Okay. Okay. This is the town services and outreach committee meeting. It's April 7, 2022, and it's 633. It's a virtual meeting pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. So, I'm called the meeting to order and I will check to see if everybody on the committee can see and can hear. Shawnee Balmille. I'm present. That's good. Anna Devlin go to you. Anika Lopes. Dorothy Pam. Yes, and Andy Steinberg. Good. Okay. We're going to the first item on our agenda was the outreach update from the community participation officers, and since one of them was feeling ill that has been moved to the next our next meeting which is the 21st of April. So we're going to start now with no item number be referred to the town council proposed revision of fees under general bylaw 3.50 residential rental property. Now, I know that Mandy Joe Hanna key and Jennifer Taub and Michelle Miller cannot come tonight so it is possible that Pam Rooney will be able to come she wasn't sure if she could or not. Okay, so could Pam be promoted to into the meeting Athena please. We take a look I haven't looked at the audience. Sure I think I have a question. Yes. So for the audience who's here who may have questions on the different topics can we just share at what point people can make pop public comment. Well we have public comment listed rather deep into the meeting. We could move it up. We're going to have public comment after we discussed the rental bylaw and the water and sewer. So do you think that we should move the public comment up earlier. I know, I get confused with public comment, we're not to engage with people it when they make the public. So, sometimes that it's used it comes after we've discussed it, but sometimes it's at the beginning of the meeting and I really don't understand why one is better or worse than the other. So I'm going to ask Paul if he has a suggestion. Yeah, I think that. So the council does it at the beginning of the meeting is just for you to listen to. I don't think you have your schedule to make any decisions tonight. It's more for continuing to do information gathering. So you, you could do it earlier than later as it's totally up to the committee's decision. And there have been Thompson public comment says, you may talk about anything that's not on the agenda. And again I don't really understand that point either. But assume our public comment could be on whatever people wanted to talk on the agenda or not on the agenda. But what are your thoughts on that Paul. Yeah, and Athena can weigh on this on this as well. So the, so the public can say what they want is and that's why this but the count the committee can't respond, because it's not on your agenda. So otherwise you're engaging in a conversation of a topic that wasn't publicly posted, but, but public comment is a, a posted agenda item. So listening is fine. So can I just propose that we move it up front because yeah. Okay. Is that okay with everybody we need a formal vote or can we just do sense of the meeting. Anyone with an objection to moving it up front. So then why don't we do public comment now. So that people don't have because we're going to spend a good deal of time on these two major items. Okay. All right, so if anyone in the public would like to make a comment. Would you please raise your hand. Okay, I see Rosemary Koffler. Okay. Can you connect us with Rosemary Athena please. Can you hear me. Yes, yes, we can. Well, you know my name. I live in Amherst at 16 McIntosh Drive. And I'd like to comment on something that is not on the agenda. I represent myself and other members of the friends of the MR senior center. On April 4th, all members of the town council received my letter, or our letter stating the issue of inadequate space at the senior center. We are unable to reopen fully to all the services classes and programs that we once offered prior to coven due to the lack of classroom space. And once used, for example, regularly for dancing exercise classes often attended by 20 to 30 people is no longer available to seniors. The most desirable classroom in the building is closed to seniors on Thursday afternoons for the vaccine clinic. The Musanti health clinic is requesting use of the room where health services, such as blood pressures, foot care and ear irrigations are expected to be carried out. Mindy Dom has earmarked money for exercise equipment for the senior center, but there is no place to create a dedicated exercise room for that equipment. The senior center is a vital resource and even a home second home to many elders who live alone, who need services and crave social contact. That need is even greater now after two years of isolation due to coven. Yet the staff is challenged as to where to put the services and programs needed for those elders. The space is really only the tip of the iceberg. I encourage you all to look carefully at the statistics in the chart that you received along with the letter of April 4, which compares the amor senior center to other centers in the area. It lacks amorous lacking in space, but it lacks adequate staff to serve the 5200 seniors over the age of 60 in town, and it lacks the budget resources necessary for programming and supplies. Many seniors support initiatives by the town to enhance the well-being of the community, and they are proud to call amorous home. However, there are many people concerned with the state of senior services. One comment on the age and dementia only survey underscores the lack of equity older folk adults are facing. And I'll quote that comment. The current senior center in bangs is unappealing and programs are limited. Immerses and Amherst are clearly not towards senior needs, but lavish outlays to the library schools, etc. Amherst has shown no interest in needs of older residents. And that's only one of numerous similar type comments. I hope this issue can be put on the agenda for the next TSO meeting for discussion. And I thank you for your time. And we will discuss that when we come to that near the end of our agenda. I see that LC Federman has her hand raised. Could we see have bring LC into the meeting please. Thank you very much. And I'm very grateful that Shalini had just sent me an email telling me about the meeting. I was down about five minutes ago, and I'm very grateful to letting me know. And I think what we that I want to talk about the water and sewer policies that the council is in the process of discussing and it's on its way that it's going to be very cohesive and everybody's going to know it's going to be in writing it's going to be wonderful. It's going to be high wonderful, but I want to make the public comment that I think the way you have open discussions about the school about solar panels. I think there should be public participation, because people, they're so aware of a school, especially if you have a child in the school. You're very concerned, but you know we take the water and sewer for granted, you know I'm going to be 95 in June, and I always took water and sewer for granted you know I pay property taxes for 44 years and that's what I have. And then all of a sudden, you know, there's a break in the water main and happens to be on the street, and the cost was 18,800 dollars. And I don't know if this I took out a home equity loan to pay the bill. And the five surrounding communities pay for breaks in the water main from the break to the meter. As I understand the recommended proposed guidelines right now for this is that the consumer the property owner would pay on their property, and the town will take a picture on their property. I, that would have helped me considerably since that I have no control of what happens on the street I mean they have trucks or they have delivery they have they empty the garbage trucks and the weather, the road, and to ask anyone. You know, to pay for something in the road just because they happened to. I didn't even know I was connected there. But what I am asking now since you're outreaching. I'm very, very grateful Shalini that you told me that there is an outreach I don't know enough about the different committees, but I think the way you have open discussions about show about a school or library about the fire department. I think the public, they, there's no, there's not a consciousness or an awareness. I mean, when I first talked to Lynn about the problem. She said, not that she didn't care about it, but why would she even, even know about it she has a well, I mean she's not on city water. And so to have this burden on someone, and especially after I heard Rosemary about seniors in the community and elders that I would like. And I think Paul I think she sent some information to you. I think it's been sent information, but I think that the way we have an open forum we talk about so we talk about, you know, lots of everything, the only thing silent in H in hammers is the age, you know that to have people and opportunities to be aware.  And if you have a problem, even if it's not on your property, the way it stands right now, the way it stands right now, you have to pay for even though it's not on your property. And I check with my insurance company, and there's no way. And so what I'm really begging all of you, and especially Paul is publicity is this, it can be a real financial problem. We don't have any, you know that wealthy people to be able to handle a sudden bill of $18,800. So I think that before we actually adopt formally adopt the policy. I'm glad that we're that everybody's working on it that I think the public needs to be in full need to be old, you know, don't take it for granted, you know, you have a responsibility here. And that's all I'm asking you, and I am very appreciative show me that you told me having many 630 tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm looking at seeing no other hands. So I think we can close public comment and we will not I gather be able to discuss this although Paul might be able to say something should he choose to go started but no he's not at this moment. Okay, so we are aware of the problem. Okay, I have to really tell you we are aware of the problem, and that attention is being paid. Okay, so in terms of the rental registration. I have a clarification given to me that made some of the documents that I've received recently, make more sense, and I want to put tell you what it is. Ah, Pam, I'm so glad you're here Pam Rooney to see if it is correct. Okay. The committee that is working on the new rental registration bylaw is not asking us to vote on the bylaw at this moment, they're still they have a lot of work to do on it. What we have been asked to consider is a kind of interim fee increase, which the building commissioner feels would be very helpful and useful at this time. I'm looking for the longer more formal process of the bylaw to be completed. So, first, Pam and Rooney. Is that correct, is my interpretation correct. That is correct.  The four sponsors of this rental update that with commissioner more up to discuss the current system and and the application and the updates that that might be possible. The conclusion with that meeting is that it was, it was important to start the process. Now before we actually have the time to go through the entire bylaw which will be fairly complex and fairly involved. So similar to the, the parking fees that you dealt with not long ago that haven't changed in a really long time. But the current fee was discussed with commissioner more. And we felt that it needed some adjustments. It is a very basic rate, and it is, it is any property owner that has a that has a rental unit or units. Well, and Rob actually encouraged us to consider getting something in place prior to July one, which is the beginning of the next fiscal year. We were very sure that it would take us much longer than July one to develop any kind of bylaw and get the input needed to craft that before July one. So this is the first step that says, we understand that we need to start some updates, let's get something in place before the start of the fiscal year that that we can build on. It is a placeholder. That's that's essentially it in a nutshell. Okay, so some of the discussions that people have been having. And that we had at our last meeting were to do with really I think more than the permanent bylaw which is in the process to do with trying to adjust fees in a way that would be equitable to all times, all different situations so Now that I have this understanding because I mean there's a lot to think about and to talk about in terms of the bylaw. And I'm sure that the council will have further discussions on that. But so right now we are asked to, let's see what I have here. I do think very simple I'm trying to find out where I wrote it down. I'm finding it handy. I don't have it.  I'm looking for it. No, I do not. Okay. I do. Yeah. Okay, shall any please do I found it but shall any please present it. Yeah, so what they're what is being asked for is to increase the overall fee for obtaining a rental permit to $250 and provide an exception to the increase for those parcels with the property owner lives on site and owner occupied parcels would retain a $100 fee and then charge $150 per There's discussion required under the bylaw this is the fee amount the board of license commissioners that tentatively proposed for inspection fees. Right. And the understanding is that the system as of now with our very short staff, these inspections are upon complaints the complaint driven. There's discussion. And again, I cannot predict what the group will present finally that inspections might occur when the permit is taken out. And there's discussions on having that one way to make variable fees make sense is to have the inspection fee would be the one that would make it more equitable to have a larger charge for a unit of property with more units, because just applying the for the permit. It takes the same amount of time for two units as for 200 units, I guess, and we are under the stricture I guess that fees have a relationship to the work that is done. They can't just be produced for social reasons, whatever. So I see three hands. Tony, I'll let you speak again then Pam and then Anna. Okay. Yeah. So given that we received a very detailed explanation of the impact. This was a letter that all of us got from Darcy demand about breaking down the impact that this increase would have on residents first residential units on the smaller landlords versus the larger units where the same parcel has 50 units 150 units or 250 units and they're both being charged the same amount. And the idea was that even if we charge $1 per unit, which is not a big amount for render for larger landlord units, Dorothy said that we're not allowed. The town is not supposed to charge if it's not commensurate with the service but I would argue that when there are 250 units, there is a higher exposure to more nuisance calls for other services that are required from the town. So it feels that we would be justified in charging additional amount. And then I just looked at one town city like Barnstable that does have a per unit and I could not see that they have an inspection because it was tight and I may be wrong on that. But I would definitely like a clarification like is it a gray area here that we could charge like $1 per unit like leave it 150 and do all of that like between owner self, the owner occupied versus non and then just say that it's one, like it's 50 or whatever, whatever you decide, plus $12 per year or $1 per unit extra. I have an answer for that but I'm going to call on Pam and I see Andy your hand is up. Yeah, thank you. I would love to respond to that. Good points and Darcy makes a good point. I think the four sponsors that put the that are starting to draw together information for the bylaw. There are a number of issues that we want to address. One of them is that there's no clear enforcement mechanism there for nuisances or for any, anything out. There is insufficient staffing to make consistent inspections at this time. The inspect what I would what I would point out is that we talk about inspection fees. At this time, they don't charge anyone an inspection fee. They are inspections are complaint driven so if, if there is a nuisance or if there is, if there is faulty wiring or something at a building that I believe that those people are not charged today for the inspection done by the by the town staff. So we recognize that there are some inequities in the in the pricing of fees. We one of the issues is that I'm looking at my list of issues. The inequity again between between one owner owner occupied unit and a puffed in village for instance is is tremendous. I think the, the table laid before you today though is simply on a basic fee structure that will take us through next year. While we get bylaw in place and while we address those inequities because we are clearly aware that the inequities exist. So I, I, I hope that I mean you may come up with a different fee structure. I, and that that certainly is is your prerogative to recommend something. I think what we are doing today is expected to be a permit processing fee.  The, the dollars per service are in fact with this proposal at least equitable for the time being. And I think that's, that's what I would encourage you to consider is that we, we are not able to solve all the problems right now, but we want to be able to start setting some different expectations for we're going forward. Thank you. Anna. Yeah, I'm having a little bit of deja vu because I did feel like in the last meeting we talked about this, we got pretty darn close to the end. I just make sure that I'm on the same page as everyone else. So I'm looking at the memo to town council with the revised fee structures and what was proposed was for a parcel with a maximum of six units with one of the units owner occupied it's $100 to register and it's $200 for all other parcels it's $250 and I do want to highlight what Pam said it's like we're going like heart or like horse horse car right like this is coming ahead of this huge revision. It's not a car horse. Yeah, whatever. And so this is coming ahead of this big revision, after which it will make a lot of sense to revise these fees again. And I believe that's what you were saying right is like this is this is a thing to get us a little bit closer, but until that bylaw is done and we cannot speculate about what that bylaw will contain. This is where we are. And so for me, what was really helpful and I believe Shalini you'd asked for this last time was the rental fee comparison chart. What was really helpful in it is there was not a lot of consistency right it was all over the board in terms of what people are are charging per unit. I do think that with our current structure. The services, the amount of time it takes town staff is pretty equitable for those large, large complexes versus a single house and so it makes sense for for the time being until the bylaw has changed to keep the permit fees the same. I also just want to note that unless I'm misremembering someone said earlier and I apologize for getting catch it someone said earlier that, you know, if there are more calls to bigger apartment buildings shouldn't shouldn't cost more per inspection or because but I'm recalling the building commissioner building inspector saying actually more of the calls come from smaller units not remember that. Yeah, so so I think it's I don't, I don't have a problem keeping those consistent. It's the same work to respond hypothetically believe. And so, because you're responding per unit not per building could be wrong on that. But right now, because this is a temporary measure, I do believe that we should pass what was recommended to us. If there are small changes based on the benchmarking data that's fine but I think that to spend so much time on this knowing that the bylaws going to change. I'm not saying we shouldn't consider it and be very thoughtful, but I think we don't want to get ahead of ourselves and presuming what the bylaws went to be before we know. Thank you. And Andy your hand is up. Yeah, I don't. I sort of agree that we should be careful not to get too far ahead. But there is some things that I think about and I don't know if the finance committee is going to look at this a little bit too. I think we're going to look at finance committee normally will look at things from a slightly different angle and they're both important. Because what I would like to do is to make sure that we have carefully looked at what is the cost of the current system since right now. It's hard to support the system as it is in place, not as we might go and that's the point that I think has just been made, and is the increase necessary. Is it enough of an increase. What are we going to be able to do with the additional funds, and are we complying with the statutory requirements that the fees have to be commensurate with. What is provided by the fees. It's not a money. It's not a fundraising thing. We don't charge fees to raise to raise more funds and cost to provide the service associated with the fees and that's one of the legal requirements we have to be thinking about. So we're going to choose that either the finance committee will look at, or, you know, we're going to end up having to do it within this committee. But in any event, where the, we're really important as a TSO is to make sure that it makes sense as to how the fees are structured, both for fairness and consistency. And I think that we'll need to work, make sure that TSO is focusing on those kinds of questions and I think that, you know, there's just been some good discussion on that topic. Right. But before I call Shalini, I'd like to just mention that I believe that the increased fees in this interim motion would help the building department hire, at least a part time staffer to help them get ready for the changes of the overall overdone the new version of the bylaw. Because right now, these very little staff. Am I correct on that Paul. No. So we don't have an additional staff person budgeted for this department. But there is so I think what the building commissioners is supporting this proposal because it's relatively simple. It's just modest increase for multiple units. And secondly, there's some time sensitivity to it because we start moving towards rental registration soon to the council. If they're going to set the fee, if they're going to change the fees, they should do it sooner than later. But he was recognized that the council is going to be digging deeper into rent rental registration in the futures. But so looking at this as a one year thing as the sponsors had proposed makes sense. Yeah. And Shalini. Oh, Andy, did you have a follow up that you needed to pay right there. No, okay, Shalini has a hand up if she wants to respond to something. Pam, would you like to speak. Thanks. I was just going to respond to Andy in that actually to all of you that as the bylaw develops, you're going to be a pretty key part of getting feedback to the bylaw construction. You are going to be looking at fees. And so I think as you consider, there are several questions that were posed in the memo to all town counselors before the work session last last week. And there are a number of things that that really are talking about the structure, equity and how they're applied and how they are measured. So I would, I would really, you know, hope that this committee would take that on and and really, you know, work through it for feedback at the at a later point as we get there. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Shalini. What I see is town services and outreach job right now is to just look at the rent residential rental registration fee. We're not considering the bylaw the bylaw when it happens it happens and that's so right now we're just talking about the fee. And to me the structure that's being provided does not feel equitable. We're putting more burden on and on the small land owners. And as far as, and I feel we're justified again going back to the point that we are making ourselves more vulnerable to more nuisance calls. And even though we heard, I believe Rahmar is saying that we get more calls from single family or the homes but in other complexes. The report that Darcy's email person shared with us said that five complaints came from complexes one from a business and only one from a family and the previous report nine complaints came from complexes and one edit from a single family So I mean with that all I'm saying is without having an accurate research done into where what is happening it's only speculation where the problem is coming and we can only say hypothetically that if we are giving a raise if we are giving a permit to 250 units versus one unit as a town we are increasing the probability of there being problems in 250 units versus a single family home. Just the probability increases when you have 250 units there are more chances of something going wrong there versus just the numbers, the probabilities right. So that justifies and allows us to be more equitable towards small family homeowners by charging something a fee structure which already exists I'm not creating something new this already exists in other towns like Barnstable which have the probability of $90 and $25 for each additional unit on the same parcel. So why can't we do something similar so that way the smaller homeowners if they have just three units they will be paying 90 plus 75 versus someone who's paying 250 has 250 units is paying 90 plus 25 times 250. Now I just want to interject the problem here is the relation of the fee under the new bylaw is quite likely that because if you have a big building with many units that you'll have many inspections and they will have a more for the inspections but we're not providing. I understand. I already understand that and I am not talking about the inspection. We have the ability to hide to change the fee, but I was asked to make a plan of time and had in a previous discussion and I thought maybe we would have till 715 on this. And it's seven after seven now we don't have to stick to that absolutely rigidly, but we have to kind of stick to something like that. So, we have to do we do it Paul do we have to do a vote today on this. On a vote, because he wants the vote before July so can it be on our meeting the next meeting or does it have to be today. It can be at your next meeting because the council doesn't meet until the 25th and your next meeting is the 21st. Okay. All right. All right, so we'll have to at some point come to terms with that we've received a number of points of view. I'll call on Anna again and we'll see where we can get with this but remember this is just a temporary thing that we're doing the the issues that you raise shall I totally agree with you. Okay, they will be dealt with in the bylaw, but Anna, did you had your hand. It looks like shall I would like to say something. Oh, shall need you have something else to say. Yeah, I was going to just respond that that I'm not talking about the inspection fee I am talking about registration fee and my question maybe for next week is can we look into Barnstable which is also Massachusetts within and how are they able to charge per unit for the registration this is not for the inspection fee. I am not talking about inspection I'm saying the rental registration is based on units and I may be wrong but can someone look into it and get back to us because if there is a way that even in the interim we can propose something that gets that is more equitable and gets us the funding. And it's allowed. Why would we not move in that direction. Thank you, and Anna. So two things, Shawnee, could you clarify what question you'd like answered about Barnstable because I mean if it's something that we can do without bothering like without not bothering but without taking up staff time on this additional stuff just like I mean, I'm assuming town staff made us this really nice table. That was in our, our packet this week so it might be really helpful if you could very clearly articulate what research question you're asking them to look up. Do you want me to email that or say it now. I mean I'm not going to research it but if you know it now maybe that would be helpful. Yeah, so the question is, can we charge a residential registration fee per unit in Amherst like the way like the way Barnstable is doing. So, but there's so we can, and that's shown on a lot of the other towns on this table. Now I'm being told we can't do that because it's not commensurate with the service difference and inspection. Okay so so that's the point I agree with right like at this point I do not think that it's. It's better for us to charge more for more units when it takes the same amount of work. If it gets to a point where we're doing something different to register them, then it would make sense to me, but I see it as like a weird punitive measure against larger buildings when it's just filing the same form for one unit versus six right so for me that's the sticky point in doing that right now before the bylaw has changed. It's not tied to inspection. If it's not tied to inspection. I also do the other thing the reason I initially raised my hand is, I do take issue with the. I don't think that it's a direct correlation between just number of people and number of incidents right I think that there's so many factors that come into play around complaints that there's a reason why our building inspector and I trust them when they say like that they have fewer calls from these larger complexes, because of the design of it really there's just different ways of existing that facilitate different things that might cause complaints and so for me that's the other issues I just I want us to be very care and and that speculation to I want us to be very careful about what we're what we're claiming without having done our own research and I think that there's also a point where we should be doing that research right but that data is accessible. And so, yeah, and I do trust the building inspector and that so my, my, my take on this because I know we're two minutes away from our time limit and Dorothy I appreciate you setting time limits is that for it right now for setting this for the next year ish. It makes sense, given that we spend the same amount of staff time and effort for a unit with one apartment than a unit with 30. It makes sense to retain the same fee as that procedure shifts and in my mind improves based on the hard work of Pam and Jennifer and Michelle, etc. Then it would make sense to reflect those changes in the key structure. Okay, and Pam Rooney could you speak please. Just a last thought. Thank you. I would, I would agree with what Anna just said. I think the one differentiation that we wanted to make was between owner occupants or owner occupied units and non owner occupied units. So the differential in the fee. Yes, they are. I misspoke earlier. Yes, they're all getting the same service. But the 250 would be for non owner occupied. The $100 would be for owner occupied and we felt that that we really also need to start the equity process of, and the encouragement of people to be owner occupied. So that's all I want to appreciate you all thinking about this. And thank you for inviting me. Okay, thank you. Shalini. Anika has a hand. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Anika please. Yes, so I as well, you know, thank the creators of this ongoing will be a bylaw for their work. I would also like to ask that in addition to while we are talking and contemplating that we could maybe consider home owners who live in Amherst and who rent out homes to occupants that were there has been no complaint. And so while we're talking and discussing, you know, these read these fees will probably be passed over to those renters who are in many cases paying more than most homeowners are for mortgage. And you know, we have a lot of people coming from code recovery so I think that it would be nice if there was some consideration of, as well as home, like, owner, who rent out their home in Amherst and who live in Amherst and who have had no complaint whatsoever and are already, you know, have tenants who either you know for themselves and it's not really for us to determine what is high rent or someone's situation and I say this in recognizing that the fee increases and where they are are modest, you know, and I know that, you know, this wasn't the intention to, you know, raise rents and fees on people but just that, even though this these are modest increases considering that we also consider just the trickle down effect on people. One of the considerations on that I have seen that would address the landlord you're speaking about is that landlords whose properties have had no complaints that they the inspections schedule which we don't have. Okay, but when we have an inspection schedule. Some of the considerations are that properties that that have no complaints need to be inspected less often and thus they will pay less money through the long run. So there's one way that you can you can deal with the people that manage very good property but don't happen to be owner occupants. Shawnee this will be our last word on the topic for this week this meeting. So it is the floor is yours. I really appreciate Anika's comment because I think it's just showing that there are nuances to this very simple issue before us. It seems simple, but there are nuances and the trickle down impacts. And I would just urge us to look at it in a way that what is it projecting to the people. And what I'm getting a sense from the emails is that people are not feeling it's equitable towards the small landowners. And last thing if it was simply based on the effort being used firstly we don't know all the nuances of how the effort shifts between you know what all goes into it I don't know what the impact of it is so I'm not saying I do know, but I've lost my thought. So, I'm going to let it go. But I just urge us to look at what can we do that will be equitable and it's possible to. Yeah, okay. I don't know what that talk was. So Melanie I think that we share your goal that we do want things to be equitable we also, at least speaking personally, I want to do what the building department wants to do some raising of fees to help bring in some very needed money to that department on this interim bill, and we hope that we can really have a really great discussion on the new bylaw, when the committee is finished putting it together. And I think we will have. I think we'll have a lot of discussion on that, because there's going to be many many aspects to it, and we will all bring our best minds to it. Okay, so now we're going to go into the discussion of water and sewer, and Anna has agreed to be the lead person on this issue. And I thank you Anna and I turn it over to you and to Guilford and to Amy. Yeah, so thrilling stuff I jumped at the chance. So I'm going to start off with Paul and Guilford and Amy welcome thank you so much for joining us Guilford and Paul we're glad you're here too but Guilford and Amy you're not normal here so welcome. And if you would like to, to kick us off with an overview my plan for today is, I'd love for us to get at least through water. If not start on sewer but I'd love for us to get to get all the way through water, and my thought is to go section by section which I know everyone's excited about, and see if folks have questions in each area as well as give a quick for each area and a quick overview of kind of what's in that.  Good evening. Thanks for having us. We were actually. We were kind of told to lay out some decision points and as we were trying to play with decision points. There is only. Maybe a decision point that has to be made for water and sewer. And if you don't mind that might be the place to start, and then we can go from there. That sounds good. Okay, great. So, I can actually I'll share a little slide we have we made up and hopefully that can spur some conversation. Yeah, find it now. So, can everybody see that little PowerPoint thing. Sorry, PowerPoint slide. Thank you. So, really, we're down to and people keep talking about and even the person who wanted to talk, who talked this stuff this evening. Who owns the service line. The way the regulations you have presented to you for both the water and the sewer, they're written as they've been written in the past and as we've operated the system since the town took over in the mid 40s. The property owner owns the service line, all the way from the main to the house and is responsible for it. And if, if you do not agree with that, then the two other choices are is that we own the main from the service from the main to the property line, or we own the service from the main all the way to the house. There's lots of different issues with that. The property line of the town layout. It's usually only at the most it'll be 50 maybe 100 feet that we own, depending on where the water line is in the layout. If you say we're going to own the entire service line. The question then comes down to a couple of things do we own. The house is set 500 feet or a quarter mile back from the road is the town responsible for that whole length is the town responsible for repairing that whole thing is a town responsible for any landscaping that might be in that area. The town responsible for, and you guys are just talking about this is rental properties is the same requirement for rental properties, large ones and small ones is the same requirement for our institutions. These are the, this is the, this is the principle and biggest question to, to wrestle with right now is how do you want to, who's going to have ownership, do we keep the old way, or do we go to one of the two newer to newer type of methods. And I'll just stop there and let you ask some questions and we can go from there. All right, so questions on this one Dorothy. So ownership is one thing. There's an intermediate thing, which is for the town to sell insurance to the homeowner for the part of the line which is on their property, because you have laid this out really well. It's easy to see that it's the majority of houses in some blocks are going to be very short amount of line that that that's to the house, but there are other places where this could be a very long line. And that's part of the decision of the homeowner or the home builder, where to build the house. If there were offered private insurance, then such issues as length and distance would would be related to the fee of the insurance. So that's just putting that out there for consideration. Thank you. Thank you so much, Shalini. Paul has his hand up. Oh, Paul, sorry, you were first with insurance. Oh yeah, just to address that point and we are meeting with a company that provides that kind of insurance Dorothy at, I think at the end of the month, a couple weeks I'm not sure exactly the date but they will be making a presentation and and will provide more of the finances of how that would work. That would be private insurance that the homeowner could purchase at their discretion. It would not be something that the town would provide necessarily. But what we had heard from one resident was that I want to buy it but I don't my insurance company doesn't offer it so is there a way that town can open the door to let me buy it when I want to buy it so that's what we're looking into. Thank you. Thank you very much. And who did you say? I said Andy. Yeah, yeah, I was a chair of Andy. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, I'm sorry I didn't hear who you were referring to either but thank you. The finance committee is going to be talking about this issue to when we have our meeting next week from well Tuesday next week. I think that we need to just be in regular communication between the two committees, in some way beyond the fact that I'm the one member who's actually on both committees. I think that we're looking at, you know, we thought just to sort of informal questions being posed by individual members, kind of the same issues that have just all been brought forward. Obviously, what we also want to think about is getting some actual data on the number of incidents that have happened, and what would be the effect on rates, because in the end, we have to remember that if the town is going to take over, it's really the enterprise fund that's going to be taking over the liability and the charges get spread over all of the rate payers because it's going to get paid for someplace. And that's how it's going to occur. And so we really want to try and do the best we can to understand if we make this shift. What is going to be the effect of on the rates of individual payers and then you get into the other question of what's happening with the institutional owners.  It is a difficult but extremely important issue. And I think we just need to do our best to try and understand all of those points and look at it, both from a financial perspective, but ultimately, and this is where I think it gets back to TSO is what's a fairness issue. Thank you. Johnny. So, in the, the person who came today she mentioned that they were five neighboring towns that bear the cost of repairing the water main. So I can, and based on the present day in the slide we just saw I can see all the different complexities and also I'm just wondering how other towns are handling those kind of complexities. And second question was, I think Gilford had mentioned betterments and I don't know what those are in the town council meeting something related to betterments and somehow that's related to this I don't know if it is relevant to this conversation if you could expand on that and if it's not relevant. You know, you can skip it. So for betterments right now don't come into this situation. So I'll just leave it say that and leave it out. Other communities, they do one of those three options. Springfield goes all the way to the meter inside the house so they're responsible from the service from inside the house to the main. A lot of their houses are close together they don't have very many houses that are far away I don't really know how they handle the far away houses. Northampton, Northampton had the same role we had, I understand they were gone. When I was there. There was a change but I understand they went back so I'm not really sure but there are communities in the Commonwealth and throughout the nation who have different mechanisms and they're one of the three options. So it's not like we're the only community that says we do it from the main that you're responsible from the main to the house. And it's up to the community they usually choose what they want to. I do have numbers for Andy unless we want to take on a cause question. Anika does have a question. My question was numbers so I will hold my question, and he could what's what's yours and then we'll get some numbers from feel free. So I have a question I want clarity this may have been this may be obvious if it's across the board, but considering that you mass and the, the colleges are our biggest customers now would, for instance, Mrs. Chairman who spoke earlier would, excuse me, would they each have the same charge like if the same issue had happened each like would, would you would they each receive that same bill. They typically receive a larger bill. So let me show you another picture here that we have to help understand what's going on. What's going on with you. I'm an issue to issue if I wasn't clear. Yes. Okay. So, and this is a, this is here is a drawing of a map showing our water lines, and you see their different colors here. So everybody who has a purple water line this is you mass right here. This is you masses property. This is you masses property. They're responsible for their own water services as well and they're also responsible for water mains that are off our water mains so they have large 12 inch lines that run off through campus they make water system for them so they run their own sort of internal private system private distribution system in their campus. So this is Amherst college down here this one right here, and this purple one down here. It's not really purple is it but I'll call it purple. That's Hampshire college, that's theirs. The green lines you see are actually private lines in apartment complexes are some type of housing subdivision that's not been accepted by the town. This is over here. It's not fully accepted by the town but it will be and it will become blue at some point. This is hot brook and Kestrel I believe that's a subdivision that's going to become permanent in the town at some point, but these other ones are apartment complexes this is the boulders and that area. This is the Applewood area where they have the assisted living and then the senior living. This is townhouses and puff 10 and presidential should be in here this is presidential. So those are the green lines and so they would be responsible for everything that's theirs. So you mass now has the same rule that common, the average owner property owner and Amherst has. They usually just have bigger lines. Answer your question. Thank you. So, I'd love to hear the numbers I think for me if I can use my middle raise hand. I'm strongly in favor of having it be the utilities responsibility to the property line. And what I would like to know is what are the implications on the cost of cost right for residents. And so I would love if you've got any sort of numbers that get close to that. As well as the other options that I'm less excited about but would like to hear more. Thank you. So we have this this is a piece you can see the slide here says service repairs from 2019 to present. Can you make that full the full screen. I can I can't change pages. Okay, okay. That's okay. All right, sorry. I guess there's there is a benefit to having a thing to do these. You can change pages. And since 2019 we've issued 36 permits for water and sewer. This is kind of a breakdown. And then the average cost to repair sewer line has been about $7300 and a water not lower line 4900 and that's just in the layout that's not beyond the layout. And this is just using our numbers that we use from master to figure these things. So this is not a contractors number. These are state bid numbers. Roughly it works out to it's about for sewer it's about $220 over these three years per foot a sewer line replaced, and about $250 per foot for waterline. That's kind of how it breaks down over those three years. We kind of, if we, so that was 30 and three years we did 36 but if the town were to take responsibility for these sewer lines and for these water lines. We would want to be a little more proactive and wouldn't want to wait for them to break. We would choose the older ones and we would try to replace them a certain number every year. So we kind of came up with the fact that we would try to shoot for 100 to 200 repairs a year. We would spend an additional 7300 to $1.4 million that we would spend based on these numbers to do it. This doesn't really include police details that we had to have a police detail it doesn't include if we have to do any landscape repairs or if we are in an area with a lot of underground utilities this is just a rough ballpark number it's not very detailed. So this is kind of the numbers we threw together to answer the question which actually came from the finance committee today. So, does that kind of answer some of your questions I'll stop for a second. I have a couple more but that's okay Dorothy. I've told us before, but when our sewer line backed up and broke. It was about $30,000 it turned out to be a long way that main wasn't till the corner of sunset. And we had to repair the line, and then the sidewalk, and then the lawn that was all dug up. Now I had insurance. So, I wasn't totally satisfied with the job that the, our repair people did. We also had to repair some of our driveway, but I was satisfied with the job that the town did for which I wasn't charged. Okay, because they had to have inspections they had to have police details they, you know, a lot of stuff was done to allow this to happen on Amity a very well traveled street. So, you know, and how people choose to make their repairs is also up to them. We could have repaired our whole driveway but we decided only to repair half of it. It's an it can be a very expensive process and I personally am would like to have town offered perhaps subsidized insurance. The individual property owner may have different standards as to how they want things fixed done or restored. And, you know, that's some of it that they would have to pay for the level that they want. So I was just very happy that I had the insurance I believe in it. And I know that some people who have spoken to me about this have found that I got it when we bought the house that when you already have the house it's very difficult or impossible to get it. If you do it after the fact. So that's why I'm really supporting the town finding out a lot more about offering insurance. So I think that would solve many of the problems. Thank you Dorothy. My question is a little bit of a follow up I think it sounds like Dorothy from what I understand and I'm the first to admit that understanding insurance is not a strong point. But there is there's the option for private insurance and then there's the option of town, essentially the town is the policy holder right and so Paul when you are looking into this it would be really helpful to understand maybe the differences between those two and what the benefits of each would be what the costs of each would be for the town. And that would then get passed over. So the, the thing about this I'm looking at this side billford and the thing is that residents don't really have the luxury to be proactive. Right. And so I appreciate that one of in my mind one of the pros of doing this is that we could be proactive right we could be actually on a schedule and not just responding to emergencies which are more costly tend to do more damage etc etc. And so that for me is a big, another big reason why moving to a system where the town owns the town is responsible for up to the property line. I personally and I'm open to hearing other committee members thoughts on this. I mean, the idea of going to the water shut off is to, for me that there's too much at play that that can come into that, but to the property line. To me again in my mind feels rational. The first thing I have about this is you have dedicated construction crew and associated equipment, but we're now talking, as you say 100 to 200 service lines that need to be repaired and replaced every year. We also I'm sure, well I'm sure you might know but I'm sure that there are implications based on how old those water lines are right and so I think that there's continued questions around health and safety. I don't know what those water lines contain, but I, I want to know if you need more staff to do this. Is it realistic to say that you can do 100 to 200 line if this is the route we go and there's 20 ifs in that question. Would you be able to actually start phasing this into the schedule. So, that's good question. We were talking about it quite a bit today and I mean we were not really staff for it so we would have to do some type of either add more staff or a hybrid where we have a staff person or two people who like manage the program and then contract the work out. But then contracting the work out the prices would go up a little bit because we are prices are lower usually. What I just put up here is actually for water. So, water has a little less cost and sewer has a cost has the cost before just so you know. And this is all just within the right away, and just a key, just a rule of thumb we use for every $100,000. We add to the budget and water or sewer. It's usually around 10 cents that goes to the rate. So, that's just the. What could you repeat that. I didn't read every $100,000 we add to the budget for water or sewer. It usually adds about 10 cents to the rate. So, can I just jump in or Anna, can I just go ahead.  I'm so sorry, please. It's totally okay. So, don't go for it's doing a great job presenting it like I like he said, I've been talking about this pretty extensively. Just the one thing that I wanted to point out, you know, to your point on about the, the age of some of these and everything is that's, that's how we got from like that, that look of okay for the past three years we've had 36 people pull permit so that looks like about 12 a year, but people who own these houses they're only repairing them know that they're in rough shape, but the reality is, you know, if you get a sewer blockage that backs up into your basement and the town's responsible, you're going to want the town to fix that. You're not going to be okay with them just clearing the blockage and not dealing with it. And, you know, similarly, based on the age you're going to want the town you're there's going to be expectations that the town repairs or replaces your houses before. So looking realistically looking at the age of the service lines and the materials of our service lines that's how we came up with the 100 to 200 per year that would need to be because there's a lot of them that are, you know, very old, you know, undesirable materials that we wouldn't want the liability of what could happen with those. So just wanted to comment on that. I think I've now moved my people over so you are fully on my screen. Dorothy. I wanted to add that the advantage of the town insurance is that the town could advertise it with the bills. It could say this insurance is available, most people don't know about it. Most people don't think of it and they're not aware of it. And that's why they don't have it. Okay. But the town, if the town owned it, or wasn't you know the middleman in it. They would advertise it with the bills and people who are existing homeowners who cannot get it now with that in any way, would be able to get that insurance. So I really think it's a really good way out of some of these difficult problems. Thank you. Okay. And another question. So this sounds, I mean, this sounds like, okay, this is the way to move forward or my question being is, if let's just say if this was voted in right now today, just so I understand clearly the staff is not there to sustain these numbers or am I wrong? It doesn't sound like they have the staff from what I understand. Yeah, Amy Gilbert. It's either the staff isn't there or we'd have to compromise some other service to put the staff towards these efforts. So as a follow up, do you have an estimate of with the staff that you have now what would be a realistic number per year, if it's not the one to 200. With the staff now we would probably barely eke out probably 25, I think probably a year. Nika, does that answer your question? Sure does. Thank you. Just, just so you know, there's roughly 6000 accounts in our system. Yeah, so is that is that on top of the emergency ones or is that that's the that's the number whether it's emergency or repair repairing proactively. I'm saying emergency. Sorry, I don't mean like emergency emergency I mean just like not planned. If we're told we're responsible for these services up to even up to the property line, we would make a list and we would just start working on them. And if there was an emergency in the middle of that we would have to stop and take care of it. That's how it would work. So, so my question, piggybacks on Anika's which is how do you see a way that this can be phased. And that's I know that's a really tough tricky thing but because we don't necessarily have the funds to hire the staff and do all the things right this second, and we can't necessarily it's once again we are at a cart and a horse people. So how do we, is it possible to phase this in. So, you have, you have another issue going on, which is the labor force right now. If you told me to go hire the people right now I probably could not do it. So, we are guaranteed if you choose, if you choose that we're now responsible for any piece of the service. We would have to phase it in and there would be a time period where there'd be some unhappy customers who wouldn't get there, who may not get the service they want right away because of that. And it may mean that we have to really really rely on contractors to pull us through in the beginning as well. So I want to be conscious of time. And I know this is probably the one of the biggest decision points but Gilbert and Amy are there any other things that you would like to get to in terms of decision points. This is the biggest one.  Dorothy do you have an additional question on this. Yes. Gilbert, what is your recommendation. How do you think the best way would be for the town to go. Um, my, I don't really, it's really a town decision it's how the, it's how the leadership of the town wishes to provide a service to your residents. You want to, we always strive, we strive to provide the best we can and sometimes we make it sometimes we're a little short. We don't really ever fail fail we feel some people may say that pot hole season this year was pretty much a blowout. But it's up to you how do you what what level of service do you think you want to have as a community. And that's really what it is that I don't really have an opinion. I will make whatever I'll make it work however you choose to make it go. And we'll strive to be 100% on top of it and make it come out the way we should come out. We just need to know which way you want to go. So could we get, I'm trying to think of this not as an either or situation and like what are other possibilities a to keep residents informed that you know that this is a possibility that can happen and you know and so there's that we're not indicating a residence that we heard about today. The second thing I really like is the, what Dorothy Pam said about insurance with thinking about insurance. What other ways like is there a way that that that you all could be anticipating and not that you think you brought that up go for the not waiting for something to collapse but anticipating and kind of doing the repairs and what are the other ways but can we look at other towns or other ideas that would minimize the impact or you know the shock of the sudden thing happening how do we, how do we improve, and what are some ideas we can get. Unfortunately, we have sent out multiple information about services and mostly we talk a lot about bats oils and greases, and that things you shouldn't flush down your toilets. Pretty fair amount of money over the last few years sending information out about that. We've had, we have at least one area which has been chronically a problem with bats oils and greases. And we've just sent, we've sent tons and tons of letters and and information to them saying hey this is a problem in your area stop flushing these things down your toilets and stop pouring grease down your drains. There's been very little response to our effort. So, I could say that we wouldn't reach out and send out these general mailers but these general mailers are not taken very seriously. We do, and we will be required to start talking to residents with water services that are certain ages that's part of this part of the updated lead and copper rule from the from EPA and DEP. People with old water lines will be talking to them pretty soon and we'll be having a very pointed conversation with them. That's going to be a little more than just a general mailer, because we're required to by law. But that's pretty much, that's kind of the only thing we can do I mean people. Come on water and sewer rules that's just not that, it's not that flashy and attractive it's, you'd rather watch Game of Thrones right or something like that. Different kind of game of thrones girlfriend. The, I'm so sorry everyone. I look forward to you all talking to me because my water lines pretty sure old anika. Yeah, so I heard, I vividly remember our presentation on Monday with the wet wipes and the grease that and so whereas I, you know what, think we would want the, the best service possible for for residents and also really you know I guess trying to help help with you making people are just asking people to be mindful, just to round it out because our experts. I'm far from a sewer expert aside wanted to do my part to help out here. So I wonder if we could round out with with Amy do you have an opinion on what you would recommend if you had to make a call right now. Do you recommend you guys do about this decision of ownership. Yes. I mean, I think Gilford said it.  I mean the only thing that I would caution is just, you know, different decisions have different price points and so, you know it's, you make a decision but the decision comes with a cost.  Thank you. I was saying to pass above we're just valuing your opinion you all are there on the ground and seeing a lot more than we are with a little more expertise so thank you for winning and thank you. Okay. And Andy been a little quiet. Do you have any lasting thoughts on this any other thoughts that you'd like to add no pressure just wanted to check. I think it's a good discussion a good start and it'll be interesting to see how the finance committee discussion next week. And where they take it after since they were the questions that prompted the PowerPoint came from finance committee side be interesting and then I'll report it back to you in some way. Yeah, and I actually was going to ask if Gilbert and Amy if it's possible for this PowerPoint to be in our next packet Dorothy if that's okay with you that this was really that was helpful. Thank you. Are there any other. Oh, Shawnee. Yeah, good just last thing could be a sense of what the cost of insurance if it was private or municipal just for an average house property value B. Yeah, I think you said you had a meeting coming up. Yep. Yeah, I don't know that number but we'll get that for you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, Gilbert and Amy are there any other decision points that you want to bring to us this evening. Otherwise we can look at the actual regulation that sounds good. We can just look at the actual regular regulations we like to and then we can point out some of the, there's only, there's only some minor little tweaks we've made in the regulations. Okay. Okay, so I have them I'm happy to pull them up on my screen unless Athena, do you want me to do that or do you want to do it. He's going. Oh boy. Okay, so terrifying thought. All right. Okay, so, um, as we go through this really quickly, folks hopefully have read it and have questions and comments. I just want to remind the different areas. Section one. Yeah. Okay, good. So section one. This is just giving kind of the, the overview of what, what we have to offer and how we support. I'm not saying any questions so far. I'm just assuming that Amy or Gilford will speak up when there's a change. I cannot see everyone at this point so please unmute and interrupt me if you have questions or comments Gilbert and Amy or Paul or anybody. So applicability purpose and policy. This is who this serves and why we need them. So Gilford will speak up when there's a change that's taking place. I hope so. Yeah, thanks. Um, Gilbert and Amy are the smallest little thing that's just me being really picky. Is there a reason why there's different thoughts in this. So that that's, I mean partly that's probably just how I made this but then I also noticed that this has been reformatted from when I sent it so it's probably just. Okay, I will not. All right. Um, so I think that the part that I'm a little stuck on. Is the premises right so I think this is where it's where we want to be really clear is premises property or buildings and and the reason I say that is because if we are defining something as going to the owner's premises right that's, is it the shut off is it the property line. Am I am I off base in that or would it help us to clarify whether it's property or buildings. I think that's one of multiple places where if we make the decision to own either to the, you know, through the right of way or to the edge of the building then that definition might need some clarity there's going to be a lot of places that's why we wanted to start with that conversation because that's going to trickle down through the water and sewer regs in general. So that makes a lot of sense. So thanks for flagging that though. Yeah, of course. This is a little thing this is more just it never mind I'm going to ignore that. Val box cover. Yeah, we noticed that's missing the rest of it. I think that again I think that was a cut and paste because that was in the original and this reformatted version of that got lost, not to throw anyone under the bus but will give you that definition soon. That's good I was going to Google it but you know. Alright so standard conditions this there. These are just kind of the general, general rules, so to say for the, the utility right so the things that they abide by. I did not have any questions on this part did anybody else. Okay. So water system components so. Oh again this was my question right and I and I think Amy this is what you're just saying right is what is the premises and that in that instance, that's that's kind of the big decision maker right now. Yeah, we don't know what that is right right so once we settle that I think you're right it'll totally trickle trickle down. The, what's driving me nuts, sorry. Oh, those different. Okay, so the the. There's a couple different. This is a question for you all about just just kind of how water regs work. There's a couple different measurements for diameters right so there's there's two inches there's three quarters of an inch and then another place there's one inch. What are the sizes does it make sense to just say two inches or do you really need the three, like, is it realistic to say someone's going to have all three of these potentially know what one residence would. Well, one residence may have two of these, but, and then a larger building may have one large line so it's, but these three right here are the most common three we have. But a standard house, like that's where you have the three quarter inch that standard that goes into a standard residential house and then as you get into the larger buildings that's where they get the one inch or the two inch or possibly larger in some instances. So, okay, thank you. Um, alright, no one is stopping me yet so I'm just going to keep keep going. I did have a snarky comment about doesn't matter how they thought the water service. But I will, I will let that go I'm not going to have you specify. Alright, so this is yeah I had a question about this I didn't understand installation during winter months section about maintenance of the excavation within and outside the right of way until final paving is installed. I stared at it for a little while and still was unclear on what that meant. Could you just explain that to me really quickly. During a winter, during a winter emergency we we make the people do a temporary patch. And you have to you're responsible for that temporary patch until you do the final patch in the summer. Okay, I mean a good example of that was down on Main Street near Aspen chase that's where we had a water main break in the winter and it was a pretty good to do you know in your car for months throughout the winter because we couldn't do a good until the spring. Okay just stay on that for a second this is within and outside the right of way. Yep. Yep. Everything. Yes. Go ahead go for it. We just, I mean some some places if it starts eroding and the starting to erode from the water water line work. It could affect other neighbors and so forth so we want them they're responsible for maintaining this until they get grass growing and the final patch in the roadway and any other repair they have to make to the infrastructure. So this is to maintain it to emphasize that it's not just in the public voice just on private it's both it's all areas that they have to maintain. Good. Um, so one of the things that I know Shalini and I had had emails about from some folks in our district are private contractors and whether those that's not necessarily a, I am assuming that they need to be licensed and what I meant to do is go up and look at the commission on that because I believe the situation that we have have heard about was someone who's who's contractor did not do a job at the town found satisfactory. And so how do you ensure that the private contractor is is acceptable and is there a way to do that before getting a bill and then being told you have to do it again. Amy go. Yeah, I mean, so one of the things that is in is in here is the town does have construction standards. And so contractors, we know that there's some contractors that don't do a good job or that they don't put things in that according to our standards. So the contractors have to get the town standards on an annual basis and sign off that say that they're going to do it and, you know, if they don't, you know, unfortunately, you know, you have to give every contractor one shot but if they don't, you know, we have a we have a naughty list that through this process we can allow them, you know, like we basically can disallow them from pulling permits to protect other residential owners from being taken advantage from someone like that. So part of also ensuring the quality is the contractor and the the homeowner ensuring that the contractor has, you know, calls us for an inspection before they fill in the hole because very often the contractor forgets fills in the hole and you know when from the town gets a set of eyes, and that set of eyes is, you know, for the homeowner's protection to make sure that it's a it's a quality job and so you know part of that is supposed to be in our process and we encourage people to take advantage of that part of the process. Yeah, just following up. Do you how would residents know that they're, they're supposed to call you I mean, if I had a contract I would just trust that they're going to do it. Yeah, wouldn't know that I'm supposed to. And that's, that's one of the issues we have to is that some, some contractors won't say yes I need to get a permit from the town. And we sometimes most of the time we will catch those people in the course of doing their work and it's not a very big town. We're not doing other things will drive by and see somebody working and if it's a water crew they might tell the engineering staff hey what's going to be working is that we don't know there's a permit. The sewer guys do it as well is there somebody with a permit to work here. But we watch in town and we usually catch the people who don't pull a permit. Sometimes we don't but the majority of time we do and we make them pull a permit and we stop and make sure everything's okay. Okay, and then what is the recourse that the resident might have in case the person didn't, the contractor did not do the job well. Unfortunately, the, it's just between him and the contractor so they may have to get a lawyer and do the legal issue with them. But if they had not conformed to the town thing town requirements, but you're still staying it would still be between the contractor and the homeowner. Yes, I mean we may be brought into it to say yes they didn't meet the standards and so forth but I see. We, we have not. We've only had two really big issues with contractors since I've been here, and we've been able to work our way through those. Tony, are you okay. I'm sorry I was having trouble over here. So is there or could there be maybe a Q&A that's on the town sites when regards to water and sewer for people who may not know the answers to these questions. Yeah, we can be we have information on there now on the website if people see read it and think there needs to be more or there have questions always send us the question, and we can put more information on there. We don't get much feedback about what we have on there. So I don't think people really, you know we tell people to go to the website to find information out but we don't get. We haven't got much feedback, although I imagine tomorrow we're going to have a whole list of it. I don't have that idea. Anika did that answer your question. Okay, Dorothy. Rather than expect people to look up something on the website, which most people won't do or don't do. In the easy part of the website, the opening part. Maybe you could be featured. Have some kind of interesting graphics and pictures and questions to try to grab people's attention. I don't think we're going to be using browsing for just any old thing like, like, what is it going to be a party on the green this weekend. Because I think few people are really going to go and check out your stuff. So, so we will, we will get Guilford on tiktok, and then. No, I appreciate that. I think, let's, I apologize, I just looked back at the agenda and Athena's probably like sending me emails right now saying hey, wrap it up. I think that I want to try to get through a couple more of these because I noticed we have a couple other things on our agenda Dorothy is that okay if I go in for another five minutes. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Um, so, All right. Are we all set with Moving on to meters. Okay. So meters. Just generally, this was kind of my other question really about the varying sizes right so if they the utility needs to prove it if it's over an inch but then if it's over two inches there's special coordination with the utility and I just wanted to know how those are different. Special coordination versus approval. Sorry about that. So this section is actually a little different. And we've changed it from what it was before. And how we've changed it is, is, we charge a meter rental fee in the bill. And we've only been replacing meters up to two inches but if you have a two inch meter or larger, we still charge you a rental fee. So with this if you approve these regulations we will take ownership of all meters at this time, including two inches and higher. So we stock five eighths and I mean the three quarters and the one inch meters in our shop. We do not stock a lot of two inches and larger. So if you got a meter greater than two inches you need to, we need to coordinate so we can get it ordered and brought in. And that's why that's in there right now. Okay, thank you. Just a little quick thing which was, I mean, superintendent of Public Works or their designee, or is it just, just you go for it. It's my designee always. It's superintendent or designee. Yes. Okay, great. I'm going to keep moving unless someone stops me. I did not have a lot of comments in this area. I was unclear on what a private meter was but that's me needed to Google not even needing to teach me. I don't know if I was ever cultural meters. Oh, so meter repairs. I, this was another one where I was a little bit just confused it seemed vague. So Dorothy, why don't you start. I've been talking a lot. You muted. This just reminds me, somebody was complaining to me about placement of meters on historic houses, and did not want the meter on the front of the house and was being told that had to be in the front of the house. I was just wondering what leeway. Oh I see Amy looks like she. Meeters are actually in the basement. So they're not in the front of the house, but I will say this. One of the things that we're making an active push on is replacing every single meter in town with the radio reads which means you won't have to have that electrical socket size thing outside your house so we would be trying to replace their meter with one that's a radio read if they just call our office and anybody who doesn't have the newer style meter. We would love to replace it we're trying to replace all of them in town. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the soapbox to stand on for a sec. My question here is actually a lot simpler than I initially was worried was concerned about just who determines ordinary where is that a standard that you're prepared to apply consistently. Yes it is I mean if it's, if it's, we have to come in and replace it, because it froze and cracked open, we're going to charge you for it. And if it is old and just looks like it needs to be replaced. And it's been there for five, well it's been there for 10 to 15 years we'll just probably replace it. And that's because I'm allowed to use a flamethrower to saw my own. According to these bylaws. Well if you choose the other route we'll be doing some of that fine. That's true. All right. Backflow prevention. The only thing here was. Oh no I have two things. So again, what is a reasonable amount of time has determined by the utility rate so is, is that so variant based on on the issue that you wanted to leave it big or it can be, it can be very, it can be very different depending on the situation. We have some places that have multiple meters in the properties. And if you have multiple meters and you're multiple hydrants you only have one hydrant out. We're okay with it taking a little longer to replace the hydrant. We're okay with waiting until the spring or summer. If you only have one hydrant and the fire department says and they feel and we feel you really need to get it fixed. We'll make you fix it right away. So it does depend on the property and what's going on there. Okay, so. The last thing was under unauthorized use of a fire agent may result in a fine being levied against the perpetrator. So just quickly, you call them fire hydrants some places just hydrants and others I wasn't sure if that mattered. But then the other part is the perpetrator, what if it's a kid like what you know is it is it property owner is it what a minor is what I should say, how do you levy a fine against a perpetrator and what is that fine is that outlined below I apologize if I missed it. We actually, we might have to look at what the fine actually is most of the time, the people we find with the people we find tampering with hydrants are contractors. People trying to get water for something they're doing in town and they just come and they tap into a hydrant. You have to have, you have to be pretty knowledgeable how a hydrant works to get it to go. There are probably some young adults and Amherst you know how to do it and can probably figure it out. We would just shut those off and tell them to leave them alone, but we do have from time to time had contractors just open our hydrants connect things to it actually cause a cross connection at times and then put the public at risk. And those are the ones that we actually go after the most and we actually put on our bad person list. Can you explain what a cross connection is Gilbert. So a cross connection is when, when you take water out of the system, you want to be pure and clean. If you actually allow a hose from your system to dip into a swimming pool.  So those are the most common cross connections is some type of hose going from water that's not potable water into your potable water system. A big example of this happened. It was somewhere in eastern mass and it was several years ago but it was a landscaping contractor who hooked their landscaping truck up to a hydrant illegally and they were filling up their tank to go. They were filling up their water. But it had, yeah, it had fertilizer in it. And what happened is they were like one hydrant away from a nursing home that happened to turn on a couple of washing machines, and it caused negative pressure and so it caused water to instead be instead of flowing into that tank of that water flowing into the system and so the entire system, the entire water system in that community had to get drained to get the fertilizer out of the water. And so that's the critical nature of what we're talking about here is, you know, it's it we're not saying that you can't use it just because whatever it's because we're trying to keep the water safe because people drink it. Yeah, that makes sense. I would appreciate I think clarification on those the fines, what those are and making sure that those are approved clearly. All right, so I'm going to pause here just because it's 816 and we've got some other things to do. I would love to ask my fellow committee members if it's possible for the next time that we look at water rugs to if you have questions. We know like which sections there in ahead of time if you know, so that we can, I can go through this quickly and efficiently, and then similar for for sewer because I'm sure we will have questions and sewer as well. And yeah, Shalini. Yeah, since the staff is most in touch with the residents and what are their concerns. Y'all could speak to I'm sure you are already doing that but just in case you aren't. What are the common issues that are or complaints that we're hearing from residents with respect to water and sewer. The biggest ones we've been having recently is actually because of COVID. And it's not worried about COVID in the water is the fact that our student population has gone up and down so drastically at different times of the year that is not normal. We've had times where the water quality has changed quite a bit from normal. We've had people in the center town who are getting a little higher chlorine than they don't usually got. And it's throwing them off a little bit.  Since the students have come back though right now, things have settled down and it's much, much calmer and I imagine this summer will be like a normal summer it won't be. Well, I don't know. I mean last summer we actually had really low flows, because we had so many restaurants that were closed on Sunday, Monday, I think Tuesday and Wednesday only open Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And that changed our flow in the system and caused different characteristics and water quality issues throughout the system, which is interesting. I remember a few years ago and this is before I got involved in town politics that I would get robo calls, saying that the water quality was bad. Maybe before Paul's time I'm not sure. But there was, you know, like a period of time when we got a lot of those calls. What was the problem then and why are we not having those calls. Now what did you do to fix it. We stopped doing robo calls. I can, I can talk about that a little bit so the, the, the last time that happened it was actually, I want to say it was like 2015 or 2016 in the summer, and it was one of those summers that was really hot. And because it was so warm, there was, we had some bacteria hits in our system. And so, when you get a bacteria hit were required to do public notification to let everyone know. And so that was, that was something that, you know, we had to let you guys know that there was, there was a problem with the water. That's why you guys got all those. I will say that much as we got a couple bacteria hits I remember calling the DEP in that time and they were like what you only have two in your system. We've got bigger problems to deal with because that summer it was so warm that everyone was having these problems it was really hard to keep the water clean and safe and obviously that's, that's the goal. Okay, thank you. So everyone's homework is to come prepared with your questions about sewer and any other questions you've about water for next next session and then Amy and Gilford are you planning on doing the same sort of thing talking about the decision points for for sewer that that was. I mean they're kind of the similar. It's the same. Yes. So we will all mull that for the next two weeks. And, and then Paul will update us on fees and we will also hear. This is this is a separate referral to finance Andy so it's not a recommendation right or was it a recommendation from finance to us. I'm not sure that I can remember either. So I think that our focus is going to be somewhat on the fee side and the cost side. I won't get into it in great detail is an interesting article in the, because that earlier this week about North Hamptons rates, and they have. There are some different rate structures. And we're going to be talking about that but I think that is a practical matter. And I've had communications with finance director about this that those conversations really can't hold up the work on the regulations and so we could possibly get at the rate questions. And then later and come back and look at it as an amendment to what we otherwise are adopting now rather than try and do it all of the single time, because otherwise, we're holding up the regulations while waiting for the rates nothing and we definitely made a decision to not try and do the rates for FY 23 the earliest it's going to be as FY 24. So, I don't know if that makes sense or any questions on that. I have a follow up so does that mean, because what we were talking about earlier has major rate implications. So is that, can we make that decision with regards to the regulation in terms of going to the property line without talking about the rates. I think so because we were talking, what you're talking about we will talk about to, which is just the issue that you described, but the other things are, whether there are different rate structures like in North Hampton. They do it based upon a variable rate that depends upon the size of the, the main coming into the property. And so smaller diameter has has a lower rate, and there are various other ways that Amy's talked with us about in a previous meeting. And it's a question of whether we want to move towards a rate structure that is sort of encourages conservation. And I think Amy explained to us last year when we she met with finance committee about the state really encouraging that practice she can save whatever you know she might add to it now. But if we do those kinds of majors there's a section towards the end of the proposed regulations where you might do some changes to how we approach the rate but I think we want to do that carefully and we don't necessarily want to hold up the regulations to get into that one section. I think I'm going to let Amy respond and then Dorothy will go to you and then I'll probably turn the meeting back over to Dorothy so Amy. Yeah and I more just wanted to clarify what Andy was saying is that the discussion of ownership, basically what that's going to do is affect the budget, how much money. We have to collectively collect between all the water and sewer users, and what we're talking about in the finance committee, some of those decisions is how that's divvied up between different user types. So they're related, but separate, if that makes sense. Thank you. Dorothy. And as in with the water system, they're thinking of linking the rate structure to encourage conservation with the sewer structure. There is, you want to have some some a move towards responsibility. And those wipes really are something over which the homeowner has control and grease and down the drain, the homeowner has control. So we have to figure out how we can keep the, the responsibility on the sewer and conservation on the water, I think to have it be equitable system. And you raised a really good point and that makes me think do we want to then get ECACs comments on these, if there are ways to bring in efficiencies or incentivize efficiencies because I do see an unable at water just even if it's raining there's like water in the lawns being used or for that I don't know if that gets covered in this bylaw or somewhere else. No, I was just going to comment on that particular point is that one of the things in this bylaw is rain gauges for for irrigation systems for that specific point. And that's something that the state again is is recommending highly is that's an easy thing to conserve, conserve water by not watering when it's raining. And shelly ECAC does know that we are discussing this, I brought it to their meeting last week, or this week sorry. They're focusing right now on some of the other things that are in CRC but I will I will revisit that with them to see if they have a comment. Okay, so I want to, I had really lofty hopes of getting all the way through that regulation so I'm, I'm, you know, it is what it is but Gilbert and Amy thank you so much it sounds like Dorothy just to confirm with you as chair, we will finish. We will, we will get through the regulations next week, and potentially come to a decision and launch into sewer, which should go a little bit faster. Not necessarily faster but because we've already had the bulk of the decision. And by our next meeting, we will also have information from Paul regarding the cost for private versus utility owned or held insurance. Is that correct to sum up. Yeah, I'm not sure if we'll have the actual numbers for you, but we'll try. Okay, or an idea, or an update on the conversation. Okay. All right. Guilford and Amy, thank you so so much for spending your Thursday evening. We totally appreciate it and thank you Anna for running a very tight meeting. We all appreciate it. We have. It is five minutes to 830 which is supposed to be our witching hour, but we have a few things to do. We have announcements. Okay, seeing none. We're going to have do next agenda preview and we have to approve the minutes let's approve the minutes first. Are there any questions on the March 24, 2022, regular meeting minutes. Okay, can I entertain somebody offer emotion to accept the minutes. We approve the minutes of March. Oh shoot. 24. Thank you March 24, 2022. All second. Thank you very much. Okay, so I'll call the roll a Shalini. Yes. That's Dorothy. Yes. Anika. Yes. Anna. Yes. And Andy. Yes. Okay, so with the minutes have been accepted unanimously on the next agenda preview. We have had a request that we discuss. Some of the issues to do with senior services as they're presently provided. We have also a carryover that we thought we were going to discuss a speed limits. And there's a tack memo. I believe, well what we already have done. Okay, we have the Kendrick park parking public hearing. Okay. So I would think at that time. There was a tack memo about the new crosswalk proposed across from Garcia's, which is the other side of Kendrick park. I think it would make sense to have a brief discussion of that too, if we could. I think we're going to get a presentation on the roads overview. And there may be some town manager appointments. But I would like to add the senior services and the discussion of the speed limit. Are there any problems with that? And I'll ask you, Paul. Well, it's a whole lot. And also, I'm not sure when you're going to bring up water and sewer regulations again. That's a night when you'll have the town engineer plus Guilford here. That's just a lot. I think the roads in and of itself is a solid hour because there's a presentation to be made an explanation on how we rate roads and you'll have a lot of questions. I think about it. So, because it's a hot topic for folks right now, especially with potholes season and skill for mentioned. I think it's a really heavily loaded agenda you won't get out in two, two hours if that's what you want to put on the agenda. We have to have, I believe we have to have the Kendrick Park hearing. Public hearings, because I mean, I didn't put that on. So I assume it's on the calendar that it has to be then. But I don't know. Okay. I don't know whose hand that is. Athena. Oh, Athena. Okay. I see. Okay. It's just a ghost right there. Ghost. We do need to publish notice of the public hearing before we can schedule it so I was hoping that the committee would discuss what date they'd like to have the hearing and that date would be far enough into the future that we can. Okay, review the meeting notice that needs to be published in the newspaper. Okay. So that's, that's good. So we don't have to hold the public hearing. We just have to set the date. And what I don't know is what requirements are linked to that hearing. I mean, does it have requirements. Well, is it part of something that's having taking place right now that we have to do right away. Can we say, we'll put it off for two or three meetings. That's what I don't know. I think there is Athena correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a time limit once we referred it to like one. Because it was open or it was introduced at council. And so the hearing need to happen within a certain number of days of the referral. I'm just checking. Yeah. And Andy, did you want to speak while she's checking? I think they wanted the council wanted a report back a recommendation report by May 16. Do you remember whether it was a report or a recommendation? The motion was to refer the proposed changes to North pleasant street for public hearing on recommendations to be provided by the town manager related to changes on parking and a recommendation to the town council by May 16. So I think that part of the discussion on Monday was that the town manager was going to present the committee with a proposal for the parking fees and rates and so on. And so we need to have those new spaces and that then because in the notice for the public hearing on parking, we need to include what exactly it is we're having the hearing on and right now we don't have proposed rates and fees and times and so on. So we need those before we can draft those into the hearing notice. And I was raising the question is interrupting now is that of course I was appointed to be our liaison to the, from the council to tack and tack meets on Thursday. So I was at the tech meeting immediately prior to this meeting. And this was a substantial discussion at the tech meeting, because they are uncertain about what our expectations are for their participation in the discussion that will follow the parking. So, I really urge that some thought be given to what happens after the hearing, and whether we are referring then from TSO and asking for tack DAAC to give any feedback before we have any recommendation that TSO is making to the council. So, we frequently ask those two committees, and they were kind of leaning on me for an answer and I didn't have an answer, of course. So I think instead reporting that part of today's tech meeting to you. So, Andy, I just want to clarify. I thought this was Kendrick Park parking. I thought this was, well, I know that in talking to Tracy Zaffian that there's a feeling that the park is being well used now it's going to be used more and more as the weather turns good. I wanted to do a few changes right now that weren't going to cost money, or at least cost very, very little, which would be one way traffic and moving the parking from the west side to the east side and keeping it parallel parking. In other words, not the big thing to come, but just an interim thing, which TAC thinks is safer for people using the park. It doesn't involve rates and fees as far as I know. So, I need some clarification on what this public hearing is on. Paul, can I. Yeah. So I think what the council voted on what Athena reported on the council vote on Monday was that to that I'm supposed to give you a recommendation on what you want to have on the agenda that's not going to happen in time for a public hearing on the 21st. So maybe we should plan on having the public hearing on Kendrick Park parking on May 5, I think that's the meeting afterwards and that gives us time to put it together unless Athena, we have to bring the actual notice back to this committee, which might hurt the timing of it. If I may Dorothy, the committees haven't done that in the past before usually the chair's discretion to the public hearing notice who use roughly the same format that we use last time. Yeah, but it would include the specific spaces that were being considered for the public hearing and but the rate and so on. So if I can continue. So, maybe we look at April 21 for the roads overview. If you essentially, I would say since you have water and sewer continue to finish up your job on the water and sewer, and go, I will have appointments for you. I'm not sure if you'll be able to get seen. I'm not sure what you'll be responding to in terms of senior if that's just an open discussion or how you want to have that. Or else, and then the May 5 we would have the public hearing on Kendrick Park. Okay, I would like to have a very time limited discussion, just a preliminary discussion on some of the senior issues where we're not going to solve anything or do whatever but just a beginning discussion of it that maybe 15 minutes. I think we could do that. But again, I will hear from other people on the committee. Tina has a hand up. Okay, Athena and Anna has her hand up to. Okay, Athena, please go ahead. Just a reminder that we still have that outreach update from CPOs that we had planned for next meeting we also have the residential rental property fees that we didn't finish up with tonight. So, just looking at the next couple of agenda. There's there's some things that would need to be finished up first. Okay, I wanted to make you aware that that I would assume that you would carry those on to the next agenda. Yes, okay. Anna, you're, yeah, that's similar to what I was going to say is the, the those pesky mental registration fees and then the water and sewer would be great. The little the task master in me is like, oh my God, I want to check that box so bad. But I think the other thing Dorothy is I wonder, I really, I really appreciate the, the concerns about the seniors and I'm wondering if it makes sense to bring that forward more as a council work session versus a TSO priority because we haven't unless I'm mistaken when we talked about our priorities for TSO. We did one week I don't know if we totally kind of solve that list but I want to leave space for things that come forward but I also is it is it possible that this would make more sense as a work session or a public dialogue on the council level and I don't want to show the answer to that but I just I wonder if it comes straight to TSO or if it should go through council first or what that process is but I, I agree that honestly the next meeting is going to be so full with finishing sewer water and doing the regulations and then also roads, because the other thing that we haven't talked about is the proposed changes to our charge. And that needs to get, because we didn't get to it today and so I know that there's that's kind of hanging up some other potential actions as well that I know relate to what some folks on this committee are really passionate about, in terms of outreach so it'd be helpful to kind of do a little bit of Tetris. All right, I think I saw Nika's hand before Andes but maybe the picture goes to Nika. Okay. No, I just wanted to remind us that, you know, senior services were on our list. As we, you know, when we started here, however, you know, we are guided by the issues that are coming that come up and that we have to attend to within our next session so I do think that whether it is a council session or in the future on the agenda that we should find some time for it. Thank you. Thank you. Andy. I was going to say something similar to what Nika just said. We've got, we need to be very careful not to get too many things opened at the same time and then not be able to close them or we'll get ourselves just in a really confused state. We do have some things that were thrown at us like the next stage of the North Pleasant Street is an obvious one. I think it's for the senior center, the most important thing to do is to assure them that they've been heard and to give them a date, or at least a timeframe when we will be spending some time with them. I don't think that it necessarily needs to be our next meeting in the speed limit I agree with Paul having been through the discussion in the first year, the first council. That is a substantial discussion. And it is not one that's worth opening up unless we're going to spend some some big time at it, because I suspect that if the word gets out that we are taking that issue up. There are lots of people from lots of different neighborhoods who are going to have opinions to express about it is going to be one that we're going to be hearing about which is important, but we have to be sensitive to the amount of time that it's going to take to enable people to speak to us. Okay. And Shalini. I would agree that we don't have to do the senior center services right away but I think it's it was in our list of priorities. And that is why it is important to have some kind of process by which we are prioritizing our priorities I still feel like we're kind of just taking things as they're coming, but also to have some sort of process by which we are prioritizing and ordering certain things because we have to do them from the town staff but then the other things that come to us and I think that's where we have a say and what is our process for prioritizing that. We didn't have that discussion but that being said, I do agree that let's decide on a time it doesn't have to be given the agenda we have, we could maybe make it in the next third meeting because it seems like the next two are going to be pretty full, but and that would give them time just as long as we're giving them a committed time. Right. Okay. I feel that we need to let the seniors know that they have been heard and that we want to listen to do more. I also agree that we don't have any quick ideas. So my suggestion is that and Paul you can correct me on this. Can we do that. Three meetings from now. Yes. I think what you have is shall and he says sort of discretionary items one is the senior. One is the speed limits. One is the roads one is outreach and one is your charge. So I think Dorothy, maybe next time we meet to set the agenda is we can sort of plot those out over the next three or four meetings of the TSO committee, and you can sort of make a figure out how you want, how do you want to prioritize it means you're not going to do something else. So we all want to prioritize seniors or roads or, or the charge or whatever but that means whichever one you prioritize the other one is not going to happen so again the committee just should decide which ones you want to take on first. I fully agree that you should be cleaning up and finishing up topics before you take on some significant new ones. So, and I think an answer to shallony. Yes, I think we need a work session but I have a question. Can a committee refer something to the town council. In other words, if we had a brief discussion. Can we then make a referral and say we want the town council to discuss this. Or is it always from the town council to the committee. I'm going to go with Athena. It would be appropriate to make a recommendation to the town council to do something. Yeah. Okay, thank you. And I just wanted us to be alert and to be thinking we're creative group and people get ideas, and we're going to have to be creative right now because we don't we're having a space crunch. We have a lot of things that we're doing at once. Okay. I think that that's all that we've don't need to do it's quarter of nine and I believe this is when we adjourned our meeting last time. Not too too bad. Is there anyone who has something to say before we hear a motion to adjourn. Okay, do I hear a motion. I move we adjourn at 845 PM. Okay, and a second. Second. Very good. Okay. That's too fast for me to keep notes on. So, thank you folks. Thank you all for the good work. And I think we had a good meeting Paul did you have a comment there. You just need to vote. We need to vote. Thank you. Right. Okay. Pam, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And Steinberg. Yes. Okay, great. We are adjourned. Thank you. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you.