Sean I think I goofed. Good evening. It's really delightful to see all these people in the town room and particularly people who work for the town of Amherst and keep us safe. So we're having a swearing in tonight and then we're going to go on to our formal meeting. So the good news is you don't have to listen to me. Call the meeting to order. Read the riot act and call on everybody's name. This part of the meeting is open to the public, but we're not doing it as an official council meeting. So, I'm seeing various groups and various leaders of our first responders and I believe the way I was handed the agenda. We're going to start with Chris.  And Sue. As our clerk, town clerk, please join us. All right. Okay. All right. So I'm trying to figure out which direction we should face. We should we go this way. All right. So hello, I'm Earl Miller. What a wonderful privilege to be at a town council meeting. This is my first chance to do this. I'm going to introduce you but first I really want to introduce the entire department. So today we have Tim, Rome, Q, Brittany, Vanessa, Kevon and Kat who are not able to be with us today. What a privilege to stand on the shoulders of these fine folks we have in the room. Chris is only going to be a success because of the police department and fire department. Anybody who thinks that there could be any space between us is wrong. And I want you guys to know that today. We are here and we will be successful because of the sacrifices you made because we have two wonderful leaders like Chief Livingstone and Chief Nelson, who mentor us and put their work into our department every day. So I'm grateful for you all. And what an honor to be here with you. Tia is probably the youngest person in the room. 20. I've often been asked what makes a good responder. And we don't quite yet have an academy like you all so we have to figure it out ourselves. What I know is that it's caring about human beings. It's caring about people when it's hard. It's loving the folks in our community who don't have anyone else and being willing to honor our word. The compliment I can pay to Tia is that she tells you she's going to do something. You can count it is done. She's driving in from the Berkshire's here every day. The long commute. And she's doing everything she can to learn. We are privileged to have her and the town is privileged to have her. I often think of Chief Livingstone when I think about her as someone who's coming into the town very young, and it's going to have a long time to put their mark on this place. And if she lives up to any of the things you've done here will all be better for it. Thank you all. And Suadette our town clerk will now swear you in. Raise your right hand please.  Congratulations. Next is Chief Nelson. Okay, there we go. I got it. Sit down. Anyway, good evening. Hey, first time I want to talk to talk about two folks that aren't aren't here. One, Audrey boulder brand brand brand brand new to us.  Again, she's brand brand brand new she's she's she's going to be great. We have our other. We have another member of the medic. Madeline Burke, who she says she had to have had a point point point but tonight that she she could couldn't miss. But she's local local local girl, long, long, long, long meadow. So, medic was work, working in town in town.  She rode with with us during a train train training.  And we got these three. First, carry carry Cassandra Cody she began with with us as a student for for the firefighter. You do that you mass grad. I was kind of trying to figure out what what she wanted to want to do with her life and she kind of kind of found the Amherst far far far fire and kind of hooked on with with with with with us. And she's doing doing great. She's in the medic school school now, and she's very very shy. That's okay. But again, another great great great great addition and I want to think that I like I like to brag about as we attract really good, good people here really really do I'm a luckiest guy guy guy guy around like at the work of work and all these folks every day. And we have stone with stone curve for curry. The easy easy Easter mass guy. We won't hold that again, again, against them. The interesting thing to think is when he went to a medical medical school one of his instructors was a former former firefighter medical medic here. And he said, you know, you would do well in the coming come out West, take the ride right back to the Amherst for for a while I think he said he thought he thought he might might like it. He came came out found that that was a good, good fit. We know he's going to be be a good, good fit. So then we're glad glad glad to have him here. Stone course for those that are old enough to to remember I guess he was named name name for the A to the ABC report or stone so Phil Phillips it folks folks are old enough to remember remember him. So that's a little fun fun fact. And then we have Alex, Alex. I guess I got it right. Close enough. Alice comes comes most comes us from upstate New New New York. Once went to stones stones stones stones Stony Brook, we won't hold that again against me either. But came came down here from a medical school. Thought about the area area area was a good good place to be good to good play place to learn good to good play, but set the set down roots. He said he did he came in road and road road with us during the strength of the training time. Impressed us as all as as they all did.  Once you get to get to know know him you'll find that he's pretty kind of he's pretty shy. Pretty kind of kind of kind of retired retire retirement doesn't say say much much much at all. Yeah, right. But anyway, but again, we're lucky we're lucky we're lucky to have all all five five of these folks are extreme stream extremely so and they're going to be a great addition to the department and great for the town and even more more more so for people in town so without it do.  Please stand up and join us in front of Sue. You all can raise your right hands please. Do you all solemnly swear or firm to faithfully and impartially perform the duties incumbent upon you as firefighters for the town of Amherst. Congratulations. Scott Wingstone chiefs of Eastern come on in. Good evening everybody and thank you to the town manager. And for all the town counselors for hosting us tonight for this important swearing in I am going to do things a little different. I'm going to prepare our new officers. Josh Dylan and Genesis come on up and say a few words about yourself they. If you would join me first please up here but I'll tell you a little bit about their training. For those of you that participate in our recruitment process you know it's very rigorous. Our HR department takes very takes part of it town manager is part of the interviews and we have a lot of other processes but they completed their graduation on November 12 was it. Yes, 22 weeks of training and they have just completed phase one of their in house training which is 14 more weeks. And then if everything goes as planned they will be out on their own and much needed and certainly will it will be well deserved so. I'm going to prepare you a little bit for your future testimony in court so get rid of some of your shyness right away so if you would just say a couple of words about where you're from and and where you're interested in that sort of thing and we'll move on. Hello everyone, I'm Genesis from Springfield. It's a privilege to be here thank you for having me, and I look forward to working with everyone and serving the town of Amherst and yeah. And I'm Josh Santos from Lullo. I was in the Air Force about seven years as military police. So I couldn't have hoped for something better than this. Already having a blast learning about the town and my FTO is back there right now my field training officer teaching me the ropes but I look forward to the future. How are we doing everybody I'm Dylan Tucci I'm 28 also from upstate New York. I want to thank the town manager the police department for this opportunity. I really look forward to working with everybody in Amherst and for the people of Amherst. It's really an exciting opportunity that I can't wait to take full advantage of. No, you can't leave yet. Okay. And if you could all please raise your right hand please. Do you all solemnly swear or affirm to faithfully and impartially perform the duties incumbent upon you as police officers for the town of Amherst. Congratulations. And again we want to congratulate all of you. And we're going to just for them have some informal time for counselors to say hello, and so first and we will begin our time out.  About yourself. Thanks for coming everyone really appreciate it. Thanks for all your help. So Audrey, you have to turn around and be sworn in. If you can raise your right hand please.  Congratulations. Maybe others have seen people sworn in as they come in out of the field but this is the first time I've seen it. Thanks for joining us glad you could. Thanks to all of you. Go ahead. We have one more thing I'd like to introduce our new director of human resources. Right. Melissa. Hello, DJ Walker. And if appropriate I'd also like to welcome the chair of our personnel board Tony Butterfield who made time to come tonight. So Tony. Thank you everyone I just wanted to say a quick thank you and let you know how happy I am to be here with you today this is quite an honor to watch us wearing in it was very exciting first day. Not only did I get to watch us wearing in but I got to go to a holiday to say wonderful I really look forward to the good work that is to be done here and thank you so much. Anything else. Are you sure no more surprises in the audience. Thank you all, but we're going to now spend a little time, talk with you, and we will begin our council meeting promptly at 530 where we do the state of the town tonight, which is in good shape. This is your five minute warning to clear the room. Thank you. And so I took your advice. So are you ready. Are you already on. Okay. I don't. I don't see you. There you are. Got it. Cameroon he's on a leak is on. Manjo's on. Andy's time guards. So Athena let's remove the screen and get ready to are we starting a new tape. Okay, so we are already recording correct. Okay, I will wait till 530. Good evening. It is December 19, 2022. This is a regular meeting of the town council and includes the state of the town addresses on November 7, 2022 and act was signed into law which extended the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting along. This is what allows us to meet both in person and virtually, you can be either with us in the town room, you can be with us by zoom by phone, or watch us on Amherst media, given that we have a quorum of the council present. I'm calling the December 19, 2022 town council meeting to order at six at 530. I'm calling all upon each counselor. By name, at that time, you shouldn't unmute your mic and say present. This will indicate that we can hear, you can hear us and we can hear you. Please remember to mute your mic when we complete. Shawnee ball mill is present is absent at this point. Pat d'Angelo's present on it. I'm sorry. I skipped a whole line on a Devon got here present. Lynn grease murders present Mandy Joe hannacky present. Anika Lopes present. Michelle Miller present. Dorothy Pam. She's on her way. And I'm sure she will be with us. Pam Rooney present. Kathy Shane here. Andy Steinberg present. Jennifer Todd present. Lisa Walker. Please bring her in from the audience. Good evening, Alicia. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you, Alicia. Okay, and somebody keep an eye out for when Dorothy Pam joins us and also if shall need joins us. She's not joining tonight. Okay, thank you. No chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know. And we will decide what to do with those difficulties. Please also when you want to make a comment or ask a question use the raise Dorothy's in the audience now. Use the raise hand function. Please bring Dorothy in. Hi Dorothy, can you hear us. Yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for being with us earlier. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's also now, but in a different way. All right. So there are 12 counselors present tonight. And we are going to proceed with the announcements. You want to put them up on the screen. This is our last council meeting of the year. The next time we meet will be January 9th. At 6 30. Meantime, our committees are continuing to meet. We have a meeting to discuss the town manager's goals. And look at some of the issues that. Councillor Miller is going to explain to us later. Are in the parking lot.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we have a second meeting. For the town manager's goals. And look at some of the issues that. Councillor Miller was going to explain to us later. Are in the parking lot. Anika, you have your hand up. No. Thank you. The TSO meeting for December 22nd has been cancelled. In addition to that, we want to call attention to the fact that there will be community forums. about the proposed new Amherst Elementary School. Those community forums will be on Wednesday, January 25th at 2023 at 8.30 AM, and Thursday, January 26th at 6.30 PM, and we will continue to make sure the information about those are broadly sent out. In addition to that, several counselors have included information about the school at their district meeting but may choose to do so again in January, February, and March. With that, we're going to actually go straight to the state of the town address, and there's actually five parts to this evening, and we'll explain that in just a moment. Thank you. You can go to the next slide, please. Charter section 2.2 requires that each year, the council president and the town manager address the elected body's officials of the town and the public on the state affairs of the town. Tonight, we are joined by Jones Library Director Sharon Sherry, who is here on behalf of the trustees. We are joined by Allison McDonald, who is the chair of the elementary school committee. As a special feature this year, we will have a brief preview of a topic that will be a part of our 2023 serious conversations. That is coming from Kathy Shane, chair of the elementary school building committee, and a counselor in district one. Next slide. This is the fourth state of the town address that I've given, and it continues to be an honor and privilege to serve as president of the town council. Next slide. Please allow me to focus on the town manager and our standing town staff and express appreciation for others as well. We want to sincerely express our appreciation of our town staff. Earlier, we swore in some new first responders for police, fire and EMS, and new Crest team as well. Part of that response team also includes the department of public works. In addition to that, there are many other town departments that serve us every day. Our town staff keeps government moving. We recently completed the town manager's evaluation. He continues to receive predominantly commendable and satisfactory ratings. Amherst is challenging, yet because of the town manager and his staff, we are ahead of the curve. Continuing to serve as clerk of the town council is Athena O'Keefe. She serves the town council in countless ways. Without hesitation, she helps all of us stay on track and is a valued resource. We also wanna recognize the many town committees, their chairs, their members, and the town staff that serve them. The members of our town apply to be on our many committees. They share their expertise in areas such as water supply and contamination, solar, energy and climate action, housing, personnel, just to name a few areas. On behalf of the town council and the town of Amherst, we thank you for your past and ongoing service. Your willingness to provide us with sound advice and put up with our far-ranging ranging issues is greatly appreciated. We wish to express our appreciation to Amherst media for working with us to bring our meetings into residents' homes. And to our residents who challenge us every day to find a path forward when in many instances we do not always agree. Next slide. Your town council consists of 13 talented individuals who are very hardworking and independently minded. Counselors serve as chairs and vice chairs and as members of our four standing committees where some of the really hard work gets done. Our three at-large town councils are Mandy Jo Hanneke, Andy Steinberg and Alicia Walker. And for once in reverse order, I'm going to start with district five. Anna Devlin-Gother, Gother, who also serves as vice president of the council and Chalene Balmille. District four, the representatives are Nika Lopes and Pam Rooney. District three is represented by Dorothy Pam, Jennifer Taub, Pat DeAngelis joins me in representing district two and Michelle Miller and Kathy Shane represent district one. Now more than ever, each brings an important set of values and perspectives much needed in the town. Each councilor strives to represent those they serve. Please, at some moment, please let your council know that you appreciate them in the same way that you let them know about issues that are important to you. Next slide. Throughout our four years, we actually have continued to fill the requirements of the charter. It's our guiding, it's our guidebook. And we continue to make notes. In fact, one of the notes you'll find in the charter is that every year ending in four, we actually do a review of the charter that's coming up in 2024. Our job based on the charter includes public forums, district meetings, at least two a year in every district and of course, town council and committee meetings. Councilors work actively as the four members of the standing committees, the joint capital planning committee. And we have added to that list the elementary school building committee and the Jones library building committee. Individual counselors are also liaisons to selected town committees and available to all residents. There's also next slide, please. There's also charter requirements. And this is just a reminder of what we have accomplished over these last several years. First of all was the approval of the master plan as recommended by the planning board. We file legislation allowing us, we have filed legislation allowing us to implement ranked choice voting. And I have been informed by representative Dom that we do not have to refile or revote that legislation, it will automatically be refiled. We received reports, we received a report from the participatory budgeting commission and actually have found other ways for residents to make budget requests through CPA, resident capital requests and speaking out at public forums and public comment. And we have did develop and adopted a redistricting plan that was developed by our very able Districting Advisory Committee. New district lines were reassigned and we use them in just this past fall's election. Some of you may not have noticed because you did early voting at town hall or you voted by mail. But just so you know, you may wanna check where you actually have to show up for the election if you want to show up in person. The new district lines will apply to the spring 2023 elementary school debt exclusion vote. And this fall in 2023, you will elect town counselors, school committee members and Jones library and the town counselors will be by, 10 of them by the districts they live in. Next slide. Counselors are regularly in contact with residents through email, phone, Facebook, newsletters, meetings, all kinds of places. We regularly read proclamations at public events. We sponsor support and support legislation and we attend meetings of other organizations. Next slide. Our work is guided by the charter. Our rules are procedure. Our standing committees as they discuss items. And we in fact, in our very beginning years did create the board of licensed commissioners but can and continue to appoint people to the planning board and zoning board of appeals. Next slide. And one of the things we do every year when we have an election is make sure that we ensure your voting rights. Next slide. Our accomplishments over the four years are numerous but I will focus on the past year. These are presented in categories identical to the town managers policy goals because we can only accomplish these goals which are our priorities if we work together. First is climate action.  We have engaged in community choice aggregation and upon completion of the plan being submitted to the state we hope it will be approved. Earlier this fall, we got to stand at the landfill and after 10 years of working hard on it we got to cut the ribbon of the solar landfill project which supplies somewhere between 40 and 50% of the town's energy needs. We asked the town manager to create the solar bylaw working group and conduct a solar siting study. And in addition, the town services and outreach committee is now looking at the feasibility of town manage hauling for trash recycling and composting. We have been most fortunate to have outstanding town leadership in managing the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with amazing work from our department of health and many volunteers. We continue to offer vaccinations in multiple locations. Upon recommendation of the community safety working group we created Cress and we're able to swear yet another member of the Cress team in tonight. We are close to adopting water and sewer bylaws and regulations that will be, we hope in early January or in January and tonight we hope to complete a decade long flood mapping project with the approval of several motions and bylaws. TSO still has on its docket speed limits and street lighting. Recovering from the pandemic continues to take significant efforts and determination including zoning bylaws and use of the public way. Next slide. This includes the town's partnership with the Bidden Chamber and our human service nonprofits such as Family Outreach, Survival Center and Craig Stores. We've invested in recreation and our public ways and done that by increasing their use, renovation and additions. Next slide. We have passed several zoning laws, bylaws and general bylaws in support of economic vitality and overall community welfare including taking what was learned through temporary bylaw 14 and mending existing bylaws accordingly. That we hope will also be approved tonight. Other bylaws address housing, parking surveillance technology and historic preservation. Next slide. This is capital investments is an area of major activity for the town. You just have to ask the people who work on both the Jones Library Committee and the elementary school building committee. We'll learn more about that later. Locating a home for the Department of Public Works and the fire in EMS station south of downtown remain high on our list. At the same time we're benefiting from anonymous donations allowing for the expansion of the North Amherst Library and other donations that allowed us to build a dog park. Our capital inventory and five year capital improvement plan is comprehensive but daunting. We continue to next slide. We continue to do this because of sound outstanding fiscal management, balance budget, sufficient reserves, creation of a capital stabilization fund, clean audits and a plus plus bond rating. None of this should be taken lightly or assumed to be normal. With our outstanding fiscal staff and town management we have worked hard to get there. Next slide. The work of the town council regarding poor housing is guided by our comprehensive housing policy that came from our CRC committee with long hours of work. In the area of affordable housing we continue to work on 132 North Hampton Road. As you bump along the bumpy parts of route nine you can see the three story structure. And we have added to that Belcher Town Road and the East Street schools. A new development on Ball AIM is under review and will provide home ownership opportunities for low and moderate income families and individuals. We continue to provide for our homeless population while taking a major step forward with the pending purchase of 457 Main Street as a starting point for creating a permanent shelter and housing. The rental registration bylaw is under review by CRC and the town council has asked the finance committee to take a look at potential home rule legislation regarding implementation of a transfer fee related to the sale of homes above a certain dollar threshold. Next slide. Racial equity and social justice is an area of significant strides with many more miles to travel. We have approved a new department for diversity equity inclusion and hired an outstanding director. The African Heritage Reparation Assembly continues to work on its recommendations while we continue to contribute to the reparations fund. And I have been asked to make note that they will also have a listening session that will be virtual in January. The Community Safety and Social Justice Committee continues to its work and advocacy for the recommendations of the CSWG. And work has begun regarding the charge and description for a potential resident oversight board. Finally, we go to the last slide. Our future includes our ongoing six goals. We're still firming those up as we move into 2023. We continue to pass responsible capital and operating budgets. We absolutely hope that we will get to implement ranked choice voting in this next year, but that is up to the legislature. And counselors and the public, we all have a responsibility to make the job more manageable and shorten council meetings, provide additional transparency and additional resident engagement. Finally, as I've done in the past, I just wanna share some observations. The charter continues to be an outstanding document, often providing guidance in even the most obscure issues. We value the many ways in which we hear from our residents and ask that you continue to tell us when something is wrong and when something is right. Being president of the council means balancing one's democratic ideals with the need for leadership. The council keeps me in line, but most important to remember is we are all elected. We stand as equals. Leadership means hearing everyone and seeking solutions that may be tested and amended along the way. I'm honored to be president of the council, but I'm clear that I serve in this capacity at the pleasure of the council. Please let your counselors know that you appreciate them and recognize the dedication they each bring to this important role in our community. We're not going to just pause for a moment while I introduce Paul Bachman, who is going to give the next phase of the state of the town. Paul has been town manager of Amherst since 2016. Prior to becoming the chief executive officer of the town of Amherst, Paul was director of administration of finance at the Mass Municipal Association, the statewide association of all cities and towns in Massachusetts. He also served as the town administrator in the town of Manchester by the sea for 13 years. Paul has also worked for the city of Cambridge Historical Commission and was elected himself to the school committee in Somerville, winning election six times. Paul's a graduate of Hampshire College and has a master's degree in city planning from MIT. Paul, your turn. Thank you, Lynn. Slides. Thank you for hosting this. The next one, that's me. Let me go to the next one. Let's get off that, oh well. Okay, so I have the wonderful privilege to walk into this magnificent building, the town hall every day when I come to work. It was built in 1889. You can see the year inscribed on the top step as you enter the building. It was controversial to build. This is Amherst, as you know, and it took a fire to get the town to actually build it. But in building it, the town projected a sense of optimism, stability and durability. They built it with brick and granite. They were constructing a building, the largest in town for the long haul. Town leaders had an eye toward the future. Building this building wasn't an easy task. It took fortitude and an optimistic vision of where the town was going. I think about this because I wonder if the people who built this building could ever imagine the work that goes on here every day. I'm sure they never imagined that we'd be spending most of our time in front of screens or that we would be conducting our meetings on screens. But I bet that many of our debates about what to build and how to build it would sound pretty familiar to them. It's no secret that it's hard to get things done in local government. It's government that is closest to the people. We all have opinions and we all care. It's not unusual for a project to take several years to actually design and build something, but that's actually the easy part. Usually there were several years before that spent developing finance plans, convincing boards, committees, and the voters that these projects are needed for their children and their children's children and that the money was going to be spent wisely. It's especially true in Amherst, but I have to say the town where only the age of silent takes debate on nearly every issue to a new level. We see it play out in the town council meetings weekly, it seems. Through the course of these debates, I strive to be positive. I tell myself that the debate is part of the process that we have to go through to get to a better place to actually get things done. But it can be frustrating at times. I know you all feel this too and I know the public feels it as well. One of our challenges is how to maintain the kind of optimism it took to build this building and to retain the fortitude and confidence it takes to move the community forward, even in the face of criticism. So, I feel like we missed a couple of slides, or maybe not. Is that the second slide? Okay. So what does this mean for how we are doing? Given that this is the state of the town, I can attest and state with conviction that the state of the town is strong and resilient. We are strong because we have solid finances and engaged leaders and staff ready to make informed decisions and to do the work. We're resilient because as we emerge from the depths of the pandemic, we can show dozens of achievements and can show plans for more in the coming years. To that end, I want to celebrate our accomplishments for the past year and speak with hopefulness of where we will make progress in 2023. So let's look at our record of accomplishments and I won't, I'll skip over anything that Lynn has already talked about. As I look back at the past year or so, we've had many successes and some surely amazing things that we can celebrate. So think about it and go to the next slide. Maybe it's this, there, that one. Our kids now have a new spray park at Roth Park and a new playground at Kendrick Park. Town now owns 150 acres of pristine land, the former Hickory Ridge Golf Course purchased for just $520,000 that preserves over a mile of sensitive river frontage and sets aside land to generate 6.5 megawatts of electricity using solar panels. To the east on Belcher Town Road, we powered up the new solar project on the town's closed landfill generating another four megawatts of clean energy. All that going to meet the needs of our municipal buildings and a side benefit to this project was that dedicated residents and staff were able to find the space and funds to open our first dog park on another part of the closed landfill. And due to the generosity of a private donor, we were making progress on a sweet addition to our iconic North Amherst Library which coincidentally was built just a few years after this town hall was built. These are all tangible things we can look at and appreciate. We did them together as a community. While some have had a smoother path, others have taken close to a decade to become a reality. All have required extensive review by committees and thousands of hours of staff time to bring them to completion. Next slide, maybe? Yes. In this past year, we created two new departments. Now, creating new departments is not something that gets done very often. There isn't a playbook for how to do it. It's been decades, in fact. I think the last time a public safety department was created, we were figuring out how many teams of horses should pull a fire apparatus. But now, responding to one of the town council's main goals, we have a department of diversity, equity and inclusion which we call DEI led by director Pamela Nolan Ryan. Pamela Ryan Nolan, sorry. And a department, I just call her Pamela. And a department of community responders for equity, safety and service led by director Miller Earl, Earl Miller. I'm so pleased that we have the right leaders in place to create these new departments. True to Amherst Independent Spirit, Crest is using a model that has only been tried by a handful of small communities nationally. Police chief Livingstone and fire chief Nelson have been extraordinary in collaborating to support the development of this department. But every day brings a new challenge. I talked with Earl this morning, we had something new to talk about. I ask you and every member of the public to keep in mind, change in local government takes time, expect years of work to fully realize the goals of our DEI and Crest departments, but the work will be done. And in addition, we're making tangible progress on other major goals set by the town council. Next slide. We're working relentlessly to get a new elementary school for our children, which will create operational savings by combining two schools into one. This spring, the voters will be asked to support a new building by voting to exclude its debt from the limits of proposition two and a half. It is vital for the town's future that this debt exclusion pass. Tonight, we'll get a brief glimpse of this new building that I hope you'll be as excited as we are for what the future holds. Plans for the Jones Library renovations are coming into focus. That building needs a serious injection of capital, most of which has been secured by a grant or will be raised privately to become a true centerpiece of our community in the downtown business district. It's a bold statement, much like the town hall was in 1889 that will pay dividends well into the future. We've continued to make real progress on securing new facilities for our firefighters and public works employees. The current central fire station and DPW facility must be addressed. Expect to see solid steps on these two projects early in 2023. So next slide. I'm going to zip through some of our other accomplishments. I'm not going to read all these words. The town is used, as Lynn said, the town is using our CARP, their Climate Action Adaptation Resiliency Plan as our guide, including $500,000 in ARPA funds to move some of these initiatives forward. Next slide. With the affordable housing projects on Northampton Road, Belcher-Channon Road and the East Street School, we will rank among the top towns in providing affordable housing by percentage of housing. And we're preparing to purchase the former site of the VFW on Main Street as a location for a permanent year-round homeless shelter. Next slide. Our health department has continued to address the needs of the public by offering testing, contact tracing, and vaccination clinics to fight COVID-19. In the last couple of weeks, nearly 600 people received their vaccine, many for the first time. And also working with the DPW, the health department was selected by the state to conduct regular testing of our wastewater for COVID. This information is shared regularly on our town website. Next slide. The shakeout from the pandemic has certainly taken a toll on our local businesses, but actually, economic activity in town is pretty good, especially when you compare it to other communities. The town has been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for downtown improvements, and there's more to come. I wanna recognize the energy and tireless creativity of the leaders of the Business Improvement District in the chamber. Working with town planning staff, their vision and energy have truly changed the game and amourst. We all recognize the university and colleges are part of our community's cultural richness and vitality. We will continue to work with them to ensure that they become full partners in our community. We appreciate their openness to these discussions and hope to report to the town council in the very near future. Construction has started on the Pomeroy Village roundabout funded in large part by $1.5 million state grant. A similar grant was awarded for improvements to the East Amherst Village Center for sidewalk improvements on Belcherton Road. The long and way to improve improvements to the North Common, again, funded with the aid of a sizable federal grant is on tap for 2023 as our improvements to the South Common, which was awarded a $250,000 grant. So with everything I've just mentioned, nothing, absolutely none of it would be accomplished if we didn't have our financial house in order. Try next slide. We are so very fortunate to have finance staff who have always centered our aspirations with the financial realities of what we can afford. Comptroller Sonja Aldrich has announced her retirement in 2023. She is leaving us in a good place. The town's finances are secure, strong, and above reproach. Detailed understanding of the town's finances has enabled town staff to insist, anticipate needs, budget for contingencies, and ensure the town will always be able to meet its obligations. We have maintained our commitment to build reserves and reduce our debt obligations. Our evolving five-year capital plan sets a new standard for setting realistic expectations for future capital commitments. Next slide. So I have worked in local government my entire career. When working in local government, one must take stock of our accomplishments, and that's what I just did, because we need to remember that our work will lead to a better tomorrow. We need to identify and celebrate these accomplishments to bolster our resiliency because things can take a long time. You see, it's the rare initiative that doesn't have at least one group of individuals who doesn't like it. We hear it every day. The effort to advance an idea or project can take years. We find ourselves trying to convince Kajol and even grovel to get a project over the finish line. As one of my colleagues in local government reminds me, it is the frustrations and setbacks that we typically remember. We focus on the delays, diversions, and recriminations. I have to remind myself to recognize the many accomplishments of which we can all be rightly proud. For those in the community who say we aren't going far enough or fast enough, I challenge you to point to another community that is doing more, another community that is having these dynamic discussions about race and climate. Another group that has engaged in deep reflection about public engagement. Other municipal staff who see their work for the town is their mission, not just a job. Another police department that serves the town as well as ours does. Another public school system where you would rather send your children. We aren't perfect, I recognize that. But we are engaged and willing to do the work to make our community better. Lastly, I want to acknowledge that it's been a rough year for our employees. Like every entity, we have had staffing challenges. But the town's employees have really stepped up to fill shifts, answer phones, fill in when needed. Every time you ask an employee to do something, they're there and they always are filling in gaps when they recognize it. I'm really feel honored to work alongside these dedicated people who continue to vote their professional careers to serving the people of Amherst. I especially want to acknowledge the town's department heads. These are the folks that you most interact with. They're very talented individuals and I appreciate every one of our staff. There's no shortage of goals. Tonight the town council will be discussing several dozen goals for the manager in 2023, which I look forward to engaging in. But the central message for me tonight is we will need resilience, patience and persistence, and drawing on our better selves to realize our goals. Keeping the long-term plan an explicit part of the daily conversation makes short-term setbacks easier to take. Which takes me back to this building. In 1889, town leaders set a path to build a majestic town hall in the center of town. Because we're sitting here tonight, we were fortunate they had the vision and courage to build it. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. I would just want to note that in addition to being joined by Sharon Sherry, who is the director of the Jones Library, we do have trustees from both the library and the school in the audience as well. Sharon is a Berkshire County native and a UMass alum. She's been working in Western Mass Public Libraries for 30 years. She's been the director of the Jones Library System for the past 11 years and prior to coming to Amherst, she directed both the Greenfield and Sunderland Public Libraries. Sharon, I just also want to mention that there is a larger, longer report in the packet to the public and the council, but Sharon is going to highlight some of that in her brief presentation. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lynn. Thank you all, counselors and town manager, Balcomen, do you want to pull up the slack? Thank you. Next slide. So the COVID pandemic continued to affect all library activity throughout fiscal year 22. Over the summer of 21, staff continued to act as greeters to ensure that patrons were wearing masks and remaining socially distant and the open-hour schedules for the three buildings remained limited. But as of Labor Day 2021, for the first time since March, 2020, all three library buildings opened full-time. I want to give a special shout out to the Amherst Health Department for working with us throughout the year to distribute PCR COVID tests to the public on a weekly basis. The public demand for those kits was quite extraordinary during that time. And to the Amherst Fire Department for continuing to provide library staff with KN95 masks even after the mask mandate was lifted in March. The library system has yet to return to pre-COVID operations. People are still quite wary of COVID. So during FY22, staff continued pivoting with many of our services and programs being made available either virtually or outside. The children's department hosted 99 virtual programs at FY22, including the distribution of over 1,800 take and make activity crafts. The reference department began offering library patrons up to 10 pages of free printing or copying each day. We also continued our free print from home service, which patrons used over 300 times during FY22. Striving to make the branches more action-oriented spaces, the Munson Memorial and the North Amherst Libraries also provided take and make activity crafts. On a beautiful day in October of 21, the ESL department hosted a naturalization oath ceremony outside under the tent. The teens released a collaborative Tales and Tales, that's T-A-I-L-S and T-A-L-E-S, Zeme, which included submissions from kids and teens and adults from throughout the community. Continuing our collaboration begun the previous year with the Amherst Survival Center. Two virtual programs were bought to the Survival Center community as well as to the wider Amherst community. A free cooking class featured the center's Community Meals Coordinator, preparing a meal made from local seasonal produce. And then later a free virtual class offering an introduction to modern calligraphy was offered with materials available for pickup by participants at both the Jones Library and the Survival Center. In April, which is National Poetry Month, our special collection staff gave a completely verbal presentation about Emily Dickinson and Amherst during her lifetime, along with descriptions of our collections for Behind Our Eyes, which is an organization of writers with disabilities. Part of the presentation was a verbal walk with LaVinia up Main Street from the Homestead to Cutler's Store on Bridge and Throne. Our homebound program also grew in popularity with staff and volunteers providing access to library materials to Amherst residents who were unable to visit the library in person. The trustees and staff continued to build to build upon previous diversity efforts to ensure that racial equity is a priority. Thanks to funding from the Friends of the Library, staff created the library's traveling book cart and this cart was filled with youth and adult black literature and taken to the Dune 10th celebration on the Common. Anyone could borrow a book and no library card was required. Our 2022 on the same page Amherst program was held virtually again. The selected title was Gerald Walker's How to Make a Slave and Other Essays with supporting programs and a book discussion over 100 participants delved into Walker's Reflections of Race by a Black man in academia of parenting and as part of the wider community. Staff also increased the number of programs held offsite, which helped provide greater access to said programs. For example, of the 178 programs that the Jones Library Kids Department hosted, 44% of them were hosted outside the library, either under the tent or offsite in the community. A couple of offsite programs included our Winter Solstice Storytime at Kendrick Park and the Flying High Dogs at Roth Park. Next slide. Let me switch gears and give you a quick overview of our budget regarding income. The library received a 2.1% increase in its town appropriation for FY22. The trustees reduced the endowment draw rate to 4%, which was down from 4.5% in FY21. This equaled a 7% decrease in income. So in order to fill the gap, the Friends of the Jones Library System donated over $160,000 to the library, which was a 16% increase over FY21. Gifts from the Friends equaled 7.7% of the library's FY22 total operating budget. And I wanna thank all of our donors. Small gifts, large gifts, they all matter and they all help to provide programs and services that really make a difference in our town. Library staff also secured $23,000 worth of grant funding for the purchase of circulating materials, special collections programming and equity training for staff. Regarding expenses, 65% of the library's total operating budget during FY22 was spent on personnel. Utilities expenses, which equaled 3.6% of the operating budget, saw a 31% increase. And building maintenance costs increased by 8%, basically because the Jones systems have exceeded their useful lives. Based on demand for the second year in a row, the purchase of e-content surpassed that of books. There are many reasons for this nationwide decline of print book usage. For example, our Google machines, they have definitely contributed to the decline. Using our personal devices is convenient and enjoyable for a lot of us. Budget cuts, public libraries have not recovered from the 08 recession. We are weeding according to industry standards, slowly and methodically, but we're unable to replace these items as quickly because there just isn't enough money. So there are fewer books on the shelves available for checkout. And also technology is changing at the speed of light. And so because of this, libraries are also having to purchase the same title in many different formats, whether it's regular print or large print, a book on CD, a playaway, and that eats up the budget quickly. Next slide. And finally, an update on the building project. As you know, the Jones building is in need of extensive work to solve its safety, efficiency and building systems problems. These problems cannot be solved by rearranging the furniture. You combine these issues with the fact that we're unable to serve this community's underserved at a cost of $15.8 million to the town, regardless of what the total project cost is. The trustees in the town are moving forward with our Massachusetts Public Library construction grant project. In advancement of the renovation and expansion project, several key milestones were met during FY22. The Jones Library building's historic structure report was completed. The Amherst Historical Commission unanimously approved moving the Kinsey Garden plantings and hardscapes to the Kestrel Land Trust property located in South Amherst. The Jones Library building's historic preservation restriction was completed. Due to their historical significance, a separate and permanent room for the town's Civil War tablets was designed. Also many opportunities for public engagement were provided throughout the fiscal year, including an appearance on Kappa Joe with the town manager, a library chat, building committee, community chats and an open house was held in May in order to speak with community members and collect comments about the project. And finally, the town received its first MBLC construction grant disbursement in the amount of 2,774,263 dollars. If you have not yet had an insiders tour of the Jones, I urge you to set aside one hour, maybe an hour and a half for a tour. And if you'd like to make a pledge towards the capital campaign, I would love to hear from you as well. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. You really appreciate your being with us. We're going to go on to the school committee and we're joined tonight by Allison McDonald, who is chair of the school committee. Allison and her family moved to Amherst 20 years ago, choosing Amherst for the strong reputation of its public schools. She's communications and marketing professional has worked locally and now virtually. Over the years, she has volunteered with the PGO at Fort River and helped out with her son's youth sports events. After serving on the district's enrollment working group in 2017, Allison was elected school committee in 2018. She is now the chair of that school committee and is the past chair of the regional school committee. Allison will put your slides up and you may wanna go ahead and mention that Doreen Cunningham has joined us this evening. And Mike Morris is unable to be with us. Thank you. Yes, I can see Doreen's face on the screen. So thank you for that introduction. I'm Allison McDonald and have been with the school committee for almost five years now. And Doreen Cunningham is here with us. She's our assistant superintendent for diversity, equity and HR. And so I'm happy that she's able to join us tonight. I'm not sure I see my colleagues in attendance but I'm sure they're watching from home. There are many, many, many other individuals who work very hard every day in support of our students and our schools who are not here. We are both fortunate and grateful for their efforts and dedication. So next slide. I show this slide every year, but I think it's super important because I think it's easy to forget what our overarching mission and our guiding star is for our schools. It is obviously our students, we all know that. But I think it's helpful to just ground ourselves every year in this. Our mission is to provide all of our students with a high quality education to enable them to be contributing members of a multi-ethnic, multicultural, pluralistic society. And we seek to create an environment in our schools that achieves equity for all students and ensures that each student is a successful learner, is fully respected and learns to respect others. Next slide. I'm gonna talk both about our elementary schools and as an Amherst representative on the regional school committee, talk a little bit about our regional schools because our children in Amherst attend both of those school systems. We have three elementary schools that serve nearly 1,000 students in grades kindergarten through sixth grade. An additional 60 students are served in our early childhood center at Crocker Farm. Our three schools, Wildwood, Port River and Crocker Farm are roughly similar in size and demographics. With a student population that's highly diverse, more than half of our students are black, indigenous or other people of color. And more than one in four speak in language that's a first language that is not English. Additionally, more than half of our students are high needs as defined by the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education or DESI. 37% are low income and more than one in five have disabilities. A budget of 28.8 million in spending this year, including funding from federal, state and other grants enables us to deliver on our mission to support the needs and learning journey of every one of our students. Next. We enjoy a strong state-wide reputation for our public schools and it's a legacy that our community values and prioritizes. Our elementary school district consistently meets state progress and accountability goals, though persistent gaps remain among high needs students and other groups. To address these persistent gaps, particularly in math, we implemented a new math curriculum this year after an extensive review and pilot last year. This curriculum, there's more at the end of these slides. There's links to a lot more information, including a presentation about the selection process and a little bit more about this math curriculum. Our Commonantus Dual Language Program is based in the Fort River School and it's now in its fourth year. It's now encompasses kindergarten through third grade. Each year we add a grade at the top. The education program in our schools is enhanced through art, music, both classroom and instrumental music instruction, PE, library and media studies and technology education. That is each of these is provided in weekly specials classes as well as integrated into grade level unit studies. We also have an innovative school garden program that continues and it's integrated into our science curriculum at the elementary schools. We continue to offer a low class average side, sorry, average class sizes of about 18 to promote learning and a low student teacher ratio of nine to one. Next slide. While the budget for elementary schools has grown over the years, the increase in costs such as for transportation, staff salaries and benefits have grown faster than the funding we receive. This year we're using approximately $400,000 of one-time federal grants to avoid cuts and to restore full-time art and technology teachers at each of our schools. As mentioned, 25 million of that funding is coming from the town of Amherst and 3.2 million is coming from funding from federal grants as well as other restricted money from revolving funds. Next slide. Looking at our regional schools, we have two regional schools that serve about 1,200 students in grades seven through 12 from the four towns of Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Schuetsbury. Sorry, I lost my notes. There we go. Amherst is, our student population in the schools is also very diverse with half of our students being black, indigenous or other people of color. More than 40% of our students are high needs in their regional schools and one in three are low income. More than one in five students have disabilities. Our budget of $37.8 million enables us to deliver on our mission and support the needs of each of these students. Next. Like our elementary schools, our regional schools enjoy an excellent reputation thanks to our dedicated and high quality educators, staff and administrators. Students at both the middle and the high school are offered an array of electives. At the high school, our core academic program includes diverse offering of AP and other advanced courses. Two thirds of our 11th and 12th graders complete advanced courses each year and 80% of all high ARHS students take courses in the arts, which is a reflection of the diversity and popularity of these offerings. This is pretty unusual and unique for our area. There's in the full report that's attached to the packet. You'll see comparison on a lot of these statistics with some of our neighboring high schools. Our schools provide a strong community and school programs to support student well-being and socially emotional health, including our family center that operates district-wide. It's based in the middle school that it operates for the entire elementary and regional district. Our bright program, and I'm forgetting what that stands for, but it's a support for mental health and students after extended absences from school and our restorative justice programs. Additionally, after piloting later start time during the pandemic, we implemented that as a permanent change last year and continue this year. A survey of students and staff and families earlier in the year demonstrated that this change is still preferred by a majority of our community. And that's to help support the learning and emotional health of our students. We prioritize smaller class sizes to promote learning and our schools provide high quality in-district specialist ed programs for intensive special needs students. There's a wide array of clubs and sports, nearly a third of our students participate in athletics and together these opportunities define the rich character of our regional schools. Next slide. After three years of flat funding that required cumulative cuts of nearly $2 million to the services that we had provided in 2019-20, this year's budget, we were able to maintain services similar to our elementary schools, thanks in part to the one times federal funding that we have in grants. This year, we're using $17 million in funding from the town of Amherst, an additional $16 million in funding that comes from the state and other, the three other region towns and $4 million in funding from federal and other grants and as well as revolving funds. Next. This slide shows our goals for this year and these include the school building project. So continue to collaborate with the elementary school building committee to help advance that project. We also are moving our sixth grade to the middle school. Amherst is the only town in the region that is moving at sixth grade and those students will remain students of the elementary school district. We're completing those plans and that will happen at the fall of next year. Budget engagement, we're implementing new ways to engage the community in the budget development. The regional school committee recently completed a survey of our school community that provided rich, rich feedback from over 200 respondents, lots of open-ended comments, much more than we typically get in our budget hearings and budget forums and the elementary school committee is going to implement something similar in the new year. Regional capital plan, looking to develop and refine our long-term capital plan for the regional properties. We're also focusing on student safety and wellbeing particularly in the regional schools and staff diversity and inclusion. This is a goal that we've had over multiple, multiple years that during Cunningham has been leading a lot of this effort in supporting professional development for and to increase the retention of staff of color. I hope you'll tune in for and look in the full report to see the progress that we've made. It is significant to see the changes over the four or five years since this has been a focused goal. In terms of curriculum instruction, we're going to continue to work on implementation of the new elementary math curriculum and focus on moderating student achievement data to make sure it's achieving that it's having the impact that we had intended. And in the region, we're working on school improvement plans to update those school improvement plans. Next, this slide has links to a lot more information. There's also in the packet, there's many more slides that have a lot more information about the schools. If you want to look at more information about the plan for the sixth grade move to the middle school, the elementary math curriculum, the community feedback and the start time change as well as community feedback on the regional schools budget. If you have questions, please, not tonight, but use, you can email the school committee at amherstschoolcommitteeatarps.org at any time after this. Dr. Morris's email is there. And during Cunningham's email is also on the website. And I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Allison. We're going to move on to a special feature of tonight where Kathy Shane, who is chair of the elementary school building committee, she also serves on other committees for the council and has served on the council since it's beginning four years ago. She and her family have lived in Amherst for 40 years, trained as an economist with a focus on public finance before retiring, Kathy led policy and research efforts to reform the US healthcare. She also served for a decade as the research and policy director for a national labor union, representing low wage health and other service workers. Kathy, please proceed. Thank you, Lynn. I may wait to get my slides up. I'm both delighted and honored to have this opportunity to share the emerging design of the new elementary school. And I'm doing this on behalf of our fabulous school building committee, which has at least one other counselor, Alicia Walker on it and multiple school members. All the pictures that I'm showing tonight come from presentation to the committee by our creative, responsible design team, Dinesco Design. Next slide. With the sixth grade moving to the middle school, the proposed new school will serve 575 students, grades kindergarten through fifth grade, consolidating Wildwood and Fort River into one school located at the current Fort River site. As you can see from this overview of the site layout, the site is large enough to allow a new building on the south end of the property, a substantial distance away from the current school, which is that little dotted line you see up top. It allows for safe construction site while the school is in session. Not yet, please go back. Thank you. The outdoor site plan for the school includes locations for play and outdoor learning, including areas for student projects and rain gardens for water runoffs. Outdoor learning was a top priority of the community and staff when we listened during the spring forums. Recreational playing fields to the north side of the new school will be well-drained and available during and after school for multiple recreational sports. As illustrated, the site again is large enough to allow buses and cars to circulate without crossing over with safe pathways for walkers and bicyclists. Next slide. The new three-fourth floor school will have classroom and spaces that meet educational needs with a flexible design and areas for small group activities. Students will learn and teachers will be in the classrooms that are daylight filled with space throughout. The school will be home for the dual language program that Allison just mentioned and special needs programs. These are well-integrated into the floor layouts. The design includes a cafeteria and a gym that will be available after hours to the community with secure access. One of the most exciting features of the school in addition to the fabulous design will it will be Amherst's first public net zero building or an exciting milestone, including geothermal wells and all electric conduct system, HVAC system will be in a well-insulated energy efficient building. Solar panels for renewable energy will offset electric costs. Based on our building plans, new incentives for ever source will provide an estimated 1.6 million including support of construction. After it opens, the school will save at least $250,000 a year on utility costs. I think what particularly exciting is that the building will provide a place for our children and future children to learn and participate in climate action. Next slide. And as this video shows you, the design team has been able to bring the building to life for us. As we approach the entrance, you can see it's clearly marked. There's a place for the name of the school and we've actually thought we might wanna have a naming contest if we decide to name it differently. On the north side, which is the side we're looking at now, the cafeteria and the library above it will be facing the playing fields with windows that allow light to come in both to the room and to the internal areas. You're seeing playing fields that I discussed illustrated. The orange overhang is the kindergarten which has a larger space. There'll be two classrooms per floor in the three floors with the fourth and fifth graders getting the privileged position of being on the top floor on the top of everyone else. As we rotate around to the other side of the building, which is the south side, there's space for children's science projects and children's gardens. The teachers who participate in thinking about the outdoor learning. There's also gonna be an area with rain gardens and bioswales with a lot of emphasis on the outdoor for outdoor learning. As we swing all the way around, you'll see a large white building protruding and that's the gym, which is on the south side. And it's designed in a way that when the buses come and loop into the building in the morning, they'll be able to, students will be able to go directly into the building or with van drop offs. And I can't speed up the video because I'm not in control of it. But as you come around, what you're gonna see is the slope groups that you saw when you first were looking at the school are set up to be able to have the PV panels on top of the roof. And there will also be PV panels over the parking area. So this net zero design is both very energy efficient and has led to a design that allows light to come into the building. Next slide, we're somehow we're still on it. Okay, that's great. This slide again is as if we're walking into the building, Denisco has allowed us to see what some of the floor layouts look like and what the height of the ceiling looks like as well as the glass. Daylight has been emphasized throughout this building, both internal and allowing light to come into the hallways and those colored tiles you see up on top are acoustical tiles to keep the noise levels down. As we rotate around walking down this hallway, you're going to see the cafeteria on the left. And I thought I had sped up the time. I'm sorry, Lynn. We're just walking very slowly down this hallway. But one of the things that the designers have looked at is that is a piece of wall that if we wanna do community art including reproduced, which you can see on the outside of Fort River, this is a potential space for artwork to come inside the building. On your left as we swing around is gonna be the cafeteria. And on your right, you can see the gym. And both of these have light coming in with glass internal walls as well as the ability to look outside. Now, last but not least is the cafeteria. You can walk outside of this cafeteria to the outdoors. You can see the stage and it connects to the music rooms which are on the entry of the building. So the music classes can come on to the stage for practice and or performances. And I'm just gonna let the slide walk us back out of the building. You can actually click out of this slide, Sean. We'll go into the next one. On this one, I took, whoops. Back up to, on this one, I took snapshots. We have videos of the multiple internal spaces to give you a look at what the classrooms look like. These are very efficiently and flexibly designed and the teachers can choose where they want the wallboards behind that white space, their storage capacity. And you can see again, this emphasis on light in the building just outside the classroom. We can see in the upper corner are these project spaces, a very innovative part of the school design where you can go out with small classroom sizes, small groups of students and it's clusters of classrooms with lockers surrounding. And then the top part of that is area storage for teachers and staff. These will be facing classes on one side, classes on the other with these outside areas with the two grades per floor, actually able to store some of this, share some of this space and get cross-aged learning. On the bottom corner, you see the inside of the library. The library's been designed so all of those stacks in the middle can move and you can recreate study spaces and reconfigure it as you need for the classes. Next slide. And all of these, by the way, we're making them available on our website and they are animated. This is the timeline we're looking at. Right now, we finished the major details on schematic design, the layout, the massing of the building, the tentative exterior materials, the layout of the site. And this is enough now to update our cost estimates and get revised cost estimates. We expect them back by the end of December. In January and February, the committee will be meeting both to discuss the cost estimates and then review the report that we need to approve and submit to MSVA, the Massachusetts School Building Authority, by March 1st. And this is the authority that will be providing grant support of the school. As Lynn already told you, there are two community forums scheduled and we plan to get the news out on them. They'll be the same forum, run both in the morning and then again in the evening with ample time for community discussion. The council will begin its discussion in January around the debt exclusion, starting to discuss what we're being asked for in terms of language and voting, how we're going to vote, setting the voting date. Later on in March and April, the council will be asked for to come up with financing decisions and vote the debt exclusion, vote the debt authorization. Amherst residents are going to vote. At least right now we've scheduled it for May 2nd, which is after we hear and we know what the Amherst share will be. If all goes well, and I certainly hope it will because the school is an amazingly exciting project. Construction will begin on 2024 and the school will open on September, 2026. And I just want to close with Paul said it's been a privilege to be our town manager. I've had such a privilege to be able to serve as chair of a fantastic committee for an exciting project that will be for children of the next few years, but I think it's going to be with us for generations to come. It's a forward-looking building with an innovative and flexible design. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. I just want to conclude this by going back to an announcement and that is on January 11th at 6.30 p.m. the African Heritage Reparations Assembly will hold a listening session that's virtual and their special guest will be Congressman McGovern. With that, we're concluding the State of the Town and we're going on to the regular business of the council. The next item up is in fact public comment and it is the only public comment this evening, the one guest that has been with us in the audience has decided not to stay for public comment, but Tony, thank you for joining us. If you are in the audience and that right now there are 16 people in the audience on Zoom, if you would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time. See no public comment. I'm going to move on to the consent agenda and let me just note that we've added a couple of things in the consent agenda, but I will explain them as we go along. As in the past, the following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy. However, you can remove an item and at some point during this discussion I will ask if there's anybody who does not want to vote on the zoning items which will require a two thirds vote. So the motion that I'm going to start with and then you'll tell me if you have any you'd like to remove is the following. To move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. Eight A proposed amendment to zoning bylaw article three use regulations article five accessory use article 11, administration and enforcement and article 12 definitions. I'm not going to read the definitions they're on your screen but the bullets on your screen. Article, I mean, I'm sorry, eight B proposed revision to zoning bylaw article two zoning districts article three use regulations and article 16 FEMA floodplain overlay district zoning bylaw official zoning map, FEMA floodplain overlay district flood insurance rate maps firm and flood insurance study dated February 9, 2023. And that also has some additional bullets that you'll see on the screen. Eight C adoption of revisions to general bylaw 3.22 discharging of firearms. All three of these, we had our first discussion of them last week and this would be the second reading and vote. We have eight E and in this case, it's a referral of the proposed surveillance use policy and surveillance technology impact report regarding the police department in cruiser video and audio to the town services and outreach committee. All this is a vote for a referral to the committee there will still be an opportunity for a discussion later during the agenda. And finally is the nine A one, two, five approval of town manager appointments to the board of health the human rights commission, recreation commission registrar of voters and transportation advisory committee. Are there any items that people would like removed because you cannot vote for them? I am seeing none. So I am going to proceed with the vote. I'm going to start with- I think we need a second. I'll second the motion. I'm sorry, thank you. The motion's been made and seconded. Cheleney-Bone-Mill is absent. Pat D'Angelo's. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Grease-Mersen. Aye. Mandy Johannicki. Aye. Annika Lopes. Aye. Annika Miller. Aye. Pam Rooney. I'm sorry, Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Aye. It is unanimous and we have also achieved a two thirds vote for those related to zoning. We have no proclamations this evening. And so we are going to go on to our first action item.  Thank you. I just wanted to say thanks to the town staff for bringing those zoning articles and all the hard work that it took to shape them and tie up the loose ends. Thank you. Thank you. I think we all join you in that appreciation and we're giving them a slightly earlier evening since we're not going to talk anymore about them. So thanks. We are going to move on to the transfer of a portion of Hickory Ridge property on West Palm Roy Lane to the Recreation Commission and appropriation and transfer for acceptance of the park grant. I'm calling on town manager Paul Bachman and Dave Zomac. Thank you, Lynn. There is a detailed memo in your packet and I think Dave was going to address this. He's here. Thank you, David. Thank you very much. A little ahead of schedule. But happy to be here with you tonight. Yes, as Paul mentioned, there is a detailed memo and a map as well as a draft order in your packets. This is a series of actions that we have followed before when the town applies for and receives park grant. Park grants from the state. The state grants those funds, but in typical state fashion, they would like us to do something in return. And that is they would like to dedicate a portion of the property to recreation, passive recreation. In this case, in your packet was a map of the acreage that we're proposing the trail go on. That is a western portion, a small western portion of the property. Here it is. Thank you, Athena. And this is the area that we believe is the best location for an accessible trail. You can see in the lower right-hand corner of the map the current location of the old clubhouse parking lot and an outbuilding. And of course we are going to stay far clear of that because that is an area that is the highest and driest on the property and is likely to be considered for other uses in the future. The area outlined in blue, as I noted, is the area that we are proposing for the accessible trail. Part of the area, those portions in green are actually already, they were formerly cart paths. So they are either paved or crushed stone. The areas in yellow will be new crushed stone walkways about six or eight feet wide with appropriate benches and kiosks, et cetera. So maybe I should stop there. The funding for this, so the order has two parts. One part is, as I said, to dedicate the land to passive recreation. The other part is to really authorize the use of the two sources of funding. One is previously authorized CPA funds and then of course the grant. So there would be no need for new funds to support this $400,000 project. We think that as part of the redevelopment of Hickory Ridge, trails and trail development, both north-south trails and accessible trails are in keeping with some of the goals of the project. So I think I'll stop there and happy to take your questions. Thank you, David. Kathy? Yes, Dave, thank you for that. On the map, I was trying to figure out where the solar fields are going to go. So part of what we did when we took this land as a part of the property has solar on it. And I wasn't quite sure where the trails intersect with that or whether they're completely to the right of the solar as I'm looking at the maps. Sure, if Athena could put the map back up, that would be helpful. Thank you, Athena. So the Western Array, so thank you for your question, Kathy. It's actually quite timely because my staff and I are in very active, I would call them nearing final completion stages with AMP Energy. The building inspections office will be issuing a building permit for the solar in the weeks ahead. And AMP intends to begin construction probably mid to late January. And in the upper left-hand corner of this slide, you can see the crosshatch in blue. Thank you, Athena. That is the Western Array. For those of you in the audience, I know the council is well aware, there will be 26 acres of solar on the property. So the Western Array will be where Athena's cursor was. The central or eastern array, yes, will be approximately where Athena kind of in the upper right-hand corner of this slide, yes, exactly up in that area. There will be two nodes of solar connected by a crushed stone roadway, essentially. So just to remind everyone, there's 150 acres, 26 acres of solar, and there was a small developable piece of property where the clubhouse and current parking area is. For those of you who have driven by the site in recent weeks, we are allowing the construction company that is doing the Palmyroy Village Center roundabout to use a small portion of the parking lot for staging. We thought that was a good use and saves the project's money and increases efficiency. So the solar will begin in probably mid to late January and we'll have some notices going out to a butters, even though it's not our project, it is our land. So we will be alerting a butters that that project will be getting underway. It will bring in, I haven't looked at that pilot in a while, but my memory serves, it's about $65,000 to $70,000 a year in pilot payments for that 6.2 megawatt array. Okay, any further question on that, Kathy? Well, just now that you've pointed out on the map, how do they get to the solar array? Is there a bridge across the Port River?  So just trying to figure out how this works and that developable area, you had told us was 7 to 8 acres. This was the information at the outset. So is the trail that is being developed? Is it gonna be part of that? And would that mean that we wouldn't develop that area or I'm just trying to figure out how the site works and how you get up into that upper corner? It's a good, very good question, Kathy, and gives you a sense. I was telling Paul just the other day, the level of detail and the number of details that are involved. I listened to the Fort River presentation moments ago and I realized that's a very complex project, this in the end is a very complex project with so many different layers. So again, 150 acres, 26 acres of solar, there are seven bridges. These are cart path bridges designed for golf carts primarily, but also for lawn mowers. Of those seven bridges, five are over the Fort River and two are over the Plum Brook. Only one of the bridges over the Fort River was in condition and strong enough to support the construction of vehicles, which would be fairly small. This is not a huge building construction project, if you will. These are pole-mounted solar panels, but only one of the bridges over the Fort River could even pass the engineering studies with some improvements. So those have all been worked through with the inspection services department as well as the fire department and that will be the first project that will be done is a bridge to the right of this screenshot that I showed you of the property will allow for North, South access to the solar panels and that development. It also allows the fire department, the police department, anyone, even the DPW to go over that bridge in the future because we do have a cross-country sewer line that goes across the North section of the property. So this project will in no way impact either the solar project or any bridge access that we need. There will be a North, South trail as well. And that was promised as part of the overall project. You may recall that one of the underlying pieces of this project was to connect those residents living in the neighborhoods to the North up near East Hadley Road in Mill Valley in the renew projects. I believe renew owns at least one of the apartment complexes and then another one to the West as well as the Brook as well as residents on North of East Hadley Road, those residents will now be able to access this incredible open space as well as the Village Center down at Hummery Village Center down near El Comolito and Mission Cantina and the convenience store there. And I believe renew or one of the apartment complexes there as some infill development projects underway as I referenced a moment ago. So there will be a North, South trail as well as this loop trail down in the Western section. And of course we'll plan for parking to be somewhere along Hummery, West Hummer Lane. Okay, Andy? Yeah, I was curious about one thing, Dave. When you go down to the handicapped accessible trail that's near Puffer's Pond along what I guess is that at that point, maybe Cushman Brook, it is accessible from a parking area so that somebody whose wheelchair bound or very limited in mobility can still access the trail but it looked like the way that the trails are laid out in that map that you've showed us. It does not have any vehicle access to the points where it's marked as handicapped accessible trails. And I was wondering how that works then. I may not understand your question exactly, Andy, but suffice it to say that at least in the short term people will be able to park near the clubhouse from the clubhouse to from the clubhouse parking behind the old clubhouse is all bituminous pavement. And then we will pick this trail up, if you will, from the edge of that pavement west. So the path will be accessible for people who have mobility challenges from the parking lot all the way west down along the Fort River, et cetera. So ultimately what we decide to do with that frontage will need to incorporate some trailhead parking somewhere near the current clubhouse. As I mentioned before, our plan is to raise the clubhouse but whatever we decide to do in that area will simply incorporate some trailhead parking. I know in recent meetings, we've talked about the possibility of using Hickory Ridge. I believe Paul mentioned it perhaps last meeting or the meeting before, but we've talked about whether Hickory Ridge would be an appropriate site for a South fire station. And my staff and I are working with some consultants to look at some modeling for that now. And of course that would be entirely compatible with some additional trailhead parking. So we'll make sure that it's accessible from the current parking lot. And then in the future, if the town decides to move forward with a South fire station or a community center or affordable housing, adding trailhead parking would be part of that project. And if you could put the, if Athena could put the map back up again, there are two sections that are marked in yellow, which I understand to be the accessible sections of the trail and one of them is along the river. Is that also accessible in the way that you described? Yes, so the entire green and yellow area will be accessible trail. So I don't wanna say that just the yellow is, the green is existing cart path. So we will be improving that. Essentially we will be regrading and bringing in new product, new crushed gravel, compacted crushed gravel, crushed stone to make this entire green, green yellow loop. Where I was referring to bituminous pavement, just beyond, I don't know if Athena can get there, but there's a small outbuilding. I can't control the cursor, but there's an outbuilding along Pomeroy Lane. Keep going, so right there is the outbuilding. That section in front of the outbuilding in green is all bituminous pavement right there. So the pavement stops about at the blue line and that's where we'll pick up this accessible new improved trail. So you'll be able to get out of your car over near the existing clubhouse, walk, or if someone is in a wheelchair or has a walking challenge, a mobility challenge, they'll be able to just go right where Athena's cursor is now. Andy, does that answer your questions? I think it does and I think that what's confusing is the yellow and the green and the way that the yellow is marked on the legend, but thank you very much. Yeah, Anna, I'm sorry, I skipped over you and I was looking in one place where you weren't next and another place where you weren't. So go ahead, please. That's okay. So I wanted to, Dave, two questions, hopefully, I think both quick. First off, congratulations on another grant. This is exciting and it's been so great to watch Hickory move along. To confirm the park grant cannot be used at all for the rehab of the Fort River or the other elements of the plan that was approved for conservation. Is that correct? It's strictly for recreational use or will any of it be used for some of the cleanup efforts in the Fort River? No, no, no, the park grant is specifically for trails it will not do any, we cannot use it for anything else besides the trail. I think I put some of the narrative in the memo but it'll be used for the trail design and then trail resurfacing, kiosks, benches, things like that. Just making sure we couldn't use it for turtles. Okay, so then second question is what is the distance of both the loop and the trail total from the parking lot? The loop, that's a good question. I don't know the exact linear feet. I'm gonna say that the full loop is at least half a mile. It may be longer than half a mile and certainly from the parking lot it would be more than a half a mile in that loop. And again to Andy's question earlier I think the legend is correct. The green is existing, the yellow is new. We're basically connecting parts of the old card pass with new sections and then we're rehabbing, we're resurfacing those areas that, the course has been closed for three years, nature has taken over some of those golf paths. And so we have to work with the conservation commission as well as DEP, the Department of Environmental Protection. In addition, we also have to work with the natural heritage program to navigate the layers of permitting to get this done. And this will, I will say, I think it'll be great. I think it will be accessible. It will not be a boardwalk, $400,000 to not give you a half a mile or three quarters of a mile boardwalk like over at the Conti Refuge off of Moody Bridge Road in Hadley. That is well over a million dollar, that's probably a $1.5 plus million dollar project now. So this will not be a boardwalk, it will be by 2 minutes asphalt and then graded and packed down, crushed gravel. Thank you. And are there, no, it's not really just the park grant so I will let it go. Thank you. Any other questions at this time? This is an automatic referral to the finance committee. So we don't have to take a vote at this time to do that referral. Dorothy. The question is about boardwalk versus, I guess you said batuminous, which means tar, right? Black tar, yeah. I really do like the, I'm trying to remember what the exact name of the walk is in Hadley. I really do like the handicapped accessible boardwalk path with railings on both sides. Is there any way we could do that if we get another grant or something? I think the short answer is probably no. It would increase the cost as I said, dramatically. The other challenge we face is that a lot of this is in the floodplain. And so adding building materials, adding wood, adding infrastructure like that in the floodplain is really discouraged. So there are times when this trail may actually be closed because it'll flood and we fully recognize that. But what we know from the course, as we've only owned it since March, but what we know is those cart paths have survived decades of flooding and they're still there. So after a flood, we may need to run over it with a tractor, something simple and it'll be as good as new. So putting in boardwalk, the risk we run with boardwalks is ice and water have a shearing effect. That's the case when we lost the bridge up at Amethyst Brook. We lost the $20,000 bridge up there when an ice dam broke upstream on the Amethyst Brook and came down and sheared off our bridge. So you wanna keep it simple in the floodplain and that's what we'll do. We're not gonna pave anything. There is no money for paving in this. We're gonna use existing paved surfaces and then crushed gravel. Some of the conty, by the way, some of the conty, you know, the parking area near the conty refuge and so there's a couple of sections that are simply crushed stone, crushed gravel and they work nicely. Okay, thank you very much. That was very helpful. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the council? Okay, I'm gonna take one more item and that's the surveillance use policy and surveillance technology impact report. We did vote already to refer to TSO. Are there questions about it at this time? Mandy Jo. Thank you. From reading the report and the proposed policy and the impact report, it appears that the current policy department directive 18 is being incorporated into the proposed use policy. Is that correct? Okay, so I have a couple of questions about that. The two pages before that directive say that the surveillance use policy says that this technology will be used only for motor vehicle traffic stops. But the directive itself says traffic stops, enforcement activities and special events whenever a camera is available or the conditions weren't. And so those don't seem to mesh with each other. They're different uses. And one of my concerns about that is that nowhere in that department directive is a definition or a description of what, quote, enforcement activities and special events, quote, means. And in the directive, it allows for complete discretion and judgment on the officer's part to initiate the recordings during, quote, enforcement activities and special events and doesn't describe what discretion, like what it would be. And so I hope that any policy the council passes will define which enforcement activities, which special events they would be considered for as well as what type of discretion should be used in terms of what circumstances should be present in order to turn that on or off because when there's discretion, that's what leads to inappropriate choices on when to use stuff. So I hope that'll be taken care of in TSO but that was one of my concerns. It also doesn't define what a traffic stop is. So does that, is that really just, does our accidents included are any, or is it really just stopping of a vehicle for a motor vehicle infraction? So I'd hope to have a little more fleshing out of that. And then I just had one other question, which is, it says on public access. I just, it read to me like, since the videos are kept for a minimum of seven days, that any video would be subject to a public records request and disclosure within that seven day request. And then if it's after seven days, only those vehicles that were, only those videos that were downloaded for evidentiary purposes would then be subject to public records request. And is that correct? Is my question. Yeah, I don't know the exact answer to that. So these are really good questions we can prepare for that. Because I think what we have is an existing policy that the police department has for overlaying our town general bylaw, which it has a policy. I think we're trying to, we'll try to get those to mesh. These are really good questions. In terms of public documents, as long as you have a policy for how long you're gonna store documents, you have to follow the policy though, unless you have, and so I hear what you're saying in terms of discretion for saving things and as long as you have a policy, but we have to make sure that we're following that policy. And then, so if someone has a request or if there's something that happened that where the police department says we're gonna save this recording, it's all public records that anybody could ask for. Are there other questions? Yes, Pat. A quick one. It seems to me this is set up only for traffic stops, but if this were in place for responses like what happened on July 5th to a noise complaint, we would have evidence to see what happened in the encounter that could be used by the public, it can be used by the police department and as counselors. So wouldn't that be an important thing to have? I mean, we've talked about body cameras, in this instance we have something that could have been used to help us understand what actually happened. Yeah, it sort of depends where they placed their cruisers when they show up and that they're pointed and I think what they're told to do is if they're doing a traffic stop in the policy they're supposed to position the cruiser so the camera can see everything that could possibly happen. They don't do that for noise complaints, they don't initiate the camera activity for noise complaints. And is that something that we want to begin to think about to avoid the kind of misunderstanding that happened around July 5th? I know the police department would like body cams but that's an expensive request, but that's a good point. We can bring the chief in to address these questions. Yeah. I just want to ask if there's any more questions and ask that those counselors that have raised issues or other counselors who might have issues that you make sure that you provide those to the town manager, to me and to Anika as chair of TSL so that they get addressed during that process? Okay. Any other questions on this item? Anna? I apologize for the last minute. I'm trying to figure out and what I was trying to pull up and didn't have time so now you're hearing my question instead of me trying to research it is how often is this revisited? Cause I know our surveillance use policy is revisited. We get a report on it annual when we ask. Okay. And so I'm curious if there's, so I'm reading things like it needs to be downloaded to a disk, which is lovely. And if we had written this a couple of years ago it'd say floppy disk and that wouldn't be helpful anymore. So I'm just curious how we're making sure that this is current and up to standard if there's not an automatic revisiting of it at a certain interval, does that make sense? Thank you. Well, did you want to speak to that? Okay. All right. Anna, that's another one of those questions. I'll bring it to TSL. Thank you. And you're on TSL. Are there any other questions with regard to this item? Again, we voted earlier for a referral to TSL. With that, we're going to take a 10 minute break. Well-deserved gang.  We're going to reconvene at 730.  Lynn, would you say that again, please? Because we are muted for people on Zoom. I'm sorry. Would you repeat that please? Because we were muted on Zoom. Okay. Please turn your videos on so that we know that you're back waiting for. Pam? Alicia, are you back? Okay, Anna. Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Anna, I've seen that you're back. I'm back. I had an interesting email and I just want to point out, we don't ever talk about who's on Zoom and the number, but many people watch us on Amherst Media, but we don't know those numbers, which is just unfortunate. But I want to thank the person that wrote in and reminded me to acknowledge that. Okay, we have two other action items. One of them we are not going to take action on this evening. And that is the town manager goals. Instead, there's two options. One is if you have thoughts about the town manager goals, please send those thoughts to, I'm going to say Michelle and Mandy job, okay? And then on the 4th of January at nine o'clock in the morning, we will post the meeting as a committee of the whole so that all counselors can join and have some discussion about items that have not been resolved within the town manager goals. But Michelle, who's chair of, how are you Michelle? Whose chair of GOL is going to highlight for us those items that are still unresolved and quote in the parking lot, okay? Yeah, and I just wanted to acknowledge that I think the process has been a little bit unique in that Mandy has really taken the draft and revised it as we've moved along. So I'm not sure if I saw Mandy grabbing her microphone when you suggested that folks send, okay? Because Anika is also the vice chair of the committee. So I just wanted to just at least acknowledge that this process has been unique in the sense that Mandy as a committee member has been helping in a significant way on the goals. And I did prepare just a little something to say that I think mostly Lynn has covered the latest draft is in tonight's council packet. So you can look for it there and it has recombined the council policy goals and the management goals. And just to reiterate what Lynn said at the last GOL meeting we went through the document we created a parking lot for items that need more discussion and I'll review those items in a moment. And also to reiterate that on January 4th at our GOL meeting it will be a meeting or a committee of the whole where we will continue discussion of these items. So I'll start with the policy goals that we've pulled out and I am going to share one or two sub goals just to give people context if you're listening. So the first policy goal that we pulled out is climate action. This goal currently includes for example, support for a waste hauler bylaw and actions on the carp plan. The second we pulled out is community health and safety. This goal includes revisions to the residential rental bylaw and options for youth empowerment center and programming. That's not all that these include. I'm just giving a couple items for context. Housing affordability is the third one in the policy goals that we've pulled out. This includes ensuring the operation of a permanent seasonal or year round shelter and a newly proposed sub goal to develop strategies to address Amherst's declining non-student population. Management goals, we pulled out personnel management. This includes to retain recruit and develop a highly qualified diverse and effective staff. And this is where we have the fostering of proactive anti-racist culture throughout town departments and we'll have further discussion on that. There's a new management goal that was added municipal services. It doesn't say much right now. And then we have infrastructure management, maintenance and land stewardship. This goal includes to propose a five year capital improvement plan in accordance with the charter and then like the creation of a multi-year plan for long-term improvements to maintenance of public parks, conservation land, recreation land, et cetera. And the final item that we pulled out is relationship with the town council and this goal includes to assist and support the council in providing policy leadership to provide appropriate support for council committees as two examples. There are notes from town manager Backelman in the current draft that's in your packet. So you could also take a look at those. And as Lynn said, please do send us anything if you aren't able to attend the meeting, please do send comments to myself and to Mandy Jo and we will be back at it on January 4th. When would you like to receive those comments by? I think it would be good to receive. So if somebody knows that they're not going to be available to come on January 4th, I know with the holiday, it's really difficult. But what do you say, Mandy, if we're trying to kind of incorporate them into a discussion? I mean, I would say Friday because I could then do a little bit of work next week trying to draft or create a new draft based on any comments on this draft for the GOL packet and the discussion the next Wednesday, it would, you know, that could get posted late next week, I would say. I had my hand raised up while I've got the mic. I've already received comments from two people on this draft, so they don't have to resend them to me. I'll make sure that they get forwarded. If they haven't to Michelle, I'll make sure Michelle that you get a copy of those. So you'd like them by Friday? This week. December 23rd, COB, close a business. Yeah. All right, Kathy. Mike, my question was mainly answered in terms of the way we send you comments or questions. Is it easier to do a set of bullets or is it easier to do track changes? Cause one of the things I'm concerned about is I don't think we should be Christmas treeing this. It might not, we're Hanukkah bushing it, but by just adding everybody's in, I think in some places, if we wanna slim it back down, so just what is easier to work with? Michelle or Mandy Jo? I mean, Mandy Jo, yeah, answer that. It depends on what the goal of your comment is, right? If it's, you really don't like the wording, a track changes with new wording is great, but if it's more of a holistic this set or I would prioritize take climate action, for example, where there's a lot of comments about it, a lot has been added. If it's a comment about, I would prioritize these two over those three, that can just be a bullet, right? And I'll work, I do my best. And sometimes I just add a comment in that says some people wanna delete, other people wanna keep. And so I think it depends on what the basis of the comment is. Thanks, that helps. Okay, are there any other questions? Seeing none, then I, what I'm going to do is send this out as a reminder and who you send it to and by when. And also a reminder of that meeting on the fourth. All right, thank you. And I know GOL has worked hard on these goals and this has not been an easy ride. So I really wanna thank you for this effort. And also thank the town manager for being willing to let us not quite meet our December deadline, but I hope we meet our January 9th deadline. It's only fair. Financial guidelines, Andy. I know you and Kathy and the finance committee have worked hard on these. And so we're prepared to take questions or comments, but Andy, do you wanna start? Yeah, I'm gonna start with just one introductory observation. Or maybe two, because the first one is that we really did work hard on listening very carefully to all of the comments were made, collecting notes from all of the people who had taken careful notes and made sure that consideration was given to everyone and went through several discussions and several different meetings. And then because I had taken the prime role as drafter in the first round, I asked Kathy and she volunteered very graciously to be the principal drafter in the second round. So that would be a totally separate member of the committee working on the next draft. And so I just wanted to make that point on process. The other point that I wanted to make is that the hard part of drafting the guidelines in the end is just the financial reality that we're in that you always start a budget with the amount of money that's available. And the lessons that I've learned over the years is that because of proposition two and a half and because of the way the legislature works, we're kind of at a slow study, two and a half to 3% increase each year. And that generally worked because kind of matched what the natural inflation was that comes along. In this past year with inflation being 6%, but the growth still being back the prior level that I described, it's creating a real challenge and it's gonna be real challenge when we hand this off to the town manager and say, okay, now here's our guidance, go develop a budget and present it to us at the beginning of May, which is what next steps are in the process. He's gonna face this challenge too that in a year of high inflation and the other pressures that we've talked about that are on the budget, it is a very difficult year. And so some of the language that I think that some people are concerned about is just sort of warnings that we can't create an imbalanced budget and that is where we are. And I think that that was the general sentiment of the committee. And one other thing I'll share as part of that discussion is one of our resident members, Bernie Kubiak has been involved in municipal finance for many years in various roles, including as a town manager. And he pointed out something that I thought was an additional point that adds the complexity to this. And that is that in general, because of the nature of how we spend money, what we spend money on, which is heavily related to personnel, municipal cost increases year for year are greater than the consumer amounts. And so when you put that together with what I just said, it really is a challenging period. So I don't know, Kathy, if you had anything else you wanted to add. Okay, are there comments or questions? Because we are going to move with this with a motion tonight to adopt this. Michelle. I want to acknowledge I'm a member of the finance committee. So I've been involved in most of these discussions. But Andy, to your point and just building on that, I received a few emails from residents who were concerned about some of the language, like you're saying, the sort of cautionary language. And I wondered one, if you could just briefly describe what it means there's a paragraph that says the town will likely need to forego taking on some new efforts and less revenue neutral until we have the funds needed for the major building projects required work on roads and sidewalks, determine the long-term public safety plan and have the staff needed for the three public safety departments. Could you quickly say what it means unless revenue neutral? And I think this is just building on what you were talking about in your opening comments and that there does seem to be some concern in the public, not necessarily in disagreement that this statement is not true, but that it may give some ambiguity in terms of the town manager's sort of discretion versus the policy goals that we have created as a council. No, that's a good point. And that is what I was concerned about because it was that exact section that I know that has created some confusion and some questions. Maybe the easiest thing to do is to start with the example of what I thought about when I drafted that sentence originally and that has to do with the waste hauling regulation. The waste hauling regulation would be a major change in how waste hauling is done if it is as the sponsors would like it to be. But the reality when you get look at the finances is that the amount that people are now paying for trash hauling from a private hauler that they're contracting with directly will still be charged to the residents who are having their trash picked up from their homes but it's going in, it would presumably go into the appropriate enterprise fund and the enterprise fund would then pick up the costs of running the system and contracting on behalf of the entire town with a single hauler. So we haven't done the arithmetic because we haven't worked out the whole proposal yet but it is conceivable. And I think, at least more likely than not that it's going to work out exactly as I described that the cost of the system is going to be picked up by the amounts that's coming into the enterprise fund which for the homeowner will be hopefully some neutral and so that everybody comes out in the exact same place. So that's an example of a kind of major initiative that probably not definitely that it probably can be done totally revenue neutral. And on the other hand, if it is something that has to be entirely picked up by taxpayer money or other money from the budget itself and there's no new revenue coming in that's where the problem lies. And that's I think the distinction that I was hoping to at least signal. So I hope that answers the question. It does, thank you. Okay, Dorothy. Well, I guess my hope is that some things that have been talked about such as the Youth Empowerment Center could be worked on and not necessarily committing funds till we have them but I hate the thought that they aren't even moving forward at all under these guidelines. And so I think I need a little clarification there. So that's it. Andy, do you wanna address that or go to the next person and then come back and address more than one item? I think that one can be addressed fairly quickly because I think that there's various questions that have to be answered and talked about. And I think that they need to be talked about and can be without delay. Are we talking about a physical building that's a new building, which would be quite costly? Are we talking about programming and what kind of programming? So there are issues that can go forward it should go forward with development because this isn't the goals section that GOL is working on to present back to us in January. This is solely around the budget. And so we need to just be very clear as we're working through the goals part is to what can be accomplished without significant budget investment and choose to emphasize those to the extent that we need to be cautious. Jennifer? Yeah, I guess I had a question along those lines. You need to turn your mic on. Oh, it is. I have a question along those lines, which is should this sentence or two be in the budget guidelines or is that part of the discussion we would have in setting the town manager goals if we agree not to set a goal that is going to increase the budget, so to speak. I guess that because I kind of think it goes without saying that if we can't afford something, we can't do it. Yeah, so I'm wondering if this has to it seems very open to interpretation and it is cautionary, but when we're setting the budget if we agree that we want to try and be revenue neutral that would be maybe the place to have it. I don't, I'm just wondering if it needs to be in this document. Yeah, Link, can I just respond? Please, Kathy, go ahead. You know, these are finance guidelines. These are not the same as town manager performance goals. So I think what you're saying, Jennifer, is right. They are, you know, we've given the town manager keeps good notes on what we're hoping to get done. And I added the words either next year over a series of years. I was astonished that we were able to bring in Cress and DEI when we looked at it a year and a half ago. We set it within, and suddenly the grant money's found for it to get it started. There was a phase in that made it affordable. So think of these as the finance guidelines and pick out those sentences over when we talk on January 4th. If we are putting things on a, where we actually expect it to be done next year and it's got a big price tag, we might wanna say maybe not. But the beginning thinking on something, and so Andy's example was a good one. So I think that's just, I ran in 2018 on a, we're gonna have to make hard choices because I just couldn't see how with step increases along going up 3%, health insurance coming up at eight, now pensions up to 11, 2.5% is really tight unless there's something we don't want. So that's what the guidelines are. It's just trying to pick out guidance to give the town manager an ability to balance out. And he's gonna have to come tell us where I got this much in in the following ways, but I couldn't get this in FY24. So I think, I've heard from some constituents also, I think the concern is because climate action and affordable housing isn't specifically mentioned, something we're gonna work on that there's a feeling that maybe it's gonna be excluded. Right now I just wanna say, most of the affordable action, the big pieces were the purchase of the shelter was ARPA money. And the big housing projects have not taken a lot of town tax dollars, they've taken CPA dollars. So this is, he's got one piece of the budget over down the hallway, there's a committee that's handling our CPA money. And that's where the big dollars have come on the housing side. So just trying to think of where is the money coming from? I mean, look what we just did with trail systems that leveraged a CPA grant into a lot more by bringing in what to- the public understands that we're not leaving anything out with this wording. Yeah, this is the budget for the revenues. We know that the town revenues. I think that if you look at what we've built before what we're proposing to build at the East Street School and on Belcher Town Road in the property we bought, that once the land is purchased then the land is made available to a developer that's chosen in a process that our staff administers. And the developer is taking on the responsibility of seeking funding, which comes really from a combination of sources. Canthi mentioned CPA. Usually there's funding that comes from the state, from the executive officer of housing and community development. And there may be loans. And so through a combination of resources the housing moves forward without further town, significant further town investment. Some of the energy is the ones, it's gonna be more difficult because I'm not sure that we have the experience yet of knowing where the grant money is and what kinds of sources there are. But we hope that they will be there. I think in the end my final thought is that I hope that Paul who's just sitting there trying to keep quiet on this. If he doesn't feel that we've given clear guidance I think that it would be important to hear from him that the guidance isn't clear enough for him to give him the guidance he needs. Did you want to comment, Paul? I think the guidance is helpful and I think it is clear. I think what will become more important in many ways is gonna be the goals of what the council wants to accomplish because those goals have to fit underneath the financial guidance that you've provided. So that's where the hard conversation is going to happen I think. Anna. So the last thing that Paul said was actually one of the things on my notes is how we crosswalk these right with the goal. I know we've been talking about both of them but for example, the budget guidelines give a lot of airtime to pilot payments which is hugely important and will be a major topic of discussion and are those emphasized as strongly in the goals? So are we kind of backing ourselves up here as much as possible? I appreciate the end of section seven where it talks about timing on the budget process and I think that is sure to be a very, very rich discussion about what that looks like to think about our timelines with these and where there's latitude and where there is not and how we incorporate feedback and not. I also appreciate the inclusion. I didn't write down the paragraph sorry but of reexamining the charter formula and where that charter school formula and where that led me was thinking about the people who are on the CC list of this document. It doesn't include Joe and Mindy and there's so much in this that indicates the future directions that we will be going with ideally their support and help and so I would encourage us to consider adding them to the list of folks we send this to so that they know what we're gonna be coming to them for down the pike as well. And I know that they're listening and watching and paying attention and just sending a paper copy might also be good for us, thanks. Right and as we indicated in the as I indicated in the president's report Nonna you were at the meeting we've talked about having a meeting with them in January that would be a little bit longer to talk about the priorities of the town and particularly where legislative action might help us, grants might help us because they have been enormously successful in helping us get grants and along with our amazing staff who I'd like the higher amount of grant writers anytime they're very good. Let me just say I look at this and to me it is a crosswalk with the goals and I think the thing we often move sight of is that planning and getting things ready for prime time costs money even if we're not going to do it. So when staff are spending time on a planning effort on a rezoning effort on any number of efforts it costs money, it's their time and they only have so much of it. So as we look at these, that's one piece. The other piece in and this is again I'm gonna go back to the staff have been amazing at bringing in grants for everything. I've never seen such a list for a municipal government. It's just astounding and we should be very, very proud of them. And they continue to look for that. The other final thing is they also continue to be innovative.  And that allows us to redo something or allows us to move forward. And that's what, if I were to rewrite a state of the town address it would be to say a serious appreciation to our staff who have been able to cobble together the path through grants and planning that have allowed us to achieve the kinds of things we have already done and the things that we have yet to do. And it's just amazing to see it. So I just, I don't think we should give up a hope that we can do some of the things that are still in the goals. I think we just have to realize the timeline and we have to factor in what does it take in terms of staff time to get us to that point? Thank you. Michelle, you're next. I guess what I'm hearing, I just wanna clarify is that we're, so Anna asked about crosswalking and we had a few discussions about that as we've been working through this process. And I'm on GOL and finance. So I've had the benefit of hearing both. But what I'm hearing is that the guidance that we're looking at right now is essentially going to or should inform the town manager goals. And so just to sort of drill into this a little bit if we get to January 4th and we're continuing our discussion of the town manager goals, are we now saying, okay, what we decide to include or not include is or should be informed by this budget guidance that we just agreed to and that we just voted through without actually, because I heard town manager Backelman basically say that's where the tough discussion is gonna happen. And what I'm not clear about is, does that mean the discussion of adopting town manager goals or does that mean when town manager and staff is developing the budget, that's sort of where the rubber meets the road. And so how do we reconcile what we do in the goals? How do we give town manager Backelman the guidance that shows sort of if something needs to fall off, this is the thing that should fall off or is it just that he then decides based on his own expertise or knowledge or whatever. I'm more than glad to let someone else take a stab of it, but let me try this, they're all interrelated. Yeah, exactly. Budget is interrelated to the financial goals, is it interrelated to the policy goals and that is interrelated to back to the budget. It just continues. So I think the issue that we'll have to face with the policy goals is when do we expect and how do we stage it and the realization of the expectations of when are things gonna get done and we all see everything on that list as urgent based on the perspective we bring to them. So that's the January 4th discussion, okay. Jennifer? I just, because our staff is so amazing at identifying and getting grants, if there was something on a goal that we didn't think we had the revenue for now and I know that staff time is money and it's a lot of time goes into applying for grants, but could something be on the list in the hopes that maybe there'd be funding? Yeah, it's like saying it's a... Yeah, I mean, when we set out to do Cress a couple of years ago, we started out where the town manager came to us with four responders and then it became apparent there would be a state grant available and that allowed us eventually to introduce to eight. And so there's an example of where a grant made the difference. I guess that's the best way to answer it. Yes, Pat. It was suggested that there'd be four responders. We changed it to eight before that grant. It was changing it to eight that got us the grant that made that look like that grant happen. So it isn't that it came afterwards. So his goals and the financial stuff is very... I think you have to put out there what you want. Yeah, I agree. But there has to be... It's basically at the same time. There also has to be agreement among us of what we want. And then I'm gonna just offer one other caution and that is we also have to be very clear of what it is we pass and what burden it's going to place on our residents and make sure that we're not basically making decisions and then passing cost on to people that they weren't planning on. So anything else, Pat? Okay, I'm gonna put the motion on the floor. The motion is to adopt the FY24 fiscal guidelines as presented. Is there a second? Shane seconds. Any other discussion? See none. I'm going to start with Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Griezmann. Aye. Amanda Johanneke. Aye. Annika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Stain. Pam Rooney. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. Aye. Alisha Walker. No. So we have 10 in favor one no, one abstention and one absent. Okay. Thank you. We're now going on to committee and liaison reports. Mandy Jo, CRC. Thanks for passing a whole lot of zoning tonight. And I'll just say thank you to all the planning staff for working with us to get all that through and for all the time, particularly with flood maps that has been spent getting it to where we got tonight. And tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. are interviews for ZBA associate member candidates on Zoom. Okay. Elementary School Building Committee. Kathy. As you saw with the timeline, the next big item on our list is the cost estimates for the more specified design and we expect them back end of January, end of December but we'll be meeting on them on the 9th of January that Friday. And then again, we have three meetings that are scheduled that will be focused on what we got back. So I will make sure everybody knows those times but that's the next big item. I should just say one other thing. I didn't say it in it. This design team is also, it's on a land with wetlands and flood plains. They've been meeting with the conservation commission. They've done a really good job on checking and cross-checking. They met with our safety folks to worry about the circumference of the school, easy access if there's an emergency. So there's a lot of behind the scenes including meeting with all the teachers about how they want their room set up. Where do you want the video screen on this wall or that wall? So it's been a very involved process beyond just meeting with the committee. Thank you. Finance committee, Andy? Yes. There was a finance committee report that was submitted and I think that it's covered most of the issues that we've been working on. We do have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow at three o'clock. If you look at the agenda that was posted, it's quite long but that was because I had to post the agenda prior to the last meeting because of the fact that it was actually just two business days between the two meetings. And as a consequence, I put everything that possibly could be there with the idea that we may not have to get to it at all. And my goal was actually to make it as short a meeting as possible because the committee really has been working very hard. But one thing we definitely have to talk about is matter referred earlier this evening and that is the Hickory Ridge funding because the staff is really anxious to get closure on that. We finished the 457 Main Street VFW building recommendation. It is in the report. I assume we'll be on the agenda at the next council meeting. So that's taken care of the sewer regulations. If the DPW staff gets back to us with any information about insurance that might be available that would affect rates, then we will need to come back to that before finishing our work on it. So that may be an active discussion tomorrow. And it's possible we could have some discussion about the residential property transfer fees. We're not, I'm not certain about that yet, but that is something that needs action in January if we're going to do it because we need to get it if we are going to do it, we need to get it back to you as a council because the council has to vote to ask our legislators to file special legislation and that's not a matter that can be delayed. So I think that's kind of a quick summary. Thanks, handy. GOL, Michelle. Yes, I also submitted a report. We, I'm not gonna talk about the town manager goals. We looked at the sewer regulations and I just wanna thank the superintendent and assistant superintendent and everyone else who worked on that. Amy really looked at the water regulations in order to put the sewer regulations into a format that was very helpful for our review. We did have some questions about the civil penalty section that we need to seek some clarification on and we'll be giving a final review of those along with the water and sewer bylaws also on January 4th. We also discussed bylaw 3.40, snow and ice. Definitely recommend you look at the report if you haven't. It was an interesting discussion and generally we failed the bylaw strong but there are some concerns that we're trying to work out in terms of enforcement and some other things. So I think that's about it. Okay. Jones Library, Anika. Okay. So I do think that Library Director Sharon Sherry covered a lot of this but our last meeting we were able to see some updated floor plans and we revisited both the schematic, well, the schematic design development and documents and bidding phases. We were able to go over the design development schedule along with the committee meeting schedule as well. So it was nice to see in terms of like the floor plans and coming together and really seeing the proposed project co