Okay Okay, anyone else Mandy Think that's a good one to look at. I actually have some other things. I think we thought I think we might have missed in the appointments issue Tongue council appoints Our own JCPC members and BCG members. That's not a presidential appointment. And so we left I think Where that sits so as we get back to this in in a couple weeks, that's something we probably need to figure out where to put that into It might also be good to reconsider the number of members on JCPC Town council members and maybe up at the four. I know that's been a conversation in and out over the course of the last year But in terms of the how do we notify other counselors of changes? Ideas right. Yeah, so I guess one of the things I thought very odd about the conversation at the council meeting was the the some counselors Implication or impression or you know suggestion that we as a council committee had no right to Recommend the dissolution of a committee without that committee's assent And maybe I interpreted the comments wrong but our committee has been tasked with Organization and if this committee Deems it necessary to eliminate a committee Or recommend that right. Sorry. Yeah deems it necessary to make their recommendation, right? While we were doing was recommending that I think that that that recommendation Actually does belong first conversation after we make that recommendation in the full council not in the specific committee We're recommending deleting Because that cuts out the whole council to that and says well, we're prioritizing you so I had some problem with this You know this impression that I received and like I said, maybe I was receiving it wrong that We did something wrong by Not going to the committees to let them vote on our recommendation before Bringing it to the whole council So I yeah, no, no, I know, you know, I know but so I don't I don't know what what you were saying was How do we get them more notice, right? Because we did have a lot of people saying whoa, we didn't know this was coming and all I was thinking was well two weeks ago at our December meeting it was in a report and George talked about it at the committee reports verbally and so how did you not know? You know, so I get that part But but I wanted to point out that I did not necessarily agree with and I thought that was probably incorrect to say To to go that step further that I thought some counselors were Recommending including not just the elimination of a committee that that committee has to see it But it was also I think there is one that said Well a different committee that was being split needed to have a vote on whether it was good to split it before the council sees that and I Don't see that as appropriate At one point I asked Evan and George whether Sarah knew because they knew about Change because I hadn't heard anything from her about it and it turned out she didn't know now that she has a Responsibility as a counselor. I have a responsibility of counselor to read what's coming out And to you know take notes during meetings and stuff so that I do know what's going on Revealed so and I felt strongly that I needed to defend us as a committee on a couple of different levels because You know Okay I want us Because I will proceed just quickly with question of how you think we should proceed with this whole process And how given that I get a sense from from all of you that you think this is important We're not in a rush. At least I'm not in a rush though time is a wasting We don't meet again until what is it January 29th or some right? and Any thoughts about how we could for instance Some of this could be done piecemeal in fact I think if anything does get done it most likely will be done piecemeal. It's on but again, that's open to discussion It's unlikely we'll do a wholesale reorganization in one fell swoop I Still think it's important that the council wrestle with this Another suggestion is a retreat. Is this something that would be better? handled Obviously, there's a proposal out there. It could be slightly refined. We could work on that a little bit Before the retreat if it's such a retreat. Is this something better suited for a retreat with a concrete set of proposals? in front of the council to to wrestle with or I Guess my question is how do you think we should? proceed One possibility is it's just on hold We're not going to do anything with it obviously today, and we're not meeting again till January 29th Do you have instructions for me as to things I could do or the committee could do in the interim or is this just on hold? Finance So that One of the things I was thinking is I'm not sure much of this can be done piecemeal I don't think you can touch CRC Oca and GOL in a piecemeal manner. I just don't see how you can I think there's a possibility to touch finance in a piecemeal manner with that audit recommendation, but also include the Sort of related changes or potential related changes to JCPC and maybe BCG JCPC has some related changes because of some things we were removing from the finance charge You know, I think that group could be done one way And then everything else done another way the everything else depending on what happens with appointments Maybe might end up actually remodifying a finance Committee depending on because you could potentially see Based on what Sarah said if we do go that route putting the finance appointments in finance I'll know but you know depending on what you do that, but We could make that the question is should we make that recommendation for the 27th at this meeting and say This is what we want to go forward with on the 27th Because really that's not where we hear at any concern and so, you know not wait for comments to come in on though On or go with just the those proposals and if we have others bring them back With the rest of the group to and so maybe end up doing two finance committee Modifications or something or two JCPC depending on what we go with Because we could certainly just go with the finance committee and dissolution of audit without dealing with the rest of them and Bring the rest back the rest of the changes including any potential other finance committee changes What would we as a committee need to do just in order to move forward with the Putting audit into finance do we need to make any formal do we simply need to get something on the agenda? I this is just a process question to which I simply don't have the answer because I'm ignorant What would this committee need to do if anything to at least forward that modest goal? Does it require simply something on the agenda does require a vote by this committee? Does it require yet more discussion by the council? would this Since we've had a quote-unquote first reading But yeah, I don't know Anyone have any time and I'm looking to you Mandy again, but I was just going back to my notes from the last meeting We haven't actually as a committee voted on what we put forth. Yes, okay on the 6th So I think if we were actually going to Seek council action on the 27th. We should vote today on Something so that there is a recommendation from this committee and I guess that vote could be as narrow as we recommend audit be dissolved and Moved, you know its responsibilities moved into the finance committee and you know We could I guess vote technically on the charges it looks but it could be as simple as that Would it involve it would wouldn't it also have to involve the charge? Or not Right exactly, so we'd have to do two things we'd have to adopt a revision to the charge And we'd have to then agree that we want to send this on to the council for action that Specific and are we can we do that today? Is that possible I? ask I think we could potentially adopt the revised charge as presented to the council on January 6th That that specific revised proposed charge Okay, and I believe I heard councillors I Heard Andy say something about a concern he had with the finance charge I'm not the only one who heard that in the course of discussion. He mentioned something briefly So we haven't heard back from him about that and maybe I misheard him Because I seem to be the only one who heard this comment my Recollection of that was not that he had an Issue with the finance charge, but he had an issue with some of the In here this like chart. Oh, right some of the areas Yeah, that's that that was how I heard it was not the charge But some of this where he thought things were mislabeled and if we're on the agenda and as For something for the council to deal with he could make an amendment or whatever He could act on that at the time if you had concern, so I'm sorry one of my notes is that it's Concern on the finance come finance charge feels something is missing And so if he does feel something but but that's as far as he went And and then he talked mainly about how the the split charts the the excel sheet So I don't know So if we make a if we made a recommendation and he actually thinks something's missing He could come through to the council meeting with that proposed change And again, it would be appropriate for me to forward to him Or just alert him to this to this fact so that he has a chance to think about That's not a violation of any Okay So I'm open to doing this. I hear that Pat would like it the audit committee seems to be Happy with the thought of being dissolved So Can someone construct the motion to that effect so that we could Okay So you're doing two things that you're you're doing two things at once I have trouble doing one thing at once But anyway, that's okay That's all right. I'm I can We can have a moment of silence moment of peaceful quiet No, no Mandy is working on the motion and I think it is important that we do this for a number of reasons first of all We actually would be taking a small step toward what we think is an important goal of reorganization and Given the schedule if we wait, it's just pushes things even further down the road. I don't know if it's possible for us I'm just talking here, but to deal with JCPC Because you'd also mentioned those two is that something that we can tackle now, but let's deal with one thing What I think we could avoid the JCPC for now because the JCPC already had Some language in it actually conflicted with the finance committee charge In terms of its language onto who could be members and so it would be updating that one to actually Adopt the finance committee language, but if we're looking at changing But but right now this we're not in violation of that charge given its language Okay, and I think that was the only change to the JCPC charge, right? It was needed and was there one other you mentioned that also needs attention I said JCPC and BCG Appointments because the council not the prep council president is the appointing authority. So that that would be in GL or wherever we So I have some potential language. All right. Good. If you'd be willing to make that motion and read that Move to recommend the town council dissolve audit Committee move its responsibilities to the finance committee and Adopt the revised finance charge as presented at the January 6th 2020 council meeting So we have a motion is the motion clear? Do you need it repeated? Because I can have Mandy repeated Think you got it. Thank you We have a motion. Do we have a second? Okay That's all right. I just need a second So we have a motion Any further discussion of this motion I see no Expression of desire to speak further. So I'm going to call the question all those who are in favor of the motion Please raise your hand and say aye aye I see a unanimous decision. So it is 50 Unanimous for this motion. Thank you. That's great Just quickly going forward beyond this Is there anything you would like me is? All right, he's he's no longer on our committee Anything you want me to do or anything you think that the committee could do in the interim To I've heard the thought of reaching out. So for instance, I'd be perfectly comfortable Reaching out sort of on my agenda this month anyway because it's a new year to do my usual sort of round of you know Hello here, that's do you want I can do that? Yes I Say the one comment I've gotten so far and is the only one comment is that this counselor would prefer that this be done at a retreat But that's the only comment of God That doesn't mean we can't proceed and with you know fashioning or making a recommendation But that's the only comment I've received so far And So I would just say given that the meeting was Monday night I'm not necessarily comfortable with Finalizing all recommendations today because I'd like to give counselors Since that conversation on Monday night was really shortened to because of time Restraints, and I don't feel like we got a full level of feedback So I would like to give the counselor's opportunity to get that feedback to the chair and before we delve into even the discussion we heard and I Probably would oppose doing it out of retreat Because I I believe it sits firmly within this committee to come up with a proposal and propose it to the council and then the council should discuss it at a Regular meeting Okay, I'm wondering if there's a role for us individually to With open meeting law seriously.  We can only go to one more person Between us because there's five of us So one more is number six and the council will be voting speaking to Four or five people are you speaking four or five people and the minute you and I talk then we've violated So I would be hesitant to So we can't really do much it's really now is there anything that the chair can do in the interim Remind people to actually give us feedback Good. So now that's a good point that in a week or two if I still haven't heard Just to remind people fair enough So the main thing at this point is to get feedback that we could then use at our next meeting and what I'm hearing is a desire to Proceed and to find formalize or finalize and formalize a genuine proposal dealing with the larger piece and to do it all as once Okay, that sounds good to me all right Yes, Evan and We should probably add on to that discussion about What was said from Kathy about thinking about the Requirements of membership for JCPC yet a Mandy Joe mentioned predicts adding a fourth member, but there's also Not just JCPC, but all of them. There were also some We made some comments about how you know the one member who sits on participative budgeting has to be from finance a Maximum number it seemed like Kathy wanted that discussion reopened. So it seems like we should talk about it before Okay, so at the next meeting on that issue, okay, I just want to bring up one other thing I don't recommend this for the next meeting because But if the reorganization passes the rules themselves list what our standing committees are So we should go back and present that those modifications soon after Whatever passes passes, but as one fell swoop So I wouldn't recommend if finance an audit pass to go and do those solely Before doing the rest, but we should keep in mind that that's going to need to be a Okay You can hear me do we have a record or think we need to make a recommendation about Committee membership or anything like that or Mean as far as the individuals are changing. I'm sorry. I'm not being clear whether you know, we've had it here I would like to stay on the committees that I'm on because I feel like I'm still learning so much but Do we want to look at changes because there are lots of complaints about I didn't get this Well, I think that that's really an issue for the president I mean once we decide what my sense is once we as a body as a council decide This is the structure we want going forward However, we decided then it goes back to the president to make appointments And I think my experience has been that she does listen and tries to you know make But that's an issue between the president and individual counselors. It seems to me I don't I don't think this committee should be making any Recommendations about who should be on what? Well that again, yeah, I think it's a president's call. Yeah, I Think membership will change. That's just my personal opinion Yeah I agree with you pat that I feel like I'm just learning so the thought of trying but that's nature of a beast I guess well good. I think that's thank you The next item is a sizable one I would like to give it a fair amount of time, but I'm open to your thoughts on it I Have told the council president and the council for that matter that that we are working on Creating a public process for public ways requests which require a town council approval Now that's not quite true because we really haven't started working on it But you have had it in your packet. You've had a chance at least in theory to look at it and think about it I was hoping that today we could Spend a good 45 minutes to an hour no more because we have obviously other things we have to do To try and hammer something out. I really need your help here I would say I've done some homework and talked to some people. I put something out there as a draft It needs a lot of work, I think But my my dream is that we could come back on the 29th And say here's what we propose as a process for a public ways requests which require a town council approval That's my hope So first of all, you're willing to take this on for the next 45 minutes or more. Are you Ready to do that? And if so, I'd like us to To turn to that issue You have in your your packets my memo Call it what you will my document that First of all lays out what I understand to be the five governing and there are at least five. They're probably more Laws charter bylaws policies rules of procedure that deal with this and In so far as I'm missing anything It should be added So if you see something that's missing in the course of our discussion because it does seem to me that it'd be important in Stating the process that we as we have in the past. I think very well Stated clearly what the various governing bylaws policies, etc. Are and here I have what I understand to be the five Okay, I Had a couple of questions in this document. We're just sort of that I had in my head but the meat of it is I conceived to be the actual process trying to imagine step one step two step three step four, etc and That's what I laid out in this memo and at the very end. I have actually put in The bylaw 3.1 for which concerns parking and delivery I Think there are also some other things in the packet that might be of use to you so First question in terms of the various Charter bylaw and town policy Etc. Is there anything missing that anyone notices? secondly, I Hearing anything I Had some series of questions some of which I think I've gotten answers to but you might have other questions about this whole issue The very first one had to deal with it. There are different kinds of Public ways requests that come to us the example archipelago had to deal with Spring Street and the issue of the parking That didn't we didn't do anything that just came to us, right Didn't evolve, right? It was a condition of the planning board permit that they come to us, right? So and we followed a process for that Right working on it, right? So maybe that again, so what we're doing here We then define that ever source came to us for something on the common and we again assumed that we'd fall into this category and that I Believe is governed by MGL. Is that correct? And that has its own set of somewhat onerous requirements And then there's the example that obviously is on my mind and on the minds of some of us Which is Lincoln, you know, here's a group of Residents who want to change the parking on their street and In part that's what's driving this but what? Lynn has asked is that we come up with a process for the whole Thing rather than just for this one particular issue. I said fine. So that's what we're trying to do This seems to be working fine generally speaking But so we don't I don't want to I don't think we want to make any major changes to the way the town has been dealing with this But we do I think have a Just a clear question of what is the process? Can we spell it out? And then finally what triggers it? Can anything? I mean, what's the what's the barrier for you know, if one person wants to change the parking on their street One person wants to have a speed limit changed or whatever that that doesn't necessarily trigger anything, right? So what is it that gets this process started some of it's I take it determined by Mass General Law or in the case of Spring Street by the planning board. We don't have anything to do with it That's just what what has to be done So what triggers this? Okay, and then there's the suggested process So how do people want to deal with this or do they want to deal with it? That's all right. It's We could take it step by step In terms of imagine, you know any process would involve this first step Obviously a petition comes to the council and whatever form it comes whether it comes From the town manager Whatever in general The process that you suggested sounded logical But I did not like the formal petition requirement Really didn't like the referral to the group petition The group petition in the charter requires a lot of specific things first it requires 150 voters Certified by the board of registrars for it to qualify as a group petition Now you think of a small street Lincoln's a little bigger but think of like Kendrick place off of Route 9 that only has eight houses or something It's gonna be really hard for them to get up to a hundred and fifty voters if they want to change parking on their street And I'm not sure they should have to get up to that So I didn't and then there's there's all sorts of hearing requirements and all you know, and I'm not sure reading The statutory, you know the the bylaw language on parking in 3.14 that This type of parking change With the Lincoln Avenue one might actually apply the Spring Street one I'm not sure applies to that 3.14 applies where our hearing is required and because it talks about Regulations governing location time and duration or cost, you know or fees so Lincoln Avenue probably applies because that Regulate the time of parking allowed, but Spring Street isn't looking to regulate Time it's more of like where things are so but maybe it applies But I do think there needs to be some clear Way of figuring out Who you know of when a resident wants a parking change or you know a speed hump Mm-hmm is One residents request to the council enough to start triggering a process or do you need more or or do they not make it to the council at all? Maybe they make it to The town staff a specific to have staff member But then the council might not ever know about it and it could get killed in staff for a variety of reasons That the council may not agree with and we are ultimately the keeper of the public way not town staff and So, you know this one So I like some sort of notice to the council of all requests or all thoughts But I'm not sure that should Be the driving force I just don't know where to go with does it come to us first or do you assign a staff member to receive those notices and and then That staff member reports to us what they've gotten requested and then we can make decisions as to whether it you know rises to the level of needing a committee referral so that the council can deal with it or Leave it to the staff to deal with and And Where we have had complaints about parking on in echo Hill on one of those sort of years and Echo Hill and The Officer Contardi Rita Contardo, I may not have her last name correct and John Thompson have all been out there They you know in there, but they are they're not clear what the next steps would be and so This resident wants to know from us what has to happen. I also While this particular incident in said This example is one that needs to be addressed Probably simply by signage that says parking one side blah blah, and then they could be ticketed I Don't think all resident requests are reasonable, and I don't know So I think that there needs to be a high bar for us What if you create a public hearing to address changes real changes? I don't know What if it you required a counselor sponsor in other words the way that we move forward is that a counselor is willing to Sponsor it or bring it to the attention of the council So that I mean that's why I put in the group petition and all the rest of it only because I thought well you know if you find that you have a concern and no counselor is willing to act on it and The town is not Prepared to bring it to the council by the town manager Then this would be I guess your only alternative And good luck with that. I think Mandy's right in many cases It would be a bar that most people couldn't but if you had a counselor so I say in your case The situation is such that you feel this rises to the level of where the council needs to address it Would that solve this problem? Just like we do it with proclamations and so on we insist that there be a council sponsor And we hope that that's not going to be too onerous, but we do insist so could we insist here? It puts individual counselors When a request is frivolous It puts them At odds with their constituent And or they bring something frivolous to the council. So I'm not sure how to deal with that Steve Yeah, so parking is a really tricky thing because it's like if we think of it like a watershed, right? So I might want the stream stopped You know that runs across my property or whatever, but that means that everyone else will get flooded or Or it might mean there might be somebody downstream of me whose crops will die because so I guess in an ideal world we would be getting direction from The executive branch, you know the executive branch would have an aerial perspective on and I think we are to a certain degree But the executive branch would have this aerial perspective on what all these requests are and Their own observations like where are the greatest number of tickets written or where are the greatest obstructions or And then they would come to us But I get really concerned about so one of the emails that came through was on my own street and I happened to completely disagree with everything that was written about my own street, but so I really don't but I don't think that So then you have the problem of districts, right? So we have some people that are districts and so Someone in our district may want something to happen, but that will make cause another problem in a different district or townwide This is not necessarily gonna help but I Get complaints of I mean district two runs on the whole east side of Amherst. We kind of cover every kind of neighborhood you could imagine and There are real feelings that different parts of town are really treated differently Like Lincoln will get taken care of before issues on Stanley and stuff like that And that's something we also need to look at and doesn't quite fit in with what we're talking about But how do we address? some kind of equity in You know, that's why I'd like your idea of a list of where are the most problems Where you know, where are the reported problems because that gives us something Fairly concrete to look at instead of just okay. This is a really good organization of Neighbors and so they're gonna get what they want Nandy So what if we use the automatic referral option? You know, I you know and looking at the suggested process There's Right now. I feel like the problem is no one knows how to Actually get it in front of the council unless the town staff supports it and So what if we take your idea of a group petition but not do the group petition have you know, like a Form of some sort that could be filled out that says I am looking for this public way change With an idea of what that change is and when that form is filed with the town, you know With the clerk of the council say That that clerk is authorized to automatically forward that request to Whatever appropriate committee right now that would in theory be CRC council committee But depending on what happens it might end up at TSL or whatever its name becomes and That committee takes an initial that's five counselors taking an initial first look that says This is worthy of further consideration This is not worthy. It's only one, you know can can do that sort of first counselor review of Logicalness or frivolousness or any of that a very basic review not a full hearing on is it's good or not But is this worth more research more investigation more town staff time put into it and more counselor time put into it And then could come back to the council with a recommendation in a report that says We're gonna hold it to see if anyone else Has issue, you know if we get more we think it's important enough to rise to a level of sending it off to the town staff and TAC or whoever to actually look at it or you know what? We're not we recommend. We just essentially throw it in the trash bin and and tell the person that made that petition or Complaint that we don't you know Get back to them and say this this is just not something we believe is worthy of consideration right now and then Depending on what happens at the council level from that then you can sort of start with Then you're at sort of the four five six seven You know, but but you're the council's on are we ready for a public hearing? Probably not but that can be the referral to whoever's appropriate potentially back to the council committee or not and then it comes back and goes through sort of that public hearing process the Regular committee process of referral once you've got town recommendations or other committee recommendations and then sort of You know, I don't know whether this is the right order or something But then it goes into it But it's at least not that the council itself has had some sort of say in whether It moves forward or not and that might give clarity to the residents of What to do? these requests Will almost always come to town hall in some fashion. I assume now obviously somebody can complain to their counselor and The counselor could say well take it to town hall tell to write out what you want and What you're asking a town hall would mean what would it mean? Here's what you do I'm thinking of my examples Spring Street the ever source on the common these sorts of things are done Don't involve us at all and they are negotiating or dealing with specific Folks that they deal with all the time and then it comes to us via the town manager has put on our agenda And I don't see that that we are going to try to Change that process or anything to do with it, right? So what we are trying to construct in Parallel with this but is essentially any kind of public ways request that How do you want to put it basically is a constituent driven Local district type issue is that really I'm just trying to get a sense of what because there are a whole bunch of things that We have nothing to do with and they get to us and we deal with them And we're not trying to have touched that at all. I think it's the constituent resident driven ones where they're frustrated and They want some action and we as the council are the final body, but no one knows from the resident driven perspective how to Get it to the council and you know, they've been getting my understanding is they've been getting frustrated by going to town staff and Not necessarily and having staff make a decision as to whether to bring it to the council or not Without their involvement and they want their day in court essentially in front of the council Without always having to rely on someone in staff supporting it and So this way some way to get it in front of the council to then have the council say hey staff We want a report on this that report might be we don't recommend it But then it's at least council driven for the final Permanent public way. So the very first stage where someone decides that this falls under the Authority of the council as keepers of the public way Who is it who makes that decision and do they have clear enough? guidance To make that decision correctly in every case Because the gatekeeper will be crucial And we want to be able to tell our constituents. This is where you go. This is what you should bring and Assuming that it is in fact something that falls within the authority of the council Then we're gonna create a process for what it will then will transpire and we'll tell them what that process is But I guess my first the initial question is who is it that gets the initial Request and how does he or she Decide whether this is something the council must be alerted to and I just don't in my own mind right now. I don't have a clear sense Other than one could say, you know trust staff You know But that puts the burden on them and if there's a problem then you know They're left holding the bag and what you really want is a process where there is no Real, you know, it should be pretty clear This is something the council deals with or not whether it fits the description of a public ways requests That requires time console action and then it's just a matter of passing that You know, I assume we go to the clerk the clerk then would notify if I understand Mandy it would be an automatic referral and We'd go to the relevant committee and then the process would proceed. It's that first Exactly and I think that makes sense to me I don't know about the rest of you, but it's that first step At first initial encounter and to what degree we can control that or make it a part of an official process and make it as clear as possible Any thoughts on that? I'm speaking a lot. Um, no, so so there's either the one where we create a form That someone has to fill out or something but or you can go back to the proclamation Process we've already sort of implemented And modify that slightly that one is simply an email to the counselors town council at to find a counselor sponsor and I heard Pat's concern about requiring a counselor sponsor puts for for public way requests potentially counselors in some awkward position But if they email the full council and it says hey, I want to change on this street in parking That could then be deemed a public ways permanent request that then gets automatically referred to the appropriate committee for that initial Vetting of do we want to spend more counsel and staff time on this? so instead of requiring essentially a counselor sponsor to bring it forward or the group petition process it requires a committee sponsor To for to get further action. Does that I mean that that's sort of what and that committee would be Say say we don't change committees and CRC gets it They go to it goes to CRC for a ten minute conversation of is this worth investigating and that and that Then comes back to the council with a yes, it is no, it's not we haven't received enough for complaints about it But when we this the initial conversation would not be getting into the specifics of is that the right Responses is you know think of Lincoln they want that they propose no parking I don't necessarily see an initial conversation in a committee of being well is there is is limited, you know as Banning parking the right response or should we really just limit it to eight to five or beyond that or not that specific? Yeah, that's not what I foresee an initial conversation as it's hey, they've brought up an important point Do we foresee parking on Lincoln to be bad enough or enough people complaining about it that? Staff time should be devoted to investigating it. That's the initial conversation and then it would be within the council It it would stay and I think that might address Alyssa's initial concern is it would stay with the council to sort of make the decision as to whether we want to Think about it more or not Instead of it being staff making that initial decision Well, did you describing two different ways in which a request could possibly get started one is and I think you're right It's generally they send an email to Paul or maybe some of them will send it to mooring or both That's the usual way it probably happens then the question becomes. What did they do with it? Do they make the decision? Well, this is an I assume they could easily do this This is it falls within the purview of the of the council. So then they would Take they would alert the council or they would alert the clerk or and the process would start to a referral But that puts the burden on Backelman and mooring and if they are busy or they lose track of it Or they just decide this is frivolous and they may be perfectly right and they just ignore it Then as you say people some probably would then go to their counselors Hopefully and say I never heard and then you would reach out to Backelman and and and say what's going on And now you would be involved and eventually it would get referred to The question is whether you want are we comfortable with town's the manager? Being sort of the gatekeeper here and trust that he will alert us in all appropriate circumstances and and then if he doesn't trust the process that Anyone who really cares about this will then reach out to the counselor. Is that adequate? Mandy's suggesting if I'm understanding her and I may not be that Maybe if we had a form or if we said to anyone that came to us send an email to the town council blah blah Then you now have an email that everyone gets and Who's gonna act on that? I mean so Guess I'm asking you I mean who I mean I would look at it I would just go well, that's not my district or I'd look at and go that's my district I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot barge pole. So what happens? I? Guess that's why I'm saying an automatic referral to a committee for an initial vetting You know so that it doesn't so what triggers that is the email. Yeah, who actually makes the referral It's automatic means the email would trigger the referral Absolutely support you there What I'm saying is they would begin an initial vetting of Yes, yes, and all the resident needs to do is Though most of them will not do this they will reach out to the town manager and or their counselor But in theory the process would be all you need to do is send at your request To this email address. That's all you actually need to do Is that yeah, yes, I know it seems kind of crazy That's all right I mean we're just Reach out to the manager and the manager actually does something and comes up with a proposal Which is sort of where Lincoln Avenue is I think right now that's correct, and then looking at Georgia's suggested process I think we're at number four It goes on an agenda similar to anything else that comes from the town staff goes on an agenda And we decide whether You know we get a presentation as to what it is and all of that and decide is it ready for public hearing or Is it ready or is the better thing to refer to a council committee or? Back to the manager or say no, we're not gonna do this at all You know it starts that sort of process right around to that number four And all the problem was when there was a suggestion of bringing it from the staff to the council No one that the also issue was is that brought directly as a public hearing as required by the bylaws Or is there some other thing in there too? And so this starting at four would indicate no there's an additional step It doesn't come direct if it if it's coming from someone there's an additional step But if a resident is not getting any You know so Lincoln Avenue, they've worked with town staff. They've gotten that Town staff is actually ready to present in a proposal as far as I know That's you start around number four if they're not getting any action You know Pat indicated something in Echo Hill where no one's really knows what the next step is then an email to the council says hey Town staff don't know what to do. I'm reaching out to you I want to change because I'm having problems then it goes to CRC And that then gives town staff potentially guidance on What to do and and that yes yes or no pursue this So if we look at step one for a moment a petitioner brings a public ways request to town hall Which is probably going to be Paul which which requires town council action or a petitioner sends an email to What is it town council at Amherst MA gov? Those are the two ways this can happen The town manager staff initiated proposal to so I don't like the word the good. That's I don't like the word petitioner Because that that just starts this group petition process, which I think we're trying to potentially avoid you prefer resident I think it's just a resident Bring the public way request process and the requires town council action the wording. I mean when you read it I was like oh wait which I Think we need to be careful on what that means, you know, they bring a public way request That falls under it's something like that Would require town council action for implementation or something something that Or that remains under the purview of the town council versus the town manager under our public ways policy something that says well They're not when they when they bring a request to the town manager. We're not required To act in the Charter Commission group petition where we must have a vote that We need to clarify that that's not what the requires town council action in this number means it's We are the ultimate deciders of it, but they might make a request and we might say we're not voting on this No, what I meant there was you meant that it's a request that falls under our our authority authority. Yeah, okay I could put it that way Or the town manager brings the staff initiative proposal to the council perhaps would be better Thank you, or and then we're offering a third alternative, which is a resident sends an email to the town council All right, that's the first But see the councilor email doesn't trigger anything You could argue that the councilor email the councilor would have a responsibility under whatever policy we make to Trigger the process by notifying Potentially the chair of the relevant committee or the president or pick a person Okay, the next step would then be it is referred automatically to X committee for You know some preliminary determination just the third option just when the resident emails the council Because the other two would come to us without any Would go to number four right Okay, so C would then Be referred all right We're dropping the whole if the petitioner like that just gets taken out Next step could be just I mean again, I just don't understand the process that I hate to say it But it's true the president at their discretion places the request on the council agenda That's simply not that is true. So I think for a and B. That's what it is All right, what about A and B was the town manager or the town staff initiated, right? Okay, and for C then the president Places the request on the council agenda I mean, this is just I need help. Yeah, no, I think so So go back to number one. You had three options, right? The first option Starts a process with town staff Right The second option the staff is already initiated a process and the third option is the resident goes directly to the council, right? So for the second option under number one the staff initiated proposal that Goes directly to the president For request on the council President places it on the agenda the first option Essentially potentially ends up as the second option Right, if the staff got the request and they did something with it then it gets put then it's under the second option and The third option Would be an automatic referral to the appropriate committee for an initial review An initial determination of further action All right, and then I and then I think the further action review would come back to the council as a Recommendation from the committee for what further action to take So C goes, you know the resident initiated request to the council goes to a committee The committee goes to makes a recommendation to the council it ends up on the agenda through the committee process Mm-hmm B the staff initiated proposal ends up on the agenda through Essentially the process I've been doing with the president's agenda a sort of the Brought to town hall, you know town hall ends up to be that potentially ends up on the agenda or not Essentially a turns into either B or C they either get response or they don't so they email the council So maybe we get rid of a Or acknowledge that a turns into B and C Or we simply not worry about them because this whole process is really driven by a resident Petition so we would simply not even get into this whole issue of things that come from a entirely different So it's really a question of you know when a resident brings a petition now, you know Right Maybe that's the simplest way. It's just to take them out and just focus on the resident and And that what they need to do to have their Concern addressed Let me play with that, but that's one option and it make this just strictly focused on the resident petition a resident request One concern I have was maybe we need two different Routes Because I guess what I remember from the initial conversation in the council was there was concerned that staff initiated Proposals would go directly to a public hearing Right and so I Think that's that's where this council votes to authorize whether to you know to authorize Either public hearing or referral in a type thing Step four step four with the staff the staff starts sort of at step four So it doesn't start on the agenda as a public hearing Potentially, I mean the ever-sourced ones do but I guess that's by law Because there's there's some legal requirements that once they submit something Within so many days it has to have a public hearing. So I guess that's not really This type of thing Yeah, that's part of the issue here is whether what I'm trying to craft and what we're trying to craft as a committee is something Specific to I mean what Lynn has asked for is a generic process for all public ways requests Then that require a town council action Which would include obviously these other things that we're talking about I guess you could do a You know a footnote to number four that says this process shall not apply to those matters that under state law Require the council to hold a public hearing within so many days or something like that And then in parentheses like ever source petitions or something Okay We need to bring this to some conclusion. We have other work to do I don't think my dream of hammering this out is going to come close to fruition, but Again, what I guess I could ask is for if you have any further thoughts or comments Obviously, we do have an issue with a particular group of petitioners and they are waiting our response And what the president has asked is that we come up with a process before we respond to their petition And we're now talking sometime in February because we don't meet again until the 29th So would an option be to go to the president and say here's where we're going with our process and That would mean that the next step with that particular Request is for the council to vote on whether to authorize a public hearing but We should do that now simply because the written process is going to take a couple meetings to hash out even if we've got An idea of what it looks like It would be my preference to Do that I guess what I'm saying is if we as a committee are Have reached a consensus on what the potential process is going to look like despite not having an actual written process in writing And that that's going to take a couple meetings. Could we as a committee recommend to the president to Put on an agenda of vote on that one particular issue on whether to authorize a public hearing in conformance with the Upcoming proposal of GL without having to wait for that proposal to be in front of the council CRC it was a staff initiated proposal at this point The staff is ready to make a recommendation on what to do I think my understanding is the staff has a recommendation on what to do so in in when we were talking about one having three options They started with they started with Town complaining to town hall town hall actually took it up to be and now it's staff initiated So it would go to us to determine So then it would fall under number four vote to authorize a public hearing or not That would be my personal preference, but I don't know. I mean, it sounds like Mandy obviously would agree to that any other thoughts So do we need a formal vote on this? Or can we simply by consensus agree that I would communicate to the president that We have the general outlines of a process, but it's going to take us at least one or two more meetings to hammer it out But given that the outlines of the process Since this is a staff initiated Proposal it falls naturally to step four and She can go ahead and ask the council to authorize a public meeting I don't know how I put that in a motion Okay with consensus that all right, so you're asking me to do that and I will do that And it's up to the president she may she and when I did speak to her initially She felt that strongly that there should be a process before we act I will make the case as strong as I can that that Process is has a fairly clear rough shape But if she's gonna wait for us to get this hammered out to all the eyes Doubted in tees crossed it's gonna take too long Okay Pat I Have totally messed up the time Of today's meetings. I'm supposed to be somewhere at one I just Exited and see that I can wait till 130 but what I'm asking is can we move to? The resolution on age 28 10 next okay, not sure we have two in front of us I think black history month probably could go pretty quickly. I think this second one. So yes, we could if that's all right All right, so let's turn then to review resolution in support of age to a 10 I believe there are two versions of this in your packet One is the petitioners by the way, this is coming to us from both Lynn Griesimer and from Pat Absolutely So we have their version and then you have my very crude attempt to put it in a more formal Version I called the GOL draft Yeah, so you have a GOL draft with the whereas is now I had some technical issues with text here But let's worry about that some other day. Let's focus. Yeah, okay I I'm sorry, I have whereas climate change poses new threats. That's right, right you want to eliminate that Well, I'd be okay with eliminating it. I'd be okay with eliminating the first one Yeah, okay So the first is to eliminate the first whereas The title is that sufficient resolution in support of the passing age period to a 10 colon and then an act to promote I take any and all edits here. This is just fine. You're chair wing on it Okay, so the first whereas we are already facing me. I do want to do go through it. I'm item by Adam I think that's normally how we do it Where do people feel comfortable with it? Well, I Be careful with that I have not read this in all detail, so I can't imagine you all have so let's just do it line by line Whereas we are already facing the impacts of climate change firsthand in our communities with our coastal cities and towns experiencing flood record flooding and damage from more powerful storms and our inland communities facing extreme heat drought and Inland flooding that threaten small businesses stable Finishable budgets and the health of our most vulnerable citizens Go ahead Mandy just way after drought a comma And I thought and I thought the words our communities Could be changed to the Commonwealth Because we are not coastal community here in Amherst, so Yeah, so so I thought if we just said in the Commonwealth or in Massachusetts Instead of the words our communities It was the first line of the whereas first, you know climate change firsthand in our communities You want to change that to I'm a change firsthand in the Commonwealth or in Massachusetts, which do prefer Okay, so my only changes in that one Whereas the Global Warming Solutions Act capital T I assume of 2008 requires Massachusetts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent 25 percent in 2020 comma and 80 percent by 2050 I thought that in 2020 should be by 2020 We can do it because we're right so that in becomes by Evan just said the first by before 25% goes right? Yeah, so by 2020 okay Whereas achieving these reductions are required dramatic shift from fossil fuels to clean energy such as solar and wind Whereas there is worldwide agreement among experts that putting a price on pollution to reflect the harmful impacts of climate change is the Most cost-effective way to achieve the deep cuts in emissions that are necessary to protect our climate And here's we have a technical difficulty. This seems to have come from the internet. I don't know but anyway Would do some other document and so I could not I could not fix it I'm sure any ten-year-old could fix it All right see there you go there you go.  I Whereas the regional greenhouse gas initiative RG GI a cap and trade carbon pricing system in which nine northeastern and mid-Atlantic states Cooperate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has contributed to a 50% cut in power sector carbon pollution Take away the bold. No bold. Thank you Whereas California several Canadian provinces and much of Europe already have broad-based carbon pollution fees Whereas putting a price. I'm sorry. You don't like the way I'm reading it You could read it Pat I have no problem with that Whereas putting a price on carbon pollution will level the playing field for clean energy solutions encourage conservation and Help the state meet its legal requirement to reduce emission. I think so Thank you Whereas Massachusetts has a history of leadership on issues of national importance from health care to public education comma I Changed the two to and and marriage equality to clean water We changed marriage equality It would read from health care to public education and marriage equality marriage equality to clean water I I wasn't sure what to do with this sentence at all Too many This is the fun part of our job. Just take it out You to remove the entire whereas or just I'm sorry That's what we're asking not impersonating We need this my colon this is a question for the sponsor now that we have a suggestion from the committee If she's not here, she's out of luck Semi-colon and at the end of that there goes marriage equality, okay Public education You'll pay a price for this in two years We should step up by meaningfully addressing one of the most pressing challenges. We've ever faced colon So I thought it was a separate sentence because Massachusetts has a history of leadership on issues of national importance Whereas they have that so colon and whereas I just created a new whereas So then it was whereas we should step up by meaningfully Yeah We've made a comment about keeping these Short I guess that's not grounds for rejection Whereas if we are to counteract these threats we need to we need comprehensive funding that invests where it matters colon Reducing fossil fuel use in our buildings Parenthesis to increase energy efficiencies and excess cost savings from heating and cooling with renewables close parentheses comma clean Transportation parentheses to electrify electrify our bus fleets and increase access to regional mass transit close parentheses and climate adaptation Parenthesis to fund in an innovative solutions to local climate threats close parenthesis semi-colon Reducing fossil fees our buildings Just take out the parentheses and just have Thank you Thank you And climate adaptation Okay, is that fair enough? It's shorter. I'm gonna go on unless I hear an objection Whereas h.2810 and act to promote green infrastructure and reduce carbon emissions Should that be in quotation marks or I just capitalized? the whole thing no the From the initial cap to promote green infrastructure reduce carbon emissions and I set it set it out in commas So comma after 2810 and a comma after admissions All right It's a key measure that will allow us to achieve this by putting a simple price on carbon pollution comma and allow us to fund clean Transportation options like local electric charging stations and electrification and municipal vehicle fleets parenthesis For example school buses close parenthesis comma Dedicate funding for local clean energy and climate adaption comma which includes micro grids micro grids Modern seawall upgrades comma and planning that builds upon the state's existing MVP program comma and directing monies towards Investments that reduce energy costs for municipal health ease and school districts So I just spelled out MVP You spell out even longer. No, I didn't I took the M and added the rest of Unicipal so it's municipal the V to vulnerabilities and The P essentially programmed so any thoughts on this somewhat lengthy paragraph It's just sponsored needs to speak up or forever hold a piece It's just fine. Keep going And committee members have anything to add besides the grumpy president. Okay Yes Not short shortness brevity. We're putting brevity in we're gonna change the charge Whereas age 2810 will have a net beneficial impact on statewide economic growth parenthesis predicted to increase gross state product by 600 million per year comma create over 10,000 local jobs comma and is one of the best climate policies When it comes to creating predictability for small businesses period Okay All right, and now I just I threw up my hands so I All right, I'm glad to hear that Added the and Now therefore be it resolved that the Amherstown Council here by states I didn't like that, but that's the best I could do Now therefore be it resolved that Now therefore the Amherstown Council resolve Resolves its commitment So that I just had struggled with this part is committed to and So now therefore the Amherstown Council Now therefore be it resolved that the Amherstown Council is committed to And is committed to and supports Is committed to or is committed to the passage of or supports the passage of Why do we need the commitment? So supports the passage of H2a 10 I know it's up to the sponsor Now therefore be it resolved that the Amherstown Council Supports the passage of H2a 10 Fair enough an act to promote green infrastructure reduced carbon emissions comma and we respectfully ask that governor Charles Baker Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo comma Senate president Karen Spilka and The members of general court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Now I have a problem with this because Charlie Baker doesn't pass it He's an act Could change it to enact Okay, he's part of the enacting You should talk to the letter writer about the Constitution anyway enact H2a 10 in the current legislative session 2019-2020 period And are we okay with two resolves? I just bolded be it further resolved be it further resolved created a new paragraph I don't was the paragraph already created. Yeah That the Amherstown Council shall cause a copy of this resolution to be sent to Governor Charlie Baker Speaker of the House Bob DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka and the members of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with a copy to that Massachusetts Municipal Association comma communicating the Council's support of House bill H2a 10 Period Absolutely not I just look at him Any other further edits changes comments? I think we're ready for a motion Declare Clear consistent and actionable We have a motion and we have it seconded by Mandy. Thank you very much further discussion I see no interest in further discussion Call the question all those in favor of the motion signify by raising your right hand and saying I I All post left hand left hand. Why left because my right hand All right fine raise your hand The mode is unanimous vote is unanimous 5-0 Thank not for voting and you just have to raise something We have a second resolution Pat you're free to go if you need to go Okay No, you can't apologize for that bad dance just hope it good He's not he's not well he's hanging he's doing he's really Beyond the call he should be at home in bed And that's maybe we He'll give it to you if you'd like Too late whatever he's got I've got Black History Month proclamation 2020 this is item number whatever Four out of order Okay Yes, you are the sponsor and the sponsor is present at least for the moment She likes it sponsor likes it Thank you, thank you one of them in the second to last whereas needs the and at the end the Semicolon and the now therefore I Thought if we knew the time of the flag raising ceremony we should put the time in So flag raising ceremony held in front of town hall on Saturday February 1 2020 at I don't know what time it's at But we normally put the time in So when we I think Pat's looking it up right now We need to figure out the time And then in the one two three four five sixth whereas there are two sentences and And so I was hoping to just combine I think they can be combined into one Whereas 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the 15th amendment 1870 which gave the right to men of color to vote following the Civil War and It also marks the centennial of the 19th amendment and the culmination of the women's suffrage movement Semicolon so you put a comma after war and then the word and and Uncapitalized the word it Okay Final small edit the very now therefore. I think that dash shouldn't be there in recognition of African-Americans past and present In a I'm not sure what to do with punctuation there actually a comma past and present Instead of that community comma in recognition of African-Americans comma past and present comma in our community or Come that's what I would do get rid of the dash and just put it with comments I'm not going to read through this line by line unless you insist Thank you, I do too Any other thoughts suggestions edits that I'm ready for a motion Sir second Second I'm going to call the question all those in favor of the motion as presented Please signify by raising your hand and saying hi Okay, thank you so it's four zero with one absent. All right, we have two sets of minutes and Thank you to our clerk for getting them to us and If you would take a moment and just a moment to look them over I have looked them over I had one very small change to make in one of them But let's start with December fourth first And I'll give you a moment to look at it if you have any changes or Concerned I should be there. Hopefully I did not screw up, but that's possible in draft mint draft No draft minutes have September. Yeah, that's possible. I Failed to put them in Online G. Oh, when you're satisfied just gesture or so evidence that's fun Steve. I don't be right Mandy, how are you doing good? Okay? I was gonna do these both together. So Second set is December 18th. I do have one change. I would propose under item four Consider possible procedures for how to handle public ways requests which require town council approval I think we should just say postponed or something just so someone understands that we didn't deal with it At the moment it just is the topic but no action and we didn't deal with it So I would insert postponed there, but again take a moment look it over Anyone else anyone? Everyone's happy. Can we adopt these then by consensus? That's what we did last time All right, so the minutes of both December 4th and December 18th are accepted by the committee by consensus Last item we have here we do not have public presence. So there's no public comment Is future agenda items? You've given me some things to do for the next meeting. I Wanted to talk very briefly about other possible Topics one has to do with the public ways policy on flag raisings commemorative flags That's something that I could look into because I have done some work on that and I do have a couple of weeks before school Starts again where I could put my mind to that, but if it's not that important I can let it sit But that's one item I also noted Steve's suggestion about alternate and associate members that's something that is somewhat dear to my heart But I don't know if that's something you'd like us to take up or if he's ready to pursue I'm sorry. Yeah, well it was yeah Is that something are you ready for that or no, no, okay fine Are there other items that you would like us to consider putting on the agenda for next time? We will continue to deal with the public ways request In the restructuring will keep us more than busy So I have nothing further there's no new business unanticipated So I'm prepared to adjourn this meeting at 1 16. All right. Thank you


I am so thrilled over the moon to introduce and share that today's guest is Elizabeth Wesley Cassella, and I hope I said that right because I know we've been practicing this one through three cadence. Elizabeth is the founder and CEO of L12 Services, and you can check out her website right there. Elizabeth today on the episode is going to be sharing with us about the lessons we've learned from 2020 and how those lessons will help us in 2022. So stay with us because right after our sponsors we are going to dive deep into this conversation, and I am so grateful to have each and every one of our presenting sponsors. These companies exist for your purpose, right? Like they exist for your mission-driven goals. I always like to say that they exist to be in your corner. So they're here to lift you up, lean in, and to elevate your mission, and when it comes to connection of those that you serve in your community, please do find them. They're easy to find on the internet. They're out there to help and support you to do greater work, bolder impact, so please do check out all of our presenting sponsors that you see there. And I of course want to welcome Julia Patrick to the show as every day, so grateful that you're here. Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I get to play alongside with Julia. She shares her toys quite nicely with me. I'm Jared Ransom, the non-profit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And again, back to today's conversation. I'm just so excited to have you, Elizabeth. So first of all, welcome. Thank you. I am really excited to be here. Okay, let's start off by having you tell us what L12 services do. Certainly. We are an internal communications firm, but unlike traditional firms that deal with employee engagement, you know, who's reading your newsletters or going to the picnic, we deal with, excuse me, workflow and team to team or leadership to team communication. We really look to streamline how organizations are both communicating, you know, verbally, as well as how they're communicating instructions so they save time and money. Okay, well, I wish my father were alive because he created a thing called the Patrick Grant, Patrick Graham, and he would have one of his secretaries do a draft or, you know, do the send this out so that all of his children were on the same page. We would get this, this is back in the day, we would get this mailed to us, you know, to our, where we were in the world and we would have to like read the Patrick Graham and get on board. So I love your concept here because we need that. We need that ever more going through all of this craziness that we have. But now we are also at this time of the year looking at our plans for 2022. And it just seems so overwhelming to so many nonprofits when we have struggled to get through 2020 and 2021 and we're like, how do we project into 2022? So I'm really excited for you to share some of your wisdom and the first piece I'd love for you to explain to us is assessing workflow and what that, that even means. Excuse me, you know, with regard to the world of nonprofits, I live in Washington DC, which is kind of nonprofit central for the country. And I spent, you know, almost 20 years supporting nonprofits in various areas. But what it turned out for me to be a superpower was my ability to see who was, who is taking on too much work, where the bottlenecks were, where the landmines were going to be on the horizon, and then speaking both to the team and leadership at the same time so that we could either overcome those hurdles, or we could prepare scope of work to, you know, avoid certain pieces of projects that weren't going to be handled properly. But what what we're doing now is something that only was available on large scale recently, and that is using the video interface to perform focus groups so that we're able to map out workflow in a visual representation. In nonprofits, that's really important because the people who work at nonprofits don't do it for the paycheck. They do it for the passion. They do it for the thing that's, you know, aligned with their values and important to them. And oftentimes that means that you have people who are very excited and will catch every ball and spin every plate and potentially head themselves out toward burnout. And nobody wants that, especially when you have a team of high caliber talent. So bringing everybody into the conversation to show what the current state looks like and draw that out, and taking the time to, you know, identify what the future's perfect state could look like, and then connecting the dots between the two so that you have workflows that show the gates of responsibility and people know who dealt with the project right before and after that. You make this sound like it's like second nature, super easy. And I love that. I honestly love that, Elizabeth, because what it tells me is clearly L12 services has created systems for these efficiency models. And so I hear all too often from my clients and just leaders in the sector across the nation is, you know, we don't have enough staff. We can't reach our goals because we've got too many goals and not enough staff. We only have 24 hours in the day, right? And at some point we have to let our team sleep. And what I also saw during 2020, I guess it was, right, is this whole fight flight or freeze mentality, because in our nonprofit sector, I think we often do go to compassion, fatigue and burnout a little sooner, because we are typically the personality that we are all in, right? We are all in whatever needs to happen. Many, many pieces of our sector, and I'm thinking in particular domestic violence and, you know, those kind of communities, it is a constant state of crisis. And so we are constantly all in, and we are then, you know, like just on the brink of a burnout. But you have systems, and I hear it, and that sounds amazing. Well, thank you, and you're right. One of our current clients is an NGO that does trauma medical care in more areas. So they're in Syria, in the Northern Triangle, and everything, every day they wake up and there's a new emergency. That's just how it is. And we're not talking about deadline emergencies if I need to submit something by a certain time. We're talking about people's health and well-being. Talking life and death, really. Yeah, we are talking life and death. So it's a great example to demonstrate, you know, the people that get into the nonprofit world are passionate and they will do whatever it takes to get to the end result. But what we deal with is trying to help them get there by either providing standard operating procedures or those workflow maps that allow them to create systems or identifying how to communicate what is going on rather than I see a problem, I'm going to take care of it. Because that's not always the easiest way to do it. It's also not the most effective way to do it. There may be somebody on your team who has a specific skill set that can sort through the mess and see where the land mines are on the horizon. Even though you want to help, it may be the best choice for you to say, here's a problem. I'm going to give it to you because it's your specialty area, but know that I'm on your team. If you need anything that I can do, my super skills, let me know and I will support you however I can. And those conversations are hard to have sometimes. It seems to me that you are asking us to look at the ecosystem in terms of what's working and what's not. And then that from there, if I'm hearing you correctly, then once we know that or we address it, like you just said, this is a tough thing because we all put our flag in the sand and we want to protect our little area. How do you navigate the personality side of this? And calling somebody out and saying, this isn't working. I mean, that's a hard thing to hear. It may be that we're at a perfect time to have that conversation. Specifically speaking, if we're looking at an organization that had a really well-oiled machine that was running perfectly in 2019, they probably weren't looking to transition to remote work, but they were forced to. And when that happened, excuse me, people started dead. I know. It's the air. The air. They're having wildfires. I'm so sorry. When people are all in in an organization and they're doing whatever they can do to keep the doors open, meaning 2020, a lot of those flag in the ground and territorial areas became blinds became blurred. Right now, we're looking at the transition from remote work to hybrid. And that's another unknown. So it may be that right now is the time to say, we kept it together. We're going to go forward into the future and we have goals there. Let's sit down and redefine what those areas are, remove the territorialism, remove the flags in the sand and instead say, I'm really good at this. And I see problems, but here are three solutions that I bring to the table. What does everybody think? So I'm super guilty because I have seen an organization that is near and dear to me. And I have seen this organization almost, I mean, I'm gonna say this, create a job for the person. And I've never thought that to be the best practice because I'm thinking, wait, why are we doing that? Why are we finding the right job for this person? But I would love for you to teach me and educate me on this model of efficiency because now might be the right time to create the right jobs for the right talent because I fully believe that so many of our teams are filled with rockstar talent and they may or may not be in the right position. And when I coach my clients, Elizabeth, I talk often about these two superpowers, right? What is it you love to do? And what are you great at doing? These are the two questions that I like to ask. What do you love to do? What are you passionate about doing? And what are you great at doing? Realizing they might not be the same, but yeah, they might not be the same. But those two answers we're now able to work together collectively to reach a common goal to say, okay, here's what we need to do.  So let's work together. It's very similar. I would think that if we're going to combine your comments and my previous comments, the way to do that is, and let me ask a quick question. Is this a young organization? Are they going through like their first scale? They're not. Okay, because traditionally, I see that in young organizations. I call it speed hiring, kind of like speed dating, but you know, for employment, that bringing, you know, representatives from each level of the organization or from leadership all the way to the people who do the jobs to the people who support the people who do the jobs, let there be a voice for every type of work in that conversation, but started out with what are our goals and then leadership after they've identified the goals needs to be really cognizant of sitting back and listening because if you take the, if you take the energy or the power of the people with the superpowers and you just focus on them as individuals, then you're building directly from leadership to a very granular level and you're skipping a lot of the, how do we get there? If you take leaderships north star and then you start thinking about it in departmental areas or focus areas, then you can have a framework that says these are the things that need to be addressed in order to reach that north star. Now let's look at the talent. Do you like to do or are you specifically skilled at these areas that we've just laid out? If you want to have people have input into the types of jobs that they're going to undertake, that's usually the best conversation to have, but you know, quite often you have a leader who they're their niece or nephew's in town for the summer and they want to bring them to the office and give them a taste of what this type of work is like. It's an opportunity to partner the creative solutions that your teams have with the creative vision that the leaders have, but be sure to build out that middle area because that's where you're actually defining strategy. I love that. Creative vision of your team, creative vision of the organization and how do you bridge and marry those two makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, it's smart. You know, one of the things that you talked about is and Jared, I love that you're bringing this up about talent because everybody's talking about this fear of the talent pool and what it looks like and we'll ask you some more questions about that, but I thought this was a really interesting point that you brought up and that we should talk about and that is, you know, a house in order will actually retain your talent or attract talent and how you appear to the outside community and the sector is important, but actually being able to demonstrate that. So talk to us about that. There are some workers who they really enjoy the job of going in and fixing organizations and that's great or maybe they work in startups so they're helping to build the organization, but when your organization has some maturity and there are, you know, statistics and models of growth that you're already actively going through, oftentimes you'll want to bring in people who have a specific super, you know, super skill set to address an area and how do you do that if you don't have clearly defined metrics or at least a roadmap to what success looks like and what I mean by that is make it very clear not only to the people who you currently have on staff but the people that you're bringing in that they don't have to come in and fix anything. They can just come in and do the work that you want them to do the way that you get there and I am very cognizant about what a lot of people are calling the great resignation. We're working with organizations right now to make sure that they don't lose that high caliber talent within their teams. We're talking to them really about allowing the previous conversation we had where talking about the goals and the vision and talking about the strategy, letting the people who are on the ground bring solutions to the table, implement them, test them, reiterate them as they need to but when you do that and someone has a voice in the organization that either improves culture, improves workflow or improves professional development, they are more likely to stay because they're helping to build something. The people that are leaving I'm finding from our surveys they don't feel heard, they don't feel like they have any voice or leverage that can change anything and they've taken the last 18 months and really kind of analyzed what is important to them in life and it's not necessarily the paycheck. It's the ability to feel really good and to understand what success looks like and every day be able to go there. If you don't have an organization that's administrative heavy it's not about knowing that success is checking off a task list. Maybe it's knowing what every quarter's goals are because those quarterly goals actually roll into what the year's strategic goal is. So having a deep understanding and continual conversations about these next three months we're working on this, any decision you make or any suggestion that you make should support us getting there. I like that. I like that because Jared and I talk a lot about this, the frustration that you get, you fall into the trap of setting these plans, setting these goals and then you aren't necessarily tracking them enough until you get to Q4 and then you're just like holy moly I'm never going to get this. I'm never going to get here and then it becomes just such a struggle and a slog to you know navigate the rest of that term. My team is much vulgar word than holy moly but yes. The way that my team is relatively small, not even relatively big, it is small. But one of the things that I've, well I hope none of my teammates are listening right now, but one of the things that I plan to do when we hit the top of Q1 next year is I'm going to send everybody one of those electronic picture frames and what's going to be loaded in there is the year's strategic plan and each quarterly set of goals. I love that. I'm like freaking out. Yeah, guess what you're getting Julia? You're getting Jared. Oh my gosh. Okay, show's done. I got to go because I got things to do. Can you send us the affiliate link for that Elizabeth because we want to make sure you get credit. Oh my god you know that is like one of those duh things because we can all agree that we do all this work. We use our best intentions, our best brains and then why is it we can't get it across you know the line and it is because I believe it's it's not present. It's it's not something that's out of sight out of mind. Yeah okay wow okay we only have about 10 more minutes. I can't imagine that you're going to do anything better than this. No pressure. No pressure Elizabeth. Wow okay well I do want to get before we go. You did talk about this and this is something that keeps me up at night and that is the great resignation. Talk to us about what you're seeing, what you're interpreting, how do we navigate this? This is where the the communications part of internal communications I feel is really important. As you know if your organization sells lights and the strategic plan is sell more lights this year than last year and your quarterly breakout isn't necessarily clear as to how you get to that goal. What are the milestones? When people are thinking about leaving their jobs yes there's the the piece that we just discussed about you know clarity of goals but there's also a need for and again this is my opinion but my my clients have found that this has been helpful um net promoter internal surveys and not to give anybody you know survey overload because I know a lot of people are starting to implement them but an area that I see that organizations are missing is asking people about their values because their values have changed their or at least their awareness of their values has changed and and asking them about what they think is possible not just our organization could you know put a curig in the in the kitchen but more like what what do you feel is possible for our organization at this size to adjust in order to make the values that you have and the things that you want out of your job in your work world come into alignment with the needs of the business great we talk in in at l12 services about the four pillars of internal communication what are you communicating where are you communicating it when and how and that last piece falls under the how how are you communicating with your teams and your your individuals not just the needs of the business but the needs of the collective staff and individual and how do we get that to work simultaneously so it's symbiotic yeah okay that was good is that digital frame worthy julia would you also I'm gonna like distill that and put that into the the because you are right you know we can do anything I believe when we know what we're marching or as I like to say rowing in the same direction or we're moving towards a goal we talked about this yesterday jared it might have been on the chitty chat chat but we were talking about how even when you know that you're going to get a break it might be down the road but you you hold on to that and it helps you get to get through what you have to do and I think that you know values are part of that and we don't discuss that we a lot of times we would say oh that's at home or that's private but I like that you have brought this forth because I don't know if we've had anyone really articulate that is that we need to have those personal discussions and to see how we can make them align to our organizations now before we go I have one question that's that I've been thinking about and that is what size of organization are we talking about so many of the millions of you know nonprofits in our country work off of a kitchen table they're they don't have a large staff or large team what do you say about that I like how how did they go about putting in place plans like this should they be doing this oh what if it's only for the bigger bigger organization no I actually talked to a lot of entrepreneurs or small teams about this there is nothing better than getting all of this straight when you're small because when you do expand you don't have to take the time to create standard operating procedures or handbooks or communications policy let's pretend that the three of us are a team and would you necessarily know just because we're we're all professional women which channels to use for which types of communication like would you know that slack is just for you know emergency where's the zoom link that I need in five minutes and your your project planning platform is just for bullet point I you know topics that talk about what's been completed or what needs to be completed next would you know that email is probably the best place to brainstorm don't put that in your project management platform like if you write those things down and distribute them to your team the likelihood that you're going to get caught off guard or not know where the information is when you need it I mean how many of us have been standing in line at the grocery store and found out that we're standing next to somebody who's either our perfect client or somebody that could you know use some of the tools that we have to offer and you can't find it on your phone if you know where it lives and you know where you talked about it last like that through the scanner and and you've just made a new friend okay that's pretty damn good compared to the frame you're on the ball Elizabeth like you know we're just yeah it's it's so great well and I think I was just talking to someone the other day about their onboarding processes right and I said and they're offboarding and I said and this was a small business owner and I said I talk about my offboarding process during the onboarding process of a new client and it's the same of what I'm creating as an interim CEO for my client that's hiring their first executive director we're already talking about here's the policies and procedures for leave of absence if you shall need one during the onboarding process right like so it's really creating these processes because as Elizabeth you said if it was the three of us on a team which please I would love to be on this team then I really think from that like you just continue to build efficiencies you continue to build those SOPs or standard operating procedures that continue to evolve as your systems evolve as your you know everything evolves so I think it is so important to Julia's question and to reiterate Elizabeth's answer is absolutely it is for any science team this is really where it's at for scalability and sustainability could I just make one more point yeah you may so tie it all together you know with the high caliber talent you want to attract a clean house for them to come to even when you're small you're the people that you hire are critically important you you have to hire correctly when you have a very small team so one of the things that will be an excellent way to make sure that your team's on the same page and that you're hiring the right person is to be able to have that written documentation and have something that clearly addresses these types of policies which will in turn as you've hired somebody bring them in they start looking around and doing the work and within 90 days they could say you know you measured success to here but because of my skill set and my experience I think actually we can go to here and I can show you what I bring to the table that will now require us to meet these standards before we call it successful love it oh my gosh we could talk forever and I hope that we can schedule you back on to I would love it thank you share more and to tell us more in you know when it comes to all all of these great efficiency systems so Elizabeth thank you for being here for those of you that want to check out Elizabeth founder and CEO of L12 services she is housed outside of DC but works nationally and probably globally I know one of your clients is definitely global so l12services.com she has a phenomenal newsletter you might want to get signed up for that as well and it's just doing amazing work in the for-profit and nonprofit sector so thank you for joining us today thank you so much oh my gosh it's been amazing I've learned so much I've really been inspired again I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy I've been joined today by the non-profit nerd herself Jared Ransom CEO of the Raven group again we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors this is the type of generative discussion that we have every day on the non-profit show not always is great ideas I got it I got a witness because that frame thing is really awesome but yeah our sponsors allow us to have these discussions and so we are extremely grateful for that we want to remind everyone that we've launched a new show called fundraising events.tv check it out it'll help you navigate all of the amazing things that go on when you are putting on a fundraising event and I love I love that thing you say Julia and I've been practicing I want to say in my sleep um from from golf tournaments to galas to barns to ballrooms is that how it goes pretty cool yeah it's really true it's really true I mean we we can't just be thinking the ballroom space anymore yeah there are just so many different opportunities especially during this recovery moving forward so yeah we want to share those ideas with you we also want to remind everyone and especially as these pesky numbers tick up on the virus to stay well so you can do well thank you everybody we'll see you back here tomorrow


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