I was saying that in the next 30 minutes or so, I'm going to explain how big data and artificial intelligence is helping a company, a telco company such as Telefonica, in the digital transformation and how we can also help other companies to go through the same journey. Digital transformation is a password, everybody's talking about that, but what does it mean for a company for us? There are many things that are very similar to other sectors. Clearly, our customers, our employees are already digital and they are changing the demand so they are not settling with an average offering, they are requesting something very personalized. And on the other hand, we have competitors. There are new competitors, digital competitors that are bringing to the market no legacies, no transitions and are really disrupting the whole existence of the sectors. But these are things that we are sharing with other sectors, with the banking industry, with the real retail industry, with hotels, with transportation industry. What is different in our case is that we are also playing a different role in the digital transformation. We are the enablers, so we put the connectivity. So we have a huge pressure on investments. We need to develop the 3G, 4G, 5G network fiber. And this is bringing a lot of pressure in terms of investments while our revenues are at best staying flat. That's why digital transformation is not an option for us. And we are working in a deep, deep transformation. We are putting the company upside down and we are transforming the whole company. We are seeing the company as a platform company where we are changing the way we develop our networks. This is what we call first platform. We are also digitalizing end to end and simplifying the process of our systems, our second platform. On top of that, we are changing the way we develop products and services. And here is the important thing. The glue that is bringing together the whole company is data. So we are creating and we have been working on that several years. What we call fourth platform that is leveraging what all the data that is generated in the first, second, and third platforms. And we are applying on top of that artificial intelligence and cognitive intelligence to extract value for the customer out of the data. We can say now that data is at the center of the digital transformation. And this fourth platform is already a reality in more than 10 countries. Half of our customers, 178 million mobile customers are already in this fourth platform where we have normalized the data. So we have a common language in all the countries. We also have the same kind of APIs and we have the same technology components, anonymizer, authenticator. So we can scale the development of our big data and artificial intelligence services. And we are using now big data and artificial intelligence, I would say everywhere, but specifically for three things. The first one is to change the way we take decisions at Telefonica. So it's what we call internal use cases. And we use this fourth platform output to increase our revenue line, to reduce our costs and optimize our investments. So the TV content recommendations are the way we recommend, for instance, devices, how we manage churn. How we decide to deploy at network, so it's everywhere. And very recently, we are also working a lot in robotics, in automating our processes through RPA. The second way we are using artificial intelligence is to change how we relate with the customers, our relationship with the customers. You will probably have heard of AURA, this is our brain. The brain that we have in Telefonica on top of our data. And it's changing the way we interact with the customers, personalizing and making their relationship with Telefonica much easier. And it's also accessible through different channels. And the third way we are using big data and artificial intelligence is through Luka. Luka is the business unit that we launched three years ago to help other companies to go through the same journey, to extract value out of the data. And what we have done is combine different assets that we have, of course our internal experiences and services that we have developed on top of our data to help other companies to really extract value out of the data. Let me show you a short video that summarizes the kind of work we do in Luka. The reality in which we live today is radically different from what we did a few decades ago.  Technologies have a greater weight than ever in the way of making a business and understanding the society of interacting with it. Big data and artificial intelligence strengthen and magnify our capacities as human beings, making us more informed, more efficient, finally better. In its clear bet in becoming an AI-driven organization and in helping its corporate clients to be able to do so, Luka created the Luka data unit, thus making the big data and artificial intelligence accessible to companies and public administrations. In Luka we offer a very broad portfolio of solutions for all sectors that cover from the financial sector to retail, going through tourism, transportation and industry. We help you define the Big Data and Artificial Intelligence strategy for your organization through our strategic consulting services and training programs, thanks to our professional team in these disciplines. We provide advanced analytics services with data from the client, from the networks and telephone and internet services of things, as well as from other external sources to find hidden patterns and business insights that allow us to predict behaviors in consumers, always guaranteeing the privacy of our clients. We also offer marketing and advertising solutions through the smart management of your campaigns. Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are the present. It is the moment that they form part of your organization and they allow you to strengthen your capabilities and improve your strategic decision making. We help you release the power of your data. Luka, Telefónica Data Unit. This is what we do at Luka and after three years we are proud to say that we have been collaborating with more than 300 customers in more than 600 projects and we are a global unit, so we work in the different countries where Telefónica has footprint in Europe and Latin America and we have also been recognized as one of the leaders in the business insights category. This is a report from Forester, the industry analyst firm, where selected Telefónica as leader in the category of business insights and this is a research that was done globally. And why is that? What they were saying is that we have the capability of putting together all the pieces that a company, a big corporation, a public administration, a smaller firm, needs in order to start this journey, this fascinating journey of using data. Basically what we do with customers is two things. The first one is helping them to create their own capabilities in terms of resources, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of tools. And the second one is helping them to extract value from the data by combining their own data with external sources and also with services that we have developed on top of our 350 million customers globally. And what is important in order to help them take better decisions based on data is that we are following an industry-specific approach. So we develop platforms, we develop services, but we always are helping them with an industry-specific approach that helps them integrate it into their business processes. Let me show you how we do the first thing, creating capabilities in the customers. Something that is important is to align the strategy, the big data artificial intelligence strategy with the whole strategy of the company. And that's why we use our professional services. We acquire companies, energy partners that was leader in this category in 2015. And with that, we have a selected group of professionals that cover all the skills that are needed in these kind of projects. Data scientists, data architects, data engineers, visualization experts, business analysts. And with that, we have defined our own methodology to help the customers with a very practical approach with some kind of services such as the use case discovery. We're in a two, six weeks period. We are helping the customers to define and prioritize the use cases for big data. Or our data-driven assessments where we can assess where is the customer in terms of technology, in terms of data access, data governance, people and help them define the roadmap in each of these categories and how to move it. And even we can accompany the customers once they have acquired a certain degree of maturity. For instance, with our Luka Academy, we are helping them to transform the company and to evolve the capabilities of the organization. Once we have that, it's important to combine and to extract value from the data. And for that, we have our analytic services. We have these professionals working with the customer in specific use cases. And in this case, what we are is very flexible. We are a role, as I say, is to develop the capabilities in the customer, not just to stay in the customer forever. So we are following a very flexible approach where we can work with them, for instance, of course, in an end-to-end project with very clear outputs and put them in a productive way. Or even we can work with them in different models such as extended teams where we combine our capabilities with their capabilities and we are transferring methodology and the way we work in Luka or center of excellence, or even we can develop analytics services as a service. So they don't need to have all the capabilities, we are able to help them whenever they need it. One thing we are doing in order to transfer these capabilities is to open with the customers tools that we have developed for ourselves. And I'm gonna show you one of the examples is something that we are launching this year that is called Luka Suite. Luka Suite is a machine learning development tool that we develop for ourselves because we have two needs to cover and we couldn't find any other market tools. The first one is to reutilize and be able to have accelerators to help our data scientists to be more productive and more efficient when developing projects with the customers. But the second thing was we felt that we have the need to improve the communication with our customers, but not with the technical guys, but with the business guys, the ones that are taking the decision. And that's why we develop Luka Suite for ourselves and now we are opening up for our customers. Let me show you in this video what Luka Suite looks like. One of the main challenges to face when developing machine learning projects is the disconnection between technical and business teams. Luka Suite has been designed to break these barriers, creating a common space where all users share the same language. Besides, it creates a framework to lead the teams through the model creation, automatizing all the steps in the way, data profiling to fully understand the data and uncover quality related issues, variables transformation, make your dataset machine learning compliance, combines different algorithms to find the one that suits you better, activate the model creating segments and calculating the ROI of the action, set it up on production using the perfect probability. Thanks to all those functionalities, Luka Suite entails a true differential value for companies. Let us make AI easier for you. This is Luka Suite and we are very excited because we are receiving very good feedback from the customers. As I say, it's something that our own data scientists are already using, but we think that we are covering this relationship between the technical guys and the business guys and being able to explain what the big data can do for them. One important thing is, of course, this is compatible with any other tools. So we are building on top of the other things, the other tools that existed in the market, but we are covering this gap that we felt that it was there in the big data space. How we are also helping the customers to develop their own tools. We are providing them with infrastructure. It's important. We are an infrastructure company and we are helping them with a full stack approach. We are offering the customers to build their own technology by combining all the pieces that are needed. We can offer, of course, the infrastructure piece, the data piece to use the data and to introduce models, data governance model and the analytics piece to work on top of that to make sure that we extract the value and all with security and with privacy. What we are doing is combining our own capabilities as Telefonica with the best in-class partners. And of course, Stratio is one of the partners we are working with in not only in Spain but also in Latin America. By combining our own technology with our partners, what we are trying to do is to avoid the complexity for the customers of managing the whole ecosystem. We are putting all the pieces together and we can manage this complexity for them so they can concentrate on the business. And this is something that is working, as I say, not only in Spain, but we are working with customers in all the footprint of Telefonica in Latin America and in Germany, UK and Spain. And more and more customers of different sectors, of different sizes are trusting on us to help them through, go through this transformation. We are talking, we have talked about the development of capabilities in the customers through our professional services, our tools and our infrastructure. But what is really unique from us, by being a Telco company, is that we are helping them to combine their own data with the data that we have in Telefonica. And this is what I'm covered right now. We know that the power of big data comes from combining different pieces of information and being able to make them available in a fast and in the right way. What we have done is take advantage of the huge amount of data that we have in our networks by being a Telco company. At the end of the day, the mobile phone is an identifier of the activity of the population. We always are with our mobile phones from very early in the morning until we go to sleep. And in our networks, what we are doing is to process billions and billions of events. What we have done in Luca is to develop platforms that deal with this data in a secure and private way. What we are doing is first anonymize the data so we are eliminating every personal aspect of the data. So we just know that there is a certain point that has a behavior over time. We aggregate the data also as a privacy measure and we extrapolate the data to represent the whole population. And with that, we are working in different projects to help the customers to better understand their consumers. So this is very complementary to other sources, to more traditional sources of using data, such as the surveys or applications, mobile applications, but have a lot of advantages for the customers. Because first, you have the granularity of millions of customers, not just hundreds as in a survey. You may have the historic information that you needed. You also have profiling and even is not invasive for the customer. And what we have done is elaborate the portfolio of services that I'm gonna show you in a moment to combine this data with the data from the customers. Always, of course, and I can't emphasize enough, following not just the regulation GDPR, but even going beyond because privacy and security of our customers data is the most important aspect. And what we have is a developer portfolio of services. I'm gonna just show you a glimpse of some of them. But there are like four categories. The first one is the one I was talking about, the ground analytics. And actually for those of you that were in the previous session with Miguel, this is the kind of data that we are also using, not just for our customers, for our B2B customers, but we were collaborating with them in big data for social good projects. The one that he mentioned in SICA, we are using the same data and the same platforms, not only for commercial purposes, but also to help the society because they have the same value. But we are using this ground analytics. We also have some services that are consent-based services. In this case, it's personal information. It's a B2B to C service, where we always have a benefit for both the company and the consumer clients. We have also developed a set of services on top of IoT, this analytical layer on top of IoT, and even an enterprise communication tool to help them improve the services that they buy from Telefonica in terms of mobile fix or even CRM information. Let's start with the ground analytics. The important thing is to use this understanding of the movements of the population, how the population moves from one place to the other, this micro segment to answer specific questions of specific sectors. And these are some examples of the kind of work that we are doing with the transport industry, with media, with tourism, and with retail. For instance, for transportation, both public and private companies, they need to better understand how the population moves in order to develop or to deploy new infrastructure, a metro line, a highway, and we are helping them to understand that, to really invest in a more efficient way. We have been working, for instance, with most companies, transport companies in the UK, transfer from London, Highway Singland, also here in Spain and Latin America. Another use of our platform is the media industry. In this case, we are helping them to answer different questions. In this case, they need to better plan and measure the efficiency of their marketing campaigns. And we are helping them also, as you can see, with the logos of the most representative companies in this space. Another use is tourism. In countries such as Spain, where tourism is an important part of the GDP, we can help both the public sector, the cities, the destination, the tourism destinations, and also some other players in the value chains, such as hotels, hotel chains, to better understand where are the visitors? Where are they coming from? How long they stay? What other places are they visiting? And in this case, we can differentiate between the residents, the visitors, and in the visitors, if they are national, if they're coming from abroad, from which countries. So we have set a tool that answers all these questions for these kind of companies. And last is the retail industry. In this case, we are talking here, not just retail as commercial centers or shopping centers, but as anybody that has a specific point where they receive customers. It may be oil stations, banking branches, and of course, commercial centers. They really need to understand what is happening, what is the potential of the customers, especially now that they are competing with some online players. And here, we are helping them to replicate the same metrics that they have in the online world, but in the physical world. And this is a sector where we are working very, very heavily with them. And what we are doing in these kind of services is evolving. Of course, we are incorporating new sources of data, new external sources, and we are evolving the services to make sure that they are all API sectors so they can integrate, the customer can integrate these insights into their own decisions, into their own processes and systems. That's crowd analytics. The second one is consent-based services. Here, as I say, since it is a personal data point, we always need an explicit consent of the customer. And we always offer to the consumer benefits so they can accept to provide the consent. What kind of services do we have here? Well, for instance, we are working on fraud prevention since the messaging, the SMS, is one of the sources as a second factor of authentication. For instance, whenever there is a financial transaction, most of us receive a message in our phone to confirm that we want to realize this, to perform this transaction and there is fraud around it. So what we are providing a service, in this case is carrier service. So we are working with the other telco operators to provide the same services where we can confirm to the bank if there has been a SIM swap recently. So we can prevent fraud by using data from the customer. And another service that we have developed in this space and we are working is improve the risk management process. We have data in our company that is very useful when we combine it with the data that, for instance, in this case, the financial institution has. So through LUCA scoring, we can improve the scoring that the financial institutions have or even to reach to incremental customers where they don't have information. So once we have the consent of the customer, we can work here in two different flavors. One is what we call pretaporter. So what we have predefined algorithms, working just with the data that we have in Telefonica, but we can also work in a second way that is the tailor offering where we combine data from the customer, from the financial institution and our own data, and we improve the scoring. This is something that is already available here in Spain and we're working with the financial institutions. And again, it's something that is GDPR compliant and is also API-based. The third category is, of course, IoT. We all know that IoT is growing exponentially in the last years and is expected to grow even more as we sensorize not just the objects, but also the people. So there is a particularities of working with sensors, with IoT data that we need to take into account. It's, of course, is a huge amount of data. Sometimes it's narrow data, but there are some characteristics that make IoT different. Sometimes it's streaming data. It's very important, real-time analytics. Sometimes it's analytics on the edge. There are some aspects such as privacy, security, interoperability, latency that is important to work in a different way. And what we have done in Luca is combine our capabilities with the capabilities of the IoT team in Telefonica to further improve our offering and offering something that is end-to-end. Of course, starting with the connectivity, with the management of the seams, with the basic analytics that comes in this kind of tools, and we are complementing that with our professional services. So we are combining and evolving our offering in IoT by combining IoT data with data that the customer already has and other data and going towards a more sophisticated analytics and especially putting together IoT data into the rest of the decision-making of the customers. These are some of the sectors where we are applying already our combined IoT and big data offering is retail, combining the outdoors that I showed you before with the indoors data, clearly mobility with our fleet management solution, smart cities, manufacturing, and also utilities. There is a lot of projects going on in this space and this is something that we think we are very well positioned. And finally, we, as I say, we are working also putting an analytic layer on top of our more traditional services, the communication services. I'm not gonna talk about this because I have seen one of our colleagues is having a specific speech this afternoon, Alvaro Sanchez on that, but that's the complete set of services that we have deployed on top of our data. And there is a lot of innovation. So what is next? What we are doing with Lucca and Telefonica is to open up the home, the home of our customers. So we have a strong presence in our customers' home with equipment, with TV set, rotors. And what we are doing is getting AI power experiences on top of this presence that we have in the homes of our customers, working with different customers and putting together with some of the players that you have seen here, AI power experiences to the customers. This is our new thing. We have already launched it. And, but I won't spoil it because again, and in this case, my boss, Chema Alonso, the CDO, the Chief Data Office of Telefonica, will have a speech this afternoon in the same theater. But keep tuned because this is something really big and we are very excited about what is coming. So this is what we are doing in Lucca. As I say, after these three years of experience, where we have been, we have been how the big data space has been growing, how the customers are maturing and using more and more artificial intelligence for their businesses. And we will be happy to work with any of you to help develop these capabilities. Thank you very much.


I want to tell you about a couple of guys who made DAV, a particularly special community to me. Just over a half a century ago, three young soldiers were called to war. I was one of them. The other two were Chad Collie and Jim Sersley. Jim was an athlete and, to be honest, a bit of a hellion from Rochester, Minnesota. He saw a billboard in his hometown that said, Uncle Sam needs you. Three months later, he was in the Army. Bootcamp hadn't challenged him physically and track vehicle training was a breeze. His biggest problem in the Army was that he wasn't what you would call a good garrison soldier. So he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He arrived in March 1968, a month after the Ted offensive as casualties were peaking. When he arrived in country, he found out his job in the military had changed. Son, his first sergeant told him, we don't actually have a motor pool, but we're going to get you a toolbox. You'll be a machine gunner in the third platoon. Chad took a different route. He joined the Army after running track and playing football in college. He was a very special leader. As a young officer with 101st Airborne Division, he arrived in Vietnam in 1967 and found himself promoted from platoon to company commander in just six months. He was a rising star who would, many would have guessed, become a general one day. And my route from Vietnam was completely different. I had tried college, but I took a break just before I graduated. I got married and at just 19 years old had a son. But just as my new family had started, I received a very nice letter from the local draft board. They must have thought very highly of me because they placed me in a very special category. They called 1A. It was then that I found out that a student deferment was something you only get one time. I'd already played that card. Goodbye, Herr, hello, Army. I started basic training in December of 1968, finished infantry training and was shipped off to Vietnam by the end of May. You might guess from looking at me that didn't turn out so great. On patrol in the Mekong Delta, I lost three limbs as a result of a landmine explosion. A part of my war was over, but as many of you know, a new fight had begun. Going back to Jim, Army life and away from the barracks suited him. After seeing fierce combat against the Viet Cong and the NVA, he was promoted twice in just 10 months. With just weeks left before the end of his tour, he was setting up a claymore mine for a night operation when he triggered a landmine. The blast dramatically amputated three of his limbs. The force and flame of the explosion were so intense that they cauterized his wounds. He didn't even need a tourniquet. His proximity to the blast probably saved his life. It took 30 days for Jim to regain enough consciousness to even realize what he lost. When his mother was able to make it to Fitzsimmons Hospital in Colorado, she walked right past him. She couldn't even recognize him after all he had endured. Meanwhile, Chad was leading his company in July of that same year when he stepped on a landmine in a Vietnamese village. As was the case for Jim and I, the blast ultimately took his legs at arm. He had earned the silver and bronze stars for heroism in combat. In 2014, Chad reflected on his injuries with gratitude. Life is so rewarding. When you give yourself the opportunity to have success, don't let what happen be the anchor that you gotta drag around for the rest of your life. When you consider the nature of my mother's and the fact that I survived, I mean, I was that close right up against this veil. They all said, fail. Between here and here after, I saw many men put in a body bag that she could have covered the wound with a quarter. So do I feel blessed? You better believe it. Wow. We three made our way back to the states to face surgeries and uncertainty. It was a different time. There was no Americans with Disabilities Act. The world was a much less accommodating place. In 1976, I met Donna, who would go on to become my wife of the last 40 years. I felt whole again for the first time since the war. We, each of us, tried to move on. I met Chad in 1980 when we both served as national line officers for DAV. Because we had similar disabilities, we became known as bookends. Chad was a pioneering athlete in winter sports. After serving as national commander, he represented the U.S. in the 1992 Paralympics in France and won two gold medals. He was DAV's longtime national disabled veteran's winter sports clinic chair. He and his wife, Betty Ann, held workshops with recently injured veteran couples to share their experiences and offer advice on relationships and living. Chad excelled in real estate and remained a lifelong advocate for disabled veterans. And while he was able to convince me to try out one of his sit skis, an experimental sit skis in Austria in the 80s, one thing he never could convince me to do was fly with him in his private plane. I met Jim in 1991 at an Orlando Magic basketball game. He was in the handicapped area across the court. I thought, this guy has to be a veteran. After the game, I introduced myself and I asked, did you lose your limbs and gnom? He told me instead, he had been involved in a tragic tricycle accident when he was two. That was the start of a lifelong friendship. We hunted together and developed so many different ways to joke about our disabilities that people really weren't sure how to take us. Jim didn't use a power chair, so if we were going to lunch at an event like this, he'd grab onto the back of my chair seat and we'd get around. If someone saw him, he'd say, shh, he doesn't know I'm back here. Jim had returned to the States and tried to make a go of life in Minnesota. But the winters and the lack of accessibility brought him to Florida. Like Chad, he went into real estate. He married his lovely wife, Jeannie. He had four children, 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He was a complete success and a leader in every sense. Until the pandemic, we were three. Three soldiers, three triple amputees injured in the same war in the same year. Three with many of the same challenges and a shared desire to make life better for our fellow veterans and their families. Three past disabled veterans of the year and former national commanders. We were a community within the DAV community. We were never alone because even though we lived apart, we knew we had each other. Then came the pandemic. Though COVID-19 didn't take Chad's life, it took him away from us for the time that he had left. After 53 years of marriage, Betty Ann, his children and grandchildren bid him farewell at the end of January. Jim had just completed the grand slam of turkey hunting. He was staying with his son, Dax, in Montana when he fell ill. While the Viet Cong couldn't stop him, this terrible, insidious, microscopic virus took everything he had. These are not the only people that we lost since the last time we were here. They're not even the only past national commanders. Larry Paulzine and other Vietnam-era veteran past and Craig Johnnican, Donna Tanner, Lucille McCarthy, Marybeth Schultz and Maureen Peterson, all past national commanders are no longer with us. And all of us here can think of a loved one we lost too soon or the separation that made a difficult time worse. And yet here we are. While this pandemic has taken much away, we have a lot left. And that is what we're here to celebrate. Just before the pandemic, I reconnected with someone I hadn't seen since I was in Vietnam. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to my friend, Doc Hayes. I was serving with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. We were out on a mission and I tripped a land mine and the explosion costed the loss of both of my legs above the knee and my left arm. I never lost consciousness when this happened. So I knew everything that was going on and without Doc and the sergeant probably wouldn't be here today. Yeah, I thought about him a lot through the years. I wonder how he was doing and what he was doing and mother, you know, had done anything other than just sitting in a wheelchair with life. I just want the opportunity to get with Doc. First, I want to thank him. Secondly, it was just a part of me that kind of wants to apologize to him for what I put him through that day. And I know it wasn't my fault, but that's just something inside of me that I'm sure he's had a vivid memory for a lot of years for as bad as I was wounded.  It's very restless last night, thinking about it all night long. What do I want to say? How do I want to say it? Could I ever thank him enough? Hey, brother. Thank you, thank you. Oh, you're welcome. I was afraid I'd be starting to be like, hey, I'm not reliving a lot of those experiences. I didn't, you know, how I'm not going to react to that. But I would say now, reach out to him. I'm glad you did. Glad I did. Reconnecting with Doc before this national tragedy struck reminds me of the mercy of our creator. Doc is a life member of the DAV, and he's joined us here today, Doc. Without this man, I wouldn't be here today. Thank you, brother. While we can never fully replace what is taken from us, our DAV gives us a common calling, a shared mission. We honor our fallen by participating in our community. We remember their contributions by serving the cause that inspired them to greatness.


ey have taken and how they're paying their own campaign costs.  It's their money. It's not costing the town anything. So how can we move forward really and truly? I know the decision I want it to be. But at this point, any decision would be better than none. And the nibble and the nibble and the nibble. Elite, Michelle, you haven't spoken in a while. But I just would like to respectfully disagree. I don't think we'll come back on the 18th and nibble and nibble more. I think people have been very explicit that if certain things are taken into consideration and negotiated by the town manager that we'll be able to move forward on the 18th. I do understand Pat where you're coming from, of course, and seen that we can certainly do that as a council. But I have confidence that we would be prepared to advance this on the 18th positively based on what I have observed if the town manager is able to negotiate these additional requests. And can we call the question on on a on a. If you call the question, the question has been called. Have you called? I do still see Shalini's hand up. So I don't want to I'm just wondering if we're ready to move forward with the vote here on postponing. Wait, the question's been called. I need a second. Second Ernie. OK. The question on the table at this point is to postpone to is am I correct? Motion to the motion, did you make a motion for the previous question? Yes, I don't see any more hands up. So we don't have to waste our time on that necessarily. But so there was not a motion. The motion on the floor is to postpone the vote to December 18, 2023. That's correct. And that's the motion we're voting on, although the first thing we have to do is call the question. No, you don't have to show. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. All right. We're going to move then to the question that's on the floor. The question on the floor is whether or not to postpone the vote on the motion to authorize the borrowing to December 18. OK, that is the question on the floor. Okay, Anna, you have a question could Paul, please articulate to us very clearly what he intends to bring as changes to the MOU to the library trustees, because we've had a lot of discussion. Thank you for that question. So the things I have, and again, they only approve this in principle. So they may have wording changes that they would like to see. So, I want to be clear that this is not in principle.  They have not come back to me with changes that they would like to see. And I know they will have changes. Just they have, they're a separately elected body has authority to represent the trustee, the trust, the library. So the things I have are to put in who put in possibly a put in a chart that shows. The borrowing thing in a chart format, in addition to the words that are there. Add the cash flow that we had that we've been talking about it. We all know that cash flow is a planning document. It doesn't commit anybody to anything has interest rates change things change, but it lays out what we have been talking about. It's in the in the council packet anyway. Clarification in this about what side of the ledger the fundraising expenses are on is it on the library side or on the town side on item 9, that stating in the last sentence that expediting payments does not increase the new library share of the project in that additional bans. They will the library will try attempt. I don't have the exact language off to get it from Kathy. If they're able to, they will do more. I think those are the things. Is there anybody that sees additional changes? Jennifer. No, I had a comment that'll make it after this is not an answer to your question. Okay. Are there any other any other. Suggestions for additions to this MOU? All right. So the question on the floor is whether we're postponing until the 18th, Jennifer. I guess I just wanted to kind of echo what Michelle, I think Alicia and Kathy said is we are trying to get to a point of we're not just trying to be. Difficult, we just want to get to a point that we're all this is really important. It's a lot of money. And I think we're just trying to get to the point that we can move forward in a positive way. Okay. Any other questions or comments? So we're going to move to roll call vote on whether we're postponing to the. 18th. And with that, I'm going to start with Anna. No. Hold on just one second. Anna is a no. Greece Merziet and I man Hanneke. I an equal oops. No. Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shalini Balmoum. Yes. Patty Angelis. No. Anna. And we already did that. Okay. So it's 10 in favor and three opposed. So the motion passes. We will be taking this up again on the 18th. We may have a break. Yes, we will return at 9.40. Because. Yes. So. Hey, is that? Wait, yes. Yes. I'm going to go to meeting my lively. So there Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to reconvene all people of the council. Please take the sign down so I can see as people come back. Thank you. Say to you is. Council. Let's go gang. Stephanie. Dwayne. And Chris. You're up next. I promise you. Hey, Chris, I only underestimated by an hour and 45 minutes, right? As soon as you return, please turn your camera on so I know that you're back. Okay. Okay, Pat. You're here. Anna, you're here. Anika, you're here. Shalini, are you back? Michelle, you're here. Alicia, are you back? Yes, I am. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you so much for answering Alicia. Dorothy, you are back. Okay. We're going to get going. The next item on our agenda is the solar bylaw. And I just want to just begin by saying we are not. Passing a solar bylaw tonight. All we are doing tonight is referring it for further development. We're not even referring it for hearing. We're just referring it for further development. To CRC. And then it will go on their carryover memo. Okay. So we, in a moment, we're going to recognize. Dr. Chris Brestrup, director of sustainability, Stephanie Chickarella and Dwayne Brieger, who is the chair of the solar bylaw working group. But before I do that, I will also want to recognize. And thank the solar bylaw working group. Members Janet McGowan. Laura. Peg Lerola. Peg Lerulo. Jim Jack gem sick. Robert Brooks, Daniel. Corcoran and Martha Hanner, who is vice chair. Some of them are in the audience listening. And at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Chris and the rest of your group. Good evening. My name is Chris Brestrup and I'm the planning director. And I think Stephanie was going to give an introduction to our session here. And then Dwayne is going to speak and I'll be the last one to speak. So if you'll recognize Stephanie, that would be great. Go right ahead, Stephanie. Thank you so much, Lynn. And thank you all. We will be, I believe, decidedly brief this evening. So I just wanted to point out for members of the council, as well as members of the public who may be viewing that in your packet, we had a memo to the town manager that was from Dwayne Breger, Chris Brestrup and myself that was an overview of the process and the three deliverables of the solar bylaw working group. And in that memo, we identified the three deliverables, one of which was a map based solar assessment. And the second, a community preference assessment were two items that were developed in conjunction with GZA geo environmental. The town engaged the consultant services to develop these two pieces of information. And the third item, which is the project manager, Adrian Duncan of GZA geo environmental served as the project manager, along with myself for the town. Those two were actually delivered to the council previously, but they are included in this memo to be identified as pieces that were part of the charge. They're highlighted in the memo for easy identification and access. The links are in the memo. So I do encourage you, if you haven't previously looked at them to please. The third is the draft of the solar bylaw itself. Chris Brestrup will be referencing this particular item in her comments and attached to that is a classification standards chart, which is part of the draft solar bylaw. So I just want to make sure that you identify those two pieces go together. And with that, I will say that the solar bylaw working group convened on June 22nd of 2022. The last meeting was November 9th of 2023. We did have an extension that was granted actually several extensions that were granted by the town manager in order to cover some of the more difficult and challenging aspects of the bylaws development. So with that, I will turn things over to Dwayne Breger, who served as the chair of the solar bylaw working group. Great. Hello. Thank you. Lynn. Okay. Yes, please go ahead. And thank you, Stephanie, for that introduction and town council for the opportunity to deliver and present the solar bylaw draft to you for referral. I did want to personally also acknowledge and thank the members of the solar bylaw working group. And Lynn, I repeat some of those names as well, just to clarify a little bit as well that we did have seven voting members, including a particular committees. So Janet McGowan was representing the planning board, myself representing the energy and climate action committee, Laura Paglid, Paglid, Rulo representing the conservation commission and Jack Gemsick representing the water supply protection committee. The other three members, Martha Hanner, Robert Brooks and Daniel Corcoran were appointed unaffiliated residents as appointed by the town manager. In addition, I'll just add that we work very hard. We did meet essentially bi-weekly every other week for the duration throughout the time period. Part of the reasons for the extension was to schedule time with the town council, legal council, as well as experts from various different areas involved with solar, with the solar bylaw and solar siting that brought a lot of color to our conversations and details of our conversations. And with that, let me turn it, and let me also thank the committee, but also dearly thank the work and support from the town planner, Christine Brestrup and director of sustainability, Stephanie, for their hard work and work with the working bylaw, solar bylaw working group throughout the duration. And with that, let me turn over to Christine, and she can give us some overview of the bylaw itself. Good evening. I'm Chris Brestrup, planning director. And after meeting for about a year and a half and reviewing and discussing drafts of the solar bylaw, the solar bylaw working group voted on November 9th, 2023 to recommend the draft solar bylaw as presented to you this evening. This draft represents a lot of work by the working group and town staff researching how other towns in Massachusetts regulate large solar installations. We also consulted model solar bylaws prepared by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the Cape Cod Commission, and the Mass DOER or Department of Energy Resources. And we were mindful of the Massachusetts general law, chapter 40a, section three, part of which states that no zoning ordinance or bylaw shall prohibit or unreasonably regulate the installation of solar energy systems or the building of structures that facilitate the collection of solar energy, except where necessary to protect the public health, safety or welfare. So the working group tackled a lot of topics, but among those topics, they spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing two relatively controversial topics. One of them was how to regulate large-scale solar installations proposed on farmland, and the other one was how to regulate proposed installations in forested areas. For farmland, the working group decided to require that agrivoltaics be used for installations in farmland that are over five acres in size. Agrivoltaics is a form of dual use where a portion of the property is used for farming and a portion of the property is used for solar arrays. This usually occurs in alternating rows of agriculture and solar panels. The technology is not yet mature and is currently being studied and developed. Therefore, the working group did not want to impose such a requirement without providing an alternative. So the working group decided to provide a mechanism by which an applicant could prove to the permit granting authority in a special case that agrivoltaics was not technically or financially feasible for a certain installation. This would require hiring an expert consultant to make this argument to the permit granting authority. For forests, after much discussion and vote, the working group decided not to limit the amount of forest land that could be cut for solar installation. They did not require mitigation for forest land that was cut for solar installation. They were dissuaded from imposing such a limitation because these limitations are not imposed on other types of development such as housing and commercial development. And such a limitation on solar may discourage the installation of solar and encourage the construction of other types of development. And they didn't think that was fair. However, the solar bylaw working group did decide to encourage town council to consider adopting a limitation on forest cutting in the future that could be applied to all types of development. So the draft that we're presenting tonight is the work of the solar bylaw working group. However, it has not been reviewed by it has not been thoroughly reviewed by the building commissioner, the wetlands administrator, the fire department, the sustainability director, or the town attorney KP law. KP law has provided advice and answers to specific questions as the draft was being developed, but it hasn't had an opportunity to review and make recommendations on the bylaw as a whole. And generally speaking, when the planning department is developing a bylaw, we do engage with KP law all along the way to try to make sure that what we come up with in the end is a good document. So therefore, we and the town manager are recommending that town council refer this draft solar bylaw to the community resources committee for further development. And the planning department staff would be pleased to support the CRC in this endeavor and bring back a thoroughly vetted, reviewed and developed solar bylaw for your consideration in the spring. Please let us know if you have any questions on the materials that we have submitted. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to place the motion on the floor. And the motion is to refer the draft solar bylaw. To the community resources committee for further development with a report and recommendation to the town council by June 30th, 2024. Is there a second standard seconds. So I want to just make two notes about the motion. First of all, it's a referral, but not for hearing. It's not ready for prime time. The second is that the June 30th deadline is basically to say, make sure you come back and let us know. At that point, CRC may be able to actually say, we think this is ready for review for hearing, but it has to come back to the council for that hearing. So with that, are there any comments or questions? Anna. I have one question, one comment. So my question first is in reading through this, it's very thorough in terms of the, the regulations that it's placing on the large scale ground mount installations. I'm curious, one of the things that I'm really hoping for is how we can. At the same time as we regulate also encourage. Responsible development where we should be putting responsible development. And I think that that's something that I'm not necessarily seeing and I recognize that that is a harder and more abstract thing to get at in a bylaw. But I'm curious in your conversations, how you plan to incorporate that. I don't know if incentivization is the right word, but how you plan to incorporate that encouragement for, for other sighting on non forested or non farmland. And then my comment, so that's point one. My comment is in the motion to refer, can we include the review from the relevant town departments that were mentioned, or can we get a. Some other sort of guarantee that CRC will be in consultation with, I believe it was planning conservation fire department and a legal review. I guess that was a question after all. Yes. Chris. I think at this point I just want to make sure that people understand what we're talking about now is what is it we are saying as we refer this to CRC. We're not expecting the committee to come back with all of these answers, but Chris, please go ahead.  It isn't a mechanism to encourage things to happen. I think there are very, you know, strong and good bodies and individuals in town who can help to encourage solar development. So what we tried to do was create a solar bylaw that didn't discourage solar development because we think it's very important and we do refer to several documents and declarations that the town has already put together or made to encourage solar development in order to reduce greenhouse gases. So I guess that's, that's what I would, that's how I would answer Anna. Yeah. I think that was a separate, separate part. And that was Chris listed a number of departments and our law firm that have not done reviews. And you're asking whether those could root reviews could be done before CRC takes this up. Is that, is that am I hearing you? No, I wanted as part of the, I want to know that by the time it comes back to the consultation process at some point, I would like them to be part of that consultation process at some point. Okay. Do you feel like you need to amend the motion or do you think that CRC as a body would receive that information? If the chair of CRC could confirm that it will be in the carryover memo as part of the, as part of this, that would be the, that would be the, that would be the consultation process at some point. Okay. I think we could confirm that it will be in the carryover memo as part of the, as part of this, that would be fine. I'd be fine with not amending the motion. I can add it to the carryover memo. Thank you. Taking care of, okay.  Yeah, just to add to Anna's comment. Do keep in mind the, the solar bylaw draft is purposefully limited and the charge was to limit it to large scale solar development. We define that as 25, 250 kilowatts. And above about an acre or more. So this doesn't. Refer to or, or, or deal with more solar on the built environment. If you will. Certainly there is interest within the working group, but also I would refer to the.  And I think it's a good idea to work in that group to work on more proactive opportunities and sent non-centers, but programs to try to encourage solar development on the built environment in the town. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Pat. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. In some of the material, it said the town of Amherst has established requirements regarding the instant light installation of large scale ground mounted, but they'll take both take installations and I want to know where those are because I tried to find them. So, and I also noticed that there were a great many links, which were very helpful in terms of farmland and soil and stormwater management. And I guess I was wondering why there aren't some active links to forests and the role they play in sequestration and possibly managing them. So I'm kind of interested in being able to pick your brain about where some of these things are. I also want to thank the group for working on this. And it'll be, it'll be a challenge to take up. So thank you. But I would like an answer about where the established requirements are. Okay. Chris will just ask if you could send something to reply to that. I will be happy to do that. Yes. Okay. Mandy Joe. A couple of questions to think about before this necessarily comes to CRC for further discussion. It was an interesting read to me. One of the things, and I'll just go through some very general stuff right now. This bylaw indicated that it is not regulating solar canopies, canopies on parking lots. What does regulate solar canopies and why is this choosing not to, I guess is one question and doesn't need answered now, but, but to think about. And one of the other. You know, and then another one was, I saw a lot of questions. And I think that the requirements in here that didn't necessarily deal with site design, typical things that I think of as zoning. Things like dimensional setbacks, things like that. For example. The removal of a development, annual reports of income or the activities on the property. And it wasn't necessarily income, but it was also the annual reports of income. Which was going to be a consideration of that. In light of that. So I think it's very important to the permit granting authority certifying compliance on an annual basis with the special permit. Reports. Ongoing reports that sounded like or inspections after storms. There is one in here about. Certifying that you're going to do ways to improve crop yields to the permit granting authority and mandating that things like that that struck me as different from typical zoning regulations. And so I'm curious, and one of the questions, if I'm on CRC in the next term, I would have is, how much of these sort of types of requirements are found in other, in the zoning bylaw for other types of developments when we're developing a retail space or an office park space or a research and development space, do we require the R&D space to report out its compliance every year with the special permit and things like that, or when we permit farmland, if we do, or buildings on farmland, do we require reporting out of that, because it seems like there was a lot of that in here that I haven't seen in other zoning bylaws. So those are some things to think about as we move forward. Thank you. OK, are there any other comments? I, for some reason, don't seem to be able to raise my hand without going to my phone. OK, there I did it. OK, thanks. I don't know why all of a sudden that happened. I have a couple of things that have been mentioned. I just want to emphasize that I would like to make sure that CRC pays close attention to. You've already mentioned protection of farmlands and forests. I want to add to that water, water source protection, because while many people in town are on sewers, five percent of the town is actually on wells, and many of those are near forested areas, which is often where we want to place these as well. And the other one for me is the growing alarm I have over battery storage and the safety of battery storage. It's seeing more and more fires and the extent to which we would be putting our entire town at risk because a fire starts near a forest because of a battery. So those issues are paramount in my mind, frankly, as we look at some other solar installations in town. Thank you, Andy, Joe. You reminded me of my other question that I had related to this, which was in the battery storage section. There was a sentence that said the town of Amherst is working on a bylaw to regulate battery, battery energy storage systems. And I guess my question is we are. And and are we and who is and and where is that getting discussed? OK, so. Chris, did you want to jump into that? Or, yeah. So it was not clear to us from the beginning, whether we were supposed to come up with a battery storage bylaw. And so I think for various reasons, we didn't come up with the battery storage bylaw until quite close to the end. And by the time we drafted it, there wasn't enough time for the working group to review it carefully. So it does exist. And if the CRC would like to take that up along with the solar bylaw, I would think that would be a really great idea. So I would be happy to work with CRC on that. If that would be something you'd like to work on. Thank you. So seeing no other no other hands. Again, this is to refer to CRC for further development. And it will go on the carryover memo. OK, I'm going to start with the vote. I guess it's me. I mean, Joe Haneke. Do I want to amend to include to add the battery storage bylaw to the referral? Yeah, sure. So to refer the draft solar bylaw, the only problem is we don't have it in our packet. We've never seen it. So I would suggest it could go in the 18th and we could refer it then. OK, thank you. Good point, though. We're going to move on to the vote. So Greece, Merzin, I, Mandy, Joe. I, Anika Lopes. I, Michelle Miller. Hi, Dorothy Pam. Yes, Pam Rooney. Yes, Kathy, Shane. Yes, Andy Steinberg. Yes, Jennifer Taub. Yes, Alicia Walker. Yes, Shawnee Balmille. Yes, Pat DeAngelis. Hi, Anna Devlin. Hi. OK, thank you. And again, I just want to thank the solar working, the solar bylaw working group for all of the work you have done and recognize the complicated nature of this. I believe that during this discussion, at least two other potential bylaws have been brought up. So thank you. The next is about a quick point of order, Lynn. Yes, you had mentioned that we would put a draft bylaw on the next agenda for batteries. Yes, draft bylaw for batteries to be a bylaw in the form necessary for adoption for an introduction. It would be for further development. I would not going to do it for hearing. The planning director just indicated it exists. So it exists. OK, so she may be able to supply you with appropriate. I think I think what we want to do is probably refer to CRC for review possible further development before referred back to the council. That's fine. We just need something. Yeah, that's why we conduct on it tonight. OK, the next is regarding the rental registration bylaw and Michelle, you have your hand up. Yeah, not not for that per se, but I just looked at the agenda and it looks like it's maybe two more hours. It could be I'm just wondering if there's some some some items that might be able to get moved to next week or if you've had thought about that at all in because it's already I have. But let me do this one and then look at what else. OK, that sounds great. Yeah, thank you.  Yes, we're on the rental permit bylaw, correct? Yes, we are. Yeah, I'm sorry, I couldn't get my hand up. Um, I'd like to do a motion to postpone until the January and it specifically the wording were pursuant to council rule procedure seven point one. I moved to postpone the discussion of the proposed rental permit bylaw and regulations on until January 8th. So it's to a date certain. And the reason I'm doing that is because I can I can I seek a second first and then come back. OK, second, second, Rune. OK, now OK. And so the the reason for this is what Michelle just mentioned. Looking at the agenda yesterday, I said, we're just not going to have time for a full discussion of this. And I had a few amendments that were both languages and fees. And there's some other concerns. So I think because of the significance of this change, we need to make sure we have enough time on an agenda. And I'm looking to Lynn, who said there should be ample time on the January 8th agenda to not short circuit the time for discussion for this. So this isn't to delay it as much as to make sure we have time. And and just so those who aren't on finance know, during the finance discussion, I was working with potential fee changes. And I also wanted to talk about frequency of inspection changes. But there we were restricted to only looking at the financial aspects and fees. So I had other comments. So this would also allow a fuller discussion and potentially changes because I can send some of those to CRC that would address it. And everyone seeing the ads in the newspaper recently, I think to the extent we can on the 8th, we should also have an executive session and bring in legal counsel so we can have a full discussion of privacy concerns that address to extent their potential risks of litigation. So this would also allow time to arrange for that. And that's the reason I'm from my motion to postpone. OK, the motion has been made in second to postpone. We really should stick to the discussion of the motion. Shall any. I was going to say that, you know, in CRC, we did try to have a process where we were inviting comments and we were inviting different stakeholders to speak. However, I don't think the CRC had a chance to debrief the the large number of emails we've received. And so I'm in support of Kathy's motion, but also I was wondering if. If if there was a way for CRC to also put it on the agenda to see how to move forward and to create a space to hear the different stakeholders that we're hearing from now. And then the other thing I was thinking was that I feel like the finance committee has been working and I know Mandy Joe has been attending those meetings, but. Right. But I do feel that there were so many reasons why different things were put in place. And also maybe I don't know if that's an option for the finance committee to work with CRC and have a joint discussion around that. But before that, also, I really do feel that this is such a complex issue and it affects the livelihood of many people and it might have impact on tenants and increasing costs, especially to single family homes. And so it has just has so many implications that we're hearing about now that it would make sense to give CRC a chance to sort of decide what they want to do with all this information that we've received. The motion on the table is to refer to a council meeting on January 8th. And we just want to clarify that I have no idea what the what the meeting looks like for January 8th. That's not my responsibility at this point. And but I do I did confer with Kathy and already determined that trying to do this on the 18th was out of the question. So. Eighth is the motion that's on the table. So let me suggest the following process in response to Shalini's. Question and that is it could be determined on January 8th that based on discussion among the council and with legal counsel that we would then refer it back to CRC. And at that point they would do that. But given the timing of the end of this council's term and the limited time council committees have to meet, I don't see how we would expect that to happen between now and January 2nd. So the motion is to refer is to postpone until January 8th. That motion has been made in seconded. Are there any other comments? OK, seeing. Yes, Mandy, Joe. Those extra button clicks take more time to raise your hand. Don't thank you. I guess as chair of CRC, I'm looking for clarification because both Shalini and Kathy indicated there may be desire for CRC Kathy in her explanation of her motion flat out, I think stated that she was going to send stuff and hope CRC would talk about it before January 8th. So I'm looking for clarification of as chair. Is this something I need to be putting on an agenda for potential discussion at CRC? Is Kathy is Shalini are people expecting potential amendments again to this document prior to January 8th? Kathy. I don't I didn't anticipate that Mandy be given that we're on December 4th. I would be happy and I've written them out a bit more fully now that I free from looking just at fees, but I've gone through the fee schedule again in trying to limit the cost impact and timing impact on. We we had such a one person who sent us a comment and I would like to avoid that, that we wouldn't want to send a fire engine out to everyone's house on the anticipation. It might be on a fire. We would really like to focus it. So it was a quip, but it was let's try to think of. Can we focus and target it a bit better? So I have some ideas for that. And I didn't think we had time tonight, but it'd be happy to write them up. But I wouldn't expect CRC to have to address them. I think this is the time for 13 of us to try to say how much we love what we don't and then to do revisions. But I think not all of us have had a chance to do that. And I didn't come to all of your meetings early on. I was sending periodic comments as this was evolving. So I didn't think between now and the eighth, CRC would meet to address a series of changes. I think that's asking too much because a lot of people may have things that they want to address. So I hope that answers it. I'm happy to compile them. Mandy, Joe, does that answer your question? Andy. Yeah, I may not need to say much now. I was going to make a statement in support of the motion. Because I too had thought on a different topic of an amendment that could be offered and considered since it was now in second reading and it belonged to the council and not the committee anymore. It was up to the council one to decide whether to refer back to the committee. But I think that I was recognizing that given the length of this meeting, that having a lengthy discussion about several amendments that were proposed was going to make this far to owners for tonight and that's why I was supporting. So the motion is to refer it back to I'm sorry. The motion is to to to take it up on a date certain January 8th at that time upon taking it up. There may be a motion to refer it back to CRC. Mandy, Joe, I want to make sure I I want to respect both the chair and the rest of the members of CRC and hear from you about this at this point. I guess what I'm hearing is people are going to just refer this back to CRC. And if that's going to be the case on January 8th, why are we not just doing that now? OK. So the motions on the floor, unless somebody wants to withdraw the motion, we'll vote on the motion and then somebody can do a different motion. Michelle. Yeah, I'm I'm with Mandy on this. I feel like there's that we've received a lot of information through public comment and otherwise. And it seems like it would be appropriate for it to go back to CRC to have further discussion of how CRC would recommend addressing those concerns. OK. I want to make sure that we're if we're ready to vote this up or down and go on to another bit. Or what are we going to do, huh? I'm sorry, what? I was saying Pat was adding a comment and I was asking her to use her microphone because no one at home can. OK, I'm sorry. The motion could be withdrawn. Shalloni. Yeah, I'm in support. I mean, I'm in support of it going back to CRC so that as part of the process that, you know, we have been making space to hear different people, but now that we've finally kept the whole thing and people are getting a chance to look at it. And we've heard from one group of stakeholders for sure. And I think bringing in incorporating that and. And bringing everyone to the table is an important part of a process because this is the huge, huge changes we're making. So we just want to make sure that we do here. And then we haven't actively heard from other stakeholders, maybe like tenants or neighbors. So like, I mean, there has to be a. I mean, what I mean, we're all sort of this is still very near. We still the second term of council. So I think even as we think of the process moving forward, I think it's important that we hear from people at different times in the process, not just in the beginning, but also once the bylaw is more evolved to again get feedback from people. And so that I mean, so I think it all I'm saying is that I agree that it should go back to CRC. Thank you, Jennifer. Yes, I agree with what Johnny also just said that there's we recently heard from one group of stakeholders and part of the bylaw is that we took into we incorporated in the summer of 2022 when we heard from all the stakeholders, including the tenants that renters and that is also part of what yes, we need to hear from those stakeholders again as well. OK, Michelle, I'm going to skip to Andy for a moment. Since you've spoken, Andy, and I was just going to raise the question for maybe from Andy as chair of the committee, as to whether the committee is going to have the opportunity to work on a given the fact that we're going into a holiday period fairly soon. The thing that I'm also conscious of is the building commissioner, Mr. Mora has advised that it's important to bring closure to this as quickly as possible if we can so that it can be in place for the next registration year when the registrations are renewed. So when the original motion was made by Kathy, there was a date certain. And I thought, well, we're just going to consider some amendments on the floor that we would then have the possibility still of doing it. And getting a final vote and plenty of time for implementation, as Mr. Mora had suggested for the next year. So I don't know if you have any comments as chair of the committee. CRC has one more meeting scheduled for this term before the end of the year. I think it's up to this council to decide if it would be ready to vote on January 8th with or without CRC discussing this bylaw at that meeting or whether a discussion in January 8th would likely result in a referral because if it would likely result in a referral waiting two and three weeks to make that referral doesn't necessarily make sense because CRC could begin taking up that referral in a week with this council sending all of its questions, concerns and potential amendments to the body, mentioning them now or just sending them to me as chair so that I can compile them and stick them into a draft for discussion on the 18th at this point in time CRC likely has time to discuss it on the 18th. Whether it can finish its work, I don't know on the 18th, but it can at least begin that discussion if it's referred back, if it's not referred back and just postponed to the 8th, it does not start that discussion until committees are formed sometime in late January. Right. Correct. Pam. I would support referring it back to CRC as well so that it can go on to the carryover memo and there can be some of this detail included in that. And so whatever CRC that is formed in January has at least some record of what the intention is. OK, Dorothy, I'm going to skip over Andy and go to you. Just to the point I think it was Jennifer made it that in previous time, you'd heard from renters would certainly include students. So we should not have we should make sure there's an opportunity for students to participate if they choose in some kind of speaking. So that means not during the Christmas break. OK, Jennifer, I'm sorry, I'm going to back to Andy now. Yeah, I was just going to say a seconder of the motion. It's up to the maker of the motion to make final decision on this. But I would be quite willing to drop this motion if the maker of the motion wishes to and do the referral to CRC, because CRC can always make a recommendation to or make a decision once more time to bring it back to the council. The council has the opportunity in January, if it feels that it's still not had sufficient discussion, opportunity within the council to delay gives more control to CRC on how to deal with it. Kathy, I'm going to skip. I'm going to skip over Jennifer and go to Kathy since you made the motion. Well, I'm a little surprised because I was trying to be somewhat protective, I'll be honest of myself, because if CRC is going to take this up again, rather than me do wording changes, I just need to come to the CRC meeting to talk through some of this. So it puts another meeting on my agenda, which we have two finance committee meetings next week. We have two the week after that. I have a school building committee, so it's a lot of work. So what I had hoped would happen is that we'd have a fuller discussion of everybody's concerns before it went back so that you were dealing with it. But if people would prefer to have CRC work on this on the 18th, I'll just join CRC. The intention was to allow time to get everybody's input. I'm sitting on the finance committee. I was told, don't deal with the regulations. You know, you're just supposed to focus on fees. So I did, but I can focus on the Gestalt at this point. And I've started reading some other cities and towns just to look at variations. So I realize you've done a lot of work. So it was to avoid the group that's been focused on this. Sometimes you get locked into a certain way of thinking to hear from everyone. But if no one else is going to spend a lot of time on thinking through this, I'm happy to just try to come to the CRC meeting yet to attend it and and to. Pardon. So I can send it, but I would like to speak to it because it's not a simple of change this word, get rid of this clause. It's it's try to do the following things. So I can read, I can, I guess, rescind my motion to postpone and turn it into a refer to CRC that we're not doing it tonight. I thought it would be quicker just to postpone the discussion. OK, so let me just clarify at this point, the person who has made the motion has rescinded it and the seconder has agreed to that. So is there a new motion? I move to refer the Red Rental Registration bylaw and regulations back to the CRC. Second, the Angeles. OK, and you'll keep us surprised as to when you want to bring it forward. Let me point out that the next CRC meeting is December 14th at 4.30. Correct, Mandy, Joe. December 18th at 4.30. I think the no, the 14th. Sorry, the 14th is Thursday. The 18th is the council meeting. The 14th at 4.30. And you'll be telling us on the 18th how you're going to put on the carry on. Remember, now we'll at that time. And man, did you when would you like anybody who wants to give you any feedback to get it to you? By Friday, December 8th, that's this Friday, December 8th, close a business. Noon so that Athena can post my post of this. Thank you. OK, so you're all asked to provide feedback to the chair of CRC Mandy Joe Hanneke by noon on this Friday, December 8th, if we pass this motion. So now the motion is and I need a second. There was a second. It was. Did I get a second? Yeah, I did. Pat, thank you. Are there any other comments or questions, Andy? OK, Jennifer, I just didn't want to lose Kathy's suggestion that we the council might want to have executive session with legal counsel. Now does that I think we'll leave that to the issue of when after CRC looks at it, because they may actually want to do that. And we have to determine whether or not they can have an executive session because of the restrictions of what executive sessions can be used for. If I may, Paul has indicated to me that. Anticipation of litigation is not an eligible matter for executive session, but Paul can probably better answer that. So I would look at the material we have and send it to our town attorney and get official ruling on it. OK. Yeah. So so the motion on the floor now is to refer back to CRC and they will come back to the council with suggestions, recommendations, and so forth. OK. Is there any question on the motion? I would just ask Athena, she can get me the direct language so that I can get it into transfer memos and everything for posting when sometime tomorrow, the direct language of the motion. Sometime tomorrow, just and all. It's just to refer the rental registration by law and regulations back to the Community Resources Committee. But the unofficial record will be posted tomorrow. OK, thank you. OK. All right. We have to move to a vote. Manager Hanneke. Point of order. Did you want to include fees or no? Oh, include fees in the motion. Andy, include fees. Andy, your motion was to refer the bylaw and regulations. Did you want to include the fee schedule? I think at this point that I was not going to do so. I had been prepared to make a. That's three sentences report on the action of the Finance Committee so that it would just be clear to everybody. I'll leave it to the president. It's toward that. I should go ahead and do that. I. Are you asking me or I my personal opinion is it should include the fees? Yes, just send the fee schedule to have it be OK. Then I'll add the repeat schedule to the referral. OK, and Pat. You made the you second. OK. All right. So it's all the pieces, the bylaw, the regulations and the fees. OK. Everybody ready to vote? Mandy, Joe, here's your chance to say no. I'm sorry, Mandy. Anika. I, Michelle Miller. Hi, Dorothy Pam. Yes, Pam Rooney. Yes, Kathy Shane. Yes, Andy Steinberg. Yes, Jennifer Taub. Yes, Alicia Walker. Yes, Shalini Balmille. Yes, Patty Angelis. Anna Devlin, got here. Hi, Lynn Griezmer with unbelievable regret that we've had to do this to you. It's unanimous. OK. Now, let's talk about the agenda. OK. We still have on the agenda the town manager evaluation with an executive session to follow. We still have on the agenda the town manager goals with a discussion by GOL. We still have on the agenda the draft financial guidelines, which is a discussion only and the committee carry over discussion and referral of we know we voted on that and then the calendar and then the executive session. I'm open to suggestions as to what we think makes sense to delay to the 18th. Not all can be delayed. OK. Michelle, I think we have to have the executive session, right? For sure. Yes. I'm wondering like I mean, it's 1035. I think it's unreasonable to consider this meeting going on for much longer than this, maybe beyond 11. So that's my personal opinion. Maybe other people have different ideas about that. But I do want to ensure that we have the executive session as a priority if that's if that's needed tonight. Mandy, Joe, given that the council does not have any information.


Houthi fighters vow to strike US warships in the Red Sea. US warships will be attacked if Yemen's Houthis are targeted by Washington. The group's leader, Abdel Malik al-Houthi warned, reacting to the news of the US setting up a coalition to counter their attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Since last month, the militants have been firing missiles at international vessels sailing through the Red Sea. The attacks have been disrupting maritime traffic, with the group claiming the attacks were in response to Israel's strikes in Gaza. Earlier, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, which brings together 10 countries to jointly address security challenges in the Southern Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity. The group includes eight NATO countries, the US, UK, Netherlands, Canada, France, Italy, Norway and Spain, as well as Bahrain and the Seychelles. The coalition is planning to jointly patrol the sensitive area in order to repel and respond to Houthi attacks. Following the US announcement, Houthi leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi said any American targeting of our country will be targeted by us, adding US battleships, interests and navigation will in this case be made a target for their missiles, drones and military operations in a televised address on Wednesday. He also warned the US against sending soldiers to Yemen, saying they would face something harsher than what they faced in Afghanistan and what they suffered in Vietnam.