All right, we're recording. Thank you. Sorry, just pulling things up here. Good morning. I am calling to order the November 9th meeting of the governance organization and legislation committee meeting. At 10am pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public are able to access the meeting in real time via zoom or by telephone. And so we'll just do a quick sound check, see that everybody can be heard and can hear. And I will start with you and Nika. Good morning. I hear you. Great. Here you to and Mandy. I'm present. Hey. Well, we have a packed agenda and sort of sad that Jennifer and Pat are unable to be here today, but we will do our best. There is one item that I received that I'm going to take up under the 48 hour, which is a citation that honor wrote for Montes March. Did I pronounce that right Monte Montes March. Okay. So we, depending on whether Athena, do you know if Paul is planning to be here. He is I can, I can buzz him, but I think he might be making his way back from Amherst college. I'm not sure he had left right before I did and I only had to walk across the street. So we'll wait a few minutes. We do have some meeting minutes that we can approve. And let's just do a quick review of the agenda. So we have some meeting minutes. We have Paul joining us for a discussion on town manager goals. This will be our second discussion. We have Paul as provided some input that was in the packet based on our conversation at our last meeting. And we're also going to engage Paul in our further review of the public record status of CAFs. And then we have two proclamations the 2022 human rights day proclamation and the 2022 small business Saturday proclamation. And then the Montes March measure as well so a packed agenda. Let's somebody just texted that they're trying to log in. That's Paul. Okay, Paul just texted that he's trying to log in. I did send him an invitation but I'll resend it just okay. Great. In case he doesn't see it. And if I see him in attendees. Did you want Lynn to come in for the discussion on Tom manager girl shoes here. Yeah she had offered to stay in the audience but given we don't have, you know, too many counselors I think it would be excellent if Lynn is willing to come in that would be great. So while that's happening. Welcome Lynn thank you. I'm glad to be here but I really was intending to be silent. Would you prefer that so I don't I don't want to put you on the spot would you prefer to stay in the audience. No I'm fine. Okay. I'm fine. Okay. Well thank you for being here. And let's just go ahead while we're waiting for Paul I'm going to make a motion to approve the October 26, 2022 meeting minutes. Is there a second second. Okay, great. Any discussion. All right. Anika. Yes. And I'm a yes and Mandy. I. Okay, great. All right. I'm Mandy did you want to. From your perspective, given that we have Paul here, and given that you've made some changes to the goals. How do you think we should go ahead and share and have you walk through those changes and then we can do that. Paul's not here yet. So I wonder if we can get rid of some of the proclamations. Okay, yeah, let's let's get let's start that. That's a good idea. Do you want to pull up the 2022 human rights day proclamation is Can we start with small business Saturday because I'm still working on the human rights day one to check. And there's Paul. Oh, okay, then we'll do them later. Okay. Hi Paul. Can you hear us. Yeah, sorry I'm late. No worries. We have Jennifer and Pat are unable to join us today. And so we recruited Lynn out of. I did. Okay, so, all right, answering that question then Mandy, do you, how do you What do you So I'm happy to talk about a little bit of what I did. If I can share the screen I think it'll help. But then we can go into Paul's thoughts. And yeah, so I'll, and then you obviously get to run it but then Paul can talk about, I assume his challenges or thoughts on how we do these goals. That sounds like a plan I and maybe give we should give Paul just a little bit of a because so we had one discussion Paul about this week. And it was sort of a broad discussion about the structure of the goals. And we talked about possible ways of maybe splitting the goals into two and that's what Mandy's going to talk about. And so we certainly we invited you because we want to hear from you. And we want to share this possible direction that we might go into. So if there's any comments that you would like to make just sort of initially about the goals, and then I'll hand it over to Mandy to share her, her work. My only, so the goals I think serve multiple functions. One is it's a public statement to the community about where what the council wants to accomplish for the coming year or two years or whatever you choose. I think another is, you know, it's what we use as a basis for the development of our budget and things like that. So that along with the budget policy guidelines are two key documents. And so we pay attention to them. And then the third I think part of it is just what's the ease of utilizing it by the council you put a lot of time into it the council spends a lot of its corporate time but also your individual time. So, was it useful to you what it would have been, and we've got you know Mandy Joe probably talk about we've gone back and forth between general goals versus specific goals like, you know, to me like the specific goals are easy, like did you do this yes no checkbox and but sometimes it's more useful to have more general goals. So, I think that's, we had that discussion last year and sort of settled on this where and so I think part of it is just what's useful to you and what what are the products that we want that come out of this. Are we satisfied with the products that are coming out like the self evaluation the written product that that you're putting together. Is it the right amount of time are you putting too much time too little time all that kind of stuff. So, yeah and something Andy said struck me in relation to the town manager goals and the budget guidelines and just wanting to bring that lens into our discussion as well. Thank you Mandy. Athena can you have with me. Give me a second. So, this is, it's the marked copy but it's not showing the markings. Well, one of the things we talked about was potentially splitting the policy goals out from sort of your goals to make it clear that they were really counsel policy goals. One thing I did not truly attempt to do in any of this document the policy goals that I split out and then the man sort of the new what would just be goals for Paul was completely update them. If I thought something was totally fixed, fixed met and outdated I tried to delete that but I didn't try to mess with what we as a committee would potentially talk about in terms of amending things and all. Yeah, so, and then for something like climate action here. I removed the, the items that would have been more related to administration and not something the council has any true control over so I think there was one in. This is why I'm showing the other one, you know the educating the multiple member bodies on staff and staff on how to apply climate lens that's not really a council. Part of the council policy that was more geared towards Paul so I eliminated things like that but I didn't try to make too many sort of substantive policy decision changes in this draft, because we hadn't talked about it but the goal here was to pull the policy out and really be clear. This is council policy this is the council goals for whatever time frame, and then, and that that the ones you see are the ones that you Paul had as policy goals last year, or this year, and then I tried to change it to the goals of the manager which removed all the policy ones again I didn't attempt to change much in any of these other than updating the dates and all, but I added one, and this is the one. This is the policy implementation goal. Which goes back then to and references the policy goals of the town council if the council were to adopt the goals so this would sort of be the, the, I guess the, the goal that, instead of writing about all six separate goals that you did this year with evaluation or that we evaluated you on in six separate ways under the policy, this would be referencing all of that and saying hey we've adopted policy goals. We want you to effectively administer them and implement them, however you see fit. It's probably the one if we go this direction that we as a GL might have to talk about more extensively than others potentially there's some others, obviously we have to, because we don't have the wording right this is one that we don't have any base wording for but, but my idea was to separate the two and say the policy goals are the council goals, and your US CEO, US manager have to do your side to help us meet those policy goals. And then you have to evaluate on what you did on that but not under each specific policy goal so that is sort of the proposal here based on the conversation we've had. There are other changes but like I said we haven't as GL talked about any specific real changes so I tried not to put my own thoughts into that versus just deleting some that would have been outdated because they were specific enough that you've met them. And keep the share or I can let's take it down just for a minute just to sort of pause and see just initial thoughts from Paul and or counselors on that. So it seems to take what we've, what we did this year and sort of just reframe it a bit. And, and, and I think that it's probably, I think it gives more ownership of the goals to the council and sort of identifying what are your goals and it might be those six or whatever they are. And then it's, I think that makes a lot of sense to me the way you're framing it this way. I think I think the work product would be very similar that when I was doing a self if I think about in terms of what would my work be and be a self evaluation that sort of, I would still need to address each one of the goals. Because those are the goals and items three there whatever it was will requires us like, how did you do on those on our goals. So it's, it wouldn't be that much different. I don't think in terms of what I would be producing at the goal, goal reporting time. Any other thoughts, Nica or Lynn. No. Andy. So, I do have one about this. I appreciate Paul saying it might not look much different from his point of view. From maybe a counselor point of view in evaluating you it might look a little bit differently, because we could just talk in in more general terms maybe, but I wondered if we did it this way if the long term vision goal that has been in the management side could be, you know, added in or combined into this policy implementation goal sometimes it seemed to me that those two were in some sense very similar the policy is sort of a long term vision. And then we've got this other long term vision goal. If we're looking to simplify things that might be something we could potentially combine in. So a check box or a rating system. You are taking away like five different categories of rating so you will say, I think it depends how you frame it. Like with, you might have instead of saying you did well on climate action you did poorly on, you know, the, you know, for capital projects. I don't think you have differentiation I think you might want to have differentiation on that in terms of what you're feeling, or a subcategory or something like that. Under the policy implementation. Okay, yeah, same line with that. Right, because there might be certain pieces that counselors will feel that were implemented. You know, better or worse than others. So part of the goal for me is that we want to institutionalize this part of the relationship the goal setting the policy making with the oversight of management. So that, you know, our responsibilities are clear but this and so I so again future councils future managers we have a pattern and I think we're building a really nice sort of expectation for how this relationship works in a formal, this is a formal setting. So I think having this level of detail is really good. Because I want, you know, this builds good management, and then and having an evaluative process every year is a huge commitment but I think it's really important for the council because that's manager has a large amount of power under this form of government so you want to have the council exercising its review of that. Yeah, the only thing I can think of is that when we think about how we rate that, you know, we have the four, whatever the four or five categories of checking where you give your how you allocate your point system. That one might just get one and you might say that's not, you might have to give different points as you might have to subset it out or something like that. So I'm curious. So, with policy goals when we're evaluating those staff evaluations don't really come into that fold right so whereas with the performance goals, at least for some of them, staff evaluations. What do you mean by staff evaluations. Like, so when we're doing the evaluation are going through that process. Part of what's in our consciousness is what we've taken in from the staff evaluations right that process. Committee evaluations. Probably so I'm just saying with the policy pieces. I'm just not sure that everything that's in the performance. I, and maybe, Maddie you could speak to this a little bit. Why, under. Why are the items under management goals under management goals as opposed to being under policy goals. For example, the relationship with the UMass Amherst College and Hampshire College. There's only one I would say that might be in the wrong spot. The goal between separating those two when we first did this. Is this like our third year doing it this way Paul something like that was to say, there's a side where Paul is our manager he's got under the charter, basically all of section 3.2 and 3.3, all of that section three. He's the manager he's he's the CEO he has to manage employees he has to do all that and so the management side of that document the prior documents was, how's he doing on that side relationship with employees and all of that. And then, and then the policy side was, in some sense is he moving forward is the manager moving forward and getting the policy part done, which is somewhat different from managing employees effectively it's not always right because you have to, you know, then please are doing most of the work for the policy I would say and that's not Paul, doing it all. You know, and so, so it was an attempt to say, councils the policy leaders but how do we get those as a policy leader how do we accomplish that stuff that's we need the managers help on all of that, but here are the policies we want the policy leadership we want him to focus on. And then so we want specific reporting on that but then here's the sort of management side which we know we should be evaluating the manager on to because that's a really important part of the job. The thought process when we did this was that the management goals would probably not change much year to year. Because that side of the job tends to say stay the same, you know, are you effectively administering the finance portion, are you affect effectively managing people. And the policy goals is where the council would spend its time, year to year in terms of setting stuff up. And so when you look at the management goals administration leadership personnel that really fit into the management side finance in general with how we've written it fits into the management side, the long term vision, yes and no. The community engagement is much more of a management side relationship with the council is a management side and then one of the ones we added last year was this higher ed relationship and that I'm not sure we. I'm not sure we knew where to put it last year and because it was kind of both right. It's sort of a policy but it's also a management it's negotiating partnership agreements it's doing so it was one that was sort of a hybrid I think so we stuck it in management but it might not really supposed to be there. That one really stands out to me that particularly with the feedback on the evaluations that perhaps that one being in a policy in the policy might help to sort of be more have more clarity around that that piece. I'm also curious if the finance. So, is there an aspect of the finance goal that relates to like allocating resources for the toward the policy goal like toward the policy goals, you know, I'd like to look at that one a little bit closer to in the way that it as you said the way that it's written Mandy. I can share the screen again. Looking at it online but if you could. Yeah, no I and I've been making some changes based on some of the things we've said but I'm, I'd like to hear from a Nika and Lynn on, you know, whether we think this sort of new format, even if it doesn't save time on evaluating even if it doesn't necessarily save time on us if it seems more logical that it might get support before we start playing with, you know the individual goals themselves. Please Lynn. I actually, I like the idea that we're identifying Council goals, and it'll be very interesting to see if we can get the Council to vote to own those goals. Okay. I like the fact that we're saying to Paul, here's the management goals. And this is where the rub comes from me. We also you also are responsible for your side of the policy goals I think that's what we're saying. Okay. And if the, but in terms of the I always translate this to the evaluation. Okay, in terms of the evaluation itself. I'm not clear. It's going to save even counselors, a whole lot more time. And having, I'll be honest with you as much as I dreaded, still dread, having to write it every year, I've kind of gotten it now in a format that it's not as difficult as I thought it was once I made my forced decision to really just sit down and go at it. Unfortunately, I didn't give myself enough time to really do a good proof as we all know and I'm still struggling with that but you know, it. I, I like, I really like the way it's organized, but I don't think it's going to save anybody anytime. So that's fine. I mean, it's, I also just, I want to go back to something falsely. This is seriously a public statement. And, and I think, making that public statement, and frankly, I think we should go back to an idea we discussed in the previous council, I think, and that is that maybe every six months, even when we're not doing evaluation on the sixth month in or something, the town manager and the council should discuss, you know, how we feeling about these goals, are there changes, how are we moving, where should be be trying to make a place bigger emphasis. So, I, I want to get the goals out in front of the public, more often with more sense of how we're moving on them. So, thank you. The other thing that I think we talked about last time to consider is, I'm sorry, Annika. Please finish. I won't forget my thoughts. I think that is to think, you know, sometimes people are looking at two year goals to coincide with the council's terms. And then, and having a check in mid year.  That's working from the way we sort of set it up. So, Annika. I will say I'm still taking it in. But what I do really appreciate is how I think that it just kind of reminds us of just the enormous landscape, you know, that is the responsibilities responsibilities that have been given my council and that you have to manage through and with staff. And I think that it also just what I like about this is I think that it keeps ownership as well on on council for us to think about more often you know how we're participating. And just really on the broad lens because I think especially you know when you have, you know, people who are coming in new people who have been there. You know, sometimes it's like we, you know, we get into specifics and things that people maybe are passionate about or what is going on and just to kind of keep the whole workings going on and making sure that everything remains centered and that we're all doing our best within supportive roles and also within maintaining accountability so I, I like how it seems to connect accountability responsibility for all. And in terms of saving time I don't know that it does that but I also do not see that it would add, add time as well and I don't know if I'm missing something that I'm not considering yet. So I think one of the things that will have that the council will probably talk about is there like on the affordable housing goal I will from reading counselor comments. It seems like we've been pushed a lot we've been pushing a lot for affordable rental units and I think the council saying okay, we want to start focused on homeownership opportunities for you know, moderate income people. So I could imagine the council saying we want to shift that somewhat to refocus that and there might be other things that you want to sort of say okay, we really want you to shift over here which is important information for us because that actually informs what the housing trust is doing and what we go to CPA for what we go to CDBG for. So, knowing where we want to put our efforts is really important, because these things take multiple years you know when you're looking at properties. And if the really focus is to build, you know, like, we're okay with trying to build three homes like habitat for humanity type homes and we should put our efforts there instead of these larger sort of rental units that we're building. And the reason we do the rental uses because that's where the state money is, you know, you can actually subsidize these things, which is how you have to do it. Thank you for sharing those thoughts. One, one thought I had coming back again to the UMass goal. And in having some discussion recently with Tony and Nancy and others at UMass. It seems like as an, for example, that goal could be in both places. And it could be a policy goal of the council, there are actions that the council can take with our delegation, and in other ways to pursue certain things to offset the impact university has. And then there are pieces that are clearly within your purview, like the partnership agreements. That are being in the manager goal side of things. So, I want us to sort of flex a little bit in the way that we're thinking about these things like that one in particular, where are we as a council taking enough ownership over that particular goal for example, where we could be doing being more proactive. And also keeping that awareness that there are pieces of that like the partnership agreements that are clearly your piece. So that's one thought and then also I want, like if there was a one line elevator speech about why we're going to suggest splitting these if that's what we decide just what would that be to our fellow counselors, you know, because if we're not saving time. What are we, what do you know and I think we know and we've talked about it but I'll go to Anika and then Mandy. Yes, so Michelle I could just be like repeating, because my sound went off so I think that I'm not sure if this is what you were including as well. Other overlap between, like, between university policy and with like for instance affordable housing. You know, within certain conversation I've had as well with Tony and just kind of in remembrance like some of that breakdown if you want to speak or just, it could be a disconnect or just maybe not as much engagement between that town down is in my opinion directly related to we have less people who are working with the university actually living in town. You know, as opposed to like decades ago you would have you know a much larger population of folks that actually worked within the university and different types of positions. From, you know, taught here down to maintenance workers and so therefore like that engagement with the town and I would think you know would be, you know was quite different kind of within that, you know you would see more of that you know Amherst college town pride type of, you know relationships back when so I think that, you know, really in correlation with how affordable housing absolutely impacts that relationship as well. Mandy. So, I want to address what Michelle was saying which is I think by splitting these out. That is our elevator pitch what you just said about the Council taking part or more ownership of the policy implementation. We have to rework how the Council goals are written. You know for some of it, and then maybe rework some of the policy implementation side if we wanted some of the specifics like Paul was saying but Michelle as you just said part of, if we take just the relationship with say you mass or Amherst college it's not just all on the manager. It's not just all on his staff. We as a Council have to do some stuff too but we stuck it in management and we can, you know, we almost say by doing that. Well it's not us. We complained about it. Yes, right. It's also us and so by having policy goals and they might need rewritten, you know, and then telling on the management goals side on the town manager performance goals saying we want you to do your part to implement these, but these are our goals we have to do our part to you know and so I think that's sort of the pitch is saying we need to take ownership of our own goals we need to take ownership of the climate action goals and do our part to help that we need to take ownership of racial equity and social justice we need to take ownership of economic development what are we doing from our side, we can't just rely on staff. I would like to know from Paul is if we do this, you were saying Paul say for affordable housing that it would be helpful to know, you know, we look at the goal is written last year, sort of this year that says affordable housing for low and moderate income residents, and the evaluation seemed to indicate the counselors wanted more emphasis on moderate income residents. How would you suggest rewriting either your side of these goals if we're going to talk about there's two sides of these you know the council side and the, your side to give you that that direction or that desired emphasis, you know, that's that's where these sort of numbers came from originally but if we're going to put them as policy goals we might not have as many numbers, right we might not have as many things is there a way you would that would help you figure out where the council wants you to focus versus where the council is going to focus itself. I mean I think the council, the council, the council has sort of said we want to promote more home ownership opportunities. I think the council has kind of said, we're done by and land, you know, that open spaces and you know we've done enough and that's my, my perception of what counselors have said over time. And, and I think that I think where was a bit of a conflict is that the decision prioritizing the DEI department, the only way for me to get there was to eliminate the economic development and that was a decision but because it's one of these. How do we afford to do everything and it seemed like at the moment when we built the budget last year or whatever it was. We were prioritizing DEI which but then it meant economic development suffered because we use that position. And I can imagine council saying that you made a bad call on that one you should not figured out something else but you know I think that in terms of where we're placing our priorities because we have very, very few flexible resources, right. So, we're choosing things and if we sort of pull back from purchasing just open space land and we've done enough that and I think our energy has been put into sort of maintaining what we have instead of building new that will come into play I think with sidewalks that will be a public way thing when do we want to maintain sidewalks because you've you've got people out there, multiple locations saying we want new sidewalks we need sidewalks in our area. And there's a, you know, where do you want to put your resources that's a pretty important decision. So, trying to get trying to make this a actually valuable document that isn't just sort of big picture things but also gives us a little bit of nuance guidance as well as I think it's very valuable. Or to say check in with us on something I don't I have to think a little bit more about that. That's a good question though yeah Lynn. A couple thoughts. It would absolutely be appropriate. If, as we go into this discussion for, you know the Council. I know that we'll get it done before January but that sometime in January or February we do a retreat, and we revisit these goals, and we say are these our goals so that we can get them in there now. And I'm sure in Council meetings there'll be some changes before we finalize them in in December. We're trying to prolong them, but on the policy goal side, we could do that. That's just one thought, a second thought, although I just have to say retreats are really hard to schedule, and I found that out, and incredibly hard. The second issue, however is by taking anything. If we go around, we continually have to respect the role of the town manager versus the policy role of the Council. And I think of that with regard to the agreements with higher ed. Because these are negotiated agreements and the town manager and his staff work through that negotiation. I don't want to change or I don't want to do anything that doesn't honor what the town manager's job is, and what the Council's job is. In addition to that, there are reasons why those aren't Council discussions. One is that we're not paid full time to do it but the other thing is that they have to not take place in open meeting. And that is the moment we, I just want to make sure that as we move anything back or forth, we keep in mind what is the manager's role and what is the Council's role. That's all. Thanks. Yeah, I really want to support that Lynn, because I think that, especially with a Council that turns over every two years and there's new counselors coming in. It's, and even in this, you know, more recent situations that we're dealing with as a Council, it's really important that we clarify that executive role versus that legislative role and how those two bridge, you know, and it struck me in this motion that we're looking at recently that, you know, using language such as to ask the town manager to identify resources. That's like seeming seems like something we can do is to ask to identify resources verse direct the town manager to do X, Y or B thing. And so how do we think about that to keep it really, really clear what our role is, and I think that if we do that, even though that's a frustrating kind of place for us all to be in sometimes I think the more clarity that we can have around the more more efficient we'll be able to be and and the more energy we can sort of focus on the things that we can affect change on, and that Paul then can, you know, affect change on in his role so I really agree with that. Yes, Anika. Yes, I absolutely agree with what you just said Michelle and Lynn before you. I did forget to say something I know I said I would. I meant to ask with the conversation and excuse me if this is in my face to read somewhere with a conversation around putting a focus or priority around moderate housing. So I think that this conversation include that, you know, it actually being a way to affect and uplift and move lower income residents into move them up as, you know, we know that, you know, where there may be more people for lower income residents that does keep people within that bracket. So just how you know that that focus really does uplift and you know help help lower income folks move into a situation rather they are renting comfortably without restrictions, or you know moving into eligibility for homeownership. Yeah, so I think this conversation is happening right now with ball lane. We're saying we wanted we're, we're, you know, they purchased the land, we're saying we want, we want, we want you to give local preference. And they're saying we're not allowed to give local preference and their perception of Amherst is that you just don't want people from Springfield to move here. And what we're saying is that we're putting a lot of effort and money into this and we think that our residents should be have first crack at it and they're, you know, and I think wayfinders sort of I think they're the ones doing it.  But, you know, they see their mission as a broader mission than just Amherst and we see it. And so we're in conflict and that conversation is happening at the housing trust a lot that they're pushing this in some ways. So, if the goal is Amherst residents moving that way versus just anybody moving that way. Those are the two different sort of value sets that we'd be lining up against each other. We do try to, I mean, I think we are making a little bit of progress in terms of, you know, congregate homeless shelter, homeless shelter and at the University Motor Lodge single resident occupancy on 132 Northampton Road. So these are all sort of, you know, steps to move out of homelessness into more stable environments where then 132 Northampton Road is going to be so important because then you have an address you have a, you know, you can have a home where you can actually go to a job. It's hard for people to hold jobs when they don't have a home. And then they start to build equity, all those types of things so building this sort of ladder of being able to rely on a home is important. I think what people are saying now is we want people to start building equity in our town. And how do we do that? And so that's prioritizing town land for that purpose is one way to do it, you know, surplus land. I'm not sure if I answered your question I started rambling there, but No, no, no, you're not. And you did. I was the only thing in me and I could have missed it because I don't know why my audio is acting wonky. I really do appreciate that and then just like that, that other piece with how probably where there is the least amount of support is really that middle, because it is really the middle who probably many cases are probably in a position or could be in a position now to really more immediately help to stimulate the economy and, you know, shop more and go out but, you know, more the middle moderate income folks are really not eligible for any type of assistance so I was just trying to connect those two pieces whereas absolutely you know if there are some that whatever would be possible in loosening restrictions maybe for lower income folk but also that focus on the moderate income housing because those really are these are the folks that have the the least amount of assistance available to them. Yeah, I mean, afford to live here. So, I mean, I think there are people who are employed by the town who make a decent salary but just cannot and want to live in town desperately and are renting in town now who would like to have be a homeowner and there's just not housing stock or it's the prices keeps going up. I think Somerville is now offering $50,000 grants to help with down payments and it's the capital accumulation that pre sense a barrier for people for a home ownership a lot of times. And so like they're trying to strategize on how do we get over that hurdle because most a lot of folks have just enough money to get through right, and they're not able to accumulate funds and so, when it is able to accumulate some capital maybe that's the path I just saw a headline on it in Somerville so I'm curious how they're doing that but it's very expensive it's like one person gets one house, but it's a person gets a house right. So, I think there's different strategies if that's what we want to do promote home ownership opportunities. But we've been really focused on just creating affordable housing that's where the trust has been just creating more affordable housing, which is also a high value to people. Absolutely. Yeah. So and we'll delve more into the specific goals as we move forward, but this has been really a great conversation and I think, you know, we heard a lot from the paras the other night that you know many of them live outside of the community and I need I know talked multiple times about people who work in the community being able to live in the community as well. And so I think that's another interesting piece about Somerville to sort of help stimulate that possibility, and where in the policy goals, what policy goals can we implement that would drive those goals for us. So specifically to that you'd say we want to promote home ownership opportunities. That's that's our value this year for the coming years. We, you know, and that that means we're not creating new home, new major new projects but we're just trying to create pathways for ownership. If that's what you want to do, right, that might be a pathway. And you might say, you know, we want the trust to think about this, you know, right, as opposed to having all their focus being on the affordable rentals, which some really great things have happened as a result of that focus. Okay, I'm looking at the time here. Paul, do you have another 10 minutes to talk to me. And Mandy and Nika Lynn any other comments or questions for Paul on this piece. Lynn, just from your perspective, how would you so we've had two discussions on this now as a GOL. And we've talked about different ways of doing this so I think we agreed that we would come to the council with some proposal at some point then bring it back to GOL as needed. How do you see that in terms of your schedule and agendas and things. What you haven't done is any actual word changes, correct. Right. So, um, I think we could have a we're going to do agenda, studying meeting today for the 21st. And I know that based on some conversations that I've had with a couple different counselors, two or three guys that we thought were going to be on the 21st are not going to be ready. So it is conceivable we could have that discussion on the 21st. And I would structure it in two ways. One is, how do you feel about this rearrangement. Okay, I'm actually going to suggest three questions. How do you feel about this rearrangement. Okay, that's one. Well, I don't want us to get into wordsmithing today. Are there things that we would like to see added or subtracted into the goals and don't try to get people wordsmithing. It's really, it doesn't work well. At that point, you may hear things like you've been discussing affordable home ownership, or, you know, you may hear somebody say, you know, we've already done that goal take our gun done that piece of that goal take that out. Okay, but don't do it in the room. Okay. And the third is just, you know, let's use it as a way to test the council's interest in owning those policy goals and whether we as a council want to have a more thorough conversation about them in January or February of 2023. Yeah, the latest the problem with that is that I don't, we cannot get into a prolonged debate at that point, and then turn to Paul and say, Oh, and by the way, here's your year long goals, but now you only have, you know, six months to achieve them. So it's there is a point there is a reason why we really need to try to adopt goals and and each of you may have different suggestions about what the questions would be to the council, but I think we could fit in a, in a timed preliminary discussion on the rearrangement and what should go in or out. And should we have a more focused discussion at some point as a council retreat. Okay. That's great. Yeah, thank you, Lynn Mandy. Yeah, I've been variously typing on the draft document for a different one as conversations have been held and so I want to share some of what I've done to see if this is sort of part of where we might be going, because I can take some of our conversations and move stuff around. So, give me a second, as I do this, and it'll show up very small to begin with, but I'm making it bigger. I haven't started changing some of these yet but one of the ways I looked at some of this with housing affordability, some thoughts on, you know, with particular somewhere in here I put with particular emphasis on home ownership opportunities. So something like that. I've talked about council prioritizing our legislative stuff. The relationship with the university I reworked to make it more council goal. So the strategic partnership is not really in there right now. But then, under the manager side and this is where I sort of want to get some feedback. Under this policy implementation, I was thinking maybe we could list each of those policy goals. And then I have in here some suggested focal points are and this is where the language is not set yet, but this is where maybe we could talk about with climate action, the carp implementation, or the 2025 carp priorities or something like that or for economic vitality. If the council wants looking at an economic development director something like that could be in there or for housing affordability, increasing low and moderate income so some of the stuff that I deleted because the manager focused from the policy goals could potentially be listed here. I'm not sure it makes it easier I don't know whether we could put it in the council side. But what do people think about even just listing stuff here versus trying to put that focus up above and not give. Some of those one twos and threes that were in there last year and leave it much more general, completely. Yeah. I see Lynn's hand. I just want to say for you for trying to sort through what really belongs where. And I think that's not a small task. One of the things I think that council needs to be prepared for, and given our own need to stress outreach is that at some point. We need to annually ask the residents of the town, how they feel about our performance. We always say well if you don't like our performance you know, don't elect us. But the reality is if we're going to put goals out that are quote council goals. We need to be prepared for how we are going to receive feedback as a as a body about those goals, not as individuals, because that is where the election the ballot box speaks, but as a body. And so I just want to make that observation that that's that may be a next logical addition to doing the goals this way. Thanks. Thank you, Lynn. I have a question on this. So are you suggesting that we include these under the policy implementation and then move away from having those more specific itemized goals is that we're trying to work out in my head how we could, you know, let me, let's just use housing affordability as a as a example because I think we've talked a little bit about that one. More details so last year or this current year the 2022 goal had, you know, working with CRC and Amherst Municipal for housing housing trust to implement the comprehensive housing policy, supporting the continued operation of a seasonal shelter and ensuring the operation of a permanent seasonal shelter that's what the current document says. When you change that to a council goal. We can't really ensure the continued operation of a seasonal shelter right that's, that's the manager's job in some sense we can say we want one. Our priority is to have one. Paul does work around finding it. And so what we could do is and this is where I'm working through my head, housing affordability, we could potentially say, we have a policy goal on housing affordability that is prioritizing legislative regulatory fiscal and other actions that ensure safe and healthy state access to safe affordable housing for low and moderate income residents period, we could even just stop that policy goal at period. And if we wanted the manager to focus on specific things we could put it into that policy implementation side on the manager side, or we could say, you know, instead of stopping it at period we could say affordable housing for low and moderate income residents, comma, particularly with particular emphasis on home ownership opportunities, or with particular emphasis on moving people from homeless, you know, lack of shelter to having some shelter, you know, away from homelessness say we could put some of that in there and then not give under the management side under that policy implementation any further guidance. We could maybe have a, a hybrid of that where we stop and say with particular emphasis on home ownership opportunities say but then move the numbers that were here the implementation of the housing policy the operation the seasonal shelter and the permanent shelter to the management side of those are your particular goals. I don't know whether we want to be that specific, or other Paul once was that specific versus, you know, like, I think there's three or four ways we could do this and the question is, what would we want would we want to just say, we're prioritizing access to safe affordable housing for low and moderate income residents period, and do nothing else on either document, or do we want to put those numbers into Paul's document as part of, you know, sort of that list that I started generating, or do we want to hybrid where we put some of it there, or get a little more specific under the council goals. I agree with leaving it open as open ended as possible so it comes within, you know, so Paul has direction on that because I think that the ideas that have been coming so far are creative and, and I also think that you know when we kind of just push home ownership opportunities. You know we forget sometimes that not everyone does want to own a home and or kind of have to face that even though sometimes mortgages can be less than a rental payment but you know I think that that opens the door you know we do have a lot of folks that come here coming to the schools it could be just for a certain amount of years and you know just opening up it be whatever ways it is affordable for low and including that moderate level income to be here without having to give direction as to exactly how to do so I think there are so many opportunities and town staff has shown that they're very creative and competent and pursuing and doing so. I'll just make one last comment on this, I was especially struck by this one because it seems to me like implementing the comprehensive how housing policy is something that the council really should be putting a lot of emphasis on and as far as operating a seasonal shelter and finding a permanent seasonal year round shelter. It seems that's really on the town that piece is really on the town manager and not there's not a whole lot that we can do other than to support the town manager in that. So, the more I'm kind of looking at this I feel like I'm going to go on record saying this, I feel like not that the council isn't doing a tremendous amount of work we are, but that we are sort of laying a lot on the town manager to implement these policy pieces that we could potentially be doing a lot more if the clarity was there. And so I'd like to really focus on that piece as we continue this discussion. Yes, Mandy. And you can Michelle we're talking something else pops into my head if we keep it much more general. We, we put that trust in the manager right and Paul to say he knows we hired him to manage right do that but it also allows us then to focus our conversations potentially allows the council to focus his conversations if say again using housing affordability as an example, we'll prioritize legislative regulatory fiscal all of that to ensure access to safe and affordable housing for low and moderate income residents period if that's all we write. We could then potentially every council meeting have one or two discussions on one or two of these policy goals that say, hey council, you've said housing affordability as your policy goal what is our legislative goal for this council this one and it's almost focused and then we have what CRC should really be focusing on right as as the legislation we could potentially be drafting or for racial and social equity what, you know, I'm not sure which committee that falls into but what is our legislative goal we could potentially focus it if we left these policy goals a little more broad and then had a conversation on each one of them it might help us as a council. We could figure out our council role. And the way we use our resources right, we're all bringing forward our own agendas like wait, does that fit into any one of these policies that we have. Yeah, I agree, Paul. Two things one just reading this, you know, the town doesn't operate or put money into a seasonal shelter. That's was this was always an interesting one to me because that's a private entity if they decide to relocate to Hadley or if they went out of business which, you know, could happen. We don't, we don't, you know, we don't have resources to operate a seasonal shelter. I mean, that's not happening, but there was a crisis there they went through leadership change. There's always an interesting one to me I mean we obviously support it but the council is explicit about saying we want resources to be supportive of us. We think a reasonable shelter in the town because some people say get rid of it. Make our lives easier. So this has been been explicit to the by the council I think that's been an important statement but it's sort of an interesting one in terms of a goal that, you know, it's like saying make sure that the food. The survival center stays open. Well, that's a private nonprofit entity. So that's not our call. So, and then so as you start taking on talking about oh the council could do this council could do that. I think it's just really hard. I mean, I think you have two things. One is you have private initiatives or small group initiatives of the council that people come up with during the course of the year that they say this is what I want to accomplish or this is why I ran on. I feel strongly about this that are going to make their way through the council and those are all pretty much owned by counselors, you know, and sort of, and you know how much work goes into these things just to develop an idea. I mean, we have one counselor who wants to have a ban on leaf blowers. And so they're, you know, we can help to a certain extent but it's really on incumbent upon the counselor to do the research who else has done it and stuff like that. And so to say, well, we could do more. I just, I just look at your workload and the amount of time that people put in and making the job achievable for others. I think you just have to be cognizant of how much more are we able to take on quite honestly, you know, absolutely. Yeah. It also seems that if there are personal or individual initiatives or like you said Paul something that we've run on that it seems our job should be to then try to get that into a goal of the council. We're opposed to trying to carry out that individual initiative outside of that because I really do think we're not necessarily looking enough at ourselves as a body that has goals, and that those are the goals where everything should be sort of funnelling through. So if there's like some totally other thing that I want to pursue that's nowhere in the policy goals. I think it would be my job to somehow find a way to get that to being a policy goal of the full body of the council. Yeah, I think I mean that's where I struggle a little bit like with the solid waste thing that's coming is like that was never really identified as a council goal and should we be putting town staff time to support that if it's not we've got other council goals that we're supposed to be advocating for people bring these things forward to you know, you may see the least lower one or, you know, other things, you know, Lincoln have obviously is one that put a lot of energy went into it. So. All right, lots of food for thought. So thank you. And it and we do have to get through some of these other things by the end of the period that we have today so let's, we'll finish up this conversation now and then we're going to move right into the CAF discussion. And Lynn you're more than welcome to stay. And you're also please don't feel like you have to. So. Thank you. Good for you. Oh, no, Paul, you have to stay. I have to stay. Okay, I'm here. Lynn, do you want me to put you in the audience, or do you want to say okay, I'll move you over. So this is the CAF's discussion Paul, we'll try to keep it pretty. So, I'm going to hand it over to Mandy to really explain what we've been talking about but just generally speaking we've been looking at the process for making CAFs. It's a matter of public record essentially verse and looking at them from the perspective of council committees verse town manager appointed committees. And so we really wanted to get your feedback about that.  I'll try. The council and you as the other appointing authority to multiple member bodies are really handling, not necessarily the CAFs themselves differently at this point, but reporting on the CAFs differently. The council, because of some reasons we have to interview people in public, but we are at least through CRC are starting to be very open about things like how many applications we had an actual number we might not disclose names but we're saying, you know, we had X number of CAFs submitted in the last two years of them. This many were counted as applicants this many submitted SOIs this many were interviewed type thing and then these were the openings we had. But beyond that the reports are actually starting to report on current makeup of the multiple member body we're pointing to in all of the demographic areas are CAF asks for, which is location in town so based on district. So this is where our sort of town representation is but also age distribution identity as self identified, both in gender and in heritage and language distribution, self identified. And last meetings conversation at GL seemed to the counselors and GL seemed to appreciate those efforts and thought that that potentially created a nice balance between privacy of applicants, but also transparency of applicants applications in terms of privacy and all of that. When we look at your reports for the way you handle it, your report solely says we interviewed all applicants, but we never know as a council even if there was one opening was the applicant number one, or was the applicant 10. How many applicants were there in the last two years versus how many you interviewed, because at least my experience on CRC is, we get 10 CAFs, we go back and say hey, you need to submit an SOI or let's schedule an interview, and we get three people that say, I'll do that, right. And those sometimes are largely different numbers. And so what we wanted to talk to you about was your thoughts on moving towards a more transparent system similar to where CRC has gone with its reports but also GL with its reports as it appoints finance committee members of disclosing some of those numbers in terms of just a blanket statement that says we interviewed all applicants. It might help the council, in terms of determining just even in its appointment confirmation, did you really have just one applicant for one spot, you know, and so even if say as a counselor I look at that applicant and I go, oh, that's not who I would choose. But hey, there's nobody else there's nobody else right or was this a really competitive option. Placement and appointment. And so we know we can't change your CAF that's in some sense we can only ask, right. But we were thinking it might be useful to get your feedback on whether that's something you would be willing to consider doing to help promote that transparency because there has been a lot of counselors have heard a lot of things from and multiple members on this committee have heard from multiple people that they have applied for positions on multiple member bodies that you appoint and have not received an interview. Yet the appointment memo says all applicants were interviewed. And we don't know what to do with that information. Yeah. Oh, yes. I support that I was just wondering and if I missed that that maybe what could be included because I think that I think that most of us are clear even from just the counselors is trying to you know get people involved that it is very challenging and I have no doubt that when you say there's one person that there was one person. But also, you know, yes, there are people who say, you know, other they, they weren't included so it might be helpful to note that with, you know, without names that if that if those are like, they're like repeat or if they're already those people are repeats of they've already served they're already serving on another board that type of thing just so because I think something like this is great and also really puts a clear picture and puts it in the front and center that you know our job as counselors to really get out there and engage and bring others you know to the table to help and I know that we all know this but it's just like time it's sometimes just hard to get out there but it could also inspire more creative ideas to really be getting out there and engaging with more members of the community so we have a broader and more diverse pool of those who are applying. So I think first, most 90%, we have just enough applicants for seats.  If there's somebody we try to interview, I think there's one instance I'm aware of at this point but there's more I would love to hear from if you have instances, or someone who had applied for water supply. So what happens a lot is people put in and they check 17 boxes, right, and then it's until it tries to manage it and figures out. Okay, are we interviewing this person 17 times and, you know, I'm going to say no 15 times. Is that a really fair process for this individual and also is it useful to use of time for me and the people who are sitting you know we bring three or four people into every interview. You know, folks don't know what they just want to serve, right, we interviewed somebody. So anyway, so something and so it's just like, because you check a box, does that mean and we try to do that and she makes a list of everybody. I think there was one instance I think very recently of someone who wanted to be on the conservation commission that didn't get into the interview makes for some reason I'm not sure exactly why. And so I'd love to hear if there are if you're hearing others please let them know because I'll look into that. So I think part of it is just do we have an applicant pool. Some people I've interviewed, you know, they put their names in and they're not good candidates, but they, you know, and the question I have is, do I keep interviewing them if I'm no I'm not going to point them, you know, just there. You know, we reach a consensus that this would not be a good member of a committee period. You know, for whatever reason, and we get people who come into town and they say I want to serve on every committee and I can't feel I can't appoint them, you know, and I even if there is a vacancy. It's not it's not a good appointment so I won't appoint at that moment in time. And that there's probably three or four people like that in our mix that, and then we just make a judgment like, yes, they've been interviewed previously. Sometimes we have we interview people very recently where they want to be on one committee, but I think they're going to be much better on a different committee so we push them into we sort of coach them into a different. Eventually does a lot of this on her own, sort of just talking through people she call she calls everybody and she talks them through and saying, what would you like to do. You write though I think in terms of when we say we interview everybody we should, if we, if we say that in terms of numbers you know I've, I've sometimes hinted at this in verbal in front of TSO or before that OCA, like we had a lot of candidates or it didn't put it in writing because that is what people think previously with the previous council was kind of complicated because a lot of it was coming out of the select board use of things and there's this legacy stuff and what's, you know, it just got complicated and people had very strong feelings about it. So, so one of the things that also happens is or did a dynamic if I don't appoint someone and we and there's still seats available that what typically I write is that we had more oftentimes also in this if it's true I'll say we had more applicants and we had seats. So I'm sorry we can't appoint you this time. It's very competitive whatever. But suppose we have two seats and we have two applicants but the group says we only want we only think one or we're holding out for somebody different, you know, we need we really need a different skill set there or, you know, the large percentage of people who are applying or white people between 60 and 75. That's really and we are always hoping to get something different. So the question is, is our appointments and entitlement almost, you know, I applied. And so it's sort of a balancing act on some of the stuff. Your specific questions can you tell me how many people applied. It's kind of a hard number set because we used to have an all of the above box and we took that off of the calf because it was like we couldn't do it, we just couldn't do it and it's the amount of time Angela puts into the logistics of getting people all in the same room at the same time is really hard. The is becoming a little bit more so with some higher profile committees. In terms of struggling to get balance and when there's a vacancy on it.  Thank you, Paul. Mandy. I appreciate all of that. As we have seen in recent council discussions. A choice to potentially leave a seat vacant becomes very it's it's a tough decision to make. And when it's made in public versus a little more privately, it becomes even tougher on not only the appointing body but also the community. I think one thing that is driving this request and and the certainly one of the GOL members who really wanted to look into this is is not here today so we're trying to channel some of her. Michelle you've also wanted to do this but I know Jennifer's Jennifer's also been one that that has pushed this so I'm trying to channel some of what she says but also listen to what you said and I wonder one of the things that I think's been particularly frustrating and is is tough on even that has in the past had less support for the public nature of CAF is we don't know even on a holistic level what the application pool looks like at all for anything other than the committees we report appoint ourselves so we don't know you just told us the majority of people that fill out these for your appointments are over the age of 60. That's something I've never seen before, right because we don't get those statistics and I have some of statistics like that even if you report on them on a, you know, a quarterly basis or, you know, semi annual that says you know we this many people filled out CAFs, and they checked, they wanted to serve on this number of committees so you know you might have had 10 people fill out CAFs but they checked 300 committees type thing. You know, and those 10 people had this demographic range this that something like that might might help even if we can't do it per committee because as a counselor, I'm really at, you know, sort of in a blind spot about how many people in town are actually applying to committees as a whole. What the demographics of them are, you know, are we getting a good demographic or not and so even some, is there a potential way to get closer to where Michelle and Jennifer. want. Yeah, you know that that helps. Yes. No, I think that's a really, we can produce that. Absolutely. And I think that's a really good question. And I think we have done that for some time ago. Again, Angela can pull through and we can certainly show you the appointment the applicants and the appointments and the comparison of the demographics I think that's it and that's it that informs you in terms of recruiting to like where where where we weak where we strong. What's it look like, of course, all of it is self reporting some people, some things are blank. And so yes, we can absolutely do that. I think I assume that the proper location for that would be the TSO committee to, you know, periodically present produce that I think quarterly would be as bad as frequently as it doesn't change that much over time but you know, semi-annually or quarterly would be a reasonable expectation for that. Thank you, Paul and Nika. Yes, I really appreciate that I know myself, I'm a visual person and I think that even though again I don't know that we will be so surprised to hear the outcome and the results of this, especially considering the makeup of the community. I think that most people who are involved, you know, tend to be retired and, you know, have time to do so it's, you know, it's a little bit more difficult for people who are, you know, working to just in general with volunteers across the board anywhere but I think it will also again really direct us and put emphasis on our job to really get out there and reach the community. You know, we have, because whereas we have to be so grateful and I certainly am for all of those who are on committees I think that it is really important in terms of creating balance making sure that we are not just checking off boxes and appointing people and I just think that we would, this will allow us to truly reflect the diversity of the town in a better way, maybe we will even be able to think of some way in engaging the community maybe you know to find out like what are the main issues is it lack of interest do people not know is at the times and may allow us to move towards like how do we ensure that these committees are more flexible so we're ensuring that we're grateful but like you know we're in a global community and we need to reflect that in my opinion. I think that's a really valuable conversation so I, when is the next TSO meeting after. After tomorrow. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I should be able to ramble it off my county. Two weeks. It's Thanksgiving. I think we do mix miss the following Thursday. I'm sorry my book is not in front. Okay, I'll figure it out anyway. So let's let me see. It's December eight. I think. Thank you. Who knows all. So, we'll get a report to in advance of that meeting on the demographics and Angela might want to come and talk about that as well as she does live in this world very deeply. The other thing is thinking about as you were talking was when we have sort of major committee appointments that we're recruiting for put that in the town manager report saying we are now really recruiting hard for conservation or whatever it is you know I don't think we do it for every but we do post obviously on the town bulletin board but not everybody. That's a that's a charter requirement and it gets some press but it sort of blends in with a lot of people so if there are boards. I could put that in town manager reports of counselors can start to say oh I might have to make it primary to you in terms of as you're starting to think because we do. You are a great source of recommending people to fill out a calf. You know, you might be the people who are the best or the people who've been asked to apply. You know you might really really good on this committee is. So I think that that's a. I can start doing that too, in terms of when when we're, we sort of go through. You know, I've got a list from Angela now like what what's our next group that we're going to really focus on because it takes time to do it so. Right now, most of our committees are where they are they're functional. We tried to address the ones that are just don't have enough, they're not getting a quorum. Yeah, now we're looking at the ones you to see things. You can see and see and then we look at what who do we have applicants for these things and then okay let's move them forward if we can. Yeah, and I'm all about the visual push and not to push it put anymore and Angela Brown I know that they're, they're so you know they're great and capturing people but sometimes just putting some sort of visual that would visual to which attracts like not only what we're looking for but what might apply to the interest and peak the interest in others you know, instead of just saying we're looking for this like you know it's more like we're looking for you does this interest you you know, and just ways that that grab and that could be I know. And again I'm not meaning to put any more work on them but I know they do like a great job we're just like you know country phrases with you know some sort of a, you know, flyers little snippet something you know that wouldn't be adding much more and and you know and and we have to volunteer time so if if so I if I'm saying it and they like any help or input I'm happy to do so but I feel like they've got this if there's time and they agree but just sort of you know something that within you know five 10 seconds very small they're just cat might capture someone's interest to into it even further and stimulate their, you know. So, so one thing that's also different, you know, the residence advisory committee has changed. You know, we lost Keisha and kind of used to do a whole bunch of them as well. And so we have now two really strong people Anastasia and Meg Gage, Jim Pistrang does a lot of them because he works remotely and he's available and he's really diligent about participating. Anastasia participated in her first set of interviews which was good. And the way we do that is we just and Angela says we're we're interviewing for these on this date who's available and then they whoever wants to take it on takes it on they divided up themselves and then they meet right two or three times a year, and they sort of go through who interviewed who and who's care. There's not it's not big commitment on the on the residence advisory committee but we try to have one of them at every, every interview because that's really useful in terms because they get to see the overview as well. So, Mandy before I go to you I just if I could just make one comment here on this. So, Paul, do we have any role as counselors in sort of guiding the qualification criteria that you're using. So, so a town appointed town manager appointed committee. Where does the charge come for from the does the town council create that charge and put the composition in or does the town manager create. It can come from different look different areas, it can be in the bylaw some committees are created by bylaw some of them have had charges from whenever they were in it started. The town manager is the is the, it depends who the who the reporting agency is so. Yeah, but some some a lot of them are regulated by state law. In fact, like the historic district commission is regulated by state law. You have to have certain seats filled. That's the most complicated one probably of all. So, it seems that composition is one way to sort of acknowledge and identify transparently what we're looking for in terms of a makeup of a committee, but outside of that is the council at all is it within the council's purview at all to look at what quality what you're using as qualifying criteria. For example, I'm not sure I understand like when you were speaking earlier you said that this person just you feel like isn't a good match for a committee for example, or just wouldn't, or might be better often another committee or, and you said there were certain people that sort of apply regularly but that you just don't feel they are should be appointed to something. And I my heart broke a little bit when you said that and I'm trying to kind of sit with that and and understand the full context of what we're talking about here like, because these are volunteer positions and, and we struggle so much with changing our community so I'm just trying to understand like when you say this person is in a good match what criteria are you using to determine that. So this is a public meeting so I went, I'm not talking about any individual but there are some people who apply who have mental illness in my mind in my opinion, I'm not a doctor or anything like that. And it's really hard. And that's a fair unfair thing to say should I have said that. There's not everyone is in a position to serve on a committee. I'll put it that way. And on the spot, why don't we, why don't you just sit with that question and we can add it at it. Yeah, I can give you I can give you specific examples and we'll do that in a public meeting though, and give a very explicit examples and that's only thinking like one or two people quite honestly. Yeah, I'm one other thing I, as I was thinking about this that might help the Council and, and even not not just in terms of getting a diverse pool of applicants are finding where we might need to reach out at, you know, in terms of, I'd be interested to know if there's like a, most of the applicants come from x district right, you know, and so why district needs to talk more say where we need to focus on that. But, but I was thinking when you say we don't always have applicants for certain committees it might be good to hear and see in a visual which committees. Those that fill out CAFs check the most and which they don't check. Not just for do we need to recruit for those committees but also for later. Is this a committee, can we restructure the committee or can we move its duties into some other committee you know we've always been said that this town has so many committees. Maybe that's, you know, like, if we're having problems with a specific committee that is a town committee that isn't regulated by state law and I know we can't get rid of our local cultural Council for example. If we did we wouldn't be able to give out money, we wouldn't want to do that. So if we have problems recruiting for it we want to recruit for it we don't want to dissolve it. But if there's another committee say, we used to have a solid waste committee I think I don't think we do now that we had trouble with but hey we could move those duties into another committee that only meets once every other month but now we've just consolidated to without losing the duties and maybe it becomes a more interesting to committee to be on that might be helpful and help us review some of that to see what we could do to hopefully help out everyone's goal of filling all of these committees with the best volunteers we can find. Yeah, no that's something we can put in the report as well. That's in the database so she should be able to pull that out. All right. Paul, thank you so much. I just Lynn is still in the audience I'm going to call a period of public comment quickly. Lynn, if you would like to make a public comment on this.  Okay, so Paul, thank you. Thank you so much. We probably kept you here longer. This is good. Really, really appreciate your time. Just to make sure I have my notes right so what I for next TSO committee meeting do a report on the sort of applicant pools, appointments, whatever demographics we can pull together. And that's expected to be the eighth. And then that would include we don't collect the information in terms of districts. You know, I don't, we don't sort that way. And we have street addresses, but beyond that we don't. And we do put the addresses on the appointments. I do that purposely so you see AC that their residents in BC where they're from, people can sort of sort of look at that anecdotally just from the appointments that that's actual factual information, but I don't sort it by district. I've actually sort of. Militated against that because I don't think that's how I want to look at the town in terms of districts, because it becomes too much like a city like I'll pave your, your. This happened in Somerville, you know, all the sidewalks in this one word got got paved because the loyal Alderman was counselor was in a tough race. The mayor, you know, paved all the sidewalks and suddenly that guy got elected. So it's just like, yeah, let's not let's look at it holistically, you know, that that sounds great and thank you and I as much details you have time and can do, you know, I understand that is a volunteers but it's like a hiring process and there's certain information that you cannot share. So I understand that but I think just as brought a picture that we can get would be so helpful. And I'll just before manager speaks. Yeah, I'll think about how to put in. So what you were also asking for is, is there a way to tell us you had a lot of applicants or you had, you only had one applicant that's sort of helpful to us because it helps us gauge our role in terms of appointing. You know that question was always asked by a previous counselor. I always I tended to not give clear explicit answers, other than we had more than we could, or we're so happy so this number applied I had always had some different way of answering that but I don't know if there's any benefits or detriments to do it one way or the other. So, yeah. And if there was like, I think also that if there was a way because you mentioned and without the reasons or anything personal about the person, the people who are kind of repeating on multiple committees are just you know continuously I mean the reason isn't important. Yeah, no we get people new to town who just are just amped up want to do something and they don't know what to do and it's great and we you know Angela spent a lot of time talking to them like what about this what about that. And they said well I'll do it I'll interview her for everything. And it's like, okay. That's, we do a lot of duplicate interviews for folks, but also if there is somebody who didn't get interviewed and put in and we did an appointment I would really like to know that because that's something I would follow up on. So, I just wanted to talk about that the district thing. We've started reporting on it in CRC because both our committees that we appoint or we make recommendations for planning board and ZBA the chairs have indicated that it's helpful to have a diversity of where people live in town because their perspective changes, at least on what they're doing for those committees. And so I take the addresses provided and translate them into districts. And so one thing I've thought about is, if we're going to continue that is could we put a district checking, you know voting precinct check on the CAFs, and I haven't broach this with GL but it might be useful for my reporting. I don't have to translate their addresses into districts with our new district make up it may not make much of a difference because most of the districts have both a downtown component and an outer component and so it's not our prior district ones were a little more, you know, what district you were better indicated whether you lived downtown or not than it does now but it's something to think about, especially for certain committees that might benefit from that type of diversity of where you live, and some may benefit from that more than others. All right. Thank you so much Paul. Great. Thank you. Awesome day. Yep. Thank you. Bye bye. All right. So, um, Mandy I know you had talked about bring up small business Saturday here's the thing small business Saturday doesn't need to be done today. So if we could do human rights, and then the montays that would be fantastic. I'm ready for all three. Awesome. You need to just quickly pull up human rights sponsors so that I make sure I have everything. Hang on one second please. So you have Mandy me you okay and there was, I think. All right. I said Mandy me you. Okay. Here we go. And send this let me. All right, so I have. That's all I have other than you have the Human Rights Commission obviously on there right I can't see the screen right now. Yes. Okay. So, is this and this is a proclamation that has this is its second iteration or it has as a multiple iterations. So yeah, this is the one thing I hadn't checked that I've now checked is what it looked like compared to last year's. And so all the changes you see would match 2022 with 2021's. And then later on you'll see the big difference but the ants needed added for some reason. I'm not sure why they didn't go through the bigger changes in 2021. GOL removed and then the council adopted it with its removal these last two sentences of the last whereas. And so I've put that in there for now. It showed up again is what you're saying well so it was not on what what Lynn sent forward to the council but in 2021 it did actually get removed in GOL and since it was adopted on consent it would have been removed from the adopted proclamation in 2021. So the reason for that removal was it seemed odd and aware as clause versus the now therefores. You know, I should actually check the now therefore I didn't check the now therefore. Oh yeah so so the now therefore was different to so the 2021 now therefore was this one. Oh I see yeah. So if those two sentences down to the now therefore last year, the every opportunity to reflect and embody. And so, but when you, but this one didn't have that in the one that was forwarded to the council this year did not so I would, I would support going to last year's now therefore which would delete this paragraph. Yeah, I support that too. Athena's got her hand raised so maybe I'm wrong. It's the changes I saw. No I'm just noticing that it says the 15th of November. Our council meeting is the. We have the special meeting on the 14th and the regular meeting on the 21st. Yeah, and 21st instead of 24. Are there any other. I'm not sure that we really need to go through it paragraph by paragraph necessarily mandate sounds like you already went through it. Anika do you have any comments. No. Okay. All right. So, so I'll make the motion to declare the human rights day proclamation 2022 clear consisted and actionable as amended. And I second that. And then we can vote. Anika. I. Okay, Mandy. I, and I'm an eye. All right, great. So, which one do you want next video will be going to get through all three of these. Let's do Monte's March. And I need to look on that and make sure. So that got sent. And I don't think that Anna is here. She thought she might be, but let me just check. No, I do not see her. So, Anna sent that and it has to be done as soon as possible because of the date of Monte's March. And so I don't. Did any, do you remember seeing if Lynn sent it out to everybody for a formal. I thought she did. Okay, let me just check them. It looks like Jennifer top would like to be added to this. Lynn would like to be added to this. Andy would like to be added. And that's what I have. So I will go in and we're have Athena add the header, but okay. The only things I saw where the Oxford comma and some extra spaces I think so far on a says she loves an Oxford comma. She always leaves them out. And then one and down here. Okay. Yeah. Yep. And then I obviously put in the signature block, but I'll correct this for Athena to the 21st. And is this, can you scroll up when you have a moment. Is this. How does a citation different different. How does it differ from a lot of proclamation.  A day or miles, you know, whereas a citation honors a certain event or a certain person or a certain organization. So this is basically honoring. Monty and the March he does, but not really proclaiming a specific day Monty's March day, say, or anything like that. That's next year. No, I'm sure. Okay. And so this, I'm without on here, I wouldn't make any substantive changes, but it's not. It's in honor of Monty's March, not Monty and not Monty Belmont a and March. Well, if you read the now therefore we're citing the achievements of Monty Belmont a and the food bank for all of the work they've done, including the Monty's March so we could look at the title. Because it's really in honor of him. Or we could change the now therefore to also honor the March I think it's fine. Either way we don't do many citations which is why it's so strange. It is the one thing I wondered though that might help the citation and this is where someone who's done this might know how long has Monty been doing this. Like where we could potentially put in. Let me see, maybe we can find out that he's done it for so many years. Let me see if I can do a quick. It's on the food bank website here. 43 mile March. It says it says Monty's March 13. So I think it's the 13th. Okay. That where is that. Monty's March 13. Is that in where is that Athena. It's on the. It's on the page where you'd register. It's called Monty's March 13. Yeah. Okay. So that then that seems to make sense. Thank you. I think that works and putting it there. Great. And Athena is, is if we vote this the 21st or voting it in time. Yes, I checked that I believe are, but let's double check. That's why I knew this. So it's Monday. It's literally the 21st and 22nd, I think. That's, that's right. Yeah. I think why we had to take it up so quickly. Okay. So this looks good to me. I can make a motion if there aren't any other questions or comments. Okay. I move to, to declare the citation in honor of Monty's March for the food bank clear, consistent and actionable. I'll second. Okay, great. And Anika. I, Mandy. I am an eye. Okay. Let's get this other last one done if we can then that will be great. This one's the easiest from my review. So that's why I've suggested starting with it. Yeah. And let me, who do you have on there as a sponsor? Yeah. Lynn's hot with the sponsorships. So it happens when you're president, you just sponsor them all to get them through. Let me just make sure I don't have anyone else. No, anyone else here. I know that's an unfair. Well, everyone's been asked so, but is there a particular thing that people are going to show up at for this one or is it. It's a small business day, right? Or small business Saturday, but there's no particular event. Well, so, so there's a couple of things in the whereas is so the only changes I am requesting be made. There was a Scrivener hanging and on the last whereas. But when you read the now, you know, that last whereas talks about December 1. There's something on that the merry maple lighting on the second December's third. And this one says small business Saturday, December, you know, a merry day on December 3rd. Small business Saturday is the 26th though, I believe. But they must be doing a separate thing on the third. So I'm going to skip and stroll on the 15. So it talks a lot about activities they're doing. And so I wanted to, to add that into the now therefore instead of just the 26th small business Saturday on that day but also during all of those celebrations written above sort of include that into the now therefore. Yeah, absolutely. Anika. I'm happy to add as a small business person, however, I did not do the work so I just want to slap my name something. So this is not changed from the year before is in the year other than that last paragraph that talks more about what their bids doing the rest of it's the same that we've been doing for years now. Okay. That would be great. The other thing I was going to say is, so this isn't supportive small. Oh, and merry days. Oh, good. Okay, so it does say and merry days because I was going to say there's like all of these awesome activities. Is the merry maple lighting that is still occurring. I knew there was talk about the merry maple, something with the merry maple. It's still set for the second. It is. Okay. Which is why I wanted to put it into the now therefore those merry days stuff. So, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that covers it. All right, Anika, you want to make the motion. No, okay. Move to declare the proclamation and support of small business Saturday and merry days clear consistent and actionable as amended. Great. All right, I'm an eye on this one. Mandy. Hi, Anika. Hi. Okay. Did I I don't think in the last motion that I made I said as amended by the way. So I don't know if that matters, but because we did amend it right. Yes, we did. Okay, Athena, I don't know if that does that. Can you I just put that in for you. I knew that's what you meant. All right, great. So just a quick review of upcoming items. It sounds like the water sewer I so we still don't have a legal opinion on that one right and so that's not on your agenda. Anika for tomorrow at TSO as I understand. Okay. And given that TSO doesn't meet again until December, it will not be on our agenda. There'd be no way for it to be on the 23rd for us. Is everybody the 23rd. Yes, Mandy. I've got a lot of stuff for your next agenda. Okay. Is the 23rd that was on our meeting calendar right. The 23rd is on our meeting just with is that right before Thanksgiving, not that I mean it's the day before but I just wanted to check to make sure. I had the 30th. I'm sorry to interrupt. Anika, I think we do have the water and sewer bylaws on the agenda for Thursday. At TSO, because we were hoping to have input from Amy and Guilford and the town attorney. I think, I think I was expecting that Monday. Okay, you know, you know what you, you are that you are absolutely and I'm looking at it. I just. I had thought that we were that that was that last minute that was not there because yeah, you're right. It's there now if it ends up that we don't have it ready then obviously. No, no, no, you're absolutely right. I was looking at the last communication even though I did respond to you about this. So, yes. And Mandy is correct. I'm glad we checked this. So our next meeting is actually not until the 30th.  So all of the flood map well the flood map zoning bylaws. The other two that CRC passed on flood maps don't come to GOL but there's two zoning. There's a lot of zoning bylaws but the zoning bylaws need to be on the agenda. Similarly, I expect food and drink establishments to be finished by then the goal is to have them on the Council's December 5th agenda so both planning board and CRC are working to get them recommended out in time for the 30th GOL meeting. On the 15th and 19th next week. Again, so, and, and both of them really do need to be on the December 5th agenda so they need to be on this GOL agenda they've all had any basically anything coming out of CRC related to zoning has already had legal review. Because that's how it's what you do in zoning in some sense with all these hearings so. All right, and then based on I'll look to see if there are any other proclamations that should be that would be coming through and then we'll take we have the continuation of the town. Well actually so what did we decide the town manager goals have a preliminary on the 21st which may mean that will then on the 30th be able to take that up again. And we'll come back, I'd like us to try to, before we focus on the other issues come back to the CAFs and make a recommendation on that. For the goals, do you want me to send, I can attempt to draft, you know, as, as you saw I was doing some modifications I can send some based on our discussions that don't really. That would basically simplify all of those policy goals to that simplified sort of sentence that that we talked about for each of them. Do you want that draft in time for the. The council meeting or would you like GOL to see that first. I was thinking that we would start with the framework that Lynn gave us to ask those three questions. And I was going to maybe write like a memo or report that would be directed to the council. But what those three just to review what Lynn had suggested it was the real so the reframing or rearrangement. And then adding or subtracting language which I was a little bit of I'll check in with her again on that and then whether we want to take up the policy goals in more comprehensively. So I guess you could I mean we didn't really talk about that much as a GOL so. Let me try to do something and then you as chair can decide which one you might want to because I think seeing an example would be good for the council so you could. If I try something you can decide the one that was in today's packet or the one I've tried to do based on the discussion. How about that. That sounds great. Thank you that would be excellent. All right. All right anything else. Okay, well thank you this was a great meeting with just the three of us. And I'm going to adjourn at 1201pm. Thank you. Bye bye.


We got a z bar, a piece of cheese, applesauce. We have some carrots and some chino buddies. And then I always put an extra snack in his backpack for if he gets hungry before or after lunch. Back to another day in the life of a teacher vlog. Today's vlog is a little bit different in the fact that I'm just sharing my morning routine with you guys. And so today is Tuesday, September 7th. And I am just going through the motions of getting ready for a day at school. Today's Tuesday is a little bit different though. My husband is actually working an overtime shift today. And so I'm taking cash to school with me today. Normally on Tuesdays, my husband brings him to school for me because I have duty. And it's just a little bit more stressful to get ready in the morning on a day that I have duty. I just end up not having as much time in the classroom before students arrive. And with cash because he's three. You know, it gets a little tough to get things done. If you guys have been with me for a while, you've already seen how that has affected me. So it is currently 5.55. I'm gonna wait cash up in about 30 minutes. I generally give myself about an hour to myself in the morning and then an hour with cash. So if cash wasn't going to school with me at this point in my morning, I would probably just make myself breakfast, getting my lunch together, and then I would just go to school. But because I do have cash with me, I'm gonna do a little bit of prep work here at home before I go to school. So what I'm doing is I'm sitting down at my computer and I'm just going to go through all of my slides for the day so that when I get to school, all I have to do is open it up on my computer and it's done and ready to go. Okay, so as I was saying, I am just getting a couple of my slides ready for the day. Today we are starting geography of North America and so I found this really neat PowerPoint that has really cool pictures and like videos and it came with some guided notes. So that's what we're gonna be working on today. And while we're taking guided notes, we're gonna be coloring and labeling that really cool map that I showed you guys in my last vlog where all of the land features are already labeled because just have to color them. And then, yeah, so that's what we're gonna do today. Color maps. And then I'm thinking my end result so like Friday's project is going to be creating a 3D map of North America. So using salt though, but I'm not positive because Friday possibly my homeroom is going to be doing a science buddy class which just means that we go down to a first grade class and do a science project with them or I guess a science lab with them. So I'm thinking we might be doing that. So we'll see how it goes. It depends on what we can accomplish this week. So. Okay, so it's the first day of school for the week. So I have quite a bit of stuff to carry. I have my school bag, which has my purse in it, my water bottle, Cash's backpack, Cash's lunch, my gym bag, which doesn't go inside with me unless I have Glee Club and it's a dancing day, then I'll take that in so I can change. But I still need to pack myself a lunch. And so I think I'm gonna do that real quick before I wake Cash up. So what I typically pack for myself for lunch is something very simple. I'm still technically doing like a bright line diet which is working really well for me, but I'm not necessarily tracking weights and all that stuff. I've kind of just gotten into a habit of eating healthier and choosing healthier options and eating less. So I don't really weigh everything anymore and I pay close attention to what I'm eating. So I'm gonna bring some of these folio cheese wraps. These are the cheddar ones from Sprouts. And then I'm also going to bring some buffalo chicken breasts. And this will probably actually last me like pretty much the rest of the week because I'll wrap the turkey or I guess the chicken breast in the cheese. And then I have mustard at school as well.  So we'll see how I like those. I actually should probably make sure that this is not like, I don't wanna bring all of them. Mm, that actually smells really good. Okay, I will bring those and then that way I can have that as my carb. So these are made with cassava flour, non-GMO gluten-free, nut-free, 120 calories for one. I don't really count calories though. Okay, so I'll do that. I'll bring the cassava flour, the cheese, and the chicken so that will be what I bring for myself. I have some fruit and vegetables there already. But I think I might bring this taco season zucchini and have that with this. Cash isn't really a big breakfast eater so I generally give him some sort of protein cereal and these amazing organ kids protein shakes from Costco. We really like those. So as soon as he gets up, we will see if that's what he wants. So on this particular day of the week, it is Spirit Week and today is Support Sports Day and so I'm wearing my baseball mom shirt. You wanna watch Baby John? Yeah. How about this one with the tacos? We'll be right back. And also on this particular day of the week, I did decide not to blow dry my hair because I wanted to let it air dry. I actually really liked what it looked like yesterday when I air dried it so I'm not gonna blow dry my hair today. I'm gonna let it air dry and just kinda make it messy and then I might clip it up halfway like this. I don't know. Okay, so while he eats breakfast, I'm gonna finish up packing everything, make Scott breakfast and lunch and make him a whole sandwich because like I said, I'm not gonna go to work today until like right before I have to. Probably at like 7.15 is when we'll leave and it's 6.27 so I do plenty of time and yeah, so let's go do that. It's your lunch but I'm not gonna have time to make your breakfast because I gotta go early. Okay, so we have the rats packed. All that's left to do is get this in the car and get cash in the car. You're the silliest. You're the silliest. All right, you guys, so that is my busy teacher mom morning routine. I'm already exhausted and it's only 6.15. So we're gonna get out of here in the next 15 minutes, head on over to school, drop my stuff upstairs, take cash to his classroom and then I have bus duty out front. So it's gonna be a very busy next couple of minutes. But anyway, thank you guys so so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next one. Bye guys.