Okay, we're recording 35 having little Mike here. Good evening. It is February 5th, 2024. This is a regular meeting of the town council. The open meeting law allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present. At a meeting location while providing the public with adequate access to the meeting. However, as you can see, there are many counselors in the room tonight and we welcome you all. This meeting is accessible in real time via zoom by phone and as a live broadcast on Amherst media. Channel 9 and live streamed. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the February 5, 2024 regular town council meeting to order at 632. I will call upon each counselor by the name they have indicated that they would like to be addressed. At that time, please unmute your mic and say present. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Patty Angelis present on a Devlin got here present counselor at a present. Lynn Griesmer is present. Councilor Hannity present Bob Hegner present counselor Lord. I know that she is having an activity problems. Oh, Pam Rooney here. Councilor Ryan present Kathy Shane here, Andy Steinberg. Present Jennifer top Jennifer you need to unmute and say present. You're still muted. I'm sorry you would zap out for a minute present. That's fine. Thank you, counselor Walker here. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know. And to make a comment or ask a question, use the raised hand button. If technical difficulties arise as a result of utilizing remote participation. We will decide how to address the situation and if necessary, make note of that or have to suspend the meeting immediately after the announcements. We will move to a joint meeting with the remaining members of the housing authority for the purpose of selecting candidates or a candidate to fill two vacant seats. There will be general public comment at this meeting immediately following the joint meeting with the housing authority. If you're in the audience and you want to make general public comment, you have to sign in with Athena who is over here at the desk. Thank you. Later on, I'll ask people in the audience to raise their hands for general public comment, but not at this time. So, very quickly, the announcements on the agenda, as you can see, we have a council meeting. I don't think February 15th is a council, it's the 26th. Thank you. And March 4th, we will have a regular town council meeting as well. At that time, we'll have a public forum on the community preservation act funding. As you can also see on the calendar, I mean, are on the agenda, all the committees have now been formed of the council and they are meeting. I want to call attention to various events regarding Black History Month. Please continue to check the town's website. Specifically, there is an exhibit on the Black Experience and Amherst in Town Hall, some of which is right outside the door here. The Spring Festival Lunar New Year celebration will be on February 17th. It starts at 1030 and goes into the afternoon at the Amherst Regional Middle School. With that, I'm going to move to the joint meeting with the Amherst Housing Authority and Vice President Anna Devlin-Gothier will conduct this portion of the meeting. Thank you. All right, so we are, first off, does the Housing Authority need to call themselves to order if they don't have a? They have a quorum. You do have a quorum. Amazing. If the Housing Authority would like to call your meeting to order, that would be great. I think they do, hold on. I wasn't sure, I was trying to count. James Linfield is on Zoom. Yes. Thank you. That will do it. Is that, who am I turning this, who's this? So, is it David? David, would you like to call your meeting to order please? If you could hold the button down on your microphone. If you could call your meeting to order and make sure everyone on the Housing Authority can hear you and be heard. You have to hold it the whole time. It's pesky. Great. Again. Again. Thank you. Thank you. I am Mark Barrett. I'm on the member, as a member. Thank you. And I think James only has to unmute. James, I think you're still muted. James Linfield, housing, a Board of Housing Commissioner, please. Thank you for joining us. And Athena, if you could bring Michael Burkart in to the room, that would be great. So, as a reminder, we are here to appoint one of the remaining members of the Amherst Housing Authority. Thank you to the current members of the Housing Authority for engaging in this process with us. We will be, we've received one statement of interest for this position. And so I'd like to thank Michael Burkart, who has joined us today, who has served in the past in this role and will be, will be speaking with us tonight. So, are we ready to move forward? Okay. So, I think, excuse me, Athena, please take the agenda down. Oh, thank you. Thank you. All right. And I lost Michael. Michael, welcome. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? Sure can. All right. So, we have prepared a set of six questions that were in the packet for tonight. And with your permission, we'd love to hear your responses. We'll start with if you have a two-minute opening statement that you'd like to say for the sake of clarity of what's going to happen here. We're going to go through the question and answer. We will have a time for public comment as well before we make our final vote on the, on appointing the new member. All right. So, Michael, would you like to make a opening statement of up to two minutes? Thank you for the time, Athena. I think I joined the commission back in 2017. And I did not take out papers last November.  I lost three friends I've known for 30 and 40 years. And the last one was dying actively in November and I didn't have any energy to go get 150 signatures. So, I've come out of the other end of that. And I would like to, given that there's a position, like to rejoin the housing authority. It takes a long time to, is there feedback? Yes, we're taking care of it. Okay. Should I continue or wait? I think, I think if you're comfortable continuing, we can, we can understand you if that's okay. Thank you. Oh, yeah, this is a very regulated institution. It's not like a regular board of directors of a nonprofit. And there's a real long learning curve just to mention the stuff you all know about open meeting law and all those regulations. You have a housing authority that antiquated building with antiquated heating systems. And you're constantly having to do repair, not repairs, but replacement. And there's a whole sequence that has to be followed carefully about that. The monthly meetings are really devoted to what I think is the key role for the commissioners, which is the financial oversight. And that's another learning curve to get on top of what that really means, as well as all the vendors. So you can pick up what, this is a new vendor. Why are they here? So I'm impressed with what a long learning curve that is. So I'll end it there. Thank you. You addressed this a bit in your opening statement, but we're going to jump into the questions. And again, if you can keep your responses done to two minutes, you did a phenomenal job on the opening statement. So question 1, if you have anything else to add on this topic, why would you like to join the housing authority? And what experience do you have with the AHA? And feel free if you feel like you already covered something to tell us that as well. That's fine. I think I pretty much covered that. I had a lot of years consulting to a large housing authority in Louisville, Kentucky. So I have a familiarity with housing authorities that help. And I bring a background in organization development to understanding organizational dynamics. Thank you. How do you plan to establish a relationship with the chief executive and hold them accountable to the board's goals? Well, I think I, I bring a relationship with the chief executive. I was, I chaired the panel when we hired her and have supported her in a number of situations that really mattered. I think the accountability is a function of what are the goals and what are the things that have to be met in terms of regulations and other things. So that's, it's not personal. It's, we have to go over these things and you just do it. You know, you make sure that you don't let any personal relationships interfere with us having to ask the questions that have to be asked and look at the things that have to be examined. Thank you. Third question. What do you believe are the current strengths and weaknesses of the AHA? How will you build upon the strengths and address the weaknesses? Well, when we hired Pamela, we found out to our dismay that in many ways we're out of compliance with various regulations. And we had staff who did not have the required certifications. So I would say the first year was really trying to get back up to par in that regard. And then, you know, it was then coming on her to build a team and some people were not really capable of doing what is required. So they had to be replaced. So it's been quite a while of trying to create a solid team. Also, those jobs are not highly sought after. It's not a population people are dying to work with and the pay is fairly minimal. So it's quite a challenge to constantly be able to have good staff. I think what we accomplished on the board was really it was for the long time. It was just David and Nancy and myself and we accomplished that. We didn't miss meetings for one of us being empty. I mean, being got away much at all. Am I at two minutes, does that say? Just about. Okay. Thank you. Question for thinking in general about the housing situation in Amherst. What thoughts do you have about how affordable housing might be increased? It's going to demand somebody building things like we had with the single room occupancy SRO that's been completed on North Hampton Road. Other than that, I don't see the state doing all there is some monies that we're aware of maybe becoming available. And if so, we're definitely going to bid for them. We have our executive director is good at grants, good at administrating them. The other thing she did, she initiated was something that the state is interested in is having larger housing authorities assume some management over smaller ones because they've really faced a challenge. If you're a small housing authority, you have funds because it's all controlled by the state to hire a plumber. I mean, a maintenance person for 14 hours, 18 hours a week, trying to compete in the market to get somebody who will contract with you for that small amount of time is really like Sisyphus rolling the ball up the hill. It's almost impossible. So now that we have those agreements with Hadley and Belcher Town, we have a larger maintenance staff and we can rotate them across the three housing authorities. And I think that's made a big difference. Our big challenge is dealing with this aging infrastructure. And yes, the state does make available funds, but it's a long process and how you go through the bids, get the architectural drawings and then get the thing built. And we're always as much as the state is doing that, we're really behind because the buildings are so antiquated in there and how old they are, especially the heating systems. Thank you. You have addressed much of this already, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What relevant experience do you bring to this role and please provide specific examples as well as what you bring from those examples into this coming experience? Well, I bring at least six years experience being on the board, of which five of them I was a chair of the board. I understand organizational dynamics in terms of how you deal with conflict between departments, between individuals, and that's something that comes up. Sometimes it reaches our level and we have to take a role in supporting the executive director and how that gets handled through the regulations. And I think one of the things I'm bringing to this is the intent to work with the executive director in giving our brand better out in the public. People don't really know what the Amherst Housing Authority does, they think we deal with the homeless. And they don't understand that we're part of a state system that has a whole set of regulations just because somebody is in need or your friend doesn't mean they come to the head of the line. Everything's very regulated. And so we have a misperception out there of who we are and what we do. And we need to have that connection with various community agencies because they're also a source for people who need our work, who need to have the place to come. And they need to know what it is if somebody comes to them and is interested in getting a room, what the process is, so that will speed up their ability to meet with us and get moving on that. You have people in crisis, you have people with very little means often, and it's a lot of work having them be able to jump through the hoops they have to jump through in order to get a place or to get about you. Thank you. The last question is, is there anything else you would like to add that you have not previously had the opportunity to share with us? The only thing I would add is, you know, in the last year with having James and Mark join us, I think we've begun to build a team where we work well together. And if I'm reappointed, I'd really look forward to continuing that process. Michael, thank you so much for putting your name forward again for this. This is the conclusion of our questions. We're going to move into a special period of public comments specifically about this appointment, not about other topics on the agenda, just about this appointment before our deliberation and vote. But Michael, thank you very much. And I think, Athena, we move, do we move Michael back to the audience or do we keep, yeah. So we're going to move you back to the audience. But thank you very much and you'll get to watch us now discuss this. All right, so at this point, I'd like to ask if anyone has public comment specifically on this item, which is the appointment to fill the vacancy on the Amherst Housing Authority public comment specifically on this item. If you're on zoom, you can raise your hand if you're in the room. You would tell Athena. Is there anyone in the room who signed up for public comment who wanted to speak on this issue. Thank you. Okay, great. We do have one hand on zoom. So if we can go ahead and allow Jennifer shall to speak and Jennifer you'll have up to two minutes to make your comment. Thank you. Thank you. This is Jennifer shall I live in Amherst and I just want to speak in favor of Michael Burkhardt for this appointment. Michael has lived in Amherst for a long time has been involved with the community for a long time. In my experience, he's very measured and very thoughtful in all of his decisions and deliberations, and he looks at things through an equity lens. He looks at all things through an equity lens. So I think you would be lucky to have him on to have them on the housing authority and I hope that you look to appoint him. Thank you. Thank you Jennifer. I'm not seeing any other hands on zoom and Athena we didn't have anyone in the room correct. Thank you. So with that, we will move to deliberation. Are there any comments from members of the council or members of the housing authority regarding this appointment. I'm seeing Lynn's hand. Thank you. First of all, Michael, thank you so much for putting your name forward and sorry for the circumstances that led to us doing this this way but we're glad to see you interested in back. There is this opportunity to remind people that there is an additional seat open on the housing authority and we will continue to advertise for that and go through the same process. Other than that, I have no other comment, but would be prepared to make a motion. Any other comments. All right. I'm happy to. I can do. Okay, so I'd like to move to elect Michael Burkhart to registered voter in the town of Amherst to the Amherst housing authority for a term ending January 5th, 2026. Second. Thank you. All right, and I'm going to go ahead and call the vote. Pat d'Angeles. Hi. I am an eye counselor at a. I. Lynn Greesner. I counselor Hanneke. I Bob Hegner. I. Counselor Lord is absent. Pam Rooney. Yes. Counselor Ryan. Hi. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Counselor Walker. Yes. Mark Barrett. Yes. James Linfield. James we did meet. Sorry. I think you're muted still. Yes. And David Williams. Yes. All right. That's a yes. It is unanimous with one absent, including the three members of the Amherst housing authority. Thank you very much and congratulations, Mr. Burkhart. We look forward to having you and serve in this capacity again. We are still looking for one name. So if you are passionate about affordable housing and Amherst, please, please consider putting your name forward for this opportunity. And with that, I'll thank our members of the housing authority. Would you like to adjourn your meeting at 652. Thank you. All right. Their meeting is adjourned. And Lynn, I'm going to turn it back over to you. Great. Nice job. We are do not have any hearings tonight, but we are going to move to general public comment. If you're in the room and you want to make general public comment, you need to make sure you've registered with Athena. If you're in the audience and you want to make general public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Right now I'm seeing four hands on zoom five, six, seven. Are there any other people on zoom who would like to make public comment? I'm going to go with the number seven. Athena, can you tell me how many people have registered that are in the room? I think I have 20. Okay. We are going to limit public comment to two minutes. That is the minimum that we can go. Please. If you can make note when you just want to reinforce something that maybe has already been said. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to two minutes. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised. During public comment, public comments are not reflective of the opinions of the town council and public comments relate and need to relate to the business of the town council. With that, Athena, we're going to actually just. Give us a moment while we reorganize. We're going to start with the members in the town room. So, I'm sorry, okay. All right. Eugene. I'm sorry. If you could just make sure the green light is on, press the button to speak and state your name and where you live before you begin. Thank you. My name is Jean Hargan. I live in precinct three. Here as a member on the council on aging and a volunteer at the senior center. program for seniors in need of rides to medical appointments grocery store in the senior center. The silver shuttle was started thanks to a donation by PVTA coordinated by Representative Mindy Dom. ARPA funds are used to pay the salary of the driver. This service was sorely needed. Over 600 rides have been given since the shuttle took the road last May. Rides are available on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays between the hours of 9 and 3 p.m. Rides have been provided to over 50 unique individuals. The vast majority of rides are for medical appointments in Amherst, which had 67 Hadley with 73 in Northampton, 166, followed by trips to the grocery store and rides to and from the senior center to attend programs. The shuttle van is also used for trips which promote community and socialization for seniors, especially those who use walkers and wheelchairs. This service is a lifeline and also provides a wellness check on each rider. It's unfortunate that the shuttle isn't available full-time since seniors have appointments every day of the work week. The ARPA funds do not allow for five days a week service. The silver shuttle operates 19 hours each week. Unless additional funding is provided, the senior center will be unable to continue the program. This would be very unfortunate considering virtually every other senior center in Hampshire County has a full-time driver and at least one ADA van, if not multiple. You have 15 seconds. Amherst seniors need and deserve reliable, safe and affordable transportation to maintain their independence and age in place. Please fund this critical service. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We're going to go to the audience and when you are enter the room, please state your name and where you live. Jennifer Schall will be the first person brought in. Hello again. My name is Jennifer Schall. I live in Amherst in District 5. I'm an employee at UMass Amherst and a member of the professional staff union. I'd like to urge the town council members to vote in favor of the resolution that calls on the Massachusetts legislature to pass the Cherish Act. The resolution speaks for itself in detailing the benefits of supporting Massachusetts public colleges and universities and that doing so lifts Massachusetts residents, including people of color, first generation college students and other historically marginalized populations. And almost anything that supports public higher education will be good for the town of Amherst. The town of Amherst, your constituents and the people who voted you into office are the students, staff and faculty at UMass and their families. More support and greater access to public higher education means a stronger and healthier UMass Amherst. Passing the Cherish Act would mean that the university would have more funds to invest in fixing and updating failing buildings, which means a healthier work environment for employees and students. And it would mean better pay for employees whose annual pay increases have not kept up with inflation for years. In short, supporting this resolution is the right thing to do for residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and for the residents of the town of Amherst. I hope you'll vote in favor of it. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Back to the audience in the room. Josna Regge. Is the green light on? Hers district one. Good evening. I'm here to draw the attention of the council and the community to the Amherst resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, which I submitted to the council on January the 22nd as a community sponsor on behalf of 200 plus more community sponsors with councillor Pat D'Angeles as the initial councillor sponsor. The resolution is currently en route to the GOL committee to be reviewed at its next meeting on February 8th. And from there it will come to the agenda of the February 26th town council meeting for your consideration and a vote. When we submitted the resolution, I'll skip in the interest of time. We see this resolution as a community building initiative, one that allows all Amherst residents to feel safe and feel heard. I can testify that it is being welcomed with great relief by many of our townspeople, especially those who are the most affected by the ongoing onslaught in Gaza, whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian or Arab Americans. We're doing all we can to set a respectful tone for the conversation and to acknowledge the feelings of our townspeople at a time when many of us are deeply distressed. Just one last point, how does this issue have a bearing on the town of Amherst? For me, its most immediate effect is the distinct chill in the air that silence and silencing bring and the oppressive nature of that silence for the most vulnerable among us who need to know that their community stands with them. People have experienced hateful emails and public taunts but feel they cannot speak. Then there is the honorable legacy of our town in standing up and speaking out for peace and justice, especially when our tax dollars make us complicit. There is the issue of how many of our tax dollars go to military funding with that much less available. You need to finish up right now. And close. For more information, please email Amherst4C'sfireatgmail.com. Thank you. Thank you. We're going back to the audience. Mickey White, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. I don't know if you can hear me but my name is Mickey White. I'm a resident and a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and I'm here to reiterate what my peers in the room did about passing the cherish act and adding the amendment of the debt free future act in order to make higher education affordable for all. My perspective is a little bit different as I am graduating this spring. I majored in legal studies and minored in political science. I've led social media strategies for my university's mock trial team and I've even interned at the women's institute for leadership development over this past summer. I'm also a part of the communication board for the student led activist group phenom who stand proudly with you in that room today. And I'm not splurging all of these things out to toot my own horn or soak into the endeavors of my undergraduate achievements. I'm saying it because it wouldn't have been possible without the financial assistance of scholarships and my amazing parents. I worked a total of three jobs this past year just to keep up with the financial hardships of my undergraduate education and unfortunately a lot of my peers don't have the same assistance I do so it is hard for them to afford to keep going here. Passing the cherish act and adding the debt free future act as an amendment would extremely help this for the reasons that my counterpart said earlier. I can't imagine some of the struggles that some of them face every single day and council members I believe that you have the opportunity to make this easier for everyone. So please just consider that and yeah that's all I have to say. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Thank you for joining us, Mickey. Jenny McKenna please. Thank you. No. Jenny McKenna. My name is Jenny McKenna. I use she and her and I live in district five. I'm not sure the resolution will fit in the two minutes. I don't I just will stop at the end. Is that we can I read the whole resolution? You can read whatever you would like as long as you finish in one minute and 43 minutes. Okay. Whereas on October 16th 2023 the Amherstown council gave unanimous support to a resolution condemning the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel that took nearly 1200 lives. Whereas since October 7th 2023 the Israeli government's siege of Gaza has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians most of them civilians nearly half of them children. Whereas more than 1.9 residents of Gaza have been forced to leave their homes many of them displaced multiple times. I will now skip to the resolution and skip the other where as is be it resolved that we the Amherstown council fall for an immediate and sustained ceasefire in Gaza and end to the Israeli military siege of the Gaza Strip the release of the hostages and detainees on both sides removal of obstacles to urgently needed humanitarian aid entering Gaza and an end to unconditional U.S. military aid to the Israeli government be it further resolved that we extend our support to all the brokenhearted and vulnerable members of our Amherst community who are directly affected by this ongoing crisis reaffirm our commitment to the safety of all members of our community and pledge to join with others seeking just and peaceful solutions be it further resolved that the clerk of the Amherstown council shall cause a copy of this resolution to be sent to President Joseph Biden. He has 15 seconds. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Edward Markey and Representative Jim McGovern. Thank you for joining us. We are going back to the Zoom audience. Liam Rue, please enter the room and state your name and where you live. I am Liam Rue. I live on 502 Main Street in downtown Amherst. Good evening. Thank you for having me. I'm a junior at UMass Amherst and a member of the public car education network in Massachusetts advocating for more accessible, affordable higher education and math. College education is supposed to be one of the greatest strengths of Massachusetts. It's the most educated state in the nation and that has in no small part contributed to its immense prosperity and economic dynamism. Amherst is a perfect example of Massachusetts excellence in higher education with three rigorous institutions of higher learning. But instead of maintaining a system that works for everyone, Massachusetts celebrated prosperity is increasingly out of reach for all but a wealth of minority. This is why I ask that you include in the resolution supporting the Charish Act support for Natalie Higgins debt-free future act which would make all public colleges and Massachusetts tuition free for in-state residents. For decades, tuition in our public universities has continued to rise to the point where even middle class families struggle to afford it. Adjusted for inflation, UMass tuition has increased more than 50 percent while state funding has continued to decline over decades. To keep up the median amount of debt and current after four years has risen to over $30,000. Over half of all UMass students take out loans. Assigned and is failing its main mission of providing affordable college. I have seen this personally as one student had to raise $8,000 just to continue studying at UMass Amherst one semester. One of my close friends has to spend all money earned over every summer towards paying off student loans. The Charish Act if passed would substantially boost public colleges like UMass but including the debt free future act would go even further towards providing truly affordable college. It would show that families should not have to pay exorbitant tuition just because they can. You have 15 seconds. Once again I ask you amend the resolution in the GOL committee supporting the Charish Act to also support Natalie Higgins debt for future act which would make all public colleges in Massachusetts tuition free for in-state residents. Thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us. Next we have Jerry Weiss. My name is Jerry Weiss. I live in District 5. On October 7th, 2023, Hamas Fighters brutally attacked Israeli settlers killing an estimated 1200 people raping women and taking 250 hostages 85 of whom have returned to their homes. It is also estimated that of those killed 36 were children. It is still unknown how many women were raped. Also on October 7th 2023 the Israeli military began a bombardment of Gaza that has destroyed or damaged 360,000 residential units more than half of Gaza's homes. At least 27,000 people including more than 11 and a half thousand children and 8,000 women have been killed more than 66,000 injured including at least 8,600 children and 6,300 women. More than 8,000 people are listed as missing. 1.9 million people over 80% of Gaza's populations are once again refugees. None of Gaza's 36 hospitals are fully functional and only 15 are open at all. There is widespread starvation dehydration and worsening malnutrition and severe physical suffering due to the bombing and lack of medical care. There is no food shortage or housing crisis or medical efficiency in Israel as a result of the Hamas attack. There are no displaced people. Between now and when you go to bed tonight another 60 to 80 Palestinians 25 to 30 of them children will be killed. This will not make Israel safer it will not make Jews or Muslims around the world safer. An eye for an eye passed quickly by in mid-October. On October 16th 2023 the Amherstown Council unanimously passed a proclamation in support of Israel condemning the attack on Israel. It is time to proclaim your and thus our town's allegiance to humanity for all people. It is time for you to proclaim your support for the innocent people of Gaza who have suffered and continue to suffer in unthinkable atrocities on a daily basis. It is time for the Israeli government to stop the annihilation of Gaza and people largely made possible with US supplied missiles and bombs. Thank you. We're going back to the audience. Isabel Anderson, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Hello, can you hear me? We can. Wonderful. My name is Isabel Anderson. I go to Amherst College. I hope that's sufficient for where I'm from and I'm here as the co-chair of Amherst College Young Democratic Socialists to discuss the Debt Free Future Act in Amherst College community and in support of phenom. I know that Amherst College and UMass at face value may seem very different. One is a private institution and one is a public university. But working with UMass, phenom, and my own colleagues in our YDSA has shown that there is a solidarity between us and it lies in the exorbitant and inaccessible costs of higher education. At Amherst DSA, we have learned that accessibility only begins when we stand with public education. The privilege of attending a private institution, just as many of us will be wrecked with student debt following our Amherst education. Personally, after benefiting from a quality public education in my home state of Virginia, that was the only way that I made it to a school like Amherst in the first place. Similarly, those of us in Amherst DSA who experienced public education before coming here, recognize the necessity to stand in solidarity with our phenom friends and the thousands of Massachusetts residents who deserve more from their public university. In the town of Amherst specifically, we know at Amherst College that we have historically underserved the town we're located in. We stand in support of the Debt for Future Act as an opportunity to begin to bridge this gap for the many students and employees of UMass who deserve a brighter debt-free future. Supporting the Debt for Future Act provides an opportunity to begin to repair the divide between our campus and the Amherst community as a whole through the statewide enforceable equity initiative to amend the higher education resolution to support the Debt for Future Act is to support the Amherst community, colleges and towns alike. You have 15 seconds. I conclude my comment. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Mark Barrett. Good evening. We need to use the ARPA funds for all the departments at the Bank Community Center. Good evening. My name is Mark Barrett. I'm a member of the Council on Aging, Friends of the Senior Center, a Senior Center volunteer and also the founder and facilitator of the Rainbow Coffee Hour, a LGBTQIA Plus and Allies Group. We meet for coffee and conversation once a month at the Senior Center which helps to solve the issue of loneliness and social isolation which is linked to serious health conditions such as the risk of dementia important to the CDC. This is just one of the programs offered at the Senior Center. I invite all of you to come and have a cup of coffee. The Senior Center is located in the Banks Community Center. It is only one of the five departments located in the Bank Center. They all help and service the members of our community. However, the Banks Community Center building is outdated and not up to code. Some of the major deficiencies are no work in kitchen, no security cameras, lack of ventilation in an exercise room that's full of equipment but we cannot use it. The ARPA funds should be used to fix the Bank Center for all the departments, not just the Senior Center. This is a win-win for everyone in the community. I appreciate your attention to this matter and please stop into the Rainbow Coffee Hour and have a cup of coffee and speak with your fellow community members. We would love to meet you. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us, Mark. We're going back to the Zoom audience. Chrisania Dengore. I apologize for mispronouncing your name. As you enter the room, please state your name and where you live. Hello. I'm Dengore and I'm a student at UMass and I would like to ask you to pass the resolution in regards to higher ed for all and amend it to include the debt-free future. It's a huge struggle for so many of my peers here at UMass Amherst so I'm glad to hear about this resolution because it involves a lot of important support for public higher education but this alone is not enough to ensure that all students afford college. Students' financial situation can change. You need to work here and college creates a lot of stress and makes it harder to succeed in college. So we need to do more to end the student debt crisis. College is a necessity and should be available to everyone. So we need free public college for everyone and that's why I'm asking you to amend the resolution to include the debt-free future act. Thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us. Athena. Ian Rodewald. Good evening. My name is Ian Rodewald. I live in District 1 on Pine Street and I'll try to go through this quickly as I've made three minutes worth. I work as the field organizer for the Western Mass Area Labor Federation a coalition of more than 60 public and private sector unions in Hampshire, Hampton, Franklin, and Berkshire counties. Nine of our unions are based here and the Chair's Act is one of organized labor's top priorities this year. The Ask Me That is a Chair's Act that I want to address specifically is that the Chair's Act would create a path for students to graduate from college debt-free starting in fiscal year 24 with debt-free community college and in subsequent years for four-year universities. The graduating class of 2023 from Massachusetts public higher ed institutions alone had a collective debt of roughly $400 million to pass Amherst graduates having about $36,000 in student debt on average. In addition to skyrocketing tuition the often undiscussed campus capital debt is a major reason for the financial burden placed upon students. As student investment as state investment in public colleges and university fell over the past decades cash-trapped universities took on capital debt in order to build new buildings or do deferred maintenance on old buildings. Campuses then became indebted to debt servicers and foisted the cost onto students. At UMass, for example, students have to pay more than $4,000 a year in fees that go directly toward paying off campus debt. So I urge you to pass this resolution. Also, you've heard many comments about amending the resolution to include Defri Future as a community sponsor. I would urge you to listen to the comments and think about them for a further resolution down the road which I'd be happy to work with counselors on. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Eleanor Everett, please enter the room state your name and where you live. All right. Do you hear me? We can. Great. I'm Eleanor Everett. I go to UMass Amherst. I live at 112 Eastman Lane. I'd like to see the Amherstown Council amend the current resolution and also include support for the Defri Future Act. Affording college is a challenge for possibly everyone I know. If it's not someone directly my own age, it's their children or their friends. Yeah. I agree with what the others have said. Thank you for joining us. Max Page. Good evening, Max Page. I live at 84 McClellan Street. I'm a professor at UMass Amherst but right now I'm also president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association which represents 117,000 public school and college educators and the Cherish Act is one of our top priorities. And I'll simply say what I think many understand but it's worth us repeating that there's no way we achieve as a town or a commonwealth our racial or economic justice goals without access to both truly debt free and high quality public higher education. And the Cherish Act is a blueprint that's been developed with a wide number of people that includes 107 co-sponsors of course it's led by Senator Cumberford from our area of course supported by Repdom as well. And it answers both those questions. It makes a guarantee on the one hand that students can access and will graduate debt free from public higher education that's on one side of the equation but on the quality side of the education it makes clear that we have to have the students supports that students need to succeed and make sure that faculty and staff have pay and benefits that they deserve to have a high quality institution like UMass Amherst and it insists that we have to have buildings that are paid for by the state not by student fees that only exacerbate the student debt problem. So really the Cherish Act is a blueprint for how we achieve this crucial crucial benefit not only for individuals it's for the Commonwealth obviously many others have said how education is the cornerstone of the prosperity of the Commonwealth but we have sorely underfunded public higher education. So I urge you to support the higher ed for all resolution and hopefully we can pass the Cherish Act this year as it has a lot of support and a lot of momentum behind it including funding from the fair share amendment and we are glad that passed a year and a half ago and provides the funding. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. Ashwin Ravikumar please enter the room, state your name and where you live and my apologies if I mispronounced your name. Sure. Hello everybody my name is Ashwin Ravikumar and I'm an Amherst resident in District 2. So I'm speaking in support of the ceasefire resolution that was introduced so eloquently earlier and that Jen followed up on and also in support of the debt free future act as part of our resolution issues that I think are really intimately connected and I'd like to just underscore why. So the ongoing violence in Gaza affects us all in so many ways our taxes are funding ethnic cleansing and yet we do not have much influence over federal government policy at least not directly. Local government serve as an official as a voice of the popular morality that we all hold and have the platform to advance our values to a much higher level. Our neighbors and community members who have family members in Gaza who are Arab and Muslim are feeling acutely the ambivalence and even tacit support for the ongoing violence in some quarters as a threat to their safety in our community. So to the extent that we honor our commitments to inclusiveness and to anti-racism our counselors have an obligation and an opportunity to stand with those community members and of course seeing as how services like education rights like education are not easily provided for this cuts to the core of how we need to be spending our resources and what we need to be advocating for for the kind of society we want to live in. This has a historical tradition in 1984 the Oakland city council passed a resolution formally condemning apartheid in South Africa this would be the first in a torrent of formal municipal statements on this matter grounded in the intense feelings of empathy and solidarity of regular people. So please I urge you all to pass the ceasefire resolution to stand with our neighbors of all backgrounds to act in accordance with our basic sense that we have shared humanity for all and as such refuse to stand by in the face of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Let's fund education let's pass the debt free future act and let's pass this ceasefire resolution thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. I apologize in advance if I have trouble reading some of these names Stephanie Marcotte I think all right. Hello there. My name is Dr. Stephanie Marcotte I'm a resident and a renter in precinct 3B in Amherst with my husband and my two year old daughter. I urge you to pass the higher ed for all resolution which mentions by name the cherish act my husband is a graduate of UMass Amherst. I'm a graduate of Hampshire College and we have been lucky enough to continue to live in Amherst collectively my husband and I carry over $227,000 in student loan debt which is a hefty amount of money. If we were able to pass the cherish act and therefore meet the vision of higher ed for all we would be able to instead of paying you know what would be $1,000 a month to pay off our student loans in 20 years that's money that we could be spending to continue to live in Amherst to own a home to pay taxes for our daughter to go to Amherst debt free but instead unfortunately we have had to take out exorbitant amount of student loan debt to fund our education if we pass the cherish act other people would not have to be in my position they'd be able to use that $1,000 and instead invest in business make sure that they're able to fund for their daughter to go to college debt free and also be able to plan so that they have a future of retirement and they're able to continue to live in Amherst for the foreseeable future so thank you thank you for joining us Ella Prabhakar good evening counselors thank you for hearing us tonight my name is Ella Prabhakar I'm a student at UMass Amherst an organizer with FINAW and also a student I'm going to turn that off sorry I'm here once again to advocate for a motion to be put forward to amend the resolution in regards to higher ed for all to include the debt free future act you've heard many incredible voices today voicing support for the cherish act and I absolutely urge you to support this resolution overall however I think there is an important amendment that needs to be made if we are going to truly realize the vision of higher ed for all to interact myself and my peers are obviously struggling with student debt you've heard my story a couple weeks ago you've heard the stories of others and I'm just here to reiterate this ask and I hope that in my position as student senator as an organizer on many different causes through the rest of my career at UMass Amherst I hope to help facilitate the relationship between students and the town as a whole and I think this could be a really productive way to begin that conversation or continue that conversation depending on your perspective thank you for joining us Nicholas I'm sorry Riv Benedictis oh I'm sorry thank you my name is Nicholas D. Benedictis and I'm a sophomore and resident at the University of Massachusetts Amherst thank you honored members of the town council and others I deeply appreciate the opportunity that I'm being offered today I sit before you in support of the debt free future act despite my best efforts I find myself unable to console my friends when they talk about their struggles paying for college I feel vitriol I feel brief but most of all I feel hopeless what can I tell them that it will be okay it will be anything but one of my closest friends Josh never attended college because he could not afford it my friend Tara worries about her tuition bill having already taken out all the loans she's allowed now struggling to find gainful employment to afford college what can I tell her what do I tell Ivy who has also never finished college the expense of which she finds completely insurmountable Amherst already expressed its support for the cherish act which I am in full support of yet without the debt free future act the problems within American universities will remain all students rich or poor should be allowed to attend college and many middle class families do not have the savings or income to afford such a massive expense yet they hardly qualify for much if any financial aid this is about priorities and values do we value our students and our education enough to offer it to everyone to keep this country healthy and our democracy strong we need people to be educated well so I say it must be free I implore you to amend the resolution in regards to higher ed for all complete your comes support for the debt free future act thank you thank you for joining us Henry Morgan good evening counselors I'm Henry Morgan and I'm here to reiterate what I said to you in the previous council meeting and in the GLL committee asking you to include an amendment to the resolution in support of higher education for all to include support for Natalie Higgins and James B. Eldridge's bill the debt free future act the reason why you need to support this is because the student community needs this the reality of student debt is destructive it destroys the lives of millions of people in America and I'm asking each of you to come in support of this bill our labor representatives when they advocate for the cherish act need to include support for students and you do too thank you thank you for joining us Leah Wettemann hello my name is Leah Wettemann I am a first-year student at Hampshire college I'm here to urge you to amend the resolution in regards to higher ed for all to include the debt free future act I also implore you to listen to the incredible voices that have spoken before me education is a human right and the only road to true equality I believe we must do everything we can to make it accessible that is it thank you so much thank you Cairo Serna good evening counselors my name is Cairo Serna I am a resident of Amherst I represent I'm one of the people responsible for representing college students to the Massachusetts Democratic Party and I serve on the Massachusetts commission of LGBTQ youth which includes college age youth I'm here today to ask you once again to file an amendment to the upcoming resolution supporting the cherish act to include support for a debt free future we students of Amherst make up about half of your town's population and many of us voted you into office however we are still a hugely underrepresented group in local government and government at all levels the Amherst town council can and should advocate to fill this gap of representation as I mentioned the last time I testified here the housing crisis is in large part due to predatory housing practices by UMass supplemented by practices by local landlords both of these are incentivized by students desperation for cheaper housing in order to offset the exorbitant costs of higher ed and alleviating the financial burden of higher ed on students will also relieve pressure on local housing for all residents in Amherst as I'm sure we all know it's not just students who suffer from the housing crisis in Amherst and all of these impacts need to be relieved not for students but also for permanent residents debt free future and cherish are two sides of the same coin that you as Amherst town council can advocate for in order to represent and protect your constituents they're recognized by Senator Joe Cumberford and others as Massachusetts best opportunity to replace affirmative action because disparities in financial access always reflect other social inequalities please complete your remarks I ask you today to advocate for the futures of thousands of students in Amherst who rely on your representation and who desperately need financial aid for college thank you Liam is it Lane or Love okay come on up thank you I won't take up too much your time so hello I'm Liam Love I'm the chair of the Hampshire college young Democratic Socialists of America and I'm calling on you to support the resolution for the debt free future act it's not only the correct moral choice to eliminate student debt but it's also the sensible economic choice students today are struggling to get through college not primarily due to grades or tests but it's to keep paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars a semester every every single semester right I know multiple students who have had to drop out due to these economic shackles that are holding them from achieving higher education as will affect me as well for my third and fourth year so I'm not looking forward to that but I'll get my stuff sorted before then so I'm asking you again please amend the resolution higher ed for all and include the debt free future act to show the students of this historic college town that you have our backs thank you thank you Nick Kawasaki hello Nick Kawasaki I'm a student at Hampshire college please amend the resolution with regards to higher ed for all to include support for the debt free future act student debt is in the city some destructive weight on the futures of the American working public its influence is not merely limited to the financial futures of those who have already been through higher education it also acts as a barrier to those who may wish to pursue higher education but either cannot or do not wish to take on the amount of debt it would require today's economic climate the amount of debt the student is saddled with is for vast swaths of the population entirely intentable it would be an unbelievable weight off the shores of those who have been through or are currently in higher education as well as a practical lifting of a blockade on the axis of disadvantage and working class students to higher education higher education is important step towards self and community emancipation for poverty as well as a vital sector of training in the types of knowledge and jobs which are needed to make both the local and national economy strong ending student debt is an investment in the future and the working people and in the country thank you thank you for joining us Phyllis Keenan hello I'm Phyllis Keenan I live at 10 Stanley street in precinct 2 in Amherst I'm here to speak to you in support of the resolution for higher ed for all by passage of the cherish act we've all heard about the student debt so I won't talk about that I'd like to talk about the faculty and staff who are greatly under paid particularly at the community colleges when we looked at what people were paid in California who had which has a comparable cost to living as Massachusetts we're paid about half of what they're paid so clearly we need a big increase in pay in order to afford to live here I'm somebody who has I own a house in Amherst thanks to Habitat for Humanity because I worked on building that house 20 hours a week for a year and then I took on the debt I have a mortgage I have excellent credit but nobody would give me a loan because I didn't make enough money I could pay a rent which is more than what my mortgage is but I could not get a mortgage and that has to do with what my wages are I'm a math professor I'm an adjunct professor and as adjunct faculty in this state more than 60% of us make less than 20,000 a year more than 90% of us make less than 40,000 a year that is way less than the average income and it is very hard to live in this state on that income and one of the things that we're looking for also is more student services to be performed by people who are faculty and staff who are paid a living wage I ask you to support the resolution in support of higher ed for all by passage of the cherish act thank you thank you for joining us I'm sorry I can't make out your last name Aiden please come up my name is Aiden Rycheski I live in Amherst Hampshire College and I come with a request for the town of Amherst to file and pass Natalie Higgins and Jamie Eldridge's debt free act to improve access to higher education thank you Mav McCabe please come up hello to the council people and Amherst I come with a request for the town of Amherst to file and pass the cherish act debt free future amendment to improve access to higher education for my fellow five college students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst thank you for your time thank you for joining us Grace Davis good evening council members my name is Grace Davis and I'm a student and resident of UMass Amherst I urge the board to pass the resolution to support the cherish act with an amendment to include Natalie Higgins debt free future act to improve access to higher education for all public colleges in Massachusetts tuition free according to a study by Georgetown University 72% of jobs require a college degree by the year 2031 the rise of AI and automation combined with increasing use of technology and employment means that many of the jobs for those without college degrees will shrink and even become obsolete this does not need to be a fact that we should mourn as long as we adopt public college free would help drive down the exorbitant cost of private institutions and help make higher education more accessible for all as many have stated Amherst is a town with three prominent universities in this borders and many more in greater western mass we urge you to pass the resolution to support the cherish act and a minute to include the debt free future act to help make quality education a right and not a privilege thank you for your time thank you for joining us on the register thank you and we want to thank all of you that have come forward this evening and stuck with the minutes that we restricted you to we really appreciate that we're going to move on to the consent agenda and let me just say that I'm going to read the motion sheet and if you plan to vote no on one of the consent agenda items because there is are you plan to vote no on the consent agenda because there is one item you do not agree with you should ask that that item be removed once I make the original motion okay I move to the I move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit eight C referral of community preservation act committee funding recommendations to the finance committee please note we will discuss this later so that you'll still have an opportunity to discuss it this is just to vote the referral eight E approval of March 5 2024 presidential primary election warrant 11 a adoption of January 22nd 2024 town council meeting minutes are there any people that would like something removed saying no hands before we move to a vote I just want to disclose that motion I'm sorry thank you for seconding I want to disclose that I have filed a potential conflict of interest which I do not have in regard to the community preservation act because my husband brand Harvey is one of the filers with one of the particular items that has been requested for funding with that is there we've had a motion on the floor in a second we're going to move to a vote I'm going to start with Anna Devlin got here I a counselor at a I Lynn Griezmer isn't I maybe Joe counselor Hannity I Bob Hegner I counselor Lord is absent Pam Rooney yes counselor Ryan I Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg I Jennifer Todd yes counselor Walker yes it's unanimous with I'm sorry I didn't go back to the beginning Patty Angeles I well now it's unanimous with one counselor absent okay we are going to move to the resolution which is the resolution in support of higher ed for all and I understand that there are some potential additions to this so we're going to place the resolution we're going to move to adopt the resolution in support of higher ed for all and I need a second and then we'll move on to potential discussion and amendments second Devlin got here thank you alright I'm going to first ask Patty Angeles as I'm sorry it's not Patty how dare you I'm going to first ask Anna Devlin got here who is chair of governance organization and legislation committee for her report thank you so do I'll discuss the resolution that you have in your packet on our first meeting very thrilling meeting and you know I think there were a couple things we did ultimately determine it to be clear consistent and actionable which is what we were looking at there was a question of whether or not the sponsors would be bringing forward a proposed amendment at that point they did not bring forward an amendment at the GOL meeting and the discussion landed on that they would consider bringing forward a separate resolution that's up to the prerogative of the sponsors our job was to determine whether the resolution was clear consistent and actionable which we did okay questions and comments hand up Pat thank you Patty Angeles thank you and I want to thank GOL but I think we rushed through and there was actually a lack of clarity in this resolution and that was brought to our attention and the sponsors and I met together and we have a proposal to add to new whereas clauses which we think will address the issue of clarity and what this resolution is about and I understand you've given those to the clerk of the council in advance so we can show them on the screen please thank you the amendments would include a new first whereas the cherish act establishes a blueprint for a world class system of public higher education that is urgently needed to meet widely shared goals in the commonwealth and second amendment whereas if past the cherish act would enable people of all backgrounds in every community to build successful and fulfilling lives address economic social and racial equity gaps meet our state's climate change goals create high quality workplaces with fair wages and benefits to attract and retain faculty and staff enable new discoveries and innovation and invest in a competitive work for others that is the engine of the state's economy I too minor in the need to go higher you're you're adding a whereas is that right is it this no keep going with these additional corrections universities thank you we're asking that in the third line where it says affirmative action which threatens to undermine access to students of color and given that there we would like to add given that there after the end and that would be the only one there I think councillor Ryan has something he wants to add but in the last we are we have removed the whereas it says the cherish act that one commits the resources to ensure a strong and healthy public higher we have taken that out and are asking to replace it with now therefore be it resolved that the town council of Amherst calls upon state leaders and the legislature to pass bills s816 and h1260 an act committed to higher education the resources to ensure a strong and healthy public higher education system and there should be a comma right there the cherish act to improve higher education in Massachusetts Massachusetts sorry and then this one where it says and I believe it should say be it further resolved that the clerk of the town council will cause a copy of this resolution to be sent to Governor Healy Lieutenant Governor Driscoll Senator Comerford and Representative Mindy Dom and those are the amendments that the sponsors and I have okay George you also had something I just I just assume we get them all in here there is one other thing I'd like to bring up okay it's in paragraph 5 5 did you say 5 yes I'd like to move to remove the word destructive from that second clause as a sponsor there's two sponsors here Councillor Walker and Pat DeAngeles is that a problem actually I'd like to speak to that why I'm doing it it's not just random word smithing I'm just confused is this part of the motion that Councillor there's a motion on the floor and so if there's amendments there has to be motions to amend so I'm confused as what's going on right now thank you let's you would like to have a motion to amend yes the motion that's on the floor thank you and it's to remove the word destructive yes is there a second to the motion to amend you did so would you want me to just go with that amendment this is how sausage is made okay Councillor Ryan please we're just going to take your motion off the floor for the moment leave the word destructive in are there any other comments with regard that has been made was there a second yes there needs to be a second thank you for the discussion Pat or Alicia I don't really have anything else to add right now okay I don't have anything else to add but I just wanted also some clarity so if we have this motion to amend on the floor now and George wanted to amend something else how would that work we would pass these amendments and then have a new yes motion on the floor to amend again yes thank you okay is there any other comment are there any other comments from councillors I can't see hands we just see the clauses again yes please go to the top Devlin got here Ryan Rooney and Steinberg all have their hands up thank you I can't see any hands at that let's start with the first hand that's up that's me I have a separate grammatical amendment that I can okay we're going to wait on that next is Pam Pam Rooney Pam Rooney so we're getting some amendment to this resolution we have heard from the audience a number of people mentioning that we should amend the cherish act with debt free future act I have not seen the wording and text for that so there's no way I can support something that I've not actually read yet but I would actually lean towards sending this back to GOL to complete the work listen to what these folks are saying see if there's any merit in adding debt free future act to all of the other changes that are being manipulated tonight in this manner I think it's very difficult I would much rather see this come to us as a proposal and a finished proposal rather than word smithing on the floor I'm going to call on the chair of GOL on a Devlin got there so the sponsors did not opt to make that amendment at GOL will not edit a resolution to add amendments to it we're doing clarity consistency and action ability if the sponsors wanted to submit an amended resolution they could have done that and they opted not to so that's yeah they opted not to at that point if they choose to in the future that's up to them but at that meeting they had opted not to continue with the resolution as submitted okay Andy and be quick but ever two topics one in saying this I want to make it clear that I'm going to sound like I have serious reservations about both the chair of shack and the debt free futures act I don't but I do have concerns about where we are is a counseling process going about considering things and it's two parts one is that referring it to a committee that has a limited role of looking at clarity consistency and action ability we don't have the opportunity then to have it go to a committee that is looking about the substantive value of the proposal or concerns about the proposal that ought to be considered and it does have a consequence because we would be stating a legislative priority in the adoption of such a resolution so that not having the complete discussion I think becomes problematic the thing that I wanted to point out that I don't think that there's been any discussion about is that there's several people who correctly pointed out that there was a fair share amendment that was passed that provided substantial additional funding for education and for transportation and this is clearly a statement of an important need for the use of education funding but it's not the only use for education or transportation funding as we know for the town how dependent we are on support for both and even in the education field our own public schools are arcaded 12 schools both the elementary schools and the region that provides middle and high school are under tremendous financial stress and part of that financial stress is due to the fact that as a result of the student opportunity act that we are being given very small increases for an extended number of years in chapter 70 funding which is the state funding at the tune of $30 per student which is the number that was in the student opportunity act the mess that chooses municipal association is asked that that be increased to $100 but also supports full funding for the student opportunity act for all of those reasons if we look out for advocacy for our K-12 schools we are also calling on a big ask for education funding and I don't think that in our process that we've had a committee that has looked at the bundle of issues that are underlying all of this tension that comes about because ultimately all resources are limited including the fair share amendment resources okay Pat I'm sorry you still have your hand up okay Pat one of the things I want to clarify is that the sponsors and myself we are not including the resolution for free college for all of the debt free future act thank you that is not our goal to look at the cherish act and to support it I feel strongly I can't speak for councillor wafer on this I feel strongly that the debt free future act if it's going to be resolution needs to come to GOL and as Andy is saying it may need to go to other committees but if we look at the cherish act I feel like it supports very important initiatives that we need to sort of separate out what's happening in terms of how we are going to pay for education in Massachusetts how we're going to do this I don't see the point and I'm not being very clear right now and I apologize I do not see the point of this going to the finance committee or the community resources committee and services committee to analyze the cherish act I think that it's amendment to chapter 15 of the general laws in Massachusetts it's amendments to what is already there and they're important amendments to make college accessible as somebody who wasn't able to go to college until I was in my 40s and didn't graduate with a BA until I was 50 I understand how important college education can be I understand the dilemma of some of the students in this room not all because they're not all facing the same dilemma but you know we need to move forward with the cherish act and the that's all I can say right now because I'm not being very articulate thank you so there's an amendment on the floor the amendment's been made it's been seconded it's the one that is in the on the screen so we're only speaking to that amendment at this time George I'm sorry Councillor Walker you have your hand up I just wanted to sort of piggyback on Pat's statement but also respond to Pam's question in terms of the process where we went with as the sponsors and so I personally am completely in support of the that free future act as a UMass alum who still is very absorbed by my student loan debt in a way that it prevents me from even buying a house in this town I completely understand the importance of that act but I signed out as a sponsor to the resolution to support the cherish act before I was reached out to by other students and just in terms of process the other sponsors also have to be on board to make that kind of amendment and we did speak about this and what we talked about is trying to reach a certain timeline like we want to get this resolution at least this portion of it to the floor as soon as possible and so we don't want to send it back to GOL and like Anna said there's not much else they can review it for than what it was already been reviewed for but we did get a comment at the GOL meeting from Councillor Ryan that was that you know someone who was reading this resolution before it doesn't actually specify what the cherish act is and so that's why we decided to add these two where as is so that it's a little bit more clear to someone reading this resolution who does not already have prior knowledge of the cherish act why we're saying these things and why we're trying to pass this with that being said I personally do support the amendments that were suggested by a lot of our public comment tonight but that may have to come to us in a separate resolution just because of the different constraints that might come along with it George Councillor Ryan so this resonates a great deal with me I spent 20 years teaching at HCC and I can tell you all kinds of stories what it's like being an adjunct faculty member so this is a plea for help and I think it's something that we can amplify by voting for this so I hope that you all will vote for it and I do support it so I hear Andy's point that there are limited resources that's true in just about every endeavor but that's not our problem that's not our challenge our challenge I think here is to pass this plea on with our emphasis that this is important and it needs to be addressed the final decision will be made somewhere else and they will have to weigh all the other demands and that's not our problem is a problem that we've heard eloquently tonight and at other meetings and I hope that we will amplify it by supporting this measure the motion's been made in seconded Councillor Atte please go ahead so if I'm understanding this correctly a vote for the resolution is a vote for the cherished act as it is right now the question before the council is the amendment on the floor and the amendment is shown on the screen in blue and later on with some strikeout and a few other small places that people have amended like right there once we vote the amendment then we go back to the original motion which is the motion for the whole resolution thank you are there any other questions then we're going to move to the vote on the amendment I'm going to start with Councillor Atte aye then Greece may as an aye Councillor Haneke aye Bob Hegner aye Councillor Lorde is absent Pam Rooney yes Andy Steinberg aye Councillor Wauker yes Pat D'Angelo aye it's unanimous and so now we move back to the original motion and I see a hand up George Ryan yeah I would like to make the motion to amend in paragraph 5 and strike the word destructive um is there a second to that motion second George please speak to your motion I hope the sponsors will see this as a friendly amendment perhaps they won't but in reading this I felt that as it reads given that the United States Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action threatens to undermine access to students of color I think that's a true statement I think destructive is a loaded word I think it would have we just don't know what the impacts are going to be yet at least I don't know maybe some commentators feel that in fact the impacts will not be negative but we just don't know if there are in fact negative impacts as a result of the Supreme Court's decision it probably should be cited somewhere in this document so I just suggest that as a friendly amendment I suggest is to take out the loaded word and just leave the statement as a bold and correct statement that it does threaten to undermine access so that's my argument the motion striking the word thank you the motion has been made seconded are there any other comments before we move to a vote okay we're going to vote on there's a hand up I'm sorry Anna I'm I'm mulling and raising hands and I don't know I'm gonna I'm gonna half form my thought here so we don't know that the results of that decision have been destructive but the decision itself was destructive to the foundation of affirmative action it wasn't so I agree with you we don't know the results of it yet it's too soon but that Supreme Court decision essentially destroyed the foundation of affirmative action and I think yeah that's a slight editorial on it in my own framing however I do think that the the fact of how affirmative action was changed was that I mean you could find you could say dismantled if that would feel better but if destroyed has a negative connotation but that decision did destroy what affirmative action is in terms of how it functions in higher education are there any other comments before we move to a vote I think George had the comment back George I think it's a stronger statement with the word taken out I think it's more effective it'll be more effective in Boston that's just my thought okay the motion has been made in second the motion is to remove the word destructive in the paragraph is shown on the screen I'm going to move to a vote Lynn Griezmer is an aye Councillor Thank you. Aye. Bob Haigner. Aye. Councilor Lourdes absent Pam Runey. Yes. Did you say no. Yes? Yes thank you. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Councillor Walker. No. Pat DeAngeles. No. on a devil and got here no counselor at a I motion passes there are eight people in favor for opposed and did I get there one absent okay I'm sorry I I think it was nine three that's nine at nine in favor and three opposed and one absent thank you we're going to move now to the original motion unless somebody else has their hand up counselor hannity thank you I want to echo what Andy Steinberg said earlier about his concerns because I have the same concerns about particularly the paragraph about new revenue from the fair share amendment because given the numbers and amount of money we're talking about use of the revenue from the fair share amendment for the cherish act or the debt free future act would basically eliminate the ability to use that revenue for K-12 public education and we know in our own town how much K-12 public education absolutely needs revenue particularly from the fair share amendment as we I believe had some arguments to our own legislators last year when the initial Healy administration use of fair share amendment money came out without almost with almost no money toward K-12 education and the cherish act does have the language quote there shall be a debt free college scholarship program that creates a path for debt free college completion for all students which sound shall include reasonable contributions from student and families so to to respond to pat de Angelis there is a notion of debt free public education in the cherish act that that it sounded like you were implying with the debt free future act that those were completely different in terms of where they were going so I just wanted to clarify that that's what I saw on the cherish act when I read the cherish act there's a lot of money that's needed for it and I have grave concerns that taking a position on that would harm our ability to argue for more money for K-12 education through the fair share amendment because they might conflict with each other due to the amount of money that appears to be needed if the cherish act passes okay but you're not making a motion at this point okay thank you Anna I have a it's going to sound very small after the edits that have been made so the cherish act is in here all capitalized with the end act capitalized and do I need to make an official motion to have it be capital T lowercase HE cherish all caps and then capital A lowercase CT it's just hurting my brain where are we throughout the throughout the entire resolution no problem it's it was just break it was like breaking my head okay thank you I wasn't sure do I need a formal amendment for okay thanks it seems small enough so I do I want to look back at what George said earlier which is about how we communicate our values and communicate where we stand through resolutions and proclamations and I really I wrestled with this a lot because I think Amherst was I believe the top per percentage of voters for the fair share amendment right yeah that's what I thought yeah and then we were in the bottom when it came to actual dollars doled out and that stung for those of us and I'm did not do nearly as much work advocating for the fair shares some of the folks in this room but for those of us who did push and fight for that act it really hurt to get that dollar amount back it is tough to reconcile the the two values that I think many of us hold at the same time which is that we believe in debt free college and we believe that our teachers need more funding we believe that our schools need more funding we see that this year even more than ever and so I think for me I do plan to support this resolution because I agree with what George said that it communicates where we stand and that it's not necessarily our decision to do that exact math however I do think that we need to continue our advocacy for our K-12 public schools we can't let that drop and I do think at some point we need to be communicating the message that when we're creating new streams of revenue consideration must be given to existing programs that are really struggling not just creating new admittedly amazing programs to use that funding so I'm holding both of those right now and it's challenging which is why I'm more supportive of the cherish act than the debt for futures act which we're not even discussing right now so I'll let that go but that's where I'm that's where I'm at slightly rambly there been this is a grammatical or editorial change it does anybody believe we need to bring that to a vote we do it in the title to capitalizing chair saying the cherish and act I don't think we need to go thank you and change the word act above to upper and lower thank you okay Cathy Shane I'm going to follow Mandy actually I sent in some questions a few hours before we met to say how was the cherish act funded and would it absorb all the money in the fair share that was allocated and the initial response was good questions I wonder how it is so we they went out to the other person who's named on the original sponsor and he said he sent me the current allocation of the fair share amendment which has basically nothing for K through 12 except for and it's a big except some money to MSBA to do some capital projects but it has nothing that's on the funding side to fix what we've got with the charter formula and the chapter 70 so I do think having worked for years on health care policy that if we wanted to expand a major program we had to say where the money was coming from to fund it and that was at the federal level I think you need to do it at the state level and we certainly in the town we can't deficit spend in the town so I just want since our senator Comerford is a sponsor of this I would like to know how we can do both because we can't we know what we're facing this year we're not talking about next year for our elementary school and we have a huge gap so if we basically take the money that we thought was gonna help with K through 12 by enacting a new draw on it and there's not another new source so I don't know how there's nothing wrong with the cherish act it's just I want to know how we're gonna pay for it so if this is an unusual request but could we hear from our senator how she both she and Mindy initially when they were elected on the right-hand side on Joe but way back in 2018 they ran on bringing more funds in for education knowing that we were facing free COVID we were facing a problem so I'm really worried about the funding not what this act is going to do and this is what is always tied up big improvements at the federal level and the federal level can just deficit spend but this the state is starting to say we don't have surpluses anymore and they're starting to say we're cutting so I think we're in a world where resolutions aren't just resolutions we should be asking ourselves how we're gonna pay for it Jennifer talk so just to um I guess busy ask a question of Kathy to follow up so is the request maybe that we not vote on this tonight but wait to hear back from senator Comerford was that kind of the gist of what you were asking I'm asking am I correct that this would absorb all the money and I didn't get a clear answer they said this year it's money and they sent I got sent this year's money and this year's money has nothing for K through 12 so if right next year's money has more for for higher education then there won't be more for K through 12 so it's a question Jennifer I don't know because this is an awkward thing there's nothing wrong with this legislation excuse me but but I'm assuming at the state level they can't pass a piece of legislation without funding so I'm hoping that's true but if it collides with the efforts to get more money for schools I'd like to know that thank you so I guess I'm just kind of putting out there do we want to have that do you want to know before we vote on this if we're not what is it taking from Peter to pay Paul so to speak you know if there's a real there could be an impact from thank you for asking that question I'm going to recognize one of the sponsors Pat he and might be able to answer Kathy's question is that all right counts yeah is there any objection to that yeah thank you so just in terms of the fair share budgets for this year there were 224 million that went to public K through 12 and 229 million that went to public higher ed and so that's for FY 24 and it would be similar budgets in FY 25 and 26 when cherish would go into effect similar similar to this year so it's the sheet you sent me right which which it went for construction dollars to repair schools it didn't go directly to K through 12 it's in the K through 12 category preschool that didn't go through K through 12 excuse me so I'm just saying it was very helpful that you sent this so I don't know whether that money goes away and now is freed up for real K through 12 or whether all of that money then goes so it's everyone should get this sheet of paper because it does have K through 12 money but it's not to the schools to pay for education okay no thank you Ian we appreciate you're being here in your response if there was a sheet of paper with information it should be filed with the with the clerk of the council and the council clerk of the council can add it to the packet second of all we are not going to take the time tonight to get into debate what the split is on the budget for the fair share that's not the purpose of this of this resolution I think we need to take any other comments on this resolution and then bring it to a vote if there are issues that mean you want to know more about the fair share act then somebody needs to make a res a motion to delay voting on this okay Councillor Walker I just wanted to elaborate a little bit further on what Ian said it's just my understanding that they're two different funding streams for K through 12 and for the fair share amendment portion that's being allocated and we don't necessarily have the discretion to decide how that money is used as the Amherst town council unfortunately and I think that that's something we can look at and think about another time if we think that the K through 12 money should be used for other things but that's just separate from the cherish act and so I like absolutely appreciate some of the concerns tonight and I don't disagree at all I know our K through 12 is in urgent need of funding but I think multiple things can be true at the same time and it shouldn't prevent us from addressing some of the other things that are also true thank you count Andy Steinberg I do make the motion to postpone consideration to a date certain I guess what our next meeting is the 26th of February I'll make the motion to postpone consideration till February 26th is there a second second Councilor Attain is the second is there we're going to immediately then move to is there any other comments Councillor Walker I just have a quick clarifying question for Andy would the hope for postponing be that we could get more information from or have some of our reps come speak with us I'm just trying to understand the point of the postponing Andy I think it would give us the opportunity to get information from variety of sources about where what the fair share amendment allocation has been so far because that has not been entirely clear and an opportunity to consult with our legislators our state representative and state senator regarding the question of whether this will allow opportunity for additional funding for K-12 education motion's been made to postpone to a date certain Pat you have a question or comment yes if counselors wanted had questions that they wanted Joe Comerford or Mindy Dom to answer they could have reached out to them so to postpone voting on whether or not to pass this resolution to support the chair a shack I don't understand why that has to go back I just don't understand the mayor mentioned that we do have a monthly meeting coming up with these with the senator and the state representative and we can ask this question or we can ask additional questions what does that have to do with passing this it's it's I'm just mentioning that it's there it's I didn't say it had anything to do with it but will you will be getting a request from myself and the vice president for questions that you would like us to ask of the senator and the representative that's all George Ryan you have your hand up I assume Dom and Comerford are thinking about this a lot but that's their problem not ours we're being asked to send this along with our strong support and it's their job to figure it out and maybe the answer is the people in Boston are gonna have to figure out a better way to fund K through 12 but we are saying there's a real need here and we hear it and we want you to act on it and in fact both Comerford and Dom support this legislation so I assume they've given a fair amount of thought to it they're not just throwing out there so I don't see any point in postponing I don't can imagine what they're gonna tell us it's gonna suddenly have our eyes open up and go I see now it's all it's not gonna be easy it's never gonna be easy sources are limited that's not our job our job I think here is to send a clear message to Boston that we want you to do something about this now Councillor Walker thank you I agree with Councillor Ryan and I just wanted to add that I think that even if we pass this night there's still time to ask questions of our state reps and there's still time to speak with them if you have if you would like to advocate for different allocations within what is happening but I don't think that has any impact on us passing our support for the cherish act Andy Steinberg it would give us the opportunity to amend the language and the resolution in support of the cherish act to include a statement that we value education at all levels and the town has responsibilities for education and concerns for education at all levels and this emphasizes that we are supporting both in that this is not stated to be a higher priority I'm concerned that the resolution as stated now creates the application that it's a priority over increased funding that would assist the chapter 70 funding that has been wholly inadequate and has been being depleted because we've been getting such small increases to the Student Opportunity Act and I get it gets back to the question as to having these kinds of discussions in the full council is valuable but it is also time consuming and which is why I think that we also as a matter of course need to be thinking about whether GOL is the only place that a resolution should go to if the limitation of discussion is clarity consistency and action ability the motion on the floor is to postpone to a date certain that date certain is February 26th and we're going to vote on that motion and then depending on the outcome of that motion we'll come back to the original motion we're going to start this vote with Councilor Haneke no Bob Hagnar no Councilor Lord is absent Pam Rooney no Councilor Ryan no Kathy Shane no Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer top no Councilor Walker no Pat DeAngelis no Anna Devlin-Gotham no Councilor Atte yes and Lynn Griezmer is a no that is 10 what I'm sorry two in favor 10 opposed and one absent did we now go back to the original motion the original motion is to adopt the resolution in support of higher ed for all as amended that motion's been made and seconded we'll move immediately to the question and do you have your hand up I don't think you mean to okay we're going to start this case with Councillor Hagnar I mean Bob Hagnar hi Councilor Lord's absent Pam Rooney yes Councilor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer top yes Councilor Walker yes Pat DeAngelis hi Anna Devlin-Gotham hi Councilor Atte hi Lynn Griezmer is an aye Councilor Haneke no the resolution passes with 11 in favor one opposed and one absent we're going to take a brief five minute break and then come back for our action items please take your picture your video off and your audio off thank you we're going to reconvene in two minutes in all levels okay Councillors if you are back please turn on your video I'm going to ask the clerk of the council to remove the screen so I can see people George welcome back whoops welcome back we're now moving into a part of the agenda which this is the first time this Council has dealt with and so let me just mention based on the charter we are keepers of the public way that means anytime anybody wants to do something to public property which includes our roads our parks our sidewalks they have to come to us and based on five years work with the council we have actually developed a policy about the use of the public way tonight we have before us three different requests requests with regard to the public way and so with that I'm going to we're going to start with a request from Amherst College before we do that I believe Councillor Hanna key has raised your hand thank you I just need to make a oral disclosure that there is an appearance of conflict because my husband is an employee of Amherst College and I've filed that general notice with the town clerk as a general disclosure but I try to announce it at every time there's an item with Amherst College there but I'm not recusing myself because I feel that on this matter I can perform my official duties objectively and fairly thank you Anna Devlin got here and second verse same as the first I am employed by Amherst College I have filed a general disclosure that is at the town clerk's office I am not seeing a reason where this would conflict or be a true conflict of interest so I do not plan to recuse myself if something changes and I deem that it is one I will recuse myself but based on what's in the packet I do not believe it will be in conflict thank you thank you and let me just say I appreciate when counselors recognize the potential of a conflict and they have done what is appropriate and that is to file the proper forms with that we're going to start with a request for a permanent change to place an Amherst College sign at the intersection of College Street and South Pleasant Street and let me just mention that I'm going to place a motion on the table then we're going to move to presentations etc the motion is to refer the request to place an Amherst College sign in the public way at the corner of College Street and South Pleasant Street to the town services and outreach committee with report and recommendation to the town council by March 18th 2024 is there a second second thank you then with that I'm going to call on our count are Paul did you have anything you wanted to say in advance okay then I'm going to call on the sponsors of this request and ask that they set um Seth Wilshett and I am sure I mispronounced yeah you did pretty good okay um Seth please proceed identify yourself and then proceed good evening everyone my name is Seth I am the assistant South Wilshett I'm the assistant director of planning design and and construction for Amherst College and I hope everyone is having a wonderful evening tonight so in 2021 we were in front of your committee your town council on this signage program the college back in like 2019 realized that we really needed to up our wayfinding and signage program we effectively had no signs on campus and that is mostly still true but what we are working to fix and you really had to know where you were going and what you were looking for to find anything over campus and so as part of a comprehensive signage program we hired a signage designer named Roba Essie and we developed a full comprehensive package that includes place marking parking signs vehicular directional signs pedestrian directional signs and building signs and some of the prototypes are now up you might have seen there's a Amherst College sign at the entrance of the East Drive entrance off of College Street that's a prototype sign so we're starting to install these there's more coming we worked very closely with Christine Brestrup who is of course here and went through the historical commission the design review board the planning board and a few meetings with the town council and we worked through all of the signs except for one and so we are here today for three years later to try and ask again for approval for one additional sign this is one of the place marking signs we call it one of our gateway signs we are proposing it at the intersection of College Street and South Pleasant it's on the southeast corner so as you come up from Northampton Road that's a perfect spot as we come up from Northampton Road which is sort of visible on the left of the screen you would cross that intersection and it's on the town common which of course is land that the town owns and the college manages if we go to the next slide please it is a metal sign that the purple portion of it and the white portion is a metal curved sign that is a deep aubergine color with white lettering of course it says Amherst College and it is on a granite block at both ends and the granite block on the right turns into a small little seat wall it is very very similar in design to one that you've already approved which is at the other location we intend to install this which is at the near the entry to the athletics down on south further south on South Pleasant that one was approved in 2021 and we will be pulling a building permit for it here soon and really this is the entirety of what we've come here today for the sign has not changed in its location or in its design there's one more slide you can see a little bit of a detail we worked with mass dot when they were doing this work to work on some of pedestrian improvements at the center section which the college helps fund and the helps tie in the sign so you can see the little purple stripe which is just kind of barely visible is the actual metal portion and then there's a there's a granite pier at the far end that supports it and then a seat wall that you can set where it says 18 inches it says 18 feet which is a 18 inch seat wall that kind of forms as you come south onto south pleasant and I'm happy to take any questions thank you we now move to the portion of the meeting which is council discussion remember this is a referral to TSO we are not voting tonight on this request Pam Rooney thank you I am delighted to see this signage I think I'm just very happy to see Amherst college recognized on the street I did have one question I would love to have it discussed in a little more detail given the height of this sign and it's and it's proximity to the corner I did some measurements and I recognized that the sign in its total is at least three and a half feet high at the higher end of the of the sign and the one question that I would like addressed is if we have cars that are driving north on 116 coming up through the intersection as they move toward toward downtown and a car is coming west on college street toward the intersection and that car is planning to just kind of check for traffic and and pull to the right and go north as well on north pleasant street south pleasant street is the car coming on college street really going to be able to see the oncoming car on 116 south pleasant street and I would just like if it's if it's possible for TSO to discuss perhaps pulling it back from the corner slightly a couple of feet might make a difference so that there's greater visibility for the two cars coming toward the same intersection thanks thank you um counselor hannacky um as with the request from two years ago my biggest concern is about the size of this sign um ham talked about some of it um from the drawings and from the specs you gave it looks like it's at least four feet high on one end um two feet high for the amherst college sign itself um is what it's marked as if i'm reading this correctly that's a huge height for a sign two feet high um 18 foot long for just the purple but this diagram says that the seat wall is also 18 feet long but does not say how much of that seat wall extends beyond the 18 foot amherst college purple sign so this sign might be 30 plus feet long when you include all of the seat walls that is a huge sign in my mind um and a lot of space and so i'm i'm curious why it needs to be so big um the amherst welcome to amherst signs for the the town wayfinding we just did are not that big as far as i know i'd love to compare those sizes like the welcome to amherst sign we put on the corner of triangle and main for example um and and why this sign needs to be so much larger um i'm also curious you you might have mentioned this but there's a lot of this rough cobble and all is that already done is it intended to be done who's going to pay for it um and is the view shed we've got on i guess it's page three of this is that the current one or is that the old one from two years ago or does it show all of the upgrades from the intersection that was just done in terms of where the crossing beacons will be and any of the signs that have been added for wayfinding for the town and all of that so that we can really get a a good feel of this intersection that at that corner is getting a whole lot of signs potentially put on and so yeah those are my biggest questions and concerns Seth did you want to address any of those at this time yeah or i can wait um so we can certainly study um if it needs to be pulled back in the corner we did fund the improvements to that corner through the mass dot program the rest of anything of course that's additional it's related to just the sign itself you know re-seeding the area of disturbance all of that of course would be on or a tap um the height at the high end is primarily driven by the grade there is a tremendous amount of grade as we come around the corner and so of course the sign is staying level um and the grade is falling off and so it's not so much that the sign of course is becoming taller it's just that the grade's falling um although of course we could study if there's a another height that makes more sense as it comes around um i do i do not have a precise measurement although i can get one for how much of the seatball is exposed after the sign but it's it's most of the seatball so there's probably looking at the graphic on the last page of the presentation it looks like you know maybe maybe a third ish of the seatball is covered by the sign but the rest of it is exposed Mindy joded then answer your questions it means my estimate of about 30 feet for the tire length of the 30 feet plus for the entire length of the sign is is fairly accurate then thank you and sorry i meant i meant to also say that the rendering is the old rendering and we were i can happily update that for the tso present the tso meeting that would be very useful thank you there were questions earlier about traffic visibility did you have any response to any of those questions as you were developing this yeah i um because it's curved and follows the curvature of the sidewalk and it you know it's i think it's below where most people would be looking i think i don't think it would be an issue but i think we can model it more carefully as part of the tso with a like a sketch up model and show actual vantage points as you come around the corner which i think would be helpful thank you that would be andy steinberg yeah yes i just wanted to remind counselors who forgot the discussion from before and for counselors who were not involved in the discussion from before to make sure that they understand that the land we're talking about is actually a part of the town common it is not part of amherst college land so that we're not only allowing um it's not just about the sign but it is about um giving consent to putting the um a sign on land that belongs to the town and is part of the public way because commons are part of the public way and that's why it falls into this uh rather um unusual because you wouldn't think the signs would necessarily be uh in our charge but it is and uh there was an agreement made some years ago that i recall looking at but that's been a long time since i've looked at it where the college agreed to provide maintenance for that section of the common since it was really adjacent to its uh main campus and not a part of our major common okay thank you bob hager yeah i i share the concerns that the sign may be a little bit too large and my concern is people coming up the hill on north hampton road may be distracted by this sign um and miss the other signs uh and get confused and not be sure which lane to be in if they want to make a left turn there so i i would tone it down a little bit i think it's too big are there any other questions or comments or yes ana uh first off i really appreciated the description of purple as dark opera gene um that brought me joy so the second thing was um i would i'd like it's actually not a request from from amherst college it's a request from tso i would really love if tso could um when you report back on this if you could rehash a bit of the conversation from the first time this came around if that's possible if i'm asking too much tell me and i can do it myself um but if there are minutes on this i think i i remember tuning i was not on the council at the point when this was first discussed and there was a lot of conversation about use of community space and how do we ensure our community still feels free to use that space and so what i would love tso to to either remind us of is the conversation about how we can ensure that our community still knows that the space is accessible and open to them and that it is not um in fact closed off for some reason um i know that our community is welcome to walk through amherst college's campus as well but this land specifically is town land and i'd love to figure out how there might be a way to make sure that that is clear uh that this is a space for for our community at their leisure to enjoy um and i believe that was already discussed so i'm just i'm trying to avoid having the entire conversation again if tso can pull some of those records and bring us forward on it that would be helpful um i'm so with that request i'll ask the town clerk that we make sure that the minutes from that meeting uh be included in the tso packet for when they discuss this uh bob hagner you have your hand up uh sorry i didn't take it down okay this is the opportunity for counselors to make sure that tso as a committee hears your concerns so that when they have the meeting and come back to us with the recommendation they have addressed those concerns are there any other items you would like tso to make sure they address during their meeting see none set thank you for joining us and they'll see you um i'm sorry we need to vote on the referral um which is that it would come back to us on march 18th so the vote motion's been made and seconded see no further comments we're going to move to a vote i'm going to start with bob hagner hi ham rooney yes councillor ryan hi kathy shane yes andy steinberg all right jennifer tov yes councillor walker she's absent is absent absent at the moment okay as is by the way councillor the lord um pat dangelis hi anna devlin goth here i uh councillor etay hi lin greasmer's and i'm andy joe i'm sorry councillor hannity hi it's unanimous with 11 voting in favor for referral and to uh absent we're going to move on to the next item pan of your hand up point of order yes there's so there's nothing in this uh in our action items that actually said referral to tso i thought we were actually voting on it tonight so that's a surprise what about the other public way request number two and number three are those the same are they getting referred to tso are we voting tonight the motion on your sheet in fact was to refer to tso it's the motion sheet and the motion as i read it was to refer the request to place an amherst college sign in the public way at the corner of college street and south pleasant street to the town services and outreach committee with a report and recommendation to the town council by march 18 2024 okay thank you okay um all right we're going to move on to the second item in under the public way and again in this case it's a very different item pat you have your hand up i was wondering if we could take action item three before action item two that we look at the the meadow subdivision first and then look at the other is there any objection to that from the council i'd like to hear why pat why because i i feel like that the issue has been hanging around for a very very very long time and i'd like to have it clear that we have an up and down vote about it uh before i go ahead and have any response to the second item anna i disagree i do not think they should be conditional on one another i think that we can have an up and down vote on both of these items as they are listed on our agenda okay unless there's a motion to change the order of the agenda uh andy you have your hand up yeah um yes i was just trying to get up this is a topic that i was uh thinking about also because we had a very explicit problem last time and um in the discussion with the homeowners in uh opera in kester lane they were very concerned that um there not be a decision about uh the meadows uh are about the amherst hills until there was clarity about uh there's because it's the same developer and uh the question was whether the development or are the approval of the of the one would take away incentive to either two together and say you've got to solve the problem for hopper and kestrel satisfactorily and i think that that was a fairly strong position taken by the hopper kestrel homeowners and so i think that the two are historically um and in fact um intricately connected so emotion's been made it has emotion been made no um let me also point while you're thinking about that i want to point out that the motions on the sheet are two very different motions first of all there is no motion on the sheet for hopbrook and kestrel second because that is pending our discussion second the motion on the sheet and the motion sheet for amherst hills is a referral it's a referral to the planning board which is a step that has to be taken before it can come back to the council the actual um kestrel hopbrook um roads have already been to the planning board because we referred it to the planning board back in 2022 and that planning board report is in your packet so they are two different motions we cannot even if we wanted to we can't even act on amherst hills tonight in terms of actually accepting it all we can do is refer it to the planning board on the other hand hopbrook and kestrel have been through the planning board they've gone to the finance committee they have um this is an issue that the town manager will speak to but he has spent time working on this and so um that's um they're two different actions that would take place andy you have your hand up i'll take it down okay so unless i hear a motion to change the order of the agenda i'm going to go with the amherst hills first okay um the the motion that i'm placing on the table and looking for a second is the town council hereby declares its intention to lay out hawthorne road conquered way and linden ridge road excluding the cul-de-sac as public ways and to refer the layout and plan to the planning board for its review in accordance with mass general law chapter 41 s 81 g to 81 i and with report back to the town council within 45 days from this referral is there a second second ruining thank you uh so at that point i'm going to now ask the sponsor to um mandy joe you have your hand up okay uh the sponsor to come forward and make a statement who is making the statement for this one ted parker so let me can i get presided please i'd try not you go ahead paul so thank you um so this is a request that came to into the council to accept these roads as public ways i'm also joined here by our planning director chris breastrup and uh superintendent of public works gufford mooring i think he's in the audience he's here okay uh good uh and we have neighbors here who live on the road and um and in addition to developer ted parker if he's in the room or not i'm not sure he's in on zoom he's on so um so this is a request that came in that in the we're following the same process that we did with the hop brook or the meadows subdivision which includes hop brook and kestrel lane it comes into the council it gets referred to the planning board the planning board has a certain number of days 45 days to ref to review it and it comes back to you and then you have the opportunity to accept it or not accept it or do whatever you you want to do with it um i you have a memo in your packet this gives some background some history for it um we're at what the current status is and the and some recommendations for the types of information you should request i believe you should request of the um town engineer uh when you get into more details of whether to accept the road or not so and i think there are people here from the community from the neighborhood who would like to make a discussion make a presentation to you okay meantime um councilor walker has rejoined us i just need to make sure the councilor walker you can hear us and we can hear you yes i can thank you lin thank you okay uh who is going to go first for this please come okay the petitioner is is ted parker right ted are you mr parker are you prepared to come forward we're bringing you into the room okay would you like to make a statement with regard to this petition ted parker will you need to unmute would you like to make a statement with regard to this petition thank you yes um thank you i don't think i have anything to add to our request to the final request it it's pretty self-explanatory okay um then we are open to other people who are in the audience is there anybody on zoom i just want to make sure that is going to make a statement about this request i see none so please come forward please state your name and where you live and your association with us there's a yes thank you thanks uh good evening my name is james master lexus i live at 35 linden ridge road in amherst which is the amherst hills neighborhood and my association here is i am the excuse me group leader of 32 people who live in the neighborhood 32 families uh in amherst hills and we're coming here for you tonight to support the position of tefino associates for tonight's meeting to simply refer this map matter to the planning board and the reason why we're doing that is the roads in this neighborhood and this isn't for me this is from your town engineer and i don't want to put words in mr skill's mouth here but the roads in amherst hills have been completed they're in really good shape and as such we believe that eventually when you go through this process you should accept these roads as public ways as evidence of that there's a 700 foot section of conquered way in the beginning of the neighborhood and that section of amherst hills has been accepted as a public way already in the town of belcher town the land lies in belcher town so that's evidence that that neighboring town has accepted those roads as public ways um so we would ask that when the process is complete and after you get your referral from the planning board that you would vote in the affirmative this evening to refer it and eventually do it at that point and i also would like to say um our neighborhood has been through four years of legal wrangling in this matter i'm not going to get into it but it's been a long slog of a bit of a fight okay and i would ask the council to not delay this matter at all i would also like to ask the council in your deliberations and in your thoughts to consider our neighborhood independent from any other neighborhood in the town yes there is a commonality of the same developer but the facts are different and the facts of our neighborhood situation is the roads are complete your engineer has reviewed them there's no work in the engineer in the town manager can discuss this but there's no work that needs to be done please consider our neighborhood independent of any other problem and i'm not saying there's no problems and i'm not taking sides but you need to consider in my opinion our neighborhood independent of any other problems that you may have because it is not fair to our neighborhood to delay this matter for things that have nothing to do with where we live so with that i want to say thank you very much and that's all i have to say and thank you for listening madam president thank you is there anybody else from the neighborhood that we're discussing that we'd like to come forward again please state your name and where you live john uh i'm john kennedy i'm i live at 36 is the green light on yeah john kennedy i live at 36 when the bridge road in amherst you need to move closer closer to the mic can you hear me now okay that's fine look the the situations between these two neighborhoods are substantively different the roads in amherst hills have been completed to the specifications of the town as required by the subdivision agreement when the subdivision was laid out um the only um similarity is it's the same developer but the conditions are different the circumstances are different the towns are the roads are completed in amherst hills again to the specs of the town um and um the the denial of these roads it will have no negative impact on tophino they will only have a negative impact on the residents of our community and will have no positive impact on what goes on at the meadows these are two very separate instant situations very separate conditions of the roads very separate sets of circumstances and we urge you once again as as my colleague and neighbor jim master alexa said to consider these two situations differently our um our our situation and our roads have not gone to the planning board yet they haven't been referred down there the the roads in the other neighborhood have so we ask you that consider these separately consider the distinct different situations of these roads and again the roads in this neighborhood are completed to the specifications of the town thank you thank you are there any other people who would like to comment with regard to neighbors who would like to comment with regard to this okay council discussion mandi joe thank you i just have two sort of um clarification or requests for clarity or stuff the first one is the motion says linden ridge road excluding the cul-de-sac um there's been no description as to exactly what part of the road is being excluded um so i would just like you know the as this process moves forward i'm not going to ask for an amendment to the motion i believe the intention is that the road linden ridge road shown on the plan that is north of the intersection with conquered road or conquered way i guess it is is what is excluded from what i can tell in some other comments that were made in memos about 800 feet of road and doing my own measurements and all versus the cul-de-sac which is literally a round circle um so i just i think we need more specification as we move through the process as to what part of linden ridge road is included in this request and exactly what part is not on the sheets instead of just this vague excluding the cul-de-sac and then the second thing is when i was reading your memo the memo from the town manager there was an indication that said that there was going to be a requester is a request to accept the associated wastewater pumping station on station road and all cross-country sewer and drainage easements um we don't have a motion to accept all of that we don't have a motion to refer the acceptance of all of that somewhere should we be referring the request or the intention and to accept the associated wastewater pumping station and all cross-country sewer and drainage easements what are we doing with that that that wording that was included in the manager's memo about things he that we should be doing and so it's another clarification of should we have another motion tonight that refers that to tso for consideration um and with mapping as to what those easements would be and how we would accept them okay um i'm gonna call on the town manager poll yes i think you can include that in the motion uh it probably is a good idea to do it like one of the things of my memo is to request an updated plan the plan is what will define what is accepted by the by the town and again an updated plan that shows the actual meets and bounds of what is being accepted where and i think the town attorney the town attorney has recommended that we on the plan there be a line drawn saying end of public way beginning of public way so it's very clearly defined for anybody well into the future to see what what has been accepted and what has not been accepted so that's during the process we would ask that you know during the plan board process that that map be updated and then that is what would come back to the council for its action okay so that answers the first question um that there will be an update that that comes to tso correct will that also the planning board i'm sorry that will that will be updated before it goes to the planning board and gilford was here and he had his hand up if you want to talk about the gilford police water mr yeah mr mooring please go ahead sorry wrong button yes i mean in this process in the past the once you accept the meets and bounds and layouts of the subdivision you also accept all the sewer that has been agreed to in the subdivision application and all the water infrastructure so all that is included in the acceptance just so you know the water and sewer has unofficially been accepted by the town and we've maintained it since it's been functional and the subdivision has been in service but residents and the developer have not maintained or had to maintain the water and sewer up until now okay uh ted parker you have your hand up yes i was just going to mention that our request in response to um council henneke's comment our request did specify a specific uh station which is a uh an accounting of the road length where our request stopped so that the cul-de-sac was very clearly excluded from our request uh just last week uh um paul asked uh that additional information be added to a plan and we have agreed to produce that plan so that the actual uh meets and bounds this is all a little bit technically you know jargony but so that there's actually a plan that very clearly defines what the limit of what we're requesting be accepted being incorporated onto a plan so it was it was it was very specific the our request was very specific that's it thank you i want to go back to the second question though it's around the old sewer etc do we need to amend this motion or have an additional motion and does that motion need to have us refer this to tsl so i don't think it needs to be amended because as gilford said everything that's on the plan is accepted by the town including the the you know the services are underground as long as it's within the right of way and that that's what the plan would show the substation okay uh mandy joe go ahead um from what i could tell though on the plan and there looked like there were some cross-country sewer parts that were not part of the public way unless at least not part of under the road public way that's where i'm confused when it says we would accept that if we're accepting and doing easements not under the public way is that part of this motion already or is that need to be something else and that the plan was very hard to read in black and white um to get that indication um so i i just want to make sure we're covering all of our bases uh thank you for that mandy i mean councillor hannagy uh ted parker i would like to add that uh i also submitted to uh paul last week we we had a lawyer draft both the deed to transmit the title to the property to the to the town and the common areas in the subdivision to the homeowners association but also there are pretty clearly drawn out deeds uh conveying easements to the town for access on property that the town does not own i don't think that the entire pumping sewage ejector pumping station is in the right of way i believe that some of it is on a open space parcel that will be conveyed to the hoa but an easement to access that to the town is has been drafted and is part of this entire process goford so when the subdivision process started all the easements that you're talking about were included in that process and meant to be accepted when they accept a subdivision in this entirety so as you accept the roads you'll also accept all the infrastructure to support it um i don't think there's a need for a separate uh motion to do that in this okay so what i'm hearing is that the referral to the planning board includes um all of the information that has been discussed here including the sewer and so sewer etc and therefore when the planning board comes back with their recommendation that is sufficient to accept it all that's what i'm hearing andy joe yes okay are there any other questions with regard to this referral are there any things that we would like to convey to the planning board that they look at is there anything else on this one seeing none then we're going to move it to a vote and this is a vote for referral it's not a vote for acceptance and i'm going to start with pan maroney yes council ryan hi kathy shane yes andy steinberg hi jennifer tov yes councillor walker yes pat de angeles hi anna delin goth here hi councillor etay hi lin greece morson hi councillor hannity hi bob hegner yes and councillor lord is absent it's unanimous with one absent we're going to move to the next one and this is the i'm going to i don't have a motion okay um i'm sorry chris i'm going to first of all let me just introduce this this is regarding castrolain and hopbrook it is another subdivision and uh as we will hear this has been going on for a while chris i'm going to ask you to make your statement if you will and then i'm going to move to sponsor statements i wasn't planning to make a statement about this i can if you would like me to but i was going to go back to the motion that you just voted on and to make sure that you included your intention to lay out the road because right before the vote you said this this was a vote on the referral to the planning board and i wanted to make sure that that vote included your intention to lay out the road the way the motion reads is the town council hereby declares its intention to lay out author and road etc so yes it already it was in the vote to refer thank you okay um all right with that i'm going to move to ask uh dug i believe you're coming up first right good oh i'm sorry paul did you want to start let me i think i think we should start with paul just like the last time so please give some background there's a again again a memo in your packet that gives some background this this had come before the council um previously the council referred it to the planning board the planning board referred it back there's a substantial amount of work that needs to be done on the um on the roads before the town engineer field would recommend you accept it um this was discussed at the finance committee the finance committee charged me with trying to figure out a way to pay for the improvements that need to be made um i've had conversation we've talked with the town engineer to get like the essential things that need to be done to accept the road i've worked with the neighborhood the homeowners association has agreed to put a contribution into it uh i have committed been willing to look at putting town funds into it and we looked at a sort of a tripartite um so