold off as i figure out with the chamber and the bid and the office what exactly we're doing about all the different parking things for this year and if you could clarify because like i wrote down three things about the parking saying no wrong uh-uh no okay so so that you know what we did last year we did free parking townwide on both reading card day and the small business saturday that i get and then we also did free parking in the boltwood garage and then the town portion of the cvs lots saturdays and sundays between thanksgiving and christmas so this one starts december eighth i don't know why um so we're just too soon to clarify if you have if you have opinions on that then then let me know as as we form the motion for the next time then if you just take out the town hall lot i don't want people parking for free in the town hall lot that's that's not where we're encouraging parking in the town hall i don't know why it says that in the town hall lot it says we don't want to use that as a preposterous i don't know how that ended up i'm sure you know okay so we'll work on that i didn't know that one was coming forward right now so yes if we could do just the merry maple good street closure one okay so you're not going to worry about greeting card day you're just going to do the first half just just the thing with just the thing with all the bullets that motion okay yeah i moved at the select board approve the amherst area chamber of commerce request to close the following streets on friday november 30th 2012 for the annual merry maple event close the main street parking lot in front of town hall from 12 p.m to 6 30 p.m prohibit parking in the spring street parking lot north side only from 2 p.m to 6 30 p.m closed boltwood avenue between spring street and main street from 12 p.m to 6 30 p.m block off part of a lane on north pleasant street from the pub restaurant to the town common to allow for horse drawn carriage rides second further discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous okay anything else we have to do tonight member reports critical need uh i everybody's shaking their head okay i know my report we'll do on some other time shares report i have nothing to say in the chairs report except to just to note that letter that was in your thing from the in your packets from the water supply protection committee that followed up on a request we made of them to look into whether or not we needed town bylaws regarding looking for natural gas um underneath amherst soils and water supply protection committee said no we don't need to and this was in our packet yeah it's supposed to be it's to me totally fine oh never mind then i'm gonna go in your next time for mine i can save time on the next time on the online packet you're all kind of looking at me at no way okay i think that's everything does anybody else think that there's anything that i've missed here mr hayden otherwise we'd like to make his motion i would move to adjourn then without objection this meeting we'll adjourn 30 is just like 9 30 10 16 10 16 like 9 30 give me a break the next time we meet is 6 15 at the middle school on november 19th how am i going to write this down uh town meeting so


This is our gym. It's called Third Street Barbell. It's made of home and house, a community of like-minded individuals. I have this all written down and memorized. Are you guys happy? Of people who want to get better, stronger, and maybe make some friends. I like to lift weights. I like video games. I went to bed at one o'clock and I've been up since six. I have nothing in my stomach except a rock star. Rock star and dry writs crackers. Official day seven. I believe we got the keys midday, last Tuesday. 10 hours a day, 70 hour a week. 70 hour work week. Plus emails. I'm tired. So step one was sit around in paralysis by analysis to not know what to do. Step two was figure out that there's too much to do. And then step three started doing. So we literally just pressure wash this entire place, top to bottom, left to right, like three times. And then painting again. We probably started painting, I don't even know anymore. I'm so lost. Four days ago? Four days. Probably not bad. Four days to paint this whole thing. And we're on, we're just calling them A side B side. So we have A side over here, which is probably, I don't know, 4,000 square foot. And then B side that's probably 1,000 square foot plus. Tire space is near 6,000 square foot. Rafters, good shape, but extremely dirty.  And obviously you have square footage of the roof as the same square footage of the ground. So we had a lot to do. Walls were dirty, but not insane. Couple of pressure washers later, it looked okay. This whole side took two coats of paint. And overall it looks pretty good. The walls are tall, so painting wasn't like the easiest task. But we're in the zone. The opposite side, some of the paint is dense. There's like blacks and dark reds and graffitis. So hopefully two layers will get her done. And we just touched that up. Meanwhile, on the back end, insane amount of emails. As many of you probably heard, people rushed and bought every piece of fitness equipment under the sun as soon as COVID and the lockdown hit. So manufacturers and equipment's a little slim to come by. Luckily we've got a lot of homies out there. So I'm communicating with a couple of companies on what would be the best fit for our needs, our budgets, and what's going to serve our members best. And so that's number one. It's trying to make it look cool while being highly functional, right? That doesn't have to be perfect, but I want it to be pretty. So talking to a couple of equipment companies and then designing clothes. That's where my time has been. It's literally been physically here, painting and designing the first launch. That is third street athletics. And that's on the way. So big meeting this morning, finalizing some pieces for the clothing. You guys know I'm into it. I did a Q&A yesterday for the podcast. The first thing is where you get all your dope tees. I'm not Tom Ford. I'm not Mugatu.  Blue Steel, Ferrari, Latigra, they're the same face. I'm trying to be the Mugatu of the fitness athleisure game because these kids don't know anymore, dude. Kids don't recognize that movie's ahead of its time. I am Mugatu. I'm going to switch my Twitter handle, the Mugatu today. So I'm trying to fit you head to toe, man. Keep you looking right, feeling good with functional clothing that brings a style to the fitness game that I don't think I have ever seen. That doesn't fit my taste. You know, my background's a little bit in basketball and kind of that culture, streetwear, hip-hop world is what I grew up with. That's kind of close. I kind of rock. Obviously, I'm not very stylish right now. Is this the grossest t-shirt? Give this a thumbs up if this is the grossest t-shirt you've ever seen. Give this thing a thumbs up if this is the grossest t-shirt ever. Be sure to subscribe if this is the grossest t-shirt ever. And also turn on notifications if this is, in fact, the grossest t-shirt you've ever seen. And I watched it two days ago. Um, so painting will be done. The floor is in original shape. This building was made in the 60s, so it's a very original concrete. Now we can't make it perfect. We're not going to make it so you can eat off of it, but we're going to get rid of some of the imperfections and we're going to grind this entire thing down. Jim, Mick B, my business partner, my homie, said it best in the podcast yesterday, which is out, 50% of facts, that we're doing much more than building a gym. One, I think we're starting a evolution of what powerlifting and strength gyms will look like. But most importantly right now, we're in renovation. We're doing a full run up. We're not just buying a building, planting a squat rack in here and charging you a membership. We're renovating this space, and elevating this space to what it never has been. And I think we're elevating what I think the expectations of a strength gym, community powerlifting, and the clothing aspect to a new level. Will we have some basic stuff? Sure. I'm not saying I'm not Mugatu yet. I'll elevate myself there. But we're not just taking every single t-shirt and just the same t-shirt every other company does and just putting our logo on it and red, green, yellow, blue, purple. We're trying to really create some culture about the strength game. Strength game, like anything else, it is a mixture of people. It's made for everyone, but it can have its own culture as well. And that's what I think it's lacking, and that's something why I don't identify with the strength game. I don't identify as a powerlifter or whatever, and that's another question, a very common question I got. Why don't you feel that? What's going to be different about your gym and your clothing from other gyms, and why have you never been able to identify with those places? And I think a lot of it is just the culture and the vibe.  I go to therapy for that. I lift weights because I enjoy it. Sure, it helps out some of that energy that as humans need to get out and helps my mental state, but I go to therapy for my mental state. I don't sniff ammonia until I can't think for my mental state. I'm a regular dude. I like playing video games. I like cars. I like fashion. I love hip-hop music, and that's not your stereotype powerlifter. And I think now that powerlifting's big, there's a lot of you that are similar to me. So this space, this gym, we're going to elevate what it means in terms of the showers, the bathrooms, the service, the look, the feel, the benefits you get of being a member. And then on the clothing side, and it's for everyone. The lifting is for everyone. And that's why I love powerlifting. The fashion side may not be for you. It may not be your style, but we'll always have a piece or two that's a little bit calmer, a little bit more normal that can kind of rock with everybody. So I'm going to sand this wood down, try to make it look pretty. We've got to wait three hours. We're going to repaint the other side. We're taking tomorrow off for a mental health day. Gym has some appointments. I'm going to catch up on my email work and probably sleep. I haven't slept at all. And then chip away at this ground Friday. So time to sand.


Steely and Courtney, first off, welcome to New York. You guys have won titles in the WNBA separately. You've won titles together, I believe, in Euro League. What would it mean to bring the first title to New York, as Clara said, to the basketball since 73, and the first one ever for this franchise, one of the original WNBA teams? Well, I think like you said, Slut and I have played a lot together, won a lot together, won a lot separately, but I speak for myself, and I believe Slut, when I say that we both wanted to play together in the WNBA, and go after a WNBA championship together, it's much better to be on her side than playing against her, and we're really excited with the opportunities that we have here, the players that have been here, the franchise, the front office, and knowing that we have all the pieces to go after a championship, and now it's just getting ready for that and getting ready for the season. Just to add to that, I think we probably, well, you maybe don't know, but I was a part of a first-time champion in the Chicago sky, and I do know how special that first one is, and so it's obviously been a long time since New York had one, but to bring that first one for the Liberty, it is something special, and of course there's a lot of work to do before that, but I think everyone up here spoke about we have the right pieces, we have the right vision, and that's the ultimate goal. Hi, Alexa Phillips with ESPN. Could you both speak to the recruitment process throughout Free Agency? I'm sure it's probably different than other Free Agency times that you all have experienced, and what was it about Liberty's pitch, more or less, or how they showed their investment in you that made you wanna come here? Well, for me, it was just like the plan, the vision right away, it was so clear, it was not dependent on this, or if this happens or this happens, it's like this is what we see, this is what we're gonna go do, we wanna bring a championship, we wanna bring the best players here, we're gonna take care of you. It was everything that, I speak for both of us that we're looking for, they really push in the envelope in all areas, and I think we bought into how special it would be to bring a championship to New York.  Okay, cool. No, I think that, first of all, when I think about the recruitment process, it is wild, and it's wild to have done it two years in a row, because it brings me back to just college recruiting, just the way it goes like that, meeting people, seeing organizations, and what ultimately helped me decide on New York, obviously, closer to home, I have roots here, but I wanna be surrounded by greatness, and when you look at these people up here, and the many people that are a part of the Liberty organization, everybody wants to be better, everybody wants to continue to raise the standard and move the needle, and we wanna do that from on the court, off the court, whatever the case may be to help this organization and the league be better. Hello, welcome to New York. It's doing your case, welcome back. Jeff Maglicetti with All Knicks and Baseline Sports NYC. Kind of a two-part question here. Why was now the right time to end illustrious careers in championship locales to move on to what New York is developing, and how will your respective unique skillsets mesh with the current New York group and help guide them to their lofty goals? I think now is the right time to do it. I don't think last year I was ready to completely leave Seattle, and especially with Sue coming back, wanting to really enjoy and appreciate the opportunity to play with one of the greatest to ever play, and now looking at New York, I also have the opportunity to play with one of the greatest to ever play, and it's just about timing, and that's really it. I didn't feel like my journey was complete in Seattle when I was a free agent last year, and now this year, my family and I, we were ready. We were ready to make the move and just ready to kind of start a new chapter in my career and in the WMG. And the second question, I'm sorry, I don't remember. I won't. How will your unique skillset mesh with the current group? Oh, yeah. I think meshing with the current group of players and obviously the coaching staff is gonna be really exciting just because we have a ton of talent. You can look at the roster from top to bottom, and it's tough to find any holes in it just from what players can do. We've played with JJ before, overseas, we, I've played USA Basketball with Benazza and Sprena. Steph, I've played within college, so it's like I've played with a lot of these players just in a different setting, and now to come together. It's a really special opportunity because I think things like this don't happen often where you have so much talent and so many amazing players, and the selflessness of all of us is what's gonna help us succeed. Hey there, Meredith Cash with Insider. Welcome to New York. I wanted, you mentioned earlier, this is for both of you, but, Stewie, you mentioned earlier that it feels surreal to actually be here, look around. What are you feeling right now, and what has it been like since you actually arrived in New York for this? Well, I just got here yesterday, so it hasn't been that long, but Stewie and I were coming over in the car just an hour ago, and it's like, can you believe it? Like, we can't believe that it's actually here, we actually were able to make it happen. Things a lot happened. I didn't know what Stewie was gonna do, still waiting on things to happen during free agency, and just excited. And I think it's gonna feel surreal, and it's not gonna feel really real, probably until we practice, and I'm in my pretty clothes, and working out, and getting ready for a game here, but it just makes me excited. It makes me excited on all fronts to be embracing this community on and off the court, in a basketball city, and know that the fans are excited for us to be here, too, because it seems like sales are going pretty well. All right, we're gonna head over to Zoom really quickly. How are it, Meg Dolls? Great, it's time to chat.  There's one, how long does that process typically take, and what are some specific ways that you go about making that work on the court and off the court that have worked overseas for you? Well, I think great players wanna play with other great players, and when you have those great players, they know, and they respect the people to the left and right of them so much that they know that they can make this work, and yes, we've all had success individually. When you look at the whole roster, everyone's had success, but as a collective group, this team has not yet, and that's a goal that I think that we're really interested in, in figuring out how to check that box, and I think it's disrespect. You know what everyone can do, and putting people in the best position possible will be great, so then we can all be great together. Appreciate it, thank you. Hi, Jackie Powell with the next, for both Stewie and Slut. In both of your careers, you've been people who have been on teams that were maybe more up and coming. They were underdogs, they were rebuilding, and then you've also been on teams that have had targets on their backs, and so I guess what I'm wondering is how do you impart that adjustment, that change in mentality toward the younger group around you that maybe hasn't yet experienced that in the WNBA? I think as a group, you have to just focus on yourselves. From day one, everybody's gonna have to sacrifice, everybody up here, every player on the roster, but it's all for the better good, it's all to win, and it happens fast and smooth if you're all in it to win, and if you respect each other, we all want each other to be great, we want each other to be the best that they can be, and that in turn makes us the best team, and it's not always gonna be smooth, and that's the way the season goes, and I think we understand that. There may be a learning curve with each other that we're all coming together, but we have the right pieces, we have the right goals, and so we'll let the rest take care of itself. Yes. Now I'm just blanking a little bit on the question. Can you just give me a recap real quick? Yeah, yeah, I got you. I got you. Yeah, I remember. Well, I think that when you're playing basketball in New York, you're automatically in the spotlight, so yes, maybe it's not particularly a target, but everyone's being watched. People are paying attention to the liberty here, and I think that when you're in these successful positions, when you have a team that's won a championship, when you're fighting for a championship, when you're trying to build for a championship, it's more about what we're doing internally than what's happening externally. And yeah, there's gonna definitely be a target on our backs already. People are already gonna be wanting to see what we can do, what we can't do, trying to exploit things left and right, I'm sure, but as long as we come together as a team, then that's really all that we're concerned about here.