culty at this time carol gray you're next so let's go to you okay by the way there's no way for us to show our picture we just get the option to put on our mic so i don't thank you um so i'll start with john lewis one of the last things he said that was commented on in his funeral was this is the most important election ever the presidential election i'm going to be very candid what you're proposing is draconian this is what republicans are doing all across the country you're proposing eliminating 90 percent of voting polls in an election year that couldn't be more most important election of any of our lifetime by far that some people i also find some of the language and discussion a bit more welly in uh because there may be three possibly four sites that have to be relocated people are saying that okay maybe 40 percent of the people will be lost but it would be more efficient to have a hundred percent of the people lost that doesn't make any sense to me um in addition miss brewer commented that the cdc is saying that you should have more polling sites i don't know why any local public health official would go against the cdc that's part of the problem with the whole country is states are not listening to the cdc we should absolutely be listening to the cdc creating more sites not fewer also if you read the cdc's instructions they say to think about completely things that you're not talking about yet consider drive-up voting for eligible voters if allowed in the jurisdiction where possible in your jurisdiction offer alternative voting options for voters with symptoms those who are sick or known as co good 19 positive post signs to discourage anyone with symptoms from entering the polling location buildings these things need to be talked about and you should read the cdc guidelines on polling stations um your i thought there was going to be an alternative proposal tonight that would keep the voting polls exactly what they are i'd actually like to see a proposal next time to increase the number of voting stations that you mass is not being allowed to do early voting it's critical to have a site there i think with students why not look to non-public buildings ask banks public libraries amherst college to open up their spaces uh in addition you should be plugging for poll workers uh i i know that they're looking for people but offer training call for volunteers if you're short on the budget i would volunteer if they were a plexiglass crocker farm um i i vote at crocker farm it's one of the easiest polling sites is i can imagine you walk in a side door walk up three steps and walk 10 yards and the room is on the left i don't see why that couldn't work well with schooling um in terms of voter suppression this is absolutely voter suppression in atlanta they reduced the number of polling sites dramatically people waited for three hours you can't have people outside waiting for three hours it's november people will get cold also the atlantic magazine had an article entitled the voting disaster ahead one of the things it said was that georgia virginia and massachusetts have reported record turnout for their primary elections and will probably see double or triple that in the general so you have to be prepared for that you should absolutely have at least the 10 different sites relocate before that you have that you have to relocate but um it's just also mail-in ballots so the atlantic also reported that uh in 2016 the united states election assistance commission reported that more than 300 000 mail-in ballots were rejected if a voter forgets to sign the ballot envelope if they sign the envelope the signature does not match the one on file or if the elections office misreads information many mail-in votes are tossed out and the studies from the n double acp legal defense fund said that the proportion of of votes that are tossed out that are mail-in votes are more asked you to wrap up please yes thank you i was going with the three minutes because that's what the online information said people who are people of color have their votes rejected at a higher percentage i think you're going in completely the wrong direction and this is a perilous time to do this and there's no way that you're going to increase voting by eliminating nine percent of the voting sites this is draconian don't help the republicans please please reject this i mean it i mean this is exactly what republicans are doing all across the country please don't do this thank you megage you're up thank you i'll be very brief because i've written to you and i trust that at least most of you read what i wrote or some of you um who is this it's me my husband just yelled who's speaking now say moi um i don't think this is draconian i think the town clerk has tried to deal with very real challenges and difficulties with at least some of our polling places but i don't think the solution is to change voting for everyone our polling place in district one hasn't been mentioned it works perfectly fine uh and i think we need to solve the problem we have and not take a problem and then solve something bigger uh if bangs is a problem then let's have everybody at bangs vote at the high school that's an easy message everybody who used to voted bangs now votes at the high school there were some things in the report on this proposal it just totally didn't make sense and i don't think helped the case which for example if there's needed there was an outbreak and there needed to be contact tracing it would be easier if it had all happened at the high school it doesn't make sense if there were more people the contact tracing would be easier it's just totally counterintuitive maybe there's some sense to that but somebody needs to explain it i don't want to repeat what i said in my memo that i sent to you today but i strongly urge you to take some kind of middle path we know it will suppress the vote we know it will suppress the vote to have everybody voting in a different place showing up at the wrong place not having the energy to figure it out maybe they'll read a sign on the door of the north amherst community building that says go to the high school but we'll we will have much less turnout i don't think amherst massachusetts is going to determine the presidential vote which of course we're all worried about well many of us are but i do think we nonetheless want to have our voting be have as much integrity as possible i hope that was two minutes thank you thanks meg uh john boniface please thank you for you live yes thank you my name is john boniface i live at 30 harris street in amherst i serve as the co-founder and president of free speech for people which is a national nonprofit legal advocacy organization fighting to defend our democracy and our constitution we've been around for more than a decade i have practiced voting rights law for more than 25 years free speech for people is currently engaged in key voting rights cases in several states including cases in pennsylvania and texas on behalf of the nwcp state conferences of each state challenging unsafe and unequal voting conditions a primary focus of those cases is to ensure that the states expand rather than reduce polling locations especially in the midst of this pandemic the plan to consolidate all polling locations to the high school is however well-intentioned extremely misguided and ill-informed councillor hanky helpfully highlighted how the cdc says we should be expanding not reducing polling locations i would just add to that that we issued a report in april of this year entitled safe voting during the covet 19 pandemic we issued that with infectious disease expert dr joy amuker g who's a professor at harvard medical school physician at bringham women's hospital and the partners in health chief medical officer she also happens to be on our board that report stated as one of the key guidelines that we should be expanding not reducing polling locations to ensure that we're having less people at each polling site so as to minimize the risk of transmission of the virus council ross as well you know 1200 people and he was there and nobody was there put 8 000 people in the middle of a pandemic it increases the risk of the transmission of the virus from a public health perspective this proposal to consolidate all polling locations to one place makes no sense from a voting rights perspective it makes no sense we work with the lawyers committee for civil rights with the nlacp with hundreds of others groups all over the country we're part of the national election protection coalition i know of no other voting rights expert in this country who thinks we should be reducing polling sites as a way to help people vote i know of none of those groups in that coalition who endorse the idea that we should be restricting the number of polling sites we should be expanding it's uniform in the voting rights community that that's the standard we should be applying for but don't just listen to any of that to council brewers point that we've listened to the experts how about listening to an expert who actually is study the impact of closing polling locations on voter turnout mark marieth is a professor of political science at the university of pennsylvania he's a leading expert on this very question he happens to be an expert in our case in pennsylvania that we're about to file a 41 page affidavit that he's drafted for us and here are his conclusions in three short short points that he makes number one after studying this and on top of all the other scholarship he has number one the cost of in-person voting when he talks about cost it's not just monetary cost but opportunity cost the cost of in-person voting increases when a potential voter's polling location is not located in the same building that it is normally located in when a potential voter must spend more time traveling to the polling location and when a potential voter must spend more time waiting in line at their polling location before casting a ballot number two increases in the cost of in-person voting will cause some potential voters to cast a mail ballot instead of an in-person ballot while causing other potential voters to abstain instead of casting an in-person ballot in other words not participate all and number three racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be disenfranchised by increases in the cost of in-person voting in part because they are generally less trusting of mail ballots so we've heard tonight that there are problems with the bank center fine let's make an alternative for the bank center and that's the amherst high school but this idea that we should just throw out all the other polling locations that work according to the secretary of state makes absolutely no sense from both a voting rights perspective and a public health perspective and as to the point of studying this after september the reason to do that is because we are going to have one primary that where the schools as i understand it are closed so all the concerns that the superintendent laid out tonight are not relevant to the primary since those schools are closed and the schools are available and it gives the council more time to figure out other alternative locations that are close to people's home that don't require travel but consolidating all the one location is not a solution from a voting rights perspective the last thing i'll say is that it is completely incredible to me that four days after the nation marked john louis's life who dedicated his life to the right to vote who gave blood for the right to vote that four days later this town council would vote to make it harder for people to vote i cannot understand that and i urge you both to vote down this proposal and to vote for councillor shone's alternative proposal that will ensure that we can study this further after september one but not close all polling locations and leave it to only amherst high school thank you sue laury you're next uh i just would like to point out that a quarter to a third of a mile might not seem like a long distance for able-bodied people but moving all of the voting to the high school will absolutely disenfranchise disabled people who do not have their own vehicle and a quarter of a mile is an enormous distance for people that have cardiac disease pulmonary disease orthopedic issues neurologic problems and it is unconscionable to me that we would have all of the town's voting be taking place uh so far from the public transit system um so i'd like to point that out thank you thank you for your comments sue we have somebody who is at a phone number and i need to identify yourself and where you live yes hello yes um okay thank you you can hear me um my name is julian hind i live in district four and uh i am going to comment on voting um rights and my concerns around um voter disenfranchisement by moving the polling location to the high school my first point is that the ideology that um that it will help the public health situation um to move 8 000 voters um coming in um in a 12-hour period to the high school is absolutely incorrect there would be um there would be upwards of 8 000 people coming within a 12-hour period probably most of them having to wait in a very long line that possibly would not be socially distant so i do not believe that that is the right goal from a public health perspective when you can have fewer amounts of people spread out across um across our 10 precincts and not have that issue my second um issue is on the heels of the decision to not cut the amherst police budget by 82 percent this would be a double blow to people of color and low-income residents of this town um who have been traditionally underrepresented by counselors um and their government officials so i do not expect and would not like to see a third or a second excuse me decision um that does that my third issue is that for people with disabilities people low-income people who often have to work two or three jobs to get by they do not have two hours to go through the public transit system then walk three quarters of a mile and then after that wait in line for two hours risking getting COVID-19 to vote that is the exact um that is the exact definition of voter disenfranchisement um we have seen in many other states um polling locations be reduced for example in Georgia this has lowered not raised voter turnout so i understand the the town clerk town officials and town council members do not have the intention to disenfranchise voters however i would like to make sure that you are aware that that is the unintended unintended consequence of what you are doing and um you need to be very careful that it isn't disproportionately affecting residents of um low-income backgrounds and residents with disabilities and people of color so um my last point to sum it all up is i believe that even though there might be one or two um locations that are not available we can move those to an alternative location like the high school or somewhere else that we think of and that only changes for 40 percent of voters rather than 100 percent of voters if you want 40 percent of voters to be confused and a small margin of those not to vote or do you want 100 percent of voters to be confused and then not vote i think it's pretty obvious that 40 percent is the better option so i'm going to wrap it up because i believe i'm going over two minutes here pretty soon um but i strongly urge you there's many voting locations the same as as possible by what state law allows thank you for your comment i i would like to ask people to stick to the two minutes if at all possible zoey crabtree please state your name and where you live zoey can you hear us i can hear you can you hear me now lovely yes i could uh log into my computer again for some reason um i just want to say first of all i can i really 100 appreciate all of the hard work that has gone into this proposal i hear that um shabina has been talking to a lot of people a lot of officials and really trying to make the best decision for our town um but i agree with all the residents that i've been hearing on this call um i think it it is an appealing idea from a marketing perspective to say like okay we're changing it and all you know the only message is everyone goes to the high school um then i work in marketing that's a much easier message to share um at least it's it's easy to to frame it as an easy message to share but i i also find that what some other folks are saying um to be really compelling which is that like it doesn't matter if you know where you're you're polling place is supposed to be if you now can't get there um so one of the things that i noticed as a student um but even more as um a resident of this town for the last um three or four years um the the bus system is sorely lacking in you could even if you can get where you want to get which maybe you know all the buses go through and stop near the high school even if you can technically get there um it's going to take a while and and yeah people don't have a lot of time in the middle of of their work day uh to get off work or to show up late for work or to leave work early um to take care of uh voting and their family responsibilities and their work responsibilities so um getting there is going to be a really big challenge even if you know that's where you're supposed to go um and i also want to point out that um we spoke earlier about how um the percentage of vote by mail ballots that we received back was very high in their recent um primary i think this past march but we're in a different world now where a bunch of people are being encouraged to sign up for vote by mail um ballots that haven't necessarily done it before um because of the pandemic and so and we said we like 380 something for this past election 4 000 people have have submitted um applications so far that's a much higher number um obviously vote by mail is great um but we can't expect to have the same return rate on those ballots as we did previously because we don't know if people um are just doing it because they are feeling compelled because of the pandemic but they don't actually know how to follow through or intend to follow through I just don't think that we can count on that conversion rate to be the same so please uh I really think that Kathy Shane and Dorothy's not Dorothy um Darcy's comments earlier about trying to keep as many polling places the same as possible um would would be really best in the situation thank you um thank you for your comment Jocelyn Ford please please unmute and state your name and where you hi this is really Barbara Ford and are you hearing me I hope yes we can Barbara okay I live in uh District 2 and I am awarding in one of the precincts was and I've had many people come to our precinct who don't know where they should vote and um I'm thinking I originally thought that having this in a central place is a good idea because most people should know where the high school is if they don't I think we can publish an old-fashioned map early on and put it every place and um my other idea is this is all going to be key to help transportation help because people normally get to their polls by car or not or walk as you say and I think if we had a transportation at every old precinct that would take people directly to the high school and back eventually might be a good answer to this and it's possible that other folks who work in all of that in odd places could find their way to one of the precincts where they could get a bus or something to go there so that's my my thought on the matter and that's it for now. Thank you Barbara. Adrian Terrizzi please unmute. There you go. Yes hello thank you thank you Lynn my name is Adrian Terrizzi and although I'm a resident of District 5 I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Amherst we have sent you a rather long statement but I will be very short tonight. Our main point was to ask for a postponement to a near date on a vote on this consolidation report. We feel that given all of all of the issues you've heard tonight that address the fact that details of this plan have not been communicated either in the proposal such as the health risks the potential impact on the communities around our neighborhoods the impact the adverse impact on voter access based on race national origin disability income or age of Amherst voters it's yet to be known in the details of this proposal and our thinking is that if you postpone and delay for a near date that the proposal can be better fleshed out to give residents the opportunity to both understand as well as to provide additional public input which you have allowed for tonight but residents of Amherst are typically accustomed to having a great deal of public input and at least some more time to consider the effects of this of this change so we understand that Amherst-like communities across the nation we face substantial challenges in preparing for the upcoming election in the midst of this pandemic and we're aware of the outbreaks in massachusetts and the the thought that's gone behind this proposal you're presenting tonight please consider delaying and postponing this vote until the issue is further worked out among you a conversation i've much enjoyed listening to tonight and that solutions and citizen input can be better fleshed out thank you for your time i'm so appreciative of it thank you adrian um we have a few more comments and then we do need to move on please uh john page please can you hear me yes this is john page 683 east pleasant street speaking as a resident we've heard a lot of critiques with the plan for polling places so i just wanted to raise some of the strategies we discussed in the what we called the post-election stakeholders round table immediately after the 2018 election um with margaret um i think at the end was there george as well um one of the things we discussed was infrastructure on campus and off for national elections we worked with mass perk and other advocacy orgs on campus for absentee voting and early voting um and i know that work is happening now with the expansion of mail-in votes um but we also worked with umass democrats and other volunteers to commit to ride sharing to the polls and even having a number you could call for a vote mobile to transport you there so one of the most important decisions that we came to in that round table was that with campus officials committing to this was the establishing polling places on campus for national elections as the default every two years because we struggled to build that infrastructure from scratch each time um so hopefully i'll become part of no normal operating procedure i i do realize that during these extraordinary circumstances there aren't as many good options i'm a practical person so i understand that the 2020 primary and general will not be a model for elections going forward but i still want to raise these ideas that we discussed back then a couple years ago now um so they're part of the conversation and i would be happily happy to help with organizing any of those initiatives as well as i'm sure league as atrin just spoke thank you very much jose can you come back in and make sure we can hear you thank you see me oyen yes and then the place when i know she's told us this uh kia solamente hablar un poco de um esta tema de de información pasando la de los de la gente de la comunidad a ver cómo van a votar cómo van a llegar ahí a su lugar y si no uh entienden la idioma de ingles but did y'all catch that how many of y'all caught that it's kind of confusing right you don't understand because you only speak english right well the point i'm trying to really make here is now we're talking about having confusion limited now we're going to be making changes we're going to be making changes in another language are we i don't know if we are we don't have an interpreter here a large percentage of the voice of the amherst voters is not being heard we're not being served and so i'll just leave that one there for you to consider and i'd like to go back to the um i went back and i did a a a little quick review of the uh amherst regional high school accessibility report that was released in february of uh 2019 and i don't know if any of this is done as i was kind of disappointed that uh mike morris had left uh the meeting but there are some issues in there that uh the site parking and interest issues the main lot lacks ban accessible space and lack signage at the head some of the designated accessible parking spaces the parking configuration is not compliant in some of the areas passenger loading zone is not striped and lack signage uh we're talking about walkways have excessive cross and running slopes and abrupt changes in the level those are those are real challenges to people with disabilities and then of course we also have the disability of people who are immune autoimmune compromised and we're trying to put them all into one big space no matter how we we we decide here as a community to to line everybody up to put everybody in the safe space we're putting a percentage of our population at risk and we're going to be confusing them if we don't have the appropriate language we're going to be giving them a disadvantage and we're going to sit there and silence that majority of that part of our of our community's voice and so I wanted to share that with you uh just as to continue with uh everyone else's comments about how it is better to serve our community and it would be if we have to change one location rather than change many and just forget uh that there's a lot of other people that might be uh involved in this okay thank you for your time thank you for your comment Jose uh Jonathan Seville hi everyone in my audible yes you are good thank you um thank you all for your time and your hard work um I understand the difficulty uh that the task really asks of you to resolve public health guidance and state guidance and I want to thank especially the clerk for their really hard and thoughtful work on this issue and I can hear in in everyone speaking uh for the most part um your best intentions um but I want to second and emphasize the concerns we've heard here tonight and and give you a little framing um from my field so as a special educator we talk about the difference between intent and impact um and sometimes even with the best of intentions the decisions we make that affect other people uh can have an impact on them that's negative um this is something I try to teach my students and my own children at home um because the positive intent put forward doesn't negate the negative impact that comes after right uh there's a really great podcast that just started coming out called nice white parents and it discusses in a school system in New York the way a group of really well intentioned um but also well resourced and very privileged parents interacted with this community um and and I think it it describes really well this relationship between intent and impact um I think you should use as your barometer for the impact the voices of the community that you are hearing I've discussed I've heard discussed several times that the huge number of responses that counselors got and the very clear message they got from the community um and I would like to shine a little light uh critically on on this sort of framing around well um it's hard to be a leader and sometimes we just have to trust the experts I think we've heard from experts here tonight uh experts on voting rights experts on disability experts on their own life um and they are telling you um this will harm me and the people that I care for um so I encourage you to put your vote to the 10th vote no for this proposal this evening thank you I don't want to take any more than is my time thank you for your comments Jonathan Lydia irons hello can you hear me yes you can so I just want to um give you all a second to take a deep breath and think about all of the things you've heard tonight you've heard from experts you've heard from your community and I am getting this very strange sense of deja vu of other town council meetings that I've been a part of where you have heard over and over and over again what your community was asking of you and you know what you dis appointed us heavily and wholeheartedly and you broke people's hearts so just sit with that for one second I'll take a deep breath of my two minutes so that you can sit in that discomfort knowing how disappointed your community was in you so I want to use the rest of my time to take you on a little journey because I'm not just someone who's been a part of these meetings but I'm also someone who has two small children and does use public transportation so I have two small children one of whom is too small to wear a mask the other one will wear their mask but it is hard for them and it is difficult and hot and it's hard for me to keep that mask on that child so I walk to my nearest bus just about a mile away I get on that bus and then I'm in a bus that is a small and enclosed place with my two children and myself and I'm on that bus for about 15 minutes before I get to the high school and then I have to take those children off that bus and walk to the high school and again be in a small enclosed place so I just want you to think about the people who have small children and do not have access to all of the amenities that you all might have access to and that other people in Amherst have access to because this is an accessibility issue shutting down polling places will mean that mothers like myself cannot vote and someone here on this call said that I've never had a problem voting by mail well then you've obviously never had issues keeping track of things in your house you've also never had things be lost in your house you've never had more than one person collecting your mail and I just feel like that is not listening to what people are saying vote by mail is an option for some but it is not an option for all especially those who live in apartment complexes where the mail is sorted and things get lost so please do not shut down my polling place because I won't be able to vote and that will be on all of you thank you for your comment going back to the town council and we I think we need to get a sense from the council as to whether or not you want to continue the discussion tonight and bring it to inclusion or go bring it further on discussion on the 10th but I do need to check with Paul and the town clerk as to what is required by when in order for us to set some dates certain Chevena are you still here so the deadline we have to make a decision is 20 days before an election to move a polling location so let me take a peek where that brings us I'm sorry I didn't hear that oh I'm sorry the decision the decision to move a polling location you have to vote the council would have to vote on it 20 days prior to an election and 20 calendar days correct correct that brings us to tonight okay and if the first election is on September 1st and we voted on tonight we meet that requirement if we delay till the 10th we do we still meet the requirement I am checking to I'm checking the the expanded legislation to see if the deadline change let me grab early voting not early voting sorry to hold people up but I think it's important that we understand what our deadlines are when I had down early voting August 22nd I wrote that in my date book early voting is done at a single location and so I guess the question you're asking is whether or not we have established that location I feel I believe we have you're pausing because Chavina is checking the recently my yes go ahead Chavina sorry my apologies my apologies for the delay I have I have so many I have so many of the MGLs printed so I wanted to let me just double check the deadline to see if it moved it does not appear that the year has been a change in the 20-day deadline and does that also include the question of early voting no because we are discussing changing our our regular polling location early voting um we we decide uh whatever location is ideal for early voting because that's just uh at a certain time it's not a permanent okay our regular polling locations are okay and am I correct that early voting at this point is scheduled to take place in the lobby at the bank center that is correct so um I'm looking at hands and I uh Dorothy okay I have a couple of points that are have not been yet made and I'm talking about COVID-19 and Dr. Deborah Berks saying that we are now entering a new phase and being a little vague but kind of scary about it and talking about the re-emergence of hot spots so therefore every time I hear about ride sharing I say gee I'm not allowed to even have my grandchildren in my car um or to go into their house I would not offer the a ride to somebody else uh in case I were positive or they were positive so the old ways of ride sharing I don't think that's going to work I also share uh Lydia's worry about the bus um I raised my kids without a car for the first um 12 years and I know what it's like to be taking them with you everywhere you go but on a bus now with COVID-19 I wouldn't do that um I think um the other area of COVID-19 that I'm very concerned about is the workers at the polling places particularly at the high school the the we keep learning more about this terrible disease but one thing seems to come clear that it's the intensity and the length of the exposure which seems to determine the severity of the illness and the polling workers our poll workers or the wardens are going to be in that high school for a long time with lots of people coming and going I just see it as as what they like to call a petri dish I mean I was for the idea for for the reasons that you the program was put together when it was first presented it made sense to me but upon further reflection it does not make sense to me and I think that wherever it is if there's any kind of concentration of people the shifts must be shorter for the poll workers even if they're young poll workers because young people are now getting it so the only positive thing that I come up with from our discussion is keep the polling places that work add new ones as makes sense um and really increase early voting um and if early voting can be done without having to have the specific precincts then you can make a couple of early voting places north center and south of Amherst and I think a lot of people will be very happy to vote in those circumstances and we can avoid crowds lines indoor air I just think of the air in that high school near the end of the day it would just have so many germs in it it would be rather terrifying so I hope we can work something out and I think if we could work something out sooner rather than later it would be better Andy you have your hand up yes I appreciate all of the comments from all the people we heard from today I end up with two things that I think about a lot though one is that um we've talked about the importance of people being able to know where to go to vote that that knowledge um inconsistency and therefore consistency is important and so it would seem that what we established for the primary election to have consistency carrying over to the general election when we have um predictions of even greater turnout seems to be particularly important which then gets back to this I'm sorry that we I couldn't ask questions of Dr. Morris when he was with us um but the question for me is not just what can be done in September for the primary and elementary schools you know not just being cracker farm because I think you spoke you spoke very clearly and strongly about cracker farm and why it's not an acceptable location for their purposes but to hear a little bit more about what the plans are for the other two elementary schools when it comes to the November election because if they have educational uses planned for the gymnasium then to think that we can plan with certainty to have elections in those gymnasiums come November um I I'm just not certain and that's why it would have been helpful to be able to have that discussion with them beforehand um if they are trying to move classrooms into those spaces it will be very difficult to do that um and the question also is had the number of days they have to close schools because in the end the we built school buildings for a purpose and the purpose is not to vote the purpose is to educate our children and that's the highest and most important use of those buildings um so that sort of gets me then to the final point that I just wanted to make which was um sort of my reaction to what Kathy has proposed earlier and I if we end up reducing the number of polling places but trying to maintain polling places in multiple locations to the extent possible and if that's where the council is a group is we as a group decide to go I would encourage us to still look for the fact for the question of consistency between the two elections and making sure the elementary schools are used for the purposes that we have elementary schools and the benefit of having some people voting at the high school but would be at least it provides some test to that so I think with that I will leave it and let another member of the council comment listen I just want to make sure we emphasize that if you don't want to ride the bus to the high school you can still ride the bus or walk if it works for you to early voting in downtown Amherst which at this point we believe is going to be at bangs and I just want to clarify that there are a lot of things we don't know and there are some things we do know I know that the town council doesn't get to decide where early voting is so why people are making up ideas as to how they're going to decide where that is is not helpful I know that it's not legal in Massachusetts to decide to vote it whatever precinct you want to vote at so when you combine those kind of wouldn't these be cool ideas with your rationale for why this is such a bad idea it's really hard for me to sort the wheat from the chaff there um town council doesn't decide where early voting is the town clerk decides that town council is providing that early voting is available vote by mail is available I understand that vote by mail is a new thing for us but to say that it's going to work exactly the same place it worked other places I'm not comfortable with my final concern is that I think we should make the decision tonight whatever it is and move on with educating people I don't believe we're going to gain additional information between now and next week and we're just going to lose a week in publicizing whatever the plan is I'd like to start public segments in the plan now Andy Joe I agree with Alyssa that we need to decide tonight one week delay is one more week we don't have to educate residents on where they need to vote and we know at least some people are moving so you know I read Kathy's motion it doesn't even declare where two of those precincts would be voting we need to decide that so we'd have to figure that out tonight and I'm not saying that that's not possible I am seriously concerned that the school committee will tell dr morris not to allow voting at cracker farm fort river and wildwood especially for november but if not also for september because while the students might not be in the building in september on september 1 the educators will be and if they're putting classrooms in those buildings they're going to be moving those classrooms in and they're going to have to figure out how to educate in those locations in those buildings and I am seriously concerned that we're not even going to have any of the schools available if not in september not in november because we can't tell the superintendent we can't even if we want them there we can't say open up your building um you know and so I munson is really tiny um I'm not sure I've heard from our town clerk that that is actually a viable location with social distancing um you know I voted there for now a year and when you take out and make the six foot distances the where where the line is everyone's waiting outside anyway because of how that line works if you even get five voting booths in there um you know it sounds like north amazon fire station wouldn't even be open we're not looking at potentially just three locations changing we're looking at potentially six of the eight changing if we don't have either of any of the schools or bang center for two of the three I guess it would be five of the eight but not seven of the ten precincts changing we're between a rock and a hard place this is not an easy decision but um you know I think the ease of saying everyone is at the high school and the space the high school allows will give some measure of knowledge and certainty to all of our residents and this is not where I was 12 hours ago or eight hours ago um but I think it's the best we can offer right now with 27 days until people vote at these locations um I think you know just like the school committee doesn't have anything any good options for schooling this year we got no good options here um and I think we need to pick the best of what's presented and I think that's at this point the high school for everyone Sarah so I can see the the fact that it would be hard to try to find other polling places um and that you know although Paul the time manager said in the beginning if we wanted to try to keep as many as we could we can find a way um um I think we have to find a way to have as many polling places open as we can and I will I'm gonna tell you from the things that I heard from people in my precinct and I'm gonna tell you from my own experience two kids with autism uh you could try to take kids into a restaurant with autism and I tell you how people are gonna react with that um not well people it's it's hard I raised my kids I mean I walked everywhere and my kids were attached to me because I didn't have someone to watch them that's not unusual um and autoimmune disease runs in my family I my mom had lupus and a heart transplant if I had to try to get my kids and my mom my mom could not get into a restaurant if she even with a walker if she had to walk a quarter of a mile I think the things that people are bringing up are very very real and maybe they're not real to all of us or it seems like it's simplistic but it is real and I I think that we have to work a little bit harder and and try to keep I mean even if you say to me you know well maybe only four could be open four is better than one and I think we need to try I'm ready to vote tonight and I think we need to try to keep as many places the same and open that's it. Melanie yeah we've heard from so many residents and we've heard from experts we've heard from doctors today and it seems like even if you have to work extra hard to make this happen we need to do it and one thing I would say is that I would go for the consistency between the primaries and general elections because yeah I mean and I do agree we should have the reports still to figure out what would the gaps so we can address them and do a better job of but making sure that we reach more people or whatever the problems were so we should do a report after the primaries but but we should still stick with the same and just the marketing cost and getting the message out is going to be really hard if it's two different places but I am totally for after hearing so many people and their challenges with people with disabilities and then so forth so anyway I think if we need to stay all night and figure this out game on. Kathy when I when I wrote the motion Lynn emailed me later that there wasn't a possibility that the high school could be an option for everybody that we have to have specific places move to the high school so Mandy's correct I didn't name which banks center of the three would move so I'm looking at the map and it looks like five and ten are closer to the high school and four is closer to bang so if I had to pick one to still go to bank you know I do it based on that because I'm focused on making you a it possible to walk to your polling site and keep your own if we literally can't use the fire station so I'm going through is it the fire station to it banks go to the high school the fire station and if Crocker as of November cannot be used then Crocker I heard Mike and we could verify and say that he can make the gyms work at Wildwood and Fort River will take some working and decontamination but he couldn't he didn't say absolutely not so I think I'm counting two precincts from bang move to the high school the fire station moves to the high school and Crocker moves to the high school and I originally wrote it that we make that decision for September and revisit I can understand the argument that we want to keep it the same for November but learn what happened because we need to we're not going to need to have a lot of information for that point including did the mail work did people vote by mail because you know we're going to we're going to know what kind of crowds we got where or didn't get crowds and so so I'm so I'm amending my motion to say with these exceptions and and name the two from bangs that would move fire and Crocker but I'm sticking with not one not so that that I will be voting against the consolidating everything to one so I don't know how to I mean if people want to move to that's I think emerging as the other option and Andy said he'd love a better answer on the two other schools but what I heard about the Zion church and the Lutheran church is those are feasible we have to rent them and we're going to have to decontaminate them but they are there and they are a close walk up up here design church there's riverside apartments there's mill hollow apartments people can walk and then the last thing I didn't make enough of the UMass decision as I understand that UMass doesn't want us to come on campus I'm wondering whether Paul with all your eloquence I'm getting the chancellor to listen couldn't say suppose UMass staffs an early polling place at UMass what we heard is students students will go local if if they don't know and that can we get them to staff it and police it the they have an entrance and an exit a perfect place to do early voting I voted early last year last time that was available because it was so easy so I think UMass is a real issue we can't go on campus and we don't want them coming off campus so we've got a whoa wait a minute does that mean you know and they're not going to be back in time to register for for September they may be back in time for for mail they'll be back in time to register mail for November so maybe we can get everyone so I just urge that we don't give up on a possible UMass and one a letter of can the chancellor rise to the civic duty of making voting possible on campus if we can't make it happen could the higher ups at UMass so I'm just saying that as a side because I had several people call me about UMass and not not leaving them out so I'm amending my thing where I just said the two places from bangs would move because it sounded like we have a I'm not totally sure on the fire station you couldn't decontaminate a cement floor if we're in a bay but if we just can't then then move that one so that we're trying to provide an alternative to keep as many as possible Kathy in order for us to actually have the motion I'm trying to figure out how we can I can I can type it into mine and show it on the screen I mean I just you know I guess Lynn do you want to there are it seems like there's many voices asking for more than one there are some happy with one and I like to make a motion I think the issue is getting the motion clear and make sure that it is consistent with the kind of motion that was put forward and we have two different motions one is the little locations and the other one is the actual warrant and part of me wants to say we're going to pause for this come back and vote before the evening's out uh and see whether or not we have um we can we can also try the vote that's already on the that's already on the motion sheet and if it fails then we come back with another one so um I'm let's let's go with the vote that's on the motion sheet and if it fails before the end of the evening we'll come back with another vote okay so George are you willing to I am ready to put into motion the motion that is on the motion sheet which is to locate in person voting on September 1 2020 and November 3 2020 for all 10 voting precincts at Amherst Pelham Regional High School 21 Mattoon Street as this will have no disparate adverse impact on access to the polls on the basis of race national origin disability income for age is there a second Mandy seconds okay just can I make just one comment on that the positive statement that that this will have no disparate impact we can't make that statement we're hoping but we can't say that you know even if you want to vote for consolidating we can't say it will have no disparate it's I believe the law requires us to say this I believe that it's required of us to say this because if we can't say it then we can't do it well we can't we cannot say that the evidence is that it could likely have a disparate impact so I've looked at that that it will not is such a we know for sure it will not um anyway I just want to point that out to those of you who want to vote for this motion so it's not there because I have absolute certainty it's there because the law requires us to put it there does the motion include the word this change should be permanent as the as the written thing came to us it does not I should not say that did I say that that's what I'm asking you I'm asking you if it's said well you're listening I read the motion so it changes again if you like okay that's good it changed I include that the it would be permanent it only is for select the election on September 1 and November 3 we begin with any further discussion Alyssa we also can't say that retaining the current polling places does not have a disparate effect we already know that we have pockets of town that don't vote now at our current polling places for many of the same reasons so it would not be factual to say that leaving it the way it is does not have that impact and since there is no such thing as leaving it the way it is literally even if we change one thing we have to give a report that says it does not have a disparate impact and so even if you only change one polling place you're going to have to say that and of course none of it's factual so it's just the best we can come up with as George said it's the law I also want to create two previous misstatements of fact students are in fact back in time for voter registration for the primary as is clearly stated on the town website the primary the voter registration for the primary is august 22nd classes start the 24th obviously they're back in time we've been talking about them coming for weeks the other point is you can talk a really nice game about how UMass should be wanting to provide this what I would say is that UMass should be wanting their students to vote UMass should not be wanting to provide this because UMass can't bar me from showing up on campus to vote I didn't sign the agreement about covid they can't make it a private polling place only for people who signed the agreement that's illegal so please stop offering up things that are not legal to do in in order to comply with your intentions I will be voting in favor of the motion as stated Kathy Shane give your hand up I'll take I'm taking it down and Andy Joe you have your hand up I just want to also mention whether this if this fails and Kathy's motion goes on the table Kathy's motion must also include the phrase as this will now have no disparate adverse impact on access to the polls on the basis of race national origin disability income or age because anytime we vote to change polling locations we must make that determination so Kathy's motion is a motion her intended motion if this one fails is a motion to change the polling location of four polling places four polling precincts and we would have to make a determination for that one too that it will have no disparate adverse impact on access to the polls on the basis of race national origin disability income or age and one of those that she just proposed was Cropper Farm up to the high school which we've heard from many people in South Amherst would have some sort of disparate impact if it has it for our for this motion here then it has it for Kathy's motion too um so we can't have it both ways is my point uh moving to the high school either has a disparate impact on those four locations that Kathy proposed or it doesn't and if it doesn't it doesn't have it for this motion and it doesn't have it for what Kathy would like to propose but if it does have it for this one it also has it for the one Kathy wants to propose as I said we're in a rock and a hard cry between a rock and a hard place but I'm going to vote for this one because I think is the least bad option here. Andy. I'm still stuck on the question about the elementary school and I want to come back to the email that you sent to the council earlier today which I believe I can now reference to and I maybe Paul or Shaveena need to respond to this but one of the bullets that you included was the school committee has asked us not to use the elementary schools because of cross contamination that includes three additional sites um and that was of course in precluding three additional sites they have uh to close the school for the election and then for a few days after the election to decontaminate and their plans are reopening including use of gyms for classrooms which is where the polls are located. If that is information and is pertainable to the November election I think that we need to know the answer to that because that's critical to a lot of our thinking about what is possible and if and if we're going to vote tonight we need to do the best we can with available information to us it knocks out three locations that are very important locations but it is the reality.  Yes thank you so I did ask Mike that question are you using gyms for classrooms he says not for core classrooms but yes for special ed um and so that was his answer to that question Andy. Does that answer all your question Andy? Well it's hard to tell because I don't know what special education uh whether it's something that gets set up and is for continuous use or whether it's down I just don't know the answer to that Paul. So frankly I don't think they really know Andy because they haven't voted on a plan and I think everything's in flux so we're just making the best decision we can um and that they'll be voting tomorrow night. I understand and and the statement that I made was based on the best information we have at the moment it is totally in flux Dorothy. Okay um this is a question I that perhaps Paul and Chavina can answer is it not possible to use some private places I mean for example a bank or Amherst works a former bank I could see Amherst works being a very fine polling place centrally located. So a polling location has to be a public location and it has to have the accessibility and the private location if that's what you're referring to would have to say yes to allow us to use your location and so we're just at a shortage of locations in town but it might be a good place I'm trying to remember the entrance whether it's successful or not oh there's just Bob said there's a side entrance to Amherst works oh yes okay it might be a very good place. Thank you um Shalini? I had a question for Paul or whoever can we with respect to schools I heard that one of the issues is in cleaning the place for and making it ready for students and if you could get over you know get staff to do that I mean should be doable but I don't know what the challenges are in that and the comment and I wanted to make a comment about you know if you had to about will it have a disparate adverse impact on access to the polls between the two options here based on what we're hearing I mean obviously we don't know I in either case but if I had to choose one where I feel more confidence it would be with the option of giving more polling options based on all the people we've heard and experts and doctors and people with disabilities and kids and so forth and they all are favoring that they will come and vote if there are multiple and closer polling locations so I would feel more comfortable making that statement but this will have no disparate adverse effect if you go with more polling options than one.  Yeah just just to answer that question we will whatever is required in terms of industrial cleaning the town would take care of that we'd be responsible for that well with COVID money pay for that we could use to COVID money to do that yes that's useful to know but it does but Paul but Dr. Morris did say that in Crocker Farm they would have to close for a couple days afterwards to completely clean the school because you had to go through the school to get to the polling place. The November election is a bigger challenge for them than the September election because students don't come back until mid-September under the current plan that they're looking at now but staff are back on August 31st. And the same thing is true for Fort River and Wildwood but in those cases only the gyms would be used and they're accessible from the outside so only the gym would have to go through the deep cleaning. Dave Schreiber. Yeah so this is Amherst and we're going to get conflicting information about everything so for example the discussion about accessibility that exact same discussion can be made for you know whether or not the high school is accessible that exact same analysis can put pretty much every polling place out of business if we really took that kind of you know analysis on the slopes and the location of typical handicap parking so I'm I'm still there's a huge body of voters in Amherst that we actually have not heard from but we've certainly talked about and that are the students so I've lost track of how many precincts are actually crisscross the actual UMass campus but it's a substantial number I know that um for the five districts cover part of the UMass property so that's where the voter confusion is which is something that I talked about earlier one of the speakers Barbara Ford mentioned the confused voters that come which is working I think she said when she's working at the polls so honest that's the group that I'm concerned about are not the the voters that who are really paying attention which are us and the lots of people that are speaking to us but people that are new to town are people that aren't engaged in this process so those are the ones that are operating sort of outside of this knowledge base you know the ones that will become the most disenfranchised because if we console I'm totally convinced that if we consolidate all the precincts into one bill we will be helping that group of voters who are would otherwise be confused so I'm voting yes there you have your hand so it seems to me that people in town generally figure out which precinct that they go to and if they want to ask someone they usually ask a neighbor they usually ask someone who's in their precinct this is where people know where to get to this is where people can walk to I cannot stress to you enough that there are a majority of people that are disabled or of autoimmune or have little kids or don't for real don't have a car and the thought of seriously do you would you want to bring your young kids or would you want to have an autoimmune disease and be on a bus for however long I think that we keep open as many places as we can as far as the schools go how many days did we lose last year to COVID if the worst case scenario is that we lose two or three days while things are deep clean then we lose two or three days of school to deep cleaning I think that confusion is going to be a lot greater for real if you have 100% of the people now not knowing where to go and also people cannot get there I can't stress that enough you have local polling places so that people can walk and can get there that's the importance of it that's why we've always had it that's why and this is this is a huge election we're not talking just about governors or town counselors we're talking about the president of the United States um Shalini and adding to what Sarah just said this is COVID and we prefer and the more people can walk it's so much safer than having people go and bus public transportation and all of that so the more we can disperse crowds the more we can allow people to reach places it seems like that's more I mean even if I didn't hear from anyone that just seems more logical but the fact that we've heard from experts and doctors and all the people to me is like we need to make this work somehow that's how I feel okay so the motion on the floor is to locate in-person voting on September 1, 2020 and November 3, 2020 for all 10 voting precincts at Amherst Pellum Regional High School 21 Mattoon Street as this would will have no disparate adverse impact on access to the polls on the basis of race national origin disability income or age it's been made and seconded and we'll start with Mandy Jo yes Dorothy Pam no Evan Ross yes George Ryan yes Kathy Shane no Steve Schreiber yes Andy Steinberg yes Sarah Schwartz no Shalini Balmille no Alyssa Brewer yes Pat D'Angelo's no Garcy Monk no and Lynn Griezmer I've been here before I'm actually going to vote now I am feeling very very torn by all of this and I would like to see a something that allows us to keep as many of our polling places as possible and move the rest of the high school I'm feeling very very torn Lynn yeah I have a I guess it's a point of order or a question this might be for the town clerk the town report that we had to file three days before voting to change a location had the location changes for the high school for all the precincts do we need to file a new report three days before we vote to change to any for any other changes yes so that means we cannot vote tonight on any other option am I correct in that you know since we file I'm reading it I'm rereading it now what was the vote by the way seven to six seven seven seven people voted against and six people voted for should build a new change or the new change would require a new report because the new report would be on the changes to the new location and that the new location wouldn't have a disparate effect on those groups right Pat D'Angelo's you have your hand up yeah I was just going to say it seems to me in a sense we can't vote on a new amendment that it would be good for the town clerk Shyvana to move ahead with investigating what she feels are the best options with the other places that we've talked about and that would give us time to then vote on or not I mean we have we've I'm not sure exactly how this works because we denied the motion to move everything to the high school but but we can't vote tonight to accept Kathy's proposition or amended or anything but if Shyvana is working on it in the meantime and then we set up the vote for when we need to have it I think that would be very valuable I will have to call the Secretary of State tomorrow to get direction because tomorrow honestly is the deadline for any polling location to be changed tomorrow is the 20-day deadline so I will have to call Michelle Tassimiere to get direction wait a minute that's new information yeah it's not 20 days from September 1st it is 20 calendar days oh yes with that question was raised in the beginning of the Shyvana please tell us again what you just said yes so in order to make a polling location change it has to be voted on 20 days before an election and when you asked me that earlier I said we had to you had to vote tonight on the change because the September 1st election brings us right to this week yep it's not 20 days it's not 20 days so I'm just not understanding the math 20 calendar days well it brings us to tomorrow tomorrow is 20 calendar days what no calendar 20 business days is she mean business days no 20 calendar days well 20 calendars days from today is uh the tomorrow no is the 20 is it 20 calendar days before the registration deadline no it's 20 calendar days before the election and the election is September 1st but but if we did it on the 10th that is 20 days before September 1st on my not 20 calendar days do not I think you mean work days I think you mean work days well that's I think what we're asking is it a Monday through Friday or is it yes but that's not a calendar day that's a business day the day is a day on the calendar because I just read the thing and it did say calendar days so I I just have to find that um so there is clearly a difference between is it Monday through Friday or Sunday through Saturday it's Monday through Friday Lynn yes can I make a motion to reconsider the last vote yes I moved to reconsider the last vote under all our council rules eight seven point six allow any counselor to make that motion second I think and who made the second seven point sorry seven point five b motions from the non-privileged side any counselor voting with the non-privileged side may move for reconsideration when such motions accompanied by submission of new additional information which is that we only have till tomorrow to decide and I seconded Steve you seconded thank you is there any further conversation yes I don't believe that a calendar day is the same as a business day I don't believe it so I'm trying to look it up on the on the uh computer on my phone okay because calendar day mgl excuse me what are calendar days every month contains 30 to 31 calendar days so a calendar day is a day on the calendar it is not a business day Monday through Friday so we have time excuse me Shaveena I'm going to provide you with the mgl citation one moment and yeah but I'll be with you in a moment the mgl is mgl 54 section 24 and what does it say it says the the alderman in cities except where city charters provide otherwise and the selection of towns divided into voting precinct shall 20 days at least before the biennial state or annual or biennial city election in 10 days at least before any special election of a state or city officer there and designate the polling place for each voting precinct and cause it to be suitably fitted up and prepared therefore it says that's 20 days it doesn't define day we have fine days it's I look it up on the internet and you'll see our favorite you just told me I need you point of order actually use the raise hand feature and not just shout out thank you and leave your hand up yes I wish that we had time to research this I don't know if Mandy knows the answer to this either but it seems to me that when I have dealt with the statutory deadlines in Massachusetts that the number that how you count days depends upon the number of days before a deadline and that for a shorter period of time you do you do not count week and days and for a longer period of time weekend days are included but we'd have to find that statutory rule it's not just something we can make up there is I think a statutory rule about how you count deadlines maybe Joe I can see her looking carefully at something Sarah go ahead so I just want to say with all due respect because everybody's been working so hard and I have not been here for 30 days so to all of you who have been working so very hard I just have to respectfully say though I it upsets me when this is such a big deal that we would actually come to vote on this without actually having an option because if that if we had to if we basically just had to vote yes tonight because we had no other option that's not a vote and that's upsetting so but I say that with all due respect because things have been really hard and I get it I didn't realize my hand was up but now that it is up I agree with Sarah that is there a way for us to meet as many counselors that can meet tomorrow and do this because it feels like we're doing this under like time pressure and it's not the right thing we're clearly hearing it from our community and this is like really diverse groups of people coming to us and it just does not feel right so if there is a way we can find an exception like the calendar just the definition of calendar could that be used to say that we are defining calendar to include Saturday and Sunday and get away with it but we're looking for the legal definition let's just wait off wait on that one Evan Ross you have your hand up this was actually in response to something earlier but I think it this obviously is getting very very difficult for all of us I understand Sarah's frustration I think part of it is that when this was presented to us on the 30th this council unanimously said yeah sure this sounds like a good idea let's go with that so the reason we weren't presented with many options is because we informed the the the town clerk to move ahead with this and to prepare before and so I'm not going to fall hard for not giving us options tonight because we all said yeah let's go for it one thing I did want to just push back on actually it was Pat's point of giving Chavina some time to investigate some of the other options we put out there you know Chavina she put a lot of work into this proposal it was well considered it was well researched she talked to the right people and if we're not going to move forward with it I think it's on us to come up with the solution because I don't want to send back to her and say we don't like that bring us another one and who knows if we'll shoot it down or not and so if we aren't moving forward with that regardless of what these deadlines mean regardless of the report is I don't want to leave here tonight if we're not moving forward with the consolidated plan without giving the town clerk guidance about where we want the polling places to be and she can come back and say that's not going to work but I don't want to say to her hey we know you did all that hard work we didn't like it so do another thing that maybe will reject I'm not willing to do that because she has put in a lot of hard work and when she last talked to us we said this looks great and now we're coming back to her and saying eh try again and I'm not willing to do that uh and waste her time again thanks Evan uh Kathy Kathy just so I understand if we vote down the consolidation tonight and we don't think we can meet again to talk about an alternative for the primary everything would stay the same nothing would change because we wouldn't have put out any motors we could right we can do that but go ahead okay so but that's if if we can't you know if we don't have an if Mandy's point is we can't come up with an alternative right now I rewrote my thing to have four precincts moved to the high school but if we can't do that tonight because we have to have a memo that explains it and we can't have a memo tonight so we can't do that tonight we're all willing to do it tonight um this is we we're in a box if we do nothing nothing changes we could change it for November 3rd I mean we have more than 20 days before November 3rd so I just want to we're not in a we can't make a change but um and and yes we heard on July 20th a proposal to consolidate everything I don't know why we didn't hear it earlier because I do feel that this time pressure um and trying to think it through is what hit everyone and if you remember July 20th was the budget and if you don't think we were on under we were hearing a lot about the budget and it's still reverberating so I think some of us and I will say I'm one of them I was asleep at the wheel I did not think oh my gosh what are we doing all I raised was transportation issues um but but the the number of people um Sarah can talk about what happens in precinct one we walk people walk from all all you know and the student housing up here I know you don't Alyssa because you're I'm just saying there's a huge number of people in some of these precincts that walk not that everybody can walk I don't do I think the lines make sense absolutely not but that's going to be a larger discussion why one side of the street goes one place and the other side the street goes another this is we you know it's kind of like why well that's the way it is um for for precinct one and three particularly but even when you but I just think if we do nothing tonight if the thing fails then we are every current polling site is in place and then we have a problem with bangs is the only one I've heard it we literally have a problem with bangs because of space constraints inside and Andy had asked me uh whether banks could hold two precincts but not three you know whether there are two floors where we could have one entering and one different so if we physically can't do three there then we've got a problem with bangs but but we're in if 20 days is not 20 calendar days and Mandy says we can't have this report with a different thing I mean I could write rewrite the whole report but it's it's going to be a lot of rewriting because it was rewritten around why going to one place made sense it it needs a major rewrite but we're talking about I counted it up it's two two two current users of bangs move the fire station and then crockers an open question of could it be closed for a couple more days for a deep clean and we use still use crocker for crocker that seems to be a possibility with three days of of less of people in that building so it's not an impossible thing to do for both September and November so I just want to it's not that we have no options if we do nothing tonight everything stays the same and then we have to come back and say do we want to change November I'm done you had a comment was that me did you say me all actually trying to check with our town attorney Mandy Joe do you have any further clarification I can't give legal advice I think it's the town attorney that needs to do it a cursory search has not found a definition of competition of time in the MGLs Steve so just there is a motion and a second on the floor to to vote to reconsider on the basis that we don't know what the definition of days is and the best information we have is that tomorrow's our deadline so I think that's pretty important so if that turns out not to be the case and we find that out then we can hold another meeting a week from today and reconsider that vote but I'm much more comfortable moving through this reconsideration vote to see if we have a majority that want to do that and then re-voting on but basically re-voting on the issue okay there is a motion on the floor it's been made and seconded it's to reconsider shall any I just want to be clear that just because we are now reached a different position of voting does not mean we don't respect the work that the town clerk did in this report I think one of our jobs as district councillors is to reach out to our districts and we did that and we heard from our residents and we heard overwhelmingly from diverse groups of people and that's what's changing our opinion it has nothing to do with the town clerk's effort and I do realize that she's put in a lot of effort and we appreciate that completely but I think that yeah that's all George Ryan one more time the town clerk has told us we have 20 days it's just a town clerk banks we have to move the north fire station is out shut down can't be used it's two at least the school superintendent has begged us basically not to use crocker but some of us at least are open to shutting the school down for a couple days just so we can use it again for what it was never built for in the first place leaving aside for a moment the other two schools that many people have expressed concerns for a long time about being used as polling places and now in the age of COVID-19 we're going to send countless numbers in there even though we know many don't want it so yes there are a lot of voices to listen to some have been here tonight but there are lots of other voices we've heard from from a long time and they're also voices of expertise like the school superintendent the town clerk they seem to have some weight too this is not an easy decision it's not the best decision by any means but it seems to me it's the only one we really have well you have your hand up I'm hoping you might have information I don't have information I hesitate to wait wait in on this because it's going to be my opinion we're so it's not a legal opinion so I don't know if that's appropriate or not go ahead so I think that if you if you the question is could we take a vote could the council take a vote tonight and the reason the sense you might not be able to take a vote on say the modified proposal was that there isn't a report three days prior to that now you could say that the report that was prepared it was larger and you're modifying it down so you have done the you know the broader broadest way you would have the most radical thing you could have done and you're going to broaden it you're going to narrow it down so you could could argue that this that modified vote could suffice we don't know that uh town attorney probably asleep not answering texts but um the if you vote that then you could if that's if we find out tomorrow that that's through the secretary of state's office that's not legal then we'd have to come back and visit it again but but recognizing there is a motion for reconsideration on the floor I guess Paul I'm trying to figure out what you were suggesting that we could vote a modified something so the the we if the sense of urgency is that the 20 days expires tomorrow and that you can't vote tonight because there hasn't been a report done three days prior um if either of those things is not accurate then you have time but we don't know so what is the best scenario forward I would actually so I say take an action tonight um the modified thing or reconsider there's a motion on the floor to reconsider yeah and um if there are any other comments Dorothy you need to unmute Dorothy you're still not unmuted Dorothy okay I just have them having a very Orwellian feeling that words are being defined in ways that I don't know we have a vote and then because some people don't like the vote then we have a motion to reconsider um I'm feeling pretty unhappy about that I think we heard a lot of things we heard from many a big cross-section we have an idea of how we can do things I don't want to be part of creating a COVID catastrophe and this election is big and it's huge there's going to be so many people I really don't want to be part of having made that or helped that happen so I hope that I would agree that we can do as Paul suggests and say that we had a larger very dramatic proposal we have then been reducing that it's a modified proposal and that we could go ahead and vote to stick with the vote that we had tonight that gives time for the town clerk and the schools and whatever to come up with a new plan and that could include as I said before checking some private places as well I just don't I think we've got the talent we've got the energy to do it and I think that they can come up with a great plan that would reflect what we have been saying here tonight and I hope we do listen so just a couple quick things yes it's absolutely ridiculous that we don't know how computation of time works for that particular MGL that's that's just bad yep that we don't know if it's calendar days or business days that's just a fact but we don't know it and it's too late to call anybody to ask them Manny Joe knows how it works in our charter and we know how it works in our bylaws because we've specified that but different MGLs actually have different ways of computing time so there is no standard so it doesn't matter what you googled or what matters is what the state says the interpretation is and it could even be that different levels of the secretary of state's office won't even agree on what it is so now we're stuck we're in this box right that we don't know what we can do I disagree with Paul I'm sure that will shock him in that the report actually isn't can't just be modified the report's not something that we can just modify into something else not that I agree with because one of the reasons I'm saying it's not a disparate impact is because we were moving everyone when we're only moving some of the people which in fact we are going to do there is no such thing as a default to the way it is now we are going to move some of the people and I can't I don't see a case I have not had seen a case made that that will not have a disparate impact on certain parts of town to move some people and not other people we might be moving some of the most vulnerable populations to a different location but leaving all the people who are used to being able to drive their car or walk leaving them alone so that to me is the very definition of a disparate impact so I can't say that the report could be used that way and let's remember as we keep saying we can't default to normal unless you're going to say sorry Chief Nelson we're opening the fire station so if if if the calendar computation is I mean whatever you want to call it the computation of days that Shireen is working under is today then that means the default is our current locations therefore we are going to open every single thing we have you we can't change that if that's true and so if we don't control use of the schools it doesn't matter really what Mike thinks now versus what Mike thinks two weeks from now he can decide at any moment that we can't use the schools Paul can't make him let us use the schools so we are in a really difficult place here and just exploring more doesn't answer what's going to be available to us on September and November Shavina did the best she could to define the places she thought would be used in September and November we can't control we can't say oh the school committee can just close down the school for three days to clean it's not our choice we don't get that option but we've put ourselves in that box if we let it default I agree that if we can find out tomorrow we can change it then we should nothing okay in the long report that we were given there is a paragraph on an act relative to voting options in response to COVID-19 section 11 the first sentence says notwithstanding section 24 of chapter 54 of the general laws or any other general law to the contractor then it goes on to say at least 20 days prior to the date of the primary election um it's a very it's a notwithstanding and and I'm reading the early voting it's seven days before the election and the seven is a computation based on September 1st it's not 10 days before it's seven days you know it's it's the way we would define it rather than business days so I think 20 days is in fact calendar days now I know that doesn't leave us with this but I I don't think you can read this any other way because it's notwithstanding and we can't get an attorney thing but we've never had a section 11 an act relative to the voting options in response to COVID-19 before this is brand new enacted and this has the same pieces that the three days prior to changing the polling place you have to make publicly available on the website at the office as a law report on its evaluation and so I also think the report that I read I can't accept that report in several sections and several sentences so you know whether or not I believe in consolidation I so I think the report has to be rewritten anyway to argue but I just think 20 days is in fact 20 calendar days reading this notwithstanding section 11 um and we're in the new horrendous world created for us by COVID which um and so that's that's all I can say is I mean I think we do have time if we want to take it Felony yeah and we just received an email that sent that we have several cases so I just like to cite one of them just pair versus spell 21 massachusetts 354 1826 which says after a time period is longer than one week sundays are counted unless they are expressly excluded could we just use that as the basis for our decision tonight thank you to the person who sent us the email the problem we have with um using that is it's not our town attorney and I I received the same email and appreciate the information provided um that it would be better if we had our own town attorney give an interpretation or frankly we had somebody who could look at this law and tell us what it is the way it was meant Dorothy Pam there's a new emergency amendment 22 has changed to h 4768 oh bob it just went off okay um it's about um COVID it's notwithstanding section 24 of chapter 54 of the general laws or any other general specific law to the contrary select board board of select man town council city council may vote to change any polling place to be used at the primary election or general election at least 15 days prior to the day of the primary election or general election if it is determined that the public convenience or public health would be better served with the select board board of select man town council city council determines that the public convenience or public health would be better served they may house all polling place in a single place the municipality if such a building is suitable so it says you can do this you can do that you can make your changes according to public health 15 days so we're getting all kinds of things all right there's a motion on the floor to reconsider it's been made and seconded i'm going to call the question we start with pan no ross yes ryan yes yes chain no fiber yes steinberg yes shorts no all male no rower yes the angeles no demont grease firm i'm going with a yes hannocky yes it's seven four and six against worst vote i think any of us have ever had to take because there's no good solution absolutely none and if we waited for another 40 minutes we'd be in tomorrow so um we still have several items on our agenda i'd like to check to see whether or not some of them can be delayed i think we need to vote i have a point of order um and actually i think that he just made that point of we voted to reconsider but we haven't re-voted great great okay okay thank you steinberg thank you so now we are voting to reconsider and um we're back to the original motion and that's to locate in-person voting on september 1st 2020 november 30th 2020 for all 10 voting precincts at amherst column regional high school 21 mattoon street as this will have no disparate adverse impact on access to the polls on the basis of race mesh origin disability income or age and we'll start with ross yes ryan yes shane no shriver yes steinberg yes forts no all known no brewer yes the angeles no uman no rissmer is yes anarchy yes so it's seven to five six the dorthy needs to vote no i'm sorry dorthy i did i miss you yes okay it's seven to six pat yes i'm going to make a suggestion not about um this vote we have a very intense agenda i would like to um move that we have an additional council meeting on the 10th so that we can complete this agenda but that we should stop at the end of this now and you know or the next few minutes second there's already is there a second i second that okay is there any further discussion point of order yes i guess i'm clarifying the motion stopping now or stopping after we vote on the election warrant i'm sorry i thought we had voted on that i'm very tired um after we complete the vote on the election i would like us to adjourn the meeting and agree to meet on the 10th to complete the agenda particularly because you know the policing issue there are so many things that uh master point and update things that really need to be looked at and if we don't add to that agenda it can be a shorter meeting does that help mandy yes so we have one more vote uh we will vote on the vote on the motion that has just been made and that is to carry the rest of this meeting over and to uh of august 10th at 6 30 and so the motion's been made it's been seconded i'll start with pan hold on if we do that now we can't vote on the warrant ah thank you all right then i take that back are we how do we put that on hold yeah we can table it till after voting on the warrant yes that's what i thought we decided now the next motion that is to authorize the warrant for the state primary election on tuesday september 1st 2020 with polls open from 7 a.m 8 30 p.m at the following location all voting precincts amherst vellum regional high school 21 mattoon street any joe you have your hand up yeah if there wasn't a second i'll second it um i had a comment on the warrant that it it needs i think two modifications it needs to say amherst dash pellum regional high school um and the third line down on what elect offices counselor has eight district i think that's supposed to be eighth district okay make sure those changes are made before it's signed this is a roll call vote we're going to work with evan ross yes you're drying yes yes sathy shane no yves schreiber yes indy steinberg yes garish wartz no ellen eval millen no and mr broer yes pat de angeles yes and pam no the vote is eight five against no abstentions and nobody absent we're going to now move go back to the table and that is to um meet on august 10th 2020 at 6 30 to continue the agenda that we did not complete tonight the motion's been made and seconded i'll do a roll call vote and that starts with george ryan yes sathy shane yes yves schreiber yes indy steinberg yes garish wartz yes ellen eval millen yes elissa broer yes pat de angeles yes garcy demont garcy i said yes oh thank you lynn greece mersey yes mandy joe hannacky yes berthie pam yes evan ross yes given that the meeting is adjourned and we will see you again on the sixth i mean on the 10th at 6 30 thank you thank you thank you thank you all good night thank you


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