rest of our session. That's really gross. Okay, someone say authenticity was their favorite value because I'm here for that I am. Yes. Pam has a hand raised you have something you'd like to share. I do. There was a baby born at about 1230 while you all were lunching. So that's the good news. Congratulations. I think we're good. If you leave, feel free, but no one will ask any questions. I think I'm coming. Okay, are we good. I think we're good. All right, let's dig back in. Okay, parking let's tackle that. Okay, so we just before lunch, we had a chance to kind of think about process and how what you know how we might design process and so I did my best while I was eating to kind of organize some of those questions which I'll show to you in just a moment. But what I thought we would it might be helpful to do is to get a little bit more specific on one particular issue that is on your list of priorities to kind of think about what would it mean for this particular issue if we were to follow that process so I'm going to pull us out of the slide deck and head over to the Jamboard again. So this is the best I could do to try to organize based on what I heard in terms of how these things might unfold and so these are sort of higher level categories of the sort of buckets that I heard you all starting to pull things together into beginning with arriving at a shared subset of council priorities. And then you can see there are the sub sticky notes unfortunately the text has to get really small in order to fit these all in these columns but you know if you need to kind of zoom in for yourself again. So starting there, then moving to understanding the nature of the problem so there were a handful of sticky notes that kind of fit into that category. So moving to finding our why and connecting our to our values, and I put role clarity in here although you know some of these sticky notes might actually apply in multiple places and you could probably make copies of them and put them in multiple spots. I put it there for now thinking that role clarity is helpful at the beginning with the with the why and connecting to our values stage. So moving from there to a great big bucket of learning, right, taking the time to engage town staff generating and analyzing data, considering folks capacities benchmarking with similar communities, learning what's already been accomplished in this area. After the learning moving to generating and considering solutions. So that's the whole solution bucket. And then gathering feedback consulting multiple stakeholders, their lived experiences and practicalities from supporters and naysayers, moving from there to proposing and adopting a solution. And then once that solution is adopted, assessing the outcomes. So, if you just do all this then you'll be all set right. So, I would love, again, go back into individual reflection and mappings take let's all set a timer again for five minutes we'll see check in after those five minutes. Even if you want to just work at the yellow sticky level, that's perfectly fine but the columns are there for you to kind of think about what did we mean when we said these buckets, but for each one, if we were tackling parking. What kinds of things would we need to do to, you know, understand the nature of the problem, you know, arrive at a subset of council parties let's assume we arrived at parking as one of our priorities right. And then, you know what we need to do to be able to understand the nature of the problem. What kinds of things would we have to figure out related to our why so this is just a chance to practice with a specific issue. So any questions on what you're supposed to do. Yes, Anna. So, it's, it's not for you, and it's this questions for you and I asked it before because I wasn't sure if I missed something, the sticky note of advocate to get the issue on the agenda. So this is one that based on what I just asked you for half an hour ago seems like should be on there twice I'm not saying you need to get but should be on there twice, and it kind. Let me ask this as a question. I want to indicate to get it on the agenda twice once generally to establish it as a priority and then again once you have something that you're pitching. The way I manage the future agenda items is that if I know an item is going to happen sometime. It is in a category. It's kind of the third or second category in my future agenda items, which I still have to share the whole thing with you. It so that I know it's out there, but I haven't brought it up to an actual date of a meeting. Okay, and there's times I might take it off the list, because it's not going to be out there anymore. To the extent possible, they're all somewhere on this. I don't know four or five page document. Any other questions before we do some. Yes, Dorothy. So you said that the colors of the sticky notes were random. They're not anymore. Yeah, I want to know how that happened. Okay, check it out. So on this page, this is the mess that we created earlier. And then I copied everything over, and then I color coded them. Yes, thanks I didn't clarify that I appreciate the point of clarification. With respect to parking. There are many different pieces to it to what are we, they all require different processes. So, what are we looking at. Yeah, that's that's a great question so one of the things that we were considering as we were developing this agenda is recognizing that there are sort of, there's almost like this ladder of a set of umbrellas or we've also played with like Russian nesting dolls or whatever kind of analogy you want to use in terms of like, there's parking, then there's downtown parking or there's garage is that an option right so I would say, dive in at whatever level feels right to you and where it feels like you can get traction and make sense around practicing thinking through process. I think we have a really good answer to that question other than this is just a chance to start to, to play with this process and think about what would it actually look like in practice that mildly helpful or not at all. Not helpful. Would you like us to just pick one of them. I think we, I'm sorry, because we'll be all approaching it in a very different we're not solving the same problem like we're all solving and then we won't be able to compare and like we want to want the apples to apples. I really would appreciate us following a process, just like having the same problem that we're tackling because it feels like we're tackling different problems then. Okay, then I would suggest we do the parking garage. Okay. So I, that's totally fine and I want to acknowledge that in doing that we started the process. Right so like the arriving at the set of Council priorities if parking is the priority, nailing it down to the garage would be part one of the process I agree that it makes the rest of this easier for today but like just want to note that that is part of step one. Right, so if step one is understanding the nature of the problem, I think part of what you're doing right now is raising the question of what problem are we actually solving right so then think about what kinds of questions would we need to ask to be able to do that. And then for the sake of the rest of the exercise maybe imagine you've arrived at one solution etc. You know, again, we are not going to arrive at a solution to parking by the end of this this is just an opportunity to do the mental exercise that work. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, I'm going to set the timer for five minutes and I'll check back in with you. That puts us at five minutes to see people are still writing and working with us give it another two and I can check back in. How are we doing does anyone need another minute. I'm seeing eyes looking up. Great. Okay, so I think before digging into some of these steps I just would love to hear some thoughts on the overall experience of trying to apply a theoretical process to an actual issue. Where did you notice yourself getting stuck or asked it where did you have questions where did it feel more challenging than others. Just any sort of overarching thoughts and then I think it might be helpful for us to think about you know if we were looking at parking. What did you notice in the understanding the nature of the problem column and then kind of what march our way through so first sort of overarching observations. Difficult because it's so theoretical still like I can't do the proposed and adopt solution unless we've talked about stuff because then I'm bringing my biases into what I believe the solutions are, and I don't know whether there's options so I actually found nearly every step of talking about even the problem without having a conversation writing my it's all my thoughts but I found every step hard. I think that is such a great revelation for oneself to recognize like, oh, we can't know how it's going to end until we do these earlier pieces to the puzzle so thank you yeah. I think for me articulating the problem itself like the problem wasn't like should we have a parking garage or not away. The question was like, what is the problem statement what are we solving for here and so for me, we're coming to an agreement as a council which I think is a little ambiguous. Why are we wanting this. And so like for me it was the statement was how to make our downtown accessible for people visiting and enjoying our downtown. Like a starting statement but but so I think for me that was the first thing that even as a town to come together as an articulate what is the problem we're solving for. Thank you. Pam. That's actually a really good starting point. I like the thought of going through a process like this, because it actually takes the time to open up. What are the considerations that need to be on the table. And I think it's our tendency to perhaps jump into solutions and not take the time to ask if, in fact, we should be broadening our consideration of other opportunities. So I think, going through a slightly more formalized process for thinking about parking as this one example. I think is very valuable for us rather than jumping to, we want, we want to make the downtown more accessible therefore we need a garage. It asks us to step back and say, you know, what are we trying to achieve. And are there other ways, are there many ways to accomplish this is the garage the best solution so I think this process is terrific to think through. Thank you. Jennifer. Yeah, I was really struck by just something, you know, a sort of unglamorous as a parking garage, how many of those apply.  But I did notice on one of the squares where I don't know how that language got there it says supporters and naysayers. I don't know the word naysayers to care. I think the word was used in there and I can't remember how but what is there a better word that you propose, or it's just both sides of the issue all sides of the issue. Sure yeah, those who are pro and those who are against I mean, yeah it doesn't really matter I think it's it's more just, there will be people in support there will be people in opposition and you want to talk to both of them. And just do that since we're on that, because there's a whole bunch of people who are complacent and I think we need to also include them like how do we bring more people into the conversations. I agree it's a spectrum. Great. Thank you. Alicia. So I have a similar experience commandee Joe, when I did this that was like just my realization mostly and then also just that what you were saying in the beginning that a lot of these sticky notes can be copied and moved to other places. So, for example, when I got to the generate and consider solutions there. I want to, I then also want to ask like, who would I be doing this with. Again, because I was thinking about like if I'm benchmarking in the step before and I'm looking at what other communities are doing. Who's doing that research me, or do I do it with other people until like there were other things I would basically steps that I'd be doing multiple times. Well, it gets really complicated right like you could make a really complicated flow charts that have lots of arrows pointing to various places with lots of repeat pieces but I think that's such a great observation Dorothy. Great. I'm curious and I'm not looking for answer to this but I'm curious if with all of these priorities. That's a similar way of approaching this right to say, I mean, it makes a lot of sense that at the beginning of your work together. You're going to really be in this space of like understanding the nature of the problem before trying to jump to solutions and so if that's a piece that you take away from this that's, that's helpful, but also recognizing that if we only get stuck in constant, thinking around what is the nature of the problem we never actually come to solutions right so finding that balance in the work and continuing to move a process forward while being really conscious of redefining the problem that that's a tricky balance to take. Yep. It looks like Kathy you've been renamed council retreat but I guess I just build on. I agree with the statements that have been made on this particular issue but I want to contrast it to one other that we worked on. And this was Pat Mandy and I worked on something called wage theft or responsible employer. We started with the definition of the problem that most people agreed with. And we were able to find multiple other towns that had done something about it, and could document it. So it, it created, however long it took to get that through. There wasn't a disagreement about what the problem was. So that was a really important piece to be able to define that because it built consensus in a way that I think was helpful. Yeah, that's such a helpful way of thinking about this to that even though each one of these pieces is the same takes up the same amount of space on this page. It might take different amounts of time space, depending on the problem itself right so some things might get really caught up in the defining the problem and then once we figured out what the problem actually is. It might be very quick to come to the solution because we've done that really good work of understanding what are we trying to solve in the first place, right, other, other problems might have pretty easy sort of early identification of the problem and take all of its time up in the solution generation right so recognizing that there, there can be some of that elasticity. Well, as long as we're keeping our eye on forward movement as opposed to being kind of stuck and spinning our wheels. Andy. One thing. When Dorothy spoke I did not hear anything she said because she didn't use microphone so I just ask everybody to please use the microphone. When I went through the steps that were outlined it was all working well until I got to the column learn. And I just had the observation that I didn't know what it was we were learning we didn't. To identify what information do we need in order to figure out what it is that you take to go to town staff or wherever. What is it we are trying to. To achieve in that column. When. So my problem that I had was going all the way to the beginning of this and it's because for this particular issue. I think where an individual counselor may come from is based on what their vision is for our downtown. That that vision for our downtown, maybe a significant driver therefore of how we would even approach this question. So it's how do we deal with the fact that this actually may be a piece of a much bigger question. Yeah it's bringing us back to that point that there's umbrellas and smaller pieces within right and so also being able to think about this the problem that we're working on right here how does it link up the chain and down right in terms of the levels of work that we're doing. Shawnee. I was going to do a link. Linda said I had thought about it as like who's this impacting. How is it going to impact them and what are our values around this situation so if they're seniors were visiting how it's impacting them is the walkability aspect and safety and all of that and then what are the values they have we have houseless people who come to downtown they don't need the parking garage but you know it's wondering who's getting impacted how that would help us keep the conversation centered around our values and the problem. But what I was also hearing and notice realizing is that as Dorothy said I think that different people have different information who has access to information and very often there has been work done. Is it behind the scenes or it was done before our term. So for example there were two downtown studies with hundreds of people residents that show that parking if you look at what they wanted parking was one of the top things is that we need more parking downtown. But now the new people who come in do not were not part of that in a study so the problem comes of what Anna saying we don't trust each other's work. And part of the trust not being there is that we don't have systems of situating all the information in a way that's easily accessible. And a lot of thank you. Thank you Mandy. Yeah I just wanted to add a few things with one in particular. And one of the things that I wanted to add to as Charlie said is really important because a lot of times we think of it as just we need the residents views. But for something like parking, we need the visitors views, how do you get visitors views, you know, like, or are those views similar to the outlying residents views we have, you know, for something like a downtown parking at least in previous discussions were potentially varying different stakes depending on where you lived in town as to whether downtown parking where your view might be on downtown parking so I think we have to recognize that. And then I also caution spending too much time in the learn generate solutions. And all of that this town loves to study stuff, but we do have to make decisions, even if we don't have all the information, even if we don't have half the information at some point where we, this town would get stuck in studying on everything. And so I think one important thing is to recognize at some point you have to move on so maybe the timeline of when you're going to make a decision really becomes important on deciding how much learning you can do. Or not, because you need to move forward at some point. One stage is always imperfect, right, because you can't talk to every single citizen and every person who ever comes to Amherst and you know I mean like it's impossible to do that perfectly so you always have to put imperfect boundaries on that right yeah. Pat. I'm not sure exactly. I'm not on a different slightly different tangent building on what Kathy shared about Mandy and she and the three of us working on wage theft. We had a common understanding. We did a lot of this process as our steps and then we brought things to the council, but I'm trying to figure out. And that's an incredible process. I'm trying to figure out how we as a body do this because of open meeting law. We can't do a lot of this. So how I guess we can do it publicly, but how do we do that. I mean I know how to work in the smaller group. I know how to invite challenge in there. So we do this as a lot as the larger body. And so that's the question I'm put in with in my brain. Jennifer you had a hand did you want to Kathy. Just building on what Pat said to bring it back to garage parking, you know, big things. We have committees that are assigned topics, and they may arise. If you're not on the committee. We have five minutes to talk about something. So we haven't developed a way of creating a legal public place where we're discussing it gathering information together that if others want to bring information to the group. It doesn't violate the public meeting laws. You know, so in it's efficient to have the committees working on it. I'm just saying that we can't put everyone on everyone, every committee so we don't have what Pat just said we don't have a way of going from small groups can talk to each other to how does the larger group. Get to a comfort level. The small groups supposed to bring a solution to us, you know, that's their charge it's not they're not supposed to bring the problem to us. So it's, it's developing a way to do that would be extremely useful. Yeah, I mean it sounds like a design challenge in terms of the structure of how you all work together right so it would be thinking about how do we, how do we lay something like this over top of that. Yeah, so to me this is not the committee work but this is that small group work right and so for me there's maybe a post it that should go at the beginning where we to be clear we do not violate open meeting law but we say, you know, Mandy and we are working on a, you know, are examining the role that elephants play in Amherst. If you have anything you think we need to know. Just tell us we're not going to respond to you but tell us like what information you would want to see in that tell us what questions you have so that we then in our small group can go through this process. So consider Kathy's hot takes on, is this going to hurt the peanut industry in town. So like I think that that's where we can anticipate I'm going way hypothetical clearly we're not ready for reality. So, so like, I think I think that's where in that first column the set of council priorities. That's where this chart is so helpful and again it comes back to that the trust thing of saying I know that Kathy's concerned about the peanut industry and so I'm going to make that look really deeply into that and include it in the, the information that I then report back. I'm not saying that I'm relying on Kathy to be a part of this small group and I'm not saying that I'm going to discuss it with her right until we have something that's ready to present. And that's the other part that I think when we get to that propose and adopt a solution that's really important is that we're not just presenting the one solution we're also explaining how we got there. We're showing that we did that work, and that doesn't need to be in a really long drawn out way but I do think that's an important part. We've talked about memos and things like that it's, it's important that we understand that the narrative behind some of these things so that we can see that it was done we can see what the process was as well. I would really like Athena and maybe Paul to weigh in on the suggestion that Anna just made. Thank you. You can always rely on me to get the bring the hammer down on small group meetings. Because if the council were to designate a group of people to meet together on a subject to bring back to the council that's a subcommittee. And if three counselors have something they're passionate about they want to work on something together. The council hasn't designated those people to do that, but they're doing it together like someone mentioned about the wage theft by law. So, there are a little couple of open meeting law things to consider in those instances. Can I clarify. Okay, so, so then if I'm looking at this sheet and I say elephants on and Mandy are on there. I don't want to be involved and I were not designating this as a, as a group that's working on it but I'm going to tell them hey if you ever do pursue that. I want to know the impact on peanuts. That's okay, because we're not saying it as a group right like we just are looking at this list. Okay, I'll bring it into reality. So we say okay BL zoning I know Mandy Joe is interested in that I know I'm not interested if she chooses to pursue that as a as a priority I want to know. XYZ can I then share that and just say hey Mandy Joe if you're interested and if you're if you do pursue this could you make sure to include this like as an individual know that Mandy is interested in doing something and you have that conversation with her offline that's fine. But if the council says these people are working on something together. That's great. Okay. So that helps us at least kind of understand what are the what are the rules around whether what kind of work we can do here. We're not going to solve parking today right that's not the whole point that the point was essentially to get a sense. I'm sorry. No, actually that's what was like keeping me awake when we first started this relationship about the developing agenda was like, I'm not going to be able to get them to, you know, come together around any of these big first meeting. My hope is that you were able to at least kind of get a sense of what this process could look like. And to figure out how does that work, given the relationships that we have. It does require mutual trust. It does require a willingness to move forward and move on, even when you feel like maybe you haven't fully fulfilled one of these stages right and so having both patients but also a collective sense of trying to move the process forward. But this is, this is the hard stuff right but to do it well and then to be able to document and share and be transparent about process is, is half of the battle and so one thing I'd love to for us to do with this before we we're going to close out by two o'clock but I want to stick with us for just one more minute, and actually you're going to close out by two o'clock. I'm going to be done by we're actually here to maybe three maybe not. Yes, yeah, so I my portion of the agenda sorry I should have made that clear. It's done at two o'clock. But before we move from the this process and analyzing it I want to bring us back to our values and circle right back to the beginning of our conversation together. And so just take a moment please to read like bring those back forwards you can in your packet return to page 29. The question I have for you and again I'm going to give you just a couple minutes to reflect on it when you're looking at this process. If we were to follow this process. Where are we most likely to need to call on or return to or reinforce these values with each other. And so think about in the process we are definitely going to be to you know really return to x value at y moment that's what I'm getting you to try to do some reflection on so where do the values now map to process is the question to take just another 30 seconds. I hope of course is that our values will be a thread through all of our work, all the way through right so it's not like oh we turn on respect during this section but not over here, but I am curious you know if you look at this are there moments where you can see where one of them might get especially challenged and we need to make sure that we're returning to it. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Kathy you have a hand up was that from the previous comment. Okay. I would think for me though, for the first step of problem are articulating a problem. I thought of the values of community participation diversity inclusion environmental sustainability and respect is really playing a role, like in terms of really bringing that lens to who is this impacting. How is it, you know, are we including all the voices and who's going to be impacted. How is it impacting our value of environmental sustainability, and of course maintaining that respect that, you know, initially they'll be like, I don't agree with that and so reminding ourselves to have that. And in a different stage where we're considering different solutions that's where more of the other values of creativity innovation, you know, of course they all go through everything but that comes later. Great. Thank you. Anna. So, whoa, community participation felt like one of the very clear steps in the process of a few different times. The ones I thought, I think the creativity and innovation by by the way it's explained here will both guide our discussion and be a one we need to be reminded about of that. It's okay to do things differently and move forward, and that we can also learn from what has been done and trying to find where in that we kind of settle diversity equity and inclusion environmental sustainability and fiscal responsibility the questions we always need to ask of how is this moving those goals forward. How is this physically responsible how is this supporting our sustainability and resilient climate resilience efforts and how is this advancing advancing diversity equity inclusion and justice in town. Those for me are three questions that need to be asked regardless of what project it is. Thank you. Alicia. I think I looked at this a little bit differently because I see these values as all of them needing to be applied across the board all the time. And so how I look at this more in that when we're engaging in each of these steps on the sticky notes. How are we showing these values while engaging in those things. For example, when we're in the process of proposing and adopting a solution like are we are we being sure that we're sticking to our goals of being creative and innovative. And like when we're engaging the community are we sticking to our goals of diversity equity and inclusion. And so like how we can actively show these values through the steps that we're taking. Absolutely. Thank you. Dorothy. Well, I would say that the the first two can include the others with community participation. We have to solicit it and we have to respect it when we get it. And then for creativity and innovation that's us the town council, accepting the challenge of the problem. And also reaching out to that community participation where we have a lot of talent and figuring out how to do the thing that we have decided needs to be done within the framework of the rest of the values. So those are the two I think are the most important Jennifer. Yes, and I guess I would add, you know, for community participation, we're always going to find members of the community on all sides of the issue. So how do we kind of balance that, you know, we'll all point to the people from the community that are reinforcing our point of view, but how to try and reach consensus. And of course transparency because sometimes we do hear well this work was done before, but if we don't really know what that was then it may even feel like something was is especially being done behind the scenes for some reason. So transparency I think, again, all these values apply to everything in every square. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so I guess the thing the reason why I wanted to circle us back here is because it is so easy often to get in the work, and then forget about the larger overarching things that matter to us right and so I would encourage you as you are in the work and doing each of these sort of minute pieces and steps along the way to be stopping to think about how are we, you know, incorporating our values does this work and the ways that we're carrying it out reflect what matters to us. And to be doing that by thinking both internally and externally and that's all really hard to do all at once right so you'll you'll probably need each other support for that. So I know you all are staying together beyond two o'clock, but my portion of this ends at two and I wanted to have a chance to do it just a quick little closing we open with a nice breaker I want to close by asking you to take a moment to jot down for me and then share out one key takeaway or point of gratitude or thing that's kind of coming you're coming away with from the work that we just did together today would be helpful for me to hear that and I think also helpful for you to be able to kind of pull together like if there's one thing I remember from this it'll be this key point so take a minute to write that down and then we can do another share out and then do you mind just doing the call the roll call again the same way.  Oh, remember you can always pass and come back. Right well yeah so take a moment to write it down I know some people you know need a moment to process and then we'll do a share out. So take like 20 seconds to finish chatting down. Are we ready. Almost. Maybe. I'm really going to shake it up going to start in the back of the alphabet, Alicia. So, mine is a little bit long but I think like overall what I'm coming out of this is although we have these shared values here that we apply in our council meetings we all really do have different values or different things that we prioritize. We have different ways that we approach things. We have different goals. So that, that is what's going to make us a strong council. And so that if we can really truly find a good way to work together through our differences and how we can utilize our different superpowers and then also uphold each other in the places where we're not as strong that we will be a very powerful and strong group and we will make a lot of progress. So I'm looking forward to working with you all. Jennifer. Well, first I really appreciate being able to have this time altogether not in a formal meeting. It's really the first time we've been able to do that. And I very much appreciate having these values, you know, written and highlighted here so that we can refer back to them and kind of self correct if we veered away from applying the values to, you know, the different priorities will be addressing. And as Alicia said, yeah, we do have different priorities. I think we may have a lot of shared overall goals for what our vision for the town. But it is, I think also our strength because I think we do represent a lot of the differing different perspectives that are in the community. So I think that's a good thing. Andy. Andy you need on you. Yeah, it took me. So I came up with was that the council process can achieve important goals for the town and remain committed to our values. And I also included and I think it's similar to what was been previously said that whether we are district or at large. Councilors, we are group that has and will work together to achieve what is best for the entire town. Yeah, no Kathy, I'm sorry, Kathy. Sorry, I want to start out by thanking people who chose our facilitator because I thought this was what we just went through for me, I completely agree with what Alicia just said but I think it was extremely helpful to hear the way people approach problems because it will make it much easier to think that I come at it this way you come at it that way and we're both coming at it for a similar reason. So, I thought that was excellent even when we put the boxes, it just gave me insight into each person's way of thinking, which was terrific. Pam. My takeaway is that I appreciate the, the shared understanding of process and I think, you know, just the, the organization of, of what we all believe or what we individually came to as a process. The shared understanding of what that process consists of. Instead of just each of us sort of tackling something in in our own natural state. I think we'll, we'll help build some trust in both the information that's brought forward, as well as the outcomes and I, and I think that's been from the public's perspective. I think the, the lack of trust in the outcome and the information information being brought forward has been, you know, sort of attention within the community and I think us sharing a sense of the process may help heal some of that. Thank you. Dorothy. Well, I guess my main take from this is the importance of defining the problem or the problems and to get to the root of it to look at its history, its imports, and its unintended consequences. So then you redefine the problem for this moment. And then we start figure out what should we do to solve that problem. So I do appreciate that. Thank you. Michelle. Yeah, I so appreciate what everyone has offered. And I've learned from each of you. So thank you. But one key perspective that's really sticking with me. And I think it came from Aaron and Lynn is that we're collaborating with past present and future counselors, and that our work is a continuum. I really appreciate that sort of larger perspective on it. Okay, and he has gone home to get ready for her award. That is public Mandy Joe. Yeah, just, I wanted to say I appreciated the reflection that we had to do on our statement of values and the rules we put it in three years ago. I'm at Shalini's great suggestion, but then we never really visited it again and never really talked about it. And so the focus on that today I thought was very helpful at least for me to be reminded of what they are and to be reminded that we should really be keeping them in our focus and if we ever lose any of them, we need to talk about why we've either lost it or whether it's not a value anymore, or whether there are other values we should be adding. I like the elements of the process and with the realization that while we think it's linear it's not. It's circular and that's an important thing to keep remembering. Okay, Pat, you know it's Anna, Anna. You know notoriously short in what I say. So, something that I find interesting is being a new person on the Council. When I looked at the values and the, the rules and everything. A lot of you had a stake in writing those and a lot of us didn't. And so it was interesting for me and considering are these values still true right are these still true for the folks who are coming on and didn't have a say in what they are. You know, I was having a little bit of tension for myself and it's not because I don't like them or agree with them but I think it's hard to come in and be told these are these are the values, knowing that half of you got to write them. Right, like if it were all starting fresh this would also be different so I think I was sitting with that tension kind of as I was going through this and, and I'm comfortable because I'm comfortable with those with the values as written but just wanted to name that. And I think the other part of being for me a new counselor is, it's like learning a new language and trying not to break the law and not really always understanding what if you're doing the right thing and wanting to do 10,000 things right and so part of this was part of the realization for me, looking at that list is we cover a lot of ground. There's a lot of things we want to do and so it's really exciting that we don't all want to do the same thing because it makes me feel like we'll get a lot done. I'm an optimist. And the other part of that is it's a lot less daunting when you have when you have an idea of a process right and I know that what we were talking about is that more informal part of our process because for me that's the part that was so confusing is, I want to do this and I have no idea how to start right and so this really helped build a runway I think for, for me at least, which was much needed. Pat. Thank you President. I have two things that I am taking away and feel grateful for. One is the reminder that if we step aside from our positions and assumptions, we can find really fertile ground to work together for change for and and for innovation. One is the realization that, again, that in the very ways that we are different. We can find our strength. And, and that feels really important to me. Shalini. I'm going to start with an important value appreciative joy, and that we all do such hard work in council and I really do appreciate and I'm grateful that really came alive today seeing everyone, you know, coming so much from their heart and authenticity and, you know, we can all see that we really care about what we're doing and, and we think really take this seriously so I think appreciating each other for that and taking like this retreat as some of us stated was really nice that we are sort of celebrating us, you know, it's bringing some joy into that feels continues to feel our work is important. And this also helps I think the mood enhancers that might be part of it. And then I was just thinking in terms of taking forward two things one that maybe as committees weekend from the overall elements of the processes we discussed maybe each committee can come up with their own process that will work the best for them. And personally I feel like just because there are new people always in a process that when they're doing work in the committees we kind of summarize the sources of the research and all the work that's been done. So, at least try to level some of the information that people who already working had and new people may not have to be more conscious about how to bring forward that information. Thank you so much and this is fabulous. So Aaron I think we all want to collectively thank you for spending all of the time with us to try to tease out what this might look like, and getting us this far, even though we have a long way to go. But thank you so much. It's been a pleasure working with you. We may see you again. Okay, my, my key point of gratitude is just being invited in to create this container for you all to be able to do this work together. So thank you for that and that my key takeaway is that Amherst is in really good hands with you all so I wish you so much luck and thank you. It's going to take me at least 10 minutes to clean up all my stuff so just ignore me over here but thank you so much it's been really a pleasure working with you all and stay in touch I'm just in North Hampton so not far away so thanks. Great. Great. For those of you that did not hear that was Dorothy pointed out that we just broke our own rule. And that is we're not supposed to do audible demonstrations. But there you go. Rules are made to be broken sometimes. I would like to turn in today's discussion to the next sheet you have which is the work session priorities, and before we look at, well what do we think should be those because I don't think we're going to get that far. I think we need to have just a brief discussion about how many work sessions a month, you're willing to have, because with this list, every council meeting could start at 530 with a work session. They would not be mandatory. But, you know, you might not want to miss them. So, do you want to set a guideline is it, we're not voting today. Is it one a month, is it sometimes there might be two in succession because the topic is in succession, or what might be the situation the path. Thank you. I'm having full with saying, we'd meet at 530 before council, because I'm thinking work sessions could be longer than that, and that maybe separating them from an actual council meeting. Like we've done today would be very valuable because I think work sessions are valuable and I don't know. Okay. Other comments or thoughts. I'm sorry.  Are we still taping. Okay. Oh, it's on the screen. Thank you. All right. I just, I forgive me if I misunderstood. Are we going to tune in to see an eco receiver. Yes. Okay. She and I have agreed that when she thinks it's about five minutes out. She's going to text me. And then I'm going to abruptly end the meeting. And we're going to put it up on the screen for those of you that want to stay or not. It's up to you. Thank you. And for Pam and Andy, if you want to watch the link is on the Amherst historical society website. Okay. I'm back to Mandy job. Yeah. So I think what Pat said about maybe separating for some of them might be good. I think too many 530s, or very many 530s at all is problematic when our meetings run four hours to five hours already, you know, and 530 start is like eating dinner at four or 430, or not eating for some people, right. But I also want to keep in mind, we need to look at our own capacity and every work session we add is an extra meeting for all of us, or those who want to show up and that, as some of us found last fall, all those extra meetings takes a toll. And so that's not to say they're not good. I don't want people to think that I'm saying we can't do any I, I think they, I think we need to take a very careful look at what needs a work session. What that topic is how broad or short it is or whether it could be done some other way to great. I am inclined to agree with Pat around and Mandy around the separating them out from the regular council meetings I think when we also are planning on going into a council meeting after we all are thinking about what we're going to be doing in that council meeting and so it's a little bit tough to totally resituate and then think and work together in a in a different way than we do during meetings right so. However, I also recognize that adding another date a month I don't know I'm, I can recognize that and my personal opinion is I'd rather separate them out. Okay, I'm going to assume that if we separate them out we would probably use available Monday nights, since that's the one night we kind of all put aside. All right, Kathy. Oh no, yeah Kathy. Yeah, a couple thoughts. I agree with everything everyone just said about separating them out. And in terms of choosing what we do. My strong preference would be left to thoughts of strong preference one is, if something is going to come up before us in the course of two years that requires us to do thinking. I think that's a good topic for work session, you know where we need some time before we have to make a decision so I'd use that screen. The other is there's a second thing that was written into the bylaws that's called a public dialogue, which is a little bit different but the kind of squishy like which is we when we pulled that when we found it in New Hampshire, I think in the town. And that idea was there's some things that we have community members, not just the council that know a lot about something. And we want to bring them into the room for conversation. And I think that feels different than a working session where we're going to be working on something. I mean, not to say that I wouldn't bring someone in so. So when I looked through our list I was trying to think which, which of these two do I think each of these are. Thank you. Jennifer. So this is just I guess the question, maybe getting too specific, but I admit I've only kind of recently been following, probably since I got on the council the school, you know, the school building debate in a little more detail. So, so I mean one of my suggestions is, and I'm just wondering if, like, if we wanted to have a dial public dialogue or working sessions on possible uses for which of the vacant elementary school, is that something that it all informs any decision discussion driving now is there a rush on that is what I'm really asking if we wanted to address that. I'll just give a quick, the interest no, and it's not just that and Lynn and I would, we've got some town properties that were are vacant, you know, so it's like, how do we use our spaces well but that would be a big one to start thinking about that before it's confronting us. Okay. Is there anything else Jennifer. Thank you, Darcy. If we have separately scheduled work sessions. I think we try to do it, avoiding that period when the finance committee goes into its double time meetings. Because I think that could kind of help spread the work. And in terms of timing if we don't separately from meetings, I would caution that we don't have every month have a work session or three council meetings on top of all the meetings I, you know, I mean, maybe we should be aiming for four work sessions a year, one a quarter or something like that where we're not feeling overly burdened I know the three a month or the four months that we did at the end of last year every Monday, and every three out of four Mondays just feels like we don't get a break. And that's the same for staff to it's not just the counselors. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I just want to apologize I misunderstood what that question was but now that I'm looking at it I'm wondering if one of the purposes it could serve is to for the people who are really working on it to share their research and for the other counselors to ask questions and I guess that is the purpose. Yes. Yes. So let me just be very straightforward between now, and there has been a request for two working sessions already. One is request around the elementary school. And I'm going to be very careful. It is not we are not the school committee. We don't determine the education plan. The only roles we have and they are big ones is to put it on the ballot as a dead exclusion override. And hopefully then go to appropriate and borrow the money. So if we have a discussion, it can't be like well I think you need to do this educationally or whatever. At the same time, I'm having a debate with myself okay I'm just going to be straightforward. At the same time we have two people we have elected as a council to represent us on that committee. And they might like to hear what some of us are having our heads. Okay, so the only time I can see us possibly doing that, that it would have any possible impact on what's being submitted would be on the 28th. And it would be more like a working session because it's not a vote. There is no vote for us to take. It would be like, gee, have you looked at whatever something like that. Mandy Joe you specifically asked about this. Kathy specifically called me and talk to me about it. So, it would be the 28 that 530. It would just be the council it would not be asking the superintendent to come and plead his case. It would not be creating a public dialogue. I want thoughts on that. I'm testing it out. Use your process. Let me just happy. Let me just add one more words to what you just said about the timing even on asking questions. The, we're on a schedule to get what's called a preliminary design to the granting authority which is seven or eight different options with no decisions made about them. And that's supposed to be signed off by the building committee on March 11. But it would be previewed by the school committee the week before so it's extremely tight timeline. So in thinking of what this is. It's questions and information that may or may not affect the flow. Mandy Jeff. Yeah, I mean, I asked for a public discussion because I think we need to have a public discussion around costs and what goes into costs and from what I heard from our representatives on the school building committee. Some of that decision is being made for that submission on March 3 that might set some pricing. I think we as a council given that we have to vote on things like bonds and whether to ask the people to raise their taxes to pay for a certain building that costs a certain amount. We can't shirk that duty by just not having a conversation at this early stage when that conversation could affect. Ultimate costs of the building so I don't know whether that's a working session or part of a discussion in a council meeting, but I am very much believe we need to have a public discussion and open meeting about that. Okay. So I didn't have much specifically to add but I just wanted to state that I strongly agree with everything that Mandy Joe just said and that was, I didn't specifically propose it but that's why I brought it up at the last meeting because I think it would be critical for us to be having these conversations now. Okay, I will look at the agenda and determine whether or not it's 530 working session, or a discussion item during the regular meeting. And that would be on the 28th. Okay, we just agreed on something gang can senses we didn't vote. We didn't vote Kathy. Just one other piece of information when Jennifer said about the building that would remain open this building, if we can pull it off will open in 2026 so when I said pick carefully what we do for working sessions, we can do it next year. You know, it would, you know, in terms of I would pick things for work or dialogue that during this two year cycle are coming before us that we need to discuss, but keep a list of down the road. Okay. And then there were, there was one other sheet, and it really arose because Jennifer I think it was asked whether or not we could have a conversation about how do we bring constituent concerns forward. And we can all make observations about the constituent concerns. I have my own you may have your own. One of the ways you bring them forward is you send something to Paul with CC to me, and you ask questions and actually Jennifer did that on two or three issues and got some pretty solid answers. And I think recently Kathy and Michelle did the same thing for some district one. So I just want to emphasize again that, you know, Paul's there, he's a resource. He's got more knowledge about these things than any one of us sitting in the room. And, you know, and I will try to help and answer stuff. But if things arise to a certain level. Then at some point we may want to think about whether that is a discussion item for council meeting or whatever the case may be Dorothy. I know I stepped out of the room. You're saying the meeting will be on the 28th of February but I have a town council on the 20. We have a town council meeting on the 28th. The question is whether I as president will schedule a working session for an hour before or include as a discussion item in the agenda, the new school proposal. Okay, okay. Thank you. Anna. So this is where I'm going to pull us back to our process here when we think about our constituent concerns. I think one question that I'm now doing when I'm looking back at this list is saying does this make sense for a public dialogue. Does this make sense to defer to Paul does this make sense for an action item or does this make sense for a working session. I think there are probably more options than that but that's what I got in my brain. So like, I think that's, that would be something I would encourage us to look at these and say all right if folks are saying, you know they're really concerned about economic vitality and development, maybe that even though it wasn't the top getter of on our work session priorities. Maybe that is a way because it's a constituent concern and so we want it to be really accessible in terms of following along with our constituents and working sessions and public dialogues are more open and are more by their nature and by their definition are more open so I would encourage folks to look at this and maybe consider if there are things on here that would make sense for a dialogue or a working session. Great. So what I think we should do with both the combination of the working sessions and the and the constituent interests okay is develop our list we've already identified our next one. If, and there's been another one identified and that would be the area of rent and rent control. So I'm trying to be respectful of people's time, but also understand the timing of certain things. So, let me develop the list and start narrowing it down and come up with what we think we need to do next. I want to make sure we don't miss the awards. So unless there's any other final comments, I'm going to declare our meeting adjourned. We just as a point of information. Some of us are going to stay in this room and key into the awards ceremony, we will not be in a meeting we will not be discussing anything we will not be making any decisions. We just happened to be here and we're watching a video of a meeting together, and others of you may decide this is a time you want to leave and so I'm going to call the meeting adjourned.


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