Hello. Hello. I'd like to welcome everyone to this public hearing and meeting of the Amherst Community Preservation Act Committee on December 8th, 2022. I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.03 p.m. pursuant to the decision of the town of Amherst, which is permitted by the state. We are meeting remotely. The meeting is being recorded. I'm going to call on committee members here to make sure that they can be heard and that we can be heard ourselves as well. My name is Sam McLeod. Tim. Tim Neal here. Robin. Oh, yep, here. Dave. Here. Matt. Here. Katie. Here. Okay. I can hear all of you. Now there's one other name that appears on the screen that has not yet been changed that says Sonia Aldrich. The individual is muted. I'm wondering who this person might be. If you're able to change your name so that we can identify you or perhaps turn your camera on, that could be helpful. I know that Michelle indicated that she was going to be about 10 minutes late or so. And I did get a text from Andy McDougal who is traveling and his travel arrangements changed. So he's going to be unable to attend, possibly being able to make it later. You were saying something, Sonia? It was Sean. I suspected it. Okay. I suspected too. Paulie. And we see Sean, rather than see his name, not the microphone. So the meeting is recorded. We do have access to the video, but we do need to take minutes for the meetings that we have and we do it as committee members. And I'm wondering if anyone would like to volunteer to take minutes for this meeting. I was hoping I could volunteer next week. If that's okay, just because I've got to finish my coursework, but will someone else stand up this week? I mean, I can do it this week too. If we don't have any volunteers, I will do so. So why don't we assume that I will do the minutes for this week? And Robin, we will, in advance, consider you the front-runner for taking minutes next week. We do, I believe it was Katie or Tim, I forget which, who brought up the concept of including the recording link in our minutes with the suggestion that they not be quite so detailed, given that the information resides elsewhere. Members of the committee have their own styles of presenting the minutes. Certainly, shorter is not a bad thing from the minute taker's perspective. It's at the discretion of the person who's taking the minutes, of course, how they wish to proceed. It might not be of that idea to go to the town website and copy the recording link and put it in the minutes, but that's for the minute takers to decide. So the first item on our agenda this evening is a public hearing for all proposals. This is a part of the CPA Act indicates that there's a requirement to have a quote-unquote form of public hearing for the projects, which we have designated as today, where community members can be certain that there'll be an opportunity for them to speak on any given project that they wish to. As a committee, we've had public comments on most of our meetings on a regular basis anyway, but we've designated this as such. We have received a number of letters from community members. Sonia has sent some out previous to today. She's been providing them as they come in, and we did get a number of other ones today. I'm not sure if all of the committee members have had the opportunity to see them yet or not, but certainly after the meeting between now and the subsequent week, you will have the opportunity to read them if you haven't, or you could even look at them as we are talking. So I would like to, I see that Michelle has just arrived. We can see you, Michelle. Can you hear us? I can. Okay. You have not missed anything. We've just determined the minute taker, and we're about to start public comments. There's a number of members attendees that we can see in the meeting, and we will call on you if you raise your hand. So I'm going to go ahead and call on names, and anyone who wishes to make a comment, please, please do so. At present, I see the first name as Matea Kramer. So if you're able, Sonia, could you either bring Matea into the room or make sure that her audio can be heard or his? Oh, it says she. Okay. Hi there. This is Matea. Matea. Thank you for stating your name. I'm sorry about the mispronunciation. So no problem at all. We can hear you, and we welcome your comment on any of the projects. Thank you so much. Again, my name is Matea Kramer. I'm on East Pleasant Street here in Amherst, and I'm speaking tonight to urge the committee to use CPA dollars for affordable housing. As you guys well know, the town has made a commitment to end structural racism in Amherst and achieve racial equity. That's a laudable goal. And there is a great deal of work yet to do in order to move toward that goal. And an essential part of that work is affordable housing. Affordable housing is essential in order to address and ultimately, we hope, heal our town's very long history of economic exclusion. So for the future of this town and for the promise of equality, I ask you tonight, please use CPA dollars for affordable housing. Thank you so much for hearing me this evening, and I appreciate the work that you're doing for our town. Thank you for joining us, Matea, and thank you for your comments. Jennifer Schau, we see your hand up is raised. Are you able to bring Jennifer into the meeting? We can see your screen in the meeting, Jennifer. I'm hoping you can hear us. Hi, everyone. You can go ahead and state your name, where you live, and whatever comment you wish to make. Thanks. Hi, I'm Jennifer Schau. I live on 291 Potline Lane at Amherst. I am a member of the Amherst School Committee, but I'm here speaking just for myself. That being said, you should all have received an email from the chair of the Amherst School Committee, letting you know that the school committee had voted unanimously to endorse the field portion of the Fort River playing field application. I'm personally really excited about this application, and I urge the committee members to fund it. The fields will benefit the school community, as well as the community as a whole. It will also make it that much easier or that much better for the debt exclusion override for the school project to pass voters. So if for those people who don't have kids in the school or don't have young children or don't have, you know, don't have a vested interest in the school, it will be easier for them to be able to vote in favor of this project, and that is going to benefit everyone. So I urge you to vote to support that project. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer, for joining us and for providing comments for us to hear. Meg Gage, we see your hand is raised. We can see your screen in the meeting. I'm not sure if you're able to hear us. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. So I don't know why your pictures are all frozen in the sound, but I heard Jennifer and Michaela fine, so I'll just go ahead on. Meg Gage, I live at 208 Montague Road with my husband across the street from where the Ball Lanes Community Homes project will be, and I would like to speak in great support, enthusiastic support for the project. This project with working with Valley Community Development is an amazing example of a development project that right from the start has been working in partnership with the local neighborhood. At our District One Neighborhood Association annual barbecue in September, we invited them to do to present and they had came with amazing visual display and little model houses that participants could move around the property and sort of explore how give input and suggestions about how the houses might be arranged. I haven't heard any negative comments from anyone in our neighborhood except for little things about like where the driveway would be and how the cars would come, you know, technical things, specific things, but people are very enthusiastic and we particularly welcome eligible first-time home buyers at the Beacon Project over at the Mill District. I think there's 30 affordable housing apartments, they're not home ownership, and those families who in those apartments have really enriched our community enormously, kids getting off the school bus and so on, we would really like to have more affordable housing in our neighborhood. This is a great neighborhood for families. We have the Mill River Park, the pool, the ball fields, amazing new library we're going to have starting in the fall with the community room, the Mill District shops are tough respond, amazing conservation land and trails. It's a great, great neighborhood for moderate income families with a huge amount of free resources available, so I really hope everyone will get behind this project. Thank you and hi to everybody there. I'm sorry you're all frozen, but you'll be glad to know you're frozen in a good way. It's a good freeze. We're not actually frozen, we're in an alternate universe. Yeah. Good to see you Meg. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us and thank you for your comments. Rudy Perkins, I see you and the audience with your hand raised. Someone has to allow Rudy to talk I think. Sonja, are you able to bring Rudy into the meeting? There we go. Here we go. How's that? We can hear you, Rudy. Okay, fantastic. Thank you, Rudy Perkins, Cherry Lane, Amherst. As you know, I'm one of the co-applicants for the Fort River Community Recreational Fields application, but I wanted to speak here tonight and my individual capacity as a resident of the town and a property taxpayer to encourage you to give the largest award you can reasonably give to the field renovation portion of our Community Recreational Fields application. I think we can come back for the lighting in the community restroom portion of our request at a subsequent CPA funding cycle in my view. I'm a strong supporter of the new Fort River Elementary School project, but I'm also a parent of an Amherst public school student who's been involved in the after-school ultimate programs, and that's where I started realizing going over there to the Fort River Schools where they play and practice just how widely that's used as an recreational asset for our community. So we have an opportunity here to advance both the school and the playing fields aspects of the Fort River redevelopment. The CPA funds would serve the dual purpose of backstopping and ensuring the full planned redevelopment of the fields, and I know there will be later budget pressures that could lead to value engineering of things, and we want to make sure that the fields part is kept into the maximum it can be. My experience is that if an element of a project brings its own funding to the table, it's very unlikely to be cut, so the CPA funds would help guarantee the field renovation. And secondly, the field renovation will effectively reduce with CPA funds, will effectively reduce the ask to the taxpayers for the school project itself and will expand the constituency for that, and I feel like that's going to help with the debt exclusion voters, Jennifer and others have mentioned. This is no doubt one of the reasons why the Amherst School Committee endorsed the field renovation component of our application. So again, we, as we said last week, we need the field renovation component approved in this funding cycle so it'll be in place as the community goes to the debt exclusion vote in this spring, and the impact of this funding lowering the debt exclusion request effectively will be felt. The school and the fields project are more cost effective and feasible if done in tandem. So we, we, if we don't get the school debt exclusion passed, the field project is very unlikely to be done for the foreseeable future field renovations there. No debt exclusion vote, no school, no school, no field renovation. It's that simple and we need both in my view, both the school project and this recreational asset redeveloped. I do want to add, though, that I'm also a strong supporter of affordable housing, and that's been a long time interest of mine. It was my work and I hope that the committee can find a way to also give strong support to affordable housing in our town. I think that maybe the timing of the funding needs will help in this regard. You guys would know better than me, but as Kathy Shane, the chair of the school building committee mentioned last week, we probably wouldn't need the fields renovation money until 2025. I'm hoping that would leave the FY 2024 if you, you'd have to make the award now so it can have an impact on the vote. But I'm hoping that that later need for that funds would allow you to use the FY 2024 money in fuller measure on these other very worthy projects in our town. Thank you. Thank you, Rudy, for joining us and thank you for your prior presentation and for your comments today. I see a hand raised by someone named Elisa, who is now viewable. Hi. Yes. Elisa Campbell, I live on Pine Grove in Amherst, and I'm actually speaking for the League of Women Voters to support funding for subsidized affordable housing in Amherst, and we have not taken a position on one project versus another, but the League has supported affordable housing in Amherst for decades and continues to do so. So I'm here to just say that again. Thank you. Thank you, Elisa, for joining us and for speaking and thanks to the League of Women Voters for all that they do. I see Steve Rogers in the audience with a hand raised. Greetings. Thank you. Thank you to the committee for taking the time to address these issues. So Steve Rogers, I'm a resident at 99 Palpatale Road, so close to adjacent to the Ball Lane property. We would very much love to see some affordable housing done in that space. There's a desperate need in the town and the region for affordable housing. Amherst is a place that has become almost inaccessible for folks of low and moderate income, in which I have children that live in that economic strata and how difficult it is for them to find housing. And I would second make gauges, you know, sort of summary of the advantages of that particular location for affordable housing. There's public transport. There is access to multiple facilities like the Mill River and the pond and the woods. And, you know, full disclosure, I worked at Valley CDC long ago in the 90s and have about 10 years in affordable housing and I understand how difficult it is to package these projects and Valley is brilliant at it and does a great job when they execute on a project. So I would strongly support the committee allocating as much funds as possible for this project on Ball Lane. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Steve for joining us and thank you for your comments. I see a name of someone named Laura in the audience. I hope we can bring Laura in. You can see it. Can you hear me or see me? The audio seems to be slightly difficult to hear. Can you check your microphone again, please? We're not able to hear you on our end. Please and go on my computer on my phone now. Yeah, I think that would be desirable because we really can't hear you. The audio is so delayed. So what we're going to do, Laura, is we're going to proceed calling on other individuals and we will look to see for your name if we can find it at a later point in time in the meeting. I'm sorry that the connection wasn't working for you. You also do have the capacity, I believe, to ask a question and in that question you could actually make a statement. We'd be able to read it if need be. I think she's left. She just came off the computer on her own. Anyone else who is in the audience attending, if for some reason we're not able to hear you, there is the capacity in Zoom to type a question and the question and answer and we can see those. So that's an alternate method potentially of making a statement. So next name that I see is an individual named Lawrence. Thank you. Lawrence, quickly I'm at the end of Paul Lane. Yes, it's a noble and worthy cause. Put it in my front yard. It's a good thing you're doing this development. I support it. I'm very concerned because I know that oils and anti-freeze and lead weights were thrown in the drains over the shop. I've been here 28 years. Nobody's denying it and I'm concerned that 30 years from now we're going to find out that the underserved were given the toxic place and it's going to look bad for everybody, especially the people who live there. So I support it completely and they did not test under the pad itself. They did not lift the drain cover to see what's down below the pad itself. They went all around it and there are lead weights on the property, little piles of them. Lead is toxic. So I completely in support of and I would like as much help as possible in order to not find out in 20 years that something was down there that has been looked over there. And one more thing is I want to make a pitch for helping old people stay in their houses by other towns, put a roof on somebody's house kind of thing and retrofit and stuff. And Amherst as far as I've tried to find out doesn't. I'd like to make a pitch for them to complete support for this project and I'm concerned about finding out later that also it's a wildlife corridor. Is anybody paying attention to the disruption of the wildlife corridor? I'm concerned about that. All kinds of animals come through and is anybody looking out for them? Thank you very much for all your service, everybody. Thank you so much for your service and this is a good project. I support it and I don't know how to get off. I don't know how to do this, but it popped up and Sonja's in charge. Thank you for joining us, Lawrence, and thank you for sharing your comments with our committee and with those in the audience. Dr. Leslie Salisbury appears in the audience with a hand raised. Good evening, everyone. So thank you for allowing us to have space to speak on these topics. I want to speak about the support of the affordable housing, single family housing, and home ownership from two perspectives. So I'm here in two capacities. One is a board member of the Valley CDC and also as a resident of Amherst. And I see Sonja that I've had a chance to work with some time ago. But so as from a personal perspective, coming here as a graduate student as a single mother with my son, the goal was to be able to contribute to my community, raise my son here in the community, and at some point be in a position where I could afford to live in the community by being a homeowner. And that has never panned out for me, even at some point, being a grad student working anywhere between two and four jobs just to make ends meet, to raise my son here. And as I said, being a student here. And so being able to have affordable housing for this huge disparity for people of color or minorities within Amherst, I think having that opportunity to begin to create generational wealth is very important, especially as we talk about our commitment to supporting in this community. I think building wealth and generational wealth is important. And it gives the next generation something to stand on, which I don't fully see in our community. And then from a professional perspective, I had a chance to work with the town, running the social townwide social justice program and working with each one of the departments actually within the town and working with the town manager and looking at the disparities and how one zip code has an impact on their health outcomes with minorities. And one of the conversations that I had a wonderful opportunity to have was with Chief Livingston when he was just coming in to the area. And we talked about the concern of having diversity within the police force. And he was sharing that one of the reasons why it was very difficult to recruit is because it was his own officers couldn't afford to live in the places that they actually work in. And so building a stronger community relationship with police officers from a social perspective within their communities, bringing voices in or bringing families in or police officers to be able to live here. So I think it's multi-layered. It's creating generational wealth for next generations, it's creating opportunities for people like myself to be able to purchase a home here. And I have to worry about leaving my community simply because I can't afford to purchase a home. And my rent probably being more than a mortgage should be where I can't invest in something that I can pass on to my son. So just lending a voice, you know, from my perspective personally and professionally, I think it's a wonderful idea. I have loved working in this community and being a part of it. And as I said, I had the honor to work with Sonya in that particular project, which she was a phenomenal contributor to the voice and the dialogue and the narratives that we were having. So thank you for hearing me out. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Salisbury. And thank you for sharing your comments with us and with the community attendees. Thank you. Kathy Shane. Hi. Am I on? You're on, Kathy. I'm Kathy Shane. I live at 519 Montague Road. And you've heard from me before and you all know I'm a town counselor. I just want to say this time I'm calling in on Ball Lane. I live just north of Ball Lane and where this project would come in. And we had a community event where Valley CDC came with the topography of where it is. And you could sense the excitement of everyone and Valley CDC's interaction as we move the little condos around and say, well, could they be here? Could they be there? And what about a walkway over to where the bus stop is? So the whole, everyone who was there was trying to figure out how to make this work even better. And they were taking notes, which was amazingly exciting for a community. Meg already talked about its location, but it's right on a bus route. And you can walk up Pulpit Hill. You can go right up to Puffers. There's all this conservation land behind it. So you can get to town. You potentially actually don't need a car to get around, to get downtown. And the sense of people being able to own over the long term. I mean, this is what makes it unique. We had people at that meeting and also on an earlier presentation saying, how do I get in the queue? And so there's a lot of interest. I just want to say, there's a lot of interest in local residents on what they have an opportunity to be in one of these. And I'll just stop there. And I know as a counselor, I'm just talking that I don't think I've seen that level of excitement about a housing development right in our midst ever before. It was fantastic. And I am going to exit. And I just wanted to make that statement to go with Megs on the community's support of this. Thank you, Kathy, for joining us as always. And thank you for your comments. Tony Cunningham. Hello. Thank you. Can you hear me? We can hear you. I was traveling last week when our application was presented. I was sorry to miss the meeting. Thank you for offering this public hearing as a way to hear from residents which applications they support. I would like to offer my support for the Ball Lane affordable housing development and hope it will be awarded funding. And obviously as a co-applicant, I'm hopeful you will award the Fort River Community Recreational Fields as much funding as possible. If I may, I'd like to share some comments made by some of our town leaders about using CPA funding to improve the playing fields at Fort River. At the elementary school building committee meeting when Fort River was selected as the preferred site for the new larger school, Superintendent Michael Morris said, if the CPA committee wants to contribute to defray the cost along the way of this project, that's awesome. I really appreciate it. And it would be, I think, a wonderful idea. At a school committee meeting last month when sharing the feelings of the elementary school building committee about the CPA application, Dr. Morris said, the building committee was highly supportive of the efforts that would support reducing the cost of the project itself in terms of the fieldwork. And I certainly was as well. I am broadly supportive of these efforts and do appreciate our community members for stepping forward and thinking through how this effort could support the building project moving forward, both in terms of community support and lowering costs. Regional school committee chairperson Ben Harrington said, my personal thought is why wouldn't we support this? And that was prior to the school committee taking a unanimous vote in favor of the application, the field part of the application. And regarding the comfort station, town manager Paul Bockelman said at a building committee meeting, I think we are hearing more and more demand for public restrooms in areas where there are events. And of course, this will be a premier location for recreational events. So I just wanted to share those comments because I'm sure people aren't watching a million meetings of various committees. And they were at various meetings over the last couple of months. I look forward to your discussion this evening. And I thank you for your service to our town. Thank you for joining us, Tony. Thank you for sharing your comments. And thank you for your effort in your proposal, along with your fellow applicants. We appreciate your efforts. Mary Sair. Can you hear me? We can hear you, Mary. Oh, good. I'm Mary Sair from District 1. I live on Pine Street in North Amherst. And I came on to talk in favor both of the affordable housing and the playing fields at Fort River. I'm not going to say much because Kathy took the words right out of my mouth. I was at the District 1 neighborhood association picnic where CDC presented their neighborhood concept. And as a North Amherst resident, I'm really excited about having more families move into our neighborhood. And I was very excited by CDC's interest in making this more like a pocket neighborhood, which is a concept of really making the housing feel like a neighborhood and of people owning and having control of where they live, which is so very plus on that. And Tony and Rudy pretty much said what I would have said about the playing fields at Fort River. So I won't take up more time, but I hope you will support both of those projects. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mary, for joining us. And thank you for your comments. Laura Fitch. Hi. I've moved to a different computer now. So hopefully you can hear me. We can hear you, Laura. Okay, great. I just want to say yes in my front yard for the ball lane project. I think Meg and Steve in particular said what I would have said about it. I walk by the property from, I live at, sorry, 120 Pulpit Hill Road, the co-housing community that's diagonally across from it. I walk by it, drive by it, bicycle by it. We've had our eye on that property for a long time, hoping that this is exactly the type of thing that would happen there. And the only thing that I would hope, and I didn't really see this on the plans that I saw, is that the better farmland is kept as farmland in the part that's already been a truck industrial site, be where most of the parking and housing is. I mean, that's the way I think projects should be developed is actually zone the other way around. The farm preservation is on the back part where it's already contaminated or developed or whatever. So I just hope the town works with them to flip that zoning. Maybe you don't need to with a this, if it's a 40B project, but keeping the agricultural land as much as possible would be great. All right, thanks. Thank you, Laura, for your perseverance and finding another way to communicate with us. And thank you for your attendance and comments. Mary Crouse. Hi. I unfortunately can only pop into this meeting briefly. I heard the tail end of what Laura just said, and it probably echoes exactly what I would like to say. I'm very happy to see this affordable housing project go in next door. So I also live on Pulpett Hill Road at Cherry Hill Co-Housing. And I agree about the impacted land being a better place to develop housing and parking and the land that actually has been used for farming remaining with that sort of purpose or open space kind of a use. But just wanted to chime into Sam very much in support in general of this project. I looked at some of the earlier plans. I have not yet had a chance to see the updated plans. So thank you for letting me comment. Thank you for joining us, Mary. And thank you for your comments. I'm not seeing any hands raised among attendees. I'd like to ask attendees if they wish to speak to raise their hand so that we can see you. The only way we can identify if you have a comment to make is if you do so. I do see a hand has been raised. Alicia Walker? Hello, everyone. I just wanted to make a really quick comment. Thank you all for the work that you are doing. My comment is in support of the CPA application for the fields at Fort River. I am a town council member and I am also a member of the elementary school building committee. I am here tonight commenting on behalf of myself, however. So I just also did want to make that clear and that I view this as a very essential piece in the success of the elementary school building project and the possibility of improving the chances for the exclusion override, which will have to be put on the ballot in 2023 and will also essentially determine the success of the project itself. I also view this as not only just a benefit for the elementary school building project, but for the entire community to have these recreational fields be improved because we also are dealing with a lack of well maintained fields that are playable and usable for our community and for our students. So I just wanted to come and voice my support for that application. Thank you all for your time. Thank you Alicia for all that you do and for taking the time to join us in for your comments. So I'd like to reference again for anyone who is an attendee watching this that if you wish to have a comment to share with us and you wish to speak, please raise your hand so that we can see that you have an interest in speaking. We don't know what you were thinking and we can only use the raised hands as an indicator of a desire to speak. I do see some comments that have been made in the question and answer portion. I did respond and someone asked how else they might make a comment. So I'm going to read a few comments from community members who are not whose hands are not raised at present. One is from Meg Gage who spoke earlier and it says, I would like to support Rudy's comments about the plain fields. That would be the Fort River. We need to do everything we can to make the elementary school project succeed. Another comment here is from Tom Shin, SHIN. My name is Tom Shin and I live on Old Farm Road in Amherst. I'm writing to echo Rudy Perkins comment in support of CPA funding for supporting the needs of the Fort River fields as part of the Fort River school project. I have two children, one at ARHS who attended Fort River and the other still at Fort River who have participated in the after school ultimate Frisbee programs run at those fields as well as youth soccer when they were very young. The fields are a great resource for multiple youth and adult athletic leagues. Features such as fencing, lighting and parentheses expanding the ability to use the fields at night and the parentheses and accessible rest rooms slash comfort stations will increase their usage across the community. Thank you, Meg and thank you Tom for your comment. Another comment from Tom Shin. Thanks to the committee for their work and for the opportunity to provide public comment in multiple ways, both audio and written. We have a comment from Diane Wiley, DYAN, a resident at 120 Pulpit Hill Road where Laura Fitch also lives and indicates and the comment is, I'm looking for, forgive me, if it was here before. Okay and the comment is, I am a resident of the co-housing community on Pulpit Hill Road across the street from the CDC housing project and I believe most of us in the community are very supportive of this initiative and in addition to our neighborhood, I think Meg Gage made great points that I agree with. I hope the CPAC, CPACR committee will support it to the greatest extent possible. I'm going to look further to see if there are any other written comments here. I'm not seeing them. So I'm not seeing additional hands raised in the audience. Again, this is an opportunity for the community to provide comments both to the committee members here but also to community members in attendance and this is a recorded meeting that others might look at at a later point in time. If anyone in the audience wishes to make a comment on any of the proposals that are before the CPA committee, please raise your hand or if that doesn't work, please feel free to type in a comment as though it were a question. Okay. I'm not seeing further individuals wishing to speak. I do wish to thank everyone who has taken the time to attend the meeting and give us your thoughts and perspectives on the project. We appreciate it very much. It's a component of our decision process along with many other factors. So thank you all. I guess I will end the public hearing portion of this meeting. I'll do an auction to your comment going once. If you want to make a comment, raise your hand. Going twice. That's all folks. Okay. This concludes the public hearing portion of today's agenda. So that was good to hear from everyone. Interestingly enough, we have another agenda item that's titled public comment. How does that distinguish from public hearing? I guess it's a technical term that means you can speak on anything related to CPA that doesn't have to be specific to the projects, to the proposals in front of us. I'd like to open up the floor again. If anyone in attendance has a wish to make a public comment, I'll cue the jeopardy music and give us 15 seconds in case anyone has an answer. They're writing down. Okay. I'm not seeing any public comments. Although I do see another typing. A question answer. It says from Dr. Leslie Salisbury. Thank you all for the time and listening to us all. Thank you as well. So I will conclude the opportunity for public comment. And we will move on as a committee to the next item on our agenda, which is to approve any outstanding minutes. Now, I'm only aware of one set of minutes that have been sent to us at present, which are from Tim from the 17th. Before we do that, I see a hand raised. Robin. Oh, I just have a, I have a couple of comments on the minutes that came in the packet. Okay. Those are the minutes of November 17th. Is that correct? I can check, but yeah. Yep. That's correct. Go ahead. So there are just two items. I apologize. We'll look them up again under, I think the first one was under the Wildwood Cemetery. There was a reference to the Historical Commission, which really should be a reference to something called the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Preservation and Rehabilitation. And then under the barn proposal, there was a reference representation, reference to documentation being helpful to the Historical Commission when it really should read documentation can assist in creating inventory records of the last historical commission. So if people don't object to those adjustments, I can send them off to Sam and they can vote as, as a man, as, as I'm suggesting amendments, those two amendments. Can you send them to Tim, myself, and Sonia? Sure. I believe, Tim, you've got the, the primary file and that's probably the most efficient way to add edits. I don't know if any additional edits have come your way, Tim, since we last communicated via email. Have you received any additional edits, Tim? No. Those would be the only ones. So I would appreciate referencing where you had those comments, Robin. So great. No problem. Does anyone else have any comments on Tim's minutes as provided from November 17th? Well, I will assume then. Did everyone have a chance to look at them? I see hands going up. So I believe then that we can proceed to, we have a motion to approve the minutes from Tim on November 17th. I make a motion to approve the minutes as amended. A second. We have a motion on the floor and we have a second to approve the minutes of November 17th as amended. Any further discussion? I see no discussion. So we will proceed to a roll call vote. Sam McLeod? Yes. I. Tim? I. Dave Williams? I. Matt Cain? I. Katie Allen Sobo? I. Michelle Levy? I. Robin Fordham? I. And Andy is not present. So I see the vote as a seven to zero in favor of approving the minutes. I'm not aware of any additional minutes or drafts that have been provided to us. Sam? Wouldn't that vote be seven, zero, one absent? Yes, it would. Okay. Just want to clarify that. Thank you. I appreciate that as always. Seven, zero and one absent as opposed to one abstaining. Great. Now I don't see any additional minutes. I'm not aware of any. Sonya, are you aware of us having received any discussion purposes? No. Okay. So we have approved any of the outstanding minutes and will anyone who is working on them when the time comes, you know, send them to Sonya and myself and it can then be provided to committee members for potential edits. It's nice to take care of those. At least a good portion of them in advance of the meetings it makes for an easier process. Tim? Can I suggest, maybe it's, I don't know if it's too late, but I did not put a reference to the video or the audio in those minutes. If Sonya is able to just put that at the end or whatever, maybe we could do that is fine with me. We've already voted them as amended. So I thought we had talked about that in one of the edits I might have sent you. Oh, I didn't put it into the, so I don't have the reference. It seems to be a reasonable proposition unless anyone has an objection. I'll give it my best shot. How's that? Perfect. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion. I don't recall if it was you or Katie or both of you, but that certainly wouldn't hurt. There was a while, my first year where I had difficulty finding the location of the recordings for the meetings. Of course, now they're obvious to me, they're placed and for anyone who's attending, you can see them on the Amherst Community Preservation Act page. You go to the town of Amherst, your government boards and committees, Community Preservation Act, and then on the right hand side, in addition to the agendas and the minutes you'll see recordings. And it's of all the various meetings, not just this cycle, but going back multiple years. It's quite, quite useful. I actually refer to it when trying to see how we've conducted our processes in the past. So your hand is still up, Tim. Do you have another question or comment? No. Okay. So I guess we're all set here with the approval of outstanding minutes and the next item on the agenda is to review financials. And I'd like to turn it over to Sonia and for Sean. There are no changes in our financials from last week. The updated state match is the only update we've had. I would like to bring attention to committee members. I'm not sure if everyone has had an opportunity to look at the emails that would have been sent to them today. But we did receive a, what I would consider an update on the balance in the Affordable Housing Trust. You had sent that to us earlier today, Sonia. Do you happen to have that anywhere on your screen where it could be displayed? I don't. I have to email me my files and that's not one of the files I sent out. Do we have the ability to share my screen or verbally do it as well? That might be just as easy. What do you think? Yeah, you can just read it, Sam. Okay. He was reading the balance, right? Yes. So earlier sometime during the past week, we received a statement related to the original proposals, the amount expending and any encumbrances, excuse me, and the ending available budget available budget for affordable housing. The amount is in fact $250,000 more than we might have seen five days ago. And that is reflective of the $250,000 that was awarded, I believe, last cycle. So the current balance of funds available to the affordable housing trust is $612,386.73. $612,386.73. That's the current lift-weight available balance that's unencumbered, I guess it's the right term to use. So there's a little bit of extra money in the fund that we might have thought of prior to earlier today. So I'd like to ask the committee members to recognize that and just make a note of it. It's enough that it's a significant portion. Robin, I see that your hand is up. Yeah, I just wanted to confirm the total numbers with my spreadsheets to make sure I'm operating under the right assumption here, the total FY24 funding and the total reserve amounts. Sure. Would it be helpful if we brought that on the screen? Or do you want to read them to Sean and to Sonia and maybe they can verbally tell you? I can bring out the projection sheet. Hold on. That would be good I think for anyone who's paying attention in the audience. Can you see it? Not yet. We can. Is it possible to enlarge the corners of the spreadsheet so that it would be slightly larger even though it is reasonable if I squint? That's much better. Yeah, I can't tell what you're seeing. So Robin, do you have comments or questions on what you're seeing here? Yeah. So just the $1,911,316.50 is the FY24 amount and then the reserve is 542,343. Is that right? No. Sorry. What am I looking for? 533,105. Okay. Close. Line number 11. Yep. Okay. That's what I have. And then confirming again that $1,911,000 that takes into consideration any debt service. That's the debt service has already been taken care of. We have almost $2 million to spend. Correct? Yes. Correct. Thank you. So to summarize, we have $1,911,316.50 currently available and separate from that. We have a reserve amount of 533,105 that we could vote to remove from reserve from the previous fiscal year cycle. And the total of those two would be $2,444,422. Okay. That works. I guess we can remove that chart from our screen. Sean, I see that your hand is up. Sam, it may be worth updating the committee on the council's vote on the TERF project because that connects to some of the debt. I don't know, did you hang around for the rest of that meeting so you can update the committee? I watched it after the fact, but my understanding is that the, and please jump in at any time, my understanding is that the town council has had two votes related to the cracking field project. That's a project that the CPA had authorized 800,000 plus, I believe, for option two or three to reorient the track that would have been last year's cycle. The initial vote from the town council, they were presented with a request to transfer $900,000 of cash, I guess, from the town budget towards additional funding for the project. The initial vote was six to six, which did not pass, and then it was revisited last week. And at that time, the council, after talking about it with a few different motions, voted 13 to zero to authorize the $900,000 from free cash to be added to that project with the recognition that it would be sent back to the school committee, or the regional school committee, to make determinations on just what method. And that $900,000 was for use with either option two or option three of the athletic field reorientation. That's my understanding of the shot. Perhaps we have additional information to add or so the CPA vote, which was 800,000 was a debt authorization. And that only moves forward at the regional school committee moves forward with the turf project, which is what the council provided funding for them to do. But still, there's still some other steps that the regional school district has to take in order to ensure they're moving forward with the turf version. So I just wanted to call attention that we did a large project in the debt schedule for that authorization. And if they don't move forward with turf, then that would be freedom. You're referring to the 800,000 that the CPA voted? Yeah, the 800,000 that was approved this summer, I believe had a specific restriction that it was only for option three. I understand that it was used for reorientation. And so option three is the turf component. Yeah, option three is the reorientation with turf. It would be good for us to, we don't have to deal with that at this moment, of course. But I'm seeing Sonia nod her head earlier. So I'll take your word for that. It makes sense, but I'd like for us as a committee to, if it ever comes before us again, to just revisit that to make sure that it was option three. That seems to be, I know it was for reorientation. Tim. You're muted, Tim. Sean, I don't understand how that affects the debt here on this spreadsheet we just looked at. We currently have debt of 443, 460. This is a future debt. So it's not, it won't affect this coming year FY24, but there's debt for that project that would hit an FY25 or FY26 if it moves forward. So it would free you up and it would provide more flexibility in the future, depending on what happens. If it does move forward, that that's debt that will come out of the CPA fund. If it doesn't move forward, then it's it's more flexibility that the CPA fund would have in the future. Sonia, do you remember what year we projected that first payment to potentially start? I think it was 25 at the earliest. Yes, 25. I apologize. I'm wrestling with my one-year-old at the same time I was trying to. Who's winning? That's debatable right now, so. But what that means is that if we and any of these projects that we're discussing today, we elect to suggest we go into further debt that again would add to the future and it starts mortgaging our future for the better term, right? Yeah. When we look at the debt schedule, we'll show you the things that we're currently paying debt on but we'll also show you two projects that we haven't started paying debt on but have been approved and those two projects are the TERF athletic field at the region and the Jones Library project for the special collection. So neither one of those projects have started yet but both were authorized for debt from CPA. So assuming let's just assume for so I can get my we have roughly two million dollars available this year including 443 debt. Now some of that debt will be paid off but those are two big numbers the 800,000 and the one million that when we get the debt there's that will have some significant impact I would imagine in terms of the future CPA funds. Yeah, no it's one of the things when we start diving into it and you look at the individual projects some of them you may want to it may make sense to borrow for them given the size you'll want to look at the whole debt schedule and how each of those would fit in. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Katie I see your hand is raised. Thanks Sam I appreciate it. I just wanted to try to first of all you're doing a great job doing two things at once but I wanted to ask about so I understand about the TERF project because we voted on a particular option that included artificial TERF. You're saying that if the town decides to go forward with that project but selects maybe elects to not do artificial TERF the CPA money that we voted on couldn't be used for that we would have to either revote it or revisit it. You'd have to revote it because and what we'll do is we'll send the language out to the committee after so you can see what was voted just super clear but my understanding the way it was voted unless I'm misremembering is you'd have to revote it essentially to remove that requirement and it'd have to go through the whole full process again. Right okay. It was contingent on the option three and it's also in the report the CPA report. Yeah there was a specific request to make it contingent I think by a couple members on that specific option of the Western and Samson report. Okay thank you I appreciate it. Robin. I was just going to ask if at some point we'll receive if we could if we could receive a spreadsheet of that debt service and forgive me if I've received it and I missed it so that that you know I mean I know it's helpful to have it on screen but also when you know you're sitting or doing our own donations to kind of play with yeah we can send it out tomorrow morning. Yeah and it is in I believe the first meeting packet but I'll send it out again. Okay I do see a question in the audience from Kathy Shane and it says since CPA cannot fund artificial turf which is correct can the committee clarify that it is okay for the field to be grass for the field CPA should be flexible. Sam I can go to Kathy but I wouldn't recommend going back and forth through the Q&A with the audience. I just don't think it's a good precedent to set but I can go back with Kathy offline. Sure we we can look at the vote that occurred in the past and I understand what you're saying Sean Kathy is our liaison to the council of course so she's a distinct member of the audience but you can look and we can gather the vote that we had authorized when we awarded that money in June and provide that for you to see again Kathy so thank you for your comment. So any other comments for the moment related to financial updates? I'm not seeing any so we talked about the debt information from Tim's question and I'd like to just bring up again that the primary change from the previous week is that the current available balance in the affordable housing trust is 612,386 so that takes care of that agenda item so we've gone through the I guess the administrative prophecies we've heard the public comment the next item on the agenda is for us to begin discussing and voting recommendations. I'd like to take a two-minute break now it seems like a good time to do so I've got to step aside for a moment and be right back so I'm going to have a two-minute recess here at 713 and we can all come back in a couple minutes and we'll begin talking about projects and doing our straw rating thank you okay let's give them another minute to see if faces appear so I just want to check to see if David and Katie are able to hear us at this time I'm here okay we can that's great how about you David can you hear us taking a two-minute delay doesn't play us too long let's give it one more minute I had a question Sam do we have a time and time on our meeting tonight like a kind of general what we're generally aiming for it's listed from six to nine thank you but that's not mandatory we can end it however we wish based on the agenda and how we're thinking but the listed time is six to six to nine I'd like to wait to make sure that David's present as well when we get to the one of the straw ratings portion it's looking like everyone's here so what we do at this point is we go through the projects and we just provide a number of the number being our general thought on a given project or given proposal from one to five it's not a vote it's simply an indication of our thoughts on it to help frame future discussions on the proposals but different individuals might have their own reasoning for ratings I often will have threes for proposals that I want to talk further about and or if there are budgetary considerations but what we're going to do is go through the proposals one at a time and call on members to provide their straw full rating not about Andy did provide me his numbers so I'll be able to provide his straw poll numbers as well so it seems to me to make sense for us to proceed now Sonia you have a nice display here including a reference to administration and all the other projects now that's not one that we would be providing any rating for I don't believe correct can't hear you Sonia no you don't you don't have the great thank you Sean so will you be able to enter the ratings Sonia I can yes okay very good well if somebody can so let's go one at a time starting with the first one which is the Amherst affordable housing trust funding for affordable housing development listed as a proposal amount of five hundred thousand so the names are across the top and Sam yes so sorry to interrupt it's Katie I just want to we've talked about the straw poll being one to five yep right and I just I feel like I'm I'm apologized to my fellow committee members if it sounds like a broken record but I just want to it's helpful for me to make sure that we're understanding what a one is I mean I think everyone has a different view of it and so okay I don't know if it's worth talking about through or if just to say when you say you know a one to me is not to be funded but it might feel something different to somebody else so just understanding that is helpful to me versus what a three means okay you know a five for me means fully fund and go forward but for somebody else it just might be I think it's a great something to discuss so I just I don't with new members I just want to make sure we're in a similar just so I understand where other people are coming from and if and if I'm the outlier here then feel free to proceed well it's a scale from one to three rating one being low five being high we don't have definitions associated with but five is the highest rating you can give to a proposal in terms of being in favor of it so being in favor sort of merit but maybe folks feel differently about the amounts or so are we are you asking us to then just be doing a straw poll on the merit can I jump in for a second Sam sure I just wanted to make a quick suggestion what I was going to do is give my uh what I was going to suggest is to give your number and extremely brief reason so for example if I say four it might be because I don't know the level of funding so I would say four question about the level of funding three warrants further discussion for me and that way you give your number give a brief any bit of information on what it's based on and then everybody kind of knows and we're we're going to talk about everything later but really one is low not really in favor of it at all five is very high very much in favor individuals have their own ratings we don't have pure definitions on it because there are in fact the two variables the variables of merits and the variables of budgeting we have not separated those two I tend to uh if I like a project but cannot uh am uncertain about the funding I may not give it a five I may give it a four instead that's how I do it but if I don't have any disputes with the funding or anything else I'll give it a five but the main thing is as long as every individual who's providing their ratings is consistent within their own process then it will be fine because we'll come out with numbers on the end that reflect the averages with consistency so I don't know if that helps or not Katie but it's similar to what we did the last two years one not in favor of it five very much in favor of it we're not voting on the budgets at this point in time we're just trying to get a general indication and anyone who wishes to adjust their merit-based rating based on the budget can do so up or down I guess that's kind of the best I can yeah no I I'm I'm going to probably be a broken record on it but so I apologize for that but appreciate the chance to just have a conversation I think Michelle had um her hand up so maybe there's more go ahead Michelle yeah so um I did I think a little differently because I used Andy's spreadsheet which wasn't numeric it was unlikely to a certain so there was I don't have any ones because there is partially merit and partially budget based um so it seems like it's a little different ranking system that when other people are talking about um so I guess that's just where I'm coming from I'm not sure if anyone else used this sheet but it was pretty it was great it was a little complicated so there's a lot of ratings um they're not whole numbers I'm rounding up to give a full number but that's that's the route I took they'll need to be between one and five whatever number you're providing so if your scale on the rating system that you're using within the spreadsheet is higher I would adjust it or he has an adjustment so it is one five it comes out one to five I'm just saying that I think that the ratings uh criteria are a little different than what other people have mentioned okay uh any other questions or comments from here uh Sean I see that your hand is up yeah I'll just echo what you said Stan which I don't you don't have to worry about the exact ratings at this point I think it's Sam mentioned it this is just to get a sense of where people are at but as long as you had your own rationale you're going to discuss everything in a little second so I wouldn't get too caught up on the exact numbers it's just it's just to give the committee like where the majority of the discussion should be focused if everyone says something's a five and everybody says something's a one those are ones you might discuss less than the ones that are the threes and the fours and the twos and we can change or this yeah ratings are not votes we can adjust them and be influenced based on discussions about theirs this is a starting point for discussion so this is going to be a quick snapshot of where people's initial impressions are and then you'll discuss it more so um if we can get the charts the the spreadsheet backup that's visible to the committee members that would be helpful I'm not able to see it at present I see a screen with all of our faces well I I can see the screen okay I can see it okay um see it yeah everyone can see it so the first one that will provide numbers for is the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust and we'll start by going from left to right on the columns so Michelle if you're able to give the one through five on that yep four Robin four I have Andy's ratings on my phone here so I'm going to speak on Andy's behalf he has a four I have a three Matt three Tim I have a five for the program for the funding a three four because I questioning the amount so I will average to four okay uh David all right I believe I heard a five yes Katie four okay um we can move to the next one which is the Ball Lane community homes um I'll start with Robin of four Andy is a five I am a three uh Matt ball Tim five Dave four Katie four um Michelle three okay the next one is the east street school I will start with Andy and Andy has a four I have a four Matt ball Tim um I'm going to give it a five but when we get to discussion I'm going to suggest we debt that program okay um five five Katie four Michelle four Robin four okay rental subsidy program phase two we will start with me I have a four Matt one um Tim five for one year four for the three years so what do we do four you choose wow we'll go four okay all right David three Katie five five Michelle four four Robin five that's the rental subsidy right correct and Andy has a four next those are the affordable housing community housing programs the next are the historic preservation we have the conservation of five paintings by Mabel Loomis Todd I will start with Matt five Tim five and I'm going to suggest when we get that they that comes out of reserves uh David four Katie five Michelle five Robin five Andy has a five and I have a five that's pretty high rate okay uh Dickinson farmhouse roof renovation this is the uh house in Wildwood now uh did they not uh change their proposal to be 97,000 am I missing something there no they didn't so we'll want to adjust that column total to reflect um I don't recall if there was change in that or not but if we can make a note that the budget in mind is 97,000 and some change I have it on my desktop somewhere uh I think it's 97,020 actually yeah right there so we will start with Tim on this four um David three Katie four Michelle four Robin five Andy has a four I have a four uh Matt two Matt has a two uh okay so we have gone through those the historic barn and outbuilding assessment program uh this is the um budget amount of shifting that present we can talk about details related to things later the current question is a general interest in the uh proposal um starting with David four David has a four Katie two Katie has a two uh Michelle three she'll have a three Robin I'm a little biased five Andy has a one I have a three uh Matt three and Tim three okay next is the preparation of preservation restrictions for CPA funded projects uh again a general question on interest in it we can talk about the details related to it as we talk about the pro proposals later uh I will start with Katie three Michelle five Robin five Andy has a four I have a three uh Matt two Tim four David four okay next is the preserving Zion Church that's the North Amherst Church now there is a different dollar amount on this proposal as well by understanding as they're asking for 158,700 is that match everyone else's understanding they had altered their initial request to ask for uh doing the soffits and the roof the the more urgent aspects of it so we will start with Michelle four Robin four Andy has a four I have a I have a four uh Matt Paul Tim um I have a four and I have a question regarding this is one where I would like a lot more information I'm not sure when we get to the point where we can request the applicant to give us more information so okay well because we're going to discuss all these projects further right perfect now I'll just put four yeah these are just straw rating polls these are votes these are to help us you know talk about things okay David four and Katie four wow that's a unanimous one uh South Congregational Church steeple restoration and preservation now um they had adjusted it already I believe to the 233 is that correct yes okay now uh I believe Robin you go first or uh Andy has a four Sam you're putting them in the wrong column so whoever's doing it we can wait a second here wait a second the first one Michelle should be a blank yeah so Andy was a four uh and I am a five Matt five Tim uh I am a five and again suggesting it come out of reserves yep David this is the South Congregational Church I'm not able to hear you David Williams can you hear us can everybody else hear me yes yes yes I hear you do you hear me yeah no we did not we do now so we're asking for a rating it's we're going on the South Congregational Church steeple and restoration preservation so uh what's your number for that project four four okay uh Katie four okay and Michelle four okay conservation area improvements uh and it's listed as a budget of 100,000 uh we'll start with Andy and Andy's rating on this proposal is a five I am a three uh Matt three Tim five David four Katie four Michelle five Robin four okay next on the list is the uh Crocker farm elementary school playgrounds uh we don't have to get into you know they indicated flexibility on it but let's see what our ratings are on the proposal um I think we started with Andy last time if I'm correct so that would be me I have a three Matt okay Tim one David three Katie three Michelle three Robin two Andy has a four next is the Fort River community recreation fields oh wait a minute I'm sorry what was the last one we were voting on the last one we were voting on was the Crocker farm elementary school playgrounds do you my apologies I have a yeah just that's history thank you okay so now we're discussing the Fort River community recreation recreational fields project we will start with Tim one David uh five Katie three Michelle four Robin two Andy has a two I have a three uh Matt three three okay next is the war memorial bathhouse preliminary design this is the design of the improvements um and we will start with David uh three Katie uh the design I have uh four Michelle three Robin can you hear us Robin oh I can hear you now yep um the design I have can you hear me yes okay design I have a five uh Andy has a three I have a three Matt four Tim three okay next is the war memorial pool improvements these are the improvements not the design and we will start with Katie I have a three Michelle three Robin one Andy has a three I have a three uh Matt I had a five for that one okay Tim four David three Katie I think I'm there right uh you are waiting your your vote on or your not your vote your straw full number for the war memorial will you go first yeah yeah it's there it's there's three yeah that would be user error from the chair uh okay all good so we have gone through the list to get general numbers we have not discussed details related to the projects nor budgetary amounts uh uh we seem to have a range that is perhaps tighter than in previous years um it looks like the the lowest number on the ratings is 2.8 and the highest is 4.9 followed thereafter by 4.4 so it's a tight uh it's a tight group um do we have the ability to show both the chart and the individuals I can see the chart but then maybe that's me let me hang on a second all right now I can do it bear with me here so let's all look for a little bit at this um um can we see what the current total is of the projects as requested by the applicants with the adjustments for the uh Zion church and the Dickinson uh armhouse building 81 47 119 now does that include any of the debt service yes the debt service is all here okay and we the budgeted amount that we have in terms of our general understanding as we discuss things we have 1.9 plus the if we included the reserves 2.4 now is the budgeted reserve a component that is to say does that get deducted from that 1.9 it's already been deducted correct right okay so that budgeted reserved it appears on the left hand side there within the 81 47 but in fact um that's already been deducted in our uh in arriving at our 1.9 111 million is that correct correct all right so we're actually looking at a an amount under discussion that would be four hundred and forty three dollars less than the 81 is that correct um 443 is debt but can can we get back to the previous screen maybe just sum the actual proposals and don't sum the debt into it essentially correct because the debt has already been uh identified if I understand it correctly let let me ask it again the 81 47 8147 thousand appearing online number 29 column j if I understand correctly Sonia that includes the debt components for rows 20 through 28 is that right right okay but down below online number 39 where it displays a total of one million nine hundred and eleven thousand that number is arrived at after already having subtracted that four hundred and forty three yes all right so Matt's comment makes sense to me uh that can we see what the total is of the proposals without that debt portion that is to say the project lines and perhaps including the uh administrative request of 25 thousand from lines three three lines 15 right see seven point seven available for new projects using the four hundred and forty three thousand for the already committed debt right so if I understand what you're saying Holly you know we're talking seven seven oh three six fifty nine online number thirty yes it's available for new projects yes no that's not available that is the new that's the request I'm sorry the request for new projects correct wonderful thank you and I have to say uh Sonia Sean and Holly that uh the presentation of the information is very helpful to us and it has been every year uh it's a lot of complicated information and to put it in a way that we can see it in real time and understand it is uh certainly appreciated by me and I assume there's uh Robin I see that your hand is up uh yeah I was going to ask um if because we have these two over a million dollar asks which essentially um would have one of them would have to be bonded and the other one if it wasn't bonded would wipe out pretty much everything almost everything that we have to spend if we can somehow find a way to kind of move the bond numbers over so that we are looking at the number that we can actually spend in FY24 if everybody agrees that those two big million plus projects would essentially be bonded by this committee not funded in FY24 um I think it would be helpful first for us to go through the projects and talk about them before we start moving the numbers around um Sonia can you and thank you Robin for the suggestion that might be you know helpful as we get to that point can you display the screen so that we can see all of the projects yes that that's better so um there there are multiple variables here on each project there are the uh the merits of it what we think about it the dollar amount that's asked and in addition there may be uh comments related to the uh implementation or adjustments to the actual work proposal uh and you know our intent as we go through here is to be deliberate not to rush it and to just talk about each one of the projects in sequence with the issues that arise uh to any of the committee members um before we start going through them uh I see a hand up from Katie yes sorry Sam I just I wanted to clarify I heard in some of the comments today and I thought I had written this down after reading about um it says on on the chart in front of us it says three million dollars for Fort River but I had heard um 2.6 or 2.8 or something like that just for the fields is that was that an altered request or is that am I imagining they don't believe it's been altered but it was alluded to that there is a distinction in their request between the fields component which was 2.4 million and some amount yeah 2.4 right and then the amount that was for the lighting and the comfort station so they didn't they didn't change their request I'm not aware I don't think they I don't think they changed their request but they they're saying you can you can approve just the fields for 2.4 and leave the other things till in the future year I didn't I just when I looked at the chart I didn't know if that needed to be adjusted thank you not as of yet they they the distinction there is that the um lighting and the comfort station could conceivably be addressed at a later time because they would not be an immediate portion of an approved school project because once march comes around yeah this is going back to the public the other comment related to what you brought up katie is that the school committee did recommend the that project in another one but they recommended it for the fields portion only the school committee recommended the 2.4 so thank you for raising that topic because it's it's an important one so lots of different proposals here it's great that we have so many so many things before us really it makes our task difficult but it's really good to see that the town and the community is so engaged and there's so many different possibilities this is what we this is what the program is designed for this is the intent behind the origins of the CPA program and it's certainly nice to see from my perspective I'm going to get us going on the topics but before I do that I see another committee hand so I'd like to allow us all to to speak so Tim go ahead oh yeah I was just going to suggest in my opinion there are three of these projects that have a real-time sensitivity the Mabel Todd paintings that they'd love to get going on that project the which are the oh the steeple and the both churches have the emergency kind of emergency funding and at least when I did the math we could take if we approved of all those three projects with the numbers you see on that spreadsheet they could all come out of this year's reserve which would allow us to just debate new projects for FY24 so maybe one suggestion might be that we talk about that whether or not we feel comfortable with that dipping into this year's or the existing reserves to fund those projects get them off the table and then we move on to the other projects I think it's a topic to discuss but before we deliberate on those types of I just want to make everybody aware that that would be a fiscal year 23 ask so it would be completely taken off of the 24 rolls and it would be a separate report separate council public forum separate everything so it would all have to fit into the schedules of the council the finance committee but it could be done there could be done it's just I'm just informing us it's work Sean do you have a comment related to what Tim said yeah I think Sam what you're trying to say is we should start with the merits the projects before going to how to fund them and I agree I think Tim your point about the reserves is right if you choose to use that reserve though then you don't have a reserve anymore and you would have to take money out of this year's money if you wanted to create that reserve otherwise you would not have a reserve going forward so just keep in mind if you do use that reserve then you lose it unless you're going to set aside money which obviously there's not a lot of flexibility to share to set aside more so you just want to make sure the mayor to the projects weren't kind of losing that reserve going forward true okay I agree with that but I think I would like to have that discussion at some point whether or not this is the point your point about the time sensitivity is exactly right I think that's one of the reasons why we have that reserve for projects that are urgent so I think you're right I mean that's in part why I brought that up okay thanks I appreciate it Tim and you know it's fine we're you know we're moving forward there's no urgency per se in our discussions although it's good for us to be productive as we go forward it's very if I can just chime in here I think it's fine to go off cycle and I would think that committee the committee would want some standard for what you think is urgent so that going forward with these there should be a definition of what the committee feels urgent is before we set a precedent uh thank thank you Sonya um so uh you know valid topic Tim I had written comments adjacent to certain projects that had an element of that had requested that is to say that it had been brought up by the applicants themselves whether or not we would consider that capacity I think that the south church handled that themselves by using their own 10 contribution to fund the engineering but we can talk about that but I agree Sean summarized my my thoughts earlier when he said that it would be good for us to talk about the merits and or issues including whether or not we think the budgets too high for our interests for any particular project not in the context of which ones we can afford and not in the content we're going to talk about each project we're not going to allocate money for it but um let's look at them one project at a time and some of us may have voted lower because we think there's sufficient money already available or maybe the whole project doesn't need to get done but let's go one at a time usually uh you know what this does is it gives us an opportunity to hear each other uh and learn uh different perspectives uh so I'd like for us to um I'm not going to talk about the administration amount we're familiar with that I won't do that at this point in time but let's begin talking about the affordable housing uh Amherst municipal affordable housing trust request uh it's a request for five hundred thousand dollars um I'll start by saying my thoughts on why I gave it a three I I appreciate what the all the work that the affordable housing trust does uh they're kind of the incubator for uh some of these projects that occur uh but I also recognize the distinction between uh incubation and a project that's in hand ready to go um and when I'm tasked with looking at different proposals in front of us I might have given the current balance of six hundred thousand dollars that the trust has from CPA money already in their hand ready to use uh that influenced my thoughts on it based upon I guess urgency of need uh and that was how I looked at it I my own thought is that if we ran into funding issues this would be one I would consider having a lower amount for my opinion but everybody has their own thoughts related to it um in terms of the general proposal does anyone have comments related to uh the affordable housing trust Sam do you want to call on us in order again so we can just give our comments or pass would that be um we can we can do it that way yeah that might be a good way just to uh ensure thoroughness um and I will move quickly yeah that's fine so I gave my comment so uh we'll go sequentially across uh if you have any comments just quickly or whatever you want to say uh Matt uh my reasoning was pretty similar to um Sam's with respect to this this item I just also just like to say in general um my my theory about rating these is um it's not just whether or not I like the project but also whether I think the CPA funds is the appropriate um weight for those projects to be funded versus some other funding source okay uh Tim any comments uh yeah my my feeling is that we should fund less in this regard because I they the applicant themselves said that uh we should put emphasis on the excuse me Tim we're hearing uh someone in the background Sean might that be you hey just because I have kids doesn't mean it's me but that's not me it was a speculation I left the door open I don't know if there's a microphone you uh great Tim sorry I couldn't hear you that's why I interjected thank you uh no my feeling is that the applicant themselves said that if we ever had tight dollars they would suggest we put the money our resources into the existing proposals as opposed to their piggy bank if you will uh now just as a reminder the ball lane proposal is using as one of its source of funds 250 from the housing trust so that's going to eat into that 612 by the way uh but I think we could get along less that's why I gave it a rating four uh David any comments on the affordable housing trust can you hear me it's David yes uh my comment when we talk about the housing trust is is several weeks ago the other David David um Zemeck made a comment that um he felt that it what I heard was the housing trust needed to work a lot closer with the town of Amherst I think I'm correct in saying this in the planning and their initiatives I have not heard or did not hear anyone else making the comments about that and what I took from that was the housing for the housing trust probably had not not working with the town had not taken advantage of some opportunities that may be there and the town of Amherst is in a position to assist and support now in making those comments um I'm supporting or will support the Amherst housing affordable housing development and the trust in the initiatives that they are involved in now I don't know whether I misinterpret something that was said by David Zemeck or not and I don't know whether he's listening and I saw him in the audience earlier I'm not sure if he's here now and the question did I hear something that no one else heard um I heard something similar to what Tim heard which was that the affordable housing trust is in favor of most all the housing projects and I also heard that some of the other proposals do seek to utilize affordable housing trust funds beyond that I didn't I'm not certain what you're referencing but I gather they're your disposition towards the projects based on what you said my suggestion is my suggestion would be the question or concerns that I raise um probably um David need to be involved to respond not unless uh if someone here or either uh Sean was able to respond to the concerns that I mentioned is there is there a specific question the specific question was working with the town of Amherst to accomplish the initiative that they want to move forward with and what I heard there had not been um we're they're asking for money but they have not been working with the town to move forward to gather the funding or for the projects that they would like to do Dave this is Katie I I did the notes for I think the meeting you're talking about the minutes and what I think I heard was that they work very closely together but that Dave offered to circle back to us with sort of more of a prioritization of all the different projects sort of you know from the town's perspective but it's it sounds to me like over the years and what he said was that they work very very closely together to accomplish um you know the purchasing of um and working with develop to develop properties um but I I don't think we've heard back I could be wrong in the flood of emails we got this week from Sonia that I don't think we've seen any um prioritization and I can echo that um with Dave not being here I'm sure you know Hill next meeting can weigh in um I think I would say my knowledge is that they work very close together and I think both sort of depend on each other um you know Dave's staff uh Dave has a staff person who is the liaison for the housing trust and help support them a little bit um and a lot of the projects that have come up recently have been a partnership like the Belcher town road and the street project was a partnership so I think I think what you've described is correct is that that is comment I think we're meant to be that it's a partnership and they work closely together but um we can certainly get a clarification from Dave for the next meeting. Thank you Sean that's my understanding as well uh Katie and Sean that they do work closely together but it may well be that there was a reference as Katie indicates towards if they were going to provide any further comments and all four of the projects as opposed to general support um so Katie uh any thoughts or comments on the Fort of the housing trust proposal? Well I am fully in favor of giving as much as we can to the trust to do there's lots of projects or something in the paper yesterday about another project at the VFW and um what you said Sam about it's the ball lane um supporting ball lane and so I don't think we have the ability to do 500 so I would suggest uh a lesser amount but but something. Okay um Michelle um yeah I'm on the same page with maybe a lesser amount but um my support is that they're you know shepherding and supporting projects are happening in Amherst that need support and are already started and providing emergency funding such in COVID rental situations I think that's a direct impact to the residents of Amherst and projects within Amherst. Okay uh Robin um I'm fully in support um my floor was just for varying the level and I think the point that um one or two of these other projects is going to draw their fund down there would be an argument for granting at least that amount so that they stay level if wanted. Okay uh Andy's not here he indicated he would be here for our next meeting there's a chance he might make it to a little bit of this one but not likely um and I already spoke on this so okay great um next project on the list is uh ball lane community homes since I spoke first on the last one I'll start with uh Matt. Okay okay I'm on music um so I think that these projects both I'm not really sure that I can separate that well my thinking on ball lane versus east street I mean obviously they're different in that ball lane is for um houses to purchase whereas east street is houses for rental um but uh in both cases these are projects that I think um the town is trying to push forward and I think the CPA should support the town moving forward on these types of projects um it's going to be expensive to build 500 units I mean we're looking at 750 000 CPA funds on this project to build 20 units plus another 250 000 from the affordable housing trust so a million dollars to build 20 units so it's a town contribution in this case of uh 50 000 dollars per unit which is pretty significant if you consider that was 500 units at 50 000 that's quite a lot of millions of dollars that's going to take to get there um but uh I think this is just the sort of thing that we have to go down and we have to anticipate that it's going to cost in that ball park to um to get this done whether the town gives land or whether the town makes a cash contribution as in this case yeah um Tim I don't have any other comments other than to say that uh 750 takes a big chunk out of the amount of money we have to spend so potentially we may have to fund a little less than 750 although worthy project and I'm going to still keep hoping for the 750 funding allocation um thank you uh Katie oh excuse me David David excuse me David David Williams any comments on ball lane can you hear me can anyone hear me Sam yes you know listening to the conversation and all of our discussion I um I guess the town or I think last year we had something had a discussion about prioritizing uh projects but uh affordable housing uh as we have heard tonight from a number of individuals heard from town officials that um this is a a uh appears to be one of the top projects over the needs of the town of Amherst and uh CTA is in a position to provide that support and as someone mentioned a few moments ago we are not going to be able to at this particular time fund hold the projects that we have but when we look at the priorities not necessarily the committee but also the priorities of the town and and the council uh affordable housing is one of them that may be on the top of the list okay uh thank you David Katie I'll say dido to Dave's and Matt's comments um and and hope we can fund both of the projects I know we're talking about ball lane right now but as you know as as much as possible um in this year uh Robin oops no excuse me uh Michelle so um my my three was because uh this one does I mean this is very admirable project like I like the siting I like all the premise it doesn't prioritize Amherst residents and you know I heard someone talking about a queue of people wanting to get in but without that I end a 15 year cap on well a 15 year to market housing I don't see a sustainable affordability being offered here it's sort of a different model than affordable housing in Amherst in any kind of perpetuity or anything that and this is sort of an aside but um you know given my role in the conservation commission a big part of this and a lot of the comments was connectivity to greenways and trails and we receive the trail map which is a bunch of informal trails which are actually unauthorized trails through wetlands connecting to Poverst pond so I would just say that if we're going to consider this highly also think about the impacts on the natural resources the wetlands and Poverst pond and Mill River and all those trail systems that the town is then going to have to bring up to to spec so that there's not any further damage to our wetland resources and the water quality in this pretty sensitive area thank you um Robin um yeah I'm uh very supportive of this project um I see affordable housing as such a critical crisis point issue right now and you know move forward quickly never get forward um I did want to ask uh at some point if Michelle could just comment on the public's concerns about environmental issues specifically related to contaminants and and my assumption is that there's sufficient uh state and regulation to protect against any bad outcomes there but it would be helpful to at some point have just uh hear the word from the conservation commission that whether or not that's something that's an issue that we should be concerned about or whether it's uh there are safeguards in place so that those issues raised by the public can be understood when addressed and um the only other thing I was going to say is that with this and the next um project I'm really unclear about what the minimum need is from these organizations um so that would be helpful to know what what what the minimum um ask uh that we could start with as a number with if we're going to be doing adjusting um um to go from okay thank you Robin if you have things to add or in the future Michelle feel free to uh respond or if the conservation commission has any comments related to what Robin raised you know let us know not necessarily now it could be next week or whatever um Andy's not here uh so I'll speak my thoughts on uh ball lane I I'm torn on this project I think that the glaring need in Amherst is one of uh home ownership affordability that it's a market that makes it very difficult for families to move into uh but associated with that is the uh recognition that there's a limited number of phones in terms of how many units might exist um the I gave it a three because of the overall dollar amount issues that we face as a committee um and I biased it slightly uh one one notch lower than the east street school based on the volume of units but the the other issue that arises in my mind related to ball lane the flip side of the home ownership uh issue is that excuse me um it it's private owned for 15 years but you know it would be preferable from my standpoint were there to be a longer time frame or an automatic upon sale were to kick back to the next buyer so it's a continuing cycle there's an option for the town after 15 and 30 years but it's essentially providing funding for housing for private individuals and families but these are not necessarily families that reside in Amherst there there's a uh my understanding of the prioritization is that it's a state pool that it's and if I'm incorrect but I did ask this question of the projects folks and I don't I believe that the only way we can have it be a project that um prioritizes as a top end Amherst residents as being in the pool is to have this go through the zoning board of appeals that's what I heard when I asked the applicants and that was the same question that arose with the ball excuse me with the east street and Wayfinder's project but it's a lot of money and it may not be prioritizing Amherst residents it does prioritize uh those who are in need and who we would like to have be able to purchase affordability in Amherst but I in weighing the different affordable housing projects I took into account the number of units and the duration of the product of the project and my understanding of the duration of this project is that it's 15 years in or possibly 30 years if the town comes in with a different um proposal so that's how I looked at it and it's a very large ask as are many of these projects they're all it would be great for us to be able to wave a wand and have everything occur but we do have limited funds so each of us has to try to come up with our own way of looking at them in prioritizing the next how my mindset has worked on this I do see a hand up from Robin Robin yeah I just had a quick question to make sure that I understand the prioritizing of Amherst residents or not my understanding is that um not prioritizing Amherst residents is an effort to get more diverse populations who have historically been excluded from being able to live in Amherst into Amherst if you draw heavily on an Amherst population you will not end up diversifying our home ownership population because so many people of different backgrounds are kind of kept out just by the basis of how expensive it is already that is that a correct understanding is anybody want to but my understanding is that um in order to be a part of the program that they aren't in a position to prioritize any local municipality that it has to be open for the state I may be wrong I will read this proposal further but I believe the lottery system is one that by design within the program that this is affiliated with the primary funders and backers of it they have their parameters with the goals that you suggested and they don't um they don't place the local municipality on top of you know one level above that goal right but that yeah but that that is basically the the goal of not prioritizing local residents um yeah I don't know the objective I should say well it's the reality of it it's what the it's what their parameters are and if Amherst had different economic demographic mixes I don't know that it would impact that parameter that exists with this proposal the proposal is such that they look at different they have an objective in mind and that objective is best served from the backers of the program to not have a local a local measurement affiliated with it but the capacity exists for a local prioritization of individuals who fit the same categories of groups that are desired to be met primarily economic and the economic factor tends to meet the diversity goals but I believe that municipalities have the capacity through the zoning board of appeals to request that it then has to get approval both from the organization the state but the local any such request would not alter the underlying requirements of meeting the criteria that exists on the statewide level yeah that would be families and individuals that still meet the criteria yeah but it's not something that has been presented to us and it would require a few steps that may or may not fly for lack of a better term but I'm simply explaining my thought process in the project and but there's certainly uh it's also good to hear all the support from the North Amherst community members Katie so um Sam just to summarize this project would not be prohibited from prioritizing a certain percentage of the units to Amherst residents if the zoning board of appeals pursued that that that's what I think you're saying that's what I my understanding was of the presentation and in agreement Robin of why Valley CDC isn't promoting that is what you the reason you gave Robin but that she was not saying that it would be prohibited and the zoning board of appeals could pursue that if they wish to and it would require further approval from the project backers in the state understand that you know I could understand the logic behind and I mean I get the logic behind promoting an outside population so okay thank you Michelle I was just gonna quickly respond to Robin if we're done with this line of thought and everyone's respond related to the ballroom the the um potential contaminants in the soil oh sure go ahead I'll just I'll just say it so I think that would be outside the jurisdiction of the conservation commission because we deal with like wetlands basically that's what we have jurisdiction over um I think that would probably be the department of health um or and but I will say that um from personal experience I lived as a grad student on high street next to an old garage and I found out from someone that told me I shouldn't eat the vegetables in my garden to test the soil and the mercury was so high and lead was so high it was unfit to touch our children to play in so I don't want to lose track of that and if anybody's listening I think that should definitely be followed up with because we're talking about family housing and probably community gardens at this place thank thank you Michelle so I think we went through all the individuals I believe we started with Matt on this one uh so the next project on the list is the east street east street school belch town road affordable housing um and let's start who started last time was it matt or tim do you recall I think it was pardon matt did start so tim if you're able to okay I feel this is a very important project I don't feel we can afford to provide the full amount and allocation and I think as we go through our conversation we should consider maybe some allocation and some uh debt financing some combination and that's what I'd like to discuss in the future um David well no comment okay um katie sim this is the east street school east street school and belch town road the way founders yeah I'm I'm um in favor of providing as much funding as possible for this project and imagine it would have to be debt serviced okay um Michelle um similarly um I think there's already the town's already invested a lot and it's a good project and um I'm in favor of funding as much as possible but not probably the whole amount Robin uh yep uh I second that um again we'd really love confirmation of what the what the bare minimum is as a starting point uh indy is not here um I gave this one a slightly higher rating than the ball lane based on the number of units and the location although both locations are good certainly this is in the village center uh I I do uh I did hear uh David's comment regarding the affordable housing trust and how these housing projects are priorities for the town uh as evidence from council and efforts into it we have the dollar amounts on this one are uncertain we have uh limited funds it's the it's a very large ask and there has already been a one million dollar in kind contribution of sorts uh via the land at least that's the approximate estimate of the property and the school uh to my understanding so that factors in and with these large dollar value programs given our current funding I see a need to recognize our limitations and probably go with less dollar amounts on these programs but it's very good to see all of these coming before us um Matt yeah similar as Michelle said given the town has already contributed and the CPA committee contributed to the land and the east street school I think we need to keep this project moving forward my understanding of what they are requesting the money for is basically the develop the the the design development before they get the major funding from the state so they're hoping for cash from us first to get to the point where they can get the money from the state so from what I recall if they don't get the amount from us then they have to borrow it we borrow it or they borrow it or perhaps the town and its wisdom finds money somewhere else I don't know um yeah I think that's kind of the discussion I'm not sure whether there's an advantage of us borrowing it over them borrowing it except that the way they stated it is uh they're looking for a cash contribution from the the town to give them the best position of getting the grants from the state yeah so I guess that's what has to happen so we've gone through the cycle I see Sean has his hand up Sean yeah uh so we will here here in Robin's request we will the staff will reach out to these two just to try to get a better sense of what that um minimum amount is that is needed to to move these projects forward here and that that's a request for more information so we'll try to come back to the next meeting with more info on that and whether I don't know whether the town has sure and I don't know whether the town has there's any other plots of money out there I noticed with respect to the vfw money was came out of the um American rescue funds for affordable housing so there are some other um there are some other funds there's uh and some some of those other funds have already been sort of included in the proposals that were submitted there's some money from American Rescue Plan Act there's some uh a prior CPA award um there's the affordable housing trust um I think our goal is to to look at all these pots try you know help get these projects completed but also not use more than we have to because we want to save as much as we can to do more projects right um so I think that'll be our our project over the next week working with Dave Zomek is to look at these two these two large projects in particular and see maybe if there's a mix that can um allow both of them to move forward but also not completely drain all the CPA funds or all the ARPA funds or um so so we'll try to come back with all mortgage future mortgage future CPA funds yeah yeah exactly so I think that's right so so we'll try to come back with something and we'll reach out to these two um these two companies and try to come back with a plan thanks um the next proposal is the rental subsidy program phase two uh David Williams any comments on that no I hadn't I supported okay but no comments okay uh Katie yeah I fully support this um and I think I might have given it a five and um I think part of my reasoning behind this is that uh the impact it's had the the sort of results um and the fact that it's part of a really essential pipeline of getting folks to affordable housing and avoiding homelessness there's you know it's this this group of people that are really teetering and this idea of sort of providing them with all of the support and the additional sort of subsidy to get them stabilized and on the right track so that they could then be ready for um you know be more rent stabilized or even potentially be ready for to buy an affordable home um so I'd like this as an essential part of the pipeline that we need in the town and um would like to fund it fully if we can uh Michelle I second everything Katie said I think that was well said and I think that this program has demonstrated success and um is a successful program and we should support it Robin um yeah particularly um like the fact that they have upgraded this program pairing it with CDBG funds to provide the social services aspect with somebody who has been applying for need-based programs for the past four or five years I can testify to the fact that um for the most privileged and educated that thus it is a tedious pure product um opaque process and I think that their use of CDBG fund and the fact that they that they that they not only provide support but that they require it um is a really great example of the kind of thing that we really want everybody to come to this committee with which is to say how can we leverage what's out there for the best possible outcome so they're both leveraging the CDBG funds to provide the support but then they're also getting these people who are uh you know it who are eligible for a wide variety of social services that are just as someone who's experienced it personally it is it's absolutely not clear um what you are eligible for so I really think it's kind of a one two three and I give it a five Andy's not here uh I support this project uh I'm impressed with the uh the entire program with the wraparound services the need some of the most vulnerable folks who are in jeopardy um uh it seems to me that they have demonstrated a track record of effectiveness and effective utilization of funds as well um I was disappointed last time around that their funds were returned because they were unable during the uh COVID time period to meet the full need but I was also impressed with the fact that they provided the funds back to us even though they're asking it again now uh so overall I support the program and I mean I recognize the impact it can have for the target audience um okay those are the uh I haven't commented yet oh excuse me where about there you go user error okay so we will start with Matt forgive me no I haven't commented on the rental subsidy base we will not start with Matt we will continue with Matt okay yeah I realize I'm going uh against everyone else here by my rating I just want to make clear I think it's a great program um I I agree with Robin that and and other people that joining the social services with the grants is the right answer um I my concern is I have a hard time seeing this as something that the CPA should be doing and um and and the community the the other half of the funds from the community development block grant is also a town of Amherst grant so um yeah the I think it's a great program but um I I just don't see this is exactly what the CPA is supposed to be doing in terms of um maybe I'm wrong but uh I mean clearly the committee feels differently than me I feel like CPA should be doing um more uh sort of capital one-off projects rather than ongoing needs that are required year after year after year um so I would I I think the program should continue I would just rather see it funded a different way uh fair comments uh it's a reminder this is a three-year ask uh so the reason I gave it was a four whether or not when we get down to the final wire of trying to pair off some of these requests maybe we could fund it for either one or two as opposed to the full three um has everybody had a chance to speak on this I believe though I think we started with Dave uh okay so we've talked about the portable housing programs three large requests with different comments of levels of support and it seemed to be that the financing the available funds was uh a predominant theme uh as maybe the case elsewhere um the next project is the conservation of five paintings by Mabel Fod this has fives across the board with one four um there was a inquiry from the applicant about timing of funds they seemed to think they could work with uh mics and galleries although we're not allowed to reimburse the work that's already occurred which is why Tim raised the topic of using reserves for this along with a couple of other projects um it seems like the support is fairly unanimous on this but let's just quickly go through it nonetheless so we retain our process um starting with um I believe Katie is I believe you're first now yeah I'm in favor of fully funding this project Michelle I think it'd be a great way to preserve some interesting emers history um I don't recall like will these be available to the public to view maybe Emily Dickinson yeah okay yeah in favor Robin uh fully in favor um I did not get the impression um either at the historic commission meeting or just meeting that the sense of urgency um needed to be that seemed like they would like to get started earlier but that there's not so much of a risk for further degradation so I would um not um not recommend that this that those are funds used Andy's not here so I'll speak uh I'm fully in favor of it uh like the project with the paintings the museum's great uh they do a lot with uh shoe strength and I'm have an inherent bias towards projects with lower dollar amounts in them because we can do more so I'm fully supportive of this Matt yeah this was a clear plan with a pretty modest budget and it just seemed to be something that would was within the scope of what we should be doing Tim yeah again I'm fully supportive like I'll raise the question of using the reserves I think we had Sonia's idea of having some criteria for the use of reserves mine was much more strategic if we have we have five hundred and thirty three thousand dollars in reserves and uh it's for projects that uh we hadn't anticipated I think if we do a couple this year we might be able to spread our dollars further for fiscal 24 and that's the reasoning for that discussion David well let's support the program and um um I would say the challenge of uh wherever we spend our money or how we spend our money still becomes an issue when I say our money this city states money okay um nicely I believe we started with you on this last one Katie correct yes okay yes that's right I I just um Sam I just wanted to um take the liberty of saying that I I Tim I um I agree with you in terms of using reserves if we can this year because it's you know because there are so many requests and so many worthy um projects but I also agree with Robin that this particular one didn't seem to rise to a sense of uh super urgency and that the paintings might degrade you know soon unlike some of the other projects where there's there feels like a you know the roof or something so I just wanted to throw that in there um Sam can I just type in here I just want to be clear that um we can use the reserves for fiscal year for this proposal is just once we commit to using it for fiscal year 24 it's no longer available for fiscal year 23 that's all so we can say that we want to release 300,000 and and make the number that we have available right now bigger so I don't want everybody to think that you you can only spend it in 23 okay that's helpful thank you yeah that's helpful for me as well to reiterate what I'm hearing you say Sonia is that we have this reserve that's able to be used in this current fiscal year right you can it's available at present should something come up but if we for some reason removed all of the reserve funds and something came up this year uh we would not be able to do anything until the fiscal year ends and I believe it's like June 30th or July exactly okay yeah thank you for clarifying that now um so the next project is the Dickinson farm house roof and renovation that's the wildwood um I am not recalling who spoke first on the last one I believe it was Katie so I'm going to call on Michelle yeah so um that that 97 has revised down to just prioritize the roof is that right so they removed the chimneys yeah so yeah I mean I support helping them they need a new roof it's a public building historic so I really have to say on that one Robin um yeah so this is my my area here so you know fully in support of this project it's really important historic resource for the town um I will begin to be a broken record with a bunch of these projects to say that historic preservation funds are hard to come by elsewhere so I would encourage people to keep that in mind and I can answer specific questions about that about what's realistic about being able to fund another fund a project from from other places um there's a I've I've been developing a matrix of funding sources that are available and they're just you know it's it's it's hard so I'm fully in support of this project I'm in support of this I raised my rating when they removed the chimneys and focused just on the roof and removed the less than the dollar amount uh dollar amount compared to the other projects is not as expensive as some the only questions came to my mind were you know what materials might they use on the roof uh you know would it align with the long-term granted changes have been made in the past uh it's would seem to me uh and this is more of an historic historical commission uh area but it would seem to me that something besides shingles might be desirable for an older house but that's but it's still protecting the uh the building and the contents inside uh yes Robin you can hand this up are you yeah yeah I'm just going to reiterate that um when it comes to CPA projects and historic preservation the secretary of the interior standards for preservation and rehabilitation or what come into play the requirements about what building materials can be used they vary by project there is some flexibility but um those those decisions are usually made um CPI is is um evolving at this point and a woman I'm working with and the primary planning commission is starting to serve as a role as someone who reviews scopes of work to make sure that that um whatever is being done on the project is aligned with is in alignment with what we call the standards so that's why um questions around what building materials you're using in historic preservation projects um are have very specific parameters around them and there should be this kind of third person who's was reviewing that but just so everybody knows that I so I don't have to sound like a broken record okay um um Matt we can't hear you yeah the reason I rated the Dickinson farm farmhouse a little lower than the Zion church or the South Congregational church is I felt that perhaps this project wasn't quite as urgent to be done this year and also I had some concerns about um whether or not this actually was historic preservation given that they were replacing um they're putting synthetic shingles and they're putting um uh pvc trim on there but maybe I'm wrong I can speak to that if you want okay okay it's basically what I just said that when the scope of work is developed it should be approved by somebody to make sure and there is some flexibility with these standards but um those decisions are made at uh the level of historic preservation specialists that's their field they understand it and we we just basically need to move it to a point where the scope of work gets approved by them and that's what determines the building materials usually you replace in kind with in kind but they do make exceptions particularly in the areas of Bruce because they're so critical to protect protecting the entire structure of the historic resource if I understand you correctly Robin you're suggesting that there's a process that once the funds are approved that they they get a check mark for lack of a better term on the materials there should be a process and I think that that is a process that's involved that's evolving but that my my understanding is that and I'm starting to work within that field and communities are starting to develop that process so there is an appropriate specialist approving the appropriate materials for that preservation a local a local process yes okay okay do you think that has happened in this case for this project um I think that the woman that I work with the the preservation planner and at PVPC my understanding is that she is serving that role for a municipality where the project is approved it comes and this is standard in other areas of historic preservation that scope of work comes before the preservation specialist they give it the yes or no if they give it a no they might have to to rework the project so it's appropriate for the preservation standards and then ideally it gets approved so it's not something that thus far I understand communities have in place enough to have somebody review a scope of work and we don't even really have a project timeline you know where timeline is so tight and people generally come to these projects without a sense of the preservation field so it's an appropriate stuff right now I think afterwards to assure that that happens but whenever there's a preservation project interior the secretary of the interior standards are the scope standards for what can it can't be done in a historic building much like you would have standards like that I'm sure in conservation if I if I understand what you're saying Robin it might be possible in the future for Amherst to have a step in the process for that type of review that would be ideal we can have that discussion later exactly yes but but I just wanted to give people a sense of kind of what what a proper process would look like and why when you have a historic preservation come before you it's not just whatever is cheapest or looks the same there are various types of guidelines yeah I appreciate the sharing with us your knowledge your increasing level of knowledge in this field so Matt you were the last person to speak on this Tim yeah I fully support this my concern is I just don't know enough about whether or not the chimneys are a significant part of this project I think they removed them fully understanding that our dollars are scarce this year I would put this into a category of urgence a question of urgencies if we wait to do this until after July 1st how much damage if not would there be on the roof and whether or not it makes more sense to move some of that forward and use that reserve again I think we need to have that reserve conversation this project or I would put that in there yes I don't know how patched the roof now is and whether or not it would be better for them to get started on the project like sooner than July 1st and if so maybe it makes sense to spend some more reserves to have that happen so that kind of thing um Sonia we're not able to see the screen at present the spreadsheet there's another set of outlook files that are open yes great thank you um let's see we're on the Dickinson roof I don't remember who I started with where you stopped with me so I know what I stopped with all right and so David I'm not sure if you spoke on this yet or not the Dickinson farmhouse roof renovation the Wildwood project any comments can you hear me David who did you call so on you David I'm wondering if you have any comments on the Dickinson farmhouse only is there something that must happen this year and I'm I'm I'm listening to the conversation about the roof and the little that I know about buildings if the roof is not repaired then you lose the rest of it no matter what you have to do so uh we need to look at the possibility of providing if CPA is in a position to provide some resources to at least see that a rope is put on the building okay thank you now um Katie did you have an opportunity to speak on this one no but I'm I'm in favor of it and so from the sake of time just two thumbs up okay and again I'm not recalling who the first person was I think it was Michelle was it you Michelle did you speak on the Dickinson farmhouse can you hear me Michelle I did you started with me that's okay very good this is confirming uh historic barn and outbuilding assessment program okay that's me well and it is you Robin so go ahead now you presented it do you wish to speak on it yeah I do wish to speak on it um so yeah this was uh this has been the historic commission has been talking about ways uh you know pondering how can we address the loss of um historic barn and outbuildings in our uh semi rural town and after some uh research looking at programs in other states and talking to other preservation organizations um we as the committee decided that an assessment program would be the best way to go and um I I'm going to take a moment here to just pitch for uh another one of our you know subsidiary discussions around the appropriate use of um administrative funds because I think I saw in the paperwork that was sent us that we have $50,000 still sitting from a couple other fiscal years and another 25 to come in that said as a proposal um I I I fully inspected this proposal I wrote it I wrote it on behalf of my committee but I would I would reiterate to the cpi committee members that um in this case we're talking about private homeowners um if you if you walk about town and you start paying attention you will start to see these barns and um private homeowners uh cpi funds are are pretty much the only historic preservation resource that um that private private property owners can turn to um as a matter of fact when you go to I think both the cpi website and preserve you know aspects of historic property they direct you to cpi so please keep that in mind when when reviewing this program it is a pilot program a lower dollar amount I think would be fine as long as it would allow us to get at least two or three assessments under our belt so that we could begin to understand if this is a helpful uh helpful to the um property owners of Amherst to preserve these really unique um unique structures uh thank you Robin um for the proposal and for talking about it um I gave this a three uh I always like low dollar amount proposals particularly ones that reach out to the community uh I think that's you know a very low dollar amount uh to seek to make a creative impact I did have questions on how this may or may not qualify I I did email the cpa coalition with just questions wondering if we could use administrative funds for this as opposed to proposal they did reply back that uh we can't use administrative funds from a cpa committee and provide those cpa administrative funds to another town committee so we cpa administrative funds are for cpa as opposed to historical uh commission so they uh next or they recommended they didn't recommend they strongly said that it's not something to be used for administrative proposals a different story which is how you submitted it and in regards to the proposal the response was uh you know you can only use them for historic recess blah blah blah so any program to do these assessments would have to contain a procedure for the historic commission to review the asset and vote on its significance unless the barn was on the state register so what they're saying is that it's fine to use the funds uh essentially in the proposal with the assumption or the inherent aspect of the proposal that any anyone that is getting funds for this uh that the historical commission has designated it an important or and I'll email this uh to two others uh the other oh that's a basic I'm sorry that my that I didn't make that clear enough in the proposal but yeah it is it is a basic tenet of uh of any historic preservation that it has to meet the definition of significance and that's something that would um always be uh at the forefront of the hc process and the other comment that was referenced was that the state's constitution limits grants of public money to private parties for private purposes although it's debatable what the purpose of this is but the essence of it I asked can it be used for administrative I was thinking we might have that opportunity uh I will the response was no because it's a different commission uh and that the barn should be designated as important by the historical commission I'll send this to you so anyway that's why I gave it a free I love the low dollar amount but I was uncertain on the administration I wanted to share this with the committee members my what I discovered thank you Matt um I am sympathetic to this proposal I do recognize that there are a large number of barns and farm buildings outbuildings historic old old buildings around town um quite a few of them in my neighborhood quite a few of them look like they're about to fall down um yeah so I'm not opposed to it it just didn't seem to be like as urgent as some of the other requests uh Tim I like the pilot nation uh notion of this and I think if we come to the point where we have to shave dollars we should fund it but a little less than the $15,000 request David um I think that it's a worthwhile project we need to support it and I need to figure out how best to fit it within our budget to support uh Katie yeah I I agree with what everyone has said um and since it is a pilot it seems like we did fund it with a little lower amount and then invited um the folks to come back to say there was a huge demand and you know we've got a queue lined up and apply next year for for continuation would make sense to me okay um I believe we started with Robin correct uh so uh Michelle um yeah I like the idea of maybe shaving it down to at least you know two or three to see how it goes and what the outcomes are and I mean I'm still sort of hung up on this trying to prioritize public prominence so it's not you know kind of funding a private person or a specific neighborhood to enjoy the barn but as many people as possible if that's at all feasible okay uh next project on the list is preparation of preservation restrictions for CPA funded projects in the amount of $20,000 this was another this was the other one that I asked of the coalition whether or not it would be administrative funds and they again indicated that it's a proposal and the question that they had was it's unclear if the request is to write restrictions for past CPA projects or for future CPA projects in either case should the CPA should the Community Preservation Act it should be the Communication Preservation Act committee who is determining if a restriction is required as part of the due diligence during the project approval process in other words when the projects come before us that are historic in nature it's at that time that we should be considering uh allocating funding for the HPRs for the the legal work for lack of a better term associated with it that we should if we have a standard policy where every building historic preservation project requires a restriction we could come up with something along those lines but um if it's retroactive they're suggesting that the in other words projects that have already occurred they're suggesting that we generate a list and approve funds for each specific project I'll send this to the committee so they can see it we can still support the the program but they just distinguish between past and present projects and recognize the need for the CPA committee to indicate with any given historic preservation project the need if we wish for an HPR in other words we shouldn't be surprising applicants after the fact oh you need an HPR now that might have occurred at one point in the past with one of the churches I think the first church maybe others they thought they were getting CPA funds and that's like oh you got to do the you got to do this HPR and they might have said wait this is a bit too restrictive in this application cycle we have included it in our discussions with the applicants we put it on the form that would you or would you not be amenable to historic preservation restriction I realize I'm talking a lot distinct from the merits of the proposal but this just came back to me today I'll share it with others but because of the general questions related to it I gave it a three my thought process is the work needs to get done it's a new concept for us funding the HPR because in the past they've been dealt with through the town whether that should be the case or not it's a different story but they've been funding it through their own sources and the other question on this proposal that I had was the inclusion in the proposal of the consultant aspect of it in other words do we want the applicants to hire an outside consultant to be determining policies for historic preservation or do we want the historical commission and the CPA to be doing so I've spoken out of turn I realize I tagged on my thoughts on this project in addition to the information I was sharing so I'm going to call on the members to provide their thoughts on this proposal even though I've shared some additional information that I'll also be emailing we started last time with Robin Andy's not here so I would have been the first person to speak anyway and I just did so we will go to Matt okay so just a question for you Sam did you get in your response that they couldn't we couldn't use administrative funds for CPA restrictions on projects um I will have to read this uh in real time right now so let me let me just let me just read that and get back to you uh shortly but while you continue with your discussion yeah so uh I was just like I understand the genesis of this is that there are a couple of preservation restrictions that we were supposed to do on CPA funded projects which did not get done before the projects were done and are then hard to get done after the projects are done and the the town lawyer is tired of doing this so sort of I understand that a little bit but I would like there to be a clearer sort of guidelines and policies about which and maybe it has to be spelled out in the CPA grant initially about um which historic projects should have or require a um historic preservation restriction and a little bit about specifically what that historic preservation restriction should cover I mean obviously for example if we take the South Congressional Church steeple restoration we're not going to require them necessarily to put a historic preservation restriction on the entire church for the steeple restoration we probably have to say if we're going to fund the steeple restoration then you have to maintain that historical steeple and we should probably if we're going to go with this go down this path we should say that in the actual CPA grant that's kind of my opinion right now I feel like we haven't gotten to that level of policy specificity that I would be comfortable funding this um okay so I I read what was provided to me the general comment is present versus past projects and nor should nor is the cpc administrative budget our cpac administrative budget an account to pay for shortfalls in funding for past approp