Okay. Good evening. Seen as we are assembled on August 31st, the day before election day, please make sure you vote if you haven't already. We are going to begin our meeting by my checking in with people to make sure I can hear them and they can hear me. Governor Baker's March 12 order suspending certain provisions in the open meeting law 30 a paragraph 20 allows us to hold this virtual town meeting. I'll call upon each counselor by name, and please make sure that point you unmute your mic but then mute it after you say you're present. This will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us. This is also how we will deal with counselor comments throughout the agenda. Please use the raise hand function. So, I'm going to start with the roll call. And I'm going to start with Shawnee Balmille present. Alyssa Brewer present. Pat D'Angelo's present. President. Lynn Griezmer present. Joe Hannity. Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Present. Steve Schreiber. Present. Andy Steinberg. Present. Sarah Schwartz. Present. Okay. Given that we have a quorum of the council present. I call the August 31, 2020 meeting of the council to order at six. Oh, 632. Just two seconds. I need to. All right. The meeting includes audio video and is available live on Amherst media. And also is being recorded. There is no chat room for this meeting. If there are technical issues, please let Serge or Athena know. Or make, let me know. To make a comment or ask a question, please use the raised hand button. And if we have to pause the meeting because of technical difficulties, we will make a note of that in the minutes. I just want to make sure that Athena and Serge will be monitoring counselor connections. And that's how we will proceed with the meeting. I want to just quickly ask that we put the announcements up. I just want to start by announcing this is actually not a special meeting of the town council, but a regular meeting of the town council. I think it really makes no difference since we're planning to have public comment anyway. I want to call attention to the two items up here. The first one is the new co vid concerns hotline. And also the fact that you can email town government with your concerns. In addition to that, the UMass is holding a public or community forum. And the meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday at September 3rd at 530. And the information about that is on the front page of the town of the town's website. Let me move quickly to the order of the agenda. There is only one period for public comment. We're not to that yet. Serge. So please take it down. There's only one period for public comment will be at the beginning of the meeting. There are two items listed under topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair. 48 hours in advance of the meeting and they are listed as 14 a and 14 b. 14 a is regarding planning board and 14 b is a reconsideration of the zoning bylaw 11.250. We will start with items eight a and b after public comment, then move to seven a and b. And then we will take a break and I will assess where we are with the agenda and decide whether or not there are items that will be moved to September 14. And also the placement of the executive session. So with that, I would like to ask anybody who would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. Let me just say, you're welcome to express your views for up to say three. Well, I need to see who all wants to speak. Is that all the people who would like to speak tonight. Okay. Thank you for your comments to two minutes of prep, if at all possible. We'll start with Zoe Crabtree. Please come in, state your name, and if you would like to take your screenshot off, you can. Can you hear me. Yes, we can Zoe. Hi, my name is Zoe Crabtree. I'm in district five. I'm just calling today to speak out in favor of the proposed recommendations and edits to the GLL goals for the time manager that the racial equity task force put together. I believe that you've received them over email. They were also talked about in the Amherst D. And the general overview, if you haven't read them yet is that it is important to weave racial equity goals throughout each of the town's goals, as opposed to having a separate one. And also that if there are goals about racial equity that they need to be attached to things that are specific and measurable, which I think is really important as well. That's why I wanted to say tonight. Thank you. Thank you just for your information. The piece of information that was provided by us by the racial equity task force, I believe is in our packet. Gabrielle. Hi, I am introducing the racial equity task force of Amherst response to the Council's goals for the town manager fiscal year 21. The town manager goals for fiscal year 21 document list policy goals management goals, rather than relegating race and equity to one issue area, weaving the lens of racial equity and social justice into every policy and management goal, provide a starting point for a substantive inclusion of BIPOC residents, as well as those of other marginalized groups into the town management and governance. This entails asking how the climate action, community health and safety, economic vitality, major capital investments, housing affordability and racial equity and social justice goals are informed by what the data, both qualitative and quantitative in addition to resident testimony about their experiences about the experiences assets and needs of BIPOC and vulnerable residents of Amherst for every goal area. Such a revision could begin by using existing sources, both individual and institutional local and regional agencies have already concluded have already conducted interviews with Amherst residents as well as documented some of our experiences assets and needs. At this stage, committing in writing to an inclusion of qualitative and quantitative data about BIPOC residents and seeking to answer the question of how each policy area will address these findings would suffice. Let's not allow perfectionism to become the enemy of progress. If it were possible for Dimitri Shabazz to follow me with the second section, we would really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. We can do that. Dimitri. Thank you. Again, I'm going to sum up the specifics of the racial equity and social justice goals that we included. It includes the formation of a council of BIPOC residents with the budget and authority to hold public meetings and invite the participation of BIPOC residents from all walks of life in a format that includes people of all socio-economic educational strata and of all abilities, language interpretation, needs for transportation and childcare. Also, the participation of council members in the town manager is required to be to have anti-bias and anti-racism training provided by a third party. And we would like to include that a majority of council of BIPOC residents that would be on a contract review committee to be a part of this. Then thirdly, we want that the council members in the town manager in meetings with the council of BIPOC residents with the goal of examining racial inequities and injustices via both qualitative and quantitative data and through facilitated dialogue and testimony. We also would like that the council of BIPOC residents oversee funding for youth programming in the short term and planning for a cultural center in the long term. We also would like to see the council of BIPOC residents pursue other specific programming ideas that we've proposed through conversations, but we'd like to get them formally written. The goal of community health and safety should be expanded to include reshaping the culture of policing and a commitment to shifting funding from the town budget away from policing in a manner that not only addresses social issues, but that ensures anti-racism training and community dialogues and that they continue including the creation of a civilian review board and the ability to highlight instances of differential treatment and enforcement. If now I could call on Isolda, we'll continue with the document. Is that possible? I will recognize Isolda. Good evening. Thank you so much. The town manager goals for FY 21 document also lists management goals. These are especially critical goals in which to weave in racial equity and social justice as they involve the day to day business of governance and create institutional barriers for the participation of BIPOC and other vulnerable residents. For example, the goal area of administration leadership and personnel management includes, quote, retaining, recruiting and developing a highly qualified, diverse and effective staff, but does not include numerical goals. There's not a way to measure the outcome without a baseline and goal. And we also notice that there is not a reference to multilingual, bilingual, bicultural staff who would also receive training. The long-term vision management goal does not include racial equity and social justice. And so we don't think that it can see results of expanded participation in civic life and an enriched and just community life without that lens. Moving on the community engagement goal, if it weaved in racial equity and social justice, we would ask questions such as how are BIPOC people, speakers of languages other than English, people with various disabilities, financial insecurity, varied documentation status, formerly incarcerated people, people suffering housing insecurity, LGBTQ people and other vulnerable communities, empowered and supported in community participation and leadership. There's also an interesting goal around the relationship between the town council and many residents. We could say that that relationship is at a crossroads. On the one hand, there's been real damage done in recent weeks. On the other hand, communication has greatly increased. How does the town manager contribute to expanding rather than contracting local democracy and community participation would be a question for that goal. Ultimately, in order to strategically elevate racial equity and social justice and the town governments and administration to advance on gender and distribute the work of the town manager, capacity could be expanded. And we would recommend hiring a chief diversity equity inclusion officer. However, despite the media's emphasis today on this one bullet out of two pages, clearly what we're talking about here is a paradigm. We're talking about a lens and a way of looking at all policy areas through the lens of racial equity and social justice, which are not solely dependent on one position, though such a position would be an ultimate goal. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. Thank you for your comment. Harry Mullen. Hi. My name is Terry Mullen. I live in District four. I'm also speaking on rehab in support of the racial equity task force demands and what to add to the town counselor's goals and how to weave in racial equity work at every level of the goals. I also would really like to see more clear ways to gather data and work at clear goals to gather such data. It seems like just doing some basic Google searches that there are packets from the National League of cities on how to collect data. There's three colleges in town, all with math and statistics departments who I'm sure would be willing to talk to you about how to collect data. Appropriately, there's the UMass has even more resources in terms of social justice data collection or social data collection, I should say rather hopefully you would use it for justice. I think you can. So yeah, so those are just some suggestions of places to look on on how to collect this data. I know it's a big job, but I really think this town is as well equipped to do it, especially with all the movement that we've seen in the in the in the past couple weeks. So, and thank you for respecting the racial equities test force effort to speak in in succession that was that was really nice. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for your comments Terry. Anita sorrow. Anita, can you unmute and make sure that you state your name and where you live. Can you hear me now. Yes, you can. Thank you. I'm new to this and I don't have prepared comments but I did want one to speak up in in support of the recommendations from the racial equity task force and I think I speak as an ally of the BIPOC community. I think that that the goals as or the recommendations that they've made are very coherent, very important, and I hope you accept them all. And I hope that this is the beginning of a process. I think we all learned, especially from the most recent issues, especially the consolidation the proposal for consolidation of voting sites that everything that comes before you everything's every decision that is made can have ramifications that are unexpected or unnoticed when they're first talking about it. So I would just ask that you consider these recommendations as the beginning. I hope you adopt them. But as the beginning of a process and I would ask you to consider that every decision and every project and every matter that affect the town should be put through that lens that is older was mentioning about, you know, how does this decision. have the effect on on BIPOC citizens on people made vulnerable and marginalized by any disability that mental illness lack of adequate housing all of those. I would suggest that you think almost in terms of just as environmental impact statements are considered before any projects that on that this kind of lens can be used for everything that you do so just wanted wanted to voice my strong support of this measure and I hope it's the beginning of some fundamental and long overdue changes in our town. Thank you. Thank you. Kathleen trap. Hi, thanks for letting me speak and thanks for all the work that you do every day and thanks to the members of the racial equity task force for all the work that they have done to put together a super comprehensive set of recommendations that we I think from the white ally community are learning from them every day. That's really graciousness on their part to continue to teach us what we need to know in order to move forward to advance racial equity in this town and I definitely want to the last commenter just said about adopting the package of recommendations that they have put before you in whole, because they are well put together they are comprehensive and they each one of them means something all together. So thanks again for your time and thank you again to the racial equity task force. There's somebody with the name of MFA. I a faculty. Would you please come in and state your name and where you live. Hi, I'm sorry that my name is jupong Lynn. I'm apparently have entered the meeting with my, my work zoom account. I live in Amherst. I'm a fairly new member of the Amherst community, although I think I've been living here for three years but I think that's still considered fairly new. I'm a naturalized citizen. Born in Taiwan and my first language was Hoken and so I just wanted to say that as part of my context, and really appreciate his oldest comments about wanting to see a more multi lingual multicultural staff at work in in Amherst, a town that, you know, prides itself in being welcoming to a diverse population. I can't say that that's been my experience that that it's been welcoming to a diverse population I see. I rarely see Asians in leadership roles in the town. And I know myself I've avoided involvement in this level of government, because I haven't felt represented or that I have a voice. But I have been involved beginning to be involved with the Amherst racial equity task force and I want to really thank them and all the people for that have been involved in in putting forward this proposal. And I want to voice my strong support of their work. I think that the Town Council, when I look on the screen and see who is representing all of us citizens of Amherst, you have some work to do. It's, you know, this is not this is not a very diverse group. I fully support directing greater resources to supporting black indigenous and people of color, disabled people, the homeless community and other marginalized and vulnerable communities. And I also want to add that I'm a member of the board of the startup food co op the common share food co op. And I strongly believe that food justice is a public health issue it's a public health emergency. It's a public health co justice concern. And I find it unacceptable that parts of Amherst are defined by the EPA as food deserts. And I put that in quotes I have some critique or issues with the term food desert, but but it's, you know, a useful term to note that there are places in Amherst where you don't have access to healthy food, and people who don't have access to, you know, cars. It takes it takes a long time it sometimes can take a whole day to get to a grocery store. So I want to call on the Town Council to support the food co op the mobile market and other projects that are working towards food sovereignty And I think that's, that's a big issue that is a barrier to, you know, really supporting a thriving community in Amherst. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Hi, good evening. My name is wayling greenie and I live on 76 McClellan Street. And tonight I want to bring your attention to the appointment process for planning or members. I have attended town meetings in 1995 and was a select board from 2005 to 2008. And in my tenure participating in town government. Planning happened to be one of my interests. And the reason I'm interested in is because that I work with people who are homeless struggling with housing. And affordable housing is very apparent. And I'm sure that every one of you is very aware and supportive of affordable housing. However, when it comes to the reality, we all have our pet peeves. So some of you might like me, I have my favorite child of the four children, and you have your favorite positions that you take. And when you appoint members, you might appoint people that you feel you have some similarity. So therefore you would advocate for a certain member being appointed. And that comes to the territory as a human being. And I want to recognize that. However, in my participation of town government. I recognize there are instances where when the town manager used to be the appointing body for appointing board. And then over the years when I witness the town itself have the preference for a certain interpretation of the town bylaw, such that the downtown development is in favor of developers. To the extent I also witness there are planning board members who are not appointed because of the position they have in terms of development, or not in favor of huge development. So all that preference is expressed in my participation. I really want to come up this time to say to you, we have our preferences when it comes to a child, but we all know we represent all of them that we love all of them. I urge you when you did discuss tonight about the planning board appointment discussion, please realizing that you represent all of us. Some of us prefer big development because that might help us lessen our tax burden as homeowners. Some of us we prefer small meaningful development because we want to make housing affordable in that we feel a small desegregated development is more likely to bring forth affordable housing. So therefore that I as the spouse of one of the candidates who apply for the planning board member three times for seven positions. And I am not going to be bashful to say that my husband Bob Greeny has been very dutifully working hard to prepare the statements and express in action for participating in town government elections and for thinking about how the planning can be done to preserve the tax base to preserve affordable housing and to preserve the small town charm, the small town charm. However, because of his standing in favor of meaningful small development in my mind has contributed to his applying three times and not being appointed. And that really bring out my bad memory of one of our old planning board members, she was not appointed because she was deemed as not able to work with others. So for this, I want to ask you to please in your discussion tonight to think about that you as a parent representing all of us, you have your favorite child, but you are here to love all your children and to provide the best for them. Thank you very much for your attention and I look forward to your discussion in 14 a and 14 b Robert Greeny please. Can you hear me. Yes, we can. I, I'm going to read a prepared statement I feel compelled to say I did not know whaling was going to talk. I have some prepared comments. Tonight the town council will consider the recommendation of the CRC for the appointment of three new planning board members are current planning. One current planning board member who applied for reappointment is not included in the recommendations. I urge the town council, not to approve those recommendations. As the town council began, there have been two previous instances of town council approval of planning board appointments. Tonight is the third time in 15 months that the council will consider a list of recommended candidates. I am familiar with the process in all three cases, because in all three cases I was among the candidates interviewed and considered for appointment. I do not know in detail that time does not permit, but the most striking feature to be considered in your deliberations is the following. In the first instance, May 2019, the four recommendations put before the council included three current members for reappointment, and one new member, Janet McGowan. I recall the long debate followed a motion to not approve the four recommendations. The main point of contention was whether or not the fourth person should be Greg Stutzman, the current, the then current chair, who had served the recommended limit of two terms. The second motion was not approved and the second motion was made and passed. It is striking and demands explanation that at that time many councilors thought reappointment so important that out of four openings, not a single one be a new member. Dark contrast. Tonight, you will be asked to approve three new members who have not previously applied for planning board positions instead of the normally automatic reappointment of a current member of one term. And myself, who has applied on all three previously mentioned occasions. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. There is one other hand and I'm only going to recognize that and then we're going to move on with our meeting, Janet. We're not, I just want to be very clear, I'm going to recognize Janet Keller and then that's the end of public comment for tonight. Thank you. I am reading also from part of the email that I sent the council earlier today. And thank you for this opportunity to speak. As I said then, I am asking the council. In the strongest way I know how to not appoint three new members who have no planning board experience. Instead to reappoint Michael Burt whistle as a planning board member for a three year term. And I do so in light of the fact that there are three vacancies on the board. And the remaining four planning board members have a relatively short tenure. Mr Burt whistle has served as a valued member of the planning board, but not only of the planning board, but as liaison from the planning board to the design review board, and the community preservation act committee, and has received a raise from members of both the planning board and the community preservation act committee. I'm not aware if of, I assume the same is true of the design review board. Mr Burt whistle is the only one of the five candidates with experience serving on any planning board. And I think if the town council wishes to consider some of the new recommended appointees that there will be an opportunity to do that. Next year when two more vacancies will open open up. I'd like to point out that Mr Burt whistle meets more than meets the criteria of the CRC's outreach and communication and appointment committee to be part of a strong base of seasoned members and I stress season. Mr Burt whistle meets the guidelines that Christine Gray Mullen, who was an outgoing planning board chair, gave to Mandy Joe Hanneke in an email listing the skills and characteristics that she thought a successful planning board member should have. It's a long list and it includes knowing community issues and the master plan, the zoning bylaw and related ordinances and understanding the regulatory function of the board. An ability to communicate clearly and concisely and an analytic build ability for decision making understanding design and construction drawings and being available five to 12 hours a week on on the weeks every two, two times a month for when the planning board is in session. Janet please wrap up. Thank you. So, I would like to say that the CRC recommended three other candidates with no planning board experience. And as you've heard did not recommend Mr greening. I urge you to reappoint Michael Burt whistle at a time when the, the experience that he brings is crucially needed. Thank you. Thank you for your. You're now going to move on to the rest of the agenda. And we're starting with two items that have been delayed quite for quite a lengthy period of time. And I'm sorry we do. I'm we now do consent agenda. Thank you. I mentioned that we're showing the consent agenda up here. The motion and I will make it as follows the following items are selected because they are were considered to be routine, and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no consent agenda item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting asked that it be removed when the president list the consent agenda item, the request to remove an item from the consent agenda does not require a second. So the motion is to move the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as single unit. Referral ACHC referral of capital inventory criteria to finance committee. 11 a to D approval of minutes. I want to note that one of these minutes has been since corrected with changes that were made by an earlier comment. July 14 2020 joint town council and finance committee meeting minutes. July 15 2020 joint town council and finance committee meeting minutes. July 28 2020 joint town council and school committee, proper farm expansion presentation minutes and August 3 2020 town council meeting minutes. Is there anything that anybody wants removed please. The screen. Please raise your hand. Seeing nobody is there a second. And a key seconds. Okay, any further discussion at this time. And I will do a roll call vote. You can take the screen down search. Thank you. Grower. Upstain. The Angeles. Yes. Upstain. Reismer. Yes. Anarchy. Yes. Pam. Yes. Ross. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Shane. Yes. Driver. Yes. Dynberg. Yes. Fort. Hi. Yes. And Bob. Yes. Vote is 11. Yes. No, no. No. No people against it. And two abstentions and nobody absent. Moving on. The next item. Now we get to the items that we have delayed. For several times. We have two items that we have delayed. We have a project at 132 North Hampton road, the local option. And we need to pull the letter up. And let me just say that. If you have other edits to the letter, I've already caught one. Thanks to councilor bringing it to my attention. But the real discussion and Christine Brestrup is here. If we have additional questions. Real discussion is on two items. The first item. And the second item. We have two items under. The paragraph that begins. In our recommendation, the local residents, according to local preference. Is an applicant that one lives in the community. Two is a municipal employee. Three works at a business in the community. Community and our four. Has children in the schools of the community. That's one of our discussion items. And it says furthermore, we recommend that the ZBA local preference, not exceed in the decision is at what percent. And we can go no higher than 70%. I'd like to have a very brief discussion. And then a motion. Are there comments at this time? Kathy. I just want to make sure that I, um, I understand the way this will work. As I understood, as I did listen to the recent hearing, this local preference would be in the very first round. Um, of the lottery. Does it then apply as spaces open up? Or is it just the first time? Um, the building. And apartments open up. It's a question is, is, it is the first round. Is there a question? Is there a question? Is there a question? I don't think so. Is it Christine Graham in the audience? I mean, I'm sorry, is Christine. Yes, sure. Face this on the screen. Okay. Christine. Am I correct that it is only in the first round? That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Are there other questions from the council? Um, I, there's no hit raise hand here. I was having some trouble with going to the maximum 70% local preference. But as I investigated some of this, it's clear that a local preference pool and the developer needs to determine the number of local resident minority households there are in the municipality and the percentage of minorities in the local preference pool. And if the percentage of minority local resident households in the local preference pool is less than the percentage of minorities in the surrounding HUD-defined area, the developer must adjust the local preference pool to reflect the regional percentage. I do not know what the percentage of minority folks are here in Amherst, but I support now this 70% because it would include people from Springfield and Holyoke and other towns that some of the butters have been rather clear that they didn't want to have in our community. So I am hoping that everyone will support the 70%.  There is no, there is no symbol at the base of my screen for hand up for some reason. But, oh, I see it over there. I do. Okay, great. I just wanted to comment on the fourth one, have children in the school system. Since these are single room occupancy and no couples, that seems a little bit strange to have because they wouldn't be allowed to have, if their child overnight, let's say they had a joint custody system set up. So that one seems to be not relevant for this particular apartment unit. I'm going to just take a moment and speak to that because I feel strongly this needs to be left in. There may be situations where people have children, they may have visitation rights, they may not be able to have them overnight, but it still allows them to be local and be able to be near their child. So I don't see that as an issue personally. And it's something I feel quite strongly about. George. I'd like to express my support for the 70% and for the local preference. I think I've spoken about this before, but I'll be brief that the town has made a major financial commitment to this project. I think that this is part of my reasoning. And I agree with Pat, this is a regional issue. It's not just a local issue, but I think there are safeguards in place. And so I would hope that my colleagues would support the local preference. Again, the decision is ultimately by the ZBI. This is simply a recommendation by this body. It's not binding. So I would encourage you to support it at the full 70%. Thank you. And thanks for the reminder that this is not our decision. This is just a recommendation. Mandy Johannicky. Yes, thank you. I've struggled with this one because our financial commitment is only 10% of the total estimated cost of this project. Yet we're asking to potentially require 70% of the first round residents, first round residents of the building and project to be from Amherst. That seems a bit out of sync to me. Yet I did some research and our housing, from our housing trust or our housing thing, we have a whole lot of, and I was reading the SRO, the Valley CDC things, Amherst itself has a whole lot of people on waiting lists for one bedrooms throughout the affordable housing units we have in town. So if we didn't give a local preference, it would likely be that a number of people would still qualify from the locality. My biggest concern though is since COVID. I had less of a concern about a local preference when we didn't have high unemployment. But now we have huge amounts of unemployment.  Those are individuals who likely would have qualified under a local preference to rent and and apply for this building under the works in Amherst section of this local preference item. Yet now, because they are furloughed or they have lost their job, they would not qualify if they don't currently live in Amherst because they no longer have a job in Amherst even though they did. And I'm having real difficulty saying that those individuals who lost their job through no fault of their own because of a global pandemic and a university's decision to furlough them and fire them because they don't have students on campus can no longer apply to live in this project under the local preference and get preference for that first round draft. So I don't know what the solution to that is but I have real concerns saying 70 percent must be local of the first round must be local when we have such a high unemployment here that will prevent a number of people who would have qualified to be in that first round pool with local preference who will now no longer qualify to be in that first round pool. I'm going to ask counselors not to just to hold off for a moment. Leave your hand up if you'd like to speak to the four criteria but I'll call on you later.  I just want to see if we can get a piece of the letter settled. Shalini. Yeah I'm feeling conflicted about this because on the one hand we know that this is a regional issue and we want to work with our neighbors around this and at the same time I obviously want to give preference to our own people but I'm also hearing Mandy Joe say that they were employed here but now they're not there so are there any norms or when other similar projects were built in other places what what is generally the norm when we're working with regional issues like this. Christine do you have any additional information to add to that question and I just want to say Shalini I'd ask that we stick to the issue of the four items. Yeah it's the four it's the 70 percent one right. That's fine go ahead Christine. Oh I just wanted to say that most of the time that we have affordable units in town we do we do recommend that the zoning board of appeals require that 70 of them be for local preference and I am not aware of any time that they have not done that so in my experience this is very typical that the first round is 70 percent local preference. Are there any comments about the four items, four criteria not the percentage not the percentage Dorothy. I'm not sure if in fact that many of those workers who are furloughed are would be included as not working for the town of Amherst. They still from what I read they will still be receiving help benefits and it's they have not been fired some will be but a large number are furloughed which means that they have certain rights to that job to return to it so I think that they would in fact be counted as having as working in Amherst. Can I just add to that Lynn because I looked it up a furloughed person is still employed is in employment law employer guidelines there is still an employee relationship it's very different than being fired um even if you were laid off temporarily you have it so that concern we would under when you said the specifics if they have been employed in town and are now furloughed they would count under what I understand our criteria to be. Melissa you have to unmute okay now all of a sudden there's no hands up okay is there anybody else who would like to speak to the four criteria not the percentage the four criteria Alyssa. Yes I believe the four criteria which have now disappeared from my screen thanks to unmuting um are actually accurate for the reasons that were just stated because again it's not you that you have to meet all four of those and we are still I believe we still have plenty of municipal employees plenty of current town residents and plenty of furloughed people again all of which would have to be looking for a single occupancy place whereas many many many of the furloughed workers and laid off workers have families that couldn't possibly live there anyway so given those four separate criteria and that they're not additive that they're separate I feel very fine with having those be the four criteria are there any now we'll go to the issue of the percentage are there additional comments regarding the percentage Sarah Schwartz so yes I hope this is okay and shut me up if it's not but I want to say that I I am not supporting um the percentage or the the four criteria and I will tell you it's because I have a sister that um is on disability and has had section eight for probably 20 years now and her life would be greatly improved and her health if she were able to move from where she is in western Massachusetts to Amherst and she has told me repeatedly for the last 10 years that there is absolutely no way she will ever be able to get affordable housing in Amherst because quote unquote we are not friendly there's almost no way to get affordable housing here if you are not from this community so because I am touched by this personally I just wanted to I don't know if anybody else has this experience or has had it I just wanted to bring that up comments Sarah are there additional people who would like to speak to the percentage are there people in general are we ready for a motion I'm going to try a motion then um the motion is to authorize president greece merge to sign the letter to the zoning board of appeals regarding the implementation of local preference titled draft letter regarding local preference at 132 Northampton road at as of 7 27 2020 obviously we'll change that date recommending that the zoning board of appeals seek approval from the subsidizing agency to implement a local selection preference with the allowable categories of current resident municipal employees employees of local businesses for the initial lot lottery or has children in the local schools and lease of 70 percent of the units at 132 Northampton road is there a second Kathy you have your hand up I second I just want to make sure you're going to fill in the blank that we saw in the page originally so that's you put 70 but I second is there any further discussion Dorothy you have your hand up okay I'm seeing no further comments we'll move to a roll call vote pat de angeles yes barcy yes win grease mercy yes mandy joe hannity no no Dorothy Pam yes evan ross no george ryan yes yes Kathy shane yes Steve Schreiber yes andy steinberg yes Sarah Schwartz no shall any balmoon no Alyssa Brewer yes 944 against and no abstentions the motion passes and I will change the letter date accordingly the next section the next item at one point was on the consent agenda we removed it because somebody wanted to remove then so we bothered not to put it back on this is an item regarding the master plan update request and with regard to that I'm going to first call on Christine Gray Mullen and Christine Bresta and the motion for are the you will emotion and that was voted on by the planning board is on the screen in front of you so uh Christine Gray Mullen uh yes um hello I'm actually going to pass the mic over to Christine Brestrap who has a prepared statement at this time but I am here if anyone has needs information about the planning board thank you thank you shall I speak yes please um so last winter the town council requested that the planning board and the planning department undertake an update of the master plan and the update was to consider the necessary and obvious changes to the master plan including things like changing reference to the select board and town meeting to town manager and town council the update was to occur prior to town council adopting the master plan in accordance with article 9.8 of the charter and following the update of the master plan the planning board and the planning department were to undertake a rewrite of the zoning bylaw in keeping with the goals of the master plan so we began to work on the master plan update in February and we're prepared to present a first chapter to the planning board on March 18th when the governor declared a lockdown due to COVID-19 the March 18th meeting was cancelled and the planning board didn't get back to the issue of the master plan until May 20th updating the master plan can be challenging in this time of COVID-19 when we really can't hold public forums and we need to rely on zoom meetings once we began working on the master plan update it became clear that the master plan is it basically a good document but it needs implementing other than some small changes the writing that we did was mostly reporting on how the master plan had already been implemented and what was still left to do working on the land use chapter which is chapter three we did not find many revisions that urgently needed to be made the master plan can't contains an implementation matrix which is several pages long and lists many strategies that are still pertinent and timely and just need to be implemented those that are interested in the master plan may wish to focus on the implementation matrix and work on zoning amendments and other actions that still need to be accomplished when COVID-19 intervened the town's priorities shifted to the health and safety of its residents as well as the recovery for the town's economy and the planning board and the planning department spent a lot of time during the spring and early summer preparing a temporary zoning amendment to allow restaurants retail and personal care establishments to operate outdoors this effort has led to some success but it really took away time that we might have otherwise spent on the master plan since then the planning board and the planning department has sensed a shift in the focus on the part of many residents and some council members who are eager to see changes to the zoning bylaw the rewrite of the zoning bylaw seems to be more of a priority right now the planning board discussed changing its priority to focus on the zoning bylaw at its july 1st meeting the board voted seven to zero to recommend to town council that town council consider adopting the approved master plan as it is for now and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning bylaw changes including establishing establishing design guidelines and revisit the issue of the master plan at a later date we know that development is coming to our downtown and village centers and we want to be in a better position to shape that development and this is only possible with an updated zoning bylaw with regard to climate change and resiliency issues we know that ecac is working on a climate action and resiliency plan which is due to be completed by the end of the year when it's complete a decision can be made about how to incorporate its findings and goals into the master plan either chapter by chapter or incorporated by reference as a whole plan similarly to the way that the transportation plan was incorporated this seems like a good time to pause on the update of the master plan and to shift the town's focus to the rewrite of the zoning bylaw thank you christine is there any additional comment from christine gray mullen on the planning board i'll um i agree with everything that chris bestrip just stated um and i just want to encourage the town council to really think about prioritization and the best use of our town staff resources and they are limited and the planning department is already so full with so much uh we would just really uh as a board we were unanimous uh which is a big deal all of us were in agreement that we would like to see chris bestrip be able to focus more on updating the zoning bylaws thank you mandy does all macky the community resources committee uh comments from your report yes um i just want to mention that we heard a similar report from uh the christine gray mullen chris bestrip on july 21st um and took the unanimous planning board recommendation to heart and therefore unanimously with one absent recommends that the council adopt the master plan as is based on that um obviously the motion tonight is not to adopt the master plan as is it's to stop the update process but um that was the vote in crc was to essentially adopt the master plan as is which would have the effect of stopping the update process um so we'll move to council comments kathy shaney of your hinder uh yes i am in favor of this i think it's wise um given that the examination said we have a pretty good master plan they're just large amounts of it that haven't been implemented or different pieces so i mainly have a question as the shift is on zoning there is a matrix on implementation and chris bestrip you came to one earlier crc meeting i think it was a year ago where you started to look through that matrix um i think it may be helpful to at least you know yellow highlight uh priorities of things that haven't been you know to somehow say we've done these things we've done these we've done these you know tick them off and say here are some areas that rwanda should be focused on and i don't know whether all of those linked to zoning or not so that's it's it's a combination of uh you know that that matrix and if almost all of them are in some way linked to zoning then the shift to zoning makes total sense but i just was thinking of a mix between what what if what things haven't been implemented that maybe we could implement without revising our our zoning law in a major way so it's it's sort of a question on the undone things on implementation i'm going to call on christine bestrip but before i do while you're answering that question christine would you just elaborate on the comment that you made about incorporating climate change and resilience once we have their plan in a manner similar to the way i believe you said transportation was done and could you just explain to the council how that happened because i think that's one of the outstanding questions for some people so the way that happened was that the planning board took a vote after the transportation plan was finished and the vote was to incorporate the transportation plan by reference into the master plan and they've done that with other plans i think they did that with the housing production plan and the market the housing market study and the open space and recreation plan so over time they've incorporated many of these plans that are sort of peripheral to the master plan into the master plan and we can come up with a list of those if you'd like right the other thing i want to mention but i also want you to answer kathy's question or comment and the point to comment on that maybe at the point at which and it will be sometime either in september or october or the site on the date but we are required by the charter to have a public forum once a year on the master plan and so that may be a very good time to do some of this discussion if you will and and questions and comments i just want to point that out we originally had thought we'd have it on the 28th of september but that is the break fast of yam kippur and that does not work so uh dorthy you have your hand up did you want me to answer um kathy's question yes we um some only some of the items in the implementation matrix of the master plan are related to zoning those mostly have to do with land use there are other sections of the zoning bylaw or excuse me the master plan that have to do with open space and recreation education town services transportation and various other things and those have items on the implementation matrix that can also be worked on but they're not necessarily related to zoning thank you dorthy you have a question um yes and again i want christine to respond to this there were changes that have been talked about for over a year that were small changes and they didn't get done and now this is going to put them off even further and that has me very upset one of them is the inclusionary zoning of 10 percent the way the the zoning law is being interpreted is that this is not triggered in in in many many developments only if there's i think it's a change of use request and so we've had a lot of housing built without a single affordable apartment um the other thing that was mentioned was not a very difficult one which having was clarifying a little bit from setback um not just from the sidewalk of a certain width perhaps of 10 or 15 feet and these are things that were talked about in the zoning subcommittee and i mean i was in part of conversations listening to conversations on these topics for a long time so if we put it off once again and don't do these very simple things buildings will be built once again without these qualities which are considered to be pretty essential but i may have it wrong so i want christine to comment on that christine are these master plan or are they zoning of bylaws the issues that darthy was just mentioning were zoning bylaws and so those things would be considered to be the priorities while the master plan would be kind of put aside for a while and those don't include making change i mean they're referenced in the master plan they're not the actual action the action would come when the town council approves a zoning bylaw amendment to the effect of 10 inclusionary zoning or changing a setback so those issues are not related to the delay of the master plan that's right okay good thank you yeah um the motion that i see is to rescind uh a vote that we took on february 10th and at that time we decided not to vote to adopt the master plan um because people felt like um it's we shouldn't adopt it if it hasn't been updated so um i why is it different why is the situation different now why you know my my feeling is the same way that it was on february 10th in that i wouldn't want to adopt a master plan that isn't up to date and doesn't have those um uh climate actions i don't want them just add in an addendum saying the the climate action plan was passed and and this is an addendum to our master plan they the climate action plan should be interwoven into all the different parts of the master plan um just like those other plans should be also so anyway is there someone who can answer that question about why would we need to do this now um why i have no inclination to adopt a master plan that's way out of date christine gray mullen you have your hand up i believe chris bastard can probably better answer this um but i and i wanted to bring up one other point but this is about town resources and just time so we i'm just saying as the planning board we heard what your vote was the last time and we did our darndest and really looked into it and chris best drove deep and the general consensus of the planning board was we have a pretty darn good master plan it's a framework it's not a directive and you have to remember that and i was a part of the transportation plan that got accepted as an addendum so it becomes part of the framework it's not you know bullet items this is what happens so part of it is the master plan as chris best said it's not great timing right now with the pandemic going on and the communication the way it is um and that very important environmental climate report will not be done it earliest you know the end of this year so as chris was saying let's relook at this next year and and maybe priorities will shift again but right now what really needs to be done you know to double on what dorothy was pointing out those issues are what are really need to happen and bylaw changes and they're very complicated especially inclusionary zoning there are no easy answers but chris best trip and her team and if they need other you know resources that's what they're going to work on mr morrow um so chris may have more to add but i just want to remind everyone when you're looking at that um that matrix one of the key critical parts to it is the mpic the master plan implementation committee that was never formed we could go back on a long story there and you know many but we are here now and that maybe is the most important thing that in the next year would be created and moved on for the master plan because they will be critical in collecting data so that we can properly do a proper master plan update and as chris was saying not just sort of like a report card of what's been happening and what didn't happen we really want to you know do it right so i just want to remind everyone when you do have that meeting that's really to me the first starting point you got to look at the mpic thanks chris pristine breast strip did you have any additional comments in that my only comment is that i understood that your motion tonight was not to adopt the master plan the way it is but rather to rescind your request to the planning board to work on the master plan as a priority at this time that that is the essence of the motion mandy joe you're your hand up yeah i was just going to actually make the motion so it's on the table so i moved to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on we need to suspend rules of procedure 8.4 oh sorry i missed that one on there i moved to suspend town council rules of procedure 8.4 for the current agenda item is there a second ryan second any further discussion on the suspension of the rules which allows us to act on this motion tonight this is comments on the suspension of the rules mandy joe you still have your hand up oh no i don't sorry your comment on the suspension of the rules garcy is your comment on the suspension of no okay then i'm going to move to a vote on this um humant no brismar is a yes anarchy yes ham abstain ross yes ryan yes chain yes driver yes steinberg yes pork yes ball mill yes and brewer yes and the angeles yes so the vote is 11 for one against and one abstention so we are going to move on to the main motion now mandy joe thank you i moved to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on agenda item 7 i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan as set forth in the document titled crc proposed master plan process 2020 2004 as recommended by the community resources committee as presented and accept the july 20 the july 1 2020 planning board recommendation but the town council consider adopting the mass the approved master plan as is for now and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning bylaw changes including establishing design guidelines and revisit the issue of the master plan at a later date is there a second discussion did you call on me lin yes i did um yeah i the language of that motion is i'm not sure what we're being asked to do that that we're being asked to consider adopting or we're not we're not being asked to adopt we're asked to that doesn't make sense to me that we're being as to accept the july 1 2020 planning board recommendation that the town council consider adopting not that we adopt but consider adopting the approved master plan as is for now and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning bylaw changes what does that mean that we if we voted on this motion we're voting to consider adopting the master plan all it says is we are voting to consider adopting it does not mean you're adopting when andy joe please so this motion rescinds our vote that we took on february 10 that adopted a process for updating and adopting a master plan it had a flow chart and all it would rescind that vote and this motion also accepts the planning board recommendation that planning board recommendation was that we move towards adopting the approved master plan as is for now we move towards that goal and we ask the town and we ask that the focus of the town's attention and resources is on zoning bylaw changes that include design guidelines and and then that we would revisit the issue of the master plan at a later date so it's a motion to rescind the vote that we took that adopted a process to update the master plan and it's to accept the july 1st planning board recommendation i'm sorry thank you um so i want everybody to write down that i'm going to say here that darcy's right that this emit that this motion is too convoluted i understand the words that that mandy joe is saying i understand the crc's idea here this motion needed to end at the point of saying 2020 0204 as recommended by the by the community resources committee as presented period the you do not it is not a sensible legislative decision to accept versus to reject a recommendation that tells you to think about something that's that's background that's useful that's understanding where we're going next and i appreciate that but if you're not going to say we're going to adopt the master plan as is now which you all remember from february i'm sure very well which is what i said we should do if you're not going to recommend that now if we're going to dither around some more and decide in a couple of months if maybe we're going to do that or maybe we're not going to do that that doesn't need to be in this motion all that needs to be in this motion is that we're rescinding that previous process because we did send people down a road right we asked crc to go ahead i didn't but we did as a council ask crc staff planning board to go down a certain road now we're telling them don't go down that road i believe we have a shared understanding of what's happening next which is that we're focusing on the bylaw changes that make sense to all of us that's why mandy joe has solicited our comments that's why the planning board continues to talk about priorities but i i totally object to the idea of a motion including accepting a recommendation that we think about doing something that just doesn't make any sense to me so if we cut the last part off i think we'd be in good shape and we get back to it when we get back to it i would love to make a motion to amend to remove starting with after this quotation mark on presented so it's like halfway through and it says and accept the July 120 i would just remove that section from the motion i think it's important that it be in the minutes absolutely but i don't think it belongs in the motion second i second it your hand yes okay you said second is there any further discussion about the amendment to the motion could you explain the amendment again the amendment to the motion means the motion would now read as follows we rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on agenda item seven i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan as set forth in the document titled crc proposed master plan process 2020-02-04 as recommended by the community resources committee as presented period and has nothing about the planning board about the master plan and their recommendation to adopt it stops at the word presented it that is the motion that's been made and seconded is there further comment on the motion that's been made and seconded kathy of your hand up yes i i want to say to follow up on elissa i originally put my hand up to say almost what what she said but she said it much better than i did i thought it combined two thoughts and if we just stopped with the first thought um what we're trying to do is the planning board gets off the hook it doesn't have to spend all this time updating the master plan it can go on to other business that's what that first part does and at some point we'll come back to looking at the master plan but we're not putting a date certain right in now and it's much cleaner that way not to have several actions embedded so i strongly support the um the amendment darcy do you have your hand up i just want to make sure that the i that the convoluted wording which said consider adopting the approved master plan that made me very suspicious of everything the master plan has not been approved so what's that mean that has been eliminated in the amendment i know but i want to comment i bet it was actually there no no no we're voting on the amendment the amendment removes that the fact that the planning board made that recommendation is something we can't change but we can take it out of this motion okay is that is that clear cat at darcy so that word was put there by the planning board you're saying that that word was put there by the planning board motion yes okay so the master plan has been approved by the planning board okay but not by the town or the public or the town council or the town council but the planning board's approval is a force of law well then what are we asking what do we what do we care then okay George question yeah i i support alissa and kathian what they're doing i just have a question or concern i want to make sure i think alissa suggested that as long as in the minutes it's adequate but i just want to make sure that um the message that we want the planning board to focus its attention resources on the zoning bylaw is something that it sounds like we all are most of us share and is being communicated to them now if they read the minutes it's there um i don't know that we need another motion but i'm just a little worried about that being lost in this i agree it needs to be taken out for the reasons that have been stated but i guess my question to alissa and to kathie or to anyone really is what happens to that second message is it sufficient that it's in the minutes or do we need to do something a bit more formal where we actually vote and say and we would like you to do this is that that's my question okay um so there's a motion on the table it's been made and seconded there's an amendment to the motion and now george has asked the question whether the phrase and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning bylaw changes should remain or if not how could it be does it need to be expressed in some kind of formal way or um i think it's an important message that i'd like to send um and i don't think it belongs in this motion i think that alissa has made that point very clearly but is it going to get lost in the shuffle i wouldn't i'd like it not to be lost maybe that's something we'll deal with later okay we can go back and add it and make an additional motion or we can just rest on the fact that it's in minutes and like the congressional record it becomes part of what the town council has said haven't you not spoken yet i was just going to say our our planning director is in this meeting she's heard it she heard it from the planning board i don't think it needs to be formalized in a vote i think that the message has been sent you over your hand up yeah i was simply going to say what evan said unless they felt like they needed us to write it down in which case we could just ask mandy joe to update them on what we did tonight so i'm going to call the question on the amendment okay and that is to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on agenda item seven i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan a set forward in a document titled crc proposed master plan process 2020 dash zero two dash zero four as recommended by the community resources committee as presented Lynn i just want to voting to amend that motion yeah the vote the first vote is to remove the phrase and accept the july 1 2020 planning board recommendation from the motion so that it would read if that motion passes it would read as you just read it thank you so the motion is to remove the second half and yes ask it now reads the way i just read it yes okay any questions all right then moving on uh let's see uh grease mercy yes panicky yes ma'am yes ross yes ryan yes shane yes priber yes sandberg yes shorts yes ballmilm yes yes gruer yes the angel is yes jaman yes it passes 13 to zero no extensions and nobody absent we did the next item and we have to now vote the actual motion that just approved the amendment okay so now the rid thank you the original motion is the motion that has now been amended is to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote and i agenda item seven i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan is set forward in the document titled crc proposed master plan process 2020 dash 20 zero two dash zero four as recommended by the community resources committee as presented that is the motion we are now voting on evan do you have a question yeah actually all right so to be honest i was surprised when i saw the motion on the motion sheet um because the vote in crc the recommendation from crc was not that motion the recommendation from crc which was a 401 uh was that the council adopted the master plan as is the planning board recommended that we consider adopting the master plan as is and so i'm still not clear why we're rescinding our our directive to the planning department to update the master plan but not including but saying we're going to put off to later actually adopting the master plan when it the committee that advises on planning has recommended for zero to adopt the planning board which as mandy said has already approved the master plan asked that we consider adopting as is why are why are we putting it off why don't we just do it right now if we're already saying we're going to stop the update we know we're going to be starting up a whole new master plan process probably in the next few years um why i don't understand this this hesitation or this whole line just adopting it as is tonight mandy jude you have your hand up yeah so um when i brought the crc recommendation to the president we discussed a process you'll remember that this was up for it was originally on the agenda back in early august um at a time when we were dealing with a whole bunch of other things section 9.8 of the charter requires a public hearing be held prior to actual voting on the master plan to adopt it so the thought was let's get the message across to the town's staff that they should stop working on the master plan while we work towards trying to figure out when to schedule a hearing on the master plan in order to be able to act in accordance with how section 9.8 of the charter requires us to act in order to act on the crc recommendation that was made can i um i just want to intervene at this point okay the motion that's been made in second to the amendment means that all we're doing tonight is stopping the process on working on the master plan in order for us to go forward with a discussion about whether or not we're going to adopt the master plan i think deserves its own agenda item i think we need to have the hearing we need to have a public forum and i think if we spend any more time tonight debating those issues we're wasting everyone's time anybody like to speak let's move forward the next item on the agenda we still have to vote okay thank you haven't actually voted the motion yet so we're voting the motion i'm going to start with uh hannity yes ma'am yes ross yes ryan yes chane yes driver hi steinberg yes fort yes all melton yes brewer yes the angeles yes kimon yes and there's a yes so the motion passes 13 zero with no absence or abstention okay now we can move on right okay we are now going back to items seven a and seven b i promise you a break at the end of these two and just want to make sure dorthy heard me on that one okay okay um so paul you're going to give us a brief presentation our statements are just an update on the community safety discussions yeah so um i want to you have received the um for the goals discussion a statement from the racial equity task force um i want to give you an update on where we were on this conversation so i have had a pretty extensive conversation with tisha buzz from that group um but also had a extensive conversation with members from the um defund 413 folks on thursday night uh where they were primarily interested in learning more about the budget process and how to involve themselves in the budget process earlier in the system in the uh in the year um so that was a very good session with them um as we move forward we will be reaching out to multiple other members of the bipod community and attempt to um develop a better presentation for you at the next meeting so that's that's for the that that presentation were any questions of the town manager at this time on this clearly it will be coming back at a future meeting pat de angeles i'm sorry um i am interested in finding out where we are with the establishment of a committee um to overlook um the policing we froze two positions in the budget so that we would move forward and there's that group is supposed to report at least preliminary report by january 31st and i feel like it's in limbo and that's making me very uncomfortable i hear you on that pat and know that the clock is ticking and we have to get something to you and that's our highest highest urgency level but want to make sure that we are involving a broad set of members of the community in that in that so it's not just me appointing groups of people you know um so i i totally feel that ticking in my heart as well could i add thank you that is very good um i am i lost my point um but i'll have to come back and i'll email it to you paul i have 74 going on 75 it's hard that note age is no excuse okay what did 19 update paul so if we put the slides up um search thank you so i will be presenting this tonight this is a update you'll see some of the familiar size but the slides but there's new information i want to make sure that you see so the next slide first a quick status report next slide so this is as of uh this morning the town has 16 current cases so in the past we've been reporting on all of the total cases so far uh since we've been counting there's been 137 cases in amherst and they're currently 16 active cases that are being monitored the other information is is all on the state's website which you can link to from that from that link so next slide again we are in a good good place we are you know the the indicators we are um if you can go to the next slide you'll see the color actually um we are green which is the the status is there's there's four statuses gray green yellow red we are green um and but what is likely to happen is you we expect to see a change in status at some point um because the the status report the indicators that the state uses is retro looks back on a two-week time frame and we have been doing extensive testing in the town so as we move forward you will see that um you may see our status change and we'll keep you updated as that happens next slide so I want to talk about how we're monitoring or how the public can monitor our three institutional partners so each of them has set up a dashboard of sorts UMass has a very sophisticated dashboard and they have identified nine positive cases it's let's just list their total test completed and then nine positive cases um Amherst has as of this morning had tested 8683 people with three positives uh Amhert Hampshire college as of last week uh when the last their last report was 821 tests uh was zero positive so I want to show you if you go to the next slide what their websites look like so this is the UMass dashboard and it doesn't just tell you the cumulative tests and the positive cases that it also is looking at a much more sophisticated level of the cumulative positivity rate which is very important because they are testing all um people you know asymptomatic and symptomatic and so that they are really monitoring everybody so the cumulative positivity rate is likely is the is sort of the key metric there um and then they look at it over time because it's another key metric and there's a lot more information on their website the next slide please Amherst college is very similar they are listing as much information as they can they're they're breaking it down by student faculty and staff by by week they're reflecting what they are finding out uh by week um and again this is something that they are updating pretty much every day I think it's it may be six days a week that they're actually updating it uh Hampshire doesn't have anything as nearly as sophisticated on it on this but they are reporting their numbers on their website which is I have that link on there for you so next slide so um uh before we leave that just I want to mention that the state when the state does the color thing with the gray green yellow red it's a kind of a blunt tool that they're using they're just looking at positive rates the increase in positive cases over the past two weeks so we you know we anticipate that we might go up on that and we might will go down on it so there'll be some sort of going up and down what's important is that is to monitor what happens in the next few weeks because right now there's there are enormous you saw the number of tests that are being done by the university and the colleges and which is creating a new benchmark basically what what is the state state of everybody who's come into town um on continuity of operations everything is in really good shape the one thing that's different on this is that we uh our health director Julie Fetterman has retired as of tomorrow and we have I have appointed Jennifer Brown is the acting health director Jennifer Brown has been our public health nurse and working very closely with Julie for for many years she's very excited about taking on this role she is not a candidate to be the permanent health director um but she has been working very closely with Julie and with our institutional partners and she's the one responsible for all the contact tracing in the town so she's very up to speed on it to support her for the administrative things that come up Dave Zomac will be taking on responsibilities to for anything that is the more bureaucratic administrative things where Jen Brown needs support on and I've also I'm also contracting with a neighboring health director for a few hours for a few hours a week or as many hours as we actually need to support Jen on the bigger picture things this is a person who will be on all the same calls that Jen is on at the state level but when there's um you know the state comes out with very detailed directives of say you know what how should lacrosse be implemented or you know some details on some other things this is a person who's going to be learning it internalizing it for their own community um and once and then can help inform us and is willing to meet with us on a regular basis as well um so that additional level of support for Jen Brown will give us I think that everyone's feels feeling real comfortable that we have the technical expertise we have Jen who's really rock solid in her own right and then we have this sort of administrative support as well next slide so in terms of outreach we continue all the normal things we are there is the community forum that the president referenced earlier today that is this Thursday at 5 30 you can purchase anybody can participate via zoom or you can just watch it through live stream and I put the live stream link here on the website um we are um reviewing our call-in events we've been doing that every on Thursdays we're rethinking about how that could be better um we are doing um continue with a cup of joe and the other thing that we are looking at during September is to physically go out into the community um and be at locations that make us more accessible to people with proper social distancing with you know not having that many people around um so we're looking at places that people are not as usually involved like uh on food one of the food pickup days at at um survival center um or the you know mobile market at at south point in different locations at Fort River so I want to get out into the more into the neighbors into the community uh after Labor Day so you'll there um the cpo's are setting up those kinds of uh opportunities to be able to interact with people and hear what the concerns are especially with what's the economic uh situation that's happening so next slide so updates on this next slide so we have our call-in number um this is our new call-in number four one three two five nine two four two five it's monitored seven days a week it's answered during business hours um but we are you know if you leave a voicemail or if you write an email to that um to that email address which is a little funky looking there um you'll get a response uh we have our staff coming in on Saturdays and Sundays to listen to voicemail messages or to respond in real time um you know we've this has been up for almost a week now um we announced it on Wednesday um and we've gotten about 14 or 15 calls um and then the um people who handle those calls can can sort of deal deal them response to everybody and then sort of fields them and gives them to the appropriate staff if it's um a police matter if it's a um inspection services matter or wherever it goes and some of it comes to me so they are monitoring these things and making sure they're getting into the right hand so people get a response what we have found is that many people are are pleased to have this number they don't feel like they want to take up the time of the police department with a call but they do feel they need to register their concerns some people also appreciate the ability to communicate with us on the voicemail so that they don't have to give their names because uh they are they might be talking about a neighbor or um you know someone who lives in the same building as they do and so they're they feel more comfortable um calling just sort of somewhat anonymously and we can follow up with them on those on those calls in that email um so next slide we also are have ambassadors coming and this is this this picture on the one on the previous slide are the t-shirts that our ambassadors will be wearing so they I think we have 10 who have been hired to date we're processing them all through our HR process it takes a little bit of time we do have a supervisor of all the ambassadors they will be out on the streets and they will be working in teams they the the lead person also works she she works part time for us and works part time for the university and has very close contacts with the university um off student housing um office again our main directive to the the ambassadors is to educate offer masks in the downtown area and other areas of town wherever we are getting wherever we get comments from the public again we will use the calls and the emails that come into our COVID hotline as sort of information for where our these folks can go um and then if they and the idea is to not be confrontational to walk away if there is confrontation they will be trained in de-escalation techniques um but really it's it's not to get into situations and in the beginning we will have staff available to them you know while they're on the streets we'll have additional professional town staff available to them to help them go through these the situations that they're going through and we're going to learn a lot after the the next you know week and we're you know we're monitoring this on a daily basis um Bill Laramie from the police department is and um Casey Nagel our community community officer are the two that are most directly working with with this group um so so in terms of where we're headed um so you know these are things that we looked at before I'll talk more later right about the elections it's really not COVID related it is but it isn't um but the things I want to really focus on is the next slide and this is the last slide for you um what I've been messaging to our town staff and to others is that I anticipate that we will be in the same this same situation a year from now and we should be planning along along those those lines I don't see anything happening this fall and I don't see even if there is a um vaccine it will take a long time to roll out so all of our planning all of our messaging to staff and in terms of how we're operating is that we are looking at this at least for the next year so we should be making those decisions and making those kinds of accommodations for the public now so that we are doing the best job with that we can um I expect our status you know mentioned earlier our status to change as we are doing additional testing for asymptomatic individuals through um the colleges and the university um and then we'll just be continuing to manage a just review implement just as we have all along so I know you probably have lots of questions so I don't want to be too long-winded on this thanks Serge for taking the slide down uh questions from the council Melanie do you have your hand up yes thank you Paul I really love the ambassadors program and I think it's such a great initiative I do feel you know this is in response to a lot we've been hearing from people and it's the first step so that's amazing love the t-shirts the questions um are um along what we've been hearing is are we um making an effort to appoint BIPOC folks as ambassadors what is uh and then in terms of the training itself um you know like what's other than de-escalation training we need empathy training or just an understanding of the racial issues and equity issues so it's that included in the training um and then the call in number is well similar questions about uh are there bilingual people answering the calls and what's the training is being provided because I think there is a lot of stress right now and people calling in are probably angry and whatnot and I understand that the staff is overstretched so also just reminding the staff please please be kind and and of course this is to the public as well please be kind to the staff because everyone is so exhausted and overwhelmed um last thing is about the testing um do people know if there is and where is the free testing options available three things okay so I'll go back reverse so I don't know if people know where the free testing is and you know in fact I don't know if that's on our website or not there is a test center in Holyoke um we continue to advocate to have one in Hampshire County um but I can that's actually probably information people would really be interested to know and we should put that on our website um in terms of the phone calls at the beginning of this we have I've assigned our community participation officers to be the ones fielding the calls they're used to handling every call you can imagine coming into the town manager's office um and they're very experienced and they're and you know it's mainly Jennifer and Angela and they we have um language ability for Spanish and English not and we could get we can get any other language but those are the two that are readily available when we have the call or to return calls um so we have Spanish and English um availability um and also you know what we've said is we're going to monitor this for a couple weeks see what kinds of calls see what the volume is um see see what the types of topics that people are coming in with um you know you know again Angela and Jennifer handle everything that you could possibly imagine comes through the door um so totally confident in their ability to manage through this um and they know how to you know have a good conversation with someone so that people know that they've been heard and um and they follow up too if they need to um in terms of the training so these are part-time people who will be on the streets uh in a pretty much sort of um excuse me you don't have a mask on here's a mask would you like it type saying there's not we don't see a lot of they will get a basic de-escalation training from two state certified de-escalation experts but um but there won't be a lot of um I don't anticipate um we're hoping that they're not going to find themselves in confrontational situations and if they if they do we we the answer is walk away it's nothing is worth it it's just walk away you know that's the most the best de-escalation technique uh in terms of outreach um you know I don't know exactly what we've done we've been trying to run as fast as we can to get people in those t-shirts basically if we've I'm not sure if we've made a special um outreach effort but we're open we'd love to have as many people um that represent the town and represent the broader community as possible um the initiative on this really was driven towards um what we anticipated to be students coming back to town and and that's where most of the calls have come from so far is is being having a sort of a peer-to-peer relationship with students versus having a police officer interact and that's that's why we're moving in this direction that's why we really focused on teaming up with the university in terms of working together in terms of the staffing of this I hope that answers all your questions I'm actually going to add one item on the outreach because uh Bill Laramie and um the rent rented inspector John Thompson uh even Captain Ting was at a meeting just today that was in a neighborhood outreach on this uh along with UMass people they have also been walking the streets with UMass people in neighborhoods around UMass so there is a concerted effort on behalf of the joint effort if you will are of town employees and the university employees reaching out into the neighborhoods where there's a lot of students present can you just clarify one point about the testing centered Holyoke is it true that the Cooley Dickinson is providing free transportation to people I think they have the ability to do that as well yes but I can that would be great for people to know who don't have transportation and if they have COVID that Cooley Dickinson is providing the transportation got it good point thank you um yes so three questions related to COVID um the first one is what is our funding for COVID looking like I know we have COVID specific funds from the federal government and all where does that stand in terms of how much has been spent do we think we're going to have enough um in terms of to cover all of our expenses related to COVID a daytime shelter in cold weather we're coming up on cold weather what is being thought of and will COVID funds cover that and then the third one is your comment on if we're in this for a year town buildings still aren't open the library is still not open for browsing books but shopping is open gyms are open we're in phase three when are buildings going to open in town to for those short term type of interactions to add internet uh connectivity to people computer access to people we've shown over the course of the last number of months that those types of buildings being open have not raised our positivity rate and can be done safely so when is that going to happen here good so the funding there's ample funding that we have um and we were had allocated some funds actually for um a food program that the school was running that but that has now been extended by federal government to December 31 so that's really good news that's money we don't have to allocate for that program but um we have ample funds to do the things that we need to do so I don't know the exact number but we're not concerned about that um the oh the shelter so these are some things that I'm happy to talk about now as opposed to waiting to the town manager's report yes there's a number of things in the shelter that are reported on in the town manager report that um one is the what's going to happen with the shelter it's we're eight weeks away from when that should be opening uh craig's doors is looking at different options they are still in conversations with the church and looking at some other options that they they have available so we're hoping that that will move forward in a very positive way with better sheltering for our um unhoused individuals in terms of the um uh the daytime shelter clearly that's something that we're gonna we are actively having conversations about where is an appropriate location for us to that to do that we did do the pop-up tent cooling center which you know I was down there a few times and talked to some of the the guests and they really appreciated it in an odd way because they felt they could walk in and walk out not to have to be tested if they were walking in or to walking out if they wanted to smoke a cigarette they could just step outside the tent and they they they were they felt was very comfortable it was much cooler than outside so that was um nice to hear that that they they were they were pleased with that um and they didn't like the idea of being inside but when the cold weather comes it changes and we don't have the places that people normally are able to stay to get warm and we know we have to find something along those lines you know we're looking at town buildings we're looking at other locations the same issues that we have for anybody we would have to make sure that there was proper social spacing that there's adequate ventilation and that the HVAC system is up to grade to be able to process the air so once we get past our elections our facilities folks are going to reposition on on this this will be a high priority for us you know the library is looking to put up a tent in front of the library to provide internet access to people and so I think that they're still moving in that direction and they have a pretty pretty robust plan to provide access but again and I'm not sure if they're thinking about heating for that as well in terms of opening I think East Hampton just announced that all of their buildings are going to be closed through the end of the calendar year our my my focus and I won't speak for the library is my focus is on maintaining the health of our staff and if you know if someone comes into the building that is turns out to be COVID then we have to empty out the building so we're really diligent about having people being able to work here and do their jobs we I recognize that if we are thinking about this long term we have to start getting ways for the people to interact with our staff in a face-to-face manner which is certainly possible and we're looking at a couple of different ways to do that so everybody can maintain safety and still have access to the services that they need so working on that in terms of whether we actually open the building to let people walk around the building we're really I'm really hesitant to do that and it's really we found that it's really not necessary to have the public available to walk in through the building but I don't think that we will be having in-person meetings for a for a quite a long time it's the worst situation if you are saying we know that the way the virus spreads is by people being in this being together in the same space for more than 15 minutes of dwell time and that's what meetings are defined as and so we don't want to go down that route of holding public meetings and quite frankly we find that the zoom meetings are some ways more available and and once you open up and you have unlimited capacity at a zoom meeting whereas if you had you know I think the town room allows 18 people to be in the room so we would be telling a lot of people that they can't come into the to the room when they wanted to so um and the senior center for sure will will not open in the near future and I think that's pretty much that's pretty common throughout the state Alyssa you have your hand up thank you for your patience while I find my little mouse yeah I I appreciate the focus on staff safety I really do I I know this is going to sound a little awkward but town hall in the Jones library are not supposed to be open in order to provide day shelter for populations that are currently homeless that's not what the job of the library or town hall is and so one of the things I did ask the town manager about in all his spare time is to report to us on progress for providing day services for people because that's something we've been wanting to do since the day we started a warming shelter before it even became an overnight shelter we just kind of expected more agencies to come forward and say oh you do the nighttime thing we'll do the daytime thing and it just hasn't really happened now everyone's under this immense amount of pressure and so I'm hoping there might be some opportunities there as he mentioned Craig Stores is looking at various things they can do because they'll have to de-densify the existing shelter because that's just the reality you can't have as many people there we had gone up to 28 beds and now we can't do that so I I appreciate the focus on safety and the way to do things differently just like many of us are having doctors appointments you know via video now maybe using more and more of that technology I realize that doesn't take care of people who aren't housed so that's why I want to make sure we're continuing to find ways to partner with agencies that we can find a way to address that keeping all the way back to the new hotline on the phone I just want to make sure that we are in fact and I did hear the town manager indicate that there were going to be themes that were thought about you know what are people calling about what are the kinds of things but I want to make sure that we're tracking that in some fashion because what I don't want to have happened is two months from now to hear a nice little report of a text a little text paragraph that says everybody pulled together and did a great job answering 2500 phone calls like I want to know these were the kinds of calls people had this is who we sent them to this group was responsive this group wasn't responsive and because I think again this is a long-term situation and so I want to know that we're not just like taking that pink message slip oh I sent it along to somebody else crumple throw away we are actually keeping track of those themes I know that takes more effort I know everybody has more work than everything else but I think it's important to focus on some themes that include things like interaction with local businesses because we know originally some businesses were having trouble with people who didn't want to wear masks and they didn't you know nobody wants to escalate a situation like that people who do currently identify as homeless and anything we can do to help in anyway and also for example groups of people who are not respecting the rules at puffers pond we're hearing some mixed messaging about that like it's fine and other people are freaking out because it's nowhere like it was associated with the hula hoops where people were keeping their nice distancing and so I think just eventually starting to hear some feedback as to what kinds of calls people made whether it's to the hotline to the email or some people are just going to call the police anyway or they're going to call their favorite staff member anyway and report it to them if that could be you know just kind of an ongoing tally here's where the focus is when we talked to you mass they took care of it as Lynn was reporting associated with the neighborhood walkarounds but I think it's important that we're actually gathering data associated with that because we we deserve that we're we made the effort we're putting staff resources behind this and we should go ahead and reinforce that by showing that we're keeping track of what we're doing and then be able to figure out what we can do better as this does continue to drag on for a long time so thank you so thank you respond to it so yes we are doing that we have a google sheet that all the people are have access to and and then that gets shared out we we I don't our talented staff you know they pick the pieces and says this is yours less you know and so they document when it came in and we're we're going to track when the calls come into you know you know do they stop coming in a certain hour because it might mean that we want to start staffing live the calls at different hours of the day so these first couple weeks are going to be sort of a trial for us to see what's the volume coming in so thank you for that Dorothy you have your hand up I have two points one I really do think we should get town testing and ideally of one for the virus and one for the antibodies but and that would be you know a major setup and I think that the reason that would be good is that the most of people in the town of Amherst have not been tested do not know how to get tested but it would also be training for setting up for the vaccination when it should come which will be everybody's going to want it all at once and perhaps even some help with the flu shots since they have been required for all children and seniors are waiting for the super senior flu shot so that's a suggestion that not only is it something we want but it would be helping you prepare for the final the big setup but the other point is when I brought up a number of times and I'm getting increasingly concerned with it as you know I teach at Holyoke Community College and I've been spending most of the summer banging my head against the wall learning how to do Moodle and Zoom and to do best practices in online education and it is very complicated and I'm starting to be able to get my pages designed I'm now thinking about my students how will they know how to log on where will they get their help and then I'm thinking of our public school students and I am a grandmother of two children a sixth grader and a seventh grader who have had to suffer through sudden online teaching and I know all the problems with it and the biggest problem that I can see in Amherst is lack of wireless in huge sections of the town so my thought is if we have COVID money we should be using it to help people students children and their parents who have to help them with this be able to take advantage of what I hope will be improved online education in the schools we can't just and have to rely on a few parking lots where people go and get some wireless and even that should be organized because those who can should do that I just see this cutting off of people and in addition I don't want volunteer money to buy hotspots for students I want Wi-Fi for students and I don't want volunteer money to be to provide little iPads and wireless for seniors a senior without access to steady reliable Wi-Fi and computer some kind of computer machine is an absolutely isolated senior many people have do not leave their homes barely go outside and this is going on we're six months into it and I'm a pretty strict person myself so I just think Wi-Fi available to all people in this town those who don't have access now is one of our most fundamental things that we can do at this time in COVID particularly since I agree with you we're in it for the long haul we're in it for at least another year so on the testing so the town has we have a couple we were advocating for testing early in the spring and we have a plan laid out to be able to do mobile testing at a couple different locations so if that were to come to fruition we're we know exactly what it would take and what the capacity is and a number of people that we would need it's already been done you know we depending on when they do it it depends on what what space is ie parking lots are available to us but we know we know what the what the requirements are for such a thing what the what the atypical you know we worked with Cooley Dickinson hospital on this previous you know money months ago so we're we're if we are that's why we continue to advocate so aggressively to have a testing site in the town of Amherst we I think it's really important we do have you know the interesting thing is that we have a lot of students who are being tested and coming out negative and so they feel they've got their green check of courage so that will be something that we will also be noting as well in terms of Wi-Fi access I think the the school department early on did a really really good job of ensuring that no student was not did not have access and and was able to learn remotely I think that was a very very high priority for the district and they put a lot of money into making sure that that happened I don't know if it's you know the downside of hotspots or if they were there I know they were using utilizing hotspots they looked at a couple different techniques for how to do that but I think hotspots were is the tool that they used because it was easily implemented and given to everybody individually so I think they really went through student by student said how are you accessing education through us so at the student level that's case now the point with your point about seniors is a really good point because that's you know something that a lot of seniors don't have access to and it is super isolating it's been a real concern of the director of senior services you know so I I'll have to think about a little bit about how we if we start paying for things how we would do something like that okay thank you George you have your hand up well just a quick question about that the raw numbers when you 16 current cases in emmerced that that doesn't include the nine at the college or at the university and three at emmerced college right those are separate boards it does so the total 16 total and so 12 of those are at the campuses and the rest are in the town at large that's it's an aggregate number you can't exactly do that though because the university may have nine cases but three of them may live in sunderland right so the p i knew people we know this when they when they started putting up their dashboards we talked with the university in the college and they said well one of them lives in emmerced but two but they want to show their community and so they're doing their their their dashboards are for their purposes the university and the town are very closely linked and they everybody sees the same database so they know what they're looking at it's the maven system the and so the if you are a diagnosed and you live in another community it will go to that community but for the university our our our our public health nurse Jen brown can see that information as well and what what kind of contact tracing is being done and who's picked it up as soon as the call as soon as a positive case comes in they're in communication they say who's who's got this one who's working it and they are really tight on that communication well let me let me correct my thing what i do know is that if a person is tested at the university and they give a local you emmerced address their number is part of emmerced it's not a separate number i think that's many people feel like somehow or another the student number is on top of whatever is going on in emmerced it's not yeah and just the university does try to get them to give a local address too i mean you may live in redding or you know salem but they're really trying to say what's your local address where are you locally because a lot of people just give their home address as a matter of course so they're really trying to track where are you so right kathy shane you have your hand yeah i i thought sarah was before me but then you're you're seeing the order yeah okay um i i just had a question on the the university side paul and it's partly so people who are listening we've had people contacting us saying you know how tough will the university be in helping us enforce certain kinds of things if their code of contact of the agreement students have signed um doesn't happen and i i i just can you quickly say that and i you know i know you've agreed to do a district one meeting but that's a question that i've had from some people up here and for some groups and they've noticed our ambassador people love the way the contact and i know some of what the university is doing but just um they've said are we good are they going to do what syracuse does are they going to do what you know in terms of how tough will they be so we've certainly even as of today talked to them about how you know holy cross northeastern bu syracuse a number of vanderbilt different places have a have a have addressed it um they um see this as a very much an internal decision making process to their uh dean of student affairs um we think that you know we're working very hard to walk arm and arm with them so that we're we're complimenting each other um with an e not an i um in compliment and um and but we're um we're not always on the same page quite frankly and i think you'll you might hear a little bit about this thursday night as well because i think that'll be a question that will come in on that on that call um you know i think they they feel very strongly because they have a long history with dealing with um the events in was it 2013 14 um and how they responded and how what worked and what didn't work and they feel like they have a lot of institutional knowledge about leading with education and uh interacting in a really positive way to create this uh culture of compliance um and um you know they do a lot they put a lot of effort into meeting with individuals so when when something happens over the weekend the people are out there in their at their houses and one of the good things that i noted um was that with covid almost everybody's home so you go and literally knock on their door um someone answers the door and they said we had you know and this happened through our covet hotline you know someone said i live in a building with someone who's who's i don't think is a group a party and we'll go out and say talk with them we'll have someone go to their door so um we're hoping that that is that we're not hoping we know that that does work um but in terms of the additional steps the university can take the academic things um that's a thing that they hold very tightly honestly um i'm going to intervene and just say we have consistently and persistently asked the university to do off-campus testing as a requirement and thus far it has not been except for when a student arrives and it has not been continual after that and in addition to that they have not been willing to use the issue of enrollment as any kind of stick if it if they don't obey and in many cases this is the difference between public and private institutions and so it's a very tough line to walk and i compliment paul and his patients and his um his diplomacy um and sometimes i have to be that i get to be nasty so um it's really not acceptable that they are not testing all their students all the time and just but just a side note on that they did send they did there are asking all off-campus students to come in for a second test something went out today to all their off-campus students saying time to come to get your second test because they are doing the first arrival second tests which is a really good thing and one other thing um that our the the health folks are noticing is that sometimes the tests are surfacing people who had covid up to three months ago and so the tests are still coming back positive so you know just as our julie fetterman will always say a test is not a test it's not a test there there's significant differences in the type of tests and how they're managed um results are not the same you know a result is not a result is not a result because you you may show show positive for covid but that was because you had it two months ago and so but you're not you may still have it as it might show as a positive on the test so i'm getting above my head on the technology uh technique technicalities of it but there are uh it's there's some you know epidemiologists and public health people can talk much more uh jointly about this sarah you have your hand up yeah so i just wanted to i had um had a text conversation with paul about this um i think about a week ago i have had constituents um the i think the first during the heat wave when the students first came back i had 10 people that i have not met personally contact me um about concerns and um what i'm wondering if we could have on the website somewhere that's easily found and also distributed to town counselors in some sort of way that we can post it on our facebook page too is we could send it out to people if they needed it and they could print it themselves um some of the things that i would say are the what if questions so a lot of people are very confused um so what if they see a really large party where people are not social distancing and um they don't have masks on they have very large gathering um and so what if so i mean i think we i think people need to see if it's on you know private property call whoever and here's the number um if uh you're if you have groups at public places like puffers pond or at a park um if there's a very large group and they're not wearing masks and there's not social distancing what do people do um do they call the department of public health what's that number people are concerned that they don't know who the director is anymore i think all that information you gave to us is fantastic and i think that the coordinated efforts and who's who is um heading up the board of health should be something that people can find easily um what if there's a lot of people in in my district that are nervous when students moved in they've got a smallish house and they're seeing consistently 10 to 12 cars there so then there's this this thing where people are like well you know should we call the town and make sure that they're not you know people that aren't related i i think that the the more information that we can give people about um who to contact what we're doing um if there's enforcement or not um is really helpful to people because if you don't know something or you don't know how to contact someone you feel really scared and panicked and when you feel really scared and panicked you're not it makes you feel unreasonable because you're scared um so those are things that i'm wondering i think that everybody should have counselors should have access to should be clear on the website and that when we send things out to our constituents we can say hey so here here it is here's who to contact in case of what and if you're good with your you know phone put it on take a screenshot put it on your reminders if you have no idea what i'm talking about then print it or have someone print it and print a couple so that if your friend says i don't have any idea what to do and you can i don't know if we're close enough to hand those to people or we can leave them in your mailbox we can't do that because that's against the law we can leave it under rock uh in your front yard those those things i think are are really helpful as far as far as helping people in the community feel really heard and um and calming them them down um and i want to point out that i'm not just talking about students i've had students say i've seen a bunch of okay i'm gonna say old people because i qualify i'm 50 old people that are just they're reckless they've had a huge party there's all these old people next door to me and they're not social distancing it just i think it gives people a way to feel heard and then if we respond to them hey we looked into it um i think it's yeah so really good points and so the answer to all of them is yes yes yes yes yes and the answer is covid concerns at amherstma.gov or 259-2425 those are the numbers we don't want calling the health director or the board of health isn't going to get anything done the health director isn't going to have time to respond to all those things but when if it comes to our number if it is something that involves the health director she she will get it and a lot of times it's usually it's almost always not the health director it's inspection services or it's conservation or it's lsse or somebody else that and we want these things coming in because we're able to track it we can start to you know like elissa said we're tracking them and we're we're going to group them and say hey here's what's happening these are the times of day they're coming in we do have um someone hired who's going to be going to parks from 12 to 8 during the day to just sort of again be an ambassador talk about social distancing in our parks at you know mill river and at koana's park all the different parks you know grove park things like that so people are are aware that there's someone there who can help and be a resource because a lot of people don't want to take the time to complain but if they see someone with an official looking shirt on they'll say you know i've got a problem over here and they'll mention it and they'll feel better about it we want people to call we don't want people to intervene i think that's a recipe for disaster and you know it's not and it's in fact in the board of health regulation that the people are told not to try to confront people i've had many people tell me that they've stopped people on the street and told them to wear a mask and it's just you shouldn't be doing that um so um you know again all those things are really people are anxious and they're nervous um and there are some times when people can social distance and not wear a mask and that's something that julie has mentioned a lot is that you can be on a beach or going in for a swim and not have to have a mask on you can you know be outside walking down a road without a mask on as long as you've got one on with you so you can put it on when you get near someone um because outdoors it's much easier it's the when you get inside that it really becomes an issue so again the number and we can we we actually it's a good point we should get that out to you guys because you you have much broader connections and you can we should get something that's really easy for people to post and share social media that that's a really good thing and grab it right off the top of the agenda tonight thank you any other questions from the council okay we're going to take a five minute break and when we come back i'm going to um describe some changes in our approach to the agenda tonight okay okay i'm going to quickly make sure that people are back and they can hear me etc uh shallony yes alissa yes pat yes darcy yes uh lindy yes maybe joe yes northy yes ebbon yes george ryan yes i'm here teffy shane yes Steve schreiber here andy steinberg yes i'm sorry yes uh sarah schwarz okay okay so um with regard to the agenda um we'll check through the people we are going to delay the amendment to bylaw 3.28 the single-use plastic bag prohibition to the 14th of september thank you darcy and to go well um and while we will have a brief conversation about the performance goals we are not going to try to complete them tonight and pass them but to rather have a conversation about okay any other suggestions or questions evan yeah so i'm glad that we're pushing off the amendment to the plastic plastic bag ban bylaw that alliteration is going to kill me um i'd like to make a request along with that i found it very frustrating trying to navigate that there were several documents in the packet it was really difficult for me to understand which is the version we're actually voting on there was a clean version there were several track change versions that were not the same as the clean version there was also no memo um describing what the changes were and why they were being made um with respect to my good friend george ryan i found the gls report on that to be incredibly unhelpful in and understanding what the recommendation is and why um it also looked to me like perhaps there were fairly substantive changes being made and maybe i'm wrong but it looked like perhaps the deferment was getting nixed um and if so that seemed to be more substantive than just gl and so my my request is when they get back on the 14th if we could have an amped up version of gls report and an actual memo from the sponsor thank you i agree with all of that any other comments at this time any other suggestions all right then the next item on our agenda is the town manager's performance evaluation memo and um several people have sent me some individual comments so what i am going to ask surge is that i um instead of you doing this that i actually bring up my version okay so i don't want to get into um i only am doing this so that we can look at the substantial suggestions um the first one is the following further working with the cat with the joint capital planning committee you revise the capital spending budget for f y 21 to i think it should be just with a creative approach to the significant to the sink to significantly diminish resources available something like that and give gay priority on maintaining operating budgets that support services it's a comment that would be under fiscal and uh it is an addition right there let me just go back and just point out a few things that i changed okay in each of these steve and others felt that it would be good to be able this is the wrong version okay you you made a grammatical you made something that was grammatically incorrect correct you made it incorrect when you took off the ed off of diminished thank you okay i added in the number of counselors thank you there thank you i added in the number of counselors to the memo i also have suggested that i will attach all of the individual responses directly to the memo as well as the town manager's self-evaluation they are not attached here uh and then i went through and did a variety of changes that you saw in the updated version one of the changes that i want to discuss is several counselors noted that the town will need to reassess what is affordable given the change you can change the economic reality which likely will mean a less optimistic view of what will be possible over the next years several years given town and resident budget constraints andy would you please speak to this one since this is a comment you made yeah let me uh so there were a couple of reasons that i raised questions about it one was the question that i think had come up in discussion at the last time we talked about the evaluation memo the term several counselors and at what point is something that is said by one or two counselors become a policy or finding that is reportable and i tried to go back and look as best i could and i certainly wasn't finding that there was anything that would give me a feeling that there was a consensus on this and the other concern that i had was that it is partly about the evaluation but it's mostly about what needs to come ahead it belongs in goals for the next year not evaluations of the year that was just behind us it was not about activity related to the year behind us so the recommendation is that based on that that this be deleted yes since right now i am doing this as a tracking i'm just rarely delete that okay um then we go down to the next one which is also a comment here andy that you made i think that it was just a matter of trying to reword this so that it would be a positive statement about what was happening as opposed in the way in what the town manager did so when i was when i came up with was after recognizing the public concern about what's been happening nationally there was public demand for a local response the council appreciates your work with us to craft a resolution that enabled us to approve the proposed budget i think that if we're evaluating the town manager that was the action that we would be evaluating and that's why that was proposing to include okay let me go on to a couple others this is one that elissa worked on adding mostly further explaining kinds of phrases and then also additional to the golf course Lynn we aren't having time to read these as you're paging through and we haven't seen them before right all right so we'll start from the beginning okay now i'm not this is starting from the clean copy that i sent in your packet okay it's not do you want me to go all the way back to the original one indy joe no i'm just talking about the ones you've been pointing out have not been on the screen long enough for us to actually read let me just ask from a show of hands i'm trying to get to my thing i can't see how i can see hands athena are there any hands up yes darcy has a hand up Darcy yeah i just wanted to make the comment that when we talked about this at our last meeting um there was some considerable concern about including a sentence that said one counselor said this or that now andy is objecting to a sentence that says several counselors said this or that so what what is our policy going to be in this cover letter are we are we going to let one counselor make a complaint about a sentence and it will be removed about comments that were made by several counselors i think what i'm just going to i'm going to say what i believe andy said and that is he went back to the reading of the comments and there weren't several counselors that's correct really more of an individual counselor comment or two so you you had you had compiled them remove those let me try let me do this i'm going to stop sharing i'm going to go back to surge why don't you put up the original document where i made all the changes okay so this is the document in which i made all of the changes and it's in your packet and it's something i sent to you i believe by thursday of last week okay are there any yes margin oh thank you yes please enlarge it so one of the major changes i did was add in the actual count of counselors and in many instances i had to clarify that count because the way the survey was set up it didn't have a forced choice and therefore some counselors actually would hit two responses and in other instances a counselor would not respond and so but i stuck with the same general guidelines of the 30 percent or four counselors throughout okay and then i explained the issue of needing more evidence which is something darcy you had brought up and just said the counselors require evidence and or more information about an issue and this is probably a communication issue okay moving on i should be able to pull up my thing now to make sure if there's questions yes okay surge can you scroll down okay and then i uh that's too far way too far yeah and then i added and scroll down and then i said that i would add these documents as attachments when we do the final one okay and so here's an example of you had 67 percent or eight counselors 33 or four or four counselors zero needs improvement zero unsatisfactory zero unable to judge but note one counselor did not respond and so that explains why you have different percentages and stuff like that okay now we go on to the text and this is right here is something that somebody suggested a couple different people suggested that we be very clear that the whole issue of policing was a national issue that also affected us people also asked that we be very clear that the agreements be with the other colleges and name them and not necessarily refer to one other institution we might check um this is actually the statement that andy right here the several counselors this is the one that andy is taking issue with and i believe that andy has now read this much more carefully and gone back over the comments and so that's the one that i was going to suggest we take out again several counselors noted that the town will need to reassess and andy's point was that he did not see evidence of several counselors but the other point he made is that this is really a suggestion for next year's goals not this year's goals okay um any questions here yes andy yeah so i think that uh it really breaks into two questions two parts and one is the the point that um darcy made a moment ago and if there are several counselors who believe that they said in their evaluation that the town needs to reassess what is affordable given the changed economic reality um or something that had that meaning um then i stand corrected apologize and would uh treat that separately and i think that it should be included and if you could almost ask people to raise their hands and a few people say raise their hands saying that um they think they said something close to that or that had that intent that's fine this the part after the hyphen is a little bit different because which likely will mean a less optimistic view of what will be possible over the next several years and i'm going through the the end of that sentence that is a speculative question and i don't think that it was something that was discussed at all other than um the suggestion to add by one counselor and i respect that counselor's opinion but i don't think that that makes it a um policy statement that we ought to adopt into an evaluation so i would great um suggest breaking the question into two parts as i've just described so the first part is whether or not counselors agree with the following statement and he has suggested you raise your hand maybe joe is that legal i mean depends on whether you're just taking a sense of the counselor or whether there's a motion to remove it's a sense of the council okay this i'd like to know when the council whether there is a sense that several counselors voted noted i'm sorry noted that the town will need to reassess what is affordable given the change change economic reality please raise your hand that he raised your hand i do have three i see three all right so maybe we want to modify it by just say a few counselors okay but lin is are we are you asking do you believe that or does that belong here i thought andy pointed out this belongs in next year's goals no he's saying the second half belongs in next year's goals where do you start then several counselors noted several councils noted that the town will need to reassess what yeah given the change that's for next year isn't it no at that point in the sentence if you stop and put a period about given the chain economic reality period the rest of it is looking at next year and that should be taken out andy's right about that right so the question is do people agree leaving in something that says a few counselors noted that the town will need to reassess what is affordable given the change economic reality period and take the rest out this is the town manager's goals or no his evaluation i'm talking about what he did this is in the future tense are you right so i'm confused yep you're right so you're right it's really all in the future tense yeah okay i mean i agree with the statement but i don't think it belongs here all right several counselors would have noted you know i think we just take it out yeah it's in next year's goals anyway okay hands down please and i just want to say as a person who contributed to that sentence i'm fine with removing it okay thank you and we go on to the next one where we have a lot of red which is down below and this is the statement about national attention on the murder of black men and women and children by police and other states etc several of you gave me different um ways of stating this i chose one is there any further comment on that pat or kathy i don't think you want your hands up at this point pat do you want your hand up all right then