This program is brought to you by cable franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you Good evening Governor breakers March 12th order suspending certain provisions in the open meeting law Allows us to hold this virtual town council meeting Given that we have a quorum of the council present. I am calling the February 8th 2021 meeting of the Amherstown Council to order at 631 Each councilor by name at that time they should unmute their mic and say present This will indicate that we can hear them and they can hear us Please remember to mute your mic after you say present the meeting is including video audio and is available live on Amherst media There is no chat room for this meeting if you have a technical issue, please let Athena or me know To make a comment or ask the question, please click raise hand button And if technical difficulties arise as a result of utilizing remote participation I will decide how to address the situation at the time Discussion may be suspended while we address technical issues and the minutes will note if the disconnection occurs Athena will be monitoring councilor's connections Starting tonight Excuse me Lindsey McConnell one of our current minute takers will take minutes for the council meeting And Athena will shift over to managing the Zoom Screen share and tech support Athena however will continue to record our motions and post those So with that I'm just going to call the council Uh, and I'm going to start with shallony ball mill present Thank you Alyssa Brewer present Pat d'Angelo's present Darcy DeMont here Lynn greece murr is present in mandy joe hannacky present Dorothy Pam present Evan Ross present George Ryan present Kathy Shane here Steve Schreiber here Andy Steinberg present Sarah Schwartz present Thank you Without much additional introductions, we're going to proceed To the announcements And we're going to show those on the screen And I just want to note a few changes or additions First of all the town services and outreach committee Athena are you ready? Thank you The town services and outreach committee meeting is now at five o'clock on february 11th That is a change to accommodate the next meeting Which is the joint capital planning committee meeting which is on Thursday also February 11th at five at seven o'clock And you'll note there's several district meetings one of which is rescheduled because of an unfortunate zoom bombing And that is district five and they will Hold that meeting again On february 13th from three to five Thank you. You can take the screen down. Thank you We're joined tonight by senator joe cumberford Representative Mindy dom And the a team from umass Headed up by deputy chancellor steve goodwin and john kennedy vice chancellor for university relations They're going to make a presentation about the opening of school Um vaccinations testing et cetera And in addition to that the town of amherst With paul bachlman emma dragon tim nelson and mary beth ogle winds ogle wits Will be making some additional presentation regarding vaccinations To the extent that we have time within this hour. We will take questions And but I will also tell you that we've received questions from the public and we have advanced those to umass So without further ado, I will call on john kennedy and we'll proceed Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, thank you dr. Griesler for uh inviting us to come and present to this group um I just want to say at the outset that we value deeply our uh collaborative relationship with the town And we benefited greatly from our regular town gone working group meetings to help mitigate the Factors related to the pandemic paul bachlman emma dragon Campus leaders in public health and our public health promotion center and that group as well as senator comford and Representative dom I also want to say that we need regularly and coordinate regularly with the state department of health and health and human services To coordinate our response to the pandemic um It could you advance to the next slide? Uh, we're joined tonight by a group of my colleagues Some of whom will present some are here merely to answer questions that they come up in their particular areas So just if you'll go on to the next slide. I want to give you um The next slide Okay, so just give you a sense of um, how we got to where we are so You know our our planning process throughout the fall was to figure out a way to begin to repopulate the campus in a way that was safe In a way that served our educational mission and to be clear that we are an immersive residential campus in the living learning Uh environment is is our core business our core mission And um, we know that the living learning environment is really um a key element in student success, especially first year students The the residential experience where they're learning with their peers and in person Is a key part of student retention and progress toward degree and success as well And in addition to that a large portion of our students our first generation or low income and um The campus environment really contributes to their well-being and their success and we found in the course of the pandemic Uh, you know reports from students who are in isolation and we're learning remotely taking a toll on On on their mental health as well and we standing up services to serve those students as well So we want so it was important to us to Again try to transition back to what our core mission is to serve our students So, um, we the the the plan we had for this spring anticipated Uh, the ability to bring back about 60 of our residential students that that is uh 14 000 students we house on campus 60 was based on um Again an extensive assessment of what facilities would be needed how they could be supported through testing What sort of quant quarantine and isolation facilities might be available only about 40 of the uh of the On-campus usual on-campus population took us up on that. So we have right now about 5300 students living on campus and that includes RAs 3100 of those students are first years and then a total of Roughly 6 000 students enrolled in face-to-face classes labs and studios Which means that some of the in-person are also off-campus students. So we go to the next slide, please Um, we've been set up 7100 students living in Amherst and Pelham 5500 of those are undergraduate students 1600 graduate students grads graduate students in many cases tend to be year-round So that 5500 undergraduate students Isn't much different from what we saw in the fall and we've um Been able to do a much better job of sort of tracking their Um, uh, residencies and their addresses During this period. So that's sort of the status where we are in terms of student population and where they are If we'll go to the next slide I just sort of talk about how we got to the current situation and and the steps we're taking to deal with it Next slide So, uh, okay, so we appear to be missing a slide. I apologize. So I'll just Lay this out for you. So from oh, there we are. Okay From February 2nd that so we brought students back A week prior in the weeks prior to courses beginning on February 1st And there was a Jeff and and becker can talk about the onboard testing that was done to ensure that they were You know, everyone was self-safe and healthy students were quarantined before classes began And it wasn't until the first week of classes from February 2nd to 4th that we saw a surge in positivity rates on campus by late last week. We got to about 298 positive tests Which resulted in our decision to Change what we call the operational posture of the campus from guarded to elevated And you can take a look at all this. It's on our websites, but elevated essentially meant that we were that we made a decision to significantly Clamp down on activities on campus. So it meant No student gatherings whatsoever the dining halls would remain closed Even though we were eventually planning to open them for in For seated dining the rec center would remain closed as well and a host of number Host of an additional restrictions were put in place Throughout the day on Friday the numbers were still ticking up on saturday, we got together with Secretary Sutter's health and the human services secretary and a number of officials from the state department of public health Town officials paul bachem and an m over in that meeting Discussed and laid out what the situation was on campus by late saturday We realized with the elevated numbers That we really had no choice but to even Ramp up the risk level even higher. So sunday morning We announced that the campus operational posture was going to go from elevated to high and high Is really quite an extensive set of restrictions that come down on campus and the measures implemented meant that we've suspended all in-person classes Transition everything to remote all students on campus are offered required to self sequester meaning they need to stay in their Students are only allowed out twice Week for their twice weekly cova testing to get food or or for medical necessity And we made it very clear to students and we'll continue to make clear to students that failure to comply will result in disciplinary action It could include removal from the residence halls. It could include suspension, etc We also suspended all campus athletic competitions and practices and and these The situation is in effect for a minimum of 14 days so february 21st is the earliest that Some of the restrictions here could be lifted But they will only be lifted if the public health situation improves significantly So this is a pretty major Well, a very major step that we've taken in order to Get a hold of this surge we've had in positive cases And again these moves were made in consultation with state officials We've again been Collaborative with paul bachmann and emma in there in emma drager and their staff But we could want to continue to work very closely with them as we move forward So with that, um, that's the current status of where we are I'm going to hand it over to steve goodwin who's going to talk about How we make the data informed decisions that we do in what our approaches from an epidemiological perspective So if we go to the next slide and steve goodwin will take it from here Thanks john and um, especially thanks to the council for this opportunity this time couldn't be more timely This is exactly the right time for us to be having this conversation. So thank you all What I want to do with my two minutes is to essentially talk about the process that led to those decisions and actions that john just described to you Um very early on in the pandemic the chancellor put together public health response team and that team consists of the director of public health on the campus and becker And the director of environmental health and safety jeff heshcock who together form the public health promotion center that's really been responsible for the management of COVID-19 responses on our campus and both of them Both of those two individuals are on the call tonight and will be able to also Provide you with additional information and answer Questions that public health response team has been meeting daily for um almost nine months now And essentially what it does is it looks at the public health situation both on the campus and off the campus And based on their assessment Um Makes recommendations for our campus actions. So in addition to jeff and an on that team We have two professional epidemiologists who are on our faculty We have the director of university health services as well who has extensive experience and infectious disease We also have two participants one from student Um affairs and campus life and one from university relations who help with the communications to make sure that there's a two-way flow And that one hand knows what the other hand is doing So it's a team that's been together for a very long time evaluating the situation Based on our experiences in the fall and the experiences of some other universities as well We put together that set of operational postures It's been referred to and that is available on our website essentially those operational postures give Four different risk levels for the campus depending on the assessment of the public health situation And also the options for campus responses in each of those four levels. So, um Just last week There was a very steep rise in the number of cases and by steep I mean extremely steep. There was nothing gradual about it There was a very sharp rise in the number of cases That the public health response team made an immediate recommendation to the campus that we should go to elevate it As john just described to you the campus did in fact Adopt that posture and at the same time we contacted the town of amherst both emma dragon and paul bachelman To let them know about the situation and we contacted the mess juices department of public health So that we've made sure everybody could start to participate in thinking about the appropriate responses to the situation that existed um On friday paul had some conversations with the secretary of health and human services the chancellor had some one-on-one Conversations i had some one-on-one conversations and we decided that the best approach would be to have that meeting on saturday Where we could bring the state contact traces together with the appropriate people in In the department of public health and Health and human services as long along with getting input from amherst the town of amherst itself in order to Decide what would be the best practices moving forward the campus did decide in fact as john said to move to elevate it Excuse me to move to high risk and to put in the additional restrictions that That he's described and so i think that um That we have a very we had a very good place to in order to make these decisions I think we've made a good series of decisions and i think we'll use the same um response team as we decide where we are as time progresses and so what we'd like to do is give a little sense of Exactly where we think we are right now in terms of testing quarantine and isolation contact tracing and vaccination and i think i'm going to pass it over to uh jeff next to talk a little about um testing Great. Thanks. If you go to next slide, please Uh next slide And one more please Great. All right. Good afternoon. Uh, good evening everyone. Hope everyone is doing well So as uh john and steve kind of alluded to we started welcoming back students actually in mid january that included our residential RAs and and peer mentors and we started our on campus welcome back to campus kind of quarantine What that meant was individuals would come to the mullen center To get their keys as also getting their cove in 19 tests And then they were told to basically self sequester Um in their dorm room until they got two negative tests So they would just do grab and go for days one through four or actually one through five They would come get tested on day four and then upon their day five tests You know Then they were eight they would be eligible to then go to in-person classes and then go eat in the dining halls Obviously, we have continued uh grab and go but that was the two big factors in terms of allowing the on-campus quarantine was um Two negative tests within five days and then that would allow them to go to in-person classes or go to grab and go Our onboarding tests and our percentage was very low. You know, I mean it was uh approximately about one percent So in terms of the onboarding testing, um much lower than the state rate And as john and steve kind of alluded to kind of last week was when we started to see a rise in cases You know, we did approximately 17 000 tests last week and our campus positivity rate was about 2.4 or 6 Uh, the states was approximately 3.1 if you want to go to the next slide, please So during this time we've had a pro uh 406 positive cases during that time as you can see 399 of them are students and seven of them are staff The one thing I just want to express is that we've not seen any transmission from students to employees During this, you know, and this is part of kind of social distancing and mask wearing that that we've seen on campus You know, you'll hear a little bit later But what what we are seeing is we you know is some of the students are not following some of the social distancing and mask wearing measures And that's where this enhanced posture where we've gone to to elevate continue to elevate is We'll continue to reinforce that message when when we've been putting together since day one If you want to go to the next slide, please So if you can see the split, it's rough. It's roughly the same about 208 on campus 191 positive tests 191 off campus You know as folks know, you know through the fall semester as we come through the spring semester We have one of the largest asymptomatic testing centers Not only in the commonwealth, but in the country So in terms of the testing, you know, the twice a week all students are getting It doesn't matter if you live on campus if you live off campus attending classes or not attending classes So this large asymptomatic testing center, you know has been able to identify these positive cases And then we're working extremely closely with mass department of public health We also have an extensive contact tracing team and coordinate Um isolation and quarantine team and as through last week progressed, you know, obviously we started working more with dph And they've helped to assist us through the contact tracing collaborative On assisting us with the off-campus student case investigations We're primarily focusing on the on-campus case investigations and they're assisting us during the increased cases with the off-campus one So that again shows the partnership continuing to do there with the commonwealth if you can go to the next slide, please So as we continue to work, you know closely on this, you know as kind of the three-legged stool I would say it's testing it's contact tracing and then it's isolation Quarantine, which is the last component of this. So again, we offering space on, you know On campus as part of when we were doing this from the fall Continuing here to the spring which includes three free meals a day in our location We've continued to add to our isolation and quarantine location and spaces here on campus to support our mechanism in terms of The increase cases that we've seen to be able to support those students, you know, we've strongly encouraged Really not wanting to them go home, but we want them to stay here from that perspective We want them to stay, um, you know in our location so they can isolate and quarantine and not go home during this time So that's something we've been strongly messaging We send them specific guidance and documents about corn Quarantine and isolation, you know, which of this is even above and beyond of what dph sends because there's particular information in there about academics Following our protocols again with the dean of students office from that reach from that perspective I'd also say from the fall with the spring semester as we talked about, you know From the team that we've continued to increase that includes testing You know, you'll hear from in in a second to talk about the community testing and vaccines That we're also doing as part of this But from that three-legged stool I referred to of testing Contact tracing and isolation and quarantine we continue to during the fall winter Getting ready for the spring semester as increase our staffing to be able to support um our campus so from a preparedness standpoint kind of we're there in terms of Of working closely with the state and the town On this increase in cases and as we continuing to work together in terms of you know, our contact tracing And then the isolation and quarantine getting them isolated and quarantine as fast as we can You know, we're going to bring down the cases Immensely, you know quickly is is what we're working on Diligently every day every night from that perspective. So with that I'll pass it over to you and to talk a little bit more about community tech testing and vaccinations Thank you. Next slide, please and and next slide So we are um feel it's such a great privilege that uh sometime in uh, november Our testing center at the mullen site Was able to expand our on-campus testing asymptomatic testing Into the community and we were able to do that this because Our aisles department Actually stood up a clinical laboratory. We call it ic tc Because of that we were able to offer testing to our community members We've done it since uh, december or third week of november And we've now conducted about 14 000 tests since the community testing opened We took a pause for a week while we were onboarding our students as jeff referred to And now we're open three days a week By appointment only And we can plan to continue offering this throughout the semester Next slide, please As part of the um jeff referred to the three legged stool We've turned our three legged stool into a of tuba chair and the fourth prong is vaccination um, so we have testing We have isolation and quarantine and we have um The contact tracing and now we've started our vaccination We're starting week four We began uh in january with the Um first responder clinics and we've been doing vaccination clinics that are open We're designated as a regional vaccination vaccination site From the state uh department of health. We were um working closely with health and human services on this And uh, we have been providing vaccinations now From all of phase one and we are really thrilled to be now into phase Two step one, which is the 75 and oldest as Just as emma has been doing in the town. We're also doing it So we've so far as of the close of last week. We have conducted 4 000 vaccinations and um, we have over 1700 vaccinations planned This week we have a clinic going on currently. This is mostly dose two today and uh Tuesday, wednesday and thursday of this week. We have filled appointments for dose two and dose one for over 75 and um, we are Staffing these clinics and I just need to give a shout out to our students and um our contact racers These are public health students. These are nursing students. These are student emt's who are giving back to the community They are happy. They are joyous to be working and doing these these community Contributions, especially the vaccinations. They're just uh, the students are lining up to be able to Work at them with us and to start Mitigating the effects of this pandemic And I think that's our last slide. Yes Is it? Yep, I'm up next. Next slide please So you can go to the next slide as well So I'm going to talk a little bit about um, the continued work that we're doing in partnership With many of the folks that are here. Um, we have long-standing relationships with amherst police amherst fire inspection services Town hall, you know, it runs the gamut and so we're very much in partnership with our off-campus outreach and education in particular And we take a really multifaceted approach So I'm going to tell you a little bit about some of the ways we're Strategically reaching our off-campus students. This is not by any means an inclusive list But sort of gives you a general sense of the strategy and the multiple ways that we're addressing Our communities that live off campus. Um, and then I'll turn it over to um, de neville and ashley We'll talk a little bit more about the pandemic directives and expectations So, um, one of the most critical pieces of our outreach involves students So we know that students are often the most effective communicators with their peers in terms of accountability Responsibility and sharing the message of good public health behaviors So we're continuing to engage our team positive presence. They are the folks in the bright blue jackets that you'll see down Down at moan center And you'll see them at least not at the present time But last semester you probably saw them in your neighborhood With some of us and the peer health ambassador network who are doing some of the work They're also working remotely So I would add to that list that we are actively engaging with student government association as well as our fraternity and sorority leadership councils as they're heavily and increasingly getting invested in Um, sort of having some peer to peer accountability and standards For for their behavior within chapters Um, we also do a series of direct emails to off campus students from off campus student life So for this weekend, for example specific messages around living in community resources Places to get Food delivered, you know, while that you're uh self sequestering and that sort of thing being a good neighbor um And we're able to segment and target those specifically to our off campus students And i'm really proud that I have very high red rates and open rates on my emails Um, so that tells me that there's they find relevance in what we're sharing, which is great We meet every monday at one o'clock with our first responders from the town of amherst sunderland and hadley And our conduct staff our um student engagement university relations inspection services and we share sort of what happened over the weekend what we're might be anticipating For the upcoming week We share incidents reports sort of strategically problem solve. It's been a longstanding relationship. That's really critical to sharing information keeping our eyes open and ears open and having um Travelling the appropriate follow-up there We have been meeting weekly with our greek house directors So those are the adult professionals that manage the zone chapter houses are our 11 in amherst only 10 of them are occupied at the present time Um, but we meet on a weekly basis with them To check in on their pandemic policies to check in on how things are going to set expectations answer questions that sort of thing You probably have seen team positive presence at the mullen center. They're pretty welcome face down there They've been highly active since the beginning of the spring semester as well Um, just last week they were down there on monday tuesday and thursday There was snow in the midst of that so they cancelled one day and just for a point of Importance they interacted with almost 3,500 people Just directing people into the appropriate line, whether it's the community testing side or the university testing side answering questions making sure people are keeping distance and um, you know, sort of just being a friendly face Um as as people are there. So we will be continuing that um outreach and presence It's also another opportunity to give just in time information So we share things about governor's directives and that sort of thing We have um continued to do our our great work with uh addressing tenant neighbor and landlord issues particularly in some of the communities where there may be Um rental properties next to permanent residents So we've done that proactively with bill larry from the police department and john thompson and inspections We've done those in person. Uh, sometimes at mill river. We'll set up over there and socially distant. It's been wonderful We've had some great meetings there and we also extend those to do zoom and we found that doing those in a zoom setting Everybody's available. Everybody's at home and you can really have a good conversation. So we'll be continuing that Our walk and talk with winston the the ever famous comfort dog And bill larry, um, we're there was a just on hold obviously for the present time given our our status But we're looking forward to a nice spring where we can go out and continue to do Our neighborhood presence interacting with our residents and students And um, we have great collaboration from our apartment communities. Um, we have Shared all the public health messaging from our from the university campaign We distribute masks for them to give to tenants. We share all the university communication That is going to our students with them And find them to be tremendous partners So, um, the last thing I might add to this is that We are actively advising and working with our our student leaders around how they might engage in Helping to spread the word within their own social networks. So, uh, we're pretty excited about that I think that's all I got And so now I think it's evelin is next here next line. Thank you Thanks, sally. So I'll I'll give a little bit of information about our pandemic directives and expectations. Um, next slide So this semester rather than the community agreement that we asked students to sign I'm at the beginning of the fall we implemented an interim pandemic policy That allows us to Um better identify where our students are actually living because we have requested that they provide us Their physical address. It also allows us to track violations that are specific to the pandemic policy to be able to better hold students accountable for specific violations related to not wearing their mask or the Back to campus quarantine that we asked students to participate in Next slide So you can see that from the beginning of the year We have had referrals to the office of student conduct and community standards We've had 354 to be exact As of friday of last week 332 of those are students who reside on campus Um, those referrals have come to us from a variety of places Mostly from our resident assistants who are living in the halls with our students Um, for those students who are referred, um, they have received a behavioral notice letting them know that they need to make sure that they are participating or behaving in the way that we expect that they would behave Um, we have seen very few Um, students who have had repeat behavior from the from receiving a behavioral notice From those students who have been repeat offenders. We have followed up with them and Issued the appropriate sanctions Um, next slide Some of the sanctions that we have imposed this semester Have included a suspension removal from on-campus housing housing probation or A reprimand. Um, this is something that we do take very seriously And we want our students to know that we are serious about making sure that we are Maintaining the health and safety of all of our students And sometimes that does mean removing some students from our community in order to be able to to do that So, um, we have taken those steps when it has been necessary One of the things that we are also doing is when we do have to remove someone from campus. We are able to engage Parents or family members or others who support our students to ensure that when a student is required to leave campus That they are actually leaving campus and and going back to Their home so that they are not becoming a problem in the community So, um, we are trying to make sure that we take steps to ensure the health and safety of everyone That is on campus at this point With that john, I will turn it back over to you. Okay. We'll just go to the next slide then and I promise We're wrapping this up here. We just wanted to thank you for taking the time to Hear our um the steps that we're taking and again, we're committed to the collaboration with the town And uh, if you want more information about the work that we're doing, um, you can go to our website www.umass.edu Slash spring has the spring plan has information about Our operational postures and I think probably of most interest to many of you will be our dashboard which shows you what the Case level is. Um, so with that we've concluded our portion of the presentation and I'll kick it back to you, Lynn Thank you. Uh, paul. I'm going to have you and the team from the town Proceed immediately As soon as we get your slides up Okay, sure. So well, Athena does that and paul bakerman com manager and uh, Emma dragon, who's our health director who's been working Literally day and night seven days a week like many of us on this call have been doing So just thank her for the work that she's doing along with all the other team And she's going to really walk through uh this slide deck so it can go to the next slide Athena Emma Hi, Emma dragon new health director. Um, and and I thank you paul for for noting that I know So many of us are working around the clock, but it's meaningful work and it works that It's work that has to be done for our community So here we can see the current amherst case counts as of this morning This we had 467 active cases and amherst 22 new cases since yesterday for a cumulative amount Of 1514 cases, uh, which does reflect the significant increase of 334 cases in the past five days Next slide Here we can see a visual of a little graph. I love These that kind of show that sharp Increase that I know john kennedy spoke about earlier with the recent increase in cases next slide and We did have that meeting on saturday with state legislatures from the department of public health As well as secretary setters many on the umass a team that are here tonight myself and paul bachelman In addition to the efforts that umass has noted that they are putting in place We felt very strongly to help assure The public health firm community that we needed to take additional community public health action In response to that we did an emergency board of health order That will reinstate and has reinstated the early closure that was expired on january 25th To reinstate that certain businesses will close by 9 30 p.m. Each night Which is due to Due to which was due to expire, but is being extended until it is rescinded and then to continue the 25 capacity limits for sector businesses um at 25 percent until otherwise rescinded we Know that transmission is due to exposure. So if we are able to D densify and help encourage these students to be in compliance With the directives of the university Then we can help assure public health mitigation efforts next slide And this is the phase that we are in currently for vaccine Uh, I know am vecker talked about how nice it is to be entering phase two with those Individuals age 75 and older. I just want to echo that we have had a great time this past week welcoming those individuals that are in that first phase two category and really Sharing the joy with them in their moment for many of these individuals they have not really been out of their home and into the community and been with Others for for quite some time almost a year now and being able to share An inclusive moment with them cheering them on with being here in the community And celebrating this next day of stage of vaccine Administration, especially here in western mass has been really grateful for me and has helped fill my cup next slide So here we can just kind of see what we have done on at our town of amherst site for vaccines on the local level I just like to say we have gone from a very small health department with myself Jennifer brown as the public health nurse and part time administrative assistant To a robust team of volunteer support working alongside our fire department I just want to thank chief homestead chief nelson and Assistant chief homestead for their assistance with helping our paramedics work alongside us Partner sharing with the school nurses on this and countless other community volunteers that have Joined us at the table to help be able to distribute vaccines To this date We have distributed 2000 over a little bit over 2000 vaccines in just three weeks And I think that's just an amazing thing to note that we have been able to do on a on a small local public health level next slide And going forward we will be continuing to have clinics Many ask when will we be posting dates for those clinics availability? One of the things that we really want to be assured of is that if anyone signs up for a clinic that we're going to have Those doses available for them I think many of us know how limited the capacity and availability is a vaccine going forward we are working with our legislatures senator cumberford and and representative dome and others to Bring vaccine here to western mass So we do hope that by the end of february we'll be able to have 3500 shots in arms about And also Yes, UMass serves as that regional site. They are doing an amazing job as well And we just really help direct people to them When we don't have availability here at our site as well next slide And for more information you can continue to look at our amherstcovid19.org Back front slash vaccine site You can can advise individuals that might have questions or need help registering on our town site to our covet concerns hotline at four one three two five nine two four two five Individuals that live our seniors that live in amherst and pelham can reach out to our senior center at four one three two five nine three oh six oh Or if they live outside of our communities They can be help directed back to their local senior centers that'll be able to help them sign up And individuals can also email our covet concerns email if they have any questions for sign up and vaccine availability Next slide I think that's it. Yeah, so I just want to note one thing um to conclude. So thank you emma. Yeah This has been uh Really audacious process, but over the weekend we did coordinate with our neighboring towns of sunderland and hadley. So they are both Putting forward the same kind of restrictions that the town of amherst has And so it's really good to pull them together and to respond as a region To the spike that we're seeing Among our student residents right now So that concludes our report Great i'm going to start off with a couple questions. I know we have coming from the audience One goes to umas amherst and it is to ask will people continue to be able to get shots On umas amherst campus and where is that happening? Go ahead. Yes So this so yes the vaccine clinic testing set uh the vaccine clinic and the community testing center are both open Um, and we want everybody to continue to schedule their appointments as part of it The vaccine clinic is located in the basement of the campus center auditorium And they can park in the garage and they'll get a free parking voucher Thank you um second question again, this goes to you mass If you read the collegiate you would feel that there was one fraternity that particularly caused a lot of the outbreak Could you speak to that speak to the investigation into that and how you will make that transparent to the public? Could I could I start with this and then maybe evelyn Could take it from there um the the collegian story Was very concerning to us no question about it, but that I think Sort of exemplifies one of the challenges we have because the sources in the collegiate sort were all anonymous Right so getting evidence upon which we can act as a real challenge And that is uh, you know also raises the issue of How we've tried to take an edge or of an educational approach with regard to student violations because we need cooperation So Evelyn do you want to update folks on where that is? Oh, we did one other thing I want to be clear on is that there's I think ben a sense that You know there was one singular super spreader event that got us to this point All the evidence that we've seen is that it's that's in fact not the case That these were smaller sort of casual interactions that got us here But anyway, I'm going to hand it over to Evelyn to sort of give us a little more on that Thank you for sharing that John. I appreciate you you talking about the fact that we Are using the data to inform our our processes um for the Fraternity that has been named the they We have taken action to be able to investigate the claims that have been made about the fraternity having a party So the staff in the office of student conducting community standards are investigating that there is a process that has to Take it's run its course. So they will investigate And then if it's necessary, we will make sure that if they are found responsible Then there will be sanctions that the fraternity does have to comply with as far as the transparency piece is concerned It is it's our our process to share what we're able to as far as what we find Um, and what the outcome of the our investigation is So could I just add one thing to that Lynn? So, um, because I've been guilty of this myself a few times where I've kind of reacted to uh rumor I heard or a piece I might have seen or even video And multiple times it turned out not to be Correct. And so I think it had given process a little bit of time To um play forward it is important the other thing I I just want to say because she's put so much herculean effort into this Is it and I spent an a huge amount of time working with fraternities and sororities on the educational side on the um But also on a fairly strong Um response back when there has been inappropriate behavior including interactions with the nationals Who can then put pressure back on the fraternities and sororities themselves? So I think there's there's a two prong approach both the investigations But also continuing to work with those Um organizations to try to improve behaviors Well before I go to councillor comments and questions. I'm going to just note that there are 79 people in the audience So this is an extremely well attended meeting With that counselors have also been gathering questions from their constituents and I'm going to turn to george ryan first Thank you, lin um two very quick questions if you will Um the first actually comes from a constituent. It's really addressed to you mass Has to do with apparently the university does not Test positives a second time And apparently the world health organization recommends that to avoid Getting false positives. So a question Why does the university not test uh positive the second time just to ensure that? the second In my experience already just today where students are congregating Understandably, I can certainly sympathize with them is health clubs And I'm wondering what advice and help you can offer to the folks in those situations Students are coming to the health clubs And uh, they're UMass students What advice help can you offer them? What are they supposed to do? They feel sort of between a rock and a hard place So a question about false positives question about in particular about health clubs and and the role that putting small business people or staff In situation of being enforcers. What help can we give them? What advice? Do you want John you want to start? Yeah on the I'll start with the second one first. Um, you know, we we would encourage any folks who have You know anything to report about student conduct to let us know Uh dean of students office and other entities and then we can follow up Um, but you know, we need concrete information to to act upon because you know, we're we're we're limited in our ability to Uh police and enforce beyond the borders of the campus. So we need the collaboration with the community Um, I don't know if uh, I just do the positive. Yeah. So first of all, George, it's nice to see you It's been a very long time since I've seen you so um, I would say we're um We want to use our resources most efficiently We're less worried about false positives because even if it's a false positive We're still taking the same public health measures in terms of isolation and follow-up with close contacts We're actually more concerned with false negatives because those are With those are potentially infected individuals who are slipping through the analysis And so that's why we went to twice a week testing to try to minimize the impact of false negatives Mandy Jo Hanneke, please Thank you. Um, two questions. I think most of these are actually directed more towards our public health director. Um Number one Maybe this one's a umass one. Are we sequencing the umass positive cases? mainly to determine since there was quite an explosion all at once if this Explosion is related to any of the more contagious variants Including the ones from the uk and south africa and other Locations, are we going to be able to find that out at some point? Um, and then the second one is in the fall we found out that umass clusters when contact trace didn't really involve community members Um, non-student community members. Let me let me rephrase that Because because our students are community members. Um, but and so I guess my question is When we're contract tracing this entire cluster or multiple clusters as it were Um, are the resulting quarantines or the close contacts of the students that are testing positive involving non-students or non-umass affiliated individuals? Um, and I ask that because it didn't happen in the past and we're seeing a whole lot different Um response to this cluster. I'll be it's a lot larger than we did in the fall in terms of community um crackdowns I'll go ahead and answer the variant portion of that question and then and can probably pick up on the contact tracing So one of the very good things that came out of the saturday meeting Was an agreement to work with the department of public health to do some sequencing of The positive cases that you mask to look for variants of sass phobia too so That the logistics of that are actually being worked out as we speak and we they're on any results yet We do expect to um be getting some analysis for variants very soon And and maybe pick up on the contact tracing For so for this particular, um, you know cluster that we're going or Going through right now. We have a surge. We're finding that Overwhelmingly it's in our undergraduate student population. It's being transmitted student to student We don't we are not seeing any kind of transmission Either to faculty or staff or into community. I I actually had that conversation with Emma about that the other day and right now we're not seeing any evidence of that Hope that answers the Thank you Dorothy Pam okay, so all the students were tested And then they waited a few days and then they were tested and then they came here and then It rose so my question is Did you not in fact test all of them or is perhaps the protocol flawed? that the time intervals between declaring things okay was not good enough because If you bring a bunch of people and you're they all test negative and you wait I really just can't see how like this rise could have happened So that's my question. I'm just thinking that maybe You're assuming they're okay before they are that there's a longer lag between Being a carrier and it's showing up in the tests So Dorothy you asked the toughest question of them all so and A part of this answer is going to be that there's still more for us to learn There's still more to be determined But what we can say right now is that we going into this we know that there would be some number of false negatives And that's why we tested twice. That's why we asked students to self sequester during that period of time and It it may be that more students Felt felt through that net than we were anticipating or that we were modeling for but we still have Have to look at this a little bit more in-depth And I must add just to Steve, you know As part of the commonwealth's kind of travel guidance Where it says like you can arrive with a 72 hour negative test and you know, and that doesn't even account for Even within the own our own state as we know, there's a lot of towns that were that are in red You know, we exceeded what the governor's guidelines were is, you know We appreciated students that would arrive with a 72 hour test As part of it coming from out of state As part of it because that's a part of the requirement from the massachusetts But just following their guidance then they would have been eligible to kind of take the in-person classes So doing the day one and then the day four Testing, you know, and we followed other universities that are around in terms of following those protocols as part of that The one thing I just I failed to mention earlier too is, you know In terms of kind of being not alone. There is other universities that are out there to Villanova, Villanova, michigan state. You see berkeley other schools that are kind of in the similar situation where we are Um, and we've been communicating with them too as part of additional cases You know and some of them aren't even testing like we are they're the surveillance testing doesn't even meet Even a lick of what our expectations are so As part of our additional testing is part of it continuing to catch it And the quicker and you know the quickness of us being able to contact trace and then get them in isolation or quarantine. Thanks Ashreiber Hi, thank you so much for doing this So I have two questions like everyone else. The first one is at what point do we reach the events? of march 9th the week of march 9th where the university basically shut down because that was one of the On the if you look at the red zone, that is an option of Basically taking out the lifeboats. My second question is um Everyone in town has tony marulos's phone number, but that doesn't do us any good anymore for you mas so who is the new Who's the new tony marulos? so, um I'm nancy smiling Further notice nancy's Both tony marulos and nancy buffon. So good luck nancy and many people have my cell phone But happy to give it to anybody else as well. Yeah um, i Steve I don't I'm saying steve schreiber, but then steve good when you're going to jump into I hope But I don't think we want to I don't think we can actually say at what specific point a decision might be made in any given Uh scenario because there's so many different factors in so much context But what I can say is that uh so long as we have What we believe to be sufficient? quarantine and isolation facilities sufficient Measures in place to protect our community and to protect our students and that we can continue to manage this situation That we will proceed. Steve. Do you want to steve goodwin? Do you want to add? Yeah, I would just add that all of the state guidance as well as the federal guidance strongly encourages Us to do everything we possibly can to be able to maintain the students on the campus to be able to camp down This outbreak through the kind of measures that we've been discussing today Your course the great fear is that you take a population of students that has some level of infection in it And you send them all home now. You're just taking a problem that's in one place and you're spreading it out to many places. So um They're John's right. We don't have a we're not at a point where we could say that Um, okay, if we hit this particular Um threshold that that we would make that decision But if we don't see the cases start to come down as we anticipate they will based on all the actions We're taking we're going to have to take a very serious look at it Kathy shane Thank you. Um I think I also have two questions. My my first is around your 14 days. We're in the high risk zone of sequestering How do you we how do you enforce that and it says no more than two times out During the week, but it says to get food or to get tests It could be six times if they go out for each of these things because the observation that I'm getting from constituents Is lots of people on the street without masks lots of people in the big y Clustering near each other in um aisles in the store You know, so not not social distancing So how do you enforce you're just not supposed to be doing that and you're supposed to be staying home? And then I guess I want to build on steves. The second question Was if we see that who do we call? How do we raise an alert? How do we tell you? You said you're investigating a fraternity, which is a particular place Are we supposed to say here's a picture of the two people who were doing this, you know exactly how do we How do we um without being inhospitable? Say please don't do this and have the university enforce what it says is a contract with the students So, I mean Evelyn may want to get in on this as well But I think you know the first step for us is to set clear expectations for the students We know that you know, there's uh, you know Imperfect enforcement mechanism for any kind of policy that we have But our first in an intentional effort was to set very clear expectations for the students And it isn't to say they're only allowed out twice. We get said they're allowed to go out for their twice a week testing And to you know get food or or receive medical treatment or other extenuating Circumstances, you know But but so that's the first step very clear expectations of what and then to communicate to students that there are indeed Consequences which which we have done and those consequences could include suspension removal from the university, etc And in fact, I think it was on Friday our student affairs folks sent to note out to students That basically laid out the numbers of students who have actually been sent into discipline and then in terms of, uh, you know enforcement There's no question. We have a lot more mechanisms with the on campus group than the off campus group The challenge for us and i'm just going to be honest with the challenge for us is for off campus It's you know, it's very hard for us to police and engage in enforcement based on anecdote So the extent that we can get the most specific information from folks who are observing um, you know student behavioral issues and and You know in in evidence that we can act upon and then Engage in an investigation is the best way that we can go and I know that sally linowski follows up If we find out that an address has been Suspect of having a gathering sally'll go out there with and knock on a door. I know that student affairs is following up so From that end of things Maybe evelin. Do you want to add anything to that? Yeah, so if if we receive like john was saying if we receive information where we can actually act on it We are happy happy to do that. Um, it is hard when we receive information that is a picture or Without names of the students that are involved It makes it very hard for us to be able to then follow up with those students to let them know what our expectations are But when we do have that information We do follow up to make sure that those students know what our expectations are And then if necessary for us to be able to take the appropriate actions to sanction them appropriately based on their violation And and I know that sally and her team do interventions in town as well Sally, do you want to add anything from your perspective? Sure. Yeah, if we get a um, you know a complaint that comes into even to the covet concern line And the property is named and specifically what the behavior is If there's a police response that generally goes through Student conduct and community standards, but sometimes it's just we observe something. It's it's concerning to us So we'll reach out to those individuals Sometimes it is a knock a knock and talk But we will generally respond to things And have a conversation with those students As soon as as we can to try to you know, sort of nip things in the bud And then in terms of when we do our neighborhood strolls Um, those are very much about you know, sort of reinforcing the messaging We bring a pretty diverse group out on those walks of ages and we've had some things I know Mandy Jo did one with us on Halloween and and uh and Mindy and You know going out and showing that this is a unified front that we're all in this together And that we all have a vested interest in keeping each other healthy and healthy and safe We're going to wrap it up, but we have two more sets of questions shall any ball mill Yeah, just a quick shout out first to all the students and the staff TMS and our town staff that has been working So, you know with such grace and in this time period Just wanted to say that And I had a question for senator joe comford and state rep Mindy don't Regarding vaccinations priorities. Is there anything that can be done to prioritize? vaccinations with teachers k through 12 and our professors given The mental health and so many other aspects of well-being that are That's putting so much pressure on our students and kids and Yeah, is there anything that can be done to prioritize that? Please go ahead senator Um rep dom do you want to go or shall I kick off? Kick off son Okay Thank you so much for that question. I just will add my thanks to everyone for your work in this really truly difficult time To answer your question specifically about vaccines Um, as you know the command center, uh, which is you know run by the baker administration has With a vaccine advisory committee rolled out this three phase vaccine plan which has been executed upon until the moment when governor baker intervened and Lifted the prioritization of 65 and above over in this cohort Over the essential workforce so right under 75 and above Um, I I'll speak only for myself But I know that rep dom has done this that we have made the case to the baker administration to the secretary both about UMass faculty and I know UMass faculty and UMass administration has also Spoken to especially front-facing faculty in classes As needing prioritization and also of course k 12 and early child care frankly All needing prioritization in this essential worker cohort Um So we've made those cases repeatedly. Um, we believe uh in this essential workforce as needing prioritization Um, I'm glad like everybody else that the 75 and above Folks are getting um prioritization. I'm glad that we'll see folks with two comorbidities Getting prioritization And now my focus really has been on the kind of scale we need in western massachusetts and the regional equitable Way in which the outlets are dispersed through especially hampshire and franklin county So the the number of vaccines and the places they get out And really making sure that we have equity along with rep dom, of course We have equity in that both the number of vaccines and where folks go to get them And that the places where folks go to get them are going to meet the unique challenges and opportunities of our region So places like umas which can open up to numerous People and then of course places like amherst public health that can go the distance and perhaps hard to reach cohorts And every kind of distribution outlet in between Thank you so much representative dum Um, thank you so much. And again, thank you to everybody for putting this on for our community and for being available to answer questions Like senator cumberford. I've also sent um A letter to the governor, um urging him to reprioritize public facing essential workers I was not happy with their demotion Um, and that includes child care workers teachers grocery workers food pantry workers and bus drivers As um others And we're continuing to press on that I do not think that the that he will reprioritize them back I I mean we'll continue to advocate for that, but he has not indicated a willingness Um to understand that public facing essential workers need our support in the vaccination plan um also focusing on vaccine equity both regional equity as well as equity through communities in the state Last week, um, we introduced we filed along with um another representative two centers and senator cumberford's consultation A bill around vaccine equity that really sort of increases the ways in which the state Can meet the need for the hardest to communities and the most vulnerable individuals And I think the hope with that legislation is that it like gives a big nudge to the administration to start Initiating the activities that are going to be required for us to make sure that we reach vaccine equity both regionally As well as throughout the populations and communities in the commonwealth But i'm sorry to say counselor that I don't think he's going to reprioritize essential workers I i'm sorry to say that mentioned that later on in our agenda. We have a resolution on this very issue And on the school committee agenda tomorrow night. There's a parallel resolution Oh, you'll be hearing from us. I will I will be delighted to uh echo that with that's great It's important for us to to take amherst call directly into the state house Uh, you have your hand up and that's the last question we're going to take Yes, I had cut my back self back to one question except for the fact that I just appreciated that we Brought representative dom and senator come referred into this because I wanted to thank them for all the work They did to advocate to the governor about what a disaster the 75 plus rollout originally was and thanks to them And lots of other people working with them. They've made much improvements over a quite short period of time So thank you for that that made a huge difference in a lot of people's stress level and got things Going in a much better direction The only question I wanted to make sure I asked umas because I wasn't clear if this was covered earlier Is we've had several constituents ask us Why it is that umas used to publish details of symptomatic and asymptomatic testing I think people kind of got geeked out about that information and we're excited to see how many people You know that many of the tests were asymptomatic It was just that umas was catching them because they were doing so much testing And they wondered why that information had been removed from the dashboard And so I wondered if you could just let us know if you know the obvious answer is Because it was labor intensive and we didn't find it productive, but I don't know if that's the actual real answer That's certainly the first half of the real answer. Let's say I said it was Extremely labor intensive what we're trying to do now is to look at the dashboard to see if we can Restructured a little bit so people can follow the kind of Information they'd like to get in terms of breakdowns of what kind of students or whether on campus off campus Other details about that without having to do every single one as a separate little paragraph bio That was fairly easy in the beginning But it has become almost impossible and we're much better off putting that time into actually calling people And doing the contact tracing then writing the bios It and I'll just add to Steve's point, you know as as the Commonwealth has kind of Revised their dashboard and doing different things kind of we're kind of in version 2.0 or 3.02 As part of it from adding active cases to qi To the seven-day positivity But but I would say you know, I mean if if there's different things that you know The public is looking for you know, we're happy to take it under consideration to kind of put it out there from that perspective Obviously we we don't have can't produce every detail that the Commonwealth does and all of there And the and the dashboard, but you know, we have our epidemiologist team that you know We live off of this data every day and we have breakdowns of certain things So, you know if there's different ideas and thoughts that people have with the data, you know what I mean We're happy to take it under consideration to put to put it on the public dashboard Thank you. I want to thank you mass and our team from the town for joining us tonight It was coincidental that we had set this up at a such a critical time in our town's health and We really appreciate all the information I want to also say that for people who are in the audience and would like to advance additional questions Please do so. We will collect them. We will get them to you mass or to the town As well and make sure that they are answered for you and perhaps we can figure out a way to post those as well So we are going to go on to the next part of our agenda I would like to see if Emma and Tim and Ann might stick around because there may be a comment or two during the public comment Okay, but the rest of you were also welcome to stay Again, thank you So the next item on our agenda is hearings and we have none And the item after that is general public comment This will be the only public comment tonight And I want to just Um, I'm sorry, mary beth ball Um I want to just state that residents are welcome to express their views I am going to find out how many residents would like to speak before I put a time limit on it The council will not engage in a dialogue Or comment on a matter raised during general public comment So could I see a show of hands for those people who would like to make public comment? All right. Amy zuckerman Please enter the room state your name and where you live Amy zuckerman 93 plum tree road in sunderland Thank you, Lynn and everyone else in this well informed meeting. There's one question. That's very serious Many of us have already had our first shots at UMass If the campus shuts down and goes into total lockdown like in march will the vaccine center stay open? I have to tell you that's a question that will have to be answered in the future But my guess is yes Okay, those of us who are get have appointments. Please let us know. It's very difficult Thank you very much. Appreciate it Thank you Uh felicity mednik Please state your name and where you live You need done mute. Ah, thank you. Okay So i'm felicia mednik from 137 state street in amherst And I want to talk about the proposed um biomass resolution that's coming up in this meeting presented by the league of women voters Um, I just want to say first of all that the state has some very very strong wonderful Stringent regulations around how biomass can be counted as renewable energy They're very good Right now the baker administration is trying to change those regulations In a way that will benefit the biomass plant in springfield The plan of springfield will not be built unless those regulations are weakened Fortunately, the administration is also moved by local opposition as we saw when they quest had hearings at your two years ago and stopped trying to change regulations And that's why I think it's important for the amherst town council to pass a resolution in opposition to biomass What I want to particularly emphasize Is that the biomass resolution is only directed towards biomass use in large scale power plants It has no bearing on heating facilities like coulee dickinson hospital Or other businesses or households that might be heated with wood Contrarily the proposed biomass plant in springfield is a large-scale biomass plant And that's where we'll have those well known adverse environmental and health effects that will spread through the valley in the world Yes, I didn't want to say thank you very much Um Ian road walk Please enter the room state your name and where you live Uh, hello, I am Ian road walk. I live on pine street in amherst And I came to talk about the problem that umass has presented us with um Buildings on campus are being maintained by skeleton crews because the maintainers and maintenance tech workers have been furloughed Despite umass having more than enough money to bring them back both with cares act money and their endowment and The amount of students they have enrolled Students have been quarantined in condemned buildings according to a recent boston globe article um and despite what the umass pr person just said the fraternities have had back-to-back parties this past weekend um With no social distancing and very little masks according to this daily collegiate article As of the beginning of last week at least a hundred or so graduate workers Were told to teach face to face despite not being given health and safety a necessary health and safety information after numerous requests This whole situation was completely preventable Umass is a neighbor in our community right now umass is being reckless and negligent with our community With their students and with those those of us in the community who work at umass And when confronted with these issues by members of the town community and the unions who work on campus umass has offered platitudes and Forgive this expression, but pr turd polishing Umass knows what it is doing. They knew what would happen and to say otherwise is ridiculous They should never have reopened with this this amount of students and uh I'll leave it at that and yield the rest of my time Thank you Thank you It's sold up. Please enter the room state your name and where you live Good evening. This is the sold out barrel cement. They live in south amherst district five. Thank you so much To representative don in particular and senator comford for everything they've done and and all of you for tonight My question for the umass officials has to do with very specific group of workers Who are the dining and custodial? Workers on the campus some of whom are um Workers Originally of immigrant background who live locally in amherst this spring We saw that there were unmet needs And um and the town and the hospital tried to provide for those And it really concerned us that people were taking buses While they had symptoms The issue um has partially been not totally resolved because even though Workers may have access to testing if they become ill Their family members do not have access to the testing and so I want my very specific question To you mass officials Is is there an understanding? Of the very specific conditions of the custodial and or dining workers, particularly local ones from language minority communities who need assistance with testing and or Um conditions that they face when they quarantine for a very specific examples their multiple children In an apartment in a high density apartment building in district five Where we had several cases Work did not necessarily have access to testing and not necessarily allowed to return to employment Until they could guarantee that everyone in their household Was negative. So um, I just wanted to hear about um some any plans for those very specific populations. Thank you very much And Ann Laudner 175 amity street quick question for the town Of the public health department. Is the is there any arrangements for people who are severely physically Disabled and shut in to get the covid vaccine or some arrangements being made for that. That's my question. Thank you Could end public comment, but since emma is with us still Emma, is there any information you might provide regarding the shut-in and vaccinations? Yeah, I think that's a great question. I know that's a very complex Demographic and and population that's certainly we want to see served I know that myself Marybeth Ogilevitz and chief nelson We have a team that are trying to identify those individuals in our community and problem solve with Other agencies to try and be able to meet their needs, but we are thinking about those individuals So we can strategize around them. So that way they will be be able to get the vaccine But we are also looking forward to guidance from the state department of public health Maybe partnering with private pharmacies as well But this is a a complicated issue because of certainly the fragility of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines right now and the time constraints that we have from when we have when we are able to take them out of the freezer or refrigerator and then when we have by the time we have to administer them But we are thinking about this. We're trying to problem solve around it and we thank this. Thank you for this question Thank you. We're going to go on to the rest of our agenda and emma and Everyone thank you for joining us The consent agenda is long. We're going to put it up on the screen It includes the following Let me just say remember I'd like to just remind the council that items are placed under the consent agenda Because they are considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy To remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting Asked that it be removed when I list the consent the consent agenda item to request an Removal does not require a second The motion is as follow and I'll be looking for a second To move the following items and the printed Motions there under and approve those items as a single unit suspension of town council rules are procedure 8.4 Thank you For the following agenda items 8 to the be authorization of council president to sign letter to community safety working group an 8 point d Approval of extension of temporary appointment of town clerk I just want to remind you that all that does is allow us to act tonight. It does not approve those items 6a adoption of the resolution opposing the Palmer springfield biomass power plant 6d adoption of the lunar new year spring festival celebration proclamation 8d approval of extension of temporary appointment of town clerk 8f withdrawal of measures measure pursuant to council rules of procedure 8.8 proposed prohibition on the municipal use of face recognition technology bylaw 9a 1 to 3 approval of town manager appointments Affordable housing trust board of trustees license commissioners public shade tree committee 11 ad approval of minutes January 4th 2021 special town council meeting January 4th 2021 town council public form January 4th regular town council meeting Is there a second? second dross Thank you, please Take the screen down and George you have your hand up Yes, I'd like 6a by a biomass resolution removed okay Are there any other requests? All right, uh, then the motion's been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, I will begin to ask if you approve of the emotion um, elissa broer aye pat de angeles aye garcy kimont yes brice mersen aye mandy joe hannacky aye ma'am aye indy ross evan ross aye sorry george ryan yes pat jesane yes Steve schreiber yes andy steinberg yes Sarah Schwartz aye shalini balmillan yes votes 13-0-0-0-0 All right, we're moving on to the next item uh And in fact, we now are going to bring the resolution opposing the Palmer spring biomass power plant resolution George you were the one that asked this be removed. Would you speak to your reasons? Yeah, Lynn, I I just had a question about And this is just ignorance on my part and I apologize to everyone but Does this apply to the coulee dickinson heating system? This kind of resolution I I've heard two different things tonight or I've actually read one thing and heard something else I don't know anyone knows the answer to that, but if they do I'd like to know Garcy Yeah, I'm wondering if we could bring in the League of Women Voters Sponsor for this So that they could speak to that and I I can also speak to it But I think it would be a good thing to bring in Martha Hanner if she's here Thank you. She is and uh, Sina would you please bring Martha Hanner in? Yes Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak I do want to emphasize that this resolution focuses specifically on the large-scale wood burning power plants With their notoriously low efficiency and high pollution And subsidies for such large wood burning power plants are regulated by the department of energy's renewable energy portfolio Standards, which are now poised for revision However, the use of woody biomass residues for heating on a smaller scale in modern stoves and furnaces with their higher efficiency Or the cases such as the Cooley Dickinson plant, which is cogeneration is heating and Then some also some Power generation those are covered under the department of energy's alternate portfolio standards which is a separate category And it's a clear distinction. So it's not at all relevant To this resolution if you read the resolution at each One of the be it resolves. It specifically states the large-scale wood burning power plants And so it's not relevant to the to the heating Case Thank you, Martha George. Was there any further question on that? No, Martha. Thank you very much Okay Any further questions on this particular resolution? I also want to note that Martha is the resident sponsor, but then we have Dorothy Pam and Darcy Montt as the counselor sponsors on this one And Martha has provided with the additional material that is in your packet Are there any further questions? Okay, seeing none. I'm going to move Darcy has the hand up I'm sorry I have my hand up Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see it Because I'm in the wrong column I'm sorry Darcy. Please go ahead. I just have a quick comment. I just wanted to Uh remind counselors that this is sponsored by the League of Women Voters It's very much supported by Our local mothers out front group. It's endorsed by the energy and climate action committee um, and it really goes to support our neighbors in the Pioneer Valley that are that are Really are our environmental justice community of the Pioneer Valley Meaning the low-income community most likely to be affected by climate and environmental impacts such as air pollution And as the league mentioned Uh springfield is actually the asthma capital of the entire united states so, um That's a big reason why this particular plant should be opposed I when I was teaching in holy oak I I saw I saw this every day. I saw kids with inhalers Absences because of trips to the er because due to asthma So anyway, I strongly urge the council to show support for this resolution Thank you for your comments Darcy. Is there any other comments at this time? Okay, it's not that I'm moving to the vote pat de angeles. Hi Sorry, we don't we we need a motion first I'm sorry. You're absolutely correct. Motion is to adopt the resolution opposing the Palmer springfield biomass power plant As presented. Is there a second second de angeles? Okay, thank you. Uh, now now we will move to the vote. Hi Darcy de mara. Hi Hi Hanna key. Hi Dorothy Pam. Hi Evan Ross. Hi George Ryan. Yes Kathy Shane Yes Eve Schreiber Yes Andy Steinberg Yes Sarah Schwartz Hi Kelly Balmille Yes Alyssa Brewer Hi Thank you Passes 13 000 We have done the lunar new year. We are going on to a presentation From the energy and climate action committee. They have submitted their annual report And I believe we are joined tonight by uh, under rose vice chair And ashwin rav humer who is also on the committee Lara Drucker has also been able to join us And she is the chair of this committee and I just want to mention there may be others in the audience Dwayne Bregger Jesse Salmon Sarah Durr And Steven Roof and Darcy Dumont On from the council and Sarah Schwartz from the council are also on this committee And the sustainability coordinator is Stephanie Chickarella So please proceed with the presentation Hello, I'm Andrew Rose. Are we going to be visual? Visible And all you need to do is advance to say advance the slide Okay, but we will not have our faces visual. Oh, I see The faces will be visible after the presentation Well, actually it's now. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm Andrew Rose. I'm vice chair of the energy and climate action committee and I'm joined with by professor ashwin Uh, ravi kumar who from amherst college who will be starting us off on the next slide All right. Good evening everybody. Um You can advance the slide. Yeah, that's perfect. Thanks so much for having us. Um It's an exciting moment for climate policy in this country and also in amherst After four years of stagnation under donald trump The biden administration has provided those of us concerned with climate change with a really critical Breath of fresh air And here in amherst, we have big opportunities and a big responsibility to move forward with the momentum at the federal level To meet our ambitious targets and to remind you of what those targets are It is to reduce our emissions by 25 by 2025 and 50 by 2030 So really big bold commitments from amherst that we have to act boldly to meet I suggest reading biden's executive orders if you get the chance get the chance But just a couple highlights that really resonate with the main findings of our work that we'll talk about today First to the biden administration committed 40 percent of federal climate investments to frontline and especially black and indigenous communities This is a really key victory for the climate justice movement And it resonates strongly with the decision that was just taken around the biomass plant And we heard from our community that this is really important to residents here Next slide, please And the second thing that the biden administration did was call for all federal agencies to center climate change in their planning Up here on this slide. You see an org chart of amherst the town of amherst. Why? Well, because we the energy and climate action committee are just one committee thinking about this But our work has really shown us that all committees and agencies in the town government Need to come up with concrete steps to center climate change in their planning To think about how how climate change impacts their work and how their work impacts climate change And think about how they can move forward and staff appropriately all of these processes Echoing really what the biden administration has done at the federal level We are just one committee. Stephanie sicarello who has been amazing is just one person as sustainability coordinator But what we need is more resources and commitment to this work going forward. Next slide, please So this is a bit of context about our emissions portfolio We're going to skip this right now for the in the interest of time So next slide, please and I will pass it off to andra to talk about our work so far I'm on mute andra Thank you. We can come back to that slide If people are interested So The community choice aggregation With pelham and north hampton is moving forward we'll this will help us a lot with Making big cuts to our electricity emissions over time And to succeed we'll need sustained engagement from a broad coalition of constituents And that's something that the committee sees as part of our work to To engage these constituencies. Thank you. Next slide So new charging stations have been installed in town convenient charging for Electric vehicles is one tactic to help us reduce our transportation emissions that we'll be needing to Do more of next slide so Thank you The solar array on the landfill has made past the permitting hurdle and Is closer to beginning construction now Next slide, please So the town partnered with the farmers market to bring local fresh grown food to low-income residents And to support sustainable farming Next slide, please back to All right. Yeah, thanks for those updates andra a lot of really exciting stuff So in the energy and climate action committee, thanks to a grant that stephanie sicarello got from mvp at the state level we were able to Invest a lot in outreach and equity and inclusion. We hired gazet kaya mnukosi to Reach out to black indigenous low-income renter communities and identify community leaders to really bring them into our process And we were able to put funding into translation Food and even child care and being able to do that that was absolutely critical to our work It was a really positive experience And we hope that the town can try to incorporate those best practices Across its work as it continues to push for the big climate and agenda that we have next slide And I want to talk just quickly about some of the concrete recommendations that came out of this outreach process around the budget So really quickly, it's important to first of all note that when it comes to climate change We often make short-term capital expenses expenditures in order to generate long-term operational savings And we hope that the town will find ways to think holistically about these currently different segments of the budget Because climate change is the type of challenge that requires it. You can read more about that In our report next slide, please So fundamentally, um a budget is more than a simple allocation of resources As martin luther king put it over half a century ago A budget is fundamentally a moral document one that demonstrates the community's priorities And who concerns whose concerns it centers in decision-making. So a couple things that came out of our work Is that people had real big ideas about what they'd like to see from the town People pointed out that they'd like opportunities as renters to connect with energy efficiency and renewable energy programs That's a great thing that the town can support and ought to staff from what we heard Other community members and especially youth organizers suggested shifting resources away from policing and into sustainability They pointed out that right now we have 36 cops and one sustainability coordinator And personally, I think that if we ask is that a good expression of our moral commitments Given that we say that we value both climate justice and racial justice to me, it sounds like no So that's something that we really need to think about We also got requests for farm from farmers to provide opportunities to sequester carbon in their soils And from community leaders to involve bIPOC youth in growing food To find ways to include low-income community members in the governance of community choice aggregation Which is going to be a major part of how we reduce electricity emissions is also going to be super important So these are some great suggestions from our community members that we hope the town can move forward with next slide I'll pass it to andra to wrap it up Okay, so um, we have very specific Recommendations for the capital budget and that's to support the solar siting study on school parking lots, which was proposed in a resident capital request from myself and arhs students For the operating budget Our immediate concern is the need for an intern for stephanie Her tasks have already multiplied. It's going to get much worse Um, there will be a tremendous amount of work involved in coordinating the town departments to integrate climate goals into their The work that is already Everybody's plate in a deep way And we believe this requires a sustainability department with several staff members Which we lay out in the annual report Next slide, please so, um the plan will the The climate action adaptation and resilience plan that we've been working with consultants on for the last Since the summer We'll focus on the next five years with a particular amount of detail on the actions we might take in the first year We're starting to prioritize 82 actions that we've generated through outreach And through research into other municipal plans and we welcome Your our counselors input now to help us make this plan meaningful and implementable Now is a good time Because the plan will be completed and coming to you in may which is a busy time for you So, please let us know how we can support you in making decisions about the first year of actions at that time Um, and thank you so much for allowing us to present it in person Ashwin I and Stephanie are available to answer questions now Could you please take the slides? Thank you Um, pat de angeles you have your hand up We also need the clock Athena. Yeah, sorry I I want to thank the committee the ecac because your outreach to the community was exemplary particularly to the bipoc community and it teaches us something and teaches all committees something about the use of interpretation and sign language interpretation in spanish and other languages And providing childcare and stipends wherever appropriate I and so I I don't have a question I just want to thank you for that But I do want to make a small correction to something andra said the mobile market Was initiated by healthy hamster, which is part of the collaborative for educational services And i'm a member of the group that has now become the mobile market has nothing to do with the farmers market Completely separate entity and an incredible organization that is really powered by the people who have the need Um, yeah, so anyway, thank you both Thank you And will we start the floor? Wow, does he demand? Yeah, I just wanted to um, uh, thank andra and ashwin for this great update and just make a brief comment that um in this era of the new normal, um, we do need to be constantly thinking about how we Can reprioritize our spending Um to meet the changing needs of our community to be climate resilient And to reduce our emissions. So I also want to give kudos to the finance committee Um for recognizing that in their in their guidance document Um about the upcoming need for flexibility Thank you evan ross Yeah, um nice to see you all again. It's been a while Um, and thank I want to also thank you for the uh, not just the presentation But also the written report which I thought was thorough Um, and I'm glad I just had had a chance to read it for this meeting. I had I had two questions Um, one was both the report and the presentation mentioned connecting renters with opportunities for energy efficiency and renewable energy Um, and I wasn't quite sure I understood What that meant or what you were envisioning with that? So I was just wondering if it was possible to elaborate a little bit on that Um, and then the second thing I I wanted to ask is I know, um when I departed the committee there had been some conversations about Ways to electrify the municipal fleet And I know there were some initial conversations was starting with the police department Since those are cars that are used constantly in turnover And I didn't see that in the report or the presentation And so I was wondering if that was an ongoing conversation Or if that had been temporarily shelved for some of these other priorities. So thank you I'll end in so the second one first that was from what I understand temporarily shelved. We hope temporarily Due to budget constraints and The the first about renters. Um, it's been very difficult. You may know for renters to access the clean energy themselves if you're low income and You don't have a large enough bill because you're on Fuel assistance you you may not have enough to even be able to enroll in what's called community solar the The cca will allow for everyone to increase their amount of Renewable energy just because we will be able to get a default level higher than the Utilities amount of renewable energy. So that'll be fair across the board And there are some other ways that we can increase access to energy services Like energy efficiency For renters and for everybody Yeah, I would just add that another kind of barrier that a lot of renters face to accessing Programs that utilities offer around renewables Is that it's just kind of complicated. It's confusing and people don't have a lot of time So what the town could do is provide staffing provide To really go through systematically and make sure that renters are aware of how to access renewable energy programs and credits And that they know how to navigate that. This is something that other towns have done and we can find examples of what that could look like But to do that at the town level is great. There's nonprofits that are doing this work to some extent But people really had a desire for more and more consistent coverage with respect to that kind of liaising Great. Thank you Andy steinberg Yeah, hi, um, I want to thank the committee also for the work that it's done and just zero in quickly on two things Stunning the time limit One is to follow up on the comments that we just made but to twist it a little bit When I look at what north hampton's done across the river and would I look at our own community and what the probable place Or the largest number of Dwelling units are that May not be as energy efficient as they can be It would seem that we would be talking about a real focus on Single owner occupied homes or very small units a lot of renters are in larger units where it is If you're in an apartment complex, you don't really control anything other than What your choice is in a very small electric bill? So, um, it struck me that there was so little about what I think is likely to be the place where the largest Gain can be made because of the amount of units and the amount of Probable waste that is happening within the way many of our homes in this community of being run The other subject is the budget in this chair of the finance committee I just want to note that We're really very far along in the fy 22 process and at this point The budget is being developed by the town manager and Then we'll come back to the council which has a very specific role um that reacts to the What what what is will be proposed on may 1st by the town manager? the guidance that we gave as uh, I was alluded to by uh Council councillor demont is that We pointed out that The performance objectives and goals for the town manager Have financial require financial investments But I also have to note that We are in a very difficult financial time and The goals for the town manager include not just climate action, but also community health and safety economic vitality for major Capital investments housing affordability and racial equity and social justice so that When the town manager is looking at what he can do with a very difficult budget in a In the year that we're in he's got a tough task Thank you for your comments and uh, Mandy job Yeah, thank you, and thank you for your work and for the annual report. I wanted to Um, I don't know whether there's a question in here. There is in some sense a question in this in your report Um, you talked about using the use of a climate lens and purchasing and building operations or buildings Along with showing a commitment to climate goals by decarbonizing buildings And so, you know, we already have a net zero bylaw But that obviously does not apply to all buildings because it's to new buildings only and we have a number of projects coming up but also potentially when you know a a heating system fails or something or You know, how are we going to be getting guidance on when we're repairing major systems in town funds or various proposals some of which Include a repair that would continue using fossil fuels and others for the same building that would say Eliminate the use of fossil fuels. Will we be getting guidance from ecac on how to evaluate those potential? You know Plans as it relates to climate action goals and climate action lenses I'll I'll just answer quickly that um, we should talk That that is one of the things that we've talked about is, you know procurement decisions planning ahead for those kinds of Large expenditures, but also smaller ones and how we can be a resource for town departments in making those decisions Ashwin, did you have anything to add? Uh, yeah, no, I would just say absolutely. I mean, I feel like when we talk about trying to make sure that climate change is considered in all municipal Government agencies in all aspects of municipal governance. That's the kind of thing we're talking about and I think that ecac would be A great starting point at least to try to think about how to come up with the system to make those considerations appropriately I just want to recognize that Laura Drucker is also in the analyst area and Laura if you want to add please let us know, okay Uh, Kathy Shane Thank you. Um, I have uh, one is a question of andra and ashwin and the other is Uh, uh question more directed to paul So I'll ask first the one of andra on when we talk about Low income and it's more difficult to figure out if especially a low income who happens to be a homeowner Or wants to do something to to lower energy use Um, is it possible? Um, and we're followed later with a community preservation act presentation. So we'll have someone else who's not could um, if if the Family that's in those houses meets the income threshold could cpa money Be used if we had contractors who could come an example as a neighbor's house by putting siding on and doing different window Instead of single pane windows double pane and tighter. They dramatically Increase the warmth of the house and decrease the energy can see can we tap into cpa money? Or is there housing money statewide? So that's That question and I'll just ask my second one the solar panel study for parking lots at the schools was presented to jcpc as a resident request and I had a We have a set aside money of a capital reserve That as far as I know we haven't been tapping into and paul when I had a conversation with you You said for the small the size of the request We might be able to take some appropriated already money And repurpose it to meet this and it's a question of could we Do we have plans could we have plans to get that done? Sooner rather than waiting for next year and my question is because the administration at the federal level has changed And we may well see opportunities if we're ready To tap into federal or state money So if we had a study done on what we could install and having just looked at the school's operating budgets Those would come back to amherst even if we just say Our current share of the budget and operating budget savings would more than Offset the costs for this initial study. So i'm just wondering if we can't move faster on that since it was a relatively small amount of money rather than waiting for another year. So it's a First to andra and then to paul I so I can tell you a little bit about energy efficiency services that are available for um, both renters and Owners who are low income. There are significant incentives to a hundred percent of of The costs being Covered The kind of retrofit that you are describing Is not a part of the usual program They'll do blown-in insulation. They won't put You know insulation on the outside and new siding But there as he said there's going to be a lot of changes. There's going to be a lot of Um new options and it'd be really great for us to be shovel ready to Take advantage of the state and federal money that will be coming through The first question sometimes cdbg money has been used for income eligible properties that are owned that can be used for energy retrofits So that's something we could look into in terms of the Solar studies that I think you were at saturday's presentation where the school committee showed the regional school district Had set aside some money. We've talked with them about sharing that cost We're seeking outside funds to support that Because there are there is funding available. So we're always looking for outside funds As you know, most of the parking lots that are most Attractive are do not are not owned by the town. They're owned by the region And so it'd have to be in conjunction with the region But it's definitely um, I what I said to you previously is is definitely on our radar screen to move that forward sooner than later Yes, um, my question was about the slide that we skipped and um looking at the the emissions coming from residential buildings being a lot and Transportation being lower And so is there a way for us to get guidance on what? Where our limited resources could be invested so we get the maximum impact I can I can try to take that so The climate action adaptation and resilience plan the carp that's coming out is going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting on Helping us to prioritize actions as a town taking into account The overall kind of breakdown of our emissions portfolio. Um, so that's the thing to look out for To get that additional guidance. Um, I think we're happy to have conversations Before then with you to try to help you be equipped to act quickly Occasionally and to understand that report as it comes into But I also just want to take that opportunity to say yes, you're absolutely right residential buildings Are a really big share of our emissions portfolio. Um and to um, uh Counselor Steinberg's comment earlier about Who rents and who owns and that sort of thing? Yes, we absolutely don't mean to suggest that homeowners are not a priority on the contrary They're a really important priority because there's a big share of the overall emissions pie and amour's right So the key thing is to make sure that we are appropriately staffing programs to connect everyone Who's part of this picture to the programs that they need to be connected to? And the plan is going to hopefully Lay out some really concrete steps Um to move forward most appropriately given all of those realities Andrea, do you want to add anything to that? Melody, did you have a question? Yes, thank you so much and the other was like is there a way to work with your mass, of course And the other colleges and just given that they have Such smart people working there and innovative minds And so how could we be collaborating to build and create more education and opportunities to You know be working together to bring down and work already together That it's something that is Clearly has to be one of our goals. Um, they're ahead of us and they've set even more ambitious goals and our Putting money into it so the colleges and the University are taking it very seriously and I'm hoping that we can both piggyback on their knowledge And uh, that is going to take a lot of coordinating. It's very technical information We may need, you know staff to Do be brought up to speed because existing staff Put it into, you know job descriptions for new hires so that we're ready to to do that kind of multi-stakeholder coordinating Thank you. In the interest of time We're going to be seeing this group again in May with your recommendation And uh, we look forward to that and if there are individual counselors who would like to share ideas I am sure that Laura and Andra and ashwin and the rest of the committee Would love to hear them. Okay. Thank you Thank you all so much and I can just really quickly want to reiterate that last point. We know that the The carp the plan is going to come at you at a really busy time And we want to be there to help you make sense of it and act on it So please please take us up on that. Thank you Okay, we're going to move on to the community preservation act committee recommendations and while we're teeing that up and making sure that Proper people are brought into the room Let me just mention This is an automatic referral to the finance committee During the conversation after the presentation if there are other Committees that need to see anything or feel they need to See anything. We will have to make that into a motion And let me just proceed with that by saying thank you, Sarah and Anthony Delaney for being with us tonight And uh, let's just oh in Sonya as well. We're glad to see you So Sarah, we're going to put the these slides up and proceed. Okay Hey, thank you There's the chair of the cpac Yes Good evening everyone happy to be with you on behalf of the community preservation act committee to present our recommendations for grants in fiscal year 2022 May I have the next slide please Before I get to our recommendations. I want to recognize all the members of the committee I am the Delegate from pointy from amherst recreation We also have sam mccleod on the devil and gothier sarah eisinger robin fordom andrew mcdougal diana stein david williams and katie alan zobell And we all they all worked hard and fruitfully under a very compressed schedule this fall And I want to thank them for their efforts I also want to thank anthony delaney holly bowser and sonia aldrich from the finance department for their very able support and advice Our FY 22 report recommends to you a total appropriation of one million six hundred fifty nine thousand seven hundred seventy dollars That number does not include any potential new borrowing But it does include almost four hundred thousand dollars to pay down previous borrowing for cpa projects Several of these debts will be retired over the next couple of years freeing up funds for future projects In addition, we would like to place six hundred thousand dollars into reserves for future projects and debt service A relatively small amount twenty five thousand dollars is recommended to offset administrative costs of the program A new aspect of this expense is design and installation of signs of various types to indicate to the public where cpa funds have been deployed For example hanging a your cpa dollars at work banner at new construction projects We think it is important for the community preservation act program to better publicize to the community How its tax dollars have been used? And we have revitalized our facebook page. So please please like us if you're on facebook So now I would like to give a brief description of this specific grants. We are recommending May we have the next slide, please? All right, this lists all the um all the Recommendations, uh, I will go through you will notice there were no open space requests this year Next slide, please In the area of community housing, we recommend one proposal an appropriation of two hundred twenty six thousand seven hundred ten dollars For amorse community connections supportive housing project The goal of this project is to get some of our chronically homeless neighbors into rental housing in amorse if possible ACC specifically targets single individuals whose various challenges medical employment or financial make finding housing particularly difficult In previous iterations of this effort most clients have been middle-aged men and non-white None of the funds from cpa go towards the clinical services and social services given to clients To prepare them to qualify for rental housing or to support social service needs while they are tenants CPA funds will be used to provide rental support for up to six people for up to three years The maximum value of each rental voucher is nine hundred fifty dollars per month, which reflects the very high rents in amorst Since clients who have income generally disability benefits are asked to contribute 25 of their income to the monthly rent The actual cost of the program may well be reduced Next slide, please We are recommending six projects under the historic preservation category One of these is support for a new home for the special collections department at the jones library And for this project we recommend borrowing of one million dollars I know that you will take up the larger jones library renovation and expansion project at future meetings So I won't say very much about this special collections aspect now But want to make two points really for the benefit of the audience First the CPA award if it is may if it is approved is contingent on the larger project receiving the approval of council If that expansion renovation project for the jones library does not proceed neither will this special collections project Secondly the jones library's proposal for special collections was revised based on last year's discussions with the CPA committee To address our concerns about its eligibility for CPA funds And we are satisfied So next slide, please The second historic preservation project we recommend is a grant of 21,412 dollars To the goodwin memorial AME xion church for repairs to its roof and chimney The church is private property certainly, but it is a valuable historical asset and is listed on the national historic register We are confident that this grant advances the public purpose of preserving this historic structure By improving the integrity of the building envelope Further this would by no means be the first CPA grant to a local house of worship More than 10 times this amount was given some years ago to repair the steeple at the jca's building for example And about 10 times this amount was approved for but not in the end used by the first congregational church for an interior sprinkler system So we urge you to approve this much smaller but vital grant to goodwin memorial The next slide, please The remaining recommendations in the historic preservation category are all four town-owned buildings The exquisite north amherst library, which will soon be expanded thanks to a generous donor Must first address the flexing of a load bearing wall in the basement This wall under the main entrance is rolling inwards endangering this historic structure And we recommend 40 000 dollars for this important repair Next slide, please Town hall a magnificent building constructed in I think 1890 or thereabouts Is showing its age in the condition of the grand front steps and side exit steps The flight of granite steps at the front of the building has not been overhauled since it was constructed so long ago The granite blocks are tipping and various joints are opening A parent the apparent absence of a foundation is allowing water to be absorbed and causing efflorescence of salts The town wishes to completely dismantle and then rebuild the steps on an adequate foundation Taking special care to study the original grout and use an appropriate replacement The side steps are in better condition But it is desirable to have one contractor rebuild both stairs in one project to ensure consistency of materials and workmanship Doing the two projects at once also saves money We therefore recommend an award of two hundred sixty five thousand dollars for this work I would add that the town recently restored the beautiful front doors and may pursue a redesign of the north common opposite And it is reasonable to repair the stairs now since they join these two features Next slide, please Various roof repairs must be made to town hall and the months in memorial library And we recommend eighty three thousand five hundred dollars for these repairs Which include replacing slates matching the original slates with materials from the same quarries And adding flashing and gutters to the library to keep water from entering through the roof And conducting and to conduct water away from the foundation As is the case for the goodwin memorial church addressing deficiencies in the building envelope is critical For preserving these historic structures Next slide, please The final recommendation in the category of historic preservation is for additional funds For the restoration and redesign of the north common We recommend two hundred fifty thousand dollars from the historic preservation Category as well as an additional two hundred fifty thousand from the recreation category And you council are already deep in study of this project. So I will not say more about it now Next slide, please Two additional projects in the recreation category complete our recommendations for fiscal year 2022 As as I said, there were no proposals this year pertaining to open space We recommend an award of forty five thousand dollars to replace an exceedingly dilapidated pavilion at broth park The lower pavilion is a rusty leaky construction of wood and sheet metal built into bare ground The town wishes to replace it with a new structure Highly similar if not identical to the popular new pavilion the one in the photograph That was installed next to the new playground and would install it on a concrete pad Next slide, please Finally we recommend an award of sixty five thousand dollars for repairs to the mill river pool Excuse me the concrete pool basin itself is in a sorry state with cracks right through that let water in during the winter In addition the worn surface of the concrete no longer holds the waterproof epoxy coating well The project will involve sandblasting the interior to create a surface that will hold a durable waterproof coating and assessing and repairing cracks This work would be undertaken after the pool closes next summer That concludes our recommendations. I welcome your questions Sarah that was extremely informative and I want to thank you for being willing to Jump in and do it this evening I want to make a couple preliminary statements. We are not I repeat we are not going to discuss the library um Grant tonight. It's off the table. Okay second all The questions that you are asking are ones that you want to make sure that predominantly the finance committee can answer in coming back to you with a recommendation So Dorothy, let's start with you Hi, I just want to second what you said Lynn. It was a great report. I love the pictures I love the clarity and I think your narration was really great. So you get in a thank you. Thank you Alyssa I think in the end I was set up. I was set up now. Okay In the interest of time, I won't go into great detail on this But one of the things that used to come up at representative town meeting every so often Was what about funds that were appropriated but had not actually been deployed? And so looking at those hanging on funds from previous times, obviously there are times projects go wrong People don't bid on them. All sorts of things can happen But for example something that's not on this year's report, but is listed in the Unused appropriations is 125 000 dollars for mill where we're basketball courts and again, I'll shorten the narrative here But town meeting originally approved that money in spring of 2017 more money in spring of 2018. We got two Completion dates associated with that well prior to the pandemic and when we drove by last week. It's rubble So what is the community preservation acts view of its role? In terms of keeping track of that sort of thing like annual reports or quarterly reports back As to what happened. I noticed that there has been added since the days of representative town meeting which goes to show We do learn things There's a now an affirmation statement on the current applications that say you can have this money for three years But unless you get an extension You're gonna the money is going to get rolled back in and so the basketball courts would seem to be one of those issues Except it does seem to finally be underway And so is there a plan to update the community say, you know every every year on? Yes, we thought this was going to happen. This didn't happen and we changed our mind on this other one The reason I asked is because I feel like it's cpa what's what's cpa members desire like maybe they've had this conversation as opposed to Somebody giving me an answer as to what happened with the basketball courts, which frankly I don't care about right now What I want to know is the larger picture. Yeah Well, I'll I'll start. Um, we did have exactly those conversations. Um, the committee Feels like we never we never hear back, you know the decisions we make recommendations and then Time passes and and there has been no mechanism really for Um Informing the committee And kind of the public at large about what happens. I mean it's pretty obvious if if a big project is completed We all see it So it was because of discussions within the committee that that statement and that general policy have been added about Using it or losing it But we do recognize that there are some kinds of projects for exact For example, the valley cdc Project that that are probably just going to take longer And we recognize that But we do want to turn the heat up a little bit on on some of the Grant recipients to to get the work done and the finance department Made a big effort In the fall and brought in a lot of money. It just closed out a lot of projects that Had balances hanging on, you know and just talked to them and said And and closed them. So so I know they're um working hard on that Uh, perhaps anthony or sangha would like to say Something about that matter Sarah has uh, I think covered pretty much all of it, but the The finance department did Starting with its oldest and most outstanding articles Start closing Things this fall. Uh, I think sonia will correct me if i'm wrong everything older than 2017 Has been has been dealt with And the committee will start The committee has on its spring agenda to talk about the process for bringing people in for progress reports and Talking about that review process and taking a more active role I I don't remember if we I think it will begin with this current set of projects that The recipients will be expected to file. I don't remember what we decided either every six months or at least Decided, but I'm sorry. Okay. They will be expected to file Regular report updates to the to the committee on how the work is going I mean the finance department, of course is always keeping track of the money, but the committee Hasn't Hasn't had any feedback of the kind you've described and we we would like it. So I'd say we're on that yeah I just want you to know that we're all worked the finance department. We're all Anthony holly and I have been talking about getting a process in place where we might have just one meeting a year Where everybody would come in that still had outstanding money and justify Why they haven't spent it yet? And there's also a We're asking them to file a report. We're looking at a form for doing that I'm all for closing out older money I push that all the time. I just want you to know that but sometimes things happen, you know, um I'm not sure what happened with the basketball courts At this point, I don't have the reports in front of me to be able to tell you what they said but There are things out there that have been bugging me to and they will get closed if they don't use them this year I think in the case of the basketball report courts um The rec department lsse at the time was applying for other grants to do to do bigger overhauls of the The mill river facility And wanted to then use the basketball court money as part of a larger project They didn't get the grants And now they know they need they I think I think they're going to get it done Paul was nodding his head earlier. So maybe That that work will move forward Kathy you have your hand up and Kathy is the liaison to this committee I'm unmuting. Um, yes, I am and it's a wonderful committee to be a liaison on because it's a great group with um active conversations on these issues I have I am going I'm on the finance committee as you know, sarah So when you come to us, I just have a couple requests not so much questions Both the report that elissa just asked for I know they're you brought that to us last year, which was a Outstanding money and where the dollars are, you know, how much has been spent so we could take a look at all of that So I think making that part of a report us would be really useful Even if there aren't answers to some of these things, you know, is it millions of dollars and the other and the second one it's one that I saw was um Sonya has been preparing for you, but as the Allocation of the money is made, but it's going to be with a grant so things like 132 northhampton Road or the new belcher town It's going to incur debt service out in future years And it would be good. I think for us as a council But first finance committee to see the best guess of what that looks like right now for the next 10 years And I know you asked for that at seatback. So it's some things are being paid down But if the following go through there's going to be this much because what it says is how much money are we going to have in Next year the year after in the year after that's not already spoken for You know with uh if we keep getting so I just think it's a useful thing because although we can incur debt It does influence decisions you can make in the future So just knowing the extent we've done that and you had a great discussion about that so it's more just to make that part of the Current year request have that picture be in it as well That's it We'll do you have your hand up Yeah, I just wanted to respond to that a little if you look at the um Cpi report the appendixes There is a report on there that shows the balances of older and there was also a debt schedule I added to it this year Yeah And and Sonia, I know it's there, but it's not doesn't always come in the same package that Sarah c-pack would bring to us. So I just think as an added background Rather than us people having to go and find it. I I realize that you've been generating it. I just think it's a useful I happened to have it because I was at a c-pack meeting and you had sent me it when sarah had asked for it But I just to make it part of this reporting when we get the annual Allocation for the next year Okay, that's spreadsheet. Yeah, I know what exactly what you are asking for. Okay I'm just going to exercise my Where is the counter and ask that when you come to the finance committee you also be prepared for talking about reimbursements and what kind of evidence people have to provide in order to be reimbursed Okay, that's my only question at this point. Are there any other questions or issues And I'm seeing no energy This either TSO or the CRC And so I'm going to just assume that the automatic referral to finance committee takes care of it Thank you. Anthony. Thank you and Sonia. Thank you for all that you do for this committee And uh to the committee several of whom have joined us in the audience. Oh good. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Good night It's eight o'clock. We are on schedule We're going to take a 10 minute break And we will be back. Please mute Close down your video and when you come back Don't unmute but please open your video. Thank you I just want to quickly make sure everybody can hear me and I can hear them Uh, we start with dorsi demont I'm here Lynn greece merges. Yes Mandy joe present Dorothy pam Evan ross Here's ryan Kathy shane here Steve schreiber here indy steinberg Sarah schwarz present felony I'm here Alyssa present and pat present Okay Two weeks ago. We had a presentation by the community safety working group and they submitted a letter Uh, I have drafted a response to that letter And it is in your packet. I will also tell you that I am in the process of assembling The other requests that they have made during their meeting, though not in our council meeting and that is a link to the various Um meetings that the council has had where various people spoke about the police And in addition to that assembling all of the emails sent to the council And including response on such and we're in the process putting that packet together And I will forward that so the motion tonight is We've already suspended the rules It's to authorize the town council president to send the letter to the community safety working group dated february 8th 2021 on behalf of the town council As presented. Is there a second? I will I will second that and to move us along. I'd like to immediately call the question Okay the question has been called that requires a two-thirds vote And uh, it immediately goes to vote. So what you're voting on Is whether or not we will proceed to vote. This is a calling of the question um, and I will begin with uh, Greecemer and uh, I anarchy I Sam Yes Ross I Ryan I Jane Epstein Uh, Schreiber I Dindard No Schwartz I Falmone Yes Brewer Epstein Andi Angelis I The mon No Okay, so I've got one two three four five six seven eight Nine votes two-thirds. We will move immediately to the question And the motion is as follows um To authorize the town council president to send the letter to the community safety working group dated february 8th 2021 on behalf of the town council as presented and Since the motion was made to Call the question. There's no debate. So we move on Can I just make ask a point of order or I don't know whether I can do that here I I'm just uh I've never seen that done before asked to call the question before there's been any discussion at all A Councilor may call the question any time they want That Is anti-democratic So I have a point of order also and I voted yes on the question But there were basically two motions on the same Maybe I'm just left over from town meeting but in town meeting you at least If you're going to call the question that had to be the first thing you did I don't know if there's anything on roberts Or our own rules that have that same I'm more than willing to have anybody Way in mendigo. You usually have some sense of roberts rules of order I don't think there's anything in our council rules that prevented Evan from doing what he did which was second to motion and then he was recognized And called the question at that recognition And that question received two thirds And so there is no debate but point of orders can still be raised I would like to ask my colleague mr. Ross why he chose to call the question I wanted to move us along through this agenda, but I also think that we we voted on it and it passed So we need to move on That's not an explanation. No, it's too bad So the motion is on the table And it's to authorize the town council president to send the letter to the community safety working group dated February 8th 2021 on behalf of the town council as presented Um, we are going to begin with the vote nandy joe hannity Yes Dorothy pam abstain Kevin ross, yes George ryan yes Kathy shane abstain Keith rober yes Andy steinberg no Sarah Schwartz Yeah, of course by the time they add here they'll change how this work works you family balmille yes lisa burl abstain pat de angeles yes darsie demont abstain Lynn greece mersey, yes It passes eight Uh for one opposed and four abstentions Yeah, that's what I have Okay, thank you We're going to go on to the use of the public way wayfinding clients and that's a presentation that dave zomack of the assistant town manager chris breastrip and the planning director and ben Rieger the planner is making do I get the pronunciation of your name correct ben? correct All right, we're gonna go to the slides Great. Yeah, I have this slideshow here. Um, so I'll pull that up and let me Start the slideshow and uh chris. Do you want to start with a few words? Yes, thank you. Good evening. My name is christine breastrip planning director And tonight we're coming before you to introduce the wayfinding sign project Our primary goal for tonight is to give you a general overview of the project And to request approval for the locations of some signs That are proposed to be within the public right of way We understand that you may wish to refer this project to one of the council committees for recommendation Ben bregger planning planner in the planning department will now present the sign project to you. Thank you Great, thank you chris. Um, hello everyone and thanks for this opportunity My name is ben bregger and i'm a planner in the planning department here in amherst So i'm going to walk you through an overview of the wayfinding signs project starting with some of the goals and history of the project And then show you where we're at with some of the design design And uh are proposed locations. Um, some of which are not in the public right of way are either on private property or in the state Right of way But the majority of which are in the public right of way and there that's the reason we're Coming before you today to um have your review and ultimately approval of those sign locations Um, so i'm going to start with a little bit about the project goals Um, you know wayfinding signs are a means to accomplish a lot of different goals. There's an economic development Goal here, which is to direct people towards our downtown And to keep them downtown and keep them interested and show them all the types of um services and opportunities that are downtown such as parks and municipal buildings businesses um cultural institutions It's also a really important part of economic recovery from The pandemic um emphasizing the vitality of downtown businesses and uh downtown as a destination You know, it's it's uh, it's also about it's it's also about