The meeting of the Governance Organization and Legislation Committee of the Town Council to order on August 21st, 2019, at 10.37 a.m., we do have a quorum, and we are being video-recorded. So our first item of business is the discussion of and vote on the proposed proclamation to celebrate the Jewish community of Amherst's 50th anniversary. So does everyone have that proclamation? Have they read that in awe? Our charge is to look at it for clarity, consistency, and actionability. So that's what we'll be discussing. Does anyone have any recommended changes? The only one I have is to fix the date from the 19th of August to the 26th of August because I think they thought it was coming this past meeting. So that's the only change I would recommend making. That one would have been made anyway, but we might as well do it now and send off with that change. So I'm making that to the document, and we'll save it as a different document to forward to Lynn and Athena for... Anything else? What I was wondering with the proclamation, it was good we looked at it, but the date would have gotten changed anyway. It just seems like proclamations feel different than even a resolution, and a commemoration feels different as well. So it feels like in the scale of things, in terms of time, it's not... We will be discussing that in our next item or two items of business away, I believe. That's fine. You're right on point with what we're trying to figure out with policies. Seeing no one else has any recommended changes, I will personally make the motion... Well, we need the motion for the council. So I'm moving to declare the proclamation to celebrate the Jewish community of Amherst's 50th anniversary clear, consistent, and actionable. Pat seconded it. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? That is a unanimous vote. With two absent, I am going to actually take the next item out of order. We have items not anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance, because on Monday night we were referred the percent for art working group charge or whatever we're calling that at this point in time for discussion, potential changes, and all. I'm going to work on... Let me find what those comments and all were as I send... Go back to that meeting note. And does everyone have up for review? The one that was posted for the packet has highlights in yellow. Kathy did that at the meeting. So this is the document she sent me. Those highlights were her belief on what the potential problems were. I obviously had a lot of concerns, as people heard at the meeting. But I also want to refer us to our draft work group language, since I think this is intended to be a work group. We have language, and so I think we should refer to that language in terms of looking at this document and maybe attempt to have it comply with that. So our work group language that we agreed upon last meeting says a few things. They're created by the council or council committee to serve the council. They're not committees of the town and not subject to charter provisions governing multiple member bodies. So the motion to create a work group must include... So we had intended it to be a motion, not a charge. I don't know whether we want to sort of turn this idea that we have in front of us document into just a standard motion instead of a formal document. We can certainly do that in anticipation of work groups potentially being approved by this language being approved into the rules. That motion must include the composition, the measure or issue that shall be with the work group's focus, the specific task to which the work group is assigned, the deliverables the originating body expects from the work group, and a date by which the work group will produce its deliverables. They don't require a formal committee charge, and the purpose and composition is established by the motion to create them. The presiding officer of the originating body shall appoint all work group members, and the presiding officer or designee of the originating body shall preside over the work group until a chair is elected, they're subject to open meeting law, and it's dissolved by majority vote of the originating body. So do we want to attempt to modify this essentially into a motion instead of a charge, or do we want to try to just modify this charge and keep it a charge? I think that's the first thing we need to decide. So we would change that to motion? So I think we would actually get rid of this document completely and write a motion that essentially has much of this, you know, instead of it having Town of Amherst's name, all of this, it would be, you know, I move to create the percent for art bylaw working group as follows, and then we could list much of what's listed as the second half of this charge, but it would all be part of sort of a motion instead of a formal charge. Yes, Steve? So the proposal would be that because there's nobody here, just us, but the proposal is that we would craft a motion that we think would be presentable. Yes, Mike. What I also heard Mandy say is that it could be a generalized motion where we insert in this instance percent for bylaw, or so that any charge, any committee that was starting a working group would just take that motion, put in the information. Yeah, that would actually be a pretty good idea. I think that's a good idea. Convert it into sort of a general thing after we create it for this. To keep it as simple and direct as possible, because flexibility and speed are important here. I support that idea. So what I'm going to do is then make a new document that you guys aren't going to be able to see right now. I'm going to save essentially this charge as a percent for art working group motion per GOL, and I will upload it once I, but I'll type as we're talking. And so the first thing I'm going to type is a motion to create the percent for art bylaw working group per, but we don't really have a rule for it yet. So I don't think we can cite the rule. No. Eventually we would, but right now we can't. So motion to create the percent for art bylaw working group. And it's I move to create the percent for art bylaw working group as follows, I think, and then just a colon and then we'll just figure it out. So I think then we just go down. If we're looking at this charge that we were presented, just delete the whole header section and go right to composition. Does that sound good? Composition. So there was a discussion at the council meeting about the composition and whether seeing that at least for this one the town council is creating this, or at least it was brought to the council, not particularly just CRC or FINCOM, that maybe it should be able to include non-CRC or FINCOM members. Yes, Steve. Point of order. So is it our job to even have an opinion on this? That was just going to be my question. Is it our job to even have an opinion on this? Is that something out this motion to make it consist, so it was referred to GOL to make consistent with bylaw's rules and charter? And so is that the composition of it something we as a committee should be modifying? It, at this point, I believe beyond the fact that I'm concerned that one town staff to be designated a town manager might actually not comply with the charter. Beyond that, the other portions of it, I believe are clear. They're consistent. We don't really have work groups right now. They're actionable and they fit the definition of how we've defined work groups for the language we're going to send on to the council, which is a work group is defined as a temporary group that includes members of the public and may include counselors who are not members of the originating body to focus on a specific assignment. A minor question. Here there are five voting members. Is that every working group would have five members? Yeah, okay, because that, yeah, that again speaks to we don't know what what we will need until we create a group. Yes, yeah, Steve. And the reason we can't name town staff is against the charter is specifically why? The charter has a provision and I'm going to pull it up once I find it that says the section in the charter. It is section 2.3b that says interference with administration. Neither the town council nor any individual member thereof shall give orders or direction either publicly or privately to any employee of the town not appointed by the town council. So in theory, I think potentially it might be okay. I think this one's on a line. I don't I don't know because we're create it's a it's a council committee though. That's an advisory group. It's an it's an advisory group. It's only job is to advise the town council. So or the committee. So it's not we're not giving direction to a staff member or to the staff members there to give direction to us. Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe reword it that says the composition is I mean, essentially this one one town staff to be designated by town manager. It could be it could be town manager. Or designate.  Yes, yeah, when we discussed this at CRC that was how Dave Zomek proposed. We could also we could also say that so Dave Zomek is on the CRC by his own volunteerism by at the direction of the direction of the town manager. So the town manager seems to have the right to appoint liaisons to committees as he sees fit. So we could say something like that. The town manager may designate a staff member to be a member as he sees fit. Yeah, it seems to me that just saying town manager or designee would do it. Shall we do that then? Okay, so that would be the fourth bullet point would read town manager or designee. So right now the motion composition five voting members with the same bullet points. The two counselors one from finance one from CRC. Should we split them out as separate bullet points for clarity? Counselor who serves on the finance committee. Counselor who serves on the community resources committee. And then we have chair of Amherst public art commission, former chair of Amherst public art commission, drafter of former bylaw. So that one's very unspecific the former chair. There's many I suspect former chairs immediate past chair. Maybe I think that's how the person they're referring to. Should we just name them? Okay. So Bill K's on KAIZAN and Brody and then town manager or designee. Pat. I'm just trying to figure out the town staff would be needed for this, whether it was a town manager or not. I don't see that for this. I could see it if we needed Stephanie Chikarela about something. So it feels like why? I would think if I may. Yeah. I would think that he would want. Well, hey, he may himself be involved. But one of his facilities people or somebody that knows about finance or about. So we're, we're getting close to discussing the pros and cons of the actual composition instead of whether it's clear. So we could come up, you know, this is something I think that should be brought up at the council meeting in terms of is this the right composition. Um, we need to designate who appoints these members, the two counselors, and I believe we the presiding officer of the originating body shall appoint all work group members. So five composition is five as follows, five voting members appointed by the president of the council. Well, if the council's voting this to create it, then the president appoints. If we're trying to follow our work group rules, we do have to declare who's going to appoint these. Yeah. No, I get your concern because if this was a CRC thing, then CRC would be appointing the CRC member. If this was a finance, then finance. But it could be a CRC thing and the CRC chair would appoint all the members. Would then appoint the finance committee member though too. It's not. Are you okay with that? I know it seems weird. Well, the president only would be appointed. She would technically appoint the other three, but they're named. Right. They're already, you know, there's the composition. Three of them are by name. She would probably formally appoint them, even though they're named in the charge though. What I'm struggling with and I could is the idea that a work group evolves from a committee. It doesn't involve the council, involves the committee's work. And so I have no trouble with the committee chair picking the members for the committee angle. I'm having trouble with the council president deciding who the counselors are when we know one comes from finance and one comes from CRC, which is totally appropriate. So I'm just feeling really uncomfortable with that. I understand. It's going to get even weirder when we deal with the report back to the originating body when my whole thing was this should not be reporting back to the council. So I, I mean, is this something that that should not be a council motion should be a CRC created work group that recognizes that Fincom also needs to see the bylaw when it comes back? Steve? I think the only option is to report to the council and the council can refer it back to the committee. But I don't think that you can, I don't think that we can have a council work group that explicitly reports, sends its report straight from the committee. I think it has to go to the council for distribution as the council sees fit. But they're sitting at the committees right now. This bylaw that you're trying to modify is sitting at CRC right now and CRC has not reported it back out. So I think it needs to go back to CRC and finance. Back to the committees as referred. So I don't think it should be, I mean, that's why I don't think it should be reporting to the originating body, which is the council. So the question becomes, is this something under clarity, consistency and actionability that consistency wise, this is our first one. So we don't really have consistency, but is consistency wise this something we recommend that council doesn't do that CRC does or finance does and one of them takes hold of this work group now and does it, even though it's going to have members of non-CRC members on it, say if CRC takes a hold of it. Is that something we could recommend under a consistency thing and the consistency would be the council already referred something to a committee. That's the committee that needs to deal with it now. Thoughts? I feel like it should stay with the committee. Yeah. A committee motion. Because I'm thinking a lot about the whole point of the work group in any of the council committees is to get something done as quickly as possible. And if we have to then go back to the president to have the president appoint the people, that it just feels awkward. That's why I keep asking, is this a one-off? Is this a one-off? And I also feel like if a work group come, it bubbles up in CRC, we decide to have a work group and we know what we want, we know where we're hoping to get what the kind of information and everything we want to get. Why would we give that away to somebody who's not on the committee? And I would say that in this sense as well. You as chair of CRC know us well and Andy as chair of finance knows his folks well and you can even choose yourselves. But it just seems to me that you have more information about the point, you know, what we're trying to work on than the president has informed as she is. Steve. Either way, so I think that, you know, just to follow along that thread, I think that at this point, it's all pretty well. I think it has more power if it's appointed by the president. I think it has more authority if it's appointed by the president. Why does it need more authority? Great question. It's work of a committee. It's coming from a committee. It's not coming for, the committee is not going to report back to the council. It's going to report back to the committee that sponsored it. If GOL sets up a working group, then that working group reports only to GOL and then we use that information to work on something that we will bring to the council. So can I say something? No, I just want to add to it. When we were discussing the language for work groups, even though we put the council as a body can be an originating body, we struggled with this distinction between ad hoc committees and work groups and we actually have an agenda item on that today. But when we came up with this language and pushed it forward to the council last week, we adopted or approved some language. I think the discussion there was they would be work groups would mostly be used in committees not by the full council and that if the full council thought something was so big, it would probably be an ad hoc committee not a work group. And this bylaw and taking that sort of conversation to where we're at now, there's two committees that have recognized that maybe they need some more work and they need people working on this a little bit more because maybe it needs more tweaking than can be done in either committee or they don't want to work against themselves. So in taking the discussion we had about work groups and what Pat was saying about flexibility and all, maybe this is the time to set sort of that consistency of practice with we've the council's already referred it to committees. Now the committees need to work together to say who's going to take a hold. This was something when it was referred to three committees at one time. How's that going to work? So maybe the chair of CRC, which I know you're sitting right here, but in the future if there's two committee referrals those two chairs get together and say who's going to have, how are we doing this timing? What's the timing going to look like? And this one because it's, finance needs to look at it because it's got financial implications but the policy part in some sense is the more complicated issue before finance says is this something we can do financially? So when I look at it I say CRC probably needs to take hold of this, own it, they know finance has some concerns with it. So CRC creates this work group, talks to the chair of finance and says who wants to be on this work group we think someone should be there puts that person on because you don't have to have just CRC counselors on there. You can create the work group, put that person on, put maybe some other counselors that aren't on CRC on it as Darcy at the meeting on Monday was concerned about, put these other two on and then it works with our work group wording of reporting back to the originating body getting it going that way. Sounds good but I have another idea here which is that for the two counselors that are named the two counselors that are identified why not just say CRC chair or designee and for the other one say finance chair or designee? Because we're still running into the appointment problem of the president that appoints you and then you then designee someone else. We're running into that problem whereas if we take this out of this committee GOL because we were charged with coming up with something for next week's meeting and essentially say our recommendation is here's our working work group rules and under that we discussed it and we believe CRC should create it and hey if we want to do this here's your motion if we today want to try and come up with a motion we could and report out here's the sample motion we came up with that would comply with it we think this is something for consistency stake in the future that CRC should just move and adopt if they feel like it that there are probably the control and that motion would be five members it doesn't even have to say how many counselors because the chair we could and then the chair can appoint who the chair feels is necessary to be on that we could say how many counselors the motion probably should say how many members of the public and how many counselors because they have to have members of the public but but we could do that and that could be our report out to the council which is we suggest this just be a CRC motion I agree with what you're saying but I also feels important to me CRC I think is going to be calling on work groups a lot and that means that we may be I mean fine I feel like finance has direct because we have this overlap of membership we've already talked about some of the financial implications and stuff in our job and CRC is to go to deal with impact so in this is an instance where we need somebody from finance to talk about what they're seeing as issues so it's this collaborative nature of what CRC is going to need from a lot of different committees I would hate to I can't think of a good example right now but I feel like we need to be able to collaborate and across committee lines all the time to get a full flood of information about the impacts because we need it be even before finance makes their decision sometimes I think what are some of the financial pros and cons we're not the site where our job is only to present these impacts potential impacts so where do we want to go from here do we want to continue trying to create a motion I think so and then we'll figure out how we get that out of this committee and present that to the council yeah kind of that now this does that require two things is it the first reading second so this isn't a bylaw all right um and if our our recommendation it sounds like we're moving towards making a recommendation that the council not act that it just be the CRC act at its next meeting I think is so today at our meeting we could pick our who we want to be on this we could ask somebody from finance we could talk to Andy does CRC have a meeting today because he's on CRC yeah so which is interesting but I mean if we come up with a draft motion today we could make that reference back to the council does CRC meet next week too no no and there's nothing stopping CRC from adopting a motion this afternoon it would look weird maybe but maybe not except we don't we don't have an official work group we wouldn't have the enabling but you've got the ability to create a subcommittee but a subcommittee is just us we go down from five to three years I don't know what Robert's rules says about that I guess I don't agree but that's okay I guess I'm I'm not clear about what the reason I I feel like there's resistance that you Steve and that's fine I'm just trying to understand it more clearly so there I'm I'm not understanding necessarily let me try because I think I got what Steve's saying I think what Steve's saying is right now because the rules don't actually have wording for work groups the only way to create a working group is to create an ad hoc committee under the charter and under our rules because that's the thing we can create under the rules and that would if it's a subcommittee which committees can do subcommittees in general by definition only include members of the committee so CRC doesn't have the authority to create a subcommittee that also includes Bill Kazan and Eric Brody but the council as creating an ad hoc committee does have that authority and so the council then also has the authority to put forth a motion and which this would which this one would be it just the council may have the authority yeah so so yes so maybe and the dual readings would be for us to get work groups adopted to be able to do it which would take multiple times for CRC to do it I think that's what he's saying is he's not sure committees right now have the authority to do this outside of a council ad hoc committee or another council action I understand my frustration comes with a lack of speed and and reason and simplicity it's a common frustration in mind that I'm working on letting go of there are ways to do things more simply not necessarily in government so I'm feeling like I am having trouble with thinking that all right we brought we had it at a council meeting Monday it'll come up and then we have to have another reading of it before we can and then we have to what if the rules and procedure thing doesn't get changed it just feels like the work of a committee is being stymied and not intentionally by anybody on the council not by anybody but that's what it feels like and we're making this so much easier for our successes no comment so I think we're trying to avoid creating an ad hoc committee because so so I think given Steve's concerns maybe the right thing to do is to refer this out of our committee with an actual motion and the motion actually say that the originating that that the town council designates CRC is the originating body in the motion which would get it out of the town council being the originating body we can do what we want we're just creating this by motion not by you know calling it something it's a measure we can do what we want with measures you know and so it's not it while the rules don't totally say it's still a measure so you can't refer to a rule you can't refer to the charter we could potentially temporarily I I'm I have to think through the full mechanism for how but maybe it needs to be a motion at this point by the council but that motion includes designating CRC is the originating body whereas the sort of authority body or reporting body or however we want to do it does that sound yeah okay so we're back to five voting members appointed by as follows so I'm going to add a sentence the percent for our IOL working group shall the town council designates the community resources committee as the originating body is that we did the originating body of the percent for art by law working group so that's the first sentence I just drafted whoops and then composition five voting members appointed by the chair of the community resources committee right one counselor who serves on the finance committee one counselor who serves on the community resources committee bill kason eric brody and the town manager or designee and then at the meeting you can argue for a different composition if you want um that's the way it reads right now actually I'm going to turn this into paragraphs so the percent for art by law working group shall have five voting members appointed by the chair of the resources community resources committee and then as follows and then the bullet points for that so that's the composition the measure or issue that shall be the work groups for focus so that is this this what was the purpose I'm going to write the focus of the percent for art by law working group shall be to designate or to develop yep I don't think that we're developing it I think we're updating and revising a previous by law that's what we're actually doing to update and revise the percent for art by law passed by town meeting in spring of 2017 in spring 2017 so that's the measure or issue that should be the work groups focus the specific task to which the work group is assigned so that's going to be number four and I'll show you guys everything when when I get it the percent for art by law working group shall and then this is revise the previous by law to address concerns identified by the massachusetts legislature clarify definitions respond to questions or concerns raised by council committees I think so is that clear develop a revised version or propose instead of develop I think propose a revised version a revised version of the bylaw for consideration by the community resources committee and finance committee she's got review of GL legal review by town attorney so I think I just stopped that sentence after finance committee so so the CRC and finance would revive would redo it they make their recommendations once they're recommended because they can revise it further once the recommendations are made the the formal referral to GLL then kicks in and it automatically comes to GLL from there yeah my my concern was that no committees were listed in this which is yeah so I think we can just stop that sentence after finance committee which are the two committees that currently are involved in this yeah and then okay so that's the show there's the report back um so that's the specific tasks I think the report doesn't involve a specific task the next thing in our work groups is the deliverables the originating body expects from the work group um and then a date by which the work group will produce its deliverables so I think both of those could fall could be our report section that's listed here and was originally drafted as reports is the percent for art bylaw working group shall provide the revised and updated bylaw with a report explaining changes from the original percent for art bylaw passed by town meeting to the community resources committee and and finance committee and finance committee by and then that would be the september 23rd date by september 23rd that's the next that's the council meeting do we there was concerns that that might be too quick because it's four weeks away and people were talking two months steve the question is is september 23rd the appropriate deadline that's two months in some sense that's two months which was the original appointed time frame because in the in the original charge that had a two-month length of appointment and then september 23rd october 31 we're going to get rid of charge adopted charged revised and sme status voted although we should probably include sme status for bill and eric just for bill and eric's purposes special municipal employee do working groups or they can i guess they're multiple member bodies so they would need and then it would need to be separately voted for two months doesn't matter for them right leave it out okay i was just deleting the line and like do we need to do something with that okay so we've got the motion to create a work group must include at a minimum composition of the work group we've got that shall have five voting members as follows um and then the measure or issue that shall be the work groups focus the focus of the work group shall be to update and revise the specific task to which they're assigned so i have that in here that's the next one and then the deliverables the original embodying expects from the work group which is on this one number five a revised and updated bylaw with a report explaining changes from the original bylaw um to crc and finance by october 31 and so that fulfills both four and five of our work group draft language and then i'm assuming that crc alone would vote whether they were recommending the bylaw finance would vote independently and those and the bylaw would be brought to the town council after coming to jail yes i'm just looking at the rest of our work group language presiding officer of the originating body shall appoint all work group members so the fact that we designated crc means you will point chair of crc appoints the presiding officer or a designee of the originating body shall preside over the work group until a chair is elected so you'll have to preside then even if i'm not the member even if you're not the member work groups are subject to open meeting law work group is dissolved by majority vote of the originating body so that would since we just if if work groups are adopted by the time by october 31 then since this motion would designate crc the originating body of this working group or actually it should be work group not working group shouldn't it um then crc would be able to dissolve it on its own i'm changing all the working to work consistency right do we need any attached reference documents probably not i'm just looking at what else is left on this document to delete that okay so let's i'm gonna enlarge this on my computer so you guys can see it and you guys can come on over to read this before we make a motion to forward this on okay i think it's case in with a between the z and the oh it's a z oh you can see it on your no she shouldn't be able to because this is just online oh yeah i think you're right with the z e yeah yeah it looks perfect do you want to see it pan do you want to see it okay so everyone in the room has seen what i just typed up based on what we were talking about on a motion to create the percent for art by law work group um so this then go back to my notes so we created an emotion now what is what we're we're going to recommend the council adopt the motion is that right i think given where we stand with rules of procedure and all i think that's just the right thing so that means i will to recommend that the council adopt the motion to create the percent for art by law work group um and i further move that gol declares the motion to create the percent for art by law um i'm sorry i got it typed out here i'll read it again um work group the motion to create the percent for art work group clear consistent and actionable including in conformance with proposed work group rules of procedure so i'm going to read that again so my motion is to recommend that the council adopt the motion to create the percent for art by law work group i further move that the gol declares the motion to create the percent for art by law work group clear consistent and actionable including in conformance with proposed work group rules of procedure does that sound okay so that's me who's going to second most steve was going to get the second right any discussion all those in favor we are unanimous with two absent so that brings us to a number three on our agenda we're and this one is discussion of revisions to rules of procedure rule 10 point four ad hoc committees in light of recommendations regarding language for rule 10.5 work groups so um the reason this is on there is because evan thought we should probably clarify um the ad hoc committees language because of the new work group language um the ad hoc committee languages in our packet as a separate um a separate document um of actually i think what did i do with how did i put it up there um not rule eight so figure out how i put it up here i might not have put it up here because i was waiting to see what we did um because i didn't have changes so there were no changes in what was adopted on monday night to the ad hoc committee um language that the full set of changes we just put forward didn't have anything to the ad hoc committees um so right now we've got i'll just read what ad hoc committees are the council may establish ad hoc committees for the purpose of considering a particular policy or for other purposes such committees may make recommendations and sponsor bylaws resolutions or other measures council charges to establish ad hoc committees shall specify the purpose and membership a ad hoc committees shall not exist beyond the current term of the council b the president shall appoint all ad hoc committee members that's it for ad hoc committees i think what evan wanted and we can either decide to postpone this till evan is here because he's not here um or go forward i think what he was thinking was our working group rules that we just went through were attempting to differentiate between an ad hoc committee and a working group and so i think what he was desiring was some sort of language in the ad hoc committee rule that essentially says ad hoc committees shall only include counselors because i think that was the one thing we determined was the difference so we can either work on that now or we can postpone that for another two weeks till evan is here which would then postpone the ability for us to bring work groups back to the council and i'm not sure we want to wait longer on that so i don't see why we can't go ahead okay i mean what he's saying is clear so the language we used in work groups was a work group is defined as a temporary group that includes members of the public and may include counselors who are not members of the originating body to focus on a specific assignment um so we could take that and say something like into this ad hoc council committees um a council for the purpose we could add a add a section instead of we have an a and a b we could either put a c in or we could um council in this council charges to establish ad hoc committee shall specify purpose and membership i actually wonder if that should be a if we should just move that down to an a so i'm going to move that one down to an a b is ad hoc committee shall not exist beyond the current term of the council then c is the president shall point out ad hoc committees um do i think between the exit the specify purpose and membership and exist is where we would put this definition or you know or ad hoc committees so i'm whoops it's going to have to be a b um so ad hoc committees include current counselors only that do not include members of the public do not include members of the public do we want something beyond just that wording ad hoc committees do not include members of the public we good with that so that and then we've got now an a a b a c and a d i was working on my own okay now i i had just created a document that just had that rule in it i will go back to there is um i don't think i have it in here um i will go back and upload it to the same document that i've the new rules that we adopted on monday i have now inserted our work group language into with track changes i will put this language into that document i can do that now so people can see it so we can then potentially vote to just forward that whole thing onto um the council if if we're willing let me get this in the document that's in now saved there and let me pull that document up in my computer and then you guys can view that one um it'll need a table of contents update too but more groups are in 10 did we just do this is now an a so we now have and i will show it to you now um so you guys can take a walk over again there is a document called rules of procedure adopted 2019 05 20 revised 2019 08 19 proposed geo revisions work groups and it now has in 10.4 the ad hoc council committee language we have to still vote on um which has an a b c and d with b is the main addition which is ad hoc committees do not include members of the public and then the work group language that i already pretty much read today that we adopted last week nor two weeks ago in on 10.5 and just fully inserted there as because there was no language there so it's just a full here's the proposal and those are the two changes to it to the rules as adopted on monday which is why i didn't upload that because it's just a new document so um i think we're looking at actually no we're just looking at one motion i think yeah because we already did the work group motion um let me look at what that work group that one's not up yet because it's on just my computer um i won't i will get them all up and at a later point um but yeah no that one's not up no it's not that it's just they're not they're not on the cloud um so this is so i'm looking for a motion this is ad hoc committees a motion to what was our motion last week recommend was a motion to recommend is what it is so it's a motion to recommend the changes made the revisions made august 21 2019 gl meeting regarding meeting two rule 10 point what was this one 10.4 so i think the motion is sufficient if it just reads i move to recommend the revisions made at the august 21 2019 gl meeting to rule 10.4 ad hoc committees i'll make the motion ad hoc committees who's gonna second second any discussion all those in favor five that is a three zero vote with two absent i believe that allows us to oh let me do one other thing alissa recommended that we clarify clerk town clerk versus clerk of the council everywhere in the rules i haven't gone through and done that yet um when i forward these two on can i go through and do that so okay so by consensus mjh can revise the clerk references as appropriate as appropriate prior to forwarding to the council as appropriate and then i'll forward the whole document again with a report on those two sets of things um we'll see which i'm not sure it'll be up on the 26th next week's meeting but i'll know later today but i'll work on getting them on an agenda um so that's ad hoc committees that brings us to time we've got 45 minutes um i am going to push forward and skip numbers four and five i was going to skip five anyway because george was taking the lead on that and he's not here four is resolutions proclamations and commemorations for now we're going to skip that there are three of the four documents up in our packet um but i think i'd rather have a full four person discussion and it's not as time sensitive as number six is um and number six is the candidate statements um and so we got a town council opinion so six on the agenda is a follow-up on referral from the town council to advise on a policy to comply with charter section 7.6 publication of candidate statements we had a little over a month ago more than a month ago sent a request off to the town attorney to see if it was even legal under campaign finance regulations and our charter and state law and all to publish candidate statements anywhere including a website um or if not a website on an actual physical bulletin board and we got an opinion back today on that matter and given that um candidates are going to turn in papers mid september and i think this one's a little more time sensitive than the others so we should look at this one to decide what we want to do um and how we want to move forward uh i i will summarize my understanding of this legal memo which is is part of the packet um and can be found both in sharepoint and as part of the packet on the website um basically my understanding is yes it's legal for us to create a policy um that policy can be something that allows for publication on a website but that town staff is not allowed to write the statements that um that and they can't be mailed to voters um that it can be published on a bulletin board um you know if we adopt one it's would be consistent with the law if we adopt a policy that they cannot be mailed to voters um municipal resources are not to be used to develop the candidate statements so um instead the policy adopted should make clear and i'm reading directly from the opinion instead the policy adopted by the council should make clear that candidates are required to develop their own content to that end the webpage where such statements are posted should also include a disclaimer indicating that the statements are provided by the candidates and do not reflect the position of the town in whole or in part um so that puts the burden back to us to come up with a draft policy for the council to consider i think um if we town attorney said we can do it so i think it's up to us to talk about what that policy might look like and then draft one thoughts do you want me to test something so so i i'm happy to come up with language um i i think what we should talk about is the parameters of it because i think what the town attorney wrote is clear the policy we can adopt a policy and the policy requires candidates to develop their own content so so i think the policy would start with um in accordance with the charter candidates may candidate statements will be published on the town bulletin board here is the parameters and then you know something like that i can come up with that language but but i think we need to come up with what would they look like so things i'm thinking about is what is the length do do we want to unlimited statements or do we want to limit candidates to a specific number of words or a specific number of sentences or a specific number of characters you know um do we want to allow candidates to request a hyperlink to a website some sort of website or facebook page or something or do we not want any hyperlinks associated if so how many are they allowed to have um what would that look like from the town website point of view and obviously include in whatever policy we draft um this um disclaimer and all um is there a deadline you know i think the policy should have potentially should have something about when that statement will go up um who gets on that statement although i think the charter might already clarify that um the charter language is um the town council shall establish a process compliant with state campaign and political finance laws for candidates whose names uh seven point six whose names will appear on the election ballot to publish statements regarding their candidacy on the town bulletin board so i think the charter already limits who gets it so write in candidates don't get a statement per the charter but people who have qualified do um according to the charter um but i think those are the things if we can discuss some of these parameters i can come back at the next meeting with a draft policy keep bouncing back to uh on media yeah sitting or haven't written a paper in so long i haven't i'm trying to be a reasonable word limit so the let me just give you an idea the jca proclamation that we just passed today is three hundred and thirty two words it just happens to pop up on word when i have it open on word so this is bringing back the trauma of the campaign last year but um i recall the gazette the mass live mothers out front a bunch of organizations asked us to the housing group asked us to give statements and i think we could the gazette seemed to be particularly brief so i think we could borrow from from something like that what i'm thinking about is each one of those had a very specific topic or topics that we were looking at and we were so it seems more to me and i couldn't be wrong um that a candidate's statement on the town website would sort of be an introductory here's who i am these are the values i have this is what i would be working on directly or which feels a little different than um still need a limit but they they did and i think there were limits to i think everything had a limit actually the legal order of voters is part of i would i would use something like that as a model the other thing is that maybe i'm getting weighed down into the weeds already but it'll drive the managers of the website insane if you submit a statement on tuesday then on wednesday you want to amend it on thursday you want to add something so i think once submitted it's it's done yeah and it'll be copied exactly as you submitted and that's how it goes once submitted done no revisions permitted no revisions permitted um submit by a certain date um do we that date to me so there's but i think i think we should have a date and a time like close of business on so many days you know either this particular day or so many days after and i was thinking maybe more you know different candidates candidates can submit their signatures the day after papers were available in july or all the way up till mid september i think it's most fair if no statements go up until after all candidates are certified it seems to be the fairest to me and so that to me leads to a deadline of maybe a certain number of days after candidate signatures are certified by the board of registrars and we can pick that number of days but something like that whatever that deadline is and refer to it as that general deadline since that date would change every year so the critical thing is when you get the signatures in and then the registrar has i don't remember how many days to certify but once you submit your papers then we could say what i would say is two weeks after i'd say the end of september would be a reason on the deadline because we don't need to wait for the certification but it's only candidates whose names will appear on the ballot but oh so they don't they could submit before but once it's certified only candidates if it's not certified it is ready to go so could we do we want to provide if we're only going to have november we can't just do a date certain because if we end up with a special election it needs to relate to two weeks after that so maybe the deadline ten business days after uh well yeah the submitting of the paper submission deadline i can come up with the wording um five days no but but we don't want it per person we want it one deadline for everyone no i know but what i'm thinking is that you hand your papers to the town clerk the town clerk gives you the your opportunity to post something out of the town that they have a piece of paper have people already submitted some i think have i don't know no but but we need a deadline for submission which i would say is either five or ten days after the the filing that the filing deadline do we like five or do we like ten five five i'm trying to figure if i had any idea what i was talking about at the timeline so we should also have a publishing deadline of when the statements will go on the website so to give i'm thinking to give the town clerk guidance on this matter five days after the filing deadline yeah so so the clerk will publish on the website do we want to go no later than 10 days or 15 days after the filing deadline that would give them 10 days from when all the candidates had to submit early october at this one if we did 15 days i think it would be early october so candidates submit by five days after once submitted no revisions do we want to say they will submit them by email only because that makes the cut and paste easier submit email only well is email or box or you know blah blah blah i mean it's sort of better google drive email that says to email i was thinking email only and then we can ask the town to create a specific email address for that or just the town to the town clerk's to town clerk at maybe to town clerk i did well no it's just text email and then we have the oh just text that's a that's a good thing to consider are we going to allow pictures or i don't know we should talk about that whether statements is all the charter charter requires that i we could potentially try my my thinking is whatever policy we come up with goes through town attorney we send the wording off to her for well the legal women voters doesn't have pictures so length do we have a desired length yet length 50 words well i was looking at jc as was 330 that's almost a page of tax that's a population right no but but that gives us an idea of how much writing 300 and some words is oh but i remember trying to fit things into small i'd rather almost err on the side of longer i was thinking 500 but then i'm like that's really long i think it should be sure i would use my one of my hundred words as my website you know from our information so there's a possibility that the only place people will go will be this website i mean as a candidate you can use it however you want but we have to you know if someone's looking for voter information in general at least in my past experience the first place i've always gone is the town's voter voter education website and so because i want to see the ballot and it's how you get who's running it's you get the full list and all that so that's where i sort of start other people start in other places obviously um but i could see someone only looking here but that's that's up to the candidate but i think the goal you know my experience on the charter commission was to try and give all candidates that's no matter their resource availability an equal footing somewhere to get their name and some of the stuff out and that was why we put this in here was that attempt which is i think why i are on the longer side of enough to be able to introduce who you are and yeah the why you're running what you might do the league of women voters i found the survey so they had five questions but the total number of words for all five questions is 200 200 that is not a lot 40 words each how did we develop a diverse pool of qualified candidates how would we prioritize capital projects one or more initiatives you support regarding affordable housing how do you address the effects of declining school age population and then how do we become a leader in climate right those very specifically say what the issues are that the league once addressed and it seems to me that a candidate's statement should be up to the candidate what they address and how they address it yeah yeah and open i mean there there is a benefit of having a tight limit because it makes you really refine what you're saying but if you make it too big like 40 so there'll be a very obvious yeah right and it's not clear which one i'd vote for but but i think i i'm i'm i think 500 might be too many that's like a full page but 250 300 somewhere in there i think seems and you can buy extra worth from your other candidates it's a we need a number we need a number shall we just go with 300 we'll start with 300 this is this is this is to give me a way to draft i'm just thinking of my experience doing this i had a really hard time with all of these kids statement things right the longer though means you don't have to spend so much time trying to figure out how to cut the one word here to make it fit under your word limits which is annoying too so right now the parameters that i'm going to be working on a draft under are 300 words that there's no revisions once submitted so you get one email in essentially the candidates submit by a certain date which is five at this point the draft will say five days after the filing deadline whatever language but that's what will be clerk will be 15 days i'm going to look at our definition of days in places because the charter defines it and that might actually put those two closer together than we think so five is going to be business days 15 i think is going to be non is going to be everything so in theory that might just put it about a week after the five i just have to make sure the definitions make sure that that 15 falls after all signature certifications are required because we don't want it up before that email the clerk will publish yep email only and right now the address we're going to give is town clerk at amazon dot gov is how you submit include that the website will have the disclos disclaimer on it and the other thing i was thinking of is that we need to in this policy state that the town clerk will delete all access words so if someone has submitted a statement that is 350 they delete from 301 forward 301 to 350 they don't they it's not like they're just or they they don't go back to the candidate to say oh you you wrote 350 you got to cut it down nope they stop at 300 and everything else is gone no because that that that's that's that doesn't accept more than a certain awards we'd have to see if we'll look at that is an online form that doesn't accept yeah so we'll look at whether an online firm that doesn't accept a certain number of words is something that it could do because maybe that's the that instead of submit by email i'll put online form is there anything hyperlink so one hyperlink allowed it would be one or you know the candidate statement so so here's what we have to come up with what's this going to look like is it going to be name and then candidate statement and then the name could include the hyperlink just click on the name so i think we should do one and people have to decide which one just have to go down to town clerk's office to see some people say that very closely so one hyperlink right now 300 words is what i'm going to present on a new draft all of those can we think of anything else do we want to set forth like no photos no text only candidate statement would be text only yeah text only the legal women voters have this email that won't be published though yeah this will just be a statement with a name that allows you to hyperlink to one i think it's just name and then their statement and that complies with the charter so i'll come up with a draft um policy so let me go find candidates signatures papers are due mid september i don't know whether it's the 17th the 16th or the 13th or something like that it's somewhere in there um we have one gol meeting prior to then but it is after the council meeting that the september we have a gol meeting scheduled for september 11th september 9th is sort of the next we have the meeting on the 26th and then the september 9th council meeting and then we don't have a council meeting until the 17th which is a joint meeting but our next non-joint meeting with the school committee is the 23rd um of september the 17th is the one joint with the school committee on a tuesday night um so the question is if we do not schedule another gol meeting earlier than the 9th we can't get this policy to the council until the 23rd and under our council rules it would be heard on the 23rd but generally not voted on until october so i was thinking we might want to schedule a meeting on september 4th solely for this policy i have our next one's the 11th not the fourth i put them to try and comply with the council meetings so we're normally one and three with the council but the council meetings two because of the thing so yes so and i go i plan on going to that so that's why i say if we do the fourth it would only be for this policy so that we would be out by noon it would start at 10 30 and we should be able to be done in time to go to that because i don't see this taking another full hour so that does that sound we'll schedule a separate meeting just for this so that we can try and get this on the september 9th council meeting um so i will let everyone know i will get this room reserved um 10 30 i'll come in with a draft policy that goes with this um if we want this heard at the september 9th council meeting the next thing i'm curious about from the two of you is should i when i draft this policy send it on to town attorney to try and get town attorney review knowing that some of these things may change like the number of words or form versus email um to try and get started on that review so hopefully it would be back in time or or should i just talk to paul and lin about what timing they would like for that my thought was the sooner we can get it to them i you know we'll be making changes i suspect on the fourth but they wouldn't necessarily affect illegality um and then we might be able to have that response back maybe by the fourth but at least by the 23rd when the vote at the council would happen if we hear it on the 9th and the 23rd does that sound like a plan so when i get this draft done this week i will send it to paul and lin for a request to send it on clearly labeled draft are you going to make the fourth steve yeah okay okay protect class scanning scanning i teach at one yeah okay yeah we'll be done i think wait wait wait it's a wednesday morning yeah i could yeah we could potentially make i don't know what evan and george's teaching schedules are um but we're a committee of teachers well a forum of teachers i should say let's let's keep it at 10 30 i will email both of them to at least let them know um and if they have problems with that i'll see if earlier might be we'll try and work something out but we're definitely going to try and get a meeting that week if i have to do a google you know some sort of doodle poll for a different time figure something out but the goals to get this to the ninth um okay so i will draft that we don't have to vote on anything i don't think on that that leaves us with public comment there's no public adoption of the august 7th minutes they got uploaded today have you had a chance to read them yeah um do we want to wait were you the only one absent on that one yeah you're here no i was the one that wasn't here you're accurate on that yes you're accurate on that um yeah so i think i i went through um there was an extra comma and the very first thing about when you deleted pat's name from present to absent the comma didn't go with it but um you know yeah okay i'll second that any discussion all those in favor that is three zero to approve the august seven minutes um what happens if you can can you move if you're gonna abstain from a vote can you make a motion to put it on a table i think so yeah i think anyone can i mean you can make the motion and then vote against the motion you can do anything you want once the motion's made okay so given that it is 1215 we could go back to discussion on policies for resolutions proclamations commemorations but i don't think it's worth it i think there's just no time necessary for it yes pat i want to say that i thought the work done on work groups was good so i'm glad it happened yeah so i have a bunch of work to do to get stuff to the meeting on monday um so i'll i will be drafting uh report and a couple reports i think um i think that's it anyone have any any comments any concerns as always then we are adjourned at 1216


It is my special pleasure to be part of Texas Heart Institute Global Cardiovascular Forum celebrating 60 years of excellence at our institution. My name is Vaughan Mukherjee. I'm an interventional cardiologist at Texas Heart Institute at CHI Health Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center in Houston. The topic of my presentation is safety and effectiveness of less invasive TAVR protocol with current generation TAVR devices, single center experience. I have no disclosures related to this presentation. Now the first TAVR was performed two decades ago by Dr. Crebier in Rouen, France in 2002. Modern progress has been made in the last two decades as far as TAVR is concerned. And current generation TAVR devices are associated with higher success rate and fewer complications than early generation devices. TAVR technology continues to drive towards less invasive solutions. I would like to share with you the information from the report from 2020 on the situation and status of TAVR in the United States related to the experience that was collected in SDS registry database. As we can see here on the left hand side, we can see that TAVR is exponentially growing over the last decade or so, and the present time, more than 79,000 procedures are being performed in the United States. On the right hand side, we can see that there is also a rapidly increasing number of sites that are performing TAVR in the United States. Another one we can see that in addition to the rapid growth and expansion of TAVR, as we can see to 72,991 patients in 2019, that we can see that the number of SAVRs or surgical procedures are slowly declining. And this is obviously related to the popularity of TAVR. The important thing is that TAVR mortality is rapidly decreasing as far as 30-day mortality and also one-year mortality as shown here. And currently, the mortality at one-year hospital mortality is close to 1%, and as far as 30-day mortality is 2.3%, which is dramatically lower than in 2012 when it was significantly higher. As far as TAVR mortality is concerned for all patients, high and prohibitive risk patients and intermediate risk patients, as well as low risk patients, we can see progressive decrease in mortality. This is particularly true for, as we can see, low-risk patients where the in-hospital mortality is 0.5% and 30-day mortality is 0.8%, but it's also true for other subgroup of patients as well. As far as median length of stay in the hospital is concerned, we can see that for low-risk patients it's one day, and for intermediate and high-risk patients it's two days, which is again dramatically lower than, let's say, 10 years ago. Now as far as discharge disposition is concerned, we can also see significant changes that have occurred in the last decade where the great majority of patients, more than 90% discharged to home, and significantly smaller number of patients need extended care and rehabilitation or nursing home, as we can see on the bottom image of this slide. The great majority of patients, 96% at the present time, are performed by a formal approach, and this is due to progress as far as technology is concerned and the use of lower profile devices that can accommodate even smaller femoral arteries and more diseased femoral arteries. So what are the opportunities to demonstrate benefits of less invasive tower? Now as far as less invasive tower is concerned, it's also called the least invasive tower or minimalist tower or fast-track tower. I would like to use the term of less invasive tower because as the technology progresses and we gain more expertise in the treatment of this condition, we will see even further progress. Number one, important aspect is to improve patient satisfaction. The second important aspect is to improve efficiency and also to reduce hospital expenditures. And how can we achieve that? We can achieve it by performing tower in the cardiac cath lab, which is less costly than the operating room, by using conscious sedation or MAC, and also percutaneous approach for femoral artery access. It's also important that post-procedural monitoring should be done in less costly environment such as the elementary floor rather than costly ICU or recovery room, and our goal is to reduce the length of stay to 24 hours. Now there is ample evidence in literature that to achieve this goal we should be able to demonstrate with less invasive tower protocol 30-day death and stroke of less than 3% and 30-day readmission to less than 10% and the need for 30-day pacemaker rate also to less than 10% and greater than a mild peri-vavilar leak of less than 4%. Now at our institution we wanted to evaluate our experience with less invasive tower. This study was initiated to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in patient population that satisfied the accepted sapien XT, sapien III, Everlett-R, and Everlett-Pro tower inclusion and exclusion criteria. Our what we call Texas Heart Institute less invasive tower study is a retrospective and non-randomized single center study that was performed by seven Texas Heart Institute operators that are listed here. All procedures were performed at our cardiac cath labs at our institution. The study period was from November 2015 to December 2021. The less invasive tower protocol was considered as a procedure that was performed with conscious sedation or MAC, local anesthesia and again percutaneous approach and repair using current generation femoral artery closure devices. As we can see here as far as our tower protocol is concerned it's important to take into consideration all the aspects pre-procedure which is screening which we call a plan for success. The patient should be evaluated whether they're suitable for tower, whether it's the satisfied criteria for femoral artery access and closure with current generation closure devices, whether they're suitable and willing to undergo local anesthesia or MAC and conscious sedation. And obviously we wanted to exclude patients with anatomic contraindications and patients that had serious core morbid conditions that would require prolonged hospitalization. During the hospitalization and during the procedure our goal is to minimize complications by performing the procedure in cardiac cath lab to reduce the cost and also to be able to perform transfemoral or TAVR by a percutaneous approach and no folly, no NG tube, no radial line or no central line and no TEE would be performed therefore the procedures were performed by trans-terrastic echo. Post procedure our goal is also to minimize the length of hospital stay, the use of a standard approach as far as medications are concerned with clopidogrel and aspirin transferred to a regular intramational floor rather than ICU or recovery room and encourage the patient for early ambulation and the diet and our goal is always to discharge the patient within 24 hours of the procedure. Here we can see as far as devices were used in this study it was sapien XT, sapien 3 and evolut R and Pro as we can see the great majority of procedures were performed by sapien valves, sapien XT and sapien 3 and roughly 12 to 13 percent were performed by evolut R and evolut Pro. We divided the patients in two groups to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the less invasive protocol and we can see there were 593 patients included in the percutase approach and general anesthesia and 561 patients in less invasive TABR protocol which used the MAC or carcin sedation as we can see there were no significant differences in those groups because this was propensity matched groups that were included in this study as we can also see a small number of patients 0.3 in the percutase and general anesthesia group and 0.5 percent in less invasive TABR group were valve in valve procedures. Now as far as other patient characteristics are concerned we can see that again there was no difference between two groups as far as gender is concerned or mean age is concerned or STS score is concerned. Other patient characteristics again are listed here for two groups and as we can see there were no significant differences as far as incidence of coronary disease, previous bypass surgery, previous intervention, previous AVR, ejection fraction and many other parameters are concerned. As far as procedural outcomes are concerned between two groups we can see significant differences as far as total procedure time, total room time, need to transfer to the limetry and need to transfer to ICU which was dramatically lower in a group with less invasive TABR protocol. As far as the procedural success is concerned there was no difference between two groups and procedural success was 100 percent. As far as procedural and post-procedural complications are concerned the need for conversion to general anesthesia in less invasive TABR was only 1.2 percent, the hospital mortality was not different, the hospital mortality was significantly lower as we can see for less invasive TABR which was 0 and 10 percent for percutaneous TABR in general anesthesia and as far as other parameters are concerned as far as CVA, vascular complications and the need for a new pacemaker there was no significant difference. Also when we look at post-procedural outcomes as far as the length of a stay it was significantly shorter for less invasive TABR, home post-stop day 1 was again more common in less invasive TABR and there were no other significant differences as far as disposition to home, need for transfer to rehab floor or unit or transfer to a SNF or readmission at 30 days or mortality at 30 days is concerned. Now I wanted to share with you some of the information as far as our results are concerned and compare it with previously published data. One of the most recent studies that looked at the aspect of minimalist TABR or fast drag TABR or less invasive TABR is so called 3M study that included 14 leading institutions in North America, 441 patients were included in this study and this was published by Dr. Wood and associates in Jack cardiovascular intervention in 2019. Now one of their goals was to be able to see how many patients can be discharged 24 hours from the day of the procedure. Now when we look at parameters of importance with our less invasive TABR and 3M we can see there was no significant difference as far as SDS score is concerned, no significant difference in age and no significant difference as far as length of stays concerned. You have to remember that their criteria for a successful study was one day hospital stay. Another patient that had to stay longer were excluded from this study. As far as 30 day mortality is concerned we had slightly lower mortality of 0.9% in our study versus 1.5% in 3M study and as far as 30 day stroke rate is concerned there is no significant difference as far as 30 day readmission again no significant difference and the need for a base maker 30 day again there was no significant difference with slightly higher numbers in our study is concerned. Now there is also a huge STS-TVT registry some of the information I shared with you previously were almost 73,000 patients were included and the data was published in 2020 and we can see as far as all the parameters are concerned that our results fare better related to 30 day mortality and also stroke rate as well as other parameters particularly as far as 30 day need for permanent base maker is concerned. So in conclusion we can say that less invasive TABR can be performed safely and effectively improperly equipped cardiac cath lab using consternation or MAC and local anesthesia and femoral artery percutaneous approach. Uncomplicated patients with aortic stenosis post-TABR remain stable and ICU can be eliminated for most patients post-TABR and there is a low incidence of bleeding events as reported in numerous studies and also low incidence of neurological events and it is safe to monitor patients in a step down unit after TABR. In addition to that overall length of stay can be reduced with this approach and significant cost savings can be anticipated with less invasive TABR. However, this procedure should be only performed by an experienced team and our Texas Heart Institute fast-track study or less invasive study is a retrospective non-randomized single center study that obviously needs to be validated in a larger population of patients in a randomized controlled study. Thank you very much for your attention.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Rishabh and today we'll be discussing the IAAA report on Iran released on November 8th, 2011 regarding the implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement and Security Council resolutions in Iran. To discuss the issue, we have with us Prabir Purkayashta, who's been working on the nuclear proliferation issue for quite some time now. Welcome to the show, Prabir. Thank you. Now, prior to the release of the report, there was much scare mongering amongst media in both Israel and in the United States, suggesting that the IAA might have found a smoking gun in Iran. However, the report itself seems to suggest that the IAAA has found convincing proof that Iran is continuing to develop nuclear weapons. So, what is new in the report for the IAAA to have come to this conclusion? Rishabh, I think one of the more interesting aspects of the report that there does not seem to be anything new in this report that we haven't seen earlier. IAAA has been releasing reports from 2008, which contain much of what this report has said. And for the life of me, having gone through the report all the 25 pages, I have not been able to discover anything new except their talk about this bus-sized container in Parchin, which could conceivably have been used for what is called nuclear implosion testing, nuclear trigger testing, which doesn't involve actually any radioactive material of this kind of material. Interestingly, IAAA itself had some questions about Parchin much earlier. They have had inspections of Parchin done in 2005 twice and they didn't discover anything. So, if you look at all the statement that have come out of this IAAA report, I honestly have not found anything new. And this is almost the same conclusion that all the commentators who have looked at the reports seem to have come to that while the tone of the report has certainly changed from what the earlier reports were, but the content that is there apart from the language does not seem to be anything new. Sure. Now, the report has spent a considerable amount of time on building up the credibility of the intelligence that it is based on. Now, do you agree with the assessment that the information itself is credible? For example, you referred to the laptop of death that was found in 2005 and it appears most of the information in this report is again based on material found in that laptop. Has there been any change or any further evidence found to suggest that that information is credible? Now, this is again the most important element of the IAAA report because as you rightly said that it appears that this what they call the study document which is really what is that really the what's called the laptop of death is laptop of death because one Iranian supposedly physicist who was killed later is why have is supposed to have smuggled this out and handed over to the Turkish authorities. This is where the whole thing comes from. This is something in 2005. Even at that time it was held that this is really a plant that was done by the Israeli and American intelligence agencies. But looking at the 2005 laptop of death of the documentation which this time the IAAA seems to have given it credibility the two issues. One is why was this document held to be fraudulent and one of the major reasons for this it showed what is called the Shahab missile. It was shown that this missile had a certain shape and it did a certain what's called the nose cone. Now, that was known only in 2004 onwards that this nose cone had been changed by Iran and the design had changed and the earlier missile pictures that people had was with the nose cone which are which was of the of the North Korean origin. So, there was some documentary evidence to show that it wasn't something which the Iranians would have done after 2003 because that by the time the design itself of the nose cone had changed. So, if they are doing research after 2003 around that time then there is no reason why they should use something which already they had discarded. There is no particular reason why they should be using an older design for making a near reentry vehicle with a nuclear payload. So, there is there was that was one of the reasons why this is held to be something which had been planted. Now, people who have gone through the laptop of death their conclusion has been the following that they think that there is a lot of material which is obviously true which has been garnered from Iranian and other sources but they are really low level material which most of it pertaining to before 2003 and Iranians themselves have admitted that before 2003 they had an active program which is stopped after 2003 and this is also what the national intelligence agencies had come to as a conclusion in 2007 in the United States. So, there is really 2003 and before there is a lot of material which they could have easily used but the come up some of the things which they have shown which are really shows that Iran was involved in nuclear testing or developing weapons are really those which are the contested ones and there the dividend seems to be much too sketchy and it seems to be they could be easily planted particularly because of electronic documentation easy to change easy to fraud. So, that is really the reason why up to 2008 till al-Baraday was there there was the IAA never accepted this documents to be the basis of the reports they did produce that there was this allegations but that themselves were rather skeptical about it and this is one of the divisions which seem to have been there in IAA. So, it is a little surprising that in 2011 they have suddenly said that they now have started believing in the laptop of death because of more material having been given by 10 member states and obviously two of them are really Israel and the United States which again means that it is it is really quantity rather than the quality of information that they have based themselves on. Absolutely. So, now in the report itself then have they found any particular or specific evidence of breach of any of the Security Council resolutions or of the IAA resolutions. For example, have they found that uranium is being diverted from research purposes or from other genuine purposes to nuclear programs or for example, have they have also the IAA has also commented on how new facilities have come up in the last few years without this being reported or without further information being given to the IAA on this as is required under law. You know there again there are two sets of issues over there. IAA Board of Governors and Security Council resolution said that you cannot enrich fuel. Iran does not accept it because it says I have the right under NPT to enrich fuel. I do not will not do it to weapons grade and it is completely under safeguard and IAA has very clearly said no diversion is taking place. There is the small amount of 20 kilos which are somehow the inventory has not been reconciled but even IAA has not made a major issue out of it. So, one is no diversion is taking place and IAA has really said that clearly I think in the say Clause 52 of the report. Is there any way for the IAA to actually know if there is diversion? Because there are safeguards, they are all safeguarded fuels, they have or they are continuing with the safeguarding safeguards program. So, IAA inspectors are there and each part of the nuclear inventory the fissile material or the uranium enrichment program all the inventories are being monitored by IAA. So, IAA is actually certified even in this report in I think as I said Clause 52 the diversion has not taken place. So, that is that is there. The other part of it the violation of security council resolution of costs because they are still continuing to enrich what they claim for peaceful purposes and they have IAA agrees that till now it is only for peaceful purposes that is going on. The second set of question is when you said they have not certified, they have not notified IAA of certain things which they are supposed to for new facilities. Now, that goes into what is called the additional protocol. Now, additional protocol has not been ratified by Iran as well as by a large number of countries. So, Iran is not the only one who has not ratified the additional protocol, it is really NPT's additional protocol which would put a lot more restrictions than the ones which NPT had put. Interestingly, United States itself ratified the additional protocol somewhere around 2008 or 2008 or 2009 around that time and essentially I if I remember correctly with the Hyde Act. So, if you really look at it this is something which a number of countries still they have not ratified or have accepted. So, therefore for Iran to be held in breach of something they have not been they have not ratified. It is not an obligation. Is something which is very strange for IAA to say they can say yes but they have to also admit that the Security Council has asked them to ratify. It is one of the things that the Security Council has asked them to ratify but Iran is under law, international law is not bound to ratify it and therefore they cannot be held in violation of something they have not ratified. Absolutely. The report essentially indicates that Iran has not conclusively proved that it is not developing nuclear weapons. Now, is there a standard of proof required here for the IAA? For example, the IAA itself in its report has called on Iran to engage with the agency to engage in all outstanding issues to exclude the existence of military dimensions to the program. Is this fair? I think this is something which is almost impossible to prove. To prove that you have not done something. The proof something, the absence of something is almost impossible. You can only prove the presence of something. So, I think this in fact what it reminds me is an impossible standard. It is impossible standard and also very much the WMD reputation which was done in Iraq. Iraq was always asked to prove before the invasion that they do not have WMDs and in fact the western commentators all said that this is very easy to do. Just tell us where the WMDs are and then dismantle them and that is the only proof we will accept. So, the only way Iran can accept and prove that they are not doing anything by showing that they have done something and say now we have proceeded to dismantle it and even then they would say well how much else are you hiding? So, in a certain sense this is a standard of proof I think which is impossible. So, why do you think that the IAA is actually risking its credibility at this point of time? I mean what has you keep referring to the fact that there has been a change in scenario since 2008 and since Baraday designed or quit left as a head of the IAA. What has actually changed in the political scenario to cause the IAA to come out with a report like this? Why has the tenor of the report changed? I think the change of director general has made all the difference. If you remember IAA when it was headed by Baraday whatever he might have played footsie with the US and which he did partially but he held out for instance when IAA was thought to be used as an instrument of US policy on Iraq he held out and said we do not believe there are WMDs in Iraq we also believe that we have dismantled the program yes we could do more inclusive inspections but we do not think that they have WMDs. So, he did not really participate in the US campaign on Iraq WMDs or the western campaign against WMDs in Iraq. When it comes to Iran under Baraday they had raised questions they had done a certain set of things they had resolved a set of things with Iran they were critical of Iran but nevertheless they did not go out on a limb and say yes I think they are doing nuclear weapons I think that was an important issue. So, while as I said they were willing to play part of the game they didn't really go whole hog in fact that Iran was referred to the security council itself is not something which which I was really fair on in my view I think that really did play American game in some sense part of it but here under director general Amano the current Japanese director general of IAA I think this completely tipped over to becoming completely instrument of American policy. Now, if you look at the WikiLeaks which came cable which came where the American diplomats had met Amano and he's openly said that he's in their camp. So, why at this point of time do you see this report then as the start of an internet again of greater international pressure on Syria Iran so on and so forth to again leading to sanctions the greater sanctions possibly war in an unlikely scenario why now? I would suspect that this is really playing out to American policy needs and Amano has really in that sense succumbed completely to it if not was in on from the very beginning. So, that is one part of it why now I think the US wants to ratchet up the pressure on Iran and of course on Syria as well I think it's got a mold and by what has successfully has been engineered in Libya the fact the Qaddafi is now gone. So, the two regimes which they really target in this region is now Iran and Syria these are the two for Israel these are the two really ones which stand out or hold out against the dominance of the region. So, in some sense the military dominance of Israel is guaranteed by their complete monopoly of nuclear weapons. If there's no monopoly of nuclear weapons and it's enough for Iran to have nuclear weapons capability it doesn't have to have nuclear weapons to upset this kind of complete dominance. So, I think what they are building up to now is a regime change in Iran regime change in Syria and the therefore the need to put much greater pressure on Iran and Syria and therefore the need for an IAE report which would go into that and play into the game of scratching up sanctions putting pressure on sanctions. Unfortunate part of it is IAE is not only damaged its credibility by a report which is really held to be unprofessional. In fact, one of the commentators have said that you are talking about explosion bridge wire detonators as being something which is largely for nuclear purpose is very few civilian purpose is not so. So, this unprofessional and that I think has damaged even the. No, in fact the report has been found to be factually incorrect on numerous occasions. For example, when it talks about an ex-soviet scientist who has worked on numerous nuclear military programs it turns out that the Soviet scientist actually worked only on nano diamonds and that is his pure area of expertise. So, clearly the report has jumped to conclusions in many, many parts. I would like to thank Probeer for coming in and discussing the IAE report on Iran's nuclear obligations. Hope to see you guys again on news click sometime soon.